by John Grisham
“And he was in uniform?”
“Yes. He took off his gun and just pulled down his pants. I was wearin’ a skirt. He wrapped it around my neck. When we were drivin’ home I couldn’t stop cryin’, so he took his gun and punched it into my ribs, said to stop it, said he would kill me if I breathed a word. Then he laughed and said he wanted me to walk into the house like nothing had ever happened, said he wanted to see how good an actor I was. I went to my room and locked the door. Drew came to check on me.”
As gripping and lurid as her testimony was, Jake knew it would be a mistake to punish the witness and the jury with the details of all five attacks. They had endured enough, and he had plenty of ammo for the rest of the trial. He stepped to the defense table to get some notes, a legal pad for a prop, and glanced at Carla on the third row. With perfect timing, she did a quick slit of the throat with an index finger. Red polish. Cut. Move on.
He returned to the podium and continued. “Kiera, on the night Stuart died, you were home with Drew and your mom, correct?”
“Yes sir.”
Dyer stood and said, “Objection, Your Honor. This is leading.”
With irritation, Noose said, “Sure, it’s leading, Mr. Dyer, but it’s going into the record anyway. Overruled. Please continue, Ms. Gamble.”
“Well, we were home, waitin’ as usual. He was out, late, and the situation had become much worse. Drew and I were beggin’ Mom to leave before somebody got hurt, and I had made the decision to tell her I thought something was wrong with my body, that I might be pregnant, but I was still afraid because of him and because there was no place for us to go. We were trapped. If she had known about the rapes and all she would, well, I’m not sure what she would have done. But I was still afraid of him. So, anyway, long after midnight we saw the headlights. Drew and I were huddled together on my bed with the door jammed for protection. We heard him come in, Mom was waiting in the kitchen, and they got into a fight. We heard her get slapped and she yelled and he cussed her, and it was just awful.” More tears, another brief delay as the witness fought to control herself.
She wiped her eyes and moved closer to the mike.
“Did Stuart go upstairs?” Jake asked.
“He did. Suddenly everything was quiet down there and we heard him on the stairs, staggerin’, fallin’. Obviously drunk. He was stompin’ up the stairs, callin’ my name, sort of singing it like an idiot. He rattled the doors, yelled for us to open them. We were so afraid.” Her voice cracked and she cried some more.
The terror she and Drew felt at that moment was now palpable in the courtroom. Watching that poor girl cry and wipe her face and try to be strong after all she had endured was heartbreaking.
Jake asked, “Kiera, would you like to take a break?”
She shook her head, no. Let’s get it over with.
Once Stuart backed away and went down the stairs, she and Drew knew something terrible had happened to their mother. Otherwise, she would have fought him on the stairway. They waited in the dark, curled up together, both crying, as the minutes passed. Drew went down first, then Kiera, who sat on the kitchen floor with their mother and tried to revive her. Drew called 911. He was moving around the house but Kiera did not know what he was doing. Then he closed the bedroom door, and she heard the shot. When he came out she asked him what he did, though she knew. Drew said, “I shot him.”
Jake listened carefully and occasionally glanced at his notes, but he managed to steal looks at the jurors. They were not watching him. Every eye was on the witness. “Now, Kiera, when you came down the stairs and found your mother, were you still worried about Stuart?”
She bit her lip, nodded, “Yes sir. We didn’t know what he was doing. Once we saw Mom on the floor, we figured he’d kill us too.”
Jake took a deep breath, smiled at her, and said, “Thank you, Kiera. Your Honor, the defense tenders the witness.” He sat down and loosened his collar. It, along with the rest of his shirt, was soaked with sweat.
Lowell Dyer approached the podium with trepidation. He couldn’t attack such a vulnerable and wounded girl. She had the jury’s complete sympathy and any unkind word from the prosecutor would only play in her favor. He began a disastrous cross with “Ms. Gamble, you keep looking at some notes you have there. May I ask about them?”
“Sure.” She pulled the folded sheet of paper from under her leg. “Just my notes about the five rapes.”
Jake could not suppress a grin. He had laid the trap and Dyer was blindly walking into it.
“And when did you make these notes?”
“I’ve worked on them for some time. I went back through some calendars and made sure I had the dates right.”
“And who asked you to do this?”
“Jake.”
“Has Jake told you what to say here on the witness stand?”
She was ready. “We’ve gone through my testimony, yes sir.”
“Has he coached you on how to testify?”
Jake stood and said, “Objection, Your Honor. Every good lawyer prepares his witnesses. What’s the point, Mr. Dyer?”
“Mr. Dyer?”
“I’m just probing, Your Honor. It is a cross-examination and I’m allowed some latitude here.”
“If relevant, Your Honor,” Jake said.
“Overruled. Continue.”
Dyer asked, “Could I see your notes there, Ms. Gamble?”
Written materials used for reference by witnesses were fair game, and the instant Dyer saw her glance at her notes he knew he would get them. In a moment, though, he would wish he had ignored them.
She held them up, as if to offer them to the prosecutor, who asked, “Your Honor, may I approach the witness?”
“Sure.”
He took a single sheet of paper and unfolded it. Jake let the mystery of its contents hang in the air for a few seconds, then jumped to his feet. “If it pleases the Court, we’ll be happy to stipulate and admit Kiera’s notes into evidence. We even have copies here for the jurors to look at.” He waved some papers.
The notes, written in her own hand and in her own words, were Libby’s idea. She had seen the ruse before in a rape case in Missouri. At the direction of the defense lawyer, the victim had prepared little reminders to help her through the ordeal of testifying. A hard-charging D.A. had demanded to see her notes, and it had been a fatal mistake.
Kiera’s written accounts of the five rapes were far more graphic than her testimony. She wrote of the pain, fear, her body, his, the horror, blood, and the ever-increasing thoughts of suicide. They were numbered, Rapes 1 through 5.
Once Dyer held the sheet of paper, and glanced at its contents, he realized his blunder. He handed it back, quickly, and said, “Thank you, Ms. Gamble.”
Jake, still standing, said, “Hang on, Judge. At this point the jury has the right to know about the notes. The State has put them into question.”
Dyer said, “The State has the right to be curious, Judge. This is a cross-examination.”
Jake said, “Of course it is. Your Honor, Mr. Dyer went after the notes because he was fishing and trying to prove that this witness has been coached by me and told how to testify. He thought he had caught us when he saw the notes. Now, though, he’s backing down. The notes are in play, Your Honor, and the jury has the right to see them.”
“I’m inclined to agree, Mr. Dyer. You asked to see them. It doesn’t seem fair to keep them away from the jury.”
“I disagree, Your Honor,” Dyer said in desperation, but could offer no reason.
Jake, still waving copies, said, “I submit the notes into evidence, Your Honor. Let’s not keep this from the jury.”
“Enough, Mr. Brigance. Just wait your turn.”
After the fourth rape, Kiera had written: “I’m getting used to the pain, it goes away after a couple of days. But I haven’t had a
period in two months and I’m often dizzy in the morning. If I’m pregnant he’ll kill me. And probably Mom and Drew too. It’s better if I die. I read a story about a teenager who cut her wrists with razor blades. That’s what I’ll do. Where to find them?”
Reeling, Lowell Dyer asked for a moment to confer with Musgrove. They whispered, both shaking their heads as if they had no earthly idea what to do next. Dyer had to do something, though, in order to discredit a sympathetic witness, and salvage a disastrous cross, and somehow save his case. He managed to nod at Musgrove, as if one of the two had hit the nail on the head. He stepped to the podium and gave her another drippy smile.
“Now, Ms. Gamble, you say you were sexually assaulted by Mr. Kofer on a number of occasions.”
“No sir. I said I was raped by Stuart Kofer,” she said with ice. Another response scripted by Libby and Portia.
“But you never told anyone?”
“No sir. There was no one to tell.”
“You were enduring these terrible attacks, yet you never sought help?”
“From who?”
“What about law enforcement? The police?”
Jake’s heart froze at the question. He was stunned by it, but prepared, as was his witness. With perfect timing and diction, Kiera looked at Dyer and said, “Sir, I was being raped by the police.”
Dyer’s shoulders sagged as his mouth dropped open and he searched for a snappy retort. None arrived, nothing but warm air rushing over a parched tongue. He was suddenly mortified at the prospect of serving up another fat pitch that might land in the upper deck with the others. So he simply smiled and thanked her, as if she had really helped him, and retreated as fast as any prosecutor could possibly scurry away to the safety of his chair.
Noose said, “It’s almost noon. Let’s take a long lunch break and give the AC time to catch up. It’s already a bit cooler in here, I think. Jurors, I ask that you all go home for lunch and we’ll reconvene at two sharp. The usual precautions are still in order—do not discuss this case with anyone. We are in recess.”
47
Josie was parked behind the courthouse in a small, shaded gravel lot she had found on Monday. She and Kiera were almost to her car when a man with a gun approached. He was thick-chested, with a short-sleeved shirt, knotted tie, cowboy boots, and a black pistol on his hip. “Are you Josie Gamble?” he demanded. She had seen the type many times before, and he was either a small-town detective or a private investigator.
“I am. Who are you?”
“Name’s Koosman. These papers are for you.” He handed her a legal-sized envelope stuffed with folded papers.
“What is it?” she asked, reluctantly taking the envelope.
“Buncha lawsuits. Sorry.” He turned and walked away. Nothing but a process server.
They had finally found her—the hospitals and doctors and their bill collectors and lawyers. Four lawsuits for unpaid bills: $6,340 to the hospital in Clanton; $9,120 to the hospital in Tupelo; $1,315 to the doctors in Clanton; and $2,100 to the surgeon in Tupelo who reset her jaw. A total of $18,875, plus interest and attorney’s fees of an undetermined amount. All four filed by the same collection lawyer in Holly Springs.
The car was like a sauna and its AC did not work. They rolled down the windows and sped away. Josie was tempted to grab the lawsuits and toss them in a ditch. She had more important things to worry about and she couldn’t remember all the times some shifty collection lawyer had tracked her down.
“How’d I do, Mom?” Kiera asked.
“You were brilliant, baby, just brilliant.”
* * *
—
BRILLIANT WAS INDEED the verdict as the defense settled around the table in Morris Finley’s rather chilly conference room. For relief, his secretary had turned the thermostat down as low as possible. They ate quickly and savored Kiera’s brilliance and the collapse of the prosecution. Victory was still a long shot, but she had evoked enormous sympathy from the jury. However, the problem was obvious—Kiera wasn’t on trial.
Portia passed around a memo with the names of eleven witnesses and brief descriptions of their expected testimony. The first was Samantha Pace, ex-wife of Stuart Kofer. She now lived in Tupelo and had grudgingly agreed to testify against her ex-husband.
“Why would you call her?” Harry Rex asked with a mouth full of chips.
“To prove he beat her,” Jake said. “I’m not advocating this, Harry Rex, this is just an exercise to make sure we cover everything. This is our witness list, the same one we filed before the trial. Frankly, I’m not sure who to put on next.”
“I’d forget her.”
“I agree,” said Libby. “She might be unpredictable, plus you’ve already proven abuse.”
Lucien was shaking his head.
“Next is Ozzie and three deputies. Pirtle, McCarver, and Swayze could testify about the 911 calls to the house. They saw a battered woman who refused to press charges. They filed paperwork that Ozzie can’t find. Someone, presumably Kofer, filched the incident reports to cover his trail.”
“Portia?”
“I don’t know, Jake. This is already in evidence and I wouldn’t trust the cops right now. They might say something that we’re not expecting.”
“Perfect instincts,” Lucien said. “Leave ’em alone, because you can’t trust ’em on the stand.”
“Carla?”
“Me? I’m just a schoolteacher.”
“Then pretend you’re a juror. You’ve heard every word of testimony.”
“You’ve already proven the domestic abuse, Jake. Why go through it again? I mean, all the jury needs to see is the photo of Josie’s face. A picture is worth a thousand words. Let it go.”
Jake smiled at her, then looked at Harry Rex. “You?”
“Right now these guys are meetin’ with Dyer, who’s tryin’ to figure out some way to save his case. I wouldn’t trust ’em. If you don’t need ’em, don’t call ’em.”
“Lucien?”
“Look, Jake. Your case is as strong right now as it will ever be. There is not a witness on this list who can make it stronger, yet every one of them can be potentially damaging.”
“So the defense rests?”
Lucien nodded slowly and everyone absorbed it. The strategy of resting after calling only two witnesses had not been discussed, had not even been contemplated. And it was frightening. The defense just put plenty of points on the board, and it had more points to add. Walking away with uncalled witnesses seemed like retreating.
Jake looked at the memo and said, “The next four, starting with Dog Hickman, are the drinking buddies who’ll give the down-and-dirty details of Kofer’s last binge. They’re all here, all under subpoena, missing work and pissed off. Libby?”
“I’m sure they’ll be good for some comic relief, but do we really need them? Dr. Majeski’s testimony is much more powerful. The point-three-six BAC has been seared into the brains of the jurors and they’ll never forget it.”
“Harry Rex?”
“Agreed. You can’t be sure what these clowns might say. I’ve read your summaries and all. They’re pretty stupid and they still think they might be implicated. Plus they’ll always be sympathetic to their buddy. I’d leave ’em alone.”
Jake took a deep breath and looked at his list. “We’re running out of ammo,” he said under his breath.
“You don’t need anymore,” Lucien said.
“Dr. Christina Rooker. She examined Drew four days after the shooting. You’ve read her report. She’s ready to testify about his trauma and what an emotional and mental wreck he was. I’ve spent hours with her and she will make an impressive witness. Libby?”
“Don’t know. Still undecided about this one.”
“Lucien?”
“There’s a huge problem—”
Jake interrupted with, “
And the problem is that, by putting Drew’s mental state into issue, Dyer can then call a carload of shrinks from Whitfield to rebut anything and declare him perfectly sound, both now and on March twenty-fifth. Dyer has three of them on his witness list and we’ve researched them, tracked down their testimonies. They’re always in lockstep with the State. Hell, they work for the State.”
Lucien smiled and said, “Exactly. You can’t win that fight, so don’t start it.”
“Anybody else?” Jake looked around the room and met the gaze of every member of his team. “Carla, you’re the juror.”
“Oh, I’m hardly unbiased.”
“But how many of the twelve will vote to convict Drew right now?”
“Several. But not all.”
“Portia?”
“Agreed.”
“Libby?”
“My record at predicting verdicts is less than spectacular, but I don’t see a conviction, nor an acquittal.”
“Lucien?”
He took a sip of water and stood to stretch his back. He walked to the end of the room as everyone watched and waited. He turned and said, “That girl’s testimony is the most dramatic moment I’ve ever witnessed in a courtroom. It surpasses even your closing argument in the Hailey trial. Now, if you call more witnesses, then Dyer calls more in rebuttal. Time passes, memories begin to fade, the drama lessens somewhat. You want those jurors to go home tonight and think about Kiera—young, pregnant Kiera—not some bozos drinking moonshine, not some fancy shrink with a big vocabulary, not some county deputy trying to cover for a fallen comrade. You have Dyer on the ropes, Jake; don’t make a mistake and let him wiggle free.”