Guilt by Association (55 page)

“I trust your judgment,” Karen said.

“What?” She chuckled. “You’ve found new faith in the system?”

“I never doubted that the system works,” Karen corrected her. “What I said was that there can be a big gap between the system working and justice being served.”

It was true more often than Tess liked to admit.

She remembered that now as she finished the last of her preparations for tomorrow’s session, snapped off her desk lamp, closed the door of her office, and made her way down the third floor corridor toward the elevator. She had meant what she said about the case being strong, but she also understood the vagaries of a jury. No, understood wasn’t the right word. She had never been able to understand juries, she had just learned how to work with them.

“You sound tired,” Mariah Dobbs said from the New York end of the telephone line on Sunday night.

“I guess I am,” Randy admitted from his studio apartment in the Marina district. “And lonely.”

“You do understand why I can’t be there with you, don’t you?” she asked.

“Sure,” he sighed. “You’ve got other clients who need you.”

“Exactly,” she agreed, although the real reason had more to do with distancing herself and her firm from Senator Willmont’s unfortunate circumstance. “There’s really nothing more I can do for him at this point, anyway. It’s in the hands
of the jury now, and I have no way of influencing them. But if he’s acquitted, you can count on my being around to launch a media bombardment that, come November, will dump him right at the door of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”

“Two months ago, I wouldn’t have given him an ice cube’s chance in hell,” Randy admitted.

“Neither would I,” Mariah agreed, thinking that, despite the primary victories, she still wouldn’t.

“It was your honesty gambit that saved him,” the aide told her. “If he hadn’t done the mea culpa bit right up front, and thrown himself on the mercy of the people, he’d be dead in his political grave by now.”

“The voters love him and they want to believe in him,” she conceded. “So they’re willing to give him the benefit of the doubt—until the jury comes in.”

“I sit in court and watch them,” Randy told her, “and try to figure out what’s going through their minds. I used to think it would take millions of people to decide whether we went to the White House or not, but now it’s all come down to twelve—five men and seven women—who are going to make us or break us.”

Mariah chuckled. “Interesting choice—the White House or the Big House. That’s the fat and the lean of it, the up and the down,
the yin and the yang.”

“Don’t,” Randy groaned.

“How are things really going?” Mariah asked.

“Not great,” he admitted. “The lab expert was on the stand yesterday. All the DNA stuff was very technical and dreadfully boring. I saw several of the jurors yawning, and it almost put me to sleep. But I’ve got to admit, the physical evidence is pretty damning.”

“What does the senator say about that?”

“He says he has no idea how any of it happened.”

“He’d better have more to say than that when he gets on the stand,” the public relations expert suggested. “What does the lawyer think?”

“Hal keeps things pretty much close to the vest,” Randy
told her. “If you press him, he says to wait until we have our shot, but between you and me, I think he’s worried.”

“And the candidate?”

The aide paused. “To be honest, I don’t think he worries about anything,” he said. “He just assumes that things will work out the way he wants them to.”

T
he surgical resident who treated Karen’s injuries in the Emergency Room of San Francisco General Hospital was first to take the stand on Monday morning. He painstakingly detailed and categorized each of her bruises and abrasions, the number of stitches taken in her lip, the setting of her broken nose.

“Your Honor,” Tess said, “I would like, at this time, to introduce People’s exhibits sixty-six through seventy-two, and ask that they be presented to the jury.”

“I must renew my objection, Your Honor,” Hal Sutton exclaimed. “The prosecutor has already elicited volumes about the physical condition of the alleged victim. The photographs add nothing new.”

“On the contrary, Your Honor,” Tess argued. “Hearing about a broken nose or a split lip or a bruised thigh is not the same as actually seeing it.”

“The prosecutor knows full well, Your Honor, that those photographs are deliberately inflammatory.”

“Mr. Sutton is correct, Your Honor,” Tess agreed, “if you look at them from his client’s perspective. But I want the jury to look at them from an objective point of view.”

“Objection!” Sutton stormed.

“That will do, Miss Escalante,” Judge Washington said. “The photographs are admissible. Objections overruled.”

Tess handed the jury one picture at a time, presenting the entire group with an opportunity to take a good look. It pleased her to see most of the jurors wince.

“Now, Doctor,” she continued, when the last grisly image had been passed around, “are the bruises you’ve described, the injuries shown in these photographs, the kind that you would expect to find from consensual intercourse?”

“No, Miss Escalante, they are not.”

“How would you describe them, then?” she pressed.

“I would describe them as being completely consistent with the use of force.”

“Thank you, Doctor.”

“Tell me, Doctor,” Hal Sutton asked. “Is there any way to tell whether or not all of these bruises were inflicted by the defendant?”

“No, not specifically.”

“For example, isn’t it entirely possible that the split lip or the broken nose might have been caused by bumping into a tree in the dark, or tripping and falling face down onto the pavement?”

“There was certainly no indication of that.”

“Could the injuries have been so caused, Doctor?”

“I suppose they could.”

“Thank you,” Sutton said. “That’s all.”

“Where is he going with that?” Anne Jenks whispered in Tess’s ear.

“Wherever his limited options will take him,” Tess replied.

After the lunch break, Lamar Pope took the stand. He spent the balance of Monday and much of Tuesday detailing his interviews with both the alleged victim and the defendant, referring frequently to his notes.

From him, Tess elicited testimony relating to, among other things, the footprint found at the scene that matched the senator’s loafer and the scratches on the senator’s chest that matched the skin scrapings taken from under Karen Doniger’s
fingernails. Then the topic turned to Karen’s missing handbag.

“As part of your investigation, Sergeant,” the ADA inquired, “did you have reason to search the defendant’s car on the afternoon of April tenth?”

“I did.”

“What, if anything, did you find?”

“I found a navy-blue handbag with identification and other items in it belonging to Karen Doniger.”

“Did the defendant offer any explanation for why the handbag was in his car and not with Karen Doniger?”

“No, he did not. He seemed surprised to see it there. Apparently, it had slipped between the seats and he hadn’t noticed it.”

“Thank you,” Tess said. “Nothing more.”

“Was Senator Willmont cooperative in your investigation, Sergeant Pope?” Sutton asked.

“Yes, he was.”

“Did he answer the questions you put to him to the best of his ability?”

“Yes, he did.”

“Did he decline to answer any of your questions?”

“No, he did not.”

“Did he deny having been with Karen Doniger on the night in question?”

“No, he did not.”

“Did he deny having sex with her?”

“No.”

“Now let’s go back to those scratches for just a moment, Sergeant,” Sutton invited. “Did Senator Willmont give you any explanation as to how he had gotten them other than you have already testified?”

“Yes,” Lamar replied, consulting his notes. “He said they were the result of passion, not resistance.”

“Now, about the handbag.”

“Mr. Sutton,” Judge Washington interrupted, feeling a gastric attack coming on. “It’s already well into the afternoon. I know I’m tired of sitting and I can only assume that the jury
is, too. If you are planning a lengthy cross-examination, and all indications seem to be that you are, may I give you every opportunity to complete it in the morning?”

“Certainly, Your Honor.”

“We’re getting nowhere, aren’t we?” Robert asked on the way back to Jackson Street.

“Evidence is just evidence.” Sutton shrugged. “It’s all in how it’s interpreted. And you know as well as I do that it’s never really interpreted until the very end.”

“But those photographs,” Robert groaned. “I saw the shudder when the jury looked at them. They make me come off like I’m some kind of monster. Do you think they retouched them to make her look worse?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Well, I don’t remember her being that banged up. I may have gotten a little rough with her—hell, she asked for it. But I don’t remember her looking anything like that.”

“The pictures certainly didn’t help our cause,” Sutton agreed.

“At first, you know, I just assumed that no one with any common sense would buy her story,” Robert confided. “I mean, who would believe that a United States senator running for President would deliberately go out and rape someone? But I was watching the faces of that jury today. Some of them looked like they wanted to lynch me.”

“Well, don’t despair just yet,” Sutton said calmly. “We haven’t had our turn yet, you know.”

It was the same thing he always said. In the past, his words had been able to soothe Robert, but now they began to grate on him. Sutton was a longtime associate, but after all, what real difference would it make to him if he won or lost this case—
he would still get his million-dollar fee, he would still be free to practice law, and he would even find a way to remove whatever tarnish might rub off on his spotless reputation.

The candidate sighed, knowing it was too late now to wonder whether he had been wise in his choice of attorney.

* * *

“Dr. Linderman,” Tess inquired on Wednesday afternoon, following the completion of Lamar’s cross-examination and Azi Redfern’s virtually unchallenged testimony, “what is your primary work?”

“For the past three years,” Philip Linderman, the respected Berkeley psychiatrist, replied, “I’ve been involved in a research program dealing exclusively with the psychology of rape.”

“Will you please describe this program for the jury.”

“In the first part of it, we selected a random sample of four hundred and fifty convicted sex abusers and, through interviews,
therapy sessions, and testing techniques that were formulated specifically for the program, we tried to develop a psychological profile that would help in the identification of potential rapists.”

“Would it be fair to say then that, as a result of your work in this program, you’ve become a recognized expert in this area?”

“Yes, I think it would be fair to say that. I have presented no less than half a dozen papers on the subject, both nationally and internationally, and I am a frequent contributor to the
American Journal of Psychiatry”

“Your Honor,” Sutton broke in. “Defense is willing to stipulate to Dr. Linderman’s credentials.”

“In that case, Doctor, tell us,” continued Tess, “have you indeed developed the definitive psychological profile of a rapist?”

“Yes, and no,” he answered.

“Please explain,” the ADA invited.

“Well, we found we were unable to develop one basic profile because, as it turns out, there are several.”

“Several, Dr. Linderman?”

“Yes, Miss Escalante. One profile concerns what people generally think of when they hear the word ‘rapist’-—the total stranger who pulls a woman into a dark alley. There is another profile that deals with the domestic violator—the husband, the boyfriend,
the father, the step-parent, the older brother. And a third profile concerns what we have in recent years
come to call the acquaintance-rapist—the man who knows, and is known by, his victim—who already has a relationship of some sort with her, be they friends or neighbors or coworkers.”

“So what you’re saying, Doctor, is that your research has determined that there are several distinct types of rapists who commit distinctly different types of rape.”

“That’s correct,” Linderman confirmed. “Even though the crimes have a violent orientation and lead to more or less the same conclusion, defining one in terms of another would be like trying to make applesauce out of oranges.”

“Will you please describe for the jury how the profiles you developed for the stranger-rapist and the acquaintance-rapist differ?”

“Certainly,” the psychiatrist replied. “We determined that the stranger-rapist requires anonymity and his actions stem from deep-rooted anger, low self-esteem, and emotional impotence. He hates women, he sometimes hates the whole world, he certainly hates himself, although he frequently believes just the opposite. His purpose is to control his victim, to dominate and degrade her, as he feels dominated and degraded, and in the only way he can—sexually. For him, rape is not about sex, it’s about violence and intimidation. It’s about the release of his anger on someone who isn’t strong enough to repel him, which represents a reenactment of some ongoing relationship of his own, where he is the weaker party. In other words, it’s about the acting out of his unexpressed rage toward someone he
does
know on someone he
doesn’t
know and, therefore, someone who is safe for him to attack. It makes him feel temporarily potent. But the feeling is shortlived and, like a narcotic, once it wears off, he must rape again to get it back.”

“Are there any patterns to this type of rapist?”

“Frequently. His victims, for example, may all look alike if he is deliberately choosing women who resemble the real object of his anger—his mother, a female employer, a girlfriend who rejected him. Even if they don’t look alike however, there will usually be something that connects
them—blond hair, a style of dress, a profession. Often, he may use the same ploy to find each of them, riding a specific bus, or shopping in a certain market. He will tend to use them the same way, make them do the same things, threaten them with the same weapon, or tie them up in the same fashion. He may say the same things, using the same or similar words. He may have one particular outfit that he wears every time he goes out to rape. He sees it as his protection; in a way, his suit of armor.”