'Please don't misunderstand me,' she said. 'I care deeply about Jamey. Just thinking about what's happened to him is... unbearable.'
'From what I understand you and he were very close.'
'I - I used to think so. I thought I'd done right by him. Now I'm not sure of anything.'
Her voice broke again, and one of the hands in her lap gathered up a handful of wool and squeezed until the knuckles turned white.
'Heather, I need to ask some questions that may be upsetting. If this isn't a good time, I can come back.'
'Oh, no, I'm fine. Please do what you have to.'
'All right. Let's start with the time of your marriage. Jamey was five. How did he react to your entering the family?'
She flinched, as if the question had wounded her, then turned pensive, phrasing her response. 'It was a difficult period for all of us. Overnight I went from single girl to instant stepmother. It's a terrible role, so fraught with evil connotations. Not the way I saw myself at twenty-four. I thought I was prepared, but I wasn't.'
'What kinds of problems were there?'
'What you'd expect. Jamey was very jealous of my husband's attention, which was understandable - Dwight had been more of a father to him than anyone. Then, all of a sudden, there I was. He perceived me as his rival and did his best to try to eliminate me. From a child's perspective it must have been the logical thing to do,'
'What did he do?'
'Insulted me, refused to mind, made believe I wasn't there. He could use his intelligence to be quite cruel, but I understood that it came from fear and was determined to endure. I developed a thick skin and dug in my heels. Eventually he accepted my presence, and after a while we got to the point where we could talk. Dwight was heavily involved with the company, and I stayed home; that meant I did most of the parenting. We ended up doing quite a bit of talking. Not that most of it was on a very personal level -he was a loner and kept his feelings to himself; after I had my own children, I realised how close mouthed he really was - but from time to time he even confided in me.'
She paused and looked down at her hands, which were gripping her skirt like talons. Then she took a deep breath and consciously relaxed them.
'In view of what's happened, I know that doesn't sound like much, Doctor, but at the time I thought I was doing great.'
Her bottom lip trembled, and she turned away. The light from one of the lamps cast an aura around her profile, giving her the look of a life-sized cameo.
'Did he ever talk to you about homosexuality?' Her husband had reacted to the gay issue with anger and denial, but she remained outwardly unruffled.
'No. By the time he - is the expression 'came out'? - he was already spending most of his time with Dig Chancellor and having little to do with us.'
'Do you think Chancellor had something to do with his coming out?'
She gave that some thought.
'I suppose he might have eased the way by serving as a role model, but if you're asking if he bent a straight twig, no, I don't believe that.'
'Then you do feel he's homosexual?' The question surprised her. 'Of course he is.'
'Your husband believes quite differently.' 'Doctor' - she sighed - 'my husband is a very fine man. Hard- working, a dedicated father. But he can also be very stubborn. When he gets an idea in his head, even one that's illogical, it's impossible to budge him. He loves Jamey deeply; until recently he thought of him as a son. The idea that he isn't sexually normal is something he just can't face up to.'
In view of the much harsher realities about Jamey, I wondered why the boy's sexual proclivities loomed so large in the assault upon Cadmus's defence system. But there was no point bringing that up now. 'When did you realise he was gay?' I asked. 'I suspected it for a while. Once when I was supervising the maid as she tidied up his room, I came across some homosexual pornography. I knew if I told Dwight there'd be an explosion, so I simply threw the pictures away and
hoped it was a transitory thing. But a few weeks later he'd replaced what I'd got rid of and added to the collection. It made me realise that he really had a problem. After that I started to put things together: how he'd never been interested in sports or playing with other boys; the way he avoided girls. We're quite active socially, and there was no shortage of opportunities for him to meet young ladies, but when we made suggestions or tried to introduce him to someone, he got angry and stalked away. After he had started seeing Dig, my suspicions were confirmed.'
'How did he and Chancellor meet?'
She gnawed her lip and looked uncomfortable.
'Do we really need to get into that? It's a very . . . sensitive issue.'
'It's bound to come out at the trial.'
She leaned forward and took a platinum cigarette case from the coffee table. Next to it was a matching lighter, which I picked up. By the time she'd placed a filter-tipped cigarette between her lips I had a flame ready.
'Thank you,' she said, sitting back and blowing out a lacy stream of smoke. 'I quit two years ago. Now I'm putting away half a pack a day.'
I waited as she consumed a third of the cigarette. Resting what was left of it on the rim of a crystal ashtray, she continued:
'Are you certain . . . about its becoming public?'
'I'm afraid so. Even if the prosecution doesn't bring it up, the relationship between Jamey and Chancellor is likely to be a key part of the defence.'
'Yes,' she said grimly. 'Horace talked to us about that. I suppose he knows best.' She dragged once on the cigarette and put it down. 'If you must know, they met here. At a dinner party. It was a business affair, black tie, the inauguration of a new company project. Dig's bank had invested in it, as had several other institutions. Dwight's idea was to bring all the investors together in order to make a show of unity and get things off on the right foot. It started off as a beautiful evening - catering by Perino's, champagne, an orchestra, and dancing. My girls were allowed to stay up and be little hostesses. Jamey was invited, too, of course, but he stayed in his room all night, reading. I remember it clearly, because I'd had a set of evening wear made up for him, as a surprise. When I presented it to him, he refused even to look at it.'
'So he never joined the party?'
'Not for a second. Dig must have wandered upstairs, and somehow they ran into each other and started talking. Midway through the party Dwight found them. He'd gone up to take an aspirin and saw the two of them sitting on Jamey's bed, reading poetry. He was outraged. Everyone was well aware of Dig's . . . tastes. Dwight felt that he was abusing our hospitality. He stepped in immediately and escorted him back downstairs - politely but firmly. It ruined the party for him, though he put on a good face. That night we talked about it, and he admitted that he'd also been worried about Jamey's sexuality for quite some time. Maybe it was naive, but at that point both of us still felt that he was a confused teenager who could go either way and that Dig was the last person in the world he needed. We prayed nothing would come of the chance meeting, but of course it did. Immediately. The next morning, after Dwight left for work, Dig picked Jamey up, and they disappeared together for the entire day. The same thing happened the following day. Soon Jamey was spending more time at Dig's house than here. My husband was livid - doubly so because he blamed himself for the initial meeting. He wanted to drive to Dig's place and drag Jamey away, but I convinced him it would do more harm than good.'
'In what way?'
'I didn't want things to get physical. My husband's fit, but Dig waa a huge man. He worked out with weights. And I was afraid of how Jamey would react if confronted.'
'Were you worried about violence?'
'No. Not then. Only that he'd become verbally abusive and impossible to live with.'
'Did the mental deterioration start before or after he met Chancellor?'
'Horace asked me the same thing, and I've racked my brain trying to remember. But it's hard to pinpoint. It wasn't as if he were a normal boy who had suddenly started acting bizarre. He was never like other children, so the
