by Rob Summers
Chapter 22 The Witness Honesty
Grace strode out at a remarkable pace for such an old man. Then the spectators began to stand and talk, and the room emptied out.
Reason stayed in her seat by her baby, and after several minutes, Honesty came in and pulled a chair close. “You know, I always like to keep busy,” Honesty said quietly, “so I’ve been talking to the children to find out what I can.”
“Did you come up with anything?” Reason asked.
“Just this.” Honesty held out in the palm of her hand a metal letter ‘O.’ “The kids were using it just now in the kitchen to cut around, making ‘O’s out of construction paper. I asked where it came from, and Peace said that Obscurity gave it to her on Christmas Eve.”
Reason took it from Honesty and looked it over. “Tiny holes at the top and bottom,” she observed. “Cleaner on the front than on the back.”
“You said that anything Obscurity did on Christmas Eve was probably important,” Honesty prompted. “Is it her initial or Big ‘O’?”
Reason stared at it for another moment and started to smile. Then she laughed out loud.
“What is it? Do you understand it?”
“I think so, and thank you. I’ll keep this, if you don’t mind. And would you send Peace over for me? I have an errand for her in front of the house.”
When the limousine shot out from an alley and stopped directly in front of her, Pinch was going too fast to avoid a collision. As she slammed on the brakes, her car swerved, turned sideways, and collided full length against the other car’s side. It took a few moments for her to realize that, except for a terrific noise, little had happened. Then because the limousine blocked her door, she slowly crawled out the passenger side, following Bits. When he had helped her to stand up, a white haired old man appeared, apologizing for the accident.
“All my driver’s fault,” he said. “He wasn’t watching when he pulled out. I’m just glad it was no worse than it was. I’m fully insured, of course.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Pinch said.
“Doesn’t it, my dear? Where were you going?”
“Home,” she said.
“Honestly?” The old man unexpectedly took her hand. “I happen to know that your home is in the other direction. You were almost to the Market Street Bridge.”
“It’s OK,” Pinch said dismally. “I know where I’m going. I don’t care about the car.”
“You can just go on, Ambassador,” Bits added.
Grace looked at Bits as if he had only then noticed him. “Mr. Bitterly! What a surprise to find you in the company of a City paralegal. You aren’t abandoning the trial, are you?”
Bits was silent.
“For your own safety, I think you had better both come with me. My man Fate will follow in your car, Miss Pinch. Come along now. Wherever I’m taking you can’t be a worse destination than the one you had chosen for yourselves.”
When the fifteen minute recess was over, the children of the house returned to the courtroom bearing a banner. Hastily lettered on the kitchen table, it stated in foot-high letters, ‘AQUIT OBSURITY’; and under that, ‘We love her!’ In addition, each child wore a construction paper ‘O’ pinned to shirt or sweater.
While the seats refilled, Dignity sat down on the bench and looked around absently. Presently the banner caught his eye. His mouth hardened. He beckoned to Love, and she came to the bench.
“This banner, are you responsible?”
“We all are,” she said. “We can’t believe she did anything wrong.”
“Well, you can believe what you want, but that banner will have to go.”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“And what’s that on your sweater? ‘O’?”
“Yes, for Obscurity. To show my support for her.”
“Oh.”
“Exactly.”
“Well, take it off.”
She did so.
“OK, I see Grace is back, so we can get started.”
Grace and Bits Bitterly were helping to a front seat a woman unknown to Dignity. She wore a back brace and appeared shaken. They settled her beside Obscurity, who looked at her with surprise.
“Sorry I’m a bit late, Your Honor,” Grace said. “We had a small accident. No, no, every-one’s all right. No harm done worse than some missing paint on our cars and a broken door handle. No, I’m quite calm and ready. No need to delay things any further. By all means, let the prosecution call witnesses.”
Reason stood. “Your Honor, since the defense has admitted that Obscurity did many of the things she is accused of, it’s unnecessary for the prosecution to call many witnesses. However, the question of motive is still at issue, and so we begin by calling Honesty to the witness stand.”
The tiny woman took her place and was sworn in by Truth. After some consultation between the prosecutors, Bits came forward to examine her, but not with his accustomed flair.
“You live at Grace House, do you, Honesty?”
“I think we can skip all that,” she said. “Everyone here knows me.”
Bits looked to Dignity, who nodded.
“All right, tell us about what you observed on the day after Christmas.”
“Mr. Dignity had asked me to keep an eye on Obscurity because he suspected she was working for the City. So on the twenty-sixth, when I opened the front door to a woman who asked for Obscurity, you can bet I got very interested. I showed her up to Obscurity’s room, and Obscurity was there. Then when I went out and left them, I left the door just a little bit ajar. I stood there and listened.”
“What did you hear?”
“Miss Pinch—that’s her right over there, and she was wearing that same back brace—she was telling off Obscurity for not coming and picking up payments. She was telling her this in a low voice. Obscurity wasn’t saying much of anything. Then Pinch said, “I’ve brought it all. Where shall I put it?” Obscurity told her to put it anywhere. I forgot to say that Miss Pinch came in carrying a parcel, a sort of thick envelope. Pinch went on talking, telling Obscurity to keep in touch with her and to start calling in regular reports. Then she said that she couldn’t stay any longer, that she never should have had to come in the first place. It wasn’t safe, you know. I could tell she’d be back out the door momentarily, so I hid myself in a room across the hall. When she did come out, I followed her down the stairs, and then I ran to the kitchen and grabbed the keys to Dignity’s Fiero off the hook because I knew it was parked out front. She was moving slow enough in that back brace that I caught up and was able to tail her across town in the Fiero. She parked at the law offices of Snare, Pitfall, Trial, and Temptation, the City Attorneys. You can imagine my surprise.”
“No sarcasm, Honesty,” said Dignity.
“Oh, all right. Anyway, I just waltzed in behind her and saw her sit down in a cubicle and go to work there. So I stepped up to one of her co-workers and asked him who she was. That’s how I learned her name. He said Pinch, a paralegal for Lawyer Pitfall. I thanked him and came home. Right away, I went up to Obscurity’s room, and there was that parcel sitting there in plain view, and Obscurity not there. It hadn’t even been opened.”
“Bits, you really ought to throw in a few questions,” Reason stage whispered from the front row.
Bits looked around at her and managed a weak version of his usual grin. He turned back and asked Honesty if she had opened the parcel.
“In a heartbeat. No point in scruples at a time like that. It was full of cash. Hundreds and hundreds. I took it to Mr. Humility.”
“Um, let it be recorded,” said Bits, “that the cash was later counted. It was, uh, twenty-four hundred dollars, all in twenties. It’s all in the library safe now. The envelope is on the evidence table.”
“It’s unaddressed,” Reason prompted
“And it’s unaddressed.”
Bits looked foggily at Honesty. “Anything else?”
“That’
s all,” she said.
“That’s all,” Bits echoed. He wandered over near Reason and sat down.
“What’s the matter?” Reason asked Bits. “Have you been drinking?”
“Came awfully close,” he said. “But the immediate problem is I’m having one of my attacks.”
“What should I do? Do you have medication?”
“I was all right when I got up this morning,” he wandered on. “But I don’t know why—why I felt good, I mean. Nothing ever works out for me. I’ll always love you, Reason, no matter what.”
Reason did not answer.
He reached down and lightly stroked the baby’s head with his fingertips. “You have a baby. You have no idea how I’ve wished to have one. But that wasn’t for me. I’m ill, I go without.”
“What do you need, Bits? What do you take for your attacks?”
“A special diet. You could help me.”
“What then?”
“I know what started this attack. It was Pinchy showing up out in the front hall, looking for me, wanting me to go with her.”
“Bits, wait a minute, do you know her?”
Bits seemed to stiffen in his chair. He turned and looked away. “You don’t care,” he said.
“I care about you, Bits, but if you’re a friend of Miss Pinch, then what am I to think?”
“Please cross examine the witness, Ambassador,” said Dignity.
“Yes, Your Honor. Miss Honesty, you’ve testified that Miss Pinch brought Obscurity payments that she had never bothered to collect. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“From what you overheard, had Obscurity previously taken any money from the City?”
“No, Pinch made quite a point of that. She said, ‘You never came by to get any payments.’”
“I see. And did Obscurity seem happy to get the money Pinch brought her?”
“No, not really.”
“What was her manner?”
“She sounded uninterested.”
“Yes, and in fact she didn’t even open the package. What would you have done in her place?”
“I would have opened it and counted it. Then I would have hidden it.”
“So would I. Which leads to the conclusion that Obscurity really wasn’t interested in the money. When you took the parcel from her room, she was not present? No. But she must have realized at some point that it was gone. Who told her?”
“I did.”
“You were the first to tell her?”
“Yes.”
“What was her reaction?”
“I asked her if she had noticed that the parcel her visitor brought was missing. She said she hadn’t noticed.”
“Was she agitated then, when you said that?”
“No, sir.”
“What was her manner?”
“No manner. Nothing. She didn’t care. I told her it was full of money and that we’d taken it as evidence. She just stared at me.”
“She didn’t demand it back?”
“She just walked away.”
Grace leaned on the rail of the witness box. “Let’s go back to when Pinch first arrived. Did she complain that Obscurity was not reporting to her?”
“Yes.”
“Pinch wanted her to start reporting, isn’t that what she said? Did Pinch mean that Obscurity had not reported at all—or very little?”
“Not much, very little.”
“And worthwhile information?”
“No, Pinch said that what she was getting wasn’t worth much.”
“On the other hand, did you get the impression that Pinch had communicated a lot in Obscurity’s direction? That Obscurity had received instructions, information, that sort of thing, from Pinch?”
“Yes, Pinch was saying that she had kept Obscurity filled in completely. So why, she said, wouldn’t Obscurity pick up a phone and call her?”
“So in general Pinch was unhappy that Obscurity was unresponsive. Though well paid, Obscurity had ignored the lure of the money and had reported little to Pinch. On the other hand, Obscurity had learned a good deal about the City administration’s plans, you think?”
“Some. I don’t know how much.”
“But in general, Obscurity was being let in on City secrets while doing a miserable job of spying?”
“That’s what Pinch said.”
“Miss Honesty, would you then characterize Obscurity as a good spy?”
“Well, no. A good saboteur but not a good spy.”
“Did her behavior fit that of a good double agent if her loyalty was to the Embassy?”
Honesty considered this.
“Objection,” said Reason. “Your Honor, Honesty is no expert on such things.”
“Isn’t she?” said Dignity. “She’s used to sorting out awfully complex motives. She’s our house detective, isn’t she? Objection overruled. Go ahead and answer, Honesty.”
Honesty smiled, showing her irregular teeth. “Pinch never said a word about sabotage to prevent the book’s being published. All she was interested in was that she had no clear picture of what was happening in this house. At the same time, she said she’d told Obscurity all sorts of things and was right then telling her more. Would that make Obscurity a good double agent? Now that I think of it, you bet it would. A great one, in fact.”