cbr16bingo bananas
The mid-1960s through 1970s were an extraordinary turbulent and bloody period in American history. Fueled by civil rights protests and the Vietnam War, it was a whole period of what next. Of course, since these were my high school and college years, it was, for most of us, just the way it was. Starting in 8th grade with John Kennedy’s assassination, there was the assassination of Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy, the Democratic convention of 1968 in Chicago, Kent State, and the resignation of Nixon. Let’s just say during those years, not too many people of my generation were tuning politics out. At least not then.
But beneath the major events, there was an underlying sense of unease. This was also a time of cults and conspiracies, from the Manson Family to the Jamestown massacre, from the Waco standoff to the McMaster preschool witch hunt. A young Mormon runaway, 18 year old Maryann, marries William Acker in California and they make their way to Hawaii. She is found beside the body of a local man in possession of the murder weapon, and her husband is gone, back to California. He has quite the rap sheet, but uses the fact she cannot testify against him to escape charges and she is left standing trial.
Here is where the author shows up. She was a juror on that trial, and was very much leaning to acquittal. She too was a Mormon runaway, about ten years older than Maryann, and a lot of William’s testimony did not ring true to her. But the morning of the jury verdict, her cat was having issues, and she ended up arriving a little too late. An alternative juror took her place, and Maryann was convicted.
Many years later, she wonders about Maryann, and now an investigative reporter, looks her up in the California prison in Chico where she is now domiciled. Since Maryann was shunned by her family, she has no visitors and tentatively welcomes Linda’s visits. Seems as if Maryann was always innocent, but the American judicial system being what it is, that doesn’t seem to make much difference.
The title by the way? William had a knife that he always had on him, that he named Justice. Who does that?