Phantom lady (8 page)

"He needs a drink," Burgess said. "Stop here a minute; one of you go in and bring him out a couple fingers of rye. I hate to see a guy suffer like that."

Henderson gulped it avidly, as though he couldn't get it down fast enough. Then he slopped back against the seat "Let's go back, take me back," he pleaded.

"He's haunted," one of them chuckled.

"That's what you get when you raise a ghost."

Nothing further was said until they were out of the car again and filing up the steps at Headquarters in phalanx. Then Burgess steadied him with a hand to his arm, as he fumbled one of the steps. "You better get a good night's sleep, Henderson," he suggested. "And a good lawyer. You're going to need both."

3 The Ninety-First Day Before the Execution

". . . You have heard the defense try to claim that the accused met a certain woman, in a place called Anselmo's Bar. at ten minutes after six on the night the murder was committed. In other words, two minutes and forty-five seconds after the time established by police investigation as that of the death of the victim. Very clever. You can see at once, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that // he was at Anselmo's Bar, Fiftieth Street, at ten past six, he could not have been at his own apartment two and three-quarter minutes before then. Nothing on two legs could have covered the distance from one to the other in that length of time. No, nor on four wheels, nor with wings and a propellor either,

for that matter. Again I say, very clever. But; not clever enough.

"Convenient, wasn't it, that he should just happen to meet her on that one night, and not any other night during the year. Almost as though he had a premonition he was going to need her on that particular night. Strange things. premonitions, aren't they? You have heard the defendant admit, in answer to my questions, that he did not go out and accost unknown women other nights of the year. That he had never done such a thing before during the entire course of his married life. Not once, mind you. Those are the accused's own words, not mine. You heard them yourselves, ladies and gentlemen. Such a thought had never even entered his mind until then. It was not his habit to do that sort of thing. It was foreign to his nature. On this one night of all nights, however, they would have us believe that he did. Quite a handy coincidence, what? Only—"

Shrug, and a long pause.

"Where is the woman? We've all been waiting to see her. Why don't they show her to us? What's keeping them? Have they produced such a woman here in court?"

Singling out a juror at random with index finger. "Have you seen her?" Another. "Or you?" A third, in the second tier. "Or you?" Gesture of empty handed helplessness. "Has any one of us seen her? Has she been up there on that witness chair at any time from first to last? No, of course not, ladies and gentlemen. Because—"

Another long pause.

"Because there is no such woman. There never was. They can't produce a person who doesn't exist. They can't breathe life into a figment, a figure of speech, a nebula, a thing that isn't. Only the good Lord can create a full-grown woman in all her height and breadth and thickness. And even He needs eighteen years to do it, not two weeks."

Laughter, from all parts of the room. Brief smile of grateful appreciation on his part.

"This man is being tried for his life. If there was such a

woman, do you think they would have neglected to bring her here? Wouldn't they have seen to it that she was on the job here, speaking her piece at the right time? You bet they would! //—"

Dramatic pause.

■'—there was such a woman. Let's leave ourselves out of it. We're here in a courtroom, miles from the places that he insists he visited with her that night, and months have passed. Let's take the word of those who were right there, at those same places, at the same time, as he supposedly was with her. Surely they should have seen her. if anyone did. Did they? You heard for yourself. They saw him. yes. Every one of them can recall, no matter how vaguely, no matter how hazily, glimpsing him, Scott Henderson, that night. It seems to end there, as though they all had a blindness in one eye. Doesn't that strike you as a little odd. ladies and gentlemen? It does me. When people travel around in pairs, one of two things happens: either neither one of them is remembered afterward, or, if one is. then the other is also. How can the human eye see one person without seeing the other —if the other is right there alongside the first at the time? That violates the law of physics. I can't account for it. It baffles me."

Coy bunching of the shoulders.

"I'm open to suggestions. In fact I'll make a few myself. Possibly her skin was of a peculiar transparency that let the light through, and so they looked right through her to the other side without—"

General laughter.

"Or possibly she just didn't happen to be there with him. Nothing more natural than that they should fail to see her if she didn't happen to be there at the time."

Change of manner and of voice. General tightening-up.

"Why go ahead? Let's keep this serious. A man's on trial here for his life. I'm not anxious to make a farce out of it. The defense is the one that seems to be. Let's leave hypotheses and theories, and go back to facts. Let's stop talking

about phantoms and will o' the wisps and mirages; instead let's talk about a woman of whose existence there has never at any time been any doubt. Everybody saw Marcella Henderson in life, and everybody saw her just as plainly afterward in death. She was no phantom. She was murdered. The police have photographs showing that. That's the first fact. All of us see that man over there in the prisoner's dock, with his head bowed low through all of this—no, now he's raising it to stare defiantly over at me. He's on trial here for his life. That's the second fact."

In a confidential, theatrical aside, "I like facts much better than fancies, don't you, ladies and gentlemen? They're much easier to handle.

"And the third fact? Here's the third fact. He murdered her. Yes, that's as concrete, as undeniable a fact as the first two. Every detail of it is a fact, already proven once here in this room. We're not asking you to believe in phantoms, in wraiths, in hallucinations, like the defense!" Raising his voice. "We have documents, affidavits, evidence, for every statement we make, every step of the way!" Bringing his fist crashing down on the rail before the jury box.

Impressive pause. Then in a quieter voice. "You've already been made acquainted with the circumstances, the domestic background, immediately preceding the murder. The accused himself doesn't deny their accuracy. You've heard him confirm them; under pressure, unwillingly perhaps, but confirm them nevertheless. There hasn't been a false statement made about them; don't take my word for that, take his. I asked him that yesterday on the stand, and you all heard his answer. I'll run over them once more, briefly, for you.

"Scott Henderson fell in love outside of his own home. He's not up here for having done that. The girl he fell in love with is not on trial here. You've noticed that her name hasn't been mentioned in this courtroom, she hasn't been dragged forward, compelled to testify, involved in any way in this brutal, inexcusable murder. Why? Because she

doesn't deserve to be. She had nothing to do with it. It's not our purpose to punish the innocent here in this courtroom, to subject her to the notoriety and humihation that would follow. The crime was his—that man whom you see there— and his alone. Not hers. She's blameless. She's been investigated both by the police and by the prosecution, and absolved of any connection, or incitement, or even knowledge of what had happened, until it was all over. She's suffering enough right now through no fault of her own. We're in general agreement on that one point, all of us, defense as well as prosecution. Her name and identity is known to us, but we've called her The Girl' throughout, and we'll continue to do so.

"Very well. He was already dangerously in love with The Girl by the time he remembered to tell her he was married. Yes, I say dangerously—from his wife's viewpoint. The Girl wouldn't have him on those terms. She was, and is, a decent person, a fine human being; every one of us who has spoken to her feels that way strongly about her. I do myself, ladies and gentlemen; she's a lovely, unfortunate person who happened to meet the wrong man. So as I say, she wouldn't have him on those terms. She didn't want to hurt anyone else. He found he couldn't have his cake and eat it too.

"Very well, he went to his wife and he asked her to divorce him. Cold-bloodedly, just like that. She refused him a divorce. Why? Because, to her, marriage was a sacred institution. Not just a passing affair, to be broken off short at a whim. Strange wife, wasn't she?

"The Girl's suggestion, when he told her this, was that they forget all about one another. He couldn't see it that way. He found himself caught between the horns of a dilemma. His wife wouldn't give him up, and he wouldn't give The Girl up.

"He bided his time and then he tried once more. And if you'd speak of the first method as cold-blooded, what would you say of the way he went about it the second time? He put himself out to entertain her the way a customer's man enter-

tains an out-of-town buyer with whom he is trying to transact a business deal. That should give you a good insight into his character, ladies and gentlemen; that should tell you what caliber man he is. That was all a scrapped marriage, a broken home, a discarded wife, were worth to him. An evening's paltry entertainment.

"He bought two tickets for the theater, he reserved a table at a restaurant. He came home and told her he was taking her out. She couldn't understand this sudden atten-tiveness. She mistakenly thought, for a moment, that perhaps there was a reconciliation in the air. She sat down at her mirror and she began to get ready.

"A few moments later he returned to the room and he found her still sitting there at her dressing table, without going any further in her preparations. She understood a little better what his purpose was now.

"She told him that she wouldn't give him up. She told him, in effect, that she valued her home higher than two orchestra seats and a full course dinner. In other words, without giving him time to ask her, she had refused him a divorce a second time. That was one time too many.

"He was at the final stage of his own preparations. He had his necktie open in his hands, measured off, ready to insert it under his collar. Instead, in a blind ungovernable rage at being outguessed and outgeneraled, he dropped it over her head as she sat there at her mirror. He tightened it around her neck, he twined the ends together with unimaginable cruelty and strength and will to kill. The police officers have told you how it had to be cut off, practically pared off, it was so imbedded in her soft throat. Did you every try to tear one of these seven-fold rep silk ties between your hands, ladies and gentlemen? It can't be done; the edges will slice your fingers like a knife, but you can't sever them.

"She died. She flung her arms out once or twice, just in the beginning, and then she died there, between her husband's hands. The man who had sworn to cherish and protect her. Don't forget that.

"He held her like that, upright at her own mirror, letting her look on at her own death struggles, so to speak, for long minutes. Long, long minutes. So that she was dead long before he let her fall over from that upright position he'd held her in. Then when he was sure that she was dead, that she was good and dead, that she was dead beyond recall, that she was out of his way once and for all—what did he do then?

"Did he try to bring her back, did he feel any remorse, did he show any regret? No, I'll tell you what he did. He calmly went ahead and finished his own dressing, right there in the room with her. He picked up another necktie and put that on, to take the place of the one he'd garroted her with. He put on his hat and his coat, and just before he left he called The Girl up. Luckily for her, and it was the luckiest thing that ever happened to her in her life, she wasn't there at the time to get that call. She never knew about it until hours afterward. And why did he call her up. with his hands still moist and reeking from taking his wife's life? Not in remorse, not to confess what he'd just done and ask her to help him or advise him. No, no. To use her for a cat's-paw. To make a living alibi out of her. without her knowledge. To ask her to go out with him instead, on those same tickets, on that same table reservation. He probably would have set his own watch back, just before meeting her. and commented on it. so that she would be sure to remember afterward, and come forward in good faith and shield him with her honestly given testimony.

"Is that a murderer for you, ladies and gentlemen, or isn't it?

"But that didn't work, he couldn't get her. So he did the next best thing. He went out alone, cold-bloodedly went through the whole routine he had prepared for himself and his wife, without missing a single stop, from six to midnight. At the time it didn't occur to him to do what he now says he did: pick up some stray along the way and use her for his alibi. He was too excited, too confused, just then. Or

perhaps it did enter his mind, but he lacked the nerve; was afraid to trust a stranger, afraid his manner would betray him. Or then again maybe it was because he reasoned that it was already too late for that to do him any good; too much time had passed by now since he'd left his own house. His living alibi could have been made just as easily to count against him as for him, once the crime was more than just a few minutes old. A little adroit questioning would have been able to extract the exact time he had really met her, and not the time he wished it to be believed he had met her. He thought of all that.

"So what was better than that, even? Why, an imaginary companion, of course. A phantom at his side, purposely left vague, left blurred, so that she could never be retrieved later on to damn his story of when they had met. In other words, which was preferable for his purposes: an unsupported alibi or a refuted one? I leave that up to you yourselves, ladies and gentlemen. An unsupported one could never be completely confirmed, but it would always seem to leave a reasonable doubt open. A refuted one would be automatically cast back in his face and leave him no further defense. That was the best he could do. that was the best he could get, and he made his decision accordingly.