“No, sir.”
“Are you acquainted with anyone who has had trouble with the law—say, a relative, or friend?”
“No, sir.”
These were Scott Velie’s standard opening questions to each prospective juror. The prosecution could ill afford to take on a juror who at any time in her life might have looked on the law as an enemy.
“Tell me, Miss Hall, if someone takes a child who doesn’t belong to him and removes that child from her legitimate premises and takes her to other premises without consent of the parents, and indeed against the strong objections of the parents, even if that person believed he was committing no wrong and, in fact, the law could prove he was wrong and liable for his actions, would you have any difficulty in finding that person guilty?”
Miss Hall thought it best to give the question a considerable amount of thought before replying, “No, sir.”
Bill’s eyes stole past a row of heads to where Hoover sat, composed and serene. The hated face was like alabaster, its equanimity insufferable. With the slightest shift of focus, Bill brought his vision to rest on the gentle and cherished face of his wife, sitting beside him. The perfect, exquisite profile remained immobile, her attention seemingly fixed on a time and space beyond the present. Bill wondered what thoughts lay on the other side of the glazed and vacuous eyes. He recalled those eyes on another occasion—reflecting a look of shock, revulsion, betrayal, a look that was fleeting, yet one he would never forget. He had deserved it, God knew he had deserved that look—letting go like that, pulling her into the caldron of his anger, pointedly accusing her, practically branding her a traitor. Yes, Bill sadly reflected, in that moment he had lost his most precious possession, more dearly prized than love—the confidence and trust of the only person on earth who really mattered to him.
They ate, they conversed, they made love, by rote and necessity. They smiled a lot. Bill constantly found himself presampling and censoring each word and thought before uttering it. And when the need was upon him and he was able to muster the courage to reach out to her, he never failed to sense the momentary, slight stiffening of her flesh, the small sigh of resignation, the dutiful submission. It was all false. Both knew it. And in that knowledge the full measure of his loss was most painfully realized.
Their days and nights became computerized. Court from nine to four, cocktails and dinner, out mainly, from five to nine, the long walk home, and bed by ten. Weekends were spent in Westport with Ivy. They would drive up in a rental and stay at Candlemas Inn, the three of them.
Bill had agreed to the boarding school, but he didn’t like it. He hated seeing Ivy in uniform, her beauty camouflaged, shorn of individuality. Yet she seemed to love it. She had been readily accepted by the other girls and in three weeks had already made two “best friends.”
To date, newspaper accounts of the case had not traveled much. After the initial arrest and booking, which earned a second-page spot in the New York Times, the courtroom progress received minimal attention from the press. What coverage there was of the jury selection generally found itself in the back end of both the News and the Post. The Times printed an occasional squib. Connecticut papers ignored it entirely.
The time would come, Bill knew, when the case would rip its way into the headlines of newspapers around the country. For there was no doubt in Velie’s mind of the defense’s intention to put the issue of reincarnation into the record, although he would try to convince the court to rule it inadmissible as a viable defense. But by then the harm would have been done; the floodgates of publicity would have been opened.
Knowing what lay ahead of them, Bill had leveled with Sister Veronica Joseph, mother superior of Mount Carmel Parochial School for Girls, the day they had admitted Ivy, thus preparing her for the avalanche of publicity to come. While her bland expression had undergone a slight constriction of anxiety, she was quick to find the strength within her faith to cloak her shock and temper her misgivings with mercy. Bill saw her hand go instinctively to the large silver crucifix attached to a rope of black beads which fell from her habit as she softly intoned, “The poor child. We shall do everything possible to shelter her from the calumnies of the outside world.” Which, Bill thought, was a quaint, yet certainly correct way of putting it for all of them.
It occurred to him to speculate on what calumnies he might expect from his colleagues at the office when the bombshell burst. Pel Simmons had been genuinely concerned and more than fair in letting him take a leave of absence for the duration of the trial and with no disruption in the flow of his semi-monthly paychecks. It was an indication of his faith and trust in Bill, a lovely way of saying, “I like you, I want to keep you in my company.” Of course, Pel wasn’t aware of anything beyond what he had read in the newspapers and what little information Bill had vouchsafed him, which was precious little.
Soon, Bill glumly reflected, there would be one hell of a jarring note, one diamond-bright cog in Pel Simmons’ quietly purring nondescript machine to fuck up the works. It would mean his job, ultimately. Not quickly—there’d be no pink slip stapled to the paycheck—it would take a year or so to phase him down and out. Don Goetz would move into his slot, reluctantly, of course, hating like hell to depose the master, flushed and angry at the injustice of it all, at the same time feeling the soft leather of the Eames recliner edging closer while his eyes sought the restful and mysterious silences of the Motherwell.
And that would be it. He’d be out! On the street! Pounding the pavement, avoiding dogshit. Thump! Thump! Thump! His heart was playing handball against his chest. Pods of perspiration glistened on his forehead. Was he having a coronary? That would cap it. To drop dead, right here in the courtroom, in the presence of the nearly picked jury. He wouldn’t mind. It would help Velie’s case. Elicit sympathy. Guarantee a conviction. Put the prick away for the limit.
Bill studied Hoover through a haze of sweat droplets clinging to his eyelashes, rendering an image that was blurred, distorted, and malevolent. Like a jungle animal, the son of a bitch had padded into his life and had quietly devoured all he possessed and prized—family, career, the love and respect of his wife, all that really mattered.
He could feel the flexing of his skin at the corners of his mouth and knew he was smiling. It always happened when he hit bottom, when his depressions and despondencies became intolerable. It was then some inner survival mechanism switched on, and a smile came to the rescue. And with the smile, an accompanying thought: If I’m destroyed, so will you be, you bastard!
Scott Velie wheeled around to the bench.
“This jury is acceptable to the State, Your Honor.”
“Very well,” Judge Langley said, keeping things moving. “The bailiff will swear in the jury.”
Janice saw Hoover look up from his pad and turn to the twelve men and women, who rose in a body and faced the bailiff at the far end of the courtroom.
Reading from a sheet of paper, and in a voice that was low and grave, the uniformed man tremulously intoned the prescribed litany.
“Do you solemnly swear that you shall well and truly try and true deliverance make, between the people of the State of New York and the prisoner at the bar, whom you shall have in charge, according to the evidence and the laws of this State.…”
Hoover’s face radiated purity and innocence as his twelve peers, whose duty and responsibility it would be to decide the guilt or innocence of one Elliot Suggins Hoover “beyond a shadow of a doubt” of the charge of “feloniously, willfully, and with malice aforethought” kidnapping one Ivy Templeton, were sworn in.