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physical beauty, both of them strong and athletic. Diane Downs
and Randy Woodfield were two sides of a coin: Narcissa on one
and Narcissus on the other. If one should stare into a mirror, the J other
might gaze back through the glass. She was fair and he was
dark. She could spot him twenty-five points on the IQ scale, even
though he was the one who had almost four years of college.
They were two dark stars whirling in the same orbit. Each
had always felt the world was unfair, that fate and luck and karma
had failed them. Each seemed to exist for sexual pleasure, and
excitement, and naughty games against the establishment--and,
t, always, for a place where the sunlight of publicity shone upon
them.
Squirrely wrote to Diane often as she waited for her trial. His
letters sounded like the tomes sent to the Forum section of "Pent-
A
SMALL SACRIFICES 335
house" by college boys. They exchanged photos. He politely
asked if he might masturbate on hers, but promised to cover it
with plastic first. When Diane wrote to him, she invariably enclosed
religious tracts, and occasionally she sent him pictures of
her children.
Censors at the Lane County Jail recognized Randy's picture.
He'd been arrested in Eugene and spent time in that facility.
Diane was not in the least disturbed to learn that she was corresponding
with a convicted rapist and murderer. He seemed like a
nice guy to her, and he was handsome with the full dark beard she
had always preferred in men. Their letters flew back and forth,
growing more erotic and intimate with each mailing.
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It helped to fill her days.
Diane missed sunshine. Her skin was as green-white in the
jail lights as the other prisoners'. The jail smelled like every jail:
sawdust. Pine-sol, cigarette smoke, sweat, boredom, and tears.
She never knew what the weather was like outside.
The ride to the courthouse would be only a few blocks long
with little chance for her to feel the air or smell good smells.
Anyway, it would probably be raining.
She was eager to get the trial over with. And then, Diane
didn't care if she never saw the state of Oregon again.
E
CHAPTER 35
To attempt to accommodate the crowds, the trial has been moved
from Courtroom #8 to #3--the largest in the Lane County Courthouse.
It isn't even close to being big enough to hold everyone
trying to get in.
Number Three has yellow-brick walls and, toward the back
of the room, walnut-stained two-by-twos lined up vertically over
acoustical tile. There are no windows, only recessed lighting
above the dropped ceiling panels. Judge Gregory Foote, looking
austere in his black robe, sits between the American flag on his
right and the state flag of Oregon on his left. His court reporter,
Kay Cates, and his clerk Sharon Roe are in front of him.
We of the press are only slightly more blase than the anxious
spectators; we have been assured of a seat--(fwe can fit all of us
into the first row. As the trial progresses and the front row grows
more crowded, we will learn to stagger our note-taking by sitting
right-handed/left-handed/courtroom artist/right-handed.
No cameras are allowed in the courtroom. A number of courtroom
artists--some superb, some pedestrian--sketch furiously to
catch a face, a mood, a certain shading of pain or fury before the
witness steps down.
j Ray Broderick occupies the end seat of the second row on the
left side of the courtroom. The opening performance of his "play"
is about to begin. (After he testifies Doug Welch will sit in the end
seat, second row, on the right side of the courtroom.)
This is a "young" trial. The judge is thirty-six, the prosecutor
thirty-nine, the defense attorney thirty-eight, and the defendant
twenty-eight. The press corps, for the most part, matches.
The jury's median age is older.
* * *
340 ANN RULE
Women's voices--faceless--murmur behind the press row.
"I'm supposed to pick the kids up from school today--I hate
to leave, but I'm in a pool."
"I plan to be here every Thursday," another voice whispers.
"That's my day off when I try to do something nice for myself.
Usually, I go bowling ..."
And a deeper woman's voice, graveled with whiskey and
cigarettes, "I'm with her. CSD took my daughter away, and they
never even told me she hadn't been going to school. They're just
out to break up decent families."
"Do you think she did it?" someone else asks sotto voce. "I
can't imagine a mother doing that."
"Well, she slept around--with anybody. What do you think?"
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