The Best Defense (24 page)

A pall of smoke discolored the sky.

At last he said, “I keep thinking that any day now you’ll tell me what you want.”

She didn’t respond. She was walking faster than she would have done if she were alone; a film of sweat covered her arms; she could feel it on her face, down her back. It felt good.

“I keep trying to figure it out,” he said.

“I looked you up. I know everything there is to know that’s public knowledge, and it’s no help.”

“Look, Mr. Spassero, I don’t want anything. So you can go now.”

“Why did you do it, then?”

She nodded to a man and woman approaching. The man had a small boy on his shoulders; the child had both hands full of the man’s hair. They were all grinning

“I tossed a coin,” she said.

“Heads you were in collusion which I probably never could prove; tails you were bone ignorant. Tails won. I’d have done the same thing for a kid brother. Now go home.”

“I’m thirty-two,” he said.

“You’ve been sheltered.”

“That’s true. Do you want me to tell you about it?”

“No.”

“But I want to. The day after I got the Kennerman case Doneally showed up. You called it: They had been watching me; they were interested; they wanted a new man in the office, the whole works. I was flattered.

And, yes, bone ignorant. It simply never occurred to me to question why this had come up now.”

Barbara maintained her steady, too-fast pace and didn’t even glance at him. Now and then she nodded at others on the path, and now and then moved aside to let others pass her, and now and then noted the ripeness of the blackberries that still clung to the brambles that were thick along the side of the path.

“Okay,” he said, “I should have suspected something;

I can see that now, but there wasn’t any reason to at the time. I thought Kennerman was guilty. I still think she’s guilty. I believed Doneally was giving me guidance; no one had ever done that before. Doneally told me Copley was his own doctor; I never even questioned what he was prescribing.”

He lapsed into silence, and she began to get a sense of how difficult this was for him.

“Then, after you got the case, I took the file and went away to think. I read everything again and again, and it still didn’t make sense, not until I got back and did a little research on Dodgson and found out that Doneally was his attorney.”

She looked at him now. He was walking steadily, his gaze on the ground before him, frowning.

“I still don’t understand it,” he admitted. He caught her arm.

“Could we take it a little slower? This isn’t the easiest thing I’ve ever done, and I need all my breath.”

She slowed down thankfully.

“So I called Doneally and told him I’d reconsidered and decided to stay on at the public defender’s office.

He said that was just as well, because they had decided not to expand after all, not just now.”

She remained silent. He had not told her a thing she had not already known or guessed. She waited for the hook.

“Then you did what you did. Judge Paltz was really very generous, you know? I didn’t expect that. I met him in the hall a couple of days ago and he asked me if I’d spoken to you.”

Now we have it, she thought, regret tinged with bitterness.

If the judge asked again, he could answer yes and look schoolboy innocent.

When he spoke the next time, his words were slower, more hesitant.

“I realized that you hadn’t said a word to him when he called you. I didn’t expect that, either.”

He touched her arm again and stopped walking; she stopped also.

“Look,” he said, “I know I’m bugging you. You need time alone, to think, to relax. I’m sorry.

I just want to tell you that I’m extremely grateful. Not that I won’t still be waiting to see what you want, but there it is. I’m grateful. Thank you.” He looked as if those words cost him more than he could pay. Abruptly, he turned and almost ran in the opposite direction.

She watched him fop a second or two, and then continued on her walk. What was he after?

Later, when she told her father about the meeting, he said, “Maybe he said what’s on his mind—he’s sorry, he was wrong.”

“Right,” she said.

“Why didn’t he come forward when he knew what was up?”

“Scared, probably. A decade of life gone down the tube. When you’re his age, a decade is one third of your life. That’s hard.”

She made a snorting sound that even to her ears sounded exactly like the kind of noise he made when disgusted.

“You know,” he went on, “most of the time it’s easy enough to spot when you’ve made an enemy, but it takes a lot of experience to recognize when you’ve made a friend.”

The next morning she drove to Frank’s house; Heath Byerson arrived promptly at eight forty-five and drove them to the courthouse, where they were present in force. She ignored them.

Today Kay Dodgson wore a soft pink dress with a matching jacket, and pearls, and looked even more expensively turned out than she had previously.

Judge Paltz reminded her that she was still under oath, but before Barbara could start, Gerald Fierst said, “Your Honor, the witness spoke to me before court this morning and said she would like to make a statement.

She mis spoke yesterday and wants to correct the record.”

Judge Paltz eyed Kay Dodgson with a distant look.

“Is that so, Mrs. Dodgson?”

“Yes, sir,” she said.

“I made a mistake. I realized last night that it might look bad, and I thought I should fix it as soon as I could.”

So, Barbara thought, Doneally, Dodgson’s attorney, knew about Rhode Island v. Stanley along with everyone else.

“Proceed, Mrs. Dodgson,” Judge Paltz said.

“Thank you. Your Honor. You see, when he asked if we paid Carrie Voight, I was thinking of paying, like you do people who clean the house, and the people who work at the press, you know, on a weekly basis, or hourly, or whatever. Then I realized that since Rich is helping support Carrie, that might look like we’re paying her. But it’s not the same thing.” She hesitated, and cast a swift glance at the jury, then plunged on.

“We give donate, that is, two hundred fifty dollars a month to help support her.”

Judge Paltz nodded.

“Thank you, Mrs. Dodgson. Ms.

Holloway, if you will.”

“That’s a very generous gift, Mrs. Dodgson,” Barbara said, rising, moving toward the witness stand.

“Is Carrie Voight related to you or your husband?”

“Of course not.”

“So you can’t even claim her as a dependent on your income tax, which makes it even more generous. How long have you lived in your present house, Mrs.

Dodgson?”

“Twelve years.”

“And when did you start this act of generosity with Carrie Voight?”

“I really don’t know for sure.” Kay Dodgson glanced again at the jury box and raised her eyebrows.

“I mean, we just like to help people. We don’t make notes about it.”

“You said earlier that you’re the general manager of the Dodgson Publishing Company, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“So you keep the books? Do the accounts? Make out the payroll? Are those your functions?”

“Yes,” she said sharply.

“I said that.”

“I know you did, Mrs. Dodgson. I know you did,” Barbara said easily.

“Yet you don’t know how long you have been paying, excuse me, giving Carrie Voight two hundred fifty dollars a month?”

“No, I don’t.” She turned her gaze to Gerald Fierst, as if to seek his intervention. He made no response.

“Mrs. Dodgson, what kind of arrangement did you have with Carrie Voight? Did she report personally when something was out of line?”

“No. I never met her.”

“How did she communicate when she suspected a problem?”

“She called us sometimes to say what was going on.”

“I see. Did you take those calls?”

“No. She talked to Rich. I never had anything to do with her.”

“Did you share your husband’s feelings about the seriousness of the incident when two women from the ranch went swimming nude in the pond?”

“Yes! Absolutely. I have to protect my own children from that sort of thing.” Her mouth had become very tight, her lips almost invisible, and two spots of red appeared on her cheeks as she answered.

“How old are your children, Mrs. Dodgson?”

“Craig is twenty-seven and Alex is twenty-three.”

“And this happened two years ago when they were twenty-five and twenty-one. Do they ever swim nude, Mrs. Dodgson?”

“No! Of course—” She stopped herself and said, even more tightly, “In the privacy of our home, not in public, they might.”

Barbara went to her table and opened a file, extracted several glossy prints.

“Your Honor, I would like to introduce into evidence photographs of the pond we are talking about.”

“Objection,” Fierst said, and already he sounded tired.

“This is irrelevant to the case we’re hearing.”

“Your Honor,” Barbara said, approaching the bench, “this witness is prejudicial to the use that was made of the Canby property, and that

prejudice may have ex 9 tended to my client. In cases of extreme prejudice witnesses sometimes mis speak misinterpret what they see, or fail to see what is clearly before them. It is my intention ” Judge Paltz held up his hand and overruled the objection, and Barbara continued.

“This is a photograph of the pond taken from the private road leading to the Canby property. Do you recognize the pond?”

“Of course not! I can’t even see the pond!”

“This one was taken from Farleigh Road. Do you recognize the pond from this one?”

“No!” Kay Dodgson snapped.

“And finally, another one taken from your driveway off the private road. Can you recognize the pond here?”

“You know I can’t see the pond in those pictures.”

“Yes, I know that. And yet the swimming incident was one of the problems your husband raised with Mrs.

Canby, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. That pond is in public view, even if those pictures don’t show it.”

Barbara went to the aerial map and traced the outline of the pond.

“Three-fourths of the ground around the pond is overgrown with rushes that grow six to eight feet high by midsummer.” She pointed to a narrow strip without vegetation.

“This one area is open, and it faces the woods that are on the Canby property. Would you call that public, Mrs. Dodgson?”

“Yes. Swimming naked in public is indecent, and they were there to be seen by anyone who looked.”

“When your two sons swim nude, what is to prevent your housekeeper from glancing in and seeing them?”

“She knows better. If they have the music on, she doesn’t go near the pool room.”

“So, if those two women had played music, that would have been enough to warn off possible voyeurs?”

“They had no business swimming naked out in the open like that! Not around impressionable young boys.”

“Mrs. Dodgson, did your sons make it a habit to tres pass on the Canby property here in the woods, for ex ample?”

“Never! They knew better than to go over there.”

“Could they have seen anyone in that pond from your property?”

Kay Dodgson hesitated and Pierst objected.

“The witness can’t testify about what someone else might have seen.”

“I withdraw the question,” Barbara said. Then she asked, “Did you see the women swimming that day?”

“No.”

“When did you hear about it?”

“I don’t remember. After dinner, after Rich got home.

I’m not sure.”

“Your sons didn’t report it to you?”

“No. Rich told us.”

“Was he at work that day?”

“Yes.”

Barbara led her through the incident with the gate.

Did she see anyone actually turning around on their property? Was Rich home when it happened? Was Craig?

“If no one saw it, why were you so upset? Was any harm done to your landscaping?”

“No. We were afraid one of those women would decide to take a shortcut through our driveway out to Spring Bay Road. You just don’t know what irresponsible women like that will do. We wanted them to stay off our property, and we put up a gate to see that they did stay off.”

“How can you be certain it was one of those women who turned in your driveway that day since no one in your household saw her?”

“We knew. We just knew.”

“Did Carrie Voight tell you?”

“Not me. She might have told Rich. Not me. I told you, she didn’t call me.”

During the first recess Frank handed Barbara a report from Bailey. She read it and grinned. Kay Dodgson had been a dancer in a casino in Las Vegas when she married Rich Dodgson. Frank winked at her.

“You’re wearing her down just fine,” he commented.

She nodded.

“Not enough, not yet. But I’m working on it.”

When they all filed back into the courtroom, she heard Frank’s voice in her ear.

“Someone opened up her spine and filled it with starch.” Kay Dodgson was almost rigidly straight, with high color, as if she had been given a swift kick. Barbara hoped that had happened.

“Mrs. Dodgson,” she asked, “have you ever met any of the guests at the Canby Ranch?”

“No, of course not!”

“Yet earlier you labeled them irresponsible. Why?”

“They left their husbands, didn’t they? That’s irresponsible.”

“Do you think there is ever a legitimate cause for a woman to leave her husband?”

“Rarely.”

“Do you accept that some men beat their wives?”

“If they fight, it takes two.”

Fierst objected on the grounds that a criminal trial was no place to conduct a philosophical discussion.

Barbara agreed, thinking, testing, just testing.

She led Kay Dodgson through the incident with the woman photographer and concluded by asking, “So no one could have seen her, since you say your family rises at about eight or eight-thirty. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“And she didn’t make any noise that you heard? Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“She didn’t leave any trash behind, did she?”

“I don’t know.”

“If she had, wouldn’t that have been part of the complaint?”