“I will give Mr. Maitland and the state credit for undertaking an audacious scheme that must have been daunting. Talk about searching a needle for a haystack. And yet their scheme worked. They confirmed your affair with Mrs. Carroll, which gave them a motive they could argue for her to kill her husband.”
He walked over to me and he was very, very good. I don’t think anybody that didn’t know him intimately would be able to tell that the anger was faked.
“But, unfortunately, Mr. Maitland has let the publicity about his being dubbed ‘The Angel of Death’ go to his head. He has mounted a crusade to send every defendant he prosecutes to the state Death Chamber, whether they deserve death or not. Truth or the facts be damned.
“And so he wasn’t satisfied with being able to blacken Mrs. Carroll’s character. He had to go for it all, to provide testimony that would make her guilt undeniable. Mr. Ballantyne, I submit to you that Mr. Maitland and Detective McDonald threatened you with prosecution.
“Even if Mrs. Carroll escaped the death penalty, being tried separately you might still be convicted of a lesser charge. And even a lesser charge might send you to prison for years. Unless...you were willing to ‘remember’ her telling you of her plans to kill Mr. Carroll. I submit that your testimony against Mrs. Carroll was coerced, and false, designed simply to save your own skin.”
I rose to my feet.
“Objection, your honor. Mr. Walters has spun a completely fictitious story to discount Mr. Ballantyne’s damning testimony. He does not have a single fact to hang his account on. He has carelessly charged me with violating legal ethics. If he is really certain of his facts, he should have me called up before the State Bar. And he should have Detective McDonald brought up on charges of illegal police conduct.
“But he won’t, because he knows all of this is a smokescreen designed only to distract the jury from the facts in this case. Mrs. Carroll was having an lengthy affair with Mr. Ballantyne. She did confess to him her plans to murder her husband. No threats were made against Mr. Ballantyne to coerce his testimony.”
Pizarro gave Lew a jaundiced glance. He wasn’t upset. He had waded through oceans of legal crap during his 30 years on the beach. But he did say, “I’m not going to admonish the jury to disregard your comments, Mr. Walters, because you do have the latitude to present alternate views on the case.
“However, most of the time, you have to have some small, frail framework of facts on which to hang your theories, and I will leave it to the jury as to whether you have laid any such foundation.”
Lew let it wash off him. He turned to the jury and said, “I’ll leave it in your capable hands as to how much of what I’ve laid out is speculation. Just remember when you go back into the jury room to consider this case, the character of the state’s main witness; a man who has made a living off of seducing and abandoning older women.
“Ask yourself if you believe he would lie about a former lover to avoid prison time. Just use your common sense and I have no doubt what conclusion you will come to.”
“No further questions.”
I stood up and on redirect asked, “Mr. Ballantyne, Mr. Walters has made the claim that Detective McDonald secured your testimony by having sex with you, or promising sex. Are either of those claims true?”
He looked over at Heather, looking hot and professional at the same time, and gave me a sour look,
“Yes to the second, no to the first. She had me hotter than hell with cyber and telephone sex. God, she has a hot voice. And when we met she kept me revved up with some kisses and she let me do a little petting. But the bitch never went quite far enough. I thought I was good, but damn, she had me with my tongue hanging out.
“That’s probably how she got me drunk enough that I’d promise the moon to get into her. I never would have spilled the beans about Judy if that bitch—sorry, Detective McDonald - hadn’t had me thinking with my co- with my genitals. She never said flat out she was going to have sex with me. We teased the way guys and women do when they’re…getting acquainted. But I definitely was hoping. That’s why I was trying to impress her when I first told her about being a ‘very good friend’ of the Killer Granny everybody was talking about.
“But she was all business after she got me to talk about Judy. Once she got enough details, she never let me touch her again. And as far as talking about Judy’s plans, you didn’t threaten me. But I’m not stupid. After what I’d said on that tape when I was bombed, I knew that if I tried to testify for Judy, or clam up, then you would have come after me as an accessory.
“The only way I could protect myself was to come clean and tell you guys everything I knew. That way, whether you nailed her or not, I’d be in the clear.”
As Pizarro closed down the court for the afternoon, Lew ambled over.
“Pretty good, Master Obi Wan Kenobi, but your key witness is tainted. The jurors know he’s a miserable scumbag gigolo who would sell his own mother out. His testimony isn’t going to be enough to get you over the top.”
“You didn’t do a bad job, Lew, but we already knew he was a miserable scumbag. You work with what you have.”
I looked around at the rapidly emptying court room. She was sitting on the left side of the spectator seats. She was dressed a hell of a lot more demurely than I could even remember from UNF. It didn’t help. She could be wearing a potato sack and she’d still radiate pure sex. She was looking at both of us and I couldn’t read the expression.
“Why the hell don’t you go over and say something to her.”
“Nothing to say.”
“Shit, man, this is like sixth grade all over. You want me to slip her a note that you like her and would like to talk to her.”
“Lew! There’s nothing to say.”
“How about, ‘now that we’re divorced and single I’d love to fuck your brains out, no strings attached’.”
She got up and walked out and as usual, just her walking away was a symphony.
“I wish to hell she hadn’t taken that job. This is hell having to see her every day.”
“You ever think that’s why she did take it. To flaunt what she’s got in front of you every day? Maybe encourage you to take a second bite of the apple?”
“It’s a poisoned apple.”
Wednesday, August 24, 2005 -- 4 P.M.
I was walking toward my office as I spotted Cheryl waving at me. I turned to see what she wanted. They talk about being frozen in place. I stopped in mid-step and almost literally froze.
A blonde memory from the past stood in front of me and then she had her arms around me and her large soft breasts pressed against my chest. I probably was as stiff as a statue as she pressed her lips to mine. Then she backed away and gave me a funny look.
“I know you divorced Debbie, that stupid bitch, but did you divorce me too?”
After a stutter I managed to get my tongue going again.
“Clarice....where did you come from?”
Debbie’s younger sister, not quite as pretty, not quite as big-tittied as her older sibling but still one hell of an eye-pleaser, reached out and grabbed my face and planted another one on me.
“You know that’s a hell of a welcome after seven years, brother-in-law, especially for a girl that’s had a crush on you for 20 years, give or take a few.”
“I’m sorry....baby....I didn’t mean...to...it’s good to see you.”
“Baby...”
She smiled and over her shoulder I could see Cheryl’s look of amazement and curiosity.
“Debbie’s younger sister,” I mouthed to her.
“You remembered, Bill. Am I still your baby?”
When I had met Debbie, Clarice was barely 13 years old, although like her older sister she’d already started developing. Her crush was so obvious and embarrassing that I had had to handle her with kid gloves, including always calling her ‘baby sister.’ And ‘baby’ she had remained until she’d moved from the U.S. with her husband Jimmy nearly a decade before.
�
��Of course, Clarice, you’ll always be my baby.”
She gave me another hug and said, “I came up after Mom told me what’s happening. She’s written me and we’ve had a few phone calls. I couldn’t believe it.”
“Let’s go into my office, Clarice.”
I closed the door behind me and she sat in one chair and I sat in the other facing her. She wore a green pants suit/blouse combo that did nice things for her eyes. As with her sister, her chest strained the blouse, but not so ostentatiously.
“So...”
“So, I talked to Debbie by phone when I got into the airport this morning and I’ll talk to her this evening when she gets home. I told her she was a stupid bitch.”
“Easy, Clarice. People get divorced. Happens all the time. It was just our time.”
She reached out and placed one warm hand on my knee.
“Bullshit. Mom told me about Doug. About her throwing you out and bringing that son of a bitch into your bed. I don’t understand why you didn’t burn her ass. You’re an attorney, in tight with everybody here. You could have ripped her heart out if you’d wanted to. And I can’t imagine why you didn’t want to.”
“Everything isn’t so black and white, Clarice. I’ll let her talk to you about it. I’m prejudiced. She had her reasons, apparently. She thinks I was the bad guy, if you listen to her.”
She reached out again and grabbed my hand in hers.
“Jimmy and I have been gone a long time, Bill. And I know people change. I could see you guys divorcing. Anybody can split up. But not the way she did it.”
I squeezed her hand. I could still see the 12-year-old in her.
“It’s history now, Clarice. We’re divorced. We’re history. She’s making a new life for herself, and I’m trying to move on, too. Don’t let....don’t let what happened get between the two of you. You’re sisters...blood...I’m just an ex now.”
“No, you’re not an ex. You’re James Jr. and Kathleen’s uncle. You’ll always be their uncle, and my favorite brother-in-law.”
I had seen pictures, but never seen my niece and nephew in the flesh.
“They’re with you? Are you back for good.”
“They’re at Mom and Dad’s right now. I want you to promise to come by. Tonight if you can but sometime in the next week. We’ll be here for a week. Jimmy couldn’t get off. But we’ve put in not to extend our contract. We’ll transfer over to a civilian branch within the year and be home in a year or a little more.”
Clarice was employed by an agency contracted to the U.S. State Department and Jimmy was employed in the same general area but I’d always suspected he was a government spook, possibly CIA. They’d been stationed all over the world for the past 10 years, the last five years in Tokyo.
“You coming back to Florida?”
“I’d like that but we may be stationed in Washington.”
“Close enough. It’ll be good to have you back in the states. I wish...I wish you guys had been here...while things were still good.”
“So do I. But just remember, no matter what happens with Debbie, no matter who she ends up with, you’re family and you always will be.”
“I feel the same way, Clarice. Kelly may remember you, but I don’t think BJ will. . He was too young. I hope we can arrange for them both to see you and the kids before you have to leave. By the way, what is Jimmy up to?”
She just grinned and said, “Oh, you know, this and that.”
Then she said, “I’ve got to go home now. Promise me you’ll come by Mom and Dad’s. “
She got up and was ready to turn when she turned around and hugged me.
“You look younger than I remember you. I like the new look. Deb has got to be eating her heart out seeing you get younger and hotter. You know, of course, that if I didn’t love Jimmy, I’d be putting the moves on you. I spent years waiting for you to dump Big Sis and realize I was the girl you should have chosen.”
I smiled at her, seeing that little 13-year-old who bugged me and her sister unmercifully.
“And now I’m free and you love your husband. Who said God doesn’t have a sense of humor?”
After she left I sat back in my chair and thought about the good old days. Until it got too painful and I turned my attention from the past to the future.
Wednesday, August 24, 2005 -- 5 P.M.
“Focus your eyes on the watch,” Teller said in a soft, even tone. He had turned the lights down to dim, but it was still possible to see objects. Debbie lay on the couch and he sat in a chair next to the couch, having moved the marble Rorschach coffee table out of the way.
He held his grandfather’s pocket watch which hung at the end of a silver watch chain about ten inches long, above and in front of Debbie’s face. She was looking upward with her neck at a slightly uncomfortable angle. He had a recording of a grandfather clock playing softly as background.
“Stare at the watch, only at the watch, Ms. Bascomb. Let your eyes follow it,” he said, as he let it swung almost imperceptibly in a very short arc back and forth in front of her eyes. “Think only about the watch. Look at the way the light plays on its surface....back and forth....back...and forth...and back...and....”
It was a classic hypnotic suggestive trance method, going back about a hundred years, but it had always worked for him and he thought it would probably work here. The woman was intelligent, strong willed and despite stereotypes, those were the types of people who were often most suggestible.
He wasn’t sure how effective the first session might be, especially if the memory was painful and deeply buried, which it appeared to be. But most memories would eventually surface.
“You’re feeling very, very tired, Debbie. Your eyes are getting heavier. It has been a long, long time since you’ve slept soundly, deeply. You are so tired. You’re trying to hold your eyelids open, but they are getting heavier...heavier...heavier....”
In five minutes she was breathing heavily. He got up, grabbed a towel from the bathroom and came out and placed in on her chest, tucking it in under her neck.
“Can you hear me, Debbie?”
“Yes, Doctor Teller.”
“Do you know where you are?”
“Yes.”
“Where are you?”
“In your office.”
“I want you to relax and think about nothing. You’re floating in the center of a featureless void. There is nothing around you. Are you floating?”
“Yes.....it feels good....”
“You’re beginning to feel a rumble deep inside your stomach....there is a rising bitter taste in your mouth...your throat is beginning to spasm...you are swallowing hard trying to keep the bile down....but it keeps getting stronger...are you getting nauseous?”
“...y...yessss....oh....”
“Freeze the moment. You are frozen....not sick, not nauseous..just....frozen...you are a statue...”
She breathed deeply but didn’t appear to be gagging.
“Now, Debbie, I want you to go back....go back to just BEFORE that terrible taste and gagging sensation came over you....where are you? What are you doing?”
For a second he didn’t recognize what was happening, then the open, slurping, sucking motions she was making with her mouth, distending her mouth so it looked like she was about to scream, the yanking motions she was doing with both hands as if she was milking a cow were unmistakable.
“Uhh...ummmm...uhhh..ummmmummm”
Stunned, for a moment he thought the expression on her face was sexual frenzy, excitement so great that it could be mistaken for pain, and then he had grabbed the bucket he’d placed near the couch and had her head and was cradling her as she vomited into the bucket.”
“ohhh....oohhhhh....ohhhh....ohhh...ohhhhhhhhhh....oh....ohhh..”
The spasms as she tried to empty everything in her stomach were interspersed with huge choking sobs. He cradled her head, despite the fact that she was vomiting on him, the table and the floor.
Finally there was only dry s
obbing and he continued to stroke her blonde hair .
“It’s okay, it’s okay Debbie, it’s over, it’s past, you’re okay now,” he said, disregarding the smell, the mess on his clothes. It was obvious that something of a sexual nature had occurred, had precipitated the violent nausea...but what?
Finally, he was able to place her back on the couch, took the filthy towel, emptied the bucket, took washcloths and cleaned the office as best he could. Before he left he’d call the office cleaning staff to come in and leave it spic and span. He had kept most of the worst off her. He used a washcloth to get spatters off her blouse, her arms and hands.
Finally when everything was as clean as he could get it, he leaned close to her and whispered into her ear, “Debbie, wake up. Wake up.”
After a moment she opened her eyes and instantaneously tried to rise off the couch, but he held her by the shoulders and kept her down.
“It’s okay, Debbie, it’s okay. It’s Doctor Teller. You’re in my office. You’re not---not back there. Do you remember anything about what just happened.”
Her eyes were wild as she looked around the office. It was only sinking in on her where she was. Her nose wrinkled as the smell of vomit hit her.
“Noooooo....no...where...what happened...what....”
“I tried a hypnotic regression to see if I could discover what’s been causing your nausea. And I—you went back to a very unpleasant episode in your life and became very sick. If it’s not clear in your mind, don’t try to bring it forward. Just relax now.”
She lay her head back and began to cry.
“What the hell is wrong with me, Doctor?”
He looked at her and decided there was no way he could tell her what he’d seen. He wasn’t really sure what he’d seen. He knew what it looked like, but there were a lot of things he could have seen—anything from a voluntary sexual encounter, to a violent rape to a vivid nightmare.
“I don’t know, honestly, Debbie, Ms. Bascomb. But I know that we made progress today. Whatever is at the root of your problems is accessible through hypnosis. We’ll just have to approach it more carefully next time. In time we’ll see it for what it is...”
The Long Fall Page 63
