Heartstone

by Phillip Margolin

  “Well, do you recall saying this, a bit later?

  Question: You’re doing fine. Let’s see how good your memory is.

  Answer: It’s so hard because I know what they did. I know what I’m supposed to say and I want to make sure that I remember and I’m not just saying it…Something that I know.

  “Do you remember saying that?”

  Esther kept thinking of Dr. Hollander’s fingers.

  “No, I don’t.”

  “You don’t seem to remember a lot of things.”

  “I told you,” she said, her voice rising a little in panic, “you can’t remember with the drug so well.”

  “Do you remember saying, ‘…I can’t remember what I’m supposed to say’?”

  Esther shook her head. She concentrated on the fingers. Soothing, relaxing. Don’t panic.

  “Or ‘Wait a minute. How many times have I lied to you about this…?’ Do you remember that?”

  “No,” Esther said. As soon as the word was out of her mouth she realized that she had said it a little too loudly. She had to get hold on herself.

  “How many times did you lie to Dr. Hollander?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “How many times have you lied…?”

  Mark stopped. He looked at Esther’s hands. The right was stroking the left wrist rhythmically.

  “Mrs. Pegalosi, what are you doing with your hands?”

  She stopped stroking abruptly. The jurors’ eyes were on her wrist.

  “Nothing,” she replied guiltily.

  “I saw you stroke your wrist. Are you trying to hypnotize yourself? Your Honor, I ask the Court to instruct the witness that she may not hypnotize herself during cross-examination.”

  Heider was on his feet.

  “This is ridiculous. What is Mr. Shaeffer…?”

  Judge Samuels rapped his gavel for order.

  “Both of you gentlemen, sit down. We will take a short recess.”

  The bailiff took the jurors to the jury room and the judge waited until the door was closed. Then he turned his attention to Mark.

  “Now, what is your problem, Mr. Shaeffer?”

  “The witness was constantly stroking her wrist during my examination, Your Honor. That is how she hypnotizes herself. It was on the tapes.”

  Samuels leaned back in his chair and seemed thoughtful. He swiveled toward Esther.

  “Mrs. Pegalosi, I don’t want you to be afraid, but I do want a straight answer. Were you attempting to hypnotize yourself, just now, while Mr. Shaeffer was questioning you?”

  Esther looked down into her lap.

  “I…Yes.”

  “You can not do that. Do you understand? If you were under medication or intoxicated, I could not have you testify. You must be fully alert. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” she said so quietly that the judge had to ask her to repeat her answer.

  “You will not try to hypnotize yourself again, do you understand that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Very well. Bailiff, bring back the jury.”

  “Mrs. Pegalosi, why do you think you were unable to remember that you saw the murder of Richie Walters for all these years?”

  “I…Dr. Hollander told me seeing the body…The face…like that, you know…I couldn’t take it. It made me too scared. Plus I was drinking…” She shrugged her shoulders. “That’s what he said.”

  “Well, that’s understandable,” Mark said, smiling. “I would be pretty scared, too, to see all that violence. Tell me, was this the first time you ever saw any violence, Mrs. Pegalosi?”

  “No,” she said in a low, trembling voice.

  “In fact, you have seen quite a bit of violence in your life, haven’t you?”

  “I…I wouldn’t say a lot, I’ve…”

  “Now don’t be modest. Tell the jury about the boy you stabbed with a knife. Andy Trask.”

  “I wasn’t convicted of that.”

  “I didn’t say you were. But you were arrested and put in juvenile detention, weren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And that wasn’t the first time, was it?”

  “No.”

  “You have been in detention as a runaway and for assault of Andy Trask and for robbery, isn’t that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you did stab Andy Trask, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you remember that in detail, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you remember seeing your father beat your mother?”

  She started crying. Mark repeated the question and Heider leaped to his feet.

  “Your Honor, counsel is browbeating the witness. This is all irrelevant.”

  “It is very relevant, Your Honor. Mrs. Pegalosi comes in here and says suddenly after all this time she remembers that this young man is a murderer. Then she says she forgot because she was so scared by the violence. I am entitled to show that she is no stranger to violence. That she remembers incidents of violence very clearly.”

  “I agree with Mr. Shaeffer and I will overrule the objection. On the other hand, I will not let you harangue this witness.”

  “Your Honor, I didn’t start this crying. If her conscience…”

  “You have heard what I said, Mr. Shaeffer.”

  “Yes, Your Honor.

  “Mrs. Pegalosi, did you ever see your father stab your mother?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell the jury what you remember of that incident.”

  Esther dried her eyes with a handkerchief.

  “I was sleeping and I heard yelling from momma…my mother’s room. He was drunk again and the door slammed open and I could hear her running to the kitchen and he was cursing.”

  “Go on.”

  “Momma had a kitchen knife and said she would stab him if he came near her, but he backed her against the refrigerator and got the knife.”

  “I am having trouble hearing you, Mrs. Pegalosi,” Mark said.

  Esther sipped some more water.

  “That was all. He stabbed her and there was blood on the white refrigerator and momma fell and he dropped the knife and said ‘What have I done?’ and walked out.”

  “And you remember that?” Mark asked in a hushed tone.

  “Yes,” Esther replied and there was no other sound in the courtroom.

  “And you remember a man named Bones robbing the miniature golf and racing the police when you were with him?”

  “Yes.”

  “In detail?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you testified on direct that you were not scared initially when Bobby and Billy and Richie Walters were fighting, because you had seen other fights. Have you seen fights where blood was spilled?”

  “Yes.”

  “And could you recount those fights, in detail, to this jury, if I asked you?”

  “Some of them.”

  “Even those where there was blood?”

  “Some of them.”

  Mark paused. He could hear the sound of his own heartbeat in the courtroom. He could see the eyes of the jurors riveted on Esther. He could see her face clearly, drained of color, her cheeks streaked with tears.

  “You once owned a pet dog, did you not?” he asked quietly.

  “Oh, no,” Esther moaned.

  “I ask the court to direct the witness to answer the question.”

  “Mrs. Pegalosi, you must answer.”

  “Yes,” the answer came in a choked whisper.

  “Did you love that dog?”

  “Yes,” she sobbed.

  “Tell the jury how that dog died.”

  Esther paled.

  “Mrs. Pegalosi,” Mark said.

  “I…I can’t,” she said, looking up at the judge. Samuels instructed her to answer.

  “My…my father shot the dog.”

  “In the eye?”

  Esther was crying and could only nod.

  “And you remember that in detail, do you not?”
>
  “Yes.”

  “And you loved the dog, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yet you can remember that.”

  “Your Honor,” Heider shouted.

  “Sit down, Mr. Heider. This is appropriate cross.” The judge turned to Shaeffer. It was clear that he was restraining himself. “Do you intend to pursue this line of questioning much further, Mr. Shaeffer?”

  “No, Your Honor. I believe the point has been made.”

  Esther was doubled over in the witness box. Someone had given her a handkerchief. The judge ordered a ten-minute recess.

  “Mrs. Pegalosi,” Mark asked when court resumed, “is it your testimony that you actually saw Richie Walters’s battered face shortly after he was murdered?”

  “Yes,” Esther replied. Her voice was a monotone. She had cried so hard and so long that she had nothing left inside. She knew that court would recess soon and she was just going through the motions until it was over.

  “And it was the sight of this face that shocked you into amnesia?”

  “That is what Dr. Hollander told me.”

  “When did you first realize that you had actually seen Richie’s face?”

  “After…When I was given the drug by Dr. Hollander.”

  “Isn’t it a fact, Mrs. Pegalosi, that you did not see Richie’s face until some time after the murder?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you remember this exchange between you and Dr. Hollander on Tape Number 10?

  Question: But you remember seeing the boy murdered?

  Answer: No, I didn’t see that.

  Question: Didn’t you say that you saw the fight?

  Answer: No, no, I didn’t know there was a murder, until later. I didn’t know what happened. I thought they beat him up like they usually did.

  Question: Didn’t you say you saw Richie’s face?

  Answer: I saw it later.

  “When was later, Esther?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Do you remember telling Dr. Hollander that the last thing you remember seeing on the hill before you ran was Bobby and Billy holding Richie against the car like they were frisking him?”

  “I told you I can’t remember what I said, because I was under the drug.”

  “Do you want me to play the tape for you?”

  “No. If you say that’s what it said…”

  “What you said. Esther, did you ever wake up screaming in the night because of nightmares in which you saw Richie’s bloody face?”

  Esther looked into her lap again.

  “Yes, I did. A lot.”

  “Those nightmares did not start right after the murder, did they?”

  “I can’t remember exactly when.”

  “Have you ever met a detective named Roy Shindler?”

  Esther felt as if she had been struck. She looked directly at Shaeffer, her face white. Her hands twisted the handkerchief she was holding into a tight knot.

  “Mrs. Pegalosi?”

  “Yes,” she answered hoarsely.

  “Did your nightmares start soon after you met Detective Shindler?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I think you do, Esther. Detective Shindler is the same detective who made you see Dr. Hollander, isn’t he?”

  “He didn’t force me. I went because I wanted to.”

  “To what, Esther?”

  “To see if what he said was real.”

  “What did he say?”

  “That I saw the murder. He knew it even back then.”

  “Back when?”

  “When they were murdered. He told me.”

  “Told you and showed the scene.”

  “Yes.”

  “Took you up there and suggested how a girl might lose her glasses running down that hill in a certain way.”

  “It wasn’t like that.”

  “Suggested that you might have dragged Richie that night, even though you couldn’t remember.”

  “It was in my subconscious. Hidden. That’s what Dr…”

  “Showed you that picture that scared you so much you became hysterical and had nightmares for years after.”

  Esther stopped.

  “What picture?” she asked hesitantly.

  “You tell the jury what picture.”

  “I don’t know any picture.”

  “You don’t remember Detective Shindler bringing you to the station house in 1961 and showing you a color picture in one of the interrogation rooms?”

  Esther couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t take her eyes away from Shaeffer’s face. He was rising and walking slowly to a table piled high with exhibits that had been introduced into evidence. He was bending slightly from the waist and selecting a manila envelope. There was a roaring in her ears. He was saying, “Perhaps this will help you to remember” and she was back at the police station and it was Roy’s hand drawing the color photograph slowly out of the envelope, face down. And she was peering at it again and it was rotating toward her and she was screaming again.

  Sarah had passed him the note as he was leaving the courtroom. It was on yellow note paper and she had obviously written it during the trial. He had slipped it into his pants pocket and retrieved it when he changed back into his prison clothes.

  That evening, after dinner, he had stretched out on his bunk, too exhausted from the day’s session to do anything but lie there. He had saved the note, even though he wanted so much to read it, because it was the first real communication he had had with Sarah for so long.

  She had been in court every day and she had talked to him during recess, but their conversations had been superficial and she always had an excuse for not visiting him at the jail.

  When she had handed him the note, she had not looked at him. He tried to speak to her, but she hurried away.

  He was afraid of what she had written. When the paper was unfolded, he held it up to the light. It was very short and it said that she was going away and did not want to see him again. It said that she wanted to believe that he was innocent and that the girl was lying, but she had watched Mark Shaeffer torture her today and had come away feeling sick to her stomach that she had ever let him touch her.

  He let his hand fall to his side. The yellow paper fluttered to the cement floor.

  5

  Mark Shaeffer put his attaché case on his counsel table and opened the snaps. Every seat in the courtroom was already filled and more spectators were milling around in the hallway waiting for someone to leave. He smiled in anticipation of today’s continued examination of Esther Pegalosi. He was feeling good. The trial seemed to be shifting in his direction and he had already picked up several new clients because of the publicity he was receiving on TV and in the papers.

  Bobby wasn’t in the courtroom and Mark had some points he wanted to cover with him. He was about to ask the guard to bring Bobby down when Judge Samuels’s clerk signaled to him. Mark straightened a file, then walked to the entrance to the judge’s chambers.

  Caproni and Heider were sitting in front of the judge’s desk. Samuels had not donned his robe yet. They all looked grim.

  “Sit down, Mr. Shaeffer. I have some unsettling news for you.”

  Mark looked at Caproni, but Caproni would not look at him.

  “Approximately one hour ago I received a call from the jail,” Samuels said. “I’m afraid the trial is over. Mr. Coolidge killed himself some time last night.”

  Esther had been silent during the ride from the courtroom and Shindler was grateful for the chance to think. The trial had ended so suddenly. What did it all mean? For years he had been preparing himself for the moment when a judge would read the jury’s verdict. Now that was not to be. He felt vindicated by the suicide, but he also felt as if business had been left unfinished. Without a jury verdict, Coolidge’s guilt would remain officially unproven. Already, someone in the press had asked him about the note that had been found in Bobby’s cell. The reporter wanted
to know about the girl who had written it. They would say he had died for love. Still, there was always Billy. They would do it over again and this time there would be a verdict.

  Shindler parked in front of Esther’s apartment. She was staring ahead, as she had all during the ride, and she made no effort to leave.

  “Are you all right?” he asked. He wanted to be rid of her, but he still needed her for Billy’s trial.

  “No, I’m not all right.”

  Her voice was a hard monotone and her intensity surprised him.

  “It wasn’t your fault, Esther. He killed himself because he knew he had no chance.”

  “He killed himself because I lied.”

  “No, Esther. We’ve been over and over this. You were there. You told the truth on the stand yesterday and you’ll tell it again at Billy’s trial.”

  “There won’t be another trial, because I won’t testify,” she said firmly. There was no whine in her voice. No indecision.

  “Of course, there’ll be another trial. You’re just upset.”

  She shook her head and looked at him. Her eyes did not waver.

  “I know what it’s like to want to die, remember? To feel like there’s nothing left. Now I have to live the rest of my life knowing I made Bobby feel like that because of you, Roy. You used me because you knew I’d do anything to keep you, but I’m through now.”

  She opened the door and got out of the car. He followed her up the path, catching her at the entrance to the apartment house.

  “Esther,” he started, taking hold of her arm. She broke free and he grabbed her again. This time she turned toward him. Her eyes were filled with hate.

  “Don’t ever touch me. Don’t ever come near me. If you do, I’ll tell everyone what you did to make me kill Bobby. Everyone. How you kissed me and made me kneel. I’ll fill the papers with it. I see you, Roy. I see you. Don’t you ever come near me or call me or I’ll make everyone see what you are.”

  The door slammed shut. He saw her walk away through the glass. He stood on the path staring, even after she was gone, trying to think of what he would do next.

  PART SIX. HEARTSTONE

  Epilogue

  Caproni looked through the swirling sheets of snow for a street sign that would tell him how close they were to the Hotel Cordova. He saw none. The car skidded on a patch of ice and Louis Weaver grabbed the door handle for support. Caproni settled back in his seat and listened to the metronomic swish of the windshield wipers.