Truly Married

by Phyllis Halldorson

  His demeanor changed to that of a man trying to reason with a child. “Of course you do, but a speedy trial isn’t the way to do it. I won’t let you put yourself in jeopardy just because the waiting is unpleasant and you’re impatient.”

  He hesitated, then continued. “Surely I don’t have to remind you what it’s like in jail? Well, prison is a hell of a lot worse.”

  Sharon shivered, and Fergus again cradled her against him. “I’m sorry,” he said gently. “I hate having to scare you into anything, but you’ve got to be realistic. Right now our case is practically nonexistent. We need to find someone who saw you leave Vancleave’s office. There were people in the pool area, but it may take a long time to find them. Guests at a hotel usually don’t stay long. Ray has gotten access to a list of guests who were registered at the time of the murder, but so far he hasn’t found anyone who was out at the pool on the morning in question.”

  She was torn between fear of conviction and frustration at the limitations placed on her until this was settled. “I don’t know,” she said mournfully against his hard-muscled chest. “I’ll have to think about it.”

  He caressed her back with his hand. “Do that,” he agreed reluctantly, “but you’ll have to let me know before we go into court in the morning. If you’re bound over they’ll set a date for the trial at that time.”

  * * *

  Sharon slept fitfully that night. Her mind kept twisting and turning, wrestling with the dilemma of her own making. She trusted Fergus completely on this issue, but even if she hadn’t his argument would have made sense. He needed all the time he could get to prepare a defense. The evidence was all stacked against her, and just the thought of going to prison made her break out in a cold sweat.

  So why couldn’t she give him free rein to postpone the trial as long as possible? Her stubbornness was making his job much more difficult, and it was so unnecessary. Why couldn’t she just let him handle things the way he’d been trained to do?

  It sounded so simple, but how could she survive for a year or more in this purgatory of suspense and degradation? She was a virtual prisoner, even though the bars were invisible, and how long would the hotel keep paying her a salary not to work? She doubted that even Fergus could compel them past a certain length of time.

  Then what would she do? No one would hire her with a charge of murder hanging over her head. The newspapers were eagerly printing every bit of fact or fiction pertinent to the case, complete with pictures, and their readers were gleefully taking sides. One faction thought she should rot in prison for killing her boss in an angry rage. The other faction proclaimed that she’d struck a blow for women’s liberation and deserved sainthood.

  But both sides never doubted that she was guilty!

  When it became obvious that she wasn’t going to fall asleep until she stopped worrying about that she tried to focus on a different subject. Unfortunately her mind flip-flopped over into even more dangerous territory. The fact that Fergus was sleeping just across the hall from her!

  A picture of his slender, but muscular, body lying naked and relaxed in sleep between the crisp brown sheets sent prickles of passion to her core. It would be so easy for her to go to him, climb into his bed and take refuge in his arms, in the delicious oblivion of his lovemaking. She knew he’d welcome her. He’d made no secret of his desire for her, and God knows, she was burning with fever for him.

  Their lovemaking had always been glorious. They’d had only to climb into bed at night and curl up together to ignite the flame that consumed them. It never failed to happen, and that’s why it had been such a gut-wrenching shock to her when she was confronted with the fact that Fergus was involved with another woman.

  Her heat cooled and she pounded her pillow in frustration. Damn him! How dared he toy with her that way! He’d taught her the enchantment of ecstasy, then left her bereft and alone.

  When she finally fell asleep she had strange and frightening dreams that left her dispirited and sad when she awakened the following morning, even though she couldn’t remember the content of them.

  * * *

  The preliminary hearing was set for ten o’clock that Wednesday morning, but Sharon was awake and out of bed by five-thirty. She pulled a lavender-and-white checked cotton robe on over her nightgown, then brushed her teeth and made halfhearted passes at her hair with a comb. A glance in the mirror at her drawn face and bloodshot eyes made her wince, but what the hell? No one would expect her to look like a cover girl when she appeared in court as a murder suspect.

  At least it was plain to her now what she was going to do about setting a time for the trial. Although she wasn’t conscious of having come to a decision during the night, this morning she knew that her only choice was to get it over with as quickly as possible so she could send Fergus Lachlan back to Chicago and get him out of her life.

  His brand of loving had nearly destroyed her once. She wasn’t going to give him a second try at it, but the longer they were together the more difficult it was to remember that.

  She’d thought she was the only one stirring so far, but halfway down the stairs she was met by the aroma of coffee and bacon. Anna hadn’t mentioned having to go to work early, but business hours in real estate were pretty erratic.

  When Sharon got to the kitchen she found Fergus breaking eggs into a skillet. For some reason she hadn’t considered that it might be him, and his presence startled her. She wondered if he’d been unable to sleep, too.

  He heard her and turned around. “Sharon, what are you doing up so early?”

  He looked more closely at her. “Did you get any sleep at all?” he asked.

  She shook her head. His compassionate tone melted her bones, but she kept her distance. “Not much, and when I did I had bad dreams. I didn’t hear you leave your room. I thought you were still in bed.”

  “I didn’t sleep very well, either, but I usually get up about this time.”

  “You didn’t use to,” she blurted, then wished she’d bitten her tongue, instead.

  “That’s because I had you in bed with me,” he said simply.

  The longing that coursed through her made her gasp. “Dammit, Fergus—”

  He held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, I’m sorry,” he said, and turned his attention back to his eggs. “Are you afraid of what’s going to happen today? Is that why you couldn’t sleep?”

  Yeah, Sharon, go ahead and tell him why you couldn’t sleep. Tell him it was because you were lusting for him, and see how long it takes him to get you back upstairs and into his bed.

  “I...I guess so,” she said instead, “but I did come to a decision about the trial date. I’m sorry, Fergus, I know it’s going to put a lot of pressure on you, but please tell the judge I want a speedy trial.”

  He whirled around, shocked. “Sharon, are you sure? Why are you in such an all-fired hurry? You’re too bright not to understand the risk as I’ve explained it.” His tone was brusque.

  “You’re right, I do understand,” she told him, “and I apologize for being so difficult, but I need to get on with my life. I can’t live in a perpetual cloud of suspicion and frustration. All I did was yell at Floyd Vancleave, tell him what a bastard he was and then leave.”

  “And that’s the crux of the problem,” Fergus snapped as he turned back to the stove and shut off the heat under the skillet. “Everyone in the reception area saw you storm into his office unannounced and heard you shouting at him, but then you went out the back door, so none of them saw you leave. Minutes later when the receptionist went in she saw you bending over his corpse with a knife in your hand, dripping blood.”

  He turned around and ran his hand through his hair in a gesture of irritation. “No responsible juror is going to acquit you unless we either find the real murderer or a witness who saw you outside the building when Vancleave was killed, and that’s going to take time.”

  He turned his back on her once more to move the skillet from the hot burner to a cool one, then walke
d across the room to where she stood by the table. “Don’t do this to me, Sharon,” he pleaded. “Don’t deliberately tie my hands. I’d never forgive myself if a jury found you guilty. Please, work with me, not against me.”

  Chapter Nine

  The news media were waiting for Fergus and Sharon as they approached the courthouse. Cameras clicked and microphones were shoved at them as reporters yelled questions and jostled to get closer, impeding their progress.

  Fergus had warned Sharon this would happen and had instructed her on how it should be handled, but even though she thought she was prepared, it was a frightening experience. She’d never been the center of so much howling attention before, and it all merged into an undecipherable roar. Fergus tucked her arm through his and pushed their way through the wall of bodies with a terse “No comment” to shouted questions.

  Sharon, following his orders, kept her head down and her mouth shut. He had selected the celery-colored business suit she was wearing, a well-tailored outfit that was stylish but not eye-catching or sexy.

  “You’ll make a better general impression if you’re neither too beautiful nor too confident,” he’d explained. “A jury is mostly made up of middle-class working people who will find it difficult to empathize with you if you look like a beauty queen or a chairman of the board. The same goes for the reporters and the TV audience.”

  In spite of her nervousness, Sharon hadn’t been able to quell a chuckle. “In other words, you don’t care for this suit?”

  Fergus had smiled and winked. “Right,” he’d said, then sobered. “If this case goes to trial the jurors will be people who have watched you on television, so you’ll have to be careful of your image from now on.”

  That pronouncement had depressed her then, and it continued to do so as she stifled her natural inclination to look her best and speak her mind. At least now she knew she was right to insist on a speedy trial. She was innocent and she’d go out of her mind if she had to play games with the public for a year or two!

  When they finally got to the courtroom the entourage followed them inside, all but the cameras. The din was deafening as Sharon and Fergus took seats at the defense table in front. A few minutes later Ray Quinlan, in his role as co-counsel, joined them. In a matter of seconds the bailiff called for order and declared the court in session. A black-robed judge walked out of chambers and took her seat at the bench.

  It all happened quickly, leaving Sharon off balance and confused. The courtroom was packed, but the only people she knew were Fergus and Ray. Were all these curious strangers going to influence whether or not she was charged with murdering Floyd?

  It was like a nightmarish circus. Did anyone there care what really happened? Or did they just want to be entertained? To hold off the numbing boredom of their dull lives by watching the wheels of justice grind a likely suspect into oblivion?

  Sharon’s case was called, and after some “preliminaries,” as the judge called them, motions that needed to be decided on before the hearing started, an assistant district attorney, a man named John Hollingsworth, stood to make an opening statement.

  “Your Honor, on Wednesday of last week, June 15, the police were called to the Starlight St. Louis Hotel, where the defendant, Sharon Sawyer Lachlan, an employee, had been discovered crouching over the body of her immediate supervisor, Floyd Vancleave, clutching a bloody letter opener in her hand. The victim had died of a stab wound in the heart.”

  Sharon gasped and grabbed Fergus’s arm. “I haven’t used the name Lachlan since I filed for divorce,” she whispered.

  Fergus frowned. “Did you petition the court to have your maiden name restored?”

  She tried to think. “I’m not sure. I was too upset to—”

  No, she wasn’t going to whine about how totally wiped out she’d been at the time of their divorce. He already knew that, he didn’t need to hear it again.

  She stopped and started over. “My attorney handled everything and I asked him to do that. I assumed that he did. I’ve been signing my name Sawyer for the past five years.”

  Fergus nodded and stood up. “Your Honor,” he said in his musical baritone voice that was pleasingly pitched but still carried to all corners of the room. “So that there will be no confusion, I’d like it noted for the record that Ms. Sawyer is my ex-wife. We were divorced five years ago, and since that time she has not used my name, but has reverted to her maiden name, Sharon Elisse Sawyer, for all personal and legal purposes. We request that the name Lachlan not be used when referring to her.”

  The judge indicated that the record would so show, and the request was granted.

  The assistant district attorney frowned at Fergus and continued. “We will show that Ms. Sawyer had ample motive and opportunity, and that she did in fact kill Floyd Vancleave, deliberately and with malice.”

  John Hollingsworth sat down, and the judge turned to Fergus. “Did you wish to make an opening statement, Mr. Lachlan?”

  Fergus stood. “A brief one, Your Honor. My client is innocent of any and all charges against her. She has been a respected and productive member of this community for the past five years. Before that she was an honor student at Northwestern University in the Chicago area, where she graduated in the top ten percent of her class.”

  He put his hand on Sharon’s shoulder and smiled when she looked up. She saw affection and trust in his gaze, and she was grateful for his effort at reassurance.

  “Sharon is known to all her friends and acquaintances as a warm and compassionate woman,” he continued, “and it is inconceivable that she would commit an act of violence. She has no criminal record, not even a parking ticket, and it is a travesty of justice that she was ever arrested for this crime.”

  He sat down, and the judge turned toward the A.D.A. “Do you wish to present witnesses, Mr. Hollingsworth?”

  “Yes, Your Honor,” he answered. “I call Ms. Beverly Maitland to the stand.”

  Sharon’s heart sank. Floyd Vancleave’s secretary. Her testimony would be the most damaging.

  The door at the back of the room opened and Beverly walked down the aisle. She was dressed in a navy blue suit, with matching pumps and a crisp white blouse. Her curly brown hair framed her face and tumbled to her shoulders.

  When she got to the witness chair she was sworn in, and as she sat down her gaze met Sharon’s, but Beverly looked away quickly and Sharon couldn’t tell whether she was sympathetic or antagonistic.

  Hollingsworth stood and led her through a series of questions that established who she was and her connection with the victim and the defendant. When that was accomplished he changed tactics.

  “Now, Ms. Maitland,” he said, “tell us what happened at approximately 10:30 a.m. of last Wednesday, June 15.”

  Beverly looked nervously around the room, studiously avoiding Sharon, then cleared her throat. “Well, I... That is, I was sitting at my desk in the reception room of Mr. Vancleave’s office, when the door was flung open and Sharon—uh, Ms. Sawyer, came storming in, carrying a crumpled piece of paper in her hand and headed for Mr. Vancleave’s door. There were several people waiting to see him, and when I realized that she intended to go into his office I called to her to tell her she’d have to wait her turn, but she opened the door, shouted ‘You bastard,’ and walked on in, slamming it shut behind her.”

  The secretary looked down and fidgeted with the clasp on her purse.

  “Are you saying she was angry?” the A.D.A. prompted.

  “Objection,” Fergus said from his seat. “Calls for a conclusion.”

  “I’ll allow it,” the judge ruled. “You may answer,” she said to Beverly.

  “Oh yes, I’ve never seen her so mad,” Beverly said. “Her face was red, and her eyes were positively spitting fire—”

  “Objection,” Fergus said.

  “Just confine your answers to the questions asked,” the judge instructed Beverly.

  Beverly hung her head and worried her lower lip with her teeth. Sharon couldn’t h
elp feeling sorry for her. She’d probably never been in a courtroom before, and this one was full of spectators. Besides, she was only telling the truth. Sharon knew she’d been breathing fire and smoke.

  Hollingsworth spoke again. “What happened after Ms. Sawyer went into the office and shut the door?”

  Beverly raised her head. “Well...they started yelling at each other. Everyone in the room heard them—”

  “Objection,” Fergus said again. “She can’t know what ‘everyone’ heard.”

  Hollingsworth glared at Fergus. “I’ll rephrase the question. Did you hear them yelling?”

  Beverly nodded. “Oh yes.”

  “And did others in the room indicate that they had also heard?”

  “Yes, they did. They were all looking toward the door and shaking their heads. One man even suggested that I should call security, but then the shouting stopped.”

  “It stopped?” Hollingsworth asked.

  Beverly nodded. “Yes. We... I could no longer hear them. I kept expecting Sharon to come back out, but she didn’t. Quite a bit of time went by, and the people waiting to see Mr. Vancleave were getting impatient—”

  “Just a minute,” the A.D.A. interrupted. “Can you be more specific about the time lapse? Was it two minutes? Ten minutes? Twenty?”

  She appeared thoughtful. “I didn’t look at my watch, but I’d say not more than ten minutes.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Uh...well, like I said, the people waiting in the outer office were getting impatient, and finally one of them came up to my desk to say that she had another appointment and couldn’t wait much longer. I was getting concerned, too, so I got up and walked over to the door and knocked. There was no response, so I turned the knob and opened it. That’s when I saw—”

  Beverly’s voice broke, and she closed her eyes and put the back of her hand to her mouth.