The Notorious Mrs. Mossler

臭名昭著的莫斯勒夫人

臭名昭著的莫斯勒夫人 · Skip Hollandsworth · November 17, 2021 · 官方页 · 存档源

In the mid-sixties, Candace Mossler was one of the most widely known socialites in Houston.

六十年代中期，坎迪斯·莫斯勒 (Candace Mossler) 是休斯顿最知名的社交名流之一。

She was in her forties, vivacious and full of charm, with wavy blond hair, deep-blue eyes, and a surgically enhanced figure that was often remarked upon in the many newspaper columns written about her.

She had an easy smile and a soft, breathy voice.

她笑容轻松，声音轻柔，带着呼吸声。

Her three-story mansion, which was reported to have 28 rooms, was located in River Oaks, the city’s richest neighborhood.

据报道，她的三层豪宅有 28 个房间，位于该市最富有的社区橡树河 (River Oaks)。

There, she threw lavish fundraisers for local charities and arts organizations.

在那里，她为当地慈善机构和艺术组织举办了大规模的筹款活动。

Famous musicians such as Chuck Berry would sometimes perform on a stage erected on her back lawn, next to the tennis court and steam-heated swimming pool.

Candace always made grand entrances at her soirees, gliding down the circular staircase after everyone had arrived.

坎迪斯总是在她的晚会上隆重登场，在所有人都到达后，她从圆形楼梯上滑下来。

She liked to wear high-heeled pumps, diamond jewelry, and elegant designer dresses that stopped just above her knees.

她喜欢穿高跟鞋、钻石首饰和优雅的设计师设计的长及膝盖以上的连衣裙。

“Bless your heart, thank you so much for coming,” she’d say while mingling with her guests.

“祝福你们的心，非常感谢你们的到来，”她在与客人打成一片时说道。

She’d tell stories about her six children and her husband Jacques, a wealthy financier who had controlling interests in banks, loan companies, and insurance firms.

Jacques, a slightly paunchy but distinguished-looking man with slicked-back silvery hair, was 25 years older than Candace.

雅克是个有点大腹便便但看上去很高贵的男人，一头银发向后梳，比坎迪斯大 25 岁。

He rarely attended his wife’s parties.

他很少参加妻子的聚会。

As one reporter wrote, Jacques preferred “anonymity in the business world.” He often spent time in Miami, where three of his banks were located.

正如一位记者所写，雅克更喜欢“在商界保持匿名”。他经常在迈阿密度过时光，他的三家银行都位于迈阿密。

That’s where he was the last week of June 1964.

1964 年 6 月的最后一周，他就在那里。

Candace and four of the Mossler children happened to be visiting him that week, staying at his luxury oceanfront apartment on Key Biscayne, a quiet beach community just across a causeway from Miami.

那周，坎迪斯和莫斯勒家的四个孩子碰巧来看望他，住在他位于比斯坎湾的豪华海滨公寓里，比斯坎湾是一个安静的海滩社区，与迈阿密隔堤相望。

The kids enjoyed playing on the beach, as they always did, but Candace said she was not feeling well.

孩子们像往常一样喜欢在海滩上玩耍，但坎迪斯说她感觉不舒服。

She went to a hospital four times to be treated for what she described as nagging migraine headaches.

她曾四次去医院接受治疗，据她描述，她患有持续性偏头痛。

On the last of those trips, which took place in the early morning hours of June 30, she brought along her children.

最后一次旅行是在 6 月 30 日凌晨进行的，她带着孩子们一起去。

She stopped at a hotel to mail some letters and then took the kids to a diner for hamburgers.

她在一家酒店停下来寄了一些信件，然后带孩子们去一家小餐馆吃汉堡。

At the hospital, she received an injection to ease the headache, and at roughly 4:30 a.m., she and the children returned to the apartment.

在医院，她接受了注射以缓解头痛，凌晨4点30分左右，她和孩子们回到了公寓。

When they walked inside, Jacques was lying on the living room floor, wrapped in a blanket.

当他们走进去时，雅克躺在客厅的地板上，裹着毯子。

He had been bludgeoned over the head with a blunt object and stabbed 39 times in and around the heart and lungs with a long-bladed knife.

他的头部被钝器击打，心脏和肺部周围被长刃刀刺了 39 刀。

The murder was front-page news in both Miami and Houston.

这起谋杀案成为迈阿密和休斯顿的头版新闻。

“Houston Millionaire Stabbed to Death” was the headline in the Houston Chronicle .

《休斯顿纪事报》的头条新闻是“休斯顿百万富翁被刺死”。

“Millionaire Banker Slain on Key Biscayne,” trumpeted the Miami News .

《迈阿密新闻》大肆宣扬“百万富翁银行家在比斯坎岛被杀”。

Because Candace claimed that Jacques’s wallet had been emptied and that several hundred-dollar bills were missing from the bathroom counter, along with her gold-and-diamond wristwatch, detectives from the Dade County Sheriff’s Department initially speculated that Jacques had been killed by a burglar.

由于坎迪斯声称雅克的钱包已被掏空，而且浴室柜台上的数百美元钞票以及她的金钻手表不见了，戴德县治安部门的侦探最初推测雅克是被窃贼杀害的。

But Candace also suggested to them that her husband had made plenty of enemies over the years, from rival bankers to disgruntled ex-employees and resentful customers who’d had vehicles or appliances repossessed by his companies.

但坎迪斯还向他们表示，她的丈夫多年来树敌很多，从竞争对手的银行家到心怀不满的前雇员，再到车辆或电器被他的公司收回的心怀怨恨的顾客。

What’s more, she revealed, she’d been told that during his trips to Florida, Jacques sometimes invited young men he’d met on the beach to his apartment.

更重要的是，她透露，她被告知，在去佛罗里达旅行期间，雅克有时会邀请他在海滩上遇到的年轻人到他的公寓。

Candace said that during the week she and the children had spent on Key Biscayne, her husband had received phone calls from a man who spoke in “feminine tones.” Candace told detectives she suspected Jacques had been living a closeted life and that he’d been murdered by one of his lovers.

坎迪斯说，在她和孩子们在比斯坎湾度过的一周里，她的丈夫接到了一名男子打来的电话，这名男子用“女性语气”说话。坎迪斯告诉侦探，她怀疑雅克一直过着隐秘的生活，并且他被他的一位情人谋杀了。

Within days, however, detectives discovered that Candace had been leading a clandestine life of her own.

然而几天之内，侦探们发现坎迪斯一直过着自己的秘密生活。

For nearly two years, she’d been carrying on an affair with her nephew, a 22-year-old mobile home salesman named Melvin Powers.

近两年来，她一直与她的侄子发生婚外情，她的侄子是一名 22 岁的移动房屋推销员，名叫梅尔文·鲍尔斯 (Melvin Powers)。

Mel was six foot four and built like a linebacker.

梅尔身高六英尺四英寸，身材像线卫。

He had high cheekbones, dark eyes, and a head of coal-black hair.

他颧骨高，眼睛黑，头发乌黑。

He and Candace had written each other impassioned love letters.

他和坎迪斯互相写了热情洋溢的情书。

They’d had trysts at the mansion, the family’s ranch just southwest of Houston, and the Mosslers’ Galveston beach house.

他们曾在豪宅、位于休斯顿西南的家族牧场以及莫斯勒夫妇位于加尔维斯顿的海滨别墅进行过幽会。

And at some point, the detectives concluded, Candace and Mel had devised a plan to do away with Jacques so they could get hold of his multimillion-dollar fortune.

侦探们得出结论，在某个时候，坎迪斯和梅尔制定了一个计划来除掉雅克，这样他们就可以控制他数百万美元的财产。

“It was like a great trashy novel had come to life,” Betsy Parish, a former society columnist for the Houston Post, told me.

“这就像一本伟大的垃圾小说变成了现实，”《休斯顿邮报》前社会专栏作家贝特西·帕里什告诉我。

“Candace was beautiful.

“坎迪斯很漂亮。

She lived in this great mansion.

她住在这座宏伟的宅邸里。

She gave away money to worthy causes.

她把钱捐给了有价值的事业。

She had all these children she adored.

她拥有所有她喜爱的孩子。

She had everything she could possibly want.

她拥有她想要的一切。

And then the police announced that she and her lover-boy nephew were cold-blooded killers.

然后警方宣布她和她的情人侄子是冷血杀手。

You could have knocked River Oaks over with a feather.”

你可以用一根羽毛把河橡树撞倒。”

I’d called Parish in 2017 after reading a couple of old newspaper articles about the murder.

2017 年，我在读了几篇关于这起谋杀案的旧报纸文章后，给帕里什打了电话。

After spending decades covering Texas’s biggest crime sagas, I thought I’d heard all the stories, but Candace had somehow escaped my notice.

在花了几十年时间报道德克萨斯州最大的犯罪传奇之后，我以为我已经听过所有的故事，但坎迪斯不知何故逃过了我的注意。

I confessed to Parish I knew next to nothing about Candace’s life or her murder trial, which the New York Times described as “one of the most spectacular” courtroom dramas in history.

我向帕里什坦白，我对坎迪斯的生活或她的谋杀案审判几乎一无所知，《纽约时报》称其为“历史上最壮观的法庭戏剧之一”。

“Honey, you missed out,” cackled Parish.

“亲爱的，你错过了。”帕里什咯咯地笑道。

“For a while, Candace was the most famous woman in America.

“有一段时间，坎迪斯是美国最著名的女性。

Everyone was talking about her.

每个人都在谈论她。

And have you heard the rumors about what happened to her next husband?”

你听说过关于她下一任丈夫发生什么事的传言吗？”

Parish cackled again.

帕里什又咯咯地笑起来。

“You ought to look into it before everyone who knew her dies off.

“你应该在认识她的人都去世之前调查一下。

[Parish died less than a year after I spoke with her.] I still don’t think the full story about her has ever been told.”

[帕里什在我与她交谈后不到一年就去世了。]我仍然认为关于她的完整故事还没有被讲述过。”

I began doing some research: poring over more than a hundred old newspaper and magazine stories, obtaining police and court records, and reaching out to Candace’s relatives and other Houstonians who had known her.

我开始做一些研究：仔细研究一百多个旧报纸和杂志的故事，获取警察和法庭记录，并联系坎迪斯的亲戚和其他认识她的休斯敦人。

This past January, I paid a visit to 88-year-old Mickey Herskowitz, a former Houston sportswriter who’d moonlighted as a ghostwriter for the likes of Gene Autry, George W.

今年 1 月，我拜访了 88 岁的米奇·赫斯科维茨 (Mickey Herskowitz)，他是休斯顿前体育记者，曾兼职为吉恩·奥特里 (Gene Autry)、乔治·W·布什 (George W.

Bush, Bette Davis, Mickey Mantle, and Dan Rather.

布什、贝蒂·戴维斯、米基·曼特尔和丹·拉瑟。

I learned that in the early seventies, Herskowitz had interviewed Candace a few times for a biography of her she wanted him to do.

我了解到，在七十年代初，赫斯科维茨曾多次采访坎迪斯，为她希望他写一本她的传记。

Although the book was never published—Candace’s lawyers and family members persuaded her to scrap the project, telling her she didn’t need any more publicity—Herskowitz still had part of his typed manuscript, yellowed with age, which he dug out of his garage and handed to me.

尽管这本书从未出版过——坎迪斯的律师和家人说服她放弃这个项目，告诉她不需要更多的宣传——赫斯科维茨仍然保留着他的部分打印手稿，随着时间的推移而泛黄，他从车库里挖出来递给了我。

“I have to admit, I used to stay up at night thinking about her, wondering what she did or did not do,” Herskowitz said.

“我不得不承认，我常常彻夜不眠地想着她，想知道她做了什么或没做什么，”赫斯科维茨说。

“Maybe you can figure her out, but I don’t know,” Herskowitz said as we sat in his living room.

“也许你能理解她，但我不知道，”当我们坐在他的客厅里时，赫斯科维茨说道。

“She’d stare at me with those blue eyes and tell me in her little-girl voice that she did her best to live a good life.

“她会用那双蓝眼睛盯着我，用她小女孩的声音告诉我，她尽了最大努力过上美好的生活。

She’d tell me she was not a hateful woman.

她会告诉我她不是一个可恨的女人。

She’d say that she would never resort to violence.

她说她永远不会诉诸暴力。

And she always gave me a long hug when I left and would tell me to come back soon.”

当我离开时，她总是给我一个长久的拥抱，并告诉我尽快回来。”

Herskowitz, who suffers from a bad hip, slowly leaned back onto his couch.

赫斯科维茨的臀部有伤，他慢慢地靠在沙发上。

“I have to admit, I used to stay up at night thinking about her, wondering what she did or did not do to her husbands,” he said.

“我不得不承认，我常常彻夜不眠地想着她，想知道她对她的丈夫做了什么或没有做什么，”他说。

Herskowitz wasn’t the only writer flummoxed by Candace.

赫斯科维茨并不是唯一一个对坎迪斯感到困惑的作家。

It seemed that every reporter who interviewed her found her delightful, with one gushing over her “ceaseless effervescence” and another entranced by her “great beauty and charm.” Of course, in a manner common to journalists of her day, there was plenty more ink devoted to her looks.

似乎每一位采访过她的记者都觉得她很讨人喜欢，有人对她的“永不停歇的热情”赞叹不已，也有人为她的“绝美与魅力”着迷。当然，按照她那个时代的记者的普遍做法，人们对她的外表投入了更多的笔墨。

She was described as “shapely,” “lissome,” and “stylishly coiffed,” filled with “dash and flair.” Even the straitlaced Joyce Brothers, a celebrity therapist Time magazine once called “the gadabout lady psychologist,” was smitten.

她被描述为“身材匀称”、“轻盈”、“发型时尚”，充满“活力和天赋”。甚至连被《时代》杂志称为“爱玩的女心理学家”的著名治疗师乔伊斯兄弟也被迷住了。

After interviewing Candace for her nationally syndicated newspaper column, Brothers characterized her as having “an appealing little-girl-lost quality.”

在为坎迪斯的全国联合报纸专栏采访坎迪斯后，兄弟形容她具有“一种小女孩失去的吸引人的品质”。

“Seriously, it was hard for anyone who met Candace to imagine that she could kill anything, even a flea,” Herskowitz told me.

“说实话，任何见过坎迪斯的人都很难想象她能杀死任何东西，甚至是跳蚤，”赫斯科维茨告诉我。

“She was so kind, so pleasant, so damn friendly.”

“她是如此善良，如此令人愉快，如此友好。”

He shifted again on the couch.

他又在沙发上动了动。

“To be honest, she haunts me to this day.”

“说实话，她至今仍困扰着我。”

Candace didn’t exactly grow up with a silver spoon in her mouth.

坎迪斯并不是含着金汤匙长大的。

The sixth of twelve children, she was born in 1920 in the town of Buchanan, Georgia, about 55 miles west of Atlanta.

她于 1920 年出生在佐治亚州布坎南镇，距亚特兰大以西约 55 英里，在 12 个孩子中排行第六。

Her father, Lon Weatherby, was a farmer.

她的父亲朗·韦瑟比 (Lon Weatherby) 是一名农民。

Candace’s mother, Lizzie, spent much of her adult life pregnant.

坎迪斯的母亲莉齐成年后大部分时间都在怀孕中度过。

The family had no telephone or radio.

家里没有电话或收音机。

All of the kids stayed busy with chores: planting crops, picking cotton, and collecting eggs from the chicken coops.

所有的孩子都忙着做家务：种植庄稼、摘棉花、从鸡舍里收集鸡蛋。

In his manuscript, Herskowitz described it as “hardscrabble living, when the South was still 40 years behind the luxuries of the North.”

赫斯科维茨在他的手稿中将其描述为“贫困的生活，当时南方的奢侈生活仍落后北方 40 年”。

Candace was an adorable girl with a halo of blond hair.

坎迪斯是一个可爱的女孩，有一头金色的光环。

She was also theatrical.

她也很戏剧化。

One of her nieces told me that Candace loved playing make-believe.

她的一位侄女告诉我，坎迪斯喜欢玩过家家游戏。

“My favorite story I heard about Aunt Candace was that she wore her nightgowns everywhere, even to church,” the niece said.

“我听过的关于坎迪斯阿姨最喜欢的故事是，她到处都穿着睡衣，甚至去教堂也是如此，”侄女说。

“When someone asked her why she was wearing a gown, she’d say that she liked pretending that she was a princess.”

“当有人问她为什么穿礼服时，她会说她喜欢假装自己是公主。”

When Candace was twelve, her mother died while delivering her thirteenth child, who was stillborn.

坎迪斯十二岁时，她的母亲在生下第十三个孩子时去世，该孩子是死产。

According to family lore, Candace’s father turned to corn liquor to deal with his grief.

根据家族传说，坎迪斯的父亲用玉米酒来缓解悲伤。

He suffered a breakdown and moved out of Buchanan, leaving the younger children with relatives.

他精神崩溃，搬出了布坎南，把年幼的孩子留给了亲戚。

Candace essentially raised herself.

坎迪斯基本上提升了自己。

When she got to high school, her grandfather encouraged her to start looking for a husband—a stable man she could count on to care for her.

当她上高中时，她的祖父鼓励她开始寻找一个丈夫——一个她可以信赖并照顾她的稳定的男人。

She was introduced to Norman Johnson, a family friend and civil engineer ten years her senior who lived in Anniston, Alabama, fifty miles west of Buchanan.

她被介绍给诺曼·约翰逊（Norman Johnson），诺曼·约翰逊是她的家庭朋友，也是比她大十岁的土木工程师，住在阿拉巴马州安尼斯顿，布坎南以西五十英里。

They married in 1939, when Candace was nineteen, and settled in Anniston.

他们于 1939 年结婚，当时坎迪斯十九岁，并定居在安尼斯顿。

A year later, Candace gave birth to a son, Norman Jr.

一年后，坎迪斯生下了儿子小诺曼。

But Candace wasn’t content being a homemaker in small-town Alabama.

但坎迪斯并不满足于在阿拉巴马州小镇当家庭主妇。

To get out of the house, she began volunteering with the United Service Organizations, the military-support group.

为了走出家门，她开始在军事支援组织联合服务组织做志愿者。

She and other young women helped host parties for soldiers at Fort Benning, Georgia, about 120 miles south of Anniston.

她和其他年轻女性在安尼斯顿以南约 120 英里的佐治亚州本宁堡帮助为士兵举办聚会。

At one of those parties, she met an Army officer named Winthrop Rockefeller, a son of the New York industrialist John D.

在其中一次聚会上，她遇到了一位名叫温思罗普·洛克菲勒的陆军军官，他是纽约实业家约翰·D·洛克菲勒的儿子。

Rockefeller.

洛克菲勒。

Before Rockefeller was shipped overseas to fight in World War II, he and Candace became close—according to some accounts, very close.

在洛克菲勒被派往海外参加第二次世界大战之前，他和坎迪斯关系密切——根据一些说法，非常亲密。

In fact, years later, during a court hearing in Houston regarding the disposition of the Mossler estate, an attorney asked Candace why she gave her second child, Rita, who was born in 1943, the middle name Rockefeller.

事实上，多年后，在休斯敦关于莫斯勒遗产处置的法庭听证会上，一名律师问坎迪斯为什么给她的第二个孩子丽塔（出生于 1943 年）起了中间名洛克菲勒。

“Was she the daughter of Winthrop Rockefeller?” the attorney asked.

“她是温思罗普·洛克菲勒的女儿吗？”律师问道。

Candace’s lawyer refused to let her answer the question.

坎迪斯的律师拒绝让她回答这个问题。

It’s not clear that Norman ever learned of Candance’s relationship with Rockefeller.

目前尚不清楚诺曼是否了解坎丹斯与洛克菲勒的关系。

In the mid-forties, he moved her and the two children to New Orleans, where he’d landed an engineering job at a shipyard.

四十年代中期，他把她和两个孩子搬到了新奥尔良，并在那里的一家造船厂找到了一份工程工作。

But their marriage soon fell apart.

但他们的婚姻很快就破裂了。

Norman moved west, eventually settling in Boulder, Colorado, and she stayed in New Orleans with the children.

诺曼向西迁移，最终定居在科罗拉多州博尔德，她和孩子们留在新奥尔良。

Candace set about launching her own career.

坎迪斯开始开创自己的职业生涯。

She decided she was going to be a fashion model.

她决定要成为一名时装模特。

She quickly found gigs modeling clothes for local department stores and also designed lingerie.

At one point, she dropped off the kids with one of her sisters, took a train to New York City, and attended classes at the Barbizon School of Modeling.

有一次，她把孩子们送到了她的一个姐妹身上，乘坐火车前往纽约市，并在巴比松模特学院上课。

When she returned, she opened the Candace Modeling and Self-Improvement School (the name changed multiple times over the years) on Peniston Street, near the city’s fabled Garden District.

回国后，她在佩尼斯顿街开设了坎迪斯模特与自我提升学校（多年来名称多次更改），靠近该市著名的花园区。

She placed ads in the Times-Picayune promising to advise young ladies on makeup and hairstyling, provide tips on maintaining “a streamlined figure,” prepare them to model in fashion shows, and imbue them with “self-confidence, grace, poise and elegance of speech that will make you a person of real distinction.” The ads usually included a photo of Candace, a smile lingering about her lips.

Incredibly, the poor little Georgia farm girl had transformed herself into a big-city entrepreneur.

To attract clients, she hosted free seminars on such topics as how to properly wear women’s hats.

One Easter Sunday, reported a local paper , she threw a “fashion parade,” leading 45 of her modeling students up and down Canal Street, accompanied by numerous high school marching bands.

While researching his book, Herskowitz picked up an intriguing rumor that Candace had other ways of earning money in New Orleans: She occasionally worked as an escort.

She was also said to have run an entire outfit of sex workers.

Young soldiers back from the war would come to her house and sign up for dance classes.

Each was paired with a female partner.

每个人都配有一名女性伴侣。

They’d dance for a while before retiring to one of the bedrooms, and the soldier could use his GI Bill benefits to pay for his “lesson.”

Apparently these rumors didn’t hold Candace back.

She decided to get involved in the city’s arts scene, applying for a volunteer position with the New Orleans Opera.

She told the organization’s executives that she would be more than happy to meet with prominent businessmen and solicit donations.

The executives gladly took her on.

高管们很高兴地接纳了她。

And one of the men they suggested she target was a New Orleans banker named Jacques Mossler.

Jacques was a native of Romania.

雅克是罗马尼亚人。

As a boy, he had emigrated with his family to Buffalo, New York, and eventually made his way to New Orleans, where he opened a used car dealership.

In those years, he was known to cut corners to turn a profit.

In 1916 the Times-Picayune reported that the 21-year-old Jacques had been arrested for grand larceny after a doctor’s car was stolen from a hospital and later found in a garage at Jacques’s dealership.

(I couldn’t find any records indicating whether he was convicted.)

Jacques’s brothers ran the business while he served in the Army during World War I.

第一次世界大战期间，雅克在军队服役期间，他的兄弟经营着这家公司。

After he returned home, he sold his dealership and began opening small loan companies, offering customers without much credit history or collateral the opportunity to buy automobiles, appliances, and furniture at high interest rates.

He sold home mortgages.

他卖掉了房屋抵押贷款。

He invested in insurance firms and banks.

他投资于保险公司和银行。

By the time the 27-year-old Candace walked into his office in early 1947, Jacques was 52 and regarded as wealthy.

1947 年初，当 27 岁的坎迪斯走进他的办公室时，雅克已经 52 岁，被视为富有。

Like Candace, he was also recently divorced: he had left his wife of 30 years, with whom he had four daughters.

He wrote a check to the opera for only $25, telling Candace that opera bored him.

But he was definitely not bored by Candace.

但他绝对不会对坎迪斯感到无聊。

Weeks later, she and her children were at the Audubon Zoo, and they just so happened to pass right by Jacques, who was known to stroll there on his lunch breaks.

In May 1949, while on a trip to Fort Lauderdale, Jacques and Candace got married at a Presbyterian church.

1949 年 5 月，在前往劳德代尔堡的途中，雅克和坎迪斯在长老会教堂举行了婚礼。

When they returned to New Orleans, they began packing their belongings.

Jacques had decided to establish a new headquarters for his burgeoning business empire in a city neither of them knew well: Houston.

雅克决定在一个他们都不熟悉的城市：休斯顿，为他蓬勃发展的商业帝国建立一个新的总部。

In 1950, Houston was awash in money.

1950 年，休斯顿资金充裕。

The city “uses dollars as Niagara Falls uses water,” wrote George Fuermann, a newspaper columnist who that year was finishing a book titled Houston: Land of the Big Rich .

Oilmen made deals on downtown street corners.

石油商在市中心的街角进行交易。

One particularly flamboyant member of that fraternity, Jim “Silver Dollar” West, tossed silver dollars out of the window of his Cadillac to passersby.

Another local businessman, attempting to motivate his daughter to lose weight, offered her $5,000—the equivalent of $57,000 today—for every pound she dropped.

At night, the city’s elite often gathered at the Shamrock Hotel, which the wildcatter Glenn McCarthy had opened on St. Patrick’s Day the previous year.

(For the Shamrock’s opening celebration, McCarthy flew in Kirk Douglas, Ginger Rogers, Errol Flynn, and Lana Turner, star of The Postman Always Rings Twice, the 1946 film noir about a bored housewife who has an affair with a drifter and convinces him to murder her much-older husband.) I came across a photo of Jacques and Candace having dinner at what looked to be the Cork Club, the Shamrock’s most-exclusive restaurant.

Two violinists had paused to play at their table.

两位小提琴家停下来在桌子旁演奏。

Jacques, in a dark suit, was holding a glass of red wine.

雅克身穿深色西装，端着一杯红酒。

Candace was wearing a white fur wrap over a dark dress, and her hair was pulled back into a chignon.

坎迪斯身穿深色连衣裙，外面裹着白色毛皮裹身裙，头发向后梳成发髻。

Etched across her face was a look of pure delight.

她的脸上写满了纯粹的喜悦。

On a three-acre plot of land on Willowick Drive, in River Oaks, Jacques built Candace a castle: a three-story redbrick mansion staffed with maids, cooks, butlers, gardeners, handymen, and a chauffeur.

Candace’s personal maid was an Egyptian woman who spoke three languages.

坎迪斯的私人女仆是一位会说三种语言的埃及妇女。

Adjoining the house was a seven-car garage filled with luxury automobiles.

房子旁边有一个七车位的车库，里面停满了豪华汽车。

Candace quickly began making her way up Houston’s social ladder.

坎迪斯很快就开始在休斯顿的社会阶梯上攀登。

She wrote check after check: to the Alley Theatre one day, to heart disease research the next.

她写了一张又一张的支票：有一天去艾利剧院，第二天去心脏病研究。

She threw fundraisers at the mansion, and many attendees came out just to get a glimpse of Candace.

她在豪宅举办筹款活动，许多参加者出来只是为了一睹坎迪斯的风采。

She strolled from room to room in stilettos, greeting her guests with a kiss on the cheek.

她穿着高跟鞋从一个房间漫步到另一个房间，亲吻脸颊来迎接客人。

“None of us knew anything about her,” said Joan Schnitzer, a longtime Houston socialite and philanthropist who attended a couple of Candace’s parties in those years with her husband.

“But far as we could tell, she didn’t have a mean bone in her body.

“但据我们所知，她身上并没有什么卑鄙的骨头。

She was fun and flirty.

她很有趣又轻浮。

All she had to do was touch an older gentleman on the arm and say, ‘I really love your tie,’ and you could just see him melt.”

她所要做的就是碰触一位年长绅士的手臂并说，‘我真的很喜欢你的领带’，然后你就可以看到他融化了。”

Inevitably, the rumors about Candace’s secret life in New Orleans made their way to Houston.

关于坎迪斯在新奥尔良的秘密生活的谣言不可避免地传到了休斯顿。

Joanne Herring, another grande dame of the city’s contemporary social scene, told me she first heard the murmurings at a dinner that Candace was throwing to benefit the Houston Opera.

“One of my friends took me off to a corner and whispered, ‘Have you heard that Candace was a call girl in the French Quarter?’ I said, ‘Oh my God!

I knew there was something different about that woman.’ ”

我知道那个女人有些不一样。’”

Of course, even if the rumors were true, Candace certainly wouldn’t have been the first woman in Houston with a past to marry a wealthy older man.

What’s more, it was hard for the city’s social crowd to condemn someone whose philanthropy often went above and beyond.

更重要的是，这座城市的社会大众很难谴责一个经常超越慈善事业的人。

She volunteered at multiple hospitals.

她在多家医院做志愿者。

She took a special interest in the Houston Boys Club, donating $15,000 to build bathhouses for the kids at the youth center’s pool.

她对休斯顿男孩俱乐部特别感兴趣，捐赠了 15,000 美元在青少年中心的游泳池为孩子们建造了浴室。

In January 1957, Jacques called her from a business trip in Chicago to tell her he’d just read about four local siblings, ages two through six, who’d been left homeless after their father shot their mother and stabbed their baby brother to death.

Candace soon boarded a flight to the city, and she and Jacques signed custody papers for all four children (the adoption would become final later).

The story was picked up by the wire services and printed in newspapers from coast to coast.

这个故事被通讯社转载并刊登在全国各地的报纸上。

(“Day of Tragedy for Children Gives Way to Fairy Tale Life,” went one headline.) When Candace walked off the plane at Houston International Airport with Jacques and their new brood—Martha, Daniel, Christopher, and Edward—photographers were waiting.

Candace, as ever, was camera-ready, wearing a black dress with black pumps.

坎迪斯一如既往地准备好上镜，穿着黑色连衣裙和黑色高跟鞋。

She became one of the most famous women in town and a favorite subject of journalists.

她成为镇上最著名的女性之一，也是记者最喜欢的话题。

She served as team captain for the United Fund campaign; as chair of the prestigious Pin Oak horse show, which raised money for the Texas Children’s Hospital; and as general chair of the fund drive for the Houston Opera.

她曾担任联合基金竞选团队队长；作为著名的 Pin Oak 马术表演的主席，该表演为德克萨斯州儿童医院筹集了资金；并担任休斯敦歌剧院基金活动的总主席。

Candace was also an active member of the First Presbyterian Church, always arriving for Sunday morning services “dressed to the nines, like she had come straight from a party,” Parish, the Post ’s former society columnist, told me.

Most weeks she brought along her adopted children and put them in Sunday school.

大多数时候，她都会带着收养的孩子一起去，把他们送进主日学校。

Indeed, there was no mother in River Oaks quite like Candace.

事实上，橡树河镇没有像坎迪斯这样的母亲。

She turned the mansion’s ballroom into a giant playroom.

她把宅邸的舞厅变成了一个巨大的游戏室。

She had her chauffeur take the children to drive-in movies, to a bowling alley, to the family’s ranch, and to their Galveston beach house.

她让司机带孩子们去看汽车电影院、保龄球馆、自家的牧场和加尔维斯顿的海滨别墅。

She and Jacques arranged for a baseball field to be built on a lot across from their home, and one of Jacques’s employees taught the children to play sports.

她和雅克安排在他们家对面的一块空地上建造一个棒球场，雅克的一名员工教孩子们进行体育运动。

Once, Candace even had a chimpanzee named Jock-O brought to the mansion to play with the kids.

有一次，坎迪斯甚至让人把一只名叫乔克-O的黑猩猩带到豪宅里和孩子们一起玩。

“They’re my life—my entire world,” Candace told the reporters who came to see her.

“它们是我的生活——我的整个世界，”坎迪斯对来看她的记者说。

“People can work hard and accomplish a lot of things, but it is useless without children to love.”

“人可以努力工作，完成很多事情，但如果没有孩子去爱，那是没有用的。”

As the fifties came to a close, Candace seemed to have it all.

五十年代即将结束，坎迪斯似乎拥有了一切。

Then, in late 1961, Candace got a phone call from Elizabeth “Babe” Powers, her older sister.

然后，在 1961 年底，坎迪斯接到了她姐姐伊丽莎白·“贝贝”·鲍尔斯打来的电话。

Babe said she needed help.

贝贝说她需要帮助。

Her twenty-year-old son, Mel, had been thrown in jail.

她二十岁的儿子梅尔被投入监狱。

Raised in Alabama and Arizona, where his father operated a small commercial aviation service, Mel had been an aimless boy, expelled from school for excessive absenteeism.

梅尔在阿拉巴马州和亚利桑那州长大，他的父亲在那里经营一家小型商业航空服务公司，梅尔曾是一个漫无目的的男孩，因过度缺勤而被学校开除。

He later got a job going door to door selling magazine subscriptions.

后来他找到了一份挨家挨户推销杂志订阅的工作。

During a work trip to Michigan, he persuaded an 89-year-old man to buy $20,000 of worthless stock in a fake magazine-subscription firm.

在一次前往密歇根州出差期间，他说服一名 89 岁的男子购买了一家假杂志订阅公司价值 2 万美元的毫无价值的股票。

Mel was convicted of fraud and sent to jail for ninety days.

梅尔被判犯有欺诈罪并入狱九十天。

That’s what had spurred Babe’s phone call.

这就是贝贝打来电话的原因。

She asked Candace if Mel could come to Houston after serving his jail sentence and stay at the Mossler mansion until he found a job and got back on his feet.

她问坎迪斯，梅尔刑满后是否可以来到休斯敦，并留在莫斯勒的豪宅，直到他找到工作并重新站起来。

When Mel showed up, he must have made an impression.

当梅尔出现时，他一定给人留下了深刻的印象。

Although his face was pockmarked by acne scars, he was muscular and movie-star handsome.

虽然脸上布满了痘疤，但他肌肉发达，有着电影明星般的帅气。

Candace gave him his own bedroom and a Thunderbird to drive.

坎迪斯给了他自己的卧室和一辆雷鸟来驾驶。

Mel also underwent four operations, presumably at the behest of Candace.

梅尔还接受了四次手术，大概是在坎迪斯的要求下。

He was circumcised, his tonsils were removed, his ears were cosmetically adjusted to lie flatter against his head, and his face was sanded.

他接受了割礼，扁桃体被切除，耳朵经过美容调整，使其更平贴在头上，脸也被打磨过。

Jacques agreed to give Mel a job as a “repossessor” at one of his loan companies.

雅克同意给梅尔一份在他的一家贷款公司担任“收回人”的工作。

Mel turned out to be a fine employee who “had the easy repartee of a salesman,” one reporter would later write.

一位记者后来写道，梅尔原来是一名优秀的员工，“能像推销员一样轻松机答”。

But in June 1963, about a year and a half after Mel’s arrival, word began to spread through River Oaks that something was going on at the Mossler mansion.

但 1963 年 6 月，也就是梅尔抵达大约一年半后，橡树河一带开始传出莫斯勒宅邸发生了什么事的消息。

According to the gossip, Jacques had fired Mel, hired security guards to escort him off the estate, and had forbidden his return.

据流言称，雅克解雇了梅尔，雇佣保安护送他离开庄园，并禁止他返回。

Jacques had then left Houston for his luxury apartment on Key Biscayne.

随后，雅克离开休斯顿，前往他位于比斯坎湾的豪华公寓。

Candace told anyone who asked that Jacques kicked Mel out of the mansion because Mel had announced that he was planning to leave his job in order to start his own business.

坎迪斯告诉任何询问的人，雅克将梅尔赶出了豪宅，因为梅尔宣布他打算辞去工作，开创自己的事业。

And Jacques was in Florida, she added, to oversee the opening of another Miami-area bank.

她补充说，雅克正在佛罗里达州监督另一家迈阿密地区银行的开业。

She and Jacques were getting along just fine, she said.

她说，她和雅克相处得很好。

In fact, she and some of the Mossler children would be visiting Jacques soon.

事实上，她和莫斯勒家的一些孩子很快就会去看望雅克。

They arrived in June 1964, after school let out.

他们于 1964 年 6 月放学后抵达。

Although Candace seemed to be having a good time hanging out with the kids on the beach during the day, she began making trips to the hospital at night, always bringing along the children, so she could receive shots to ease those nagging migraines.

尽管坎迪斯白天似乎和孩子们在海滩上玩得很开心，但她开始在晚上去医院，总是带着孩子们，这样她就可以接受注射来缓解那些令人烦恼的偏头痛。

The children would later tell police that they weren’t bothered by their mother’s excursions.

孩子们后来告诉警方，他们并没有因为母亲的外出而感到困扰。

She was a night owl, they said.

他们说她是个夜猫子。

They liked piling into her red Pontiac convertible and going on rides.

他们喜欢挤进她的红色庞蒂亚克敞篷车去兜风。

It wasn’t until they returned to the apartment on June 30 and heard their mother’s gasps that they realized something was terribly wrong.

直到6月30日他们回到公寓并听到母亲的喘息声时，他们才意识到事情严重不对劲。

As the heiress to Jacques’s fortune, Candace was estimated to be worth at least $7 million (roughly $60 million today), and possibly much more.

作为雅克财产的女继承人，坎迪斯的身价估计至少为 700 万美元（相当于今天的 6000 万美元），甚至可能更多。

At Jacques’s funeral, in Miami, she sat in the front row, surrounded by her children, and quietly wept.

在迈阿密举行的雅克葬礼上，她坐在前排，周围是孩子们，静静地哭泣。

Afterward, she and the kids flew to Washington, D.C., where Jacques was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery.

随后，她和孩子们飞往华盛顿特区，雅克被安葬在阿灵顿国家公墓。

Meanwhile, detectives from the Dade County Sheriff’s Department were following the three leads Candace had supplied—that a burglar or a business rival or perhaps a lover might have killed Jacques.

与此同时，戴德县治安部门的侦探正在追踪坎迪斯提供的三条线索——可能是窃贼、商业竞争对手或者情人杀死了雅克。

The detectives sensed they had a top-drawer murder mystery on their hands.

侦探们意识到他们手上有一件最悬而未决的谋杀案。

And the mystery only got more intriguing when someone told them that Jacques had actually booted Mel out of the mansion after a member of the household staff had spotted Mel and Candace canoodling.

当有人告诉他们，在一名家庭工作人员发现梅尔和坎迪斯亲热后，雅克实际上把梅尔赶出了豪宅，这个谜团才变得更加有趣。

The detectives discovered that on the afternoon of June 29, Mel had arrived at the Houston airport and purchased a one-way ticket to Miami.

侦探们发现，6月29日下午，梅尔已抵达休斯顿机场，并购买了一张前往迈阿密的单程机票。

A flight attendant said Mel was carrying a briefcase as his only luggage.

一名空乘人员表示，梅尔携带的唯一行李是一个公文包。

After he arrived in Miami, he was seen at the Stuft Shirt Lounge at a Holiday Inn not far from Jacques’s apartment.

抵达迈阿密后，有人看到他出现在距离雅克公寓不远的假日酒店的 Stuft Shirt 休息室。

He went to the bar several times.

他去过酒吧好几次。

On his first visit, he asked for an empty glass soda bottle and left with it in his hand.

第一次来时，他要了一个空玻璃汽水瓶，然后手里拿着它离开了。

When he returned around 1 a.m., closing time, he ordered a double scotch.

当他在凌晨 1 点（关门时间）左右回来时，他点了一杯双层苏格兰威士忌。

By the time Candace called the police to report the murder, Mel was back at the Miami airport, purchasing a one-way ticket to Houston.

当坎迪斯打电话报警报告这起谋杀案时，梅尔已经回到迈阿密机场，购买了一张飞往休斯敦的单程机票。

Since Mel’s eviction from the Mossler mansion, he had been living in an apartment and operating a small mobile-home sales business south of the city, not far from the new Manned Spacecraft Center.

自从梅尔被逐出莫斯勒豪宅后，他一直住在城南的一套公寓里，经营一家小型移动房屋销售公司，距离新的载人航天中心不远。

The detectives flew to Houston to interview him.

侦探们飞往休斯敦采访他。

He swore he had been in Houston the night of Jacques’s murder.

他发誓雅克被谋杀的那天晚上他就在休斯敦。

He had gone to see a movie, he said, though he couldn’t recall the name of the film or the theater where he’d seen it.

他说，他去看了一部电影，但他不记得电影的名字，也不记得他看过这部电影的剧院。

He was arrested and charged with capital murder.

他被捕并被指控犯有谋杀罪。

While searching Mel’s office, the detectives found a photo of Mel and Candace sitting close together at a nightclub, and they came across a couple of letters that Candace had written Mel during stretches when she’d been out of town.

在搜查梅尔的办公室时，侦探们发现了一张梅尔和坎迪斯在夜总会里坐在一起的照片，他们还发现了坎迪斯在梅尔出城时写给她的几封信。

“My darling,” one of her letters began, “the image of your face is before me .

“亲爱的，”她的一封信这样开头，“你的脸庞就在我面前……”

。

I can almost feel your face against mine .

我几乎能感觉到你的脸贴着我的脸。

。

I could not think of life without you .

我无法想象没有你的生活。

。

I love you.

我爱你。

I need you.

我需要你。

I long for you.”

我渴望你。”

Soon the newspapers were reporting that the detectives were looking into the possibility that Candace was involved in the killing.

很快报纸就报道说侦探们正在调查坎迪斯是否参与了这起谋杀案。

“I was speechless, and I’m not often at a loss for words,” said Lynn Sakowitz Wyatt, the octogenarian Houston department store heiress, who is now one of the world’s most celebrated socialites, known for the soirees at her River Oaks mansion and at her home in the south of France.

“我无言以对，而且我并不经常失言，”八十多岁的休斯敦百货公司女继承人林恩·萨科维茨·怀亚特 (Lynn Sakowitz Wyatt) 说，她现在是世界上最著名的社交名流之一，以在橡树河 (River Oaks) 豪宅和法国南部家中举办的晚会而闻名。

“I remember that people came from all over just to drive past her home, hoping to get a look at her.

“我记得人们从四面八方赶来只是为了开车经过她家，希望能看看她。

There were literally policemen in front of her house directing traffic!”

她家门前确实有警察在指挥交通！”

But Candace wasn’t at the mansion.

但坎迪斯并不在宅邸。

She had sequestered herself inside St. Luke’s Hospital, where she claimed to be suffering from what her doctor described as “ nervous strain.” Standing sentry outside her room were two private security guards.

她将自己隔离在圣卢克医院内，并声称自己患有医生所说的“神经紧张”。她的房间外站着两名私人保安。

Candace did let newspaper reporters gather around her bed for an impromptu press conference.

坎迪斯确实让报纸记者聚集在她的床边召开临时新闻发布会。

She was wearing a pink nightgown.

她穿着一件粉红色的睡衣。

Her blue eyes were swollen from crying.

她的蓝眼睛哭肿了。

“Oh, poo!” she exclaimed when a reporter asked whether she thought Mel had murdered her husband.

“哦，便便！”当记者问她是否认为梅尔谋杀了她的丈夫时，她惊呼道。

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.

“这是我听过的最可笑的事情。

If an atomic bomb were to fall, Mel would have been the first one to drag Jacques and the children out of the wreckage.”

如果一颗原子弹落下，梅尔会是第一个把雅克和孩子们从废墟中救出来的人。”

She called the idea that she and Mel were having an affair “absurd.” They had been with a group of friends at a nightclub when the photo was taken, she said.

她称她和梅尔有外遇的想法“荒谬”。她说，拍摄这张照片时，他们正和一群朋友在一家夜总会。

And the letters she had written?

还有她写的那些信？

Candace explained that was the way she wrote to everyone among “my family and my close friends.”

坎迪斯解释说，这是她写给“我的家人和亲密朋友”中每个人的方式。

A reporter then asked if she was worried that she too might be arrested.

一名记者随后问她是否担心自己也可能被捕。

Candace tossed a hand over her mouth and said, her voice trembling, “How can something like this happen in this country?

坎迪斯用手捂住嘴，声音颤抖地说：“这个国家怎么会发生这样的事？

I don’t know how they can do this.

我不知道他们怎么能做到这一点。

I guess some people could cast reflections on Jesus Christ Himself.”

我想有些人可能会反思耶稣基督本人。”

For the next year, while the detectives worked the case, Candace spent much of her time with her children and their governess in Rochester, Minnesota, where she rented adjoining apartments and made appointments at the Mayo Clinic to treat her migraines.

接下来的一年，当侦探们侦破此案时，坎迪斯大部分时间都在明尼苏达州罗切斯特与孩子们和他们的家庭教师在一起，她在那里租了毗邻的公寓，并预约去梅奥诊所治疗偏头痛。

She stayed mostly quiet, giving only one interview, to a Miami Herald investigative reporter named Gene Miller, telling him that Jacques had become “unstable” in the last months of his life and that he had been receiving love letters on pink stationery from a man who had also tried to blackmail him for $75,000.

她基本上保持沉默，只接受了迈阿密先驱报调查记者吉恩·米勒(Gene Miller)的一次采访，告诉他雅克在生命的最后几个月变得“不稳定”，他一直收到一个用粉红色信纸写成的情书，而这个男人也曾试图勒索他75,000美元。

Candace insisted she had deeply loved Jacques and didn’t care about his money.

坎迪斯坚称她深深地爱着雅克，并不关心他的钱。

“I would’ve been happy with him in a telephone booth,” she told Miller.

“我会很高兴和他一起在电话亭里，”她告诉米勒。

In June 1965, she traveled with her children to Arlington National Cemetery to commemorate the first anniversary of Jacques’s death.

1965年6月，她和孩子们一起前往阿灵顿国家公墓，纪念雅克逝世一周年。

They knelt by Jacques’s grave and placed roses beside his tombstone.

他们跪在雅克的坟墓前，并在他的墓碑旁献上了玫瑰。

A professional photographer hired by Candace took pictures that were sent to the wire services, along with a typed statement detailing Candace’s various medical maladies.

坎迪斯聘请的一名专业摄影师拍摄了照片，并将其发送给通讯社，并附上一份详细说明坎迪斯各种疾病的打印声明。

The statement claimed that doctors had advised Candace not to travel but that she was intent on being at her husband’s grave to signal to the world that “Jacques Mossler is never forgotten.”

声明称，医生建议坎迪斯不要旅行，但她一心想在丈夫的坟墓前向世界表明“雅克·莫斯勒永远不会被忘记”。

At that point, it appeared that the police investigation had stalled.

至此，警方的调查似乎陷入了停滞。

But less than a month after Candace’s visit to Jacques’s grave, a Dade County grand jury indicted her and Mel—who remained in jail in Houston—on capital murder charges.

但在坎迪斯拜访雅克坟墓后不到一个月，戴德县大陪审团以谋杀罪名起诉她和仍在休斯敦监狱服刑的梅尔。

Prosecutors announced that they had uncovered new evidence proving Candace and her nephew had been plotting to kill Jacques for at least a couple of years.

检察官宣布，他们发现了新的证据，证明坎迪斯和她的侄子至少几年来一直密谋谋杀雅克。

By the time the trial began in Miami, in January 1966, more than forty news organizations had requested seats in the courtroom.

1966 年 1 月，当审判在迈阿密开始时，已有四十多家新闻机构要求在法庭上获得席位。

Reporters arrived from the country’s most popular magazines: Time, Life, Look, Newsweek, and the Saturday Evening Post .

来自该国最受欢迎的杂志的记者们赶来：《时代》、《生活》、《Look》、《新闻周刊》和《周六晚邮报》。

Jim Bishop, whose syndicated column appeared in two hundred newspapers, showed up to cover the trial, as did the Chicago Tribune ’s veteran crime writer Paul Holmes.

吉姆·毕肖普 (Jim Bishop) 的联合专栏出现在 200 家报纸上，他和《芝加哥论坛报》的资深犯罪作家保罗·霍姆斯 (Paul Holmes) 到场报道了这次审判。

And of course the New York Daily News ’ Theo Wilson, one of the few female journalists in America assigned to the crime beat, was there.

当然，《纽约每日新闻》的西奥·威尔逊（Theo Wilson）也在场，她是美国为数不多的负责打击犯罪活动的女记者之一。

Her editors were so convinced Candace would sell papers that they had a thousand posters plastered on the walls of subway stations and on the sides of the newspaper’s delivery trucks that read, “Candy Mossler Murder Trial.

她的编辑们坚信坎迪斯会卖掉报纸，因此他们在地铁站的墙壁上和报纸的送货卡车侧面贴了一千张海报，上面写着“坎迪·莫斯勒谋杀案审判”。

Follow Theo Wilson Every Day.”

每天关注西奥·威尔逊。”

It was, in short, the O. J.

简而言之，它就是 O. J.

Simpson trial of its era.

其时代的辛普森审判。

Rarely had circumstances converged to produce such a sensational story, one that, as the Houston Chronicle put it, was teeming with “love, heat, greed, savage passion, intrigue, incest and perversion.” The Tribune ’s Holmes went so far as to say that the trial was “lubricated by sex, nourished by sex and varnished with sex.” And Lewis Lapham, then a 31-year-old staff writer for the Saturday Evening Post, informed his readers that the story was “entertainment as good or better than Peyton Place ”—the wildly popular ABC prime-time television drama starring Mia Farrow and Ryan O’Neal—“without any of the chickenhearted editing.”

很少有环境汇聚在一起产生如此耸人听闻的故事，正如《休斯顿纪事报》所说，这个故事充满了“爱、热度、贪婪、野蛮的激情、阴谋、乱伦和变态”。《论坛报》的福尔摩斯甚至称这次审判“因性而润滑、因性而滋养、因性而涂漆”。当时 31 岁的《周六晚报》特约撰稿人刘易斯·拉帕姆 (Lewis Lapham) 告诉他的读者，这个故事“与由米娅·法罗 (Mia Farrow) 和瑞安·奥尼尔 (Ryan O’Neal) 主演的广受欢迎的 ABC 黄金时段电视剧《佩顿广场》 (Peyton Place) 一样具有娱乐性，甚至更好，“没有任何胆怯的剪辑。”

When I recently called Lapham, now 86, he told me the trial “was unlike anything else I’ve covered, a pure spectacle, comedy and tragedy intertwined, with a leading lady who seemed too good—or maybe too bad—to be true.

当我最近给现年 86 岁的拉帕姆打电话时，他告诉我，这次审判“与我报道过的任何其他事情都不一样，是一场纯粹的奇观，喜剧和悲剧交织在一起，女主角似乎太好了——或者可能太坏了——难以置信。

My editor told me to write as long as I wanted.

我的编辑告诉我想写多久就写多久。

He said no one was going to be able to turn away from this.”

他说没有人能够回避这一点。”

On the opening day of testimony, Candace arrived at the courthouse dressed in a white trench coat, a white silk sheath dress, and white pumps.

作证开始当天，坎迪斯穿着白色风衣、白色丝绸紧身连衣裙和白色高跟鞋来到法院。

As she stepped out of a car, photographers rushed toward her, flashbulbs popping, and reporters shouted questions.

当她走下车时，摄影师们冲向她，闪光灯不断闪烁，记者们大声提问。

“You would have thought she was a movie star walking the red carpet,” said Houston attorney Marian Rosen, who at 31 was the youngest member of Candace and Mel’s defense team.

“你会以为她是走红地毯的电影明星，”31 岁的休斯顿律师玛丽安·罗森 (Marian Rosen) 说，她是坎迪斯和梅尔辩护团队中最年轻的成员。

Accompanied by Rosen, Candace took an elevator to the sixth floor, where a long line of Miamians waited in the hallway behind velvet ropes, hoping to snag a seat in the courtroom.

坎迪斯在罗森的陪同下乘电梯到了六楼，一长串迈阿密人在天鹅绒绳索后面的走廊里等候，希望能在法庭上抢到一个座位。

The crowd was mostly women, many of whom, in the words of one reporter, were “rushing downtown after getting the kids off to school.” They gasped as Candace walked past them.

人群主要是女性，用一位记者的话来说，其中许多人“送孩子们去学校后就赶往市中心”。当坎迪斯从他们身边走过时，他们倒抽了一口气。

She smiled and blew a few kisses to the audience.

她微笑着向观众飞了几个飞吻。

Foreman told the jury that “thousands” of people hated the banker.

福尔曼告诉陪审团，“成千上万”的人讨厌这位银行家。

Jacques was “as ruthless in business as any pirate who ever sailed the seven seas,” he declared.

他宣称，雅克“在生意上就像所有航行于七大洋的海盗一样冷酷无情”。

When she entered the courtroom, she sat on the far left side of the defense counsel’s table; Mel had already taken his place on the far right.

当她进入法庭时，她坐在辩护律师桌子的最左边；梅尔已经在最右边占据了位置。

The couple didn’t exchange so much as a glance.

夫妻俩连眼神都没交换一下。

Mel mostly stared at the floor.

梅尔大部分时间都盯着地板。

One reporter observed that Mel was “so big and quiet that he could play Lennie in Of Mice and Men .”

一位记者观察到梅尔“身材高大、安静，可以在《人鼠之间》中扮演伦尼”。

The lead prosecutor, Dade County state’s attorney Richard Gerstein, was a tall, balding former World War II Air Force navigator who had lost his right eye after he was hit by flak during a bombing run over Germany.

首席检察官、戴德县州检察官理查德·格斯坦（Richard Gerstein）是一位身材高大、秃顶的前二战空军飞行员，他在轰炸德国时被高射炮击中后失去了右眼。

Miami politicos said he was determined to use the trial as a launchpad for his political career—he had ambitions to run for governor.

迈阿密政客表示，他决心利用这次审判作为他政治生涯的跳板——他有竞选州长的雄心。

With his wife watching from the first row—she had bought a new hat to wear to the trial—he told the jury that Candace had seduced Mel, made him believe she was in love with him, and then persuaded him to fly to Miami and murder her husband, whom she no longer loved, while she and the children were conveniently at the hospital, giving Candace the perfect alibi.

他的妻子在第一排观看——她买了一顶新帽子去参加审判——他告诉陪审团坎迪斯引诱了梅尔，让他相信她爱上了他，然后说服他飞往迈阿密并谋杀了她不再爱的丈夫，而她和孩子们正好在医院，这给坎迪斯提供了完美的不在场证据。

Yes, Gerstein said, staring coldly at Candace: Mel did the dirty work, bludgeoning Jacques and stabbing him 39 times, but he was motivated “by his insatiable desire for this woman.”

是的，格斯坦冷冷地盯着坎迪斯说道：梅尔做了肮脏的工作，用棍棒殴打了雅克，并刺伤了他 39 刀，但他的动机是“对这个女人永不满足的欲望”。

Then the lead attorney for Candace and Mel, Percy Foreman, rose from his chair.

然后坎迪斯和梅尔的首席律师珀西·福尔曼从椅子上站了起来。

A large man with slicked-back hair and a ruby ring on his left hand, the 63-year-old Foreman was the most famous and flamboyant criminal defense lawyer in Houston.

这位 63 岁的福尔曼身材高大，头发向后梳，左手戴着红宝石戒指，是休斯顿最著名、最浮夸的刑事辩护律师。

In the courtroom, he was a magnificent orator, renowned for his opening and closing arguments, his gravelly voice lowering dramatically, then rising as he quoted Greek poets, Roman philosophers, Shakespeare, the Bible, and cracker-barrel proverbs.

在法庭上，他是一位出色的演说家，以开场白和结案陈词而闻名，他沙哑的声音急剧降低，然后在引用希腊诗人、罗马哲学家、莎士比亚、圣经和谚语时又升高。

Foreman liked to boast that he had won acquittals for at least three hundred accused murderers, many of whom had clear evidence stacked against them.

福尔曼喜欢吹嘘自己已经为至少三百名被指控的杀人犯宣告无罪，其中许多人都有明确的证据对他们不利。

In one of his most famous cases, he represented a Houston man who had shot to death his stepdaughter’s teenage boyfriend in front of multiple witnesses.

在他最著名的案件之一中，他代表一名休斯顿男子在多名目击者面前枪杀了他继女十几岁的男友。

Foreman hauled a church pulpit into the courtroom and delivered a homily on adolescent vice, emotionally reciting a Sir Walter Scott poem about “pious fathers.” The man was acquitted.

福尔曼将教堂的讲坛拖进法庭，发表了关于青少年恶习的讲道，情绪激动地背诵了沃尔特·斯科特爵士关于“虔诚的父亲”的诗。该男子被无罪释放。

Foreman’s usual strategy was to put the victim on trial, which was exactly what he did with Jacques.

福尔曼通常的策略是对受害者进行审判，这正是他对雅克所做的。

Standing in the center of the courtroom, he hooked his thumbs into the straps of his vest and told the jury that “thousands” of people hated the banker.

站在法庭中央，他将拇指勾在背心的带子上，告诉陪审团，“成千上万”的人讨厌这位银行家。

Jacques was “as ruthless in business as any pirate who ever sailed the seven seas,” Foreman declared, “a man who received so many threats against his life that he kept an ax beside his bed and frequently summoned thugs and gangsters to his home, employing them to deal with blackmailers.”

福尔曼宣称，雅克“在生意上就像所有航行于七大洋的海盗一样冷酷无情，他的生命受到如此多的威胁，以至于他在床边放了一把斧头，经常把暴徒和歹徒召唤到家里，用他们来对付勒索者。”

Foreman offered no proof to back up any of his allegations.

福尔曼没有提供证据来支持他的任何指控。

Nor did he have any evidence when he claimed that Jacques was consumed with sexual fetishes—“every conceivable sex deviation that anybody has ever had.” Most notably, Foreman said, Jacques had “an insatiable sex appetite” for high school boys and college students he met in bars “frequented by the gay people.” Foreman roared that “if each of the thirty-nine wounds on the body of the deceased had been inflicted by a separate person—that is, thirty-nine different people—there still would be three times as many people in the state of Florida with enough reason to want the death of Jacques Mossler.”

当他声称雅克沉迷于性迷恋时，他也没有任何证据——“任何人曾经拥有过的每一种可以想象的性别偏差”。福尔曼说，最值得注意的是，雅克对他在“同性恋者经常光顾的”酒吧里遇到的高中男生和大学生有“无法满足的性欲”。福尔曼咆哮道，“如果死者身上的三十九处伤口中的每一处都是由一个人造成的——也就是说，三十九个不同的人——佛罗里达州仍然有三倍的人有足够的理由想要杀死雅克·莫斯勒。”

The all-male jury included a marine specimen collector at the Miami Seaquarium, a bus driver, a mail carrier, a bellhop, a former proprietor of a rooming house, a piano player, and a man one of the Houston newspapers described as “a truck driver of the Jewish faith.” When Foreman sat down, the jurors studied Candace as she blinked back tears and accepted tissues from Rosen, who sat beside her.

评审团全部由男性组成，其中包括迈阿密水族馆的一名海洋标本收藏家、一名公共汽车司机、一名邮递员、一名行李员、一名出租屋的前业主、一名钢琴演奏家，以及一名被休斯敦报纸描述为“犹太信仰卡车司机”的男子。当福尔曼坐下时，陪审员们审视着坎迪斯，她眨着眼睛忍住泪水，并从坐在她旁边的罗森手中接过纸巾。

Candace softly fingered a gold necklace, a long-ago gift from Jacques.

坎迪斯轻轻地抚摸着一条金项链，这是雅克很久以前送的礼物。

“The jurors couldn’t take their eyes off her,” recalled Rosen, who’s now 87 and still practices law in Houston.

“陪审员们无法将目光从她身上移开，”现年 87 岁、仍在休斯敦从事法律工作的罗森回忆道。

“There were some courtroom observers who later said they believed the trial was over the moment Candace took a seat in the courtroom and crossed her legs.”

“一些法庭观察员后来说，他们相信坎迪斯在法庭上坐下并交叉双腿的那一刻审判就结束了。”

The press corps was certainly taken with her.

记者团当然也被她吸引住了。

She chatted with reporters during breaks, and she met with a few of them at night.

她在休息时与记者聊天，晚上也见了几位记者。

Holmes, who was invited to have a drink with Candace, wrote that she possessed “a bouncy, unquenchable optimism” and “a flashing smile that lighted up her mobile features.” Columnist Bishop, who sat down for a steak dinner with Candace, admitted to his readers that as he watched her picking at her filet mignon, he found himself wishing her good luck.

福尔摩斯受邀与坎迪斯一起喝酒，他写道，坎迪斯拥有“一种充满活力、难以抑制的乐观态度”和“灿烂的笑容，照亮了她移动的面容”。与坎迪斯一起吃牛排晚餐的专栏作家毕肖普向他的读者承认，当他看着她挑选菲力牛排时，他发现自己在祝她好运。

Candace smiled, rose, gave him a curtsy, and said, “Thank you, sir.

坎迪斯微笑着站起身来，向他行了屈膝礼，说道：“谢谢您，先生。

The people of Dade County aren’t going to be unjust to me.

戴德县的人民不会对我不公平。

You’ll see.”

你会看到的。”

And when Wilson, of the Daily News, dropped by the apartment where Candace was staying, Candace sat on the floor to play with her infant grandchild, born the previous year to Candace’s eldest daughter, Rita.

当《每日新闻》的威尔逊顺便拜访坎迪斯住的公寓时，坎迪斯坐在地板上和她的小孙子玩耍，她的孙子是坎迪斯大女儿丽塔前一年出生的。

Candace also introduced Wilson to her four adopted children, whom she’d brought to Miami for the duration of the trial and enrolled in local schools under assumed names.

坎迪斯还向威尔逊介绍了她收养的四个孩子，她在审判期间将他们带到迈阿密，并以化名在当地学校就读。

Their ages now ranged from eleven to fifteen.

他们的年龄现在从十一岁到十五岁不等。

Only nine years earlier, they had watched, terrified, as their birth father in Chicago had murdered their birth mother and their baby brother.

仅仅九年前，他们惊恐地看着自己的亲生父亲在芝加哥谋杀了他们的亲生母亲和小弟弟。

And now here they were, having to deal with the possibility that their adoptive mother might be going to prison, maybe even to the electric chair, for murdering their adoptive father.

现在他们不得不面对这样的可能性：他们的养母可能会因为谋杀养父而入狱，甚至可能坐上电椅。

As Candace looked on, they politely told the writer that their mother was a loving woman who would never have wanted any harm done to Jacques.

在坎迪斯的注视下，他们礼貌地告诉作者，他们的母亲是一位充满爱心的女人，永远不会希望雅克受到任何伤害。

Candace called over her son Dan, kissed him, and asked him to talk about Jacques.

坎迪斯叫来她的儿子丹，吻了他，并请他谈谈雅克。

Dan launched into a story about Jacques flashing hundred-dollar bills, even just to buy hamburgers at the Royal Castle, in Miami.

丹开始讲述雅克炫耀百元大钞的故事，甚至只是为了在迈阿密皇家城堡购买汉堡包。

He recalled that Jacques would also proposition men he didn’t know, telling them he owned banks and inviting them back to the Key Biscayne apartment.

他回忆说，雅克还会向他不认识的人求婚，告诉他们他拥有银行，并邀请他们回到比斯坎湾的公寓。

Dan added that he felt nervous when his father would pick up strangers while driving down the highway.

丹补充说，当他的父亲在高速公路上开车接陌生人时，他感到很紧张。

A Miami Herald reporter asked one observer why it was so important for her to be at the trial.

《迈阿密先驱报》的一名记者询问一位观察员，为什么参加审判对她来说如此重要。

“Where else could you find so much human nature?” she replied.

“你还能在哪里找到如此多的人性呢？”她回答道。

Jacques’s sexuality was a constant theme in Foreman’s defense.

雅克的性取向是福尔曼辩护中永恒的主题。

He insinuated that Jacques had a relationship with a male vice president of one of his companies.

他暗示雅克与他的一家公司的一名男性副总裁有关系。

He called to the stand a former handyman of the Mosslers’ who testified that he had seen the banker with three shirtless young men in a trailer at the Mosslers’ Galveston beach property.

他将莫斯勒家族的一名前勤杂工叫到出庭作证，他作证说，他在莫斯勒家族的加尔维斯顿海滩房产的一辆拖车里看到了银行家和三名赤裸上身的年轻人。

Jacques and the other men were drinking from a bottle of liquor, the man said.

该男子说，雅克和其他人正在喝一瓶酒。

They “talked real loud, kind of fancy.”

他们“说话声音很大，有点奇特”。

Gerstein and his assistant prosecutors fired right back, characterizing Candace as a dangerous adulterer capable of seducing and destroying anyone who dared to get involved with her.

格斯坦和他的助理检察官立即予以回击，称坎迪斯是一个危险的通奸者，能够引诱并摧毁任何胆敢与她有染的人。

The prosecutors called a string of witnesses who described Candace’s own sexual desires as depraved.

检察官传唤了一系列证人，他们称坎迪斯自己的性欲是堕落的。

Some testified that they’d watched Candace embrace Mel while the two were parked in Candace’s Lincoln Continental; one woman said she saw them doing the same in Mel’s Thunderbird.

一些人作证说，当两人把车停在坎迪斯的林肯大陆车上时，他们看到坎迪斯拥抱梅尔。一位女士说，她在梅尔的《雷鸟》中看到他们也做了同样的事情。

“They were in each other’s arms,” the woman solemnly stated.

“他们在彼此的怀里。”女人严肃地说。

“They were too passionate for relatives.” A man testified that he saw Candace drive to Mel’s trailer sales lot and begin “a-huggin’ and a-kissin’ ” him.

“他们对亲戚太热情了。”一名男子作证说，他看到坎迪斯开车到梅尔的拖车销售场，开始“拥抱和亲吻”他。

The foreman of the Mosslers’ ranch recounted that Candace and Mel once showed up there, disappeared inside one of the ranch’s trailers, and “rumpled up” the bed.

莫斯勒牧场的工头回忆说，坎迪斯和梅尔曾经出现在那里，消失在牧场的一辆拖车里，并“弄乱”了床。

And one of Mel’s coworkers at the trailer lot testified that Mel often bragged that he could get whatever he wanted from Candace by performing oral sex on her.

梅尔在预告片停车场的一位同事作证说，梅尔经常吹嘘说，通过对坎迪斯进行口交，他可以从她那里得到他想要的任何东西。

There were a few seconds of stunned silence as everyone in the courtroom turned to look at Candace and Mel.

法庭上的每个人都转头看着坎迪斯和梅尔，陷入了几秒钟的震惊沉默。

According to the reporters, Candace “kept a stony face,” while Mel smiled sheepishly.

据记者报道，坎迪斯“面无表情”，而梅尔则羞涩地微笑着。

Judge George Schulz was so discomfited by the testimony that he ordered the bailiffs to clear the courtroom of anyone under the age of 21—“a ruling that vastly disappointed a number of teen-aged girls wearing elaborate bouffant hairdos,” wrote Lapham.

法官乔治·舒尔茨 (George Schulz) 对证词感到非常不安，因此命令法警清除法庭上任何 21 岁以下的人——“这一裁决让许多留着精致蓬松发型的十几岁女孩非常失望，”拉帕姆写道。

There were plenty of women happy to take the teenagers’ seats.

有很多女性很乐意坐在青少年的座位上。

Some had arrived at the courthouse as early as five in the morning to wait in line behind the velvet ropes.

有些人早上五点就到达法院，在天鹅绒绳后面排队等候。

When the doors opened, they bolted for the wooden benches, ignoring the bailiffs’ pleas to slow down.

当门打开时，他们冲向木凳，无视法警放慢速度的请求。

They carried sack lunches, which they ate during lunch breaks so they wouldn’t have to give up their seats.

他们带着袋装午餐，在午休时吃，这样就不用让座。

A Miami Herald reporter asked one observer why it was so important for her to be at the trial.

《迈阿密先驱报》的一名记者询问一位观察员，为什么参加审判对她来说如此重要。

“Where else could you find so much human nature?” she replied.

“你还能在哪里找到如此多的人性呢？”她回答道。

As the trial went on, it became clear that Gerstein had no direct evidence connecting Candace and Mel to Jacques’s death: no murder weapon (the bottle Mel had taken from the Holiday Inn bar was never found) or eyewitnesses.

随着审判的进行，格斯坦没有直接证据将坎迪斯和梅尔与雅克的死联系起来：没有凶器（梅尔从假日酒店酒吧拿走的瓶子从未被发现）或目击者。

A fingerprint expert did testify that Mel’s palm print was identified on the kitchen counter in Jacques’s apartment, but there was no way to say for certain when Mel had left the print.

指纹专家确实作证说，梅尔的掌纹是在雅克公寓的厨房柜台上辨认出来的，但无法确定梅尔何时留下了掌纹。

Yet Gerstein still had another card to play.

然而格斯坦还有另一张牌可以打。

He said that Dade County sheriff’s detectives had interviewed at least five men who claimed that Candace and Mel had tried to hire them to kill Jacques.

他说，戴德县治安官的侦探采访了至少五名男子，他们声称坎迪斯和梅尔曾试图雇用他们杀死雅克。

One worked at the gas station where Mel had his car serviced.

其中一名在梅尔维修汽车的加油站工作。

He testified that Mel asked him to murder Jacques, drive his body to Mexico, and dump it into a volcano.

他作证说，梅尔要求他谋杀雅克，把他的尸体运到墨西哥，然后扔进火山。

Another man, the coworker at Mel’s trailer sales office, testified that when Mel tried to convince him to do the job, Mel had taken a letter opener and made stabbing motions over and over, demonstrating how he would like Jacques to meet his demise.

另一名男子，梅尔拖车销售办公室的同事作证说，当梅尔试图说服他做这项工作时，梅尔拿着一把开信刀，一遍又一遍地做出刺伤的动作，表明他多么希望雅克死去。

The coworker told Mel he wasn’t interested.

同事告诉梅尔他不感兴趣。

And then there was Billy Frank Mulvey, a self-acknowledged thief and “dope addict,” who testified he got a call from Candace asking him to meet her at a Houston beer joint called the 24 Hour Club.

还有比利·弗兰克·穆尔维（Billy Frank Mulvey），他自认是一名小偷和“毒品成瘾者”，他作证说，他接到坎迪斯的电话，要求他在休斯敦一家名为“24 小时俱乐部”的啤酒店与她见面。

According to Mulvey’s testimony, Candace said she’d heard about him when she had served a term on the Harris County grand jury.

根据穆尔维的证词，坎迪斯说她在哈里斯县大陪审团任职期间就听说过他。

Mulvey said he told Candace he’d kill Jacques for $25,000—his plan was to rig dynamite to Jacques’s car—but he was arrested and thrown into the Harris County jail on another charge before he got around to it.

穆尔维说，他告诉坎迪斯，他愿意以 25,000 美元的价格杀死雅克——他的计划是在雅克的车上安装炸药——但在他行动之前，他因另一项指控被捕并被投入哈里斯县监狱。

In July 1964, he continued, he was still in jail when Mel was arrested for Jacques’s murder.

1964 年 7 月，他继续说，当梅尔因谋杀雅克而被捕时，他还在监狱里。

They briefly shared a cell, and Mel confessed to him that he had done the killing.

他们短暂地共用一间牢房，梅尔向他承认杀人是他干的。

At one point while Mulvey was telling this story, Candace rose halfway out of her chair and cried out, “I have never seen or heard of this man in my life!” Most of the reporters weren’t buying his story either.

有一次，当穆尔维讲述这个故事时，坎迪斯从椅子上站起来，大声喊道：“我一生中从未见过或听说过这个人！”大多数记者也不相信他的故事。

In fact, they were skeptical of all the alleged hit men, describing them as “shameless and outright rascals,” “nitwits” who had willingly committed perjury in hopes of getting a reduced prison sentence or, at the least, a free trip to Florida, where they could sunbathe on the beach before coming to court to testify.

事实上，他们对所有被指控的杀手都持怀疑态度，称他们为“无耻和彻头彻尾的流氓”、“白痴”，他们自愿作伪证，希望能得到减刑，或者至少能免费去佛罗里达州，在出庭作证之前可以在海滩上晒日光浴。

On March 3, both sides rested and closing arguments began.

3月3日，双方休息并开始结案陈词。

During his 62-minute summation, Gerstein lit into Candace again, calling her “the mastermind and manipulator of this entire scheme.” He said Candace realized that the only way she could wrest control of the fortune from Jacques was to “eliminate him from the face of the earth.”

在 62 分钟的总结中，格斯坦再次对坎迪斯发起攻击，称她为“整个计划的策划者和操纵者”。他说坎迪斯意识到，她从雅克手中夺取财产控制权的唯一方法就是“将他从地球上消灭”。

But Gerstein couldn’t compete with Foreman’s oratorical brilliance.

但格斯坦无法与福尔曼的演讲才华相媲美。

The defense attorney began his final argument by saying, “I will now make a few brief remarks.” He proceeded to speak for five hours, with three intermissions.

辩护律师在最后的辩论开始时说：“我现在做一些简短的评论。”他接着讲了五个小时，中间有三次中场休息。

He quoted Shakespeare, Wordsworth, H. G.

他引用了莎士比亚、华兹华斯、H. G.

Wells, Buddha, and Jesus.

威尔斯、佛陀和耶稣。

He referred to Mel as “that innocent boy” and to Candace as “that sweet little woman.”

他称梅尔为“那个天真的男孩”，称坎迪斯为“那个可爱的小女人”。

And in a surprise move, he went after the Dade County sheriff’s detectives, claiming, without a shred of evidence, that they had cut deals with Jacques’s four daughters from his first marriage.

令人惊讶的是，他追捕了戴德县治安官的侦探，在没有任何证据的情况下声称他们已经与雅克第一次婚姻中的四个女儿达成了交易。

The detectives, he said, had agreed to manufacture testimony against Candace and Mel in return for a large under-the-table payment from the daughters, who wanted Candace convicted so that they could inherit Jacques’s estate.

他说，侦探们同意制作针对坎迪斯和梅尔的证词，以换取女儿们的一大笔私下付款，她们希望坎迪斯被定罪，以便继承雅克的遗产。

As Foreman came to the end of the speech, he told the jury to look again at Candace, who was clutching a bouquet of flowers.

当福尔曼的演讲结束时，他让陪审团再看看手里拿着一束鲜花的坎迪斯。

“Let him among you without sin cast the first stone,” the attorney quietly said, then took his seat.

“让他在你们中间无罪地投下第一块石头，”律师轻声说道，然后坐下来。

After three days of deliberation, the jurors returned to the courtroom to deliver their verdict.

经过三天的审议，陪审员们回到法庭做出了裁决。

Candace was dressed in a beige suit and a white coat with gloves and sunglasses.

坎迪斯穿着米色西装和白色外套，戴着手套和太阳镜。

Her face was “chalk white,” one reporter observed.

一位记者观察到，她的脸“粉笔白”。

Mel, who was wearing an olive-green suit, kept his gaze locked on the floor.

身穿橄榄绿西装的梅尔，目光一直锁定在地板上。

When the jury foreman pronounced that Mel and Candace were not guilty, Mel leaned back in his chair and whispered, “Beautiful.” Candace convulsed into sobs.

当陪审团主席宣布梅尔和坎迪斯无罪时，梅尔靠在椅子上，低声说道：“漂亮。”坎迪斯抽泣起来。

Later, in a back hallway, she kissed all twelve jurors.

后来，在后面的走廊里，她亲吻了所有十二名陪审员。

“Thank you,” she said.

“谢谢你，”她说。

“Thank you for my children.”

“谢谢你为我的孩子们。”

A crowd was waiting as Candace and Mel left the courthouse.

坎迪斯和梅尔离开法院时，一群人正在等待。

Some looked on in shock, bewildered that the socialite and her young nephew had been set free.

一些人震惊地看着，对这位社交名流和她的小侄子被释放感到困惑。

But a few women, weeping openly, tried to reach out and touch Candace.

但有几个妇女当众哭泣，试图伸出手去触摸坎迪斯。

She was their heroine: a loving mother who had escaped the clutches of corrupt police detectives and prosecutors.

她是他们的女主角：一位慈爱的母亲，逃离了腐败的警探和检察官的魔爪。

“Candace, we love you!” they shouted.

“坎迪斯，我们爱你！”他们喊道。

Only ten days after the verdict was announced, a paperback book about Candace was published and shipped to stores across the country.

判决宣布后仅十天，一本关于坎迪斯的平装书就出版了，并运往全国各地的商店。

A New York film company also announced plans for a major motion picture about Candace.

纽约一家电影公司还宣布计划拍摄一部有关坎迪斯的大型电影。

Upon hearing this news, the mayor of Miami gave interviews saying he’d be happy to be cast in the film, playing the role of the judge.

得知这一消息后，迈阿密市长接受采访时表示，他很高兴能出演这部电影，扮演法官的角色。

Candace told reporters that she had no desire to have a movie made about her.

坎迪斯告诉记者，她不想拍一部关于她的电影。

She said she was ready to move on from what she described as “that unfortunate Miami episode.” Upon her return to Houston, she had an eight-foot-tall stone wall built around her estate to discourage gawkers.

她说她已经准备好从她所描述的“迈阿密那段不幸的事件”中走出来。返回休斯顿后，她在自己的庄园周围建了一堵八英尺高的石墙，以阻止人们围观。

Yet hordes still flocked there.

然而成群结队的人仍然涌向那里。

Tour buses even puttered by the mansion, the out-of-town passengers peering out the windows, cameras hanging around their necks.

旅游巴士甚至摇摇晃晃地驶过这座宅邸，外地的乘客脖子上挂着相机，向窗外张望。

Occasionally, as a bus slowed in front of the electronically controlled front gates, someone would cry out, “There she is!” And for a moment, as a security guard waved his arms, shouting at the bus driver to keep moving, everyone would catch a glimpse of Candace standing by the front door.

偶尔，当一辆公共汽车在电子控制前门前减速时，有人会喊道：“她来了！”有那么一会儿，当一名保安挥舞着手臂，对公交车司机大喊要继续前进时，每个人都会看到坎迪斯站在前门。

River Oaks residents were horrified that she had stayed in the neighborhood.

River Oaks 的居民对她留在附近感到震惊。

They stopped inviting her to parties and avoided the events she hosted.

他们不再邀请她参加聚会，也不再参加她主持的活动。

“Please—I wasn’t about to be seen standing next to that hedonist,” Joanne Herring told me.

“拜托，我不想让别人看到我站在那个享乐主义者旁边，”乔安妮·赫林告诉我。

“She was a murderer.

“她是一个杀人犯。

She had sex with her sister’s son.

她和她姐姐的儿子发生了性关系。

I don’t know which was worse.”

我不知道哪个更糟糕。”

Candace, however, wasn’t going anywhere.

然而坎迪斯哪儿也不去。

When I talked to the former Houston Post society columnist Betsy Parish, she called Candace “the unsinkable Molly Brown,” a reference to the American socialite who survived the Titanic disaster.

当我与前《休斯敦邮报》社会专栏作家贝特西·帕里什交谈时，她称坎迪斯为“永不沉没的莫莉·布朗”，指的是在泰坦尼克号灾难中幸存下来的美国社交名流。

In fact, Candace told reporters that she would begin to focus on running the businesses she had inherited from her husband.

事实上，坎迪斯告诉记者，她将开始专注于经营她从丈夫那里继承的企业。

As the new chairman of the board of Jacques’s bank holding company, she attended monthly directors’ meetings, accompanied by her financial adviser, Erle C.

作为雅克银行控股公司的新任董事会主席，她在财务顾问 Erle C. 的陪同下参加每月的董事会议。

Cocke.

科克。

(Candace referred to him in meetings as “the honorable Mr. Cocke.”) She oversaw the construction of another bank in Miami.

（坎迪斯在会议上称他为“尊敬的科克先生”。）她负责监督迈阿密另一家银行的建设。

When the new bank opened its doors, she was there, dressed in a cowboy hat, a fur-lined cape, and thigh-high boots.

当新银行开门时，她就在那里，戴着牛仔帽，穿着毛皮衬里斗篷，脚踩长筒靴。

Candace also purchased office buildings in downtown Miami, apartment buildings in Beverly Hills, oil and gas wells in Louisiana, and undeveloped land near the Alamo and Houston’s newly opened Galleria.

坎迪斯还购买了迈阿密市中心的办公楼、比佛利山庄的公寓楼、路易斯安那州的石油和天然气井，以及阿拉莫和休斯顿新开的商业街廊附近的未开发土地。

She invested in a theatrical work called Lady Godiva .

她投资了一部名为《戈黛娃夫人》的戏剧作品。

And she founded a music company to publish and promote the love songs she said she had been writing for the past couple of years to help manage her stress.

她还成立了一家音乐公司来出版和推广她说她过去几年一直在写的情歌，以帮助控制自己的压力。

Candace told Maxine Mesinger, the society writer for the Houston Chronicle, that Judy Garland was interested in recording a few of her songs.

坎迪斯告诉《休斯敦纪事报》的社会作家玛克辛·梅辛格，朱迪·加兰有兴趣录制她的一些歌曲。

A delighted Mesinger promptly announced in her Big City Beat column that Candace was now writing pieces for the iconic performer and “shaping her career.”

梅辛格高兴地立即在她的《大城市节拍》专栏中宣布坎迪斯现在正在为这位标志性表演者创作作品并“塑造她的职业生涯”。

Though the press tended to fixate on her love life and glamorous carousing, Candace was, in many ways, a woman ahead of her time.

尽管媒体倾向于关注她的爱情生活和迷人的狂欢，但坎迪斯在很多方面都是一位领先于时代的女性。

And it wasn’t just her successful tenure heading up a complex business empire.

这不仅仅是她在领导一个复杂的商业帝国期间取得的成功。

She stirred up even more media attention in October 1967, when she arrived with Mel in tow at a Houston benefit concert headlined by Aretha Franklin and Harry Belafonte.

1967 年 10 月，当她与梅尔一起出席由艾瑞莎·富兰克林 (Aretha Franklin) 和哈里·贝拉方特 (Harry Belafonte) 领衔的休斯敦慈善音乐会时，她引起了更多媒体的关注。

Proceeds went to Martin Luther King Jr.’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and few members of the audience were white—segregation remained an entrenched part of life in the city.

收益捐给了马丁·路德·金举办的南方基督教领袖会议，观众中几乎没有白人——种族隔离仍然是这座城市生活中根深蒂固的一部分。

Candace, who’d made a sizable donation to the SCLC, sat close to the stage, posed with King for a photograph that ran in Jet magazine, and later hosted a dinner party at her mansion for King and the singers.

坎迪斯向 SCLC 捐赠了一大笔捐款，她坐在舞台附近，与金合影留念，并在《Jet》杂志上刊登了一张照片，随后在她的豪宅为金和歌手们举办了晚宴。

Candace also continued with other philanthropy.

坎迪斯还继续从事其他慈善事业。

The Houston Post ran a large photograph of her later in 1967 as she broke ground for a $100,000 building project at the Boys Club of Houston.

1967 年晚些时候，《休斯顿邮报》刊登了她在休斯敦男孩俱乐部破土动工耗资 10 万美元的建筑项目时拍摄的大幅照片。

She was holding a shovel and, as ever, smiling eagerly.

她手里拿着一把铲子，一如既往地热切地微笑着。

Candace got involved with the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo at the Astrodome, one of the city’s biggest charitable events.

坎迪斯参与了休斯顿牲畜展和阿斯特罗多姆体育馆的牛仔竞技表演，这是该市最大的慈善活动之一。

She made winning bids on the top steers and arranged to have her photo pasted on mammoth billboards, welcoming visitors to the annual show.

她赢得了顶级公牛的竞标，并安排将她的照片贴在巨大的广告牌上，欢迎游客参加一年一度的展会。

The cowboys were intrigued by her.

牛仔们对她很感兴趣。

One admiring rider who got a look at her told a reporter, “She’d still make a pony pull his picket pin.”

一位欣赏她的骑手告诉记者，“她仍然会让小马拉他的尖桩钉。”

The newspaper society columnists loved filling their columns with tidbits about Candace, especially if they involved Mel.

报纸社团的专栏作家喜欢在专栏中填满有关坎迪斯的花絮，特别是如果其中涉及梅尔的话。

The two of them were seen shopping in a neighborhood department store for light fixtures and curtains.

有人看到两人在附近的一家百货商店购买灯具和窗帘。

They went to see a ball game.

他们去看球赛。

They were spotted in New York attending a Broadway musical.

他们被发现在纽约观看百老汇音乐剧。

On a trip to Switzerland, Mel supposedly bought Candace an engagement ring.

据说梅尔在去瑞士旅行时给坎迪斯买了一枚订婚戒指。

Candace still insisted that she and Mel weren’t romantically involved.

坎迪斯仍然坚称她和梅尔没有恋爱关系。

She loved him like she loved all of her relatives, she said.

她说，她爱他就像爱她所有的亲戚一样。

She rarely saw him, she added, because he was so busy starting a career as a commercial property developer.

她补充说，她很少见到他，因为他正忙着开始商业地产开发商的职业生涯。

It turned out Mel had a knack for real estate.

事实证明，梅尔在房地产方面很有天赋。

One run-down building that he bought for $2,000 sold a year later for $110,000.

他以 2,000 美元购买的一栋破旧建筑一年后以 110,000 美元的价格出售。

He picked up other properties and hired a prominent Houston commercial real estate brokerage firm to manage them.

他购买了其他房产，并聘请了一家著名的休斯顿商业房地产经纪公司来管理它们。

His account was given to a young rookie broker, who told me that he and Mel hit it off, in part because he never asked Mel about Jacques’s murder.

他的账户交给了一位年轻的新秀经纪人，他告诉我他和梅尔一拍即合，部分原因是他从未向梅尔询问雅克被谋杀的情况。

They began to meet for drinks.

他们开始见面喝酒。

During one of their outings,Mel admitted that he was growing tired of Candace.

在他们的一次郊游中，梅尔承认他已经厌倦了坎迪斯。

“He said he was ready to move on but he needed to do it slowly, without setting her off,” recalled the broker, who’s now in his seventies and would speak only under the condition of anonymity.

“他说他已经准备好继续前进，但他需要慢慢来，不要惹恼她，”这位70多岁的经纪人回忆道，他不愿透露姓名。

“Mel said Candace had a crazy streak.

“梅尔说坎迪斯有一种疯狂的倾向。

He said she was unpredictable and had a fiery temper and he wasn’t sure what she would do if she found out he had been with another woman.”

他说她难以捉摸，脾气暴躁，他不确定如果她发现他和另一个女人在一起会怎么做。”

Candace was already suspicious that Mel was cheating on her.

坎迪斯已经怀疑梅尔在欺骗她。

She once screamed at Mel in front of her children because she believed he was ogling a waitress.

她曾经在孩子们面前对梅尔尖叫，因为她相信他正在向一位女服务员抛媚眼。

She got so upset with him on another occasion that she called the police and demanded he be arrested for hitting her “about the head and face with his hands and fist.” (When the cops found no evidence of assault, she dropped the charges.) She hired a private detective in Houston to follow Mel around and see what he was up to.

还有一次，她对他非常不满，于是报了警，要求逮捕他，因为他“用手和拳头打了她的头和脸”。（当警察没有发现袭击的证据时，她放弃了指控。）她在休斯顿聘请了一名私家侦探跟踪梅尔，看看他在做什么。

One afternoon, the broker told me, Candace’s chauffeur brought her to a building where the broker was working.

经纪人告诉我，一天下午，坎迪斯的司机带她来到经纪人工作的一栋大楼。

“She rolled down the window and she gave me a nice smile.

“她摇下车窗，给了我一个灿烂的微笑。

She was very well dressed.

她穿得很好。

She asked if I knew where Mel was, and I said I didn’t know.

她问我是否知道梅尔在哪里，我说我不知道。

I looked down and saw a .45 pistol on the seat beside her.

我低头看到她旁边的座位上有一把0.45手枪。

I thought, ‘What the hell?’ ”

我想，‘到底是什么？’”

A couple of days later, the broker said, Mel told him he and Candace had gotten into another argument at the mansion.

经纪人说，几天后，梅尔告诉他，他和坎迪斯在豪宅里又发生了争执。

He went into her bathroom, shut the door, and walked over to the sink.

他走进她的浴室，关上门，走到水槽边。

Then Candace’s .45 went off three times, the bullets splintering the door.

然后坎迪斯的 0.45 步枪连响了三声，子弹将门打碎。

“Mel told me if he had been standing on the other side of that door, he would be dead,” the broker said.

“梅尔告诉我，如果他站在门的另一边，他就会死，”经纪人说。

Mel never filed a police report, and as far as I could tell, no one else in Houston heard about the alleged shooting.

梅尔从未向警方报案，据我所知，休斯顿没有其他人听说过这起枪击事件。

“Mel ordered me to keep it quiet, and I did,” said the broker.

“梅尔命令我保持安静，我照做了，”经纪人说。

“I wasn’t about to cross him.”

“我并不想得罪他。”

Although they knew they would be bound forever to the mystery surrounding Jacques’s death, Mel and Candace finally decided to go their separate ways.

尽管梅尔和坎迪斯知道他们将永远与雅克之死的谜团联系在一起，但梅尔和坎迪斯最终决定分道扬镳。

Mel became Houston’s Hugh Hefner.

梅尔成为休斯顿的休·海夫纳。

He grew out his hair, sprouted a thick mustache, and frequented TGI Fridays, at the time an especially popular singles bar, wearing wide-collared shirts and custom-made jeans with leather stitching around the cuffs.

他留起了头发，蓄起了浓密的小胡子，经常光顾当时特别受欢迎的单身酒吧 TGI Fridays，穿着宽领衬衫和袖口缝有皮革缝线的定制牛仔裤。

“Even nice girls found him irresistible,” one woman who knew him told me.

“即使是好女孩也觉得他无法抗拒，”一位认识他的女士告诉我。

As for Candace, by then in her fifties, she too had no shortage of love interests.

至于坎迪斯，五十多岁的她也不乏恋爱对象。

“I remember going to one of her birthday parties that she threw for herself,” recalled the renowned Houston criminal defense attorney Dick DeGuerin, who in those years was just getting established.

“我记得参加过她为自己举办的一次生日聚会，”当时刚刚崭露头角的著名休斯顿刑事辩护律师迪克·德盖林 (Dick DeGuerin) 回忆道。

“It was in the backyard, around the swimming pool, and there was a lot of drinking.

“那是在后院，游泳池周围，人们喝了很多酒。

A friend of mine”—Jack Staub, the son of the Houston architect John Staub—“took off his clothes except for his boxer shorts and dove off the diving board, maybe to impress her.

我的一个朋友”——休斯顿建筑师约翰·斯托布的儿子杰克·斯托布——“脱掉衣服，只留下平角短裤，然后从跳板上跳下来，也许是为了给她留下深刻的印象。

“Anyway, she came floating down her spiral staircase, followed by another suitor, Buck Bukowski.

“不管怎样，她从螺旋楼梯上飘下来，后面跟着另一个追求者巴克·布考斯基。

Buck was barefoot, wearing this white Nehru jacket, smiling proudly.

巴克赤着脚，穿着这件白色尼赫鲁夹克，自豪地微笑着。

Candace stood on the outdoor stage with a microphone, and she said she had brought in a special guest to play for us.

坎迪斯拿着麦克风站在室外舞台上，她说她请来了一位特别嘉宾为我们演奏。

Out came Chuck Berry.

查克·贝里出来了。

We all applauded, and then Candace suddenly stepped forward and planted this huge, wet tongue kiss on him that must have lasted for thirty seconds.

我们都鼓掌，然后坎迪斯突然向前一步，在他身上留下了这个巨大的湿舌吻，这个吻大概持续了三十秒。

Candace and Chuck seemed to be having a really good time.

坎迪斯和查克似乎玩得很开心。

I looked at Buck and thought, ‘Sorry about that, my friend.’ ” (Years later, in his 1987 autobiography, Berry would devote an entire chapter to his multiple flings with Candace, describing in detail their encounters on her circular bed.)

我看着巴克，心里想，‘对不起，我的朋友。’”（多年后，在贝瑞 1987 年的自传中，贝瑞用了一整章的篇幅讲述了他与坎迪斯的多次风流韵事，详细描述了他们在她的圆形床上的遭遇。）

In 1971 she married again, this time to Barnett Garrison, a self-employed electrical contractor who owned a few local nightclubs.

1971 年，她再次结婚，这次嫁给了巴尼特·加里森 (Barnett Garrison)，他是一位个体经营的电气承包商，在当地拥有几家夜总会。

Barnett was a hulking fellow, six foot four and 220 pounds.

巴尼特是个身材魁梧的家伙，身高六英尺四英寸，体重 220 磅。

He was 32.

他32岁了。

She was 51.

她51岁了。

They seemed happy together, at least until Candace learned that he liked to frequent a small nightclub that featured go-go dancers.

他们在一起看起来很开心，至少在坎迪斯得知他喜欢经常光顾一家有舞者的小夜总会之前是这样。

One evening, after the club had closed, it burned to the ground.

一天晚上，俱乐部关门后，它被烧毁了。

After a lengthy inquiry, Houston Fire Department investigators suspected that Candace had set fire to the joint.

经过长时间的调查，休斯顿消防局调查人员怀疑坎迪斯纵火焚烧了该接头。

But they didn’t have evidence to arrest her, and the story never made the newspapers—that is, until years later, when Houston Post society columnist Marge Crumbaker asked Candace during a private conversation if she had started the blaze.

但他们没有证据逮捕她，这个故事也从未登上报纸——直到几年后，《休斯敦邮报》社会专栏作家玛吉·克鲁巴克在一次私人谈话中问坎迪斯是否是她放火的。

According to Crumbaker, Candace waved a hand in the air and said, “I certainly would understand doing such a thing.”

据克朗巴克回忆，坎迪斯在空中挥舞着一只手说：“我当然会理解做这样的事情。”

In August 1972, a little more than a year after their wedding, Barnett was found facedown in a pool of blood on the Mossler mansion’s stone patio.

1972 年 8 月，也就是他们结婚一年多后，巴尼特被发现脸朝下倒在莫斯勒宅邸的石头露台上的血泊中。

His nine-millimeter automatic pistol, which he carried in a zippered case, was beside him.

他的九毫米自动手枪放在一个拉链箱里，放在他身边。

One of his shoes was beside him; the other was in the yard.

他的一只鞋子就在他旁边；另一个在院子里。

He was still alive, barely.

他还活着，勉强还活着。

He had brain damage, a collapsed lung, broken ribs, and lacerations on his head.

他的脑部受损，肺部塌陷，肋骨骨折，头部有撕裂伤。

Police officers noticed scuff marks on the steep slate roof of the three-story home, which suggested that Barnett had fallen off the roof and plunged forty feet.

警察注意到这栋三层住宅陡峭的石板屋顶上有磨损痕迹，这表明巴尼特从屋顶上摔下来，从四十英尺处坠落。

Two homicide detectives arrived and went to Candace’s bedroom to interview her.

两名凶杀案侦探赶到并前往坎迪斯的卧室采访她。

According to a police report, the door was locked, and initially Candace wouldn’t open it.

根据警方的报告，门是锁着的，坎迪斯最初不会打开它。

When she finally allowed the detectives into the bedroom, she was incoherent, unable—or perhaps unwilling—to answer any of their questions.

当她最终允许侦探们进入卧室时，她语无伦次，无法——或者可能不愿意——回答他们的任何问题。

She mumbled that she had no idea why Garrison had been on the roof.

她咕哝着说她不知道加里森为什么会在屋顶上。

At one point, she blurted out, “I already shot him,” but that made little sense because no bullet wounds were found on Barnett’s body.

有一次，她脱口而出：“我已经开枪打死他了”，但这毫无意义，因为巴内特的身上没有发现枪伤。

The detectives concluded that Candace was “either on medication or was highly intoxicated.”

侦探们得出的结论是，坎迪斯“要么正在服药，要么喝得酩酊大醉”。

Barnett’s fall was ruled accidental.

巴尼特的摔倒被判定为意外。

But when I went to see Mickey Herskowitz, he told me a version of this story that’s never been reported.

但当我去见米基·赫斯科维茨时，他告诉了我这个故事的一个从未被报道过的版本。

While he was researching his book on Candace, one of her relatives told him that Candace had paid two men to beat up Barnett after she’d discovered he was cheating on her.

当他正在研究有关坎迪斯的书时，她的一位亲戚告诉他，坎迪斯在发现巴尼特欺骗她后，付钱给两个男人殴打巴尼特。

“What I was told was that after Barnett got pounded, he was still kind of belligerent, really tough as hell,” Herskowitz said.

“我被告知的是，巴内特被殴打后，他仍然有点好战，非常强硬，”赫斯科维茨说。

“So they ice-picked him in the ear, then took him up on the roof and threw him off.”

“所以他们用冰锥挖他的耳朵，然后把他带到屋顶上并把他扔了下去。”

I called one of Candace’s relatives who’d been close to her during the early seventies.

我给坎迪斯的一位亲戚打了电话，他在七十年代初期与她关系密切。

“What I heard is that Candace hired two of her cousins from Georgia—big, mean rednecks who drove bootleg liquor over state lines,”he said.

“我听说坎迪斯雇佣了她的两个来自佐治亚州的表兄弟——都是大块头、卑鄙的乡巴佬，他们在州界范围内贩卖私酒，”他说。

“She told them she wanted them to come to Houston and teach Barnett a lesson, and that led to Barnett getting thrown off the roof.”

“她告诉他们，她希望他们来休斯顿给巴内特一个教训，这导致巴内特被从屋顶上扔下来。”

Barnett was taken to Methodist Hospital, where he lay in a coma.

巴尼特被送往卫理公会医院，在那里他处于昏迷状态。

After six weeks, he regained enough memory to recall that he had graduated from Rice, but he didn’t remember being married to Candace or falling off the roof.

六周后，他恢复了足够的记忆，记得自己已经从莱斯大学毕业了，但他不记得与坎迪斯结婚或从屋顶上摔下来。

When doctors said they could do nothing more for him, his parents took him in.

当医生表示他们无能为力时，他的父母收留了他。

Candace filed for divorce in March 1974, telling reporters that although she still loved Barnett, there was no way the marriage could last because his mother refused to let her see him.

1974年3月，坎迪斯提出离婚，她告诉记者，虽然她仍然爱着巴尼特，但由于巴尼特的母亲拒绝让她见他，这段婚姻不可能持续下去。

She said she had shown up at the Garrison home one night in a nightgown and fur coat, banging on the door with one of her high heels, but no one would let her inside.

她说，一天晚上，她穿着睡衣和毛皮大衣出现在加里森家，用一只高跟鞋敲门，但没有人让她进去。

The suitors kept coming: a country music singer, a member of the Drifters R&B group, a prominent doctor at the Texas Medical Center, Sammy Davis Jr., a Houston television anchor, a young man who worked for a mortgage company.

追求者不断涌现：一位乡村音乐歌手、Drifters R&B 乐队成员、德克萨斯医疗中心的一位著名医生、休斯顿电视主播小萨米·戴维斯 (Sammy Davis Jr.)、一位在抵押贷款公司工作的年轻人。

Just four months after Candace went to court to divorce Barnett, Mesinger trumpeted in Big City Beat that “a hot rumor around town has Candace Mossler and former mortgage man John Bradley planning a waltz to the altar in Italy.” No doubt to the relief of Bradley’s family, the wedding trip never took place.

就在坎迪斯诉诸法庭与巴内特离婚四个月后，梅辛格在《大城市节拍》中大肆宣扬“城里流传着一个热门谣言，坎迪斯·莫斯勒和前抵押贷款人约翰·布拉德利正计划在意大利的祭坛上跳华尔兹。”毫无疑问，婚礼旅行从未举行，这让布拉德利的家人松了一口气。

Determined to reclaim her reputation, she hired Herskowitz to write her biography, promising she’d deliver the real story about who she was.

为了恢复自己的声誉，她聘请赫斯科维茨为她撰写传记，并承诺她会讲述自己的真实故事。

But Herskowitz was unable to verify much of what she said.

但赫斯科维茨无法证实她所说的大部分内容。

She told him, for instance, that she had been born in 1927 but that Jacques had doctored her birth certificate so that people wouldn’t realize how much younger she was.

例如，她告诉他，她出生于 1927 年，但雅克篡改了她的出生证明，这样人们就不会意识到她有多年轻。

Herskowitz quickly realized the problem with that claim: that would have meant she was only twelve years old when she gave birth to her first child, Norman Jr.

赫斯科维茨很快意识到这种说法的问题：这意味着她生下第一个孩子小诺曼时只有十二岁。

Candace also told Herskowitz that she’d been diagnosed with polio when she was nine.

坎迪斯还告诉赫斯科维茨，她九岁时被诊断出患有小儿麻痹症。

She said doctors had told her she would never walk again, but after undergoing an arduous five-year routine of exercise, stretching, and massage, she’d rehabilitated herself and was finally able to walk without a limp.

她说，医生告诉她，她再也不能走路了，但经过五年艰苦的锻炼、伸展和按摩，她已经康复，终于能走路了，不再一瘸一拐。

It was a dramatic story, and Candace teared up as she told it.

这是一个戏剧性的故事，坎迪斯讲述时流下了眼泪。

Unfortunately, Herskowitz could find no one in the family who remembered Candace ever being afflicted with polio.

不幸的是，赫斯科维茨在家里找不到任何人记得坎迪斯曾经患有小儿麻痹症。

What particularly bothered Herskowitz was a lawsuit that had been filed in 1973, just as he started working on the book.

让赫斯科维茨特别困扰的是 1973 年提起的一场诉讼，当时他正开始写这本书。

Two of Candace’s adopted sons, Dan and Chris, who were then students at the University of Texas, accused Candace of converting large portions of their trusts to herself and of giving them just $350 a month for living expenses.

坎迪斯的两个养子丹和克里斯当时是德克萨斯大学的学生，他们指责坎迪斯将大部分信托转给自己，并且每月只给他们 350 美元的生活费。

They claimed she had promised them more money, but only on the condition that they agreed to quit school, get haircuts, and return to the mansion to work exclusively for her.

他们声称她答应给他们更多的钱，但条件是他们同意退学、理发、回到豪宅专门为她工作。

The court filings made it clear that life at the Mossler estate was hardly the fairy tale many newspapers had made it out to be.

法庭文件清楚地表明，莫斯勒庄园的生活绝非许多报纸所描述的童话故事。

Chris said in a hearing that he’d left home as soon as he could because his mother would get high on prescription drugs and “didn’t know what she was doing and [would] tell outrageous lies.”

克里斯在听证会上表示，他会尽快离家出走，因为他的母亲服用处方药后会产生兴奋感，并且“不知道自己在做什么，并且会撒出令人发指的谎言”。

In 1975 Candace altered her will, leaving the bulk of the Mossler fortune to her eldest daughter, Rita.

1975 年，坎迪斯改变了遗嘱，将莫斯勒的大部分财产留给了她的大女儿丽塔。

She kept Norman Jr. and her youngest child, Eddie, in the will.

她在遗嘱中保留了小诺曼和她最小的孩子埃迪。

But she removed Dan, Chris, and Martha from any inheritance altogether, claiming they “have not demonstrated the care, love and affection I deserve as a mother.”

但她完全取消了丹、克里斯和玛莎的继承权，声称他们“没有表现出我作为母亲应有的关心、爱和感情”。

Herskowitz told me that the more he talked to Candace, the more he wondered if she was becoming unhinged.

赫斯科维茨告诉我，他和坎迪斯谈得越多，他就越怀疑她是否精神错乱。

One day, she announced that she wanted to purchase the Houston Oilers football team.

有一天，她宣布要收购休斯敦油人队橄榄球队。

Another day, she said she’d met with a team of political consultants to explore running for governor.

另一天，她说她会见了一组政治顾问，讨论竞选州长的事宜。

During a business trip to Miami, she called police to report that a masked bandit with “soft brown eyes” and “soft hands” had broken into her hotel room and taken $200,000 in cash and jewels.

在一次去迈阿密出差期间，她向警方报案称，一名有着“温柔的棕色眼睛”和“柔软的手”的蒙面强盗闯入了她的酒店房间，并拿走了 20 万美元的现金和珠宝。

The police quickly closed the case, convinced her report was fabricated.

警方很快结案，确信她的报告是捏造的。

I tried to get Candace’s children, three of whom are still alive, to help me understand Candace, but none of them would talk to me.

我试图让坎迪斯的三个孩子（其中三个还活着）帮助我了解坎迪斯，但他们都不愿意跟我说话。

“My dad has spent more than fifty years trying to figure out who his mother really was, and he still has no answers,” said one of Candace’s grandchildren, Alex Mossler, an Austin-area general contractor.

“我父亲花了五十多年的时间试图弄清楚他的母亲到底是谁，但他仍然没有答案，”坎迪斯的孙子之一、奥斯汀地区的总承包商亚历克斯·莫斯勒 (Alex Mossler) 说。

“I think he just wants everything to go away.”

“我认为他只是希望一切都消失。”

Alex gave me a look and shook his head.

亚历克斯看了我一眼，摇了摇头。

“I don’t think anything will ever go away.”

“我认为任何事情都不会消失。”

In what was likely the last interview she ever gave, Candace hosted Mark Goodman, a writer for Esquire, at a party she threw at the mansion in early 1976.

1976 年初，坎迪斯在她在宅邸举办的一场派对上接待了《Esquire》杂志的作家马克·古德曼，这可能是她接受的最后一次采访。

“Suddenly, at the stroke of one a.m., the lights dim to an intimate, cocktail room glow, the band tones down to a low background thrum and a spotlight sweeps dramatically to the hall staircase,” Goodman wrote.

古德曼写道：“突然，凌晨一点钟声敲响时，灯光变暗，变成一种亲密的鸡尾酒室光芒，乐队的音调降低到低沉的背景节奏，聚光灯戏剧性地扫到大厅楼梯上。”

“Then, through the eerie gauze of cigarette smoke, a tiny, curvaceous, blond figurine begins to glide down the staircase à la Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard.

“然后，透过令人毛骨悚然的香烟烟雾，一个身材娇小、曲线优美的金发雕像开始沿着日落大道格洛丽亚·斯旺森的楼梯滑下。

As she descends, amid the tintinnabulation of cymbals and ruffle of drums, the glittering bandleader breathlessly announces, ‘And now, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs. .

当她下降时，在钹声和鼓声中，闪闪发光的乐队指挥气喘吁吁地宣布：“现在，女士们先生们，夫人……”

。

CANDACE .

坎迪斯。

。

MOSSLER.’ ”

莫斯勒。’”

Goodman described Candace as “the all time all-American femme fatale.” That night she certainly put on the charm for him.

古德曼将坎迪斯描述为“有史以来全美最出色的蛇蝎美人”。那天晚上，她确实为他展现了魅力。

After the party was over, she went to her bedroom and returned wearing what Goodman called “a breakaway pink gown.” Goodman wrote, “The voluminous Dolly Parton aside, she easily has the biggest chest of any female under five feet three.”

派对结束后，她走进自己的卧室，回来时穿着古德曼所说的“一件突破性的粉色礼服”。古德曼写道：“抛开身材高大的多莉·帕顿不谈，她无疑拥有五英尺三英寸以下女性中最大的胸部。”

For the next six hours, Candace talked to Goodman.

在接下来的六个小时里，坎迪斯与古德曼进行了交谈。

She also sang an original song that she said Chuck Berry thought highly of (“You’re a diamond, a flower, a ribbon, a rainbow / You’re the pot of gold people seek at the end of that rainbow”).

她还演唱了一首她说查克·贝里评价很高的原创歌曲（“你是一颗钻石，一朵花，一条丝带，一条彩虹/你是人们在彩虹尽头寻找的一桶金”）。

When Goodman brought up Jacques’s murder, Candace claimed that the Dade County detectives, attempting to get her to falsely confess, had resorted to torture, tying her hands behind her back, cuffing her ankles, and shining lights into her eyes.

当古德曼提起雅克的谋杀案时，坎迪斯声称戴德县侦探为了让她认罪，使用了酷刑，将她的双手反绑在背后，铐住她的脚踝，并向她的眼睛照射灯光。

But all was forgiven, Candace said.

但坎迪斯说，一切都被原谅了。

“We have our sorrows and our heartaches, but you have to put that bridge behind you.

“我们有悲伤和心痛，但你必须把那座桥抛在身后。

I used to say to Judy Garland, ‘You’ve got to be like a cat, Judy.

我曾经对朱迪·加兰说，‘你必须像一只猫，朱迪。

You’ve got to learn to land on your feet in this world.’ If that philosophy doesn’t get you a bluebird in every tree, I don’t know what will.”

你必须学会在这个世界上站稳脚跟。”如果这种哲学不能让你在每棵树上都有一只蓝知更鸟，我不知道还有什么能做到。”

In October 1976, three months after the Esquire article was published, Candace flew from Houston to Miami to attend a bank board of directors meeting.

1976 年 10 月，《时尚先生》的文章发表三个月后，坎迪斯从休斯敦飞往迈阿密参加银行董事会会议。

She checked into a suite at the Fontainebleau Hotel and called her Miami doctor, telling him she had a violent headache.

她入住了枫丹白露酒店的一间套房，并打电话给迈阿密的医生，告诉他她头痛得很厉害。

He came to the hotel and injected her with Demerol, a painkiller, and Phenergan, a sedative.

他来到酒店，给她注射了止痛药杜冷丁和镇静剂非那根。

Apparently, the doctor wasn’t aware that Candace had already ingested tablets of Placidyl, a barbiturate designed to treat insomnia.

显然，医生并不知道坎迪斯已经服用了 Placidyl 药片，这是一种用于治疗失眠的巴比妥类药物。

Her secretary found her the next morning.

第二天早上，她的秘书找到了她。

News reports noted she was dressed in a pink nightgown and lying “face down in one of five plush pillows spread about her bed.” The county coroner ruled that her death was due to an “incautious self-overdosage” of barbiturates.

新闻报道指出，她穿着一件粉红色的睡衣，“脸朝下躺在床上的五个毛绒枕头之一上”。县验尸官裁定她的死亡是由于“不小心自行过量服用”巴比妥类药物所致。

Candace was 62 years old.

坎迪斯 62 岁。

“Candace Mossler Garrison Dies; Was Tried in Murder of Husband” was the headline in the New York Times .

《纽约时报》的头条新闻是“坎迪斯·莫斯勒·加里森去世；因谋杀丈夫而受审”。

Candace’s son Edward issued a statement calling her “a perfect mother” who “did the best she could for everyone.” Her former attorney Percy Foreman, who’d gotten crosswise with Candace after her acquittal because she’d sued him over his legal fees, told the Houston Chronicle that Candace was an “intense egoist,” but he also described her as “a sympathetic character who had a feeling for the underdog.” Foreman revealed that Candace “hired me many times to represent people she didn’t even know just because of their plights that were revealed in the newspapers.”

坎迪斯的儿子爱德华发表声明称她是“一位完美的母亲”，“为每个人尽了最大的努力”。她的前律师珀西·福尔曼（Percy Foreman）在坎迪斯无罪释放后因起诉他的律师费而与坎迪斯产生矛盾，他告诉《休斯敦纪事报》，坎迪斯是一个“强烈的利己主义者”，但他也形容她是“一个富有同情心的人，对弱势群体有感情”。福尔曼透露，坎迪斯“多次雇用我来代表她甚至不认识的人，只是因为报纸上揭露了他们的困境。”

Fewer than fifty mourners attended her funeral in Miami Beach, in the same chapel where Jacques’s service had been held twelve years earlier.

不到五十名哀悼者参加了她在迈阿密海滩举行的葬礼，十二年前雅克的葬礼就在同一座教堂举行。

Reverend John Lancaster, the pastor of First Presbyterian in Houston, traveled to Miami to officiate the service.

休斯敦第一长老会牧师约翰·兰开斯特牧师前往迈阿密主持仪式。

He seemed to have been fond of her.

他似乎很喜欢她。

He read the 23rd Psalm and told those who’d gathered to set aside, at least for that day, any negative thoughts about Candace.

他读了《诗篇》第 23 篇，并告诉聚集在一起的人们，至少在那天，抛开任何关于坎迪斯的负面想法。

“She had a good side,” Lancaster said.

“她有好的一面，”兰卡斯特说。

“This is the time for remembering the good that God sent into our lives through Candace Mossler.”

“现在是记住上帝通过坎迪斯·莫斯勒送入我们生活的美好事物的时候了。”

The vice presidents of Candace’s banks were at the service, as were various friends and relatives from Georgia.

坎迪斯银行的副总裁以及来自佐治亚州的各种朋友和亲戚都参加了仪式。

Only two of the children—Rita and Edward—showed up.

只有两个孩子——丽塔和爱德华——出现了。

And to just about everyone’s surprise, Mel arrived, accompanied by his latest girlfriend.

令所有人惊讶的是，梅尔在他最新女友的陪同下到来了。

By then, Mel had achieved real wealth.

那时，梅尔已经获得了真正的财富。

On top of one of the buildings he owned in Houston, he’d constructed for himself a luxury 20,000-square-foot penthouse, with a mirrored ceiling in his bedroom, a weight room, a rooftop swimming pool, and a pad for his helicopter.

在他在休斯顿拥有的一栋建筑的顶部，他为自己建造了一套 20,000 平方英尺的豪华顶层公寓，卧室里有镜面天花板、健身房、屋顶游泳池和直升机停机坪。

In Nassau Bay, a resort community near the Johnson Space Center, he’d also built a sprawling waterfront home, and he moored his 165-foot yacht, which was said to be one of the largest in the Western Hemisphere, in an adjoining lagoon.

在约翰逊航天中心附近的度假社区拿骚湾，他还建造了一座庞大的海滨住宅，并将他的 165 英尺长的游艇停泊在毗邻的泻湖中，据说这艘游艇是西半球最大的游艇之一。

Later, during the eighties oil and real estate bust, Mel would lose almost everything and end up in bankruptcy court, accused of concealing and falsifying volumes of documents relating to his assets.

后来，在八十年代的石油和房地产泡沫破灭期间，梅尔几乎失去了一切，并最终进入破产法庭，被指控隐瞒和伪造大量与其资产有关的文件。

He took out full-page ads in Houston newspapers vowing to pay off his creditors.

他在休斯顿报纸上刊登了整版广告，发誓要偿还债权人。

And though he didn’t get close to making good on his debts, he did make a comeback, focusing on housing, oil, and cement.

尽管他还没有接近偿还债务，但他确实卷土重来，专注于房地产、石油和水泥。

Mel died in 2010, at the age of 68.

梅尔于 2010 年去世，享年 68 岁。

His autopsy report concluded he’d died of a form of pneumonia but listed a history of “possible prescription drug abuse.” The coroner also noted that there was “a prosthetic device” implanted in Mel’s “penile shaft.”

他的尸检报告得出结论，他死于某种肺炎，但列出了“可能滥用处方药”的病史。验尸官还指出，梅尔的“阴茎干”中植入了“一个假肢装置”。

Not once did Mel ever publicly comment about Candace or the murder charges filed against them.

梅尔从未公开评论过坎迪斯或针对他们的谋杀指控。

Candace’s third husband, Barnett Garrison, never made any statement about her either.

坎迪斯的第三任丈夫巴尼特·加里森也从未对她发表过任何声明。

He failed to ever regain his memory and spent the last 25 years of his life in a nursing home before dying in 2009.

他一直未能恢复记忆，并在疗养院度过了生命的最后 25 年，直到 2009 年去世。

I’d assumed Candace had been buried in Houston, perhaps at the historic Glenwood Cemetery, which overlooks Buffalo Bayou and is where many of the city’s elite have their plots.

我以为坎迪斯被埋在休斯顿，也许是在历史悠久的格伦伍德公墓，那里俯瞰着布法罗河口，也是该市许多精英的墓地。

It wouldn’t have surprised me if she’d arranged for a large mausoleum to be built over her grave so that future Houstonians would know who she was.

如果她安排在她的坟墓上建造一座大型陵墓，以便未来的休斯敦人知道她是谁，我不会感到惊讶。

But it turned out Candace had made other plans.

但事实证明坎迪斯另有计划。

She’d ordered the executors of her estate to have her body shipped to Arlington National Cemetery and buried beside her second husband, Jacques Mossler.

她命令她的遗产执行人将她的遗体运往阿灵顿国家公墓，埋葬在她的第二任丈夫雅克·莫斯勒身边。

Candace had told them she wanted to spend eternity next to the man she loved.

坎迪斯告诉他们，她想永远和她爱的男人在一起。

This article originally appeared in the December 2021 issue of Texas Monthly with the headline “The Notorious Mrs. Mossler.” Subscribe today .

本文最初发表于 2021 年 12 月号《德克萨斯月刊》，标题为“臭名昭著的莫斯勒夫人”。立即订阅。

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