The Kills

by Fairstein, Linda

  “What did you tell him, exactly?”

  “I talked about my father’s career and told him what I remembered of his tour of duty in Egypt. I hadn’t been back there since finishing high school.”

  “For how long did you talk?” I asked.

  “Probably half an hour.”

  “Did you leave the council alone?”

  Paige Vallis blushed and picked up her water cup again. “No, no, I didn’t. Andrew told me he knew a nice restaurant in the neighborhood and invited me to go to dinner.”

  “Did anyone else-”

  I started to ask the next question but Paige Vallis wanted to explain her decision to the jury. “I don’t normally do that. I mean, go off somewhere with a man I don’t know. But I can’t imagine a safer place to meet a guy than a political policy discussion with the members of the council,” she said, giggling a bit.

  Laughter didn’t work in the middle of a rape trial. I knew it was just a nervous reaction, but she would need to get beyond it. Don’t apologize for anything you did, I had told Paige for weeks. Just tell the jury the facts. In my summation I would have lots of opportunity to talk about her judgment calls.

  “Did anyone else go with you to dinner?”

  “No. I said good night to the people I knew, got my coat from the checkroom, and we walked three or four blocks to a small bistro on a side street.”

  She took us through the dinner and conversation. Yes, there was another glass of wine for each of them. Yes, they both discussed their personal lives. Andrew told her that he was widowed, and that his mother had raised his son until her recent death. No, she certainly could not remember everything that they had talked about.

  I would argue that was because there was no significance to most of the conversation at this first meeting. Robelon would attribute her lack of specifics to the third glass of wine.

  “What time did you leave the restaurant, and where did you go?”

  “I saw that it was getting late-after ten o’clock. I told Andrew that I had to be in my office before eight the next morning. He put me in a cab outside the restaurant and we said good night.”

  “Who paid for the meal?”

  She looked at me and reddened again. “We split the check. I paid for my dinner and he paid for his.”

  “Did you kiss each other?”

  “No.”

  “Was there any kind of physical contact-touching each other or holding hands as you walked on the street?”

  “None.”

  “Did he ask for your phone number?”

  “No.”

  “Did he say-”

  “Hey, Ms. Cooper,” Judge Moffett said, “whatever happened to woman’s lib? Ms. Vallis, did you ask him for his number?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Was there any discussion about seeing each other again?” I asked.

  “No, there wasn’t. I got in the cab, closed the door, and went on my way home. I thought it was a pleasant evening, but that was the end of it.”

  “When was the next time you had any contact with Andrew Tripping?”

  “About three or four days later, when he called me.”

  “Where were you when he called?”

  “At my office. Dibingham Partners,” Vallis said, looking over at the jurors. “My personal phone isn’t listed. I had told Andrew where I worked, and I guess-”

  “Objection.”

  “Sustained. You can’t guess in my courtroom, Ms. Vallis,” the judge barked at the young woman from his elevated position over her head, and she recoiled, shaken again. “I’m sorry, Your Honor.”

  “Would you please tell us what the defendant said in that conversation?”

  “It was a very short discussion. I told him I was about to go into a meeting. He asked if I wanted to have dinner with him the following night, and I said, ‘Sure.’ We arranged to meet at the Odeon. That’s a restaurant near my apartment. That’s all.”

  “Did you keep that date?”

  “Yes, we did. I got there first. When Andrew arrived, we each ordered a glass of wine and chatted for a while before we ate dinner.”

  “What did this conversation concern?”

  Paige Vallis described a coolly impersonal meeting, in which her companion spent most of the time talking about himself or questioning her about her political views. She only had one drink and again she paid her own way. There were no sexual overtures when he walked her back to her building at ten o’clock.

  “Did you invite the defendant up to your apartment?” I asked.

  “There was no reason to. I thought-”

  “Objection as to what she thought, Your Honor,” Robelon said.

  “Sustained.”

  The heavy oak door creaked open behind me. I kept my attention on Paige Vallis, but she picked her head up at the sound and stared off in the distance.

  “Ms. Vallis, what did you say or do when you reached your building?”

  Her mouth twitched and she answered softly, “Andrew asked if he could come in for a cup of coffee. I told him that would be impossible. I-uh-I had a friend in from out of town who was staying in the apartment. Actually, I’m just remembering that now, as I try to recall the details of our dinner,” she said, looking back at me.

  I squeezed the pen I was holding so tightly I thought it would break in half and spurt ink all over the jurors. I had never heard that explanation in all the weeks of preparing Paige to testify. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Better late than never. What friend, I wondered to myself, and what relevance did this have to her story?

  Paige Vallis was trembling visibly now, as I tried to direct her attention to the night of the crime. “I’m going to ask you some questions about the day and evening of March sixth of this year.”

  She licked her lips to moisten them and reached for the water. Her hand missed and knocked the cup off the railing in front of her; water began dripping onto the court stenographer, who shoved her machine out of the way and reached for tissues to wipe up the mess. Paige stood and leaned over as though to reach for the fallen cup, bursting into tears as she tried to apologize to the judge for the disturbance.

  Moffett banged his gavel on the bench. “Brief recess. We’ll take ten minutes.”

  Paige spoke to him before the jurors could be led out of the box. “I’m so sorry, Judge. I can’t testify about this in front of him. Does he have to be here?”

  She was pointing a finger, while Moffett answered her, and I moved forward to calm her and bring tissues to wipe her face. “Of course he has to be here. The Constitution gives him that right, young-”

  “Not Andrew, Your Honor. Him.” Paige lifted her head and I turned around to look.

  The older of the two men whom Chapman had tried to identify in the courtroom the day before was seated alone now in the back row. He must have been the person who came in just as Paige had fallen apart a few questions back. He rose as my witness waved her hand in his direction, and he pushed the swinging door to exit.

  “That’s Harry Strait, Alexandra,” Paige said, grabbing my hand as I extended the tissue to her. “That’s the man I told you about.”

  Andrew Tripping smiled broadly, put his arm on his lawyer’s shoulder, and broke away to follow Harry Strait out into the corridor.

  11

  I had less than six minutes to corner Paige Vallis in the witness room and read her the riot act. “I can pull the plug on this entire proceeding right this minute. Do you want to explain to me what just happened on the witness stand? I told you from the moment we first met that there was only one thing you could do wrong and that was to lie to me about even the most seemingly insignificant question I’ve asked you. I don’t give a damn about your judgment or your lifestyle or your morals. I need to know the truth.”

  “I’ve never lied to you, Alex.”

  “I’ll walk into that courtroom and ask the judge to dismiss the charges if a single thing you have told me is not true. Now’s the time-”


  “I swear to you, every word I’ve told you is the truth.”

  “But you’ve left things out, is that what you mean? An omission is the same as a lie, if it has something to do with your case. What haven’t you told me?”

  “Nothing important that involves Andrew Tripping or these charges.”

  “Whether a fact is important or not isn’t your decision, Paige. I need to know every single detail. Everything. I’ll be the judge of what’s important. Get it? Who was the ‘friend’ in the apartment that night?”

  She returned my stare with a pitiful expression on her face.

  “Don’t give me that helpless, pathetic look. It was this-this Harry Strait guy, right?” I asked.

  “What difference does that make? Andrew didn’t know that at the time.”

  “This isn’t a goddamn game, Paige. Do you understand that?” I was furious now. Maxine tapped on the glass panel of the door, reminding me to keep my voice down. “Why is it that when people go to doctors to ask for help, you tell them every symptom, every fact, every ache and pain, so they can make a precise diagnosis. With lawyers, people leave out whatever they want-things that make them look stupid or evil or crazy or thoughtless-then they expect the lawyer to be smart enough to cover their asses without knowing the full picture. Well, you’ve come to the wrong place, Paige.”

  “I’m sorry, Alex. It’s, it’s so���embarrassing.”

  “Well, it’s damn embarrassing to be charged with first-degree rape, too. Especially if you didn’t commit the crime.”

  “Andrew Tripping raped me.” She was angry now, and I liked that. It was appropriate that she could still be outraged by the fact of her victimization.

  “So what is it you neglected to tell me?” I pounded my index finger against the tabletop in the small, hot room. “Did Andrew and Harry know each other?”

  “No,” Paige answered quickly. She thought for a minute and then said, “Not that I was aware. I mean, neither had any reason to know about each other, so I had no way of thinking they were acquaintances. Why does it matter?”

  “Because everything that went on matters, whether you think so or not. I need to know as much as Andrew’s lawyer knows. I need to know every detail that he can provide to Robelon, because Robelon will use them to blow your ass-and mine-out of the courtroom. That’s the only way I can protect you. If you had been raped by a stranger who climbed through your window, attacked you, and walked away, then he wouldn’t know a thing about you to tell his lawyer.”

  She nodded her head in understanding.

  “But this man spent three evenings with you, talking to you for hours each time. And you talked to him. You said things to him that I would never expect you to remember-little things, personal things that would have seemed of no import before the rape occurred. Yet I can’t possibly reconstruct what they were, and I can’t ever know what Andrew has told Peter Robelon. Worst-case scenario, want to play that out?” I asked.

  Paige was puzzled. She didn’t answer me.

  “I’ll help you. The night of March sixth, you go out with Andrew. Was Harry waiting back at your apartment that night?”

  “No. By then-”

  “Because all Mr. Robelon has to do is plant that seed with the jury. All he needs is a motive for you to lie.”

  “But I’m not-”

  “Listen to me, Paige. All he has to do is convince them that Andrew seduced you, convinced you to spend the night with him at his place. You wake up early in the morning, realize you have to explain why you didn’t come home to an angry boyfriend-”

  “Harry wasn’t my boyfriend by then. I’d ended it weeks earlier. I just couldn’t get rid of him. He wouldn’t leave me alone,” she said, pleading with me to understand.

  “That’s all Robelon needs to work with. Harry’s pissed off because you spent the night with another man. So you tell Harry it wasn’t your choice. He doesn’t believe you so you beef up the story a bit. Make it sound like Andrew forced you. He held you against your will and raped you.”

  “Whose side are you on, anyway?” she asked me. It was not the first time a victim had been pushed to that question. “Andrew did rape me. I swear it. And Harry wasn’t in my apartment the night of March sixth. Why would anyone lie about something as serious as rape?”

  “To save her own neck. To get back at someone who hurt her in another way. I don’t have time to give you all the reasons.”

  Maxine knocked again and stuck her head in. “The judge is ready.”

  “Last chance, Paige.” I was face-to-face with her now, as close as I could get. “Screw around with me and I’ll see that you’re indicted for perjury. For filing a false report. Am I missing anything else?”

  “No, I promise you, Alex. Harry Strait used to scare me to death, he was so jealous, so demanding. I didn’t want his name brought into this. I had no idea that he had any contact with Andrew Tripping. I still don’t know how or when they met, or why he’s here today.”

  “Will you tell me about Harry this weekend? Either come in to my office on Sunday afternoon for a few hours or give me some time on the phone.”

  Paige nodded.

  I went on. “I need you to think back about everything you remember, some way we can connect Strait and Tripping. Who is Harry Strait and what do you know about him? Why he scared you and what you mean by ‘demanding’?” I was still hoping that my four o’clock interview with Tripping’s son would take place, but I wanted to know why Paige was so fearful of Strait.

  Reluctantly, Paige Vallis whispered, “Yes. Yes, I will tell you.”

  “And if he’s back in the courtroom now, you’re just going to have to suck it up and carry on. Trials are public. Judge Moffett hasn’t got a basis to exclude him.”

  I opened the door, leading the way back inside. There were no spectators in the gallery. Moffett let the witness resume her seat before bringing in the jurors.

  The smooth flow of the narrative that I had counted on was hopeless. On top of that, I worried that the jurors would now view Paige Vallis as hysterical and flighty. The tears, the trembling, and the freaked-out reaction to the reserved-looking man who had walked into court would be all three or four of them would need to discount her reliability.

  “You may continue, Ms. Cooper.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor,” I said, rising once again to stand at the podium. “I’m going to direct your attention to March sixth. Do you recall what day of the week that was?”

  “It was a Wednesday. I had just come out of our regular staff luncheon meeting when Andrew telephoned.”

  “What was the purpose of his call?”

  “He asked to see me again, for dinner.”

  “Had you heard from him since the last time you saw him, the night of your dinner at the Odeon?”

  She shook her head back and forth.

  “Words,” Judge Moffett said to her. “You gotta answer in words. The court reporter can’t take down your head movements.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Yes, you heard from him?” the judge asked.

  “No, I meant no to that.” Now she sounded confused as well as slightly hysterical.

  “Did you have dinner with the defendant?”

  “Yes, I met him at seven-thirty, at a restaurant he suggested, near Grand Central Station.” Paige Vallis described the meal, the bottle of red wine they split, and the conversation, which was mostly about the boy, Dulles Tripping.

  “How was the dinner paid for this time?”

  “Andrew took the check,” she said.

  Robelon called out, “What’d she say, Judge? I couldn’t hear it.”

  It was hard for him to hear the answers that were helpful to his arguments, and those he would ask Paige Vallis to repeat. I could tell how he would work this fact. Now that Andrew Tripping had paid for the food and wine, of course his date was willing to put out for him. Robelon wanted to underscore that for the jury.

  Paige had accounted for most of their time togethe
r in the restaurant. Then Andrew asked her if she wanted to come to his apartment to meet his son, Dulles.

  “Yes, I said that I did. Andrew hadn’t told me until that moment that he had left the boy alone for the evening. I was surprised, considering how young he was. So I agreed to go with him.”

  There was no touching, no handholding, no suggestion of intimacy as they walked to the building on East Thirty-sixth Street.

  “Andrew opened the apartment door with a key. It was completely dark inside, so I thought perhaps-”

  “Objection.”

  “Sustained.”

  “What happened when you entered the apartment?” I asked.

  “Andrew turned on the light. Dulles wasn’t asleep-I figured he might have been, because it was almost ten o’clock, and because it was so strange that he would be waiting in total darkness,” Vallis said, slipping in her “thought” by the back door. “He was sitting on a chair, a straight-backed wooden chair, in a corner of the living room.”

  “Who spoke first?”

  “Andrew did. He told the boy my name and asked him to introduce himself.”

  “And did he?”

  “No. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t move a muscle. Andrew spoke again, and like a military commander, ordered Dulles to stand up and come shake my hand.”

  “What did you observe as the boy approached you?”

  “Tears were streaming down his cheeks. That’s the first thing I noticed. As he got closer, I could see that his left eye was bruised, and there seemed to be some scratches on his face, too.”

  “Did you say anything to him?”

  “I dropped to my knees and grabbed hold of his elbows. I started to ask if he was all right, and as I was doing that, his father began shouting at him, telling him to grow up and act like a man.”

  “What did you do next?”

  “I tried to embrace the boy, telling him that he would be okay. But he stepped away from me and wiped his face with the backs of his hands. I stood up to get closer, so I could try to examine his eye. ‘What happened to you?’ I asked him.”