In Self-Defense

by A. W. Gray

  “While we’re on the subject of Linda,” Sharon said, “anything you know, anything you can think of about her background? Skeletons in the closet are dirty tricks, but there’s no really clean fighting in the courtroom.”

  Deb shook her head. “I never really tried to find out about her. I never really wanted to believe she existed. Just what the public was aware of, that she was a newscaster, of course. What the public doesn’t know is that I knew what was going on a long time before the final breakup. Oh, I had her phone number.”

  Sharon thought, then shrugged. “I’m afraid to ask how you got it,” she said.

  “Oh, Bill gave it to me. Whenever he left home to go God-knows-where, usually I didn’t have a clue where he was and didn’t give a damn. But every time he was headed for her place, he’d say, ‘You can call me at Linda’s if you need me.’ God, but he thought that was funny.”

  “It’s hard for me,” Sharon said, “to hear all this just as a lawyer, because I’m also a mother. You’d think he’d have more concern for his kids.”

  “I think,” Deb said, “that it’s inherent in the Rathermore bloodline that the men don’t have concern for anyone with the exception of themselves. What they want in the heat of the moment. The way Rathermore Senior, the old man, worked it, once the children were born the mother was to have no more influence over them. Rathermore children reported to the nannies and to their father. Never to their mother. I believe that one reason Linda’s marriage to Bill lasted as long as it did is that they’ve had no kids. She could devote all of her time to keeping him … occupied. If you know what I mean.”

  “I suppose you’ve done some study,” Sharon said, “on what drove him to be like he was.”

  “I’ve had four million miles of counseling over the past eight years,” Deb said. “I can only tell you what the psychologists tell me. Bill wasn’t good-looking and wasn’t even particularly intelligent. He had this really weak chin, almost no chin at all, shoulders like a sparrow, and a big stomach. He flunked out of three colleges and would have flunked out of a fourth if his father hadn’t died and given Bill the opportunity to quit before he busted out. He had a lot of women, but none of them, including me, ever wanted him because of him. Money’s the only thing Bill Rathermore had going for him. Period.

  “The money gave him power,” Deb said. “He had enough to buy anything he wanted, people included. It’s taken me a long time to face up to what I became during those years, but I finally have. Degrading women, making them grovel before him, would just be another part of the whole.”

  “Of his wanting power?” Sharon said.

  “Control is a better word. He could control me, he could control Linda, he could control his children. He was likely in shock in the moments before he died, that he couldn’t just reach out and control those boys who were beating him to death.”

  “I suppose,” Sharon said, “that when you’d finally had enough of the affair with Linda, that’s when you separated from him?”

  Deb widened her eyes. “Are you kidding? God, no, not Deborah Rathermore the socialite. I just involved myself in fundraisers and whatnot, and let him do whatever he wanted. We finally split three years later, when Midge was eight, and it was Bill who kicked me out, not the other way around. He thought all along that Linda was better suited to the image he wanted to maintain, and when he finally got around to it he got rid of me.”

  “With a big settlement, I suppose.” Sharon said.

  “Yep. And if you can believe it, I fought the divorce for three years. That’s how hung up I was on being Mrs. William Rathermore, I just couldn’t bear the thought of being just plain old Deb again. His lawyers finally made an offer I couldn’t turn down, so I took the money and ran. I get thirty thousand a month for life, and for that mess of pottage I gave up my own children. I’m really the one who should be in jail. Not Midge.” Deb sniffled and dabbed at her eyes.

  “And in all this time you’ve never seen the girls?” Sharon said.

  “Not once. I live in Oklahoma now, right around the corner from my mother and dad. I married once, to a man named North, and it lasted eight months. It seems my second husband was only interested in my money. Is that a turnaround or what?”

  Sharon thought that Deborah North was the most miserable woman she’d ever seen. “You know,” Sharon said, “if we use you as a witness, the prosecution will throw every dart at you that they can. Did Russ tell you that?”

  Deb nodded as she fumbled for yet another Virginia Slim. “I’m ready for whatever. What my daughter thinks is the only thing that matters. I don’t think I can face Midge after I’ve deserted her all this time.”

  Sharon wondered how any mother could get in this situation. She had fought for Melanie since the child’s conception, and knew she would as long as there was breath in her body. “What do you think Linda stood to gain from the affair? The marriage, sure, but …” Sharon said.

  “Taking up with Bill would be just a way of furthering her own public image, I suppose, but I’m only guessing at that.”

  “I don’t see that a highly publicized affair would help her image any,” Sharon said.

  “Come on,” Deb said. “Affairs don’t hurt anybody’s image anymore. It’s the thing to do among the social set.”

  The lady’s got a point, Sharon thought. Affairs were in and with-it, sort of like off-Broadway actors and actresses living together and then amicably splitting the blankets. “So there’s nothing at all you can tell me about Linda’s past?” Sharon said.

  Deb pursed her lips. “Not before she and Bill. There is something that Bill told me once.”

  “Anything about her could help.” Sharon steadied the writing pad on her thigh.

  “Well,” Deb said, “while we were separated, I had a few meetings with Bill. His lawyer, my lawyer, you know? Every time I saw Bill, he’d try to get to me with some kinko sex story. He loved telling me that sort of thing.”

  How could it be more sicko than doing it with his own daughter? Sharon thought.

  “He told me once,” Deb said, “that Linda was heavy into exhibitions. Doing it with other people while Bill watched them.”

  “I’ve heard that sort of thing isn’t that rare,” Sharon said.

  “Tell me about it,” Deb said. “According to Bill, the chauffeur would solicit the men.”

  Sharon sat up straighter. “Do you know the chauffeur’s name?”

  “He’s dead,” Deb said vacantly. “Charles, the chauffeur, he was past seventy when we divorced. No, Bill would want it so no one knew firsthand except him.” She zeroed in on something across the room, near the ceiling. “It would give him control over Linda,” Deb said. “And that’s what Bill Rathermore was all about, you know?”

  12

  After she’d accompanied Deborah North to the exit and said her goodbyes, Sharon had to sit down. Right there in the reception room, she sank into a typist’s chair and hugged herself. She thought that if she ever had to go through what Deborah North had, she’d be a permanent rubber room candidate, and thanked her lucky stars that her own life seemed pretty much in order. Slightly more composed, she crossed over to her office and went in to talk to Russell Black.

  He had his feet up on the corner of her desk, his ankles crossed, and was reading a Publishers’ Clearing House mailer which had been lying on Sharon’s desk for two days. The radio was on very low volume, David Allan Coe’s “Please Come to Boston” like faraway background music. Sharon sat in her visitor’s chair. “Is that some of the important work you had to do when you left us alone?”

  Black slid the come-on letter back inside the bulky envelope and laid the whole mess aside. Ed McMahon beamed at Sharon from near Black’s elbow. “The odds against winnin’ anything from Publishers’ Clearing House,” he said, “are about the same as the odds of beatin’ the state in a criminal trial. Or so a lot of lawyers tell me. You�
�ve got a fan.” He tossed a thick brown envelope over in front of her. “Fella brought this by. He seemed upset that you weren’t here.”

  Sharon picked up the package. The cover was blank, no address, nothing. She undid the clasp and pulled out a set of eighty-by-ten glossies: Sharon on the sidewalk in front of the building, Sharon carrying boxes of files up the steps. Sure, Sharon thought. Bradford Brie, Photographer. The strange-acting guy.

  “He stopped me when I was moving in Friday and took my picture,” Sharon said. “I asked him not to, but he did anyway. He said he was doing an album.”

  “Be careful,” Black said. “There’s a lot of nuts runnin’ around.”

  “I didn’t exactly just get off a load of hay, Russ. I’m always careful. To get down to brass, boss, what would you have done if I hadn’t taken this job? Hunted up another female? Any female?”

  One shaggy eyebrow lifted. His eyes twinkled. “Deb told you about our talk, huh?”

  “I think you should have told me that before you hired me. I thought it was because of my record; now I find it was just because I’m a woman.”

  Black picked up the Publishers’ Clearing House ad and rubbed the edge under his chin. “Let’s just say you fit into the plans real well. But before you get your britches in a knot, young lady, listen to me. It’s true that Mrs. North wanted a female on Midge’s case, but that had nothin’ to do with me hirin’ you. I already had my mind made up on you, sight unseen.”

  “Come on, Russ. I heard about the job over lunch.”

  “And I knew you were lookin’,” he said. “Which is why I put the word out, knowin’ sooner or later you’d hear.”

  “Now you’re being flattering,” she said. “Why would you put me through the interview at all if you were already set on hiring me?”

  “So you could make up your mind. I never go into anything without checkin’ up on it first.”

  Sharon folded her arms. “Checking up how?”

  “By checkin’ up. That’s all you need to know.”

  “It’ll do for now,” Sharon said. If Black thought he’d never hear of the subject again, she had news for him.

  “Good,” Black said. “Now let’s talk about somethin’ important. What did you think of Mrs. North?”

  “That’s one troubled lady. Has she told you all those stories about Midge’s father?”

  “About his crazy sexual outlook?” Black said.

  “Yes.”

  “She told me. Tell you the truth, Sharon, I don’t feel real comfortable discussin’ such with a woman. I’m glad you two ladies could chat.”

  Sharon looked at her lacquered nails. “What she says could fit right in with this plan I’ve got for Midge’s defense.” She cut her eyes upward to check his reaction.

  Black grinned. “Why am I not surprised you’ve got a plan?”

  “I spent some time at the library over the weekend.”

  His smile broadened. “Why am I not surprised at that, either? I hope it didn’t mess up any dates or anything you might have had goin’.”

  “I’ve managed to mess up those sort of plans on my own,” Sharon said. “Have you ever handled a battered-wife case under the new law?”

  “Nope. I’ve read a few things about it.”

  “A lot of convicted women are getting out of prison,” Sharon said.

  “So I’ve heard. Has somethin’ to do with premeditation.”

  “That’s an oversimplification, but yes,” Sharon said. “Hot blood has always been a defense to murder charges. If someone’s killed in a fight, the hot-blood theory makes it an accident. Manslaughter. The law has always been that if the prosecution can show a cool-down period, say you walked around the block after someone threatened you and then sneaked up and blew them away, then the hot-blood defense goes out the window. That’s all changed now where battered wives are concerned.”

  Black interlocked his fingers behind his head and leaned back. “I’ve looked into it. The battered wives, now they can slip up on the old man when he’s asleep, shoot him, and still call on hot blood as a defense, the theory bein’ that they can’t defend themselves while their husband’s beatin’ them up.”

  Sharon nodded. “It’s called the burning-bed law, after the movie with Farrah Fawcett. A few hundred women have already had their convictions reversed and gotten out of prison because of the new wrinkle.” Her tone was excited. When she knew she was onto something, it was all she could do to keep from bursting into song.

  “Okay, I’ll buy that,” Black said. “An old boy that beats up his wife deserves to get shot. What’s all this got to do with Midge Rathermore, though? She dudn’t happen to be married to anybody.”

  “No, but if what she told us about her father and her sister is true, plus if what Deb North says about the father’s sex habits checks out, Midge and her sister are surely going to qualify as abused kids.”

  Black’s eyebrows moved closer together in a confused frown. “That’s really stretchin’ it. Particularly in this fair county, where the defense has got two strikes goin’ in. I’ve never seen where anybody’s tried to apply the battered-wife defense to an adolescent killin’ a parent. I doubt we’d even get a judge to listen to the argument, especially where the little girl’s supposed to have hired somebody to do it.”

  Sharon sat eagerly forward. “There’s precedent for it, Russ. Right in the law books.”

  “Precedent how? This new stuff’s been law less than a year, not even long enough for there to be appellate decisions.”

  Sharon couldn’t resist a mischievous grin. “The precedent’s in a place where Milt Breyer would never think to look, and I doubt that even Kathleen Fraterno would find it. It’s under family law. The same section they used to certify Midge as an adult, by the way.”

  Black continued to scowl, but his features softened some in interest. “This is a criminal case, girl. Family law has nothin’ to do with it.”

  “Family law may not,” Sharon said, “but the Supreme Court of the United States has everything to do with it. What the high court has to say applies to every facet of the law, civil or criminal. Look, you know about the Florida case that’s been on the news, where the kid actually got himself removed from his parents’ home because of neglect?”

  “I saw it on television, along with everybody else,” Black said.

  “This is the same theory,” Sharon said. “Akin v. Akin, it’s an ’87 Massachusetts case. The kid is abused and runs away from home. The court says when the child is the victim of gross abuse, he can have his minor disabilities removed and, for all practical purposes, divorce his parents. They let the kid stay in this foster home where he was living.”

  “Yeah, but he didn’t kill his mother and daddy.”

  “That’s not the way the good old SC worded their decision. They say—and I’m quoting from memory, but the case is on your desk—they say the child can take any measure to protect itself from abuse. It goes back to the constitutional right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of whatever, which is the very same right on which a self-defense exculpation of murder charges is based. And constitutional law, boss, applies in any arena. Civil or criminal.”

  Black was running out of arguments. He said rather weakly, “As a minor, though, our little girl didn’t have any constitutional rights.”

  “That’s right,” Sharon said, “but now they’ve certified her as an adult. If they’d charged her as a minor under the delinquency laws, this wouldn’t work, but now she’s entitled to the same rights as anybody else.” Filling Russ Black in on her research made Sharon excited all over again. Her theory sounded even better under the scrutiny of daylight than it had in the shadows of the law library.

  Black uttered a low whistle. “Jesus H. Christ.”

  “And the twelve apostles,” Sharon said. She pointed toward the door. “Your copy’s over there, boss. Loo
k it over and try to shoot some holes in it.”

  Black thoughtfully checked his watch. “I’m goin’ to look up your cases in the books to make sure you’re not missin’ something.”

  Sharon grinned. “Feel free.”

  As Black headed for the exit, Sharon went around, sat behind her desk, and picked up the envelope containing Bradford Brie’s photos. Just picturing the strange photographer gave her the creeps, but Sharon had enough of an ego not to be able to resist looking them over. Who knew? The pictures might be flattering after all.

  The more that Sharon looked the pictures over, the better she liked them. Creepy as the man with the pipe-stem arms, huge Adam’s apple, and crooked, wide-gapped teeth had been, he wasn’t bad with the camera at all. He was very good, in fact, and Sharon should know; in law school she’d posed for some real pros, people whose photos had appeared in Redbook and Cosmo. Bradford Brie, Photographer, Sharon thought. No address, no phone number. Strange as all get-out, Sharon thought. She wondered where she could get a copy of the album Brie was putting together.

  She took one picture from the stack, set it aside, and slid the rest of the photos back into the envelope. The picture she’d retained was her favorite, the one of herself half bent over from the waist, files on her upturned forearms, showing a wealth of well-formed thigh as she climbed the steps to the office. She particularly liked her expression of concentration in the picture, and admired the way that Brie had caught her at just the right instant. Action photos taken of a moving subject were no easy trick.

  Sharon wondered what it would cost to have the picture framed in chrome. One corner of her mouth tugging in thought, she picked up the Yellow Pages. It might be vain to hang her own picture on her office wall, she thought, but it wouldn’t hurt anything to get a few price quotes. It would give Sharon something to do while Black went over her research notes.

  It took the better portion of two hours, but when Russ Black returned to Sharon’s office he was excited. “I think you’re right,” he said.

  Sharon put her list of framing prices aside and closed the Yellow Pages. “I know I’m right.”