The Best Defense (39 page)

Now she heard a siren, and many voices.

“Did they catch him?” she asked, her words muffled against his shoulder.

“No. They’re still searching.” His voice was thick, al most unrecognizable.

She drew back and examined him. He was as pale as death.

“I’m all right,” she said.

“It’s over.”

“He sneaked up behind Les…. It could have been you. God, it could have been you.”

“How bad?”

“Don’t know yet. Bad. Come on, let’s go to my office and sit down.” He kept his arm around her shoulders as they walked back to his room, where Bailey met them and put a glass into Frank’s hand, another one into Barbara’s.

“Take a drink,” Bailey said, “and then look at this.”

On the desk was a picture of Barbara, the glass smashed and Frank’s paper cutter stuck in the middle of her forehead.

“Don’t touch it,” Bailey said. They all sat down and waited, listening to the police officers in the corridors, in the other offices.

Presently Heath Byerson appeared with a police lieu tenant.

“How are you?” Heath asked Barbara.

“Okay,” she said.

“What about Les? How bad is it?”

“They took him to the hospital. No report yet. He’s alive, that’s a plus.”

“Look at that,” Frank said, pointing to the picture.

“How’d he get in here?” he demanded.

“Where’s the watchman?”

“We found him,” Heath said slowly.

“He took a bashing, too. He’s alive, that’s all I know. He was dragged under the stairwell, his keys gone. They’re still gone,” he added, and then said to Barbara, “You up to making a statement yet?”

She told them, and the lieutenant made notes. He asked the questions after she finished. Although he was thorough and patient, she could add nothing. She had not seen him, had not heard him, didn’t know who he had been.

“He wore gloves?” Bailey asked.

The lieutenant nodded.

“They’re lifting smudges, that’s all.” He glanced around Frank’s office, the picture on (he desk.

“We’ll do this room soon as you folks leave.”

“And the weapon?”

“He kept it.”

“Sounds like a pro,” Bailey commented.

“Not one of those crazies who’ve been hanging around.”

“We’re considering that,” the lieutenant said.

“Tonight we’ll keep a man outside your house,” he told Frank.

“You can leave now. I’d change the locks here,” he added grimly. One of the police officers came in with Barbara’s purse and briefcase; she had forgotten them.

There was a brief discussion of how they would get back to the house. Heath wanted to drive them, but Bailey had his car in the parking lot, and finally it was decided that Heath would tag along, see that they got home safely, and wait there until someone came on duty.

“You’re not going to like it when you get outside,” he said.

“Reporters. They’ll follow us. I’m afraid your hideout is blown from now on.”

Bailey went out to bring the car to the entrance, and Heath escorted them to it, with officers on each side of Barbara and Frank. The reporters were there, the television cameras, a crowd of onlookers. Flashbulbs exploded questions were screamed at them, a microphone was shoved past one of the officers, who knocked it out of the way, and from the crowd a woman’s piercing voice shrieked, “Next time you get it, bitch!”

what if she had not gone to Bessie’s office? What if Les had not been there? What if her father had arrived to find an intruder? What if he had had a gun? What if she had called out to Les? What if she had not become alarmed by no lights in the halls? The thoughts chased themselves like a dust devil in her head. Bailey had started to talk about it, and Frank had said later, tomorrow.

How carefully she and her father had examined each other, searching for what?

She had got to bed late, after twelve, and now her legs twitched, her head ached, her back hurt, and sleep was in the next county over. Twice she got up to look out a window to make certain the police were there. She summoned the sound of the wind in fir trees, whispering, whispering…. Finally, trying to make out the words, trying to understand, she fell asleep.

Bailey showed up even before Heath Byerson the next morning.

“Thought I’d hang in close today, tomorrow, in case something comes up the last day or two the way it does sometimes,” Bailey said in his offhanded way.

She wanted to order him to keep an eye on her father,

not get far from him, but she thought he already knew that.

“Any word about Les?” she asked.

“In surgery. They flew him up to Portland last night.

The watchman’s in better shape, still in intensive care, still critical, but in better shape than Les Smithers.”

Today there was a group of people outside the house same people, same signs, same cameras, same shouted questions.

“The neighbors will love this,” she murmured to Frank.

“Fuck ‘em,” he growled, and, with a firm grasp of her arm, walked to the waiting car.

Outside the courthouse the crowd was larger, more unruly, and Frank was firmer, his hand on her arm harder. The bailiff met them and said she was wanted in the judge’s chambers. He escorted her.

“Good morning, Barbara, sit down,” Judge Paltz said when she entered his chambers. Fierst was already there; he looked harried^ concerned. They exchanged nods.

“How are you?” Judge Paltz asked Barbara when she was seated.

“Fine,” she said. She suspected that she looked like hell warmed over.

He studied her for a moment, then nodded.

“The jury is getting very perturbed over the length of this trial,” he said.

“I have reassured them twice already that it will end soon. And even though they are being sequestered, whenever there is so much outside tension connected to a trial, they seem to sense it, and even to echo it. Barbara, I have no idea what viper pit you’re stirring up, but if it has nothing to do with the trial we are all enjoined to facilitate, I advise you to put down the stick until this trial is concluded.” He held up his hand to forestall any response she might make.

“I have never lost an attorney, for either side, during the course of a trial at which I acted in my judicial capacity,” he said.

“And I don’t intend to now. Barbara, until this trial is concluded and a verdict is in, I am placing you and your father under full protection of this court. You will have police protection around the clock for the duration of these proceedings. And I want to know how long you estimate your defense will continue. When will you be done?” he asked bluntly.

“I’m hoping tomorrow,” she said.

“Very well, that will leave Thursday for your summations, and for the jury to begin its deliberation.” He stood up.

“I hope you both will cooperate and expedite this trial to the fullest extent possible. No delaying tactics, no grandstanding. Is that understood?”

They both said meekly that they understood, and he said to Barbara, “You understand that the protection of this court will cease as soon as the verdict has been rendered?”

“Yes, sir,” she said.

For a time he regarded her with no expression on his face, then he nodded.

“Take care, Barbara. Take care.”

And he sent them out.

She reported briefly to her father before they were summoned to the courtroom. Frank had changed overnight, she realized. Last night he had looked haggard, like an old man, but today he looked mad as hell. And that was fine, she thought, because that was exactly how she felt—mad as hell.

Paula was very frightened; she clutched Barbara’s hand and examined her.

“Are you really all right?” she asked.

“I heard the news, read the paper….”

“I’m okay,” Barbara said.

“Relax. Look at it as a positive event, in fact. We’re scaring the shit out of someone.” She smiled at the young woman, and after a moment Paula smiled also, but it was not a good smile.

Barbara called her next witness.

Janey Lipscomb appeared to be too young to be a professional psychologist who dealt with the ugliest of human tragedies—domestic violence. As she recited her credentials, her work, it became clear that she was exceptionally well qualified, however.

“Dr. Lipscomb,” Barbara said, “do you recall the day you and I talked? What I said to you?”

“Indeed,” she said. She dimpled, and added, “I made notes as soon as I got to my desk.”

“In your own words, will you recount our meeting?”

She did so succinctly.

After she finished, Barbara asked, “When you saw the child, Annie Everts, what was your appraisal?”

“She was extremely disturbed, traumatized by the events that she had assumed responsibility for.” Annie had no memory of the day, she went on, but she was having nightmares, and had reverted to infantile behavior.

They had talked that day, and the following week Mrs. Everts had brought Annie to the offices where Janey worked. Annie had played out the events there.

“Will you explain how the children ‘play out’ the traumatic events that bring them to you for help?”

Janey dimpled again, briefly.

“We have cutouts-furniture, animals, trees, things of that sort, and dolls, a playhouse, other structures, boats, cars, a wide variety of stage props. The children select what is appropriate and position the objects in a way that satisfies them.

Sometimes the scenes are fanciful, sometimes quite realistic. Often it is during this period of reconstructing where the events happened that there is a release of the repressed memories.”

“So Annie set the stage and then played out the events using dolls?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Did you videotape her play?”

“Yes. We do that in order to watch it with the children and talk about the actions.”

Barbara produced the videocassette and had her identify it, and then said, “Your Honor, I would like permission to play this cassette at this time.”

“Objection!” Fierst cried.

“May I approach the bench, Your Honor?”

Judge Paltz beckoned him and Barbara.

“Your Honor, the public defender represented Mrs.

Kennerman at the questioning of that child. Defense and the prosecution both agreed not to call her as a witness because of her age, and to bring in further testimony that is not subject to cross-examination at this time is a direct violation of that agreement.”

“Your Honor,” Barbara said, “the day the child was questioned she was panic-stricken. Present were two police officers, one in uniform, neither of them trained in child psychology. Also present was William Spassero, who is not trained in child psychology. Annie said whatever seemed to satisfy them, and then she repressed the entire incident and became a very troubled little girl. I argue that this tape is the proper cross-examination of the prosecution’s statement from her.

They could have done it this way, if they had chosen.

Dr. Lipscomb is a highly trained professional who is entirely neutral in this matter, as she has testified.”

Judge Paltz looked off into space for a second or two, and then said, “In view of the fact that there were so many unqualified people present, none of whom appreciated the difficulty of obtaining a statement from a child, and none of whom objected to the method of the interrogation, we will view the cassette at this time.

Meanwhile,” he added, “I shall take under consideration if this is a proper procedure, and if I find that it is not, I will so advise the jury. You may proceed, Ms. Holloway.”

There was absolute silence when the television came on to show a little blond girl at a table with a playhouse.

She picked up some wooden dolls, only two inches high, and said, “They’re going out to pick mushrooms.

This is Mom.” She put the Mom doll and a few other dolls behind a row of trees. The upstairs of the dollhouse had a bed, nothing else, and downstairs one room had a cutout TV and a couch, and another room had a refrigerator. Annie played both roles, one doll on the bed, the other one moving around it, then both dolls going to the TV, and the kid doll lying down on the couch. The Annie doll said in falsetto, “If you’re just going to suck your thumb and go to sleep, I’m leaving.”

She walked her doll out the kitchen, through the door, and to the nearest tree.

“The lady was tired,” she said, and leaned another doll against a tree.

“She’s sleeping,” the Annie doll said, falsetto, and then she reached across the table to an apple and began to bounce another doll up and down, and in a new voice, called, “Come here. See what I’m making.” The Annie doll flew across the space.

“That’s an apple tree,” Annie said in her normal voice, “not really a big apple. Fern can make crowns, not for real, but flower crowns.”

“Where’s the kid?” the Fern doll asked.

“What were you doing?”

“Watching cartoons. She went to sleep.”

The Mom doll was moved to the apple, and asked, “Where’s the kid?”

Annie repeated what she had said, and the Mom doll was placed behind the trees again; the lady doll was moved to a point about halfway to the house, and in a moment the Annie doll and Fern dolls were put behind the trees.

Barbara stopped the cassette there. Annie had gone on to play out watching the fire, the ambulance, the police, all of it.

“Dr. Lipscomb,” Barbara asked then, “when you talked to Annie and watched the cassette with her, did she change any of the details we have just seen?”

“Nothing. This is what she remembers.”

When Barbara said she was done with the witness a few minutes later, Fierst was taken off guard. It was evident that he had expected Janey to talk about Paula. He hesitated, and then tried to make Janey admit that she knew what information Barbara had wanted from the child. Janey was very pleasant, and very firm with him.

“Exactly how did this cassette come to be in the hands of the defense, then?” he snapped.

“After Annie began to respond to therapy, and then reverted to her normal behavior, her mother was deeply grateful. It was her suggestion that if the cassette would be helpful to Ms. Holloway, she should have it. Mr. and Mrs. Everts both agreed to release it to her. Ms. Holloway was quite surprised.”