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‘Shades of The Exorcist in Old Bailey,’ he intoned, forcing an ill-fitting smile on to his face. ‘The courtroom of Judge Harmon T. Langley was the scene of strange and eerie doings this day as a voice from the grave was offered as an extenuating circumstance by defence attorney Brice Mack during his opening remarks in the trial of Elliot Hoover, accused kidnapper of ten-year-old Ivy Templeton. It seems, or at least it says here in my script, that the kidnapped child was no stranger to Mr Hoover, since she had shared his company in another lifetime - as his daughter, Audrey Rose, deceased these past ten years. More spectacular episodes in this occult thriller are promised in the days and weeks ahead as Judge Langley’s cauldron boils and bubbles while Mr Mack toils and troubles to prevent his client’s incarceration on the reasonable assumption of reincarnation.’

At which point the newscaster, obviously caught unaware by the demented poesy his waggish writer had planted in the script, fell into a deep and rumbling fit of laughter from which he could not be retrieved. All his efforts to control himself failed, until finally the camera cut away from him and went to a commercial.

At the first eruption Janice laughed with him and, she was happy to see, so did Bill. Their laughter grew and intensified apace with the stricken newscaster’s, and even after he had been ignominiously removed from the air, their laughter continued until their eyes watered and their throats grew hoarse. Then, weak and exhausted, they flopped on to the sofa and simply fell into each other’s arms, their laughter trailing off as they wiped the tears from each other’s faces. Both knew it was the first genuine contact between them in weeks, and each was afraid to spoil it.

‘Oh, Bill,’ Janice breathed huskily and snuggled closer to him His mouth smelled of mint, his skin of soap, aphrodisiac scents to Janice. Undoing the belt of his robe, her hand began to explore and fondle the body she loved. With a deep sigh, Bill’s back sought the pillows, and he allowed the tender touches, first of hands, then of lips, to work their wondrous magic to restore his harmed and aching spirit. Once he raised her head from his lap and softly moaned, ‘Let’s do it together,’ to which Janice replied, ‘Later,’ and hungrily bent to conclude her obeisant and purifying ritual.

As predicted and feared, the corridor outside the courtroom was a maze of wires, cables, and people. Spotlights on stands were nestled in clusters in out-of-the-way corners and niches, their accumulated light bathing the smiling figure of Brice Mack, caught in the centre of a crush of news people from all media.

Emerging from the elevator, Bill and Janice surreptitiously edged around the periphery of the camera crew and succeeded in making it through the courtroom door without being recognized.

Unlike previous mornings, the courtroom was filled with a congregation of curious and excited spectators. Many of them wore turbans and flashing smiles on swarthy faces. Newspaper people, including some out-of-town press, filled the press row just behind the railing.

As they moved across the row to their seats, both Bill and Janice felt a deep hush and a soft buzz of recognition spread across the courtroom. Even the reporters filling the seats in front of them stopped what they were doing and looked around at them as they took their seats. The man immediately in front of Janice turned full around and smiled his acknowledgement of her arrival. It was then she noticed that he was not a conventional reporter, but an artist assigned to quick-sketch various aspects of the proceedings. His pad presently contained a remarkable likeness of Elliot Hoover sitting at the defence table, brooding over his doodles. The artist had perfectly captured the expression of saintly forbearance in the eyes.

Janice glanced over the rows of heads to where Hoover sat and was immediately sorry she had, for she found him looking straight at her. Worse still, she found it impossible to tear her eyes away from his eyes, which clung to hers with the intensity of a command, willing her to obey, to take note, to listen, then, seeing compliance, gradually softening as if beseeching her pardqn, understanding, and forgiveness and expressing sadness for all that had happened and was about to happen. When Janice was at last released through the intervention of Judge Langley’s arrival in the courtroom, she felt lightheaded and dizzy as she rose and sat in obedience to the bailiff’s command and heard her heart pounding in the grip of an emotion she could not define.

The proceedings against Elliot Hoover finally got under way as the parade of witnesses for the prosecution in response to the bailiff’s admonishments to ‘tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God,’ each added his or her small isolated piece of evidence to Scott Velie’s intricately wrought case against the defendant.

In the next four days twelve persons, several of whom were totally unknown to Bill and Janice, would take the stand and tell what they knew from firsthand knowledge about the defendant and his actions near or about the vicinity of the Ethical Culture School, and the apartment house known variously as 1 West Sixty-seventh Street and by the sobriquet Des Artistes.

Three women, one a grandmotherly type, all of whom Janice only vaguely recognized as part of the group who waited daily in front of the school, followed one another in quick order. Each told approximately the same story of having seen a man with black moustache and sideburns hovering about the school steps each morning the children arrived and each afternoon at their departure. None, however, could actually identify the defendant as being that man.

Nor would the next two witnesses make that connection, as Ernesto Pucci and Dominick D’Allesandro, both looking decidedly uncomfortable and unfamiliar out of their burgundy and braid uniforms, took the stand and affirmed the fact that Elliot Hoover did enter the lobby of the plaintiffs abode on at least four occasions with the expressed intentions of ‘calling on the Templetons.’

‘Can you describe the defendant’s demeanour on these occasions?’ Velie asked Dominick.

‘Demeanour?’

‘How did he act? Did he seem upset, nervous?’

‘Oh, yes, especially when they wouldn’t let him up.’

‘All right, Mr D’Allesandro,’ Velie continued. ‘Let’s talk about the first time you saw the defendant. Describe what happened.’

‘Well, the first time he came, he was okay, I mean, he was calm because they let him up.’

‘And the following times?’

‘In my opinion, he was definitely not happy about not getting to go up.’

‘Did you see the defendant on the morning of November 12th?’

‘Yes.’

‘How did the defendant appear to you on that day?’

‘He appeared happy again because he had sublet an apartment in the building, and now he could go up whenever he wanted. I mean, we can’t keep tenants out of the elevators.’

There was a brief spate of laughter and gavel rapping during which Scott Velie walked to his table to consult his notes.

‘Now, then, Mr D’Allesandro’ - Velie’s tone signified a shift to the crucial issue - ‘on the night of November 13, the night of the alleged kidnapping, will you tell the jury what you saw?’

Dominick nodded and launched into a detailed and obviously prepared recitation of his actions and observations. It was a fine, concise narrative of the night’s events, told with operatic flair and fervour, Janice thought, feeling a surge of pride for Dominick.

When Scott Velie passed the witness to the defence, Brice Mack had a short series of questions for him.

‘Think back, Mr D’Allesandro, and take your time in doing so, but wasn’t there one more time between the first and last times when Mr Hoover was also happy? Or, at least, not unhappy?’

Dominick brooded over the question a long time before answering.

‘There was another time between the first and last time when he got up. Mr Templeton was away on a business trip, and Miz Ternpleton, she let him up.’

‘Right. And wasn’t he happy at that time?’

‘I couldn’t say.’

A few titters in the courtroom were brought under control by the gavel.

‘You did say, did you not, that Mr Hoover was definitely not happy about not getting to go up?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Well, when Mrs Templeton did invite him up, did the defendant appear to be happy?’

‘Yes, I guess so.’

‘That is all.’

Bill felt Janice flinch at the mention of her name and saw the veiled wink of encouragement Velie flashed her just prior to excusing the witness. They knew the defence was banking heavily on Janice’s testimony regarding the evening she had invited Hoover to the apartment and were prepared to ‘handle’ it. Yet, with all of Scott Velie’s assurances and displays of confidence in their ability to ‘handle’ things, Janice dreaded the moment when she would have to rise and walk to the witness box and answer questions about that night.

*

The legal ceremony moved slowly and surely onward. Day after day, irrefutable items called facts were chipped from witnesses and presented to the jury to help them render a verdict that would be fair beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Hammering onward, the agile and resolute district attorney summoned Carole Federico to the stand to tell of the two harassing phone calls from Hoover which she had taken during Janice’s absence and of her salty and somewhat abusive repri-mind of his behaviour, which drew a laugh from all precincts of the courtroom, including the bench.

The two arresting police officers were next to take the stand, followed by the Templetons’ neighbours who had been witness to Elliot Hoover’s assault on Bill in the hallway that evening two months before, and all, so help them God, told their version of the truth, which was filed and registered in the court record and in the jury’s mind along with the rest of the ‘facts.’

Brice Mack had a few objections to offer and even fewer questions to ask of these witnesses, excusing all of them but one without stirring from his seat. Of Officer Noonan he wished confirmation of the fact that Elliot Hoover did open the door, albeit after some slight hesitation, but that he did ultimately open it at the officer’s request.

‘It wasn’t a request, sir,’ Officer Noonan responded tautly. ‘It was an order. And he did it only upon threat of our sending for the riot squad.’

‘But he did voluntarily open the door, did he not?’ ‘Yes, sir,’ Noonan said wryly. ‘We persuaded him to open the door.’

*

Pale and with fear in her eyes, Janice addressed herself to the comings and goings of the court’s business those first four days in a state of suspended animation.

On the Friday before the weekend break, however, an event took place to bring Janice out of her self-imposed dream state.

It occurred just after they had returned from lunch and court was preparing to reconvene. Bill was conferring with Scott Velie at the railing. The morning’s witness had been Dr Kaplan, and there had been a controversy over the propriety of some of the questions Brice Mack had put to him on cross-examination and would continue to put to him, since Kaplan had not been excused. The defence attorney had sought to know the reason Kaplan had been summoned on the night in question and what the nature of Ivy’s illness was. Velie had objected on the grounds that the questions were improper, that they went beyond the scope of direct examination, and they violated the doctor-patient privilege.

‘Dr Kaplan cannot testify to what treatments he gave the child or even the reason he was summoned to treat her.’

Judge Langley sustained, whereupon Brice Mack asked permission to call Dr Kaplan as a witness for the defence and further asked the court’s permission to take the witness out of turn since his questions were indeed beyond the scope of direct examination and were pertinent to the defendant’s case. After a moment’s consideration, and some hesitation, Langley instructed Dr Kaplan to remain available but said he would consider the defence’s request to call Dr Kaplan ‘out of turn’ during the lunch recess.

Now they were back, and Bill and Scott Velie were plotting strategy to thwart the defence attorney’s attempts to gain information from Kaplan regarding Ivy’s nightmares should the judge grant Brice Mack’s request.

A few minutes after Janice had taken her seat and was idly watching the artist putting the finishing touches on a full-figure sketch of Scott Velie rising to his feet to object, a newspaperman ambled down the press row and, his body shielding his actions from Bill’s view, thrust a slip of paper into her hand. Before she could react or look up, he had turned and was walking rapidly back to his seat in the middle of the press row behind the defence table.

It took Janice some minutes to work up the courage to examine the slip of paper, and when she did, she did so covertly, stealthily. The paper had been torn from a yellow legal pad and was folded. She sensed it was from Hoover and was right; yet, opening it, she was surprised to see, instead of the expected mincing script, two lines of bold black letters, handprinted at an arresting angle and with exclamation marks emphasizing the urgency of the message, ‘I AM AFRAID FOR THE CHILD!! IS SHE ALL RIGHT?? PLEASE, PLEASE LET ME KNOW!!! E. H.’

Terse, pointed, terrifying, like a telegram from the Defence Department. Janice felt a shudder ripple over her, a trembling of the flesh as she crumpled the slip of paper into a nervous ball and allowed it to drop from her hand to the floor.

Slyly, surreptitiously, and with pounding heart, Janice dared a glance in Hoover’s direction and saw his eyes boring across the courtroom at her Once engaged, she was riveted by the compelling, beseeching, anguished intensity of his demand for an answer to his question.

At this moment Judge Langley decided to enter the courtroom, forcing all to rise. Their eyes continued to hold fast throughout half of the bailiff’s litany, at which point Janice, fearing the imminence of Bill’s return to his seat, allowed her face to soften into the semblance of a smile and, with a barely perceptible nod of her head, affirmed Ivy’s well-being. Hoover sighed and immediately relaxed. Fear and concern drained from his face and were replaced by a look of gratitude and a smile of such ineffable sweetness that Janice was forced to look away lest she betray an emotion she would later regret.