The Touch of Treason (18 page)

To the jurors, George Thomassy, long armed and lanky, appeared taller than his six feet. They, nervous in public, noted how remarkably loose Thomassy seemed, his gray eyes looking in turn at each of them as if he were about to begin a very private conversation.

“Ladies,” Thomassy was saying as he looked at each of the three women in turn, “and gentlemen of the jury,” he continued, taking in the rest, “the deceased, Martin Fuller, was acknowledged to be this country’s senior expert in the ways of the Soviet Union. If he were standing in my place he might say that over there, if you see a man being arrested, you assume him to be innocent. Over here, if you see a man being arrested you assume him to be guilty.”

Some of the reporters in the front rows laughed.

“It is an unfortunate trait of the human animal,” Thomas said, “to think in categories. It
is
convenient. But it is quite possible that a policeman arresting someone on the street in Moscow is taking him in not for alleged crimes against the state but for consuming too much 100-proof vodka in an area where he might be seen by foreign tourists. And it is quite possible that in this country, a police officer might pull a car over because it had been driven erratically, or a taillight was out, or because the driver was an attractive blonde.”

Suddenly Thomassy’s affability vanished. “In this courtroom,” he said, “we cannot think in categories. We are concerned only with the allegation against a particular individual. In this case, the individual…” Thomassy turned his back on the jury and did not speak till he was standing alongside Ed, “…is a twenty-four-year-old student who graduated from Columbia College summa cum laude and then received an M.A. from Columbia in just eight months, and went on to study for his doctorate at Columbia’s Russian Institute. He has taught at Amherst, one of this country’s finer private colleges. Recently, this young man has been continuing his education in his field by working with the deceased, who’d become his mentor, his teacher, his friend. He spent many hours a week with Professor Fuller and his wife, he was their guest at mealtime dozens and dozens of times, he was their overnight guest on many occasions when he and Professor Fuller and others would converse long into the night on their subject, which should matter as much to us as to them, because our future may to some degree depend on what they know and learn.”

Thomassy strode to the jury box again. “Does it make sense for a hungry man to cut off his supply of food? Does it make sense for a man hungry for knowledge about a particular subject to cut off his principal source of that knowledge? I say this because the government must prove—I said prove—that the accused had the intent to commit a crime, and unless it provides facts to prove to your satisfaction that he had such intent, then they have no case. Before you deliberate, His Honor, Judge Drewson, will, of course, instruct you in the law, but before the government starts, I want you to keep in your minds as if branded in there: Without proof of intent to kill there can be no guilt.”

Thomassy was standing directly in front of the foreman. Quietly, Thomassy repeated, “There can be no guilt.”

Thomassy turned from the jurors toward Roberts, letting his last words hang in the air. Then, his voice back to normal, he said, “The government—sometimes mistakenly called ‘the people’—”

He got the laugh of support, and walked toward Roberts, knowing the man would have liked to strangle him for that one. He stopped a few feet in front of Roberts. “The government,” Thomassy said, “is represented here by the district attorney, Mr. Roberts. Every juror should know that Mr. Roberts, by the standards of the American Bar Association, is here not merely as an advocate for the government. It is the duty of the prosecutor to seek justice, and it is your role as responsible jurors…”

Thomassy had already turned from Roberts and was striding back to the jury box. “…to judge whether he is fulfilling his duties, whether he is seeking justice. Mr. Roberts was recently in a different forum, in the Grand Jury room, where the government had itself a field day because the attorney for the accused was not present. There was no one to counter what Mr. Roberts alleged or to test his so-called evidence. People who work in the law know that prosecutors tend to have their way in the Grand Jury room because they are unopposed in that one-sided forum. Well, things are different in this courtroom because if Mr. Roberts and his legion of assistants haven’t done their homework properly, I’ll know it, and you’ll know it.

“The government has got a lot of work cut out for itself. First, it must prove that Martin Fuller’s death was not caused by accident. Well, I’m going to save a lot of your time and taxpayers’ money, ladies and gentlemen, by agreeing that Martin Fuller’s bathrobe caught fire from the heater in his bathroom and that despite efforts by his wife and the accused and others to save him, he died. You won’t have to listen to the coroner’s morbid details. Prosecutors like to put coroners on the stand because they want to permeate the atmosphere with death, but the horrible death of Martin Fuller is something we will stipulate to not only to spare you the gruesome details but because the issue in this courtroom is determining whether the accused and no other person or persons were responsible for causing Martin Fuller’s death. I remember,” he said, suddenly relaxing, “the time I went with a friend to see a movie, and we left before it was over. As we went out into the parking lot, my friend, who is not a lawyer, said, ‘Boy, that was murder.’ Well, it wasn’t murder, it was a bad movie. And what we may be dealing with here is a bad accident, and if it wasn’t, the government has to prove to your satisfaction that it wasn’t, that Martin Fuller died because someone or ones had the will and the means to do it. We will prove with witnesses that when Martin Fuller started to scream because his bathrobe was on fire, the first person to reach him was his wife and the second was the accused, seconds later and stark naked, because that’s the way he sleeps, without pajamas, and he dashed down from upstairs without thinking to put anything on because his mentor was screaming for help. Does that sound like someone who had the will to kill? Or was it to help?

“The government has not said it will present irrefutable, objectively verifiable evidence because its so-called case is based on circumstantial evidence that will be refuted by other circumstantial evidence. The government’s case does not exclude other hypotheses based on the same so-called circumstantial evidence, and I am here to tell you in advance that our system does not operate on hypotheses. If a policeman walked into this courtroom this minute and came over to this jury box and put his hand on the shoulder of one of you and said, ‘You’re under arrest,’ that doesn’t mean you’re guilty, and this young man—” he strode over to Ed—“is, according to our system, according to our law, and according to the main tool every juror has—common sense—innocent.”

*

As soon as the judge adjourned the trial for the day, Ed asked to talk to Thomassy somewhere privately. But the clerk came over to say the judge wanted to see Thomassy and Roberts in the robing room.

“I’ll be back,” Thomassy said to Ed. “Stay put.” He looked at the deputy sheriff standing behind Ed as if
stay put
were an instruction from a higher authority than had granted Ed bail.

In the robing room, Judge Drewson said, “Those were interesting presentations, gentlemen. Since rhetoric comes easy to both of you, now that we’re past the opening remarks I’d like to see the jury confabulated less so that they have an opportunity to examine the facts, which is what they’re here for.”

“Alleged facts,” Thomassy said, his smile fleeting.

Judge Drewson laughed. His laugh gone, he said, “I suppose you both know there are federal officers in the courtroom?”

They nodded.

“Is it your belief,” the judge asked, “that they are here in preparation to arrest the defendant on federal charges?”

“I’m confident that’s not the case, Your Honor,” Thomassy said.

“Then what the hell are they doing in my courtroom?”

“I suspect they are observers. Their job was to protect the deceased at least until his work was finished. They failed in their job.”

“Do you believe they are here to pick up anyone other than the defendant?”

“That might be a precautionary purpose of theirs, Your Honor,” Thomassy said. “I don’t know. I think they want to see justice done.”

“We all do, don’t we?”

“Yes,” Roberts said.

Thomassy thought
Not necessarily.

“By the way, I’m sure you also know there’s a contingent of TV cameramen out front. I’d be careful what I said to them. I’ll be watching the news tonight.”

“Suppose I go out by the back door,” Thomassy said cheerfully.

“Then tomorrow they’ll have crews at the back door as well as the front door. Good luck.”

*

Thomassy and Ed went through a long corridor to reach the room where Thomassy and his client could confer in private. Ed spoke the moment the door shut on them.

“I don’t get your strategy. Why’d you bring in all that analogy?”

“What analogy?”

“Someone arrested in Russia presumed by others to be innocent. And then all the Russian Institute stuff about me? What are you trying to do?”

“Defuse,” Thomassy said, “in advance. I can guarantee you that Roberts is going to make something ominous out of your special field, and the best way to deal with that kind of crap is to bring it up first in your context instead of their context.”

“You could have waited to see,” Ed said.

“And get caught on the defensive? That’s a loser’s game.”

“I just don’t like playing on the jurors’ anticommunist sympathies. I want to win because I’m innocent.”

Thomassy moved his face very close to Ed’s and his voice was almost a whisper. “Listen, innocent,” he said, “who is Ludmilla Tarasova?”

*

Thomassy came down the steps. There must have been thirty reporters down there with cameras and notebooks. He was used to juries who could be warned that the fifth amendment was not to be construed as a sign of guilt. If he said
no comment,
they’d put it in a context that’d make it look like he was ducking.

“Mr. Thomassy, hold it right there, on that step,” yelled one of the TV people.

A newsman with a pad asked the first question. “What is your reaction, Mr. Thomassy, after the first day of this case?”

“What case?” Thomassy said. “The government has no case.”

He recognized the Channel 4 reporter, who asked, “Mr. Thomassy, what do you make of the fact that there are reporters here from Reuters, Agence France Presse, et cetera. Are there international implications in the charges?”

“The charges,” Thomassy said, “are absurd. Excuse me, gentlemen.” He moved forward and away.

“Where are you going?” one of them yelled after him as his cameraman swiveled around to catch the departing lawyer.

“I’m going for an acquittal and a Scotch and soda,” Thomassy said, and hurried his pace because he needed to know a lot more about Ludmilla Tarasova before tomorrow.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Thomassy noticed that Francine had parked her bright red Fiat in the driveway headed out instead of in so that he would see the page of notebook paper under the windshield wiper. “If you’re bringing company home,” it said in her rectangular handwriting, “ring three times and wait a full minute before opening the door.”

In the years before Francine he’d known women who were skilled in the craft of arousal, who’d developed nuances in their voices to match the seductiveness of dresses and blouses and skirts chosen with care. But Francine was the first to administer what he thought of as prearousal arousal, an appetizer before the appetizer. Well, why not? Wasn’t it the kind of thing he sometimes did in the courtroom, getting the jury anticipating something and then stirring them up just before he was ready to deliver? Proverbs eleven, Thomassy’s book:
You tingle their balls. You give them a hard-on. Then you let them have it.
Well, here’s life full of reciprocity again. He’d come home with a mission, to
talk
to Francine, to use her role at the American delegation to get at information he couldn’t get directly without Roberts getting his antennae up. And all of a sudden he was moving on another track because that lady left a note under the windshield wiper of her car that was causing his loins to hum even before he’d set foot inside the door.

Thomassy turned the key in the lock and opened the door halfway. Francine was parked legs up on the ottoman watching the TV news and wearing what he had seen only once before and termed the ultimate flimsy, a diaphanous cover-up that covered up nothing, a translucent shimmer of thinly woven silk that called more attention to her breasts and pubic triangle than if she were naked.

“Come in, Bob!” Thomassy shouted over his shoulder, causing Francine to bolt out of the chair and scurry across the room to the bedroom.

Thomassy closed the door behind him.

Francine poked her head around the corner to see into the living room. “You bastard,” she said.

“I could have you arrested,” Thomassy said, “under two forty-five point eleven of the penal code.”

“Which is what?” she said, offering him a full kiss that stifled the possibility of response. Thomassy dropped his keys to the floor so that his right hand would be free to caress the very top of her behind.