Sandrine's Case

by Thomas H. Cook

  “There was a fight, Alexandria,” I said suddenly. “Between your mother and me.”

  “When?”

  “You’d gone into town,” I told her.

  “So it was that last night?”

  “Yes,” I answered. “And it was loud enough that Edith might have heard it.”

  “So you were screaming?”

  “Your mother was . . . loud,” I said. “And she threw a cup at me.”

  Alexandria stared at me in disbelief.

  Because I simply had to know, I asked, “Your mother never told you about any of this?”

  Alexandria shook her head. “Was it about April?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “What was it about, then?”

  “Me,” I answered, which, though inadequate, was true.

  I had never revealed the actual nature of Sandrine’s last, furious assault, how unprecedented it had been, an attack so furious, her accusations hurled at me with such fierce resolve to wound me, that I’d finally fired back with the darkest and most cruel thing I could possible have said.

  “It came out of nowhere,” I added. “I mean, she’d been more or less ignoring me for weeks. She didn’t want to talk to me, she didn’t want me to interrupt her reading, her ‘streaming.’ I had gotten used to that, but nothing could have prepared me for the way she was that night.”

  Sandrine had often mentioned the Spartan commander who, when told that the Athenians had so many arrows that when released they would darken the sky, had starkly replied, “Then we will fight in the shade.” I had wanted to be like him that night, simply take blow after blow, as it were, stoically, bravely, even nobly, and say nothing. But I had failed even at that.

  “It was the cup that did it,” I said. “The way she’d thrown that cup and called me a sociopath.”

  I could see the word sink into Alexandria’s mind, though I couldn’t tell whether she believed it accurate, her opinion of me as dark and unforgiving as her mother’s on the night she died.

  One thing was clear, however. Sandrine had told her nothing of this battle, a fact that, as I realized suddenly, had oddly urged me to confess it.

  “I was going out the door and she called me by that name,” I added. “Even then, I didn’t turn back. That’s when she threw that cup.”

  Alexandria’s gaze darkened. “What did you do, Dad?”

  “I stopped and turned around,” I answered. “She was in bed, almost in the dark, with nothing but that candle burning.”

  Alexandria could see that I was stalling, and so she said again, “What did you do?”

  “Nothing,” I answered. “I didn’t say or do anything. It was something I thought, something I wanted.”

  “What?”

  “As I left the room,” I stalled. “Something I wanted.”

  “What, Dad?”

  I stared bleakly into my daughter’s eyes. “For your mother to be dead when I got back.”

  For a moment, Alexandria stared at me in stunned silence. Then quite slowly, and deliberately, she came to her conclusion.

  “Mom was right,” she said. “You are a sociopath.”

  I nodded. “Yes,” I confessed, “I suppose I am.”

  On that grave admission, I saw that little white cup shatter into a thousand pieces, heard at full volume Sandrine’s gravest of all accusations.

  Alexandria’s gaze was as stern as her question. “What are you willing to do now, Dad, in order to save yourself?”

  In answer I could only shrug, because at that moment I hadn’t truly known.

  DAY SEVEN

  Call Edith Whittier

  “Nothing to worry about, Sam,” Morty whispered as Edith made her way to the stand.

  I was not so sure because I knew just how loud Sandrine’s voice had been on that last night of her life, her words exploding like cannon fire in our darkened bedroom. She’d launched all her heavy ordnance, that much I knew. Then, like a warrior who’d run out of ammunition, she’d reached for a figurative stone and cast it toward my retreating back, that porcelain cup and a final word: sociopath.

  “I do,” Edith said, and she brought down her hand and took her seat and looked at me squarely, as if to say, Now you’ll pay.

  She wore a dark green sweater and black skirt that came just below her knees, attire I would have described as matronly. She looked the part of a retired nanny, everything of a proper length, nothing showy. There had always been a mustiness about Edith, a sense of powders and lotions applied some years after their respective shelf lives had expired, and on this particular day she’d clearly felt no added need to spruce up.

  “For the record, could you state your address, Ms. Whittier,” Mr. Singleton said.

  “It’s 235 Crescent Road, Coburn.”

  “That would be directly next door to 237 Crescent Road, the home of the defendant?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long have you lived at this address?”

  “Thirty-seven years.”

  There followed a brief recitation of biographical details by which Mr. Singleton endeavored, but failed, to give the jury the impression that Edith Whittier had lived something other than a lonely, arid, featureless life at 235 Crescent Road, but which did succeed in moving us forward in time to a date that came quite as a surprise to me since it was many weeks before the turbulent night about which I’d expected her to be questioned.

  “So, on August 17, you were tending your tomato plants, is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now, your garden is separated from the backyard of the defendant by nothing but a small white fence, is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “You can see the defendant’s backyard quite clearly?”

  “Yes. They had recently built a gazebo back there. One of those prefabricated types you can buy at home improvement stores. Mrs. Madison sometimes went out there and read or listened to music. I guess it was music. She had one of those transistor radio–looking things with the wires that go up to your ears.”

  “And on this particular day, did you speak to Mrs. Madison?” Singleton asked.

  “Yes, I did. She saw me in the garden and she came out of the gazebo and walked over to that little white fence that separates our yards.”

  “Could you tell the jury the substance of that conversation?” Singleton asked.

  “Well, at first it was the usual things you’d expect neighbors to say over the fence. She said my tomatoes looked luscious. That was her word, luscious, and so I picked a few and gave them to her. She said she would put them in a salad.”

  “Now, once you were past these ordinary sorts of exchanges, did Mrs. Madison then move the conversation to more serious matters?”

  “Yes, she did,” Edith answered. “She said that she’d gotten some bad news recently. She had Lou Gehrig’s disease. She said that in the next months and years, I would be seeing her getting weaker.”

  “Months and years?”

  “That’s right,” Edith said. “She said she hoped that perhaps I’d drop in from time to time because in the future it was unlikely that she would be going out very much. She said she expected to be lonely, and though she might not be able to respond all that much, she would like to hear my stories.”

  “Your stories?”

  “Whatever I had to tell her,” Edith explained. “I guess that’s what she meant.”

  “And did you later have occasion to go over to Mrs. Madison’s house?” Singleton asked.

  “Yes, I did. I waited a couple of weeks. I didn’t see Mrs. Madison out much during that time, so I thought maybe she was going into one of those depressions, you know, and so I thought, well, I’ll go over and bring her one of my specialties.”

  “And which of your s
pecialties did you bring her?” Mr. Singleton asked with a pleasant smile.

  “I made a mushroom casserole,” Edith answered. “It’s got broccoli and cheese and cream of mushroom soup, and I thought Mrs. Madison might like it.”

  “And so you made this mushroom casserole and you brought it over to Mrs. Madison’s house, correct?”

  “Yes. I made it in one of those tinfoil-type casserole dishes so she wouldn’t have to return it.”

  “And did you see Mrs. Madison on that occasion?”

  “No, I did not.”

  “She wasn’t home?”

  “No, she was home,” Edith told the jury, “but it was her husband who came to the door.”

  I had entirely forgotten Edith’s visit, so inconsequential it had seemed to me at the time, merely a matter of running defense for Sandrine, making sure that Edith Whittier did not intrude upon her privacy on an afternoon, like so many others during those weeks, when she’d more or less sealed herself up in the scriptorium, quite obviously preferring her music and her books to me.

  “And so it was to the defendant that you spoke at that time?” Mr. Singleton asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Can you tell the jury the gist of that conversation?”

  She’d appeared quite unexpectedly at the door, steaming casserole beneath a white cloth, smiling a little stiffly but otherwise quite pleasant. It had been around three-thirty in the afternoon, and I’d been about to leave for my afternoon class. My mood had been further complicated by the persistent rain, the unseasonable chill, and finally by the fact that the door to the scriptorium remained closed as part of the wall of isolation Sandrine had erected between us.

  Thus, when I opened the door to Edith Whittier it was probably with the strained look on my face she now described to the jury.

  “Mr. Madison wasn’t very friendly,” Edith said. “He never really opened the door very wide. He just stood there and listened. I told him that Mrs. Madison had asked me to drop over. He didn’t say anything really except that she was feeling indisposed. Those were his words, that she was ‘feeling indisposed.’ So I just gave him the casserole and he took it and said thank you and closed the door.”

  This was true in every detail, but it also struck me as quite irrelevant to anything, so that I glanced quizzically at Morty, who returned the same look to me, neither of us able to comprehend why this testimony had been given.

  Then, quite suddenly, Edith’s story took a dark turn.

  “But you did have occasion to see Mrs. Madison at another time, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “When was this?”

  “About three weeks later.”

  “Can you describe that meeting to the jury?”

  She had once again been in her garden, though it was now well past the summer season, the first fall chill in the air. She had not seen Sandrine, save for quick glimpses, since their earlier encounter, but on this particular day Edith had looked up from her autumn gardening to find her standing silently by the fence, her arms folded over her chest, as if to ward off the chill.

  “She was wearing an old bathrobe and she looked very sad,” Edith told the jury. “Her hair wasn’t combed and she just looked bedraggled . . . like a rag doll.”

  I had never once seen Sandrine look this way, nor could I dream that she would have walked out into the yard in a bathrobe, with her hair in disarray.

  “She said hello to me,” Edith went on, “and I said hello back. I couldn’t think of anything else to say, so I asked her if she’d liked my casserole.” She stopped, drew in a quick breath, then added, “Mrs. Madison said, ‘What casserole?’” Another quick breath, then, “I told her it was the casserole I’d brought over when I’d dropped by a few weeks before.” With this Edith’s expression turned grave. “She said she didn’t know about anything I’d brought over.”

  I felt my lips part in sudden grave awareness of what I’d done, which was irritably to have dropped Edith’s casserole into the kitchen garbage can.

  “She said her husband never told her about any casserole,” Edith added. “She said he probably just threw it in the garbage or something.”

  Sandrine had been right, that was exactly what I had done. A casserole in the garbage, I thought, trying not to glance at the jury, what a telling image to convey my indifference to Sandrine’s pleasure, her enjoyment, to the simplest things that might be provided for her.

  But it got worse.

  “I didn’t know what to say at that point,” Edith told the jury. “I mean, her husband had . . . well . . . done something with that casserole. Anyway, he hadn’t given it to her, so I just didn’t know what to say. So I just shrugged my shoulders. Then I changed the subject and I asked how she was doing.”

  “What did Mrs. Madison say in response to your question?” Mr. Singleton asked.

  “She smiled that sad smile and she said, ‘I’m dying’.”

  “Was that all she said, Mrs. Whittier?”

  “No,” Edith answered.

  Ah, here it comes, I thought, the reason Edith has taken the stand, the whole purpose of her testimony.

  “No,” Edith repeated. “She looked over at her house, and she said it again. She said, ‘I’m dying,’ and then she looked back at me and she said, ‘But not fast enough for Sam.’”

  If the door of the scaffold had been located just beneath my feet, I would have felt it open and myself fall through it.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Whittier,” Mr. Singleton said, then turned to Morty, no doubt trying not to smile, and added, “Your witness, Mr. Salberg.”

  Morty rose and walked to the lectern.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Whittier,” he said.

  “Good morning,” Edith replied rather stiffly.

  “So you make mushroom casseroles,” Morty said.

  “Yes.”

  Morty’s big smile got bigger. “I’ll bet those things are quite tasty too.”

  “People seem to like them,” Edith said, no less stiffly than before.

  “Tell me, Mrs. Whittier, what are the basic ingredients to your—I believe it was a mushroom casserole?”

  Edith offered a suspicious little squint. “That’s right.”

  “All right, and is it a big secret, or could you tell the court the basic ingredients you use to make your mushroom casserole.”

  “Well, it’s mostly broccoli, cheese, and cream of mushroom soup,” Edith said. “And there’s butter and breadcrumbs.”

  “Sounds delicious.” Morty said brightly, as if he’d detected not the slightest sarcasm in Edith’s response. “Now, did I hear you say that one of the ingredients is cream of mushroom soup?”

  “Yes,” Edith answered.

  “Would you say that mushroom is a major ingredient in that soup?”

  “Well, yes, I guess it is.”

  Morty chuckled. “I guess it would have to be seeing that the dish is called a mushroom casserole, right?”

  “I guess it would be, yes.”

  Morty glanced at his notes, then looked up. “Have you ever heard of people being allergic to mushrooms, Mrs. Whittier?”

  Edith nodded.

  “Okay. Now were you aware of whether or not Mrs. Madison was allergic to mushrooms?”

  Edith’s face froze. “No, I wasn’t aware of it.”

  “Well, you’re aware that an allergic reaction to mushrooms can be life threatening, are you not?”

  “I didn’t know about life threatening,” Edith squirmed.

  “Well, if you were married to someone who had this allergy, you’d probably know if it was life threatening or not, wouldn’t you?”

  “I guess I would,” Edith admitted.

  “And if someone brought a casserole or anything that contained mushrooms o
ver to your husband—or wife, if you were a man—and you knew that this casserole could be life threatening, you might decide that you didn’t want to show this casserole to your wife, right?”

  “I might decide that,” Edith admitted with studied reluctance.

  “Do you think you might get rid of it?” Morty asked. “Because what would be the point of your wife seeing a delicious mushroom casserole if she can’t have any, right?”

  “I suppose,” Edith said.

  “You might even throw that casserole in the garbage, isn’t that so?”

  Edith hesitated, then said, “I guess I might.”

  Morty nodded. “Thank you, ma’am,” he said. “No more questions.”

  Edith stepped down. I could hardly believe Morty’s cross-­examination but, even so, I said nothing, and by that means tried to look as unconcerned with Edith’s testimony as my lawyer clearly was.

  Then, with a crooked, naughty-boy smile, Morty said, “One witness neutralized.”

  “But Sandrine wasn’t allergic to mushrooms or anything else for that matter,” I told him.

  “I didn’t say she was,” Morty said.

  He now began idly going through some papers.

  “Of course you did,” I insisted.

  “No, I didn’t,” Morty replied firmly. “I’ll show you the transcript. I didn’t say one word about Sandrine being allergic to anything.” He shrugged. “Look, Singleton could do some digging and try to find out if your wife actually had any allergies. But that would take time, and he could easily come up with nothing. Even if people have allergies they may never mention them to a doctor, right? If mushrooms make you sick, you don’t eat mushrooms. End of story. So who would know if your wife had allergies, except you, Sam? And Singleton would never ask you that question on the stand because he figures you’d lie.” He chuckled softly. “Life is about keeping hold of the other guy’s short hairs,” he added. “It’s as simple as that.”

  My God, I thought, Morty’s a sociopath too. Are we all sociopaths, I wondered, we men? Does it take a weighty complex of law and custom, one capable of imposing dire consequences for our actions, to stay our conscienceless hands? Is that what is required to keep us from doing what, without fear of such awesome consequence, we would do without a blink?