Key Witness (68 page)

“I guess so,” she said, her words slurring together.

“So when he asked you to go on the roof with him, he could reasonably expect that you would have sex with him. That you were willing to.”

“I don’t know,” she answered. “It wasn’t why I was going up there.”

“It wasn’t?” he asked dubiously. “What were you going up there for, then?”

“To …”

“To what?” he pressed her.

“Make out.”

“To make out? You mean kiss?”

“Yeah.”

“What else? Was it okay in your mind if he felt you up?”

The girl looked away.

“Had you decided, when you went up there with him, that if he put his hand on your breast that would be all right with you?”

She sighed. “Yeah. That would have been okay.”

“In fact, you wanted him to kiss you, didn’t you. You wanted him to put his hand on your breast.”

“I didn’t mind.”

“You didn’t care one way or the other?”

“If he did it, that was okay.”

“So if he put his hand on your breast that was okay, and if he didn’t put his hand on your breast that was okay, too? Either way, it was okay with you?”

“Yeah,” she mumbled. “It was okay.”

“What if he had put his hand under your dress. Would that have been okay?”

She didn’t answer.

“In your mind, thinking about what might happen up there on the roof, if Marvin had started kissing you, and put his hand on your breast, and then put his hand on your leg under your dress, or whatever you were wearing, would that have been all right with you?”

She hesitated.

“Please answer the question,” Grant admonished her again, this time less gently.

She paused before answering. “I guess so.”

“Okay,” Wyatt said. “Now what if he had put his hand on your vagina. On your underpants.”

The girl looked down.

“Yes or no,” Wyatt pressed. “His hand on your underpants, feeling your vagina underneath. Was that all right with you?”

“I don’t know,” she answered.

“You don’t know meaning you hadn’t thought about that, or you don’t know meaning you weren’t sure.”

“Yeah.”

“Both reasons?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“So maybe you hadn’t thought about it, and maybe when he did it, it was all right. You didn’t care one way or the other if he put his hand on your breast, and you didn’t care if he put his hand on your vagina. Is that right? If he did, that was all right, and if he didn’t that was all right, too?”

“Objection,” Abramowitz spoke up. “That’s not what she’s saying.”

“Overruled,” Grant decided immediately. “Please answer the question, Ms. Jones.”

“I guess.” It was as if the words had been forcefully yanked out of her mouth.

“It sounds to me, Mavis, that Marvin could do anything he wanted with you, except actually have sex. Is that right?”

“Objection!”

“Sustained. Restate your question,” Grant told Wyatt.

“Was there anything short of actual sexual intercourse with Marvin that you were prepared to say no to?” he asked.

She moistened her lips again. “Blow job,” she got out.

“You were not willing to have oral sex with him? Is that what you mean by ‘blow job’?”

“Objection,” Abramowitz shouted. “Everyone knows what the term she referred to means.”

“Overruled.”

“You weren’t willing to go down on Marvin, is that what you’re telling us? Give him head?”

“Yeah,” she said.

“Did you tell him that?”

“Huh?”

“Did you say to Marvin, ‘I’m not willing to go down on you,’ or words to that effect?”

More lip licking. “No.”

“You knew that when he went up on the roof with other girls it was for the purpose of having sex, didn’t you? Consensual sex?”

“Say what?”

“That the other girls were willing to have sex with him.”

“Yeah.”

“He didn’t have to force them. It was okay with them. Better than okay.”

“Yeah,” she said again. “It was okay with them, I guess.”

“None of the girls who had gone up on the roof with Marvin and had sex with him told you he had forced them to, did they? That he forced them to do it against their will?”

She nodded. “Nobody ever told me he made ’em, if tha’s what you mean.”

“That’s exactly what I mean,” he said. “But you weren’t going to,” he went on. “You weren’t going to go all the way.”

She shook her head. “No,” she said.

“Because you were afraid?”

She nodded.

“Does that nod mean yes?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said. “I was afraid.”

“Because you’d never done it before?”

“Yeah. That’s why,” she agreed.

“What I’m hearing,” Wyatt said, “is that you wanted to have sex with Marvin White, but you were afraid to. Is that correct?”

“Objection, Your Honor! That is not what the witness said. Counselor is putting words in her mouth.”

“Sustained.”

“Mavis.” He looked her in the eye. “Did you want to have sex with Marvin, but you were afraid to?”

She fidgeted in her chair.

“Answer the question, please,” Wyatt pressed her.

“I don’t know,” she answered finally.

“You don’t know if you wanted to, or you don’t remember if you wanted to?”

“Both,” she admitted.

“So maybe you did, but you don’t remember.”

“Objection!”

“Overruled.” Grant turned to Mavis. “Did you want to, or you don’t remember whether you wanted to or not?” he asked her.

“I don’t remember,” she answered meekly.

Wyatt stared at her, taking his time before asking his next question, then raising his voice a notch. “At the time you were allegedly raped you had a juvenile record of your own, didn’t you, Mavis.”

“Objection,” came from the prosecution table. “Ms. Jones’s record, if there is one, is not germane to this questioning.”

“It absolutely is, Your Honor,” Wyatt answered quickly. “This witness is testifying to something that is considered hearsay under most circumstances. Her credibility is important in judging whether or not she’s telling the truth.”

Grant nodded. “Overruled,” he said.

Wyatt picked up her rap sheet. He showed it to her. “Had you ever been arrested at the time you accused Marvin White of raping you?” Wyatt asked.

“Yeah,” she said grudgingly.

“You had been arrested for shoplifting?”

“Yeah.”

“Using a stolen credit card,” he continued.

“That wasn’t me stole it,” she said. “That was …”

“A friend?” he finished for her.

“Yeah.”

“But you used it.”

“Yeah.”

“So you weren’t such an innocent little girl after all, were you? You’d done a lot of bad things. You just hadn’t gotten around to having sex yet.”

“Objection!”

“Sustained. Save the editorializing for your summation, Mr. Matthews.”

“Yes sir.” He paused to take a sip of water. Then he picked up another document and skimmed it. He walked over to the witness stand and showed it to her. “Do you recognize this?” he asked her.

She looked at it, then turned away. “Yeah. I seen it.”

“Would you tell the court what it is.”

“Arrest sheet.”

“Your arrest sheet?”

“Yeah,” she said. “It’s mine.”

He looked at it again. “This is dated … let’s see about six weeks ago. You were arrested six weeks ago?”

“Yeah.”

He looked at the rap sheet again. “For prostitution? And possession of crack cocaine.” Reading on, he said, “You solicited an undercover policeman for the purpose of having sex for money? And when you were arrested and booked they found three vials of crack in your purse?”

“They wasn’t mine,” she protested. “They was my girlfrien’s. I was holdin’ ’em for her.”

He nodded. “What’s the situation with this arrest?” he asked. “Have you gone up for trial yet?”

She looked at Abramowitz.

“Or have the charges been dropped,” he continued without waiting for her to answer.

“Yeah,” she said under her breath again.

“Why were these charges dropped, Mavis? Did you do something for the police, so they would drop the charges?”

“Objection!”

“Overruled,” Grant shot back before Abramowitz could explain why she was objecting.

“Did you make a deal with the district attorney’s office?” Wyatt asked her. “That if you came in here and testified against Marvin White they would drop all charges against you?”

The girl looked down.

“Did you?” he demanded.

“Yah,” she said. “They cut me a deal.”

Wyatt paused to allow the jury, all of whom were writing in their notebooks as fast as they could, to catch up to him. Then he proceeded.

“It says here you have a child. A two-year-old girl named Abyssinia. Is that true?”

She nodded.

“But you’re not married.”

She shook her head. “No, I ain’t married.”

“Do you know who the father of your child is?” he asked.

She glared at him under hooded eyelids. “I ain’t sure.”

“So around the time you became pregnant with her you’d had sex with more than one man. That’s true, isn’t it.”

“Yeah.”

“Not too long after you claimed Marvin took your virginity.”

“I guess. I don’t know.”

“Six months after Marvin White allegedly raped you at knifepoint, when you had never had sex before, you were sleeping with so many men that you don’t know who got you pregnant. Isn’t that right?”

“It wasn’t all that many,” she said.

Wyatt stepped back and checked the jury for their reaction to that. Some of them were shaking their heads in disbelief.

Looking at her again, he asked, “Is Marvin the father?”

Her mouth flew open. “Hell, no!” she said emphatically.

“You and Marvin never had sex again, consensual or not, after that one time, did you?”

“No. We never did.”

“He didn’t want to be bothered with you, did he? Especially after you trumped up that phony rape charge on him, right?”

“Objection!” Abramowitz screamed.

“Sustained!” Grant swung his gavel on that one. “That kind of questioning is inflammatory and unacceptable,” he admonished Wyatt sternly.

Wyatt nodded. Glancing at her rap sheet again, he asked, “Did the police threaten to put Abyssinia in social services if you didn’t cooperate with them on this case?” he asked.

She mumbled something unintelligible.

“They said they were going to take her away from you if you didn’t cooperate, isn’t that right?”

“Yeah. They said they might.”

“That scared you, didn’t it?”

“Yeah. I don’t want nobody takin’ my baby.”

“I can understand that,” he said sympathetically. “I have a child myself, and I wouldn’t want anyone taking her away from me.”

He leafed through some pages in front of him again until he found the one he was looking for.

“After Marvin allegedly raped you, you didn’t tell your mother, did you?”

She stared at him. “No.”

“You were afraid to.”

She nodded. “Yeah.”

“You knew your mother would go ballistic if she found out you were having sex. Especially with someone from Sullivan Houses, a place your mother felt was beneath her and that she was being forced to live in by dire circumstances. Isn’t that right?”

“Objection, Your Honor. She was raped, she wasn’t ‘having sex,’ as opposing counsel so delicately puts it.”

“If your mother found out you were having sex with a boy from Sullivan Houses, she would have been angry with you, wouldn’t she?” Wyatt asked. “Enraged?”

“Real angry,” the girl agreed.

“So if you were having sex with a boy, you wouldn’t tell her, would you?”

“Objection!”

“Overruled.”

“So if she ever found out you were, you would have to lie about it, wouldn’t you?”

“Objection!” Abramowitz was on her feet.

“Overruled!”

“So when you went up on the roof with Marvin White, a boy all the girls liked, and had sex with him up there, you couldn’t tell your mother, could you?” he said, his voice rising.

“Objection!”

“Overruled!” The gavel came down hard.

“So that when your mother found your bloody underpants, you couldn’t tell her the truth, could you? That you’d had sex with Marvin of your own free will!” Racing on: “So you told her you’d been raped—because you couldn’t tell her the truth. You lied to her and to the police because you were afraid of telling the truth, which is that you had sex with Marvin White of your own free will! That you went up to the roof with him knowing that was what was going to happen, and you wanted it to happen! You wanted to have sex with this big, good-looking boy all the girls talked about, and when you did lose your virginity to Marvin you lied to your mother and said he raped you, because it was the only thing you could think of to say that would keep her from killing you!” His voice dropped, almost to a whisper. “And that’s the truth, isn’t it, Mavis!”

Again, prosecution and defense met with Judge Grant in his chambers. Alex Pagano joined his team to take part in this argument. Earlier, Wyatt had privately apologized to Grant for his aggressive conduct, but not for attacking Mavis Jones as he had. Grant accepted the apology and the incident was behind them.

“This is a thorny one,” Grant said, considering the prosecution’s latest request. Pagano and Abramowitz wanted to introduce Marvin’s botched armed-robbery attempt, since both crimes had occurred on the same night. To that end they had subpoenaed the Korean shop owner as a witness. In addition, they wanted to bolster their case by using the portion of the videotape showing the attempted robbery, which would clearly reveal Marvin’s use of deadly force on the same night he murdered Paula Briggs—a pattern of ongoing, habitual criminal intent.

“Hasn’t that case already been settled?” the judge asked Abramowitz and Wyatt.

“Yes, Your Honor,” Wyatt answered. “We have a binding agreement.”

“Wait a minute,” Pagano protested. “That was before this indictment came down. I don’t consider any settlement made then to be binding now, Your Honor.”

Wyatt took the agreement out of his briefcase and handed it to the judge. “Signed by all parties concerned,” he said.

“That agreement is worthless,” Pagano protested again. “It was done without subsequent knowledge of these crimes.”