THE VERDICT -- Robert Gardner

When we last left my sister Marion, she had gone through, in no

particular order, a diamond-smuggling heist in Europe, a rather

interesting career in real estate, two husbands and three marriages.

After her second husband died of acute alcoholism, Marion moved to the

Balboa Peninsula. The first thing she did upon arriving was lure the

chief of police, Roland Hodgkinson, away from his wife of many years.

Result, divorce and then marriage, Marion style.

Surprisingly, this marriage was a success, but this doesn’t mean it

was without drama. Nothing was, where Marion was concerned.

They moved to Lido Isle and lived a very comfortable life. Too

comfortable, apparently, because Hodge found himself in court charged

with living a million-dollar lifestyle on a chief of police’s salary.

Allegedly, he was spending at least twice as much as his salary each

month, and the Treasury Department was after him for delinquent taxes.

I didn’t attend the trial, but I got a pretty good version from the

loser, the attorney representing the Treasury Department. Marion appeared

in court looking every inch the lady, down to her white gloves. It was

the white gloves that did the attorney in, he said. He had called her to

the stand to explain how she and Hodge could live as they did on Hodge’s

salary.

Marion never turned a hair. Folding her white gloved-hands in her lap,

she said, “Have you ever lived in the Orient, young man?”

Of course he hadn’t, so she began to explain all about the money

market of the Orient, how every town had its own printing press and

printed money, how you could go from town to town playing the money

market, what Mex dollars were (American silver dollars).

Well, it went on and on. Marion, so poised and looking so proper,

completely destroyed the poor attorney representing the Treasury

Department. As he said later, “Never cross-examine a woman wearing white

gloves.”

Despite the favorable verdict, Hodge’s career was over, so they spent

the next years in Turkey, where he provided security for an oil company,

and then went to Guadalajara, where they lived for many years.

Finally, Hodge succumbed to emphysema, leaving Marion once more a

widow, but, although in her late 70, her career was not over yet. A Texas

oilman she had met somewhere heard about Hodge’s death and immediately

proposed. There was the small matter of his wife to be dealt with, but he

promptly filed for divorce. Unfortunately for Marion, he died before the

divorce was completed, but meanwhile he had given her a new Cadillac, so

she didn’t come out empty-handed.

That was the end of her matrimonial career. She lived on her own after

that, and then one day, I got a call from her son. She was in the

hospital and, at 96, was probably not going to come out. I went down to

visit, and we talked about various things and, as I left, she smiled and

said, “I haven’t been a very good girl.” Those were her last words --

something of an understatement, considering her life.

* ROBERT GARDNER is a Corona del Mar resident and a former judge. His

column runs Tuesdays.