by David Ellis
“Mrs. Reinardt, do you know the defendant?”
She turns to me. She needs me, still, she is saying. Still. Hold me, make this go away for me.
“Yes,” she says.
“When did you first meet him?”
“Marty started working at the foundation about a year ago.”
“How did you first meet him?”
She pauses, her mouth opening slightly. “I think it was at my house. My husband and I would have the volunteers over from time to time. We wanted to express our appreciation for all of their hard work.”
“And when was this first meeting with the defendant?”
“Probably close to Christmas, the year before last.”
Ogren leans forward. “Mrs. Reinardt, I’ll have to ask you to keep your voice up.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, raising her chin.
“Did you notice anything unusual about him?”
“No. He was a nice young man.”
“Did you work closely with him at the foundation?”
“Not at first. Marty worked on the fund-raising committee. My husband was more involved in that side of the foundation. I was more involved in the projects.”
“All right. Now, I want to take you to March of last year. Up until that time, had you worked closely with the defendant?”
“No.”
“In March of last year, did the foundation hold a fund-raiser?”
“Yes, we did.”
“Can you describe the fund-raiser?”
Her head makes a half turn to the jury. “The Pierce Museum lent us their Prehistoric Room. It’s the biggest room in the museum. We had over a thousand people on hand. Politicians, business leaders. From around the country. It was our most ambitious fund-raiser to date.” Her pride in her work lifts her voice, for the first time today, above the flat monotone.
“Do you recall if the defendant was present at that fund-raiser?”
She nods.
“Please give a verbal answer, Mrs. Reinardt.”
“Yes. Marty was there.”
“Did you speak with him that night?”
“I spoke with him briefly during the party. I really can’t recall what was said.”
You have to be the youngest person in this room, Mr. Kalish.
“It was just small talk.”
“Did there come a time that evening that your husband was called away?”
“Yes. He was called off to surgery at the hospital.”
“And he left?”
“Yes.”
“What time did he leave?”
“About ten-thirty.”
I’m sorry your husband had to leave.
I don’t think he’s sorry.
“But you stayed.”
Rachel nods. “I stayed until the last guest left.”
“And that was what time?”
“Maybe a little after eleven.”
“Mrs. Reinardt—please—keep your voice up?”
Rachel shakes her head lightly. “I’m sorry. A little after eleven.”
“Great. Did you speak with the defendant at any time after your husband left?”
“Yes.”
Are you going to get home all right?
Why, Mr. Kalish, are you offering me a ride home?
“He approached me shortly after my husband left. He asked me if he could give me a ride home.”
“How did you respond?”
“Well. My husband had taken the car. I needed a ride home.”
“Did you accept?”
“Yes.”
“When did you leave with the defendant?”
“Oh. Eleven-fifteen, maybe.”
“Okay. You went to his car?”
“Yes. We walked to his car, and he drove me home.”
“Did you have a conversation in the car?”
Rachel nods, her eyes fixed on the floor.
“Please give a verbal response, Mrs. Reinardt.” Ogren’s tone has hardened somewhat. He had to know Rachel would be less than enthusiastic today, but he seems concerned with her attitude.
“Yes, Mr. Ogren, we had a conversation in my car.”
“What did he say to you?”
She looks up over Ogren’s head, staring off for a moment. Slowly, her eyes fall to her lap. “He said I was—I was attractive. Things like that.”
That didn’t happen. I start to fall back in my chair but catch myself. She has to give them something. I knew this. I knew this.
“Did you respond?”
She shakes her head, her eyes glassy.
“Mrs. Reinardt? Did you respond?”
“No.”
“Did he say anything else?”
Rachel wets her lips. “He said my husband—he—didn’t appreciate me.”
She has to give them something.
“Did he say anything else?”
“Well. He did say—he asked me for a tour of my house.”
Have you ever been to our house, Marty?
Would you like a tour?
“He asked to come inside your house?”
“Yes.”
“Did you agree to that?”
“Not at first. But he asked again. I didn’t want to be rude.”
“So you went inside with him?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“I—I started showing him around. But he—he just walked into the den and sat down. He asked me to fix him a drink.”
“Did you?”
“Well, yes. I did.”
“Where was he sitting?”
“On the couch.”
“And you?”
“The couch.”
“Right next to him?”
“No. But—he moved right next to me.” The jurors are leaning forward now, straining to hear Rachel.
The judge steps in. “Please keep your voice raised, ma’am.” Rachel nods.
“Okay.” Ogren’s voice has softened now. It doesn’t take a genius to see what’s coming. “So what did you two do? Did you talk?”
“We talked. We”—she lets out a sigh and blinks rapidly—“he was a little forward.”
“Can you explain that?”
Rachel closes her eyes, reliving a painful fictitious moment. “Could I—could I have a glass of water?”
“Certainly,” Ogren says, and the bailiff helps Ogren with the pitcher of water that rests on the clerk’s desk, to the left of the judge.
Rachel accepts the glass and sips slowly before continuing. “He touched me. Maybe he—put his hand on my leg. I think he said I was attractive.”
“You think or you know for sure?” Ogren might as well wave the immunity agreement in her face—comply or else. The harshness of his tone does not play well with the jury or with me, but Ogren is calculating here that he has to lower his thumb a little.
“I know for sure,” says Rachel.
“Okay. Now, when the defendant touched you, and put his hand on your leg, and told you that you were attractive, how did you respond?”
“I didn’t.”
“Did you tell him to get out?”
“Well. It was more like I didn’t respond to him. He would back off and apologize.”
“But then . . .”
Rachel sighs. God, she’s doing everything she can here. “Ev—every so often he would do it again.”
“Okay. How long did he stay?”
“A while. He had three drinks.” She looks at the jury a moment, then back at Ogren. “I should have just told him to leave. I know that. It was just—it never got confrontational. He would make a pass and then back off. I didn’t really know what to do.”
“That’s fine, Mrs. Reinardt. We can stop talking about that now.”
“Thank you.”
“Following this evening, did you see the defendant again?”
She takes a deep breath. She nods, staring off into space.
“Can you give a verbal answer, Mrs. Reinardt?”
She focuses on Ogren aga
in. “I’m sorry. Yes.”
“When did you next see the defendant?”
Rachel looks reluctantly over at the jury box. “We have after-school tutoring programs. Monday through Friday. He showed up at the Monday program.”
“That following Monday?”
“Yes.”
“Did that surprise you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He wasn’t on the schedule.”
“Schedule?”
“These programs start at four o’clock. We fit each child in once or twice a week for two hours. The volunteers have to leave work early to make it. And most of them can’t be there but once a week, at most. So we have a schedule. We try to match up children with adults, to provide some measure of continuity. It’s set long in advance.”
“But the defendant just showed up?”
“Yes.”
“So what did you do?”
“I thanked him for coming, but I explained to him that the schedule was filled.”
“What did the defendant say?”
“He said that was fine. He would just help out however he could.”
Ogren looks up from his notepad. “Were those his exact words?” he asks.
Rachel looks down. “No.”
“What were his exact words, if you can remember?”
Rachel shuffles her hands in her lap. “He said he would be my personal assistant.”
Ogren pauses, so the jurors can finish scribbling this down in their notebooks. “So, what happened next?”
“Well, we serve dinner every evening. So he helped get the food together.”
“Was he working near you?”
She nods. “Yes.”
“Can you describe your interaction?”
She looks at me briefly, no visible expression except a slight turn of her eyebrows. She’s apologizing. Then she fixes on Ogren again. “He stayed very close to me. He would—touch me. He—put his hand on my shoulder. Things like that.”
She has to give them something.
Ogren nods solemnly. “Did he talk to you?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say to you?”
“He talked about the Saturday before.”
“Can you be more specific?”
She stares at him, then closes her eyes. “He said we could have had a lot of fun that night.”
“Did the defendant say anything else?”
Rachel clears her throat, bringing a fist to her mouth. “He said maybe we could try again sometime.”
I make a couple of fists myself and rest them under my chin. I can’t keep my legs still; my feet drum nervously on the wood floor. My mind is racing now, almost as fast as my heart. I want to get out of this chair so desperately. Take Rachel and run from the courtroom, run from this city, run from our lives.
74
RACHEL CONTINUES TO TESTIFY ABOUT SEVERAL foundation functions where I showed up. At all of these events, she says, I pretty much just stayed close to her. It made her feel uncomfortable, she admitted. She did everything she could not to encourage me. But I started becoming more insistent. I would ask her to dinner. I would assure her that her husband would never know a thing. She also talks about the night that her maid testified about, when I cornered her in the kitchen and asked her why she was avoiding me. And her English is quite good.
I watch the jury, trying not to be too obvious about it. They are troubled. Most of them have stopped taking notes and just watch her. The almost clinical aspect with which they have observed most of the witnesses is replaced by genuine empathy. Concern. The evidence against me has not been too strong, but Rachel’s testimony, collectively, is beginning to hurt a little. She’s trying to hold back for my sake, but I wonder if the jury is picking up on that, too. Paul told me all along that if the jury thinks I was in love with Rachel—supplying an obvious motive for murder—this would go a long way to gloss over other deficiencies in the state’s proof.
Rachel finishes talking about the foundation basketball league, one time last September when I put my hand on her leg and told her I wanted to see her afterward. I can just imagine how it played out when they interrogated her. They had a full schedule of foundation activities, went through them one by one, and put it to her. Did you see him at this one? What did he do? What did he say? God, what she must have gone through.
Roger Ogren flips over his notepad on the lectern. “Other than seeing the defendant at foundation events, did you ever see him anywhere else?”
Rachel nods somberly. As the testimony has worn on, her resolve has begun to fade. She is fighting Ogren less now. Maybe she has realized, too, that she is better off being matter-of-fact about these things. God, I’m so sorry I put her in this spot. “I saw him outside my house,” she says.
“He was outside your house?”
“Yes.”
“When did this start?”
“September.”
“Of last year?”
“Yes.”
“Tell us about the first time you saw him outside your house.”
“It was nighttime. I was upstairs, and I went to close the bedroom shade. I happened to look outside, at the backyard. And I saw Marty standing there in the lawn.”
“What did you do?”
“Well—I didn’t do anything. I was shocked.”
“Did the defendant do anything?”
“He saw that I saw him. He waved to me.”
“That’s it?”
“No. He motioned to me to come outside.”
“Did you?”
Rachel shakes her head no. “I closed the shade.”
“Did you call the police?”
“No.”
“Why not, Mrs. Reinardt?”
Her face softens. “I didn’t want him to get in trouble.”
“I understand. Did you ever see the defendant outside your house again?”
“Yes.”
“How often?”
“Oh, I don’t know.”
“Every night?”
Her lips part, then she shakes her head. “I’d say three, four times a week.”
“How do you know that?”
“I looked outside every night.”
“How long did this continue?”
“It—well, until the day my husband disappeared.”
Ogren lets this one sink in. The real estate agent in the jury box sits back in his chair and shakes his head grimly.
“Did you ever call the police?”
“No.”
“Never? This whole time?”
She shakes her head forcefully. “I was stupid, I guess.” She holds out a hand. “I thought the whole thing was harmless.”
“Mrs. Reinardt, did you ever talk about this with the defendant?”
She looks at the floor. “Several times.”
Oh, Rachel! You’re saying this?
“What did you say?”
She told me to quit doing it, I suppose.
“I told him to stop.”
“And how did the defendant respond?”
“He said he wasn’t hurting anybody. He said, ‘I can look, even if I can’t touch.’” Her face turns sour as she repeats these words. This gets a few raised eyebrows from the jury. Many of them scribble in their notebooks, no doubt repeating this phrase verbatim.
Ogren nods sympathetically. Then, quietly, “Did the defendant say anything else?”
“Not that I recall.”
Ogren bends his knees slightly, impatient with his witness. “Did he mention your husband in this regard?”
Rachel sighs audibly. “Oh. Okay. Yes, he did.”
“Describe that, please?”
“He asked if my husband knew about it.”
“Did your husband know about it?”
“I didn’t tell him,” she says. “I thought it would make matters worse.” Her face contorts, tears form. “God, I was so stupid.” Her eyes close. Finally, she brings a hand to her eyes and sobs quietly.
Mandy leans over to me and whispers. “What does she mean by that? Stupid?”
Ogren is in no hurry to ask the next question. The jury is captivated, and he is happy to sink into the woodwork. Even the judge, who normally looks forward impassively while he listens, has turned to watch Rachel. The prosecutor asks Rachel if she would like to take a recess. She waves him off without speaking.
Rachel finally manages to compose herself. She wipes her cheeks with a tissue from her purse and takes a deep breath.
“Mrs. Reinardt,” Ogren says softly, “I want to talk for a minute about your relationship with your husband. Can we do that?”
Rachel fixes her hair and breathes through her mouth. “Yes.”
“Okay. Did you have a good relationship with your husband?”
She lingers on that question. “We loved each other. We had our problems as well.”
“Can you please discuss some of the problems?”
“My husband was a heart surgeon. He performed surgeries of many varieties.”
“Were these life-and-death cases?”
“Often.”
“And from time to time, did some of his patients—did some of them fail to—”
“He lost some of them.” Rachel’s eyebrows flitter, the only sign of emotion on her vacant face. “He did the best he could. He was one of the best surgeons in the country.” She looks at the jury for validation. “Everyone said so.” Many of the jurors acknowledge her with grim smiles or bowed heads. This testimony is not helpful to me, attributing some goodness to the victim, but Rachel is not calculating here, not straddling any line. She always saw the good in him, even at the end.
“Mrs. Reinardt, can you tell us about the effect these losses, these deaths, had on your husband?”
Rachel wets her lips and examines her hands. “He had a very difficult time with it.”
“What do you mean by difficult?”
“I mean he—he took it personally whenever someone died on the operating table. In a way, he blamed himself, even though it wasn’t his fault. He felt helpless. Sometimes he would wake up with nightmares. He’d wake up screaming—” Rachel stops and looks at Paul, who is on his feet.
“I apologize for interrupting, Your Honor. But I think we have once again strayed from the issues in this trial.”
The judge nods. “I’ll sustain that objection. I’d like counsel to approach.”
Paul and Ogren walk up to the bench. The jurors watch Rachel, who dabs at her eyes with the tissue. Not a look in my direction.
