Free Conspiracy of Silence by S. T. Joshi

multiplication table. “Of course it was! The shame and dishonor to our family if something that ever got out! It would have been intolerable.”
    â€œI’m sure you know that your wife denies that Frank made any overtures toward her.”
    He glanced up at me quickly and appraisingly. “Oh, so you’ve talked to her, have you?” The tone of disdain he expressed in referring to his wife puzzled me. “Well, she can deny all she wants to, but there was something going on, let me tell you.”
    â€œSo you think she’s lying?” I said, deliberately attempting to provoke him.
    â€œOf course she’s lying! Don’t let that ice-queen exterior fool you, Scintilla. Florence will spread her legs for any man she thinks is a better lay than her husband.”
    The coarseness of the statement almost flabbergasted me. How a man could speak of his own wife in this way, even one whom he accused of carrying on an adulterous affair with his own brother, was beyond my understanding. I recalled Lizbeth’s bitter admission that her mother had never visited Crawford in prison, not even once—so perhaps his hostility was not entirely surprising. But I also recalled the derisive laugh that Florence had given when I had asked her about Frank’s advances toward her. To her, the idea was so preposterous that it was hardly worth rebutting.
    Something wasn’t adding up here.
    I tried another tack. “It would seem, Mr. Crawford, that your incarceration has cast a cloud over the long-term future of your family business. Doesn’t that worry you?”
    He shrugged, as if the matter didn’t deserve a moment’s notice. “We have good managers at our plants—they keep things running well. Anyway, I’ll be out of here in ten or fifteen years. I won’t be an old man—I’ll take over the reins again. It’s true I had to give my wife power of attorney to handle financial matters, but my mother is there to keep her in line.”
    â€œIs there some reason why neither your wife nor your mother ever visit you?” Once again I was being deliberately provocative, but Crawford didn’t rise to the bait.
    â€œLook, Scintilla, what my family does is my affair. If they don’t want to visit, that’s their choice. I’d be mortified to see my mother in a place like this. It’s not her custom to hang around with thieves and murderers.”
    Crawford said this with a sneer, but it seemed incredible he wasn’t aware that, by his own admission, he was one of the murderers whom his mother shouldn’t be fraternizing with.
    â€œBut your daughter does visit,” I said.
    The mere mention of Lizabeth seemed to have some kind of transformative effect on him. All of a sudden his face lost much of its tensity—its baffling fusion of fear, anger, depression, and resentment. I became aware that James Allen Crawford was both an accomplished and a handsome man—a worthy leader of a community if only he could get out of jail.
    â€œLizbeth is a dear . . . she’s all I have, Scintilla,” Crawford said with a break in his voice. “She’s been so loyal to me . . . as no one else has,” he added with a faint trace of bitterness.
    â€œShe thinks you’re innocent, you know,” I said quietly.
    â€œYes, I know she does,” Crawford said with a kind of puzzled resignation. “I know she does. But she’s wrong, Scintilla. She loves me so much that she can’t stand to think badly of me—can’t stand to think I’ve done anything wrong. But I have, and I deserve to be here.”
    For that moment, at least, I believed him.

Chapter Eight
    Something Crawford had said opened up a new avenue of investigation for me. So I made my way to the office of the New York Herald Tribune.
    A couple of years ago I’d struck up an acquaintance with a woman named Marge Schaeffer. She worked as a society