“Gotcha!” Jenna breathed.
“Shit,” Randy sighed.
“The key to the acquaintance-rapist,” the psychiatrist summarized, “is that he is generally attracted to the woman he ends up violating. What he can’t accept is that she might not be attracted to him. Starting usually with his mother, women have always done his bidding, so he has every reason to expect this one will, too. If she resists, he tells himself she must be playing hard to get. In the end, it isn’t that he intends to rape—it’s that he’s psychologically unable to accept rejection.”
“In your opinion, Dr. Linderman,” Tess concluded, “and as an acknowledged expert, does anything in the profile you’ve described excuse the acquaintance-rapist’s behavior?”
“Absolutely not. Once the woman says no, even if the man doesn’t believe her, if he then forces her into compliance, he is guilty of sexual assault, Miss Escalante, no matter what he tries to tell himself, or anyone else.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” said Tess. “I have no more questions.”
“Did I hear you correctly, sir?” Hal Sutton inquired. “Did you say that, even though a man may sincerely believe he is participating in consensual sex, you believe he is guilty of rape?”
“If the woman resists, yes.”
“I assume that’s a medical opinion, not a legal one, or are you also an attorney?”
“No, Mr. Sutton. I’m just a psychiatrist.”
“Well then, as just a psychiatrist, Dr. Linderman, how do you account for all the women we hear about who resist a man because they think they’re supposed to, not because they really want to? Women who need to have men dominate them sexually in order to overcome what used to be considered a gross lapse in morality?”
“Thirty or forty years ago, perhaps, there might still have been women who reacted like that,” the psychiatrist conceded. “Today, I doubt there are more than a handful.”
“But suppose we’re talking about a woman who was raised back then, Doctor—say, a woman raised in the 1950s who still remembers the tenets of her upbringing?”
“Objection,” Tess called. “Calls for speculation. How can Dr. Linderman be expected to speak for women raised in the 1950s?”
“He’s been accepted here as an expert on the psychology of rape, hasn’t he?” Sutton argued. “Did the prosecution mean to stipulate that his knowledge was restricted to one specific decade?”
“You’re still asking him to be a mind reader,” Tess persisted.
“Hardly,” the Silver Fox responded silkily. “I’m simply asking him to speak from the depths of his considerable experience.”
“Objection overruled,” Washington said. “You may answer the question, Doctor.”
“I suppose such behavior patterns could continue up to the present,” the psychiatrist replied reluctantly.
“Thank you, Doctor. Now tell us, as part of your extensive research, have you worked at all with alleged victims of rape?”
“As a matter of fact, the second part of our study is devoted to victims, and we are currently working with a group of women whose attackers were both convicted and acquitted.”
“Let’s talk specifically about those women in your study who exhibited significant injuries as a result of what they claimed were acquaintance-rape encounters, injuries not unlike those being represented in the case now before this court.”
“What about them?”
“Was one of those women named Marion Healy?”
“Objection, Your Honor,” Tess interrupted. “Relevance. What does one particular research subject of Dr. Linderman’s have to do with the matter at hand?”
“I assure the court that I will make the connection,” Sutton said smoothly.
“I’ll allow it,” the judge declared.
Tess murmured something quickly to Anne Jenks in the seat beside her, but the staff assistant already had her eyes narrowed in concentration.
The Silver Fox turned his back to his quarry. “Now, Doctor, I repeat, was one of your research subjects a woman by the name of Marion Healy?”
“Yes, I believe so.”
“And during the course of your interviews with her, what did you learn about the circumstances of her alleged rape?”
“How did you get access to my files?” snapped Linderman.
“I don’t know that I had,” Sutton replied blandly. “The case is a matter of public record. My staff may well have learned about Miss Healy from some other source. Again, Doctor, what did you learn?”
“She admitted that she had encouraged the man to have rough sex with her because that was the way she needed it, and that it was only when she saw how badly bruised she was, and after the man refused to pay for her medical bills, that she changed her mind and reported the incident as a rape.”
“Nevertheless, an innocent man was convicted and sent to jail, wasn’t he, Doctor?” Sutton demanded.
“Your Honor!” Tess protested.
“Mr. Sutton!” Washington barked.
“May it please the court,” Sutton argued. “This expert witness has been called to the stand to give us his learned opinions about rape. I think I have every right to ask him to present both sides of the story to the jury. Prosecution opened the door by referring to the research program, and by basing her witness’s expertise in the field on it.”
The judge sighed. “I think he may have you there, Miss Escalante.”
Tess shook her head in disgust.
Anne Jenks picked up a pen and began to scribble on a piece of paper.
“Again, Dr. Linderman,” Sutton pressed, “Marion Healy, whose bruises described in court appear to be somewhat similar to those of the alleged victim in this case, later admitted that she had participated in, and even solicited rough consensual sex, did she not?”
“Yes, Mr. Sutton.”
“Thank you, Doctor. That’s all.”
“Thank God he was able to get that part of it in,” Mary Catherine murmured from the seat on the other side of Randy.
“I don’t think the judge should have allowed any of that,” Felicity grumbled.
Anne Jenks slid a scribbled sheet of paper over to Tess, who looked at it and jumped up.
“Dr. Linderman,” she said on redirect. “You mentioned earlier that there were four hundred and fifty men in your research program. How many women were there?”
The psychiatrist pulled a notebook from his jacket pocket and flipped through the pages.
“Seven hundred and ten,” he replied when he found the right page.
“And how many of those seven hundred and ten women were the alleged victims of acquaintance rape?”
Linderman peered again at his notes. “Three hundred and forty-two.”
“And how many of those three hundred and forty-two had been injured in some way by their attackers?”
“Forty-eight.”
“All right, in how many of those forty-eight cases did the victim later admit to falsifying the charges?”
“One.”
“Was that one Marion Healy?”
“Yes, it was,” Linderman confirmed. “And I’d like to say something about that, if it’s all right.”
“Certainly,” Tess invited.
“Marion Healy is a disturbed woman who may or may not have been raped. But the man who was first convicted of the crime and then later released when she changed her story is currently serving a twenty-five-year sentence in a Nevada prison for sexual assault and battery.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Tess said. “That’s all.”
“That’s enough,” Janice groaned.
“Way to go,” Mitch exulted.
“What hat did you pull that rabbit out of?” Tess whispered to Anne Jenks.
“I remembered seeing something about it in the Nevada newspapers a while ago,” whispered the staff assistant, who seldom forgot anything she had seen or read or heard.
six
At ten minutes past nine the following morning, Tess got to her feet. “Your H
onor,” she said clearly, “there are a number of character witnesses I had originally intended to call before the court, but in compliance with the defense’s expressed wish for a speedy resolution to this matter, we will present just one more witness. The People call… Karen Doniger.”
With a collective gasp, everyone was suddenly alert. People were sitting up, twisting in their seats, eyes trained on the double doors at the entrance to the courtroom. It was what they had all been waiting for. They had been hearing her name for weeks now, but for many of those present, including the jury, this was the first time they would actually see the alleged victim in person.
A photograph of her, taken from the dust jacket of Tapestry, had been splashed across the front pages of some of the seamier newspapers, and had even managed to creep onto a few respected television channels, but Robert Willmont’s accuser had held no press conferences, made no public statements, and allowed no interviews. Hard Copy, Inside Story and A Current Affair had all been turned away with their hundred-thousand-dollar checks still in their pockets.
The doors opened and, with a watchful deputy on either side of her, Karen entered the courtroom. She paused for perhaps five seconds on the threshold before she squared her shoulders, walked straight down the aisle, looking neither to the right nor the left, and marched resolutely through the bulletproof opening toward the witness box, wedged, as it was, between the judge and the jury.
She was wearing a silk suit in a deep mauve color and an ivory Victorian-style blouse with the traditional high lace collar. At her throat was an opal cameo that Natalie had given her to wear for courage, and on her wrist was a new gold bracelet created by Felicity that Ted had given her.
Jessica had styled her stepmother’s hair back off her face, while Amy kept bringing up fresh pots of tea. Nancy had pressed her suit. And Natalie had fussed for over an hour, choosing just the right shade of stockings and appropriate pair of pumps.
“Nothing too spiky,” Nancy warned. “She should look conservative.”
“And nothing too bright,” Natalie agreed. “We wouldn’t want her to appear flashy.”
Everyone took a hand in her makeup, giving her a little more rouge and a little less mascara and then deciding on a soft-pink lipstick and pale eye-shadowing.
And all the while, Karen stood in front of the full-length mirror and wondered who the woman was who looked back at her. The swelling had gone down around the nose and lip, and the ugly bruises had all but faded, but the cheekbones seemed too prominent, there was something disconcerting about her eyes, and the set of the jaw was new and unfamiliar.
Yesterday, when she had ventured out into the garden for a breath of fresh air, she discovered that a rude reporter had scaled the wall.
“So how does it feel to take down the greatest man in America?” he yelled at her.
Fortunately, Nancy was there to take a broom to him, sweeping him away like a speck of dirt, but Karen was left wondering, for perhaps the thousandth time, if she were doing the right thing.
“… your right hand,” the bailiff had already begun. “Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to give before this court is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”
“I do,” Karen said, her voice clear and firm.
“State your name.”
“Karen Doniger.”
“State your address.”
She gave the number of the house and the name of the street in St. Francis Wood.
“Be seated.”
The chair took her by surprise. It was deep and almost too comfortable for such a formal occasion. She was still settling herself into it when Tess stood up and walked toward her.
“Good morning, Mrs. Doniger,” the veteran ADA said with courtroom cordiality, tempered by an encouraging smile.
“Good morning,” Karen murmured, sitting up straight and folding her hands in her lap.
“To begin at the beginning, tell the court how you came to be working for the defendant’s political campaign.”
“One of the things I’ve done a lot of over the last ten years is move around the country,” Karen replied, remembering to look at the jury as often as possible, as Tess had coached her to do. “I’ve never been very political. I mean, I vote, but not for any particular party, only for a candidate if I like what he or she seems to stand for.”
“As many of us do,” Tess murmured.
“I was raised to believe that the United States was the greatest country on earth, but in some of the places I’ve lived, it would have been impossible not to see that something was going very wrong with the American Dream.”
“An opinion shared by many,” the ADA suggested. “Please continue.”
“It bothered me a lot, but I didn’t really know what I could do about it. After we moved to San Francisco, I became aware that Senator Willmont not only saw what was happening to the country, but believed he knew exactly what to do about it. When he announced his candidacy, I thought—this is something I can do. I can work for someone who understands the problems and might even be able to solve them.”
“So you volunteered at the Willmont campaign headquarters?”
“Yes, two afternoons a week.”
“What did you do there?”
“In the beginning, I stuffed envelopes and ran the Xerox machine and made telephone calls, all the usual volunteer things. But one day, they were rushed for a press release and no one seemed to know what to do, so I just took the material and sat down and wrote something. After that, they started asking me to write more releases and promotional kits, and I even wrote a position paper on hunger. In fact, that’s what I was doing when … when… well, that night.”
“Suppose you tell us, for the record, what it is that you do, and why the campaign staff would trust you to write so much of their material.”
“Well, I don’t really know if it was a big factor, but I’m the co-author of a number of pictorial books on America. My partner takes the photographs and I write the accompanying poetry. Some of the staff members had seen my books, so I guess they assumed I knew how to write.”
“Your last book, Tapestry, was highly acclaimed, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, it was,” Karen confirmed. “It was by far our most ambitious project.”
In the third row on the right side of the spectator section, Nancy smiled, and Ted, sitting beside her, squeezed her hand Demelza looked over her shoulder and winked.
Meanwhile, Tess had taken several steps back toward the prosecution table before she stopped and turned.
“Mrs. Doniger, how many times have you been married?”
“Once,” Karen replied.
“And how long have you been married to your husband?”
“It will be eleven years this November.”
“Have you ever, during that time, had an affair with another man?”
Even though Tess had prepared her for the question, Karen felt herself color. “I was thirty-nine years old when I got married, Miss Escalante,” she said with dignity. “And, unbelievable as it may seem, I never had an affair with another man before my marriage and I have not had one since.”
“A thirty-nine-year-old virgin?” Janice Evans murmured. “I bet there’s one hell of a story in that.”
Beside her, Randy shifted uncomfortably.
“Now, let’s turn our attention to the night of April seventh,” Tess suggested. “Why were you at campaign headquarters so late on that particular evening?”
“I was working on a position paper, the one I mentioned before. The senator had decided to make hunger in America a campaign issue, and he wanted some material ready for a press reception the next day. My daughter was spending the evening with a school friend and my husband was going to be out for dinner, so I was able to stay until I was finished. The senator came in a few minutes before I was ready to leave.”
“Was anyone else there?”
“No. His administrative assistant was there earlier, but
she had already gone. I was alone in the office when he arrived.”
“Tell us what happened.”
Karen carefully recounted the details that had led up to her accompanying the senator to the bar across the street.
“How long did you stay at the bar?”
“About two hours, I think. Long enough for each of us to have three Scotches and share a bucket of steamed clams.”
“What did you talk about?”
“We talked about my books, mostly. When we could.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, the bar was pretty crowded and people wouldn’t leave him alone. They kept coming over to the table. But he seemed to take it all in stride, so I guessed it was like that wherever he went.”
“When you could talk, what besides your books did you talk about?”
“He talked about the campaign for a while, about how well it was going, and about how hard it was to have to be on the road so much, and how lonely it was, and how glad he’d be when it was all over.”
“Anything else?”
“I don’t remember anything else, specifically.”
“All right, what happened after you left the bar?”
“We went back to the parking garage and got into his car and he started to drive me home. The most direct way to get to my house is to go through the park. That’s exactly what we were doing when I got sick.”
“You got sick?”
“Yes. I don’t know whether it was the Scotch or the clams or what, but all of a sudden I got sick to my stomach and I asked him to stop the car for a moment.”
“Did he?”
“Well, he said he couldn’t do anything on the crossover, but he’d stop the first chance he had. I thought he meant after we left the park, but, when we got to the traffic light, which is less than a block before you come out of the park, he suddenly turned left onto Martin Luther King Drive. I said I had to get out and walk a bit, but he said that if I was going to be sick I should have privacy, so he turned up the little road to Stow Lake and stopped there.”
Guilt by Association Page 45
