A Season in Purgatory (43 page)

“If you could see this son of mine and his wife Charlotte and his adorable little children go to Mass every Sunday, you would know what a family man he is. I have always said that the family that prays together stays together,” said Grace on “Oprah.”

“That’s a very lovely sentiment, Mrs. Bradley,” said Oprah, who led the studio audience in applauding Grace. Grace smiled and waved at the audience and at the camera.

Then Oprah became serious and turned to Constant.

“Congressman Bradley, you yourself at this moment are going through a personal crisis in being charged with the killing of a young girl nearly twenty years ago in Scarborough Hill, Connecticut.”

“Of course, this is a false accusation, Oprah, which will shortly be proved in a court of law. There are certain limitations put on me at this moment as to what I can and cannot say. I’m sure you will understand that.”

“Yes, yes, of course. I will not ask you anything specific about the case itself. What I am interested in is how do you account for what has happened, for the state of affairs in which you find yourself?”

“The whole thing’s perfectly ridiculous,” interjected Grace.

Constant spoke very seriously. “I believe there has been pressure in the community of Scarborough Hill, where, as you know, the Bradley family lived for many years, to solve this tragic crime that has been on the books there for nearly two decades due, probably, to inefficient police work at the time. The body of poor Winifred Utley, who, by the way, I had only met once or twice in my life, was indeed found close by the property of my parents’ house. And, as I am probably the most visible, the most highly profiled, of all the people who saw Winifred Utley on the last night of her life, at a dance, who better for the new chief of police, who is apparently
anxious to make a name for himself, to point his finger at than me?”

“He was in bed that night, Oprah,” said Grace. “The mother of the girl called me at two in the morning, looking for Winifred, and I went into his room, and there he was, sleeping like a baby.”

“Yes, Mrs. Bradley,” said Oprah. She turned back to Constant. “The person who has brought the accusation against you, Mr. Burns, I believe, Harrison Burns, is, or was, rather, a great friend of yours, was he not?”

“That is what is so surprising. That is what none of us in our family understands,” said Constant.

“We were so good to that boy,” said Grace. “We took him in. He became practically a member of our family after his own parents were murdered.” She whispered the last word and nodded her head at the same time, as if it were a significant factor.

“The Bradleys are fighting the case on TV, Your Honor. They have access to every talk show program. They are pretending to push Constant Bradley’s book, but they are using the air time to fight their case and prejudge the legal process,” said Bert Lupino, the prosecutor, in court two days later.

Judge Edda Consalvi pulled at her dyed black hair. She reached over and poured herself a glass of water from a thermos. “What is it you are asking, Mr. Lupino?”

“What I am requesting is a gag order put on all parties so that the case may not be won or lost by the media before the trial starts,” said Bert Lupino.

“Request granted,” said Judge Consalvi.

The district attorney said about Bert Lupino, “He is our star. We have great faith in Bert. Last year he was named
prosecutor of the year. He has nearly a hundred percent track record for convictions.”

It was true, but the convictions were for drug and robbery cases. He had never handled a murder case. I did not feel altogether safe in his hands. There was a shrillness about him when he became excited. His father was a dentist, and he flossed his teeth incessantly during our private sessions.

“Please stop doing that,” I said, finally. “Please, please, it’s driving me crazy watching you do that.”

“Hey, hey, calm down, Harrison,” he said.

From the day before Constant’s arrest, a search was on for the best defense lawyer in the land. Gerald, through Sis Malloy, who was his interpreter, wanted the lawyer who had won an acquittal “for that guy who tried to kill his wife in Newport, the one who’s in the coma.” Constant had reservations. “I don’t want a lawyer whose name is in the papers all the time, Pa,” he said. Others in the same category were interviewed. It was Sims Lord who came up with the name of Valerie Sabbath.

“Valerie Sabbath will fight to the death for her clients,” Sims Lord told the male members of the Bradley family. “She is best known for having saved nine people from death row.”

“Good heavens,” said Sandro, who was always cautious, both at home and in the Senate. “Won’t that make it appear that we think Constant is guilty if we have a lawyer with that sort of track record? Saving nine people from death row. It has a wrong kind of sound to it. Does anyone agree with me?”

“I think we should listen to what Sims has to say, Sandro,” said Jerry.

“We all know Constant’s innocent, Sandro,” said Des, “but we’re still facing a murder trial.”

“Go on, Sims,” said Constant.

“All that I’m saying is that when there is a murder rap, Valerie Sabbath is the best that money can buy. She is considered one of the most merciless cross-examiners in the legal business. She has a remarkable ability to degrade and confuse prosecution witnesses. Remarkable. I’ve sat in on some of her cases. I’ve watched firsthand. She loves to intimidate. She loves to humiliate. She thrives on it. She knows when she has you. She can twist and turn a witness’s memory.”

Jerry liked the sound of her. He passed on to his father the recommendation of Sims Lord. Gerald listened and nodded his head.

“She’s not quite a lady, Pa,” said Jerry. “She’s a toughie.”

Gerald nodded.

“We could never take her to the club for dinner. She’s loud. She uses four-letter words. And she’d hate all those people as much as they’d hate her.”

Gerald listened. He beckoned to Sis Malloy and mumbled something in her ear.

“What’s he saying, Sis?” asked Jerry.

“He wants to know how much she’s going to cost.”

“A million.”

Gerald mumbled again.

“He says, ‘Hire her.’ ”

“The prosecution’s going to try to establish a pattern of behavior, Pa. They’ve subpoenaed both Weegie Somerset and Maud Firth. Just keep your fingers crossed about Wanda Symanski. No one knows about her yet. Valerie says they don’t have a chance. What Valerie actually said is, ‘They don’t have a fucking chance.’ That’s the way she talks, Pa.”

Gerald chuckled.

“Valerie says they’ll never be able to bring those girls to the stand,” said Jerry. “She’s an authority on patterns of behavior. Sims said she once had a case where a mother was on
trial for killing her child. She was able to keep the jury from finding out that the same mother had killed another child seven years earlier by convincing the judge that one case had nothing to do with the other. What, Pa? What’s he saying, Sis?”

“He said don’t let that story about the mother with the two dead kids leak out to the papers.”

“Have you been able to get any information on the judge?” asked Jerry.

“She lives with her mother, and her father wears a rug,” said Eddie Bargetta. Eddie had taken Johnny Fuselli’s place.

“Oh, Christ, how I miss Johnny Fuselli,” said Jerry. “Look, I don’t give a shit if her father wears a rug. I want to know about her. Is she married?”

“No.”

“Ever been?”

“No.”

“Where’d she go to high school, college, law school? That’s the kind of thing I want to know.”

“She was a scholarship girl, all the way through Sacred Heart Convent and college.”

“Sacred Heart? Now, that’s interesting, Eddie. That’s very interesting.”

The day of the arraignment was a warm, wet autumn day that alternated between a descending mist and a heavy, slanting rain. I had not come in my own car to the courthouse in Stamford. A member of the prosecutor’s office had driven me in order to fill me in on new information before I got to the courthouse.

Valerie Sabbath sat at the defense table chatting amiably with Constant, their heads close together, smiling, laughing. Then she leaned forward and straightened his tie. In a photograph
published the following day, they looked like guests at a lunch party rather than a defense attorney and a client at an arraignment for a murder trial. When Maureen, through Jerry, questioned the propriety of such frivolity in the courtroom, Valerie replied, looking directly at Maureen, whose question she knew it was, “If you don’t show the jury that you love your client, that you believe in your client, the jury will never buy it that your client should go free.”

“But there is no jury at an arraignment,” insisted Maureen.

“There’s going to be at the trial,” said Valerie, who had taken an instant dislike to Maureen. “And, besides, I think Constant’s adorable.”

Several times Constant turned and smiled encouragement to members of his family. Then he was told to rise. He rose from his seat and stood in place at the defense table.

The judge, Edda Consalvi, spoke in a lugubrious, knelllike voice as she read the charge that had been brought against him. “You have been charged with the murder of Winifred Utley, lying in wait for her, bludgeoning her to death with multiple blows from a baseball bat, for which, if convicted, you could receive life in prison. How do you plead?”

There was silence in the courtroom, as the spectators and reporters waited for him to reply. The television camera was trained on his face. The only sounds that could be heard were the clicking of the shutter of the single still camera that Judge Consalvi allowed in her courtroom. Instead of replying from the defense table, as was the norm, Constant approached the bench, walking slowly. Once there, he leaned forward and looked Judge Consalvi straight in the eye.

“Not guilty, Your Honor,” he said. Then he turned and walked back to his seat.

“That was a nice touch, walking up to the bench and
looking at Consalvi like that. It looked sincere. Whose idea was that?” asked Sandro. “Jerry’s?”

“No. Valerie Sabbath’s.”

At the end of the day, the deluge was at its most violent. The lawyer who had driven me had been called to the district attorney’s office. Other members of the team had dispersed. I found myself without transportation. I called for a taxi. Because of the storm and the close of the business day, all the taxis were taken. The dispatcher told me to wait in front of the courthouse, and he would send the first available cab there. I stood without an umbrella and waited. From the underground garage came the Bradley station wagon, filled with lawyers and family members. Constant sat in the front seat, with Maureen between him and the driver. Behind, in the center seat, sat Jerry, with Valerie Sabbath on one side and a member of her defense team on the other. At the same moment they all spotted me, standing, soaked, waiting for the taxi. Even in the pounding rain, I could hear the roar from inside the car. I had become the enemy of the family. The station wagon veered toward me, splashing the muddy water from a curbside puddle over me. I could hear the shouts of laughter as the car went on.

Five minutes later, when the cab had not arrived, I turned to go back inside the courthouse. A car pulled up. The driver honked his horn. I turned. The driver rolled down a window. “Need a ride?” he called out.

“Yes, yes,” I called back. I ran and got into the front seat. “I’m soaked, I’m afraid. I’ll get your car all wet.”

“It don’t matter,” he said. “Where to?”

“The Hessian. It’s a hotel on Wentworth Street.”

“Yes, yes, I know.”

“This is very kind of you. I made a terrible mistake today and let myself be driven. I won’t do that again.”

“No, you’re right. You should always have your own wheels.”

“Yes.”

“You don’t recognize me, do you?”

I turned. He was a stout man with a friendly Irish face. I didn’t recognize him. I wondered if he had been a policeman on one of my many visits to the police station in Scarborough Hill.

“Fatty Malloy,” he said. “When I knew you, they used to call you Harry.”

“Oh, my God. Fatty. How are you? It’s been years.”

“What’s that expression? A lotta water over the dam.”

“Yes, you can say that again, a lotta water,” I said. “It’s a wonder you would pick me up. The family station wagon just splashed a reservoir over me.”

“I saw. That was probably Constant saying, ‘Get him.’ They always like a good joke. You must remember that,” he said, laughing. When Fatty laughed, his eyes disappeared into slits, and he looked, momentarily, Chinese.

I did not respond.

“Are you sorry you got into this?” he asked.

“You know, Fatty, I don’t really think I should be discussing this with you. Anything I say, you could repeat back to them. We’re on opposite sides here.”

“Not necessarily.”

“What does that mean?”

“The family dropped me like a smelly turd when I refused to quit my job at the market to be an orderly for Uncle Gerald after his stroke.”

“Why did you do that?”

“I didn’t want to carry Uncle Gerald back and forth to the toilet and have to wipe his ass for him, and that’s what they had in mind for me to do. There’s a lot of people who make a living doing that who could use the work.”

“Good for you.”

“I don’t like it that they snap their fingers and expect you to change your life to accommodate them when they get themselves into trouble, especially when you haven’t heard from any of them for years, except Aunt Grace, who sends a Christmas gift each year. The first thing Constant said to me when I went out to Southampton was, ‘Hey, Fatty, show us how you pack the grocery bags,’ and they all laughed, and then they say, when they think they may have hurt your feelings. ‘Aw, we’re only kidding you, Fatty. You know we love you.’ My job at Riley’s Market may not be a big deal in their eyes, but I like doing it, and I’m good at it.”

“What about Sis?”

“Oh, Sis went. She’d do anything Aunt Grace wanted her to do. When it happened, you know, when Winifred Utley got killed way back in ’73, Jerry tried to get me to take the fall, to say I was in the house that night, that I was drunk, that it was an accident. He had a scenario all worked out. He said I’d get just a couple of years for manslaughter, but that Sis and I’d be taken care of for life.”