Behind the Bonehouse (21 page)

They were all there in the plant—all of Equine's nineteen employees, standing around in a circle (except for the receptionist, who was still answering the phone at her desk, and Vincent, the custodian, who'd gone to Williamsburg on vacation with his parents, and the lab secretary too, whose husband had had a heart attack).

Bob Harrison raised his hands, and the muffled noises of an ill-at-ease crowd wound down before he spoke. “I know you've heard about Alan Munro's arrest for the murder of Carl Seeger. It's been in the papers, and there're been plenty of folks speculating around the coffee pot, just like you'd expect. I want to ask you to not speak to the press, or the TV folks, or the radio news people, or anyone else anywhere for the good of the company. I know that's a lot to ask, but I believe it's extremely important.

“I also want you to get a chance to hear Alan speak for himself. I have absolute confidence in Alan's innocence, and I hope none of you will jump to any hasty conclusions, but will cooperate and work with him the way you always do. He has much to contribute to our enterprise, as I'm sure you know.”

Alan walked across the concrete floor to stand next to Bob, looking thinner than usual, and tired too, as he faced the faces around him—awkward looking, most of them, as though they'd rather be somewhere else—though some seemed to be trying to hide curiosity and excitement. One looked noticeably skeptical, and maybe even satisfied—Brad, leaning toward the woman who worked for him in accounts receivable, whispering something in her ear.

“Well … first of all … I never thought I'd be standing in front of anyone saying anything even vaguely like this, but I didn't murder Carl Seeger. I didn't. I had nothing whatever to do with his death, and yet circumstantial evidence has come to light that appears to the police to implicate me. It's my belief it was deliberately planted, and we're working to try to make sense of it.

“The legal process is going to take weeks—possibly even months to unfold—and I ask you
please
, to give me the benefit of the doubt, and work with me the way you always have for the good of Equine Pharmaceuticals.

“But if …
if
… any of you knows
anything
at all that might shed light on Carl's last months—and especially on whatever events could've led up to his death—please talk to the Woodford County Sheriff. And if you think, that in all good conscience, you could talk to me about it too, it might help me to defend myself to know whatever you know. Thank you.”

Brad said, “What if what we know is even more incriminating? You want us to talk to Sheriff Peabody then?” He was smiling, as he watched Alan, in the second before Alan responded.

“If you, or anyone else knows anything pertinent, they should talk to the police. Do you know something, Brad, that'll incriminate me, or were you speaking hypothetically?”

Brad looked surprised, as he said, “Hypothetically.”

Then Bob stepped up and said, “Thank you, folks.” And the crowd began to break apart.

A few people came up to Alan and shook his hand and wished him well. Most walked away without saying anything, to him or anyone else.

Wednesday, May 6th, 1964

“So …” Garner Honeycutt was leaning back, his long legs crossed at the knee, on an old wooden bench in the Woodford County courthouse, shoe-horned in between Jo and Allan so he could speak extremely quietly and make sure both of them heard. “As I told you the other day, this grand jury hearing is closed to you and the public. The foreman, on behalf of the jury,
could
ask for you to testify, Alan, but there's no reason to expect he will. Even so, you must remain here throughout the hearing, in case they decide to call you.”

Alan nodded, then rubbed the scar on his jaw.

“The sheriff will testify, and a forensic expert may as well, probably from the state police lab where the evidence was last examined. If all twelve of the jurors, and I emphasize that unanimity, agree that the prosecution makes a compelling case, they will indict you, and send the case to Circuit Court.”

Alan said, “I understand,” leaning forward, elbows on his knees, refusing to look at the
Lexington Herald Leader
reporter who was smoking one cigarette after another with his eyes pinned on Alan from thirty feet down the hall. “And if they do indict me, then you'll be able to get all the evidence they've got?”

“I'll be able to go to the County Attorney's office and look through the file, yes. I've already filed a ‘chain of custody of evidence' request, which will tell us who's had custody of the items, when, and in what order, in case any sort of tampering might have taken place. Not that I expect there to have been any deliberate tampering, but carelessness can't be ruled out. Asking for the order is simply a wise approach.”

“Good.” Jo was clutching her purse in her lap as though something important depended on it—her face drawn, her eyebrows crushed together—looking stoical but worried.

“I'll talk to the County Attorney, if the indictment's handed down here, and make the necessary arrangements to see the file tomorrow. I can copy whatever we need in its entirety using their new Xerox machine, but they'll charge at least two dollars a page, and I'll try to take as many notes as I can in order not to squander your money.”

“Do what you need to do. What about copies of the photographs taken at the scene, and that sort of thing?”

“I'll arrange for those as well, though they won't come through quickly.”

Jo said, “It all seems to take forever,” as she dropped her purse on the floor.

“Actually, in comparison to how many cases are treated, the County Attorney seems to be hurrying this case along. But most importantly, as we begin to prepare our own case, if our contention so far is that Carl Seeger killed himself with the intent of incriminating you, formulating a reasonable motive for his suicide is where we need to focus. If you folks can think of anyone else who would've wished him dead, that'd be important, to say the least. Either way, if you can come up with other people we should interview who had dealings with him over the years, it'd be well worth the effort.”

Garner Honeycutt looked across at the Sheriff's deputy—who'd opened the courtroom door, and stood, holding it open, while he nodded at Garner. Garner said, “I'll join you here shortly,” as he rose to his feet, buttoning his charcoal suit coat over its matching vest. The suit fitted perfectly, and had been very good quality originally, but was worn looking and threadbare at the cuffs. His shoes were old and plain. His tie was somber. His face was composed and restrained. It didn't behoove a defense attorney to look too slick and prosperous, not with a jury in Woodford County, Commonwealth of Kentucky, in 1964.

Alan opened his briefcase and pulled out a file of lab reports and another of product field evaluations, and began reading and making occasional notes on a yellow pad. Then he put his pen down and looked at the wall across from him. “I have no idea why Carl would've killed himself. And I don't know what to do next.”

“Maybe Jane Seeger would have some idea of who else we should talk to. Maybe I should go see her.” Alan didn't answer. And Jo opened her case and pulled out a mechanical pencil, an architect's rule, a pad of drawing paper, and a roll of ochre tracing paper the same width as the pad.

She was working on a renovation and redesign of a small, simple farmhouse south of Versailles overlooking the Kentucky River that was about to be saved from ignominious ruin by a retired army couple who'd vacationed in the bluegrass many times in the past.

She drew the existing floor plan on the drawing pad first, then added a kitchen wing off the back on a piece of tracing paper she'd torn off the roll and smoothed across the plan. She drew, and erased, and drew again. Then balled up the tracing paper, and the sheet on the pad, and shoved them into her briefcase. “I can't get anything right. It's like the architectural part of my brain died when you got arrested!”

Alan was staring at the courtroom door, his files lying still in his lap.

“But it does pass the time.” Jo drew another plan, and smoothed another sheet of tracing paper on top of it. Then drew small exterior elevations to see what would happen to the roof lines.

Alan picked up the files again, while he looked at his watch. The newspaperman had gone off, but it was too much to hope that he wouldn't come back.

Two hours later, he was walking up and down the hall, smoking one cigarette after another again, crushing them out on the floor.

He'd tried to talk to Alan and Jo when he'd first appeared, but Alan and Garner had both told him to back off, and he had so far, biding his time, till there was something new to report.

Half an hour later, a photographer arrived, and the two of them started talking baseball loud enough to irritate Jo. She looked away, as she slipped her hand inside Alan's elbow, and kissed the side of his face.

He laid his hand on her thigh, and squeezed gently in an encouraging sort of way, as he leaned over and kissed her mouth, then put the files in his case.

She whispered, “It seems to be taking an awfully long time,” for what might've been the tenth time, as she slid her materials back in her briefcase.

It was right then that the door opened, and three or four people they didn't recognize came out of the courtroom, followed fast by Garner, who walked over, as Alan and Jo stood up, his face giving nothing away.

“They indicted,” he said, quietly, close up between them.

And Jo said, “Crap,” feeling her face turning red while her heart battered her ribs.

“The County Attorney is trying to schedule the first hearing with the Circuit Court on Wednesday, the twentieth. Otherwise we'll have to wait another month, and he doesn't want to. Which doesn't surprise me. This is an election year, and he wants to push forward so he looks like a go-getter. But that shouldn't be a problem for us. We'll have progress meetings with the judge in between to make sure we're on track with that timetable. I'll get on to the evidence tomorrow. This isn't a surprise. You shouldn't feel disheartened. Now we can get to work. Let's go out through the courtroom and take the stairs from the judge's chambers to try to avoid the press. There's quite a crowd outside.”

Jack Freeman knew nothing about what Alan and Jo were going through. If he had, he would have phoned, at the very least, and might have even flown home.

He'd spent three weeks in France in total isolation trying to track down Henri Reynard and his ex-wife, Camille Benoit. He'd spent countless hours in Paris at the Musée de l'Armée, as well as newspaper archives, the American Embassy, various French government offices, and three different libraries trying to trace both. He'd found references to Henri's postwar attempts at establishing a political career that apparently went nowhere, but after that the trail disappeared. He found nothing whatever in the sources in Paris about Camille Benoit, the painter and restorer.

He stayed with his mother's Russian relations, who'd left Russia and settled in Paris months before the Revolution, and had taken his parents in after they'd escaped in 1918. His aunt and uncle had died, but their son (and his wife) had an extra room, and his sister helped Jack with his research. He'd been born in Paris, and he enjoyed speaking French again, while getting to know his cousins.

Even so, he'd left Paris on April 24th, hoping that in Tours, where he'd known Henri and Camille, where he'd worked with the Resistance and been wrongly accused of turning them in to the Gestapo, there would be some trace of a trail.

He did what he'd done in Paris. He went to government offices, libraries and newspapers—but all records that had to do with the Vichy government and the war years in Tours were closed there, as they were all across France. The telephone records offered no one named Benoit who was related to Camille. Henri Reynard wasn't listed either, and he decided not to randomly phone the other Reynards and risk alerting Henri of his presence in France.

And of course he spent too much time standing and staring at the new concrete apartment building where the café had stood in '44; the café where the Tours Resistance had been ambushed by the Gestapo and the Tours police. Its leader had been butchered there. Too many of its members had been seized, to be later tortured and killed. While he'd been taken and released in such a way that it looked as though he'd been the traitor.

Finally, when Jack was beginning to feel desperate—as though all the time and money he'd spent, and the hopes he'd had of coming to France and finding who the real traitor had been, slipped away as he lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling—he decided to visit the art museum on the slim chance that someone who worked there would know what had happened to Camille Benoit.

It felt to him like a last chance. And yet he found himself postponing the moment—walking the cobbles behind the cathedral, past the Lycée where Camille had taught in 1944; sitting in the cold, dark, much embellished church, studying the interior—before he walked to the Musée Des Beaux Arts that almost grew against the southern side of the old cathedral.

The stone walls around the museum were ten- or twelve-feet high, and it wasn't until he'd walked under the tall, pillared, carved stone arch that he could see the museum and its garden.

Then Jack hurried, running up the stone steps, rushing through the huge front door to the imposing antique reception desk, where he asked if anyone knew Camille Benoit and how he might get in touch.

It took six more days of wandering in the dark while the woman curator made undisclosed calls to unnamed contacts before he received a message from Camille. She was working at Château de la Flocellière, five hours or more southwest of Tours, restoring a painting. If he wished to meet her at the château there in the village of Flocellière, she would be willing to speak with him.