by Felix Baron
‘Andrew Carmichael has testified that Miss Sanders had told him about her stalker and had named him as a certain “Billie Blair” from Ridge River, who had been charged and convicted of attempted rape against Miss Sanders when she was much younger.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, there is no “Billie Blair” of Ridge River. There never was. Further, neither Mrs Carmichael nor her daughter, Penelope Sanders, has ever resided in that city. They hail from Seattle, Washington.
‘And then there are the photographs. I remind you that seven eight-by-ten photographic prints were found in Andrew Carmichael’s possession, concealed in his carry-all bag, and a further twenty-two were recorded on the memory card in his electronic camera. All of those pictures were taken by his camera, which he’d taken to university with him, so no one else could have used it. We know they were taken by that camera because there is a mark on the lens and that mark shows as a tiny flaw in each and every one of those twenty-nine pictures.
‘A young man, it might be argued, could well take twenty-nine pictures of the girl he loved. So he could. However, in none, not a single one, of those photographs, is Miss Sanders looking at the camera. They are all what photographers call, “candid” shots – pictures taken when the subject wasn’t posing, wasn’t even aware that a camera was pointed at her.’
Denis’s face showed his distaste for the topic he was forced to bring up next. ‘And the nature of those photographs? Suffice that I remind you of three in particular. Two of those three were secretly taken through partly open doors. A bedroom door. A bathroom door. Miss Sanders’s privacy was violated, in rooms where she fully expected privacy and was performing the most private and intimate acts.
‘The third of the photographs that deserve special mention was taken under a table, with the lens pointed up Miss Sanders’s skirt.’
He paused for a long moment to let the obscenity of that sink in. ‘Can you imagine? What sick mind would do such a thing – to the girl he claims he “loves”?
‘Andrew Carmichael tells us that he couldn’t have stalked Miss Sanders because he was away at university and had, in fact, never been to Long Island in his entire life, before that fatal day. Interesting. He’d never been anywhere near Sag Harbor, but there were banknotes in his possession, five new twenty-dollar bills, with consecutive serial numbers, bills that had been issued by a bank in Sag Harbor.
‘He has “explained” how those notes came into his possession. He tells us that Trixie Carmichael, his stepmother, mailed them to him, along with other bills totalling five hundred dollars, to pay his air-fare home. Think about that. Andrew Carmichael, the son of an extremely wealthy man, a millionaire in his own right, a man with over twenty-four thousand dollars in his current bank account and the bearer of four major credit cards, needed his stepmother to mail him a few dollars, in cash, to pay for his fare home. Not even in the form of a cheque, but in cash. Does that seem reasonable? Would you, ladies and gentlemen, tuck five hundred dollars in crisp new bills into an envelope and entrust it to the mails? Would you then, as Andrew Carmichael maintains Trixie Carmichael must have, forget that you had done so?
‘Further . . .’
Thirty-four
Trixie helped Penny out of her coat and hung it in the hall closet before taking her own off and putting it away. Both women were in mourning black – pumps, hose, skirts, blouses and hats. Trixie’s heels were half an inch higher than Penny’s. Her skirt was three inches longer. Trixie’s felt hat had a broad brim and a high crown and was decorated by a silk grosgrain ribbon that dangled down her back to below her waist. Her daughter’s hat was a simple cloche with a half-veil. Trixie reached up and plucked the long pin from Penny’s hat, took her cloche and set it on the hallstand, ready to be taken upstairs and returned to the box it had been kept in from the day after her father’s funeral to the day before Rolf’s death.
Trixie asked, ‘Is it time for drinks?’
‘Not yet, Mother. Later, perhaps.’
They strolled into the dining room. Trixie said, ‘Well, that went very well, I thought, though the judge’s summing up and directions to the jury seemed a little harsh on poor Andrew, don’t you think? He didn’t give them much choice but to find the boy guilty of murder in the first degree.’ She sat at the table.
Penny, standing behind her, said, ‘Judges don’t like rich white boys to commit parricide. Many of them have sons of their own, so it hits them where they’re vulnerable.’ Penny undid the bow around the crown of her mother’s hat and, holding the ribbon, took the hat off Trixie’s bubbly curls.
‘What will the sentence be, do you think?’
‘It might be death, though he’d never actually be executed. I’d guess twenty-five to life.’
‘Not more?’
‘He’s only been convicted of one murder, even it was of his Dad.’ Penny paused. ‘Hands, Mother?’
Trixie put her arms behind her, around the back of the chair, with her wrists crossed. ‘If that’s your guess, that’s good enough for me, Penny. You’re so clever when it comes to legal matters – cleverer than Rolf’s dead wife ever was. One might even say that it was she who made Andrew kill Rolf – by creating the situation.’
Penny wrapped silk ribbon around her mother’s arms and wrists, and tied a double knot. ‘Be fair, Mother. Rachel tied all the money up as securely as was legally possible.’ Penny’s nimble fingers undid Trixie’s blouse and spread it wide, baring her lush breasts.
‘What Rachel couldn’t do, and no one can, is to get around the legal principle that no one may benefit from a crime they commit.’ Penny’s fingers found her mother’s nipples and pinched them with crushing force. ‘That’s even more true,’ she continued, ‘when a son murders his father. So, with Andrew not able to inherit, that leaves just one possible heir to the Carmichael millions, you, Mother.’
Trixie winced at the torment her daughter was inflicting on her. Through the pain, she gasped, ‘You’re so clever, Penny.’
Penny released one of Trixie’s breasts to put her hand under her mother’s chin and tilt her parted lips up to meet her own. ‘Now shut up and kiss me.’
