accessory to murder. All because he'd been in old Harmon's office the day his wife phoned to tell him the heater had gone off. Rob wasn't usually given to volunteering his services. But he'd never seen a machine or engine or piece of equipment he couldn't fix, and he'd heard some guys talk about what a doll that creepy old drag had for a wife.
That piece of intriguing information had made him volunteer his services. At first Harmon had turned him down, but then when he couldn't get his regular maintenance man he'd said okay. He said he didn't want his wife taking the kids to a motel. That was what she'd suggested.
So Rob had gone over. Everything the guys had said about Nancy Harmon was true. She was a real looker. But she sure didn't seem to know it. She was kind of hesitant… unsure of herself. He'd got over about noon. She was just feeding the two little kids… a boy and a girl. Quiet kids, both of them. She didn't pay much attention to him, just thanked him for coming and turned back to the kids.
He realized that the only way to get her attention was through the kids and started talking to them. It was always easy for Rob to turn on the charm. He liked gals older than himself, too. Not that this one was older by much. But he'd learned from the time he was sixteen and screwing his next-door neighbour's wife that if you're nice to a woman's kids, she thinks you're A-okay and all the guilt goes down the drain. Boy, Rob could write a book on the whole mother-complex rationalization.
In a couple of minutes he'd had the kids laughing and Nancy laughing, and then he'd invited the little boy down to be his helper fixing the furnace. Just as he expected, the little girl asked to go too, and then Nancy said she'd come along to make sure they didn't get in the way. There wasn't much wrong with the furnace – just a clogged filter – but he said it needed a part and he could get it working but he'd be back and do the job right.
He got out fast the first day. No point in getting old
Harmon upset. Went straight back to his office. Harmon looked annoyed and worried when he opened the door, but when he saw Rob he gave a big, relieved smile. 'So soon? You must be a whiz. Or couldn't you take care of it?'
Rob said, 'I got it going. But you need a new part, sir, that I'll be glad to pick up. It's one of those little things that if you call in a regular service, they'll make a big production over. I can get the part for a couple of bucks. Be glad to do it.'
Harmon fell for it, of course. Probably glad to save the money. And Rob went back the next day and the next day. Harmon warned him that his wife was very nervous and rested a lot and to please keep out of her way. But Rob didn't see where she acted nervous. Timid, maybe, and scared. He got her talking. She told him that she'd had a nervous breakdown after her mother died. 'I guess I've been terribly depressed,' she said. 'But I'm sure I'm getting better. I've even stopped taking most of my medicine. My husband doesn't realize that. He'd probably be annoyed. But I feel better without it.'
Rob had told her how pretty she was, kind of feeling his way. He'd begun to suspect that she might be a pushover. It was obvious she was pretty bored with old Harmon and getting restless. He said maybe she should get out more. She'd said, 'My husband doesn't believe in company. He feels that at the end of the day he doesn't need to see any more people – not after all the students he has to contend with.'
That was when he'd known he'd try to make a pass at her.
Rob had an airtight alibi for that morning the Harmon kids had disappeared. He'd been in a class of only six students. But the DA had told him that if he could find one shred of evidence that would help him hang an accessory charge on Rob, it would be his pleasure to do it. Rob had hired a lawyer. Plenty scared, he didn't want the DA poking into his background and finding out about the time he'd been named in a paternity suit in Cooperstown. The lawyer had told him that his posture had to be that he was the respectful student of a distinguished professor; had been anxious to do a favour for him; had tried to stay away from the wife, but she had kept following him around. That he never took it seriously when she talked about the children being smothered. Actually, he'd thought she was just nervous and sick, the way the Professor had warned him.
But on the stand it didn't work like that. 'Were you attracted to this young woman?' the DA asked smoothly.
Rob looked at Nancy sitting at the defendant's table next to her lawyer, looking at him through blank, unseeing eyes. 'I didn't think in those terms, sir,' he replied. 'To me Mrs Harmon was the wife of a teacher I admired greatly. I simply wanted to fix the furnace as I'd volunteered to do and get back to my room. I had a paper to write and anyhow a sick woman with two children simply isn't my bag.' It was that elaboration, that last damned phrase, that the DA had pounced on. By the time he was finished with him, Rob was wringing with perspiration.
Yes, he'd heard the Professor's wife was a doll… No, he wasn't given to volunteering his help… Yes, he'd been curious to get a look at her… Yes, he had made a pass at her…
'But it stopped there!' Rob had shouted from the stand. 'With two thousand co-eds on campus, I didn't need problems.' Then he'd admitted that he had told Nancy that she turned him on and he'd like to hustle her.
The DA had looked at him contemptuously, then read into the record the time Rob had been beaten up by an irate husband – the episode in Cooperstown when he'd been named in the paternity suit.
The DA said, 'This philanderer was no willing volunteer. He went into that house to size up a beautiful young woman whom he'd heard about. He made a play for her. It succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I am not suggesting that Rob
Legler was part of the scheme to murder Nancy Harmon's children. At least, in the legal sense he wasn't. But I am convinced that morally, before God, he is guilty. He let this gullible, ungrateful young woman know that he'd - and I use his words – 'hustle her' if she were free, and she chose a freedom that is repugnant to the basic instincts of mankind. She murdered her children to be free of them.'
After Nancy Harmon was sentenced to die in the gas chamber, Professor Harmon had committed suicide. He drove his car to the same beach where one of the kids had been found and left it by the shore. He pinned a note to the wheel saying that it was all his fault. He should have realized how sick his wife was. He should have taken his children from her. He was responsible for their deaths and her action. 'I tried to play God,' he wrote. 'I loved her so dearly that I thought I could cure her. I thought bearing children would turn her mind from the grief of her mother's death. I thought love and care would heal her, but I was wrong; I meddled beyond my depth. Forgive me, Nancy.'
There hadn't been any roar of approval when the conviction was overturned. It happened because two women jurors had been heard discussing the case in a bar midway through the trial and saying she was guilty as sin. But by the time a new trial was ordered Rob had graduated, been drafted, given Vietnam orders and bolted. Without him, the DA had no case and had to let Nancy go – but swore he'd re-try her the day he could get hold of Rob again.
Over the years in Canada, Rob had thought of that trial often. There was something that bothered him about the whole set-up. Taking himself out of it, he didn't buy Nancy Harmon as a murderess. She'd been like a clay pigeon in court. Harmon certainly hadn't helped her, breaking down on the stand when he was supposed to be in the midst of saying what a great mother she was.
In Canada, Rob was something of a celebrity among the draft evaders he hung out with whom he'd told about the case. They'd asked about Nancy, and Rob told them what a dish she was… hinting that he'd had a little action. He showed them the press cuttings of the trial and Nancy 's pictures.
He told them that she had to have some dough – that it came out at the trial that her folks left her over a hundred and fifty grand; that if he could find her he'd put the arm on her for money to split to Argentina.
Then he got his break. One of his buddies, Jim Ellis, who knew about his connection with the Harmon case, slipped home to visit his mother, who had terminal cancer. The mother lived in Boston, but because the FBI was watching the house hoping to pick up Jim, she met him in Cape Cod in a cottage she had hired on Maushop Lane. When Jim got back to Canada, he was bursting with news. He asked Rob what it would be worth to him to know where he could find Nancy Harmon.
Rob was sceptical until he saw the picture Jimmy had managed to snap of Nancy on the beach. There was no mistaking her. Jim had done some digging, too. The background checked. He'd found out that her husband was pretty prosperous. Quickly they worked out a deal. Rob would get to see Nancy. Tell her that if she'd stake him to fifty thousand bucks, he'd split to Argentina and she'd never have to worry about him testifying against her. Rob reasoned that she'd go for it, especially now that she was remarried and had more kids. It was a cheap price for her to know that some day she wouldn't be haul-assed back to California to stand trial.
Jim wanted a flat twenty per cent for his share. While Rob was seeing Nancy, Jim would arrange for phony
