Parlor Games: A Novel Part 19

"Can't we just live here? I'm so happy here with you."

"And I with you. We can be happy anywhere, dear girl, as long as we're together."

"I have plenty of money to get us started. Together we could buy antiquities and export them to the States."

Confusion crept over Johnny's features. "But I can't let my family down. Everything's been planned, from my schooling at Harvard to an office designed just for me. With a desk my grandfather brought over from Scotland."

I gulped. I could never explain why I wanted to stay in j.a.pan.

Johnny patted my hand. "Don't worry, darling. It'll be perfect-you and me in a home of our own in New York."

I wanted to tell him everything, right then and there: I'm not Pauline. I'm not the daughter of a well-to-do restaurant owner. I've made mistakes. Dougherty is trying to separate us. He thinks I'm after your money. It's not true. You're my own dear Johnny. I love you. As I've never loved anyone before.

Johnny cupped his hand over mine. "Please say yes, my darling."

I couldn't bear to crush Johnny's spirit. My trusting Johnny believed everything I had ever told him. Never had he doubted me. To him I was a sweet girl with an innocent past. His Pauline.

I gazed into his beckoning eyes. "Yes."

He reached out for my hand and slipped the ring on my finger.

My throat nearly burst from the lump of sadness ma.s.sing in it. I looked at him, my eyes misting over. "I love you, Johnny. I love everything about you."

"My dear, wonderful Pauline."

Pauline-how the name grated at my ears, signifying, as it did, nothing but pretense.

I clasped his hands. I wanted to never let go.

Johnny squeezed my hands. "Everything will be perfect. Leave it all to me."

Johnny's happiness that evening only intensified my agony: I desperately feared losing him. Once Dougherty reported back to Johnny's father, his family might well refuse to meet me-or spurn Johnny if we married. I had to somehow spare Johnny the heartache of family abandonment. I had to outwit Dougherty.

Just as Johnny and I prepared to depart Kyoto and hasten back to the States, I received a message from Reed Dougherty: "I think we should take up that business we failed to resolve in Tokyo."

Dougherty had managed to track us down despite my efforts to evade him. I had little choice but to meet the roving detective, so I sent word that I would call on him late that afternoon at his out-of-the-way hotel. (He obviously hadn't had sufficient influence to secure any of the finer hotels in town.) He welcomed me to a shadowy private room in his hotel's dining area and poured cups of sake for us.

I knew my options were diminishing, but my love for Johnny drove me to try my hand. "Mr. Dougherty, you seem terribly determined to make an issue of something that is none of your business."

He sat on a pillow with his gangly legs crossed at the ankles. "It became my business once John started draining his bank account for you."

Out of habit, I picked up my sake cup. But the thought of taking sake with Dougherty repelled me, and I quickly replaced it. "Johnny is free to spend his money as he wishes."

"It's not exactly his money. It's family money, and his father asks that the spending stop."

"You can't separate us. What do I care about a couple of photos?"

"Obviously enough to ransack my room."

"You made such a fuss about them. My curiosity was aroused."

With all the leisure of a lord out for a Sunday stroll, Dougherty sipped his sake and placed his cup back on the table. "I'm sure Johnny and his family would also find them fascinating."

If only I could get the photographs. Perhaps it would rob him of the proof he needed to turn Johnny's family against me. "If you'll turn over the photographs, I'll leave Johnny."

"And if you'd found them in my hotel room, I suppose we wouldn't be having this conversation."

"I told you, I'll quit seeing Johnny if you hand them over."

"That wouldn't help you."

"Why not?"

"One set is in government custody."

"And what do you propose to do with them?"

"Nothing if you leave Johnny."

"That would make Johnny very unhappy."

"According to you."

"I know how Johnny feels."

He eyed my engagement ring. "I see you've extracted a promise of marriage from him."

"Extracted? How dare you insult Mr. Graham with such a cheap insinuation."

"I can tell you with the utmost confidence that his family will not countenance the likes of you."

"You can't keep us apart."

Dougherty tapped his fingers on the table. "If he stays with you, his family will cut him off. But, more to the point, you're wanted for larceny. And if you dare to set foot on U.S. soil with John Graham, I'll have you arrested."

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 d.a.m.ning 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 a.s.sume 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 a.s.sistant 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 p.r.i.c.ked up their ears at the sudden silence.

I recited a prayer of quiet grat.i.tude 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 doc.u.ment 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 circ.u.mstances."