Sally’s funeral was a blur. I couldn’t bring
myself to look at her. Mary wouldn’t stop weeping and didn’t come
near me; I feared Una had told her and that she now secretly hated
me. I tried to start smoking several times, but I coughed and
coughed and couldn’t get used of it. The day I returned to the
offices and began working, I felt relieved, like I could breathe
again.
“We need to get back on schedule,” Hiro said
softly to me, putting me to work at once. “Soon we have to put this
thing behind us.”
Two days later, Hiro formally took over
Sally’s responsibilities inside the company and our audit began to
expand rapidly. Mary wasn’t there to stop him, and Stan gave him
operational control until she was back; Stan, Mary, and Una headed
to Jamaica.
Through December, I was questioned three
more times by police where neither Newel or Cramer were present. I
heard rumors, through Peter Burgess, that a huge debate occurred
inside the homicide team investigating Sally’s murder. It didn’t
spill over into the public but several times Peter mentioned that
mounting evidence grew against me and the only thing holding them
back from officially charging me was Fats Cramer’s objections.
On the third week of January 1988, we heard
from Sasha that Fats Cramer had been taken off the case. On
Thursday morning of the next week, at the office at Hoboken, six
weeks after Sally’s death, I was arrested, handcuffed, and after
being processed at the station, was brought to the Park Avenue
Courthouse, Courtroom Forty on the Fourth Level, Criminal Courts
Division, and granted bail. Stan must have been tipped off and
greased every palm in Manhattan. A thing I know that he hated
doing.
The next day, Graham Roberts, the President
of Constant Batteries, disappeared. I was in the study that day, an
open spacious room with a sizable library, when I was informed by
Una that my new lawyer would be coming by. It all left my head
spinning. The flame in the fireplace was at its peek and the print
of the famous painting, A Philosopher Giving that Lecture at the
Orrery, by Wright of Derby, hung above the mantel. The long
graceful curtains at each end and the specs of dust floating in the
calm sunny cool air made me weepy, but I gagged my tears.
Why was this happening to me? We’d heard
from Peter that they had fingerprints, blood, fibers, sperm, and
other evidence connecting me to Sally’s murder. When it came out
that we slept together that night, the public would be convinced
that I was a pervert, rapist and murderer. I made myself a drink to
calm my nerves and I slowly browsed through the titles in the
library as I drank it. I wondered how my father got through them
all. It sounds contrary, but this was about the time, at
twenty-eight years old, when I finally began to think of Stan as my
father. He claimed he’d read every single one of these books by the
time he was my age. Compared to the business and economic ones
which I enjoyed, the other categories seemed to always leave me
depressed, especially Russian literature. Presently, I nursed a
fictionalized biographic novel on the American astronomer, Edwin
Powell Hubble, Hubble Time, by Tom Bezzi, and was also plowing
through an edited addition of, The Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire, by Edward Gibbon. Una brought in tea sometime around two
o’clock and sat with me.
“Any word?” I asked. She shook her head. I
thought about the audit. Hiro had told me Mary and Stan had asked
him to halt it. He had taken over the day to day operations of the
company, but refused any of their demands to stop the audit.
Without it meaning to, my mind jumped to the brutal logic of the
fact that if someone had wanted to stop the audit, killing Sally
and framing me, except for Hiro’s perseverance, would certainly
have been effective. I thought of bouncing this off Una, but it
seemed too cold to talk about the whole matter that way. Instead we
sat in silence.
When Stan entered the study with a man in an
expensive silk suit, tanned, and with a trim haircut, I must say I
was taken off guard. He wore his clothes like Hiro Nakamura as
though to advertise his position in society, a thing, which like
Stan, bothered me, but he had focused eyes and absolutely exuded
confidence. I rose nervously and nodded. “This is Brad Burlington,”
Stan said.
“Christian’s lawyer,” Una added
excitedly.
“Not yet,” Brad said. “You must be Una.” He
offered his hand. “I’ve heard about you. At New York City parties
they whisper that you run Tappets?”
She laughed softly. “Let me tell you
something, Mr. Burlington,” she said, not denying it, “you should
represent Christian. The animals who killed my Sally are known to
us, as Christian will tell you.”
“I have seen the evidence against him,” he
answered, putting away his smile. “It’s very damaging, but we’ll
see what he has to say.”
“I’ve read about you too,” she said. “You
represent only those you believe in. You’ll represent Christian.
He’s innocent. Sally and Christian loved each other.”
She picked up the serving tray and left.
“I’ll be upstairs if you need me,” Stan said and also left.
I could feel the lawyer’s eyes on me. “I’m
glad that you’ve come,” I said softly when there were just the two
of us.
We sat in two firm sofa-chairs which faced
each other. “Let me tell you a few things, Christian,” he said
softly. “In my career as a past prosecutor in California, I’ve seen
that the system has a tried and true manner of filtering out the
innocent and apprehending the guilty. Uniform police form the first
judgments. In my opinion, this is, where nearly all, if any,
mistakes, are made. At this level, mistakes are sometimes made in
the spur of the moment. The pressure is on and it is kind of like
in the heat of battle. It is easier to make a mistake then, than
later, with a cooler, more staid observation. Don’t get me wrong,
their judgments are almost always right, but mistakes are made.
Afterwards, more filtering goes on by the homicide detectives who
investigate. They interview witnesses, do forensic tests, collect
data, and dig through the details. Do you see what I am
saying.”
I shook my head. I clearly saw that he was
disinclined to represent me and that I’d have to convince him of my
innocence. “Once the detectives think they have the perpetrator,”
he continued, “only then do they seek criminal options from the
district attorney’s office. Quite often, cases aren’t accepted,
mostly on the grounds of insufficient evidence. I firmly believe
that proof is the bottom line for the District Attorney’s office.
When charges come, they are, I believe, 99.9% of the times, both
proper, strong, and with no personal prejudice, then there’s a
preliminary hearing and 10% more of the cases are dismissed at this
point. I believe the case against you is exceedingly strong; I
don’t routinely take cases and work my heart out to get murderers
off, no matter how much I’m offered. The preliminary hearing will
be a walk-through for the prosecutor’s office.”
“If you only defend innocent people,” I
returned at once, “I’m doubly happy you’re here and my father’s
picked well. I didn’t think criminal lawyers like you existed. You
would defend me if you were sure of my innocence?”
“I would be much more inclined, but seeing
the file, I don’t see how you have been falsely accused. Your
father seems pretty certain that a conspiracy is behind your
charges. He feels that Sally’s ongoing litigation against The
Family of Truth is behind it.” I could feel his eyes on me, trying
to penetrate. I explained Sally and my sordid sexual history from
the first day I arrived at the mansion. “You’re willing to take a
polygraph?” he asked.
“I’ll do whatever you ask.”
“A lie detector test?” he said,
“sodium-Pentothal, hypnotism, whatever else, and in the trial, the
judge and jury can see the results, no matter what?” I nodded, not
knowing whether to be glad or angry. “I know the best
administrators in the field of these techniques,” he continued. “In
the next couple of weeks, you’ll have to be available. Is that
something you can agree to?” I nodded again. “You’ve resigned from
Tappets temporarily?” I nodded a third time. “Contact them now only
through your lawyer, which may or may not be myself and don’t
discuss the business with your parents so that we have some
distance from them in court. Is there anything else I should
know?”
“It must not have been in the file-folder my
dad prepared for you, but I’ve already been given polygraphs.”
He showed the first surprise of the
interview. I’d noticed, not even the revelation about Sally and I,
had raised his eyebrows. “How did you do?”
“They said that I passed.”
“There’s no promise that I’ll represent you
until you are safely finished with all my tests. Tell me everything
that happened that night at the Grand Hyatt.”
I explained everything from the first
contact Sally and I had with The Family of Truth to that evening,
and when I’d finished, I saw I had convinced him. For the first
time since I’d been charged, I felt I had a fighting chance.
The next day, Stan, Mary, and I, traveled
together to the La Guardia Airport to pick up Peter Burgess. Dad
had been wiping his moustache and patting down his grey hair
continually while we waited. I could tell he was anxious. The
bustle at the airport was unbelievable, yet conversely there was no
press. Una had told me, I wasn’t aware of it myself, that we had
been inundated with news coverage. We missed Sally and wanted to
get the people responsible for her death, but I hadn’t read the
papers in weeks. I saw a young pretty woman selling flowers and
studied her for a moment.
“She’s not skinny enough to be in a cult,”
Mary leaned over and whispered into my ear. “I can pick them out
now.”
That was the first time Mary had said
anything to me of significance in weeks and a wave of relief washed
over me. I knew through Una, Mary had lost much weight and was
unable to sleep, and of course, I could see for myself, she was as
though struck with a fatal disease and was suffering more than
anyone at the loss of Sally. We all cried our tears, but I think
Mary cried more than all of us put together. “There’s Peter,” she
said and waved.
Peter came over and we shook hands. “Our
limousine is this way,” Dad said and pointed north. “Why were you
in South Africa? Isn’t that dangerous?”
“A personal matter. It’s fine, and it was
only two days. The authorities are really quite helpful. They’re
always trying to impress Black Americans, at least the ones who
manage to actually get through the red tape and get there.”
“I’m sure they could care less,” Mary said.
“We thought we’d take you out to lunch at Prima Fresco.”
“I’m not alone. My help has been following
each of you for twenty-four hours. I’ll let them know where we’re
going. I’m staying at the Hyatt.”
“You’ve decided to help us then?” Dad
asked.
“Never any question of that, Stan, only
when.”
“Why don’t you have your people join us?” I
suggested.
“My children eat like cannibals, especially
Josh.”
Josh was his twenty-two year old son, who I
liked.
“Isaac, did you hear that?” Stan said. The
glass barrier in the limo was down. Isaac waved from the driver’s
seat.
“Perhaps I should take them to McDonald’s
after I drop you off?” he suggested.
We laughed, except Mary.
“I half-expected Una to be driving,” Peter
said.
“She has to run both the company and the
household,” Stan said, “driving us around would be just too much
for her.” We laughed a second time, again, again except for
Mary.
“Although” I added quickly, “she would try
it and not take any money for doing it.”
“You folks are in good humor,” Peter said,
looking straight at Mary as though she belied his statement.
It was true. Since the funeral they’d been
morose, but today they seemed much better.
“We’re happy to know that you’re going to
help us out,” I offered.
On the way to Prima Fresco, Peter made a few
calls. I felt uplifted every time he snuck a glance at me. “Someone
is extremely interested in what you’re all doing,” he said. “You’re
all being followed, and have been for the whole time my people have
been tailing you.”
“The press are such scavengers,” Stan
said.
“They don’t think it’s the press, but we’ll
find out for sure.”
Mary looked him over carefully. “Who else
could it be?”
Peter was delayed answering her. The
limousine pulled up in front of a restored three storey mansion
surrounded by multiple aged-maples and with a sizeable parking lot
to its side. Stan reached for his briefcase and straightened his
suit-jacket. “I’ll park at the back,” Isaac said, “and join you in
a minute.”
We sat in the middle of the third floor of
the eatery, near an old-fashioned roaring-fireplace with a large
stone hearth. We were the only customers, but this was by design.
“You’ve taken precautions, Stan?” Peter asked, looking around.
Dad nodded. “Like I said, the press are all
over us. Their lack of civility is unmatched by anything I can
compare to it. If someone is given a press pass and a video camera,
they think they can come up and camp on your porch. It’s gone too
far.”
“You must be going through hell,” Peter
said. “I know you’re private people.”
“What bothers us most,” Stan added, “is that
our son is being tried in the press. One New York radio shock-jock
has developed this bizarre theory that Christian killed Sally so
that he could take over the Company. They’re so incompetent that it
almost seems that it is being done on purpose. They’ve no
shame.”
“In some quarters, it’s malicious,” I added,
“and they don’t even have all the bad details yet, wait until they
find out Sally and I had an incestuous affair when I was first
adopted and that the night of the murder, we slept together. I fear
to think about it.”