Mary Clark: Where are the children?

Jonathan had answered that he'd decided to buy a bicycle. 'I'd do it now,' he'd told Emily, 'but I'm afraid some of our clients might get upset if the word was around that I arrived at work on a ten-speeder.'

'And you'll try your hand at writing,' Emily had prodded. 'I sometimes wish you'd just taken a chance and done it years ago.'

'Never could afford to, married to you,' he'd said. 'The one-woman war against recession. All Fifth Avenue stays in the black when Mrs Knowles goes shopping.'

'It's your fault,' she'd retorted. 'You're always telling me to spend your money.'

'I like spending it on you,' he'd told her, 'and I have no complaints. I've been lucky.'

If only they'd had even a few years up here together… Jonathan sighed and hung up the dish towel. Seeing Nancy Eldredge and her children framed in the window this morning had vaguely depressed him. Maybe it was the weather or the long winter setting in, but he was restless, apprehensive. Something was bothering him. It was the kind of itch he used to get when he was preparing a brief and some facts just didn't jibe.

Well, he'd get to his desk. He was anxious to start working on the Harmon chapter.

He could have taken early retirement, he thought, as he walked slowly into his study. As it turned out, that was just what he had done anyway. The minute he lost Emily, he'd sold the New York apartment, put in his resignation, pensioned off Bertha and, like a dog licking its wounds, had come here to this house that they'd picked out together. After the first bleak grief, he'd found a measure of contentment.

Now writing the book was a fascinating and absorbing experience. When he'd gotten the idea for doing it, he had asked Kevin Parks, a meticulous free-lance researcher and old friend, to come up for a week-end. Then he had outlined his plan to him. Jonathan had selected ten controversial criminal trials. He'd proposed that Kev take on the job of putting together a file of all available material on those trials: court transcripts; depositions; newspaper accounts; pictures; gossip – anything he could find. Jonathan planned to study each file thoroughly and then decide how to write the chapter – either agreeing with the verdict or rejecting it, and giving his reasons. He was calling the book Verdict in Doubt.

He'd already finished three chapters. The first was called "The Sam Sheppard Trial'. His opinion: not guilty. Too many loopholes; too much suppressed evidence. Jonathan agreed with the Dorothy Kilgallen opinion that the jury had found Sam Sheppard guilty of adultery, not murder.

The second chapter was "The Cappolino Trial'. Marge

Farger, in his opinion, belonged in a prison cell with her former boy-friend.

The just-completed chapter was 'The Edgar Smith Trial'. Jonathan's view was that Edgar Smith was guilty but deserved his freedom. Fourteen years constituted a life sentence today, and he had rehabilitated and educated himself in a grisly cell on Death Row.

Now he sat down at his massive desk and reached into the file drawer for the thick cardboard folders that had arrived the previous day. They were labelled THE HARMON CASE.

A note from Kevin was stapled to the first envelope. It read:

Jon, I have a hunch you'll enjoy getting your teeth into this one. The defendant was a sitting duck for the prosecutor; even her husband broke down on the stand and practically accused her in front of the jury. If they ever locate the missing prosecution witness and try her again, she'd better have a stronger story than last time. The District Attorney's office out there knows where she is, but I couldn't get it from them; somewhere in the East is the best I can do.

Jonathan opened the file with the accelerating pulse that he always associated with the beginning of an interesting new case. He never allowed himself to do much speculating until he got the research all together, but his memory of this case when it was being tried six or seven years ago made him curious. He remembered how at that time just reading the trial testimony had left so many questions in his mind… questions he wanted to concentrate on now. He recalled that his overall impression of the Harmon case was the Nancy Harmon never had told all she knew about the disappearance of her children.

He reached into the folder and began to lay out the meticulously-labelled items on the desk. There were pictures of Nancy Harmon taken during her trial. She certainly was a pretty little thing with that waist-length hair. According to the papers she was twenty-five at the time the murders were committed. She looked even younger – not much more than a teenager. The dresses she wore were so youthful… almost childish… they added to the overall effect. Probably her attorney had suggested that she look as young as possible.

Funny, but ever since he'd started planning this book he'd felt that he'd seen that girl somewhere. He stared at the pictures in front of him. Of course. She looked like a younger version of Ray Eldredge's wife! That explained the nagging resemblance. The expression was totally different, but wouldn't it be a small world if there was some family relationship?

His eye fell on the first typewritten page which gave a rundown on Nancy Harmon. She had been born in California and raised in Ohio. Well, that let out any possibility of her being a close relative to Nancy Eldredge. Ray's wife's family had been neighbours of Dorothy Prentiss in Virginia.

Dorothy Prentiss. He felt a quick dart of pleasure at the thought of the handsome woman who worked with Ray. Jonathan often stopped by their office around five o'clock, when he picked up the evening paper, the Boston Globe. Ray had suggested some interesting land investments to him, and they had all proved sound. He'd also persuaded Jonathan to become active in the town, and as a result they'd become good friends.

Still, Jonathan realized that he went into Ray's office more often than necesary. Ray would say, 'You're just in time for an end-of-the-day drink' and call out to Dorothy to join them.

Emily had liked daiquiris. Dorothy always had Jonathan's favourite drink – a Rob Roy with a twist. The three of them would sit for a half hour or so in Ray's private office.

Dorothy had a penetrating humour that he enjoyed. Her family had been show-business people, and she had countless great stories about travelling with them. She'd planned a career too, but after three small parts Off Broadway she had got married and settled down in Virginia. After her husband died she'd come up to the Cape planning to open an interior-decorating shop, then had got started working with Ray. Ray said that Dorothy was a hell of a real-estate saleswoman. She could help people visualize the possibilities in a place, no matter how seedy it looked at first glance.

More and more often lately Jonathan had toyed with the idea of suggesting that Dorothy join him for dinner. Sundays were long, and a couple of Sunday afternoons recently he'd actually started to dial her number, then stopped. He didn't want to rush into getting involved with someone he'd run into constantly. And he just wasn't sure. Maybe she came on a little too strong for him. All those years of living with Emily's total femininity had made him somewhat unprepared for reacting on a personal level with a terribly independent woman.

God, what was the matter with him? He was so easily diverted into woolgathering this morning. Why was he letting himself get distracted from this Harmon case?

Resolutely he lit his pipe, picked up the file and leaned back in his chair. Deliberately he picked up the first batch of papers.

An hour and fifteen minutes passed. The silence was unbroken except for the ticking of the clock, the increasing insistence of the wind through the pines outside his window and Jonathan's occasional snort of disbelief. Finally, frowning in concentration, he laid the papers down and walked slowly to the kitchen to make coffee. Something smelled about that whole Harmon trial. From as much of the transcript as he'd read through so far it was evident that there was something fishy there… an undercurrent that made it impossible for the facts to hang together in any kind of reasonably cohesive way.