(1969) The Seven Minutes (69 page)

isn’t, where in God’s name is she? I hate to be the voice of doom, but I don’t see any ray of light. Until late this afternoon, I always had some hope, but not tonight.’

He heard Kimura stir behind him. ‘Hope is not everything,’ he said. ‘Maybe we should heed the old English proverb - he who lives on hope will die fasting. Maybe we have enough without needing to hope for more.’

‘Sure,’ said Zelkin. ‘We’ll just go with what we have. Well, here we are. The Griffith Observatory. No relation to their Attila, Frank Griffith.’ He parked the station wagon. ‘I guess the planetarium show isn’t over yet. Ever been in that theater ? Crazy. The ceilmg of the dome is the screen. The night I went they projected the Star of Bethlehem in the sky as it was supposed to have been the night the Three Wise Men followed it.’

‘What about the Three Wise Guys in this car?’ asked Barrett. ‘What star have we got to follow?’

‘It does look like Elmo Duncan has cornered the market on stars,’ said Zelkin. ‘He spent most of yesterday clearing the way for his second big star.’

‘I’ve been waiting to hear what happened while I was gone,’ said Barrett.

‘I’ve been waiting to tell you,’ said Zelkin, ‘only you wouldn’t stop talking.’

Suddenly Barrett grinned. ‘You’re right, Abe. Go ahead.’

‘Let me find my notes,’ said Zelkin. He found them and reviewed them. ‘Like the newspapers reported - no top performers. Most of it was a buildup for what’s coming. Duncan brought out two more literary experts, a professor from Colorado, Dr Dean Woodcourt, and some syndicated book reviewer, Ted Taylor, and they pronounced the book obscene and damned it for its prurient appeal. There wasn’t much I could do. It was their opinion. I took a few stabs at their authority and prejudices, but I don’t think that made much impression on the jury. Where Duncan really scored was when he elicited from his witness, Taylor, things the newspapers didn’t print, concrete examples of instances where specific books supposedly have led individuals to acts of violence. All groundwork for -‘

‘What instances did the witness cite?’ interrupted Barrett.

Zelkin squinted at his notes below the dashboard light. ‘Two instances based on two pornographers, so-called. The first pornographer was that old Roman gossip, the historian Seutonius, and his book was The Lives of the Twelve Caesars. Choice example from the book. The Empress Valeria Messalina challenging the union of prostitutes in Rome to find one woman who could satisfy as many lovers as she could in one night. The challenge was accepted. The contest was held. The bedweight championship. No match. Messalina won lying down. She had sexual intercourse with twenty-five men in twenty-four hours. So what about the evil

influence of Suetonius’ history book?’

‘What about it?’ Barrett wanted to know.

‘The witness claimed that Seutonius’ book perverted Gilles de Rais. You know of him ?’

‘The original Bluebeard.’

‘Right. The best of credentials, to start with. A wealthy marshal of France. A man who fought alongside Joan of Arc. So Gilles de Rais was tried in 1440 on the charge of committing sodomy with fifty or so boys and girls before murdering them. During the trial Gilles pleaded that he had read Suetonius and become corrupted by the historian. All very impressive. What could I bring out in the crossexamination? That Gilles de Rais very likely hadn’t committed sodomy or murdered anyone, but instead, according to many modern historians, had simply been framed by the clergy so the Church could confiscate his real-estate holdings? I’m afraid that wasn’t good enough for the jury. Then Duncan got the witness to tell us about another author of obscene books, namely the Marquis de Sade.’

Barrett groaned. ‘I wondered how long it would take for them to drag him in.’

‘Duncan had the witness recite some high spots of de Sade’s life. Distinguished family. Cavalry officer. Married man. The incident where de Sade tricked a thirty-six-year-old woman into coming to his home, tied her to his bed, whipped her, cut her up with a knife, poured hot wax into her wounds. And then his downfall, in Marseilles, when he met with four prostitutes in the apartment of one, passed around a box of chocolates which were really filled with overdoses of aphrodisiacs, and the girls went crazy, an orgy of profane love. The Marquis de Sade was tried and condemned in 1772. He eventually spent twelve years in prison and died in a lunatic asylum. But meanwhile he wrote his encyclopedia of sexual perversions -Justine, The 120 Days of Sodom, The Crimes of Love, and the rest - based on his firsthand experiences. Well, insisted the witness, those writings and their author were responsible for inspiring countless readers to perform criminal acts in emulation of this author. Example. Those young monsters in England who so savagely killed at least two innocent children and possible one teenager in the Moors murder case. During the Moors trial, in 1966, the defendants claimed they had been under the influence of the writings of the Marquis de Sade. In my crossexamination, I tried to get Taylor to admit that influences other than de Sade might have inspired the Moors murders, and that if there had been no de Sade those monsters would have committed the Moors killings anyway, because they were sick through and through. But the witness wouldn’t have it, and I’m afraid the jury wouldn’t, either.’

Too bad.’

Zelkin laid aside his notes. Then, after the lunch recess, Duncan

really started setting the stage for his next star. As you probably read, he put on the two cops, one after the other, who were summoned by Darlene Nelson after Sheri Moore was raped. They testified as to Sheri’s condition, her being unconscious, and how Darlene had repeated to them what Sheri had told her, that she’d been forcibly raped. Then the police physician came on to testify about his examination of Sheri shortly after. Details of her head injury. Details of his internal examination of her vagina. He’d found definite evidence of live spermatozoa, indicating she’d been entered not long before. That always shakes up a jury.’

‘What about you, Abe ? Did you go after Duncan’s introduction of that whole rape bit?’

‘First thing. Duncan and I had our angry exchange before Judge Upshaw. I said immaterial. I pleaded that the violation of the Moore girl had nothing to do with our obscenity case. Duncan argued that the police witnesses were foundation for Jerry Griffith’s appearance, and this was relevant and material because he would show that the obscene passages in the Jadway book had created the wish to commit rape in Jerry and had driven him to act out this wish. I argued until I was blue in the face. Overruled. But it’s on the record if we appeal later. For now, well, they’re going to get their chance to try the book for rape, Mike, and there isn’t anything we can do to stop it. Anyway, there was one more hostile witness.’

‘Mr Howard Moore,’ said Kimura. ‘Sheri’s father.’

‘That’s material?’ said Barrett.

‘Objection overruled,’ said Zelkin. ‘Moore was more founda-, tion. So he was material. His daughter was Miss Purity herself. The soul of virtue. A vestal virgin. Until the goddam book, via Jerry, sullied and ruined and crippled her. I handled him tenderly in the crossexamination, believe me. First off, I was afraid he’d belt me one, the way he did you at the hospital. Second place, this is the father of a daughter, a daughter in a coma yet, so if I got smart with him, 1 knew the jury would lynch me. So I handled him sympathetically and tried to separate his daughter’s sufferings from Jadway’s book, all this while being machine-gunned with objections. After ten minutes, 1 put my tail between my legs - the devil has a tail, hasn’t he? - and I beat it back to the slit trench behind our table. I’m sure glad you’re back, Mike. You can be the devil again on Monday. Hey, I just remembered, I promised to meet the family inside by the Foucault pendulum. Come on, join us, Mike. Leo and I have more to tell you.’

They got out of the station wagon and walked together toward the entrance to the Griffith Observatory.

‘How come you let your boy stay up this late ?’ asked Barrett.

‘What the heck, it’s Friday night,’ said Zelkin. ‘Besides, he’s an astronomy nut, and Sarah is becoming one, too. They’ve been up here a dozen times. She complains she never sees me any more, so

at least this gives her a change from being alone with our youngsters all the time.’

They were inside the observatory, and presently they arrived at a huge well over when a pendulum swung back and, forth, above a replica of the earth that slowly rotated beneath it. From the rim of the well, the three of them tried to discern the movement of the earth under the pendulum ball. Hypnotized, Barrett watched below, until he felt Zelkin tugging at his sleeve.

‘Before the frau and heir turn up,’ said Zelkin, ‘I wanted you to lend an ear to what Leo and I were discussing through dinner. We know definitely what Duncan is going to do Monday morning. He had intended to lead off with Darlene Nelson, but now Darlene is in the same hospital as Sheri. Ruptured appendix. She’s okay, but can’t testify right now, thank God. So our D.A. is leading off with Dr Roger Trimble, former president of the American Psychiatric Association. Leo’s read some of this Trimble’s papers. Like Dr Fredric Wertham, he’s of the school that believes books, comics, magazines, movies create a climate of violence and contribute to juvenile delinquency. So that’ll be Duncan’s curtain raiser. Dr Trimble has had Jerry in therapy since the rape, and he will state that the major contributing factor to the rape was The Seven Minutes. Then, and only then, after the buildup, will the curtain go up on Jerry Griffith himself. Duncan’s placing Jerry on the stand Monday morning.’

‘For sure?’

‘Positively. Leo and I were putting our heads together on Jerry’s appearance before we picked you up. This may be our last big chance to save our case. We’ve absolutely got to wipe out Duncan’s second star witness. We failed with Leroux. We don’t dare fail with Jerry Griffith. It’ll be in your hands, Mike. You’ve got to take the boy apart and put him away and separate him from the book forever.’

Barrett frowned. ‘Take him apart with what ? With a meat ax? I certainly don’t have any evidence to bash him with.’

‘You don’t. But we have. While you’ve been away in the East, we got hold of a hunk of tremendous evidence you can use, got it this afternoon. Remember that detective agency we retained to look into the Griffith family ?’

‘I’d given up on them. You mean they finally found something ?’

“They’re slow but they’re sure.’ Zelkin reached behind him and took an envelope from Kimura. He handed it to Barrett. ‘Here’s a copy of the private detective’s investigation report. Bits and pieces. But one eye-opener. Enough to reduce a star to dust. And this we have to do, Mike. We’ve got to be ruthless. I repeat, it’s our last chance to make a showing.’ Barrett had started to open the envelope, when Zelkin stopped him. ‘Not now, Mike. You have the rest of tonight and all of tomorrow to read and reread what’s there and figure out how to use it’

‘Well, what’s there, Abe?

‘In essence, it comes down to this, and it’s explosive. A half year before Jerry had ever even heard of The Seven Minutes, he was taken out of town secretly to spend time with a doctor in San Francisco. What kind of doctor ? A psychoanalyst. Why ? Because he’d tried to commit suicide just before. You hear that? Tried to kill himself. How’d the agency get on to it ? They discovered that Jerry had a protracted absence from his classes at UCLA. Illness. What was the illness? A nervous breakdown, says a source who prefers to remain anonymous, and that breakdown led Jerry to take an overdose of sleeping pills, which in turn led to his being taken to the psychoanalyst up north.’

‘Who took him up north?’

‘His cousin. Your recent dinner companion, Maggie Russell. You mean she never even hinted anything of the sort to you?’

‘I wouldn’t expect her to, Abe.’

‘No, you’re right. Anyway, how’s that for openers ? The boy was unstable long before he read Jadway’s book. So there must be other factors that contributed to the rape.’

‘There must be.’

‘Jerry’s got suicidal tendencies. That’s quite a find, isn’t it?’

‘Not exactly,’ said Barrett. ‘I didn’t know about his first try. But I was fully aware of his desire for self-destruction.’

‘You were aware?’ said Zelkin with surprise. ‘What made you aware?’

‘Maggie Russell made me aware of it. The boy talks to her constantly about doing away with himself. And before I heard about this from her, I saw evidence of it myself. I was present after Jerry made his second attempt to kill himself. In fact, I helped save him. It was this act that brought Maggie and me together.’

Both Zelkin and Kimura were dumbfounded. ‘He tried to kill himself a second time ? And you were there ?’ asked Zelkin. He was becoming angry. ‘What does that mean?’

Quickly Barrett related the entire episode that had occurred in The Underground Railroad and in the parking lot later.

When he finished, he could see that Zelkin was still upset

‘Mike,’ said Zelkin slowly, ‘why didn’t you tell us about this before?’

‘Why didn’t I?’ Barrett considered the question carefully. ‘I guess I felt it was a personal thing, unrelated to the trial, and that telling you or Leo about it would further discredit the boy. But putting that reasoning aside, suppose I had told you, and you then thought we should make use of it. I felt any revelation of that sort would have done us, our case, a disservice. After all, this second suicide attempt, the one I stumbled upon, was an attempt made after Jerry had read Jadway’s book. Duncan could have claimed that the book had led Jerry to this, and I suspect the jury would have believed him.’

Zelkin accepted his partner’s conclusions. ‘Fair enough for the kid’s second attempt.’ He tapped the envelope in Barrett’s hand. ‘But that first attempt, that was before he read the book. That’s why it is dynamite. It’ll undermine the testimony of the witness and rock the prosecution’s case. Agreed?’

‘I’m not so sure,’ Barrett bit his lip, and tried to formulate his thoughts. ‘Yes, I suppose it would finally divorce the boy from the book. But at an awful cost, Abe. We might be destroying the boy.’