The Touch of Treason (26 page)

“George, I can see your brain whirring. You’re going to do something that will get the government very upset.”

Thomassy smiled. “I consider that a prime objective. My flag says
Don’t tread on me
.”

He was standing over her, and she said, “Don’t tread on me, George,” and they laughed together for the first time that evening.

“I’ll bet you haven’t eaten dinner,” she said.

“Have you?”

“No. I don’t need to. I like to skip eating once in a while. It’s a way of proving to food who’s boss, it or me.”

“Can I offer you an after-dinner drink?” he asked. “I have,” he said, inspecting his bottles, “Grand Marnier, a little Kahlua left, and some Armagnac, if you can take the strong stuff.”

“I can take,” she said.

“I can give.”

With deft hands, he undressed her, setting her clothes aside carefully so as not to wrinkle them. Only when he removed her skimpy panties did he roll them into a ball and as if he were playing basketball made believe that he was aiming at the backboard behind a hoop and threw them against the wall.

“You should have played for the Celtics,” Francine said.

“I’m much too young.”

She caught his stare, crossed her legs, and supported her head on an elbow, a nude odalisque.

“I want to touch you,” he said.

“You waiting for permission?” she asked.

He said nothing.

“Permission granted.”

He bent over her. He watched her breast move with her breathing. Then, with the tip of his index finger, he touched her right toe.

“You’re a model of restraint,” she said, feeling the cavernous longing.

“I’ll get the Armagnac,” he said, rising.

She looked at him across the room looking at her.

“You are overdressed for this climate,” she said.

“That can be remedied.”

She watched him take his clothes off, not the way most men did, hurriedly, but one careful movement at a time, like in a ballet. Who said only women undressing could be erotic in their effect?

When he slipped his shorts off, she said, “Hello.”

“At your service,” he said, pulled the cork out of the Armagnac bottle with his teeth, then with great deliberation came over to her and tipped the bottle, letting the viscous liquid flow over her breasts and past her naval, down. He set the bottle down on the coffee table, then let the cork fall from his lips so they would be free as, like a huge tomcat flicking his tongue, he fell to his knees and then bent his head to her.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Jenny Sturbridge had given the servants an unexpected evening off because, like all servants, they lived part of their lives vicariously, and she did not choose to have them overhear what might transpire when Franklin Harlow visited. Even if they didn’t hear a thing, just the presence of the family lawyer was enough to feed their appetites for gossip. It was bad enough they had to read about the case in the newspapers.

She answered the door herself. “He’s in that study of his,” she said. “I’ll lead the way.”

Between the large kitchen and the pantry a door led down steps to the cellar. “We must be careful not to startle Malcolm,” she said.

Past the door to the boiler room Harlow could see the long cool corridor in which hundreds of bottles of wine were racked in bins against the walls. Seldom-worn jewels, he thought, collecting in a jewel box.

Jenny Sturbridge was a few steps ahead of him. “He’s aging me faster than the wine,” she said.

Harlow’s wife Elizabeth had been a magnificent eccentric in his view, a lady who cared for injured birds till they no longer need fear cats, a lady who told idling policemen how to direct traffic better. But one day he had watched Elizabeth folding towels, putting them in the linen cupboard, then removing them and refolding them in a slightly different manner. Was that the first time he had realized her eccentricity had slid over the line? She was in an institution now and that presented him with a congeries of problems, including the shape of Jenny Sturbridge’s body as she walked in front of him, a man deprived.

A long time ago Malcolm Sturbridge had had a wall built across the far end of his wine cellar and behind it had created a small room with paneled walls, a desk, a chair, a locked filing cabinet. He called it his second study. Unlike his upstairs study, there was no phone. Jenny suspected that the papers in that filing cabinet were ones she would not want to go through if Malcolm died. He didn’t like to be interrupted in this room, and so Jenny knew the risk when she rapped her knuckles against the walnut door.

“What is it?” came the annoyed voice from within.

“Franklin is here,” she said.

After a moment, Sturbridge opened the door. He glanced at his intruding wife, and then smiled, extending his hand to Harlow. “Franklin,” he said, “how unusual of you to pay an unexpected visit. Have you been cozying my wife while I’ve been working away in the depths?”

“Hello, Malcolm.”

“What brings you here?” Sturbridge said, shutting the door of the room behind him.

“I asked him,” Jenny said quickly.

“I volunteered to come,” Harlow said quickly, “when Jenny told me you were troubled about the possibility of being accosted by reporters at the trial.”

Sturbridge said, “It’s cold down here. Why don’t we all make ourselves comfortable upstairs.”

Franklin Harlow said the only thing he could say. “Of course,” and gained the advantage of walking back through the wine cellar behind the graceful body of Jenny Sturbridge, thinking what a waste of love that a client’s wife was beyond the pale.

*

In front of the fireplace, a third armchair pulled close for Harlow, Sturbridge said, “It’s a pity you haven’t been attending the trial.”

“You know what my schedule’s like, Malcolm. Do you want me to abandon supervision of the SEC case?”

“Of course you can’t. But your lawyer’s eye could tell me more than mine do. I sit there, trying to listen as a juror might. Jenny thinks things are going against Edward despite that talented lawyer.”

“Jenny,” Harlow said, “is a pessimist.”

“I wish Malcolm would listen to the doctor,” Jenny said.

“Rachlin thinks all those flare-ups in the courtroom are going to outpace my little mechanical implant. My only concern, Harlow, is the newsmen.”

“Have they detected you yet?”

“Jenny and I sit all the way in the back. It’s just that Edward cranes around once in a while until he’s certain where we’re sitting. I’m not sure he finds our presence a comfort. Jenny has to steel herself to keep from going up to Edward during the breaks. If the newsmen identify me, what do I say? What will they ask me?”

“Malcolm,” Harlow said, “I guarantee the first question would be ‘How does it feel to have your only son being tried for murder?’”

“I could say ‘no comment,’ couldn’t I?”

“That’s the trap. Industrialist says no comment when asked how it feels to be the father of an accused murderer. Newspapers hang you for not answering as well as for answering. Avoid them. Just walk away if they come after you.”

Jenny said, “You’re both being very self-centered. What about Eddie? Look at the agony he’s being put through day after day. He’s not that kind of boy.”

“What kind?” Malcolm said, staring at Jenny as if she had just trespassed on his moral code.

Harlow said, “I don’t like it when you get that flush in your face, Malcolm. Rachlin wouldn’t either.”

Malcolm Sturbridge smiled, pharaoh in his tomb looking at the living. “Are you giving me medical, moral, or legal advice this evening?”

Harlow glanced at Jenny. “I thought I might put out a statement from my office to the effect that you have a profound faith in your son’s innocence.”

“Jenny put you up to that.”

“Not really.”

“Don’t start shading the truth with me now. We’ve known each other too long. I am not going to usurp the function of the jury.”

Jenny Sturbridge said,
“
You
were his jury for the longest time.”

Malcolm ignored her. “Franklin,” he said, “you’ve been infinitely valuable to me over the years. I’ve listened to your advice not only as the company’s advocate but as mine. The decisions, however, you will recall, are finally my prerogative. No statement to the press. That’s final. Sherry, or something stronger?”

Harlow asked for whiskey with a splash.

“Jenny?” Sturbridge asked.

“Not for me.”

“Well, the doctor says a bit is good for the ticker,” Sturbridge said, as he poured some whiskey into a second glass. He handed the first glass to Harlow, then clinked his own against it.

“To our friendship,” Sturbridge said. “May it never end.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

Thomassy was just coming into the courtroom when he saw the couple taking their seats in the back again. On the first day he had suspected who they were because Ed had inherited enough of the features of each for the kinship to show. Ed had confirmed his guess. And now that they were just a few feet away, Thomassy thought he’d go over and shake the hand of the man who was, after all, paying the bill.

As he came near, the man he thought was Malcolm Sturbridge turned his head away. It was the woman who faced him. She motioned him close enough so she could whisper, “He’s not being rude. He doesn’t want the reporters to identify him. It’s better they leave him alone. Because of his heart condition.”

“I understand,” Thomassy said.

She couldn’t help touching his sleeve. “Good luck,” she said.

Thomassy continued down the aisle. He hated the idea of luck. Fools counted on it.

The guard standing near the court reporter saw Thomassy and nodded. Guards, Thomassy had learned, didn’t bet on the outcome of trials. As far as they were concerned, a defendant got this far, he was guilty. The question was would his lawyer get him off?

“Hello,” said Ed with a smile.

Without responding, Thomassy sat down next to Ed at the defense table. He suddenly felt as if he and not Ed were the defendant. What was this trial becoming?

Ed stared straight ahead as if he felt that eye contact would ignite whatever seemed to be boiling in Thomassy’s brain.

“It’s your job,” Thomassy had told the students, “to use every legal means to give your client the best defense you can.” “What about tricks?” someone had asked. “You mean tactics,” Thomassy had said, getting a laugh.

You are becoming unfit to practice criminal law,
he said to himself as he got up and walked back out of the courtroom to the surprise of the guard and Ed and anybody else who might have been watching.

*

The court attendant found him in the washroom, putting cold water to his face with cupped hands.

“Okay,” Thomassy said, “I’ll be right there.”

*

Thomassy was finding it hard to pay attention as Roberts continued his examination of Detective Cooper. He hadn’t interrupted for five minutes.

“Detective Cooper,” Roberts was saying, “on the day of Professor Fuller’s death, did you examine the contents of the Fuller garage?”

“I did.”

“Did you do that personally, or did one of your men do it?”

“Personally.”

“Tell us what you found in the garage.”

“In addition to the automobiles, there were a number of floats and other pool items stored in the rafters, and on one side, some mechanical equipment.”

“What kind of mechanical equipment?”

“A lawnmower, a leaf-blower, a five-gallon can containing gasoline and a similar-sized can containing kerosene.”

“Were the cans labeled?”

“Yes, sir, they were.”

“Did you determine whether the contents of each of those cans was what the label specified?”

“Well, sir, I removed the screw caps and smelled. Gas smells pretty different from kerosene. I took a sample of each.”

“Are you satisfied that the cans were correctly labeled?”

“Yes, sir.”

“To the point where you would not have hesitated to use the gas in the lawn mower?”

“Yes.”

“And would you have used the contents of the kerosene can to, say, fill a kerosene lamp that you would light or a kerosene heater that you would use?”

Thomassy could swear the judge was glancing at him for the second time, waiting for him to intercede.
I’m not a robot, Your Honor, I’m having trouble with this case.
A surgeon could be sued for malpractice for sleepwalking through an operation.

Thomassy rose to his feet. Was that relief he saw on the judge’s face?

“Your Honor,” he said, “I’ve been very patient about the witness responding to what he saw or smelled, but I think we’re into the area of opinion here, and if the government wants some qualified expert opinion, they ought to call an expert and not ask this police officer about opinions he is no more qualified to answer than anyone else who uses a lawnmower.”