Better Dead (9 page)

But it wasn't.

I smiled to myself.

N
atalie
A
sh,
K
nickerbocker
V
illage.

These secret agents had nothing on me.

 

CHAPTER

5

I now knew why I'd assumed Julius Rosenberg was tall. Photos I'd seen had invariably shown him at his wife's side. And Ethel Rosenberg, it turned out, was less than five feet tall. No wonder her husband had seemed to tower.

I'd been escorted from the counsel room and down the hall through several steel doors to the women's east wing of the death house, three cells on a single corridor. Because Ethel Rosenberg was the only prisoner in the wing, talking to her from outside her cell had been deemed privacy enough.

A prison matron sat down the hall from us, out of earshot but in sight of my straight-backed steel chair facing the cell door. On the other side the prisoner sat in an identical chair looking back at me between bars.

As the lone prisoner on this wing, Ethel Rosenberg served a sentence of de facto solitary confinement, her cell maybe twelve feet by six with cot, metal table, washbasin, toilet, and the one chair. On the cot an orange-and-white paperback lay folded open—
Saint Joan
by George Bernard Shaw—the only thing in there not gray. This included the prisoner's complexion and some premature graying in her dark tangle of untamed curls, and her prison housecoat and slippers as well.

Pudgy but not fat, the prisoner had a rounded oval face with dark, wide-set, sleepy-lidded eyes, naturally arching brows, a straight nose, and a tiny red-lipsticked Betty Boop-ish mouth. It all added up to something at once haughty and childlike.

“Mr. Heller,” she said, in a rather sweet soprano, “I am sure you mean well in your efforts. But Julie and I, our case will be determined in the court of public opinion.”

“That may be true,” I said, “but that isn't stopping your attorney from pursuing legal means. And I represent a group of anonymous benefactors who are funding my investigation.”

She studied my face. “You say Julie spoke openly with you.”

“He did—as much as possible here, anyway, where any conversation isn't likely
really
to be private.”

The Betty Boop lips pursed into a tiny smile. “I can verify that my cell is ‘bugged,' Mr. Heller. But only cockroaches and silverfish for certain.”

Like her husband, she appeared to have maintained an admirable sense of humor. And when she smiled, a plain face took on near prettiness.

“You know,” she said, something impish about it, “I have the distinction of inhabiting the same cell as the late Martha Beck.”

The distaff half of the Honeymoon Killers.

“And,” she continued coolly, “I read recently that the only
other
woman ever condemned to death in a federal court was Mary Surratt, for her
disputed
role in the assassination of President Lincoln. Rather stellar company, wouldn't you say?”

But this dark humor masked self-pity.

“As I explained to your husband,” I said, “I was hired only recently and have had less than a week to read court transcripts and other materials. So forgive me if my questions cover what must be very old ground to you.”

Her head cocked, her eyes narrowed. “What is the focus of your inquiry, Mr. Heller? The thrust, if I might ask?”

“Other than clemency, your best bet is new evidence turning up. That is, me turning up new evidence.”

A small half smile now. “Best bet or only hope?”

“I'm not the only one working in your interests, Mrs. Rosenberg. But new evidence is the path to a new trial.”

No smile now, and the eyes went distant. “How sad that facing such an ordeal again is the happy ending we seek.”

“Yeah, well, it beats the unhappy one.”

She only nodded at that sage observation. Like her husband, she could take a punch. And like her husband, she was winning me over right away.

I explained that I'd be taking notes. With that matron down the hall, I couldn't provide the prisoner with the option of private communication via ballpoint that her husband and I had enjoyed.

I shifted in the unforgiving chair. “We only have limited time here, Mrs. Rosenberg, so—”

“Excuse me, but would you mind calling me Ethel?” Damn, if there wasn't a twinkle in those dark eyes. “I believe we're about the same age, you and I, and if we're going to be friends in this, why stand on formality?”

“Well, that's fine. That's nice of you … Ethel. Though I'm sure you're much younger.”

She liked that. “And do you prefer ‘Nate' or ‘Nathan'?”

“Six of one.”

She gave me an emphatic nod and folded her hands in her lap. “We'll make it ‘Nathan.' Preserve just a hint of formality at that.”

I gave her a restrained grin. “All right. Now, because of the time constraint, I'm mostly going to skip things I already discussed with Mr. Rosenberg.”

That twinkle again. “‘Julie' didn't suggest first names, did he?”

“No he didn't.”

“That's like him. He can be
too
serious, at times.”

“I thought he had a nice sly wit. And we really hit it off.”

“So are we, don't you think? Hitting it off?”

She leaned in through the bars to where she could see the matron down the hall; the woman was reading
True Romance
magazine.

Then the prisoner slipped her hand through the bars and touched mine, squeezed momentarily, and withdrew it. She smiled at me and I smiled back. We'd gotten away with murder.

“Ethel, can we start with your sister-in-law, Ruth Greenglass?”

The arched eyebrows arched farther. “You mean the sister-in-law who hasn't been charged with anything because she sold Julie and me down the river?
That
sister-in-law?”

“Yes. That one.” She had been so charmingly spunky about it I couldn't bring myself to point out that Ruth had really helped send her and “Julie”
up
the river.…

I said, “Ruth claims that in November of '45, before she left for New Mexico to join her husband…”

“My brother. Yes.”

“… that she visited you at your apartment.”

“She did drop by.”

I looked up from my note-taking. “But did you and Julius try to persuade her, against her will, to join you in espionage work? And to enlist her husband in the same, when she got to New Mexico?”

The eyebrows rose again but not so high this time; that haughtiness had kicked in. “It's difficult, isn't it?”

“What is?”

“Keeping a straight face, asking that. Poppycock. Twaddle. All of it.”

I sat forward a bit. “Were you aware your brother was working on the atomic bomb project?”

Chin up. “Certainly not.”

“But eventually you knew.”

“Not till much later, when he came out of the Army, and wasn't working in Los Alamos anymore. And, Nathan, anyone who tells you Davey might have remembered things he
saw
there, and written them
down
, and made
sketches
that
meant
anything? They don't know Davey. Preposterous. Silly on the face of it.”

“And why is that, Ethel?”

“He's just not that bright, Nathan.”

That got a smile out of me. “You had
no
hint of it, his proximity to the atomic bomb.”

Her forehead crinkled and she raised a finger to a plump cheek. “Well, he mentioned on one furlough or another that he was involved with a ‘secret project.' Kind of bragged about it. Davey can be such a braggart.”

“Braggarts often say too much.”

“That's true. But all I recall is ‘secret project' and a lot of puffed-up nonsense.”

“And that's as far as it went?”

Chin up again. “He said nothing about atom bombs in front of
me,
I can tell you that. To me it still sounds like science fiction.”

The survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki might have a different opinion; but I let that pass.

“Ethel, what about this Harry Gold?”

She shook her head. Firmly. “Never met the man. Never
saw
him till he tramped into court that day.”

“Gold admits to passing secrets to the Russians. Did you ever know any Russian?”

“The language? No.”

“I should say, ‘Russian people.' Russians.”

“I don't know
any
Russians. I don't think Julie does either. Well, second- and third-generation possibly, if I think about it.”

I pressed a little. “Your husband never said he was engaged in spying or espionage work or giving information from various sources to the Russians?”

“He was doing no such thing!”

“You seem very sure of that, Ethel.”

She leaned toward the bars, intimate. “We're very close, Julie and I. I think I'd know.”

“He might have been protecting you.”

“He never mentioned it to me. That kind of thing, it would be hard to hide from a loving spouse, don't you think, Nathan?”

Her hand darted out and touched mine again and withdrew just as fast.

Was Ethel Rosenberg flirting with me?

“There was this business of passport photos,” I said, getting into something I hadn't gone over with her husband. “In May or June of '50?”

Chin back up. “They were
not
passport photos. They brought that photographer into the court, but I didn't remember him. I
don't
remember him.”

“Was the man lying?”

“A
lot
of lying was going on in that court. But Julie and me, we were always kind of, you know, snapshot hounds—got our picture taken all the time. We have scrapbook after scrapbook.”

I moved on. “Ethel, what's this about your brother stealing uranium from Los Alamos?”

The little mouth smiled as big as it could manage. “That's
almost
as big a farce as that silly Jell-O box thing! Only in this case there's some truth to it.”

“How so?”

“A lot of the soldiers working at Los Alamos—this is what Davey told me, at least—took little uranium samples home, little hollow rocks, as tiny souvenirs. Used the bigger ones as ashtrays and paperweights. When the FBI first came around asking my brother questions, that's what Davey thought it was about. He told Julie, and we thought that, too.”

“No idea the FBI inquiry might relate to the atomic bomb project?”

“Not at all. Of course, we were not in close, day-to-day contact with Davey and Ruth right then, because things had gotten, well … relations were deteriorating.”

I nodded. “The business squabble between Davey and Julius, you mean.”

“That's right. And after Davey got arrested, the FBI came around asking things, and hinted to Julie that Davey had implicated him. Tried to manipulate us into giving them information about Davey. Which we didn't have. Anyway, I would
never
have done anything to hurt Davey.”

I let her bask in moral superiority for a few moments, then said, “Ethel, I have to bring up a sticky subject.”

The little pursed smile again. “Nathan, this is no time for niceties. Ask.”

“When you appeared before the grand jury, in August of '50, you refused to answer any number of questions on the grounds of possible self-incrimination.”

Several nods. “Yes. That is true.”

“You did this regarding questions concerning your brother's two furloughs, about whether you knew Harry Gold, various things that you later answered fully at the trial itself.”

Chin and eyebrows up now. “When one employs the constitutional right of self-incrimination, one is not affirming or denying
anything
.”

I patted the air gently with a palm. “I know. But in this nasty climate, taking the Fifth has come to mean an admission of guilt to many.”

“To many
fools
.”

“I don't disagree. But I'm curious as to why you
did
answer those same questions at the actual trial.”

She shifted on the steel chair, gathering thoughts for a moment or two. “When I testified for the grand jury, Nathan, the ground under me was
not
firm. If the government had presented false evidence or false witness against me on those questions? Why, I could have faced
perjury.
Whatever lie my brother or his wife said against me, no matter how false, it would incriminate me.”

I risked asking, “Do you still love your brother, Ethel?”

Chin up just a little. “Let's just say,” she said, “I once had a love for my brother. A great love for him.”

Was there the faintest tremor in her voice?

“And now?”

For the only time during the interview, her face went ice cold. “It would be pretty unnatural if that hadn't changed.”

Down the hall, the matron rose from her love story magazine.

“I'm afraid our time is up, Ethel.”

The hand darted out and back again. “Nathan, please see what you can do for us … till my time is
really
up.”

“I will. Oh, and your husband sends his love.”

“I'm sure he does.” This time the smile was wistful, nothing at all flirtatious in it. “Do you know they let us see our children now and then?”

“Yes, Julius mentioned that.”

“It's quite terrible.”

She might have said,
Pass the salt.

I said, “Oh?”

“We meet in the counsel room, on the other side of that steel door down there.”

I nodded. “That's where your husband and I talked.”