“Hello, children. How about a spaghetti dinner at my place tonight?” For once Jessie was short with her friend.
“I’m sorry, Astrid, we just can’t.”
“Oh, you two. Busy, busy, busy. I’ve tried to reach you all week, and you haven’t been in the shop.” Shit.
“I know. I had some work to do here, and I’m helping Ian … edit his book.”
“That sounds like fun.”
“Yeah. Sort of.” But her voice didn’t carry the lie well. “I’ll give you a call sometime next week. But thanks for the invitation.” They blew kisses and hung up, and Jessica marveled at the fact that no one knew what was happening. It seemed remarkable that the newspapers hadn’t picked it up, but she had finally realized that what was happening to them was in no way extraordinary. There were a dozen cases like it every day. It was new to them, but not to the news business. And there were far juicier cases than theirs to pick from—except, of course, for the Pacific Heights angle, and Jessie’s exclusive boutique. It would destroy her business if it came out. But there didn’t seem to be any danger of that. No members of the press had appeared thus far, and there had been no interest shown at all. It was something to be grateful for. And she was. And Martin had promised that if some stray reporter did happen through, he’d call the paper and ask for their discretion. He felt sure that they’d co-operate with him. They had before.
Jessie felt bad about having cut Astrid short. They hadn’t seen her in a while, and they hadn’t seen their other friends in two months now. It would have been hard to face anyone. It was getting harder even to face Astrid. And it would have been impossible to confront the girls in the shop this week. Jessie had no intention of going near the place. She was afraid they’d read too much in her face. For the same reasons, Ian had been staying away from everyone he knew since the arrest. And he was content to lose himself in his book. The characters he’d invented kept him company.
And meanwhile, the bills continued to mount. Zina dropped off Jessie’s mail every day during the trial, and most of it was bills, including Harvey Green’s second bill, for another nine hundred dollars. And once again for nothing. It had been “in case” money—in case Margaret Burton had done something she shouldn’t have, in case something had turned up, in case … but nothing had. He had managed to come up with absolutely nothing. Until Sunday night, right after Jessie talked to Astrid.
The phone rang, and it was Martin. He and Green wanted to come right over. She woke Ian, and they were waiting, tensely, when the two men arrived. They were dying to know what Green had found out.
What he had was a photograph. Of Margaret Burton’s husband from the rapidly annulled marriage of almost twenty years before. The photograph could have been of Ian. The man in the picture was tall, blond, blue-eyed, with laughter in his face. He was standing next to an MG; it was of a much earlier vintage than the Morgan, but there was still a great deal of resemblance between the cars as well as the men. If you squinted, even a little, it looked like Ian and the Morgan. The man’s hair was shorter than Ian’s, his face was a little longer, the car was black instead of red … the details were off, but not by much. It was a shock just looking at the photograph. It told the entire story. Now they knew the why. And Martin’s first suspicion had been right. It must have been revenge.
The four of them sat in the living room in total silence. Green had gotten the photograph from a cousin of Miss Burton’s, a last-minute lead he’d decided to follow, just on a hunch. A damn good hunch, as it had turned out.
Schwartz heaved a sigh of what sounded like relief and leaned back in his chair. “Well, now we know. The cousin will testify?” But Green shook his head.
“Says she’ll take the Fifth, or lie. She doesn’t want to get involved. She said that Burton would kill her. You know, this woman, the cousin I mean, almost sounds as though she’s afraid of the Burton woman. Said she’s the most vindictive person she’s ever known. You gonna subpoena her?”
“Not if she’s going to take the Fifth on us. Did she tell you why the Burton woman annulled the marriage?” Martin was pensively chewing on a pencil as he asked the questions, while Ian and Jessica listened silently. Ian still held the photograph in his hand, and it made him exceedingly nervous. The likeness was startling.
“Peggy Burton didn’t annul the marriage. The husband did.”
Martin raised his eyebrows quickly. “Oh?”
“The cousin thinks Margaret was pregnant—just a guess,” Green went on. “She had just graduated from high school and was working in this guy’s father’s office, a law firm. Hillman and Knowles, no less.” Ian looked up and Martin whistled. “She married Knowles’s son. A kid named Jed Knowles. He was only in law school at the time, and was spending the summer working in his father’s office. He’s the kid in the picture.” Green waved vaguely at the snapshot still resting in Ian’s hand.
“Anyway, they got married in a big hurry, but very quietly, at the end of the summer. And the father made a real stink that nothing be made public, no announcement of the marriage, no nothing. The Burton girl’s parents were both living in the Midwest, so she didn’t have any family out here except the cousin, who isn’t even sure if they ever lived together. They just got married, and the next thing she remembers is that Margaret was in the hospital for a couple of weeks. She thinks she might have had a complicated abortion, miscarriage, something. Knowles had the marriage annulled right after that, and Margaret was out of a husband, out of a job, and maybe out of a baby. She had kind of a nervous breakdown, it sounds like, and spent three months in a Catholic retreat house. I went back to check out the retreat house, but it was torn down twelve years ago, and the sisters of that order are now located in Kansas, Montreal, Boston, and Dublin. Not very likely we’d find any records on it, and if we did they’d be privileged anyway.”
“What about the Knowles boy? Did you check him out?”
“Yeah.” Green didn’t look pleased. “He married some debutante, with a big splash and a lot of noise, at Thanksgiving of that year. Parties, showers, announcements in all the papers. The clippings at the Chronicle said that they’d been engaged for over a year, which was obviously why Papa Knowles didn’t want any publicity when sonny boy married the Burton girl.”
“Did you talk to Knowles?”
Green nodded unhappily. “He and his bride crashed in a two-engine plane seventeen months later. The father died of a heart attack this summer, and his mother is traveling in Europe, no one seems to know where.”
“Terrific.” Martin scowled and started to gnaw on his pencil again. “Any brothers and sisters? Friends who might know what happened? Anyone?”
“It’s a dead end, Martin. No brothers and sisters. And who’d remember now, among his friends? Jed Knowles has been dead for eighteen years. That’s a hell of a long time.”
“Yeah. A long time to carry a grudge. Shit. We have it all wrapped up, and we don’t have a fucking goddam thing. Nothing.”
“What do you mean, nothing?” It was the first time Ian had spoken since seeing the photograph. He had been listening closely to the other men’s exchange. “It sounds like we’ve got everything.”
“Yes.” Martin rubbed his eyes slowly with one hand and then opened them again. “And nothing we can use in court. It’s all guesswork. That’s all it is. What we have here is undoubtedly the truth, and the full psychological explanation of why Margaret Burton has accused you of rape. You look just like some rich man’s son who got her pregnant, married her, probably made her have an abortion, and then ditched her and married his high-society girlfriend a few weeks later. Miss Burton met the handsome prince and then he shat on her. Back to Cinderella again. And she’s been out to get him for twenty years. Which is probably why she hasn’t tried to hit you two for money. She doesn’t want money. She wants revenge. She probably got a little money out of it the first time. Money is too easy for some people.” Jessica rolled her eyes at the remark and Ian gestured to her to keep still.
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“The point is, she’d rather see you go to prison than hit you for bucks. In her mind, you’re just another Jed Knowles, and you’re going to take it for him. You look like him to a frightening degree, your car looks like his, you probably even sound like him, for all we know. And she probably spotted you at Enrico’s months ago. You’re a regular. She may well have set you up from beginning to end. But the problem is that we can’t prove that in court.” He turned back to Green. “You’re sure the cousin won’t testify willingly?”
“Positive.” Green was curt and emphatic. Martin shook his head.
“Wonderful. And that, Ian, is why we can’t prove a goddam thing in court. Because a hostile witness who takes the Fifth Amendment would ruin you faster than never having her on the stand at all. And besides, even if she took the stand, we couldn’t prove any of this. All we could prove is that Burton married Knowles, and shortly thereafter Knowles had the marriage annulled. The rest is pure conjecture, hearsay, guesswork. That doesn’t hold up in court, Ian, not without solid proof. The prosecution would have the whole theory thrown out of court in ten minutes. You and I now know what probably happened, but we could never prove that to the jury, not without someone to testify that she was pregnant when Knowles married her, that she did have an abortion, that she did have a nervous breakdown, that someone heard her swear to take revenge. And how’re you going to prove all that, even if the cousin did take the stand? What we have here, I’m afraid, is the truth, and no way to prove it.”
Jessica felt tears burning her eyes as she listened, and Ian was paler than she’d ever seen him. He looked almost gray.
“So what do we do now?”
“We give it a try, and we pray. I’ll call Burton for redirect and see how much she’ll admit to. And how much they’ll let us get away with. But it won’t be much, Ian. Don’t count on anything.”
Green left a few moments later with a quiet handshake in the hall for Martin, and a shake of the head: “I’m sorry.” Martin nodded, and left a few moments later.
The trial continued on Monday, and Martin recalled Margaret Burton to the stand. Had she been married to Jed Knowles? Yes. For how long? Two and a half months. Ten weeks? Yes. Ten weeks. Was it true that she had to marry him because she was pregnant? Absolutely not. Did she have a nervous breakdown … objection! … overruled! … did she have a nervous breakdown after the marriage was annulled? No. Never. Didn’t the defendant bear a striking resemblance to Mr. Knowles? No. Not that she had noticed. Had Mr. Knowles remarried almost immediately after … objection! Sustained, with an admonition to the jury to disregard the previous line of questioning. The judge warned Martin about asking irrelevant questions and badgering the witness, and Jessica noticed that Margaret Burton was silent and pale but totally poised. Almost too much so. She found herself praying that the woman would lose control, would disintegrate on the stand and scream and shriek and destroy herself by admitting that she had wanted to destroy Ian because he looked like Jed Knowles. But Margaret Burton did none of those things. She was excused from the stand. And Jessica never saw her again.
Late that afternoon Martin asked Ian to drum up two friends to attest to his character and morals. Like Jessie’s testimony it was going to be considered biased, but character witnesses never hurt. Ian agreed to ask a couple of people, but there was a look of despair in his eyes that it killed Jessica to watch. As though Margaret Burton had already won. She had simply slipped away. Dropped her bomb and left, leaving them with a photograph as explanation.
Ian hated having to explain to anyone what was happening, and in recent years he had not been as close to his friends as he once had. His writing seemed to devour more and more of his time, his energy, his devotion. He wanted to finish another book, to sell it, to “make it,” before he went back to hanging around bars with old buddies; he needed to do something, be something, build something first. He was tired of explaining about rejections, and agents, and rewrites. So he stopped explaining. He stopped seeing them. And the rest of the time he spent with Jessie. She had a way of making herself an exclusive. She didn’t like sharing the time he could spare from the studio.
That night, he called a writer he knew and a classmate from college, a stockbroker who had also moved to the West. They were stunned about the charges, sympathetic, and anxious to help. Neither of them was overly fond of Jessie, but they felt bad for both of them. The writer felt that Jessie wanted too much of Ian, that she was too clinging and didn’t leave him enough space to write in. The college friend had always thought Jessie too headstrong. She wasn’t their kind of woman.
But the two men made pleasant, clean-cut appearances on the stand. The writer, wearing tweeds, testified that he had recently won an award and published three stories in The New Yorker and a hardcover novel. He was respectable, as writers went. And he spoke well on the stand. The college friend made an equally pleasing impression in a different vein. Solid, upper-middle-class, respectable family man, “known Ian for years,” hip hip, tut tut, rah rah. They both did what they could, which wasn’t much.
On Tuesday afternoon the judge dismissed them all early, and Ian and Jessie came home to relax.
“How are you holding up, babe? I can’t say either of us looks like much lately.” He smiled ruefully and opened the icebox. “Want a beer?”
“Make it a case.” She kicked off her shoes and stretched. “Jesus, I’m sick of that shit. It just goes on and on and on and … and I feel like I haven’t sat down and talked to you for a year.” She took the beer from him and went to lie down on the couch. “Besides which, I’m running out of polite clothes to wear.” She was wearing an ugly brown tweed suit that she had had since her college days in the East.
“Fuck it. Go in wearing a bikini tomorrow. By now the jury deserves something to look at.”
“You know, I thought the trial would be a lot more dramatic. It’s funny that it isn’t.”
“The case isn’t all that dramatic. Her word against mine as to who screwed whom and why, where, and for what. By now, I don’t even feel uncomfortable with you there, listening to the testimony.” Now that Margaret Burton was no longer in court.
“It doesn’t bother me much either, except I want to laugh every time someone says ‘an infamous crime against nature.’ It seems so overdone.” They laughed easily for the first time in a long time. As they relaxed in the familiar charm of their living room, the trial seemed like a bad joke. Somebody else’s bad joke.
“Want to go to a movie, Jessie?”
“You know something? I’d love to.” The tension was beginning to drain away. They had decided that they had it made, even without solid proof that Margaret Burton was a freak looking for revenge on a man who had been dead for almost twenty years. So what? Ian was innocent. In the end, it was as simple as that. “Want to take Astrid with us, darling?”
“Sure. Why not?” He smiled and leaned over to kiss her. “But don’t call her for another half hour.” Jessie returned the smile and ran a finger slowly up his arm.
Astrid was delighted with the invitation and the three went to a movie that had them in tears, they all laughed so hard. It was just what Jessie and Ian needed.
“I was beginning to think I’d never see you two again. It’s been weeks! What have you been up to? Still working on the book?” They nodded in unison, changed the subject, and went out for coffee.
It was a pleasant evening that did them all good. And Astrid felt better now that she had seen them. Ian looked haggard and Jessica looked tired, but they looked happy again. Maybe whatever problem had been bothering them had been worked out.
Astrid reported having been in the boutique almost every day, and the fashion show had been a smash. Katsuko had done a great job. Astrid had even bought four or five things from the show, which Jessie told her was silly.
“That’s ridiculous. Don’t buy anymore when I’m not there. I’ll give you a discount when I’m in. Wholesale at least. And on some things I can sell to you at cost.�
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“That’s crazy, Jessica. Why should you sell things any cheaper to me? You might as well share the wealth!” She threw her arms wide in a flash of jewelry and the three of them laughed.
They drove her home in the Volvo, and when she asked about the Morgan, Jessica claimed that the engine had needed too much work. They all agreed that it was a shame.
“What a fabulous evening!” Jessica slid into bed with a smile, and Ian yawned, nodding happily. “I’m glad we went out.”
“So am I.”
She rubbed his back for him and they chatted about nothing in particular; it was the kind of talk they had always shared late at night. Casual mentions of the movie, thoughts about Astrid, Jessie noticed a small bruise on his leg and asked him how he’d gotten it, he told her never to cut her hair. Night talk. As though nothing untoward had ever happened to them. For once they even got some sleep, which was remarkable since Ian was to take the stand the next day.
Chapter 17
Ian’s testimony under direct examination lasted two hours. The jury looked a little more interested than they had in the previous days, but not much. And it was only during the last half hour that they actually seemed to wake up. It was Matilda Howard-Spencer’s turn to question him. She seemed to pace in front of Ian, as though thinking of something else, while all eyes in the courtroom stayed on her, particularly Ian’s. And at last she stopped, directly in front of him, crossed her arms, and tilted her head to one side.
“You’re from the East?” The question surprised him, as did the friendly look on her face.
“Yes. New York.”
“Where did you go to college?”
“Yale.”
“Good school.” She smiled at him, and he returned the smile. “I tried to get into their law school, but I’m afraid I didn’t quite make it.” She had gone to Stanford instead, but Ian couldn’t know that, and was suddenly baffled as to whether he was supposed to offer sympathy, silence, or a smile. “Did you do any graduate work?” She didn’t call him Ian, and she didn’t call him Mr. Clarke. She talked to him as though she knew him, or honestly wanted to. An interested dinner partner at a pleasant soirée.
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