Chapter 17
BABY, BABY-WHY?
The trial of Jeff Harlow was a dramatic one.
Witnesses were flown in from as far away as the west coast, from the penitentiary where Jeff served those eight years, to corroborate the District Attorney's charge that all the time he was in prison, Jeff had planned to even the score with Val Salem. His record was flaunted before the jury to show what a "notorious character" he was; how he had served eight years for the heinous crime of narcotics.
The prosecution kept hammering home, too, the fact that Janice Salem had once been Jeff's girl and how the thought of her being married to Val Salem must have smouldered into fierce violence in his brain. Most damaging of all, of course, were Jeff's fingerprints on the murder gun.
He tried desperately to explain how his prints got there, when Janice tried to talk him into murdering her husband. The prosecutor laughed out loud at the accusation.
"Why?" he demanded of the court, smirkingly. "Why would a gentle, highly respected lady like Janice Salem-married to a successful business man like Val Salem-possibly want to throw everything away for a nobody like the accused? A man who doesn't have a job, let alone any money to support her. Especially when she proved conclusively, when she married Val Salem, which of the two men she preferred."
Very obviously sympathy was one hundred percent with the bereaved widow who sat in the first row of spectators, wearing a simple, black suit and black nylons; her blonde hair subdued under a chic little black straw hat and veil. Occassionally, through out the trial, she could be heard sobbing and seen daubing her eyes with a small, black lace handkerchief.
Kraft took one look at the expressions on the faces of the jurors and advised Jeff: "Better we forget that story about her being in your apartment. She's got them so convinced she's the unplucked flower of American womanhood, that one word about her spending the night in bed with you-and the jury'd request to personally strap you in the big chair."
The dramatic highlight of the trial came on the fifth day, when the prosecution asked Janice if she felt strong enough to take the witness stand and explain in her own words exactly what took place in the study the morning of the murder. With a real flare for showmanship, plus an occassional wiping away of a tear with her lace handkerchief, Janice related how the shot had awakened her and she went into the study.
"But I-I didn't tell the truth about one thing," she confessed to the court, falteringly. "It-it wasn't as dark in the study as I said. I-I just didn't want to be the one to convict him. I didn't want such a terrible thing on my conscience. But-after what he said about finding the gun in my overnight bag-and then that awful lie he told about me asking him to kill my husband-the dear, sweet man I loved-!" She choked back her sobs with a deep breath. Then dramatically she turned and pointed her finger at Jeff seated at his table-"I-I saw him! I saw him standing there in the study-just before he struck me. Jeff Harlow killed my husband!"
For a moment there was dead silence in the courtroom. Then a whisper started, increased, until it became a roar of anger. The judge rapped for order. As the fury subsided, a lone figure arose in the back of the courtroom. A girl with brown hair that was almost black, and big brown eyes.
"She's lying!" the girl cried out, stabbing a finger at Janice.
Again the judge hammered his gavel for silence.
"She's lying!!" the girl reiterated. "She couldn't have seen him there because-because he was with ME. I spent the entire night with him in his apartment"
Jeff was standing as the court went into another uproar. He looked above the heads of the crowd and saw Freda Kale standing there, trying to make herself heard above the din.
Kraft tugged at Jeff's sleeve and tried to drag him down into his chair. "Let her talk. She might be the break we've been praying for. I'll have her sworn in and put on the stand. At least it'll raise a shadow of doubt-her word against Mrs. Salem's."
"No," Jeff insisted. "She'll perjure herself. She'll go to prison."
Kraft shook his head. "Not if it works."
Before Jeff could stop him, Kraft hurried to the bench. Above the rumblings of the crowd, he spoke to the judge and had Freda brought forward and sworn in.
Janice went back to her seat in the first row of spectators, frowning darkly behind her black veil.
Freda took the stand. Under Kraft's questioning, she told an incredible lie-how when she got off from work early, she went directly to Jeff's apartment in Jackson Heights and spent the night there. There was no secret about where he lived. It had been in all the papers. She got there, she told the court, between one and two o'clock and she didn't leave until after eight the next morning.
The District Attorney cross-examined her and tried to break down her story but she held fast to every detail.
"What proof do we have that what this girl is saying is true?" he asked arrogantly. "After all-why should we take the word of some girl-some waitress who works in a cheap Hoboken bar-and who very obviously isn't of very high morals-against the word of a respectable woman like Mrs. Salem?"
The words "cheap Hoboken bar" triggered it. Because of the crowd standing and blocking her from his view, Jeff hadn't seen Ninette Bruno seated in the back row with Freda. But he saw her now as she arose and shouted, indignantly: "I can prove it. She works for me and I let her off early. And she told me exactly where she was going."
Still another familiar figure arose from the row of seats beside Ninette. Bianca-the little French waitress. "She told ME, too!!"
"Hearsay!" the prosecution blurted out. "She could say she was going anywhere. That doesn't prove she went there."
It was beginning to sound like the old Jimmy Durante routine-"everybody wants to get into the act!" Because in the third row still another familiar feminine figure arose. Donna Dee.
"May I say something, your honor?" she asked.
The prosecution did a lot of snorting and hair-pulling and objecting but the judge still had Donna brought forward, sworn in and she took the stand as Freda stepped aside.
'What I have to say, your honor, definitely ISN'T hearsay," Donna told the court after it was established who she was. "I own the apartment where Mr. Harlow lives and I went there on the night in question-for-well, for personal reasons."
The spectators snickered. The judge once more rapped for silence.
"I got there sometime between three and four," Donna continued. "I know it was that time because all the clubs were closed. Anyway, I found him and her...." She looked at Freda. "Stripped naked-in bed."
"She's lying!" Janice screamed at the top of her lungs as she leaped to her feet and looked as if she wanted to get over the low wooden railing at Donna and scratch out the auburn-haired booking agent's two eyes. "They're lying! All of them. They're just trying to protect him. Nobody was there with him-except ME!"
The instant the words were out, Janice, in utter horror, clamped a hand over her mouth-realizing what she had said. But it was too late!
The tub was more than half-filled with water; enough to float Freda Kale's large, white, crimson-nippled breasts. Her dark brown hair that looked al-most black, was tied back in a ponytail. She said she didn't care if her hair got wet because she didn't have to go to work for another five or six hours.
As she sat there, she turned her head and looked over her bare shoulder at Jeff Harlow kneeling in the tub behind her. She said, "You know, you don't have to. I mean not if you don't really want to."
"But that's just it," he reassured her. "I want to."
She still wondered if he was just saying that because he was grateful. The chain reaction that her testimony had set off in the courtroom actually had saved his life-and at the same time, brought out the answers to a number of perplexing questions.
Trapped by the statements of the four girls, as well as by her own desperate outburst, Janice Salem's "only hope to escape the chair, had been to plead guilty and throw herself on the mercy of the court. With this in mind she told a very detailed and interesting story-and to hell with who got dragged into the mess in the bargain.
Not only did she admit to having spent the night of the murder in Jeff's apartment, but she said that when Jeff refused to join her in her plan to murder her husband, she got herself another accomplice, and for the second time set Jeff up as a patsy, confident that his record and all the things Val Salem had done to him would convict him.
Which is where another familiar figure entered the proceedings. Danny Casino. Knowing how much Danny wanted to move across the river into the big time BLUE NOTE, and that he still had some connections with the successor to MURDER, INC, it was a very simple matter to arrange a "contract" to kill her husband.
The payoff for Danny? A more legitimate contract for him and his band to play at THE BLUE NOTE-plus an added bonus for him to share Janice's big, lonely queen-size bed and try to satisfy her nymphomaniac demands in a more or less permanent basis.
Janice also figured that if she cleared up a few other things, the court might show her a little more leniency. So she told all about Val Salem's activities in the narcotics racket and how he had framed Jeff and sent him to prison for eight years. What she didn't add, however, was that she had been in on the setup from the very beginning-from that first night when Jeff went with them to Val's apartment and had his first taste of a "sex sandwich".
Now with all these disturbing things behind him and the poison of Janice Salem completely purged from his heart, Jeff gave full attention to playing SAILBOATS in the tub with Freda. As he watched her lovely body float slowly away from him, he thought ahead to a few other very pleasant trips he'd soon have to take-with Bianca ... and Ninette ... and Donna Dee.