The Accused Part 5

Gurney: Your privilege, Mr. Dodson. You wouldn't know, of course, if the accused was intimate with his companion? When they went to his room, I suppose they could have been playing gin rummy or discussing poetry.

Liebman: You can't attack the character of the accused by innuendo, Gurney.

Gurney: What character? You think they were playing gin rummy? Morlock knew what he was getting into and I'm proving it.

Cameron: We will have no more of this bickering. Counsel will address his remarks to the Court.

The Commonwealth of Ma.s.sachusetts vs. Alvin Morlock. Re-cross-examination of Thomas Dodson.

Louise Palaggi had rejected Morlock on the night of their first meeting only after careful consideration of the effect of such a rejection, and not out of any particular repugnance at his drunkenness. Within ten minutes of his approach to her table, she had decided that he was adequate for her purposes. He was personally presentable, which was a plus. He had a secure job with a reasonable income--she supposed that professors made reasonable incomes. More than that, she became aware of an odd liking for him, a tenderness aroused by his false boldness in striking up an acquaintance. The kind of boldness she was accustomed to was by no means false. She would have to be careful, though. He was sensitive. Quiet, studious. He would be studious, being a professor, according to the fat one, Dodson. Dodson was trouble, though. She would have to wean Morlock away from Dodson; who was noisy and a drunkard but who would certainly not be fooled by Louise Palaggi; he would never stand quietly by while Morlock married her.

While Morlock was still coherent she had invited him to Christmas dinner, a gamble that was partly forced on her. If they went to any dance or night club on Federal Hill she would be greeted with a familiarity that would undoubtedly alarm Morlock. The gamble had its advantages. Morlock was cultured, educated. She was neither but she could surround herself with the trappings of both and let him draw his own conclusions while she kept quiet and let him speak.

The next day she cleaned house, with her father happily puttering after her. There were very few books in the house, and books, to her, were the very symbol of education. Dominick had a library card; he used it to borrow Westerns occasionally. She used the card to draw half a dozen books from the library, making her selection from a catalogue on the library bulletin board listing the great cla.s.sics of the century and adding a book of collected poems. All the books except the poetry volume she left in the living room; that one she took to her bedroom.

Music, too, was culture, and here she had weapons of her own. She had been brought up in a home where arias were sung before breakfast; she had absorbed Verdi and Rossini with the air she breathed when this had been a happy house. Old Attilio had records of a great many of the operas, and Dominick had bought the old man a good record player.

There remained the matter of dinner. She solved it by buying steaks and a packaged salad. They would have wine, of course; there was plenty of it in the house.

The final problem was her father. Dominick was out of town and the other brothers were married and living in homes of their own. She could send the old man to spend the night with any of them or she could let him stay, which would be more in keeping with the impression of chasteness that she wished to create. She studied him objectively. He was withered and old, but with his immaculate white mustache and his silky white hair he was not undistinguished looking. Nothing to be ashamed of. And he could be an a.s.set in conversation if the talk turned--and she would see that it did--to music. Early enough she could send him off to bed.

On Christmas day she bathed and dressed carefully. She put on a new girdle that bound her thickening hips and stomach--and after some thought took it off again. In case it became necessary to use her ultimate weapon, she wanted her body to seem soft and desirable. She put on a black dress that accented her white skin and complemented her thick black hair.

She had an alert mind and a retentive memory when she chose to use them. When she was dressed she picked up the volume of poems and rimed the pages until she found one that appeared to be shorter than most of the others. She lit a cigarette and began reading the poem half aloud. When she had finished it, she read it again, glancing away from the page from time to time. At the end of an hour she could recite it verbatim from memory.

She memorized the name of the poet and looked in the table of contents for additional poems by him; the names of these she also memorized. She looked at the clock on her dresser. It was six o'clock. She was thoroughly bored with the poem but she could relax. She did not delude herself that she could carry on the deception for long. She did not intend that it should take long. She had already decided that she would marry Morlock, and she had dedicated herself to the project with all the skill she had.

Morlock threaded his way along sidewalks still crowded with displays of Christmas trees and greenery. A light snow was falling and carols echoed from loudspeakers in a dozen cafes. He had started out to keep his appointment with Louise Palaggi primarily from a sense of obligation--she had been very understanding--secondarily from a desire to escape Dodson who had, in his own words, scored with the woman he had picked up at the dance, and who was at this moment happily getting ready to go out with Snapper and try to duplicate the feat. Morlock could barely remember what Louise looked like. Now, with the old familiar nostalgia of the carols in his ears, he was rather happy that he actually had a date; that he would spend an evening with a woman who apparently liked him and who was obviously not cheap. Hadn't she refused him her body? Still, he felt a faint embarra.s.sment at the prospect of facing her after the episode in the hotel room.

The Palaggi house was high and square and homely with its icing of fretwork--a three-decker, they called such houses on Federal Hill. There was a lamp in the window with a red silk shade. It made a warm glow in the darkness. Morlock rang the bell and Louise Palaggi opened the door.

"You're just on time," she said.

Morlock stamped his feet to rid them of loose snow and followed her into the house, making some inane comment about the weather.

Louise took his coat and introduced him to her father, trying at the same time to put him at ease. She asked the old man if he wouldn't play some records, knowing that he would play some of his operas. Culture. She excused herself to bring wine and again to start dinner so that Morlock's impression was that she was a domestic woman making a fuss over him.

He was naive, but not a fool. Looking about the room he saw the books, recognized the second-hand look of library property and glanced at the library form in the back of several of the books which showed that they had been withdrawn that same day. A score or a hundred students had tried variations of the same strategy. Morlock, recognizing the transparent little scheme, found it touching and pathetic rather than sneaking and hypocritical, and he was rather nattered that she had gone to such lengths to make a good impression on him. (He was to wonder, much later, if she had actually antic.i.p.ated this reaction, if she had plotted such a double trap.) She wasted little time, when dinner was over, in sending the old man off to bed. She had managed, by this time, to augment the impression planted the night she met Morlock that she had spent most of her youth caring for her father. Old Attilio, dazed with happiness at the sudden warmth in this cold and empty house, left them willingly enough.

When they were alone in the living room, she came over to sit beside him on the lumpy old couch. The lamp with the red shade was at her left shoulder. It softened the lines of her face and flattered her; she was conscious of this. Morlock, watching her as she crossed the room, was aware of the womanliness of her body. He was by now full of a sense of well-being and he felt sorry for Dodson who was undoubtedly drunk by this time.

"About the other night," he said. "I hope you weren't offended."

She was surprised again by her own tenderness for Morlock. "Don't feel bad about it," she said. "You had a lot to drink. I suppose I asked for it, going up to your room with you like that. You must have thought I was pretty easy."

He protested that he hadn't thought anything of the kind.

Louise would have liked to keep the conversation revolving about what had happened that night because of the relations.h.i.+p it established; but she realized he actually meant it, that he was genuinely ashamed of his actions, and she s.h.i.+fted the subject adroitly.

"I'm sorry I couldn't have invited your friend tonight," she apologized. She added, after a swift a.n.a.lysis of Morlock's shame balanced against the certain factor that Dodson would not have been ashamed at all, "You don't seem at all like him." She left it hanging-. If Morlock wanted to make something of it, it was there.

She was growing more confident. What little self-conscious awe she had felt over the fact that he was a college graduate and a professional man had dissolved completely.

Morlock, caught between a vague sense of loyalty to Dodson and a human desire to accept the implied compliment, wavered. "We're not very great friends," he explained. "We both happened to have no plans for the holidays so we came in to Providence together." He felt somewhat a Judas, until he reflected that Dodson was probably quite happy with whatever he was doing at the moment.

After Dodson had been dismissed, Morlock found himself enjoying his date with Louise Palaggi immensely. She had spent her adult life catering to men; tougher men, more sophisticated men than Morlock whom she found very easy to please. When, after quite a lot of wine, he awkwardly put his arms around her she yielded briefly before she pulled away.

"It isn't that I don't want to, Al," she said. "We're both grown up. But I'm not cheap and I don't want you to think that I am."

Morlock was--later--more pleased than displeased by the refusal. Going back to the hotel when the evening was over, with his footstep* ringing in the cold air, he reflected that for all the pretense with the library books she was really very intelligent, very good company. And she had had to take care of the old man all these years. She, like himself, had missed something out of life.

In the days that followed he saw her almost constantly. He met her brother Dominick and had the impression that Dominick was being put on parade for his inspection. He liked Dominick, who had a reserve that matched his own. When the thought came to him that his company was being taken for granted, he was rather grateful for the sense of belonging.

They did not go out with Dodson and Rosie again. Morlock was embarra.s.sed about this but Dodson was unconcerned. "If you've got something lined up," he said, "good luck." He stopped laughing and said seriously, "Don't get in over your head, Al. Rosie's told me things about that Palaggi woman."

They spent most of their evenings in the living room. Dominick was seldom home and they had the crowded old room to themselves after the old man was sent off to bed. Morlock came to look forward to the long evenings, feeling pride in being eagerly welcomed, basking in the attention she paid him when he read to her.

Outside of the one poem which she had recited for him (she introduced it by saying, "This is my favorite, Al, by the author of..." just like a movie credit), she had nothing to contribute except her attention, but she made the most of this. She had a trick of resting her chin on her infolded hands and watching his face while he read or talked of what he had read. This, after the long years of bored and indifferent student audiences, was hardly short of intoxicating to Morlock, even while he guessed that her interest was at least partially a pose.

It even occurred to him from time to time that her objective almost had to be marriage. He did not run from the thought. It was almost enough to be wanted that much--on any terms.

Louise, after several evenings of this, was bored with Morlock's company in spite of her fondness for him. On New Year's Eve she sent him away early, letting him guess that she was sick. (He was shyly pleased with the delicate intimacy of the hinted revelation and the close relations.h.i.+p the very revelation itself implied.) He leftn feeling quite gallant. When he was safely gone, she changed her dress and called a cab. Far enough from Federal Hill she allowed herself to be picked up in a cafe and thereafter surrendered herself to drinking and to her companion with complete abandon. It was the last time, she promised herself. Afterward she would be faithful to Morlock. After they were married. It did not occur to her that he might not ask her.

Gurney: That will be all for now, Mr. Dodson.

Cameron: Does the defense wish to question witness further?

Liebman: Not at this time.

Gurney: We would now like to introduce two doc.u.ments which I will ask the Court to admit in evidence as exhibits A and B. I show them to counsel for the defense.

Liebman: I don't need to see them. I've already examined them.

Gurney: The doc.u.ments, Your Honor, are a true copy of a marriage certificate issued in East Providence, Rhode Island, on January 9 of this year and signed by valid witnesses including Thomas Dodson, and a copy of an insurance-- Liebman: Now wait a minute--they haven't been admitted as evidence yet. You can't read them out.

Cameron: Let me have them, Mr. Gurney.... Do you have any objection to their admission as evidence, Mr. Liebman?

Liebman: No. I just didn't like the way counsel tried to get them in.

Cameron: They will be marked as requested and admitted as evidence.

Gurney: I show them to the jury. They are a marriage certificate dated January 9 of this year and an application to the Dempster Insurance Company for a policy on the life of Louise Palaggi--Louise Morlock, that is--dated January 10. He didn't waste any time, did he?

Cameron: That comment will be stricken. Mr. Gurney, I will not tolerate another such aside.

The Commonwealth of Ma.s.sachusetts vs. Alvin Morlock. Introduction of doc.u.mentary evidence by Prosecution Attorney Gurney.

Morlock and Dodson drove back to Warfield, the small town in which Ludlow College was located, on New Year's Day. Morlock had made a tentative agreement with Louise to come to Providence on the following week-end. Dodson was glum and taciturn as he faced the prospect of four more months in the cla.s.sroom. Cla.s.ses began two days later.

Morlock was lonesome for the first few days after his return. His room seemed emptier, his evenings longer than they had been before meeting Louise Palaggi. Soon enough the loneliness slipped away and he was guiltily conscious that he had perhaps missed the solitude as much as the companions.h.i.+p. At the end of three days he had already begun to consider various excuses to prevent his going back to Providence on the weekend.

That night, his landlady met him as he came in the door. "You've got a visitor," she said. "I invited her to wait in your room." The landlady--she knew romance when she saw it--wore a conspiratorial smile.

Morlock muttered, "Thank you," and hurried to the stairs, uncertain as to whether he was happy or annoyed. The visitor, he was certain, could only be Louise.

She was waiting inside the room. When Morlock entered, she ran to him and threw herself against him. "I got lonesome for you, Al," she said. "Are you glad I came?"

He remembered to put his arms around her. He was very glad, he told her; he told himself.

Louise had half expected that Morlock would call her during the early part of the week; when he did not she knew that she had overestimated the pull of her s.e.x and that Morlock would probably cancel their date for the week-end. She had been, she decided, a shade too hard to get, and there remained only one thing to do. She would remind Morlock that she was a woman and that he was a man.

Morlock had planned to spend the evening correcting term papers. Now he hastily changed his plans. He called Dodson and arranged to borrow his car. He took Louise to dinner and a movie and drove her back to Providence. When they got out of Dodson's old car, she took his hand and said, "Come on in, Al."

When she had hung their coats in a closet she came and sat beside him on the couch. He was aware of the woman softness of her body, and he was convinced now that he had been glad to see her, convinced that he really had been lonely. When he reached for her she came into his arms with an eagerness that matched his own. The night dissolved in a warm bath of s.e.x.

They were married five days later by a Justice of the Peace in East Providence. Dodson stood up for Morlock. Morlock would have liked to have asked the austere Paul Martin, whom he considered a closer friend than Dodson, but he had hesitated out of fear that Martin would not approve of Louise. Louise Palaggi stood alone. Morlock had supposed that there would be a rather elaborate wedding with a traditional Italian reception to follow. Louise explained that since she was marrying him, a non-Catholic, her family chose not to come. He was just as pleased, he told her, and half meant it.

Morlock approached the ceremony with a sort of tender determination. He did not love Louise. She had none of the qualities he had supposed he would look for in a wife. Still, she had an Old World approach to marriage. She would make a home for the two of them. If she was unlike him in intellect, she was like him in that she was alone and lonely. They would make an enduring marriage, he determined, and was a little embarra.s.sed by his own feeling of n.o.bility.

More than any other emotion, Louise felt a warm sense of security. She was a solid married woman with nothing to fear. She would be a good wife. She would cook Morlock's meals and keep his house clean. Even while she thought this, she had the feeling that they were children playing with dolls and that the whole thing was a game.

On the following day, Morlock, a tidy man in his personal and business habits, stopped at the Bursar's office to report his marriage'. After the ritual flurry of congratulations by the girls working in the office, a heavy set man with a jovial face approached him.

"I'm Ed Hale," the man said. "I handle the insurance or the college. You'll want to increase your own insurance now, and we've got this little family policy that the college helps out with."

"I was going to take care of that later," Morlock said, wanting time to think about it.

"It won't take a minute," Hale said. He went on, bludgeoning Morlock, scenting a commission of a few dollars.

Morlock, already embarra.s.sed by the very nature of his errand to the office, signed the application hurriedly and rushed away.

Chapter 6.

Gurney: Your name is Anna Carofano?

Mrs. Carofano: That is my name.

Gurney: Are you married?

Mrs. Carofano: Not any more. My husband died three years ago.

Gurney: And you presently operate a rooming house in Warfield, Ma.s.sachusetts. Is that correct?

Mrs. Carofano: More of the tenement than a rooming house. I've got three tenements in the building, not just rooms to rent.

Gurney: I see. Were you acquainted with the deceased?

Mrs. Carofano: You mean, did I know Louise Morlock? Sure, I knew her.

Liebman: If it please the Court, the defense will stipulate that the accused and his wife maintained a residence as man and wife in the tenement house belonging to Mrs. Carofano as of January 13 of this year.

Cameron: Mr. Gurney?

Gurney: We'll go along with the stipulation. Mrs. Carofano, would you say that they were happy while they were living in your house?

Liebman: Objection, Your Honor. The answer would be argumentative.

Cameron: I think in this case that the witness is reasonably qualified to express an opinion. I think we will let the question stand, Mr. Liebman. Do you wish an exception?

Liebman: No.

Mrs. Carofano: I don't know if he was happy or not. She wasn't.

Gurney: She told you that she wasn't?

Mrs. Carofano: Sure. A lot of times. He'd come home at night and read a book. She said he never talked to her unless they were having a fight.

Gurney: Did they quarrel frequently?

Mrs. Carofano: Sometimes it would be every night. Then, for a while they'd get along a little better. He was always criticizing her, the way she cooked, the way she kept house. And he never took her anywhere. She said he thought he was too good for her just because he was a teacher at the college.

Liebman: Your Honor, hasn't this gone far enough?

Cameron: I think the testimony is becoming irrelevant, Mr. Gurney.

Gurney: Yes, sir. Now, Mrs. Carofano, did the accused ever, to your knowledge, strike his wife?

Mrs. Carofano: I don't know if he did or not. I do know that more than once she was afraid to go home.

The Commonwealth of Ma.s.sachusetts vs. Alvin Morlock. Direct Testimony of Anna Carofano.

Morlock and his new wife moved into a hotel for the first few days of their marriage. It was agreed that Louise--Lolly, she liked him to call her--would find an apartment that they could afford. On the fourth night Morlock came home to the hotel to find her dressed and waiting.