Guilt by Association

by Susan R. Sloan

  “How long have you lived in San Francisco, Mrs. De-Maio?” Hal Sutton asked a twenty-three-year-old newlywed.

  “All my life,” the young woman replied. “The only move I ever made was when I got married. Then I went from my father’s house in the Sunset District to me and my husband’s place on Potrero Hill.”

  “Do you know much about this case?”

  She shrugged. “Only what’s been on the news.”

  “Have you formed an opinion, as a result of what you’ve seen on the news, about the guilt or innocence of my client?”

  “No.”

  Andrew Cardigan slipped an urgent note down the table to Sutton’s black assistant, who glanced at it and then audibly cleared his throat. Sutton turned around and took the note, read it, stared for a moment at Cardigan, then turned back to the young woman.

  “Let me rephrase. Have you formed an opinion, based on anything at all, about the guilt or innocence of my client?”

  “Look,” she replied. “Two years ago, my baby sister was raped on her way home from school. He came up to her as nice as you please, telling her she reminded him of his own little girl, and then he dragged her into Sigmund Stern Grove and raped her. She was eleven years old, for God’s sake. So, as far as I’m concerned, if a woman says a man raped her, he raped her.”

  “Did you vote in the primary on Tuesday, Mr. Hiltz?” Tess asked a gangly garage mechanic in his thirties.

  “Sure did,” the man replied.

  “Mind telling us who you voted for?”

  “Sure don’t. Voted for the senator over there and proud of it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s not like them other shysters that make big promises just so’s they can get themselves elected and then conveniently forget them the very next day. He may be rich, but he knows how to speak for the workin’ slobs like me.”

  “And what do you think of the crime the defendant is charged with having committed?”

  “Crime? What crime?” Hiltz asked. “I don’t see as it’s a crime to give a dame what she’s askin’ for.”

  “Are you a feminist, Miss Chu?” Sutton inquired of a pretty young dental hygienist.

  “If you’re asking me whether I believe that men and women are equal, yes, I da. Even though my family comes from a country that doesn’t yet comprehend that, my father always treated my mother with great respect.”

  “Do you think adultery is a crime?”

  Elaine Chu thought for a moment. “A moral crime, yes, but I wouldn’t know about it being a legal one.”

  “Would you be more likely to convict a man of rape if you knew he had committed adultery?”

  “I wouldn’t convict a man of rape,” the dental hygienist replied, “unless I was convinced he had raped.”

  “Do you believe that a woman has the right to say no to a man, Mr. Barstow?” Tess asked a forty-two-year-old computer software salesman wearing a polka-dot tie.

  “Yes and no,” he replied. “If she says it right up front, yes, absolutely, and a man ought to respect that. But if she leads him on, teasing him and getting him all excited and everything, and then up and thumbs her nose at him, well, I’m not so sure that’s right, either.”

  “Would you be able to listen to the evidence presented with an open mind?”

  “I think so.”

  “And do you think, after hearing all the evidence, you would be able to render an impartial verdict in this case?”

  “Yes, I would,” Brian Barstow said.

  “For a while there, I didn’t think you were going to make it,” Tess said to her investigator over hamburgers in the Flower Market Cafe shortly after noon.

  “I may be on to something,” Lamar told her.

  She stopped in mid-bite.

  “Something usable?”

  “Don’t know yet,” he said. “Got some more digging to do.”

  “I can go it alone if you need the time,” she offered.

  He shrugged. “I have a meet set up but it’s not until later. I’ll stick.”

  “How are we doing?” Robert asked his team at the end of the day.

  “I think we’re doing great,” Cardigan said. “Those people love you. For the life of me, I can’t understand why the DA didn’t ask for a change of venue.”

  “Tess Escalante is smart,” Sutton replied. “She wants everyone to believe that her case is so strong she can beat us right here in the senator’s backyard.”

  “Is it?” Robert asked.

  “Let’s not kid ourselves,” Sutton said. “If we can’t find some kind of motive in this, her case is going to come across as pretty damn convincing.”

  Robert turned to Mary Catherine.

  The administrative assistant sighed. “I’m sorry. The detective agency I hired is top drawer all the way, strictly ex-FBI. They’ve got over a hundred people out there digging, but so far they haven’t turned up a thing.”

  “Why don’t you tell them they don’t get paid if they don’t get results?” Robert snapped in frustration.

  “What do we know about her?” Randy asked.

  Mary Catherine opened a pitifully thin folder. “She’s fifty years old. She was born and raised in Great Neck, Long Island, New York. Her father’s a retired dentist, her mother’s a housewife. The parents moved to Florida seven years ago. There’s one sister who lives in Boston, the husband is an attorney, they have two children.”

  “Anything there?” Robert asked.

  “No. He’s an estate planner, no particular political affiliation.”

  “Go on.”

  “She went to college, didn’t graduate. On the fringe of the counterculture back in the late 1960s, early 1970s. Hung with a group of anti-war, popular-cause types. Held a series of nondescript jobs. Managed a posh Manhattan art gallery for a while. Married an architect in 1981, a widower with three children. Received some national recognition for a series of photographic essays on America.”

  “What about her partner?”

  Mary Catherine shook her head. “The photographer is her sister-in-law. Nothing there.”

  “Why didn’t she graduate from college?” Randy asked.

  The administrative assistant flipped through the pages. “Let’s see. I remember there was something about an accident. Yes, here it is. During her junior year, she was involved in some kind of accident and pretty badly injured. The hospital records are no longer available, lost or something, they said, but people who were there around that time seemed to remember it was an automobile accident. She spent several months in the hospital and then, apparently, she had a couple of years recuperating at home. Just decided not to go back to school after that, I guess.”

  “No political ties?”

  “None.”

  “No mob connections?”

  “None.”

  “What about her history with men?”

  “Other than an old college boyfriend in Maine who told our detective to go to hell—and her husband, of course—the agency hasn’t been able to find a single solitary man who can so much as lay claim to having kissed her.”

  “Where does that leave us?” Robert asked.

  “With Snow White incarnate,” Randy said. “But only if you believe in fairy tales.”

  “Keep digging,” Robert instructed.

  Jury selection took the better part of two weeks. In the end, the prosecution and the defense were able to agree on five men and seven women, Agnes McFaddan, Elaine Chu, and Brian Barstow among them, and two female alternates, who would decide the fate of Robert Drayton Willmont. Both sides congratulated themselves. Both sides predicted success.

  two

  How are you holding up?” Tess asked, a matter of hours after the jury was sworn in, the day before the trial was to begin. The ADA had arrived at the Doniger home in St. Francis Wood to find a swarm of reporters had taken up residence on the front lawn.

  “I’ve been working on the new book as much as I can,” Karen replied, shutting the door quickly agai
nst the barrage of rude questions that followed Tess inside. “It keeps my mind off things. I don’t go out very much and I try not to watch television.”

  It was barely a month before the convention, and Mariah Dobbs was making the most of every opportunity to portray Robert Willmont as a pilloried savior—although, granted, a savior with a slightly tarnished halo.

  Each day, after court, the senator would stop on the steps of the Hall of Justice to tell the media how deeply sorry he was to have broken his marriage vows and, in so doing, allowed some vague and nameless villain to take advantage of his momentary weakness. Always by his side were his wife and his son and his mother.

  “My boy is innocent of this vicious allegation,” Amanda Drayton Willmont would declare whenever anyone inquired. She was eighty-four now and palsied, but her voice was still strong and clear. “If you ask me, this is all the work of people who are afraid of their fat pocketbooks if my Bobby is elected President.”

  “I know the enormous stress my husband has been under,” Elizabeth Willmont said on a national morning talk show, looking lovely in pink. “I know how difficult it can be for someone to resist temptation when he’s pushed himself past the point of exhaustion. I’ve forgiven his transgression, and I hope the country can, too.”

  In addition, much of the media—not an institution known for maintaining its neutrality one minute longer than was deemed absolutely necessary—had flocked to the side of the senator, screaming outrage and crying “dirty tricks” in chorus with the majority of the public. Every night, it seemed, another prominent commentator was coming forth to proclaim the candidate and denounce the alleged victim.

  “It’s probably best that you don’t watch,” Tess agreed.

  Karen picked up the morning newspaper. “Unfortunately,” she said with a sigh, “I haven’t stopped reading.”

  The three-inch headline read: “Volunteer Accuses Senator of Rape—Trial Begins Tomorrow.” The accompanying article contained just about everything but her weight and bra size.

  “I’m sorry about that,” Tess apologized, “and about the mob scene out front. But I assure you, the leak didn’t come from our office.”

  “I know that,” Karen replied, recalling the personnel files that were kept at the Willmont campaign headquarters. “It was bound to get out, sooner or later. Actually, I’m surprised they waited as long as they did.”

  The stunned, skeptical, supportive telephone calls had begun well before seven o’clock California time.

  Laura called from Boston. “It was all over the news this morning,” she confirmed. “Your name and everything. I couldn’t believe it. It’s so weird, having them talk that way about my own sister. Is there anything I can do?”

  * * *

  “We’ve been following the story for weeks, of course,” Jill Hartman proclaimed from her summer home on Shelter Island, “and we were all positive it was a political setup. We never dreamed it was you.”

  “It’s incomprehensible,” Arlene Minniken Slarsky, the Scarsdale psychologist, ex-Floridian, ex-roommate drawled. “Let’s face it—on the surface, Robert Willmont is an absolute dreamboat who could probably have any woman in the world he wants just by snapping his fingers. It makes you wonder why someone like that had to resort to rape.”

  “A private detective came snooping around here, looking for dirt,” Peter Bauer told her. He had taken his father’s company beyond every expectation and now sat at the forefront of computer electronics. He and his wife had five children and four grandchildren. “I sent him packing.”

  “Thank you for calling,” Karen said. “It means a lot.”

  “Look,” he added awkwardly, “I have three daughters. Each in her own special way has helped me realize how badly I behaved back then. I know I can’t ever make it up to you, but if there’s anything I can do, please, let me know.”

  “Why did they have to say it was you?” Gwen exclaimed indignantly the moment the twins had gone down for their naps. “They had no right to say it was you right out in the open like that.”

  “I guess they thought they did,” her stepmother sighed.

  “I’ll be there tonight,” Jessica declared during a coffee break from her summer job as a hematology intern at a Denver hospital. “I’ve got everything all arranged, so don’t argue.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to come out?” Nancy pressed. “I can at least answer the telephone and the door and keep the press off your back.”

  “We’re with you, dear,” Ione assured her.

  “Hang in there, girl,” Demelza instructed.

  Then the call came from Palm Beach.

  “Are you satisfied now?” Beverly Kern demanded. “Your father’s had a heart attack.”

  Leo had had two small coronaries in the past five years. The doctors recommended bypass surgery, but the seventy-eight-year-old retired dentist didn’t trust their judgment. He was trying, instead, to get his wife to cut cholesterol out of their diet.

  “How is he?” Karen asked.

  “Well, I suppose he’ll live,” her mother conceded, “no thanks to you.”

  “Tell him I’m pulling for him.”

  “Why are you doing this?” Beverly moaned. “At your age, for heaven’s sake, you should know better. You were always a good girl. How could you even think of doing such a dreadful thing to us?”

  “I’m not doing anything to you, Mother,” Karen replied. “I’m doing what I have to do for me.”

  “But what will people say?”

  “Is that really what’s most important—what the neighbors will think?”

  “You may not realize it, but we live in a very small community down here,” Beverly said. “I can’t go anywhere without meeting someone I know. The phone’s been ringing off the hook all morning.”

  “About me?”

  “Well, they ask about your father, of course, but I know that’s not why they’re really calling.”

  “Give Daddy my love.”

  “You’re ruining this family and that’s all you have to say?”

  “Tell him I’ll call him soon.”

  The line went dead.

  “She was just upset,” Ted said reassuringly. “She was probably worried about your father.”

  “Don’t make excuses for her,” Karen replied as she hung up the phone. “She’s been that way her whole life.”

  “Everyone’s been really terrific,” she murmured now as she poured a cup of tea for Tess. “Well, almost everyone.”

  The two women were seated at the table in the breakfast room, at the back of the house, away from prying eyes.

  “Don’t let it get you down,” the seasoned ADA told her. “We’ve still got a long way to go.”

  “What about the jury?”

  “About average, I’d say. One Asian, two blacks, two Hispanics, two Jews, one born-again Christian, one Irish Catholic, two WASPs and an atheist. Four Republicans, eight Democrats, and they’re split right down the middle as far as blue collar/white collar. I think it’s a good enough mix not to make for bias on either side.”

  “So then,” Karen said with a big sigh, “tomorrow’s the day.”

  “Not to worry,” the ADA replied. “We have a strong case.”

  “I just hope I don’t let you down,” Karen murmured.

  Tess smiled in spite of herself. Oddly matched though they were, the two had become close. It amused the ADA that Karen had begun their relationship by fearing the system would let her down, and now she worried that she might fail the system.

  “If you tell it like you told it to Lamar and to me,” Tess reassured her, “you’ll do just fine.”

  Karen sighed and her gaze slid out the window. Ted had taken the afternoon off and he and Amy were out working in the garden, a small walled space at the back of the house, protected by a locked gate from the prying eyes and insensitivity of the press.

  “Have you ever been married, Tess?” she asked.

  “Once,” the ADA replied, “for abou
t forty-eight hours.”

  ‘Two days?”

  Tess half-shrugged. “It was a long time ago.”

  “How long?”

  The attorney sighed. “We met in college. It was one of those cases of instant magic. You know, bells ringing, feet never touching the ground. His name was Eddie—Edward Parker Hilliard. I was there on full scholarship. He was there on full parentship. For three years, neither of us dated anybody else, and the day after graduation, we eloped. It was foolish, I suppose, but so romantic. We dreamed of having a little apartment and going to law school together. Then we came back and told our parents the glorious news.”

  Karen listened intently. Other than an occasional story about her family’s stoop-labor life, Tess never talked about her past.

  “My parents were thrilled,” she went on. “They really liked Eddie. But the Hilliards—well, that was a different story. They were furious. You see, they had no intention of allowing their son to contaminate the bloodline. They tried to buy me off, but I wouldn’t hear of it. Next they tried to buy my father off, with more money than he would earn in his entire lifetime. To his credit, he told them to go to hell. Then they threatened to pull strings and have my scholarship to law school revoked, and finally, they swore they would disinherit Eddie and see to it that he never went to law school, either.”

  Here, she paused for a chuckle, but it held no humor. “I was feisty even back then. I said we didn’t need their dirty money, that we loved each other and we could make it on our own. But I guess Eddie wanted to be a rich lawyer more than he wanted to be a poor husband. Anyway, the next day, his parents began the annulment process and I never saw him again. End of story.”

  “And since?”

  Tess tossed her head. “Too busy to look, I guess.”