by A. W. Gray
Fraterno and Milt Breyer were standing near the rail, talking in whispers. Sharon confronted the pair and said, “Kathleen, you’ve got to come off of this.”
Fraterno arched an eyebrow. “What’s ‘this’?”
“You know what I’m talking about,” Sharon said. “That woman arranged the whole thing with those kids and you know it. Let Midge up, Kathleen. Drop the charges.”
Milt Breyer stepped between the women. He wore his best man-for-the-people charcoal suit, spotless white shirt, and pale blue tie. His hair was sprayed as if sculpted in place. “You’re just a bit out of school talking to us like that, Miss Hays. Have you lost your mind?”
Sharon was suddenly so angry that her buttocks twitched. Her eyes flashed fire. “You shut up, Milt, or I’ll kick your balls right here and now.” She backed up a half step, like a field goal kicker preparing to launch one.
“Jesus, I—” Breyer said, then looked at Sharon closely. His complexion paled. “You’re asking for trouble if you do something like that,” he said. Sharon thought for an instant that the prosecutor was going to defensively cover his crotch, but he merely folded his hands in front and stepped out of the line of fire.
“Keep out of this, then,” Sharon said, then faced Fraterno. “This is between you and me, Kathleen. It has nothing to do with legal bullshit, movie deals, or anything else in this case that’s gotten in the way of justice. Midge didn’t do this, Kathleen. This poor, overweight, abused little girl didn’t any more cause Rathermore’s death than you did. Now, let her go.”
Fraterno’s features softened for just an instant, and a tear formed in one corner of her eye. Then she firmed up her mouth. “No go, Sharon. You having problems or something?”
Sharon’s fists clenched at her sides. “It’s on your conscience, dear,” she said, “and I wouldn’t trade places with you for all the tea in China.” Without another word she spun on her heel and stalked away. She’d been within an inch of attacking Kathleen Fraterno right there and doing her best to pound the prosecutor into a pulp. The only thing that had stopped her was a fleeting image of Midge superimposed over a picture of Melanie in her ballet costume, and a glimpse over Kathleen’s shoulder at Rayford Sly, grinning at her from the spectator section. Would that have been a great scene in the picture or what? Sharon thought.
Midge was handcuffed to a chair in the conference room adjacent to the holding cell, her round shoulders slumped, eyeing her lawyers with moist but uncaring eyes. “I hated Daddy,” she said in a monotone. Loose flesh sagged beneath her chin.
“Baby,” Sharon said. “Oh, God, baby, listen to me. We know how you felt about him, and no one’s going to blame you. But you’ve got to tell what went on between him and Susan and those other kids.”
The teenager’s face twisted into a pout. “I don’t want to tell anything about that fucking Susan. I hate her, too.”
The hallway door opened, then closed. Sharon turned. Sheila Winston stood nearby, her pretty face drawn in concern. Sharon swiveled her head and said to Midge, “If you don’t help us, we can’t help you. Midge, don’t you know that Linda planted the whole idea in those boys’ minds? It was someone else’s doing, not yours. Please, sweetheart …”
“Was not. It was not that stupid Linda’s idea. I hate her, too. Hate them all.” Midge folded her arms and pursed her lips. “I don’t want to talk anymore.”
Russell Black sat nearby, stone-faced and helpless. Sheila sank into a chair on Sharon’s right.
“Midge, Leslie Schlee told us those boys were first to bring up killing him,” Sharon said.
“Did not. Leslie knows better. It was me.” Midge’s upper lip curled. “I don’t think I like you anymore. Go away.”
“Good God, Midge.” Sharon buried her face in the palms of her hands. She wept.
Sheila’s touch was tender but firm on Sharon’s arm. “I’ve got to tell you, sister, you’re hurting more than you’re helping. Sessions like this will only make her regress.”
Sharon angrily raised her head. Her makeup streaked, she said, “Dammit, Sheila, I have to …” Her words trailed off. Sheila’s expression showed as much feeling for Sharon as it did for Midge, if not more. Sheila squeezed Sharon’s hand and lowered her gaze.
“I don’t know anything about the legal aspects,” Sheila said. “But you’re not going to get her off dead center, and any progress she’s made, this can take her right back to ground zero. She’s simply not going to be any help, period.” Midge now stared at a point in the far corner as though she were alone in the room. If Sheila’s words had any effect on the teenager, it didn’t show.
Sharon sniffled and dug in her purse for a handkerchief. “It means we’re beaten, Sheila. It means we don’t have a chance to save this child.”
Her insides mush, her posture the epitome of abject despair, Sharon stood off to one side and let Russell Black handle the bench conference. She glanced at Fraterno, caught an almost indiscernible quiver in Kathleen’s lower lip. Milt Breyer looked pompous and pleased with himself.
“We’ll talk about it in the jury instruction conference, Mr. Black,” Sandy Griffin said with understanding, “and I’ll even go over transcripts of the testimony if you’d like. But I don’t recall a single piece of evidence that either Miss Rathermore or her sister suffered any abuse, sexual or emotional, and lacking such evidence, I’m powerless to so instruct the jury. I need to dismiss the jury now, for the remainder of the day, and we’ll go into chambers for the conference.”
“How ’bout Linda Rathermore’s testimony, Judge?” Black said. “I think somebody would infer abuse from—”
“Inference isn’t evidence, Mr. Black. I’ve issued a bench warrant for the woman, and that’s all I can do. I can’t force the district attorney’s office to press charges against Mrs. Rathermore”—here she shot a nasty glance at Fraterno and Breyer, who simultaneously bowed their heads—“but I can assure you that if they don’t, I can make things uncomfortable for them. Now, as for the conference—”
There was a loud disturbance at the rear of the spectator section. Griffin interrupted her speech and glared. Woodenly Sharon turned toward the noise.
“Bailiff,” Judge Griffin said loudly and sternly, “I’ve told you over and over not to admit anyone once this trial is in session, other than witnesses. Now tell those people the courtroom is full, and that they’re to wait outside in the—”
Sharon’s dull gaze fell on the bailiff, who stood just inside the entry with his hands spread apologetically, then shifted to the wiry, honey blond woman on the bailiff’s right. The woman, erect in posture, athletic of build, was Virginia Schlee.
Sharon’s heart stopped and her stomach jumped into her throat.
And the bailiff said, “I’m sorry, Judge, but they say they’ve got to see—”
As Sharon looked even farther to her right at Leslie Schlee, Leslie demure and coed-like in a navy blue dress with a sailor collar, holding hands with—
“—Miss Hays. Say they’re supposed to be witnesses or something. I told them about your rules, but they—”
—Curtis Schlee, all arrogance gone from his bearing, Curtis Schlee alongside his daughter in a plain blue suit, his gaze on the floor. He looked up, locked gazes with Sharon, and mouthed silently, “Put her on.”
“—just wouldn’t listen,” the bailiff finished.
“I’ll deal with this in a minute,” Judge Griffin said, then whispered, “Sorry, Mr. Black. What were we saying?”
So intent was Black on his argument that he hadn’t even glanced to the rear. Kathleen Fraterno had, however, and her jaw dropped nearly to the floor. Black said, “Judge, I think we need to be afforded every chance to—”
Sharon stepped up and yanked on Black’s sleeve so hard that she jerked him off balance. Black righted himself, his features twisted in surprise. Sharon said fervently, pointing, “Back there,
boss. Look back there.”
Now Black turned, surveyed the rear of the courtroom, gaped in shock, then practically gave himself whiplash as he whirled to face the bench. “It ain’t over, Judge. We got another witness to call.”
“Objection, Your Honor,” Kathleen Fraterno said. “This is irregular as it can be.”
46
Leslie Schlee faced a spellbound jury and an equally mesmerized, jam-packed seating section as if the crowd wasn’t even there. She sat demurely in the witness chair, her knees together schoolgirl style, her fingers intertwined in her lap, and paid heed to only three people: Sharon Hays, who tenderly conducted Leslie’s direct examination from her chair at the defense table, and Leslie’s mother and dad, wedged in alongside Deborah North on the second-row aisle. The pretty adolescent answered Sharon’s questions in a bell-clear voice, and after each response glanced toward her parents for approval. Sharon took a break, poured herself a cup of water from a chrome carafe set before her, and glanced over her shoulder. Virginia and Curtis Schlee were holding hands. Sometimes things work out, Sharon thought.
She returned her attention to the witness. “As best you recall, Leslie, how long did these activities continue?”
“I beg your pardon?” A polite tone, reflecting upbringing.
“These sessions over at the Rathermores’ house.”
“You mean, the sexual stuff?”
Visible in the periphery of Sharon’s vision, one female juror winced. Sharon didn’t blame her. The story Leslie had related was excruciating to hear. “Yes,” Sharon said. “I guess it was … my first time over there, I was fourteen. All the kids at school, they’d been talking about it for a long time. I went over there until Mr. Rathermore got … you know. About a year and a half.”
“Until Mr. Rathermore got killed?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And during that entire time,” Sharon said, “the only member of his own family that Mr. Rathermore took to bed was his younger daughter, Susan?”
“That’s right,” Leslie said.
“Never Midge?” On Sharon’s right, Midge had buried her face in her crossed forearms.
“Midge, no. She tried, even tried to get in on it a few times, but he wouldn’t let her.”
“Oh? And why was that.”
Fraterno offered a lame objection. “The witness cannot know Mr. Rathermore’s reason for—”
“I’ll withdraw and rephrase the question,” Sharon said rather testily. “Why did Mr. Rathermore say he didn’t want sex with Midge?”
“He told us,” Leslie said, her eyes down, “that she was too fat.”
“And did he say so in front of her?”
“All the time. He called her piglet and made her wait on the rest of us. Bring us dope and stuff.”
“And as for Susan,” Sharon said, “was she a willing participant?”
“In the … ?”
“Yes, Leslie. In the sex.”
“She didn’t fight it or anything,” Leslie said. “Sometimes she’d cry, but he’d just laugh at her. The other kids, they’d laugh at Susan, too. We were high all the time, most of us.”
Sharon glanced at her watch. Leslie had been on the stand for nearly two hours. The story was pretty well told, but Sharon had one point to reaffirm. “One last time, Leslie. You’re positive, absolutely certain, that when the discussion of killing Mr. Rathermore came up in the living room, it was Troy Burdette who first mentioned it.”
“Oh, yes, ma’am. I couldn’t be mistaken about that.”
“And Midge didn’t draw him into the conversation, or … ?”
“Troy. It was all troy,” Leslie said.
“Thank you, Leslie. I know this has been as difficult for you to tell as it was for us to hear. Pass the witness, Your Honor,” Sharon said.
There was pin-drop silence. Judge Griffin bit down on the end of a ballpoint, her eyes glazed. The jurors seemed limp. Sharon herself was weak as a kitten.
On the prosecution side, Fraterno and Breyer were bent close to each other, whispering. She vigorously shook her head. He held up a hand, palm out, in her direction, then said to the judge, “I’ll cross-examine this witness, Your Honor.” Fraterno pointedly closed her file and stared off into space.
Griffin looked stunned. “Be my guest, Mr. Breyer.”
He sat with his back straight as a ramrod and pyramided his fingers beneath his chin. “Miss Schlee, don’t you think it’s pretty convenient for you to have this sudden recollection after all this time?”
Leslie gave him a coquettish look of contempt. “It’s the same thing I’ve always said.”
“Oh?” he said. “Said to whom, Miss Schlee?”
Sharon tightly crossed her fingers. Breyer was a bumbling idiot in the courtroom, but just the kind of bumbling idiot to intimidate the dickens out of this child.
“I told my daddy,” Leslie said. “I also told the policeman you—”
“Your … daddy. Miss Schlee, have you had any contact with Midge Rathermore since she’s been in jail?”
Leslie’s gaze shifted slightly. “Yes.”
Sharon tensed. Black inhaled loudly.
“She calls you, right?”
“Sometimes.”
“And during these phone calls, have the two of you discussed the testimony you’ve just given?”
“No, I—”
“Or more to the point,” Breyer said, “has Miss Rathermore promised you any rewards for what you were going to say? Midge Rathermore is good at promising rewards, Miss Schlee, isn’t she?”
Sharon rose to object. Black stopped her with a hand on her forearm. “Let him hang himself,” Black murmured.
“I wouldn’t know about that,” Leslie said stiffly.
“Well, Miss Schlee,” Breyer said. “Please tell the court. And the jury. Exactly what did you and Miss Rathermore discuss?”
Leslie licked her lips, her eyes darting from side to side. “I … we …”
“What did you discuss, Miss Schlee?”
At that instant Midge looked up. Leslie watched the overweight girl for a second, then showered Midge with a tender smile. “I told Midge that if she needed a friend, I’d be there. Midge never had any friends. A girl like her needs them.”
Breyer’s face appeared frozen, and for an instant Sharon wondered if old Milt might be having a stroke. He looked at Fraterno. She ignored him, her head down, her cheeks the color of ripe plums. Two jurors—the gray-haired woman and a motherly type in her thirties—favored Leslie with looks of sympathetic nuns. Breyer thumbed furiously through his notes. Air escaped his lungs and his chest fell like a deflating tire. “No further questions,” Milton Breyer finally said.
Leslie stepped down, and Virginia and Curtis Schlee followed their daughter outside, mother, father, and child with hands firmly joined. Russell Black rested the case for the defense; Sandy Griffin dismissed the jury for the day, then told the lawyers that in the morning they’d have closing arguments: thirty minutes for the prosecution, an hour for the defense, then an additional half hour for the prosecution’s rebuttal if the DAs felt they needed the time. Sharon was drained, and even glad her courtroom work on the trial was finished. Russell Black would do the closing argument, of course. He was the best there was.
The two left the courtroom amid a hail of newspeople’s questions from all sides, minicams trained on the pair, Sharon smiling and shaking her head as she issued one no-comment after another. As she excuse-me’d her way around Andy Wade, she paused and narrowed her eyes.
Stan Green had Curtis Schlee cornered near the elevators, his chin just inches from Schlee’s nose, his jaw working nonstop, his face the picture of angry animation. Virginia and Leslie stood nearby in silence, Virginia’s arm protectively around her daughter’s shoulders. As Sharon quickened her pace and moved in the direction of the arguing men,
Green waved a finger in Curtis Schlee’s face.
Russell Black beat Sharon to the punch. His long legs covered the distance in four strides, and the veteran lawyer moved up to shove the detective roughly aside. Green stood his ground and pointed at Curtis Schlee, Schlee cowering against the wall, his face pale through his tennis tan. “I was talking to him,” Green said.
“Maybe you were,” Black said, his fists clenched, “but now you’re talking to me.”
“I’ve got no business with you,” Green said.
“Well, you might have,” Black said. “I can’t stop you from getting together with the feds to railroad this man, but two things. Number one.” He held up a finger. “I guarantee you that if Curtis Schlee’s indicted over that savings and loan bullshit, I’m callin’ my first press conference in twenty years and tellin’ the newspapers exactly what you people did to try to keep his daughter off that witness stand. And number two,” he said, lowering his hand to his side, “in any federal charge Curtis Schlee’s got himself a free lawyer if he wants it.” He turned to Schlee. “I don’t know if you’d want me or not, Curt. But the offer stands if you’re interested.”
On her drive home, Sharon came somberly down from her feeling of being high. The ghost of Bradford Brie still haunted her—though she’d managed to shove his death and the cloud it had left hanging to the back of her mind—but that wasn’t her problem. It was the trial itself, and the deep-set notion that things had simply gone too easily. Far too easily. By the time she parked in her driveway, she had convinced herself that something was about to go wrong.
47
The something which was about to go wrong jumped up and slapped Sharon’s face the following morning as the bailiff brought Midge in from the holding cell. Or if slap wasn’t the proper word for it, the sensation was certainly more than a gentle nudge.
As Midge timidly took her seat, Sharon’s insides sagged in pity. All through the trial Midge’s appearance had improved on a day-to-day basis. The teenager was never going to be pretty; the years of obesity had left too much loose skin on her body for her to ever have a model’s figure, but during her comings and goings in the courtroom, her grooming had gone from good to better to marvelous. Just yesterday, when the man from Kansas City had taken the stand, Midge’s hair had been soft as silk and combed into luxuriant waves. Now, though, as she came into court for final arguments, her appearance had gone to hell in a hand basket.
