The Ophelia Cut

by John Lescroart

  “Still,” he said. “Her dad.”

  “Yeah.” She sighed. “Maybe I’m feeling a little sexy after all.”

  TONY DIDN’T HAVE any clothes on. The covers were messed all around him. He lay back on Brittany’s bed, hands behind his head. “Did I say supremely worth it?”

  She was curled up next to him, her head against his chest. “Yes, it was.” Bob Marley started singing “Stir It Up.” “This is going to sound weird,” she said, “but I’m glad we waited.”

  “Not weird at all. This was the time. I love this song.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Three chords, five words. Go figure.”

  “I know.” She boosted herself onto an elbow. “You really don’t mind my hair?”

  “This just in,” he said, “you don’t have any hair. And I love it. If you did have hair, I’d love that, too. If you had a thick pelt of fur . . .”

  She laughed and put her hand over his mouth. “Okay, okay, I get it.” She lowered herself back down to his chest. “So they subpoenaed you for tomorrow?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That must mean they’re going to ask if I told you.”

  “I know. I figured that out.”

  She stayed silent for a long moment. “Do we want to talk about this?”

  “I think so.”

  “What are you going to say?”

  He breathed in and out a couple of times. “You know I’ve told you I used to be a cop? I have to be honest. It’s not going to feel natural to me to lie under oath.”

  She went dead still beside him.

  “I wanted to ask you to think about something,” he said.

  “What?”

  “About whether your dad really did this.”

  “I’ve thought about that a thousand times.”

  “And?”

  “I guess he did. I can’t think of any other explanation.”

  “What do you think the jury’s going to say?”

  “I don’t know. My uncle says you can never predict.”

  “If you had to guess?”

  “If I were on the jury, I think I’d say he was guilty.”

  “And why’d he do it?”

  “We know that.”

  “Do you think the jury’s going to know it?”

  “I don’t see how they couldn’t.”

  “Regardless of what you said today?”

  “Pretty much, yeah.”

  “Or what I might have to say tomorrow?”

  She breathed against him. “I see where you’re going.”

  He chose his words carefully. “You saying it is betraying your father. If I say you told me you’d told him, it’s once removed. Plus, it’s hearsay. In the end, it’s not going to make any difference to the verdict. Unless you think it will.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Nobody knows, Brittany. I won’t say it if you don’t want me to. I don’t want to be the person responsible for sending your father to jail. But you know I already talked to the police. If I change my story, they’re going to play that tape, and then they’ll know that I lied, and it’s more likely that they’ll think you lied. It gets worse and worse. I think there’s a good chance your father’s going to jail anyway, but I can’t have what I say come between you and me. Especially not after tonight. I would lie if you asked me to. I would do anything you asked me to.”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I just don’t know.”

  “Maybe we could sleep on it,” he said. “Talk about it again in the morning.”

  After a second’s hesitation, in a small voice, she said, “Maybe we could do that.”

  34

  IF BRITTANY THOUGHT that violently chopping off her hair would make her less interesting to photojournalists and television news crews, she was mistaken. Local and national media vans blocked two lanes of Bryant Street, and reporters and camerapeople were waiting three-deep on the front steps of the Hall of Justice, clogging the inner lobby. The day before, when it wasn’t clear to the media that she’d be there, much less be the first witness, the crush had failed to materialize. She’d entered the building with her shawl on to no fanfare, accompanied only by her mother, and no one had paid her any particular attention.

  This morning, she and Tony had driven down together on his motorcycle and, after stopping by his apartment so he could change, parked two blocks away and walked up. Now they stood on the corner across the street. Seeing the mob, Tony said, “I’m afraid this is about you.”

  She let out a sigh. “God, it gets old.” She was wearing an outfit similar to the one from the day before—men’s shoes, brown slacks, a bulky black leather jacket. Instead of the white shawl, she wore a Giants hat, which she pulled down low. “There’s a back way in,” she said. “You want to try that?”

  “I’m with you,” Tony said.

  They crossed Bryant at the corner of Seventh Street, half a block from the doors to the Hall, for all the world at that distance looking like a couple of guys minding their own business on their way to wherever they were going. Picking up their pace, they entered the employee and staff parking lot behind the building, then came around the monstrosity of the jail and onto the walkway leading past the jail’s entrance and the medical examiner’s office. No one was walking in front of them, though there was a small knot of humanity lined up at the rear entrance, a simple glass door with a manned desk and metal detector just inside.

  Tony put his arm around her, leaned in to her ear. “This was a good idea.”

  She leaned in to him. He kissed the side of her head.

  And then, suddenly, it wasn’t such a good idea. With Tony’s arm around her, they no longer looked like a couple of guys strolling along, passing the time of day. Now they looked like what they were, a couple, and several of the people lounging by the back door were ready for them, turning and snapping away with their cameras. Tony held out a hand to them. “Leave her alone! Come on! Show a little class. Let her by, let us in.” He pulled her closer to him, hiding her face with his hand, getting them to the door and inside, where the cop waved them through the metal detector and they made a run for the stairway.

  HARDY DID THE cross on Brittany himself, pleading that Amy had to attend to another witness. Stier threw up his arms in disgust, and Gomez, with bad grace, allowed that at this point, she’d permit almost anything that would keep the trial moving.

  “Ms. McGuire,” Hardy said, “you and I know each other well, do we not?”

  “We do.”

  “Would you please tell the jury our relationship?”

  Hardy wanted her to smile. She’d been mostly in tragic mode yesterday, and though that might elicit sympathy with some members of the jury, her hacked off hair, masculine clothing, and generally defensive tone had made her seem, even in ultra-tolerant San Francisco, somewhat of an edgy figure, not quite a “normal” young woman. Hardy wanted to humanize her, get the jury, if possible, to like her a little more.

  She didn’t disappoint, flashing an embarrassed, somewhat apologetic smile first to him, then to the jury. “He is my uncle,” she said, then added a little bonus: “My favorite uncle.”

  Never mind that he was her only uncle—a recurring joke in the family—the comment played well. Several of the jurors smiled in return, and Hardy gave the moment its due before turning back to her.

  “Brittany,” he began, “would you mind telling us how old you are?”

  “Twenty-three.”

  “Do you live in your parents’ home with them?”

  “No.”

  “For how long have you not lived with them?”

  “I think about five years. Since I went away to college.”

  “Did you graduate?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you still live alone?”

  “Yes. I have an apartment in the city.”

  Stier pushed up from his chair. “Objection, Your Honor. Relevance?”

  The judge cocked her head. “Mr. Hardy?”

&nbs
p; “It’s basic background on the witness, Your Honor, and I’m trying to demonstrate Ms. McGuire’s independence from her parents.”

  “All right. I’ll allow it. Objection overruled.”

  The questions in this vein went on for a few more minutes. Do you pay your own bills at your apartment? Electricity? Gas? Do you own a car? Did you pay for it yourself? Do you pay for your own gas? How about car insurance? Health insurance? Are you employed? Do your parents help you financially in any way?

  Having established Brittany’s physical independence from her parents, Hardy moved on. “Going back to your testimony yesterday, you said that Mr. Jessup pushed you up against a building, cutting and bruising your face, and he then threw you down with enough force that you felt you should go to the emergency room to check out the damage. Is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  Hardy crossed back to his table and picked up some pages. “Now, Brittany, I have here a copy of the record of your admission that day to St. Francis Hospital.” He passed the paper over to her. “Is this your signature at the bottom of this form?”

  “Yes.”

  Hardy had the document entered into evidence, then came back to his witness. “Would you please read what they have listed here, and which you have signed off on, as the reason for your injuries that day?”

  Brittany hardly needed to look at the paper, since they’d been through all this in preparation. “ ‘Patient slipped and fell headlong while running to catch a bus. Multiple bruises and contusions to the head, hands, and legs.’ ”

  “In other words, Brittany, you did not give the ER doctors the true reason for your injuries, is that right?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “How did you get home from the hospital?”

  “I called my mom—I mostly take the bus to work—and she picked me up.”

  “And what did you tell her about your injuries?”

  “The same thing I told the doctors. That I fell.”

  “Why didn’t you tell her the truth?”

  Brittany let out a long breath. “I didn’t want to get anybody in trouble.”

  “You mean you didn’t want to get Rick Jessup in trouble?”

  “Right.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t think he was a bad guy. I didn’t think he did it on purpose. He just got mad. It wasn’t like he beat me with his fists or anything. I didn’t think it would happen again.”

  “All right. And where did your mother take you from the hospital?”

  “To her and Dad’s place.”

  “And did you see your father there?”

  “Yes. Later that day.”

  “And did you tell him the same story you had told the doctors and your mother?”

  “Yes.”

  “For the same reasons?”

  “Yes.”

  “Brittany, did you ever subsequently tell your father that Mr. Jessup had hurt you?”

  “No.”

  “Never?”

  “No. I mean, not while Rick was alive. Of course, he’s heard about it now.”

  “Of course. Thank you.”

  Hardy half turned toward the jury, not playing to them, since that would bring on the wrath of Gomez, but subtly conveying to them his satisfaction with Brittany’s answers. She was coming across as an independent, friendly young woman whose first instinct in adversity was not to run to her parents but the opposite—to deal with it herself, to shelter them from the knowledge that she’d been hurt.

  He turned back to the table where Moses sat to give the message another minute to sink in. After a sip of water, he returned to his place in front of the witness box, softening his tone of voice.

  “Brittany, after you woke up at Mr. Jessup’s house, realizing that he had raped you, on the day before he was killed, you drove to the Little Shamrock. Why did you do that?”

  “I don’t really know. I was afraid and pretty freaked out. I wanted to cry on somebody’s shoulder, tell somebody what had happened.”

  “By ‘somebody,’ do you mean your father?”

  “Yes. I thought he’d be working there.”

  “And was he?”

  “No. There was another bartender that night. Tony Solaia.”

  “And did you tell Mr. Solaia what had happened to you?”

  “Yes. I had to tell somebody.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Tony closed up right away and then took me to my parents’ place.”

  “Why did he do that?”

  “Because I told him I wanted to go there.”

  “And what time did you arrive at your parents’ place?”

  “Two-ish, something like that.”

  “Did you have to wake them up to let you in?”

  “My mom woke up.”

  “Not your father?”

  “No.”

  “Did you tell your mother what had happened to you?”

  Brittany’s eyes went from Hardy to the jury. “No.”

  “But here you were, obviously upset, in the middle of the night, asking to come in. Didn’t she ask you what had happened?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you tell her the truth?”

  “No.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Just that I’d had too much to drink and wanted to be within walking distance of the Shamrock to get my car the next day.”

  “In other words, you told Tony Solaia but did not tell your mother, is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why did you do that?”

  “I don’t know. Telling Tony, that got it out of me. As I was telling him, I realized I didn’t want to tell anybody else. I needed to process it a little, figure out what I needed to do, all the implications. I made him promise not to tell anybody, either.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I hardly slept at all. Sometime early the next morning, I got up and went down to the Rape Crisis Counseling Center on Haight and reported the rape.”

  “All by yourself?”

  “Yes. It’s not far from my parents’, a couple of blocks.”

  “What happened then?”

  “They kept me there a few hours and took a statement from me, did some tests and blood work, then let me go.”

  “And where did you go from there?”

  “I walked back to my mom and dad’s, and they made me breakfast, and after that, I went to my car and drove home to my apartment.”

  “And did you tell your father about the rape that day?”

  “No. I didn’t see my father for the next couple of days.”

  “So to be clear, you never told either your mother or your father about the rape?”

  “No. I thought it would break their hearts, and I didn’t want to do that. So I never told them.”

  Hardy paused, letting the simple humanity of her answer resonate with the jury. Then he bowed and said, “Thank you, Brittany. No further questions.”

  DURING THE BREAK immediately following Brittany’s testimony, Hardy allowed himself a moment of hope. Moses and Gina, up from the seat in the gallery, although keeping any sense of celebration low-key, were no less enthusiastic. The two parallel stories—the pushing incident and the rape—though vastly different in scale, nevertheless had a symmetry that was compelling. Brittany wasn’t going to get her parents involved in solving her problems, no matter how big they were. That just wasn’t her style.

  “I’m almost thinking they’re not going to get motive,” Gina said. “In which case things get shaky for them pretty fast, wouldn’t you say?”

  “No motive and I walk,” McGuire whispered.

  “Knock on wood,” Hardy replied. Strategically, he thought he’d done a good job, though knowing it was all in the service of a lie took away some of his euphoric visceral kick. The fact remained that he knew Brittany, in contradiction to her sworn testimony, had told Moses about the rape that Sunday morning, and further, that Moses had gone down to J
essup’s with the shillelagh that evening, intending to beat him, perhaps to death.

  BY LUNCHTIME, ALL that confidence was but a pale memory.

  Stier’s first witness after the morning recess had been Tony Solaia. As befitted a former policeman, he exuded a calm certainty as he recounted his relationship with Brittany. Yes, she had come by the Shamrock after the rape and told him about it. Over the next few days, he’d gone by her apartment several times to make sure she was okay, and on one of those occasions, she had told him unequivocally that on Sunday morning when she got back from the Rape Crisis Counseling Center, she had told her father what had happened to her. She had described his reaction as “furious.”

  Now Hardy, Gina, and Moses were sharing a deli lunch Susan had brought in, in the prisoners’ holding tank, a jail cell built into the hallway outside the back door of Department 24. Moses, in high dudgeon at the turn of events, was going on, “This is the thanks I get for being the guy’s savior these last couple of months? He’s busted out of his job and I give him a new one, and he turns around and sticks it to me? Meanwhile hooking up with my daughter?”

  “You know what I’d do?” Hardy asked, all seriousness.

  “What?”

  “I’d kill him. No, really. Beat him on the head with a shillelagh.”

  “You’re such a funny guy,” McGuire said. “I’m cracking up over here.”

  “I’m working on my stand-up act if this whole law thing doesn’t work out, which it’s starting to look like. Not on this case, anyway.”

  Gina looked up with a frown. “Guys. Come on.” Then: “But no cross on Tony, Diz? None at all. I admit I was a little surprised.”

  “I reserved the right to recall him, and I will if you can tell me something you think I ought to ask him. You didn’t believe him?”

  “No. I believed him.”

  “So what am I supposed to get him with?”

  McGuire shook his head. “Why, though? That’s what I don’t understand. Why’d he screw me like this?”

  “If you stay in jail,” Hardy deadpanned, “you can’t kill him for hanging out with Brittany.”

  “Jesus,” Gina said. “You guys.”

  Hardy drank some of his soda. “Somebody was going to let it out. It just turned out Tony was first up.” Hardy, with no love lost for Tony Solaia, and even with the new information about his past and present, nevertheless wanted his client to understand that this wasn’t an error his attorneys had made. “You saw Stier’s witness list, Mose—including everybody Brittany has talked to in the past three months, folks from work, the Shamrock, yoga class—and you’ve seen their statements. Guess what?” He lowered his voice. “She told you, Mose. She told a bunch of her friends that she told you. It was going to come out.”