Summitt

Chapter Twenty-Three

Allan Davic began his deferred cross-examination of Harry Selby with the question: “Mr. Selby, do you fully understand the meaning of the oath you took yesterday morning?”

“Yes, I fully do.”

“You understand that you are still bound by that oath?”

“Yes.”

“Do you believe in God, Mr. Selby?”

“I believe in a prime mover, a superior being or consciousness.”

“That wasn’t my question. You did not swear to a being or consciousness. You swore to God. My question was and is: do you believe in God, Mr. Selby, the God you asked to help you give truthful and responsive answers to my questions?”

A large female juror was watching him with sudden fascination, and Selby was relieved when Brett stood and said, “Objection, Your Honor. As the court is, of course, aware, the use of the divine appellation in our procedures has been expanded — by the ruling of numerous higher courts — to embrace the beliefs that prevail in various faiths and religions. Muslims are permitted to seek help from Allah, American Indians from their tribal spirits and so forth.”

“... Sustained.”

Davic said, “May I comment on the court’s ruling?”

“You are noting an exception?”

“No, Your Honor, but I’d like to expand my remark.”

“Very well. You may make your statement on the ruling.”

“I did not mean or intend to be combative on a semantic issue,” Davic said to the jury. “But the fact of the matter is, the heart of my defense rests in truth. The truth of the plaintiffs charges, and the truth behind those charges. I don’t believe my question was irrelevant. I wanted to establish that God is the author of all truth and to find out if the witness and I are in agreement on that fundamental fact.”

“I object, Your Honor. You have ruled on this question.”

“Yes, I did, Miss Brett. Now I’m as religious as the next man, which isn’t saying too much, perhaps. I once asked a witness if he knew who God was. He was either ignorant or very smart, depending on one’s viewpoint. Because his reply was: ‘God? Is his last name damn, your honor?’ ”

Judge Flood tapped his gavel; the murmur of laughter faded away. “So let’s presume,” he went on then, “that none of us is either too dumb or too smart to know what’s meant when we refer to God, or a Supreme Being, or whatever force it is that directs human affairs. Please continue, Mr. Davic.”

Davic, Selby thought, was obviously glad to. He had made his point with the jury, which was what counted. And the judge had given an impression of fairly witty impartiality. These people weren’t just venal... they were also clever...

“Thank you, Your Honor. Now, Mr. Selby, in reference to the story you told the court yesterday about how you discovered where your daughter had been taken that night and so forth. Did your daughter accompany you on those excursions about the countryside?”

“No, she didn’t.”

“I find that strange. Since you were following her clues — those bread crumbs she dropped along the way — didn’t you ask her to help you find those various landmarks? The school, the covered bridge and so forth?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Did you ask her for any help at all?”

Selby hesitated. “I asked her what she meant by some things she said under sedation—”

“Ah, the bread crumbs she dropped in the forest—”

“Objection.”

“Sustained. Never mind the colorful asides, Mr. Davic.”

“I beg the court’s pardon. Mr. Selby, did your daughter explain to you what she meant by her reference to ‘tunnels’ and ‘screaming birds’ and ‘hornets’ and the like?”

“Some of those references,” Selby said, “were unconsciously self-protective. She’d been through hell. Who wants to face that without some protection. The unconscious helps. She didn’t tell me what they meant, because she couldn’t.”

“But you had no trouble following those unconscious, self-protective clues straight to the mark, right, Mr. Selby? Didn’t they lead you directly, even miraculously, straight to Vinegar Hill?”

“Objection, Your Honor, to counsel’s sarcasm.”

“Sarcasm, Miss Brett, is in the ear of the listener. Overruled.”

“The question then,” Davic continued, “is this, Mr. Selby. While those sedated mutterings meant nothing to your daughter, you were able to follow them like a compass directly to Vinegar Hill. Isn’t that correct?”

“I used a good deal of trial and error.”

“Please answer the question. Did you not follow that abracadabra straight to the house where your daughter was allegedly raped?”

“Yes, but only after—”

“Good. We’ve got that much cleared up.”

“Objection, Your Honor.”

“Sustained.”

“Mr. Selby, in the course of that search, you had a conversation with Captain Walter Slocum. Would you tell the court the substance of that conversation?”

Selby briefly retold the details of his meeting with the captain and Sergeant Wilger in the office of the detective division.

Davic then shifted to the testimony of Trooper Karec. He took Selby back to the night Shana had been kidnapped and raped, emphasizing again for the jury that Selby’s “delaying” tactics had impeded the start of the police investigation by a full four hours.

Brett objected forcefully to the use of the word “delaying,” and the bench ordered it struck. The jury, of course, heard it.

Davic shifted again. “Isn’t it true, Mr. Selby, that Captain Slocum told you to bring any further information about your daughter’s alleged rapist directly to him?”

“Yes.”

“But isn’t it a fact that you ignored those orders? That you continued to look for him on your own?”

“That’s right.”

“Specifically, didn’t you acquire tracking dogs from a Casper Gideen to search an area along Dade Road?”

“Yes.”

“Without notifying Captain Slocum or anyone else in his division?”

“Yes.”

“According to testimony elicited by the People’s attorney, you gave the photograph of a certain license plate to Captain Slocum. Later — the following morning — you had another conversation with Captain Slocum. Would you tell the court the substance of that conversation?”

“The captain said he talked with Earl Thomson and that Thomson had an alibi for the night my daughter was raped.”

“I submit the captain put it much more emphatically. Didn’t he tell you there was no conceivable way that Mr. Thomson could have been involved in those attacks on your daughter? That he was, in fact, dining with his mother at the time they occurred? And that he was not a suspect in any way whatsoever? Didn’t he tell you those specific things, Mr. Selby?”

“Yes.”

“But you nonetheless permitted your daughter to go to Longwood Gardens and accuse Earl Thomson of raping her? Isn’t that true, Mr. Selby?”

“She went on her own, but—”

“Do you seriously expect the court to believe that?”

“Objection. The question implies a contemplation of perjury.”

“Sustained.”

Davic shrugged. “Mr. Selby, after Vinegar Hill burned down, after the house had been gutted by flames, soaked with tons of water by county firemen — then, and only then, did you take your daughter there. Correct?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“What did you expect her-to find in that soaking heap of charred rubble?”

“I wasn’t sure. Something to jar her memory...”

“You weren’t sure? May I suggest a reason? You went there after the house had been gutted by fire because then you could claim that all evidence against any alleged rapist had been lost in the flames. If your suspicions were anything but delusions, I suggest you would have taken your daughter there before the fire. Isn’t that true, Mr. Selby?”

“Your Honor, may I instruct Mr. Selby not to answer that question?”

“Yes, Miss Brett. The word ‘delusions’ will be struck from the transcript.”

Ignoring these exchanges, Davic abruptly directed his examination to the statement from the security officer at Longwood Gardens.

“In Officer Summerall’s words,” Davic said, “you shoved Earl Thomson’s friends so violently that they fell backward over their motorcycles. Is that a fair statement, Mr. Selby?”

“Yes, I’d say it is.”

“You’re aware that both of these young men were treated for abrasions and contusions at Chester General Hospital?”

“I heard something about that.”

“Were you concerned for their welfare?”

“No, not particularly.”

“I trust the jury will note your casual attitude toward the young men’s injuries. You are also aware then, that Earl Thomson, trying to get away from you, crashed into the glass of a greenhouse and as a result very nearly lost the sight of an eye?”

“I was told that by his father, and by you, Mr. Davic, just before the warrant was served on Earl Thomson for raping my daughter.”

“Your Honor, I ask that you warn the witness about these gratuitous responses.”

“Mr. Selby, when a yes or a no is sufficient, you will spare us embellishments.”

Davic said, “You admit you are aware that Earl Thomson suffered an injury to his eye? Yes or no?”

“Yes.”

“And isn’t it a fact, Mr. Selby, that these attacks on Earl Thomson and his friends occurred many hours after you had been informed by Captain Slocum that Earl Thomson could not possibly have been responsible for the harm done to your daughter? Aren’t those the indisputable facts, Mr. Selby?”

“Yes... after he said those things...”

“Then let me ask you this, Mr. Selby. And my question goes to the heart of the matter. Outside the issues at trial in this court, do you have a personal or emotional bias against the defendant?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Against his father, George Thomson?”

“No.”

“Prior to the issues at trial, did you have any reason to believe either of them had wronged you or your family?”

“No.”

“You had no information about them whatsoever?”

“No, I didn’t.”

Davic asked the court’s permission to confer with his associates. As he spoke to the other attorneys, Earl Thomson leaned close to follow the exchanges.

Earlier Selby had told Brett what he’d learned the night before, without mentioning Mooney’s name. But she had explained that Earl Thomson’s prior sexual assault convictions, however violent or numerous, couldn’t be introduced at this trial. “Priors,” as they were known, could only be admitted if the defendant were found guilty, and then only as an aid to the jury in determining sentence.

Judge Flood glanced up. “Mr. Davic, would this be a convenient place to recess for lunch?”

“Whatever is the pleasure of the court,” Davic said.

“We will recess until two o’clock then.”

Flood retired to chambers, the stenographer covered her machine and the spectators filed out past the marshals. It hadn’t gone well, Selby knew. Davic seemed too confident. His manner suggested he’d got hold of something damaging, but Selby didn’t have a clue what it could be.

The defense team went down the aisle, a TV crew following them to the corridor, where reporters and photographers waited. The media pack scenting the winner, Selby thought.

Collecting her papers, Brett said, “We’ve got some things to talk about, Harry. Could you stop by my office after lunch?”

“Sure.” He smiled at Shana. “What’re you in the mood for?”

“Anything, a Coke and hamburger, it doesn’t matter.”

Allan Davic and George Thomson lunched at a country club outside of Wilmington. Their corner table faced a duck pond and rows of forsythia and workmen repairing greens and fairways. Thomson ordered a double martini; the lawyer a glass of white wine. They both decided on the mixed grill.

Thomson said abruptly, “I was pretty goddamn uptight the night that warrant was served on my son.”

“That’s understandable. You were angry, which is natural.”

“But it’s not always the best time to make a decision. You’ve read the transcript?”

“Yes, of course. I laid the groundwork for Selby’s motive this morning. This afternoon I’ll introduce the transcript of his father’s court-martial, and develop your relation to it. It won’t be difficult to convince the jury that Selby lied under oath.”

“Then the lady DA, she can cross-examine, right?”

“Yes, I’ve explained that. The People can move into any area I open up.”

Thomson nodded and sipped his martini. The gin released softly and gently in his stomach. He hadn’t eaten breakfast, just a cup of coffee, and he could feel the icy gin spreading pleasurably through him, dissolving his anxiety and warming his hands and face.

A young woman stood on the practice tee hitting orange-striped range balls. Thomson watched her through the window and bit into his olive. It tasted of the juniper. The woman was a small figure at this distance, but he could see the swell of her breasts against her sweater as she completed her swing, hands high, and her slender body uncoiling strongly. He ordered another drink.

Davic said, “Is something worrying you, Mr. Thomson? Something you’d like to discuss?”

“I’ll answer that with another question. How’s our case going so far? How does it look to you?”

“It will depend a great deal on the Selby girl’s impression on the jury and how your son handles himself. Miss Brett will try her best to impeach his testimony.”

Thomson continued to stare at the woman hitting golf balls. “Earl doesn’t take criticism too well. You’d better know that. Particularly from women. I’m not talking about girl friends, I’m talking about women. There’s only been one in his life, and she idolizes him. That’s his mother. And those honchos at Rockland taught those young studs the best defense was a good offense.”

Davic sipped his wine. “That’s may be good advice in a bar fight, but not in a courtroom. Tell me frankly, do you think your son can handle a direct and hostile attack from the People’s attorney? Because if she can make him blow his cool, she might blow him right out of court.”

Thomson said, “What do we know about her? Have your people checked her background?”

“Let me make a general comment first, Mr. Thomson. A man I respect but don’t particularly admire told me something interesting the other night. He said nobody is clean. You can dismiss that as street cynicism or remember that it’s a sentiment held by a good many respectable philosophers. If one believes in original sin, we’re all evil and it’s logical that we should start in prison and earn our way to freedom. Jonas Selby’s court-martial can be used to strike a damaging blow against Harry Selby. About his self-interested vindictive motives against you in behalf of his father. But in reading that transcript, it’s evident Jonas Selby made no defense against the charges. Neither did his military attorneys. Conclusion: he had no defense or he was too ignorant or confused to demand his rights.” Davic sipped his wine. “If we introduce the court-martial, we will be going back three decades to a time of conflicting motives and relationships and guilts.” He shrugged. “As to People’s counsel, Miss Brett, I won’t involve you in our investigation. I’ll insist, in fact, that you know nothing about it. She’s my responsibility and I’ll handle that. But Jonas Selby’s court-martial — that’s up to you, Mr. Thomson. But as your lawyer, I strongly urge you not to open up ambiguous issues that go back in time to areas I may not be able to control.”

Thomson sipped his drink and nibbled on the second olive. He was grateful for Davic’s advice. The court-martial could open up a lot of embarrassment... to him, to the general, to Correll... “That lady’s got a nice swing,” he said. “It’s all timing. Doesn’t weigh more than a hundred pounds, I’ll bet, but she’s really powdering that ball.”

Yes, the court-martial would touch General Taggart, and those muddy pens in Korea, the off-limits barracks and POWs under sedation, a trail that could lead back through all those years, back to Summitt City...

“Don’t go any farther, Counselor,” Thomson began to cut up his lamb chop and sausage. “You already made Selby look bad. But don’t press it. Forget the court-martial.”

Davic said, “I think that’s a wise decision. You know the phrase, ‘Beware the wrath of a patient man’? I have that feeling about Harry Selby. He could be more trouble than we’d want.” Unfolding his napkin, he glanced at his plate. “Very nice, but do you suppose we could ask for a little mint sauce? I prefer it to the jelly.”

Selby left Shana with a police matron after lunch and went up to Brett’s office. Sergeant Wilger was with her. He said to Brett, “Want me to finish this up, or wait till later?”

“I’d like the rest of it, please. But you’d better start from the beginning. Mr. Selby should hear this.”

The sergeant removed his narrow glasses and polished them with his handkerchief. “I was telling Miss Brett about something that happened around the time Vinegar Hill was torched. I didn’t have any word on it. The captain and Eberle made sure I didn’t. I got the story last night from a detective on Eberle’s shift, a pal who owes me one.”

After examining his glasses, Wilger carefully replaced them. “Earl Thomson disappeared after that fire. A ton of pressure came down on Slocum to find him. The captain and Eberle were on the phone all night checking airports, trains, bus stations. Talked to cops all over the state, up and down the Atlantic seaboard, with Mr. Lorso blistering them for news.”

Brett was pacing tensely as he talked.

“Thomson caught a plane in Philadelphia late one night,” Wilger went on. “That’s what Slocum found out. Flew down to Memphis, rented a Hertz car and drove to Summitt City. He stayed two nights. It sure as hell wasn’t a casual trip, otherwise it wouldn’t have blown up such a storm. Thomson worked at Summitt a couple of years ago. You’d expect he’d have some friends there. But he just turned the car in at Memphis, flew on home. So why the heat and pressure?” The sergeant shrugged. “Thought you should know, Miss Brett.”

When Wilger left and the door closed, Selby said, “So why did Thomson go to Summitt?”

“You heard the sergeant. He doesn’t know.”

“Then what else are you uptight about?” Her responses, he’d learned, were at times oblique and apparently irrelevant. Sometimes he had to hunt for clues to what she was getting at.

She was saying, “We could have submitted Shana’s written deposition, or filed a motion for closed hearings. That was what Davic wanted all along, never mind that pious bull to the jury. He was safe to champion open inquiry because he felt sure we’d file for a closed trial. The last thing the defense wants is an articulate, intelligent child like Shana with enough character to tell a crowded courtroom precisely what the” — she turned and put out her cigarette — “what the defendant did to her and how many times. I think closed trials in rape cases are an abomination. Is it cruel and unusual punishment to ask that an alleged rapist at least hear in public what was done to a victim? Whose feelings are we being so damned sensitive about? I explained the options to Shana. She told me she was willing to testify. But I’m not sure you realize what she’ll face under Davic’s cross-examination.”

“Then will you spell it out, for Christ’s sake?”

“All right, dammit, I will. Anything that hurts the case hurts Shana. What hurts you can hurt her.” She picked up her cigarettes but dropped them nervously. “Don’t you see what Davic is doing? He’s establishing that you have some need to want to hurt Earl Thomson, or his father... a motive that has nothing to do with Shana.”

“How the hell can he? I never even saw Earl Thomson before that morning at Longwood Gardens—”

“Davic is too shrewd to start anything he can’t make pay off. He knows something I don’t, which could mean you haven’t leveled with me.” She looked at him. “What about it, Harry?”

He shook his head, kept his temper. “I’ve told you every sight and sound and smell that could conceivably relate to this business.” He ticked items off on his fingers. “About my father, as much as we could get about him. About Jarrell, his girl, what I’ve asked Jerry Goldbirn to check out, the fact that somebody was on Fairlee the other night looking for something.”

“Could it be something you’re holding back... unconsciously? To protect Shana?”

“If it’s unconscious, how the hell would I know?”

She sighed. “Dumb question, sorry.”

Selby said then, “If Davic’s got a bomb to explode, I’ll be as surprised as you, if that’s any consolation.”

“It’s not much, Harry.”

A tap sounded on the office door. She said, “Yes?”

Flood’s bailiff looked in on them. “Miss Brett, the judge is robing now. I’ll be calling us to order in just a few minutes.”

“Thank you, Thomas, we’ll be there in good time for his entrance.”

She put her arm through Selby’s. “Let’s go on down and see what they’ve got to blind-side you with.”

But the afternoon session proved anticlimactic. Davic, as agreed between him and Thomson, dropped Selby’s relationship to the Thomsons and directed his attention to other areas.

“You are a widower, Mr. Selby?”

“Yes.”

“Would you describe your relationship with your daughter as trusting and confident? Does she confide openly and truthfully in you?”

“Objection, Your Honor. The questions are irrelevant.”

“Sustained.”

“Mr. Selby, isn’t it a fact that your daughter called you at your motel in Memphis the day before the alleged attack on her?”

“That’s right.”

“To tell you a car was parked in the dark somewhere near your home?”

“Yes.”

“Did she tell you she was frightened by the presence of that car?”

“No, she didn’t.”

“Were strange cars and vans, motorcycles perhaps, such a common event around your place?”

“Objection, Your Honor.”

“Mr. Davic,” Flood said, “what is the purpose of this question?”

“I want to pursue an inconsistency in the testimony of the witness.”

“Overruled. Proceed.”

“If your daughter wasn’t frightened by the presence of that car, Mr. Selby, why did she place a long distance call to you to tell you about it?”

“Our housekeeper had called the police. Shana felt I ought to know that.”

“Mr. Selby, when you talked to your daughter that night, did she seem her usual self?”

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

“Well, did you notice any undue excitement in her manner?”

“Objection, Your Honor. The question demands a subjective evaluation.”

“Sustained.”

“Your Honor, I was trying to find out if the young lady’s call to her father might have been in the nature of a prank or a practical joke. Because it’s a fact that Mr. Selby didn’t respond seriously to that call. He didn’t cut short his trip and return home. But I will accede to your ruling and ask no further questions along that line.”

Davic excused himself to confer with his associates.

Brett made a series of question marks on her legal pad and underlined each one firmly. Whatever the defense attorney had been developing that morning obviously no longer interested him. Or presented some risk he’d decided not to take. Brett wasn’t sure which. But his present questions, she felt sure, were designed only to provide a camouflage for, a diversion from, whatever he’d been digging into earlier...

Davic returned to the bench and told Judge Flood he had no further questions of the witness at that time but added, “If it pleases the court, we’re expecting further information and would like to reserve the right to talk to Mr. Selby again.”

That night Selby found the quotation, “Hell is alone...” in Bartlett’s. It was from a play, “The Cocktail Party.” The complete line read “Hell is alone, the other figures in it merely projections.”

He called Brett, but her line was busy. Upstairs, Shana’s shower was running. He took Blazer for a walk, and when he returned Shana’s shower was off and her hair dryer was humming.

Brett’s number was still busy.

Selby couldn’t imagine what it was he had brought to Summitt City that could possibly threaten anyone. But why had the reaction to him been so peculiar? The sergeant, Ledge, he’d told Selby to put the past behind him and forget it. But whose past was he warning him about? His father’s or Jarrell’s or his own?

He dialed Brett again, but got another busy signal. Shana came in and sat cross-legged on the sofa, tipping her head sideways to brush out the damp ends of her hair.

“Honey, doesn’t Brett ever get off the phone?”

“She’s probably talking to one of her sisters,” Shana said. “Kay’s the oldest and she has dogs, a pair of standard poodles. Her other sister, Nancy, is married to a doctor. They have two little daughters. Miss Brett told me she talks to them almost every night, but I think she was showing five”... she looked at him shyly, her expression strangely remote. “Anyway, she said if I needed to talk to her I’d better call her in the mornings at her office. She gets in early.”

“What do you mean, showing five?”

“It’s a signal we use, like a code.” Shana put her brush down and looked at the fire. A stillness smoothed her soft face. “When we first talked about it, about what happened to me, there were things I didn’t want to tell her. So she said to hold up my hand then, you know, show five, like taking the Fifth. That meant I wanted to skip it, or talk about it later maybe.”

“She’s showing five about calling her sisters?”

“Not about that, but about being on the phone. She’s been getting calls that bother her. Not just your neighborhood breather, even I’ve had a couple of those. But somebody’s on her case, so she leaves the phone off the hook. I heard her telling Sergeant Wilger about it. He’s trying to trace whoever it is, but they don’t stay on long enough.”

Shana pushed Blazer away and stood to kiss her father good night. When she straightened up, he held her wrist lightly. She seemed fragile and small and tenderly young in her short nightgown, but her shoulder-length hair and the gravity in her eyes created a curious duality, the girlishness merging before him into a womanly maturity.

“Are you feeling all right about tomorrow?”

“I only have to tell what happened, and I’m not worried about that. Miss Brett will help. We’ve been over and over it.”

“Do you mind that I’ll be there when you’re on the stand?”

“No...” She put a hand on Blazer’s collar and shook her head. “That’s all right, daddy.”

“I don’t have to be there. There’s no law says so. I could go out and have some coffee or something.”

“I told you it was all right.” Her voice was higher. “I want to get it over with, okay?”

“Sure, honey. But I don’t want you to be afraid of anything. I’ll help you any way I can. I love you. I’ll do anything for you. You can put that in your piggy bank.”

She smiled and held his hand tightly against her face. “I love you, too, daddy, but the last piggy bank I had I lost at a show-and-tell in about third grade.”

“Okay, okay, so time flies... good night, honey.”

He dialed Brett after Shana went upstairs. Her line was still busy. He could imagine the receivers off the hook, one on the rolltop desk, the other beside her bed, the electronic beats growing louder as the house became still, humming faintly against window panes, mingling with the crack of the dying embers. His own phone rang then. He hoped it was Brett, but it was Jerry Goldbirn in Las Vegas.

“What time is it there, Harry?”

“A little after midnight. Why?”

“Why? Mine was a loser’s question, Harry. Ever know a loser with a watch that wasn’t either slow or fast or in hock? Nobody gives a damn about time in gambling joints. They have dinner at six or seven in the morning at the crap tables, steaks, banana cheesecakes, that’s why they’re losers.”

“That’s fascinating stuff, Jerry. If you want to know the time on the east coast look at your watch and add three whole hours. That’s why you never made all-conference, Jerry.”

“A point, you got a point. Now listen.” Goldbirn’s tone changed to serious. “The girl’s name is Jennifer, like she told you. Her last name is Easton. Lives on Sutton Place South, New York City. An unlisted phone. That’s usually no problem, Harry, a cop or newspaperman can get it for us. But this time, no way. Jennifer Easton’s number had a sealed code on it. That puts it out of reach.”

“How about her address?”

“That won’t help. Nobody’s used that Sutton Place apartment for months. We checked that. I’d have to call in a big marker for that unlisted number.”

“She’s important, Jerry. Believe me.”

“Okay, pal. A big deal vice-president of New York Bell kited checks in my place last year... would you believe it? Probably got his start robbing pay phones... and I covered for him. I’ll call him tomorrow, Harry. I’ll call him collect. The rest of it’s like first down and goal to go on a sunny afternoon... they’re in a motel in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, place called the Glades... Coralee Kane, the mother, and her kid, Barby. Some friendly cops checked ’em out for us. Two sets of wheels arrived the week the Kanes checked in. First a delivery van from the local liquor store. Coralee, it seems, likes a belt of gin with her ginger ale. Then a 450-SEL from Miami. Man name of Hank Swanson spent most of the day with the Kane woman. Swanson’s with an outfit called H. and H. Rates and Escrow, Limited. H. and H. is an offshore bag company, Harry, operates out of the Bahamas, but it’s owned by a firm in London. They launder real estate mortgages, cash, any commercial paper that needs a phony birth certificate. One of our cops spent his day off at the pool at the Glades. Had some drinks with your cracker tart. After a few off-duty slugs of gin, he got this. Mrs. Kane and her intended husband have just come into some oceanfront property around Avalon, New Jersey. That’s why this Swanson came. The paperwork’s been funneled from the Jersey shore out to Nassau and back to Miami. Which means the parentage of that property is about as kosher as an Easter ham.”

“Did I miss something, Jerry? Who owns H. and H.?”

“I told you, it’s a limey outfit in London. But here’s what’s interesting. The happy bridegroom is that Jesus freak you told me to check out, Oliver Jessup. He’s leaving Pennsylvania. He’s building himself a church over in Jersey. Lucky Jersey. Now they’ll all be saved in the Garden State...”

Selby hung up and looked through the notes he’d made. With one or two assumptions, he had a fairly coherent picture... someone was paying off Goldie Boy and Coralee Kane.

The night he’d picked up Shana at Little Tenn, Barby Kane had shouted at her mother about the blanket Shana was wrapped in. “It’s already been worse places tonight...”

Casper Gideen had been convinced the preacher and Coralee had been together that night...

Where? In the Tabernacle of the Golden Flame, it must have been there. And they could have seen Earl Thomson, could identify him...

Gideen had been shot and killed because he had suspected that and was trying to prove it...

“Someone” had sent Coralee Kane down to Florida, and was arranging through a British company to bribe Goldie Boy with land and a new church in New Jersey.

Selby called Brett a last time and got another busy signal. He settled down then with his father’s diaries and sheaf of snapshots.

For the first time since they had come into his possession he felt the beginning of a sympathy for the tall, scowling young man in the cracked snapshots, some recognition and understanding of the voice that seemed to sound from the frayed old notebooks. “The hills are all climbed, the creeks are all passed...”

They were both up against something hidden and threatening, he thought. The same thing, perhaps, except a generation later...

It made Shana feel sad, even disloyal to wonder if it meant all that much to love people. Her father said, “I love you,” and she knew he meant it. Loving was sort of easy... it always was for her. It was something you didn’t really have to think about. She loved her father and she loved Davey and Mrs. Cranston and Blazer and lots of her friends and the kittens and flowers and biscuits in the morning and she’d loved her mother’s wide smile. Even the tiny gap between her mother’s front teeth, she’d loved that.

In school she’d read a poem that said, “Love loves to love love.” She’d copied it out and passed it around to her friends, and they’d smiled at it because they knew what it meant too.

But hating was hard. She didn’t really know how. She didn’t even hate Earl Thomson, even though she realized he hated her. And tomorrow she’d have to say in court the shameful, hideous things he’d done to her that would make him hate her all over again and worse than ever. And she couldn’t understand why he’d done them in the first place.

It had almost made her sick to tell Miss Brett what he’d done. She’d hardly known the words to describe it. She’d been surprised that there were actually words for it. Miss Brett had finally shown them to her in a dictionary.

Shana’s tears were cold on her face. The shadows from the trees moved across the picture of the dead Olympic athletes. She wished she could talk to her mother even for a minute, or just touch her. Or pray to someone who could answer.

Tishie had prayed all the time. She told Shana she didn’t expect the clouds to open and an old man to say nice things to her, but the answers to prayers were in the world around you, in rainbows, and in what was inside you. Shana didn’t understand or believe in Tishie’s rainbows that meant new life, as her grandmother claimed, or the songs she said she could sing again after Treblinka. But now Shana tried to pray. She spoke aloud in a clear voice, but softly so as not to wake Davey... “I wouldn’t say those things about anyone unless I knew they were true. Unless I knew... It would be better to live with the hurt and pain inside me than take the chance of being wrong. It would be too terrible to hurt anybody else by making a mistake, or accusing someone who was innocent...”

That was Shana’s prayer.

Well, she’d told the truth. Nobody could take that away from her...

She had heard the cars on Fairlee Road and Blazer’s barking, had seen the flashlight going through the woods that night...

She knew who it was and what he was looking for on the road where his speeding red car had hit her. Earl Thomson would never find it there.

“Love loves to love love...”

That’s what she’d thought. But she had heard a different truth in her own voice, a voice she hardly recognized, hoarse and bitter, on the tapes... “Mommy, I’ll kill it, it’s evil.”

Shana lifted the picture of the dead Israeli athletes away from the wall. A tissue-wrapped object was Scotch-taped to the back of the frame. She unwrapped a layer of paper from the silver swastika she’d torn from his neck when he struggled with her that awful night in the farmhouse. She held up the square cross by links of chain still attached to it and let it swing back and forth in the moonlit shadows.

His initials, e.t., were on one side and Munich — 11/9/38, on the other. Thin traces of dried blood streaked the edges that had pierced and cut the palm of her hand.

He knew he’d lost it. But he’d lie and say it was stolen, or that he’d given it away...

She wrapped the swastika and taped it in place, carefully straightening the picture. The leaves and vines that decorated it had turned dry and brittle, but the eyes of the young men were as joyously stern as when she had cut out their photographs and surrounded them with the flowers of love and honor and remembrance.