Line of Vision

by David Ellis

  The second floor is home to three bedrooms and two baths. One of the rooms is a study, with a black L-shaped desk that hugs the back corners of the room. A computer sits atop the ledge of the desk, next to a series of hardcover books held together by marble bookends. A picture of him and his wife on the wall; he’s wearing a cap and gown, she is smiling broadly next to him, her head on his shoulder. His diplomas are on the wall, Yale undergrad and the state university for his MBA, the name MICHAEL RUDOLPH SPROVIERI emblazoned on each in a thick, fancy font.

  The second bedroom must be the guest room, with an ironing table set up and a twin bed, which sits under a window with a closed blind. On the bed are five opened boxes with various items, mostly clothes, half covered in the wrapping tissue. Holiday presents destined for a return. In a long thin box is a tie, maybe the ugliest I’ve ever seen, a solid purple with one very big silver star in the middle. I try to envision the senile aunt who could have thought this was just darling.

  The master bedroom has the walk-in closets I saw from my little perch outside. There’s the queen-size bed; a water bed, it turns out, as I poke it. The alarm is on the wall by the door, the small light solid green.

  His dresser is next to the alarm. Not much inside. Socks . . . underwear . . . sweaters . . . turtlenecks. His summer clothes aren’t in this room. Probably in the basement. Good.

  I walk over to the window and look out with my binoculars. Highland Woods is really quite scenic this time of year, the snow clinging to the trees, the quiet elegance provided by the winter blanket. But in the dark, there is little to see.

  He has quite a view from this window. I move the binoculars around, peering into house after house. I can see people in their kitchens, their playrooms, even one couple fooling around in their bedroom. Amazing what people will do with the curtains wide open. Don’t they know there are people like me out there? I keep the binoculars moving until I find what I’m looking for.

  I have to stand to the far left side of the window and look almost as far to the right as possible, but I can see it. The oak tree I always stand by, set back about twenty yards off the house, just over the hill that leads down into the woods. The gas grill on the back porch is still there. The little patio table with an umbrella in the middle. Wooden benches around the table, but with one missing on the right side. It’s probably locked up in some evidence room.

  I saw you, Mr. Kalish.

  The sliding glass door has been replaced. From what I heard, the police finished all their investigating of that room about a week ago. Rachel has replaced the door, probably replaced the carpet. I can’t tell, because the curtain is pulled closed.

  He has a phone by his bed. I dial the number and stretch the cord over to my spot by the window. I lift the binoculars to my eyes with my left hand, taking a moment to find her house again. There she is, upstairs in her bedroom, in a green sweater; her long dark hair hangs lifelessly at her shoulders. I hear a click as I watch her pick up the phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Rachel Reinardt?” This time, a southern drawl. I can’t let my voice shake here, though I’m once again knocked on my heels at the sound of her voice. Even when she answers the phone she is so damn sexy.

  “Yes.” A very hesitant yes. Her eyes narrow, her brow wrinkles.

  “My name is Jeffrey Flowers. I’m a reporter for KTEL-TV in Louisiana.”

  “I’m referring all calls—”

  “To your attorney, ma’am, yes, I know. I’m not asking you to say a word to me. Let me just explain my proposition to you, and then you can hang up on me if you like.” I go into some song and dance about a documentary I’m doing that I want to sell to the network, domestic abuse turned bad, and that it will paint her in a most enviable light. I consider reaching for my zipper but decide against it. Can’t be caught with your pants down.

  She lets me go on for about two minutes before interrupting me, thanks but no thanks, and hanging up. She walks away from the window, out of my view.

  41

  MANDY’S PLACE IS A LOFT DOWNTOWN, ON THE West Side, where the smokestacks made room about ten years ago for a few buildings full of yuppies who think they aren’t yuppies, who wanted to walk to work and steer clear of the trendier neighborhoods. Her loft is a thousand square feet on a good day, but the maple floors, cathedral ceilings, and bay windows give it an airy feel. Dinner was my idea, after a long afternoon of going through prosecution files. Mandy declined at first with a smile. The second time she turned me down, she was a little less glib, telling me in as casual a way as she could that it was probably not a good idea. We both have to eat, I said, so why not just grab something quick? So she finally relented.

  Once we agreed, it was only a quick mention of the new Thai restaurant in her neighborhood that turned this quick bite into a long dinner. After a bottle of wine that she ordered, it became an after-dinner drink at her place.

  I compliment her on her condo. She says she bought it less than a year ago, just after her salary skyrocketed from the mid-fifties to six figures at the new firm. Mandy can say these things, talk about her salary and things like that, in a way that I never could. I live my life with a constant shield wrapped around me, a Do Not Enter sign permanently etched on my chest. Mandy’s says Come On In.

  Mandy tells me about her family (two parents, still living, retired in Arizona; two brothers, one playing minor league baseball in Oklahoma, the other teaching high school social studies in Iowa). She tells me about her childhood (tomboy who played baseball and football, moved on to varsity tennis, a scholarship at Iowa State, then law school at Michigan). I find myself fascinated by these things, wanting to know all I can about this woman who is, really, nothing more than my lawyer. I ask questions, make my usual number of wisecracks. It is a truly enjoyable evening, mostly because we have not said a word about me.

  But then there’s the inevitable lull in the conversation. We each sip at our wine quietly. I look out the window at a high-rise, filled with people who have less complicated and happier lives. I notice, more than once, Mandy turning to look at me.

  “I suppose it’s my turn,” I say. “My life story.”

  Mandy smiles. “We don’t have to.” She has seen a glimpse into my world; I’ve given her little tidbits about my father and my background. It doesn’t take someone of Mandy’s intelligence to discern that my least favorite direction is backward.

  “Actually,” she says, “I just wanted to ask you one thing.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Anything.”

  “This may sound like a silly thing to ask.”

  “Pop always said, the only dumb questions are the ones you don’t ask.”

  She gives a perfunctory smile, then turns solemn, curious. Her eyes drop from mine; she runs her finger over the rim of her glass. “Are you afraid?” she asks.

  “Of course I am.”

  “Yeah. Of course. You just don’t seem like it.”

  “It’s the fatalism in me. Like I saw this coming, in some way, some form.”

  That’s the truth. This is Kalish on Life 101: I do not subscribe to the belief that all humans, at their core, are good. I believe that at my core, in the dark recesses that boil deep within, is a cesspool of all that is—for lack of a better word—bad. A literal pool of insecurity, fear, prejudice, anger, revenge, surrender. And life is nothing more than climbing the very steep hill to the promised land, self-actualization, I suppose, or contentment. The hill is rocky, giving me ample opportunity to find my grip as I lift myself against the very strong gravitational force pulling me back down. And when I do fall back, the landing is soft, the pool refreshing and soothing and nourishing. Sometimes I think I will never actually start the climb back up. Not when the water is so warm.

  “I think you’re very hard on yourself,” Mandy says.

  “That’s probably true.” I turn to her now, lifting a leg onto the couch. The doors this woman opens up. “Truth is, Mandy,
there are nights when I stay awake and just cry, and pray, and wonder why this has happened to me. I’m placing my life in the hands of two people who I didn’t know from Adam two months ago. This mess, this whole complicated mess that I live with day in and day out, I am now handing over to complete strangers and asking them to clean it up. It’s rather unsettling, to say the least.”

  Mandy, who has never hidden a single emotion or expression, now looks at me with sad eyes, pursed lips. She tells me resolutely, “We’ll do everything we can.”

  “Oh, I know that. I have no complaints about my lawyers, believe me.”

  “And I’m not a stranger.”

  “No, you’re not.” I smile at her, suddenly sorry that I have cast a pall on the evening. She leans back on the couch and crosses a leg. We stare out toward the window, like two teenage kids staring up at the stars, waiting for a surprisingly awkward moment to pass. No, Mandy, you’re not a stranger.

  “Tell me something you’ve never told anyone else,” I say to her.

  She smiles.

  “If that’s possible,” I add.

  A wider smile, a turn of the head. “I tend to run on a little, don’t I?”

  “No, no. I like that.”

  She sips her wine and mulls this over. This makes a good two and a half bottles we have shared, and any inhibitions Mandy might possibly possess have vanished by now.

  She turns to me, leaning on a cushion with her elbow. “You asked me once why I left the County Attorney’s Office.”

  “‘Change of scenery,’” I say, repeating her words.

  “Yeah, well.” She lifts her glass and takes a sip. Her face grows tense, her eyes glazing over with a haunted stare. Then her stare breaks; she blinks and looks into her drink. “I’ve tried all these cases, right? And sometimes, I’m not entirely sure the guy’s the guy. Don’t get me wrong, ninety-five percent of the cases, I have no doubt in my mind. None. But that still leaves five percent, you know? I’ve got more than probable cause, but I have some doubt. You know, maybe this guy got himself in a pickle, tried to b.s. his way out, one-upped the coppers one time too many and found himself on the wrong side of a charge. What’s one street punk from another anyway? Right? They didn’t do this one, they probably did a lotta others they walked from. Right? The great equalizer.”

  Mandy sits on that. She looks like she’s got a lot more, but she’s holding back, something I’m not used to seeing in her. I prod her on.

  “That’s the mind-set,” she says. “I mean, these people I work with, they’re great, y’know? Great guys, great women. But they’re in this fucking mind-set.” That’s the first time I’ve heard Mandy curse. She raises a finger. “I have never once heard someone explain away an acquittal by saying, hey, maybe the guy was innocent. It’s always, the jury nullified, the guy lied up and down, judge was an idiot, defense attorney was a crook. No one will admit that maybe they were wrong.”

  “Maybe they don’t want to.”

  “That’s right.” Her hands wave, her glass spilling some wine onto the floor without Mandy noticing. “They’re so scared silly that they’re putting someone away for something they didn’t do, they convince themselves that their judgment is infallible.”

  “Mandy—”

  “And most of these defendants—including the five percent—well, they don’t exactly have Paul Riley defending them. These lawyers have a hundred cases a week, they’re running from courtroom to courtroom, checking their calendars in the hallways to remind themselves of who their client is this morning. I’ve had lawyers approach me and say they’re here on the Ryan matter, and point to one of the defendants sitting in the holding cell, and I say, no, that guy’s Manning, and they say, oh yeah yeah, Manning, and they run back to their briefcase and pull a different file. Some of their clients don’t have a snowball’s chance.”

  She takes another sip, her hands shaking slightly. She is staring off now, and as she continues, I wonder if she’s still talking to me.

  “I had a case a few months before I left. Three counts, aggravated sexual abuse. We have testimony from a fourteen-year-old girl that the defendant, her stepfather, had intercourse with the girl. We interview the stepdad. He says she’s lying. He says his stepdaughter has a grudge, they don’t get along. But he swears they never had sex.”

  “Was that true?”

  “I don’t know. He said so. But anyway, we say no, we file on this guy, and we go to trial. We’ve had the girl examined, and we find evidence of a torn hymenal membrane. In other words, proof that this fourteen-year-old girl did, in fact, have intercourse. So obviously, this corroborates her story, and we turn this evidence over to the defense.

  “The stepdad says that the torn hymen proves nothing, because his stepdaughter had had sex many times with her boyfriend. We talk to the boyfriend, who eventually admits to having sex with her. So there is an alternative explanation for the physical evidence. Another reason, besides the stepfather, for the torn hymen. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “Right. Okay, there’s a law in this state that says in a rape case, you can’t introduce evidence of the victim’s past sexual conduct. You know, just because a woman’s had sex sometime in the past doesn’t make her willing for every guy who comes along. It’s a good law, a great law, but there’s an exception for evidence that is so important that justice requires it be admitted. So I’m thinking, the defense has a dead-bang pretrial motion to admit the evidence of this girl sleeping with her boyfriend. It’s not like they’re trying to make her out as promiscuous—they just want to be able to explain to the jury that the torn hymenal membrane does not conclusively prove that the stepdad was the one who had intercourse with her. Of course this evidence should be admitted.”

  She pauses a moment, stifling a sob, then waves her hand about.

  “But is it my job to say, sure, fine, the evidence comes in? No. My job is to oppose them. For the good of the People, you see. I try to keep out all their stuff, they try to keep out all my stuff, and somewhere in the middle lies the truth. A nice little moral whiteout.

  “So it’s time for the pretrial motions. First off, the defense attorney is twenty minutes late, and with Judge Donohan, that means you’re already in a hole. Second, this particular lawyer was once brought up on disciplinary charges, so he’s got strike two. And I know for a fact that Judge Donohan had held this guy in contempt before.

  “So the lawyer makes his motion to allow in this evidence. He starts arguing about this exception in the rape-shield law. The judge doesn’t even let him finish. Dee-nied. Denied! The stepdad has no defense now. He can’t even mention his stepdaughter sleeping with her boyfriend. The jury will hear this physical evidence about the torn hymen, look at this supposedly innocent fourteen-year-old, and say, who else could have been responsible?”

  “Maybe he’ll win that argument on appeal,” I offer.

  Mandy shakes her head slowly and gives a fateful smile. “No appeal.” Her voice is flat. “When he lost that motion, he knew he was dead in the water. His client was looking at twenty-five years minimum. We cut a deal for twelve. You know what my supervisor said? He thought twelve was a little soft.” She lets out a breath. “A little soft. Do you have any idea how child rapists are treated in jail?”

  I touch her arm. “You don’t blame yourself.”

  She laughs. “Just doing my job, right, right.” She empties her glass of wine. “I shouldn’t have opposed the motion. I mean, they probably would’ve thrown me out of the office for letting in prior sex without a fight. But this guy spends at least six years in jail because his lawyer’s watch is slow and the judge hates him.” She bites her lip. “I had the power to do something there, Marty.”

  “Did you really believe the stepdad’s story?”

  “I don’t know. I think I didn’t want to believe him. You get so caught up in the adversarial nature of the thing, you know? I’m the noble prosecutor; anything I do is for the good of the People, but anything the defense does i
s to distort the truth.”

  “That doesn’t sound like you, Mandy.”

  “It’s not me. But I let it become me.”

  I reach out to touch her arm and draw closer to her.

  “The day I left—we’d convicted on an aggravated battery earlier that month. The defense attorney comes into court to file his posttrial motion for a new trial. This is his written motion.” She raises a finger. “Sentence one: The defendant was denied his right to a fair trial. Sentence two: The defendant was denied due process of law. Sentence three: The defendant was not proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The end. No elaboration on the facts of the case. No citation to court decisions. That was the whole motion! This is the representation this guy gets.” Mandy’s shoulders raise. “I—I just couldn’t do it anymore.”

  I edge closer. “There’s only so much one person can do,” I say softly.

  “Well, it wasn’t going to be me. Not anymore.”

  I let my hand rest on Mandy’s arm a second longer, then remove it, as Mandy weeps quietly. Quite a pair, the two of us, two people with unfulfilling careers, the only difference being Mandy did something about it, if only by escaping. Me, I dragged along with no plans to make the bold move, waiting out my days and letting myself believe the fat salary was worth it. I want, like her, to hit the “rewind” button. Even if I’m convicted—Christ, especially if I’m convicted—I want to be able to look back and smile.

  42

  THE BUILDING AT 211 SOUTH WALTER DRIVE IS ONE of the newest downtown high-rises, just a block off the river that provides the western border to the commercial district. Redish Mutual Life Insurance occupies floors fifty-three through sixty-seven.

  The spacious lobby is filled with boutique stores, a couple restaurants, and a decent coffee shop. I walk along the marble floor, past the ATM machines, to the three pay phones. I could walk the path in my sleep by now.