A Season in Purgatory

by Dominick Dunne

  “Yes.”

  “They all say you are making this up.”

  “Do you think I am, Charlotte?”

  She shook her head slowly. “Imagine if they find him guilty,” she said. “Imagine if they put him in prison. I haven’t a clue how I’ll play that scene.”

  “Do you still love him?” I asked.

  “I am attracted to him from time to time, but I don’t love him. I haven’t loved him for a long time. He is incapable of deep affection for another person.”

  When Constant entered the courtroom, there was a gasp from the audience even though they had seen him each day sitting at the defense table. He was dressed in a gray flannel suit, a blue shirt, and a red tie. He walked elegantly and eagerly to the witness box, as if it were the moment he had been waiting for, rather than dreading.

  “How are you feeling, Mr. Bradley?” asked Valerie Sabbath.

  “I am a little nervous, but I am also looking forward to this moment on the stand. I have lived with this terrible accusation for over a year now, and I relish and cherish the opportunity to free my name so that I may return to the business of my life,” said Constant.

  “Were you drinking that night, Mr. Bradley?” she asked.

  “I had taken a few drinks, yes,” he answered. He turned and spoke directly to the jury. “Earlier in the day, the family had been talking about our brother Kev. He was killed in Vietnam. We were remembering the last time we had been together as a family, before Kev went off to fight for his country. He didn’t have to go, you know. He hadn’t been drafted. He volunteered.”

  The jury watched Constant, mesmerized.

  “What sort of day had it been?”

  “It was a family day, and we talked about our sister Agnes. Agnes is a retarded person. She has today the mind of a ten-year-old. She has been for years at an institution in Cranston, Maine. But we think about Agnes and love her and talk of her often. It was a day for reminiscences about Kev and Agnes, our missing members.”

  A Mrs. Perez in the front row of the jury box wiped a tear away from her eye with a Kleenex. Watching Constant on a television set in the prosecutor’s office, I wondered why Bert Lupino did not raise an objection.

  “Afterwards, when the family dispersed, I offered to take my sisters Mary Pat and Kitt to The Country Club for dinner. I wanted to shake off the depression of the conversation about Kev and Agnes.”

  “Was there anyone else with you?”

  “Yes, Harrison Burns. He was a frequent guest in our house at that time. My father paid his tuition at our school.”

  “You went to the club with your sisters and Mr. Burns?”

  “Yes. I was underage, and the waitress, Ursula, whom we have known at the club for years, quite rightly would not serve me a drink, so I went into the bar in the men’s locker room and bribed the bartender, Corky, to give me a few drinks. It was wrong, yes, and it compromised Corky, who could have lost his job, but I wanted to shake off the depression of the afternoon and make a cheerful evening for my sisters, who were returning to the Sacred Heart Convent the next day.”

  “Did you ask Winifred Utley to dance?”

  “No. Winifred Utley asked me to dance. I was leaving the club with my sisters when she came up to me and asked me.”

  “Is it true that you said to Miss Utley, ‘Do you mind dancing with a man with an erection?’ ” asked Valerie Sabbath.

  “I did, yes. It was meant to be funny. It was, in fact, funny at the time, in a teenage way, but I realize how appalling it sounds now, all these years later, in view of what happened to Winifred. I cringe every time I hear the line repeated in this courtroom, but yes, I did say it.”

  “Did you ask Winifred to go home with you?”

  “Yes. But she said she had come with Billy Wadsworth and that she would go home with him.”

  “To the best of your knowledge, did Billy Wadsworth take Winifred home?”

  “I believe Mr. Wadsworth, Billy’s father, drove them home. I don’t think Billy had a driver’s license then. A group of people from the dance went to the Wadsworth house for Cokes.”

  “Had you made an arrangement with Winifred to meet her after she left the Wadsworth house?”

  “I did.”

  “Tell us what happened.”

  “When I got there, she was already dead. I saw her lying there.”

  “Why did you not tell that to the police?”

  “I thought they wouldn’t believe me. It is one of the sadnesses of my life that I did not.”

  Watching Constant on the television monitor in the prosecutor’s office, I marveled at the facility with which he told his story. I believe now that Constant had the ability to forget. It wasn’t that he was out-and-out lying so much as that he had convinced himself that what he was saying was the truth.

  “Where is Father Murphy?” asked Maureen. “He is supposed to be here for the closing arguments.”

  “Father Murphy has declined to be present.”

  “I don’t believe it. After all the money my mother gave to that parish.”

  “He has declined.”

  “What about Father Burke?”

  “We have heard from Vincent Corcoran, or Corky, as he is called, who was, at the time of the murder, the bartender in the men’s locker room at The Country Club, that Constant Bradley drank six vodka drinks in the space of half an hour,” said Bert Lupino in his closing arguments. “What he drank when he went back to his house is a matter of conjecture. He was annoyed that Winifred Utley would not dump the young man she had gone to the dance with, Billy Wadsworth, to go home with him. He called Billy Wadsworth ‘Pimple Face.’ Constant Bradley knew that Winifred Utley would pass that way on that path at the rear of the Bradley estate to get from the Wadsworth house to her own house on Varden Lane. It was the path used by all the young people in the neighborhood. There he waited in the dark for her. He was, uh …” He paused, searching for a word to describe Constant’s state at the time. “Lascivious,” he said finally. “But Constant Bradley has a problem. Constant Bradley is a man who talked a great deal about erections, but Constant Bradley is a man who could not maintain an erection.”

  Constant, listening, remained impassive in expression, but there was a slight coloring of his face. Watching him, I knew his heart was beating fast inside him. I knew that for him it was the worst sort of revelation. I knew that he knew it was I who had told that to Bert Lupino.

  “And with the loss of that erection came rage, the kind of rage that causes a man, a certain kind of man, that is, to strike a woman, as if the blame for his sexual inadequacy was hers, not his. It is the kind of rage that could cause a man, a certain kind of man, that is, to kill, to pick up a baseball bat that happened to be lying there near that path and strike the head of an innocent woman over and over again until she was dead. This is a man who could then calmly, in the presence of her dead body, use the shirttail of his Brooks Brothers shirt to wipe the fingerprints off the baseball bat with which he had killed her. I ask you, I beseech you, to find this man guilty of this terrible crime, which his family’s wealth, power, and privilege have managed to keep hidden for almost twenty years.”

  It was Bert Lupino’s finest hour.

  “He’ll get off,” said Fatty Malloy. “It’s not even his word against hers. It’s only his word, and the Bradley machine. Don’t tell me any Bradley is ever going to spend a night behind bars. It doesn’t work that way in the American system.”

  “Then what will happen?” I asked.

  “They’ll get him out of the country. He’ll show up in Taiwan or Brazil, doing good works for the poor. All will be forgiven. All will be forgotten.”

  “There are two Italians, two Poles—or Lithuanians, one or the other, I can never tell—and a Puerto Rican mother of six. A couple of Jews. A black lady. But it’s the first group I’m interested in. They’re probably Catholics. I assume they’ll be going to Mass on Sunday at St. Monica’s.”

  “Yes?” said Constant.

>   “I thought I’d try to find out what Mass they will be going to.”

  “Where is this leading, Jerry?” asked Constant.

  “I thought you should go to the same Mass, with Charlotte and the children, and all receive Communion and, of course, take no notice of the jury, as if you have no idea they are there. You know, rosary beads, missals, the works. It’s bound to make a favorable impression.”

  Constant laughed. “Charlotte will never agree to that.”

  “Yes, she will.”

  18

  The jury is in its third day of deliberation. Early in the day, the jury foreman requested from Judge Edda Consalvi that the testimony of Bridey Gafferty, the Bradlys’ cook, be read back to them, and in the afternoon the foreman asked to see the baseball bat, which had no fingerprints on it, and the autopsy pictures of Winifred Utley’s bludgeoned body, the pictures that had caused so much distress to Winifred’s mother, Luanne Utley, when they were presented as exhibits by the prosecutor. After both requests, there was much comment in the press corps and, as always in this case, much diversity of opinion. The air was charged with tension. Judge Consalvi had proved to be a martinet. The previous day she had ordered the bailiff to oust from her courtroom the reporter from Newsweek after he had grinned broadly and snickered when the court reporter reread Billy Wadsworth’s statement that the defendant, Constant Bradley, after moving in on his date at the club dance, said to Winifred Utley, “Do you mind dancing with a man with an erection?”

  During the three days the jury was out, Constant Bradley wandered up and down the crowded corridors of the courthouse, behaving like a genial host, elaborately friendly, moving from one group of reporters to another. He had an astonishing ability to remember reporters’ names and to comment on what they had written about the case, often with wit. Great whoops of laughter were frequently heard in the vicinity where he was. “I really like the guy,” you heard over and over again, even from those who suspected that he was guilty.

  At twenty minutes before five on the third day of deliberation, the door of the jury room opened, and the foreman informed the bailiff that the jury had arrived at a verdict. The bailiff carried the word to Judge Edda Consalvi in her chambers, where she was waiting. Valerie Sabbath and Bert Lupino were informed in their offices in the building. Many of the principals and much of the media had dispersed to coffeehouses and bars in the neighborhood of the courthouse. Runners were sent to fetch them. Constant Bradley, his wife, Charlotte, and his sisters and brothers were waiting in the special room on the fourth floor that they had used throughout the trial. I was in the prosecutor’s office. Forty-five minutes later, everyone who needed to be present was seated in the courtroom. Constant looked tense and withdrawn.

  “Everyone rise,” called out the bailiff.

  Judge Consalvi entered and took her seat behind the bench.

  “Would you bring in the jury, please,” Judge Consalvi said to the bailiff.

  They entered. By then, I knew all their names. It was impossible to read anything on their faces, although they looked like people who had a secret that they were not going to share. The minutes seemed like hours.

  Judge Consalvi cleared her throat. She warned the court that there were to be no demonstrations, no cheers, no boos, no noise of any kind when the verdict was read. She warned the court that appropriate measures would be taken if there was any violation of her order. She then turned to the jury.

  “Members of the jury, have you arrived at a verdict?”

  The foreman rose. “We have, Your Honor.”

  The television set in Gerald Bradley’s room had been on the whole day. At times, Gerald dozed off in his hospital-size electrically operated bed. He had waited for three days.

  “Uncle Gerald!” cried Sis Malloy. There was joy in her voice. She picked up his hand, translucently white, and shook it gently to arouse him as she called into his ear. “Uncle Gerald. The verdict is in. Can you hear me, Uncle Gerald? The verdict. They have found Constant innocent! Your son, your beloved Constant, is innocent. Innocent. Innocent!” She almost shouted the words into Gerald’s ear.

  Gerald, awakening, listened. In the year of his illness, he had aged greatly. His sight was failing. His interest in living was waning.

  Every telephone line in the house had started to ring. Below, in the main part of the house, screams of delight could be heard from the maids watching the television set in the servants’ dining room. “We knew. We always knew,” they could be heard screaming. “Yay, Constant!”

  “Can you hear them down below, Uncle Gerald?” cried Sis. “It’s the maids downstairs. They are rejoicing. Can you hear?”

  A slight smile appeared at one corner of his mouth.

  She looked out the window. “The reporters at the end of the drive are all jumping up and down, Uncle Gerald. Look, look, Uncle Gerald, at the television set. Let me hold you up. Constant is coming out of the courtroom. The people are cheering for him. Look, Uncle, he’s going to speak. He’s going to the microphones to speak to the people. Can you see? Can you hear?”

  Gerald, watching, listening, held up by his niece, suddenly felt conscious of an aloofness from everything earthly. He felt a lightness of existence. He knew his moment was at hand. He knew he was about to pass on. He felt not the joy that Cardinal had told him to expect at this moment but fear. He grasped Sis Malloy’s hand. He looked in her eyes. He told her things. He knew that he had not been good. He had cheated men. He had mixed with bad people. He had been responsible for Johnny Fuselli’s death. His wife had barely spoken to him for years. His children were imperfect and unhappy. And now, his youngest son, his favorite child, had been found innocent of a murder he had committed.

  Despite Judge Consalvi’s admonitions, despite her commands for propriety in her courtroom, despite the efforts of the bailiffs, jubilation reigned. There were shouts of joy and applause and stamping of feet and Indian war whoops, in the manner of the behavior at Bradley weddings. “Sit down, sit down, Mrs. Tierney,” Judge Consalvi screamed at Maureen. “Sit down, Father Burke!” Valerie Sabbath ignored the judge and embraced Constant and began a little dance around the defense table. “Sit down,” screamed Judge Consalvi. “You are still in my courtroom! I will hold you in contempt!” But they all ignored her. The trial was over. They didn’t need her anymore. They would never see her again. She was history.

  Outside, in the corridor, Constant and I passed each other. I was alone. He was surrounded. For an instant, our eyes connected. For that same instant, his triumphant smile diminished. I felt I saw a flash of fear. Mine was a face he never wanted to look upon again. Then he was swept along in his victory march.

  I waited, pressed against a wall, until all the revelers had crowded into the elevators, and the corridor was quiet again. In a phone booth, I called Claire.

  “It’s over,” I said.

  “I know.”

  “How are the boys?”

  “Fine. They watched you on television after the verdict. They ran up to the screen and kept saying, ‘Daddy, Daddy.’ ”

  “They didn’t understand what it was all about, did they?”

  “No.”

  “Someday they will.”

  “I suppose. Are you all right, Harrison?”

  “I think so.”

  “I thought you looked remarkably well, considering. I wanted to tell you something.”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m proud of you, of what you did.”

  “I wondered if I could drive up tonight.”

  I had to go back to the prosecutor’s office to speak to Bert Lupino. He was devastated, I knew, poor fellow. Despite his stirring closing argument, he had been publicly scorned each day in the press and on television, his legal performance mocked by the sort of lawyers hired by networks and news services to comment on the case. He was decent. He was good. He was also too young, too fresh out of law school. He was simply outmatched by the ferocious Valerie Sabbath.

  As I walked along to his o
ffice, the door to the ladies’ room opened cautiously, as if the person inside was checking the activity in the corridor before emerging. Out came Luanne Utley. She had been a quiet and dignified presence during the trial, avoiding publicity as much as the Bradleys craved it. I could see that she had been crying, and probably hiding. She looked defeated and wan. The trial had aged her. We stopped. We looked at each other. We did not embrace. She shook her head slightly. I understood she didn’t want to discuss the verdict. There would be times in the future to do that. She simply touched my cheek with her hand and said, “Thank you, Harrison. I’ll never forget.”

  “Do you need help getting out of here?” I asked.

  “Oh, I do. I do. I can’t be besieged by those people with their cameras and their questions,” she said.

  “I know a way through the garage in the basement,” I said. “If you’ll just wait here three minutes while I say goodbye to Bert Lupino, I’ll get you out. They’ll be parked outside your apartment when you get back to New York, you know.”

  “Leverett and Louise Somerset have asked me to stay with them for a few days until it quiets down,” she replied.

  Although it was brisk and cold outside, Constant declined to wear the coat held out to him by Desmond. He always knew how he looked best. The wind blew his hair. He walked briskly to the bank of microphones. Behind him, his wife, his sisters, his brothers, and his lawyers stood. Valerie Sabbath was beaming. All were smiling. All were waving. There was joy on every face. The scene had the appearance of a political victory rather than of an acquittal for murder. Constant stood for a moment, forty television cameras trained on him. Then he raised his left arm and waved. A great cheer went up from the crowd outside the courthouse. When he raised his hands again to hush the crowd so that he could speak, they responded to his instruction.

  “There is an old saying of Saint Thomas Aquinas, quoted to me by my father from the time I was a child, that truth will always find its way. Always. And we always knew, my family and I, that truth would prevail. We never doubted, for even an instant, that the magnificence and fairness of the American judicial system would arrive at the verdict that was so obvious today. I have enough memories in my heart to last a lifetime. We have always been a very close family, and I wish now to thank my family: my wife, Charlotte, my mother, Grace Bradley, my father, Gerald Bradley, and my children, little Charlotte and Constant Junior, who, fortunately, are too young to understand this travesty that we have witnessed and been subjected to for the past six weeks, but their young lives have been horribly disrupted by it. And also, I would like to thank my brothers and sisters: Jerry, Des, Senator Sandro Bradley, Maureen Bradley Tierney, Mary Pat de Trafford, who has left her family behind in Paris to be here with me these past six weeks, and Kitt Bradley Chadwick, as well as my nieces and nephews. They are my family, my wonderful family, who have been for the whole of my life the most important element. And, of course, my most special thanks to Valerie Sabbath. Come up here, Valerie. I’m sure it’s you that these people want to talk to, not me. Thank you very much, everyone.” He waved again.