The Touch of Treason

by Sol Stein

  “Yes.”

  “Did you tell the truth when you said you heard nothing?”

  “Not the whole literal truth, of course.”

  “Well, would you mind telling this court the whole literal truth of what you heard and did when you entered Miss Troob’s room.”

  Melling was glad Melissa was not permitted to hear this testimony. But would she then perjure herself to protect his marriage?

  “We are waiting, Mr. Melling.”

  Melling spoke slowly. “I went into Miss Troob’s bedroom and made love to her. I love her more than I love my life.”

  “Did you say wife?”

  “I said life.”

  Melling dabbed his once-neat handkerchief at the corners of his eyes. Thomassy felt sorry for the man. Roberts should have coached him better if he was going to use him on the stand. Thomassy had had to throw Melling in the jury’s path so that they could watch him stumble over his deception. Maybe the ideal defense was to prove that everybody was covering something up. Everybody had something to lie about. Why pick one man to hang when the woods were full of fallible human beings?

  If Melling had been a woman, Thomassy would have held out a hand for the lady’s hand and helped her off the witness stand.

  Roberts waited till Melling wandered disconsolately from the room, allowing enough time before calling Melissa Troob for them to meet in the outside hall so that by word or gesture Melling might convey to her that their cat had run free in the courtroom. Thomassy could have kicked himself. He should have asked that the next witness be brought in by a different door.

  *

  There was no denying that God had vested a strange beauty in Melissa Troob’s face.

  Roberts got her name and relationship to the Fullers into the record and then asked her only one question. “Did Scott Melling leave your room at any time during the night before you or he heard the screaming from downstairs?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Your witness,” Roberts said.

  The bastard, Thomassy thought. He’s put my red herring back in the barrel. “No questions,” he said, letting the surprised Melissa Troob out to join her lover in the hallway, where they threw their arms around each other, oblivious, until the flashbulbs startled them, that photographers were taking pictures of them for everyone to see.

  *

  Thomassy’s attention was drawn back to the courtroom by the sense that someone was staring at him. It was Roberts, tugging at his stupid vest, a restrained smile on his lips. Thomassy had told the law students If you think your adversary is dumb, beware. If he’s on a different wavelength, he could surprise the hell out of you.

  What was Roberts up to?

  Suddenly Thomassy had a premonition, the way horses do before an earthquake. Roberts, his voice stentorian, was saying, “Your Honor, I call Francine Widmer to the stand.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  For a moment Thomassy thought Francine was coming down the aisle to where they would both turn to the judge, who, with a few ceremonial words, would pronounce them man and wife. The way things went now they could still be forced to testify against each other.

  She looked determined, and determination made her radiant. Her radiance struck him like paralyzing rays. She was coming down the courtroom aisle to testify against his client, twist the case out of joint, offer the one link that could, by turning only one juror, turn the verdict.

  He could stop her, of course. He could tell the judge they had a Wade-Simmons problem, non-notification of the defense before trial of a possible identification witness. Was Ned Widmer double-timing him? Was Francine betraying him?

  As she passed the defense table he thought she would ignore him, but as inconspicuously as possible, like an amateur ventriloquist trying anxiously not to move her lips, she said, “Hello, George.”

  Thomassy glanced up at the bench. Judge Drewson had seen that. Then he felt the yank at his elbow and heard Ed Porter whispering, “What the fuck is going on?”

  The worst thing that can happen between two people not indissolubly bound. Thrust on opposite sides, she is suddenly his adversary’s pigeon. If she harms his case, he will have to pluck her feathers out in front of everybody.

  Ed didn’t repeat his question. He’d learned to leave Thomassy alone when he got that dark Armenian glare.

  After Francine had taken the oath, Roberts began. “Please state your name.”

  “Francine Widmer.”

  When Roberts asked her, “Where do you reside?” Thomassy looked around the courtroom, expecting to see every man who thought her as beautiful as he did writing down her address.

  “How are you employed, Miss Widmer?”

  “I work for the American delegation to the United Nations.”

  “In what capacity?”

  “As a political analyst.”

  “Describe your duties, please.”

  “I do research for the speeches delivered at the UN and elsewhere by the ambassador. I sometimes contribute some of the actual writing, a few paragraphs here and there.”

  “Would you say then,” Roberts went on, “that you are employed for both your research abilities and your perception?”

  Thomassy stood impatiently. “Your Honor, I don’t see this line of questioning leading to something pertinent in this case.”

  Roberts came on strong. “Your Honor, this is one of the people’s most important witnesses and her powers of perception are directly relevant to what will emerge in her answers to the next few questions.”

  Judge Drewson said, “I guess we’ll both have to be a little patient, Mr. Thomassy.”

  Haig Thomassian’s son folded himself down into his chair. Francine looked so damned self-assured. She and Roberts were suddenly of one class, the comfortably born, the comfortably educated, allies in control of the realm.

  “Miss Widmer,” Roberts continued, “did there come a time on the morning of September twenty-first of this year that you witnessed anything unusual on your way to work through the UN lobby and if so, would you describe it.”

  Francine glanced at Thomassy. He turned away.

  “The lobby is usually crowded at that hour. There were quite a few people headed in both directions. Two people walking in the opposite direction from me caught my eye because a young man was attempting to catch their attention. The two men stopped just for a second. I think the young man was trying to thrust something at one of them, perhaps a piece of folded paper, I’m not sure. But that man turned on his heel and started walking rapidly in the direction from which he’d come. The second man then started walking rapidly in my direction, followed by the young man still holding the piece of paper, trying to catch up to him.”

  “Did he?” Roberts asked.

  “I think so.”

  “Can you be more specific?”

  “It seemed to me that the second man, in exasperation, stopped as if he’d decided to take the piece of paper just to get rid of the young man.”

  “Did you observe all this while continuing to walk?”

  “No, I’d stopped.”

  “Why did you stop?”

  “Because I recognized the two men coming toward me as members of the Soviet delegation, Igor Semyonov and Julian Trushenko. Semyonov is assumed by the members of our delegation to be KGB.”

  “To the best of your knowledge, is that unusual for a member of the Soviet delegation?”

  “Not at all. It’s just that Semyonov is assumed to be quite senior.”

  “What about the other man?”

  “He’s supposed to be an agricultural specialist.”

  “You mean he works the farmers’ lobby?”

  Roberts’s crack drew some chuckles from the press section.

  “Miss Widmer,” Roberts continued, “during this interchange you observed did there come a time that you recognized the young man who attempted to stop or pass a note to the Russians?”

  “I believe it was the same young man I saw briefly in the outer
office of the defense counsel.”

  “Miss Widmer, can you tell us if you see that individual in this courtroom?”

  She pointed at Ed, slouching in his chair.

  “You’re not pointing to the defense counsel, are you?”

  “No, sir, the younger man sitting next to him, with the curly brown hair.”

  “No more questions, Your Honor.”

  Thomassy rose. Slowly he walked to the witness box. In the Mellon Lectures, he’d told the kids One of the high arts of defense is the destruction of a credible witness. He hadn’t told them that the witness might be the person they most wanted to protect. He looked at Francine in the box, lovely, perhaps a touch afraid. If you learn to fly the high wire, he’d told his students, you no longer have the option of missing. Anything you say in court is not retractable; it’s in the record for keeps.

  “Miss Widmer,” he said, “do you consider yourself to be a law-abiding citizen?”

  “Objection!” Roberts shouted.

  “Your Honor,” Thomassy said, “that question is directly relevant to the impeachment of the character of this alleged eyewitness.”

  “You may proceed. Will the stenographer please repeat the question.”

  The court reporter, in a voice perfectly suited to his task, droned as if he was reading from the telephone book. “Miss Widmer do you consider yourself to be a law-abiding citizen question mark.”

  “Yes,” Francine said, her voice sinking.

  “Did you believe that what you allegedly saw transpire in the crowded lobby of the UN building was unusual or unlawful?”

  “Unusual.”

  “Did you report what you saw to the police?” Thomassy asked.

  “No, I did not.”

  “Did you report what you saw to any other law enforcement agency, the FBI for instance?”

  “No.”

  “Then can you tell this court how you came to be a witness in this trial.”

  “I was subpoenaed by the district attorney.”

  “Are you trying to tell this court that the district attorney is a mind reader or did you in fact tell someone of what you saw in the lobby of the UN building?”

  “I told my father.”

  The judge had to use his gavel to stop the buzz.

  “What prompted you to tell your father of this alleged incident?”

  “I recognized the defendant in the anteroom of your office, Mr. Thomassy.”

  “And what were you doing in my office?”

  “I came to see you because you are my friend.”

  Again the judge had to gavel down the noise in the courtroom.

  “You gave this court your address,” Thomassy said, repeating it. “But isn’t it also true that you have in fact been living in my house for the better part of a year, Miss Widmer?”

  “Better or worse, yes.”

  She was angry at last. Let the jurors think this was some offshoot of a lovers’ quarrel.

  “Miss Widmer,” he said, “I asked you what prompted you to tell your father of this alleged incident. Would you please answer the question asked.”

  Francine hesitated for a second. “Because my father asked you to represent the defendant in this case.”

  The press section came alive like a swarm and had to be gaveled to silence by the judge.

  “And what precipitated your father’s involvement in this matter?”

  Roberts was on his feet objecting even as Francine in a louder voice than Thomassy’d ever heard her use shouted, “I don’t know!”

  “May I remind you you are under oath,” Thomassy said, and then snapped, “No more questions!” and sat down, leaving her desolate in the witness box.

  Roberts was yanking at the bottom of his vest, trying to think of how he might restore the importance of Francine’s testimony from the shambles Thomassy’s tactics had left it in. Koppelman handed him a folded piece of yellow paper. Roberts glanced at it.

  He tried his best. “Miss Widmer,” he said, coming up to the stand, “are you certain the defendant is the person you saw in the UN lobby?”

  “I object,” Thomassy said, “Your Honor, I move that this witness’s entire testimony be stricken as irrelevant and immaterial. The facts that the jury are considering have to do with an incident concerning a kerosene heater inside the Fuller residence. I don’t see any connection between this testimony and that incident.”

  “With respect, Your Honor,” Roberts said, “this testimony is relevant with regard to the defendant’s possible motive in perpetrating his crime.”

  Thomassy felt the blood surging to his face. “I beg the court to remind the jury—perhaps the distinguished prosecutor as well—that the defendant is under our system innocent until proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and cannot be referred to as a perpetrator of anything until and unless a jury finds him guilty. May I request a conference at the bench?”

  The judge summoned both lawyers to him. “Yes, Mr. Thomassy?”

  “Your Honor, while I realize we are out of earshot of the jury, I am concerned that the matter I am about to raise will become part of the trial transcript and later seen by the jury.”

  “Mr. Thomassy,” Judge Drewson said, “I believe I know how to conduct a trial without reminders from counsel. You always have the prerogative of appeal if I err. Say what you have to say.”

  Thomassy knew that however low he spoke, if the court reporter were to hear, Francine would hear. He could ask for her to be excused. He couldn’t do it. She would hear.

  “Your Honor,” he said, “this is not a treason trial.” He heard his own subdued words echoing in his mind. Thomassy cleared his throat. “None of the charges against the defendant allege that he was working for one government and passing on classified information to another government. Yet we must all be aware that a jury does not draw distinctions the way Your Honor and honorable counsel do, and if Miss Widmer’s testimony is allowed to stand, there is the undeniable risk that even one juror will interpret some connection between Soviet officials and this defendant and react emotionally to the implied charge of treason rather than to a judgment of the facts at issue in the specifics of the indictment.”

  Judge Drewson, watched by everyone, could not let his own disquiet show. He didn’t like what had happened to the justice system, people being tried under the grab-bag of the conspiracy statutes instead of for what they did do because the government couldn’t prove it. He didn’t like people being tried for perjury in lieu of what he thought of as their original crime that they later lied about. He didn’t like mobsters having to be sent away for income tax evasion. He was doomed to judge an imperfect world under an imperfect system he had sworn to uphold.

  “Mr. Roberts,” he said more sternly than he might have under other circumstances, “none of the charges in this case concern the espionage statutes, which would in any event be a matter for the federal bench and not for this jurisdiction. I don’t want the jury left with any implication that a possible sighting of the defendant trying to communicate with Soviet nationals at the UN is related to the crimes he is here charged with unless you are going to be able to produce witnesses who will clearly, concretely, and without ambiguity associate this defendant with a foreign government and address the issue of intent.”

  Roberts glanced over in the direction of Koppelman. Koppelman shook his head.

  “Your Honor,” Roberts said, “it is possible that the people may have access to photographs supporting Miss Widmer’s testimony.”

  “Do you have such photographs?”

  “Not yet, Your Honor.”

  “Are you certain you will have access to them?”

  “No, Your Honor.”

  “And no witnesses such as I just described?”

  “I have no such further witnesses, Your Honor,” Roberts said.

  “Your Honor,” Thomassy said, “I have moved to strike Miss Widmer’s testimony. I now move for a mistrial.”

  “Denied,” the judge said. “Mr. Thomassy,
I’m going to leave the testimony stand but when I instruct the jury I will make it clear that even if the other evidence offered provides them with sufficient proof that the defendant was the only possible perpetrator, they may consider Miss Widmer’s testimony solely as substantiation of motive or intent. If they are not impressed by the other evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, I will tell them that they cannot consider Miss Widmer’s testimony in any respect and are to treat it as if it were not given by her or heard by them.”

  Roberts objected to the judge’s news in vain.

  Thomassy said nothing. The breath of treason had brushed by. If it was by the skill of his argument, was he then the traitor?

  As they went back to their respective places, the judge dismissed Francine.

  You son-of-a-bitch, Thomassy told himself, you love to win, but at what cost? Francine was just being ushered out by one of the guards. She should have told him. He’d have told her to get lost so they wouldn’t find her. And she’d have said he was obstructing justice. She’s been contaminated by that damn UN mentality, moral farting into the wind, when the only thing that counted here or in the spats among nations was winning. Then why did he feel as if he had suddenly lost something irretrievable?

  *

  During the recess, Ed said he wanted to make a phone call in private.

  When he returned, he seemed to have regained his self-confidence.

  “Who were you talking to?” Thomassy asked him.

  “Franklin Harlow.”

  “You thinking of changing counsel?”

  “Of course not. I was merely asking Mr. Harlow if an attorney heard conflicting information from his client and from a so-called personal friend, did that make representation of the client difficult?”

  “And what did Mr. Harlow say?”

  “He said that given the blanket of confidentiality that exists between you and me that does not necessarily exist between you and a friend, you are to assume for purposes of this trial that what I say is what you act on. To do otherwise, Mr. Harlow said, would be against the code of ethics. You are my lawyer and you are bound to help me.”

  “I will talk to you later,” Thomassy said. “If I talked to you now I’d tell you what I thought of you.”