Rape (8 page)

With a shaking hand Teena pointed out Marvin Pick, Lloyd Pick, and Jimmy DeLucca, who were sitting immobile at the defense table staring frozen-faced at her. At the precinct, she had picked out Haaber instead of DeLucca. Partly the confusion had to do with the young men's similar haircuts and clothing. Their lawyers had instructed them to look as much like one another as possible. Haaber had had a small mustache at the time of the rape, his hair had been much longer. Teena seemed to realize her mistake, there was an immediate buzz of indignation from the spectators, but she could not stammer out the words to rectify it.

The daughter, Bethel, spoke more clearly. But she was visibly trembling. Staring at Diebenkorn as if terrified of
looking elsewhere. From time to time Schpiro interrupted to ask Bethel to speak louder, but the judge was not sarcastic with her. He would not wish to appear unsympathetic with a child victim of a violent sexual attack, at least at the preliminary hearing.

Kirkpatrick addressed Judge Schpiro.

The defense's rebuttal of the charges against the defendants was a simple one: there had been no rape.

No rape! None.

Admittedly there had been sex. Multiple acts of sex. But the sex had been entirely consensual. Martine Maguire had known each of the defendants and was “well known” by them. The sex had been for money and the deal had gone wrong (Maguire had wanted more money than she'd been promised, or the young men had less to give her, this part of the disagreement was unclear), and the alleged victim, who had been drinking at the time, became verbally and then physically aggressive against her young clients. The young men, admittedly under the influence of alcohol and controlled substances, had fought back when she attacked them, but had not hurt her seriously; they had left the boathouse, and other, unidentified young men had entered, drawn by the commotion. The severe beating and instances of rape must have happened at that time.

“Those assailants, the NFPD has yet to identify and arrest.” As for Maguire's daughter who had allegedly hidden in a corner of the boathouse at the time of her mother's sexual
encounters—“My clients and their companions were entirely unaware of her presence. They certainly had no knowledge of a twelve-year-old girl! Apparently the girl hurt herself crawling in the storage area. In her testimony she admits that she did not ‘actively see' any acts of rape, only just heard them, or believed that she heard them. This was a confused, frightened child whose mother was so derelict as a parent she'd brought the child to a wild, drunken orgy of a Fourth of July party, and afterward led her into Rocky Point Park at midnight, to meet up with young men from the neighborhood whom she knew well, and whom she boldly propositioned for sex. The girl is a victim, yes: a victim of her mother's outrageous negligence. She was confused at the time of the alleged rape and may have been purposefully misled by Maguire at a later time. Her testimony, like her mother's, is entirely fabricated and misleading. As the evidence and my clients' testimonies will show—”

There was an air of shock in the courtroom. Delayed shock, as in the aftermath of a sonic boom.

Then, from the rows of spectators, exclamations and scattered applause. Schpiro was as much taken by surprise as anyone and did not strike his gavel for several seconds, when it appeared that things might swerve out of control. “Quiet! Or I will clear the courtroom!”

Teena Maguire was protesting, incredulous. Diebenkorn tried to quiet her. There were raised voices from the spectators in the first several rows. Some of these were sympathetic with Teena Maguire, and furious on her account; others were hostile to her, and gloating. Individuals were on their feet.
Diebenkorn and another deputy prosecutor were helping Teena Maguire as if she'd begun to fall, or to struggle. Bailiffs and guards charged forward. Schpiro was obliged to clear his courtroom after all: flush-faced, indignant, striking his gavel even as his words—“Enough! Enough!”—went unheard. On the evening news it would be reported
The atmosphere quickly became too unruly for the judge to control
.

Dromoor had seen the derailment. Sick in the gut, had to escape.

Part II

Wind Drives Us Crazy

A
T THE
F
ALLS SHE
leaned over the railing. The wind blew cold spray into her face, clothes. Within seconds her clothes were soaked and clung to her thin body. Tourists perceived her as a drunk or drugged or deranged woman and kept their distance from her. On her head she wore a silk scarf that loosened in the wind, slipped from her head, and was blown out above the thunderous water; without the scarf, her hair was revealed as sparse, tufted, without color. Now she was perceived as possibly a sick woman, one who has lost her hair to chemotherapy.

Her face was a chalky-white face that looked as if, mask-like, it might be torn from her too, to be blown away into the frothy water.

Genius!

T
he woman's word against theirs. Anybody can cry rape. Reasonable doubt is all a jury needs. Who can prove, disprove? Kirkpatrick is a genius, isn't he? Best damn criminal lawyer in upstate New York. Of course you'll have to refinance your home, sell your second car. Beg borrow steal, the guy isn't cheap. But just the man to call when you're in deep deep shit
.

The Broken Woman

I
T WAS THE END
for Teena Maguire in Niagara Falls, she could not bear it. Never would she testify now. Never would she reenter any courtroom. No faith in any fucking courtroom! No faith in any fucking prosecutors, judges. Serve her a subpoena, threaten her with contempt of court
she would not
.

After the hearing that day she'd collapsed and had had to be hospitalized again for shock, exhaustion. She was diagnosed as anemic. She was diagnosed as severely depressed. She was diagnosed as suicidal. She was put on a regimen of antidepressant medication, which after a few weeks, she refused to take. She began seeing psychotherapists, rape counselors, but soon ceased. She was too tired to get out of bed in the morning. She was too tired to shower, shampoo her hair. She would not see women friends she'd known since high school. She'd ceased even to speak with Ray Casey on the phone. Often she refused to see her own mother in whose house on Baltic Avenue she was living.

Often she refused to see you.

*   *   *

Leave me alone can't you for Christ's sake. I'm sick. I'm so tired. I can't give a damn about you or anybody else
.

Teena Maguire claimed she could not remember what had happened to her in Rocky Point Park in July, or in the Niagara County Courthouse in September. She'd been pretty much beat up each time. Could not remember faces, couldn't identify. Could not remember names. It hurt her head to try to think. She was giving it all up, she made no effort to remember.
Teena's pathetic. Worthless. Piece of shit. Who gives a damn about Teena she's a fucking joke huh?

Sometimes she took the damn medication, more often not. Make her sick. Constipated. Head-not-right. Better to drop by the package store around the corner and buy a six-pack of beer, a bottle of cheap Italian red wine. Couldn't afford good whiskey, not Teena! The dentist-brothers had hired another receptionist. They'd given her three months' salary, she'd be eligible for unemployment. If she could force herself to go downtown and apply. Of course, she'd given up the row house on Ninth Street. She'd moved back with her mother. If she tried, she might get men to buy drinks for her, in which case she could drink reasonably good whiskey, bourbon, vodka, but it was not worth it for her to listen to the men, to smell the men, and to see their faces in whatever haze of drunkenness their faces floated in at the periphery of her wavering vision. Nor could she bear to be touched by any man. No, no! God, no. Panicked,
screamed, scratched at them, disturbed other patrons and so she was not welcome in these bars in which in any case she had no desire to go. Better for Teena Maguire to buy her own provisions. Keep to herself. Walk the windy bluff at the edge of the Falls where it was always damp with spray. In fair weather the area swarmed with tourists like ants but in bad weather she was likely to be alone. Leaning against the railing above the American Falls. Staring into the crazed churning water far below.

At the Whirlpool just below the Falls, sixty-foot vertical walls of water rushed in a giant circle fasterfasterfaster as if about to disappear into a giant drain.

God help me. God give me peace. God?

“Ma'am! You don't want to do that, ma'am.”

Whoever it was interrupting her reverie, sometimes daring to take her arm, Teena was indifferent. She shrugged, she made no reply. Often she was driven home by park officials/NFPD officers soaked through, shivering convulsively and her teeth chattering yet with a curious passivity, as if by being taking into custody in such a way she'd become again merely a body, an inert and soulless weight.

Her hair had grown back grudgingly, lank and curiously without color. When she saw her reflection in a mirror, taken unawares she did not think alarmed
I must do something about my appearance, Jesus!
but
That pathetic woman, they should have finished the job
.

*   *   *

One evening in early October it was Dromoor who brought Teena home.

You saw from your window upstairs at the front of your grandmother's house. Saw the unfamiliar vehicle, a Ford station wagon, low-slung and not new, the kind you'd expect to see littered with kids' toys in the backseat, pull up to the curb. And out of the driver's seat a tall man in a dark canvas jacket, bareheaded, with a shaved-looking steely-glinting head, going around to help your mother out of the passenger's seat. Teena lurched to her feet, leaning against the man's arm even as she made an effort to stand on her own.

At first you didn't recognize John Dromoor, out of uniform. Then you did.

You ran downstairs breathless. “Momma?”—you called out. Pretending not to know who was with you, bringing Teena home.

She'd been drinking again. And she was sick. She refused to take medication, see her therapist. Didn't seem to give a damn what happened to her any longer.

You halted at the foot of the stairs. Saw them just inside the front door, in the outer vestibule. Through the frosted-glass doors you could not hear what they were saying. Mostly Dromoor spoke. But what was he saying? How well did they know each other? They were not touching. You could hear Dromoor's voice—low, urgent, almost eager—but not his words.

Your mother laughed suddenly, without mirth. A shrill sound like glass breaking.

Pushing then through the swinging doors into the inner vestibule, not seeming to see you; or, seeing you, paying no
heed. Behind her Dromoor hesitated, as if wanting to follow her. But better not.

He saw you then. He wasn't smiling. He knew you of course—since the roadway in Rocky Point Park, he knew you—but had never yet called you by name.

Awkwardly you pushed through the frosted-glass doors. You were a shy girl made bold, brazen. Your heart rang like a deranged bell in your chest. You were breathless stammering, “M-Mister Dromoor?—thank you for bringing Momma home.”

Dromoor must have known, at that moment. The look in your face. The heat in your face. Yearning, desperation.

I love you. You are all to me
.

You would remember: Dromoor telling you this was a hard time for your mother, you would have to take care of her. And you said, too quickly, in a voice of childish hurt, “I don't think my mother wants anybody to take care of her.”

Alone with Dromoor in the vestibule of your grandmother's house. A roaring in your ears, as if you were leaning over a railing at the Falls: the visceral wallop of infatuation, the most powerful emotion you'd ever experienced in your life.

Dromoor frowned at your words. He'd chosen his own with such care.

Dromoor left his cell phone number neatly written on a piece of paper. To pass on to Teena. Beneath the number these words:

The Female Prosecutor

G
ODDAMN HE
'
D ENTERED HER
dreams. So shameful.

She could not control it! Could not control the case! The most highly publicized criminal trial in years in Niagara Falls and Harriet Diebenkorn's opportunity at long-delayed last to prove herself to her skeptical male elders and she was publicly humiliated at the hearing, bushwacked. Never saw it coming. No more than the rape victim had seen it coming.

Kirkpatrick, Jay. He was Diebenkorn's new nemesis. She was a woman who swerved from obsession to obsession and most of them male but none of them quite like Jay Kirkpatrick that bastard. Obsessed with Kirkpatrick. No wonder the man's reputation! She'd been only vaguely aware now she was well aware. Rising to his feet and with an air of courteous and even gentlemanly regret riddling the state's case with
reasonable doubt
as the most finished-appearing wood might be riddled from within by termites. Bastard never raised his voice. He was one to provoke others to raise their voices. He was not a handsome man, his skin was actually rather coarse and his pitiless eyes close-set on either side of his beak of a nose, and yet he exuded the air of a handsome
man, suave and self-assured. Kirkpatrick had a cowboy swagger, though he wore custom-made pinstripe suits and muted Italian ties. His vanity was highly polished black leather shoe boots with pointed toes and inch-high heels. You expected Kirkpatrick, scoring another of his devastating points in court, to execute a staccato dance step with those heels.