Sandrine's Case (9780802193520) (10 page)

Mr. Forsythe shifted the book to get a better light. “
Around the Countries of the Mediterranean, a Travel Guide,
” he read.

“All right, did you later have occasion to take a look at this travel guide?”

He had.

“And did you notice if any page had been marked.”

“The corner of one page had been turned down, yes.”

“And what did this turned-down page mark?”

“A town in France,” the coroner answered.

“Which town?”

“The town was named Albi.”

“Thank you,” Mr. Singleton said. “I have no further questions.”

Morty gave my shoulder a reassuring squeeze as he rose from his chair. His hand was big, beefy, and I felt somewhat like a little boy whose father has just confidently signaled him that, despite the unexpected and steadily building odds against it, he will win the game.

“Forgive me, Mr. Forsythe, but would you state again how long you have been the Coburn County coroner?” Morty asked.

“Thirty-two years.”

“And if you don't mind, would you tell the court how old you are?”

“I'm seventy-one.”

“And just for the record, you did order that Mrs. Madison's body be autopsied, correct?”

“Yes, I did.”

“And that would be entirely routine, wouldn't it? It was enough that Mr. Madison had mentioned suicide as a possible cause of death?”

“Yes, that would have been enough.”

“In fact, Mrs. Madison's age alone might also have been enough for you to order an autopsy, yes?”

“Yes,” Forsythe answered. “Unless her death had been expected.”

I knew exactly what Morty was up to with this line of questioning, of course. He was going to show that had not Officer Hill gotten her “itch,” and subsequently reported it to Detective Alabrandi, then there would have been no reason for the wheels of justice to begin turning as rapidly as they had in my case. This speed had been the result of nothing but a few initial and very prejudicial observations, Morty was saying, and they were but the first of many that had, at last, made Samuel Joseph Madison, loving husband of Sandrine and loving father of Alexandria, the true victim in my case.

“But this mention of a suicide alone wouldn't have been enough to make you call upon Mr. Madison the very next morning, would it, Mr. Forsythe?”

“Probably not.”

“It was Detective Alabrandi's phone call that gave you this sense of urgency, isn't that correct?”

“Yes.”

“And, as you've stated, you went to 237 Crescent Road, and after returning from there you ordered Dr. Benjamin Mortimer to conduct an autopsy on the body of Sandrine Madison, isn't that true?”

“Yes, it is.”

This time, Morty had brought his notes to the lectern. He glanced at them, then looked up. “Now, Mr. Forsythe, would you say that you've seen several suicides during your career?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“All right, and from your experience, you've learned a few things about what a suicide looks like. It would be fair to say that, wouldn't it?”

“It would.”

“Mr. Forsythe, did you see anything in Mrs. Madison's bedroom that indicated to you that her death had been caused by anyone other than herself? By this I mean, did you see anything physical that might have given you that impression?”

Mr. Forsythe hesitated slightly. He was obviously an old hand at giving testimony, and so he knew that this was a heavily loaded question. For a moment, I watched him closely, suspecting that he might find a way to slither out of answering with a flat no, perhaps give an evasive answer, or one more damaging to me. He was, after all, a prosecution witness.

“No,” he said.

“Nothing at all that indicated a murder?”

“No, nothing,” Mr. Forsythe answered firmly.

It was an answer so completely honest and professional that I was quite surprised by it.

And so I offered him a tiny smile, almost invisible, but one I hoped sufficient to express my appreciation for his simple honesty. Subtle though it was, the coroner appeared to see this smile, though he made no response to it that could be read by anyone but me.

“Thank you,” Morty said. “No more questions.”

Mr. Forsythe didn't look at me as he left the stand but stared straight ahead, and within seconds his “dirty salad” suit was just a swath of beige in my peripheral vision.

I turned my attention toward the judge's bench. Morty and Mr. Singleton were talking to Judge Rutledge. Then both turned and headed back to their respective tables.

“There's going to be a short delay,” Morty said. “Singleton's next witness is just now parking.” He smiled. “Well, the coroner didn't hurt us.”

I nodded in agreement though I had little doubt that Morty would have said the same even if the coroner had produced whatever in my case would be the smoking gun.

He sat back casually. “So what's the deal with that candle?”

I shrugged. “We bought it in Albi, a little French town. It was when we were young, that first trip we took.”

“The page your wife turned down in that guide, right?”

“Yes.”

“What's so important about this town?”

“I don't know.” I thought a moment, then added, “Well, it's what started the argument. Sandrine mentioned Albi, and somehow from there we got into that fight.”

“What fight?”

“The last one,” I answered. “The one I told you about, the one we had that night.”

I recalled again the fury of our final exchange, how raw and hurtful it had been, with what ferocity Sandrine had attacked me and with what terrible final statement I had struck back.

“I can't imagine why Singleton would ask anything about that candle,” I added. “It was just a cheap souvenir. Like everything else on that trip, I bought it with a little money I got after my aunt died.”

I saw something catch in Morty's brain. “How did your aunt die, by the way?” he asked.

“After a long illness.”

“Were you there when she died?”

“You mean, in the room?”

“In the vicinity.”

I gazed at him bleakly. “For Christ's sake, Morty, do you think I killed my aunt too?”

Morty stared at me silently.

“No, not in the vicinity,” I said flatly. “My aunt was in Minneapolis. I was in New York.” I glared at him. “If you need any further proof that I didn't murder my aunt, I'll try to provide it.”

“I don't think that will be necessary,” Morty said. He smiled but it was a cold dead smile. “I was just checking, Sam. There is nothing more damning than innuendo, or worse than a surprise.”

“There won't be any surprises,” I told him. “You know everything there is to know.”

And it was already far too much, as I'd learned by then, far, far more than I would have thought possible before my trial, though I also suspected that Mr. Singleton's little paws were still at work.

When I looked back at Morty, he had a curious and uncharacteristically troubled look on his face.

“The time line, Sam. When did you leave your wife? The day she died, I mean.”

“I left her twice that day. Once for my afternoon class and, later, for my evening class.”

“The second time you left, that was after you had that fight, correct? When she threw that cup at you?”

“Yes.”

“Where was Alexandria at that point?” Morty asked.

“Why does it matter?”

“It matters because if Singleton got desperate he could call her as a witness.” He saw how surprised I was by this. “You have no constitutional protection against your daughter, Sam,” he reminded me.

“Alexandria would never testify against me,” I said. “Besides, there's nothing she could testify about.”

Morty's gaze remained steady. “What about that last fight you and your wife had?”

For some reason, the image that returned to me was of Alexandria making lunch that day, standing in the kitchen, cutting bread. She hadn't turned when I called to tell her that I was headed for my noon class but only given a short jerk of the knife.

“She wasn't in the house when that happened,” I told Morty. “She'd gone into town.”

“But she came back after that fight, didn't she?” Morty asked pointedly. “After you'd already left, I mean.”

“Yes.”

“And so she no doubt said goodbye to your wife,” Morty said.

“Of course,” I said. “But Sandrine would never have told her about that terrible last argument.”

“She might not have had to tell her.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, there's that cup.”

I felt a cold dread. “Yes, the cup.”

“Your wife didn't clean that up,” Morty reminded me. “You did, remember? You did it after your wife's death.”

I nodded.

“So Alexandria might have seen it.”

“If Sandrine was still in the bedroom, yes.”

“Did you ever ask Alexandria what she and your wife talked about that last evening?”

“No.”

Morty started to add something else but suddenly glanced back toward the entrance to the courtroom. “Ah,” he said softly.

I turned to see a woman in a dark pantsuit.

“You spoke to her only a few times, right?” Morty asked.

We'd gone over all this previously, but it was clear that even my lawyer doubted either my memory or my intentions, both of which could prove damaging to my case.

“Yes,” I told him. “But the only conversation we had was when Sandrine and I went to her office. And even then she did most of the talking. It wasn't a conversation, really.”

“And you never met her outside her office?”

“No.”

Morty watched as the woman moved down the aisle, toward the front of the courtroom. Her gait was brisk, like someone used to being on time and quite aware that she wasn't.

“Well, we're about to hear what she has to say,” he whispered.

I steeled myself.

“Indeed.”

Call Dr. Ana Ortins

Dr. Ortins was of medium height, with straight, no-nonsense brown hair, and though she was a tad plump for a physician who so often counseled against being overweight, she looked quite healthy on the day she took the stand. I'd seen her trotting around Coburn's neat little reservoir on occasion, and the local news had often reported that she was running in this or that marathon. For the past few years she'd been our local television station's favorite medical talking head. In the summer she regularly appeared to remind us to use sunblock, and in the late fall she advised seniors to get their flu shots. On television, she dressed only in solid colors, probably for their slimming effect. Her eyes were large, and I'd known from personal experience that she could make them quite soulful when she chose, a trick she'd pulled off very well indeed on the one occasion I'd actually spoken to her face to face.

I'd never met Dr. Ortins before Sandrine chose her, and during the one office visit I'd made with Sandrine she sat in her snug consulting room, always behind her desk, as she indicated this or prescribed that. At the end of that visit, she tried to look on the bright side of an admittedly dark situation:
You have many years ahead of you, Sandrine.

Even weeks later I found I remembered that office quite well. Like other physicians, Dr. Ortins had festooned its walls with the usual array of diplomas and certifications, but to these she'd added a large and very colorful poster of the human body, all its interior parts vibrantly displayed. I'd found something rather macabre in the look of it, a body skinned in this way, and in less solemn circumstances I might have made a quip about them, called her “Dr. Dexter,” or “the serial curer,” or something of that sort. But on the day of our visit there'd been no place for humor, and I'd simply sat with my hands in my lap and waited, Sandrine silent in the chair next to mine, looking, for the first time in her life, oddly broken.

When Dr. Ortins reached the stand she glanced at me briefly, then away as the bailiff approached.

As usual, the preliminaries were soporific recitations of colleges attended, degrees held, length of practice in charming Colburn. Dr. Ortins answered Mr. Singleton's tedious questions with an amiable, unthreatened air, as if she were applying for a job she knew she would get but already had no intention of taking. She went through her education and training, the fact that she'd specialized in neurology, which was no doubt why Sandrine had chosen her.

A quarter hour of testimony went by before Sandrine at last appeared in Dr. Ortins's office. She had been alone on that first visit, the doctor told the court. As her office records showed, Sandrine had come in at precisely 11 a.m. on the morning of April 7. Spurred by my subsequent recounting of that morning in Morty's office, I'd recalled that although the drive to Dr. Ortins's office would have taken only five minutes, Sandrine had left our house an hour before her appointment and not come home until almost two hours after it, a curious stretch of time I'd thought nothing of before Detective Alabrandi appeared at my door some days after her death, notebook in hand, his gaze a tad distant when he'd made his telling comment: “A few unusual items have turned up,” and to which I'd replied, “About me?” His reply had sent an icy finger down my spine. “No, about your wife.”