Innis Harbor

by Patricia Evans Cox

  The bell on the door clanged as she pushed it open now, and thankfully, most people didn’t look up. Either the crowd was mostly tourists or things had finally started to die down, but it was a welcome change.

  “Hey there, stranger.” Cara turned over a coffee cup and started pouring. “I was wondering when I was going to see you again.”

  “Well, you’re the only one.” Amir took another glance around before she reached for the sugar and poured it into her coffee.

  “Hey,” Cara said, pulling the cream out of the fridge and pushing it over to Amir. “I don’t want to bring up a sensitive subject, but have you heard from Loch?”

  “No. I’ve tried for weeks, but she won’t answer.” Amir picked up her cup and blew on the surface to cool it. “Not that I blame her.”

  “Listen.” Cara touched her hand to get Amir to look up at her. “You’ll have a chance to lay it all out there at the trial. People around here think they know everything, but they don’t.”

  “One of Hamid’s college buddies is a defense attorney in Boston, so he took my case. I’m sure he’s great at what he does, I just don’t have much to defend myself with.” She ran her hand through her hair and rubbed her thumb over the back of her neck, trying to quell the near constant headache she’d carried around since this all started. “It’s her word against mine.”

  “Is that picture admissible at trial?”

  Cara had stopped by Amir’s house shortly after she’d gotten out of jail, and Amir told her about the picture of Charlotte the detectives had shown her when she was being questioned. She’d had bruises around her arms and at the base of her neck and a bloody scrape over one eye. It was painful to look at, and Amir still saw it every time she closed her eyes.

  “I don’t know. He’s trying to keep it from being included in evidence, but we don’t know yet.”

  “She comes in here all the time with her friend Amy,” Cara said. “I think they used to cheer together before her parents shipped her off to that fancy boarding school. They just sit there and gossip like there’s nothing wrong.”

  “Cara.” Amir raised an eyebrow and smiled. “You know you can’t punch them, right?”

  “Yes, I can,” Cara said, wiping down the counter before she paused, turning back to Amir. “Although I’ve given it some thought, and I feel it’s more appropriate to just knock their stupid heads together.”

  “I appreciate it,” Amir said, trying not to smile. She wasn’t entirely sure Cara was kidding, and it was safer not to encourage her. “But let’s not both get arrested over this, okay?”

  Cara looked at Amir and winked. “No promises.”

  Loch waited in the plush lobby area of her modeling agency, waiting to be called for her appointment with her agent. She’d taken a few weeks off after she’d gotten back to Manhattan but knew the best thing for her was to get back to work. Anything to keep Amir from flashing through her mind every waking minute.

  “Loch Battersby?”

  The receptionist scanned the room, and Loch stood, slipping her bag over her shoulder and following her down the hall to Harvey Goldberg’s office. Harvey was the best in the business, and they’d worked together for the bulk of Loch’s modeling career. He seemed thrilled when she’d called and told him she was ready to come back to work; he’d started booking shows for her before she’d even decided what date she wanted to start again.

  The receptionist knocked lightly on his door and opened it, gesturing for Loch to step in. Loch sank down into the chair across from his desk and put her bag on the floor.

  “Hey, Harvey,” she said. “Thanks for fitting me in today, I know it’s short notice.”

  Harvey’s gaze was locked on her body, and he looked her up and down twice before he shuffled the papers on his desk and looked her in the eyes. “Stand up.”

  “What?” Loch said. “Why?”

  “Just stand up. And take off your jacket.”

  Loch did as he said, staring at the wall while he scanned her body. It had taken a second to realize, but now the realization of what was happening settled in her stomach like an anchor. He told her she could turn back around, then buzzed his receptionist.

  “Christine, can you come in here for a moment?”

  Loch set her jaw, avoiding his gaze in the tense silence that followed until Christine knocked lightly on the door and stepped inside the office. She was tiny, with her hair pulled back in a slick bun and cheekbones that made her look like the rest of the Russian models Loch had seen over the years, spare and starving.

  “I need you to witness a weigh-in.” Harvey walked around his desk to the clinical scales set in the corner of the office and stood beside them. “Loch, whenever you’re ready.”

  He watched her fold her jeans and flannel shirt and place them on the chair. At the last second, she remembered to pull off the beanie she usually kept pulled low on her head when she went out in public. She was seventeen the last time she’d had to weigh in; it was after Christmas, and she’d gained weight without realizing it. She didn’t eat for six days, until the scale sank to the correct number. After that, she’d learned to keep her mouth shut at the table, holidays or not.

  She stepped onto the scale, staring at the wall in front of her as he nudged it until the bar balanced and settled on a number. Then he pulled the tape measure from his shirt pocket and took her measurements, wrapping the tape around her waist, hips, breasts, and thighs. He noted all the numbers in his computer while she stood and stared out the window, then finally looked up and dismissed Christine. She slipped out and pulled the door shut behind her. Loch got dressed and waited. She knew what he was going to say.

  “Loch, you’re a professional. We haven’t had this problem with you since you were a kid. What the hell were you thinking?”

  Loch blinked away the tears she hoped didn’t show and met his gaze. “Harvey, my aunt died, and I had to handle her estate. I’ve had a little more on my mind than my weight.”

  He sighed and shook his head, handing her a sheet of paper with a long list of dates. “We’ve worked together for a long time, so I’m going to be straight with you. Those are the bookings we’ve said yes to for next month, and the first one is in two weeks.” He held her gaze. “Do you think you can get your shit together before then?”

  “How much do I have to lose?”

  “You’re 5’11” and up to a hundred twenty-one pounds at this point. That means you need to lose nine pounds before that first show.” He cleared his throat and slid his glasses off his face, leaning back in his enormous leather office chair and scanning her body again. “You need to be one-twelve. If you miss that number, you can’t do the show.”

  “That’s not possible. I can’t just stop eating for two weeks.”

  “Well, you can work,” Harvey said, tapping his pen on the top of his desk. “Or you can eat. You decide.”

  “Can I skip that first show to give me more time?”

  He sighed, taking the sheet of paper back and stacking it neatly on the desk. “Loch, that contract includes a spread in Vogue Paris, and it’s worth over forty thousand dollars. Thirty percent of that is mine. I’ll let you answer that question for yourself.”

  Loch stood, putting her bag back on her shoulder and met his gaze. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “Good girl.” Harvey turned back to his computer screen. “Call me when you’ve lost the weight.”

  Loch left the office, feeling the pointed stares of the staff as she walked past the front desk and waited in the silent lobby for the elevator to open.

  Amir looked across the table at Jason Turner, her lawyer. “Be straight with me.” She glanced at her watch, then at the clock on the restaurant wall. “What are our chances in court today?”

  Jason shut his laptop and slid it back into his leather bag. “It’s the first day of the trial, so chances are it will be primarily jury instructions followed by opening statements, which tend to take a while.”

  “I know this will be d
own the line,” Amir said. “But you told me to think about whether I wanted to take the stand, and I think I do. I want to be able to look the jury in the eye and tell them I didn’t do it.”

  He shook his head, adjusting his jacket until he had the magazine-perfect ratio of jacket to shirt cuff at his wrist. A pair of sterling cufflinks glinted in the sun coming through the window beside them.

  “You know I think you shouldn’t testify. But if you decide to, you’ll just need to go up there and tell the truth,” he said, straightening his tie as he spoke. “And we’re going to hope the jury believes you.”

  Jason Turner was one of the leading defense attorneys in Boston, and as a favor to Hamid, his fraternity brother, he’d agreed to represent Amir. He’d arrived in Bar Harbor the day before for the trial, and since then, he and Amir had been spending a late night preparing for every possible courtroom scenario.

  He turned over his coffee cup for the waitress and met Amir’s gaze. “I’m not going to lie to you, though. We’ve got our work cut out for us. I got word early this morning that both the surveillance tape and the photos of her alleged injuries will be allowed in as evidence, as well as your previous conviction. That’s a loaded combination.”

  “Shit.” Amir rubbed her temples and tried to stay calm. “That tanks us then, doesn’t it? No one will believe me after that. It’s like she’s got a rock-solid case against me, and not one word of it is actually true. How is that even possible?”

  “Listen,” Jason said, moving aside his coffee cup to make room for the egg sandwich the waitress placed in front of him. “I’ve seen shit worse than this turn out okay. All we can do is get in there and kick some ass like we know we’re going to win.”

  Amir shifted in her seat, uncomfortable in her dress shirt without a tie. Jason had suggested when he saw her that morning that she not wear it because it would “make her look too masculine for a woman,” whatever that meant. She was a masculine woman. What the hell did that have to do with anything?

  She’d asked the question, then wished she hadn’t.

  “Amir, it’s my job to get you out of this situation, so if it were up to me, I’d have you in a dress. The more feminine you look, the less aggressive they’ll assume you are.” He dropped his voice then and leaned over the table. “Plus, and I realize that this is wrong on a few different levels, men love feminine lesbians, and there are nine men on that jury.” He’d paused, looking her straight in the eye. “Lose the tie.”

  She’d gone back out to her truck and left the tie on the seat with her pride.

  But now it was three days into the trial, and Amir’s defense was rapidly going downhill. The prosecutor had started her opening statements by saying, “Ladies and gentlemen, this is not the trial of a citizen accused of sexual assault.” She’d paused then and turned slowly around to lock gazes with Amir. “This is the trial of a convicted rapist that has now attempted to rape another innocent girl. I can only hope you decide to send a message that predatory behavior like this is not acceptable in our community.”

  It was all Amir could do not to slump down in her chair, although apparently, there were more than a few legal issues at play with that statement, so she had a minute to collect her thoughts after a strenuous objection from Jason ended with discussion at the bench with both lawyers. The judge directed the jury to disregard that portion of the opening statement.

  But it had already been said; every one of them looked at her as if they wished they could pull a gun and exact their own justice, and they weren’t even past the first three minutes of the trial. Amir turned around in her seat to see her father walking out of the courtroom and the door slam shut behind him. He hadn’t been back. Charlotte’s mother sat a few rows behind Amir’s mother, stony faced, with her eyes focused straight ahead.

  Amir was late to the courthouse the fourth day of the trial, but fortunately, the jury hadn’t filed in yet, and she slid into her seat beside Jason in the nick of time.

  “Sorry I’m late,” Amir said. “I walked out to my truck this morning and someone had slashed my tires. I had to borrow a truck.”

  Jason only had time to nod in response before it was time for the jury to be ushered in, followed by the judge, who sat behind the bench and took several long moments to polish his glasses before he settled in and directed the prosecution to call its next witness.

  “The prosecution calls Miss Charlotte Clancy to the stand, Your Honor.”

  Everyone turned as Charlotte walked through the doors in the back of the courtroom. She wore a modest white sundress with yellow patent flats and the front layers of her light blond hair pulled back in a gold barrette. She was tan, in subtle makeup, as if she’d stepped out of a Lifetime movie and into the Bar Harbor courtroom. She gave the jury a shy glance as she was sworn in and settled into the witness box, adjusting the microphone down to her level.

  “Good morning, Miss Clancy.”

  The prosecutor, Teresa Grisholm, was a Texas transplant and tough as nails. Everyone in town knew she had a particular fondness for putting away sexual predators, and it was also well known that she’d been practicing law for twenty-three years and had lost only two cases in her entire career. One of those was later retried; she won it. Even Jason had just shaken his head and muttered something about hoping for the best when he’d found out she’d be trying the case.

  “We appreciate you being here today, Charlotte,” she said. “I know this can’t be an easy time for you.”

  Charlotte looked down and didn’t look up again until Ms. Grisholm asked her first question.

  “Miss Clancy, can you tell us, in your own words,” she paused as she stood and shuffled some papers on her desk. “what happened the day Ms. Farzaneh came over to your house?”

  Charlotte shifted in her seat and looked past the prosecutor to her mother, sitting in the front row of the courtroom.

  “Um…” Charlotte’s voice cracked with her first word, and she took a sip of water with a trembling hand before she went on. “I’d only been home from boarding school for the summer for two weeks, and I was getting ready to go to my tennis lesson that morning.”

  “Were either of your parents home?”

  “No, ma’am, they were both at work.”

  Ms. Grisholm walked to the front of the counsel desk and leaned back on it. “And were you aware that your father had scheduled Amira Farzaneh to come and fix the back step on your patio that day?”

  Charlotte pressed her lips together and looked down. “Yes, ma’am, but I thought she would be working outside on the patio.”

  “When did you realize Ms. Farzaneh was inside the residence?”

  Charlotte didn’t answer, and when she finally looked up, it was because the judge had directed her to answer the question.

  “When she entered my bedroom as I was coming out of the shower.”

  “And what did you say when she came into your bedroom while you were naked?”

  “Objection, Your Honor.” Jason stood and looked at the judge. “What the witness was wearing has not been established on the record.”

  The judge looked at Grisholm and nodded. “Sustained.”

  “I’ll rephrase the question. What were you wearing when the defendant entered your bedroom that morning?”

  “I was wearing a towel with nothing underneath.”

  “Okay,” Grisholm continued. “Please tell us what happened then.”

  “I asked Amira…” Charlotte faltered, glancing for the first time toward the defense table and hesitating before she went on. “Excuse me, I asked Ms. Farzaneh to please leave my room.”

  Grisholm walked to the jury box and laid one hand on it as she looked up at Charlotte.

  “And what was her response?”

  Charlotte hesitated, her face slowly turning red as she reached for a tissue from the box on the witness stand. She tangled it into her fist and leaned into the microphone, the first tear slipping down her cheek as she answered.

  “She didn’t sa
y anything,” Charlottle said, focused on the tissue in her hands. “She just pushed me back into the bathroom, locked the door behind her, and told me to drop the towel.”

  “And what happened next?” Ms. Grisholm looked at the jury as she asked the question, only glancing over at Charlotte when she failed to answer.

  “I know this is hard,” she said to Charlotte. “But we need to know what happened to you in that bathroom.”

  Amir had never felt so powerless in her life. She knew when Charlotte answered, the words she spoke would exist forever, and her life would never be the same. And all she could do was sit there and wait for her to say them.

  “She walked up and pulled the towel to the floor, touched my breasts, then opened the door and told me to get on the bed.”

  Amir felt like she was falling, and her hearing faded slowly away. She didn’t hear Charlotte tell the jury that she’d refused and Amir had thrown her on the bed, she didn’t hear how Charlotte described being penetrated against her will, or the details of the physical attack that followed. All she heard was the static in her own mind, the surreal sound of her life being ripped away from her and shattered at her feet.

  Jason leaned over and whispered in Amir’s ear. “You’re gripping the table. Put your hands in your lap and keep your face neutral, no matter what she says.”

  Amir pried her white fingers off the edge of the table and forced them into her lap, but it didn’t matter. Her entire world had just spun out of control and out of her reach. Nothing would ever be the same.

  Loch turned up the speed on the treadmill and leaned into her run, sweat dripping into her eyes and blurring her vision. She’d just started her second hour of cardio, and she knew this one had to be more intense, with more incline, if she was going to be able to hit her numbers. She tried to focus on the music streaming through her headphones, and after a few minutes, she just tried to find a spot on the wall to stare at, anything to keep her focused enough to make it through the second hour. If she could get to the end of it, she could rest until her appointment with the trainer that evening.