Chapter 13
There was a trial, of course.
It caused a local sensation, and kept the New York tabloids buzzing for a week or so about the "Westchester businessman" who had done in his wife and her lover.
Markell testified that he had left his house on business that Saturday afternoon, but had felt a twinge of nausea at the railroad station, a sudden stab of pain in his stomach.
"I figured I was coming down with indigestion," he said. "And since I had missed my tram anyway, I didn't think it made sense to stand around on the platiorm and get really sick. So I headed back home."
"You walked?"
"Yes. I walked."
"And what time did you get back to your house?"
"Oh, I don't know," Markell said. "I suppose around two o'clock."
"Tell us what happened when you came home."
"I had left my wife and Donovan in the living room. But there was no sign of them. I called, but I didn't hear anything. I was puzzled by that. So I went upstairs."
"Did you have any reason to think they would be upstairs?"
"Reason? No reason. It was just that they weren't downstairs, so I thought they'd be upstairs."
"Did you suspect they might have gone upstairs for the purpose of intercourse, Mr. Markell?"
"No. I mean, the thought was hardly uppermost in my mind. I never thought Janet would-"
"All right. Tell us what happened when you got to the second floor."
"I stopped at the landing. I listened. And I heard sounds."
"Describe the sounds, please."
"Sounds of passion. Sounds of sex. Very explicit sounds. I could hear the bedsprings creaking, and I heard them sighing and panting and moaning. And I heard my wife say something to him."
"Do you remember what she said?"
"Not literally. She was telling him not to hold back, to go ahead and enjoy himself."
"And then?"
"And then I went to the bedroom door. I stood there for a couple of seconds, not really believing my own ears. Finally I threw the door open and went in."
"Describe what you saw, please."
"They were both naked. On the bed. Our bed. They were-they were making love."
"Will you describe the scene in detail?"
"The way it really was?"
"Yes. Certainly."
"It's rather-rather revolting."
"The testimony is important, Mr. Markell."
"All right," Markell said. "My wife was lying on her stomach, with her buttocks up. And Donovan was on top of her. He was having her in-in an unconventional way. An abnormal way."
"Be more specific, please."
"Anally," Markell said. "Is that specific enough?"
"Yes. Go on. Tell us what you felt."
"Shock, of course. And anger. And disgust. It was not only the fact that they were making love, deceiving me the moment I left them alone, you see. It was the way they were doing it. The position. It was so abnormal, so disgusting. To think that my own wife-" Markell looked down. It was a moment before he could go on. Finally he said, "I rushed to the dresser drawer. There was a gun in there. I grabbed the gun. I was berserk. Donovan got up off the bed and started to come toward me. I shot him in the throat. Then Janet ran at me. I was out of my mind. I pushed her away from me, and as she started to fall backward I shot her in the chest. I shot each of them only once."
"And then what did you do?"
"I called the police," Markell said.
There were some holes in his story, of course, but only he knew about them, and they were less obvious to the others. There was, for one thing, the fact that he had left to go to the station at one o'clock, that he had missed the 1:06 train, and that he had killed Janet and Donovan a little after three in the afternoon. That left almost two hours to be accounted for.
He couldn't tell them that he had hidden in the garage for most of that time, waiting for the right opportunity to run into the house and shoot the guilty pair. That would have introduced an element of premediation into the act that might send him to prison for more years than he cared to think about. So he had to gamble it, gamble that the medical examiners would be unable to tell the exact hour of death, gamble that no one would press him too hard about the time sequence of the entire afternoon.
No one did. That point was glossed over completely by the prosecution.
There was also the possibility that someone might have seen him skulking around in his own back yard just before the killings or going into his garage. He had to risk it. No witnesses were produced.
There was also the troublesome thought that Anita might be brought to the stand. If the prosecution could say, "This man had a mistress. Here she is. He was eager to marry her, but he had no way of obtaining an easy divorce, so he trumped up this act of passion to get rid of her," it could mean the electric chair for him.
But no one had traced his connection with Anita. So far as anyone knew, he had been a perfectly faithful husband. The only person who was aware of his infidelity was Jack Donovan, and Jack Donovan was in no position to testify, to name names and suggest motives.
So Markell slid by.
Janet's psychiatrist was called to the stand, and reluctantly testified to the dead woman's instability. He did a lot of carping about professional ethics, but finally allowed him to reveal the fact that Janet had been considering taking a lover.
"Did she ever name this lover, Dr. Gerber?"
"You must realize that matters discussed in a psychoanalyst's office are as confidential as those of the confessional," Dr. Gerber said coldly.
"Yes, but did she name this lover she was considering taking?"
Dr. Gerber made a sour face. "She said he was an old friend of her husband's."
"Was his name Jack Donovan, Doctor?"
"Yes. Yes. Donovan."
So it was established that Janet had regularly been cuckolding her husband for a period of time. Gerber finally admitted that Janet had not only been considering adultery, she had been practicing it for a good many weeks.
That was an important point. It removed the possibility that someone might suggest Markell had staged the whole affair, gunning down his wife and his friend, stripping them, and making it seem like an act of sudden madness.
The local police testified that the victims had indeed been nude and in bed when shot.
The coroner testified that relations had been taking place between the victims just prior to their death. He gave a full report, which the tabloids gobbled up, even though they could not print the details but were forced merely to hint at "abnormalities." The coroner described in clinical terms, the observations he had made of the dead woman's body, and of the dead man's body. He offered as his conclusion the definite assertion that sexual relations of an abnormal sort had taken place between Janet Markell and Jack Donovan in the moments just prior to their death.
On and on went the parade of evidence. The trial was only a formality. The prosecution had no case, and knew it, and hardly even made an effort. It was a clear case of justifiable homicide, wife and her lover caught in the act, and the District Attorney had no mind to fight against the prevailing sentiments.
The jury was out no more than half an hour.
"Have you reached your verdict, Mr. Foreman?" the judge wanted to know.
At that moment Markell felt his most severe stab of tension. But, as he held his breath painfully and waited, out came the verdict.
"Your Honor, we find the defendant, Frederick Markell, guilty of second-degree manslaughter under extreme provocation. It is the recommendation of this jury that leniency be observed in passing sentence upon him."
Markell rejoiced. At the very worst, he'd have to spend a short time behind bars. But his lawyer was more confident even than that, and the confidence was soon justified, when the sentence was announced. A two-year sentence, it was-suspended.
A month after he had murdered his wife and his friend, Fred Markell walked out of court a free man.
He had big plans.
During the month of legal maneuvering, he had carefully kept away from Anita. He had no doubt that the District Attorney was keeping tabs on him while he was out on bail, and he didn't want to give the prosecution any reason to think that he might have wanted to be rid of his wife. But he waited until a proper interval had passed. He kept away from her, as the days passed. He didn't even call her. He went through agonies of doubt, of jealousy, but he staunchly refrained from any contacts with her.
He spent his time trying to reestablish his normal life. It wasn't easy. A man who has publicly admitted murdering his wife is bound to get some curious stares from his friends and associates. Going through the average business day was a chore. People were forever looking at him. Conversations were always awkward, stilted, as though everyone wanted to ask him, "Well, what did it feel like to shoot her? Were you nervous? What was it like, anyway?"
No one dared to ask. No one so much as mentioned the fact that he had once had a wife.
He closed up the big house in Westchester, and took a small apartment in Manhattan, in the upper 90's on the East Side. A couple of real estate brokers phoned him, offering to represent him if he cared to sell the house, but he brushed them off.
"It's not for sale," he explained. "I just don't feel like living there now."
"Of course. Of course. A terrible tragedy, Mr. Markell."
"Yes," he said, and got rid of them.
He had told the truth. He didn't feel like living alone in a big old house. There was time to move back there later, when he had remarried.
When he had married Anita.
But he had promised himself not to see her or even talk to her until three weeks after his trial. It was a difficult time. He lived an austere, ascetic life.
The only break from his austerity and asceticism came one night, about two weeks after his release. It was a calm January night, and he left his apartment for a stroll, and as he passed Lexington Avenue and 91st Street, he saw a figure in a doorway, a young woman.
She said, "Want a good time, mister?"
She was a Puerto Rican, no more than 19 or 20, and she was very pretty, despite her shabby clothes. She smiled at him, showing dazzlingly white teeth, and said, "Ten dollars, mister. Come on. You look lonely."
Markell studied her, hesitating. He was afraid of disease, afraid of a trap of some kind, afraid of being observed. What the hell, though; he was hard up, he hadn't had anything for weeks, and he wanted her. It was still another full week before he could go to Anita.
This relief would make it easier for him to last out the remaining span of time. "All right," he said.
The girl grinned. She took him by the arm, led him into a nearby tenement. She had a room on the ground floor. A baby lay sleeping in a dilapidated cradle, right in the room where the bed was.
"Ten dollars?" she said hopefully.
Markell gave her the money. She lay down on the bed, pulled her skirt up around her waist, then hiked it still higher.
She was nude underneath. Her body was slim and well formed, and she looked clean. At the sight of her dark nakedness, Markell felt a sudden surge of powerful desire, the abstinence of the past weeks coming to a head now in furious need.
He opened his clothes. He threw himself on her.
He cupped her cool buttocks, her small firm breasts. There was milk in her breasts, he was sure. They were such hard breasts, so swollen.
Her body rose to meet his. Eagerly, he buried himself in the warmth of her.
There was no question of finesse, none of love-making. He wanted quick relief, while she wanted nothing more than a chance to get rapidly back to the street and hunt for the next buyer. Her body moved, hips twisting artfully He grabbed her buttocks, pulled her against him, and in fast motions reached the tingling peak of sensation, and a moment later achieved his release.
He rose from her, looking down at her attractive body. She smiled at him.
"I like you," she said. "You will come back soon?"
"Sure," he said glibly.
"And you tell your friends, yes? My name is Frasquita. I am clean, I have no disease. I have baby to support. Will you help me?"
"I'll tell all my friends," he promised solemnly.
He got out of there. The last he saw of her, she was standing up, passing a towel over her body, and the baby was starting to cry. He felt depressed by the whole scene, but at least he was free of that pounding sexual tension that had kept him keyed up for weeks. For that much, at least, he was grateful to her. The poor kid.
Frasquita.
It rhymed with Anita.
Anita, Frasquita, Frasquita, Anita.
Anita.
Just seven more days, he promised himself. That was all. Then he'd allow himself to go to see her. At long last. And he'd tell her about the big plans he had for their future.
He strolled down Lexington Avenue, wrapped in the warmth of his pleasant dreams.
Anita, Anita, Anita!