The Touch of Treason

by Sol Stein

  Francine had said, “We have our Turks, too.”

  He’d meant to talk about his father and she was going to come back at him about him. He smelled it.

  Finally she said, “George, you don’t like the Russians much because they wear baggy pants.”

  “I know they’re unreasonable,” he shot back.

  “You’re absolutely wrong,” her eyes were shouting at him, “they’re perfectly reasonable. They know what they want, they wanted the same thing all along and they’re getting it. Someone like you’d have to take to the hills in Afghanistan.”

  “I’m not going to Afghanistan,” he shrugged, wanting her to stop.

  “They couldn’t let you walk the streets in Moscow.”

  “I’m not going to fucking Moscow.”

  “You’ve never been anywhere. You wouldn’t give a damn if the Russians took over everything except Oswego and Westchester.”

  “Stop talking to me as if I’m a political idiot.”

  “You’re defending a spy.”

  There it was. A cat he loved had left a mangled bird at his front door.

  “Nobody’s proven anything yet!” he yelled.

  “Don’t shout. You sound like every innocent of the last fifty years.”

  “I don’t want you talking down to me. I’m not dumb!”

  “Einstein wasn’t dumb. But in my field he was as innocent as you are. Maybe worse. He let fellow travelers use him like a borrowed pen. But you, they’d see you couldn’t be pushed around. If the Russians ever got their hands on you, George, they wouldn’t put you on trial. They wouldn’t try to force a confession out of you. They’d lock you up in a lunatic asylum.”

  “I’m not crazy!”

  “That’s just the point. You’re an innocent. To them that puts you on the other side. To them you are they. And because you won’t stop fighting, eventually they’d have to kill you.’’

  He’d sat frozen, convicted, not wanting her hand to touch his fists. But she surprised him. She reached out and touched his face.

  “Innocence is like a hymen,” she said gently. “You can’t put it back.”

  She had fallen in love with his strength. Now that she saw him split open, she loved him not less but more. Very quietly she said, “Your father would have fought in the hills with the Afghans, and so would you. That’s one of the many reasons I love you. I don’t want anybody using you except me.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Somehow he knew it was a dream while he was dreaming it. He and Francine were twins, male and female, looking the same, running down a boardwalk together hand in hand, laughing in one synchronized sound.

  He woke from the dream with a start, needing to tell Francine about it. She wasn’t in the bed. He checked the bathroom. Not there. Grabbing a bathrobe, he ran down to the kitchen. He looked out the window. Her car was gone.

  Each stair up seemed too high. He dropped back on the bed, weighed down by the pain of utter loss. She had had her three days away. After their talk hadn’t it been understood that they would be together from now on? Even sons-of-bitches like Roberts kept their end of a deal. He and Francine hadn’t talked about her moving back. He had assumed it. And what was that crazy dream all about? Did he make them similar because if there were two dissimilars on God’s earth it was the two of them and he feared their differences would drive them apart? The ultimate test of a dream was like the test of any truth, was it fact or fancy, could you put it to someone on the witness stand: “What did you dream last night?” Objection! Sustained! Dreams were for couches, not for forums where you got sentenced on the basis of fact. That wasn’t true either. In summation, he was the interpreter of the jury’s imaginings.

  Suddenly the face of the clock on the nighttable screamed: You’ll be late to court! Quietly he got himself showered and dressed and, breakfastless, raced to the courthouse, unprepared for the day, wanting only to get there in time to have two minutes inside a pay phone before entering the courtroom.

  She was at her desk in her office. To her simple “Hello, George,” he said, “You took off without saying good-bye. We need to talk.”

  “Talk.”

  “Not on the phone. Phones are for teenagers. I want to see you.”

  “You’ll see me soon enough.”

  “You going to drop in on court?”

  “I can’t.”

  “You could if you wanted to.”

  “I’ve got to go now, George.”

  As she hung up—safe for the moment—she realized how close she had come to telling him why she was forbidden to appear as a spectator. They’d warned her that a potential witness cannot observe the other witnesses testifying. George works with suspicion all the time, she thought, but he doesn’t suspect me. When he finds out, it’ll destroy us.

  *

  Scott Melling, so tall in the witness chair, seemed a purposeful contrast to both the gruff detective and the diminutive woman who had preceded Cooper. Melling’s carefully trimmed black mustache-framed lips ready to answer whatever was asked of him with the precision of a British colonel out of some technicolor movie he had seen long ago. Among the other young professors at Columbia who strove to look casual, Melling, who had come from Omaha, was accepted as a colonial Englishman. For him it had been an excellent disguise for the ache he felt for having married half a dozen years ago the wrong beautiful woman, who had poisoned his brain with the smallest of small talk over breakfast and dinner and every before and after in bed till there was no more after. That military exterior was of a man on the hunt for a new bride so he could discard the old one. When he’d found Melissa Troob it had been across the Fullers’ table, which to him had become a holy place, and when he’d first made love to Melissa it was in an upstairs bedroom at the Fuller house. Fuller’s death doomed the environment in which he’d come alive again. He would need the courage to face his wife and say why it was over, in truth because plain-brained as she was, she had never accepted any of the fictitious reasons he had invented for wanting a divorce and she kept insisting that she would not permit him to make an irremediable mistake.

  Roberts took Melling’s background and credentials quickly and as quickly got to the events of the night of April fourth. Dinner, conversation, the lateness of the hour, and the convenience of his host’s having bedrooms upstairs in which guests were welcome. Had he heard anything during the night? Nothing special, nothing worth remembering. Only the scream in the morning. When he got downstairs, Mrs. Fuller and Ed had already pushed the professor into the shower but nothing they tried worked. He was still alive when the rescue squad took him away, but no, there was no doubt in his mind that Professor Fuller would die.

  “Have you ever mowed the lawn for the Fullers?” Roberts asked.

  “No, sir.”

  “Did you ever volunteer to do so?”

  “Regrettably I did not, sir. Frankly it never occurred to me. Ed seemed to have that well in hand.”

  “Have you ever been in the Fuller garage?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Your witness,” Roberts said turning to Thomassy.

  Thomassy understood Melling’s type of man. “Mr. Melling,” he said quietly, “a few moments ago you testified that you had never been in the Fuller garage. When Mrs. Fuller testified, she said quite clearly that you’d refilled the kerosene container, according to her memory, once or twice. In the light of that contradiction, do you want to change your testimony?”

  “Objection!” Roberts said at the top of his voice.

  “Overruled,” Judge Drewson snapped. “The witness will answer.”

  Melling, who’d been sitting straight-backed, bent forward, both hands on the wooden rail before him. “I may have forgotten.”

  “Is your memory normally good, Mr. Melling?”

  “Yes, it is. For important matters.”

  “Mr. Melling, in the context of this case the refilling of a kerosene container once or twice is a most important matter. Did you or did you not do so?”


  “I may have. If Mrs. Fuller remembers that I did, I probably did.”

  “Does Mrs. Fuller also remember your lecture notes?”

  The judge’s gavel came down once. “Mr. Thomassy, will you please confine your questions to ones that are proper to this proceeding. Strike the question.”

  Thomassy sensed the jury turning against Melling. He was not about to let go. “Mr. Melling,” he said, “did you at any time during the evening before the tragedy, or during that night, cause gasoline to be mixed with the kerosene in Professor Fuller’s heater?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Is that response as reliable as your response to my first question, or are you now telling the truth?”

  “I’m telling the truth, damn you!” Melling said, half-standing.

  Roberts moved toward the bench. “Your Honor, counsel is badgering the witness.”

  Judge Drewson said, “Mr. Thomassy, I think you’ve made your point. As for you, Mr. Melling, your outburst is entirely uncalled for. You are to answer all questions here and not to indulge yourself in expletives or I will be forced to hold you in contempt.” Judge Drewson, who had liked Melling before his memory slipped from grace, might have responded in the same way to Thomassy’s attack had he been on the stand. He had to credit Thomassy, though. He was performing for the jury, not the judge. He gestured to Thomassy to continue.

  “Mr. Melling,” Thomassy said, “you testified that you heard nothing during the night.”

  “That is correct.”

  “Your Honor,” Thomassy said, “I’d like to have this schematic diagram of the upstairs hallway and bedrooms in the Fuller home marked for identification.” He passed the diagram up to the judge.

  Roberts was quick to say, “May I see that?”

  “Of course,” Thomassy said. “Your Honor, this sketch will lay the foundation for testimony as to the movements of various persons in the Fuller household during the hours preceding the accident. May we have this marked as Defendant’s B?”

  “Have it so marked.”

  For a moment Thomassy wasn’t sure whether Roberts would object. How could he? Roberts handed the sketch back to Thomassy, who handed it to Melling. “Mr. Melling, does this diagram seem to you to be an accurate rendering of the approximate location of the rooms on that floor?”

  “It does.”

  “Would you say, then, that the bedroom closest to the stairs leading down was the room occupied by Miss Troob?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And next to it is a bathroom?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does that bathroom have three doors, one leading to the hallway, and one to each of the adjoining bedrooms?”

  Melling tried very hard to preserve a neutral authority in his voice. “Yes,” he said.

  “And is the bedroom on the other side of the bathroom the one you occupied on the night of April fourth?”

  “It is.”

  “I apologize for asking this, but did you by any chance use the bathroom during the night?”

  “I may have,” Melling said. “In fact I think I did.”

  “Did you enter it by exiting from your room into the hall and then using the hall entrance to the bathroom?”

  “No, sir, I would have used the door leading directly from my room into the bathroom.”

  “Might not Miss Troob have locked that door?”

  “I assume she might have while the bathroom was in use by her.”

  “I see. Mr. Melling, did you turn the light switch on when you used the bathroom?”

  “Of course.”

  “Is that one of those ordinary switches that one hears or a mercury switch?”

  “I remember it as being an ordinary switch.”

  “Is your hearing normal, Mr. Melling?”

  “I’ve never known it to be otherwise.”

  “Then surely you would have heard the light switch when you flipped it on?”

  “I assume so.”

  “But you said you didn’t hear anything—anything at all—during the night. Is it not true that now that you have refreshed your recollection that you heard the light switch go on, perhaps the tinkle in between, perhaps the flush if it is your habit to flush, and the light switch turning off again?”

  Melling’s face was red with the strain of trying not to show his anger. Thomassy had accomplished his objective, and Roberts was on his feet objecting. “Your Honor,” Thomassy said, “some people take an oath to tell as little or as much of the truth as they choose to tell at any given moment, but my client is here because charges were filed against him and not against the other two guests who stayed over that night.”

  The judge interrupted. “Mr. Thomassy, it may not have been clear to the witness that you meant your question literally. He may have thought you meant did he hear anything significant.”

  “Your Honor, I appreciate your attempt to clarify this matter, but I am not dealing with a semi-articulate witness who doesn’t know the precise meaning of commonplace English words.” Thomassy looked up at Judge Drewson. Again his choice was getting the judge annoyed or scoring his point with the jury. Thomassy opted for the jury. “Your Honor,” he said, “I would like to pursue my line of questioning with this witness on the assumption he understands the meanings of common words unless the witness tells me to the contrary.” Without waiting for the judge’s reaction, Thomassy turned to Melling. “I will repeat the original question as it was asked of you by Mr. Roberts. Did you hear anything during the night?”

  Everyone in the courtroom was waiting for the inevitable “Yes.” Melling said it almost in a whisper.

  “Well then,” continued Thomassy, “besides the light switch and miscellaneous bathroom sounds, was there anything else you heard during that night.”

  Melling remained silent. He was no longer the unmoving guard at the sentry box.

  “I repeat,” Thomassy said, “did you hear anything else?”

  So this was the way he was finally going to be able to get the message to his wife. Melling was about to speak when Thomassy said, “Let me help you. Specifically, did you hear anything from the room occupied by Ed Porter?”

  With great relief, Melling said, “Well, yes sir. I heard him out in the hallway during the night.”

  “Was that after or before you used the bathroom?”

  “After.”

  “When you used the bathroom, did you lock the outside door leading to the hallway?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you, afterward, open the door leading to the hallway?”

  Melling blushed. “I may have forgotten to do that, sir.”

  “Then if Porter had to use the bathroom during the night, he would not have been able to get into it, is that right?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “That wasn’t very considerate, Mr. Melling, unless it was your intention to leave that door locked to prevent outside access to the bathroom between your room and Miss Troob’s room. Is that a correct interpretation or is it not?”

  Melling wasn’t aware of having taken out his carefully folded handkerchief. He wiped the beading sweat from just below his black mustache. “I suppose it wasn’t very considerate. To Mr. Porter, I mean.”

  “Who, if he needed to go to the bathroom, would then have no choice but to go downstairs and use Professor Fuller’s bathroom, not a very convenient thing to have to do during the night. Is it possible, Mr. Melling, that you wanted Mr. Porter to use the downstairs bathroom in order to try to implicate him in a plot hatched by yourself and Miss Troob?”

  “I resent that, sir.”

  “You resent the conspiracy?”

  “I resent the implication that there was one.”

  “But Mr. Melling, if you had in fact visited the downstairs bathroom yourself for inserting gasoline into a kerosene heater or any other purpose earlier, it would have worked out just dandy to keep the upstairs bathroom unavailable to Mr. Porter so that he would be forced to go downstairs!”

&nb
sp; “Objection!” from Roberts. “Your Honor, the defendant’s counsel is asking Mr. Melling a hypothetical question, and such questions can only be addressed to an expert witness.”

  “Sustained. Strike Mr. Thomassy’s last question.”

  “Mr. Melling, now that we know your hearing is normal and that in fact you have testified to entering the bathroom, turning on the light, using the bathroom, and hearing Mr. Porter later going downstairs because he could not use the locked-door upstairs bathroom, will you please tell us truthfully what other sounds you may have heard?”

  Melling, poised on the edge of his cliff, jumped. “During the course of that night I entered the bedroom on the other side of the bathroom—”

  “The one occupied by Miss Troob?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you go there to borrow a cup of sugar?”

  “You know damn well why I was there, Mr. Thomassy.”

  “I am not a mind reader, Mr. Melling. The court stenographer is not a mind reader. His Honor is not a mind reader and none of the jurors can read your mind. This is a court of law in which you stated on direct examination that you had heard nothing during the night and it is clearly the right of the defense to know what you were covering up during the crucial few hours before Professor Fuller’s life was forfeit.”

  “I had nothing to do with that!”

  “You needn’t shout, Mr. Melling. If a combustible mixture was put in the kerosene heater before everyone went to bed, perhaps it was the assumption of whoever did that that the person who might turn on the heater was the person denied access to the bathroom on the same floor as his bedroom and that the prospective victim was none other than Ed Porter!”

  “That’s crazy!” Melling said, out of control.

  “What’s crazy, Mr. Melling, your locking the hall door so that Ed Porter was forced to use the downstairs bathroom?”

  “I didn’t intend to inconvenience anybody.”

  “This isn’t a trial about inconveniences, Mr. Melling. Very serious accusations have been made and it is imperative that in your further testimony you do not elide the truth. You know what ‘elide’ means?”