"Over the years there were some changes made in the trust. The real estate-insurance man from Hampton Falls, Philip Fox, came in soon after it was formed. The reason was that he'd handled the construction bonds on the courthouse. The Commonwealth was having one of its periodic fits of public outrage about corruption. A state crime commission had been appointed. Fox knew too much to leave him out and maybe make him mad enough to talk. So the first four brought him in, diluting their shares but keeping him quiet hush money.
"Years went by. Fox died and his grandson Walter took his place. Lane died, leaving his to Merrion, in thanks for befriending him. Shrewdly.
The money kept on rolling in. Walter Fox died and his widow, Diane, took his place on the trust. Later on, she agreed to fill the place her husband had expected to serve on the building committee for the new Canterbury Municipal Complex. Mister Merrion was also on that committee. Mrs. Fox wasn't originally from around here. She's from Wisconsin. Fairly soon after these developments, she and Mister Merrion entered into a close personal relationship."
"Is that supposed to mean something?" Merrion said, growling.
"Take it easy, Amby," Cohen said. "Take it easy here."
"Stay away from the personal stuff, Mister Bissell," the judge said.
"We avoid private matters in this corner of the world."
"I meant no aspersion on Mrs. Fox or Mister Merrion, either, in that regard," Bissell said. "The point I was making is that Mrs. Fox, being from Wisconsin, probably wasn't familiar with the Massachusetts politics of self-enrichment. So, to enlist her in any later scheme to skim contracts for construction of the Canterbury Municipal Complex, as the make-up of the committee would suggest that he and Hilliard had in mind, Mister Merrion would've had to explain the procedures to her. He perhaps feared she might not like the idea of milking state contracts might even strongly disapprove. And because they do appear to have embarked on what's now a long-standing relationship quite soon after her husband's death, our surmise is that his fear of her disapproval, and what she might do to express it, caused him to abrogate any plans he and Hilliard might have had to plunder the project. Whatever the reason, so far in our review it doesn't appear to have been skimmed."
"Hurrah, hurrah," Merrion murmured, before Cohen could silence him.
"Mister Merrion," the judge said calmly, "I know this must be very trying for you, very hard to sit through without making some response.
But I also know you're a court officer, not only made of good stern stuff but also aware of the rules of decorum we enforce here, even when we're in chambers.
"I'll make an allowance for you this time, because I do think," shifting her gaze to Bissell, 'that the assistant US attorney has gone about as far as I'm willing to allow without disciplining him." Bissell worked his mouth and swallowed. She returned her gaze to Merrion, stretching her left arm out on the table and lowering her head to sight along it at him. "But please don't do it again." She kept her smile very small. "Do we understand each other, Mister Merrion?"
"Yes, your Honor," Merrion said, looking chagrined.
She straighted up and nodded. "Good," she said with satisfaction. She turned to look at Bissell. "And how about you, Mister Bissell? We're both on the same page too, I trust?"
"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.