Silence.
Clifton Barrett could not stand up, of course, because Margot had effectively trapped him in the booth.
He could only look down at the sodden napkin in front of him.
That, remain silent, and continue to breathe.
“I’ll be outside,” whispered Margot.
Then she wheeled and left.
Nina did nothing.
There was nothing to do.
CHAPTER 10: DOWNTOWN!
The following morning Margot Gavin was taken to court for assault.
Nina learned about it from Moon Rivard, whose squad car pulled up in her driveway at a little after 8, just as she was washing from her skillet the remnants of a small helping of scrambled eggs.
“They asking for you, Ms. Nina.”
“Who is?”
“Just about everybody. Ms. Towler, the District Attorney. Mr. Bennett. I guess he’s gonna be Ms. Gavin’s lawyer. And then there’s the other lawyer.”
“Which other lawyer?”
“The one representing Mr. Barrett. He got in from New York early this morning.”
“All right. Give me a second.”
She put on something or other, not quite certain what to wear to the arraignment of one’s best friend, but remembering her parting words to Margot the previous evening:
“I don’t know what will come of his, Margot. I hope nothing will.”
“Don’t worry about it. What could happen?”
“You can’t go around hitting people and expect not to get in trouble.”
“Actually, my dear, precisely the opposite is true.”
And, so saying, Margot had driven off.
But she had been wrong, of course.
One might go around hitting other people and not get in trouble, but when one began hitting the great Clifton Barrett…
…so now here Nina was, getting into Moon Rivard’s squad car, and wondering what was going to happen, while also noticing with the easy familiarity of a lifelong coast dweller the fact that the pre-storm sky had turned lemon, the sea had changed its texture somehow, and the birds had disappeared.
They pulled out of her driveway.
“Why do they want me down there, Moon?”
“Well. They say you saw it.”
“Yes. I saw it.”
“Mr. Barrett says Ms. Gavin came over to him, asked him for an autograph, threw a drink in his face, and then slapped him three times. What is your version of what really happened?”
“Margot went over to him, asked him for an autograph, threw a drink in his face, and then slapped him three times.”
“All right. Then that means the two versions are pretty close.”
“Pretty.”
A crowd of people had begun to form around city hall. Nina saw the all-purpose beige van belonging to The Bay St. Lucy Courier, a young woman she did not recognize who could have been a reporter, and a young man she’d taught when he was in the fourth grade but whose name she’d forgotten because he was such an average student, and who, she was happy to realize, had followed the path set out for completely average people and become a photographer.
“Right through here, ma’am.”
She made her way behind Moon and into the building, noticing as she did so several shiny black automobiles parked almost touching the door.
“Take a right, and then in here. They’re in the courtroom.”
She had rarely been in the courtroom itself, a strange thing for the widow of one of the town’s most respected attorneys to admit, but the place had always made her nervous. She was not absolutely certain why. One possibility was, of course, that Frank was competing here almost every day of his life, and that this staid, immensely high ceilinged chamber with its paintings of dead people and photographs of living ones, was for him little more than a burnished oak boxing ring.
The other possibility was that daily, weekly, monthly, one of several judges whom she’d come to know through the years as party guests or country club bridge partners, sat up there on the ten foot tall ebony chair at the far end of the hall and told people that they had to be put in a cage for the next portion of what had heretofore been their own lives, and now no longer belonged to them.
“Hello, Nina.”
This from Edie Towler the District Attorney.
Edie, tall and unassuming, was dressed in soft shades of gray and walked toward her in soft shades of gray and spoke to her in soft shades of gray.
“Nina, thank you for coming.”
“No problem.”
“We have, as you know, a situation.”
“Yes.”
Behind Edie’s shoulder she saw Margot, who was sitting on one side of the room with Jackson Bennett.
Margot, who was dressed in what appeared to be the flag of Norway, waved cheerfully to her and smiled.
Opposite the aisle sat two more people: Clifton Barrett, wearing a dark blue dress shirt and what was almost certainly the only conservative tie that he—or for that matter the New York Shakespeare Company—possessed.
And his attorney, God.
The man, Nina mused, was probably not God, for that would have been unfair.
But he looked like most people wanted God to look. He wore a charcoal gray suit that no one except God could have afforded and that had almost certainly been custom-tailored because God could not go into stores and buy clothes off the rack. He was God’s height, which meant that he was a little larger and taller and more impressive than all other human beings—who had merely been made in his image—but not so big as to be completely unrecognizable or unapproachable.
And he had superb silver hair.
Nina had always preferred to imagine God as having silver hair.
How could God have, say, red hair?
“Come on down front, Nina,” said Edie Towler.
I don’t want to, thought Nina.
But she followed anyway.
Edie, somewhat improbably in Nina’s view, pulled what seemed little more than a folding chair up facing the front row of seats, so she was sitting just in front of the accused and the accusers.
She cleared her throat, sat, and made her face into something like a smile.
“Thank you all for coming.”
As though, Nina thought, this was a bridge party.
“We have a difficult matter before us here.”
Nina looked at Margot, who seemed completely at ease, sitting there beside Jackson, who seemed completely ill at ease. Then she looked at Clifton Barrett, who, black eyes glinting like diamonds, looked like a snake, and then she looked at God and remembered where snakes came from in the first place.
This was not good.
Edie was speaking to Margot now.
“As I understand the charge here, Ms. Gavin, it appears that you assaulted Mr. Barrett last night.”
Margot said nothing.
“Did you?”
Margot nodded.
“I did.”
Silence for a time.
Then Edie:
“Why?”
God:
“That isn’t really relevant, is it? The fact is that the assault took place.”
Edie breathed deeply and said:
“Strictly speaking, I see your point. But I do think it might be in the best interest of everyone here, if we could just talk this matter out, so that we can find out what really happened and why.”
“Apparently last night the defendant wasn’t in a talking mood.”
“I know,” said Edie. “It’s just––if we can hear from Margot––”
God nodded and sat back in his chair, so that the universe continued to exist.
“Margot, did you hit him?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to.”
“Ms. Towler…”
“I know. Margot, you’re going to have to be more forthcoming than this. If this is true, if you assaulted him…you can be fined, or you can go to jail.”
; Don’t try to be funny, Nina found herself mentally yelling at Margot, all the while remembering their conversation in the car last night on the way home from McGee’s Landing:
“Margot—you hit him!”
“Yes, I did.”
“You can go to jail for that!”
And the answer:
“The worst thing about jail is they don’t let you stay there. Just when you’ve started to make real friends they say you have to leave.”
Don’t say that now, Margot. Don’t say that here.
“I hit him,” said Margot, “because he deserved it.”
“He what?”
“He deserved it.”
“Why did he deserve it?”
“Because he likes to hit women. So I thought I’d give him a chance to hit a woman who hits back.”
God rising now, standing, his full wrath poured out upon the Israelites, who had been just plain stupid to disobey him.
“Ms. Towler this is simply absurd! Apart from the fact that it’s the purest nonsense, it also constitutes slander! My client is one of the best known artists in this country, if not the world!”
“We’re aware of that, Mr. Tomlinson.”
Tomlinson?
It wasn’t God?
If this incredible entity standing in front of her––both hands outstretched, voice rumbling like thunder—was only a human being named ‘Tomlinson,’ then God must really be something!
“This man could be performing on the most prestigious stage in London right now!”
“Yes.”
“His services are in demand all over the world. Literally all over the world.”
“We know.”
“And yet he’s come to spend a month in this small community. Why? Because his wife grew up here. He wants to get to know her community. And, in so doing, he’s offering the town a chance at international publicity. Bay St. Lucy, Ms. Towler, can be on the map for decades to come. Some of the world’s top stars and movie makers may well choose to summer here.”
“That’s all true.”
“And now we have to sit and listen to these slanderous fairy tales about him doing harm to his wife? Putting this story out alone would be grounds for a major lawsuit, even if the assault had not happened.”
“Yes, I’m aware of that.”
“But the assault did happen! And something must be done about it! As District Attorney, you are responsible for seeing that something is done about it!”
“Well, that’s what we’re here to straighten out.”
“As far as I can tell, this defendant is not even sorry about what she did!”
“She isn’t a defendant yet, Mr. Tomlinson; she hasn’t been formally charged.”
“Then why hasn’t she? She needs to be incarcerated! Fined and incarcerated!”
Edie Towler seemed to ignore these orders, and chose to address Margot again:
“What do you mean, Margot, about Mr. Bennett abusing women?”
“I mean he likes to hit his wife. Isn’t that abusing women?”
“By ‘his wife,’ you mean Helen Reddington?”
“Yes.”
“And when did he abuse her?”
“At their rehearsal two days ago. He slapped her.”
“And you know this how?”
Margot shrugged, but said nothing.
“Margot—how do you know this?”
“It’s common knowledge.”
Upon hearing this, Clifton Barrett’s attorney threw up his hands in despair.
Clifton Barrett himself merely smiled, and shook his head.
An unstoppable train, Nina thought, is coming right toward me.
And I can’t do anything about it.
“Common knowledge? What is that supposed to mean, Margot.”
“It was seen.”
“Seen by whom?”
Traaaaaaain Comin’! Comin’ Round the Bend!
“Well, for one, Ms. Bannister there saw it.”
The train was in fact stopped by Tomlinson, who sat down, seemed to gather himself together after suffering, along with his client, through the monstrous indignities that were being ladled out. Then he opened a briefcase that sat in front of him on the desk, took out a sheaf of perhaps twenty papers, and held them up.
“Ms. Towler, before this goes any farther…”
“Yes, Mr. Tomlinson?”
“We need to deal with a spate of pure vicious rumors that seem to have been circulating for the past hours, about some bizarre and completely imaginary event that, as far as my client and I can gather, is supposed to have happened at one of the last rehearsals.”
“Go on,” said Edie.
You’re going to deny it, aren’t you? thought Nina.
Why you…
…oh where was profanity when one needed it?
“To begin with, I need to point out that, for reasons that will very quickly become obvious, attendance at the professional rehearsals is almost invariably strictly limited to cast members and other crew personnel who are a part of the production.”
“I can understand that; go on.”
“This is not true, of course, of community theater, which by its very nature exists as a social event for the community. The point of it is, everyone comes together, everyone gossips a bit, eats a bit—has a good time.”
“Yes.”
“But the professional theater is an entirely different matter. Rehearsals can be extremely intense, and are not to be attended by the general public. On the other hand…”
He now turned and looked back over his shoulder at Nina.
“…due to a special request from Ms. Reddington, her mother was given an invitation to attend a rehearsal the day before yesterday. She was accompanied by this lady now sitting with us, whose name is, I believe, Ms. Bannister.”
“Nina Bannister, that’s right.”
“At this rehearsal, Mr. Barrett somehow was perceived to have struck his wife. An event that purely and simply did not happen.”
“That’s a lie,” said someone in the courtroom.
It was Nina.
Clifton Barrett’s attorney now turned in his chair, rose, and leaned toward her, so that his shadow, like that of a great mountain in the early afternoon, began to creep across the flat and unspectacular land that was her.
“I beg your pardon?”
They were all looking at her now, of course.
“I beg your pardon?” came the repeated question.
“That’s a lie.”
“You’re saying that Mr. Barrett did in fact strike his wife?”
“Yes.”
“You saw it?”
“Yes.”
He pursed his lips, nodded, and continued:
“You are close friends with Ms. Gavin here?”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell her about this alleged ‘attack’?
“No.”
“Are you certain of that?”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell anybody else?”
She thought of John Giusti, standing there on her stairway, asking:
‘Did he hit her?’
She remembered her reply.
‘Yes.’
And she listened as Clifton Barrett’s attorney asked once again:
“Did you tell anybody else?”
She said nothing.
“Did you enjoy telling about this alleged ‘assault’?
No reply.
“How many people in the community of Bay St. Lucy did you entertain with this fairy tale, Ms. Bannister?”
“It’s not a fairy tale; I saw it.”
“Really? You were the only one who saw it?”
“No, everybody there saw it. Everybody on stage, everybody in the balcony. The whole company saw it.”
“The entire company?”
“Yes.”
He nodded, then turned to Edie Towler and handed her the rest of the sheaf of papers.
“Then,” he said, the back of his neck
now talking to Nina, “can you explain how I happen to have twenty eight sworn affidavits here, all from people in attendance at that morning’s rehearsal, all swearing that nothing such as you described ever happened?”
Silence in the courtroom.
Silence silence silence.
Silence until something or other was heard.
But whatever it was, Nina wasn’t listening.
She sat as though hypnotized for what must have been an hour. Back and forth, back and forth, with Edie doing everything she could to keep Margot out of jail, and Clifton Barrett, who apparently had to leave town early in the afternoon and fly back to New York for a brief time, finally agreeing to let matters rest, if given Edie’s assurance that any such similar behavior from townspeople would be harshly dealt with.
There was an apology from Margot, who, Nina realized, could never have given it herself, and had to slip into the role of Mother Superior to manage it.
Then they all left the courtroom.
They walked down one hallway, around another, and through the door leading outside.
There was a crowd of fifty or so people awaiting them.
Flashbulbs, pictures of the great Clifton Barrett, pictures of Margot.
No pictures of Nina.
Thank God.
This from Barrett’s lawyer:
“We can take one or two questions from the press.”
Question:
“Will Mr. Barrett be pressing charges at this time?”
Answer:
“No. This has been a terrible misunderstanding, stemming from malicious and untrue rumors. As far as Mr. Barrett is concerned, the matter is dropped.”
“Will this have any effect on the play?”
“No. Mr. Barrett must fly to New York this afternoon. He will return early tomorrow morning. Then he will be following the production schedule as will the entire company.”
Next question:
“Could you tell us…”
“I’m sorry, we’re on a bit of a tight schedule. If you’ll excuse us…”
Press conference over, making their way through the crowd…
Don’t anyone notice Nina. Don’t anyone notice Nina.
Almost to the waiting patrol car.
And there stood John Giusti.
At the edge of the circle of spectators.
Blue denim shirt, blue jeans.
Simply standing and staring.
Clifton Barrett no more than ten feet away now.
Set Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries) Page 13