“Does that mean you and your wife have discussed your intent to commit adultery on less impulsive occasions?”
“Objection,” Sutton called. “What does it matter what he does or doesn’t discuss with his wife?”
“Your Honor,” Tess argued, “the defendant testified that he discusses everything with his wife before the fact. I’m simply trying to determine if he was telling the truth when he made that statement.”
“Your client opened the door himself, Counselor.” Judge Washington sighed. “Objection overruled. But you’re skating on thin ice, Miss Escalante. Be careful.”
“Yes, sir,” Tess agreed, returning to the witness. “One more time, sir: Have you ever discussed with your wife your intent to commit adultery?”
“I was referring, of course, to political issues when I made that statement.”
“Then the decision of whether to commit adultery is not one you discuss with your wife, but one you make on your own?”
“I don’t think that’s what I said.”
“I beg your pardon,” Tess said politely. “What did you say?”
“I said this was an isolated incident,” Robert retorted.
“By ‘isolated,’ do you mean that it was the only time you had committed adultery, or the only time you didn’t have the opportunity to discuss it beforehand with your wife?”
“You’re twisting my words,” the witness objected.
“I certainly wouldn’t want to do that, Senator,” Tess murmured. “So, let me rephrase my question. Have you ever discussed infidelity with your wife?”
“There has never been cause,” Robert Willmont declared.
“What does that mean, Senator? Are you testifying that, aside from your untimely encounter with Karen Doniger, you have never been unfaithful to your wife?”
“I’m saying that I made a mistake, Miss Escalante. One I will regret for the rest of my life. I hurt my wife, I embar rassed my family, and I disappointed a lot of good people who believe in me. I can’t begin to say how sorry I am.”
“For what, Senator?” the ADA inquired. “Are you sorry you raped Karen Doniger—or just sorry you got caught?”
“Objection!”
“Miss Escalante,” the judge admonished.
“I withdraw the question, Your Honor,” the ADA conceded. “Prior to the night of April seventh, Senator Willmont, had you ever been unfaithful to your wife?”
“Objection!” Sutton complained. “Prosecution is badgering the witness.”
“Your Honor,” Tess argued, “this man has painted himself into a Norman Rockwell example of marital devotion and we seek only to confirm or deny its validity. The defense tried its best to portray Karen Doniger as a counterculture nutcase who hunted down the defendant like a predatory animal for no apparent reason. Shouldn’t I be allowed the same opportunity to suggest that Robert Willmont is a man of insatiable appetite who wants what he wants, and is not above taking what he wants, by force, if necessary?”
“She has a point, Counselor,” Washington suggested. “Besides, you could have made a pre-trial motion to exclude prior behavior. You didn’t.”
“Because it wasn’t necessary, Your Honor,” the Silver Fox explained. “Everyone knows that the senator is above reproach.”
“Then your client has nothing to worry about, does he?” the judge declared. “Objection overruled.”
“Prior to April seventh, Senator,” Tess repeated, “had you ever been unfaithful to your wife?”
Randy Neuburg and Mary Catherine O’Malley exchanged worried glances, Janice Evans slid an inch or two lower in her seat, and Elizabeth Willmont sat frozen, afraid that her carefully composed mask might crack.
Across the aisle, the Sullivan Street set held their collective breaths, and those on both sides of the gallery leaned forward just a little so as not to miss a syllable.
“I have a beautiful and loving wife,” Robert replied. “Prior to April seventh, I had no cause to be unfaithful to her.”
A sibilant sigh floated across the courtroom.
“That was slick,” Randy murmured.
“The man’s a born politician,” Mary Catherine agreed.
“He didn’t answer the question,” Felicity protested.
“You noticed,” Demelza observed.
“Hardly a direct response, Senator,” Tess suggested. “But then, I suppose we’ll have to chalk it up to your having been in Washington for so long.”
“Your Honor!” Sutton complained.
The ADA shrugged. “Sorry.”
“Don’t abuse the court’s tolerance, Miss Escalante,” the judge suggested.
“I’ll try not to, Your Honor,” Tess acquiesced, pausing a beat. “Who is Mariah?” she asked the defendant suddenly.
Randy held his breath.
Robert stiffened slightly. “If you mean Mariah Dobbs,” he replied carefully, “she’s a media consultant.”
“Someone you’ve had, or hoped to have, an affair with?”
“Certainly not.”
“I see—she’s just someone whose name you happened to cry out at the height of passion, for no particular reason?”
“Your Honor!” the Silver Fox complained.
“Yes, Mr. Sutton,” Washington agreed. “Move on, Miss Escalante.”
“Yes, sir,” Tess conceded. She took two casual steps away from the defendant. “Not including April seventh, Senator Willmont,” she asked in a clear voice, “how many other women have you raped?”
“Objection!” the defense attorney exclaimed.
“It’s all right,” Robert declared, forestalling the judge. “I don’t mind answering the question. Including April seventh, Miss Escalante—none.”
“None, Senator?” Tess parried. “You mean that you never in your life had to force a woman to have sex with you? They all came to you willingly?”
“I believe they did,” the witness replied. “I wasn’t exactly a monk before my marriage. Like most young men, I sowed my share of wild oats, and I assure you that the lovely young ladies in question, who shall naturally forever remain nameless, were all quite willing.”
“They all freely participated in consensual sex, just as you claim Karen Doniger did?”
“Yes,” Robert assured her. “They did—just as Mrs. Doniger did.”
“To sum up then, Senator: Prior to April seventh, you had never been unfaithful to your wife and, to the best of your knowledge, you have never raped a woman. Is that your testimony?”
“It is.”
Tess smiled, the slow smile of a cat who has cornered a mouse.
In the gallery, Randy frowned uneasily.
The ADA spent the rest of her cross-examination going over the details of the night of April seventh, but her questions were now mostly routine. She already had everything she needed. The rest was just for window dressing.
“How long did you stay at campaign headquarters after Karen Doniger left?”
“I’d say about fifteen minutes.”
“And you said that, while you were there, you read the promotional packet she had prepared?”
“Yes.”
“How large was that packet?”
“Perhaps twenty pages.”
“Would it surprise you to know that the packet in fact contained almost forty pages?”
“I guess it could have.”
“Are you a speed reader, Senator?”
“No, but I can scan pretty quickly when I know what I’m looking for.”
“So it is your testimony that you spent about fifteen minutes in the office, reading, after Karen Doniger left?”
“Yes.”
“Were you in any particular hurry to leave?”
“I was tired, but not in any particular hurry.”
“Not too tired to invite Mrs. Doniger out for a drink?”
“That was a spur-of-the-moment gesture.”
“Yes, so you said. So, even though you weren’t rushing to get anywhere, you scanned almost forty page
s of what you yourself considered to be a vital document and still managed to be at the parking garage in time to help Karen Doniger with her car?”
“I had no way of knowing she would still be there.”
“What would you say if I told you that the log in the lobby of your office building lists Karen Doniger as having signed out at eight-twenty-five that evening, and lists you as having signed out at eight-twenty-nine?”
“I would say that I don’t recall what time it was. In fact, I don’t normally sign the log at all.”
Tess picked up a thick ledger and approached the bench.
“Your Honor, at this time, I would like to introduce into evidence People’s exhibit seventy-five, the log book from the building where the Willmont campaign offices are located.”
Sutton jumped up and came over to authenticate.
“No objection,” he sighed. The log was genuine. His own signature was featured prominently on many of the pages.
“So entered,” Washington said.
“You’re correct about not signing the log that night, Senator,” Tess said. “The doorman has become accustomed to doing it for you, and I’m prepared to call him as a rebuttal witness, if necessary.”
The defendant and his attorney exchanged glances.
“In the interests of time, Your Honor, defense will stipulate,” the Silver Fox said.
“In that case,” Tess continued, “kindly read to the jury the first entry pertaining to you on the night of April seventh.”
“It says that I arrived at eighteen minutes past eight.”
“And the second entry?”
“It says I left the building at eight twenty-nine.”
“So, according to this log, and even assuming you took the express elevator to the twelfth floor, you could not have re mained in the office, reading, for fifteen minutes after Karen Doniger left, could you?”
“I guess not,” Robert conceded.
“In fact, you left immediately after her, didn’t you? Probably by the very next elevator,”
“I wasn’t really paying attention. I certainly wasn’t following her, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“No, of course not,” Tess murmured, taking the log from him and placing it on the evidence table.
“How tall are you, Senator?”
“Six feet two.”
“How much do you weigh?”
“About two hundred and fifteen pounds.”
“Would you say you were in good physical shape?”
“Fairly good. As good as a candidate on the road six days out of seven can be, anyway.”
“And yet you say that a five-foot-six-inch, one-hundred-and-ten-pound woman pinned you against the hood of your car?”
“Yes.”
“You then say that this unbelievably strong, although small, woman dragged you into the bushes and demanded that you perform sexual acts on her and abuse her in the process?”
“Yes.”
“And you obliged her?”
“I’m not proud of it, but yes, I had sex with her.”
“And you bruised her?”
“She begged me to be rough with her. I may have bruised her slightly.”
“Slightly? You consider a black eye, a broken nose, and a split lip that took seven stitches slight?”
“I don’t recall doing any of those things.”
“And you also claim she scratched you, and that it was from passion and not an attempt to fight you off?”
“Yes.”
“And these scratches, were they hard enough to dig into the skin on your chest and cause actual bleeding?”
“Yes.”
“Did it hurt?”
“I suppose it did.”
“Yet you did nothing about it? You didn’t cry out, you didn’t protest, you didn’t slap her, you didn’t pin her hands beneath her to keep her from doing it again?”
“No.”
“You just went right on doing whatever it was you were doing?”
“Yes.”
“And after you had this consensual sex, you simply got into your car and left her there, in the middle of Golden Gate Park, in the middle of the night, with her clothes in shreds, her nose and lip bleeding and no visible means of getting home?”
“I never saw any blood,” Robert protested. “And I would have taken her home. I didn’t want to leave her there. She insisted.”
“She needed medical attention, she was practically naked, her purse was in your car so she had no money for a taxi, or even a telephone call, and yet you want this jury to believe that she insisted on staying where she was?”
“I know it sounds crazy now, but yes, she did.”
At ten minutes after two in the afternoon, Tess finished her cross-examination of the defendant and returned to her seat with a nod to Lamar Pope, who stood at the rear of the courtroom.
“Senator Willmont,” Hal Sutton redirected, “did you rape Karen Doniger on the night of April seventh?”
“No,” Robert declared. “I did not.”
“The Defense rests,” the Silver Fox said.
“Miss Escalante?” Judge Washington inquired.
Tess stood up. “The People have one rebuttal witness, Your Honor. We call Margaret Smith to the stand …”
Sutton looked at his client. The senator shrugged and shook his head.
“… Margaret Holden Smith.”
In the second row of the gallery, Randy and Mary Catherine looked at each other in surprise. At the defense table, Robert Willmont blanched.
“Stop her,” he hissed at his attorney. “Whatever you have to do, stop her.”
“Uh—may we approach, Your Honor?” Sutton cried, jumping quickly to his feet.
Washington nodded and covered his microphone with one hand as he gestured the two attorneys forward with the other.
“What is it, Mr. Sutton?”
“Defense has had no prior notification of this witness. The name does not appear on any of the lists we received. We object to her testimony being presented.”
Tess swallowed a smile. “I apologize for the short notice, Your Honor, but I wasn’t even contacted by Mrs. Smith until yesterday, after court had begun. As soon as possible, after receiving her message, I had my associate notify your clerk about the existence of a potential rebuttal witness. But, until I had the opportunity to interview her in person, which wasn’t until late last night, I couldn’t be sure her information was relevant.”
“The assistant district attorney is correct, Counselor,” Washington concurred. “We did receive notification. She did follow procedure.”
“Then, at the very least, Your Honor, I would want a continuance,” the Silver Fox argued, entirely unsure of his footing, “until defense has had the opportunity to take the witness’s deposition and then has had time to study it and conduct a thorough investigation of its own.”
“And just how long would you anticipate this taking, Counselor?” the judge asked.
“I would think it might take two or three weeks at a minimum,” Sutton estimated.
“Somehow, that’s what I thought you’d say.” Washington sighed. “Miss Escalante?”
“It’s July the second, Your Honor. Even two weeks would put us past the convention, and I seem to recall that the reason I had barely two months to prepare for this case was because defense wanted a resolution before July thirteenth.”
“She has a point, Counselor,” the judge acknowledged.
“May I have a moment to confer with my client, Your Honor?” the defense attorney requested.
Washington nodded.
Tess kept her face carefully blank.
“What the hell is going on?” Sutton demanded with his lips to his client’s ear. “I’m operating blind here. Just how far do you really want me to go with this?”
“As far as you have to,” Robert declared.
“We’re not going to be able to exclude this witness’s testimony. Escalante went by the book. The best we can get
is a continuance that will take us past the convention. What can this Margaret Smith do to you?”
Robert looked at his attorney for a moment. “She can bury me,” he said.
“My client seeks a continuance, Your Honor,” Sutton said, returning to the bench.
“In chambers,” declared Washington, advising the jury and sweeping from the courtroom. “Now, what’s this all about?” he demanded as soon as the door had closed.
“The senator realizes that a continuance will take us past the convention,” explained Sutton, “but he feels his rights would otherwise be compromised.”
“What have you got, Miss Escalante?” asked the judge.
“The senator said, under oath, that prior to April seventh he had never been unfaithful to his wife and had never in his lifetime raped anyone,” Tess responded. “Mrs. Smith is prepared to rebut both statements.”
“Hearsay,” snapped Sutton.
“Not exactly,” corrected the ADA. She turned to the judge. “I believe you know me better than that, Your Honor. I’ve never had a case come back on me.”
The judge nodded slowly.
“Besides,” Tess continued, “had I had the proper length of time to prepare my case, defense would have had all the time necessary to prepare its cross.”
Washington sighed. “Both the district attorney’s office and my office did everything in their power to expedite this trial, Counselor,” he told Sutton, “in order to get you the speedy resolution you not only requested, but demanded. So I’m not particularly inclined to grant you any lengthy delay. But I’ll tell you what I will do—I’ll allow Miss Escalante to present her witness and then, if you wish to take the long weekend to prepare your cross-examination, you may do so. However, I intend to have this case wrapped up and sent to jury by the middle of next week. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, Your Honor,” both attorneys replied.
“Then let’s get on with it.”
“You can’t let her testify,” Robert hissed when Sutton returned to the courtroom and resumed his seat.
“I can’t stop her,” the Silver Fox hissed back. “But we have the weekend to plan a rebuttal.”
Maggie Holden Smith, looking even lovelier than Randy and Mary Catherine remembered, walked to the witness stand and took the oath.
Guilt by Association Page 49
