Broken (25 page)

Sarah’s response was obviously well rehearsed, a tribute to Simon’s ability to coach his witness into presenting a callous defendant, while tiptoeing through the inadmissible subject of Stanley’s untimely death.

Ivan exhaled noisily as Anna Mae saw the disdain in the jury’s eyes. She felt a lump in her throat and the sting of unshed tears. Her breathing became quick and shallow. It took all of her willpower to keep from bursting into sobs.

“Be strong,” Ivan whispered.

“I’m trying.”

“Your aunt is so gullible. I can reverse this on cross.”

“I hope so.”

Bang!
“Mr. Hammerstein!” The Judge’s loud voice carried across the courtroom. “Save your conversations for recess.”

“I’m sorry, Your Honor.”

“Don’t be sorry. Just be quiet! Continue counselor.”

Simon looked at Ivan and Anna Mae with a slight smile on his lips and a glint of malice in his eyes. Still looking at Anna Mae, he continued, “Mrs. Lipinski, tell me about the relationship between your niece and your late husband.”

“Everybody thinks Walter was such a bad man,” said Sarah with tears running down her face. “But you should have heard Anna Mae talk back to him. He would be telling her something and she would mouth off to him.”

“And how was her language?”

She wiped the tears with the back of her hand. Her voice quivered. “Sometimes she swore. It was awful. She would yell at him—terrible language. Maybe Walter was wrong to hit her, but if she had just kept her mouth shut, things would have been a lot better.”

Anna Mae stifled a smile.
I talked back? Good for me!

“Did you ever tell Anna Mae not to talk back to Walter?”

“Lots of times.”

“And did she listen?”

“She would say she didn’t remember doing it.”

Anna Mae recalled how, eons ago, before Walter went to prison, Sarah would scold her for talking back. So many times, she had tried to explain to Sarah that she didn’t remember. But Sarah never believed her.

Tom Simon faced the jury. “So she has been using the ‘I don’t remember excuse all along.’”

“Objection!”

“Sustained.”

“What about mood swings? Didn’t you say at the deposition that Anna Mae had severe mood swings and that she would change from this nice sweet girl to a holy terror?”

“Something like that,” said Sarah, looking at Anna Mae with cold eyes.

Anna Mae looked back at Sarah.
How can you do this? Why are you saying these things?

“When Anna Mae was being a holy terror,” continued Simon, “Did it ever appear that she didn’t know what she was doing?”

“No. She knew.”

“At any time did you think Anna Mae had a mental problem that resulted in her not remembering her own actions?”

“Objection.”

“Overruled.”

“Mrs. Lipinski, you had the opportunity to observe the defendant more than anyone. Did you ever see anything in her behavior indicating she was ‘out of it?’”

“Objection.”

“Overruled.”

Anna Mae, stifling her frustration, looked straight ahead. Her face was bland but her mind was racing. How could she and Sarah have lived in the same house for nineteen years and Sarah not even question whether or not she was telling the truth when she said she didn’t remember? Was Sarah that dense? Unobservant? Oblivious to what had to be obvious at least a few times?

Sarah, who had been concentrating on the prosecutor, now looked at the jury. “No. Anna Mae was never ‘out of it.’ She always knew what she was doing.”

“No more questions.”

Anna Mae cried her way through a half-hour recess, and then Ivan Hammerstein escorted her back to the courtroom to begin his cross.

His first questions took Sarah back to 1951 when she had told Father Falkowski that Walter did not want them to keep her sister’s baby.

“So Walter didn’t want Anna Mae from the beginning…isn’t that true?”

“He did want her,” Sarah lied. “But you know how men are.”

“How are they? Do they come home drunk and beat young children? Do they beat their wives? Do they land in prison for assault?”

“Objection!”

“Sustained.”

Anna Mae only half listened as Ivan tried to bend Sarah’s testimony back to the truth, to make it obvious to the jury that Sarah’s account of Anna Mae’s behavior was shaky at best. But Anna Mae’s heart was broken. All her life she had wanted Sarah’s love and approval. When Walter was in jail, the relationship between her and Sarah was as near to mother/daughter as Anna Mae could ever hope for. And now this! Anna Mae didn’t think she would survive the pain.

“Do you consider yourself an expert on mental illnesses?” asked Hammerstein.

“No!” Sarah was now defensive.

“Isn’t it possible that your niece, Anna Mae, was suffering from memory losses that you were not aware of?”

“She lived in my house. I saw her every day.”

“I didn’t ask you that. I asked if it were possible that you were not able to discern a problem right in front of you?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Discern—notice—be aware.”

“I didn’t notice anything. Anna Mae didn’t have any problems with her memory.”

“Inasmuch as you are not an expert in the psychiatric field, in the area of Traumatic Amnesia to be exact, and because you were so close, maybe you couldn’t see the forest for the trees. Isn’t it possible that you just weren’t smart enough to see the problem?”

Sarah’s face reddened. “I am smart enough to know that Anna Mae caused all the problems in the house and that she probably killed my husband!”

The blood drained from Hammerstein’s face. “I want that stricken from the record!”

“Calm down, Counselor,” said Judge Wittier. He then glared down thorough his half-glasses at Sarah. “Mrs. Lipinski! You are not in this court to pass judgment. That’s for the jury to decide. Another remark like that one and I’ll punish you with a serious fine. Is that clear?” He then addressed the court stenographer: “Strike that!” Then the jury: “Disregard that statement! You did not hear it. It will not be brought up in deliberation.”

Satisfied that the judge had done all he could, but knowing the damage had been done, Hammerstein continued his questioning. “Mrs. Lipinski, in the nineteen years that the defendant has lived with you, considering that children are sometimes mischievous, did Anna Mae ever take any change from your purse, or perhaps some money that was just lying around?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

“Not counting the memory issue, has Anna Mae ever lied to you?”

Sarah shifted in the witness chair, and eyed the defense attorney defiantly.

“Answer the question,” Hammerstein demanded. “Has Anna Mae ever lied to you?”

“I don’t know.”

Hammerstein hurried to the defense table and picked up a yellow legal pad. “In your deposition, Mrs. Lipinski, you said, and these are your exact words, ‘Anna Mae never lied to me. That’s one thing I was always thankful for. She wasn’t like some of the other teenagers who lied to their parents. She was a very honest girl.’ Isn’t that what you told me during the deposition?”

“I don’t remember saying that,” said Sarah.

“Seems you don’t remember a lot of things,” said Hammerstein as he slapped the legal pad on the defense table and sat down. “Your Honor, I have no more questions at this time, but I reserve the right to recall this witness.”

“Granted.”

Tom Simon stood up. “Redirect, Your Honor.”

“Go ahead,” said Wittier.

Simon strutted over to Sarah and said, “Mrs. Lipinski, do you love Anna Mae?”

“I do…I mean I did.”

“So you wouldn’t deliberately get up here and say things that would hurt her if they were not true.”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

Thursday Evening

Wrapped tightly in the rough woolen blanket, Anna Mae sat on the edge of her cot shivering. It was below zero outside and no more than fifty-five degrees in her cell. But the cold was nothing compared to Sarah’s betrayal—that was more than Anna Mae could endure.

She had refused supper and twice the matron had told her she had visitors: Angelo and Olga. She declined both visits. Nothing, not even the sympathy and support of those who cared could change what Sarah had said on that witness stand.

She placed her hard pillow against the cinder-block wall and leaned back, wishing she could cry. It might alleviate some of the pain that was actually physical. But tears would not come. She thought about the Bible that lay on the floor in the far corner, under a pile of books and magazines. She wondered if God, too, would turn against her. She had given Him reason enough.

The blanket fell from her shoulders as she slid off the cot and onto the floor. She pulled the Bible from under the pile, letting the rest of the reading material tumble away. She sat on the cement floor with her back against the cot, opened the Bible at random, and began to read:
Hold not thy peace, O God of my praise. For the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful are opened against me; they have spoken against me with a lying tongue; they compassed me with words of hatred; and fought against me without cause and they have rewarded me evil for good and hatred for my love.

She sat there staring at the words, astonished that once again she had opened her Bible to exactly the right place.
God does speak to me! He is here, in this jail, in this cell.
“God, please don’t be mad at me,” she whispered.

“Did you say something?” the matron asked through the bars.

“I was talking to God.”

“I hope He hears you!”

Anna Mae couldn’t tell if the matron was being sarcastic or not, but she didn’t care. With the Bible in her hand, she stood up then sat on the cot.
God, I am so sorry.
She lay down, pulled the blanket over herself and curled on her side to be as warm as possible, cradling the Bible in her arms as if it were a baby.

Time passed. She felt warmer, almost comfortable. Before the warden rang the ‘lights out’ bell, Anna Mae was asleep.

Something was pounding like a giant’s footsteps. She was sitting on the hard, vibrating ground overlooking the raging brown river. Ivan was standing beside her but she ignored him and looked into the distance.

Suddenly, a faceless entity, the embodiment of evil appeared. It was suspended in mid-air, looming over the river and effortlessly breaking a wooden cross into smaller and smaller pieces. In her dream, she stood up, unafraid, and with nothing but empty air under her feet she walked toward it. The evil entity receded farther and farther back into darkness, leaving the pieces of broken wood at Anna Mae’s feet.

Ivan was shouting at her to get back, and that it was dangerous where she stood over the broken cross—that she would fall into the powerful current and drown. But she willed him to be silent.

Suspended over the river, she gathered some of the pieces, wondering if she could ever fix it. She sensed a presence and looked up into a light. A shimmering bright beam flowed from the light, embracing her in perfect peace. An angelic figure, clothed in a radiant white robe, stepped out of the light and took her by the hand. The angel wanted her to follow. With complete trust, Anna Mae let herself be led. Together they floated into the brilliant white mist. Ivan called frantically. “No! Anna Mae! Don’t do it. Don’t go there. You’re going to drown!”

There was the witness chair. The angel motioned her to sit.

“No!” Ivan screamed.

Anna Mae willed him silent. She sat in the witness chair.

*              *              *

“That’s crazy!”

Ivan Hammerstein took off his jacket and threw it on the conference table. Trying not to raise his voice, he explained. “No defense attorney in his right mind would let you take the witness stand. That’s nuts! I’m telling you, Anna Mae! No! You’ll screw up everything.”

“But, in the dream...”

He smacked himself on his forehead with his palm. “Good God, girl! You don’t win murder trials in your dreams.”

“I have a right to testify if I want to,” she said, pacing with determined steps on the other side of the conference table.

“You’ve been talkin’ to those jail-house lawyers again,” Ivan accused. “For Christ sake! You’ll end up with the death penalty.”

Anna Mae put her hands on the table and leaned over to face her attorney. “I want to testify today,” she said. “It’s my right!”

“Now listen to me, Anna Mae. Dr. Rhukov is going to open our defense this morning. Then Father John will back up his testimony by repeating what you told him about the memory losses. Angelo will back him up. Even David...”

“I never told David.”

“He knows!” Ivan shouted, then lowering his voice, “He told me he suspected for a long time. So he’s gonna’ stretch the truth a bit. Who cares? It’s the truth, isn’t it? You have memory losses. I can prove it. For God’s sake, Anna Mae, we’re walking a shaky tightrope as it is.”

“I want to testify, Ivan. Today!”

“Look…I plan to put JD back on the stand. There was that incident where Walter clobbered him. The Lipinski brothers will also recount some of Walter’s violent episodes. They will testify that a lot of people hated Walter. Reasonable doubt. That is all we have to prove: memory loss, reasonable doubt.”

“I want to testify. Today!”

Ivan Hammerstein collapsed into a chair, his thick, black hair in as much disarray as the thoughts flying through his mind. For once, he didn’t bother to brush it back. Leaning forward with his head down, almost between his knees, as if he were trying to prevent himself from fainting, he said, “Today, huh?”

“Today!”

He massaged the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger. “How about next week?”

She walked over, pulled up a chair and sat down facing him. “Ivan! This is my life. My trial. My right to testify if I want to. And I want to testify today.”

He shook his head. He had never seen her like this before. She was always so compliant, so timid. But now! The girl was so damn sure of herself. If he put her on the stand, what in the hell would he ask her? ‘Will you please tell the jury what you didn’t see? Will you tell the jury about your memory? Or rather lack of it? How was your relationship with your uncle? Bad enough to kill him?’

“This is insane! You do not want to go up against that sleazy, red-haired lizard!” he said.

“Today, Ivan!”

He leaned back in his chair, brushed the hair off his forehead, felt the blood drain from his face and waited for his head to clear. With resignation he said, “Wait here.” He got up and walked out the door.

Ten minutes later, he was back. “I just bought us thirty minutes. Who knows? Maybe the mere audacity of it will work in our favor. Now here’s what I want you to do...”

Anna Mae listened carefully to the instructions: answer each question with as few words as possible, don’t add anything, and for God’s sake, stay cool when Tom Simon cross-examines you.

He went over the probable pressures and accusations the district attorney would use to attack her. “You got that?”

“Yes.”

They sat in silence for a few moments. She waiting. He thinking. Finally, taking her by the hand, he said, “Just do this one thing. Let me start with Dr. Rhukov. That will lay a good foundation for who you are. Will you do that?”

“All right,” she said.

The conference room door opened and the bailiff told them they had thirty seconds to get into the courtroom. Anna Mae handed Ivan his jacket and smiled. “It will be okay,” she said.

“I certainly hope so,” he shot back.