The Long Fall

by Daniel Quentin Steele

  “Please don’t take offense. We’re both adults. Everyone in this courtroom is an adult. You were married. It’s a part of life. You had a good physical relationship?”

  He looked as if he were retreating into some hidden part of his mind, and then his vision cleared and he smiled.

  He almost whispered, but again his words carried clearly.

  “You don’t want to talk about that in front of your children, even when they’re grown, but yes, we were very physically compatible. To be honest, when we first married I couldn’t keep my hands off her. And she- she was a passionate woman.”

  I nodded.

  “You’ve had a hard life and I know that disease has caused you problems in your later years, but these photos show a young, strong, handsome man. I’ll bet the ladies were after you before you married, weren’t they?”

  He rubbed his lips with his forefinger and looked back at the photos. I could see him almost physically return to a happier period of his life. He smiled and had what could only be a called a guilty expression on his face for a moment. I leaned forward and talked to him, one man to another.

  “It’s alright, Mr. Bingham. We were all young once. And a guy that looked like you wasn’t going to be a saint. I’ll bet anything that your daughters never knew about your....adventures...before you met their mother, did they?”

  Leary was walking by me and standing in front of the judge, trying as hard as he could to keep his voice down so he couldn’t be heard by the public spectators, but he was so loud it was a hard thing to do

  “Your honor, I’ve held my tongue so hard it’s starting to turn black and blue, but this is...I’m going to object on the grounds of general squeamishness. I don’t know if Mr. Maitland woke up ...aroused...this morning and is trying to get his jollies, or if he really has some voyeuristic tendencies, but bringing us up to speed on my client’s early sex life has absolutely nothing to do with this case. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.”

  I just looked at Dellaro.

  “You’ve seen me work before, your honor. I promise you this line of question has EVERYTHING to do with this case. Give me a little leeway.”

  The judge just nodded. On his way back to his table Leary stopped close to me and managed to whisper so no one but he and I and Bingham heard, “You’re on thin ice, brother, and I’m going to push you under. Fair warning.”

  “Mr. Bingham? Do you remember the question?”

  “Yes.”

  He stopped for a moment and stared at his daughters, then looked back at me.

  “I wasn’t always this burnt out husk of a man, Mr. Maitland. I was young and strong and – I had the normal urges. It wasn’t like today. It was the 50s. But, yes, women liked me. And I liked them. I never kept any secrets from Mabel. She knew, but you don’t tell your children about stuff like that.”

  “Thank you for being honest.”

  I spoke a little louder, so Dellaro could hear me better but Bingham wouldn’t be spooked by the change in tone.

  “The reason I asked you those questions is that I wanted to understand...your situation as your wife lay dying. You were a young, strong man with normal urges and you married a beautiful passionate woman. You had a good physical relationship. Now I’m going to ask you a difficult question. You were a good looking guy. Women liked you when you were single. Again, I’m not judging you, but people are human. Did you ever – slip? Did you ever go outside your marriage with another woman?”

  Leary bounced up like a Jack in the Box, unable to control himself, almost shouting, “Oh shit! Sorry your honor, I apologize. But honestly… Judge, you have to shut him down before he embarrasses himself and the State Attorney’s Office.”

  Bingham’s daughters were standing in their seats and glaring at me.

  “Your honor, you’ve known me for awhile. I don’t go on fishing trips without a reason. Give me a little more leeway.”

  He nodded and I glanced back at Leary. He just shook his head and muttered under his breath just loudly enough that I could hear him, “God, I hate prosecutors.”

  I looked back at Bingham. His eyes gleamed and the life seemed to be flowing back into him. Anger was a tonic.

  “No. No, Mr. Maitland. I never cheated on my wife. And yes, I had opportunities. I was in corporate sales and training for IBM. I traveled all over the country, helping companies install computer systems, working out the bugs, trying to sell them every bell and whistle I could. I had lunches and late dinners and Saturday outings and we played golf to sell our systems. I met a lot of women.”

  His voice lowered and he glanced back at his children, but he continued, “And yes, some of them were interested....and attractive. And if....I was of a mind to...I could have cheated on Mabel. As you said, I’m human and....I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t sometimes tempted. But...I never forgot I was married.”

  I stayed close to him, my voice low as if we were huddled in a bar somewhere on barstools talking about something intimate and personal.

  “I’m sorry if I was a little too...personal in my questions, but I wanted to lay the groundwork for what I’m going to ask you next. You had a good physical relationship with your wife. You were a strong, healthy man. Her illnesses must have been particularly hard for that reason.”

  He just looked at me and I felt the anger ebb away and I knew that somehow he knew what was coming.

  “You and your wife had a good sexual relationship – let’s cut the euphemisms – and you were a strong healthy man. Then she became ill and there was the chemo and they had to cut her breasts off and she was sick, always sick. You loved your wife and you had to stand by her, but you were still a man. It must have been difficult. You’re no spring chicken...none of us are...but you were still a man.”

  He just shook his head, then looked me in the eye.

  “You’ve never lived with someone dying, or fighting to stay alive, have you, Mr. Maitland?”

  “Fortunately, no. I can’t imagine what it must have been like.”

  “It’s like you’re dying with them. They get to the point where they can’t get out of bed and so your whole world shrinks down to that bedroom. They need to be cleaned up like a baby, and all the respect that’s built over a lifetime dwindles and dies. It’s not something you do consciously, but...you can’t make yourself remember them as strong, independent adults. They’re worse than babies. It’s like they’re newborn infants.”

  He looked down at the pictures of his wife and said, “They waste away to the point that even the thought- the thought of touching them sexually makes you....sick. They have no interest, even when they’re conscious enough to know you’re there. When they go back into their heads, it would be like...like...”

  He searched for the word.

  “Like necrophilia, is that the word you were looking for? It would be like having sex with a dead body, only in this case it would be the dead body of the woman who had shared your life for a half century. And you couldn’t even make yourself think about that, could you?”

  He nodded.

  “But that doesn’t answer the question, Mr. Bingham. What about you? Your wife was ill for years. I assume that meant there were no sexual relations for years. But you weren’t dying or dead. Even at the end you were in your early 70s. You had several problems, including severe rheumatoid arthritis, but did you stop being a man?”

  Leary was almost in my face, talking to Dellaro.

  “I’ve tried, honest to God your honor, I’ve tried. But I can’t keep my mouth shut. I don’t know what Mr. Maitland is doing, but it should be illegal. He’s torturing a man who’s already lost his wife, for no good reason that I can think of. Unless he’s going to argue that Mr. Bingham killed his wife so he could have sex with somebody else.”

  He looked at me then and he knew. He looked over at Bingham and he was a good enough attorney that he saw it in the old man’s eyes.

  “Oh shit,” Leary said softly. “Bill, have you lost any shred of decency? I hate every prosecut
or that ever walked the face of the earth, but I was going to give you a pass. This is low....lower than low. You can’t be that desperate for a cheap murder conviction.”

  Then he looked at Dellaro, said, “I’m sorry, your honor, I’ll expect a fine or a contempt of court for that outburst after this trial, but I need to get away from this son of a bitch before I do something that will really get me in trouble.”

  Dellaro just looked at him as he walked away. Dellaro would have fined or locked up most attorneys that took that attitude, but like me, he liked the wild Irishman.

  He turned his gaze back to me, still a little disbelieving what he’d heard.

  “Is that where you’re going, Mr. Maitland?”

  “I’m afraid so, your honor.”

  I walked back to my table and pulled a piece of paper and a photograph off it and returned to the table.

  I handed the photo to Bingham first. It was a picture of two couples, Bingham standing beside his wife who was in a wheelchair, and a pretty, older red-headed woman standing next to a short, round, bald headed guy who held her hand in his.

  “Can you tell me who the couple is standing next to you and your wife?”

  He answered without looking at me.

  “He’s Murray Benjamin, and that’s his wife, Rachel. They were our next door neighbors. We’ve known them for 30 years.”

  “They live in that two-bedroom house next door to you? The red brick? Mr. Benjamin is deceased, right?

  “Five years ago, He was only 58. Just dropped dead one day. Rachel stayed in the house after he was gone. She was a good friend to Mabel and myself.”

  “Maybe a little better friend to you than Mabel?”

  One of his daughters gasped, the younger one I think. The older one just stared at me with a gaze that should have turned me to stone.

  “I – I don’t know how to answer that.”

  “Maybe this will help.”

  I gave him the second item I’d taken, just a handwritten note on stationery.

  “Can you read that to the judge?”

  He just shook his head.

  “Okay. It reads: I’m an old fool, but I can’t stop thinking about the other night. You were wonderful.”

  One of his daughters, the one that had gasped, started crying loudly. Her sister grabbed her and cradled her head against her chest.

  “Mrs. Benjamin gave that note to our investigator the other day. We didn’t have to push her too hard. I think she felt...guilty...about what was going on. Actually, she said she felt guilty. Were you...seeing Mrs. Benjamin?”

  Bingham just stared at his hands for a long time. Then he lifted his head with what seemed like great weariness and looked into my eyes.

  “How old are you, Mr. Maitland?”

  “Forty one, although there are days I feel a lot older.”

  “You won’t understand, but I’ll tell you anyway. When you get into your 60s and 70s...women look at you...different. They don’t see a man. They see an old....sexless...thing. They don’t smile at you the same way. They don’t really see you.

  “To my daughters, I’m just dad. Children never think about their parents having sex. They don’t understand...that you still need the physical part of life. If Mabel had been healthy, there is no question. We would have...been with each other. People in their 80s in nursing homes still have sex.

  “But she wasn’t there anymore. Not really. Not the Mabel I loved. She hadn’t been for years. And...I did what you’d...expect a man to do. But...it’s cold...and it’s lonely. You’d think....that masturbation....that fantasy....would satisfy you more easily when you get older. But it doesn’t. I was used to having a woman in my bed. A warm, loving woman.”

  “I think I do understand, Mr. Bingham. You were lonely. And Rachel Benjamin was lonely, wasn’t she. Her husband had died years before. Had she...met anyone?”

  “She’d gone out. She told me she’d been to bed with guys. But...she said she was lonelier after having sex with them than before. She didn’t really know them, and they didn’t really care about her...except for the sex. But we had been friends for a long, long time. The first time, it just happened. The girls stayed with their mother to let me go out for dinner. They didn’t think anything about my going with Rachel because we had gone out as couples so often. Besides, they never even thought about my having sex with another woman than their mother. I was just dad.”

  “And you continued to see her?”

  “Yes. It started just as...relief...for both of us. But over the months, it turned into something else. I guess it’s common. We had known each other for so long. We liked each other before...the sex. I started looking forward to seeing her and then we started thinking and talking about what would happen...after. We both knew Mabel couldn’t last much longer. And she didn’t even know. She wasn’t even there anymore. She was just a body.”

  At that his youngest daughter burst into loud sobbing and her older sister walked her out of the courtroom.

  “But Mabel wouldn’t die, would she?”

  He didn’t respond.

  “And when she hung on and hung on, the guilt began to get to Rachel, didn’t it. She felt like she was betraying her oldest friend. She told you she would die if your daughters ever learned what you two were doing. She wanted to stop. Maybe even move away. And you wouldn’t have that, would you?”

  Silence.

  “And you told her that something would happen over that weekend. And you two would be free to be together. That’s what she told our investigator. Was she lying?”

  Silence. You could have actually heard a pin drop. I could hear spectators in the public section shifting their weight as they leaned forward to hear every syllable. I thought I could actually hear the scratching of Cameron’s pen as he made notes on the reporter’s notebook he carried everywhere.

  “How could you know that Mabel was going to regain consciousness and ask you to release her from her pain – that weekend?”

  He wouldn’t look me in the eye.

  “Did she regain consciousness, Mr. Bingham? Or did you simply decide that you had suffered with her long enough and that you deserved a life after taking care of her for so long? Was it fair that she drag you down into the grave with her? It wasn’t like you hadn’t gone above and beyond any duty a loving husband had to his wife. I don’t know many men – or women – that would have done what you did in taking care of a dying spouse for so long.

  “And it wasn’t as if she would suffer. You said it yourself. She wasn’t even there anymore.”

  He finally looked up at me. Tears began streaming down his face.

  “It wasn’t until after she was gone that it hit me...what I had done. She was so white...so cold...but I looked at her and I saw her smiling at me the way she had on our first date. She was so damned beautiful. And I had sworn to her I’d love her forever and be there for her always. And I...I”

  He fell forward and I was barely able to catch and hold him upright. A moment later bailiffs were there to help him to the floor and a doctor in the spectator section came forward and after checking him assured everyone including his oldest daughter who had rushed back in that he was fine. He had just fainted. The doctor brought him around in a moment.

  After Bingham had been helped back to the defense table and his daughter came to his side, Dellaro said he was continuing the penalty hearing until the next morning at 10 a.m. After about 30 minutes Bingham was pronounced well enough to walk and two bailiffs standing on either side of him helped him for the courtroom. His daughter was going to drive him to his house but she stopped before she left the courtroom and walked up to me.

  She was almost six feet tall and looked down on me.

  “I hope you’re proud of yourself, you son of a bitch. My sister is leaving town right now. She said she never wants to see him again. He lost his wife and you cost him his daughter. And for what? My mother died a long time ago. He just let her go. And you might have sent him to prison for the rest of his
life. So I’ve lost my mother, and probably my father and maybe my sister. I hope to God you get cancer and die just the way my mother did.”

  Jessica said after she left, “You did what you thought was right, Bill. She’s just hurting..hurting bad right now.”

  Leary was standing in front of the prosecution table.

  “I’ve always been curious. How does it feel to play God? You just destroyed a man’s life and his family.”

  “You know he killed her, Patrick. And not to release her from her pain. So he could go screw his longtime friend. That’s okay with you? Killing unconscious family members when their presence gets to be too much of a burden?”

  “You don’t know that. You are just playing God, you’re not the real thing. You will never know exactly what was going through his mind when he injected her.”

  “We have facts: written notes, testimony from his lady friend. We know enough.”

  “How do you live with yourself, Bill. You just destroyed a man. How are you going to sleep tonight?”

  “I haven’t destroyed anything. Just use those same arguments when you go up before Dellaro tomorrow. He might agree that there’s no way for sure anybody will ever know exactly what was going through his mind. Bingham was a pretty sympathetic figure on the stand. He might slide by with a suspended sentence or parole yet.”

  “Did I ever tell you that I hate prosecutors?”

  “Numerous times.”

  “You guys – none of you – have any pity in you. People make mistakes because they’re people. And you operate the machinery of the law to grind them up and spit their bones out afterwards. Somebody said it already, but the Law is an ass.”

  Then he looked at me and there was a little crooked grin on his face.

  “I should do like you do and turn you in to the bar for ethics violations. No pity, remember.”

  “Ethics violations?”

  “You have an obligation to let me know ahead of time what you found out about the girlfriend. You caught me completely off guard.”

  “Well, Patrick, I could argue that this isn’t a real trial but actually just a sentencing hearing, and those rules DON’T apply in that setting. Or, I could simply say that you do and I will litter the court system with complaints about your activities, the least serious of which would be sleeping with multiple witnesses on both sides of cases we’ve argued. How about coercing favorable testimony through sexual blackmail? Or hiding witnesses you knew we needed for our cases when you got to them first? But, I don’t need to do that.