Heartstone

Bobby gazed across a rolling lawn, lush, green and smelling of new-mown grass. A low hedge separated the estate from a dark and forboding wood and an arched lattice work provided the only means of entrance into the forest. Sarah stood beneath the roses that twined around the thin, white-painted wood sticks of the arch. She was dressed in a white hoop skirt and looked as if she had just attended an antebellum ball given at the home of a Georgia plantation owner.

There was an orchid in Sarah’s hair and her blond tresses flew behind her like honey-colored wings as she whirled into the forest, disappearing, then reappearing, in a flash of white petticoats.

Bobby watched helplessly as she danced deeper into the dark woods. Panic seized him and he rushed through the corridors of the empty house looking for a way out. Suddenly he was at the top of a spiral stairway that twisted downward toward the main ballroom. A figure climbed to meet him, its face shrouded in shadow. Its hand stretching out. Bobby screamed as he looked deep into the eyes of the old man.

The young guard listened sympathetically to Bobby’s request to see a doctor and promised that he would pay immediate attention to the problem. Later, in the guard room, he noted the request, along with those of several other prisoners, in a report.

In his cell, Bobby lay on his bunk, his forearm pressed tightly against his closed eyelids. How will I make it through another night, he asked himself. How will I survive the trial?

He pondered the significance of the dream. The unfinished mansion-his hopes. The dark and gloomy woods-his future. The fleeting vision of Sarah, far off and fading into the silence of the forest. He refused to dwell on this last component of his dream.

Bobby thought about life in hell. He knew the subject well, for that is where he resided. Death would be preferable to being caged for the rest of his life, especially now that he had glimpsed paradise.

He thought about getting up and doing some calisthenics. He was losing weight, but his body was becoming flabby. Exercise would keep him in shape. He knew all this, but he had no energy and could see no reason to move.

PART FIVE. INQUISITION

1

“Yes?” Caproni yawned. The ringing of the phone had roused him from a deep sleep. The phosphorescent hands of his alarm clock indicated that it was one in the morning.

“Mr. Caproni, I’m sorry to wake you, but this is Officer McGivern. I’ve located Heartstone.”

Caproni sat up in bed and switched on a reading lamp.

“What have you got?”

“The Cedar Arms, room 310. It’s a transient hotel over on Third and Wallace.”

Caproni jotted down the address on a pad on his nightstand.

“I’ll be there in half an hour,” Caproni said. “Don’t wait in front of the hotel or he might see you.”

“Don’t worry,” McGivern said, “I’ll be a block away on Prescott, where I can see the front of the hotel.”

Caproni hung up and dressed. He wanted to find Heartstone, but he wished that McGivern had found him on some other night. The Coolidge brothers had elected to have separate trials and Bobby’s had started last week. It had taken several days to pick a jury and the state was now presenting evidence. While Heider conducted the trial, Caproni was in and out of the courtroom, coordinating witnesses, researching legal points and taking care of emergencies. The pace had been grueling and the work did not stop when court recessed. At five o’clock, he and Heider would go back to the office to prepare for the next day of trial. This evening he had returned home at ten o’clock, completely drained.

Caproni backed his car out of the garage and pointed it downtown. He yawned and switched on the radio for company. So far there had been no deviations from the script that Heider had so carefully orchestrated. Of course, the witnesses to date had all been policemen who were involved in the investigation and a few civilians, like the parents of the victims, who had provided background for the jury. The crucial part of the case that would tie in Coolidge with the murders would begin tomorrow when Heider called Roger Hessey. Hessey would take the jury to the party at Alice Fay’s house. He would be followed by the people who had attended the party and witnessed the fight.

After that would come two boys, grown men now, who had talked to Richie Walters and Elaine Murray outside the movie theater on the evening of the crime and who were the last people to see them alive. Mr. Shultz would tell the jury about the drag race on Monroe Boulevard and several people who knew would describe the car that Bobby and Billy were driving on the evening of November 25, 1960.

Thelma Pullen would tell the jury about the girl she had seen ru

While Caproni was excited about the way the technical side of the state’s case was going, he was disappointed by Mark Shaeffer’s poor showing. Shaeffer seemed confused and preoccupied. He had raised few of the pretrial motions Caproni and Heider had anticipated and the points that had been raised were poorly researched and argued. Judge Samuels, who had been assigned the case, had lost patience with Shaeffer on several occasions because of the attorney’s lack of preparation.

Caproni felt the urgency of clearing up the mystery surrounding Toller’s story more than ever now. He had no desire to aid the defense, but he had a strong sense of justice. Shaeffer was doing such a poor job that the truth might never come out at the trial. That made tonight’s interview with Heartstone crucial.

Caproni parked behind McGivern’s car and walked over to it. McGivern got out and handed Caproni a mug shot of Heartstone. Caproni was always astounded at what life could do to human beings. The face in the picture was long and thin, with sunken cheeks and rotting teeth that showed through the gap made by scarred and cracked lips. Heartstone was not the worst example of the desperate man Caproni had ever seen, but he did evoke strong feelings of revulsion and pity.

“Let’s go,” Caproni said. “When we get to the hotel I want you to wait outside. I have to talk with him alone.”

“He could be dangerous,” McGivern said.

“I realize that, but it can’t be helped.”

The entrance to the Cedar Arms was a narrow glass-paned door with a “Rooms to Rent” sign taped to one of the panes. There was no lobby. A flight of linoleum-covered stairs led up to a landing lit by a low-wattage bulb. The cracked plaster walls exuded an odor of cooked, ca

The metal number three on Heartstone’s door was hanging upside down from the bottom nail. Caproni doubted if the door had seen a coat of paint since the building had been completed. He knocked loudly. A radio was playing in a room down the hall. Bedsprings whined and a voice inside Heartstone’s room badly slurred the words “Whaddyawant.” Caproni said “Mr. Heartstone” in a low voice and knocked again. The voice said, “I’m comin’, goddammit” and a shoe worn by a foot out of control thudded on the uncarpeted floor. The lock clicked and the face in the mugshot peered through a crack in the door. Caproni was almost overcome by the man’s breath. He did not need to see Heartstone’s bleary and bloodshot eyes to know that the man had been drinking heavily. The sight of a man in a suit had a sobering effect on Heartstone. His intelligence was low, but he operated with a certain amount of animal cu