Evan Hunter - Lizzie

She staggered for an instant, almost falling, remembering again the bees everywhere around them in the grass, waiting. Her nightdress dropped whisperingly to the ground. Alison kissed her again. She stood naked and still in the sunshine, her arms limp at her sides as Alison, gently insistent now, found her breasts again, and molded them, delicately caressing the nipples so that they puckered as they had in the water yesterday. Trembling in Alison’s embrace, she felt herself being lowered to her knees, and then to the grass where they lay naked side by side, she trembling more violently now, Alison’s arms around her, her mouth recklessly upon her own, her tongue incessantly probing. She was not sure whether she thought no again, or actually whispered it. She twisted, freed her arms, threw them wide as if in supplication, and then pulled them back when she became aware again of the buzzing of the bees everywhere around them. She did not know what to do with her arms or her hands.

She felt Alison’s tongue gliding over her chin and her neck and the hollow of her throat, trailing liquidly to find her nipples and her breasts. She strained toward the flicking tongue, cupping her breasts in her hands, offering them to Alison’s passion, writhing beneath her, surrendering her threatened nipples — they would surely burst under the onslaught of that savage tongue, she would swoon away and die! She released her breasts abruptly, her hands wildly grasping, her fingers tangling into Alison’s golden hair, pulling her head tighter against her.

Their legs moved, thighs touching tentatively, parting, inexorably entwining, Alison’s limbs becoming her own, Alison’s hand behind her seeking, Alison’s womanhood pressing toward hers, backs arching, gold against russet below, crisply entangled, silvery moist when suddenly they joined. She heard, or thought she heard, the distant murmur of a surging sea, and the sound grew louder and louder, tumultuous and stormy, and she felt a rush of such powerful intensity where Alison moved against her below, her fingers entreating mercilessly from behind, that now she knew for certain she would die. Her eyes opened wide in terror and anticipation, the sun blinding her. She felt herself crumbling, crumbling in Alison’s fierce embrace, yielded in fear and quivering delight to Alison’s mouth and fingers and relentless thrust until at last and mindlessly she screamed aloud, and screamed again rather than explode to smithereens.

She sighed deeply then, and closed her eyes against the sun, arms and legs akimbo, Alison above her, their clinging bodies wet with perspiration, she and she. Still throbbing uncontrollably below, she lifted her face to the kisses raining softly on the corners of her mouth and the tip of her nose and her closed eyes and her tear-stained cheeks.

“May it please the Court,” Robinson said, “it is not the question today whether in this court from time to time the proper and salutary rule may or may not have been departed from. Your Honors are to inquire today whether, if there have been any such departures, they have been rightly taken. I want to say that in a question of this great moment, where the life of this defendant is involved, this Court will not, I trust, take any possible chances resting upon passing decision made in the heat of a trial. We stand today upon the right of this defendant at this hour. And I should be unjust in my opinion of this Court if I did not know that whatever has been said or done upon so important a question as this one before us, that it would have no effect unless it had received the sanction of the highest judicial tribunal of the Commonwealth.

“Now, in order to ascertain where the defendant stands confronting the Commonwealth, we must not lose sight of the exact facts that are before this Court. I have taken the trouble to prepare a brief, a copy of which I now hand to the Court and to the counsel for the Government, presenting the facts — clearly, I hope, and correctly. Let us look those over, to see upon what ground we argue the question involved.

“First: these homicides were committed on August fourth, 1892.

“Second: the accusation of these crimes against the defendant was made by the Mayor and the City Marshal on August sixth, 1892, which was Saturday, the second day after the crimes were committed.

“Third: the defendant was kept under constant observation of the police during August sixth, 1892, and all days following until the conclusion of defendant’s testimony and arrest. And there I wish to amplify a little to say that the house was surrounded by the police of the city — we must assume, under the direction of the chief officer of the police force — and it appears also by the evidence that there was no time, day or night, when the eye of the police department was not on this defendant and on all other inmates of the house.

“Fourth: complaint was made and warrant placed in the hands of the city marshal on or before Monday, August eighth, 1892. Your Honors will see by the agreed statement of facts that complaint was duly made, charging her with the murder of these people, on the eighth of August, which was before she testified.

“Fifth: the defendant was summoned on or before August ninth, 1892, by subpoena, to appear and testify at the inquest.

“Sixth: before testifying, the defendant made request for counsel at the inquest, and said request was denied, and counsel were not present. Counsel for the Commonwealth — the district attorney — conducted her examination before the inquest. She alone, a woman three days unguided by her counsel, confronted with the district attorney, watched by the city marshal, surrounded by the police.

“Seventh: the defendant, before testifying, was not properly cautioned. That is agreed to.

“Eighth: before the defendant testified, it had been duly determined — by complaint made and warrant issued — that defendant had committed the crime of killing the two persons, the cause of whose death said inquest was held to ascertain. The significance of this is that, prior to her testifying, the fact was ascertained that a crime had been committed — in truth, that two crimes had been committed — so that the inquest was not to discover whether a crime had been committed or not, and its purpose was not to determine the fact of crime, but its use and power was devoted to extorting from this defendant something that could be used against her.

“See to what extent the Commonwealth, under the direction of the district attorney had gone. They had, under oath, sworn that she had done it and issued warrants for her arrest to the city marshal. And then, rather than to serve it and put her under the protection of the Constitution, they said, ‘We will take care of this in our pockets and we will find out what we can from this woman whom we have charged with committing murder. And if we can get anything from her, we will then put away that paper.’ Worse than burning a dress! ‘Put it away, and we will make up another paper later, against which proceeding the constitutional objection will not lie.’

“Now, I am aware that I am discussing a question of law now, and I am not talking to a jury. I trust that I may not have said more than I ought to say. If I do, it is the defendant that speaks to you, Your Honors, out of the fullness of her recognition and remembrance of what happened there in Fall River, out of a jealous regard for her right into which she was born.

“Ninth: the testimony of the defendant began on August ninth, 1892, and continued during August tenth and eleventh, 1892.

“Tenth: when the testimony of the defendant was concluded on the eleventh day of August, she was held, never allowed to depart, never free, always in fact a prisoner, and then arrested two hours later on a similar warrant. For convenience, somebody took care of the prior warrant — perhaps for the purpose of being able to say that she went later before the District Court upon a warrant which was issued subsequent to her testimony.