Mom Among the Liars

by James Yaffe

  “I swear to you he did. They hushed it up at the time, of course, but—” Her laughter kept her from talking for a while longer, but finally she put on a serious face and said, “Enough, enough. Nobody enjoys this screw-McBride game more than I do, but I better get down to why I asked you to drop in this morning.”

  “Something about this murder case, wasn’t it?”

  “Absolutely. What I’m about to tell you is going to surprise the hell out of you. Maybe you won’t believe it, but I’ve got evidence that it’s absolutely true.”

  “What’s the big surprise?” Ann asked.

  “Do you know why McBride is working so hard to pin this rap on your client? Because he wants to get this case out of the public eye as fast as he can—because he’s afraid of what might come out. Namely, that he, McBride himself, has been having an affair with this Pulaski woman for the last six months.”

  I didn’t need any cue from Ann that I was supposed to keep a straight face at this.

  “You say you’ve got evidence of this?”

  “Incontrovertible evidence.”

  “What is it?”

  “A photograph. A beautiful candid snapshot showing McBride stretched out in Edna Pulaski’s bed, fast asleep and naked as the day he was born.”

  “And Edna’s stretched out next to him?”

  “Well, no, he’s alone. But the bed is definitely hers—here, I’ll show you.” She reached into the top drawer and pulled out a brown manila envelope. From inside it she took a small snapshot and handed it to Ann across the desk. “See the fancy carvings on the head of the bed—dragons kind of twining around each other? See the landscape painting on the wall over the bed—Oriental-style landscape, isn’t that right? Won’t be hard to prove where this picture was taken.”

  Everything she mentioned was there all right. The bed was definitely Edna Pulaski’s—I recognized it right away—and in the center of it was McBride, with his eyes shut and a cherubic smile on his face. Still Life with Politician.

  “How did you get this picture?”

  Dryden laughed. “Sorry, Ann, that’s a trade secret. Reporters aren’t the only ones who have to protect their sources. Hold on to it, keep it as a souvenir. I’ve got plenty of copies. And before you leave here today, I’ll give you the negative—I’ve got copies of that too—and you can have it examined by experts, make sure it’s not faked, not doctored in any way.”

  Another long pause. Then Dryden gave a quiet little snicker. “Don’t overwhelm me with your excitement and enthusiasm, for God’s sake!”

  “All right,” Ann said after a moment, “I’ll take the negative. If there’s any legitimate way to use it at Harry Stubbins’s trial, I’ll be glad to—”

  “Hold it, hold your horses!” Dryden stopped smiling. “That trial could be months from now. It won’t do me a bit of good if you come out with this snapshot then. The whole point is to get this information before the public as soon as possible—tomorrow or Thursday at the latest—so it can have some influence on the election.”

  “All right then, make it public now. Call a press conference, show this snapshot to the media people—”

  “You still don’t get it, do you? I can’t bring this before the public. I’m his opponent. If the public knows this picture came from me, they’d automatically suspect it of being a phony. Besides, I’m supposed to be running a smear-free campaign, I’ve made a point of saying that I’m taking the high road.”

  “Send it to the newspaper and the TV stations anonymously—”

  “That’s out too. No self-respecting editor—not even the editor of our local rag—is going to print something like this without knowing exactly where it comes from. No, there’s only one way to handle this. Everybody trusts the public defender’s office. Your reputation for honesty and integrity couldn’t be higher. You have to call the press conference, Ann, and release this photograph.”

  “On what grounds? Unless the connection between McBride and Edna Pulaski turns out to be relevant to my case—and that’s something I can’t know until much further down the line—I’m certainly not going to cast slurs on a man’s reputation, expose the secrets of his private life—”

  “Why not?” Dryden laughed again, but I didn’t hear much mirth in her voice this time. “How do you feel about the job Marvin McBride’s done as district attorney? You agree with me, don’t you, that the man is a joke?”

  “I certainly have plenty of reservations about—”

  “Exactly. Anybody in this community who has any sense at all shares those reservations. All right, so now you’ve got your chance to do something practical about this situation. Here’s the negative, you know what to do with it.”

  Dryden reached into the manila envelope again. Ann lifted her hand and shook her head. “Don’t bother, Doris.”

  Slowly Dryden pulled her hand out again. “That’s your final answer, is it?”

  Ann got to her feet, and so did I. But before we could turn away from her desk, Dryden stood up too. “One more point I’d like to make.”

  We waited patiently. I suppose we both pretty much knew what was coming.

  “You don’t take me up on this offer, I think you’ll be very sorry.”

  Ann managed to keep her voice steady. “What do you mean by that exactly?”

  “What I mean is, when I get elected—and take my word for it, I will get elected—the first move I’ll make, as the new district attorney, is to recommend to the City Council that they fire you and replace you with an efficient and responsible public defender.”

  “It seems to me,” I said, “that I’ve heard you mention, in plenty of speeches, what a good job Ann’s been doing. You’ve said it in public, it’s on the record.”

  “So the public will find out I’m flexible, I’m not afraid to admit when I’ve been wrong. I’ll discover I was wrong about Ann all these years. My close observation of the public defender’s record has now convinced me that the city can do a lot better. And since the electorate and I will be in the middle of our honeymoon just then—I’ll be the new broom, the great reformer, the breath of fresh air, the marines to the rescue—the council will listen to my recommendation.”

  “It won’t bother you that it’s a lie?”

  “That’ll bother me a hell of a lot less than if I lose this election. To keep that from happening, I guarantee you there’s nothing I won’t do.” She lifted her chin. I doubt if McBride, even by his high standards, would have found any shortage of balls.

  After a moment Ann said, very quietly, “A kinder gentler district attorney’s office. Didn’t we hear you say that a little while ago?”

  “And I meant it too. I’m an idealist, and I always will be. What’s eating you is that I take my ideals seriously. I’m willing to face up to the fact that those ideals are riding on this election. Either this town will go on the way it’s been going, with justice in the hands of a lazy drunken clown, or the people will finally get some honest, vigorous, enlightened law enforcement. That goal is bigger than you, Ann, or any other individual, including myself. Kinder and gentler is for after elections. All right, I’m asking you one more time. Do you call a press conference and release this snapshot?”

  She waited a beat, then her chin came down from its perch. She was smiling again and her tone of voice couldn’t have been friendlier. “Well, it’s been nice talking to you. No hard feelings, I hope. We all fight for what we believe, don’t we, in our own way?”

  We left her bedroom-office and made our way through the living room, trying not to bump into her little army of shining, newly scrubbed college idealists.

  * * *

  On the way back to the courthouse, I was careful not to talk too much. I knew how Ann was feeling. Her budget increase meant a lot to her, and she’d been pinning her hopes on Dryden’s goodwill if she succeeded in driving McBride out of office. No doubt she’d get over the disappointment. She was a realist and a philosopher. But even the most philosophical animal has to be allowed
to lick its wounds for a while.

  Personally I wasn’t feeling any wounds. What we had just learned about Dryden didn’t come as any surprise to me. She was a politician, wasn’t she? She simply confirmed what I had known all along—there’s no choosing between them.

  I did decide, though, that I wouldn’t tell Roger about Dryden’s little attempt at bribery and intimidation. When he talked about her, his eyes still filled with stars. What was the point of replacing them with cataracts?

  The moment we stepped through our front door, Mabel Gibson was giving us a hoarse whisper: “Mr. Ed Brock on the line.”

  I went into Ann’s office with her, and she picked up the phone. She confined herself to a couple of yeses and one “give us fifteen minutes,” then she hung up and turned back to me. “He wants us to meet him right away. At the Marriott-Chinook. He claims it’s an urgent matter.”

  So we left Roger to hold the fort—he was waiting for the drama teacher at General Wagner High to respond to his message—and drove down in my car to the Marriott-Chinook, a ten-story hotel in the center of downtown that is the Richelieu’s only serious competition. If you’re looking for fun and games, you go to the Richelieu; if you’re in town to do business, you go to the Marriott-Chinook. It has its twin in every fair-size city in America, and the same slicked-up, weatherbeaten traveling-salesman types hang out in its lobby, coffeeshop, and bars. Ed Brock had told us to meet him in Room 216, which turned out to be a perfectly ordinary hotel room, not even one of the de luxe suites. Ed beamed at us from a big easy chair, looking more than ever like a clean-shaven, slightly mischievous Santa Claus. He didn’t get to his feet—a process that would have involved major physical dislocations—but he was always careful about his manners, so he held out his huge hand and shook ours. “Nice to see you, Ann, damned nice of you to come down here like this, Dave.”

  There was only one other person in the room with Ed, his honor the Mayor of Mesa Grande, Willard A. Butterfield. He was a pudgy little man with thick, black-rimmed glasses and thick black hair that everyone in town knew to be a toupee; only by this time we were so used to seeing it on his head that he would have looked unnatural to us without it. He owned the biggest cut-rate appliance store in town, Butterfield’s Bargain Basement, and dabbled successfully in real estate.

  Ann gave him a sharp look as soon as she caught sight of him, sitting at a table that was set up in the corner of the room. This table was covered by a white tablecloth, and on it were plates, cups, a pot of coffee, and a platter with three or four cinnamon buns on it. “How are you, Willard?” Ann said. “Ed didn’t warn us this was some kind of high-level official meeting.”

  “Who says it’s official?” the mayor put in, his gravelly voice sounding tight and angry. “Nobody’s allowed to take any notes. Everybody promises this is off the record. You say anything about it afterward, I’ll deny it on a stack of Bibles.”

  “Don’t get in an uproar, Willard,” Ed said. “Ann and Dave understand perfectly, I’m sure. This is just an informal get-together among friends.”

  “Meaning by that,” Ann said, “people who happen to be in on a deal together?”

  Ed laughed and said, “Can you think of a better basis for friendship?”

  For the next few minutes we all exchanged amenities about the beautiful weather, more like spring than November, have a cinnamon roll, let me pour you some coffee, all we’ve got is the caffeinated stuff but we could call room service.… You never came straight to the point when you had dealings with Ed. He would’ve been offended, I think, if he hadn’t been allowed to go through every step of the ritual.

  Finally he was ready to come out and say what was on his mind. “Ann—Dave—you’re probably asking yourself by now why we’re all here.”

  “Actually,” Ann said, “I was asking myself whose room is this anyway?”

  “It’s a room the city keeps in this hotel, full time,” said the Mayor. “For informal meetings, no more than three or four people.”

  “Is that a fact?” Ann said. “I’ve never noticed it on the city budget.”

  “It’s there,” said the mayor, sounding a little aggrieved. “You’ll find it under ‘miscellaneous.’”

  “Getting back to the thread of what I was telling you,” Ed said. “In a nutshell, I’m worried about the election. That’s not a statement too many people have ever heard me make. I’m not usually the one who paces the floor and breaks out in a sweat. There’s very little I haven’t seen in this world, and consequently my expectations are low. My tendency is to sit back and assume things will turn out badly, and if they don’t I’m content to be pleasantly surprised. But at this particular phase of the game, I have to admit it, our situation is precarious, and I’m worried.”

  “I can understand why you’re worried,” I said. “But what’s his Honor doing here? He isn’t running for election.”

  “I’m here,” said the mayor, “because Marvin McBride is an old and dear friend as well as a valued ally in the fight to get the best for Mesa Grande, the city we both love.”

  Translation into English: The real estate interests, who had the mayor in their pocket, wanted McBride in office because they knew he wouldn’t go out of his way to make trouble when real estate activities and illegal activities moved a little too close to each other.

  “All right, Ed, what are Dave and I doing here?” Ann asked. “What’ve we got to do with Marvin’s election? Send him out to kiss babies, and let us get back to work.”

  “Exactly what we’re hoping you’ll do,” Ed said. “The problem is—not to mince words with you—you’re the ones who’ve got us worried.”

  “Really? I have a feeling we ought to be flattered. How have we done this to you?”

  “That not very pleasant meeting we had with you yesterday afternoon. Frankly, it’s been on my mind ever since, you gave me something of a sleepless night. I decided we’d better get together this morning, just to clear the air. We’d better discuss those hints you dropped about Marvin’s alleged involvement with the Pulaski woman—”

  “I didn’t think of them as hints exactly. I thought I came right out and said what I meant. I was also under the impression I heard Marvin admit they were true.”

  “Well, as far as that goes”—Ed’s smile grew broader and friendlier—“I’m not sure I heard quite what you heard. Language can be awfully ambiguous. So often it’s really a matter of interpretation.… Well, in any event, what’s been worrying me is, if you happened to allow your version of what was said to come to the attention of the wrong parties—elements in town that might be hostile to Marvin and might be interested in twisting his words for their own ulterior purposes—”

  “What elements are you referring to, Ed? Doris Dryden? Joe Horniman? The TV news people?”

  “Among others, among others. The point I’m trying to get across—I have a sense that Marvin didn’t make his full position on this matter entirely clear to you yesterday. There was a certain agitation in the atmosphere, a certain emotionalism. Now that we’ve all had a chance to sleep on it, sweet reason can reassert itself, I hope. We can see your point of view, and you can see our point of view, and I feel sure an arrangement can be worked out to everybody’s satisfaction. What is politics after all? The game of give-and-take, you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.”

  “Just a minute, Ed,” the mayor put in. “I don’t consider my political career some kind of game. I consider I’m performing an important duty on behalf of my fellow citizens.”

  “Naturally, naturally.” Ed nodded. “You’re a man of integrity, Willard, completely sincere and truthful. As I was saying—”

  “What were you saying?” Ann broke in. “If you’re offering us some kind of proposition, I wish you’d come out with it, so we could all go home before the end of the week.”

  Ed laughed. It was a matter of principle with him to laugh at everybody’s jokes, even if they were at his expense. Then he turned to the mayor. “You tell her, Willard
. That matter we talked about earlier.”

  The mayor had grown very white, and had to wet his lips a few times before he could talk. “I know the public defender’s office is planning to ask the City Council for a higher budget in the next fiscal year. You need another investigator, more office space, maybe even a second trial lawyer. I’m sympathetic, very sympathetic, with your needs. I intend to ask the council to give you what you want—and as you know, a majority of the members tend to go along with my views about what’s best for the city. You can write your own ticket—within reason, of course—providing the district attorney doesn’t raise any objections.”

  “There won’t be any objections,” said Ed, “if the present district attorney remains in office. On the other hand, if he loses this election, you can’t expect us to exert any influence over a new district attorney, can you? And incidentally, if you don’t see fit to cooperate in this matter and Marvin gets elected anyway—” Ed gave a sad shrug. “Well, if you demonstrate that you don’t have the city’s best interests at heart, what attitude would you expect a conscientious public servant to take toward you?”

  Ann said nothing for a while. I was probably the only person in the room who could read the signs that she was close to an explosion. When she spoke, her voice was as quiet as ever. “I’m going to tell you just one thing, gentlemen. We haven’t decided yet if we’re going to use that information you refer to. We haven’t evaluated its potential effectiveness in court. But one thing I can promise you—our decision will be determined by what’s best. And I mean for our client, not for the city. If that means bringing out certain facts that might be embarrassing to Marvin McBride—or to any other fat cat in town—I give you my solemn word we’ll bring them out anyway.”

  “See here,” the mayor began, but Ann didn’t let him get the rest of it out.

  “If I have to listen to one more word on the matter,” Ann said, “I’m calling up The Republican American and every TV and radio station in the area, and scheduling a press conference for this afternoon.”