The Touch of Treason (21 page)

Judge Drewson leaned forward. “Mr. Thomassy, I think relevance ends at a certain point in time, and that the people are correct in objecting that anything that happened weeks before the incident is not proximate enough to the date of the occurrence to be relevant. It has been testified to here that Professor Fuller used the heater every morning, and since there has been no testimony that the heater exploded on previous mornings, your questions, Mr. Thomassy, are relevant only to the persons who were present on the premises during the previous day and evening, namely Miss Troob, Messrs. Melling and Heskowitz, and the defendant, all of whom were admittedly guests the evening before the event. The jury will disregard the last two questions and answers and the reporter will strike them from the record.”

Thomassy smiled. The judge had done his job for him. It had been twice implanted in the jury’s minds that four people could have put gasoline in the kerosene.
Let’s just add a few more.

Thomassy’s voice was very quiet when he asked the next question of Mrs. Fuller. He wanted Roberts straining to hear. If he wasn’t sure he got it all, he’d be less likely to object.

“Mrs. Fuller,” Thomassy said, “did you and your husband keep the garage door locked at all times?”

“I don’t think we ever locked it except when we went away on vacation and left the car. It’s not that kind of neighborhood, Mr. Thomassy.”

“Does that mean that anyone from the outside could slip into the garage for a minute or two?”

“I suppose so. When Mr. Randall first was put in charge of security—”

“Objection!” Roberts said. “The witness has answered the question. There was no question about Mr. Randall or security.”

Judge Drewson touched his fingers together, a gesture he used to remind himself that he wanted to come across as a man of infinite patience. “Why don’t we let the witness complete her thought, Mr. Roberts. If it’s hearsay I’ll consider striking it.” To Mrs. Fuller he said, “Please continue.”

“Well, when my husband began work on this project, Mr. Randall or one of his associates would always check the underside of our car in the morning. He was worried about car bombs.”

Roberts stood. “That’s hearsay, Your Honor.”

“I’ll phrase a question,” Thomassy volunteered. “Mrs. Fuller, did there come a time when Mr. Randall or one of his associates said anything in your hearing about car bombs?”

“Yes. He said it was important to check the underside each time before we used the car. Professor Fuller and I really considered it a nuisance.”

“Did they ever do their inspections in the garage where the kerosene and gasoline were kept?”

“If that’s where the car was, of course.”

“Your Honor,” Roberts said, approaching the bench, “is counsel trying to leave the impression that officers of our government are also on his suspicion list in connection with the crime being tried under the current indictments?”

Thank you,
Thomassy thought. “It is my duty, Your Honor,” Thomassy said, “to have available for the jury all other possible hypotheses as to the perpetrator. If the district attorney wishes to prolong this trial by calling the federal people as witnesses, Your Honor, I certainly won’t object, but my purpose here was simply to put on the record the witness’s clear testimony that more than four persons had access to the garage, and anyone, including persons whose identities we do not and cannot know, may have entered the garage where the kerosene was kept. Your Honor, I have an ancillary question or two to ask the witness.”

“Proceed.”

“Mrs. Fuller,” Thomassy said, “to your knowledge, did Mr. Randall or any of his associates ever purchase kerosene for you?”

“As I recall Mr. Randall may have once or twice when the can was empty. Usually, my husband would put the empty can in the trunk of the car and have them fill it up with kerosene when he went for gas.”

“To your knowledge, Mrs. Fuller, did he do the same when the can containing gas for the lawn mower needed filling up?”

“I think so.”

“You’re not sure.”

“He probably did.”

“Mrs. Fuller, you and your husband were both students of the imperfections of mankind. Did your husband ever speak to you about his concern that someone at the gas station might inadvertently put kerosene into the gas can or gas in the kerosene can?”

“My God!”

“Would you answer the question, please.”

“No, he never spoke to me about it. It’s just the thought!”

Thomassy let the thought hang out there where it could be absorbed by the jury. Then he turned to the judge.

“Your Honor,” Thomassy said, “I am aware of the fact that in a criminal prosecution the defendant may introduce reputation evidence, but rather than put Mrs. Fuller to the pain and inconvenience of a second appearance I would like to ask her one question relating to the defendant’s character on cross.”

“Objection!” Roberts said, not knowing where Thomassy was headed.

“Overruled,” the judge said. “Let’s see where this takes us.”

“Exception,” Roberts called out, confused and angry.

Thomassy put both his hands on the witness box. “Mrs. Fuller, do you know of anything negative about Ed Porter’s character that would have caused you to keep him out of your home as a potential danger to any member of your family?”

“No.”

“Thank you,” Thomassy said, turning to the judge.

Archibald Widmer, sitting halfway back among the spectators, thought Leona looked worse than she did when he first saw her after Martin’s death. Had he made a mistake in recommending Thomassy? He looked up, because Roberts was starting his redirect examination.

“Mrs. Fuller,” Roberts said gently, “I made a note that during the cross-examination, you referred to, and I quote, the three who slept over the night of the accident endquote. Did you mean to use the word
accident?”

Thomassy was again on his feet. “Your Honor, I object. What the witness said on the record is on the record—”

The judge held up his hand to cut Thomassy off in midsentence. “Let the witness answer.”

Roberts said, “Did you mean to use the word accident?”

Leona Fuller looked not at Roberts but at Thomassy. “I should have used the word murder,” she said.

Thomassy moved for a mistrial. Judge Drewson dismissed the jury, then told both lawyers he wanted to see them in chambers.

*

Seated opposite the judge, Thomassy and Roberts listened to him say, “Gentlemen, I want you both to know I have every intention of seeing this trial through to a finish. Mr. Thomassy, I am well aware that you will be dropping little tidbits along the way in the hope that they will give you a basis for an appeal should you think that necessary at a later date. But since neither of you has tried a case before me, I think you should know that I will not tolerate digressions, nonsensical objections, forays into fantasy, or any of the other tricks of the trade unless they speak to the point at issue: the facts on the basis of which the jurors must determine whether the defendant is guilty or not.”

Thomassy was about to speak, but the judge raised his voice just a bit to cut him off. “I am well aware of your aim to demonstrate that others in addition to the defendant had access to the combustibles, which I have and will continue to allow. We operate under strict rules. I’m not interested in filling newspapers full of gossip. We’re trying a case of homicide.”

Again Thomassy tried to speak, and again was kept silent.

“Just a moment, Mr. Thomassy. Unlike some defense counsel, I don’t think the Grand Jury sits up there handing down indictments just because the district attorney presents a case. They must have reviewed sufficient evidence of the defendant’s potential culpability to warrant the expenditure of thousands of dollars of taxpayers’ monies on this trial. Mr. Thomassy, would you mind telling us what you’re up to?”

“I moved for mistrial, Your Honor.”

“Denied. I’ll put it on the record when court resumes. Now answer my question.”

Thomassy coughed into his fist. “Your Honor, Mrs. Fuller was, I believe, a very convincing witness. When she uttered the word ‘murder,’ she may have irreversibly and irremediably implanted in the jurors’ minds that the event of April fifth was not an accident. I think it is fair to say that she doesn’t have any direct evidence to contribute to the supposition of murder, but her outcry may well be based on her knowledge of the danger her husband was in since he began that project. That is certainly supported by the watch that the federal government put on the Fullers’ home and Professor Fuller’s person. Therefore, Your Honor, I must introduce an expert witness who can speak to the point of who—and there might be many such persons—might have had a motive for putting a stop to Professor Fuller’s life if it was not an accident. I intend to subpoena as a witness for the defense a woman by the name of Ludmilla Tarasova, who, for more than two decades, I’m afraid, had a continuing intimate relationship with the deceased. I don’t intend to refer to that relationship unless I am forced to.”

He was looking straight at Roberts. Warning received?

Drewson tapped his fingers on the table. “To what specific end are you planning to introduce this testimony?”

“Your Honor, with all respect, I don’t think it is fair to the defendant for the trial to be conducted in chambers. My obligation is to advise the prosecution, as I have now done, that I intend to call a certain witness. What the witness will say under oath and in front of the jury may well not only jar the prosecution’s flimsy case against my client but may disturb a lot of other people who have not appeared in your courtroom.”

“Such as?”

“Such as the CIA, the FBI, the incumbent on Pennsylvania Avenue, and whoever is running things in the Kremlin these days.”

Thomassy stood up.

“Where are you going?” Judge Drewson asked.

“I thought the conference was over, Your Honor.”

“Mr. Thomassy, I’m running this trial.”

“Of course, Your Honor,” Thomassy said, and left Roberts and the judge alone together.

Judge Drewson had from time to time reflected on the difference between the reporters and himself. They were voyeurs. He was an observer. He knew exactly what Thomassy was doing, throwing the proof back into Roberts’s lap while forecasting trouble to come. Out of the broth of confusion came reasonable doubt.

“Mr. Roberts,” he said, “between us, if you were ever in serious personal trouble with the law, would you engage George Thomassy to defend you?”

Roberts, standing, looked at the still-seated judge.

“You don’t have to answer that,” the judge said, rising amid the swirl of his death-black robes.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Ed, getting a cramp sitting in the chair waiting for Thomassy to phone, thought
I should take that clock off the wall.
He felt as if he’d been doing time ever since Pope Sturbridge put up the bail. A hundred fifty thousand was crazy, except they knew he could afford it.
Suppose I did take off?
Ed thought. If it cost him a hundred and fifty million it wouldn’t make up for what he cost me.

Ed wanted to lie down on the bed, smoke some grass, drift. He wished he had resisted Thomassy’s order to get rid of his stash. Nobody was going to come looking here anymore. Thomassy said being out on bail would give Ed a chance to clean up his life. His life didn’t need cleaning. It needed Martin Fuller to say, “Never mind Sturbridge, genes are a retrogressive reactionary explanation that pleases the American fascist mentality. You are not like your father. You are shaped by your environment, namely me.” If Martin Fuller gives great head, the head is the source of talk, brain sparks, firestorms. But he never once put his arm around Ed.

That’s not true.
Why had he thought that? Fuller put his arm around Ed the day they went to the Turkish bath.

Ed was amazed at how that skinny old man looked naked. His skin was tight against the muscles underneath. He had the spots of age, but his body, despite all the pills Ed knew he took, looked like it could live on for another eighty years. He saw Ed noticing the three inked numbers separated by dashes on the inside of his left forearm.
My katzet numbers,
he said, laughing, but Ed knew that Fuller had never been in a concentration camp. Katzet numbers had more numerals. These had to be the new first-of-the-month combination changes that Randall brought to him and that Fuller must have kept on his forearm till he was certain his faltering memory for recently learned numbers would not be betrayed.

Ed got up out of the chair, feeling the exhilaration he’d felt that day in the Turkish bath. Martin Fuller had let him see his body, and with it, the numbers on his arm. And then after the steam and the shiver-cold shower, they’d gone to eat in the small cafeteria downstairs, and on the last stair he had put his arm around Ed’s shoulders and turning him till Ed was facing him, his eyes unavoidable, said, “You are hungrier for affection than any human being I have ever met.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Ed was caught by surprise. Fuller so rarely was personal.

“You are better with the dog—both Leona and I have observed it—than anyone who has visited with us. You understand his needs. A human should not be so continuously needy, lest he become as vulnerable as a dog.”