A change of gravity

"Oh yes, your Honor," Bissell said without repentance, "I understand your view. But once again, when I said that, I did not mean…"

"Nooo," the judge said, 'the matter's closed. Go on now and please finish."

"For whatever the reason, the Fourmen's Trust thereafter does not appear to have been further enriched by any infusions of capital other than the contributions required to buy out the interests of departing members. Judge Spring was the next to die, after Philip Fox. Then Roy Cames, Junior, liquidated all his family holdings here in order to relocate down south. F.D. Barrow, Walter Fox and Merrion bought out those two shares. Then Barrow died and his son succeeded him. And as I've said, when Walter Fox died his wife Diane took his place.

"So the Fourmen's Trust as it's now constituted has three named shareholder-beneficiaries, two men and a woman. Otherwise the way it's operated stayed the same for coming up on almost forty years now, still turning a neat profit, close to two hundred grand a year. All through those years, right down to the present day, each and every one of the direct beneficiaries of profits earned on the ill-gotten gains that funded the Fourmen's Trust has scrupulously and faithfully reported, as ordinary income, the annual distributions that the trust has made from earnings, and paid all federal and state taxes due very substantial sums.

"But during those years there has also been an indirect beneficiary, Daniel Hilliard. We find in his tax returns for beginning in Nineteen-seventy-three no evidence, no indication, he ever reported as income the amounts by which he benefited from the Fourmen's Trust, or paid any taxes on them."

"For the simple reason," Merrion began roughly.

"Shut up, Amby," Cohen said, spinning in his chair and grabbing Merrion's arm again. Then: "Your Honor, may I have a word with my client?"

"Certainly," the judge said. "Do you want a recess so you can take him outside and talk to him privately?" '1 don't think that'll be necessary, your Honor," Cohen said, 'but I would like this to be off the record."

"I'll give you that," the judge said. "Off the record. You probably don't mind hearing that, do you, Lizzie?"

"Sweetest words I heard today," the stenographer said, clasping her hands together, palms outward, and stretching her arms out in front of her, then flexing her back against the chair.

"Look, Amby," Cohen said. "I warned you you wouldn't like this; sitting through this and having to keep your mouth shut. And I told you you shouldn't come. But you insisted, said you could do it. You wouldn't let him get to you. So do it. Or if you can't do it, get out."

Merrion nodded, his face like an outcropping rock.

"I think we'll be all right now to go back on the record again, Judge,"

Cohen said.

"Very well," the judge said, 'we are back on the record. Mister Bissell, as you were saying?"

"I mentioned just a few moments ago," Bissell said, unable or unwilling to avoid looking pleased, 'that when Dan Hilliard and Mister Merrion pooled their resources back in Nineteen-sixty to get Hilliard elected alderman, they had several objectives in mind. The third one was to secure good lifetime jobs with the Commonwealth. Hilliard's would turn out to be the presidency of Hampton Pond Community College which with the help of his cronies in the House he tailor-made for himself. But his sinecure could wait; his political star was still on the rise.

"Merrion's situation was different. After a few years as Hilliard's district aide, he began to feel restless. A secure billet had to be found for him. One was. In Nineteen-sixty-six, Presiding Judge Charles Spring, no doubt at the direction of Roy Carnes, acting in turn at Hilliard's request, appointed Ambrose Merrion third assistant clerk of the Canterbury Court. Merrion and Lane later formed a friendship.

"That was Merrion's shrewd move. By all accounts, Lane'd been a heavy smoker all his life, and he also had a serious drinking problem. Soon after he retired, late in Nineteen-seventy, already diagnosed with cancer, his family gave him an ultimatum: either he would quit drinking and undergo a grueling course of radiation and chemotherapy to arrest the disease, if not cure it, or he would have to leave.

"He chose to leave. He estranged himself from his wife and children and moved into an apartment in the three-story building at Sixteen-ninety-two Eisenhower Boulevard built by the Fourmen's Realty Trust, financed with funds its beneficiaries and trustees had skimmed off the courthouse construction. Lane died in October of Nineteen-seventy-two.