American Appetites (32 page)

“But I want to get it
over
with and move on with my life.”

Ottinger regarded him speculatively, as if Ian were mildly, one might almost say amusingly, mad. And said, finally, with a smile that struck Ian as both pitying and smug, “Oh no you don't, my friend. Oh no you don't.”

ONE OF THE
motions Ottinger was filing was for dismissal, pure and simple. The prosecution had no case: no witnesses, no evidence, no motive. No crime.

Another motion, following upon the failure of the first, was for change of venue: the “lurid and ludicrous” publicity surrounding the McCullough tragedy had made it impossible for his client to get a fair trial in or near Cattaraugus County.

Another motion, for postponement, involved the absence of a probable defense witness, Miss Sigrid Hunt, who was in fact being sought by both the prosecution and the defense, thus far without success.

And another motion . . .

Ian listened, or tried to listen. The band around his chest was so tight he could scarcely breathe; his thoughts jammed in sheer misery.

This is hell, nor am I out of it.

Following the indictment and, indeed, the “lurid and ludicrous” publicity, had come a nightmare barrage of interruptions and intrusions: reporters, media people, uninvited visitors to both 338 Pearce and the Institute; anonymous letters, telegrams, packages; handwritten prayers and threats; sporadic acts of vandalism against the McCulloughs' property, primarily their mailbox. (The damned thing was toppled from its post so many times, presumably by neighborhood teenagers, Ian finally gave up on it and rented a post office box in town.) His home telephone number had long been unlisted, but unwanted calls came for him each day at the Institute, where the staff—increasingly weary of such calls, and of him—had been instructed to say that Dr. McCullough was on “extended leave” and could not be reached. The calls were from strangers with advice to give Ian McCullough or advice to ask; from people who claimed to know Sigrid Hunt's “whereabouts”; from people, deranged or otherwise, who seemed simply to want to talk. There were invitations from radio and television interview shows suggesting that Dr. McCullough might want to “tell his side of the controversial story” before the trial began.

Ian threw most of the mail away, would not have had the time to open it had he had the inclination. He had quickly learned to recognize crank mail, so-called, by the very look of the envelope: the block lettering, often in pencil; a certain crumpled, even soiled quality of the paper itself.
You are an evil man, I hope you die in the electic chair and rot in hell
. Or,
Doctor McCullough I will pray for you. Its not too late for you to save your soul through Our Lord Jesus Christ our Shephard in all things
. Or,
The Governor of this state acting in principal with the F.B.I. has wiretapped private households in order to trap innocent citizens into jail. I beg of you Dr. McCullough to use your influence to put an end to such Nazi methods and misuse of taxpayers money
. Some of the envelopes were so light as to appear empty; they contained clippings from various newspapers, as far-flung as the
Boise Citizen-Ledger
, the
San Antonio Gazette
, the
Toronto Star
, the
Nome Evening News
. An early story, the one headlined
HAZELTON-ON-HUDSON SCHOLAR INDICTED IN WIFE'S DEATH
, had been sent out by way of the UP news service, everywhere in North America it seemed. My fame flies before me, Ian thought, reading the clippings in fascination, then tearing them into shreds, dropping them into his wastebasket. Sometimes he sat at his desk for long catatonic moments staring into space; sometimes he sank forward to lie with his head on his arms, face hidden.

Though Ottinger had warned him against becoming obsessed with his case, it was difficult for him to block certain thoughts. Repetitive and fruitless they were, and exhausting in their very futility, but irresistible. Where had Sigrid gone, for instance, and why, and was she living or dead? If living, she had cynically abandoned him, for she must know by now of his arrest and indictment; why did she not come forward to exonerate him? If dead . . . but he could not bear to think of her dead. (And who but her Fermi would have killed her?) Ottinger had allowed Ian to read part of the sworn testimony Fermi Sabri had given to the grand jury (under the New York State statute the prosecution was obliged to provide the defense with lists of witnesses they intended to introduce at the trial, and copies of their statements) in which Sigrid Hunt's exfiancé, whether out of malice, derangement, or simple confusion, spoke of Ian McCullough as Sigrid's “married lover.” His testimony was rambling, repetitive, and frequently incoherent, but the gist of it was clear enough: Ian McCullough had come between Sigrid Hunt and himself and was responsible for the breakup of his engagement. (Sabri spoke of the wedding date as having been set, for April, in Cairo. Which was the first Ian had heard of it.) Asked if he knew where Sigrid Hunt was, Fermi Sabri denied knowing anything about her since her disappearance in May; raved at length about Ian McCullough, who had seduced his fiancée with money and promises of marriage and turned her against him; and accused McCullough alternately of having “enticed her away from me to stay in hiding from me” or of having murdered her “out of jealousy over me.” Ian, reading the transcript, shuddered to think of the jurors listening in silence to Fermi Sabri's mad testimony, without any idea that it was sheer fabrication. Sheer fantasy! No wonder they had voted to uphold the prosecutor's case. And how could he defend himself against such reckless accusations?

Ottinger, seeing Ian's face, said quickly that the witness would very likely not speak so emotionally in a court of law; and that in any case he would be rigorously cross-examined and broken down. “If he's the lunatic you say he is, and he certainly sounds that way, he'll expose himself,” Ottinger said. Recalling the single time he'd seen Sabri, in, so very ironically, his own house—why had Glynnis opened their door to such monsters?—he believed that the man would make a strong impression on the jurors. He was educated, attractive, had a high-paying job, dressed well, carried himself with a certain style. No doubt it would be revealed that his Egyptian background was upper-class, if not aristocratic. Ian could imagine it! He could imagine it! A sordid love triangle, two men and a woman, a “flame-haired dancer and model.” And poor Glynnis the casualty of their passion.

“It's a simple thing, the bastard wants my heart,” Ian told Ottinger.

There were other rude surprises for Ian. The prosecution had subpoenaed his bank account, so the $1,000 check payable to Sigrid Hunt was a matter of public record; the prosecution had subpoenaed his account with New York Bell, as Ottinger had anticipated, so the numerous toll calls he'd made to Sigrid Hunt's Poughkeepsie and Manhattan numbers were matters of public record; the results of the ignominious Breathalyser test—“a blood alcohol level of .14, when anything above a .10 reading is considered legally intoxicated”—were a matter of public record; as were medical reports from the Hazelton Clinic, Ian's and Glynnis's both. (Ian's injuries were minor, mere lacerations to the face and hands, but there was a notation that the cuts on his right hand seemed to have been caused by a knife blade. Glynnis's injuries were manifold, so bluntly stated, in clinical terminology, that Ian could barely force himself to read it. The crucial notation was that the skull fractures were on the back of the head, thus “the victim would appear to have been pushed forcibly backward.”)

There were police witnesses: the patrolmen who had been called to 338 Pearce to investigate what neighbors called “the sound of a violent quarrel”; the detectives Wentz and Holleran, who had interviewed McCullough in his own home. There was the lengthy, repetitive transcript of Ian's own testimony at police headquarters, on May 29. (How many times had Ian said,
I don't know
, and
I'm afraid I don't remember.)
There was a garbled account by a Mr. Horace K. Vick, identified as caretaker for the residence at 119 Tice Street, Poughkeepsie, where Sigrid Hunt rented an apartment, to the effect that Ian McCullough—or a man who strongly resembled him—had visited Miss Hunt there several times over the winter; might or might not have “stayed the night, sometime around Christmas”; and, when Miss Hunt was not home, sometime in the spring, insisted upon being let into the apartment to see if something might have happened to her. (Vick said, in what must have been a pious tone, “This McCullough party, he offered me money to unlock the girl's door, but I said no thanks, mister. Told him it was a private residence and I didn't want to get mixed up in no kind of murder case if that's what it turned out to be.”) Ah, Ian could imagine it! He had entirely forgotten Vick until this moment.

More upsetting, and far more shameful to read, were the testimonies of several friends. Ian had known they were being subpoenaed, or had half known, but had suppressed the knowledge; it would have pained him too deeply to imagine these people answering questions about him in so hostile an atmosphere. But now, in stark computer print, was the testimony of Roberta Grinnell, who had said that on the afternoon of April 23 she'd had a telephone conversation with Glynnis McCullough, during the course of which Mrs. McCullough had spoken to her of her husband's “alleged love affair” with a young woman named Sigrid Hunt. Mrs. McCullough was “extremely upset, as upset as I've ever known her,” and “broke off our conversation rather suddenly.” So far as she knew, Roberta stated, there was no substance to the accusation that Ian McCullough was having a love affair or did not love Glynnis, et cetera. Next, to Ian's considerable shock, was Elizabeth Kuhn, whom Glynnis had telephoned around noon of April 23, to ask for advice regarding her husband's “alleged infidelity” and other marital problems. Elizabeth too reported Glynnis's “distraught state of mind” and stated that, to her knowledge, Ian McCullough had never been unfaithful to his wife; indeed, the two had always been “an ideal, happy young couple, with a lovely daughter and a lovely house.” Denis Grinnell made a brief, laconic statement, to the effect that he was “morally certain” that Ian McCullough was
not
having an affair with any woman; that the McCulloughs were
not
going through any kind of marital crisis; that they were
not
in the habit of drinking heavily, or quarreling, still less given to physical violence. Amos Kuhn, Malcolm Oliver, June Oliver, Vaughn Cassity, Meika Cassity, Leonard Oppenheim, Paul Owen, Dr. Max, Dr. Max's wife, Frieda, colleagues at the Institute, a dozen others gave statements, all of them brief, of the nature of Denis Grinnell's. Ian read them with a growing sense of hope. So many witnesses on his side! So many voices in support of his innocence! He might almost believe, reading these pages of the transcript, that he
was
innocent.

There was more, but this was enough. Ian handed the document back to Ottinger. He lit a cigarette—he'd recently begun smoking again, having quit fifteen years before—and said, “I understand now why the indictment was handed down. It is an ingenious story the prosecution has invented, sheerly fiction, but plausible. And then, you know, people want to believe. They have a sort of savage instinct for believing in romance.”

Ottinger said carefully, “It
is
fiction?”

“Most of it.”

“‘Most'—?”

“Most.”

“But not all?”

Ian shrugged. “I've told you I don't care to talk about my private life,” he said. He added, ironically, “My private sexual life.”

“Your sexual life, it seems, has become public.”

“It has
not
become public.”

“The prosecution argues that you killed your wife, and did so intentionally, because you were in love with another woman and wanted your wife out of the way. And, on the face of it, the canceled check, the telephone calls, this Fermi Sabri's testimony, and the caretaker's—”

“A fabrication. A sequence of small truths that add up to an enormous lie.”

“Obviously, you were involved with Sigrid Hunt. Otherwise you would not have given her money or telephoned her. Or visited her in Poughkeepsie.
Did
you visit her?”

“Once, because she called me. It was”—Ian hesitated, filled with rage at Ottinger for asking these questions—“it was a friendly visit, and nothing more. Not even ‘friendly' as such because we weren't, the two of us, really friends. We were hardly acquaintances. She had met me, I don't remember where, it might have been at our house, a party of Glynnis's, a large cocktail party of Glynnis's, sixty or seventy people perhaps, and Sigrid Hunt and her fiancé were there, I really don't know why,” Ian said, his voice quickening, and his face hot, “and there, suddenly, I turned around, and—they were
there
. And some weeks afterward she telephoned me, to ask help of me, as it turned out to borrow money of me, and I drove to her apartment in Poughkeepsie not knowing why she had called me or why on earth I was going there, like a man who has suspended all volition, simply coasting along as in a dream. And I did not know why, nor do I know why, even today. I only know that I deeply regret having done all that I did, and would give my very life if I could undo it. But the hourglass runs in one direction only. Its sands run in one direction only.”

Ottinger regarded him closely. “You visited Hunt only once?”

Ian looked away. “I visited her only once but, yes, there was another time, the time the caretaker spoke of, when I'd been worried about her, not having been able to contact her, and I—yes, I did drive down, simply to see if . . . she was all right. I mean, if she might have been in trouble.”

“And you asked the caretaker to let you in her apartment, and he refused?”

“He did not refuse. He let me in. He accepted twenty-five dollars from me. She was not there, of course.” Ian picked a fleck of tobacco from his tongue. He wanted very badly to strike Ottinger in the face and wondered if the man sensed it, if that was why Ottinger was staring at him so keenly. “I had worried that she might be dead. That her fiancé might have killed her. She told me he treated her brutally, at times; she told me she was frightened of him. And somehow I was caught up in it. As I said, I don't know why. It must have been because I'd wanted to be.”