“You humiliate me to the entire world … you make a fool out of me, and you expect me to sit here and take it. I want a divorce, Sam.”

“You're out of your mind. You're imagining things. Who've you been talking to again? Arthur?” But he looked worried.

“Arthur has nothing to do with this. And all you have to do is read the newspapers. It's in every column from here to L.A., Sam. Every year, every month, every movie, every play, it's a new showgirl, a new leading lady, a new woman. You've done it for too long. You've done nothing but play, and you're so impressed with yourself that you think you owe it to yourself. Then fine, okay, but I owe myself something too. I owe myself a husband who loves me and is willing to be faithful too.”

“And you?” He tried to turn the tables on her, even though he knew how desperately devoted she had been. “What about all your goddam lunches with Arthur?”

“I have no one else to talk to, Sam. At least he won't call the papers and tell them what I say.” They both knew that everyone else would. She wasn't wrong. She was Sam Walker's wife after all. And he was a star now. “At least I can cry on his shoulder.”

“While he cries in your soup. You're the most pathetic pair I've ever heard of. And remember what I told you, Solange. I will not give you a divorce. Period. Amen. So don't ask me again.”

“I don't have to ask you.” It was the first time she had openly threatened him.

“Oh no?” There was a thin trace of fear in his voice, carefully masked, but she knew it.

“All I have to do is have you followed. I could have divorced you fifty times by now.”

He had slammed out of the house without saying another word, and he had left for California again the next day. It had delayed rehearsals of his play by a month, but they always forgave Sam Walker.

When he returned things were just as stormy with Solange. She knew whom he had taken to the West Coast and she was finally fed up with him. When he returned one night she was waiting for him. When she confronted him their fighting was so loud that it woke Hilary. Alexandra's room was farther down the hall, and Megan was only eight months old then. But Hilary was eight years old. And she remembered everything. The ambulances and the police … the sirens … and her mother being taken out in a sheet … she remembered what they had said … and her father crying as they led him away. He hadn't even seen her standing near the door, watching. And then she remembered the nurse calling Uncle Arthur.

He had come almost at once, his face gray. He couldn't believe what they had told him. There had to be some mistake … had to be … it wasn't possible. He knew they had been having problems for a while, but Sam adored her, just as she loved him. It was a love that had often gone well beyond reason, a love that forgave him everything, a love that had led him to follow her doggedly down the rue d'Arcole right from the beginning. It was a love that touched everyone who came near them … a love that … He just couldn't understand it as he sat in their apartment as the dawn came and the doorman brought the paper upstairs and knocked discreetly on their front door. But it was all there, as Arthur held out a trembling hand and took the paper. It was all there … the end of a dream … the end of a life … Sam had killed her.

PART TWO

Hilary





Chapter 5




The door to the holding cell slammed hard behind Arthur as he waited to see him. Sam was being held at the 17th Precinct on East Fifty-first Street and it was after noon before they let Arthur in to see him. They had interrogated him until then, for hours and hours, although they had no need to. He had admitted everything. He had sobbed. He had stared glassy-eyed … he had remembered every minute of those first hours in Paris. He didn't understand why he had done it … he knew he'd been drunk … she had frightened him by saying she was leaving. But still … he couldn't understand why he'd done it except that he didn't want to lose her and she had said … she had said … With a look of despair he stared up at Arthur when they led him in. And Sam seemed almost not to see him.

“Sam …” Arthur's voice was hoarse. He had been crying all morning. And he reached out to touch Sam's arm, as though to bring him back from the edge of the abyss. Sam looked as though he wanted to die himself. He stood in the center of the room after they left him there and just stared at Arthur.

“I killed her, Arthur … I killed her.” He seemed almost not to see him … only her face when he strangled her … the red hair he loved so much … why? … why had he done it? … why had she said all those terrible things to him? He looked blindly at his friend as the tears began to roll down his cheeks again.

“Sit down, Sam … come on.” He gently helped him into one of the room's two straight-backed chairs, facing each other over a narrow, battered table. “We have to talk.” Sam seemed barely coherent, but they had to talk. “Do you want to talk about what happened?”

Sam only stared at him. It was all much too simple. “I killed her.”

“I know that, Sam. But what happened before that? Did she provoke you?” He had to find him a good defense attorney, and before he did, he had to know what they were up against. Now Sam was not just his best friend, he was indirectly a client. “Did she strike you?”

Sam shook his head, his eyes distant and vague. “She said a lot of terrible things … she was very angry.”

Arthur suspected why, but he asked anyway. “Why was she angry?”

Sam stared at the floor, remembering Solange's fury. He had never seen her like that. He knew he had pushed her too far this time. And he was desperate not to lose her. But he had anyway … the only woman he loved. … He looked up at Arthur in despair. “She knew I was having an affair again … it didn't mean anything … it never did …”

“Except to Solange, Sam.” His voice was quiet, and he had to remind himself that it was Sam he was defending, not Solange now.

Sam looked at him strangely in answer, and he was silent for a long time.

“Did she threaten to divorce you?”

He nodded, and then he had to clear the air. He had to ask him. He had to know. It was, in a sense, why he had killed her. Except that he was also drunk and had lost control and the things she said were so terrible, and he was terrified that she meant it and he would lose her. “She said you and she were having an affair. Is that true?” His eyes pierced his friend's, and Arthur looked back at him with sorrow.

“What do you think?”

“I've never thought about it before. I know you were close to her … you two used to go to lunch a lot …”

“But did she ever hide it?” like all good lawyers, he knew the answer before he asked the question.

“No … she always told me … at least I think so …”

“Don't you think she was just trying to get back at you by saying that, for all the pain you'd caused her, and how else could she?”

Now, in the clear light of day, he knew that. But the night before, in the heat of passion Sam had believed her … he had gone crazy … and he had actually killed her. The thought of it made the panic rise in his throat like a hand reaching up from his guts to strangle him, and he knew he deserved it. He deserved to die for what he had done to Solange. He began to cry again and Arthur held his shoulders.

“What's going to happen to the girls now?” He suddenly looked up at Arthur with fresh panic.

Arthur had been thinking about it all morning. “I'm sure you have enough money to take care of them while all this is pending.” And there was the nurse, and a maid in the apartment. They lived extremely well at the apartment on Sutton Place.

Sam looked bleak as he stared at his friend. “How much is all this going to cost me?” It had cost Solange her life, and now … Arthur had to fight his own feelings again and again. How could he have done this to her? And yet, Sam was his friend, more than that, he was almost his brother. They had survived the war side by side, Sam had carried him across the mountains, and to the medics when he was wounded near Cassino. They had liberated Paris and Rome … Paris … and the rue d'Arcole where they had first seen her. It was all so tightly interwoven, and now it wasn't just a matter of Sam and Solange, there were their daughters to think of. Hilary, Alexandra, and Megan. But Arthur tried to force his thoughts back to answer Sam's question. He wanted to know how much his defense would cost him.

“It depends on who you hire to defend you. I want to think of who to recommend. But you should have the best. This is going to be a very big trial, and there will be a lot of sympathy for Solange. You've had a lot of press with your lady friends in recent years, Sam, and that is not going to help you.”

But Sam was shaking his head with determination. “I don't want someone else. I want you to defend me.” He looked up at Arthur and Arthur almost visibly shuddered.

“I can't do that.” His voice was a croak in the room full of echoes.

“Why not?”

“Because I'm your friend. And I'm not a criminal attorney.”

“I don't care. You're the best there is. I don't want anyone else. I want you.” His eyes filled with tears, it was all so horrible, it was beyond belief, but it was happening, it was real. He had made it real. He had made reality from a nightmare.

Arthur's face was suddenly covered by a thin film of perspiration. This was bad enough, but to defend him on top of it. He just couldn't. “I don't think I can do it, Sam. I don't have the experience in this field. It would be a tremendous disadvantage to you. You can't do this …”… to either of us … Oh God, please. He wanted to cry. But Sam was adamant as he looked up at him with pleading eyes.