“The defense calls the defendant, Dr. Peyton Shields.”
After weeks of being portrayed as an adulteress in the newspapers, after being doubted by her lawyer and even her own husband, Peyton wanted nothing more than to tell her side of the story. That someday she’d vindicate herself had been her driving force through the lowest points. As she approached the stand, however, she was gripped by the dark reality that the world might never believe her.
“Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth…”
The oath had seemed so mechanical when she’d watched other witnesses swear it, but it was something else altogether to hear the bailiff put those words to her in front of the judge, the jury, her lawyer, her husband, her parents, a hungry press, and scores of spectators. With all those eyes upon her, she wondered how anyone ever lied on a witness stand. That nervous moment, on the verge of her personal plea to a jury of her peers, confirmed an unshakable truth about herself: She wasn’t made of the stuff that liars were made of.
Her lawyer approached, cordial but professional. First he covered her background, particularly her decision to devote herself to children and pediatrics. It was a way of endearing the jurors to her while making her feel comfortable. Soon, however, the warm fuzzies were over.
“Dr. Shields, the last thing we heard from the government before the close of their case yesterday is that you owned a thirty-eight caliber handgun. When did you buy that weapon?”
“Last winter.” Her voice cracked. The first substantive question, and already she had a lump in her throat.
“Why did you buy it?”
“One night, when my husband was out of town on business, I thought I heard someone picking at the lock on our front door.”
“So you bought it for your own personal safety?”
“That’s correct.”
“Did you ever discharge it?”
“I took a safety course that included target practice. My last class was, I believe, February. That was the last time I ever fired it.”
“What did you do with it?”
“I kept it stored in a metal box that was on the shelf in my closet. I put it in there and, I swear, never touched it again.”
“Why wasn’t it there when the police came looking for it after Gary Varne’s death?”
“I can’t explain it. All I can say is that it must have been stolen.”
Tony paused, as if to let the jurors absorb the testimony. Judge Gilhorn grumbled like a bear waking from hibernation, waving the lawyers forward. Both Tony and the prosecutor stepped toward the bench for a sidebar, outside the earshot of the jury. From the witness stand Peyton was close enough to overhear the judge’s scolding.
“Mr. Falcone, I granted your pretrial motion to prevent the government from offering into evidence those so-called love letters that were found in the box when the police went searching for the gun. With this suggestion that someone tampered with the box and stole the gun, you’re about one question away from making me change my mind. Understood?”
“Understood.”
The lawyers retreated, Ohn to his table and Tony to his place before his client. He steered Peyton directly into her “other life” with Gary Varne, how they’d dated in high school and then crossed paths again at Children’s Hospital—friendly, but just coworkers. Then it was time to explain how she’d ended up in Gary’s apartment, starting with her surprise visit to Kevin in New York and the horrible mistake she’d made in thinking that her husband had been sharing a hotel room with another woman.
“What did you do when you got back to Boston?”
“The last thing I felt like doing was going home to our apartment. So I went to the hospital, a way of losing myself in my work.”
“And you saw Mr. Varne there?”
“Yes. He happened to be on duty, and we started talking. He could see that I was upset. Like I said, we were friends, so we decided to leave work and cheer me up a little bit.”
Peyton glanced at the jurors. One or two seemed to have their own damning opinion as to where this “cheering up” would lead.
“So you went to a bar?”
“First we went for coffee. That was my idea. Then we met up with some friends of his at a bar. That was Gary’s idea.”
“Do you recall how many drinks you had?”
“Not exactly. It didn’t seem like that many, but in hindsight I can say that it was definitely one too many. I was tired and feeling pretty low. I had just flown back from New York thinking my husband had cheated on me.”
“About what time did you leave the last bar?”
“All I remember is that I started to feel really bad around two A.M., so we left. From then on, I don’t remember anything.”
“What is the next thing you do remember?”
“Waking up in Gary’s apartment. The next afternoon.”
The crowd murmured. Steve Beasley’s testimony had given some insights, but these were new details, juicy ones at that.
Peyton’s pulse quickened. She dreaded the next couple of questions, but at last night’s rehearsal Tony had assured her that if she was going to tell the whole truth, it was better to bring the sordid details out on direct rather than to let Ohn extract it on cross.
“Exactly where were you in his apartment?”
“I was in his bed, alone. Gary had slept on the couch.”
“Were you dressed?”
“Yes. Partly.”
“What were you wearing?”
“My panties. And one of Gary’s T-shirts.”
The crowd’s rumbling grew louder. The judge gaveled them down. “Order.”
Tony continued. “I have to say, this is starting to sound like an embarrassing situation.”
“It’s not what it sounds like. Gary explained everything the next morning. He told me—”
“Objection,” shouted Ohn. “The witness has testified that she has no recollection of what happened after she reached Gary Varne’s apartment. Her understanding of how she ended up half-naked in the victim’s bed is based solely on what Gary Varne told her. That’s hearsay.”
“Sustained.”
Peyton looked at Tony, distressed that the jury might not hear Gary’s own admission that they hadn’t had sex, that she’d gotten sick, and that he’d simply cleaned her clothes for her.
“But, Your Honor,” said Tony, almost pleading.
“The objection was sustained. Next question, please.”
Peyton caught the judge’s eye, and at that moment she realized Tony had been right. He’d predicted that the jury wouldn’t believe that she hadn’t slept with Gary. Evidently, the judge was of the same opinion.
Reluctantly, Tony moved on to Gary’s hostility toward her after their night together, the argument over the rose she’d found taped to her locker, the theft of her computer from the library. Then it was on to the heart of her defense.
“Dr. Shields, we heard Sandra Blair testify about the argument she overheard between you and your husband at the Harvard cocktail party. What was that all about?”
“Kevin had heard false rumors about me and Gary, and he confronted me in the hallway. I denied that anything had happened between us, but I didn’t think a hallway was the place to discuss it. When I wouldn’t get into it, he got angry and left without me.”
“So you went home alone?”
“Yes. I waited up late for him to come home, but he didn’t. Around eleven o’clock I got a couple of hang-up phone calls. It scared me, so I stayed up watching television till pretty late.”
“Then what?”
“The phone rang, and I woke up in front of the television. It was after four A.M.”
“Who was it?”
“I don’t know. A man’s voice that I didn’t recognize.”
“What did he say?”
Peyton braced herself for another hearsay objection from Ohn, but he seemed just as rapt as everyone else in the courtroom, too curious to interrupt.
“He told me to check my
mail, then hung up.”
“Did you check it?”
“Yes. I found an envelope in the foyer that someone had dropped through the slot. I opened it right away.”
“What was in it?”
She swallowed the lump in her throat and said, “A lock of human hair.”
That drew a loud crowd reaction. “Order,” the judge said, banging the gavel.
“What happened next?”
Her voice shook as she recounted the lights going out and the call on her cell phone. “I found my way to the bedroom and answered it. It was the same voice as before.”
“What did he tell you this time?”
“He said he’d kidnapped Gary Varne and demanded a ten-thousand-dollar ransom.”
Ohn looked shocked, too stunned even to object. Peyton tried to ignore the crowd noises and stay focused.
Tony asked, “Pay him ten thousand dollars or he’d do what?”
She stole a quick glance at Kevin. Only she knew him well enough to see how much this pained him. “He said he’d kill Gary and tell my husband that we were lovers.”
“What was your reaction?”
“A combination of fear for Gary’s life and anger that I was being accused of being his lover, when I wasn’t. Beyond that, pure shock. He gave me a couple of days to come up with the money, and then he hung up.”
“Did you call the police?”
“No. He said that if I called the police, he’d kill Gary.”
“So what did you do?”
“Kevin came home around dawn, and we talked it out. He was convinced from the get-go that Gary had staged the whole supposed kidnapping and had simply made the phone call himself, essentially trying to blackmail us. So we agreed not to pay.”
Peyton saw her lawyer wince at her mention of blackmail. It was the added motive that he’d tried desperately not to serve up to the prosecution on the proverbial silver platter.
“Did you discuss the part about you and Gary supposedly being lovers?”
“I told Kevin it wasn’t true. He said even if it was true, he’d forgiven me.”
“Did you hear again from this supposed kidnapper?”
“Two days later he called me at work. Said I’d better have the money by midnight or he’d kill Gary.”
“Did you get the money?”
“No. Kevin and I were still convinced that it was just Gary harassing us. But we agreed that if I got one more threatening phone call, we’d go to the police.”
“Did you get another phone call?”
“No. Kevin and I waited till after the midnight deadline, but we never heard a thing.”
“So then what? Did you and Kevin go to bed?”
“I think the stress was finally getting to us. We had an argument. Kevin went out.”
“For how long?”
“The rest of the night.”
She glanced at her husband, then at the prosecutor. Ohn seemed to be making a note of Kevin’s second disappearance.
“What did you do?”
“I went to bed and didn’t sleep very well. I had to be at work early, so around five-something I walked to my car as usual, got inside.”
Her voice was fading. For eight weeks, Tony had downplayed the kidnapping as something he didn’t want to talk about, and Peyton had suppressed it. Now, it was flooding back with her in-court description of the man’s hand over her mouth, the image in the rearview mirror, the man in the backseat behind the ski mask.
“He asked if I’d gotten the money. I tried to tell him that I could get it, but he just wanted a yes or no answer to his question: Did I get the money? I told him no.”
“Then what?”
“He told me, ‘Good for you, Peyton. You made the right call.’” She paused, her voice shaking, eyes clouded. Last night’s rehearsal had ended right there, but almost involuntarily she added, “It was as if he was saying that it was the right decision to let Gary die.”
Tony paused for effect. “Tell us what happened next.”
“He put a rag over my mouth. I could smell the chloroform. And then I was out.”
“What’s the next thing you remember?”
“Waking up in the hospital. Kevin was there. He told me the police had found me in my car with a spilled bottle of sleeping pills. And then the police came,” she said, displaying a touch of emotion. “They said Gary was dead. His body was in the trunk of my car.”
Tony took a step back, and Peyton prepared herself for the strong finish they’d rehearsed.
“Dr. Shields, did you have an affair with Gary Varne?”
“No.”
“Did you kill Gary Varne?”
“No, I did not.”
“Did you assist in any way in the disposal of Mr. Varne’s body?”
“No, I did not.”
“Do you have any idea who this man was who abducted you?”
She did a double take. At their rehearsal, he hadn’t asked about the possible identity of her abductor, and the change unsettled her. “No,” she said, feeling shivers across her body. “But he seemed strangely familiar.”
“How so?”
Perhaps it was the courtroom setting, perhaps it was the fact that she was under oath and searching every ounce of her inner self for the truth. But she was suddenly convinced that the man in the ski mask was the “Good Samaritan” who’d pulled her from Jamaica Pond. She looked at no one in particular and said, “It was as if I’d looked into his eyes before.”
Slowly, with all of the jurors watching, Tony turned his entire body away from Peyton and toward her husband, seated at the table, letting his judgmental gaze rest on Kevin.
Peyton replayed in her mind those final words—It was as if I’d looked into his eyes before—and nearly choked on Tony’s implied accusation. She wanted to retract her testimony or explain what she’d meant, but it had taken a second too long for her to fully appreciate the stunt her own lawyer was pulling.
“Thank you, Dr. Shields,” said Tony. “Nothing further.”
Peyton looked at Kevin, saw the mortified look of betrayal on his face. She glanced at the judge, her eyes emitting a silent but desperate scream, Wait! There’s something I need to say.
“Mr. Ohn,” said the judge, “cross-examination please.”
Her heart sank further as the prosecutor stepped forward. She took one look into his burning eyes and knew that it was too late to explain herself now, too late for backpedaling.
The easy part hadn’t been so easy. The hard part had just begun.
62
PEYTON COULD HEAR HERSELF BREATHING; THE COURTROOM WAS that quiet.
The prosecutor walked slowly toward her and stopped, hands on his hips. He locked eyes with the witness and said nothing, as if sizing her up, a slithering python poised to take her in one gulp. Peyton met his stare for a moment, but she could feel herself losing the battle of nerves. She looked away and saw Kevin, confusion all over his face. She tried to send a silent signal that she had no intention of burying her own husband, but the sharp sound of Ohn’s voice snapped her back to attention.
“Nothing happened.” His voice boomed, then seemed to drift into a softer but sarcastic tone. “And you woke up half-naked in another man’s bed.”
Peyton wasn’t sure if Ohn wanted a response, but letting his words linger only made her feel more uncomfortable. “Yes,” she replied, her voice weaker than intended.
“You were not wearing pajamas?”
“No.”
“Your pants had been removed.”
“Yes.”
“No bra?”
“No.”
“You were wearing only panties.”
“And a T-shirt.”
“His T-shirt, correct?”
“Yes.”
He flashed a thin, sardonic smile. “And nothing happened.”
“I tried to explain. You wouldn’t let me.”
“Kind of speaks for itself,” he said, glancing at the jury.
Anger forced the
words out. “I got sick on tequila, and Gary washed my clothes.”
He glared, as if to shove the little mouse back in her hole, as if threatening her with much worse if she ever jammed him like that again.
“Right down to your underwear, you got sick, huh?”
“I was very drunk, so I don’t really know how sick I got.”
“You have no memory, so you’re giving us Gary’s morning-after explanation.”
“That’s correct.”
“Which is why the judge sustained my objection earlier. But now that it’s out in the open, let’s deal with it. You didn’t make love to Gary Varne that night, did you?”
She was taken aback, confused as to why he suddenly seemed to be on her side. “That’s right. I didn’t.”
“But he wanted to have sex with you, didn’t he?”
“I don’t know.”
“He was your old boyfriend, right?”
“Yes.”
“He took you out to drown your sorrows.”
“I guess you could say that.”
“He got you so drunk that you don’t even remember how much you drank.”
“We had too much, yes.”
“He took you back to his apartment.”
“Right.”
“And all you know is that the next morning, you were practically naked in his bed.”
“That’s true.”
“And he told you that you’d gotten sick on tequila.”
“Right.”
He started to pace, then came to a sudden halt, as if a thought had come to him. “Now, you didn’t go home and tell your husband about this, did you?”
“No.”
“In fact, you didn’t tell him anything until that night Sandra Blair overheard you two arguing, when your husband confronted you.”
She lowered her eyes. This was the part she wasn’t proud of. “That’s true.”
“You didn’t tell him, because you knew he would be angry.”
“The whole thing looked like something it wasn’t. I was afraid he wouldn’t understand.”
“And when you finally did tell him, he was indeed angry.”
“Yes.”
“He was so angry that he didn’t even come home from the cocktail party that night.”
“True.”
Lying with Strangers Page 30