Thirty years ago, a pair of newlyweds land on the Hawaiian islands. They pack a .38 revolver, a snub-nosed Smith & Wesson, in their luggage along with a knife named Justice. The lovers finance their honeymoon by picking up men in bars—using the 18-year-old bride as bait—then robbing and killing them.
Four years pass. The police have no leads, no witnesses, no suspects. Then a convicted felon, William Acker, comes to the state’s rescue: he convinces the California powers-that-be that his young Mormon wife, Maryann, committed the heinous crimes. As a plea bargainer for his own early parole, he offers to testify against her.
Linda Spalding, single mother of two, on the verge of emigrating to a new life in Canada, is summoned for jury duty. She is returned, over and over, to the jury pool. “What the court wanted were uneducated people … the ones who maybe don’t have the knowledge of right and wrong,” she is told. When the prosecutor runs out of allowable...
Susan Musgrave is the author of nineteen collections of poetry, among other works.
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