by David Ellis
“Listen to me, Shelly. Sometimes—girls your age.” He leans forward and struggles a moment. “You make decisions and then you regret them. You want to take things back. So you think about them differently. A week later, things you did—they look different. You want them to be different. So you decide they were different. You make up a story—”
“I didn’t make it up.” The firmness of her tone surprises even Shelly.
“No one’s going to believe a liar, Shelly.”
She looks at the officer again, her emotions raw. “You think I made this up?”
“Oh, listen.” He breaks eye contact. “It doesn’t matter what I think. It matters what we can prove. Rape—rape is a difficult thing to prove.” He opens his hands. “Look. Did you ever say no? Did you ever say stop?”
Her breathing uneven, tears pouring down her cheeks and into her mouth, she says, “I’m not sure if I said it or thought it.”
“Was he supposed to read your mind?” He slashes his hand like a knife onto the table. “Listen. You lied to your friends. You lied to your parents. You claimed to be eighteen. You looked like you were eighteen. You had sex with some guy, you don’t know who, and you never told him you didn’t want to.” He shrugs. “Even if I ever find the guy, what am I supposed to do with that?”
I had passed out, she wants to say. He got on top of me. I couldn’t stop him. She wants to defend herself but this officer already knows these facts. He already knows these things and it doesn’t matter.
She is cold in the warm room. Shivering, uncomfortable. She looks at the single bulb over the table where they sit. She looks at the officer’s scaly hands.
The officer speaks gently. “I never said I didn’t believe you, Shelly. But we have a large case load, and prosecutors do too. No one is going to prosecute this case. And if they did, you could be damaged a lot worse than you already have been. And your parents will know.”
She wants to leave. She wants to run from this station, from this city.
A sheet of paper appears before her. “If you want me to keep investigating, you have to put that in writing and sign it. If you want me to stop investigating, you have to put that in writing, too. It’s up to you.”
“I wanna go home,” she mumbles.
He slides a pen next to the sheet of paper. “I’m sorry about this, Shelly. I wish we could erase what happened. But you put yourself into an adult situation, and you have to think like an adult. You have to decide.”
34
Details
SHELLY STOOD AT the window and pressed her face against the glass. The sun shone brightly on the street below, on the pedestrians moving along the sidewalks. It was a little early for most people to be heading home for the day. Gentry Street was a main thoroughfare for the commuters, as the train station was just to the west and south, at the edge of the commercial district.
The alley where the shooting took place was in Shelly’s view to the north, across the street. As it was perpendicular to the street, she could not see all the way through the alley to the street over to the east—Donnelly Street. She estimated that she could see about fifteen feet down the alley before the view was obscured.
“There,” she said into the cell phone as she saw her private investigator, Joel Lightner, come into view in the alley. Joel stopped in his tracks and looked up in the general direction of where Shelly was standing, in the nineteenth-floor office.
Shelly turned to the woman next to her, Monica Stoddard. “Do you see him?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Okay, Joel. Thanks. Come on up.” Shelly closed the cell phone. “He’ll just be a minute,” she said to the woman.
“What are you guys doing?”
“We need to know how far you could see into the alley. Joel is going to measure the distance from where you could see him to the sidewalk. That gives us an idea of how far into the alley everyone was.”
Monica Stoddard nodded absently, looked off toward the window. From the look on her face, Shelly guessed what she was thinking—that they were planning a cross-examination of this woman who had witnessed the shooting of Officer Ray Miroballi.
“It’s just standard,” Shelly said. “We weren’t there, so we need to know everything we can.”
“Well, I saw what I saw.” The woman shook her head as if to empty it of those thoughts. “I didn’t exactly enjoy seeing it, but I saw it.”
Shelly nodded and gestured toward the drawings in the corner of the room. Monica Stoddard, age thirty-three, was an architect with a small development company. The sketches Shelly saw were plans for construction of what appeared to be residential housing.
“You know the cemetery up north?” asked Ms. Stoddard. “We’re buying half the block north of it, on Kesseller. You know the area?”
“I live in that area. About five blocks north, by the lake.”
“Oh, sure.” The woman smiled. She was taller than the average woman, gangly, in fact, with the look of a former athlete. Or maybe Shelly was taking that from the plaque on her wall, which showed that she was a Division III pole vaulter in college. Shelly couldn’t even imagine leaping so high in the air with an elastic pole. “We’re looking at a lot of projects up there.”
“I’m sure.” Shelly had watched with a sense of dread as the neighborhoods around her had slowly gentrified, as old rental units had been bought up, knocked down, and replaced with expensive condominiums or single-family homes with price tags that were in the high six figures. She certainly had nothing against white people, who predominantly purchased these homes, but she mourned the loss of character to the neighborhoods as the yuppies invaded northward. Small Korean grocers were replaced with state-of-the-art, Internet-ready coffeehouses. Small Mexican diners moved out in favor of fast-food establishments.
And this was to say nothing of the fact that her rent continued to rise every year.
Joel Lightner appeared in the doorway and knocked. He introduced himself to Monica Stoddard and set down his briefcase. “Nineteen feet,” he told Shelly.
They all sat and discussed architecture for a moment. Shelly sensed that this woman was intelligent enough not to be snowed by flattery, and principled enough not to be persuaded about her account of the scene. Yet there was nothing wrong with putting the woman at ease, and there was no easier way to do so than by talking about her. Joel, more than Shelly, seemed to have a knack for the game. He spent much of his life retrieving information from people under circumstances that ranged from adversarial to shady to something other than friendly, at best. Joel skillfully segued into the facts at hand, and Shelly noticed that the woman was speaking to Joel, not her.
“I was walking by the window,” said Ms. Stoddard. “The lights were flashing. It catches the eye.”
“Sure.” Joel flipped open a notepad. “You mind? I’m no good relying on my memory.”
“That’s fine. So I looked down and I saw a boy running.”
“How would you describe him?”
She shrugged. “I saw a boy in a coat and a cap. And holding a gym bag. He was running down the street. There was a cop chasing after him. The kid had a pretty good lead. He was fast.” She looked at the window. “He went into the alley and ran out of my sight. The cop turned into the alley and stopped, where I could see him. Just a few steps, I guess. He was talking to him, it seemed like.” She tucked her hair behind her ear as she concentrated. “I mean, I couldn’t hear them, but it seemed like he was talking to him. Then it seemed like he moved closer.” She looked at Joel, then at Shelly. “It wasn’t well lit. I could only see so much.”
“No, that’s fine,” said Joel. “Can you tell us what happened next?”
“What happened next was—the reason you’re here.” She held on to that memory for a moment. Most people in their lives never saw such a thing up close. At least this woman had been spared the noise, Shelly thought, the sickening sound of a flying object penetrating the skull. Well, who was she to talk? She had never seen such a thing, e
ither. What she did know, from years of karate, was the sound of fighting—the sound of fist to skin, foot to skull—and it was nothing like the pows and ka-blams on television.
Having gone through the entire scene once, Joel went back and covered details. Did she see the officer draw his weapon? The woman thought not but couldn’t be sure one way or the other. “The best I remember, he had a walkie-talkie in his hand, but I don’t know about the other hand.” Did she see Alex with a weapon? “I didn’t see one,” she said, “but then again, he had a bag and pockets in his coat, so it’s possible.”
Lightner asked about Miroballi’s partner, Sanchez. “He went back to the car, at first,” said Stoddard. “I wasn’t really watching him, to be honest. What was happening with the other cop and the kid sort of held my attention.” She drew a line in the air from one point to the other. “He came jogging down afterward and found his partner. He was holding him and talking into his radio. I assumed he was calling for backup, or whatever they say. An ambulance.”
Shelly regarded this witness as relatively neutral, and she wasn’t sure how to react to that. Positively, she supposed. This woman used the term “cop,” which may have been a reflection of the fact that the people interviewing her were on the other side, but it could be that she was no friend of the city’s finest, which was fine with Shelly. In any event, she did not appear to have been cowed into a story.
“Just to confirm,” Shelly said, taking a role in the conversation for the first time, “you didn’t see who shot the officer.”
Monica Stoddard looked at Shelly. “No, I guess not.”
The police report had indicated that Monica Stoddard had seen Alex shoot the cop. So this was different. She was saying she saw Miroballi shot, but she couldn’t say who did it, because the shooter was out of her line of sight. Shelly had seen that before, a cop opting for a favorable spin on the events.
This woman seemed to appreciate the purpose of the question for the first time. She had apparently assumed—everyone would assume, probably—that Alex had fired the shot. Shelly was not prepared to make that assumption, and she wasn’t sure why not. What kind of a scheme could she concoct in which Alex was not the shooter? And if Alex hadn’t pulled the trigger, why did he admit to doing so? It was one thing to deny guilt in the face of overwhelming evidence—something Shelly had seen often with her young clients—but how many innocent people claimed to be guilty?
“No eyewitnesses,” said Joel as he and Shelly left the building and walked across the street to the alley. “Unless that homeless guy saw something. And that will be marginal at best.”
Joel opened his briefcase and removed a tape measure. He marked off nineteen feet, three inches and stood facing west, as Officer Miroballi would have that night. They were going to reenact the scene again, as best they could.
Shelly sighed. “Distances and measurements are nice, but I wish we could fill in the details.”
“I’ll say again, no eyewitnesses.” There was a twinkle in Joel’s eye. “So you can fill in the details, Counselor.”
35
Jump
DINNER WAS LATE tonight, close to nine P.M., at a Chinese restaurant that Shelly had never patronized, but where they knew Paul Riley by name. Shelly had to concede, she enjoyed walking into a swanky restaurant where the owner ran out to say hello, gave them a nice window table. And she had to admit that she was enjoying Paul’s attention.
“Try to look at the internal investigation,” Paul said to her. He gestured with his fork, which held a piece of kung pao chicken. “If Internal Affairs has worked Sanchez over, there should be some documentation.”
Shelly had a vegetable stir-fry, and scooped healthy portions of the hot sauce into the bowl.
“Wish I could do that.” Paul pointed to his stomach.
“Ulcer?” she asked.
“Something like that. Certain things I have to avoid. I’m pushing it with the kung pao.” He smiled. “I guess I’m not helping my cause too much, am I? I sound older than fifty-one.”
She gave him a generous smile. Something about this guy. She turns him down romantically, he doesn’t run or even brood. He maintains an appropriate demeanor, professional and friendly, and makes no secret of the fact that he’s still making his play. This promise of his, to give Shelly tips throughout the process, had worked nicely for him, giving him the excuse to wine-and-dine her.
“You have to try this, Shelly.”
“No, thanks.”
“Oh.” He wiped his mouth. “Let me guess. Vegetarian.”
“We public-interest lawyers have to be either lesbians or vegetarians. There’s a test.”
He opened his hands. “Forgive me. I’m a Neanderthal. It’s a stereotype, I bought into it.”
“I’m a single thirty-three-year-old,” she said. “I don’t think you’re the first one to think I’m gay.”
“Actually.” He waved a finger, his mouth full of chicken. He thought better of it, shook his head.
“C’mon, Riley. I’m asking.”
“Well”—he wiped his mouth—“I thought you were pretty hard on the teacher. At our trial.”
“The teacher who was screwing her fifteen-year-old student?”
Paul dropped his napkin. “Yeah. You beat her up.”
“And that made me a lesbian?”
Paul laughed. “You seemed hostile to her. That’s all I’m saying.”
Sure, she thought. A man who is hostile is doing his job. A woman who does it is “icy,” or has some other character trait that must explain this very unfeminine trait—maybe she’s a lesbian!
“I was hostile to her,” Shelly said. “She had taken advantage of the boy. She wasn’t exactly sympathetic, Paul.”
“Sure she was. Sure she was.” Paul’s hands gripped the air. “She was thirty-seven, going through a divorce. She was troubled. And she was cute. She was petite.”
“She gets a pass because she was cute?”
“That’s not the point. Listen. Forget about the lesbian thing. But let’s talk about this. I think this might be helpful. If you don’t mind.”
“Trial advice? No, go ahead.”
“Okay, good. A good trial lawyer always listens to other people’s impressions. That’s what the whole thing is about, right? Impressions.”
Shelly nodded.
Paul was animated. “This woman was sympathetic, potentially. Everyone is potentially sympathetic, and everyone is potentially unsympathetic. It’s how you handle them.”
“Fair enough.”
“You had this woman passing these bizarre love letters. Unzipping the kid’s pants on school grounds. Ridiculous stuff. She was leading this boy by the hand. Calling all the shots. I think she would have hanged herself in front of the jury. But you tried to do it to her. You were hostile, Shelly. You came on very strong.”
“I suppose that’s true.”
“You had already settled with her. You were after the school. So why brutalize her?”
“Because I wanted the jury mad about what happened. I wanted them to see what had been done to this boy.”
Paul nodded. “Do you think it worked?”
Shelly deflated. “Apparently not.”
“I think the jury felt sorry for her, after you crossed her. And maybe not so pleased with you.” He pointed his finger. “Third guy from the left, back row. Remember him?”
“No.”
“The banker. Most educated guy on the jury. Personable guy.”
“Okay, yeah. I remember him.”
“He raised his eyebrows three or four times during your cross of the teacher. He thought you were going overboard. You lost him. And I think he was the leader of that jury.”
“Hmm. Okay. So he bought into your laid-back, folksy charm.”
“He agreed with my attitude. Do you know what my attitude was, Shelly?”
“Just what I said.”
“No. No.” He shook his head. He stirred the air with his fork. “Put it into a sentence. P
ut my demeanor into a sentence that summarizes my theme. The entire theme of my case.”
“I—your theme.” She opened her hands. “Your theory was that the school couldn’t have known what this teacher was doing.”
“That was my legal argument, sure. But what was my theme? What was I saying with my attitude?”
“I feel like I’m back in law school,” she said.
“It was no big deal.” He sat back in his chair. “We had eight men and four women. We were upstate, where people are more conservative.”
“More conservative,” Shelly agreed. “As in, less likely to stand for what happened.”
Paul grimaced. “Maybe if the roles were reversed. A male teacher seducing a fifteen-year-old girl? Sure. You would have won that case. But a petite, troubled woman seducing a strapping, athletic, confident fifteen-year-old middle linebacker on the football team? He had a girlfriend he was having sex with, right?”
“Right.”
“So add sexually experienced. If he were a girl, you’d be picturing a lovestruck adolescent, under the spell of a predatory man. With your client, you’re picturing him telling his football teammates and high-fiving.” He shrugged. “It was no big deal.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“Maybe so. I wasn’t trying to win an award. I was trying to appeal to the jury in the primitive sense. I never actually said those things, did I?” He took another bite of his food. “People aren’t as progressive as you think. And juries do what they want to do. Have you ever seen a jury deliberate?”
“No. How could you?”
“In a mock setting,” he answered, wiping his mouth again. He wiped his mouth after every bite. A gentleman and a scholar. “Before trial, you do a mock run-through. You try your case to a cross section of ordinary citizens, and then watch them deliberate. And interview them afterward. It’s incredibly enlightening.”
“Tell me.”
“Half the time, they’ve had so many facts thrown at them, they don’t remember them all. Or worse, they remember them wrong. We, the lawyers, know the case inside out, but we have to remember that these people are hearing it for the first time. So what are you left with?”
