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Authors: Alice Sebold

Tags: #Personal Memoirs

Lucky (25 page)

BOOK: Lucky
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"Let the record reflect that the witness identified the defendant," Mastine said.

For the remainder of the direct examination, I did not take my eyes off Madison for more than a second or two. I wanted my life back.

Mastine spent a long time on the events of October 5. I had to describe Madison on that day. What he looked like, what he said. Madison raised his head from the defense table only once. When he did, and saw that I was still looking at him, he turned away and to the city of Syracuse outside the window.

Mastine questioned me in detail about what Officer Clapper looked like, where he was standing. Had I seen Madison approach him? From what direction? Where did I go? Who did I call? Why the time discrepancy between seeing him and calling the police? Oh, he pointed out, the discrepancy was because I had appeared at class to tell my teacher I couldn't attend? Had naturally called my parents and told them what had happened? Had tried to wait for a friend to walk me home? All the things a good girl, he implied, might do after running into her rapist on the street.

His purpose in all this was to make anything Paquette could go after in his cross moot.

That was what made Clapper so important. If I had identified Clapper and he, in turn, had identified Madison, this made my case close to airtight. This was the key point of identification Mastine emphasized. What Mastine and Uebelhoer, what Paquette, Madison, and I all knew, was that the lineup was the weak link.

I had thought long and hard about what I was going to say. This time around I would not pretend a command I did not have.

Mastine had me detail my reasoning for ruling out the men I initially had. I took my time explaining the similarities between numbers four and five and how I hadn't been sure at the time I marked the box but that I had chosen five because of the eye contact.

"At the time that you indicated it was number five, were you in fact positive it was him?"

"No, I was not."

"Why did you mark the box, then?"

This was the single most important question of my case.

"I marked the box because I was very scared, and he was looking at me and I saw the eyes, and the way the lineup is, it is not like it is on television, and you are standing right next to the person and he looks like he is two feet away from you. He looked at me. I picked him."

I could feel Judge Gorman's attention heighten. I watched Gail as I answered the questions Mastine put to me, tried to think of good things, of the baby floating inside her womb.

"Do you know to this day who that depicted?"

"Number five?"

"Yes," said Mastine.

"No," I said.

"Do you know which position the defendant was in, in the lineup?"

If I told the truth, I could say that the moment I picked number five I knew I was wrong and had regretted it. That everything after that, from the mood in the lineup room, to the relief on Paquette's face, to the dark weight I felt on Lorenz in the conference room, had only confirmed my mistake.

If I lied, if I said, "No, I do not," I knew I would be perceived as telling the truth in my confusion between four and five. "Identical twins," I had said to Tricia in the hallway.

"It's four, isn't it?" were my first words to Lorenz.

I knew the man who raped me sat across from me in the courtroom. It was my word against his.

"Do you know which position the defendant was in, in the lineup?"

"No, I do not," I said.

Judge Gorman held up his hand. He had the court reporter read over Mastine's last question and my answer to it.

Mastine asked me if there was any other reason I felt scared or hurried during the lineup.

"The attorney for the defendant hadn't let me have my rape—he wouldn't allow me to have my rape center counselor with me."

Paquette objected. He believed this was irrelevant.

Mastine continued. He asked me about the Rape Crisis Center, about Tricia. I had met her on the day of my rape. He emphasized the connection. All of this went to why, in his mind, I had made my one and only mistake. This mistake, he wanted to make certain, should not invalidate what occurred on October 5 and the corroborating evidence of Officer Clapper.

"Is there any doubt in your mind, Miss Sebold, that the person that you saw on Marshall Street is the same person that attacked you on May eighth in Thorden Park?"

"No doubt whatsoever," I said. And I had none.

"That is all I have at this point, Your Honor," Mastine said, turning to Judge Gorman.

Gail gave me a wink.

"We will take about a five-minute recess," Judge Gorman said. "I caution you, Miss Sebold, don't discuss your testimony now with anyone."

This was what I had been promised—a break between direct and cross. I was assigned to the bailiff. She led me off to the right, through a door, down a short hall, and into a conference room.

The bailiff was as friendly as she could be.

"How was I?" I asked.

"Why don't you sit down," she said.

I sat at the table.

"Can you just make a signal?" I asked. Suddenly I got the idea into my head that the room was bugged—a way to make sure that the rules were followed. "Thumbs up or down?"

"I can't discuss the case. It will all be over soon."

We were quiet. I could now make out the traffic noise outside. I hadn't heard anything other than Mastine's questions while I testified.

The bailiff offered me stale coffee in a styrofoam cup. I took it and wrapped my hands around the warm outsides.

Judge Gorman entered the room.

"Hello, Alice," he said. He stood on the other side of the table from me. "How is she, bailiff?" he asked.

"She's good."

"Haven't talked about the case?"

"No," the bailiff said, "quiet, mostly."

"So what does your father do, Alice?" he asked me. His tone was more gentle than the one he used in court. The voice lighter, more circumspect.

"He teaches Spanish at Penn," I said.

"I bet you're glad he's here today."

"I am."

"Do you have any sisters or brothers?"

"An older sister. Mary," I added, anticipating his next question. He went over and stood by the window.

"I've always liked this room," he said. "What does Mary do?"

"She's majoring in Arabic at Penn," I said, suddenly happy to have questions that were so easy. "She goes there free but I didn't get in," I said. "Something my parents really regret now," I said, making a joke.

"I bet they do," he said. He had been half sitting on the radiator and now he stood and adjusted his robe. "Well, you just sit here for a little while longer," he said, "and we'll call you."

He left.

"He's a good judge," the bailiff said.

The door opened and a male bailiff poked his head in. "We're ready," he said.

My bailiff stubbed out her cigarette. We didn't speak. I was ready now. This was it.

I reentered the courtroom and took the stand. I took a deep breath and looked up. In front of me was my enemy. He would do everything he could to make me look bad—stupid, confused, hysterical. Madison could look at me now. His man had been sent in. I saw Paquette approach me. I looked right at him, took him all in: his small build, ugly suit, the sweat on his upper lip. He may have been, in some part of his life, a decent man, but what overwhelmed me now was my contempt for him. Madison had committed the crime but Paquette, by representing him, condoned it. He seemed the very force of nature I had to fight. I had no trouble hating him.

"Miss Sebold, I believe that you testified that you were headed into Thorden Park on May eighth around midnight. Is that right?"

"Yes."

"You were coming from Westcott Street?"

"Yes."

"Did you go through an entrance through the park there, like a gateway?"

"There is a bathhouse and there is pavement in front of the house, and I went on the pavement and then it continues on a brick path by the pool and I walked on that brick path."

"So that the bathhouse, then, is at the perimeter of the pool, on the Westcott side?"

"Yes."

"The path you are talking about takes you right into the center of the park and right out on the other side, would it?"

"Yes, it would."

"You started to go down that path?"

"Yes, I did."

"You testified today that the whole area was surrounded by lights and that the lighting was quite good?"

"Yes, I did."

"Do you remember testifying in a preliminary examination on this case?"

"Yes, I did." I hated these questions. Who wouldn't remember? But I held my sarcasm in check.

"Do you remember saying that there were some lights on anyway from the bathhouse but—"

"What page?" Mastine asked.

"Page four, the preliminary exam."

"Is this the preliminary exam?" Gorman asked, holding up a group of papers.

"Yes," Paquette said.

"Line fourteen. I think there are some lights from my way to the bathhouse I could see behind. It was dark, but not black behind me.' "

I remembered my phrase "dark but not black."

"Yes, I said that."

"Isn't that a little bit different than saying you were surrounded by lights on all sides and quite good lighting?"

I knew what he was doing.

"It may sound more dramatic to say surrounded by lights. The light was there and I saw what I saw."

"My question is, was it dark but not black the way you testified in the preliminary, or was it quite good lighting, surrounded by lights, the way you testified today?"

"When I said quite good lighting, I meant quite good lighting in the dark."

"Okay. Now, you went about how far into the park before you were first accosted?"

"I went past the bathhouse and past the gate and the fence that is along the pool and about ten feet past that fence, and then I was taken by the man."

"How many feet or yards would it be from the entrance to the park until that point that you described as ten feet beyond?"

"Two hundred feet."

"About two hundred feet? You were into the park about two hundred feet when you were first accosted?"

"Yes, I was."

"Did that person come up from behind you?"

"Yes, he did."

"Grabbed you from behind?"

"Yes, he did."

"You struggled at that point?"

"Yes, I did."

"Did that struggle take a long time?"

"Yes."

"About how long?"

"About ten or fifteen minutes."

"Now, there came a point when this individual took you from where you were first accosted into another area of the park. Is that right?"

"It wasn't another area. It was just further in."

"Further into the park?"

"Not further into the park but—on and outside the—we struggled outside the tunnel and then he took me inside the tunnel."

"Could you describe this tunnel for me?"

The questions were fast and furious. I had to breathe quickly to keep up. I couldn't see anything but Paquette's lips moving and the beads of sweat above them.

"Well, I keep calling it a tunnel because somebody told me that it was a tunnel leading up to the amphitheater. From what I see, and it doesn't have—you can't go farther into it than a distance of about ten feet. It is more like a cave and an arch. It has got stonework above it and a gate in front of it."

"How deep does it go in there, from the gate to the wall?"

"I would say about ten, fifteen feet at the most."

"At the most?" he said. It felt like a sudden, unexpected parry in a fencing match. "I ask you to take a look at exhibit number four, which has been received into evidence, and I ask you, do you recognize that?"

"Yes, I do."

"What is that?"

"That is the path by which he took me to the tunnel and that is the gate in front of the tunnel, the opening of the gate."

"So if we were looking at this picture, and would he have taken you farther down that path walking, and I would call it into the picture, or am I misstating—"

"The tunnel is behind the gate, or the cave is behind the gate."

Suddenly it dawned on me what he was doing. All the gate and tunnel questions, the rapid fire on where I was coming from, going to, how many feet it was or wasn't. He was trying to wear me out.

"Could you point out to me any other spotlight or streetlights that you see in the picture?"

I sat forward on my seat and studied exhibit four closely. I was attentive; I waited to form the answers that would equal him move for move.

"I don't see any streetlights, except right up here on that tip there is alight."

"Way in the back of the picture?"

"Yes."

"Are there any lights there that weren't depicted in this photograph?"

"Yes."

"There are?" he said, again the same disbelieving tone, meant to imply that I was really a bit insane, wasn't I? "They are missing from the picture?" he said. He smiled up at the judge, bemused.

"They are not in the picture, no," I said. "That is because the picture doesn't show the whole area."

All of what wasn't said in every move of his—his insinuations, what he implied—I tried to answer by being as clear and controlled as possible.

Quickly, he pushed forward another photo. "This is exhibit number five, do you recognize that?"

"Yes, I do."

"That is the area where you were assaulted; is that right?"

"Yes, it is."

"Is there any lighting in that picture, any artificial lights?"

"No. I do not see any lighting and you could see the place, and you—there must be some light."

"The question is," he said, pressing in, "do you see any artificial lighting? Of course there are police lights flashing into the picture."

"I see no artificial lights," I said, "and it is only a picture of the stone, and there can't be lights in the stone," I said, looking up at him and at the rest of the court.

"That probably would be true." His lips curled. "About how much time would you say that you spent in that area?"

"I would say about an hour."

"About an hour?"

"A little bit more."

BOOK: Lucky
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