“Shades of The Exorcist in Old Bailey,” he intoned, forcing an ill-fitting smile onto his face. “The courtroom of Judge Harmon T. Langley was the scene of strange and eerie doings this day as a voice from the grave was offered as an extenuating circumstance by defense attorney Brice Mack during his opening remarks in the trial of Elliot Hoover, accused kidnapper of ten-year-old Ivy Templeton. It seems, or at least it says here in my script, that the kidnapped child was no stranger to Mr. Hoover, since she had shared his company in another lifetime—as his daughter, Audrey Rose, deceased these past ten years. More spectacular episodes in this occult thriller are promised in the days and weeks ahead as Judge Langley’s caldron boils and bubbles while Mr. Mack toils and troubles to prevent his client’s incarceration on the reasonable assumption of reincarnation.”
At which point the newscaster, obviously caught unaware by the demented poesy his waggish writer had planted in the script, fell into a deep and rumbling fit of laughter from which he could not be retrieved. All his efforts to control himself failed, until finally the camera cut away from him and went to a commercial.
At the first eruption Janice laughed with him and, she was happy to see, so did Bill. Their laughter grew and intensified apace with the stricken newscaster’s, and even after he had been ignominiously removed from the air, their laughter continued until their eyes watered and their throats grew hoarse. Then, weak and exhausted, they flopped onto the sofa and simply fell into each other’s arms, their laughter trailing off as they wiped the tears from each other’s faces. Both knew it was the first genuine contact between them in weeks, and each was afraid to spoil it.
“Oh, Bill.” Janice breathed huskily and snuggled closer to him. His mouth smelled of mint, his skin of soap, aphrodisiac scents to Janice. Undoing the belt of his robe, her hand began to explore and fondle the body she loved. With a deep sigh, Bill’s back sought the pillows, and he allowed the tender touches, first of hands, then of lips, to work their wondrous magic to restore his harmed and aching spirit. Once he raised her head from his lap and softly moaned, “Let’s do it together,” to which Janice replied, “Later,” and hungrily bent to conclude her obeisant and purifying ritual.
17
As predicted and feared, the corridor outside the courtroom was a maze of wires, cables, and people. Spotlights on stands were nestled in clusters in out-of-the-way corners and niches, their accumulated light bathing the smiling figure of Brice Mack, caught in the center of a crush of news people from all media.
Emerging from the elevator, Bill and Janice surreptitiously edged around the periphery of the camera crew and succeeded in making it through the courtroom door without being recognized.
Unlike previous mornings, the courtroom was filled with a congregation of curious and excited spectators. Many of them wore turbans and flashing smiles on swarthy faces. Newspaper people, including some out-of-town press, filled the press row just behind the railing.
As they moved across the row to their seats, both Bill and Janice felt a deep hush and a soft buzz of recognition spread across the courtroom. Even the reporters filling the seats in front of them stopped what they were doing and looked around at them as they took their seats. The man immediately in front of Janice turned full around and smiled his acknowledgment of her arrival. It was then she noticed that he was not a conventional reporter, but an artist assigned to quick-sketch various aspects of the proceedings. His pad presently contained a remarkable likeness of Elliot Hoover sitting at the defense table, brooding over his doodles. The artist had perfectly captured the expression of saintly forbearance in the eyes.
Janice glanced over the rows of heads to where Hoover sat and was immediately sorry she had, for she found him looking straight at her. Worse still, she found it impossible to tear her eyes away from his eyes, which clung to hers with the intensity of a command, willing her to obey, to take note, to listen, then, seeing compliance, gradually softening as if beseeching her pardon, understanding, and forgiveness and expressing sadness for all that had happened and was about to happen. When Janice was at last released through the intervention of Judge Langley’s arrival in the courtroom, she felt light-headed and dizzy as she rose and sat in obedience to the bailiff’s command and heard her heart pounding in the grip of an emotion she could not define.
The proceedings against Elliot Hoover finally got under way as the parade of witnesses for the prosecution in response to the bailiff’s admonishments to “tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God,” each added his or her small isolated piece of evidence to Scott Velie’s intricately wrought case against the defendant.
In the next four days twelve persons, several of whom were totally unknown to Bill and Janice, would take the stand and tell what they knew from firsthand knowledge about the defendant and his actions near or about the vicinity of the Ethical Culture School, and the apartment house known variously as 1 West Sixty-seventh Street and by the sobriquet Des Artistes.
Three women, one a grandmotherly type, all of whom Janice only vaguely recognized as part of the group who waited daily in front of the school, followed one another in quick order. Each told approximately the same story of having seen a man with black mustache and sideburns hovering about the school steps each morning the children arrived and each afternoon at their departure. None, however, could actually identify the defendant as being that man.
Nor would the next two witnesses make that connection, as Ernesto Pucci and Dominick D’Allesandro, both looking decidedly uncomfortable and unfamiliar out of their burgundy and braid uniforms, took the stand and affirmed the fact that Elliot Hoover did enter the lobby of the plaintiff’s abode on at least four occasions with the expressed intentions of “calling on the Templetons.”
“Can you describe the defendant’s demeanor on these occasions?” Velie asked Dominick.
“Demeanor?”
“How did he act? Did he seem upset, nervous?”
“Oh, yes, especially when they wouldn’t let him up.”
“All right, Mr. D’Allesandro,” Velie continued. “Let’s talk about the first time you saw the defendant. Describe what happened.”
“Well, the first time he came, he was okay, I mean, he was calm because they let him up.”
“And the following times?”
“In my opinion, he was definitely not happy about not getting to go up.”
“Did you see the defendant on the morning of November 12th?”
“Yes.”
“How did the defendant appear to you on that day?”
“He appeared happy again because he had sublet an apartment in the building, and now he could go up whenever he wanted. I mean, we can’t keep tenants out of the elevators.”
There was a brief spate of laughter and gavel rapping during which Scott Velie walked to his table to consult his notes.
“Now, then, Mr. D’Allesandro”—Velie’s tone signified a shift to the crucial issue—“on the night of November 13, the night of the alleged kidnapping, will you tell the jury what you saw?”
Dominick nodded and launched into a detailed and obviously prepared recitation of his actions and observations. It was a fine, concise narrative of the night’s events, told with operatic flair and fervor, Janice thought, feeling a surge of pride for Dominick.
When Scott Velie passed the witness to the defense, Brice Mack had a short series of questions for him.
“Think back, Mr. D’Allesandro, and take your time in doing so, but wasn’t there one more time between the first and last times when Mr. Hoover was also happy? Or, at least, not unhappy?”