by Brad Smith
‘What’s so funny, boys? A little old lady get hit by a truck?’
‘Hugged any trees lately?’ Hofferman asked.
‘Really?’ Frances asked. ‘Is that the best you got?’
‘Don’t tell me you’ve given up on saving the planet, Frances.’
‘Don’t tell me you’ve given up on fucking it over, Hank.’ Frances turned to Bud. ‘I thought council passed a motion to stop these phony farmers from parachuting in here. Am I wrong about that?’
Bud had a take-out coffee in his hand and he took a drink and then belched into his fist before replying. ‘What phony farmers would you be talking about?’
Frances gestured across the lot. ‘Parnelli Farms. This market is supposed to support local growers. We don’t mind American produce coming in during the winter but it’s July, for Chrissakes. And if these guys are farmers, I’m Mary Magdalene.’
‘They make the market a bigger place of business,’ Bud said. ‘They provide more product, and more variety. It actually helps you in the end because it draws more people past your little stall.’
‘My little stall?’ Frances said. ‘That’s bullshit. These guys undercut our prices. Don’t start with that nonsense that it brings more people in. We keep books – these guys hurt our bottom line.’
‘I’ll look into it,’ Bud said, but his tone made it abundantly clear that he wouldn’t.
‘Maybe I’ll look into it,’ Frances said. ‘Somebody’s getting paid off here or these guys would never get a stall.’
‘That sounds like a threat,’ Bud said. He looked at Hofferman. ‘Do tree huggers make threats? Isn’t that against their code or something?’
‘I want to know how they don’t get splinters,’ Hofferman said. He grinned, sticking with his aw shucks persona, the dumb country boy in his western shirt and his Wrangler jeans and pointed cowboy boots.
‘I hear you’ve been buying farmland again, Hank,’ she said. ‘You’re not building more pig barns, are you? I thought the bottom was falling out of the pig market. At least, the kind of pigs you produce.’
‘What’s wrong with my pigs?’ Hofferman asked.
‘Cramming three thousand sows in a barn and pumping them full of chemicals doesn’t exactly produce a hog fit for eating, Hank. I hear even the manure is toxic. The local farmers won’t spread it on their fields. I’m talking about the real farmers now.’
Hofferman smiled. ‘Well, I’m still making a dollar or two. Same as you, Frances.’
‘You don’t do anything the same as me,’ Frances told him.
‘Gal’s a little wound up today,’ Hofferman said, smiling at Bud.
‘It’s all an act,’ Bud said. ‘Straight out of the Green Party play book.’
‘Come on, Bud,’ Frances said. ‘You’re wearing a store-bought tan and more jewelry than a Kardashian and you’re calling me an act?’
Driving home later, Frances decided that her best move would be to start a petition and to have it signed by all the legitimate farmers who used the market. At least they would be on record as saying they opposed the interlopers. It would be up to the council to do something about it, and Frances didn’t have a lot of faith in that happening. There was nothing she could do about that.
‘That man was just plain rude,’ Perry said, referring to Arnie from Parnelli Farms. ‘Maybe next time I’ll punch him in the nose.’
Frances, behind the wheel, looked over at him. The first time she’d ever met him he’d been wearing a cloth cap and overalls, looking for all the world like Hank Fonda in The Grapes of Wrath. He was built like the character too – gangly arms and legs, a prominent Adam’s apple. But she’d learned that the resemblance ended rather abruptly right there. Perry was no Tom Joad. And Frances was quite certain he’d never punched anyone in the nose in his life.
She also knew that, with his loyal servitude and his slow proficiency and his sardine breath, he was half in love with her. That was something else she couldn’t do anything about.
SEVEN
After Debra Williams’s testimony Grant sidetracked and spent two days building the technical side of the prosecution’s case, calling all of the investigating officers to the stand and having them describe just how the force came into possession of the information which led to the charges against The Mayor.
Grant next called Dr Kenneth Strong to the stand. Strong was a psychologist who specialized in trauma cases. He spoke to the mental states of the four women, the lingering effects of the attacks, and under Grant’s questioning he tackled the tricky, speculative subject of what might have been, compared to what was. The testimony was risky business, but Grant had to chance it. There existed no physical medical evidence, usually key in rape cases.
Kate knew what Grant was doing, but still she chafed under the doctor’s suggestion that she had somehow been diminished by what had happened to her all those years ago. She was in the courtroom to demonstrate that the opposite was true. The Mayor had not damaged her. She was a victim of nothing, particularly of him.
Browning had little in the way of cross-examination for the cops who testified. In his dismissive manner he suggested that the officers had been rather naively led down a garden path ‘festooned with falsehoods’ and that for him to revisit that path would only lend credence to the lies. He also suggested, somewhat cryptically, that a more competent police force would never have listened to the outrageous fabrications which now formed the foundation of the case against his client. He did make a point of telling the jury that they were basically just repeating whatever stories they’d heard from the accusers. Watching, Kate got the impression that Browning was saving his best stuff for the women themselves.
Browning was not so magnanimous with Dr Strong, particularly with regard to Strong’s suggestions that the four women had been robbed of more fruitful lives as a result of being attacked at such an early age.
‘Interesting that you can opine on such matters,’ Browning said to the doctor. ‘I have your accreditations here, and they are impressive. Medical doctor, doctor of psychology, fellowship at Harvard. Yet I have to ask – is this list complete?’
‘It is,’ Strong replied warily.
Browning stroked his chin as he studied the paper in his hand. ‘For you to tell the court what these women could have been means that you have powers far beyond that of a doctor of medicine, or even a psychologist. Yet I see nothing on your résumé that says you have a degree in the metaphysical. Do you hold, for instance, a Bachelor of Clairvoyance?’
Grant stood. ‘My colleague is making light of a serious matter.’
‘I withdraw the remark,’ Browning said. ‘Nothing more for the witness.’ Walking back to the defense table, though, he stopped and turned toward the doctor. ‘Although, if you really were clairvoyant, you’d have seen it coming.’ Most of the jurors laughed and Judge Pemberton called it a day.
The next morning Grant put Maria Secord on the stand.
The witness wore a long brown skirt and a black sweater, another turtleneck that did not quite hide the lunging panther which ran along her neck nearly to her earlobe. Grant took her through the standard route – where she was born, schools attended and the rest. Maria’s voice, forged by late nights and cigarettes and hard liquor, was not unpleasant to the ear. She looked directly at the jury often as she spoke. She glanced from time to time at The Mayor too, but he never returned the favor, maintaining his pose of being apart from the proceedings at hand. ‘The summer of 1997,’ Grant said, getting to it. ‘You were sixteen. How did you come to know Joseph Sanderson the third?’
‘My mother knew Mrs Sanderson,’ Maria said. ‘My mother’s active in the church and that’s how they met.’
‘Just to clarify – when you say Mrs Sanderson, you mean the accused’s wife?’ Grant asked.
‘Yeah. That’s who I mean.’
‘And which church?’
‘St Patrick’s. One time they were doing this fundraiser for some charity thing in Africa someplace. And
Mrs Sanderson’s church got involved. She goes to St Stephen’s. Or did anyway, back then. So they had, like, bake sales and rummage sales, you know, stuff like that. And I guess they became friends.’
‘Who did?’
‘My mother and Mrs Sanderson.’ Maria’s tone was slightly impatient, as if she was prepared to tell her story if Grant would stay out of the way. ‘I was looking for a summer job and Mrs Sanderson got me an interview for work at city hall.’
‘What kind of work?’
‘Intern.’
‘In the mayor’s office?’
‘Yeah. Well, it was, like, not just in his office. City hall. Running errands for a bunch of different people.’ She waited for Grant to say something and when he didn’t she continued. ‘So I got the job. And my first day there, I was real nervous. Cuz nobody really told me what I was supposed to do. I remember being worried that I was gonna have to type something and my typing wasn’t that good. But the first morning I was just, like, photocopying shit … oops, sorry.’ She glanced at the judge. ‘I was just photocopying stuff, and delivering papers here and there.’
‘Had you met Mayor Sanderson before that day?’
‘No. I met him for the first time when I got there that morning. I remember he shook my hand and kept on walking. I didn’t think he even noticed me.’
‘What happened later?’
‘He went for lunch, like, pretty early, I remember. Like maybe eleven thirty or so. He came back a couple hours later – he was smiling then, and talking a lot. He sent his secretary to lunch and she told me to stay in his outer office and answer the phone, just take down messages and whatever. But after she left, he came out and told me to come into his office. As soon as I walked in he closed the door and kissed me. He didn’t say anything. He stuck his tongue in my mouth. He smelled like whisky. I tried to grab the door handle but he pushed me down on the carpet. He kept trying to kiss me while he was pulling my dress up. He ripped my panties and he was trying to get at me. In me. And I was crawling backwards, and suddenly he … he finished.’
‘He ejaculated?’
‘Yeah. I could feel it on my legs.’
‘Then what happened?’ Grant asked.
‘He stood up and he zipped his pants. He looked at me and then he gave me forty dollars and told me to buy a new dress. Cuz he came on my dress too. It was a new dress.’
‘That’s all he said?’
‘No,’ Maria said. She looked at The Mayor. ‘He told me to go back to the outer office. He told me that if anybody called to tell them he was in a meeting.’
‘That was it?’
Maria continued to stare at The Mayor, who was posed perfectly in profile, his thumb beneath his chin and his forefinger on the tip of his nose, his own gaze fixed on the far wall of the courtroom. ‘No,’ she said. ‘He told me not to say anything about what happened because nobody would believe me anyway. He told me I would look like a fool.’
‘And did you tell anybody?’ Grant asked.
‘Nobody.’
‘Because of what he told you?’
‘I don’t know,’ Maria said. She hesitated. ‘I was pretty messed up. I was sixteen years old and I’d just been raped by the mayor of the city. I didn’t know what to do. I had no idea … what to do.’
‘But wouldn’t you tell your mother?’ Grant pressed.
‘No,’ Maria said. ‘My mother was – she was going through a hard time. I wasn’t gonna lay this on her.’
‘When you say she was going through a hard time, what do you mean?’
‘A bunch of stuff. My old man left when I was little but he kept coming back, you know, for a month, or two months or whatever. He was always drunk, and he was always mad. He would beat my mother up. Like, for no reason.’
‘A moment, your honor,’ Browning said as he stood up. ‘Is there some connection between this drunken wife-beater and the charges filed against my client? Because otherwise – I don’t know where the prosecution is going with this.’
Judge Pemberton looked at Grant.
‘If we can allow the witness to finish,’ Grant said.
‘Go ahead,’ the judge said after a moment.
Maria Secord watched Browning with loathing as he sat down. ‘Anyway,’ she said after a moment, ‘my mom was going through tough times. She worked at the canning factory for minimum wage, and then she was always laid off in the winter. It seemed like being friends with Mrs Sanderson was important to her, for some reason. I guess cuz she was, like, from the other side of the tracks or whatever. That whole trip. So after her being smacked around by my old man and everything, I didn’t want to come home after my first day at work and tell her that her friend’s husband raped me.’
The courtroom was very quiet. Grant took advantage of the moment, walking back to the table and taking an inordinate amount of time to look over his notes. Kate kept her eyes on Maria Secord. There was something in her expression. Victory maybe. She had finally told her story, and she had told it in front of the man who had raped her. Whatever else happened, they weren’t going to take that away from her.
After several moments, Grant approached the witness again. ‘So you kept quiet for more than ten years. What made you come forward finally?’
‘There were always rumors floating around about the guy, you know—’ Maria began, but she was interrupted at once by Browning.
‘Objection,’ he said, reverting to his bored tone. ‘Has my colleague called this witness to the stand to discuss rumors?’
‘The witness will stick to what she knows to be fact,’ Judge Pemberton said.
Maria nodded. ‘I heard … from a friend … that he was being investigated,’ she said.
‘By “he” you mean the accused?’ Grant said.
‘Yeah. So I decided that I should tell what I know. What he did. So I got hold of a cop I knew, and he hooked me up with the cops doing the investigating.’
Grant glanced over at Browning. ‘Call it intuition but I have a feeling that the attorney for the defense will question your motives for coming forward at this late date. So I’ll do him this kindness – why are you doing this?’
Maria Secord was waiting for the question. ‘Because I’ve always been ashamed of what happened. How screwed up is that? I was ashamed and he wasn’t. And that never made any sense to me but it’s the way it was. I don’t know why. Maybe because he was rich and we were poor, or he was this powerful guy. I don’t know. But he should be the one who’s ashamed. And I guess if that’s ever gonna happen, this is the place it’s gonna happen.’
Browning began his cross-examination after lunch. First he sat at the table for a long time, staring at Maria Secord while tapping a pencil lightly against his double chin, measuring her up. At one point he shook his head, as if he despaired of trying to decide just what would possess a woman to tell such an outrageous tale. Finally he stood, approaching her with his hands plunged deep in his pants pockets, his eyes cast to the floor.
‘Just out of interest,’ Browning asked, to begin, ‘where were you a week ago Saturday, Ms Secord?’
‘I was … I don’t know … at home probably.’
‘What time did you have lunch?’
‘What?’
‘What time did you have lunch, a week ago Saturday?’ Browning asked again.
‘I don’t know. Noon, I guess. One o’clock.’
‘So, it could have been noon, it could have been one.’ Browning turned toward the jury. ‘And yet you know – you have actually testified under oath here that you know that Joseph Sanderson went for lunch at eleven thirty on a summer’s day back in 1997. Funny how specific you can be about that. Of course, little details like that can be very effective when attempting to sell a story.’
‘Objection,’ Grant said.
‘Counselor,’ Judge Pemberton warned.
Browning smiled contritely, then glanced toward the jury, again as if sharing a private joke with them. He let the smile drop and turned back to the stand. ‘What do y
ou do for a living, Ms Secord?’
‘I’m a waitress.’
‘Where?’
‘Actually, I’m between jobs right now. I last worked at the Power Plant.’
‘I guess we can assume that the Power Plant is a restaurant and not a hydro-electric facility. Have you always been a waitress?’
‘No.’
‘What else have you done?’
‘I’ve had a few jobs. I worked at Sears. I worked at Home Depot.’
‘Were you ever an exotic dancer?’ Browning asked. ‘A stripper?’
Maria’s contempt for Browning was palpable. ‘Yeah.’
Browning raised his eyebrows slightly, as if he was actually surprised at the revelation. ‘At the time that my client allegedly … pushed you to the floor … were you a stripper?’
‘I was sixteen years old.’
‘Answer the question.’
‘No.’
‘So it was later on that you made that particular career choice.’
‘Is that a question?’
‘An observation,’ Browning said. ‘After the alleged attack, you claim you told no one.’
‘That’s right.’
‘I assume, however, that you immediately quit your job at city hall?’
‘No.’
‘No?’ Browning’s eyes widened as he moved toward the jury again. ‘Are we to believe that a sixteen-year-old girl was sexually assaulted by her employer on her first day of employment and yet continued to come to work every day?’
‘I didn’t know what else to do.’
‘You could’ve quit,’ Browning said. ‘As a matter of fact, there were a number of things you could have done. You could’ve screamed. Apparently you did not. You could have called the police. You chose not to. You could have told your mother, your friends, your priest. You did none of these things. Is that correct? You told nobody?’
‘I’m telling you now,’ Maria said. She was staring at Browning’s back, challenging him.
‘You’re telling me now,’ Browning repeated, turning. ‘Yes, you are. I hear you’ve also told Lawrence Filsinger. Do you know Lawrence Filsinger?’
‘I don’t know him. I met him. Once.’