A Season in Purgatory (48 page)

“Tell Miss Sabbath to say the Bradley
house
, not the Bradley mansion, Jerry, when she talks about the night of the murder,” said Maureen. “ ‘Mansion’ has a bad sound to it. It makes us sound too rich. The jury won’t like that. And tell her not to say ‘the Bradley estate.’ ”

“I am trying very hard, Jerry, to restrain myself and not say ‘Fuck off’ to your sister. Will you kindly tell her not to tell me what words not to use. When you hire me, for my measly million-dollar fee, you do things my way. If I prefer to say ‘estate’ and ‘mansion,’
estate
and
mansion
are the words I am going to say. I am the one who has to talk straight talk to the jury, not your sister. The jury would refer to your house as a mansion, and your place in Scarborough Hill as an estate, and I am more interested in their reaction to my words than your sister’s reaction to my words. Do we understand each other?”

“Yes, yes, of course, you’re right, Valerie,” said Jerry. “It’s just that Maureen gets a little—”

“Oh, you don’t have to tell me how Maureen gets,” said Valerie.

“Well, excuse
me
,” said Maureen, when Jerry repeated what Valerie Sabbath had said.

In cases such as this, there is often the man off the highway to blame it all on. The vagrant, the transient, the drifter. Do you remember the prowler on the roof of the Grenvilles’
house on the night Ann Grenville shot and killed her husband? They are conveniences of the rich. They are expendable people. Blame them. They are no one.

“Did you see Constant Bradley raise the bat and strike Winifred Utley?” asked Valerie Sabbath.

“No,” I replied.

“You did not see him strike Miss Utley?”

“No. I did not realize immediately what had happened. I thought there had been an accident of some sort. I thought she might have fainted or had a heart attack or something. It was not until I touched her and felt the blood that I realized she had been struck.”

“You did not see him strike Miss Utley?”

“No.”

“It would have been possible, then, for a vagrant off Interstate Ninety-five to have killed Miss Utley, would it not?”

“I do not believe so.”

“It would have been possible for Constant Bradley to have found Winifred Utley already struck down when he went to the path at the edge of the Bradley estate for his rendezvous with Miss Utley, would it not?”

“I do not believe so.”

“I would like to read to you from your statements made to Captain Riordan at the time you were questioned at police headquarters in Scarborough Hill on May first, 1973.” Valerie Sabbath turned around to the defense table and picked up a copy of a police report. She put on her glasses and placed the pages on a podium in front of her. “Captain Riordan: At any time after you went to bed did you get up from your bed and go outside? Harrison Burns: No, sir. Captain Riordan: Did Constant Bradley ever leave the room you were sharing that night to go outside after you returned from The Country Club? Harrison Burns: No, sir.”

Valerie Sabbath removed her glasses and turned back to
me on the stand. “Now you are telling the court, Mr. Burns, that you were awakened at two o’clock in the morning by Mrs. Grace Bradley, the mother of Constant Bradley, who asked you to go downstairs and look for her son, and while downstairs you heard a tap on the window and were asked to go outside by Constant Bradley. Will you explain the discrepancy in your two versions of the story?”

“That is what I had been instructed to say by Gerald Bradley and his son Jerry. I was rehearsed in the afternoon,” I said.

“And you are telling the court that it was in your nature to do anything someone else told you to do. Is that correct, Mr. Burns?”

“I was sedated with Valium at the time,” I said.

“Ah, you were sedated with Valium at the time? Your story gets better and better, Mr. Burns,” said Valerie.

“Dr. Desmond Bradley came to my room late that afternoon and gave me Valium to calm me down before the police arrived. Later he gave me another Valium before dinner, which was when the police arrived at the house.”

The headline in the
New York Post
the following day said
HE’S A LIAR
. Dr. Desmond Bradley, brother of former gubernatorial candidate Constant Bradley, emphatically denied having given Valium to Harrison Burns before he was interviewed by police in connection with the murder of Winifred Utley in 1973. “This man would do anything, say anything,” said Dr. Bradley. “I am shocked by his statement.”

On the Friday of that week, the two oldest of Maureen’s children, Gregory and Sarah, seventeen and sixteen years old, were in the courtroom. Gregory had been excused from Milford to attend the trial, and Sarah had been excused from the Sacred Heart Convent. Maureen
felt that it was important to show the next generation of Bradleys to the jury, the courtroom, the crowds outside, and the media. It was expected that it would be a day of technical experts, not of any real dramatic importance, and the better-known members of the family had decided to stay at home. However, the father-in-law of the medical examiner who had performed the autopsy on Winifred Utley had died the night before, and the medical examiner had therefore telephoned in his regrets for not being able to keep his scheduled appearance, as he had to leave immediately for Pittsburgh. The soil expert who had examined the dirt stains on the back of Winifred’s pink party dress was also unexpectedly indisposed, having suffered an attack of food poisoning after dining the evening before on sushi at a Japanese restaurant. And so Constant Bradley was suddenly and unexpectedly called to the stand. There was great excitement in the courtroom and pressroom. Reporters raced to the telephones.

“Your Honor, I would like to call Constant Bradley as a witness, but I want to make sure the state cannot open the door on cross-examination and enter evidence that the court has ruled as inadmissible,” said Valerie Sabbath. She was referring to the testimony of Maud Firth and Weegie Somerset.

“Granted,” said Judge Consalvi.

Gregory Tierney was dissatisfied with his seat. He wanted to be in a better spot to watch his uncle on the stand.

“I know you’re disappointed with your seat, but don’t take it out on me,” said Sarah to her brother.

“We should be there in those seats,” said Gregory, pointing to two seats in the front row of the spectator section. In those seats sat a young man with a woman who might have been his mother.

“Ask them if they’ll change with you,” said Sarah.

Gregory stood and walked over to where the couple was seated. “I wonder if you’d mind trading seats with us,” said Gregory to them. He spoke in an overly gracious manner, sure the couple would rise.

“Yes, we would mind,” answered the young man.

Rebuffed, Gregory returned to his seat and glared at the couple. The couple paid no attention to him. Then Gregory rose, passed the couple, and went to the rear of the courtroom, where he complained to the bailiff that the couple had the seats he felt he should have. “Would you please ask them to move,” said Gregory.

“Hey, fella, it’s first come, first served in Judge Consalvi’s courtroom. There’s no reserved seats here. If they got there first, the seats are theirs.”

“But we are members of the Bradley family,” said Gregory.

“It don’t matter who yuz are in Judge Consalvi’s courtroom,” said the bailiff.

Undaunted, Gregory approached the couple again. “My sister and I would like to sit here while Constant Bradley is on the stand,” he said.

“I’m sorry, we’re not moving,” said the woman.

“You don’t understand. We’re family,” said Gregory.

“No, you don’t understand. I’m family, too,” said the young man.

“He is my uncle,” insisted Gregory.

“He’s my uncle, too,” said the young man.

“How is he your uncle?”

“My mother was a maid in your grandmother’s house. She married your uncle Des. You might like to tell your family that Rosleen Shea Bradley is here with her son, Desi.”

* * *

“We’re always meeting at soft-drink machines,” said Charlotte. “I still haven’t figured out which way George Washington is supposed to face.”

“I’ll do it,” I said. I put the bill in for her. The can of soda dropped out. I took it, opened it, and handed it to her.

“How’s Gerald?” I asked.

“Just managing to keep his head below water,” she said.

I laughed, and she joined in, but I could see that she was near to tears.

“I haven’t laughed in a year,” she said. She looked up and down the corridor. “Tell me something, Harrison. I have to know. Did he do it?”

“Yes.”

“They all say you are making this up.”

“Do you think I am, Charlotte?”

She shook her head slowly. “Imagine if they find him guilty,” she said. “Imagine if they put him in prison. I haven’t a clue how I’ll play that scene.”

“Do you still love him?” I asked.

“I am attracted to him from time to time, but I don’t love him. I haven’t loved him for a long time. He is incapable of deep affection for another person.”

When Constant entered the courtroom, there was a gasp from the audience even though they had seen him each day sitting at the defense table. He was dressed in a gray flannel suit, a blue shirt, and a red tie. He walked elegantly and eagerly to the witness box, as if it were the moment he had been waiting for, rather than dreading.

“How are you feeling, Mr. Bradley?” asked Valerie Sabbath.

“I am a little nervous, but I am also looking forward to this moment on the stand. I have lived with this terrible accusation for over a year now, and I relish and cherish the opportunity
to free my name so that I may return to the business of my life,” said Constant.

“Were you drinking that night, Mr. Bradley?” she asked.

“I had taken a few drinks, yes,” he answered. He turned and spoke directly to the jury. “Earlier in the day, the family had been talking about our brother Kev. He was killed in Vietnam. We were remembering the last time we had been together as a family, before Kev went off to fight for his country. He didn’t have to go, you know. He hadn’t been drafted. He volunteered.”

The jury watched Constant, mesmerized.

“What sort of day had it been?”

“It was a family day, and we talked about our sister Agnes. Agnes is a retarded person. She has today the mind of a ten-year-old. She has been for years at an institution in Cranston, Maine. But we think about Agnes and love her and talk of her often. It was a day for reminiscences about Kev and Agnes, our missing members.”

A Mrs. Perez in the front row of the jury box wiped a tear away from her eye with a Kleenex. Watching Constant on a television set in the prosecutor’s office, I wondered why Bert Lupino did not raise an objection.

“Afterwards, when the family dispersed, I offered to take my sisters Mary Pat and Kitt to The Country Club for dinner. I wanted to shake off the depression of the conversation about Kev and Agnes.”

“Was there anyone else with you?”

“Yes, Harrison Burns. He was a frequent guest in our house at that time. My father paid his tuition at our school.”

“You went to the club with your sisters and Mr. Burns?”

“Yes. I was underage, and the waitress, Ursula, whom we have known at the club for years, quite rightly would not serve me a drink, so I went into the bar in the men’s locker room and bribed the bartender, Corky, to give me a few
drinks. It was wrong, yes, and it compromised Corky, who could have lost his job, but I wanted to shake off the depression of the afternoon and make a cheerful evening for my sisters, who were returning to the Sacred Heart Convent the next day.”

“Did you ask Winifred Utley to dance?”

“No. Winifred Utley asked me to dance. I was leaving the club with my sisters when she came up to me and asked me.”

“Is it true that you said to Miss Utley, ‘Do you mind dancing with a man with an erection?’ ” asked Valerie Sabbath.

“I did, yes. It was meant to be funny. It was, in fact, funny at the time, in a teenage way, but I realize how appalling it sounds now, all these years later, in view of what happened to Winifred. I cringe every time I hear the line repeated in this courtroom, but yes, I did say it.”

“Did you ask Winifred to go home with you?”

“Yes. But she said she had come with Billy Wadsworth and that she would go home with him.”

“To the best of your knowledge, did Billy Wadsworth take Winifred home?”

“I believe Mr. Wadsworth, Billy’s father, drove them home. I don’t think Billy had a driver’s license then. A group of people from the dance went to the Wadsworth house for Cokes.”

“Had you made an arrangement with Winifred to meet her after she left the Wadsworth house?”

“I did.”

“Tell us what happened.”

“When I got there, she was already dead. I saw her lying there.”

“Why did you not tell that to the police?”

“I thought they wouldn’t believe me. It is one of the sadnesses of my life that I did not.”

Watching Constant on the television monitor in the prosecutor’s office, I marveled at the facility with which he told his story. I believe now that Constant had the ability to forget. It wasn’t that he was out-and-out lying so much as that he had convinced himself that what he was saying was the truth.

“Where is Father Murphy?” asked Maureen. “He is supposed to be here for the closing arguments.”

“Father Murphy has declined to be present.”

“I don’t believe it. After all the money my mother gave to that parish.”

“He has declined.”

“What about Father Burke?”

“We have heard from Vincent Corcoran, or Corky, as he is called, who was, at the time of the murder, the bartender in the men’s locker room at The Country Club, that Constant Bradley drank six vodka drinks in the space of half an hour,” said Bert Lupino in his closing arguments. “What he drank when he went back to his house is a matter of conjecture. He was annoyed that Winifred Utley would not dump the young man she had gone to the dance with, Billy Wadsworth, to go home with him. He called Billy Wadsworth ‘Pimple Face.’ Constant Bradley knew that Winifred Utley would pass that way on that path at the rear of the Bradley estate to get from the Wadsworth house to her own house on Varden Lane. It was the path used by all the young people in the neighborhood. There he waited in the dark for her. He was, uh …” He paused, searching for a word to describe Constant’s state at the time. “Lascivious,” he said finally.
“But Constant Bradley has a problem. Constant Bradley is a man who talked a great deal about erections, but Constant Bradley is a man who could not maintain an erection.”