Parlor Games A Novel

THE TRIAL

A MATTER OF CALCULATION



MENOMINEE—JANUARY 26, 1917



Over the course of the Friday-morning session, Sawyer finally wrapped up his overly solicitous questioning of Frank.

“Miss Shaver, when did your friendship with the Baroness end for a second time?”

“In July of last year, after she learned my inheritance was drained and that I was up to my neck in the Highland Park mortgage.”

“How did she respond to this news?”

“She dropped me like a hot penny.”

The women onlookers (excepting the reporters, there were only women in the courtroom today) muttered to each other, as if this were the damning news they’d been waiting for all along. But they hadn’t bargained on the evidence my attorney was about to introduce.

After Sawyer yielded the floor, Judge Flanagan turned to my lawyer. “Mr. Powers, I assume you would like to cross-examine?”

“Yes, thank you, Your Honor.” Powers rose and marched to the witness box. His pomaded gray hair glistened under the glare of the courtroom’s bare lightbulbs. “Miss Shaver, you graduated from high school in Pittsburgh and attended the University of Pennsylvania, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“And did you have occasion to learn arithmetic along the way?”

“Of course.”

Powers took a few steps to the right, toward the jurors. “So you do know how to add and subtract?”

“Yes.”

“And you graduated from the University of Michigan Law School?”

“I did.”

Mr. Powers paced back to the witness box. “Started a law practice in Chicago and Menominee after that?”

“Yes.”

“Did you have to manage or oversee the finances of those practices?”

“I had an assistant tend the books.”

“Did you ever check the books?”

“Monthly.”

“Did that involve counting dollars?”

“Not exactly. It involved checking the expenses and collections.”

Powers stroked his hand over his chin, as if contemplating some weighty matter, and then, releasing his hand, asked, “Then how can you claim not to know the value of a dollar?”

Frank paused. Several of the jurors leaned forward. The courthouse mice likely pricked up their ears at the sudden silence.

I recited a prayer of quiet gratitude for my attorney. My side had taken quite a bruising during Frank’s direct examination. And with over a hundred thousand dollars at stake, I needed a strong defense. The fact is, I didn’t have that kind of money.

Frank held her head up high. “I meant exactly what I said. I grew up with plenty of money; my parents never flaunted the family wealth; and I expected my inheritance to last a long time.”

“Are you saying that, when you inherited two hundred thousand dollars from your father’s estate, you considered that an unlimited amount?”

“I’m saying two hundred thousand would have lasted a lifetime if May hadn’t come along.”

“That’s not what I asked. Did you think that sum was unlimited?”

“More or less.”

“Even when you withdrew tens of thousands at a time?”

“That’s how I grew up, believing that there was always more.”

“How can a lawyer not understand the simple matter of subtraction?”

Sawyer shoved his chair back and stood. “Objection, counsel is badgering.”

“Sustained,” said Judge Flanagan.

Mr. Powers walked to the defendant’s table and selected a paper from the lineup of pages he had spread out there. Approaching Frank, he said, “Miss Shaver, I’ll ask you to examine the signature on this sheet.”

Frank took the sheet from Powers and examined it. “Yes, that looks like my signature.”

“Does it look like it, or is it your signature?”

“I guess it’s my signature.”

“And do you recall signing this on December 11, 1915?”

“Vaguely.”

“Will you read it, please?”

In an uncharacteristically subdued manner, Frank read, “By this document I, Frank Shaver, hereby release the Baroness May de Vries from all debts and loans, and everything else that may be construed as such.”

Powers had been studying the floor, as if to absorb every word of the reading. “Now, Miss Shaver, you are an attorney, correct?”

“Yes, but there were extenuating circumstances.”

Powers rushed in. “You signed this contract, did you not?”

“Yes, but I didn’t understand it.”

“Do you deny this is a simple contract, understandable to a layman?”

Sawyer rose. “Objection, argumentative.”

“Sustained,” said Flanagan.

Powers forged ahead. “What didn’t you understand, Miss Shaver?”

“I was very ill at the time; I couldn’t take it all in.”

“Did you know the word ‘everything’ was in it?”

“No, I didn’t know what was in it.”

“You signed without carefully reading it, without noticing the word ‘everything’?”

“I was ill.”

“If you were ill, why did you entertain signing a contract?”

“Even when I’m ill, I can always write. And talk.” Frank gripped the sides of the witness box and pitched forward. “The fact is, I trusted May and she tricked me.”

With a sigh, I relaxed in my chair. We had a signed release. No amount of squirming or wheedling on Frank’s part could undo that.