Everything to Gain and a Secret Affair (38 page)

“I'll take some of my vacation time.”

“But you were going to spend your variation out here with me, getting Indian Meadows ready,” I reminded her.

“I know, and I'd much prefer to do that. On the other hand, I couldn't stand it, knowing you were in court without me, even if your mother were with you. Anyway, what did David say?”

I told her quickly, then continued, “I feel funny about not being there, Sarah. Those youths are going to be on trial for the cold-blooded murder of Andrew and Lissa and Jamie, and I ought to be in that courtroom.”

Sarah did not speak for a moment or two. She sat thinking; eventually she said slowly, “I know you, Mal, and I know how your mind works, so I know you feel you should be present to see justice done. I'm right, aren't I?”

“Yes,” I admitted. “I want justice.”

“But whether you're there or not won't affect the verdict. The evidence against those guys is conclusive and overwhelming, Mal. According to everything DeMarco
has said, forensics has a make on the fingerprints found on the car, and ballistics on the gun. And then there's the confession of one of the youths. You know they're going to be found guilty and sentenced to life. There's no way out for them. So, if I'm truthful with you, I agree with David. I don't think you should go. You can't contribute anything, and it would be painful for you to bear.”

I said nothing, simply sat there looking at her, biting my lip worriedly.

Sarah went on, after a moment's reflection, “Why put yourself through it all over again?”

“I feel uneasy about
not
going . . .”

“You've been so much calmer since you came back from Yorkshire, and made such progress. I think it's important to forge ahead, to think about the project here, to get on with it. And listen, there's another thing . . . the press. Can you honestly cope with another media circus?”

I shook my head. “No, I couldn't.”

Sarah got up and walked to a window, then stood looking out. She was silent. I stared at her for a moment, noticing that she held herself rigidly; her shoulder blades protruded slightly under her thin cotton shirt. She was tense, worried; I knew her so well, as she knew me.

Leaning back in my chair, I closed my eyes, turning the whole thing over in my mind. Eventually I sat up and said quietly, “I just feel Andrew would want me to be in court.”

Swinging around to face me, Sarah exclaimed vehemently, “No, he wouldn't! That'd be the last thing he'd want! He would want you to take care of yourself, look to the future, do exactly what you
are
doing now. He'd hate you to cause yourself unnecessary heartache, Mal, he really would. Please believe me, there is nothing to be gained by going to that trial.”

“But you'd go with me, wouldn't you?”

“How could I let you go alone? But honestly, David knows what he's talking about. He's been a criminal lawyer all his life, he knows how horrendous these kinds of trials are; and then again, he cares about you, wants the best for you. I'd listen to him, if I were you.”

I nodded slowly and reached for the phone. I dialed my mother's apartment.

David answered. “Hello?”

“It's me,” I said in a subdued voice. “Sarah's here, David, and she agrees with you about the trial. I've made a decision, but I just wanted to ask you again . . . do you really think I shouldn't be there?”

“I do, Mal.”

“I've decided not to go.”

I caught a note of relief in his voice as he said, “Thank God. But there's something I should point out to you, something you may not know. You can be present for the sentencing, to make a statement to the judge, if you so wish, stating your feelings about the kind of sentence you think should be imposed on the criminals.”

“I didn't know that.”

“How could you? In any case, Mal, you may very well want to go to court at that time. And naturally I would come with you, and so would your mother. Think about it.”

“I will, David.”

“You made the right decision. I'll tell your mother, I know she's going to be pleased. Good night, honey.”

“Good night, David.”

I told Sarah what he had just said; she listened carefully as she always did, and then she went and sat down in the chair. Finally, she said, “Maybe you
should
go to the sentencing, Mal. Somehow that makes sense. Sitting through a trial, no. It would make you ill. But saying
your piece to the judge, expressing your loss, your pain, well, that's a whole different thing, isn't it?”

“It is. Maybe I'll do it,” I said. Then I got up and walked to the door. “Come on, Sash, I'll buy you a drink. I don't know about you, but I could really use one.”

O
nce I had made up my mind not to be present at the trial, I managed to push it to the back of my mind.

There was no point dwelling on it, since that served no good purpose and only tended to deflect me from my goal. This was forging ahead with the shops and the café at Indian Meadows.

Every day there was something new to keep me busy, yet another decision to be made, plans to be approved, additional merchandise to be ordered, labels to be manufactured, and countless other jobs.

There were times when I would stop in the middle of doing something and wonder at myself and all that had happened in two months.

I had come back from Yorkshire with the idea of opening a shop and a café, and everything had taken shape immediately. I had formed a company, applied to the town of Sharon for commercial zoning permits, borrowed money from my mother, my father, David, and Diana, and opened a business bank account.

They had all wanted to give me the money, to become my partners, but I had refused. I did not wish to have any partners, not even Sarah, who had also volunteered to be an investor.

I told them I would repay their money with interest, as soon as I could, and I had every intention of doing so.

Armed with my newly printed business cards and my checkbook, I had gone to the product showrooms in New York. Two were housed in a building on Fifth Avenue and another in one on Madison Avenue, and it was there that I found everything I needed for the kitchen shop. It was Sarah who had told me about these showrooms, pointing me in the right direction, explaining that I didn't have to travel to foreign countries to buy the merchandise for my different lines.

“You'll find the best of everything right there in Manhattan,” she had explained. “I talked to various buyers on the home floors at Bergman's, and they recommend these particular showrooms.” She had handed me the list and gone on, “You'll see from the notations next to each showroom that you can get French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish pottery, porcelains, and cookware, all that kind of stuff, and table linens as well. Everything you want for the tabletop, in fact.”

She had also told me that the International Gift Show was held twice a year in New York at the Jacob Javits Convention Center. “And there are other gift shows, held on the piers at the passenger-ship terminal on the Hudson. There's a wealth of American products as well as merchandise from all over the world.”

I felt as if I had walked across the world, the first day I went on a buying trip to Manhattan.

I covered every one of the showrooms on Sarah's long list, and I thought I had lost my feet by the end of the day.

In fact, I was so exhausted by four o'clock that I took a cab up to my mother's apartment, where I promptly collapsed. Even after a rest and dinner with her and David, I hadn't had the strength to drive to Sharon. Since I no
longer had an apartment in New York, I spent the night in my old room.

I drove back to Indian Meadows the following morning, feeling that I had accomplished miracles on my first buying trip.

Eric stood poised in the doorway of my studio. “Am I interrupting you, Mal?” he asked.

“No, it's okay, come on in,” I replied, putting down the watercolor I was holding. “I'm just trying to sort through these paintings. Sarah's going to take them to that good frame shop in New Preston this afternoon, and I was just trying to select twenty of the best ones to begin with.”

He came and stood looking over my shoulder at the watercolors, which I had spread out on the table. After a moment studying them, he said, “They're all beautiful, Mal, it's hard to choose.”

“They're not bad, are they?” I said, glancing at him. “But you look as if you're bursting to tell me something, so come on, what is it?”

“They all want to come and work for us, Mal!” Eric exclaimed, grinning broadly. “Billy Judd, Agnes Fairfield, and Joanna Smith. So I thought I'd hire 'em, if that's all right with you.”

“Of course it is, Eric. We're going to need three people at the very least. We may even have to take on another two helpers later.”

“Billy wants to work with me, serving in the café and the food shop. Joanna Smith is in love with the idea of selling beautiful things for beautiful dining, so she could run the shop upstairs in the new loft. Agnes had wanted to be in the boutique, but I told her that was Anna's territory, and so she's agreed to handle the Kilgram Chase Gallery. It's worked out well, hasn't it?”

“It has indeed, thanks to you. I assume they agreed to the money we're paying.”

Eric nodded. “Oh, yes, no problem, and they're all prepared to stay in their current jobs, starting with us in October.”

“Good. That gives us six months to get everything ready for the opening in spring of 1990. There's a lot to do, though. What do you think, Eric? Can we manage to unpack all of the products, get price tags on everything, and put the merchandise on display in that amount of time?”

“I think so.”

“I'll discuss it with Sarah later, just to be sure. But originally she did tell me to set aside three months just to deal with the merchandise.”

“It's not putting the price tags on that's the problem,” Eric volunteered. “It's making attractive displays of everything. Sarah says that's very important.”

“Crucial,” I agreed. “But she has promised to come out here and supervise us, you know.”

He grinned at me.

I handed him a collection of watercolors. “Do you mind helping me with these, Eric?”

“My pleasure, Mal.”

I picked up a second pile of my paintings, and together we left the studio.

It was a boiling-hot July morning, and as we left the air-conditioned studio, a blast of warm air almost knocked me over. “It's terribly hot today,” I muttered, glancing up at the hazy sky and the brilliant sun already breaking through the clouds.

“It's going to be a real scorcher by noon,” Eric commented.

“The sign for the gate is going to be ready tomorrow,” I told him as we walked toward the house. “One of
Tom's carpenters has made it, and he's bringing it over. Then I can paint the background and our name on it:
Indian
Meadows:
A Country Experience.
In the meantime, let's go and find Sarah.”

“She's in the kitchen, sticking her nose into all of Nora's bubbling pots. She doesn't know which jam to try first. And every time Nora gives her a new one to taste, she declares it's her favorite.”

Eric had spoken the truth.

I found Sarah with Nora in front of the stove, taking small samplings of her jams and putting them on a plate.

“What do you aim to do with all of that?” I asked as I walked through the kitchen, heading for my little office at the back of the house.

“Eat it, of course,” Sarah said. “On these two slices of homemade bread, also courtesy of dear Nora here. And I know, before you say it, Mal, I'll regret it later. And yes, my diet's gone to hell.”

W
hat I was about to do today would be difficult. But I knew it must be done, no matter what.

In a few hours I was going to stand up in a court of law and speak to the judge in the case brought by the district attorney against those who had killed my family.

I was going to tell the judge, the Honorable Elizabeth P. Donan, about Andrew and Jamie and Lissa and the pain their deaths had caused me. I was going to bare my soul to her and to everyone else who would be seated in that courtroom this morning.

And I was going to ask the judge to mete out the maximum penalty under the law. As David had said: This was my
right
as the victims' next of kin.

The four defendants had been found guilty of murder in the second degree after a trial which had lasted less than a week. There was obviously no doubt in the jurors' minds about their culpability. They had returned the guilty verdict within a couple of hours of going into deliberation.

Soon it would be my turn to say my piece, as David called it. He was going to be with me in criminal court in downtown Manhattan. So were my mother, my father, Diana, and Sarah.

Diana had flown in from London two days ago, after Detective DeMarco had given David the date the sentencing would be held; my father had arrived early yesterday evening from Mexico, where he was currently conducting a special archaeological project for the University of California.

Everyone wished to give me moral support; they also wanted to see justice done, as I did.

“Of course I'm going to be with you,” Diana had said when she had spoken to me on the phone from London over a week ago now. “It would be unthinkable for me not to be there. I lost my son and my grandchildren; I must be present. And your father feels the same way. I discussed it at length with him some time ago. This is about family, Mal, about a family standing together in a time of crisis, pain, and grief.”