On, Off
Page 35
Once the exaltation of that ride back to the cells in the company of Carmine Delmonico had died away, Wesley had undergone a sea change that perhaps had a little to do with what Carmine had said to him, but a great deal more to do with witnessing from a distance of three feet the life go out of a pair of eyes. All that was left of Charles Ponsonby was a husk, and what terrified Wesley was that he had liberated that unspeakably evil spirit to seek a home in some other body. Allah warred with Christ and Buddha, and he began to pray to all three.
Yet strength poured into him too, a different strength. He would somehow manage to make of this cardinal mistake a victory.
The first signals of victory were there when he was sent to the Holloman County Jail to wait out the months between his crime and his trial. When he arrived the inmates cheered him wildly. His bunk in the four-man cell was heaped with gifts: cigarettes and cigars, lighters, magazines, candy, hip clothing accessories, a gold Rolex watch, seven gold bracelets, nine gold neck chains, a pinky ring with a big diamond in it. No need to fear that he’d be raped in the shower block! No tormenting from the warders either; all of them nodded to him respectfully, smiled, gave him the O sign. When he asked for a prayer mat, a beautiful Shiraz appeared, and whenever he entered the meal hall or the exercise yard, he was cheered again. Black or white, the prisoners and their guards loved him.
A huge number of people of all races and colors didn’t think that Wesley le Clerc should be convicted at all. Letters to the editors of various papers nationwide flooded in. The lines of phone-in radio shows were overloaded. Telegrams piled up on the Governor’s desk. The Holloman D.A. tried to persuade Wesley to plead guilty to manslaughter for a much reduced sentence, but the new hero wasn’t having any of that cop-out. He would go to trial, and go to trial he did.
A trial that went on at the beginning of June, months before it should have; the judicial Powers That Be decided that delaying it would only make matters worse. This wasn’t a nine days’ wonder that people would forget. Do it now, get it over and done with!
Never had a jury been chosen with more care. Eight were black and four white, six women and six men, some affluent, some simple workers, two jobless through no fault of their own.
His story on the stand was that he hadn’t planned a thing beyond the hat — that a surge in the crowd had put him where he ended — and that he didn’t remember firing any gun, couldn’t even remember having a gun on his person. The fact that the deed was immortalized on videotape was irrelevant; all he had ever meant to do was protest the treatment of his people.
The jury opted for unpremeditated murder and strongly recommended leniency. Judge Douglas Thwaites, not a lenient man, handed down a sentence of twenty years’ penal servitude, twelve before a chance of parole. About the verdict expected.
His trial took five days and ended on a Friday, marking the climax of a spring that the Governor, for one, never wanted to see repeated. Demonstrations had turned into riots, houses burned, stores were looted, gunfire exchanged. Despite the fact that his disciple Ali el Kadi had turned on him, Mohammed el Nesr seized his chance and led the Black Brigade into a minor war that ended when a raid on 18 Fifteenth Street in the Hollow produced over a thousand firearms. What no cop could work out was why Mohammed had not moved his arsenal well ahead of the raid. Save for Carmine, who thought that Mohammed was slipping, and knew it; even his own men were beginning to admire Wesley le Clerc more.
The Black Brigade’s fate notwithstanding, it became clear a week before Wesley’s trial opened that it was going to become a gigantic mass demonstration of support for the slayer of the Monster, and that not all who planned to march to Holloman were peacefully inclined. Spies and informers reported that 100,000 black and 75,000 white protesters would take up residence on the Holloman Green at dawn on the Monday that Wesley’s trial was to start. They were coming from as far away as L.A., Chicago, Baton Rouge (Wesley’s hometown) and Atlanta, though most lived in New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts. A gathering place had been designated: Maltravers Park, a botanical gardens ten miles out of Holloman. And there, from Saturday on, the people assembled in many thousands. The march to Holloman Green was scheduled for 5 A.M. on Monday, and it was very well organized. The terrified inhabitants of Holloman boarded up store windows, doors and downstairs windows, dreading the urban war that was sure to come.
On Sunday morning the Governor called out the National Guard, which trundled and roared into Holloman at dawn on Monday to occupy the Green ahead of the marchers; troop carriers, armored vehicles and massive trucks shook building foundations as all of Holloman huddled, wide-eyed, trembling, to watch them grind by.
But the marchers never came. No one really knew why. Perhaps it was the prospect of a confrontation with trained troops deterred them, or perhaps Maltravers Park was as far as most had ever wanted to go. By noon of Monday, Maltravers Park was empty, was all. The trial of Wesley le Clerc went on with less than five hundred protesters on Holloman Green amid a sea of National Guards, and when the verdict was announced on Friday afternoon those five hundred went home as meekly as lambs. Was it the official display of official force? Or had the mere act of congregating satisfied those who came to Maltravers Park?
Wesley le Clerc didn’t waste time worrying or wondering about his supporters. Transferred to a high-security prison upstate on Friday night, the following Monday Wesley petitioned the prison’s governor for permission to study for a pre-law degree; this smart official was pleased to grant his request. After all, Wesley le Clerc was only twenty-five years old. If he gained parole on his first try, he would be thirty-seven and probably possessed of a doctorate in jurisprudence. His criminal record would prevent his being admitted to the bar, but the knowledge he would own was far more important. His speciality was going to be the U.S. Supreme Court. After all, he was the Monster Slayer, the Holy Man of Holloman. Eat your heart out, Mohammed el Nesr, you’re a has-been. I am The Man.
Chapter 32
Carmine and Desdemona were married at the beginning of May, and elected to honeymoon in L. A. as the guests of Myron Mendel Mandelbaum; the facsimile of Hampton Court Palace was so enormous that their presence was no embarrassment to Myron or to Sandra. Myron was theirs for the asking, whereas Sandra floated on cloud nine in oblivion. A little to Carmine’s and Myron’s surprise, Sophia decided to like Desdemona, whose hypothesis was that her new stepdaughter approved of the no-gush, matter-of-fact way her new stepmother treated her. Like a responsible, sensible adult. The omens were propitious.
Back in Holloman not all was quite so propitious. As if the Hug hadn’t suffered enough sensations and scandals in the last few months, its dying throes produced yet another when Mrs. Robin Forbes complained to the Holloman police that her husband was poisoning her. Interviewed by the newly decorated detective sergeants Abe Goldberg and Corey Marshall, Dr. Addison Forbes rejected the accusation with scorn and loathing, invited them to take samples of any and all foodstuffs and liquids on the premises, and retreated to his eyrie. When the analyses (including vomitus, feces and urine) came back negative, Forbes crated his books and papers, packed two suitcases and left for Fort Lauderdale. There he joined a lucrative practice in geriatric neurology; such things as strokes and senile dementia had never interested him, but they were infinitely preferable to Professor Frank Watson and Mrs. Robin Forbes, whom he filed to divorce. When Carmine’s lawyers contacted him about buying the house on East Circle, he sold it for less than it was worth to get back at Robin, asking for half. After a harrowing struggle deciding which daughter was more in need of her, Robin moved to Boston and the budding gynecologist, Roberta. Robina sent her sister a sympathy card, but Roberta was actually delighted to have a housekeeper.
All of which meant that Desdemona was able to offer Sophia tenure of the tower.
“It’s quite divine,” she said casually, not wanting to sound too enthusiastic. “The top room has a widow’s walk — you could use it as your living room — and the room beneath wo
uld make a tiny bedroom if we chopped off a bit of it to make a bathroom as well as a kitchenette. Carmine and I thought that perhaps you could finish high school at the Dormer, then think about a good university. Who knows, Chubb might be coeducational before you’re old enough to begin your degree. Would you be interested?”
The sophisticated teenager shrieked with joy; Sophia flung her arms around Desdemona and hugged her. “Oh, yes, please!”
July was just about to turn into August when Claire Ponsonby sent a message to Carmine that she would like to see him. Her request came as a surprise, but even she hadn’t the power to spoil his sanguine mood on this beautiful day of blossoms and singing birds. Sophia had arrived from L. A. two weeks ago and was still trying to decide whether to have wallpaper or paint on her tower’s interior walls. What she and Desdemona found to talk about amazed him, as indeed did his once starchy wife. How lonely she must have been, scrimping and saving to buy a life that, judging by the way she had taken to marriage, would never have satisfied her. Though maybe some of it was due to her pregnancy, a trifle in advance of her wedding day; the baby would be born in November, and Sophia couldn’t wait. Little wonder then that even Claire Ponsonby had not the power to mar Carmine’s sense of well-being, of a rather late fulfillment.
She and the dog were waiting on the porch. Two chairs were positioned one on either side of a small white cane table that held a jug of lemonade, two glasses and a plate of cookies.
“Lieutenant,” she said as he came up the steps.
“Captain these days,” he said.
“My, my! Captain Delmonico. It has a good ring to it. Do sit down and have some lemonade. It’s an old family recipe.”
“Thanks, I’ll sit, but no lemonade.”
“You wouldn’t eat or drink anything my hands had prepared, would you, Captain?” she asked sweetly.
“Frankly, I wouldn’t.”
“I forgive you. Let us simply sit, then.”
“Why did you ask to see me, Miss Ponsonby?”
“Two reasons. The first, that I am moving on, and while I understand from my lawyers that no one can prevent my moving on, I did think it prudent to inform you of that fact. Charles’s station wagon is loaded with the things I want to take with me, and I’ve hired a Chubb student to drive it, me and Biddy to New York City tonight. I’ve sold the Mustang.”
“I thought Six Ponsonby Lane was your home to the death?”
“I’ve discovered that nowhere is home without dear Charles. Then I received an offer for this property that I just couldn’t refuse. You might be pardoned for thinking that no one would buy it, but such is not the case. Major F. Sharp Minor has paid me a very handsome sum for what, I believe, he intends to turn into a museum of horrors. Several New York City travel agents have agreed to schedule two-day tours. Day one: bus up at leisure through the charming Connecticut countryside, have dinner and spend the night at Major Minor’s motel — he is refurbishing it in style. Day two: a conducted tour of the Connecticut Monster’s premises, including a crawl through the fabled tunnel. Feed the deer guaranteed to be waiting outside the tunnel door. Stroll back to the Monster’s lair to see fourteen imitation heads in the authentic setting. Naturally a sound track of screams and howls will be playing. The Major is gutting the old living room to seat thirty diners and is turning our old dining room into a kitchen. After all, he can’t have a chef preparing lunch on an Aga stove while people are watching it move in and out. Then bus back to New York,” Claire said levelly.
Jesus, the sarcasm! Carmine sat listening entranced, glad she couldn’t see his open mouth.
“I thought you didn’t believe any of it.”
“I don’t. However, I am assured that these things do exist. If they do, then I deserve to benefit from them. They are giving me the chance to make a fresh start somewhere far from Connecticut. I’m thinking of Arizona or New Mexico.”
“I wish you luck. What’s the second reason?”
“An explanation,” she said, sounding softer, more like the Claire he had sympathized with, felt liking for. “I acquit you of being the brutish cop stereotype, Captain. You always seemed to me a man dedicated to your work — sincere, altruistic even. I can see why I fell under suspicion of those dreadful crimes, since you continue to insist that the killer was my brother. My own theory is that Charles and I were duped, that someone else did all the — er — renovations in our cellars.” She sighed. “Be that as it may, I decided that you are gentleman enough to ask me some questions as a gentleman should — with courtesy and discretion.”
Victory at last! Carmine leaned foward in his chair, hands clasped. “Thank you, Miss Ponsonby. I’d like to begin by asking you what you know about your father’s death?”
“I imagined you’d ask me that.” She stretched out her long, sinewy legs and crossed them at the ankles, one foot toying with Biddy’s ruff. “We were very wealthy before the Depression, and we lived well. The Ponsonbys have always enjoyed living well — good music, good food, good wine, good things around us. Mama came from a similar background — Shaker Heights, you know. But the marriage was not a love match. My parents were forced to marry because Charles was on the way. Mama was prepared to go to any lengths to snare Daddy, who didn’t really want her. But when push came to shove, he did his duty. Charles came six months later. Two years after that, Morton came, and two years after that, I came.”
The foot stopped; Biddy whined until it started again, then lay with eyes closed and snout on its front paws. Claire went on.
“We always had a housekeeper as well as a scrubwoman. I mean a live-in servant who did the lighter domestic work except for cooking. Mama liked to cook, but she detested washing the dishes or peeling the potatoes. I don’t think she was particularly tyrannical, but one day the housekeeper quit. And Daddy brought Mrs. Catone home — Louisa Catone. Mama was livid. Livid! How dare he usurp her prerogatives, and so on. But Daddy liked having his own way quite as much as Mama did, so Mrs. Catone stayed. She was a gem, which brought Mama around — I imagine that Mama must have known from the start that Mrs. Catone was Daddy’s mistress, but things were fine for a long time. Then there was a terrible — oh, just terrible! — quarrel. Mama insisted that Mrs. Catone must go, Daddy insisted that she would stay.”
“Did Mrs. Catone have a child?” Carmine asked.
“Yes, a little girl named Emma. Some months older than I,” Claire said dreamily, smiled. “We played together, ate our meals together. My eyesight wasn’t very good, even then, so Emma was a tiny bit my guide dog. Charles and Morton detested her. You see, the quarrel happened because Mama discovered that Emma was Daddy’s child — our half sister. Charles found the birth certificate.”
She fell silent, foot still stirring Biddy’s ruff.
“What was the result of the quarrel?” Carmine prompted.
“Surprising, yet not surprising. Daddy was called away on urgent business the next day, and Mrs. Catone left with Emma.”
“When was this in relation to your father’s death?”
“Let me see…I was nearly six when he was killed — a year before that. Winter to winter.”
“How long had Mrs. Catone been with you when she left?”
“Eighteen months. She was a remarkably pretty woman — Emma was her image. Dark. Mixed blood, though more white than anything else. Her speaking voice was lovely — lilting, honeyed. A pity that the words she said with it were always so banal.”
“So your mother fired her while your father was away.”
“Yes, but I think there was more to it than that. If we children had only been a little older, I could tell you more, or if I, the girl, had been the eldest — boys are not observant when it comes to emotions, I find. Mama could frighten people. She had a power about her. I talked to Charles about it many times, and we decided that Mama threatened to kill Emma unless the two of them disappeared permanently. And Mrs. Catone believed her.”
“How did your father react when he came home?”
“Do you think that your father went looking for Mrs. Catone, but couldn’t find her?”
The watery blue eyes looked into a blind infinity. “Well, it’s the logical explanation, isn’t it? Divorce was quite condoned even then, yet Daddy preferred to have Mrs. Catone as a servant in his house. Mama for keeping up appearances, Mrs. Catone for his carnal pleasure. To have married a mulatto from the Caribbean would have ruined him socially, and Daddy cared about his social status. After all, he was a Ponsonby of Holloman.”
How detached she is, Carmine thought. “Did your mother know that the money had gone in the Wall Street crash?”
“Not until after Daddy died.”
“Did she kill him?”
“Oh, yes. They had the worst fight of all that afternoon — we could hear it upstairs. We couldn’t make out all that they shouted at each other, but we heard enough to realize that Daddy had found Mrs. Catone and Emma. That he intended to leave Mama. He put on his best suit and drove away in his car. Mama locked the three of us in Charles’s bedroom and left in our second car. It was beginning to snow.” Her voice sounded childish, as if the sheer force of those memories was pushing her backward through time. “Round and round, snowflakes swirling just the way they do inside a glass ball. We waited for such a long time! Then we heard Mama’s car and started banging on the door. Mama opened it and we rushed out — oh, we were dying to use the bathroom! The boys let me go first. When I came out, Mama was standing in the hall with a baseball bat in her right hand. It was covered in blood, and so was she. Then Charles and Morton came out of the bathroom, saw her, and took her away. They undressed and bathed her, but I was so hungry I’d gone down to the kitchen. Charles and Morton built a fire on the old hearth where the Aga is now, and burned the baseball bat and her clothes. So sad! Morton was never the same again.”