“Ladies . . . gentlemen . . .” Fundi said, pulling a Cuban cigar from his top pocket. The reporters waited as he puffed life into it. He looked up and smiled. “You’ll hafta direct all questions to my attorney. That’s why I paid him all that money,” Fundi said and laughed.
As if all their heads were tied together, the pack of reporters turned in Jaffee’s direction just as Richard stepped into the back of the John Milton and Associates limousine. One of the younger and more determined interviewers rushed down the steps, shouting, “Mr. Jaffee! Just a moment, please. Mr. Jaffee!” The small crowd of attending reporters and friends all laughed as the limousine door was closed and the chauffeur went around the car to get behind the wheel. In moments the vehicle pulled away from the curb.
Richard Jaffee sat back and stared ahead.
“To the office, sir?” the chauffeur inquired.
“No, Charon. Take me home, please.”
The tall, olive-skinned Egyptian with almond-shaped eyes peered into the rearview mirror as if he were looking into a crystal ball. His butter-smooth face wrinkled at the corners of his eyes. There was a nearly indistinguishable nod, confirming what he saw, what he knew.
“Very good, sir,” Charon replied. He sat back and drove on with the stoical presence of an undertaker’s assistant driving a hearse.
Richard Jaffee didn’t change position, didn’t shift his posture, didn’t turn to his right or left to look at anything on the streets. The thirty-three-year-old man seemed to be aging every passing minute. His complexion paled; his light blue eyes became dull gray, and the creases in his forehead deepened. He brought his hands to his cheeks and patted them gently as if to be sure he had not already decomposed.
And then he finally sat back and closed his eyes. Almost immediately, he pictured Gloria the way she had been before they had moved to Manhattan. He saw her as she was when they had first met—bright, innocent, bubbly but gentle, and very trusting. Her optimism and faith had been so refreshing and so stimulating. It filled him with a driving desire to give her everything, to work hard to make the world as soft and as happy as she saw it, to protect and to cherish her until death did them part.
Which it had, less than a month ago, in a delivery room of the Manhattan Memorial Hospital, even though she had had the best care and what had seemed like a perfectly healthy and normal pregnancy. She had given birth to a beautiful son, his features perfect, his health excellent, but the effort inexplicably took her life. The doctors couldn’t explain it. Her heart simply gave out, they told him, as if her heart had grimaced, sighed, and lost its breath.
But he knew why she had died. He had confirmed his suspicions, and he had placed the blame solely on himself, for he had brought Gloria here. She had trusted him, and he had delivered her as though she were a sacrificial lamb.
Now, back in their apartment, his son slept peacefully, fed hungrily, and grew normally, unaware that he was entering the world without his mother, that his fee for life included her death. Richard knew that psychiatrists would tell him it was natural to resent the child, but psychiatrists didn’t know. They just didn’t know.
Of course, it was difficult, if not impossible, to really hate the infant. He looked so helpless and so innocent. Richard tried talking himself out of resenting him, first using logic and then using his memory of Gloria and her wonderfully effervescent approach to life to light his way back to sanity.
But none of it had worked. He had turned his child over to the live-in nurse, rarely asking after him and only occasionally looking in on him. Richard never questioned why his son cried or inquired about his health. He simply had gone on with his work, letting it consume him so he wouldn’t think so much; he wouldn’t remember; he wouldn’t spend most of his time suffering the guilt.
The work had served as a dam holding back the reality of his personal tragedy. Now it came rushing in over him in the memory of Gloria’s smiles, Gloria’s kisses, Gloria’s excitement when she had discovered she was pregnant. Behind his closed lids, he replayed dozens of moments, dozens of images. It was as though he were in his living room watching home movies.
“We’re here, sir,” Charon said.
They were here? Richard opened his eyes. Charon had opened the door and was standing on the sidewalk. Richard gripped his briefcase tightly and stepped out of the limousine. He looked at Charon. At six feet four, the chauffeur was a good five inches taller than Richard, but his broader shoulders and piercing eyes made him seem even taller, a veritable giant.
Richard stared at him a moment and saw knowledge in the chauffeur’s eyes. He was a silent man, but he absorbed what went on around him and looked like he had lived for centuries.
Richard nodded slightly, and Charon closed the door and went back to the driver’s seat. He watched the limousine go off, then turned and entered the apartment building. Philip, the retired New York City policeman who served as daytime security, peered over his newspaper and then snapped to attention, springing up from the stool behind the counter in the lobby.
“Congratulations, Mr. Jaffee. I heard the news bulletin. I’m sure it felt good to win another case.”
Richard smiled. “Thank you, Philip. Everything all right?”
“Oh, just fine and dandy, Mr. Jaffee. Just like always,” Philip said. “A man can grow old working here,” he added, as he always did.
“Yes,” Richard said. “Yes.”
He went to the elevator and stood back stiffly as the doors closed. When he closed his eyes, he recalled the first time he and Gloria had driven up to the building, recalled her excitement, the way she squealed with delight when they looked at the apartment.
“What have I done?” he muttered.
His eyes snapped open as the elevator doors opened on his floor. Richard stood there for a moment and then walked out and to his apartment door. As soon as he entered, Mrs. Longchamp came out of the nursery to greet him.
“Oh, Mr. Jaffee.” The nurse was only fifty, but she looked like everyone’s grandmother—completely gray-haired, chunky, with soft brown eyes and a chubby face. “Congratulations. I just saw the news bulletin. They interrupted the soaps!”
“Thank you, Mrs. Longchamp.”
“You haven’t lost a case since you started with Mr. Milton’s firm, have you?” she asked.
“No, Mrs. Longchamp. I haven’t.”
“You must be very proud of yourself.”
“Yes,” he said.
“Everything’s all right with Brad,” she offered, even though he hadn’t asked. He nodded. “I was just getting ready to give him a bottle.”
“Go on with it, by all means,” Richard said.
She smiled again and returned to the nursery.
He put his briefcase down, looked around the apartment, and then strode slowly through the living room to the patio that afforded him one of the nicest views of the Hudson River. He didn’t stop to admire it, however. He walked with the intent of someone who had always known exactly where he was going. He stepped onto the lounge chair so he could get his left foot securely on the wall, pulling himself up by grabbing hold of the cast-iron railings. Then, in one swift and graceful move, he reached down as if grabbing for the hand of someone to pull up and went head over heels fifteen flights to the pavement below.
1
Twenty-eight-year-old Kevin Taylor looked up from the papers spread out over the long chestnut-brown table before him and paused, pretending to think deeply about something before cross-examining the witness. These little dramatic gestures came naturally to him. It was a combination of his histrionics and his knowledge of psychology. The dramatic pause between asking questions and looking at documents usually unnerved a witness. In this case he was trying to intimidate the principal of an elementary school, Philip Cornbleau, a slim, dark-haired, pale-skinned, fifty-four-year-old, nearly bald man. He sat impatiently, his hands clasped over his chest, his long fingers jerking up and down against each other.
Kevin glanced quickly at the audienc
e. The old expression, “You could cut the air with a knife,” seemed appropriate. The anticipation was that thick. It was as if everyone were holding his or her breath. The room suddenly brightened as sunshine poured through the large windows in Blithedale’s courthouse. It was as if a lighting technician had thrown a switch. All that was left was for the director to shout, “Action!”
The courtroom was packed, but Kevin’s gaze settled on a distinguished-looking, handsome man in the rear who was staring at him with the kind of loving, proud smile Kevin would have expected from his father, not that this man was old enough to be his father. He was probably in his early forties, Kevin thought, and he had a very successful air about him. Conscious of wealth and style, Kevin recognized the Giorgio Armani charcoal-gray pin-striped suit. He had looked at that suit covetously before buying the one he wore today, a double-breasted dark blue wool. He’d bought it at a discount store for half the price of the Armani.
The man acknowledged Kevin with a slight nod.
The silence in the courtroom was punctured by sharp coughs scattered here and there. Lois Wilson, a twenty-five-year-old fifth-grade teacher, was on trial for sexually abusing children in the small Nassau County community of Blithedale. It was a bedroom community; almost all the residents were New York City commuters. Quite rural in appearance, Blithedale was an oasis of sorts with upper-middle-class homes and landscaped grounds, clean, wide streets lined with red maples and oak, and a relatively quiet business area. There were no large malls, no overly developed strips of stores, gas stations, restaurants, and motels. Signs had to meet strict codes. Gaudiness, bright colors, obese posters were prohibited.
The inhabitants liked the feeling of being in a cocoon. They could go into and out of New York as they wished, but when they returned, they returned to their well-guarded, “Alice in Wonderland” existence. Nothing overt happened. It was the way they wanted it.
Then, Lois Wilson, one of the new teachers in the elementary school, was accused of sexually abusing a ten-year-old girl. A school investigation uncovered three more similar occurrences. Background information and the local rumor mill established Lois Wilson as a confirmed lesbian. She was renting a house on the outskirts of Blithedale with her girlfriend, a foreign-language teacher in a nearby high school, and neither went out with men or had any male relationships.
No one in the firm of Boyle, Carlton, and Sessler was happy that Kevin had taken this case. He had actually sought it out, offering his services to Lois Wilson once he heard about her problem; and once he had the case, he had threatened to leave the firm if any of the senior partners actually forbid him from taking it. He had been growing more and more impatient with the firm, impatient with its conservative approach to law and with the direction he knew his life would take if he remained there much longer. This was the first dramatic case he had had, the first case with meat in it, the first case in which he could show his skill and acumen. He felt like an athlete who had finally entered a significant event. Maybe it wasn’t the Olympics, but it was more than the local high school tournament. This case had already made the metropolitan newspapers.
The district attorney, Martin Balm, offered Kevin a deal immediately, hoping to keep the story out of the media and avoid any sensationalism. The most important consideration of all, he stressed, expecting Kevin’s sympathy, was keeping the children out of the courtroom and having them go through the horror once again. If Lois plead guilty, she would get five years probation and psychological counseling. Of course, her teaching career would be over.
But Kevin advised her not to take the deal and she agreed with him. Now she sat demurely, staring down at her hands in her lap. Kevin had told her not to look arrogant, but to appear wounded, suffering. From time to time, she took out her handkerchief and dabbed her eyes.
He had actually had her rehearse this posture in his office, showing her how to look intently at witnesses, how to look hopefully at the jury. He recorded her on video and played it back, giving her pointers about how to use her eyes, how to wear her hair, how to hold her shoulders and use her hands. It was the visual age, he told her. Icons, symbols, posturing were all important.
Kevin turned to look quickly at his wife Miriam four rows back. She looked nervous, tense, worried for him. Like Sanford Boyle, she had advised him not to take the case, but Kevin was committed to it more than he had been committed to anything else during his three years of practicing law. He wouldn’t talk about anything else; he spent hours and hours doing research, investigating, working on weekends, doing far more than the retainer and fee justified.
He flashed Miriam a confident smile, and then he spun around abruptly, almost as if a spring had snapped.
“Mr. Cornbleau, you interviewed the three girls by yourself on Tuesday, November 3rd?”
“Yes.”
“The alleged initial victim, Barbara Stanley, told you about them?” Kevin nodded to confirm the answer before he received it.
“That’s correct. So I invited them into my office.”
“Can you tell us how you began once they arrived?”
“Pardon?” Cornbleau frowned as if the question were ridiculous.
“What was the first question you asked the girls?” Kevin stepped toward the jury. “Did you ask if Miss Wilson had touched them on their buttocks? Did you ask if she had put her hands under their skirts?”
“Of course not.”
“Well, what did you ask?”
“I asked them if it were true they were having the same sort of trouble Barbara Stanley had had with Miss Wilson.”
“The same sort of trouble?” He grimaced at the word trouble.
“Yes.”
“So Barbara Stanley told her girlfriends what allegedly happened to her and the three young girls related similar experiences to her, but none of the three had ever told anyone else before. Is that what you’re saying?”
“Yes. That was my understanding.”
“Quite a charismatic ten-year-old girl,” Kevin quipped, acting as if he had merely spoken a private thought aloud. Some members of the jury raised their eyebrows. A bald-headed man in the front right corner tilted his head thoughtfully and stared intently at the principal.
When Kevin turned and looked at the audience, he saw that the dignified-looking man in the rear had widened his smile and was nodding encouragingly. Kevin half wondered if he might not be a relative of Lois Wilson, maybe an older brother.
“Now, Mr. Cornbleau, can you tell the court what kind of grades Barbara Stanley was getting in Lois Wilson’s class.”
“She was doing low C.”
“Low C. And had she had any problems with Miss Wilson previously?”
“Yes,” the principal muttered.
“Excuse me?”
“Yes. On two occasions, she had been sent to my office for refusing to do her work and using bad language in class, but . . .”
“So you can safely say Barbara was not fond of Miss Wilson?”
“Objection, your honor.” The district attorney stood up. “Counsel is asking the witness to make a conclusion.”
“Sustained.”
“Sorry, your honor.” Kevin turned back to Cornbleau. “Let’s get back to the three girls, Mr. Cornbleau. Did you ask each of them to relate her experiences to you in your office that day?”
“I thought it was best to get right to it, yes.”
“You’re not telling us that while one told her story, the other two listened?” he asked, twisting his face to indicate his shock and incredulity.
“Yes.”
“Wasn’t that inappropriate? I mean, exposing the girls to these stories . . . alleged experiences . . .”
“Well, it was an investigation.”
“Oh, I see. You’ve had experience with this sort of thing before?”
“No, never. That’s why it was so shocking.”
“Did you advise the girls that if they were making things up, they could be in serious trouble?”
“Of course.�
�
“But you tended to believe them, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because they were all saying the same thing and describing it the same way.” Cornbleau looked satisfied with himself and his answer, but Kevin stepped closer, his questions coming in a staccato manner.
“Then couldn’t they have rehearsed it?”
“What?”
“Couldn’t they have gotten together and memorized their stories?”
“I don’t see . . .”
“Isn’t it possible?”
“Well . . .”
“Haven’t you ever experienced children this age lying?”
“Of course.”
“And more than one lying at the same time?”
“Yes, but . . .”
“Then isn’t it possible?”
“I suppose.”
“You suppose?”
“Well . . .”
“Did you call Miss Wilson in and confront her with these stories immediately after speaking with the girls?”
“Yes, of course.”
“And what was her reaction?”
“She wouldn’t deny it.”
“You mean she refused to be interrogated about such matters without benefit of counsel, don’t you?” Cornbleau shifted his seat. “Isn’t that so?” Kevin demanded.
“That’s what she said.”
“So you went ahead and informed the superintendent and then called the district attorney?”
“Yes. We followed school board policy for such matters.”
“You didn’t investigate further, call in other students?”
“Absolutely not.”
“And before Miss Wilson was indicted on this matter, you and the superintendent suspended her, correct?”
“As I said . . .”
“Please, just answer the question.”
Judgement Day Page 29
