by Marcia Clark
I stopped myself. It didn’t matter whether I bought it or not. What mattered was whether a jury would buy it. I had to find a way to sell her story after she’d lied all this time. And that meant I needed to push her hard for details that I could corroborate. But I’d have to tread lightly. If I came on too strong, she’d clam up—whether she was telling the truth or not. I waited for Cassie to calm down. “Can you tell me when it started?”
She looked down at the counter. “When I was thirteen.”
When her body changed. Pretty typical. That’s when it’d happened to me. “How did it start?”
Her voice sounded like it was packed in a tiny box. “Abel would come into my room at night, after everyone went to bed. He’d hold me down with one hand over my mouth, and he’d use the other one to . . . to touch me.”
I had to force down my own childhood memories of Sebastian’s leering grin. “Did you tell anyone about it?”
Cassie shook her head. “He said no one would believe me, that he’d tell them I was just jealous and trying to get him in trouble.” She looked up at me with sad eyes. “I kept thinking he’d stop. And I . . . I wanted him to like me. If I told on him, he’d hate me forever.”
All of this was so hideously textbook. And as an adopted kid, her need for acceptance only made her that much more vulnerable. “Did it escalate from there?”
Cassie swallowed and stared down at the counter. “Yes. After a while, he started making me touch him, and then he made me . . . he made me give him blow jobs. And then he . . .” Cassie stopped and caught her breath. “He raped me.”
I was gripping the phone so hard my knuckles hurt, but I kept my voice even. “Wasn’t he worried about getting you pregnant?”
Cassie looked away. “He didn’t do it . . . that way.”
My stomach lurched. But if that were true, there might be evidence of trauma. That’d be good corroboration. “When was the last time?”
Cassie glanced up at me for a moment, then looked away again. She spoke in a voice so soft I could barely hear her. “Two weeks before the . . . before he died.”
“We’ll need to get you checked by a doctor, Cassie.” She looked up, alarmed. I held up a hand. “If you can’t handle it, then we won’t do it. But I’m telling you right now, it’ll help a lot if we can back up your story with physical evidence. And the sooner we do the exam, the better, because the longer you wait, the less likely it is that the doctor will find evidence of trauma. So think about it, okay?”
She nodded. Then she sat up and lifted her chin. “I don’t need to think about it. I’ll do it.”
Just her willingness to be examined told me a lot. Maybe she really was telling the truth. “Good.”
Cassie’s eyes darted around the room again. “There’s something else you should know. I was stealing things, like earrings, a chain bracelet, little stuff like that.” She looked at me, her expression puzzled. “I don’t know why I got into that.”
“You mean from stores?” Cassie nodded. “Did you ever get busted?”
She sighed and nodded. “Once, when I stole a necklace from Claire’s. They let me go with a warning, but Tommy’s sister worked there, and she told him about it. I’m sure Tommy and all those guys will tell the cops about it.”
“Tommy. Abel’s friend, Tommy Dearfield?” Cassie nodded. They hadn’t told me when I interviewed them. I wondered why. They’d been willing to say a lot worse things. In any case, shoplifting was pretty textbook, too. I’d done that. Along with many other lovely behaviors, like stashing a pint of Jack Daniel’s in my locker so I could get bombed before lunch. Cassie continued. She seemed to want to tell me everything now. “So then Tommy told Abel about it, and Abel said he’d tell Mom and Dad if I said anything about what he was doing to me.”
So Abel had held more than one card to keep her from talking. I braced myself for the answer to my next question. “What happened with your father?”
She sank down in her seat, her chin almost on her chest. “It wasn’t as bad with him. He’d just make me take my clothes off and lie on the bed, and then he’d . . .” Cassie swallowed. “He’d touch himself.”
Not as bad, but nauseating enough. “Did he ever touch you?”
Cassie dropped her head. Her voice was so low I had to strain to hear her. “Toward the end he started to. But he never . . . uh . . . he never . . . took it any further.”
“He never raped you.” Cassie nodded. “Did he know about Abel?”
Cassie shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
A trickle of sweat dripped from my hand, down the phone, and into my sleeve. I wanted to stop, to put the phone down and walk away and never come back. I steeled myself for the next part. “When did you tell your mother about all this?”
Cassie bit her lip, and her brow knitted. “I told her about Abel when he started to make me do the . . . the blow jobs.” A sob burst loose, then another, and then her whole body shook with sobs. She did her best to talk through her tears. “It was just so sc-scary. I c-couldn’t ever sleep. I was always waiting, listening for his footsteps. And then, when I did finally fall asleep, I’d wake up, and he’d be standing there, staring at me with his pants open and . . .” Cassie took a deep breath. “So I finally told her. But she wouldn’t believe me! She said, ‘Abel would never do such a thing!’ She said she knew I was going to be trouble right from the start. That I’d always been a problem child!” Cassie began to sob again.
I could feel my stomach clench. She was stomping all over my past. The words were different, but the sentiment was the same. When her tears had subsided, I asked, “Did you ever tell her about your father?”
She stared at me as though I’d asked her whether she’d ever stuck her head in a wood chipper. “How could I? If she wouldn’t even believe Abel did it, imagine what she’d have done if I told her about Dad! She’d have put me back in foster care! I couldn’t go back there! Not ever!” Cassie paused to catch her breath. After a moment, she added, “Besides, he at least never hurt me.” Cassie’s cheeks suddenly reddened, and she dipped her head.
Her blush told me it might’ve even felt good. “It’s not your fault, Cassie.”
She briefly glanced up at me, then bit her lip and stared at the floor.
We’re all animals. Certain spots are meant to give pleasure. And they do, whether we want them to or not. The sad thing is, that only adds to the pain for molestation victims, because it makes them feel complicit. That, at least, was one problem I hadn’t had. “What about Tiegan or the counselor you had before her—did you say anything to them?” I doubted it, since they had a duty to report claims like this, so I wasn’t surprised when Cassie shook her head. “Why?” Cassie’s expression was a mixture of sadness and desperation. “I didn’t think they’d believe me. My own mother didn’t believe me. Why should they?” Cassie looked away. “And I just felt like . . . like it was all my fault. That there must’ve been something wrong with me. That’s why they . . . they acted like that.”
Another textbook example of molestation victim thinking. It was like reading Molestation Victims for Dummies. I noticed the guard looking up at the clock. I didn’t have much more time.
“Tell me what happened that night.”
Cassie’s eyes were fixed on the corner of the window, and she began to breathe faster. “Mom and Dad were going to be out all night, and Abel seemed . . . totally off the chain. He came to my room and he . . .” Her breath caught in her throat.
“Did he rape you?”
Cassie swallowed and shook her head. “No, but he . . . he—”
I held up a hand. I didn’t need to hear any more gory details now. “That’s okay. I get it. What happened after that?”
“He left. But he said he’d be back. I didn’t know what he was going to do. I was so scared! I was pacing around and around in my room, thinking about all the things he’d done to me and . . . and what he was going to do to me now!” Her expression was terrified. “I had to do something! I ha
d to stop him! I went to his room and I—I just lost it!” Cassie started to cry, her chest shaking with hiccups.
“Where did you get the knife?” No kitchen knives were missing.
Cassie looked confused. “I, ah . . . I already had it. It was a souvenir. From a trip.”
“What did you do with it?”
She leaned her head against the wall, her face slack. She looked exhausted. “I threw it down the storm drain.”
Part of the reason for those muddy socks. “And your father? Did he catch you in Abel’s room?” Cassie nodded. “Abel was already dead?”
Cassie wiped her face on her sleeve. “Yeah. I didn’t even know what I was doing anymore. I was just . . . just going crazy.”
“Is that why you tried to kill your mom? Because she saw you, too?”
Cassie nodded again. “And because she wouldn’t help me. She just let him . . . and pretended it wasn’t happening.” She dropped the phone, put her head down on the counter, and sobbed. Her voice had a faraway echo through the dangling phone. “I can’t believe I did that! I wish I was dead instead of them!” She started to bang her head on the counter.
I knocked on the window. “Cassie, stop it! Stop it right now!” The guard on my side had looked up. He’d alert her guards any second. Finally, she sat up. I motioned for her to pick up the phone. “You have every reason to be freaking out. I get it. But try to calm down. One day at a time. You’re not in this alone. I’m going to help you. Okay?”
Her face and eyes were so swollen I didn’t know whether she could even see me, but she nodded. “What happens now?”
“First of all, you’re not to talk to anyone. Not the cops, not the inmates, not the guards. No one. Can you promise me?”
She nodded. I explained the next steps and that she’d likely be tried as an adult.
She gaped at me. “But I’m only fifteen. Doesn’t that make me a juvenile?”
“Yes, but since you’re charged with a double homicide, you’re presumed to be unfit for juvenile court. I intend to fight them on it. But you need to be prepared. We’re probably not going to win that particular battle.”
Cassie stared at me, her expression bleak. “Even though they did all those things to me?” I nodded. I watched as shock spread across her face. “Then what . . . what’s going to happen if . . . if I lose?”
Should I tell her she was facing life without the possibility of parole? No. She’d been through too much already. I had to give her some hope. There’d be plenty of time for harsh realities later. “You’re not going to lose. The jury might only find you guilty of manslaughter, and if that happened, the judge could give you straight probation. Or the jury might even let you go.” The latter was a huge long shot, but I’d seen stranger verdicts.
Cassie sat up and put a hand on the window. “Then I’d get out? It’d be over?”
I didn’t want to take this too far. “It’s possible.”
Tears welled up in her eyes. “I’m so glad I have you.”
The gratitude on her face made me a little uncomfortable. “I’m not making any promises, Cassie. And you’ll need to work with me to get ready for trial. It won’t be easy.”
She nodded, her expression solemn. “I’ll do whatever you say. I promise.”
But I wasn’t worried about whether Cassie would do as I said. I was worried about whether the jury would.
TWENTY-FIVE
I was wrung out after that interview. I needed a drink, or seven, and a good, long nap. But I didn’t have time for any of that.
Michelle called as I was on my way to the parking lot. “Nathan Sonnenberg called. He wants to meet with you.”
I was a little surprised. I definitely wanted to talk to him now, find out whether he had any idea what’d been going on with Cassie. But I hadn’t expected him to want to talk to the lawyer who was representing his brother’s killer. “Where’s he staying?”
“At the Marriott near LAX.”
“Ugh. I’ll be lucky if I can get there by tomorrow night. Any chance he’ll meet me in the office?”
“It’s worth a try. Here’s the number.”
Luckily, Nathan was fine with that. He was civil, though I couldn’t say he sounded warm. But given the fact that I was defending the girl who’d killed his brother, how the hell was he supposed to feel about me?
As I drove back to the office, I thought about what I’d say to him and what I could ask him. My defense was going to center on his brother’s and his nephew’s predatory behavior. I wanted to get some idea of what Nathan would say about Cassie’s story, but I couldn’t reveal it yet.
I hadn’t decided whether to go for early media spin and put Cassie’s story out there, or play it close to the vest and aim for shock value when I picked a jury. I had no doubt that this case was going to trial. No prosecutor could offer me anything better than twenty-five to life—and even that was a big stretch. More likely, the only “deal” I’d get would be fifty to life. We’d be better off rolling the dice with the twelve-headed monster.
So I couldn’t tell Nathan what Cassie was saying. Even if he promised to keep it quiet. You never know how family members are going to react to ugly stories about their dearly departed. Especially stories they probably never heard before.
When I got back to the office, I told the troops about Cassie’s confession.
Alex looked stunned. “Are you kidding me? The father and the brother?” I nodded. He seemed as troubled as he was shocked.
Michelle folded her arms, her eyes hard as she stared straight ahead. “It does sound over the top, but I don’t have such a hard time buying it. And the mother not wanting to believe it isn’t such a stretch for me, either.” She avoided looking at me. Alex didn’t know about my childhood misery.
I nodded. “Her story’s extreme, no argument there. But incest cases usually don’t involve blood relatives.” That’s why stepchildren or foster children were the most common victims. Adopted kids were a distant third, but they were still a much more likely target than kids who’d been born into the family. “And we might have physical evidence to back it up.”
Alex looked pained and sad. “I don’t want it to be true, because it’s so awful. But it does explain why she’d do it. I mean, why else would a young girl snap like that?”
Which was exactly what I’d want my jury to think. “So we have a strategy call to make. Do we put out her story now? Or wait until trial? If I put out Cassie’s story now, I’ll be giving the prosecution a whole bunch of time to poke holes in it.”
Alex folded an arm around his waist and rubbed his chin, his thinking mode. “But we’ll have to give them discovery at some point anyway.”
“Right,” I said. “I’ll be calling shrinks and molestation experts.” And even if I told the experts not to write reports—a risky gambit that keeps the experts’ conclusions confidential but also looks kind of sleazy—I’d still have to turn over their names, so it wouldn’t take a clairvoyant to figure out where I was headed with their testimony. “The prosecution would be able to ramp up fast with counter-experts who’ll point out why Cassie’s story is BS.”
Michelle frowned. “But what if the doctor doesn’t find any evidence of trauma?”
I waved a hand. “I’ll bury it.” I don’t have to turn over reports unless I intend to put on the testimony at trial. “I think we go with the media blitz.”
The buzzer sounded at the outer door. Nathan was here. Michelle stood up. “Starting now?”
“I doubt it. Not unless he already seems to know. I’ll just let him talk and play it by ear.”
Relatives—especially those who didn’t live close by—seldom knew what was going on behind closed doors. But you never can tell. “Go ahead and buzz him in.”
TWENTY-SIX
Nathan walked into the office and stopped, one foot in front of the other. He looked around as though he expected someone to jump out and put a gun to his head. I took in his appearance as I moved toward him. He had close-crop
ped brown hair, watery hazel eyes, and the kind of pale complexion that comes from long, cold winters holed up in tiny, overheated brick houses and short, humid, bug-filled summers. I’d asked Alex to check him out. Nathan Adam Sonnenberg lived in Bendon, Michigan, population slightly more than two hundred thousand, where he worked as a salesman at a storm window dealership. Hardly a tiny backwater burg. But he acted like the proverbial country mouse come to visit the big city.
For one of the worst reasons imaginable.
I held out my hand, and we shook as I introduced us all. He bobbed his head up and down as he gave a brief, nervous smile to each of us. His hand felt soft and doughy, a description that fit the rest of him, too. The buttons on his plaid cotton shirt strained around a Pooh Bear tummy. Tummy isn’t my kind of word, but it fit Nathan. I’d bet the strongest curse he’d ever uttered was “Gosh all Friday!”
I thought it might intimidate him if Alex sat in on the meeting, so when I invited him into my office, I stood back and let him enter first, then held up a hand to let Alex know he shouldn’t join us. Alex nodded and headed for his office.
I wanted to keep this casual so Nathan would relax and hopefully give me something I could use—a long shot, I knew, but worth a try. I’d planned on inviting him to sit on the couch, but when I stepped in, I saw that he was already sitting in a chair in front of my desk. Probably for the best. I closed the door and went to sit behind my desk. “Nathan, thank you for coming in. I really appreciate it. And let me say how sorry I am for your wife’s illness. How’s the chemo going?”
Nathan bobbed his head up and down. “It’s going well; thank you for asking. We think she’s going to be just fine. Knock on wood.” He gave a tremulous smile and knocked on the arm of the chair.
I didn’t have the heart to point out that he’d just knocked on fake wood laminate. “And I’m very sorry about your brother and his family. Please accept my condolences.” Nathan thanked me again, then swallowed and squared his jaw. I could tell he was determined to keep it together, but his eyes looked a little wet, and he was gripping the arms of the chair as though he expected it to rocket into hyperspace any moment. The sooner we got through this, the better for him. I got down to business. “How well did you know Cassie?”