The Presumption of Guilt

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RichardGerald
RichardGerald
2,867 Followers

In part, our poverty was my doing. I longed to have a child, but we were just recently married and in no position to think of children yet. Bruce had just started work. I was still in graduate school. Our poverty notwithstanding, I stopped my birth control. It should have been a mutual decision, but I took it on myself.

Bruce never criticized. He expressed nothing but pleasure at my pregnancy. I knew he worried about our finances and would have waited until we were more secure. Still, even as we struggled, he had somehow found the funds to buy me an extravagant gift. My loving husband of the last fifteen years who I have so easily betrayed.

I waiver between never seeing Paul again and rushing out the door to throw myself into my lover's arms. When Bruce comes home tonight from his trip, I'm sure he will know, and maybe that will put an end to it one way or the other. I don't know what I will say to him. I can't bear to hurt him.

January Seventeenth

Nothing happened last night. If Bruce could tell or even suspected what I had been up to while he was away, he gave no indication. Yet, our interactions seemed off. It was as if some distance had come between us. I may be creating artificially the very thing I fear. Bruce acted and seemed tired. For now, I must wait and see.

I left for work early to avoid Bruce in the harsh light of morning. I had barely arrived at work when my cell rang. It was Paul. He wanted to talk, and we did until I had to start work. Somehow talking to him raised my spirits and gave me the hope that somehow all would work out. That love would find a way, and I had to admit that what I felt for Paul was love. Perhaps not the forever type that I have with Bruce, but a deep and passionate feeling that I have never experienced before.

January Nineteenth

I took comp time and went for what I said was a long lunch, but in reality, I met Paul at his apartment. He is working the four to midnight shift. We had two heavenly hours together. I went down on that magnificent cock of his licking from the base up the shaft to the mushroom shaped head on top. Then I slipped him into my mouth and slowly worked at trying to take him down my throat. I had never deep throated Bruce nor have I very often given him oral sex.

Oral sex with my husband had been mostly a one-way street my way, but with Paul, I just could not get enough of his long thick cock. I was so enthralled with this activity that I did not stop when he pumped his load into my mouth.

Paul pulls me up beside him and works his fingers into my wet sex. I was so hot for him. I groan and wiggle with pleasure as his fingers invade me. Before I realize it, his cock is standing tall again, and he flips me over and enters me from the rear.

At home, Bruce seemed cool, but I'm not sure whether it is all in my head. We have not had sex since he returned from New York, but he will be home this weekend, and I intend to make it all up to him.

February Twelfth

I have spent the last month in turmoil. My affair with Paul seems to be escalating. We see each other during the day at his place at least twice a week and in the evenings when Bruce is out of town which he is a lot lately. Paul tells me that Bruce is involved with some very bad people. The FBI is very concerned because none of their surveillance efforts are working. Bruce has been blocking their warrants legally and helping them acquire very sophisticated anti-bugging equipment. Material that is banned but can be acquired under special permits.

Paul didn't say it, but I know that part of his job is still the surveillance of my husband. I guess I should appreciate the fact that Paul almost always knows the location of my husband, but the tension is growing. I'm caught between two lovers. I love both these men, and I can see that they are enemies. I'm trapped in this no-win situation with no way out.

Bruce has been the very definition of a good husband, buying me small gifts for no reason, sending me flowers, and making the sweetest love to me. However, I can't shake this feeling that somehow, he knows what has been going on behind his back. He gives no indication of knowledge, but after fifteen years I know when he is troubled, and something is troubling my husband.

****

"I'm sorry Mr. Grey, but I don't see the problem with admitting your wife's diary into evidence," Judge Bascom's said. We were in his chambers arguing over the prosecution's proposal to introduce the diary into evidence.

"I see, and the concept of hearsay doesn't trouble you at all," I said.

There was no question that Elaine's diary was an out of court statement being admitted for its truth.

"It falls into one of the exceptions to the hearsay rule," Tanya argued.

"Really, which one," I demanded.

"Several," she replied without investing her argument in any one in particular.

I wasn't going to win this argument. Tanya thought she needed the diary to seal my conviction and the Judge was going to let it in.

"The diary is in. If I'm wrong you can tell it to the appeals court," the judge said.

On appeal, the prosecution would argue that the admission of the diary was harmless error. That would be less than correct but what would it matter, I was guilty "right." Everyone knew this including the appeals court judges.

Tanya had a very attractive clerk from her office sit on the witness stand to read my wife's diary. The girl was perhaps twenty-two. She had dark raven hair worn straight and simple. Deep brown eyes and the most innocent appearance possible. She blushed so sweetly at the racier parts of my wife's writing and thereby drew away any condemnation the jury might feel for the salacious infidelity of the woman, I had loved and been faithful to for fifteen years.

*****

March Sixteenth

Racheal is home for spring break. I've not seen or heard from my daughter since Christmas. She seems very happy. I'm not sure why she wanted to go to boarding school, but I suspect that it had something to do with the rumors about Bruce. She loves her father, but there is no escaping what people say about him. It must be hard for a teenager.

With Racheal home, Paul and I cannot meet at my house, and Paul believes there may be people at his work who suspect his relationship with me. It would be bad for his career if our affair came out while he is part of the team investigating Bruce. Paul plans to ask for a transfer; he wants me to leave Bruce. However, faced with that decision I realize that what Paul proposes is wrong. Moreover, what I have been doing with Paul is wrong.

My affair is wrong on so many levels. When I see Racheal, I know that above all I'm her mother and Bruce's wife. Neither has done anything that is worthy of the pain my running away with Paul would cause. The agony I would inflict on my family is far greater than the hurt I would suffer from losing Paul. I believe I'm coming to my senses. This passion that overtook me clouded my senses. I need to recover my mind and to do what I must to end it with Paul.

I'm resolved. When I see Paul tomorrow, I will end it. I know he will be hurt, but he will get over it. I know, for a fact, he will not lack for companionship. Jenny is just waiting in the wings. She is a young and beautiful woman with a husband who has no choice but to put up with her dalliance with Paul. There is nothing that a man like Bob can do to a man like Paul. Everyone seems to think that Bruce is a very different kind of man than the average.

Would Bruce hurt Paul if he knew? I don't believe Bruce would ever hurt me, but could I be wrong? The terrible things that people say about Bruce. They can't be true. I have known him all these years. Loved him all these years, and yet, I doubt.

Paul adamantly believes my husband could be dangerous and has fears for my safety. I just can't get myself to believe that Bruce could hurt anyone. When I look at Bruce, I see the dear sweet man I married. The loving father of our daughter. The man who in all the years we have been married always put Rachael and me first.

When I see Paul tomorrow, I must break it off. It will be painful, but I must do the right thing. I called Jenny and told her she might want to call Paul after tomorrow and console him.

*****

Tanya's pretty and young paralegal finished off the last entry in my wife's diary. The prosecution hoped to spin the tale of me as the cruel, evil husband trying to come between the star-crossed lovers, but I don't think that Elaine's diary spun that way. In the end, my wife chose her home over the lothario pursuing her. Paul Moreno was a home wrecker. He knew Elaine was happily married, but he pursued her anyway. Perhaps he did completely buy into all those nasty stories the pooh-bahs of law enforcement spun about me. Maybe he was trying to save the woman he had fallen in love with.

The reality is that the lovers had waited too long, and a terrible fate overtook them. There are a lot of ifs in a situation like this. If Elaine had confessed to me or if they had broken it off sooner, then who knows what might have happened. That was not my immediate problem. Saving my neck was the problem. After the reading of the diary, the jury was ready to convict, and everyone in that courtroom knew it.

I had a long list of witnesses, but only the one that counted. Jake Trumble took the stand. My list of witnesses made him seem like an ordinary witness. His expert report was five hundred pages of gobbledygook with the mention of a video buried on page 439.

We started with his credentials, an electrical engendering degree from RIT, A stint in Army Intelligence, and then he did twenty years with the FBI. Not a bad resume. I left out that after his work with the feds he hired out to the very criminal organizations he had been pursuing for the government. He proved invaluable to me and others in defeating government surveillance.

"Mr. Trumble, did you perform any work for me in the past."

"Yes, many times."

"In the last instance, you worked for me what did you do?"

"I Installed a full surveillance system covering your home and your office both inside and out. We call it a black cover because it is meant to uncover dirty deeds."

"By dirty deeds what do you mean?"

"The usual, unauthorized entry to plant bugging devices or plant evidence."

"And did you discover any dirty deeds?"

"Yes, my staff and I observed Sergeant McVey take the keys from a brown Camry and open the trunk. He then dumped material from a bag into the trunk. A little later he returned with other officers and broke into the trunk with a crowbar. The officers then went about collecting what are called trace samples from the trunk."

There was shocked muttering from the courtroom. Trumble was on a roll now and offered the video he had collected. We entered that into evidence over the prosecution's objection. Trumble went on to expose the planting of the blood that investigator Eng discovered. Needless to say, the prosecution's case blew up. Without the forensic evidence, they lacked even proof that a crime had been committed. What they had was a missing pair of lovers, a missing gun, and a car no one could find.

My daughter Rachael hugged me at the innocent verdict. The fact that, she never believed I had killed her mother was all that mattered. Many others believed I had gotten away with murder. Notably, no actions were taken against the officers who tried to frame me. Ultimately, they saved my life by giving the prosecution a case to take to trial.

The long dry summer reduced the Schoharie to a muddy strip. It also exposed the blue Ford Mustang hidden at the deepest part of its channel. The bodies were still in the car. They must have been trapped within the car frame even as the flooding creek first floated the car away and then let it sink in the deep rushing waters. They found Elaine's purse with the GPS I had planted still in the car with what was left of my wife's body. She had been right, I was more than suspicious. I had been collecting evidence of her infidelity.

I loved her, and she had hurt me deeply. As far as I was concerned Paul Moreno was a snake who had arrived to destroy a good marriage. It was breaking my heart, but I was planning a divorce not murder. However, the police would never believe that. My wife and her lover were dead. Had I been a saint they would still have held me responsible, and I was far from a saint.

Elaine was lying beneath her lover. It was obvious that neither was fully dressed at the time they died. The autopsy determined that they had both been shot, but it appeared that the intended victim was Paul Moreno. The bullets past through his body into Elaine. This double homicide was the result of using so powerful a gun. A forty-four caliber Smith and Wesson was recovered from the Mustangs floor. It was my gun, the one that had gone missing. Had the police and prosecutor simply waited they would have never needed to plant evidence.

The diary had forced their hand. It was the story of the lovers separated by the cruel disreputable lawyer husband that had forced the DA to act prematurely. Public opinion had pushed the police into the usual bit of chicanery. I had been framed, but skill and luck had saved me. As a lawyer, I took pride in the job I did while the forces of law and order bemoaned how the system had been manipulated by an unscrupulous attorney.

****

Lottie put down the beers and gave me a winning smile. Then she put her hand on my shoulder and gave it a supportive squeeze. She didn't have to say she was there for me; she was showing it. We were in the Chambers a lawyers' bar in the city. Lottie had changed her employment, and I had followed out of loyalty.

Overall the Chambers was a far more pleasant place for me to have a drink than the Falcons Rest. The police would never forgive me for beating them, and the patrons here had a certain sympathy for the underdog. The poor beaten down lawyer with his destroyed reputation. This view was quite wrong. The clients I needed to cultivate saw my acquittal on a charge I was so clearly guilty of as the ultimate testament to my legal skills.

As a consequence of all the seemingly negative publicity, I had been compelled to raise my hourly rate and take on a pretty young female associate to handle the increased demand. Far from being tainted by this strange business, I had come off looking the antihero. Poor Tanya, on the other hand, had been forced out of the DA's office, the scapegoat for the loss.

My drinking companion had gone through half his Sam Adams in a single gulp.

"Relax Bob. There's no rush. I've no wife at home, and yours is not worth going home to," I said.

Bob gave a bit of a frown. I believe he had finally realized that some women no matter how physically attractive are not worth the trouble, and certainly his Jenny fell into this category.

"I'm sorry about..." he began, but clearly could not bring himself to go on.

"Please," I said, "I didn't ask you here for an apology. Surely you must realize that none would surface in the circumstances."

"But, I never meant to hurt Elaine," he pleaded.

"Of course not. That was pure accident. A man like yourself is unfamiliar with guns. You could not have known that the bullets would travel through officer Moreno body to the woman he was in the process of copulating with," I argued.

This was all the encouragement poor Bob needed, "that's right. The way he had the seats rigged they descended all the way like a bed. You couldn't even see who was beneath him, and I was so upset. I was out of my mind after Jenny told me she would be seeing him again."

"Exactly, you were in a kind of fugue state only vaguely aware of what you were doing, but tell me did you wipe my gun for prints before you planted it?" I asked.

"I may have. I wasn't thinking straight. I had stolen it on an earlier occasion it had been my intent to warn him off. It was your gun only because I knew you would keep one in your bedroom for protection. Elaine was only too happy to let me lie down when I said, I wasn't feeling well. It was easy to find your gun. You weren't hiding it. I guess a man like you has need of such protection."

"Actually, it was a gift from a client. I put it the bedroom for Elaine's protection on those nights I was away."

He nodded solemnly, and I wondered if he caught the irony of the situation.

"She told me she would be seeing him again. Just like that. 'Paul will be needing some friendly comfort,'" she said. I couldn't just do nothing. I went over to his place just to warn him that I would not stand for it. His car was gone. I called home, and there was no answer. I'm afraid I jumped to the wrong conclusion."

"A reasonable mistake in the circumstances," I interjected.

"I knew where he took his sluts in that disgusting car of his. It had already begun to rain, and it was very dark by the time I arrived at the county road that leads to the creek. I stopped at the up the road and walked down toward the creek. On a fair night, the moon will bathe that place in light, but the weather was turning. They were on the passenger's side, but the driver side window was partially down.

"I heard them laughing and then she moaned in a way that struck me deep in my gut. I didn't know what I was doing. I shot without thinking, and then the gun seemed to fall from my hand or maybe I tossed it. I didn't know it was Elaine in the car until much later. I'm so sorry. Will you tell the police now?" he said with a worried look.

I shrugged, "Why, it is certainly not my business to judge you. I'm many things, but no hypocrite."

"But, I killed your wife," he said

"Yes, but only by mischance."

"I don't know how the car got in the creek. I expected the car to be found right away, but when it wasn't, people started accusing you."

"Naturally, but with no bodies and no gun, they were at a loss to prove me guilty, but the GPS I put in my wife's purse told me where she was. I figured the rising water first floated the car into the flooded creek and then it sank when it filled with water. It was only a matter of time before the car, the bodies, or both turned up. Since my gun was missing, I had a good suspicion as to how the lovers died, and who would be blamed."

"I'm sorry for that, and for the fact that so many still see you as guilty. You should turn me in," Bob said in a low, sad whisper.

"What can I say. We are not responsible for what people think, and I certainly cannot disprove an attractive lie with an unpleasant truth. No, you are quite safe from me," I said.

"Then why have you asked me here?"

"To give you this," I said removing the document from my jacket pocket.

"What is this?" he asked.

"My bill of course. I put on one hell of a murder defense."

"But you were defending yourself," he said.

"And whose fault was that? I incurred time and expense, and the responsible party must pay. I might add that I did one hell of a job. You should be pleased."

"This is quite the sum," he said.

"It was quite the defense," I argued.

"Do you accept American Express."

"but of course."

I think Bob was relieved that I would keep his secret, but as I said, I'm in no position to judge. We live in a society where the presumption of innocence has been replaced by the presumption of guilt. In such an unjust world, a man must live by his wits.

Lottie brought me another Boston Larger as Bob left.

"You, all right?" she asked with true concern in her voice.

"Yes, everything works out for the best in the end."

RichardGerald
RichardGerald
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195 Comments
LoejtcLoejtc7 days ago

Ingenious plot. Creative writer who can say a lot in a few pages. Five star.

Suggest previous Commenter tend to his own typos. Who is Ricard? Or perhaps you meant Richard?

AnonymousAnonymous10 days ago

Homophones trip up many a writer. Passed! not past through.

A mistake made in more than one story. Ricard is no longer posting, so for him it is a moot point. However, new authors, learn. A good editor is so valuable.

I was offered USD $50/hour by one author. I chuckled and told him that I work anonymously and not for pay. He was smart enough to understand the hints I gave him and his rating jumped past 4.5

P.S. I use a proof reader for my weekly output of 6,000+ words. No shame in using good help.

Not as member and proudly still anonymous.

WetheNorthWetheNorth11 days ago

You are renowned as an excellent writer, but this does not show that.

"They prided up a few boards"

However that shows more a lack of caring than lack of education.

EastCoaster1EastCoaster112 days ago

This was a nasty story... and it was SO good !

Five stars for it !

funperson969funperson96912 days ago

Well thought out and well written! Thanks. More!

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