In the afternoon we went to see our boat and fell in love with a wide, tubby, 21-foot cat boat. It had a tiny little cabin you had to practically crawl into, with an open 'head' at one end that didn't work. But the boat yard owner assured us a fine, safe boat with a decent motor. The boat was already up on land and the owner was asking $1500, but as the yard owner explained, “It ain't a firm $1500. I don't want you to get in over your heads, you understand, so I'll give it to you straight—this boat is worth at least double the money. She may look the devil but the wood is good and she's only six years old, engine overhauled this season—I did the job myself. Buy her now and next season you should expect to put about another few hundred bucks in her. Needs new sail, mattresses, anchor, things like that. Let me call the owner, tell him you'll pay cash, see what gives.”
By the end of the day we were minus $850 and the sudden owners of a boat. The yard man advised us that for the winter all we had to do was drain and grease the motor, slap a coat of paint on the hull and decks, then... “cover her with canvas and she'll be snug all winter. Along about April, you'll take care of the seams, give her a real paint job, restep the mast... but don't worry about that now. By the by, I just happened to remember, I got an old canvas cover that will fit your boat and I'll let you steal it for thirty bucks.”
We purchased several tremendous cans of white paint, brushes and early Sunday morning we were busy as kids painting our 'yacht'. You'd think a 21-foot boat could be painted in about 21 minutes. By noon we hadn't half- finished the job, although we had used up enough paint to do a house. We were tired, dirty and splattered. Michele went off and came back with two giant hero sandwiches and beer and found a fairly clean patch of beach to eat on, and then we stretched out for a rest.
Staring up at the clean sky I thought: “I'm happy. I have everything I want, really want. And if I have to plug Matt Anthony's
Michele turned on the sand beside me, asked, “What are you mumbling about?”
I faced her, poked at a speck of paint on her face, took in the trim fit of the dungarees over her hips. “Was I mumbling? Must have been thinking aloud. I just decided I'm a very happy man and I was trying to find out why. I mean, Mart's trial... well, in a sense they are somehow trying to convict him for the books he wrote. God knows they sounded pretty horrible. But those books aren't just Matt's—I help produce them, so does Bill Long and Marty Kelly and every clerk in the book stores and the newspapers and paperback editors and newsstand dealers and... hey, do you want to hear any of this?”
“I don't understand it. Perhaps I should try to. Norm-man, if you are happy, be glad, as I am. Why must you worry about the know-how behind your happiness? Or do you think you can manufacture it?”
“Probably wouldn't sell, anyway,” I said, thinking how right she was. A second ago I'd sounded like the would- be Madison Avenue personality slob I'd forgotten about I reached over and tapped her backside. “Okay, matey, back to work. Please note the sudden appearance of nautical words in my speech. We have to be careful not to bore our friends talking about the darn boat.”
Ws finished at four, got the canvas cleaned and ready to go on the following weekend. Michele was pooped and after we cleaned up she slept soundly. It was past ten when she awoke and I said it would be silly to go back to New York tonight: if I missed part of the trial Monday it would only be the dull testimony of the couch doctors.
Michele didn't have a class until eleven, so after a big breakfast we took our time driving to the city. I stopped at the office and took care of a few things, had galley proofs sent to Frank Kuhn, mixed some tobacco, lunched with Marty Kelly. It was 5 p.m. when I reached Riverside and, of course, court was adjourned for the day. I tried to find Hank, without success, finally ate supper alone and took the evening papers back to the motel.
There wasn't much in the papers. Jackson had a well-known psychiatrist testify that certain tests proved Matt unstable during emotional stress. The very fact Matt could plot an alibi and a phony crime immediately after his wife's death proved, according to this doctor, that his thinking was not normal, that he didn't know right from wrong, that he was temporarily insane at the time he struck Francine. I didn't get it but that's what the eminent doctor claimed.
Wagner had then put a State psychiatrist on the stand to testify other tests proved Matt absolutely sane, normal and under stress he would know the difference between right and wrong, that he was sane enough to form a criminal intent. The fact he set up an alibi proved that far from being insane, his mind was working at normal speed and he was thinking of self-preservation. This doctor also claimed that Mart's books proved he had an “addiction for violence.” Under a sharp cross-examination by Jackson the doctor had agreed that a capable writer could write about violence without being of a violent mind. I was very happy I had skipped the day.
After a good night's sleep, I shaved and dressed with nothing more important on my mind than trying to think up a clever name for our boat I had breakfast and was at court early, smoking my pipe outside. I didn't see May Fitzgerald, nor did there seem to be as many spectators going into the court.
Prof. Brown came along and told me he thought both sides would begin summing up today. When I asked about Monday, he said, “The usual stupid hassle, trying to make an exact science out of one that isn't Mart's doctor seemed the more intelligent, but then Wagner had the easier task, merely to establish any doubt that Matt had been crazy when he hit his wife. So....”
“Then you finally believe he at least did strike her?” I cut in.
“Norman, you asked me what happened in court. I'm telling you. I still can't believe he did it; what's more, he doesn't even seem to be putting up a real defense. Of course, Jackson is, but yesterday Matt was back to his cat smile and working all day. He kept writing away, barely paying attention to the proceedings, morning and afternoon.”
“I suppose they didn't let him write in jail and he had to catch up for Saturday and Sunday. The main thing is, Wagner hasn't proved murder.”
Brown nodded. “Nobody has proved anything. Let's go in.”
“How are you doing?”
“My wife reports all is still quiet. Of course when I return, I may get the bad news then.”
“You're a pessimist,” I said, knocking the ashes from my pipe. Brown didn't bother answering as he held the door open for me. The courtroom was filling up rapidly but we had our choice of seats. However, Brown suddenly whispered, “It isn't good for us to be seen together in public so often, Norm,” and sat in an empty single seat between two couples.
I felt like kicking the old guy smack in the behind, but then, he was supposedly doing it all for my own good, or something. I found a seat up near the front. Jackson was wearing a change of pace suit—a conservative blue serge, white shirt, blue knitted tie. But he hadn't forgotten his key, beaded belt or moccasins. He sat at his table and looked over some notes, his face very solemn—at one time I almost thought he was praying. Matt, dressed in his
