Sandrine's Case (9780802193520) (17 page)

“Right. Okay. I will.”

What was being said in court was this.

“Now, Detective Alabrandi, at this time did you indicate that Professor Madison was a suspect with regard to the death of his wife?”

“No, sir,” Alabrandi answered. “Because he was not actually a suspect at that time.”

“But a person of interest.”

“Anyone could be a person of interest when you have a death whose cause is in doubt.”

“In doubt, yes,” Mr. Singleton said. “And did you inform Professor Madison that the cause of his wife's death was in doubt?”

“Yes, I did.”

“And what was his reaction?”

My reaction had been fear, and Alabrandi had seen it clearly, and because I'd seen in him what he'd seen in me I'd covered by immediately admitting it.

“Mr. Madison said to me, ‘How strange,'” Alabrandi told the court.

“How strange that the cause of his wife's death was in doubt?” Mr. Singleton asked, though he knew better.

“No, Mr. Madison said it was strange that he'd suddenly felt what he called ‘a stroke of fear.'”

“A stroke of fear?” Mr. Singleton repeated the phrase as if this were all news to him. “Did Professor Madison indicate what he was afraid of?”

“Yes, he did.”

“And what was that?”

“He said that he was afraid he was about to become a character in a book,” Alabrandi answered, glancing again at the notes he'd taken in his brown notebook. “Those were his words, a ‘character in a book.'”

“What kind of character?”

“He said it was the type of book in which the main character suddenly discovers that life has caught up with him,” Alabrandi answered. “He named some Russian book that was like this. The death of someone. A Russian name.” He flipped a page in the notebook. “Ivan Ilyich.”

Mr. Singleton glanced toward the jury, then back to Detective Alabrandi. “Now, at a certain point, did you begin to inform Professor Madison of questions that had arisen with regard to the death of his wife?”

“Yes, I did.”

And indeed he had. After that first polite exchange, Detective Alabrandi had wasted no time getting to the point. As if I were once again facing him, I saw him lean forward, his eyes quite piercing, something of a bird of prey in the way he watched me.

“Mr. Madison, you assumed your wife's death was a suicide, and you did this without examining her, is that right?” Alabrandi asked me.

“I never touched her,” I told him.

Albrandi winced slightly, as if my answer had pricked him quite as palpably as the point of a knife.

“So why did you assume she committed suicide?” he asked.

“I don't know,” I told him. “She was ill, and so—”

“But you described the paper found beside her bed as a suicide note,” Alabrandi interrupted.

I nodded.

“Why?”

“Because at some point that day, when I'd noticed her writing in that yellow pad, she'd told me that this was her ‘final word.'” I shrugged. “I hadn't interpreted that response as a suicide note, but later, after she died, I assumed that it was precisely that, her ‘final word,' meaning a suicide note.”

“Hm,” Alabrandi said softly as he wrote this down. Then he glanced up from his notebook. “Your wife evidently hadn't mentioned to anyone that she wished to be cremated,” he said.

“She mentioned it to me,” I tell him.

“But no one else,” Alabrandi says. “According to Officer Hill, you wanted your wife's body to be cremated right away.”

“Why wait?”

Had that sounded cold? I asked myself as Detective Alabrandi re-created this same exchange for the jury. If so, my explanation must have sounded no less arctic.

“In ancient times, cremations were done soon after death,” I'd told him. “Sandrine, I think, would have wanted her own to be the same. She was a historian, as I'm sure you know. Her specialty was ancient history, and she was—”

“Ancient history, yes,” Alabrandi again interrupted. “In her written statement, she mentions Cleopatra.”

I noticed that he'd called Sandrine's last writings a “statement,” not a suicide note, and from this I'd gathered that Detective Alabrandi had already decided that I was a man who used words to confuse or conceal things.

But this had not seemed the moment to argue over what to call the yellow sheet of paper Officer Hill had earlier noticed beside Sandrine's bed, and so I'd let the matter drop.

“Cleopatra was as close as Sandrine ever came to having a passionate intellectual interest,” I told Detective Alabrandi.

“So you thought she would want her body to be treated like Cleopatra's had been after death?” Detective Alabrandi asked.

Without thinking, I answered, “Something like that, yes.”

“Well, I looked it up, and it turns out that Cleopatra was buried, rather than cremated,” Alabrandi said. A pause, then, “In fact, she wasn't buried until several days after she died.” He smiled coolly. “Your wife, of course, would have known that.”

I was astonished that Alabrandi had done this sort of research, but I tried not to let him know just how surprised I was. I'd gathered by then that he had assigned me the role of suspect, and in response I was already playing the part.

“That's true,” I said. I offered a slight smile that even as I made it I feared he might find snide. “I guess you're what they call a crack investigator.”

Alabrandi's eyes squeezed together slightly. “I do my job,” he said.

All of this part of our exchange now came into the record, every pompous, pedantic reference I'd made to the arcane rituals of the ancient world paraded before the jury until Singleton finally closed in upon the even more disastrous comment I'd later made to Alabrandi.

“Detective Alabrandi, when you pointed out that Cleopatra had not been cremated, did Mr. Madison come up with another reason why he wanted his wife cremated?”

Morty lifted his hand. “Objection to the phrase ‘come up with,' Your Honor. As prejudicial.”

“Sustained,” Judge Rutledge ruled. He smiled pointedly. “
Come up
with a better question, Mr. Singleton,” he added, and in response to which a ripple of laughed swept the gallery.

“Yes, Your Honor,” Singleton responded stiffly, like a little boy scolded. “All right, Detective, did the professor express another reason for his wanting to have his wife cremated?”

“Yes, he did,” Alabrandi answered. “He said they were both atheists and that neither had any use for ceremony. Funerals, rituals of that sort, that stuff was just Santa Claus for grown-ups.”

Mr. Singleton suppressed a smile. “Those were his words, ‘Santa Claus for grown-ups'?”

This struck me as wholly prejudicial, of course, and so I flashed a look at Morty, expecting him to object. But he only shook his head and whispered, “Too late, buddy. If I object, it'll just be repeated.” He gave my wrist a gentle squeeze. “You can't unring a bell.”

And so, undeterred, Detective Alabrandi tugged at yet more loose threads in the hope of unraveling what he had, by the time he first appeared at my door, no doubt conceived of as a murder plot.

“I asked Mr. Madison if there might be any other reason for wanting his wife cremated as soon as possible,” he told the court.

“Did Mr. Madison provide any other reasons?” Mr. Singleton asked.

“He said he didn't want to think of her lying in a refrigerated vault,” Alabrandi answered. “He said he had a very vivid imagination, and this was a picture he didn't want in his mind.”

What else could I have told him at that time? I asked myself as he continued his testimony. He had come to believe that I wanted Sandrine cremated in order to get rid of evidence.

“So it is your recollection, Detective Alabrandi,” Mr. Singleton continued, “it is your recollection that Professor Madison offered several quite different reasons for wanting his wife cremated as soon as possible.”

“One right after the other, yes.”

Mr. Singleton shot his right index finger into the air. “That somehow this would be in accordance with . . . well . . . Cleopatra?”

“Yes.”

A second finger saluted the day. “That he had a vivid imagination and didn't want an image of his wife in a refrigerated vault.”

“He said that too.”

A third finger.

“And, finally, that rituals such as funerals were expressions of various beliefs that he regarded as . . . what were his words again, Detective?”

“Santa Claus for grown-ups,” Alabrandi answered in the measured voice of a true detective.

Now Morty lifted his hand. “Your Honor, Mr. Madison gave his reasons and Detective Alabrandi has already stated them. Why go over this again?”

Mr. Singleton glanced toward the bench. “Your Honor I am . . .”

Judge Rutledge was now looking at Morty, who had by then gotten to his feet. “Yes, Mr. Salberg, is there something you want?”

To my relief, there was.

Request a Brief Recess

Morty wanted a brief recess and, though he didn't say it, I knew it was because he'd seen that I was becoming quite addled, and he'd wanted to break the relentless drumbeat of Detective Alabrandi's testimony, the way my own words were painting me as an enemy of Christ, Yahweh, Allah, or any other deity to whose ears the respective hearers of my case cared to offer up their daily prayers.

“I must come off as some kind of professional atheist,” I said, once the request had been granted and Morty and I were safely ensconced in a private room a few yards from the judge's chambers. “Coburn's version of Christopher Hitchens.”

Morty grinned. “I wouldn't worry about all that many members of the jury knowing who Christopher Hitchens was.” He eased his enormous frame into a waiting chair. “But I wish you'd contacted me before you talked to Alabrandi or anyone else. I'd have said four little words and hoped that you remembered them: lowest common fucking denominator. You should never underestimate the capacity of human beings to be swayed by prejudice.”

I slumped into a chair. “If it doesn't fit, you must acquit.”

“Something like that.”

I looked at him with genuine sympathy. “You're extremely bright, Morty. You must surely get tired of playing these stupid games.”

His response was unexpectedly serious. “Not when I'm trying to save someone's life, Sam.” He unbuttoned his jacket with a broad gesture, as if happy to reveal just how amply his stomach spilled over his belt. “Try not to get too upset. I saw you were getting worked up, which is why I asked for this five-minute recess.”

“Worked up?” I offered a vaguely contemptuous snort. “I feel like Meursault in
The Stranger
.”

Morty laughed. “Be sure you mention that to the press, Sam, or better yet to the jury. I'm sure they're all great fans of postwar existentialist French literature.” He leaned forward, folded his huge hands, and placed them on the table. “Why
did y
ou want Sandrine cremated so quickly? Or at all? I'll be asking you that in the presence of the jury at some point. And believe me, that ancient history bullshit won't fly. Was that answer even true?”

“No,” I admitted. “I made it up on the spot.”

“What was the real reason?”

I felt suddenly quite heavy, the reason for my wanting Sandrine cremated quickly so cold and selfish and thoroughly reprehensible that I'd probably not recognized it myself until that very moment.

“Sandrine was beautiful,” I told Morty. “And I wanted her to stay that way, or to disappear entirely.”

“Is that why you later covered her face?” Morty asked. “In the bed, I mean, after the coroner left.”

“How did you know that?”

“It's in the report made to the mortuary,” Morty answered. “That when they arrived her face was covered. Everyone else saw her face. Hill, the coroner. So it must have been uncovered when she died.”

“It was, yes.”

“So why did you cover it?”

I shook my head and released a weary breath. “I covered her face because I couldn't bear to look at her, how beautiful she was, knowing at the same time that I would never, ever . . . hold her again . . . that she was gone.” I hung my head for a moment, then lifted it. “Would the jury believe that?”

Morty sat back and waved his hand. “Who knows? Anything can go in any direction. You got a couple women on the jury who aren't exactly oil paintings. They might resent a beautiful woman. And the men? I doubt if they have women who looked like Sandrine waiting at home for them. They might not warm to a guy who did.” He thought this over, then added, “But then, there are plenty of homely women who don't resent beautiful women. And every guy with an ugly wife doesn't resent the guy who has a good-looking one.” He looked toward the window and seemed to see only the inscrutable nature of things. “It's a fucking crapshoot, the human heart.” He glanced at the clock. “Okay, back into the ring,” he said.

The Court Reminds You