Silent Suspect

By Tony Hawthorne

Shifting among three decades, SILENT SUSPECT unravels the circumstances of a mysterious death thirty years in the past. In the process, it deals with lost memory, the relationship of parent and child tested to the breaking point, and characters forced to examine their lives in the face of life-altering challenges.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Sep 8, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483533117

Book preview

P.D.H.

PART ONE

CHAPTER 1

East Brewster, Massachusetts

June 28, 1991

Her day at an end, Olivia St. Clair took a last look around her studio, surveying her handiwork. Seven pieces of sculpture– she counted them carefully, as if one might have escaped when her back was turned-- all completed in the past two months. She smiled, proud of her output and particularly of the fact that every one had been sold for what she had been asking, or more.

She turned off the light, lingering a moment to allow her eyes to adjust to the darkness she would encounter on the short walk from her studio to the house, then shut the metal door behind her. A pitch black night, stars obscured by pine branches overhanging the narrow path to the main house. She had long ago memorized the exact distance between steppingstones, allowing her to walk at just shy of a normal pace to her back door. Now that it was summer, at least as solstices were measured, there were already a few fireflies close to the path. Lighting her way, she liked to pretend.

Halfway to the house she stopped to listen to the waves slapping quietly at high tide against the beach of Cape Cod Bay only a few yards away. Never confused with real surf, they nonetheless gave her the comfort of familiarity. The sound reached her more clearly than usual, the still night air not moving even so much as to stir the boughs high above her head. It was then that she thought she heard a stirring in the blanket of pine needles ahead. Company? She dismissed the thought, and pausing only long enough to pull her lightweight cotton jacket closer, continued along the path to the clearing that separated the house from the woods in which her studio had been built years before. Reaching the clearing, she increased her pace, intending not to pause as she sometimes did to put her head back and take in the firmament she knew would be particularly abundant tonight.

She was almost to the back steps when a semicircular bank of lights snapped on in unison, blinding her.

Olivia St. Clair?

She did not answer.

A woman's voice from somewhere above her. I recognize her from the photograph. Olivia, you're under arrest for the murder of Ezra Handley, and for arson. You have the right to remain silent, but if you do speak to us, your words can be used against you in a court of law. Do you understand?

Her silence was mistakenly taken by the officer as recognition of her rights, so the officer continued.

You also have the right to confer with an attorney. If you can't afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you. Do you understand my explanation of this right?

Again, no response.

Olivia St. Clair, age seventy-two, a sculptor known worldwide for her abstract bronzes often compared to Giacometti’s, and once of Holbrook, Williston County, South Carolina, will spend the night in the Barnstable County jail pending extradition to South Carolina, lying awake in a six foot square cinderblock cell.

She does not know if she will ever see her beloved Cape Cod again.

CHAPTER 2

 Orleans, Massachusetts

June 28

John Bartlemas stepped back to survey the easel on which two dozen photographs of his late wife, Sandy, had been haphazardly thumb-tacked.

Too short a life, John. Pete Lazarus, an infrequent tennis opponent of Bartlemas' had appeared at his shoulder unnoticed. But well lived. Bartlemas turned his head in time to see Lazarus's face chameleon into the kind of serious expression a man of self-proclaimed consequence might consider befit a memorial reception.

Oh, thanks, Bartlemas said, momentarily blanking on the man's first name. How would you know how she'd lived her life, he said to himself, unless you were screwing her? Not out of the question, considering the number of times Lazarus and Sandy, ranked second and first on their respective club tennis ladders, had been paired in mixed doubles.

Thanks for coming, Pete, the first name coming to him just in time to make Bartlemas sound like he meant it. She always appreciated that you let her take the shots that landed halfway between you. He had made it up, not caring if the sentiment was untrue but intending it to serve as the end of the conversation. He turned away from Pete Lazarus' outstretched hand. I need to circulate.

As he squeezed through his guests, he passed the staircase chair lift that served to transport his son, Paul, largely immobile since the car accident that had taken his mother's life a year ago. Two hours earlier today, and at the last minute, his son had had to be cajoled into attending the memorial service at the Congregational Church, his wheelchair placed at the end of the first row of pews reserved for family members. Bartlemas knew the mourners, if they could still be called that a year after the event, questioned the delay in holding a memorial service, not understanding that his anger – at her, at the other driver, at Paul for sentencing him to a life as caretaker-- had taken this long to subside. He marveled at how the contingent from Sandy's family – a brother, sister, and two cousins – had managed to be seated on the opposite side of the aisle, as if it were a wedding instead of a funeral and ushers had routinely escorted them to the bride's side. He knew the answer, of course: consumed by loyalty to the deceased, they blamed him for the disintegration of the marriage and therefore, by extrapolation, for the car crash that had taken her life and Paul's mobility. Never mind that he had been at home when the ten year old Subaru, the teenager Scott Eldredge behind the wheel, had crashed head-on into Sandy's Jeep Cherokee on Route 6A.

He scanned his living room filled shoulder to shoulder with his friends, those who had been friends of both of them, and, in a small circle in the far corner, half a dozen of Sandy's Wellesley classmates. Her family had iciliy declined his insincere invitation to drop by the house after the church service.

I'm glad you have the balls to take this on, John, I sure as hell wouldn't have, the words delivered an inch from his ear, followed by a wet kiss from Laney Fredericks, the super-wealthy single woman who was their closest neighbor in both senses and who had not taken sides when his and Sandy's marital problems had become more or less common knowledge. Hands pressing his elbows, she pulled back and looked at him directly. You're going to keep your law practice, aren't you? I mean, you'll need the distraction.

I'll need more than that. I wouldn't admit this to anyone else, but even working twenty hours a day seven days a week wouldn't scratch the surface of what he's going to need in the next year. She followed his eyes upward toward Paul's room.

Seems like you've worked that hard ever since I've known you.

Sandy accused me of it, but actually I haven't. It was her way of shifting blame for our shitty marriage. Anyway, this is the time I thought I'd be winding down my practice, a year away from retirement.

Laney let the subject go, obviously not wanting to inflict another wound.

Look, you know how I feel about you and Paul. I'd consider it a privilege to help out. My money's just sitting in the bank, giving me zero pleasure. Think about it. And forget that masculine pride crap, okay? It's so boring. She reached across and hugged him, then waved to someone across the room and left his side -- ready to be his defender among a group of Sandy's tennis friends standing by the piano, looking his way, laughing. A year ago, he would have thrown them out.

The last guests gone, he sat slumped in a chair, the receding sun's rays slanting across the carpet, trying to summon up the courage to climb the stairs to Paul's bedroom. He looked around the living room at the scattered wineglasses and paper plates overrunning the surface of every piece of furniture. Tomorrow's Claudia's day, she'll clean up, he reasoned -- until he remembered he had let her go. He gathered up the remnants of what the engraved invitations referred to as A Celebration of Life: Sandra Victoire Bartlemas, stuffing the mustard-stained paper plates in the trash and all the glasses he could fit in the dishwasher. In life, Sandy had been something of a celebrity, at least locally. In her twenties a touring tennis pro briefly ranked 78th in the world, and later twice elected to the Orleans Board of Selectmen and in the decade before her death, three times as mayor. Much prettier than Bartlemas had ever been considered handsome, outgoing where he was known for ending casual conversation almost as soon as it was launched. He knew the social lions of the Lower Cape had wondered over dinner at the Chatham Bars Inn how he'd landed her, or more accurately how she'd had the bad luck to land him, like hooking a guppy instead of a bluefin tuna. The few times he'd brought it up with her alone, he'd made it a joke, and she'd responded by assuring him she'd heard lots of compliments about his intelligence and sense of humor, just the other day in fact. She'd chosen him, she reminded, over four others she could remember who'd asked her to marry, so obviously he'd had a lot to offer. Not the most, self doubt had made him infer.

In the growing darkness he leaned against the sink, listening to the rhythmic whir of the dishwasher. Paul had been upstairs in his room since returning from the church service, where his absence had been explained by Bartlemas as fatigue. Paul's bedroom stood between the top of the stairs and Bartlemas's own room, where Sandy's side of the bed had lain cold since her death, Bartlemas choosing to continue to respect the invisible divide she had silently erected a couple of years before.

He stopped at the top of the staircase, listening for evidence that Paul was awake, but the only sound was crickets' conversations through the open window at the end of the hallway. He could see no light under Paul's door, his son having almost certainly darkened his room at the creak of his father's footsteps, planning on turning on his lamp again only after he was sure Bartlemas was asleep.

Paul? Silence from the room. I'm going to bed now. Need anything?

No, spoken in a thin, reedy voice.

I'll be in Boston all day tomorrow for my deposition. If it goes late, I'll probably spend the night and drive back Tuesday morning. The therapist should be here about nine. He'll spend the day, and tomorrow night too if I'm not back.

When Paul didn't answer, Bartlemas eased the door open and took a step into the room.

Could you turn on the light?

Paul was in the wheelchair, fully clothed, facing Bartlemas. His high cheekbones were Sandy's as was his light brown hair, always keeping his father from forgetting what he wanted to forget. Paul reluctantly reached behind him and switched on the lamp, illuminating his long hair but leaving his face, backlit, barely visible.

Want any help with your pajamas? It was a question Bartlemas felt compelled to ask since the task required Paul to wheel across the room to his bureau, open it with one hand, retrieve the pajamas, and proceed to undress, dropping his clothes in a pile for Bartlemas to pick up the next day. Next Paul would contort his rump and legs so that after five minutes of strenuous work, he could pull up the bottoms, followed by the top brought down over his head and chest. It had produced one of the many small battles of wills between them that more and more occupied their waking hours together: Paul waiting for his father to stop offering assistance, Bartlemas intent on engaging in the ritual every night and morning in the dimming hope that Paul would eventually give in and accept his help.

He watched Paul shake his head.

Okay then, see you. The therapist knows how to get hold of me. He stepped back into the hallway, pulling the door until he heard the latch click shut, the sound echoing off the bare floor.

CHAPTER 3

Boston, Massachusetts

 June 29

Mr. Bartlemas, I missed your last answer, but let's move to another subject. Tell us, as precisely as you can, what time it was that your wife left that day to pick up your son. Paul, isn't it?

A single drop of sweat started its long, slow slide toward Bartlemas's midsection. He glanced at Burt Langen, the interrogator, across the wide mahogany conference table for a sign that Langen had noticed his reaction—even the slightest tic—to the last question. At this moment Langen was searching Bartlemas's eyes for a flicker of self doubt. He wouldn't give him the pleasure. Instead he looked past the insurance company attorney's gabardine shoulder, fixing on the bookshelf in the far corner of the conference room. He absently fingered a crumpled message slip he'd stuffed in his side pocket from someone he'd never heard of who wanted to hire him for a murder trial in South Carolina.

It was about 3:30.

Saturday, August 18 last year?

Yes.

And what had you been doing just before she left?

Objection, relevance. You can answer, John, if you know.

Lou doesn't see it coming, Bartlemas thought, realizing he was on his own, having pushed off from shore leaving Lou like a dutiful parent, watchful for several hours but relaxing a bit in the heat of a summer mid-afternoon. Bartlemas, pretending to be searching memory for the answer, felt sorry for Lou, who would blame himself if his client screwed up.

We'd been talking, I guess -- I don't really remember.

Langen's eyebrows moved slightly. Just talking? Or were you arguing over something, Mr. Bartlemas?

I don't think so, no.

The stenographic reporter relaxed, placed her fingers on her lap and flexed them. He avoided looking into her eyes, afraid that somehow, having listened to a thousand witnesses, she would sense he was feeling trapped.

Did she leave angry? Langen placed both hands on the table, his fingers forming a steeple pointing accusatorily toward Bartlemas.

 Objection. What's the relevance of this, Burt? Lou Figone closed his felt tip pen ostentatiously, then tapped it on the table, feigning a lack of interest in the question. Not enough, Lou, Bartlemas said to himself. If you want to help me out you've got to instruct me not to answer, otherwise all you've done is toss a shark a tiny piece of fish, just enough to keep him circling. He quickly considered, and rejected, taking a recess to confer with Lou. It would only start Langen salivating.

As an attorney yourself, Mr. Bartlemas, you see the relevance, even if your lawyer does not, true? Langen smiled, showing perfect teeth at odds with the imperfect landscape of his face.

Actually, I don't, Bartlemas answered. But I don't mind answering if it will speed things up. I don't recall that she was angry, no, realizing too late that only a categorical denial would keep Langen away.

You don't 'recall' anger? I assume you would recall the absence of it, however.

I'm quite sure she wasn't angry. Satisfied? Another mistake. Never engage in a pissing contest with someone like Langen--like squirting gasoline into superheated air.

Let me suggest what actually happened, Mr. Bartlemas, and see if you agree.You had an argument with your wife that afternoon. I don't know what it was about, but perhaps you'll let us in on it. You were shouting at each other. Both of you were upset and angry, and that was your wife's mental state when she got into the car and took off to pick up Paul. Maybe she spun the wheels on your gravel driveway getting out to 6A.That's the last thing you saw, dust and gravel spewing about. As she drove, she was still upset, crying probably. She drove faster than she should have. The five minutes it took to get to the tennis court to pick up Paul was not enough to let her get over whatever it was that had upset her. The argument between the two of you had probably made her late, and Paul was waiting, as she knew he would be. No time there, either, to cool down. He got in and she headed home, in the same state of mind. Paul couldn't help but notice and asked what was wrong. That brought it all back, started her crying again. Her vision was blurred, and when she reached that rise in the road at East Brewster she drifted across the line right into the path of Scott Eldredge's Subaru. You know yourself, Mr. Bartlemas, don't you, that's just about the way it happened?

Langen sat back in his chair, self-satisfaction spreading across his face.The faux-antique ceiling fan whirred softly, riffling papers on the conference table and moving the leaves of the large ficus plant in the corner. The clack of the court reporter's keys stopped a moment after Langen's last words and she rested her hands. This time, though, caught up in the scene Langen had painted, she was looking at Bartlemas, waiting for his answer. She liked him, Bartlemas decided -- had found some solidity in his answers up to now and so was in a position only to be disappointed. He felt sorry for her, to be letting her down. He took a breath.

I don't know, Mr. Langen. I wasn't there.

The words were barely out of his mouth when he realized it wasn't enough.

I daresay you've wondered many times, sir, in the year since the accident if it didn't happen exactly that way, haven't you? Bartlemas closed his eyes and saw himself coming up on the accident. Getting out of the car and inhaling the nauseating smell of burnt rubber, scraped steel, gasoline fumes, and death.

I suppose I have.

And in your wondering, Mr. Bartlemas, you've also surmised that if it hadn't been for that argument, whatever it was about, she would still be alive, and Paul would be walking today? Isn't that true also?

It came to Bartlemas at once that he had lost--lost the case and with it the chance