“You’re right, I am worried,” Henry said quietly. “When I think back over the past few years, I can’t imagine myself sitting in the Oval Office without Tommy at my side. I’d only had one term in the Senate before becoming president and in so many ways I was still very green. Thanks to him I weathered those first months without falling on my face. When I was all set to have it out with the Soviets, Tommy—in his calm, deliberate way—showed me how wrong I’d be to force a confrontation but then publicly managed to convey the impression that he was only a sounding board for my own decision. Tommy is a true statesman, but more to the point, he is a gentleman, through and through. He’s honest, he’s smart, he’s loyal.”
“But surely he’s also a man who must have been aware that people were joking about his relationship with Arabella and just how smitten he was with her? Then when she finally wanted out, he lost it,” Sunday observed. “That’s pretty much the way you see it, isn’t it?”
Henry sighed. “Perhaps. Temporary insanity? It’s possible.” He lifted his breakfast tray and put it on the night table. “Nevertheless, he was always there for me, and I’m going to be there for him. He’s been allowed to post bond. I’m going to see him.”
Sunday quickly shoved her tray aside, barely managing to catch her half-empty coffee cup before it spilled onto the quilt. “I’m coming too,” she said. “Just give me ten minutes in the Jacuzzi and I’ll be ready.”
Henry watched his wife’s long legs as she slid out of bed. “The Jacuzzi. What a splendid idea,” he said enthusiastically. “I’ll join you.”
• • •
Thomas Acker Shipman had tried to ignore the army of media camped outside, near his driveway. When he and his lawyer pulled up in front of his house, he had simply stared straight ahead and barged his way from the car to the house, desperately trying not to hear the roar of questions hurled at him as he passed. Once inside, however, the events of the day finally hit him, and he visibly slumped. “I think a scotch may be in order,” he said quietly.
His attorney, Leonard Hart, looked at him sympathetically. “I’d say you deserve one,” he said. “But first, let me once again reassure you that if you insist, we’ll go ahead with a plea bargain, but I’m compelled to once more point out to you that we could put together a very strong insanity defense, and I wish you’d agree to go to trial. The situation is so clear that any jury could understand: you went through the agony of losing a beloved wife, and on the rebound you fell in love with an attractive young woman who at first accepted many gifts from you, then spurned you. It is a classic story, and one that I feel confident would be received sympathetically when coupled with a temporary insanity plea.”
As he spoke, Hart’s voice became increasingly passionate, as though he were addressing a jury: “You asked her to come here and talk it over, but she taunted you and an argument ensued. Suddenly, you lost your head, and in a blinding rage so intense that you can’t even remember the details, you shot her. The gun normally was kept locked away, but this evening you had it out because you had been so upset that you actually had entertained thoughts of killing yourself.”
The lawyer paused in his presentation, and in the moment of silence the former secretary of state stared up at him, a puzzled look on his face. “Is that actually how you see it?” he asked.
Hart seemed surprised at the question. “Why, yes, of course,” he replied. “There are a few details we have to iron out yet, a few things that I’m not completely clear on. For example, we’ll have to explain how you could simply leave Miss Young bleeding on the floor and go up to bed, where you slept so soundly that you didn’t even hear your housekeeper’s scream when she discovered the body the next morning. Based on what I know, though, I would think that at the trial we would contend that you were in a state of shock.”
“Would you?” Shipman asked wearily. “But I wasn’t in shock. In fact, after I had that drink, I just seemed to start floating. I can barely remember what Arabella and I said to each other, never mind recalling actually shooting her.”
A pained look crossed the lawyer’s face. “I think, Tom, that I must beg you not to make statements like that to anyone. Will you promise me, please? And may I also suggest that certainly for the foreseeable future you go easy on the scotch; obviously it isn’t agreeing with you.”
• • •
Thomas Shipman stood behind the drapes as he peered through the window, watching as his rotund attorney attempted to fend off a charge by the media. Rather like seeing the lions released on a solitary Christian, he thought. Only in this case, it wasn’t Attorney Hart’s blood they were after. It was his own. Unfortunately, he had no taste for martyrdom.
Fortunately, he had been able to reach his housekeeper, Lillian West, in time to tell her to stay home today. He had known last evening, when the indictment was handed down, that television cameras would be camped outside his house, to witness and record every step of his leaving in handcuffs, followed by the arraignment, the fingerprinting, the plea of innocence, and then this morning’s less-than-triumphal return home. No, getting into his house today had been like running the gauntlet; he didn’t want his housekeeper to be subjected to that too.
He did miss having someone around, though. The house felt too quiet, and lonely. Engulfed by memories, his mind was drawn back to the day he and Constance had bought the place, some thirty years ago. They had driven up from Manhattan to have lunch at the Bird and Bottle near Bear Mountain, then had taken a leisurely drive back to the city. Impulsively, they had decided to detour through the lovely residential streets in Tarrytown, and it was then that they came across the FOR SALE sign in front of this turn-of-the-century house overlooking the Hudson River and the Palisades.
And for the next twenty-eight years, two months, and ten days, we lived here in a state of happily ever after, Shipman thought. “Oh, Constance, if only we could have had twenty-eight more,” he said quietly as he headed toward the kitchen, having decided on coffee instead of scotch as the drink he needed.
This house had been a special place for them. Even when he served as secretary of state and had to travel so much of the time, they managed to have occasional weekends together here, and always it was a kind of restorative for the soul. And then one morning two years ago, Constance had said, “Tom, I don’t feel so well.” And a moment later she was gone.
Working twenty-hour days had helped him numb the pain somewhat. Thank God I had the job to distract me, he thought, smiling to himself as he recalled the nickname the press had given him, “The Flying Secretary.” But I not only kept busy; Henry and I also managed to do some good. We left Washington and the country in better shape than it’s been in for years.
Reaching the kitchen, he carefully measured out enough coffee for four cups and then did the same with the water. See, I can take care of myself, he thought. Too bad I didn’t do more of it after Constance died. But then Arabella entered the scene. So ready with comfort, so alluring. And now, so dead.
He thought back to the evening, two days ago. What had they said to each other in the library? He vaguely remembered becoming angry. But could he actually have been angry enough to carry out such a terrible act of violence? And how could he possibly have left her bleeding on the library floor while he stumbled up to bed? He shook his head. It just didn’t make sense.
The phone rang, but Shipman only stared at it. When the ringing stopped, he took the receiver off the hook and laid it on the counter.
When the coffee was ready, he poured a cup and with slightly trembling fingers carried it into the living room. Normally he would have settled in his big leather chair in the library, but not today. Now he wondered if he would ever be able to enter that room again.
Just as he was getting settled, he heard shouting from outside. He knew the media were still encamped on his street, but he couldn’t imagine the cause of such a racket. Yet before he even pulled back the drapes far enough to allow him to peer outside, he had guessed what had caused the fu
ror.
The former president of the United States had arrived on the scene, to offer friendship and comfort.
• • •
The Secret Service personnel tried valiantly to clear a path for the Britlands as they forged their way through the crowd of reporters and cameramen. With his arm protectively around his wife, Henry paused, indicating his willingness to offer at least a cursory statement: “As always in this great country, a man is innocent until proven guilty. Thomas Shipman was a truly great secretary of state and remains a close friend. Sunday and I are here today in friendship.”
Having made his statement, the former president turned and headed toward the porch, ignoring the barrage of questions the reporters hurled at him. Just as they reached the top step leading to the porch, Tom Shipman unlocked and opened the front door, and his visitors glided inside without further incident.
It was only when the door had closed behind the Britlands, and he felt himself enclosed in a firm and reassuring bear hug, that Thomas Shipman began to sob.
• • •
Sensing that the two men needed some time to talk privately, Sunday headed to the kitchen, insisting against Shipman’s protest that she prepare lunch for the three of them. The former secretary kept saying that he could call in his housekeeper, but Sunday insisted that he leave everything to her. “You’ll feel a lot better when you have something in your stomach, Tom,” she said. “You guys say your hellos and then come join me. I’m sure you must have everything I need to make an omelet. It’ll be ready in just a few minutes.”
Shipman, in fact, quickly regained his composure. Somehow just Henry Britland’s presence in his home gave him the sense, at least for the moment, that he could handle whatever it was that he would have to face. They went to the kitchen, finding Sunday already at work on the omelet. Her brisk, sure movements at the chopping board brought back for Shipman a recent memory of Palm Beach, and of watching someone else prepare a salad, while he dreamed of a future that now could never be.
Glancing out the window, he realized suddenly that the shade was raised, and that if somebody managed to sneak around to the back of the house, there would be a perfect opportunity to snap a candid photo of the three of them. Swiftly, he moved across the room and lowered the shade.
He turned back toward Henry and Sunday and smiled sadly at the two of them. “You know, I recently got talked into putting an electronic setup on the drapes in all the other rooms, something that would let me close them either by a timer or by a mere click of the control. I never thought I’d need that in here, though. I know almost nothing about cooking, and Arabella wasn’t exactly the Betty Crocker type herself.”
He paused and shook his head. “Oh, well. It doesn’t matter now. And besides, I never did like the damn things. In fact, the drapes in the library still don’t work right. Every time you click to either open or close them, you get this loud cracking noise, almost like somebody firing a gun. Oddly appropriate, wouldn’t you say? I mean, since there really was a gun fired in there less than forty-eight hours ago. You’ve heard about events casting their shadows before them? Well . . .”
He turned away for a moment, the room silent except for the sounds of Sunday getting the omelet ready for the pan. Then Shipman moved to the kitchen table and sat across from Henry. He was reminded almost immediately of the times they had faced each other across the desk in the Oval Office. He looked up, catching the younger man’s eye. “You know, Mr. President, I—”
“Tommy, knock it off. It’s me. Henry.”
“All right, Henry. I was just thinking that we are both lawyers, and—”
“And so is Sunday,” Henry reminded him. “Don’t forget. She did her time as a public defender before she ran for office.”
Shipman smiled wanly. “Then I suggest that she’s our resident expert.” He turned toward her. “Sunday, did you ever have to launch a defense where your client had been dead drunk at the time the crime was committed, in the course of which he not only shot his . . . ah . . . friend, three times, but left her sprawled out on the floor to bleed to death while he staggered upstairs to sleep it off?”
Without turning from the stove, she responded. “Maybe not quite those circumstances, but I did defend a number of people who had been so high on drugs at the time that they didn’t even remember committing the crime. Typically, though, there were witnesses who offered sworn testimony against them. It was tough.”
“So they were found guilty, of course?” Shipman asked.
Sunday paused and looked at him, smiling ruefully. “They had the book thrown at them,” she admitted.
“Exactly. My attorney, Len Hart, is a good and capable fellow who wants me to plead guilty by reason of insanity—temporary, of course. But as I see it, my only course is to plea bargain in the hope that in exchange for a guilty plea, the state will not seek the death penalty.”
Henry and Sunday now both were watching their friend as he talked, staring straight ahead. “You understand,” Shipman continued, “that I took the life of a young woman who ought to have enjoyed fifty years more on this planet. If I go to prison, I probably won’t last more than five or ten years. The confinement, however long it lasts, may help to expiate this awful guilt before I am called to meet my Maker.”
All three of them remained silent as Sunday finished preparing the meal—tossing a salad, then pouring beaten eggs into a heated skillet, adding chopped tomatoes, scallions, and ham, folding the ends of the bubbling eggs into flaps, and finally flipping the omelet over. The toast popped up as she slid the first omelet onto a heated plate and placed it in front of Shipman. “Eat,” she commanded.
Twenty minutes later, when Tom Shipman pushed the last bit of salad onto a crust of toast and stared at the empty plate in front of him, he observed, “It is an embarrassment of riches, Henry, that with a French chef already employed in your kitchen, you are also blessed with a wife who is a culinary master.”
“Thank you, kind sir,” Sunday said briskly. “The truth is, whatever talents I have in the kitchen began during the time I put in as a short-order cook when I was working my way through Fordham.”
Shipman smiled as he stared distractedly at the empty plate in front of him. “It’s a talent to be admired. And certainly one Arabella didn’t possess.” He shook his head slowly from side to side. “It’s hard to believe I could have been so foolish.”
Sunday put her hand on top of his, then said quietly, “Tommy, certainly there have got to be some extenuating circumstances that will work in your favor. You’ve put in so many years of public service, and you’ve been involved in so many charitable projects. The courts will be looking for anything they can use to soften the sentence—assuming, of course, that there really is one. Henry and I are here to help in any way we can, and we will stay by your side through whatever follows.”
Henry Britland placed his hand firmly on Shipman’s shoulder. “That’s right, old friend, we are here for you. Just ask, and we will try to make it happen. But before we can do anything, we need to know what really did happen here. We had heard that Arabella had broken up with you, so why was she here that night?”
Shipman did not answer immediately. “She just dropped in,” he said evasively.
“Then you weren’t expecting her?” Sunday asked quickly.
He hesitated. “Uh . . . no . . . no, I wasn’t.”
Henry leaned forward. “Okay, Tom, but as Will Rogers said, ‘All I know is just what I read in the papers.’ According to the media accounts, you had phoned Arabella earlier in the day and begged her to talk to you. She had come over that evening around nine.”
“That’s right,” he replied without explanation.
Henry and Sunday exchanged worried glances. Clearly there was something that Tom wasn’t telling them.
“What about the gun?” Henry asked. “Frankly, I was startled to hear that you even had one, and especially that it was registered in your name. You were such a staunch supporter of the Brady Bil
l, and were considered an enemy by the NRA. Where did you keep it?”
“Truthfully, I had totally forgotten I even had it,” Shipman said tonelessly. “I got it when we first moved here, and it had been in the back of my safe for years. Then coincidentally I noticed it there the other day, right after hearing that the town police were having a drive to get people to exchange guns for toys. So I just took it out of the safe and had left it lying on the library table, the bullets beside it. I had planned to drop it off at the police station the next morning. Well, they got it all right, just not in the way I had planned.”
Sunday knew that she and Henry were sharing the same thought. The situation was beginning to look particularly bad: not only had Tom shot Arabella, but he had loaded the gun after her arrival.
“Tom, what were you doing before Arabella got here?” Henry asked.
The couple watched as Shipman considered the question before answering: “I had been at the annual stockholders’ meeting of American Micro. It had been an exhausting day, exacerbated by the fact that I had a terrible cold. My housekeeper, Lillian West, had dinner ready for me at seven-thirty. I ate only a little and then went directly upstairs because I still wasn’t feeling well. In fact, I even had chills, so I took a long, hot shower; then I got into bed. I hadn’t been sleeping well for several nights, so I took a sleeping pill. Then I was awakened—from a very sound sleep, I must say—when Lillian knocked on my door to tell me that Arabella was downstairs to see me.”
“So you came back downstairs?”
“Yes. I remember that Lillian was just leaving as I came down, and that Arabella was already in the library.”
“Were you pleased to see her?”
Shipman paused for a moment before answering. “No, I was not. I remember that I was still groggy from the sleeping pill and could hardly keep my eyes open. Also I was angry that after ignoring my phone calls, she had simply decided to appear without warning. As you may remember, there is a bar in the library. Well, Arabella already had made herself at home by preparing a martini for each of us.”
Death Wears a Beauty Mask and Other Stories Page 17