Stealing Flowers

by Edward St Amant

  “You’re spending too much time with Hiro,” she said with a laugh and looked at her watch. “I’ve got to get ready for the party.” She kissed me and again we made out, exchanging our devotion, confusion, and love. I left with much undecided, but of course, in my heart, there was no choice but the one I’d already made. I’d a few drinks in the lounge bar and I entered the Imperial Ballroom a half hour later a little lightheaded. I spotted Mary and Stan up on a dais at the front of the room talking to Ken Roxton. Crystal-chandelier-light shone brightly down on the tables where huge vases of tall colorful floral-arrangements adorned the dinner settings. It was incredible and they were exquisite in themselves but sat on tables covered with white table cloths embroidered with intricate floral designs.

  The presence of everyone in gowns and tuxedos, the famous paintings on the wall of Angelo Vision, Mary’s favorite American painter, and the polished hardwood floor made me self-conscious for some reason. I sensed many people’s glances come my way. Once Sally stepped into the room, the attention would shift off me to her. I spotted Una and Isaac at a table to the right of the dais and headed in that direction but Barbara Read, the President of Tonal-Flex, intercepted me.

  She wore a long cherry-red silk dress accentuating her graceful figure. She was the youngest President at Tappets and a protégé of Mary’s, and friend of Sally’s. She’d come to Tappets years before from General Electric. Her short hair emphasized her angular features, but I thought that she’d generous soft eyes. She often did television spots for the Tappet financial reports on PBS, or other news stations. I’d heard she had been groomed for this by Sally. “I’d like you to meet my husband,” she said introducing a tall man with short curly hair, who vigorously shook my hand. I instantly liked him.

  “Do you work with Tappets?” I asked.

  “I’m a journalist with the Chicago Tribune. Can I get you a drink?”

  “That would be fine, a ginger ale.”

  I sensed a flood of faces trying to get my attention. I saw Donna Wader, the head of Thorp-Tools and her husband, and nodded in their direction. I caught others at the bar or near the piano. I saw Kyoto Takeshi, head of Tappet Tapes and his lover, a beautiful Chinese woman who I’d seen before, but whose name I couldn’t remember. “Look at Hiro,” Barbara said, “his suit’s probably worth five g’s.”

  “You’re not part of the fan club?”

  “The Euro-Asian sections are reporting some of the best earnings in the company,” she said. “Of course I am.”

  I laughed and her husband passed me a drink. I watched silently as a gathering of police literally bustled up to Mary and Stan. “I wonder what’s happened?” Barbara said softly.

  “Something’s wrong,” I returned handing her husband back my drink. “Excuse me.”

  I stepped up to the dais where the podium and speakers were located. Una sobbed uncontrollably. “What’s wrong?” I asked Stan in alarm.

  I sensed the crowd gasping in shock, but the noise of collective surprise receded as I clued in, but a stranger interrupted Stan’s answer: A lanky pale man in an crumply grey suit came straight to me. “Are you Christian Tappet?” he asked me.

  This question seemed to silence everybody except Una. “Dad, what is it?” I asked, ignoring the man.

  “Sally’s dead!”

  The words hit so hard, that I felt nothing at first. “That can’t be,” I said, “we just had a meeting upstairs.”

  “Excuse me,” the man interrupted again, “I am Detective Fred Newel, NYPD Homicide.” He flashed his badge. “Could I speak with you in private for a moment?” I looked at him crossly. “Let me have a word with my parents.”

  He stepped aside, though still within ear-shot. “She’s been murdered,” Mary whispered and hugged me. “She’s been shot to death. They’ve killed her, the bastards. They’ve killed her! We should have had Peter protecting her. It’s my fault.”

  Stan put his hand on my shoulder, but his attention drew to the homicide detective. He spoke in an angry tone of voice which I hadn’t heard for years, if ever. “What do you want?”

  “Excuse me, Mr. Tappet,” the officer said, “your son saw her last. We need to talk with him right away.”

  Stan took a step forward so that he stood in the detective’s personal space. “Apparently, he wasn’t the last one to see her.” Stan quickly looked around. “Ken, I saw Sasha somewhere. Will you go get her?” Ken sped off.

  “Who is she?” Detective Newel asked.

  “A company lawyer who’s done some criminal work.”

  Fred Newel rubbed his mustache and scratched his forehead. “We don’t need her at this point.”

  “Take us to our daughter!” Dad demanded.

  “That’s not possible,” the detective returned.

  I looked from Stan to the detective. “You better not wonder about me because of my meeting with Sally tonight,” I whispered to myself, but he stared at me with what could only be interpreted as open disdain.

  Then Mary suddenly collapsed in Una’s arms and Isaac drove us back home. We all stayed up, excepting Mary who was sedated, crying for the most part. In the following days, for some reason, I shrank inside with fear. No amount of telling could account for the following hours, even days. They were horrible. The First Law of Life for those born unlucky, especially orphans, which in my stupidity I’d forgotten all about again, came down hard. The night of the murder Detective Newel had indeed threatened to charge me with Sally’s murder if I didn’t talk to them. I was prepared to do so, but Sasha Washington convinced me at the time, she was at the party, to wait until I had a more experienced lawyer in our camp.

  I couldn’t sleep that night and was up the next morning, groggy and depressed, hoping the nightmare had ended, but of course that was just the dream of a child. Hours prior to her murder, I had committed an old, even ancient sin, and I was afraid it would soon come out. Who would believe that it happened just that once. The day started with never-ending phone calls, most of condolences, but several of them were important. We received a call from Peter saying that the investigator had found blood on Sally’s remains which wasn’t hers, and sperm and hair samples. Una and Mary left to make the funeral arrangements.

  I realized that if they’d a sperm sample, it would be mine and that I should tell Mary and Stan that Sally and I had slept together that night. Stan took me down to the police station with Sasha Washington, and other lawyers. They took hair and blood samples from me which I willingly gave. Perhaps Stan had used his influence to get a change of attitude. I met with this big guy who everyone called the Fatman, or Fats, Detective Jack Cramer, a detective with sparse thin grey hair, near baldness, labored breath, and intelligent eyes. His view of me seemed much more benign.

  “I loved my sister,” I told him. “We already know who killed her. It wasn’t me.”

  “Who?” he said.

  “The Family of Truth.”

  I told him the whole story, including the sordid deal in the room hours before the murder. He sighed when he heard I was sleeping with Sally, and even I explained the situation in its historical terms and that I wasn’t direct blood, his estimation of me seemed to falter. Acting on his advice, and ignoring both Stan and Sasha’s objections, I took two separate polygraphs administered by two different professionals. Fats supervised them and when they were done, gave me a smile and patted me on the back. “Go mourn for your Sally, kid,” he whispered. “We’ll get the bad guys.”

  I didn’t miss that he’d called her my Sally, not my sister; my instinct that day was to co-operate 100% with Fats. I trusted him implicitly and he radiated goodness. Before I left, I ran into Detective Newel. “Confessed, have you?” he asked with an evil smile.

  “How did a janitor get promoted to Detective?” I returned. Dad was by my side and he gave me one of his best frowns. Detective Newel stared me down with a look that can only be described as pure hate. It was creepy.

  On the way home, I told Stan what had happened between Sally
and I the night of her murder. Whatever his reaction was, he completely hid it. We arrived home to thousands of arrangements or wreaths or flower arrangements, but if it hadn’t been for the sheer quantity, I would have missed it. I was clued out. However, the amount was simply mind-boggling, and the phone calls, and the house calls, never ended. Una was run off her feet, but I cornered her in the pantry at one point and broke the news of my indiscretion. She paled.

  “This news might make you an enemy of Mary; she’s no Stan! She forbid you one thing and you did it.”

  “This isn’t the Garden of Eden,” I shot back, “and she isn’t God!”

  “This is nearly Eden and she’s almost God.”

  I went straight to my room without telling Mary, and in my room, I watched reruns of Happy Days and The Mary Tyler Moore Show. I was reading, The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit, by Sloan Wilson. The book was very disturbing because I felt I was fighting a war too and needed a woman, a partner, to survive. I loved Sally, but I knew my situation. I needed a stunning woman to stand beside me personally and publicly; I phoned Susan Zucker and left a message, but my heart was heavier than lead. To be truly free in this world seemed impossible. We were collectivists and fascists. Being human wasn’t such a fantastic thing. So much evil existed that living in dignity and peace appeared hopeless. Una, Mary, and Stan’s dream of universal peace seemed like an illusion. Unlike them, people were ignorant and did bad things. I had disobeyed the only people that ever cared for me. What was that? How was it possible? Are humans so brittle; so hollow at the core? I despaired.

  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.”