Sandrine's Case Read online

  I released a long, weary sigh. “What do we do now?” I asked.

  “We celebrate, because we dodged a bullet,” Morty answered happily “Who knew what that old bat might say.”

  “I don’t feel like celebrating, Morty,” I said. “And actually, Mrs. Whittier is a pretty nice person.”

  Morty gave me grave look. “Nice? She would have handed them your balls on a silver platter.”

  I didn’t feel like arguing the point. “So back to my earlier question. What do we do now?”

  “Okay, well, in terms of the trial, we’ll go on just as we have been,” Morty answered. “A couple of more easy witnesses, then Singleton will go in for the kill.” He smiled again, but beneath the smile I could see that he was worried. “At that point, you’ll need to buckle up, because it’s going to be bumpy ride.”

  Call Lydia Wilson

  I’d earlier seen Lydia Wilson’s name on the witness list, of course, but when Morty asked me who she was I told him the truth and said I didn’t know. She was a travel agent, as it turned out, the owner of the only local agency to survive the Internet. From a later glance into the shop window of Armchair Travel, I’d gathered that it was one of those agencies that specialized in tours for the affluent elderly and which sought to make sure that no familiar creature comfort is sacrificed by the voyaging Coburnite just because he or she finds himself in a country with no running water or where the head of the losing candidate in the last election is displayed in the public square.

  It was just the sort of travel Sandrine would never have undertaken, a way, as she’d always said, of seeing nothing, feeling nothing, knowing nothing, and yet, according to what Morty had learned from Mr. Singleton, my wife had strolled into the Main Street office of Armchair Travel only two weeks before her death with travel on her mind.

  Until a couple of days before, when the searing possibility of Sandrine’s plot had hit me, I’d have accounted for this visit by allowing that Sandrine had briefly fallen into a dreamlike unreality. In that soft state of delusion she might understandably have sauntered into Armchair Travel, perhaps drawn by the picture of one of Greece’s sunny beaches, a photograph we’d glimpsed many times over the years and which had stood, more or less unchanged, in the agency’s window for as long as I could recall. I could imagine that Sandrine, once inside the agency’s modest storefront office and still floating in a nostalgic haze, might have mentioned to whomever she found inside that, long ago, when she was young, she’d traveled about the Mediterranean. She might even have said that she’d always hoped to do it again. But no amount of allowance for despair or delusion could account for the conversation to which Mrs. Lydia Wilson now testified under oath.

  “Mrs. Madison told me that she had visited many of the countries of the Mediterranean some years ago,” Mrs. Wilson told the court. “She had not been married at that time, she said.”

  In case the jury’s attention had waned during the preceding introductory questions and answers, Mr. Singleton made a dramatic couple of steps toward the jury box before turning back to face the witness.

  “At this point in your conversation, did Mrs. Madison then begin to talk to you about her husband?”

  “Yes, she did.”

  “In regard to what?”

  “In regard to that earlier trip,” Mrs. Wilson answered. “The one she’d made around the Mediterranean.”

  “With the man she would later marry,” Mr. Singleton said with a quick glance toward the jury. “The defendant, Samuel Madison.”

  “Yes,” Mrs. Wilson said. “She mentioned their visit to Alexandria, for example.”

  “Why that city in particular?” Mr. Singleton asked.

  “She said her daughter was named for the city, and she talked for a little while about her daughter.”

  “What did she say?”

  “That her daughter was a very kind person,” Mrs. Wilson answered. “That she was lucky to have such a daughter. She said that her daughter was very gifted.”

  “Gifted at what?”

  “At being a human being.”

  When I glanced back, I saw that Alexandria was reacting to this quite emotionally. In response, I gave her a quick, sympathetic smile but she only nodded crisply then returned her attention to the courtroom.

  “Did Mrs. Madison mention any other places with regard to her earlier travels?” Mr. Singleton asked.

  “She mentioned a town in France,” Mrs. Wilson said. “Albi. It’s near Toulouse, evidently. She mentioned the cathedral there and that she and her husband had ended their trip in that town. She said that they had been very happy then.”

  “Happy then?” Mr. Singleton asked pointedly. “As opposed to now?”

  Morty lifted his hand. “Objection, Your Honor, calls for a conclusion.”

  “Sustained,” Judge Rutledge said.

  “All right,” Mr. Singleton said. “Now, at one point, did Mrs. Madison mention any feelings with regard to her own life?”

  “Yes,” Mrs. Wilson continued. “She mentioned a playwright. He was a Roman playwright, she said. His name was Terence. She said that he had died at twenty-five but that all his work, his plays, had survived. She said she felt lucky in that she had lived longer than Terence, and that she hoped some of her work would also survive.”

  “Her work?”

  “As a teacher and a mother.”

  “And as a wife?”

  “As a wife, she thought she had failed.”

  “Failed?” Mr. Singleton repeated with emphasis. “In what way?”

  “She didn’t say,” Mrs. Wilson answered. “I could see that she was becoming quite upset. She didn’t exactly cry but she was on the verge of crying. And so she got off that subject and started talking again about that earlier trip.”

  “And with regard to that earlier trip, did Mrs. Madison mention one place in particular.”

  “She mentioned several places.”

  “But one of those mentions you found somewhat disturbing, isn’t that true, Mrs. Wilson?”

  “Yes.”

  “What place was that?”

  “Siracusa,” Mrs. Wilson answered. “It’s in Sicily.”

  “Why did Mrs. Madison’s mention of that place disturb you?”

  The witness’s eyes cut over to me, then just as quickly away.

  “Because Mrs. Madison said that Siracusa was the place where her husband had first threatened to kill her.”

  “Threatened to kill her . . . the first time,” Mr. Singleton said with another dramatic step toward the jury.

  “The first time, yes.”

  “Did Mrs. Madison elaborate on that threat?”

  “No, she didn’t,” Mrs. Wilson answered.

  So here it was, I thought, the moment to which Mrs. Wilson’s testimony had all along been heading, Samuel Madison a husband who had perhaps many times threatened to kill his wife, Siracusa having been only the “first” time. How could the jury not think that I’d finally decided actually to do it?

  Given the impression Mrs. Wilson’s testimony had obviously made on the jury, it didn’t surprise me that Mr. Singleton found no need to add more.

  “No further questions, Your Honor,” he said.

  Morty rose from his chair, walked to the lectern, smiled amiably at Mrs. Wilson, then said, “During this conversation did Mrs. Madison indicate that she was intending to leave her husband?”

  “No.”

  “Did she indicate that she was having any trouble with her marriage?”

  “No.”

  “Did she indicate that she had an unhappy home?”

  “No.”

  “So you had no reason to fear for Mrs. Madison’s safety, did you?”

  “No, I did not.”

  “Mrs. Wilson, are you married?
”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “So am I,” Morty said with a carefully groomed downhome grin. “But some days I don’t exactly get along with my wife. Is that true of you and your husband?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Have you ever been really mad at your husband, Mrs. Wilson?”

  “It happens.”

  “So your answer is yes, you have gotten mad at your husband, correct?”

  “I have gotten mad at him, yes.”

  Morty stepped closer to the jury and scanned their faces. “Is it your experience, Mrs. Wilson, that most married people get mad at each other from time to time?”

  “Yes.”

  “And sometimes they say things they don’t mean, isn’t that true?”

  “I suppose they do.”

  Morty turned slowly toward the witness. “Mrs. Wilson, have you ever thought, when you were mad at your husband, have you ever thought, ‘Boy, I could just kill that guy’?”

  Briefly, Mrs. Wilson hesitated, but in the end she told the truth. “Yes.”

  Morty smiled. “Thank you, Mrs. Wilson,” he said. “I have no further questions.”

  As Morty made his way to his seat, I glanced back at Alexandria, found her seat empty, and so looked farther back, toward the rear of the courtroom, my gaze still searching for her, but she was gone.

  Losing My Case

  We went back into the usual conference room, where I hoped to find Alexandria waiting for me, but she hadn’t appeared. For that reason, I went immediately to the window, glanced out into the parking lot, and saw her standing beside our car, her back quite stiff as she leaned against it, her arms folded over her chest.

  “I’m losing my case,” I said quietly.

  “What case?” Morty scoffed. “Singleton has no case and he knows it.”

  “I mean, with Alexandria,” I said.

  Morty came over and looked out the window. “She’ll get through it,” he assured me.

  With a gentle movement, he nudged me from the window, then over to the table, where we took our seats, facing each other like two poker players who were still unsure of each other’s games.

  “Well, I don’t think the little heart-to-heart your wife had with Mrs. Wilson was all that incriminating,” he said. “But what the hell could have been on your wife’s mind, going into that travel agency?”

  “Sandrine mentioned us going on a trip,” I told him.

  “Really?” Morty asked. “When?”

  “Not long after her diagnosis.”

  “You should have told me about that,” Morty said.

  “I’d forgotten it, I suppose,” I said. “She wanted us to retrace the one we’d made when we were young.”

  “So it was just an idea she had?”

  “Yes, and she dropped it right away, I suppose, because I never heard anything else about it.” I offered a small, helpless shrug. “It never occurred to me that she’d continued to think about.”

  “Maybe she expected you to bring it up,” Morty said.

  “I suppose she did,” I said quietly. “And I should have.”

  Morty nodded. “It’s the business of you threatening your wife in that other place that was the point, of course,” he said. “I couldn’t find any way to counter that except to make the jury realize that people have spats, they think bad thoughts, but they don’t do anything about them.” He seemed still to be searching for a better way. “But I have to admit that threat business didn’t play well with the jury,” he added. “I could see it in their eyes. It’s not evidence, exactly, but it works like evidence, because it seems like your wife was sort of crying out for help, if you know what I mean.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know what Sandrine was doing.”

  “You didn’t threaten to kill her when you two were at that place?” Morty asked.

  “Yes, but it was a joke,” I told him “We were at the Ear of Dionysius and I whispered, ‘I’m going to kill you.’”

  “Jesus,” Morty moaned.

  “That’s all it was,” I said.

  “That’s not the way it sounds, Sam,” Morty said darkly. “Not the way your wife made it sound, I mean.”

  I returned my gaze to the window, where Alexandria remained in place, slumped against the car, looking drained.

  Morty made no effort to draw me back but I knew he was watching me closely. Finally, he said, “Sam, what’s on your mind?”

  I shook my head. “I can’t, Morty.”

  He leaned toward me. “You can’t what?”

  “Tell you what I’m thinking.”

  “I think you better,” Morty said firmly. “Because I can see that it’s important.”

  “I can’t.”

  Morty turned me to face him. “You shouldn’t keep anything from me, Sam, no matter what it is.”

  I thought a moment, then said, “It can never leave this room.”

  “Okay.”

  “No, I mean it, Morty. What I tell you, you can never use it in court, never.”

  Morty’s face turned solemn. “You have my word.”

  For the next few minutes, I laid out all the pieces that had come together in my case, the “suicide note” that had been no such thing, Sandrine’s back injury, of which the autopsy had found no sign, my later call to Dr. Ortins, the way Sandrine had always had a reason for not picking up or signing for the Demerol the doctor had prescribed, the antihistamines, the sinister research, the dark mention of Siracusa, and finally that last visit to Malcolm Esterman, all of it coming together to form, fiber by clever fiber, as I said to Morty by way of conclusion, “a hangman’s noose.”

  Morty was silent for a long time after this recitation, but I could see that his brain was turning slowly but surely, grinding toward a reluctant choice.

  “If what you say is true, then we’re in a different ball game here,” he said gravely.

  He considered all I’d just told him for a moment longer, then said, “So the bottom line is you think that Sandrine might have been out to get you?”

  I nodded.

  “Why would she do that?”

  “To get back at me for what I did with April.”

  “A woman scorned,” Morty said.

  I shook my head. “A woman betrayed.”

  “It’s still hell hath no fury, Sam,” Morty said. He thought over what I’d just told him for a moment, then said, “Okay, to put it all together, you’re saying that your wife somehow knew about you and April, and she didn’t want to die without getting back at you, and so she came up with a scheme, a way of killing herself, which she wanted to do anyway because of what was going to happen to her, and she came up with a way of doing it that would take you down with her.” He stopped, studied me a moment, then said, “That’s what you’re saying, right, Sam?”

  “Yes,” I answered. “And I know it’s B-movie stuff, Morty, but, yes, that’s what I’m saying.”

  I rose sharply and walked back to the window. Alexandria was still waiting for me beside the car. I could only imagine what today’s testimony had done to her, how trapped between her living father and her dead mother she must feel, the horror of choosing one over the other, and of never knowing, or ever being able to know, if your choice was just.

  “There’s no evidence for any of it, of course,” I said quietly. “And it could all be just a product of my own paranoia.” I shrugged. “Not that it matters.”

  I watched as one of Alexandria’s hands crawled slowly into the other.

  “It’s Alexandria I’m worried about now,” I said.

  Morty was now beside me, his hand on my shoulder. “Even if you were willing to use it, I doubt it would work,” he said quietly. “Very iffy, a defense like that, making your wife the real criminal. It’s hard
to turn the tables on a dead woman. Of course, she would have known that, wouldn’t she?”

  “Yes.”

  Morty released a heavy sign. “You know a woman named Jane Forbes?”

  Instantly I saw her again, standing in her red coat, watching me from the corner of the courtroom. “She teaches in the Political Science Department,” I said. “I saw her once during the trial.”

  “Here, in court?”

  “Yes.”

  “That all you know?”

  “Yes? Why?”

  “Singleton has added her to the witness list,” Morty said. “Do you have any idea what she might have to say?”

  “No.”

  Morty winked. “Maybe one of your wife’s little bombs?”

  I stared at him grimly. “I have no idea, Morty.”

  Morty released a grim chuckle. “Christ, if this was a plot she hatched, I got to say your wife was one smart cookie.”

  “She was brilliant,” I said quietly, then saw her again sitting on the grounds of the quadrangle, surrounded by a few students, doing the best she could with them against considerable odds. “And she was kind,” I added.

  There seemed nothing more to say about Sandrine, and so I said nothing more.

  “Well,” Morty said after a moment. “Let’s hope there are no more tricks in her bag.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Let’s hope.”

  But I had no hope and knew it. That I might ever recover from her death, such was the hope I had now abandoned. I had lost my job, my freedom to move about this little town, the respect of its townspeople, and very soon, as I could see now in the way Alexandria lifted her head and stared off into the middle distance, I would lose my daughter too. If all of this had indeed been Sandrine’s plan, then she had thoroughly won her dark game.

  And thus, with such grim resignation, did I confront the last days of my trial.

  PART V

  The state’s case against Professor Samuel Madison is set to conclude this week at the Coburn County Courthouse. According to prosecuting attorney Harold Singleton, only three witnesses remain to be called, after which the defense’s case will be presented by Mordecai Salberg, attorney for Mr. Madison, the Coburn College professor accused of killing his wife, Sandrine, on November 14, 2010. It is not yet known if Mr. Madison will testify in his own defense.