Partners in Crime

"CHANCE," Fred Astaire told Ginger Rogers in The Gay Divorcee, is the tool's word for fate. "This cliche, usually restricted to tales of star crossed romances, sometimes merits grander application. Every once in a while, events in two completely different lives take on an uncanny similarity, parallels that could only transcend coincidence.

Barry M Locke was born in 1932. He rose swiftly in Massachusetts politics, becoming press secretary to Gov. John Volpe before turning 35. After Volpe left the statehouse. Locke bounced around the private sector until 1979, when he became Secretary of Transportation and Construction of the Commonwealth, and then chairman of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. Sometime shortly thereafter, he became disenchanted with public trust, or desperately hungry for money, or both. He and "close friends" began engineering one of the most incredible corruption schemes in the history of a state with a record of corruption topped by few By May 1981--when he was first charged with embezzlement he had roped in at least $60,000 in public money.

Claus von Bulow was born in 1927. The native Dane rose early in international social circles, joining the European high society during his school days in England. He rose in the oil business and at one point worked for American petroleum billionaire John Paul Getty. In the late 1960s, he married the ultra rich Martha "Sunny" Crawford von Auersperg, a Pittsburgh utility heiress, and they lived well, if not happily, in her Rhode Island mansion. But by 1979, he became distrenchanted with her love, or hungry for her money, or both. He tried to murder her twice with insulin injections, during two successive Christmas vacations. By May 1981, doctors had declared that Mrs von Bulow's brain had been damaged irreparably, and that she would never waken from her coma.

Jury selection for the respective trials began on the same January day And though the two men have almost certainly never met except on the front pages they have shared during the past three months they have most likely harbored the same fears and frustrations since their twin ordeals began. Both have been bandied about daily by the regional press, with the Labloid Boston Herald American, for example, alternating "LOCKE'S GREED" with "CLAUS WAS A LOUSE" as a daily cover decoration. (You can almost picture each rushing to a newsstand each morning, breathing a sigh of relief when it was the other's turn.) The two have suffered the trauma of seeing close relationships dissolve. A chief official and a young assistant of the MBTA, "close friends" of Locke, took the stand for the prosecution. Von Bulow's maid, his two step-children and his lover--the woman for whom he risked it all--gave testimony for the state.

AND BOTH ARE NOW, in the eyes of the law, felons. The Boston jury came back with a guilty verdict for the public servant on February 2 The Newport, R.I. dozen issued its "guilty" judgment for the public figure on March 16.

In their duration the two trials provided continuing entertainment for a city bored with, or unsalted by Celtic success. One could follow the drama, daily, on page one, or on a slow day in court, in Metro Region An envelope stuffed with 10 hundred-dollar bills--which James F. O'Leary, general manager of the MBTA, counted out one by one at the witness stand--and a little black case, a calculator case, containing syringes tainted with insulin--which von Bulow's stepson found in the accused's locked closet--became tangible symbols the masses could feel Frank J. Walters Jr., the 35-year-old assistant who was indicted last year with Locke but who later testified against his boss in order to keep a newly adopted child; and Maria Schrallhammer, the maid of 23 years who in her sharp German accent and precise detailed accounts "nailed" her master by testifying that he refused, both Decembers, to call a doctor though he knew his wife was sick both became instant celebrities.

BUT THE OBJECTS will deteriorate, the characters will fade from memory, and what will remain, is meaning. "Crime Does Not Pay," the banner on Boston's second largest daily the day Locke went to jail, is the first and simplest that comes to mind. But it does not ring true. If anything, Locke's case should call attention to a disease currently pervading the current administration. Recurrent charges against aides to Gov. Edward J. King, and King's continued insistence on ignoring a major corruption report, suggest that Bery Locke was just an unlucky scapegoat. And von Bulow's trial was sensational in part because only rarely is a criminal of his economic and social stature actually brought to trial.

No--the message, if any, emerging from the twin cases is apparent only through examining the shades of difference between the upper-class crimes. Barry Locke, the high-level bureaucrat who stole tax dollars typifies the evil outcast. Unlike in other recent corruption scandals--like those of Bert Lance, Jimmy Carter's budget director, and Hugh Casey, Ronald Reagan's CIA director--no one stood up for Locke. The day he was charged King suspended him without pay. The day he was convicted, King called the whole affair "unfortunate." The public now scorns, cars, parodying the "Make it in Massachusetts" bumper stickers with the hand gesturing thumbs up, sport on their fenders "Barry Locke Made It" seals depicting a fistful of money.

Meanwhile, Claus von Bulow, the glamorous socialite and financier, the stoic foreigner who stole from the rich and who attempted to murder for love, has become somewhat of a cult hero. Crowds, swelling outside the Newport courthouse as the proceedings dragged on, waited each day for the defendant to appear, cheering him wildly as he smiled and waved before ducking into his car. "Claus" t-shirts and buttons, as well as "Innocent" tote-bags became the rage for the "Free Claus."

The courts, with their flair for poetic justice, furthered those images when they doled out legal justice. Locke, for his pains, got a seven-to 10-year sentence, he must serve at least 28 months before becoming eligible for parole. He currently resides in Walpole, the Alcatraz of New England Von Bulow has yet to receive a sentence and most likely won't for some time. If the day ever comes when he is forced to do time, it will most likely be in a minimum security set-up more suitable for one of his social stature. The parallel between the two men, it seems, may ironically break down at the last possible moment--at just the point when administering justice in similarly tough fashion seemed so crucial.