Free The Case of Lisandra P. by Hélène Grémillon

place.”
    â€œNow you are talking nonsense.”
    â€œI’m exaggerating . . . but at least if she were in prison, that woman would no longer have a mirror to look in—she might even be happier. But what did you find out? What is the bad news you mentioned just now?”
    â€œThe final results of the autopsy have come through: Lisandra died from her fall. Instantly. Her feet struck the ground first. Incredibly violently. Her high heels pierced her ankles. Her thigh bones were broken. Her body bounced. The back of her skull hit the ground. The back of her head was smashed. Internal bleeding. The autopsy shows no sign of a fight. No sign of strangling. No scratches or bruises. No sign of any blows. At least, not any blows that left a trace. The blood tests show nothing out of the ordinary. There was no trace of alcohol, drugs, or medication. But above all, and here the autopsy is categorical: Lisandra was not raped. I was so relieved when my lawyer told me. I had been thinking about it all the time; just the thought of it terrified me; I couldn’t stand the thought she might have suffered like that. But just as I was feeling calmer, at least where that was concerned, my lawyer whispered to me that this was not a good thing. Didn’t I realize what this would mean where I was concerned?”

“Come back down to earth, Vittorio! I’m your lawyer, aren’t I? You have to trust me. Stop thinking as if you were a free man, and try to think the way the investigators do. The question now is very simple— ‘their’ question is very simple: ‘Who might have killed her without raping her?’ A lot of people, obviously. But who else? Who more than anyone? ‘The husband,’ of course. It’s logical, the husband would not take by force something he could have whenever he wanted. And then, a husband who kills his wife, in principle, doesn’t really desire her anymore. The results of the autopsy perfectly corroborate their suspicions. The noose is tightening around you. They have no proof, but according to their reasoning, everything is proof. The minute anything changes in their assumptions it points to you. Get a grip, Vittorio; again, come back down to earth.”
    â€œI’ll never get out of it. If they’d found my sperm on Lisandra, they would have concluded that just because someone just made love to his wife doesn’t mean he didn’t kill her. I can hear them already, coming out with a new version of the facts, which, once again, will incriminate me, because it’s the only story they want to write, a story where I’m the guilty one, I’m the murderer. They’ve almost managed to make me sorry Lisandra wasn’t raped, that there was no trace of someone else’s sperm on her; that at least would haveput my mind at rest; no, that’s not what I mean, but I would have been exonerated, automatically ex-on-er-ated. I’ve even reached a point where I imagine wanting to kill Lisandra and wanting to tell them how I would have gone about it—I would never have pushed my wife out the window . . . I might have poisoned her . . . or God knows what, I would have rigged some car accident . . . In any case, I would have fixed it so that my alibi was rock solid . . . I would never have been found at the crime scene, acting silly and stupid like that . . . I’m more clever than that, I would have made things disappear so it would look like a burglary . . . but in any case, I wouldn’t have let myself be caught red-handed . . .”
    â€œStop right there, Vittorio, you are talking about murder with malice aforethought, and they’re talking about an unpremeditated murder. Which leaves the door wide open to madness, clumsiness, a lack of caution, and which in turn often leads to obvious and indefensible guilt, and that’s what they’re accusing