Standing with his right hand raised, Dr. Masterson said, “I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.”
CHAPTER TWENTY — EIGHT
“Have a seat,” said Mr. Comer. “Dr. Masterson, you know John Porter and Erma Alred?”
“Very well,” said the tight-skinned old man with the smile of a skeleton and the wise eyes of a deadly king. He was dressed in a new suit, which he had likely bought for the occasion. Comer smiled.
“Dr. Masterson…did you ask them to return KM-2 to the University?”
“I did not.”
“Why did they have it?” said the Prosecuting Attorney.
“Dr. Kinnard, overseeing Porter’s doctoral studies, gave Porter the codex while under the misunderstanding that it had come into his hands in a legal fashion.” Masterson sat back in the chair as though he were a doctor or psychiatrist accustomed to adding his professional expertise in the trials of criminals. He did his best to look comfortable on the stand.
Comer kept his head down. He glanced back at Mr. Sowerby, the Defense attorney. The young man had done little to help Porter and no doubt would only make a fool of himself when he questioned Dr. Masterson. Porter had kept his forehead in his hands since the beginning of this session. He didn’t know how lucky-or unlucky-he was to have his trial progress so quickly. He wasn’t wanted for murder, so he didn’t face a cold chair somewhere. But Porter looked as guilty as a wet boy caught naked near a pond and accused of skinny-dipping.
The Prosecuting Attorney had to get this over with. It was an embarrassing trial, and after interviewing three of the four professors who were supposedly present when KM-2 was returned to the school’s hands, it would all be finished. “Did Alred or Porter ever return KM-2 to Stratford University.”
“Not to my knowledge,” said the old man with little enthusiasm. He looked as if ready to spout a great discourse he’d prepared the night before, but fortunately saved his exuberance for the classroom.
“Did Alred give the codex to you, Dr. Masterson?” said Comer.
“Certainly not.”
“One last question, Dr. Masterson.” Comer lifted a legal pad. “Does a Dr. Arnott work at Stratford University? Do you know this man?”
Masterson squared his shoulders and looked the attorney right between the eyes, but not directly into the pupils. He took a powerful breath. “No.”
3:18 p.m. PST
Comer put his palms together as if praying, touching his fingertips to his chin. “So, Dr. Goldstien…you’re saying you never sat in a room with Kinnard, Masterson, and Arnott as KM-2 was brought into your presence by Erma Alred.”
Goldstien smiled, wiped his hands on the left and right pockets of his hazel blazer, and looked in Alred’s direction. “I would remember if she came into a meeting with us!” He flaunted his interest in her, for he wasn’t the one on trial. He knew his smile would detract from the focus of the question. His words would be recorded, and that was the important part. “As for the KM-2 codex…never saw it. I don’t know this Arnott fellow you’re talking about.” He quickly added with a raised finger, “If Ms. Alred is saying she brought us the codex, I would enjoy going along with her story. But I fear she has fabricated her testimony in order to serve John Porter’s best interests.”
“No…further…questions…”
3:26 p.m. PST
“Dr. Kinnard, you’ve heard the story so far.” The Prosecuting attorney looked at Judge Panofsky, whose eyes wandered across pages on his desk and glided to the high windows hidden on the east side of the courtroom. “I mean the fable,” he said with a raised voice. Kinnard noticed each of the lawyer’s movements and flinched-not enough for anyone else to notice, surely-as Comer looked again into the witness booth. “Who is telling tales? That is for you to help us conclude.”
“I’ll do my best,” said the professor with a gruffness in his throat. Kinnard had heard the other testimonies. In fact, he’d been present from the beginning, eyeing Porter’s wimpy defender, Alred’s steady focus and terrible silence, the judge’s decision already determined behind the thin spectacles.
Kinnard had received the same phone call from Arnott which had altered Masterson’s and Goldstien’s testimonies. It was a simple message following a short salutation. Like a conscience, Arnott told him Alred had never returned KM-2 to the University. And Arnott didn’t exist. Arnott explained that the authorities would not find a “Peter Arnott” in any database, so to even mention him would sound like a falsification of testimony.
Porter was dying and didn’t have a single opportunity to fight. Kinnard blamed himself. He had presented this paranoid eccentric with the ancient manuscript that could have made him famous. No. Kinnard blamed John Porter, who should have had his dissertation prepared long before the last semester of his seventh year at Stratford. No. He blamed Ulman, the oaf with the knack for trouble who’d finally found a way to collapse a small corner of the world. Ulman had probably gotten killed before he could even see the damage.
But it had been Kinnard himself who’d perpetuated the problem when he could have stashed KM-2 or given it to Masterson, who should have received the book in the first place. Porter had really been an innocent who’d gotten in the way and hung on for dear life because his was otherwise at an end. A snare yanked Alred into this.
A worse trap would snatch both students into judicial oblivion, while Kinnard himself pulled the lever.
What other choices were there? Suicide? Who wanted this codex and all its relations buried anyway? Would they kill Kinnard if he explained…what really had occurred? Would the University oust him since he did not stand with his fellow academics? Would the papers be involved in this? What about his family; what would they wonder as they read,
DR. TROY KINNARD OF STRATFORD UNIVERSITY DEFENDS MORMON THIEF, THUS LOSES TENURE!
“We need to know the truth,” Comer said through the fog of Kinnard’s thoughts. “First…who is Peter Arnott?”
Pause. “I don’t know.”
“Well, we’ll get back to him in a moment. Tell me, did Erma Alred return KM-2 to Stratford University on thirty April?”
The cue. Kinnard’s lines had already been well-rehearsed before stepping into the courtroom. There wasn’t a trial going on, but a play! Kinnard had never auditioned, but had a part so vital that the director, Peter Arnott, stood with his arms folded and his face gray in the back of the brown room right where the professor could see him best.
Kinnard looked at the great double doors with armed officers standing like cast iron ushers and couldn’t push away the feeling that he was on trial and not John Porter. Would Kinnard make it through those doors after his testimony? How far, before he was stabbed in the back, shot with poison darts, or No, they would get him later. Blow up his car? Too dramatic. Poison his orange juice tomorrow morning? They wouldn’t spend the money. Their revenge would be worse than death. Kinnard would lose credibility, watch his job fall away. Perhaps they’d even find a way to revoke his credentials…
“Dr. Kinnard?’ said Comer.
Looking into the Prosecuting Attorney’s caffeine-charged eyes, Kinnard opened his mouth a crack and drew in the warm air of the courtroom. He tasted the scent of the leather chair beneath him as he shifted his weight. He folded his fingers together on his lap and squared his shoulders. His chin lifted and fell, eyes jumping to Masterson’s cold gaze, back to Arnott who never moved, both young gargoyles carved out of flesh. Closing his eyes, Kinnard heard the squeak of Judge Panofsky’s bottom against his seat.
Comer didn’t restate the question or call the professor’s name a second time. For only a flashing moment, Kinnard saw in the attorney’s eyes the minute concern that Kinnard was about to overthrow the entire point the Prosecution pushed for: that the meeting mentioned by Porter and Alred had never occurred. The insinuation could also then be deduced that Alred was as guilty as Porter, at least in her attempt to lie in a Federal court of law.