A Season in Purgatory (46 page)

Valerie Sabbath, entering the courthouse with her staff and Jerry Bradley, stopped for a moment to listen to Maureen. “Will you get your sister the fuck out of there, Jerry,” she said, and walked on.

Maureen looked up and saw Jerry signaling to her. “What? What, Jerry? Oh, I think my brother is giving me the speed-up signal,” said Maureen. “Thank you so much for letting me speak. I just want to say that we are a very close family, and I wish all of you the gift of loyal family relationships.”

On the way into the courtroom, Maureen swanned past Charlotte and smiled sweetly. “Where’s Father Lynch? Has anyone seen Father Lynch? He was going to sit with us today.”

Outside the courthouse, leaning against the family station wagon in a leisurely fashion, Constant appeared to be waiting for someone. His new Testarossa was nowhere in sight. It remained on blocks in the twelve-car garage of the house in Southampton, locked away from public view as too expensive a toy to be understood by the masses. Women crowded around to look at him or snap his picture with their Instamatic cameras. He was fully aware that he was attracting everyone’s attention, that his presence was enough to astonish some people, mostly young women, but he was as much at ease as if he were leaning against the mantelpiece in his parents’ drawing room.

“Are you worried, Constant?” asked one young woman.

“Not for a minute. There is not a shred of truth to the absurd story, not a shred,” said Constant. He smiled at the assembled group, dazzling them, and enjoying their bedazzlement.
Each day, the crowd of women who cheered him when he entered and left the courtroom grew larger.

“Hello, Miss Maureen,” said the woman standing in the corridor outside the courtroom.

“Hellohowareyou,” replied Maureen, walking on without stopping. “Who was that woman who just spoke to me? She looked familiar.”

“That was the first Colleen, years ago. Remember her? Ma could never get her to serve the right way. She’d pass from the right, instead of the left. She couldn’t get it straight no matter how many times Ma went over it with her,” said Mary Pat.

“What’s she doing here? Sightseeing?” asked Maureen.

“Jerry said she’s an unfriendly witness. Jerry said she claims she heard Constant and Harrison talking outside her window that night. After all Ma did for her,” said Mary Pat.

“I always say, don’t get too friendly with the help. It has a way of backfiring. Haven’t you noticed that? Be polite to them. That’s what I tell my children. Always be polite, but don’t go any further,” said Maureen. “They take advantage every time.”

On the first day of the trial, Judge Edda Consalvi disallowed, without comment, the testimony of Louise Somerset Belmont and Maud Firth. There were gasps in the courtroom. In the newsroom, where the press was assembled, there were moans. Reporters used to covering trials understood what that meant. If the prosecution could not establish a pattern of behavior on the defendant’s part, it remained only for the defense to establish a reasonable doubt to guarantee an acquittal.

Valerie Sabbath was happy with the ruling. She preened at the defense table and patted Constant’s hand affectionately. During the morning recess, she took Senator Sandro
Bradley up to the bench to introduce him to Judge Consalvi. The judge, normally taciturn, rose in her seat and leaned forward to shake hands with the handsome senator. “What a great pleasure, Senator,” she said.

“Please state your name,” said the bailiff.

“Bridey Gafferty.”

“Raise your right hand.”

“It’s raised. It’s as far up as it goes. I’ve got a little rheumatism.”

“Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?”

“I do.”

“Is it Miss or Mrs. Gafferty?” asked Bert Lupino.

“Miss.”

“Would you mind stating your age?”

“I would, yes,” said Bridey.

There was laughter in the courtroom.

“All right. Will you tell us how you are employed, Miss Gafferty.”

“I am the cook for Mr. and Mrs. Gerald Bradley.”

“At which of the Bradley residences do you work?”

“I travel with the Bradleys. I work at the house in Scarborough Hill, the house in Southampton, the house in Beverly Hills, and sometimes, not always, at the apartment in New York.”

“Will you tell us how long you have been employed in the Bradley home, Miss Gafferty?”

“Oh, bless me, let me see. How long has it been now? I came to the house right after Mr. Constant over there was born. He was still a wee one in his diapers.”

“In years, Miss Gafferty,” said Bert Lupino.

“Oh, thirty-five, thirty-six, something like that. It’s not a thing I go addin’ up every day, sir.”

“You were employed at the Bradley mansion, then, on the night of April thirtieth, 1973?”

“I suppose I was, yes, sir. I don’t remember the dates like that, but I suppose I was.”

“On this floor plan of the Bradley mansion, will you point out to us where your room is?”

“Yes, sir. There’s the kitchen, here. To the left of the kitchen, there’s the maids’ dinin’ room, with the TV and the comfortable chairs for sittin’ in the afternoons after the luncheon dishes are done and before it’s time to start settin’ up for the evening meal. Through the door there is the cook’s room, sir, my room, as it’s been for thirty years or more.”

“When you are in your room, are you able to hear conversations in the maids’ dining room?”

“Oh, yes. If the girls get too loud, I’m out there in a jiffy to shut them up. You never know if Missus is sleeping upstairs or somethin’. We don’t want to disturb Missus, you know.”

“When you are in your room, are you able to hear conversations in the kitchen?”

“Yes, sir.”

“On the night of April thirtieth, 1973, or, to be more specific, in the early morning of May first, 1973, did you hear a conversation between two men in the kitchen?”

“I recall no such thing, no.”

“A conversation between Mr. Constant, as you call Constant Bradley, and Mr. Harrison Burns, who was a guest of Constant Bradley at the time?”

“No, I don’t remember nothin’ like that. Nothin’ particular. The kids in the house sometimes came down to the kitchen in the wee hours to raid the fridge, after their parties, and leave a terrible mess for me to clean up in the morning. Eggs out, half bottles of milk out—like that.”

“Did you not call out to ask who was there?”

“I don’t recall, sir. I don’t think so.”

“At two in the morning? The boys were undressing. The boys were putting their bloody clothes and shoes in a garbage bag from under the sink.”

“Objection,” called out Valerie Sabbath. “Conjecture. Leading the witness.”

“Sustained.”

“You did not call out to the boys to ask who was there?”

“No, I don’t recall no such thing. Harrison was such a lovely boy in those days. What a nice friendship those two boys had. He was a scholarship boy, and they was all so good to him in the family.”

“You did not say, ‘Who’s out there?’ ”

“I doubt it. I fall asleep once my head hits the pillow, and I don’t wake until six, when I get up to take Missus to early-morning Mass at Saint Martin of Tours.”

“No further questions,” said Bert Lupino.

“I have no questions, Your Honor,” said Valerie Sabbath.

“You may step down, Miss Gafferty,” said Judge Consalvi.

“Thank you, Your Honor.”

On that day Honour and Thelma and Count Stamirsky, Grace’s friends from Southampton, appeared in the courtroom.

“Wasn’t Bridey sweet?” said Honour.

“A
dor
able,” said Thelma. “And such a dream of a cook. I’ll never forget her fig mousse.”

Smartly dressed, they looked on their day in court as an adventure, something they would pass on to their friends at a dinner party in New York later that evening. They waved
at family members from their spectator seats on the side, gave seemingly rapt attention to the witnesses of the day, and entertained the sisters with gossip during the breaks. “She’s such a hooker,” said Thelma, talking about an unnamed person known to them all. “All that he has to do is dangle another diamond bracelet in front of her and she looks the other way about the little boys.” Shrieks of laughter could be heard coming from the room where the family sat. When the television news reporters descended on these new faces, they were happy to state their opinions on the case.

“The whole trial is simply
too
ridiculous,” said Honour.

“It’s a travesty of justice,” said Thelma. When asked to identify themselves, Thelma quickly said, “Just say we’re old family friends who’ve come here for the day to buck up the spirits of the Bradleys.”

“Mr. Wadsworth, you were dancing with Winifred Utley at the junior club dance that night?”

“Yes.”

“What was the age group of the dance?”

“Fourteen to sixteen.”

“Was Mr. Constant Bradley at the dance?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know why, but he was past the age of those at the dance.”

“Yet he came in to the dance, although he was not at the dance?”

“Yes.”

“Did Mr. Bradley dance with Winifred Utley?”

“Yes.”

“Did Mr. Bradley say anything to Miss Utley that you remember from that evening?”

“Yes.”

“Will you tell the court what Mr. Bradley said?”

“Objection,” said Valerie Sabbath. “Hearsay.”

“It is not hearsay, Your Honor. It was said in the presence of the witness,” retorted Bert Lupino.

“Objection overruled,” said Judge Consalvi.

“Will you tell the court what Mr. Bradley said?” Lupino repeated.

“He said, ‘Do you mind dancing with a man with an erection?’ ”

“I have no further questions. Thank you, Mr. Wadsworth.”

I passed Bridey in the garage under the courthouse. She was driving out in her old Pontiac, the one she used for grocery shopping. She lowered the window and looked both ways before speaking to me.

“I’m sorry, Harrison. You had to understand. I did what I had to do. God spare me.”

“Of course, I understand, Bridey.”

“I can’t talk to you, you know.”

“I know.”

“I mean, ever.”

“I know. It’s okay, Bridey.”

“I’ll never forget that tip you gave me.”

“I wish you hadn’t given it back.”

“Good-bye, now.”

“Your car’s getting old, Bridey. They ought to buy you a new one.”

“It’s good enough for the likes of me.”

Being a witness, I was not allowed in the courtroom except when I was testifying, but I was in the courthouse each day, available for consultation, hidden away in the prosecutor’s office, a floor below the courtroom, where a television
monitor had been set up for me to watch the proceedings. Each morning I drove my car to an indoor parking lot two blocks from the courthouse. There I was met by an assistant from the prosecutor’s office, who drove me to the underground garage beneath the courthouse in order to escape the phalanx of photographers, reporters, and media personalities who congregated around the public entrances to the building, always ready to pounce on anyone connected with the proceedings.

There are tedious days in every trial, even one that had caught the imagination of the country the way this one had. The testimony of expert witnesses, for instance, can be deadly dull, time-consuming, and confusing to the jury. The Bradley defense team had hired a dozen or more. One afternoon, during the testimony of an expert who had analyzed the dirt and wood particles on the back of Winifred Utley’s pink party dress, I decided to leave early and go to visit Claire and my sons. At the end of the corridor, I pushed the Down button for the elevator. When the door opened, I walked inside. The door closed behind me before I noticed there was another person standing in the corner of the elevator. It was Kitt Bradley. For an instant we looked at each other. The elevator started down. Neither of us spoke. She went immediately to the buttons to stop the elevator so that she could get off. She pushed buttons wildly, one after the other. The elevator came to an abrupt stop, lurching a little, but the door did not open. Looking out the little window, I saw that we were between floors. I pushed on the buttons, but nothing happened. For what seemed a minute, we stood there without speaking or looking at each other.

“It’s stuck,” I said.

“Great,” she replied.

Again we were silent.

“There must be an emergency button, isn’t there?” she asked. “This cannot be an insoluble problem.”

“I pushed it,” I replied.

Again we stood in silence without speaking.

“Do you remember me? We used to sleep together,” she said finally.

“Yes, I remember,” I replied.

She opened a bag that hung from her shoulder on a gold chain and took out a package of cigarettes and a lighter. She put the cigarette in her mouth with one hand and lit the lighter with the other, but she had difficulty connecting the flame with the cigarette.

“Cheap lighter,” she said.

“Or shaking hand,” I replied, taking the lighter from her hand and holding it for her.

“Don’t you start on me,” she said, inhaling deeply.

“No, I won’t. I didn’t know you smoked.”

“Something new,” she said.

I pointed to a sign. “It says, ‘No smoking in the elevator.’ ”

“What are you going to do? Turn me in? Like you turned—” She stopped. “That is a sentence I am not going to complete.”

“Thank you.”

“Oh, what have you done, Harrison,” she cried out. “How could you do such a thing? How could you bring such a charge against a member of my family? Against your friend?”

“In my place, would you have done it differently?”

She didn’t reply to my question. “I couldn’t stand it in that courtroom another minute,” she said. She pushed the elevator button again. Nothing happened. She opened her bag and took out a pair of glasses and put them on to scrutinize the buttons. I noticed that one of the lenses was cracked.

“Isn’t it confusing for you to see life out of a shattered lens?” I asked.

“I’m used to it.”

“I remember the day you stepped on it. It was almost a year ago.”

“So what?” she replied.