The Burden of Proof Read Free Page A

away.
    "My God, they're going to do an autopsy--did you know that?" asked Peter as soon as they were alone in the corridor. Peter was an M. D. and today apparently he was haunted by his past, the pathological exams he had practiced on the bums turned up in gutters, the gruesome med school humor as six or seven students studied the innards of the deceased.
    Peter suffered with the thought of his mother as another mound of lifeless anatomy awaiting the coroner's saw. "You're not going to allow that, are you?"
    A good deal shorter than his son, Stern observed Peter. Was it only with his father that this craven hysteria occurred?
    Stern wondered. The climate of their relations did not seem to have changed for years. Always there was this lamenting hortatory quality, too insistent to be passed off as mere whining. Stern had wondered for so long what it was his son expected him to do.
    "It is routine, Peter. The coroner must determine the cause of death."
    "'The cause of death'? Do they think it was an accident?
    Are they going to do a brain scan and figure out what she was thinking?
    For God sake, we won't have a body left to bury. It's obvious. She killed herself." No one yet had said that aloud. Stern registered Peter's directness as a kind of discourtesy--too coarse, too blunt. But no part of him riled up in shock.
    This was not, he said, the moment to cross swords with the police. They were, as usual, being idiotic, conducting some kind of homicide investigation. They might wish to speak next to him.
    "Me? About what?"
    "Your last conversations with your mother, I assume. I told them you were too distressed at the moment."
    In his great misery, Peter broke forth with a brief, childish smile.
    "Good," he said. Such a remarkably strange man. A peculiar moment passed between Stern and his son, a legion of things not understood.
    Then he reminded Peter that they needed to call his sisters.
    "Right," said Peter. A more sober cast came into his eye.
    Whatever his differences with his father, he was.a faithful older brother.
    Down the hall, Stern heard someone say, "The lieutenant's here." A large man ducked into the corridor, peering toward them. He was somewhere near Stern's age, but time seemed to have had a different effect on him.
    He was large and broad, and like a farmer or someone who worked outdoors, he appeared to have maintained most of the physical strength of youth. He wore a light brown suit, a rumpled, synthetic garment, and a rayon shirt that hung loosely; when he turned around for a second, Stern could see an edge of shirttail trailing out beneath his jacket. He had a large rosy face and very little hair, a few thick gray clumps drawn across his scalp.
    He dropped his chin toward Stern in a knowing fashion.
    "Sandy," he said.
    "Lieutenant," Stern answered. He had no memory of this man, except having seen him before. Some case. Some time. He was not thinking well at the moment.
    "When you get a chance," the lieutenant said. Some confusion rose up between Stern and his son..
    "You talk to him. I'll call," said Peter. "You know, Marta and Kate.
    It's better from me."
    With a sudden lucid turn, the kind of epiphanal instant he might have expected at a time of high distress, Stern recognized a traditional family drama taking place. As his children had marched toward adulthood, Peter had assumed a peculiar leadership in the family--he was the one to whom his sisters and mother often turned. He had forged intensive, secret bonds with each of them--Stern did not know how, because the same alliances were never formed with him.
    This terrible duty, Stern realized, should be has, but the paths of weakness were well worn.
    "Please say I shall speak to them soon."
    "Sure." A certain reflective light had come over Peter; he leaned against the wall for an instant, absorbing it all, worn out by his own high emotions. "Life," he observed, "is full of surprises."
    In Stern's den, the lieutenant was receiving a report from his