The Touch of Treason (40 page)

The large flat envelope on the prosecution table bothered Thomassy. Did they contain the photographs? Roberts would have used them during his witness’s testimony, when Francine was on the stand, if he had them. If he had them
then.
What if he’d just gotten his hands on them? What if Roberts was smarter than he thought and had saved them to demolish the defendant’s testimony? Could he have prepared Ed to deal with the photos? Were these oversights in his planning because of the rush of things, or was he doing less than a hundred percent? The ache of doubt was not something you wanted nibbling at your gut while the defendant was being cross-examined. You can’t push the clock back. This is it, go with it.

Roberts pulled his vest sharply down and proceeded to his post in front of the witness. He looked like his family had owned the world for a long time.

“Mr. Sturbridge,” Roberts said, “when did you first adopt an alias?”

“What alias?”

“You testified here that your name was Edward Porter Sturbridge. Prosecution Exhibit A was an identification card found in your possession on which you used the name Porter as a last name. My question was when did you first start using that alias?”

“Your Honor,” said Thomassy, objecting, “the word
alias
has a perjorative connotation that might be misinterpreted by the jury.”

“Sustained,” the judge spoke directly to Ed. “Would the witness clarify his use of two last names.”

Ed’s mother and father sat frozen like Grant Wood figures in the back row.

“Your Honor,” he said, “Porter is my mother’s name. Sturbridge is my father’s name. I used my father’s name, as is customary, until I left home for college. My father, as Your Honor may know, is a well-known pharmaceutical industrialist and I didn’t want to be stigmatized by my peers for any views they might have about my father’s wealth or reputation. The simplest solution seemed to be to use my mother’s name, which is much more common and not associated with anyone in particular as far as I know.”

Good boy,
Thomassy thought.
Keep it up.

Roberts, his gambit blown, decided to pursue another avenue. “Mr. Sturbridge, you testified that you never were a member of the Communist party. Had you been, what would have been your answer to the question, ‘Are you or have you ever been a member of the Communist party?’”

Thomassy objected. “Your Honor, that is secondhand speculation.”

“I’ll let it stand,” the judge said. He nodded to Ed. “You may answer.”

“I want to repeat that I am not a member of the Communist party. Had I been, however, I would have denied that I was.”

“Does that mean you would have lied under oath.”

“On that issue, of course.”

Thomassy wasn’t happy with the outcome of that interchange. He could ask for a conference at the bench. He could appeal to the judge’s desire to avoid reversible error. The question was hypothetical, though Roberts hadn’t flagged it as such. It was speculative about a large group of people. The hell with it, he thought, let it ride.

Koppelman caught Roberts’s eye and motioned to him. He handed him the copy of Ed’s book opened midway and was pointing an excited finger at a passage, which Roberts quickly read. Koppelman whispered in Roberts’s ear. Roberts nodded.

“Mr. Sturbridge,” Roberts said, a touch of relish in his voice, “on page one ninety-two of Exhibit J—your book—it says, and I quote, ‘Murder may be both an end and a means.’ Would you explain that statement?”

This time Thomassy was in a mood to fight. “Objection! Your Honor, the book speaks for itself. Any elaboration that the district attorney wants may involve the writing of additional text or a pony, but I don’t think the witness should be required to elaborate.”

The judge said, “Counsels please approach the bench.”

As soon as they were both close, Roberts opened up. “Your Honor, murder is the central issue of the indictment. Intent is central to the concept of murder. Here we have a most unusual opportunity for the jury to understand exactly what the defendant thinks about that subject.”

The judge nodded to Thomassy, who replied, “Your Honor, I have no objection to letting the jury read anything that’s in that book in context, but it is in violation of the defendant’s rights for him to be forced to elaborate on a text that the defense itself committed to the record. If Mr. Roberts wants each member of the jury to read that book, I’ll be happy to supply eleven other copies, but the context of that statement is the paragraph it’s in, and the context of that paragraph is its chapter, and the context of the chapter is the book as a whole. As Your Honor knows, the Supreme Court has taken the position on the issue of obscenity that a work must be taken as a whole because nothing can be judged objectively and accurately out of its context.”

*

Judge Drewson reflected on his isolation. He could not show the anger he felt. He couldn’t leave the bench on some pretext, as he sometimes did; his daughter would see through him as easily here as she sometimes did over the dinner table.
Thomassy, you Armenian bastard, I’ll throttle you some other time.
In his most controlled voice, the judge said, “Mr. Roberts, why don’t you—without referring to the exhibit—just ask the witness any question you want to about murder.”

“Your Honor,” Thomassy said, “I have to object to that. I can’t let my client be jeopardized by an abstract discussion of his views on any subject, much less murder.”

“Look, Mr. Thomassy,” the judge said, “I’ve been patient with you both. You put the defendant on the stand. I don’t think you can deny the prosecution legitimate questions on the grounds of the defendant’s possible self-incrimination. And please don’t give me a dissertation on context. The context of anything the defendant testifies to is everything else he testifies to in front of the jury. Let us proceed. We’re wasting time.”

“Your Honor,” Thomassy said, “may I quickly read page one ninety-two?”

“You did not read Exhibit J?”

“No, Your Honor. In preparing for trial I only had a chance to skim it briefly.”

“Very well.”

What Thomassy read on that page did not assuage his alarm. “May I confer with my client, Your Honor?” he asked.

“Not during his testimony. You ought to know better than that, Mr. Thomassy. Come on, gentlemen, let’s get the record going again or we’ll be here till Christmas.”

*

As Roberts walked up to the witness stand, Thomassy hoped that Ed, entirely unrehearsed in this area, wouldn’t fall into the pit.

“Mr. Sturbridge,” Roberts said, “is your book a correct and accurate statement of your true beliefs?”

“Of course.”

“Will you tell the court then what your beliefs are with regard to murder as a means to an end and as an end in itself?”

As Ed reflected for a moment, Judge Drewson wondered if he hadn’t indeed opened the trapdoor of reversible error. He could still strike it from the record, though whatever happened now could not be stricken from the jury’s memory.

Finally, Ed spoke. “Murder is generally regarded as the second-worst crime, after treason. The taking of a human life is, of course, abhorred in all societies we call civilized, though subsections of such societies have different views of murder. When it is a means to an end, the end may be the elimination of a potential enemy, or as an ostensible lesson to others—as when society commits capital punishment. However, murder is often committed in the heat of anger, jealousy, or some similar emotion and becomes like any emotion an expression or an end in itself.”

“And why does a reference to murder as both a means and an end in itself,” Roberts asked, “appear in a book that is about revolutions in Latin America?”

Ed was soaring. He didn’t know if they were wholly understanding him, but all of them were focusing their attention on his every word. “One frequently hears it said about communist and fascist societies that they consider every means—including murder—not only permissible but perhaps even desirable if it accomplishes a just end as defined by that society. In capitalist society, profit is considered an end so desirable as to involve such activities as repossessing homes where mortgages are in default. Many people, perhaps most people, view war as permissible murder, permissible in that it is justified as self-defense or warranted attack.”

Thomassy stood to attract the judge’s attention. Ed looked at him as if to say what did I do wrong? “Your Honor,” Thomassy said, “with respect, I cannot see how we are doing anything else here than confounding the jury, which is here to judge fact and only fact. I move that the entire discussion relating to Exhibit J be stricken from the record.”

With great relief, Judge Drewson said, “Motion granted. Strike it out. The jury will disregard.”

“Exception!” Roberts said, putting it on the record, and glancing at Koppelman.

They were setting up for an appeal, just in case, Thomassy thought.

Roberts looked relieved. The defendant wasn’t being judged by his peers. Most of those jurors probably hadn’t read a book of political theory since school, if then. If that last garbage had stayed in the record, they’d camp in the jury room forever. Roberts looked confident as he went back to the real world.

“Mr. Sturbridge, before the events of April fifth, what was your personal experience with kerosene?”

“My parents used to heat the greenhouse with kerosene heaters. I used to help the gardener when I was a kid.”

“Can you tell the difference between kerosene and gasoline?”

“Sure. They smell different. They also look different. And in the Fuller garage, they’re labeled differently.”

Okay, okay,
Thomassy thought.

“Then,” said Roberts, “if you were to mistake gasoline for kerosene it wouldn’t be a mistake?”

“Objection!”

“Sustained.”

“Do you read detective stories, Mr. Sturbridge?”

Judge Drewson preempted Thomassy’s objection. “Let’s see where it goes.”

“I’ve read a few.”

“Good. Then perhaps you can tell us what you believe is meant by the perfect crime.”

“In detective stories?”

“In detective stories or anywhere else.”

“I guess it would mean a crime that would go undetected.”

“And why might such a crime go undetected?”

“Because of the means used.”

“Such as?”

“A poison that doesn’t show up in laboratory analysis of the victim’s blood or body tissues, something like that.”

“Would you consider a bit of gasoline mixed in secretly with kerosene to be a means like a poison that doesn’t show up in laboratory analysis?”

“I never read about any such thing in any detective story.”

“Did you invent that means yourself then?”

“Objection!”

“Sustained.”

Thomassy thought, Roberts ought to take lessons in cross-examination.

“All right,” Roberts said to Ed, “did you ever visit the buildings that house the United Nations?”

“Of course,” Ed said. “Several times in connection with my research.”

“And was it research you couldn’t do at the university or elsewhere?”

“Absolutely.”

“And when was the last time you visited there?”

“I can’t remember.”

“This year, last year?”

Careful,
Thomassy was thinking,
this is the trip-wire.

“When I was doing my dissertation.”

“And not since Professor Fuller’s death?” Roberts asked.

“No, sir.”

Roberts headed for the prosecution table, where Koppelman, all smiles, had the large envelope ready to hand to him. “Your Honor,” Roberts said, “I would like to have these four photographs marked as People’s Exhibit R.”

Four?
Thomassy had seen three in Widmer’s house.
What the hell was going on?

Judge Drewson looked at the photographs. The first three drew no special reaction from him. The fourth did.

“May I inspect the exhibit, Your Honor,” Thomassy said.

The judge nodded, at the same time that Roberts said, “Of course,” handing them from the judge to Thomassy, who glanced at the first three so as not to betray his anxiety to see the fourth.

The fourth was an extreme close-up of Ed and Trushenko. Their expressions were of men in heated argument.
Why hadn’t Perry shown him all the pictures?

Judge Drewson motioned both lawyers to the bench out of earshot of the jury. “Mr. Roberts, can you clarify the purpose of introducing these exhibits?”

“Certainly, Your Honor. We don’t have a smoking-gun case, but one of circumstantial evidence. This evidence, Your Honor, may be objectively verifiable proof that the defendant committed perjury when he said he hadn’t been to the UN building since Professor Fuller’s death when in fact he was there when these photographs were taken within a few days afterward. More importantly, it establishes a link between the defendant and Soviet officials, which speaks to the point of intent if he was in fact operating under instructions from them.”