Guilt by Association (58 page)

“Yes.” Karen nodded. “I’m certain. It was Mariah.”

Janice Evans turned to the senator’s aide and chuckled. “Has Bobby been fantasizing about the human iceberg?”

But Randy wasn’t amused. He gripped the arms of his chair until his knuckles whitened and a hard knot formed in his stomach.
Two rows in front of him, separated from him by a bulletproof wall, Robert Willmont didn’t move a muscle.

“Do you know anyone named Mariah, Mrs. Doniger?”

“I believe the senator has an adviser by that name, but I’ve never met her.”

“An adviser… I see.” Tess nodded. “All right. Let’s pick up right after he called you Mariah.”

“Well, he kept saying how I’d probably never had it so good before,” Karen said in a choked voice. “And then he— he said he knew exactly what I wanted next.”

“Did you know what he meant?” Tess asked.

“I didn’t at first,” the witness gulped. “But then I did.”

Under the ADA’s guidance, Karen tremulously recounted how the senator had pushed himself into her mouth.

“He said that was the way he liked it best. And he said … he said he was sure I’d like it just as much as he did.”

On the right side of the gallery, Ted Doniger groaned.

On the left side of the gallery, Elizabeth Willmont barely concealed a gasp.

“What happened then?” Tess asked.

“I gagged,” Karen replied. “And I guess I must have bitten him or something, because he yelled and pulled away. Then he said he’d teach me to play games like that, and he punched me in the face with his fist. The next thing I remember clearly, a man in a jogging suit was putting his jacket over me.”

“Thank you,” Tess said. “Well done,” she whispered.

The ADA walked over to the prosecution table and leaned on it for a moment with her back to Karen. Then suddenly she straightened up and whirled around.

“Mrs. Doniger, did you at any time during that evening, in the garage, at the bar, or in the car, give the defendant any indication that you wanted to have sex with him?”

“No, I did not,” Karen declared. “You see, I
didn’t
want to have sex with him, so why would I have given him any reason to think that I did?”

“You did not consent?”

“No, Miss Escalante, I did not consent.” The response was quick and emphatic.

“You did nothing at all that could possibly have been construed that way?”

“Nothing. Unless having a drink with him and agreeing to let him drive me home means I gave him some kind of implicit permission to do what he did to me.” Karen looked up
at the judge and then over at the jury and finally turned her eyes on Tess. “Did it?”

The seasoned ADA considered her witness for a moment. The question had come as a surprise, but it was perfect.

“No,” she replied. “I don’t believe it did.” Then she, too, took a deliberate moment to look around, at the jury, at the gallery,
at the defendant. “And I would hope that there is no one in this courtroom who does.”

“You did just fine,” Ione said during lunch at Campton Place. “You answered every question as well as you could, and it was obvious, at least to everyone in the gallery, that you were telling the truth.”

The moment Judge Washington called the noon break, two deputies had escorted Karen and her entourage out a rear door where Ted had a limousine waiting. They chose the dining room at Campton Place because it was quiet and exclusive and there was no better food to be found in the city. But Karen just picked at her plate.

“Truth is a very elastic thing,” she murmured, “that can be stretched to mean whatever people need it to mean.”

“I was watching the jury,” Demelza said. “They were just as appalled as the rest of us.”

“I was watching the defendant,” Jenna said. “He sat there through the whole thing like he was made of stone.”

“What did you think of Karen Doniger’s testimony, Senator?” a reporter called as Robert and his party made their way down the front steps of the Hall of Justice.

“It was quite emotional,” the senator replied calmly, holding his wife’s hand, “quite theatrical, quite calculated, quite inaccurate.”

“Do you have any idea why she’s trying to smear you?” someone sympathetic to the candidate inquired.

“She certainly hasn’t confided in
me,
if that’s what you’re asking,” Robert said. “But I think it’s very sad when a woman is as unhappy, as frustrated, and as desperate as she must ob
viously be to have involved herself in such an outrageous and malicious lie.”

“She sounded awfully convincing.”

“Not to me.”

“What about the jury—do you think they believed her?”

Robert flashed one of his brilliant smiles. “I think the jury is smarter than that, don’t you?”

“Will your attorney be able to discredit her?”

“For what I’m paying him,” the senator said, chuckling, “I sincerely hope so.”

But it was a different story, fifteen minutes later, in the Sutton Wells conference room on Front Street.

“She buried me, damn it,” Robert cried, “and I had to sit there and listen to her do it.”

It was a last-minute strategy session with Sutton and his associates to make sure they were prepared for the afternoon’s cross-examination.
The candidate insisted on being present at all such meetings.

“I won’t lie to you,” Sutton conceded. “She was a very compelling witness for the prosecution.”

“Compelling? It was an Oscar-winning performance. Can you trip her up?”

Sutton shrugged. “I’ll certainly try. There are a few soft spots in her story that I think we can expose.”

“Why do you think the prosecution quit so soon?”

“I think it was just a clever maneuver to turn our haste back on us,” Sutton replied. “Escalante was trying to send a message to the jury that her case was so strong, she didn’t need to waste time with character witnesses.”

“Is it?” Robert inquired bluntly.

“Let’s just say it’s not time to worry yet,” Sutton assured him. “Don’t forget that we have a few compelling things on our side. We have your reputation, which, until this little… lapse, has been spotless. We have the Drayton name, which carries enormous weight in this city. And we have the total lack of motive for you to risk your whole career in such a frivolous way.
In the final analysis, it won’t be evidence or expert witnesses, but credibility, that will decide this case, and
I think it’s fairly accurate to say that your credibility in this community is rock solid.”

“Mrs. Doniger,” the Silver Fox inquired as the afternoon session began, “you said that, on the night in question, you worked late at campaign headquarters to finish a project that the senator needed for the following day; is that correct?”

“Yes,” Karen replied after a three-second pause. Tess had coached her to wait that long before answering, in case the ADA wished to object.

“Were you expecting the senator to return that evening?”

“No, not necessarily.”

“Were you perhaps taking longer on the project than you might have because you were hoping he would return?”

“No.”

“Whose idea was it that your daughter spend the evening with a friend?”

“Hers.”

“Whose idea was it that your husband have dinner out after his meeting?”

“I guess it was mine, but that was only because—”

“So, would it be fair to say,” Sutton interrupted her smoothly, “that you were prepared, as early as that morning, and before you knew anything at all about the position paper, to stay late at campaign headquarters?”

“No.”

“He’s twisting it all around,” Jenna complained. “He’s trying to make it look like she was planning to get raped.”

“That’s his job,” Mitch told her.

“The man is just about to earn his fee,” Mary Catherine murmured.

“Returning to your earlier testimony,” Sutton went on, “you said you were motivated to join the senator’s campaign because you believed he might be the only man who could help solve America’s problems; is that correct?”

“More or less.”

“Was there any other reason?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Well, let me rephrase my question. Did you consider the senator handsome?”

“I suppose he’s handsome.”

“Did you find him charming?”

“Yes, he appeared to be charming.”

“Were you curious about the senator personally, what the man behind the politics was really all about?”

“On some level.”

“You were attracted to him, then?”

“Professionally, perhaps. Not personally.”

“Didn’t you ever fantasize about what he might be like when he, say, took off his clothes?”

“No.”

“Or what it might be like to have sex with him?”

“No.”

“So, according to your testimony, the senator was handsome, he was charming, you were curious about him, you thought enough of him to spend two days a week working for his election—but you weren’t the least attracted to him?”

“No.”

“The man’s a genius,” Janice Evans observed.

“Why doesn’t the prosecutor object?” Felicity cried.

“To what?” Demelza sighed. “He has every right to try to discredit her.”

“Let’s move on now to the parking garage,” the Silver Fox proposed. “You claim you couldn’t get your car started; is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“You said you were about to look under the hood when the senator came along?”

“Yes.”

“You said you thought he might have followed you?”

“Yes.”

“Were you hoping he would follow you?”

“No.”

“Where was his car parked?”

“Several spaces away from mine.”

“Then is it possible that he was simply going to his own car when he saw you in trouble and offered to help?”

“It’s possible.”

“When you couldn’t get your car started and the senator graciously offered to take you home, why did you agree?”

“Because he was insistent and I didn’t want to appear discourteous.”

“But if you hadn’t wanted to go with him, you could have refused and taken a taxi, couldn’t you?”

“As I said, I didn’t want to appear discourteous.”

“Whose idea was it to go to the bar across the street?”

“To go to a bar was his idea. To go to the one across the street was mine.”

“Do you frequently go to bars with men and drink three Scotches in the course of a two-hour conversation?”

“No.”

“But you did on this particular occasion?”

“Yes.”

“And the next day, after you accused my client of raping you, when your husband had a towing company come to collect your car—what did they find wrong with it?”

“There was a loose wire.”

“Not a dead battery?”

“No.”

“Not a faulty starter?”

“No.”

“Just a loose wire that anyone could have reached under the hood and pulled free—anyone, that is, who might have wanted an excuse to be in the garage when the senator came for his car?”

“I know absolutely nothing about cars, Mr. Sutton,” Karen declared. “I have no idea how the wire came loose.”

“All right, let’s go back to your quite extraordinary statement that you had never had an affair with a man before your marriage.
That was your testimony, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“A remarkable thing in the 1970s, Mrs. Doniger. You’re to
be commended. You were practicing safe sex before anyone knew there was a deadly reason to do so, weren’t you?”

The gallery tittered.

“Objection, Your Honor,” Tess said in disgust. “Mr. Sutton’s attempt at humor demeans this proceeding.”

“I agree,” the judge snapped, smacking his gavel sharply at the gallery and scowling at the defense attorney.

“Withdrawn,” the Silver Fox demurred. “During the years of 1969 through 1977, Mrs. Doniger,” he asked instead, “where were you living?”

“On West Twelfth Street in New York City,” the witness replied.

“Were you at that time familiar with a section of New York known as Greenwich Village?”

“Very familiar. I worked there and I had very good friends who lived there.”

“These friends, did they live on Sullivan Street, by any chance?”

“Yes.”

“Will you please tell the court something about the living arrangements of these friends?”

Karen considered the attorney for a moment. “Like a great many people at the time,” she said finally, “and for economic reasons as much as anything else, they had what you would probably call a commune.”

“A commune—where several unmarried people of mixed sexes shared the same apartment?”

“Objection,” Tess called. “Where’s the relevance?”

“Your Honor,” Sutton argued, “this morning, Mrs. Doniger testified to having had no sexual relationships before her marriage.
I’m simply pursuing that line of inquiry.”

“Objection overruled,” Washington said.

“Again, Mrs. Doniger, this particular commune—was it shared by both men and women?”

“Yes.”

“How many men and how many women?”

“Different numbers at different times,” Karen replied. “The
lease was held by a woman who allowed friends with no place else to go to come and stay as long as they liked.”

“Would you describe these friends who came and stayed as having been part of a counterculture? What were commonly referred to as ‘hippies’?”

“Yes.”

“Did these hippies who came and stayed engage in sexual intercourse with one another?”

“Sometimes.”

“In fact, didn’t the bedroom of that apartment contain wall-to-wall mattresses?”

“It was a small apartment. There wasn’t enough space for all the separate beds they would have needed.”

On the right side of the gallery, Ione shifted in her seat. “Where did he get all this?” she hissed.

“From the ex-roommate, I’ll bet,” Demelza muttered.

“Or the ex-landlord,” Mitch growled.

Across the aisle, Janice Evans sat forward. “Maybe not so lily-white, after all,” she murmured.

“But it was quite common for two or three or even four different couples to—er—make intimate use of those mattresses at night?”
Sutton pursued like a bloodhound.

“Yes.”

“And, from 1969 to 1977, you visited at the Sullivan Street apartment quite frequently, did you not?”