The Kills (12 page)

"But
that case you cited in the article?" she asked.

"It
was decided before I got to law school. It's history, Paige."

At the
time I studied the case, I had been stunned and disgusted that in my lifetime
there was still a court in this country that threw out a man's rape conviction
because the accuser had not been a virgin. Using the flowery rhetoric that
referenced ancient Roman history, the court had asked: "Will you not more
readily infer assent in the practiced Messalina, in loose attire, than in the
reserved and virtuous Lucretia?" The unfaithful wife of Claudius was the
Eighth Judicial Circuit's vision of an unfit victim, just as they held up to
the world the virtuous Lucretia, who killed herself rather than see her rapist
brought to justice.

"There'd
have to be some direct relevance to Andrew's case," I told her. "They
just can't go fishing into your private life anymore."

"C'mon,
Paige," Mercer said, leading her out to the conference room. "Alex'll
rip the throat out of anybody who tries to go after you that way. Won't
happen."

They were
almost at my door when she turned to look at me. "There's something else I
need to tell you, Alex."

My
fingers froze on the sheaf of papers in my hand. I was less than an hour away
from addressing the jury. If Paige had not been honest with me about some fact
in the case, this was my last chance to make that discovery.

"I
had a phone call last night from a man I was-well-was involved with."

"Sexually?"
Mercer asked. There wasn't enough time to be subtle.

"Socially,
first. Then, yes, sexually."

Now I was
standing, too. "Let's cut to the chase. Does it have anything to do with
Andrew Tripping? With this trial?"

"It
might." Paige's teeth were practically biting through her lip as she
hesitated.

"The
reason he called was to try to persuade me not to testify today."

"Someone
threatened you?" I asked, as Mercer spoke over me, trying to get the man's
name at the same time.

Her head
swung back and forth between the two of us. "I can't exactly call it a
threat. But it seems he talked to Andrew yesterday. He actually came to the
courtroom and met with him."

I slapped
my hand on the desk as I looked at Mercer. There hadn't been many people in
Moffett's trial part, and I thought immediately of the lawyer who was the young
boy's legal guardian. "Graham Hoyt," I said aloud. "The kid's
lawyer."

"No,
no. I don't know who that is. That's not his name," Paige protested.
"It's Harry Strait, the one I'm talking about. He's a government agent,
like Andrew Tripping claims to have been. He's with the CIA, I think."

"And
at the conclusion of the case, ladies and gentlemen, I will again have the
opportunity to stand before you," I said, walking to the defense table and
stopping directly in front of Andrew Tripping. If I wanted the twelve good
people in the box to look him in the eye and declare him guilty, I needed to
show them that I was not afraid to do that myself. "At that time, I will
ask you to consider the testimony of the witnesses who appeared before you,
discuss the evidence that has been presented, and find this defendant guilty of
the crimes with which he is charged."

Thorough,
calm, understated. I had given them the basic elements of the crime, read the
indictment, and previewed Paige Vallis's story. That way, when she gave them
more, they would be surprised and somewhat pleased that I had not promised
anything I could not deliver. Dulles Tripping, though essential to this case,
was practically a footnote, so uncertain was I of the role he would be allowed
to play.

Robelon
was cool. He started his presentation at the podium, but then stood behind his
client's seat, placing his hands on Tripping's shoulders. He was embracing the
falsely accused man, as it were, just as Emily Frith leaned in to pat the
defendant on the forearm.

He was
staying away from specifics, laying in the general picture of the struggling
single-parent father, trying to put bread on the table and care for a
rambunctious child.

He didn't
make my witness out to be a monster, but the under-current was set in motion.

The foundation
he was building on would lead him to sum up, I assumed, with a description of
Paige Vallis as emotionally unstable, socially insecure, confused by Andrew's
mixed signals, and insensitive to his personal travails.

"Don't
be taken in by Ms. Cooper, sitting here all alone at counsel table, while the
three of us do our job with her witnesses," Robelon said, with a wink at
the panel. I always liked that dynamic, assuming some jurors would cast me in
the role of the underdog going against the triad of the defense team. In this
instance, I thought, glancing across at them, they looked like corporate
travelers sitting abreast in the business-class section of a New York to
Chicago flight.

"She's
got all the enormous resources of law enforcement available at her
fingertips," he went on. "Believe me, if there was evidence to be
found against my client, she had the means to gather every bit of that."

It may
have been bullshit, but juries believed that argument. There was nothing the
NYPD could do to enhance this case. We take our witnesses as we find them. Give
us your tired, your poor, your hungry-and then, while you're at it, might as
well throw in your psychos, junkies, liars, whackjobs, and hookers. I didn't
believe in dressing any of them up or polishing their performance before the
jury in any case I had ever tried. It was a technique that was bound to
backfire. Whatever the point of weakness that would be apparent in the
courtroom-whether drug addiction, mental illness, or any alternative
lifestyle-that was the vulnerability that the perpetrator had identified and
attacked on the street.

Robelon
closed with the routine keep-an-open-mind pitch. He made no promises about
whether his client would testify, insisting instead that he would hold my feet
to the fire and dare me to prove my case.

"Let's
have your first witness, Ms. Cooper," Moffett said.

"The
People call Paige Vallis."

One of
the court officers walked to the side door in the middle of the courtroom,
which led to the corridor that housed the bare, dingy witness room. I stared at
the group we had selected-eight men and four women-as every head followed him.

Fifteen
pairs of eyes-twelve jurors, two alternates, and a curious judge-scrutinized
Vallis as she walked in front of the first row of benches, alongside my table,
and stepped up to her place on the stand. The officer asked her to put one hand
on the Bible and raise the other to take the oath. She was trembling as she
complied with his direction.

There was
not a single spectator in the room, except for my paralegal, who was there to
help steady Paige with eye contact and a reassuring smile.

"Good
morning," I said to her, as I rose to begin my questioning. "Would
you please tell the jury your name?"

Vallis
reached for the paper cup filled with water before she spoke. It shook as she
lifted it, and water splashed over its edge. "My name is Paige
Vallis."

I took
her through a series of pedigree questions, which I had told her I would use to
try to calm her down, and get the jury to relate to her. If she could describe
her background and her work to them, it would settle her in before moving into
the more highly charged testimony about the crime. I wanted to humanize her for
the people who would judge her credibility, so that they could understand she
had no reason to fabricate the story she was about to tell.

"Where
do you live?"

"Here
in Manhattan, in TriBeCa." The judge had agreed with me that she did not
need to put an exact street address into the public record.

"How
old are you?"

"I'm
thirty-six." We were exactly the same age, I thought, looking at the young
woman whose life had become unraveled on the evening of March 6.

"Were
you raised in New York?"

"No,
I was not." I had prepped her to look at the jurors and talk directly to
them, and she was trying to do that as she answered. She was dressed in a navy
blue suit with a pale yellow blouse, and her naturally curly brown hair was
swept back away from her plain-featured face. "I was born here, in the
city. My father was in the diplomatic corps, so I spent most of my childhood
abroad."

"Would
you tell us about your educational background?"

"I
attended the American schools wherever my father was posted. I returned to this
country to go to college, and received my bachelor's degree from Georgetown
University, in Washington, D.C. I worked for a few years after
graduating," she said, describing a number of entry-level jobs. "Then
I decided to go to business school, and got my master's from Columbia five
years ago."

Vallis
had impressive academic credentials. So did a lot of crazy people I knew.

"Where
are you employed, and what specific duties does your job involve?"

"Before
my graduation, I was recruited by an investment banking firm, where I had done
a summer internship," Vallis said, clearly comfortable discussing the work
she did. "The company is called Dibingham Partners. I'm a research analyst
there, and I specialize in foreign equities."

Vallis
went on to describe to the jury exactly what she did to investigate overseas
companies in order to make recommendations about whether to purchase stocks for
her customers' portfolios.

I flushed
out the promotions she had been given and the number of people she supervised,
establishing the stability of her professional performance.

"Are
you single, Ms. Vallis?"

"Yes,
I am. I've never been married."

"Do
you know the defendant in this case, Andrew Tripping?"

Vallis
cleared her throat and glanced quickly at the defense table. The few moments of
relaxed testimony she had given came to an abrupt end, as she visibly tensed as
she answered the question. "Yes, I do."

"For
how long have you known him?"

"I
met him in February of this year. February twentieth, to be exact."

"Your
Honor, may we approach?" Robelon got to his feet. This was his style. Just
as my victim was about to get her narrative going, he would interrupt as
frequently as he could. It served the dual purpose of rattling the witness and
distracting the jury from her story.

Moffett
shrugged and reluctantly waved us up. He made Paige step down to the side as we
huddled before the bench. "What is it?"

"I'm
having trouble hearing Ms. Vallis. I'd like permission to move my chair over
there." Robelon pointed to a spot behind my seat, directly in front of the
jury panel.

"Sure.
Go-"

"I'll
just ask the witness to keep her voice up. Peter can sit exactly where he's
supposed to."

"What's
your beef, Alex?" Robelon asked.

"You
ought to use one of your client's bayonets to clean the wax out of your ears.
The only time you develop a problem is when a witness is testifying and the prosecutor's
back is turned. The last time you repositioned yourself between me and the
twelve angry men in the box, you spent the entire time rolling your eyes at
them in disbelief and mumbling under your breath just loud enough so they could
hear your comments."

"Cut
it out, you two," Moffett said, turning to Paige. "Do you think you
can speak any louder, young lady? Mr. Robelon needs to hear everything you
say."

"I
can try, Your Honor."

He waved
us back to our seats and I picked up my questioning.