Sandrine's Case

by Thomas H. Cook

  “That’s what he said, yes.”

  “And he just told you to take it?”

  “Yes,” Officer Hill answered. “Those were his exact words. He just said, ‘Take it’ and waved his hand.”

  I looked at the jury and sensed just how odd they found all this. Had this man no feelings at all? Or even any curiosity, for that matter. Had this Professor Madison become so estranged from his wife, or so indifferent to her or so repulsed by her, that he’d not the slightest impulse to read her last note?

  They would be responding to a mood, of course, rather than to any particular piece of evidence. Officer Hill had not actually described this mood, but I feared that some element of it had wafted up from her testimony and drifted over to the jury box. It was like an odor, and this odor disturbed them. They’d felt something strange and sinister in the way I’d told Officer Hill that she could take Sandrine’s note, something even stranger and more sinister in the fact that I hadn’t read it.

  I was certain that Mr. Singleton saw this, too, though he gave no indication of it to the jury. It was way too soon for him to give the impression that they were already in his pocket. He was posing as a man who was nothing if not humble, a modestly paid civil servant who could be making much more money defending the indefensible scum who were daily sowing their malicious chaos amid our otherwise purple mountain majesties and amber waves of grain. It was important that they think of him as one of them, a man who shops where they shop and buys what they buy and takes his family to the movies and stares with childlike wonder at blue creatures in 3-D. I was to be the alien in the midst of these ordinary, hardworking folk, a reader of books whose wife had a French name and probably even read books written in that snooty language.

  Careful now, I told myself, don’t let your face show the contempt you feel for Mr. Singleton’s crude strategy, his quite obvious manipulation of this no doubt highly manipulateable (is that a word?) jury.

  “Officer Hill, did you take that note?” Mr. Singleton asked.

  “No,” Officer Hill answered. “I was just responding to a call. I had not been assigned any duties with regard to an investigation.”

  Perhaps so, but that very night, it had been clear to me that she’d begun investigating almost immediately after entering the bedroom. I’d seen it in her eyes, that dark sparkle of suspicion, her sense that something wasn’t right. She’d moved about the room slowly, guardedly, as if she were already playing her cards close to the vest, a behavior I’d found rather melodramatic. For that reason, I’d dismissed Officer Hill as a typical small town cop, one who’d watched plenty of episodes of Law & Order but who’d never confronted anything in sleepy little Coburn that could possibly resemble the high drama of a television police opera.

  Now, as I listened to Officer Hill’s testimony, I had to concede that she might legitimately have begun to question what she saw in the shadowy light of Sandrine’s death room, the way there’d been a plate of uneaten food on the floor beside her bed, a pair of pajamas balled up and thrown into the corner, that oddly folded tent of yellow paper. Was it possible that this woman had not died of natural causes? Was it possible that her death had been brought about by a hand other than her own? It had been Officer Hill’s duty to ask these questions, and she had done her duty, of course, and as she continued her testimony it struck me that, had she been a professor rather than a cop, she might have been a far more devoted one than I.

  “And did you have occasion, Officer Hill, to observe the bed?” Mr. Singleton asked.

  She had had such occasion, of course, and what she’d seen could not but have added an element of the macabre.

  “And Mrs. Madison in that bed?” Mr. Singleton asked.

  “Yes. I saw Mrs. Madison.”

  I knew what was coming, because for days after Sandrine’s death it was this image that would not leave me, the curious tableau that had greeted me when I’d gone into the bedroom, expecting to find one scene but astonished to find a quite different one.

  “Can you describe what you saw to the jury, Officer Hill?” Mr. Singleton asked.

  This: Sandrine, lying on her back, her dark, wavy hair swept up and over to her left so that it seemed to float above her, as if she were immersed in water. Sandrine with the white sheet pulled down to expose one perfect breast, its small pink nipple, the round white orb, even in death, oddly erotic. Sandrine with her right arm in repose upon the sheet, her fingers delicately holding the dried rose that had once rested in a small vase in the scriptorium. Sandrine with her lips painted and her cheeks lightly blushed, her eyes open slightly, drowsily, as if on the verge of sleep.

  It was a scene that had been reflected in the glass bottles and single crystal decanter that rested on the small wooden table beside the bed, a sinister tableau that surely must have given pause to Officer Hill. Had it looked to her, I wondered now, as if Sandrine’s body had been purposely arranged in this way, a peaceful death in appearance but, in reality, something else?

  The answer to this question was not long in coming.

  “Now Officer Hill, confronted by this . . . scene . . . did you ask Professor Madison if this was exactly the way he’d found Sandrine Madison?” Mr. Singleton asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Why did you ask him that question, Officer Hill?”

  “Because it just seemed strange to me that a woman who was going to kill herself would put on makeup,” Officer Hill answered. “And the way everything looked, the bottles, for example. It just seemed like things had been set up. There was something that didn’t look natural about it. It was more something you’d see like maybe in a movie.”

  Arranged “like maybe” in a movie indeed, I thought, and so it had certainly been Officer Hill’s duty to explore the possibility that Sandrine’s death might have something of ritual about it. Had she tentatively entertained the possibility that we’d been members of a satanic cult, Sandrine a human sacrifice?

  “Would it be fair to say that it was because of these things that you began to view the bedroom as a possible crime scene?” Mr. Singleton asked.

  It would indeed be fair to say this, for as her continuing testimony made clear, Officer Hill had done just that.

  “When you returned to the Coburn police station, did you make these observations known?” Mr. Singleton asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “To whom did you speak?”

  “I spoke to the duty officer, and he called Detective Ray Alabrandi,” Officer Hill said. “Detective Alabrandi subsequently came to police headquarters and I told him what I’d seen in Mrs. Madison’s bedroom.”

  “And what was Detective Alabrandi’s conclusion?”

  “Same as mine, that the coroner should be called right away,” Officer Hill responded. “That’s what he told me he was going to do.”

  “You felt the coroner should be called in right away?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “But the coroner would have been called for in any event, wouldn’t he, Officer Hill?” Mr. Singleton asked. “Because Professor Madison had already mentioned that the yellow piece of paper beside her bed might have been a suicide note.”

  “Yes,” Officer Hill answered. “If there’s any reason to suspect a suicide, then there has to be an autopsy.”

  “But you wanted to make sure that this official inquiry began right away, didn’t you, Officer?” Singleton asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Why is that?”

  “I don’t know,” Officer Hill answered. “It was just an . . . itch.”

  Singleton smiled. “Thank you, Officer Hill, for your work on behalf of the citizens of Coburn,” he said softly. “No further questions.”

  Morty walked to the podium.

  “Officer Hill, isn’t it true that even before Mr. Madison had mentioned this about a possible suicide n
ote, you’d begun to feel that something was criminally amiss?” he asked.

  Officer Hill stiffened slightly. “Criminally amiss?”

  “An itch,” Morty said dryly.

  “I guess so,” Officer Hill admitted.

  “You guess so? Well, upon returning to Coburn police headquarters, you spoke immediately to the duty officer, isn’t that your testimony?”

  “Yes.”

  “And later you spoke with Detective Ray Alabrandi?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now, Detective Alabrandi is a homicide detective, isn’t he?”

  “He’s a detective,” Officer Hill answered. “I guess he investigates homicides.”

  “In any event, you reported your observations regarding the scene of Mrs. Madison’s death to a duty officer at police headquarters, then to a full-fledged detective, even though you must have known that the coroner would certainly be called into the case, isn’t that true?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right, so something gave you that little itch, right?” Morty asked. “It would be fair to say that, wouldn’t it?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “All right, what did you tell Detective Alabrandi when you had occasion to speak to him regarding the death of Sandrine Madison?”

  “Well, for one thing, I described the room.”

  “How did you describe it?”

  “It was a mess, like I said. Stuff was scattered all over the place. It was hard for me to imagine that a woman would let a bedroom get like that, and so, well, I sort of wondered if she’d . . .”

  “She’d what?”

  “If maybe she’d been kept there.”

  “Against her will?”

  “Yes.”

  “So it was the general disarray of the place that brought about that little itch, is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because women, being natural-born cleaners of rooms, and Mrs. Madison being a woman, you concluded that she might have been . . . imprisoned . . . by her husband?”

  “I didn’t know by who.”

  “And that perhaps Mrs. Madison’s death might not have been a natural one?”

  “I knew it wasn’t natural. Mr. Madison had already said it was a suicide.”

  “But you didn’t believe Mr. Madison, did you, Officer Hill?”

  “I wasn’t sure,” Officer Hill admitted.

  “Well, if Mrs. Madison had not committed suicide, how had she died?” Morty asked.

  “I didn’t know.”

  “But you had a suspicion, didn’t you? And this suspicion was that Mrs. Madison had been murdered. That was your true suspicion, wasn’t it, Officer Hill, your itch?”

  Officer Hill stiffened slightly, and I saw that here was a woman who was not afraid to state exactly what she thought, and that to some degree she was doing it out of deference for Sandrine, in an effort, honest and determined, to render justice in her case.

  “Yes, it was,” she said.

  “So we have clutter, a woman, and from this the idea of a murder?” Morty asked, then quickly lifted his hand before Officer Hill could answer, or Mr. Singleton object, and immediately fired off his next question.

  “Officer Hill, do you remember being called to 439 Dancers Street on the night of October 10, 2009? The house of Janice LePlane?”

  “Yes.”

  Morty took a photograph from the stack of them he’d placed on the lectern and showed it to Officer Hill.

  “Is this the room in which Mrs. LePlane was found?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “How would you describe it?”

  “Well, it’s . . . cluttered. Magazines on the floor. Some white food containers. You know, Chinese food.”

  “It’s not dissimilar to the state of the bedroom in which you found the body of Mrs. Madison, is it?”

  “No, sir.”

  “How did Janice LePlane die, Officer Hill?”

  “She killed herself. That was the coroner’s verdict.”

  “How did she kill herself?”

  “She took pills.”

  Morty retrieved the photograph from Officer Hill, gave it to the foreman of the jury, then walked back and handed the witness a second photograph.

  “Do you recall this room, Officer Hill?” he asked

  “Yes,” the witness answered. “I don’t remember the woman’s name, though.”

  “Her name was Martha Gillespie.”

  “Okay.”

  “How would you describe Mrs. Gillespie’s room, Officer Hill? Would you say that it’s cluttered?”

  “Yes.”

  “And there are dirty plates and papers all over the room, isn’t that true?”

  “Yes, there are.”

  “How did Martha Gillespie die, Office Hill?”

  “I don’t recall.”

  “Was it suicide?”

  “I don’t think so, but I’m not sure.”

  “Was it murder?”

  “No.”

  “In fact, Martha Gillespie died of natural causes, didn’t she?”

  “Yes, she did.”

  Morty took the photographs Officer Hill had just identified and gave them to the jury foreman, who stared at them briefly, then passed them to the juror to his left.

  Morty was now back at the podium. “Officer Hill, did you return from either of these rooms, the dead bodies you observed in cluttered rooms, and speak to anyone at police headquarters with regard to any suspicions you had regarding the manner of those deaths?”

  “No, I did not.”

  “Then why did you have any doubts as to the nature of Mrs. Madison’s death?”

  Officer Hill shifted uneasily in her seat. “It was just a feeling, I guess.”

  “Just a feeling,” Morty repeated with a pointed glance toward the jury.

  “Yes, sir,” Officer Hill admitted a little hesitantly.

  Morty paused, pretended to study his notes. Then he produced another photograph and handed it to the witness.

  “Have you seen this picture, Officer Hill?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s Mrs. Madison, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Taken by the coroner,” Morty added.

  “I don’t know who took it.”

  “Okay, but you made mention that Mrs. Madison had put on makeup, isn’t that right?”

  “Yes.”

  Morty smiled. “I notice that you’re wearing lipstick, Officer Hill. And today, right now, you’re wearing other makeup, as well?”

  “A little,” Officer Hill responded warily.

  “Blush?”

  “A little, yes.”

  “And like a great many women you apply a little makeup to enhance your looks, isn’t that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you married, Officer Hill?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you sometimes put on makeup in order to please your husband?”

  “I guess I do.”

  “Because you want to look beautiful to him, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because you love him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would you say that Sandrine Madison might have felt the same about her husband?”

  Mr. Singleton rose immediately. “Asking for a conclusion, Your Honor.”

  His objection was sustained, but Morty had made his point and he knew it.

  He nodded softly. “Thank you, Officer Hill. No further questions.”

  He was back in his chair at the defense table seconds later, looking quite satisfied with his cross-examination of Officer Hill.

  “She d
espised me from the beginning,” I said after Morty returned to his seat beside me.

  Morty’s eyes shot over to me. “From the beginning?”

  “When she first laid eyes on me.”

  “When you met her at the door, you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  Suddenly I realized that Officer Hill had seen nothing of Sandrine’s death room at that point, not her body in the bed, nor the books scattered around it, and certainly not that yellow tent of paper. So what had she seen, I wondered, what had she seen in my eyes?

  “Demonstrating prejudice is like shooting whales in a barrel,” Morty whispered cheerfully. He offered me a broadly reassuring look. “You’re the victim in this case, Sam. Don’t forget that. You’re a victim of unwarranted suspicions that put you on the police radar, and that’s what we’re going to show.”

  I had learned by then that this was to be Morty’s set-in-stone strategy. I will be portrayed as a victim of small town prejudices, and by this means my lawyer will turn the tables on the jury. He will show that these prejudices were vile and that they contorted the facts. If he is successful, the jurors will see that this is true and guard themselves against exhibiting these same prejudices. In effect, Morty will immunize them from themselves.

  It is all very clever, but suddenly it also seemed very sad, so that I felt an odd spark of buried feeling, a surprising ache of pity for something other than myself.

  “People are lost,” I whispered.

  Morty shrugged and returned to his notes, but the sadness and pity that had just swept over me lingered, and as it lingered it reminded me of the first feeling I’d gotten from books, particularly from Melville, tales I’d read long before I’d either taught or been taught them. I thought of the resigned way in which Starbuck had tossed his pipe into the sea, then the bleak sigh of “Oh humanity” that ends “Bartleby, the Scrivener.” At that moment, my mind turned unaccountably to Yeats, and I recalled the sorrows he’d glimpsed in Maud Gonne, the pilgrim soul he’d seen in her, sorrows that even her beauty could not sweep from her “changing face.”

  And somehow all of this returned me to Sandrine in her bed, with that one red rose, her hair arranged just so, a candle set at just the right position to cause that many-faceted reflection. By the time it was all over she’d been made to look for all the world like a woman with no expectation of death. Either that, or something still less incriminating, like a woman in a state of serene but blissful eroticism, one who’d welcomed death as if it were her demon lover.