Lion Plays Rough (12 page)

I was going on instinct now, doubling down with each question. I couldn't understand why the guy kept giving me the answers I wanted. “And sometimes you'd make her a drink of her own, wouldn't you?”

“Maybe once or twice. Always very weak.”

“Do you know if Erica drank before you came to live with her?”

He just looked at me.

“You don't know if Erica ever had a drink before the first one you gave her, correct?”

“That's right. I don't know one way or the other.”

“Were her parents home on those occasions when you made her drinks?”

“Sometimes. They were usually upstairs. We'd be watching a movie or something downstairs.”

“And you were also drinking on these occasions, correct?”

“Yeah, I never made her one unless I was having one.”

“Did she ever get sick after drinking with you?”

“Once,” he said. He sat as still as a statue.

Responding to something I saw in his eyes, I moved a step closer. “Since the events of that summer, have you joined Alcoholics Anonymous or any other addiction support group?”

He frowned. “I don't think I should have to answer that question.”

Mooney stood. “Objection. Relevance. Calls for improper character evidence.”

“Sustained,” the judge said in a voice that suggested he would have sustained the same objection ten questions ago if only Mooney had made it. But Mooney had been like a man watching a slow-motion crash, expecting at every moment that Blair would turn away from the disaster he was steering into.

The cross was going better than I'd dreamed, all my doubts and self-disgust swept away in the thrill of the hunt.

“And one day you learned that Erica was pregnant, didn't you.”

“She told me.”

“Did you learn before she told you?”

“No, of course not.”

I had to be cautious now. I had to remember he was an innocent man, and that sooner or later he'd have to oppose me.

“Do you know if she told anyone else before she told you?”

“I don't know that.”

“To your knowledge did she have any friend in whom she confided that she would have told about it?”

“Look, I didn't get the sense that she told anybody. I don't think she even meant to tell me, even. It just came out. We were in the car, I was driving her someplace, and suddenly she started crying. I pulled over and asked her what was the matter, and she told me.”

“Did she say who the father was?”

He hesitated. “No,” he said finally. “I didn't know that until they arrested him.” He glanced quickly at Scarsdale. He was finally getting angry.

“Did you ask her who the father was?”

“Of course I did.”

“And the question was offensive to her, wasn't it?”

He shook his head, a long slow shake. “She wouldn't tell me. I should have known by the way she was acting that it was something like this, that she'd been raped. But no one wants to believe that. She wanted to get an abortion, she said. She didn't want me to tell her parents. I should have told them, but I wanted to help her.”

“You were afraid your sister would blame you.”

“No. I don't think she would have blamed me. She knows I wouldn't do something like this, what you're suggesting. It's outrageous. This whole thing is outrageous.”

“You did what she asked you to do, correct? You took her to get an abortion.”

“Yes,” he said.

“Without telling her parents that she was pregnant or that she'd made this choice.”

“That's right. It was wrong of me but I only wanted to help her.”

“And you paid for this procedure with your own money. Money you didn't have.”

“That's right.”

“And if Erica herself hadn't told her mother later that night, no one would ever have found out about it. Isn't that right?”

“I suppose. But no one can keep a thing like that secret. Thank god she didn't. I just wish she'd trusted me enough to tell me everything.”

“And two weeks later you moved out of her parents' house.”

“That's right.”

“Erica's mother told you that you were no longer welcome to stay there, didn't she?”

“Yes. They were pretty pissed off at me, and they had every right to be.”

“Just to be clear, you never told her parents or the police that you'd bought Erica vodka?”

“No, I never told them that.”

“What else didn't you tell them?”

He just looked at me. I held his gaze. Then finally I flinched. I felt sick to my stomach, the nausea catching me so forcefully that sweat beaded my upper lip. I swallowed, then swallowed again. “Your witness,” I said to Mooney.

He held three fingers in the air as he walked to the podium. “Three questions, Mr. Blair. Only three. Then, I hope, this will be over. First, did you ever have sexual relations with Erica Lawler?”

“No,” he said. “Never.” His relief at finally being asked the question was like a dam breaking. My own throat ached. I couldn't seem to breathe.

“Second question. Did you ever know your niece to lie about anything?”

“No, she's always been honest to a fault. She went through my stuff once, after I moved in. She waited about a day. Then she broke down and told me what she'd done. It's not like I cared, but she couldn't stand having a secret like that. Last year, a group of girls cheated on a cross-country race, hid in the woods and jumped out on the second lap. The others kept quiet but she told. They gave her hell for that, but Erica, she always does the right thing. She's really amazing that way. If she says Mr. Scarsdale did it, then he did. I don't think she could live with herself otherwise.”

“Third question. How do you feel right now? Are you afraid?”

I was on my feet at once. “Objection.”

“Sustained,” the judge droned, but Nate Blair didn't need to say anything. He sat on the witness stand, his hands in his lap, tears running down his face. A pathetic figure.

The judge looked at the clock, sighed, then released the jurors for the weekend. Court would reconvene on Monday, when Jeanie would put on our expert witness; we'd decided previously that it would be wise to give the jury a change of pace after my hatchet job on Blair.

All I could think about was getting home to the TV and a six-pack of beer.

Chapter 17

On Sunday at noon Teddy and I presented ourselves at Debra Walker's door. She lived in a three-bedroom house in a pleasant East Oakland neighborhood. I glimpsed a garden in the back, the red of tomatoes.

Tamara answered the door. In the six months since I'd seen her, her beauty, which had been so fresh when she and Teddy were together in rehab, had dulled. The light in her eyes had dimmed, the edge of expectancy faded, creating a face of grief that lacked only the haggardness. The loss had been steadily working its effects, and she was the only one who could not perceive it.

She was about five feet eight inches tall, slim, with high cheekbones and dark curls. She wore jeans and a blouse with frills at the neck and sleeves; I guessed that her mother-in-law picked out her clothes.

“Remember me?” Teddy asked.

“Oh, yes,” she said. But her smile was empty as she stepped back to let us in.

Teddy looked her up and down, made a pistol out of thumb and forefinger and shot himself in the head.

“You and Teddy were in rehab together,” I explained.

“Oh, I'm terrible with names.”

“You got your memory book on you?” Teddy demanded.

She brought it shyly from her back pocket, a little composition book. He took it from her, scrawled a note, and handed it back.

She only glanced at the note, gave a start, then shoved the notebook into her pocket. In the backyard four men were playing horseshoes on the other side of the garden, while three more leaned against the back fence. All were middle-aged or older. We joined the watchers, exchanging nods. The breeze was cool but the sun scorched my arms. There was a heavy air of ritual, as if the same players had been pitching the same horseshoes for the same small audience every Sunday afternoon for years.

We watched one game, played as a team against the winners and lost, and then Tamara came to the door and called us in. One of the men blessed the meal, the signal for Mrs. Walker to begin serving up heaping portions of ham and mashed potatoes with gravy and green beans onto heavy white plates.

Teddy had eyes only for Tamara, glance after speculative glance. I saw Mrs. Walker notice. Maybe I'd been hasty to think she'd invited us because she wanted something from me. I remembered what she'd said about Tamara still asking every morning about her murdered husband, as if for her he died each day again.

After the meal the men went back out to their horseshoes while the two women carried the dishes into the kitchen. Mrs. Walker suggested that Tamara and Teddy watch TV, which they went off to do, as requested, while she carefully wiped the table. When she was finished she pushed aside her rag and sat across from me.

She studied the wrinkled backs of her hands. “I got a bone to pick.”

I went for flattery. “You can pick me clean after that wonderful dinner.”

She shook her head. “Uh-huh. You're the fly in the ointment.”

“I try not to be. I try to stay aloft.”

Her voice swelled. “All this time he's been working Jeremy's case like a dog with a bone. But now he's done. Patrol duty. They're gonna close the file.”

It took me a moment to understand. “Campbell was the detective on Jeremy's case?”

“He's the only one who cared. Now he's done. Those pictures you took, the department put him out on patrol and it looks like that's where he's going to stay. Now what do you have to say for yoursel
f
?”

I shook my head. “I was set up, Mrs. Walker. I haven't yet figured out why, but I was. All I know is that I saw what I saw, and those pictures show what they show. I didn't come here to argue with you in your home, but Campbell is a rotten cop.”

“Rotten, says who?”

“Says me. Other cops. Says my dead client who got set up by Campbell for murder and killed in jail because it seemed like he was the one who tipped me off. You really think Campbell was going to find Jeremy's killer after all this time?”

“He was going to find them if it took him the rest of his life. He had a feeling about this case. That's what he told me. A feeling. He cared. That's more than you can say for the rest of them.”

“If he cared before, he'll care now. It shouldn't matter whether he wears a uniform or a suit to work.”

“That's not good enough. You can't just throw up your hands.” She spoke with the moral weight of a woman who had lived all her life as a patch of high ground in the flood. “You've got to make this right.”

“And how am I supposed to do that?”

She gazed at me for a moment. Then her shoulders sagged and her eyes dropped. “For the life of me, I don't know.”

Her sudden defeat was a terrible thing to see. Pity wasn't compatible with the dignity she radiated. She'd lost a son, been left as the caretaker of a disabled daughter-in-law, and undoubtedly knew as every victim knows that finding her son's killer wouldn't bring Jeremy back, but she clung to an idealized hope.

“I don't have any connections,” I told her. “Cops despise defense lawyers. Absolutely despise them. I ask one for a favor he'll spit in my eye. I wish I could help you, but that's how it is.”

She just nodded, her face settling into an outward placidity, the face of one who endures. She looked so tired.

From the other room came the sounds of the television, a low laugh from Teddy, then Tamara's answering giggle. It reminded me of an engine coughing to life, rusty but alive. “Now there's a sound I haven't heard in months,” Mrs. Walker said, pleased.

I suddenly heard myself offer, “There's this private investigator Teddy used to work with. I can have a talk with him, call in a favor, ask him to look into things. He still has sources in the department. He can at least let you know if Campbell was working the file like he said.” Even as I spoke I feared I might not be able to deliver. If there is a golden rule of lawyering, it is never to promise. Yet that's what I did that day, sitting in this kind woman's dining room while nearby my brother and Tamara could be heard laughing at the TV. I promised her that I'd do what I could to find Jeremy's killer. This didn't cost me anything, but it made me feel more human.

In the car on our drive home Teddy lounged with his elbow out the window. He looked happy, almost normal, if I could forget how he'd been before, the fierce, formidable intelligence that was gone and would never return.

~ ~ ~

On Monday morning Jeanie examined our expert witness, who testified that children occasionally did invent allegations of sexual abuse. Her testimony took about an hour. She was polished, she was professional, but she was completely irrelevant. If the jurors hadn't made up their minds by now, nothing she said could sway them.

Mooney's cross-examination of her was perfunctory. He established in a few brisk questions that she'd never met Erica Lawler, never talked to her, that her testimony was purely hypothetical and academic and had nothing whatsoever to do with the actual facts of this case. Beside me Jeanie rolled a pencil between her thumb and forefinger. The expert had been my idea. At the end of Mooney's cross, Jeanie lifted her shoulders and let them fall, sighing.

“Any more witnesses?” the judge asked after our expert had stepped down. There could only be one. I glanced over at Scarsdale. He nodded at me.
Yes
, he mouthed. Jeanie, sitting on his other side, avoided my gaze. Last night I'd finally told her about his confession. She'd taken the news without reaction. It was my problem, not hers, her silence seemed to say; clearly she didn't want anything to do with this decision. My call. I could feel the courtroom waiting. If I didn't know what I knew, if he hadn't confessed, I'd have no choice but to put him on. Without something more, we were going to lose the case.

“The defense rests,” I said, half rising. I waited for Scarsdale to make a stink, to insist on testifying, but he just let out a breath and seemed to collapse into himself, becoming once more the nonpresence he'd been throughout.

“The state would like to put on two rebuttal witnesses,” Mooney said. “I don't have them here right now. I'm afraid we were expecting the defense case to take a bit longer.”

Sensing opportunity, I rose. “Your Honor, the district attorney just made a highly improper comment regarding my client's decision not to testify. The state has failed to prove its case, and Mr. Scarsdale has the constitutional right to remain silent. The defense moves for a mistrial based on Mr. Mooney's violation of my client's Fifth Amendment rights through what he just said.”

“You're the one who made that connection,” the judge said. “Motion denied. We'll break for lunch.”

In the afternoon, Cassidy Akida examined Erica's therapist, who told the courtroom about the trauma Erica had described over numerous sessions, rebutting my accusation that she'd lied. I objected again and again, the judge almost always siding with me, no doubt because he didn't want to risk creating an issue for appeal. In truth, her testimony was devastating. Then Erica's teacher rounded out the session by testifying about her honest character. By the end of the day I felt worn to the bone.

Near the end of Mooney's closing argument Tuesday morning, he ratcheted himself up to a register I hadn't seen before, his cheeks flushed with indignation. “This man, this guilty man, had the temerity to accuse a person whom he knows to be innocent, and he deserves your contempt,” he concluded, standing right beside Scarsdale. “He raped a child, committed the most reprehensible and incomprehensible crime most of us have ever been forced to imagine. You've done a great service here, but it's still not complete. I urge you to take your time, consider all the facts, and give this family the closure they deserve by reaching a unanimous verdict of guilty on all counts.”

My own closing argument was more measured. “Think how it would feel to be falsely accused of a crime as terrible as this one,” I told them. “Think of the fear you would feel now. That fear speaks to the responsibility you all hold in your hands. A responsibility to follow the law, to give Mr. Scarsdale the benefit of your presumption of innocence and to hold the state to its burden of proof. You can't let the severity of these accusations influence you. The judge will instruct you that you have to decide on the facts with your heads, not your hearts. Life doesn't always come wrapped up in a neat little package. There are no easy answers. It's human nature to want to accept the ready explanation that allows us to stop thinking of what disturbs and angers us, but the desire for closure is not part of the instructions the judge will give you. You have the facts, and you have the law. There is nothing else. And the facts are riddled with holes.

“We may never know what happened in this case. We may never know who the father of Erica's child was, or whether she was having a relationship with her uncle, whether he was abusing her. We all want answers in life. We all want closure after traumatic events, but in many situations we have no choice but to live with uncertainty. This is one of those times.” I went on to list all the evidence against Nate Blair, taking a softer tone than I had when he was on the stand.

The instructions took the better part of two hours, the judge reading them aloud, the lawyers following along listlessly at our tables. The jurors slumped, blinking. Then they went home without a chance to deliberate Tuesday night.

On Wednesday morning we didn't have to wait long. We were in the courtroom, debating whether to stay or go, when there came a loud knock on the jury-room door. A moment later the judge came out, and the courtroom clerk took the verdict form from the foreperson and read it. Guilty on all counts. Scarsdale's head sank to his hands.

Sitting beside him as the verdict was read, I felt a relief that was indistinguishable from shame. During law school I'd planned to become a public defender, and my abandoned notion had left its residue. The more unpopular the client, the more my back ­stiffened—or so I'd believed until Scarsdale, which is when that layer of illusions about myself dropped away.

He was guilty, and so it was a shameful relief when he was remanded into custody, then led through the back doors of the courtroom. After his sentencing in a few weeks, he would sleep in the reception ward of San Quentin.

Jeanie assured me that I'd done a fine job, the best I could have done. She had her car there but I didn't want to be with anyone. I wanted to walk. That was my privilege. I was allowed to walk out of the courtroom into the open air. I went the long way around the lake, my briefcase strap digging into my shoulder.