Mary Clark - Let Me Call You Sweetheart

When she peeked out the side window she saw the neatly dressed man standing on the top step. He saw her and held up a badge identifying him as an FBI agent. “FBI, ma’am. Would you please open the door so I can talk to you?”

Nervously, Maddie opened the door. Now she stood inches from the badge showing the unmistakable FBI seal and identifying picture of the agent.

“Good afternoon, ma’am. I’m FBI agent Milton Rose. I don’t mean to startle or upset you, but it’s very important that I speak with you about Mr. Jason Arnott. You are his housekeeper, aren’t you?”

“Sir, I don’t know any Mr. Arnott. This house is owned by Mr. Nigel Grey, and I’ve worked for him for many years. He’s due here this afternoon, in fact he should be here shortly. And I can tell you right now-I am under strict orders not to ever let anyone in this house without his permission.”

“Ma’am, I’m not asking to come in. I don’t have a search warrant. But I still need to talk to you. Your Mr. Grey is really Jason Arnott, whom we suspect has been responsible for dozens of burglaries involving fine art and other valuable items. He might even be responsible for the murder of a congressman’s elderly mother, who may have surprised him during the burglary of her home.”

“Oh my God,” Maddie gasped. Certainly Mr. Grey had always been completely a loner here, but she had just assumed that this Catskill home was where he escaped to for privacy and relaxation. She now realized that he might well have been “escaping” here for very different reasons.

Agent Rose went on to describe to her many of the stolen pieces of art and other items that had disappeared from homes where Arnott had previously attended social functions. Sadly, she confirmed that virtually all of these items were in this house. And, yes, the miniature oval blue frame encrusted with seed pearls, with a woman’s picture in it, was on his night table.

“Ma’am, we know that he will be here soon. I must ask you to come with us. I’m sure you didn’t know what was happening, and you’re not in any trouble. But we are going to make a telephone application for a search warrant so that we can search Mr. Arnott’s home and arrest him.”

Gently, Agent Rose led the bewildered Maddie to the waiting car.

“I can’t believe this,” she cried. “I just didn’t know.”

At twelve-thirty, a frightened Martha Luce, who for twenty years had been bookkeeper to James Forrest Weeks, sat twisting a damp handkerchief as she cowered in the office of U.S. Attorney Brandon Royce.

The sworn statement she had given to Royce months ago had just been read back to her.

“Do you stand by what you told us that day?” Royce asked as he tapped the papers in his hand.

“I told the truth as far as I knew it to be the truth,” Martha told him, her voice barely above a whisper. She cast a nervous sidelong glance at the stenotypist and then at her nephew, a young attorney, whom she had called in a panic when she learned of the successful search of Barney Haskell’s home.

Royce leaned forward. “Miss Luce, I cannot emphasize strongly enough how very serious your position is. If you continue to lie under oath, you do so at your own peril. We have enough to bury Jimmy Weeks. I’ll lay out my cards. Since Barney Haskell has unfortunately been so abruptly taken from us, it will be helpful to have you as a living witness”-he emphasized the word “living”-“to corroborate the accuracy of his records. If you do not, we will still convict Jimmy Weeks, but then, Miss Luce, we will turn our full attention to you. Perjury is a very serious offense. Obstructing justice is a very serious offense. Aiding and abetting income tax evasion is a very serious offense.”

Martha Luce’s always timid face crumbled. She began to sob. Tears that immediately reddened her pale blue eyes welled and flowed. “Mr. Weeks paid every single bill when Mama was sick for such a long time.”

“That’s nice,” Royce said. “But he did it with taxpayers’ money.”

“My client has a right to remain silent,” the nephew/attorney piped up.

Royce gave him a withering glance. “We’ve already established that, counselor. You might also advise your client that we’re not crazy about putting middle-aged women with misguided loyalties in prison. We’re prepared, this one-and only this one-time, to offer total immunity to your client in exchange for full cooperation. After that, she’s on her own. But you remind your client”-here Royce’s voice was heavy with sarcasm-“that Barney Haskell waited so long to accept a plea bargain offer that he never got to take it.”

“Total immunity?” the nephew/lawyer asked.

“Total, and we’ll immediately put Ms. Luce in protective custody.

We don’t want anything to happen to her.”

“Aunt Martha… “the young man began, his voice cracking.

She stopped sniffling. “I know, dear. Mr. Royce, perhaps I always suspected that Mr. Weeks…”

The news that a cache had been found in a hidden safe in Barney Haskell’s summer home was, to Bob Kinellen, the death knell of any hope of getting Jimmy Weeks an acquittal. Even Kinellen’s father-in-law, the usually unruffleable Anthony Bartlett, was clearly beginning to concede the inevitable.

On this Tuesday morning, U.S. Attorney Royce had requested and been granted that the lunch recess be extended an hour. Bob suspected what that maneuver meant. Martha Luce, a defense witness, and one of their most believable because of her timid, earnest demeanor, was being leaned on.

If Haskell had made a copy of the books he had kept, Luce’s testimony swearing to the accuracy of Jimmy’s records was probably being held as a weapon over her head.

If Martha Luce turned prosecution witness in exchange for immunity, it was all over.

Bob Kinellen sat silently looking at every possible thing in the room other than his client. He felt a terrible weariness, like a weight crushing him, and he wondered at what moment it had invaded him. Thinking back over the recent days, he suddenly knew. It was when I delivered a threat concerning my own child, he said to himself. For eleven years he had been able to keep to the letter of the law. Jimmy Weeks had the right to a defense, and his job was to keep Jimmy from getting indicted. He did it by legal means. If other means were also being used, he did not know nor did he want to know about them.

But in this trial he had become part of the process of circumventing the law. Weeks had just told him the reason he’d insisted on having Mrs. Wagner on the jury: She had a father in prison in California. Thirty years ago he had murdered an entire family of campers in Yosemite National Park. He knew he intended to hold back the information that juror Wagner had a father in prison and make that part of Weeks’ appeal. He knew, too, that was unethical. Skating on thin ice was over. He had gone beyond that. The burning shame he had felt when he heard Robin’s stricken cry as he struggled with Kerry still seared him. How Kerry explained that to Robin? Your father was passing along a threat his client made about you? Your father’s client was the man who ordered some bum to terrify you last week?

Jimmy Weeks was terrified of prison. The prospect of being locked up was unbearable to him. He would do anything to avoid it.

It was obvious that Jimmy was wildly upset. They had lunch in a private room of a restaurant a few miles from the courtroom. After the orders were taken, Jimmy said abruptly, “I don’t want any talk about plea bargaining from you two. Understand?”

Bartlett and Kinellen waited without responding.

“In the jury room, I don’t think we can count on the wimp with the sick wife not to buckle.”