“I was just going to ask that,” said Marc.
“Then this person, breathing, stinking of alcohol—I should have known it was Bob just by that stink—came closer, closer. And that’s really the last thing I remember. Oh, I remember, just vaguely, a flash of light and an explosion.”
“That would be after the pistol fired,” said Marc. “Did you recognize your husband up to that point?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Thinking about it now, I think I must have. But I’m not sure I really did.”
Marc studied Toni’s face. “We’ll go into more detail later. Right now let’s talk about this arraignment that’s coming up.”
“What’s that?” Toni asked.
“That means you have to go to court, and be formally charged—the charges will be read to you,” said Marc.
“I thought we weren’t going to court,” she said, turning to Cahill.
Cahill looked sheepish. “Mister Conte says we must.”
She gazed annoyedly at Cahill, then back to Marc. “And then?”
“Then you’ll be given a date to return and then you’ll go home,” said Marc.
Toni frowned. “This is surely a pain in the ass.”
“Is that little coffee klatsch over with yet?” intruded O’Connor. “Because I’d like to take a statement from your client now.”
“Let me commune aloud for a moment, Mister O’Connor …”
“Commune? That’s a cute word, Conte.”
“We don’t all have to be monosyllabic, O’Connor,” replied Marc. “And since you’re just fishing for evidence now,” Marc continued, “and haven’t any real evidence to go on, I can’t, in good conscience, permit my client to make a statement which may afterward be used in court to nail down a case you don’t have now. After all, Mister O’Connor, Mrs. Wainwright was the only person at the scene besides the deceased.”
“You see, Mrs. Wainwright, how smart-ass attorneys can …”
“Mister O’Connor, talk to the detectives like that if you don’t know any better, but not to my client,” said Marc sharply.
“Excuse me,” O’Connor said brusquely, staring at Marc. “I guess you never heard it before,” he said to Toni. “As I was saying, how some lawyers can create for their clients more trouble than they had in the first place.”
Toni looked at Marc questioningly.
O’Connor saw an opening. “If you have nothing to hide, you should make a statement,” O’Connor said directly to Mrs. Wainwright. “After all, you don’t think that me or my office, or the police would try to pull something over your eyes, try to frame you. Mrs. Wainwright, let me assure you, I’m only looking to help you.” He smiled.
“He’s looking to help you sink yourself,” said Marc. “He’s the prosecutor, and he’s here to get evidence to help him do his job. My client is not making any statements.”
“All right, look, that’s her privilege;” said O’Connor. “The Fifth Amendment gives that right. But only criminals hide behind it. It looks funny, you know,” continued O’Connor, looking at Toni Wainwright. “What I mean is when someone with nothing to hide dodges behind the Fifth Amendment for no reason, it makes the District. Attorney start to think maybe there is something she’s hiding.”
“My client is still not going to make a statement.”
“You know, Counselor, if your client wants to make a statement, no matter what you say, she can make one. She doesn’t have to be bulldozed by you.” O’Connor looked to make sure Mrs. Wainwright got his message.
“That’s quite correct,” agreed Marc. “I’m advising my client not to make any statement. She’s neither going to make your case nor any publicity for you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” flashed O’Connor angrily.
“Which? That Mrs. Wainwright is not making the case, or not making the publicity?”
“The publicity. You don’t think for one moment that Mister Francis X. Byrnes’s office is involved in or interested in publicity? Do you?”
“No, not the office itself,” replied Marc.
“What are you implying, Counselor?” asked O’Connor.
“I’m not implying anything. I’ve said exactly what I wanted to say.” Marc turned to Toni. “I guess they’re going to keep us here, chit-chatting all day.”
“Did you also advise Mrs. Wainwright that I’ll put her in front of a grand jury under oath if she doesn’t make a statement now?” threatened O’Connor.
“And Mrs. Wainwright, as a prospective defendant, will take the Fifth Amendment in that event too,” countered Marc. “You know that’s her privilege under the law.”
Cahill was carefully following the verbal exchange.
“Well, if you want to embarrass your client like that, you can,” O’Connor said, looking at Toni. “I can’t understand why someone with nothing to hide has to use the same dodge as the most notorious criminals.”
Toni turned to Marc. “Can I speak to you for a moment, alone?”
“Of course,” O’Connor said, now smiling again. He looked at Marc, then turned, waving the policemen out of the room.
Toni watched the men leave. Cahill and Rutley stood next to Marc. Cahill had his arms folded, looking very serious.
“Doesn’t what the D.A. says make sense?” Toni asked. “I haven’t anything to hide. Why should I make it seem like I’m hiding something? Like a criminal. I mean, that’s the thing all those gangsters you read about in the papers do.”
“The fact is, that people accused of a crime need not testify or be witnesses against themselves, according to the Constitution,” said Marc. “I don’t want to give a course on legal procedings, but the law purposely intended to make the Government, the prosecutor, prove a case, if he can. If he can’t, the person who’s accused doesn’t have to prove anything. Let me just say as an aside that despite a Puritan ethic, it’s just as lawful and right to benefit from the provisions of law as it is to be punished by the law. Now O’Connor’s case is as thin as tissue paper. If you give him a statement, any kind of statement, indicating you did in fact shoot a pistol at your husband, you may give him just the evidence he needs to prove a case; if not a murder case, manslaughter. Without you, who does he have to testify as to anything that happened there?”
“There’s just me,” Toni admitted.
“I have a tendency to agree with Mrs. Wainwright,” said Rutley. “If that’s the case, all she need do is tell it the way it actually happened. I don’t believe Mister O’Connor would try to concoct a false case against Mrs. Wainwright. I mean, he is obviously a vulgarian, but concocting a case against an innocent person, I don’t think even he’d do that. If you don’t mind my saying so, you’re making this thing out far too dramatically.”
Cahill said nothing. He wanted to hear Marc’s explanation.
Marc looked at Rutley. “Mister Rutley, how many homicide cases have you handled?”
“Your logic escapes me. I’ don’t see what that has to do with it.”
“How about you, Mister Cahill?” Marc asked.
Cahill shook his head.
“How would either of you like to try this one by yourselves?”
“I don’t think this is the time or the place to have this sort of professional squabble, Mister Conte,” Rutley protested. “Particularly in front of our client.”
“Oh, yes it is,” said Marc. “First of all, the squabble you started isn’t professional. Next, you had your say in front of our client. And so will I. Those are the police. O’Connor is the Chief Assistant District Attorney. He is also dying to become the District Attorney and later move up even higher politically. He loves publicity. I’m telling you from my past experience that the man has blood poisoning, the poison being printer’s ink. And if you think he’s not going to prosecute this case under any and all circumstances—for publicity, if not for a conviction—you’re out of your wonderful Ivy League mind.”
“Now wait a minute …” protested Rutley.
“No
, I’m not finished,” said Marc. “This is a big, juicy case. O’Connor can smell the presses rolling already, with day after day of publicity about the beautiful socialite who killed her millionaire husband. Now, if he’s going to prosecute this case, no matter what, even on the flimsiest of evidence, don’t you think that perhaps he’d be delighted to have some real, down to earth, honest-to-God strong evidence in his quiver, evidence like the defendant’s own statement that she had a gun in her hand, knew who it was that came into the room, they were all alone, and suddenly the next thing that happens is that the victim is dead. Don’t you think that that sort of evidence would really help his case a great deal?”
“He could perhaps introduce the statement, I imagine,” Rutley admitted reluctantly, “but certainly it eliminates murder, the intentional taking of life.”
“Great. But what about manslaughter?” Marc asked. “The unintentional taking of life? Do you think Mrs. Wainwright could do twenty-five years in jail easily?”
Toni shuddered.
“If you are going to fight someone, does it make any sense to help him put on his armor?” Marc looked at Cahill.
Cahill stood silently.
“The Fifth Amendment is to help people protect themselves,” Marc continued. “It’s as American and constitutional as freedom of speech and freedom of religion. They’re written in the same Bill of Rights. And anybody who thinks that there’s something wrong with it, just doesn’t know what it’s all about. That man out there, that O’Connor, his job, as he sees it, is to put Mrs. Wainwright in jail. And I don’t think it’s, necessary in order to be a good American to help put yourself in jail. I don’t care what I or it looks like, Mister Rutley, but I’m protecting Mrs. Wainwright. That’s my job.” Marc turned to Toni.
“Let Mister Conte do what he wants,” she said.
Marc turned toward the door where O’Connor was hovering. “My client continues to refuse to make any statement.”
O’Connor turned away, waving a disgusted hand at Marc. “Arraign her and let me get the hell out of here and stop wasting my time.” He began to walk directly through the crowd of detectives toward the stairs.
“Mister O’Connor,” called Marc, “don’t you want to be present to be heard on the question of bail when Judge Crawford gets here?”
“No judge is going to set bail without the D.A. being present to be heard,” O’Connor said over his shoulder. “And I’m not going to be here.”
“Perhaps when the Judge is informed that you were here and were told he was on his way and you refused to remain,” Marc replied, “he might imagine that you didn’t care what the bail was.”
O’Connor wavered. “The Judge may not even be coming here. I haven’t seen a Justice of the Supreme Court in a police station in years.”
“Well, you’re seeing one now,” said Judge Crawford as he entered the homicide office, smiling, looking around the room. He was tall, red-faced, with gray hair slicked smooth and center-parted. He was as good a politician as O’Connor, maybe even better. After all, he had already worked his way up through the political ranks to Judge.
“Hello, Your Honor,” O’Connor said sourly. “You’re not really going to set bail here in the precinct, are you?”
“Why not?” asked the Judge. “Why should Mrs. Wainwright have to be brought down to the bull pen and sit in that filthy hole waiting for hours while you verify her fingerprints?” The Judge saw Toni standing at the door of the office. His eyes flicked momentarily down her figure and up again. He smiled reassuringly.
O’Connor looked at the Judge, a sour smirk turning the ends of his mouth down.
“You don’t think it’s necessary for Mrs. Wainwright to be incarcerated for no good reason, do you?” the Judge asked O’Connor. “Nor do you think there’s anything wrong with a judge making, a bail determination on firsthand information, do you, Mister O’Connor?”
O’Connor said nothing, just watching the Judge, knowing the bail was going to be set no matter what he said.
“I know Mrs. Wainwright only from what I read,” the Judge said smiling at her again. “But from what I know, I know she’s not going to abscond from the jurisdiction.”
Toni shook her head.
“And since the only purpose of bail is to insure the defendant’s presence at court,” the Judge continued, “I see no reason why we shouldn’t set the bail right now and save Mrs. Wainwright the discomfort of sitting among all the junkies and prostitutes, and who knows what else, that are in the bull pen. Have you finished booking Mrs. Wainwright?” the Judge asked, looking around.
“Yes, sir,” said Lieutenant Balinsky.
“Hello, Mister Cahill,” the Judge said, seeing the older lawyer near Mrs. Wainwright. “Hello, Marc. Are you going to handle this case?”
“Yes, sir.”
The Judge nodded approvingly. “A fine lawyer,” the Judge said to Mrs. Wainwright. “Do you have any position to take in reference to the amount of bail, Mister O’Connor?”
“Yes. I don’t think you should set it,” O’Connor replied. “I think it leaves you open to criticism. It hasn’t been done in years.”
“If the administration of justice must bow to misplaced criticism or lack of precedent, we’d all, as the Court of Appeals said in some case or other, still have the law of the Plantagenets,” replied the Judge benignly. “Do you have any reason to think that Mrs. Wainwright will not show up in court when she’s supposed to?”
“I think of Mrs. Wainwright no differently than I would anyone else accused of the same crime,” said O’Connor. “I think there should be no bail.”
Marc stood silently by, not needing to gild the lily with the Judge apparently well disposed to Toni.
“Well, I, as indeed does the United States Supreme Court, believe in reasonable bail,” said the Judge. “Do you have a recommendation on amount?”
“Two hundred fifty thousand,” said O’Connor. “I kid you not about that, Judge. Mrs. Wainwright is in such a financial position, that any other bail would be meaningless.”
“I think we must take Mrs. Wainwright’s financial position into consideration,” agreed the Judge. “However, two hundred fifty thousand dollars is a little out of line. Is your bondsman here, Mister Cahill?”
“Yes, sir. He’s right over here,” said Cahill, looking over the crowd that had now gravitated into a circle around the Judge.
“Here I am, Judge,” said Sol Wachter, making his way through the crowd. He had arrived at the precinct shortly after Marc and O’Connor.
“Fine, fine. How are you, Sol? Are you prepared to sign a bond in the amount of fifty thousand dollars?” asked the Judge.
“My employer and the Stuyvesant Insurance Company have authorized me to write a bond in the amount of fifty thousand, yes, sir,” said Wachter.
“Very well, I’m going to set bail in the amount of fifty thousand dollars,” said the Judge. He watched Toni, smiling as he set the bail.
“She hasn’t even been photographed or processed down at headquarters,” complained O’Connor.
“I’m sure Mrs. Wainwright would be co-operative in going to headquarters for processing,” said the Judge, looking at Marc. Marc nodded. “And then, when the processing is over, she can proceed on her own or with her lawyers to court for arraignment. It will, however, not be necessary for Mrs. Wainwright to be in custody since she’s now on bail.” The Judge looked toward Sol Wachter, who was sitting at one of the detectives’ desks, writing.
“I’ll be finished in just a couple of minutes, Your Honor,” said Wachter.
“Fine, fine,” replied the Judge.
“Thank you, Your Honor,” said Toni.
“Don’t thank me,” said the Judge, looking into her eyes. “I’m only doing what I think is right.”
Sol Wachter brought some papers for the Judge’s signature. The Judge sat at the desk, read the papers carefully, and signed them.
“Is there anything else now, gentlemen?” asked the Judge.
“The D.A. has to sign and approve the bond,” said Wachter.
O’Connor’s face brightened. “And I’m not going to do it.”
“I took the liberty of phoning Mister Byrnes before I came,” said the Judge softly. “We discussed the case. He seemed to know all about it already. And he said if you refused to sign the bond, I should ask you to phone him.”
“Sandbagged, hanh, Your Honor?” O’Connor said sourly, taking the bond from Wachter’s hands. He scribbled his signature.
“The bail is completed, Your Honor,” said Wachter.
O’Connor turned and angrily made his way through the crowd of detectives toward the door.
“I’ll go too, then,” said the Judge. He shook hands and smiled again at Toni. Then he shook hands with Cahill, then Marc, then Rutley. The Judge made his way toward the door.
“I’m sure both O’Connor and the Judge will keep the press boys distracted for a while,” Marc said to Cahill. He turned to the Lieutenant. “Is there any way out of here besides the front door?”
“That’s a great idea,” Toni said, perking up.
“May I see you for a second, Counselor?” the Lieutenant said, moving toward his private office.
“Certainly,” replied Cahill. Rutley was right behind as they moved toward the Lieutenant.
“No, just Mister Conte,” said the Lieutenant. “It’s not about the case.”
Cahill and Rutley stopped short, glancing at Toni. Marc followed the Lieutenant into his office.
The Lieutenant shut the door and turned. “Look, Counselor, I know you’re all right. This other “Counselor, the Wall Streeter and his little, wise-ass protégé, I don’t know, except I know they don’t know what it’s all about. Now, the reason I wanted to talk to you is that me and my boys have been through a lot of trouble with this dame. She’s been treated like a queen since she’s been here. And she’s got the mouth and manners of a Pier Six brawler. But I’m willing to help her get out through the back way. Even have a couple of the boys go with her. And they’ll take real good care of her downtown. Even if she didn’t get bailed, we wouldn’t have put her inside, you know? I have been very considerate, so far. I didn’t have to be, no more than to anyone else. You know that?”
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