Defending the Truth, page 27
She listened absently to the chattering of three gray and white speckled cactus wrens vying for some treasure in the marshy brakes by the water’s edge. A road-runner had found a fallen quail’s nest under a nearby cottonwood and was pecking open each of the tiny eggs.
Tears welled in her eyes and wet her cheeks. Why Mark? Why her? She had known that this would happen, and she had been helpless to do anything about it. No one could do anything about it. He was rich, he was handsome, and they had the whole world before them. But still nobody could do anything about it.
She lay back against the sycamore trunk, and ants crawled up and down, and a squirrel sat on a broad branch watching her cautiously, and a white wing dove in a nest high above her stared closely at her, watching her every move. But she did not move. She only wept.
Chapter 21
The story in the Arizona Daily Star was on page one, dominating almost the entire page. The first line set the tone: “The publishers of the Arizona Daily Star and the Arizona Republic wish to retract several unfortunate statements printed in the newspapers on June 26, 1951.” It got better from there. They apologized for labeling Joshua Rabb a Communist and a traitor and for asserting that Hanna Rabb would be held to answer for murder at the preliminary hearing.
“It is deeply troubling to those many of us who hold journalism to be a sacred trust in the preservation of good government that from time to time our reporters are duped by unscrupulous persons who purvey lies and half-truths for the furtherance of their own scurrilous purposes. While the Star and the Republic make no judgment as to the opinions stated therein, the publishers deem it the obligation of responsible journalists to publish a press release issued four days ago by the office of Senator Margaret Chase Smith (R-Maine).
The entire press release followed.
After Senator Smith’s statement, there was a short joint press release from the Phoenix offices of Senators William Maitland and Barry Goldwater:
Extremism in the defense of liberty is not a vice. But we must be careful to investigate fully and to protect those who are innocently caught up in matters which at first blush may appear to be questionable. An injustice may have been done in the case of Joshua Rabb and his daughter Hanna. We are today asking the United States attorney for Arizona to review the matter to make certain that the Tucson office has handled it properly. This being an issue of bipartisan importance, we will also ask the attorney general of the United States to direct an independent probe of the propriety of the actions taken by the United States attorney’s office in Tucson.
Joshua smiled genuinely for the first time in months. When Barbara came out of the bedroom to make breakfast for everyone, Joshua gave her the newspaper. She sat down at the kitchen table and read it, and she too smiled.
The first telephone call was from Hal Dubin at a few minutes after seven. “It’s about time your husband got some good press,” he said to his daughter. “Now maybe he’ll get a client or two who actually have a couple bucks to spend.”
The second call was from Edgar Hendly. “Harry Coyle just called me. He says as soon as he got to his office this mornin’ Undersecretary Anson came in wavin’ the New York Times and tol’ him that me ‘n you are off the hot seat.”
“How about my indictment and the Code of Federal Regulations?”
“Seems that technical shit don’t matter a whole hell of a lot at the moment. Harry says that Anson says that Secretary Kimmer says he’s proud a the job we’re doin’ out here.”
“Yeah, until McCarthy gets on his ass again.”
“Now don’t be so cynical, Josh boy. These are honorable politicians.” Edgar cackled.
Joshua laughed. “Yeah, right.”
Tim Essert sat at the kitchen table in his house. He was still in his pyjama bottoms, as was his usual routine when he read the morning newspaper. His wife and two of his children were also at the table, gabbing loudly as usual.
“Shhhhhh,” he hissed at them.
His wife looked questioningly at him. Then she stared sternly at each of the two young girls and put her finger to her lips.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“They’re going to hang me out to dry.”
“What?”
“They’ll pin the whole fucking thing on me.”
“Tim,” she chided, “don’t use that language in front of the children. Sister Veronica says they repeat it at school.”
“Read this.”
She took the newspaper and began reading. Her mouth fell open more and more. When she finished, her eyes were wide with fear.
“But Maitland said you’d be protected.”
“Not when they’re looking for someone to hang this whole mess on,” he muttered.
He got up from the table, walked into the bedroom, and slammed the door.
Seconds later he came out again, holding an address book in his hand. “Leave me alone,” he growled at his wife.
She nodded. “Come on, kids, let’s go get you dressed for school.”
The girls looked at their father’s frightened face and they themselves became frightened. They walked into their bedroom in front of their mother, and she closed the door.
Tim Essert went to the telephone on the sink counter and dialed Big Bill Maitland’s home number. Horton Landers answered.
“I need to speak to the senator,” Tim said.
“He’s not here, left by train for Washington last night.”
“Damn.”
“What’s the problem?”
“I’m not happy about what I read in the paper, Mr. Landers.”
“Aw, that’s just politics. It’ll blow over. Everybody’ll forget the whole thing in a couple days.”
“Yeah? Well, Judge Buchanan’s not going to forget. If he thinks I fucked with Rabb, he can disbar me in federal court. Then I’m out of a job and out of a career.”
“Now take it easy,” Landers said. “We’re going to have this thing under control before anything like that happens.”
“Just remember, I’m not going down alone. You told me I was covered.”
There was a long silence on the line. Landers’s composure was breaking. “You’ve got to stay on board, Essert. We’ve put a lot of confidence in you.”
“Just knock off the crap, Landers. I’m not getting drowned in this shit all by myself.”
“Don’t threaten me,” Landers barked.
“Then don’t let them bury me,” Essert screamed into the phone and slammed it down. He stood looking out the window into his backyard, gritting his teeth so hard that his jaw muscles ached.
Landers turned to Maitland, sitting on the sofa in the living room holding the Arizona Republic on his lap. His face was gray and drawn.
“We got trouble with Essert,” Landers said.
“You got big trouble out there, Bill. I thought you had those newspapers in your pocket.”
Maitland was enraged. He held his voice steady only with great effort. “I did, Joe. I called Dick Phelps at the Republic just a half hour ago and asked him what the hell right he had to print these goddamn lies. He said it was orders from the publishers and their lawyers. They were afraid without the retraction, this Rabb might win the libel case against them. With these guys it’s just money, Joe. Just money. They got no principles like we got.”
“Well, it’s all over Washington now,” Joe McCarthy said. “The Herald and the Sun and the New York Times all picked up the story and ran it this morning.
I had the Smith thing under wraps until the shit hit the fan in your territory.”
“I’m sorry, Joe. I’m really sorry. But it’ll blow over, just like that bitch’s ‘Declaration of Conscience’ last year.”
In June 1950, Senator Margaret Chase Smith and several other Republican senators had published a statement decrying the deceitful, defamatory tactics of McCarthy. He had weathered the denunciation without even the smallest scar.
“Well, you’ve got to take care of this shit right now, Bill.”
Maitland hesitated and breathed deeply. “You have to, Joe.”
“What’s that mean?”
“You sent the guy down here.”
“What guy?”
“That staffer of yours from Milwaukee, Gruver.”
“What about him?”
“We’re not responsible for what he did.”
Pause. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Three murders.”
“Now hold on just a goddamn minute. I never had anything to do with murder, and I don’t know what the hell you’re taking about.”
“You better ask your boy Gruver. If they come looking for Horton, he’ll be spilling his guts in five minutes.”
“Landers isn’t loyal?”
“He doesn’t think loyalty goes that far.”
“Kikes and Commies, goddamn it! The whole country’s full of kikes and Commies.”
“Well, what the hell am I supposed to do?” Maitland said, exasperated and unnerved.
“What the hell am I supposed to do? Don’t call me talking stupid shit no more,” McCarthy said, slamming down the telephone receiver.
Chapter 22
Hanna’s last class on Thursdays was Southwestern Anthropology, which got out at ten minutes to five. She walked to Maricopa dorm, changed into a polo shirt, Levi’s, and squaw boots, and drove home. She was still driving the old faded yellow Chevy convertible, since her father’s law practice hadn’t been faring too well lately. Hopefully, now that the story had appeared in the newspaper, things would get better, her father could buy the new Oldsmobile he had been looking at, and she would take over the 1948 Dodge and give the Chevy to Adam.
Dinner was much more relaxed than it had been just a day ago. Her father was actually cracking jokes and smiling for a change. There was no more constant brooding about his own criminal charges and what would happen to Hanna. You’ll see, he said to her, I’ll move to set aside your conviction and the other four kids, and I think that they’ll have to go along with it, and then they’ll have to voluntarily quash my indictment. He nodded sagely at her, and she believed him. He was right a lot of the time, and about legal stuff, he was almost always right. The only thing that kept her from feeling any joy was knowing that Mark was either dead or a prisoner of war. Every time she thought about that telegram from the Defense Department a few days ago, she became queasy, wobbly. The Hood of tears had stopped, but not the grief.
It was after seven o’clock when she and Barbara went downtown to the maternity section of Goldberg’s Department Store to buy some new clothes. Barbara was almost six months pregnant and rapidly outgrowing the first batch of maternity clothing that she had bought months ago. It was time to take the ultimate plunge and buy muumuus and stretch front pants and flouncy blouses.
Most of the outfits were pretty drab. Clothes companies didn’t pay a lot of attention to style when it came to pregnant women, and it was hard to find anything flattering and chic, even in Tucson’s finest department store. Alter an hour, having found only two outfits that she liked enough to buy, they walked down the block to Jacome’s Department Store to see if there might be a real find just waiting for them. Surprisingly there was: a simple white muumuu with a big Van Gogh sunflower hand-painted on the front. It was so simple that it was elegant. They left when the store closed at nine o’clock.
Darkness had enveloped Tucson, and there were very few streetlamps. The sky was thickly overcast with black rain clouds. It began to sprinkle lightly. They walked quickly back to Hanna’s Chevy parked in the lot behind Goldberg’s. Barbara got into the passenger seat. Hanna started to get into the driver’s seat. She gasped and put her hand to her mouth.
“What’s wrong?” Barbara asked.
Hanna pointed to the backseat.
Barbara turned around and looked. The dim dome light was on, but it took her a moment to understand what she was looking at. She opened her door and scrambled out of the car. She vomited and fell to her knees, holding her stomach.
“Oh, my God,” she groaned.
Hanna ran to her and knelt with her on the ground. Both of them were gasping and crying.
“I’ve got to call Daddy,” Hanna said, regaining her voice.
“Where?”
“There’s some pay phones on Stone in front of the Cattlemen’s Hotel.”
“Don’t leave me here,” Barbara gasped.
“Can you walk?”
“Help me up. I’ll walk.”
Hanna stood up and helped Barbara stand. Barbara swayed for a moment, steadied herself, and they both walked quickly toward the Cattlemen’s Hotel a block away.
Joshua was there in five minutes. “Do you know who it was?”
Barbara shook her head. “I didn’t look that close.”
Hanna shook her head.
He drove them home and ran upstairs to telephone the sheriff’s department. When he returned to the parking lot behind Goldberg’s Department Store, there was a brown Chevrolet sedan with its lights on parked behind the yellow convertible. A deputy with a flashlight was leaning into the car.
“Can you see who it is?” Joshua asked.
“Who are you?” The deputy stood up and flashed the light in Joshua’s face.
“Joshua Rabb. It’s my car.”
“How’d he get there?”
“How the hell do I know? Do you know who he is?”
The deputy nodded. “Tim Essert. The U.S. attorney.”
Joshua swallowed. “Let me see,” he said, disbelieving.
The deputy handed him the flashlight, and Joshua leaned into the car. He straightened up quickly.
“God,” he gasped.
“How’d he get in your car?”
“I told you I don’t know.”
Another sheriff’s car pulled into the parking lot. A deputy got out of the driver’s side, and Sheriff Pat Dunphy got out of the passenger side. He casually hitched up his brown twill uniform trousers and walked over to the convertible. He was balding, short, very fat, and his stomach bulged the buttons of the short-sleeved tan cotton uniform shirt he was wearing. He sucked at a toothpick in the corner of his mouth.
“Howdy, Counselor,” he said. He held out his hand for the flashlight, and Joshua handed it to him.
He leaned into the car for a moment, then handed the flashlight to the deputy.
“Got us a dead man here,” he drawled.
“You’re a genius,” Joshua said.
“This yer old car?” Dunphy pointed. “I seem to remember you bought it with the money you got offa that killer, what was his name? Yeah, yeah. Franklin Carillo.”
Joshua said nothing.
“What’s ol’ Timmy Essert doin’ in yer backseat?”
“He isn’t doing anything, far as I can tell.” Joshua said.
Dunphy let out a malicious laugh. “Yer a real comedian, a real funny guy. you are.”
Joshua said nothing.
“You get tired a him screwin’ with you and yer daughter?”
“You think I’d have left him in the backseat of my own car?”
Dunphy raised his eyebrows and shrugged. “Who knows what you Commies’ll do? Maybe you figgered the best place was your own car, throw all us rubes off lookin’ for somebody who set ya up.”
Joshua stared at him and frowned.
An old military ambulance pulled into the lot. Coroner Stanley Wolfe got out of the passenger side and walked up to Joshua and Dunphy.
“Got a little present fer ya, Stan,” the sheriff said. He pointed to the back of the car.
The deputy handed the flashlight to the coroner, and Wolf leaned into the back of the car. He examined the body for several minutes.
“Looks like suicide,” Wolfe said. “He held this .45 Colt auto up to his temple and pulled the trigger.” He held up the gun. He was holding it by a pencil through the trigger housing.
“Or somebody done it to make it look like suicide,” Dunphy said.
Stan Wolfe shrugged. “Possible.”
“When’d it happen?” Dunphy asked.
“Can’t tell yet. I’ll take him to the morgue and call you later.”
Dunphy nodded, then looked hard at Joshua. “Come on down to the office, Counselor. Let’s have a little chat.”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Sho’ nuff, son, sho’ nuff. Ya can choose standin’ up or lyin’ flat on yer back with my knuckle prints on yer jaw.”
It was after midnight when the pointless inquisition ended and Joshua got back home. He walked wearily upstairs, and the lights were on in the living room. Odd. The master bedroom door was open, and Barbara wasn’t there. Hanna’s bedroom was empty. He ran up the stairs to the dormer, and Adam wasn’t there.
He ran down to the kitchen, switched on the light, and looked on the icebox, where they left messages for each other.
“Barbara is spotting again,” read the note in Hanna’s handwriting. “We’re going to TMC.”
“Oh, God,” Joshua groaned.
He ran down the stairs and drove to Tucson Medical Center. Adam and Hanna were in the waiting room. They both appeared deeply shocked.
“Barbara lost the baby,” Hanna gasped.
“Go home,” Joshua told them. “I’ll be home in a while.” He watched them leave.
Hal and Rebecca Dubin were sitting beside Barbara’s bed. Rebecca wept and blew her nose into a handkerchief. Hal’s face was twisted and ugly. Barbara was awake, staring at the ceiling.
“I’m okay, Josh,” she whispered as he came to the bed. “I’m okay.”
