Courting Disaster

by Carol Stephenson

  Gone were the eyeliner and brightly colored lipstick. Sheree had applied only the merest dusting of neutral makeup. She wore tan slacks and a knit shirt that was at least two sizes too big. The only glimpse of her former style was her earrings—bright, dangling bars of gold, silver and copper.

  Her once straight slip of a nose was now crooked with a bump on the bridge, and a thin reddish-white scar ran along her neck where the rapist had cut her. But the most dramatic change in Sheree’s appearance was her hair. She’d shorn it to almost a buzz cut. Her attacker had wrapped her hair around her neck, threatening to strangle her in order to control her.

  That would not happen again.

  The victim arched a brow. “Have you stared enough yet?” Her voice was hard and brittle. “Or do you want before and after photographs? Mr. Lopez here can supply you with all the ones you want.”

  The prosecutor, Andy Lopez, gave her a sympathetic smile and patted her hand. “I’ve already supplied Ms. Dent with her discovery requests.”

  Best to be straightforward. I’d had a stomach full of people staring at my scar.

  “Sorry. I was just noticing the changes.”

  The girl’s mouth twisted. “You mean, I’m uglier.”

  “No, you’re stronger,” I said quietly. I laid out my folders and nodded for the court reporter to administer the oath.

  Taking a victim’s deposition is akin to walking across a razor-edged glass bridge over a deep gorge. One false question and you can go crashing down, cutting the major artery to your defense in the process.

  The world would be a lovely place if all victims were clean as a whistle, but they’re not. A crime has been committed, yes, but motives during prosecution can be convoluted. Were they fingering your client out of revenge or greed? Or, as in the case before me, might they have mistakenly identified the attacker?

  The rapist should pay for his crime, but the right man needed to be behind bars.

  I sped through the preliminary background questions, and then took a deep breath. This was where the deposition got tough. “Let me draw your attention to Easter weekend.”

  The light faded from Sheree’s eyes, and I knew she had withdrawn deep into a shell of numbness.

  “You were working in one of the ticket booths at Whiplash.”

  “Yes,” she whispered. “I was working ten to six that weekend.”

  After I’d found the name on Borys’s disk, I had done some research. Whiplash was a new theme park in western Palm Beach. As far as entertainment, it had it all. Cram packed with the latest rides and video game arcades, it had become an instant hit with the kids. A large rink outfitted with flashing lights and a funky modern theme switched between roller-skating and ice skating with the seasons. Alternating live bands with DJ music on Friday and Saturday nights ensured it was a place to see and be seen. The park even boasted several restaurants.

  Innocuous enough. However, what were the odds the rape occurred at a park owned by the Russian mob? I’d had our investigator Gabe run a criminal activity check, and Whiplash had its fair share of robberies and car break-ins. I gave a mental shrug. It could be a coincidence.

  “How long had you been working there?”

  “Only about a month.”

  “How did you get along with everyone?”

  “Objection,” Andy interjected. “Vague. Who’s ‘everyone’?”

  “Strike the question,” I instructed the reporter. “Let me rephrase it. Did you have any problems with any other employees?”

  Sheree shrugged. “Not really.”

  That meant she had. “Not really?” I let the question hang for a moment. “I would imagine there were a lot of part-timers like you, and yet you managed to get along with everyone?”

  “I didn’t fight with anyone, if that’s what you mean.”

  “What about guys? You’re a very pretty girl. Did anyone hit on you?”

  “Well, yeah.” She rolled her eyes.

  “I imagine you turned down quite a few.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Anyone get upset?”

  “One, maybe.”

  I opened my mouth for the next question, but she anticipated me. “But Enrique’s Puerto Rican with dark coloring. The man who raped me was blond.”

  I would circle back to the last statement later.

  “Did you go out with anyone from work?”

  She nodded.

  “How many?”

  “Three, maybe four guys. Nothing serious.”

  “Not serious for you, but how about the men?”

  That gave her pause. She pursed her lips then shook her head. “I don’t think so. It wasn’t like anyone hung around me all the time. Employee turnover was high plus there were all the kids that come to the park. The boys tended to…” Hurt—or was it anger?—flickered in her eyes. “Move on.”

  Obviously, she had fallen for one of the boys she dated, but he had broken things off with her. I made a mental note to question other employees about him.

  “So no problems at work?”

  “Objection, unspecific.” Andy didn’t bother to glance up from his doodling.

  “Did you have a supervisor?”

  Sheree grimaced. “Yes. Uri Popov.”

  “Did you get along with him?”

  “I had no complaints.”

  “But did he have complaints about your work?”

  She gave me another eye roll. “Look, I wasn’t foreign so I wasn’t one of the favorites.”

  “What do you mean, you weren’t foreign?”

  “The people who got the more cushy jobs were either from Russia or those kinds of countries. In fact, the day before…” Her voice trailed off.

  “Something happened the day before your attack?”

  “No big deal. I just wasn’t feeling well and asked to work in one of the shaded advance sales booths, but you would have thought I was asking for the sun. Uri flipped out and yelled at me. I told him not to get so bent out of shape. What was so special about those booths that one of his princesses couldn’t switch places with me for one day?”

  Hang on. The racetrack had preferential ticket windows as well. Could the Hedeon be laundering money right out in public? I kept my voice steady. “Were only certain customers allowed to use that booth?”

  Andy looked up, frowning. “Objection. What’s the relevance?”

  Careful, I warned myself. Are you trying to prove your client’s innocence or find out if the park was being used to funnel money? Stay focused on the rape case.

  “I’ll withdraw the question. However, Mr. Popov’s name isn’t on your witness list.”

  Andy shrugged and made a note. “I’ll add him.” I turned back to the witness. “What did Mr. Popov say?”

  “Nothing.” Sheree shook her head. “I ended up going home. I had some twenty-four hour bug.” Andy returned to his doodling.

  “Are you still working at the park?”

  The victim seemed to shrink inside herself. “No, I can’t go back there.”

  “Tell me what happened the day you were attacked.”

  In a flat monotone, Sheree went through a litany of detail, from the time she arrived, the booth she worked at and when she had left. As it was a holiday weekend, the parking lot had already been packed when she arrived so she parked to the side per the management’s instructions.

  When she got off at six, it had grown dark. A man waiting behind her car grabbed her and dragged her into a band of shrubbery that lined the lot. There he had repeatedly struck her before the rape.

  “Did you fight him, scratch him?”

  A tear trickled down her face. “That’s what I don’t understand—why he had to hit me. I didn’t fight him. I wanted to live.”

  I knew that feeling all too well. I’d fought my way back to consciousness after I’d been shot. Screw the beckoning light. I had things to do.

  I still recalled the punch of pain, the burn of sweat in my eyes and the overwhelming sense of exhaustion when I’d come
to and seen the faces of my tearful parents. I’d been in a comalike state for several days.

  Yes, life could be very sweet.

  But while I understood Sheree’s pain, I was about to make it worse.

  Chapter Nine

  “Ms. Greiner, you’ve mentioned several times that your attacker was blond. How did you see this in the dark?”

  “The parking lot lights were on. As…as he raped me, I stared at the glint of light on his hair.”

  The man had either been careless or he hadn’t meant for her to live. I made a note to check the positioning of the lights.

  “What about his face? Can you describe what he looked like?”

  Anger flashed for a moment in her eyes. “Yes, like your client,” she answered defiantly.

  “How so?”

  “Square-shaped face, pale eyes.”

  A description that could match thousands of men. I would be able to plant a seed of doubt in the jury’s mind, emphasizing the uncertain light conditions and a terrorized young girl.

  “Did he have any markings on his body? Birthmarks, moles, tattoos?”

  She bit her lower lip. “Not that I could see. His shirt had long sleeves. But I do know he’d shaved his groin area.”

  “What about birthmarks?”

  “Not that I noticed, but I never saw his back.”

  Good response—except the birthmark was on my client’s penis. According to the girl’s statement, the attacker had her stroke him.

  Andy would be able to get the jury to sympathize with the girl and shore up her slips, but he had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Larry Clark was the rapist. I’d just scored one for the defense.

  I was about to bring the whole scale crashing down.

  “How many blond-haired men were in the line-up when you identified Mr. Clark?”

  She glanced at Andy.

  “Mr. Lopez can’t help you.”

  “Two…three…four?”

  “Which is it? Isn’t it true that the line-up contained only two blond-haired men?” I deliberately chose the lower number, hoping she would agree with me.

  “I guess so,” she whispered at the same time Andy objected.

  “Leading.”

  “Did the line-up have only two blond-haired men, Ms. Greiner?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you describe the other blond-haired man you didn’t pick out?”

  “No.”

  “When you first gave your statement to the police, did you tell them you ‘thought’ your attacker had blond hair?”

  “I may have.”

  I pulled several sheets stapled together from a folder. “I have your statement right here. Do you need to review it to refresh your recollection?”

  Andy should have been requesting this, but I wanted to beat him to the punch and make the witness think that I wasn’t trying to trick her.

  “No, I read through it last night. I did use the word thought. But when I saw that man in the line-up, I knew it was him.”

  “You were positive.”

  “Yes.”

  I took a bulging envelope and dumped its contents. Last night I had gone to every web site I could find of celebrities, models, and sports figures. I spread across the table sheet after sheet of photographs I had copied and printed out. There were hundreds of blond-haired, blue-eyed men. Carefully, I had inserted one shot of my client in a row of other similar looking men.

  And included one surprise picture.

  “Take your time, Ms. Greiner. I want you to pick out the photo of your attacker.”

  “Objection! This is highly prejudicial.” Andy started to scoop up the photos.

  “Mr. Lopez, you know I can challenge her identification via a photographic line-up. Do you want me to stop this deposition right now and go get a ruling from the judge?”

  “No!” Sheree cried out. “I can’t do this again. I’ll look at them.”

  With trembling hands, she picked up the first photo and then the next. Her coloring, already ashen, grew paler as she shuffled through more and more pictures. “There are so many.”

  Men who looked like my client had been a dime a dozen on the internet. Me, I preferred dark hair, just long enough to curl over a man’s collar or for a woman to run her fingers through. Like Jared’s. I inwardly rolled my eyes at myself and refocused.

  I handed her a sheet with five photographs on it. “How about this page?”

  She frowned and tapped the middle photo. “He looks familiar. Younger…yes, I think that’s him. The shape of his face.”

  I took the page and handed it to the court reporter. “I would like to have this marked as exhibit number one. Let the record reflect that Ms. Greiner identified photograph number three on the page.”

  “Let me see that!” Andy reached out and I handed the sheet to him. All color drained from his face as he stared at the picture. “But—”

  “That was a nice law school photo of you, Andy. However, I like the way you’re wearing your hair longer now.”

  Her mouth gaping, the girl looked at her lawyer with dawning horror. She swallowed. “I didn’t know…I thought it was him!”

  I gathered the remaining sheets. “Madam reporter, I’ll have the rest of these marked as composite exhibit two as I’m sure the state will be challenging this display.”

  After closing my folders, I slipped them into my briefcase. “I have no further questions.” I rose and left the conference room. Behind me I heard Sheree give a low moan that erupted into a hideous wail of pain.

  In the hallway, I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes in relief. I had done it. I had established reasonable doubt as to my client’s identity.

  But at what cost?

  “No deal.” My client’s eyes gleamed in the bright fluorescent overhead lighting of the secured jail conference room.

  “But Larry, you would only serve two years in jail, less with good behavior.”

  “I thought you said the victim doesn’t want to testify now.”

  Less than an hour after my deposition, Andy Lopez had called with a proposed deal. Sheree had broken down, begging him to drop the prosecution.

  “That’s today. While I may have shaken her, by tomorrow she may have changed her mind. Until the state officially drops the charges, you’re still going to trial on aggravated rape charges.”

  “You destroyed her identification of me.”

  “Not destroyed, put gaping holes in it.” I still worried about some unknown memory that could be triggered when Sheree confronted Larry in court. A smell, a sensation. Something a person wouldn’t normally think about while recounting a night of terror but which could be triggered by a face to face confrontation.

  I was worried that my client was guilty.

  “Just like a woman. You have no backbone.”

  I stilled. “What did you say?”

  Larry leaned back in his chair and sneered. “You have no guts. You want me to take the plea because you’re afraid of going to trial. Well, I’m not about to do time because my lawyer’s a woman.”

  I clenched my hands into fists. What I wouldn’t give to throw a punch into the arrogant creep’s face, but he was my client.

  No, he wasn’t. Not anymore.

  I opened my mouth to fire him, but he gave me another leering smile.

  “You think I’m guilty, don’t you?”

  “Yes, and for that reason—”

  “Well, maybe I am…and maybe I’m not. But you’ll never know for sure, will you?” His taunting voice sickened me. “You know that you’ve blown to hell that girl’s identification of me.”

  Carefully, I gathered my notes and put them into my case. “Mr. Clark.”

  He threw his head back and laughed. “Oh, God. Listen to your prissy tone. Here you represent criminals for a living but you think you’re so high and mighty. You take our money, don’t you? You’ve known all along that I might have raped that girl, but it didn’t matter, did it? You did your job and got me off.”
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  “Gee, me, a mere woman managed the impossible and got you off? Imagine that.” I braced my hands on the table. “I quit. I no longer represent you.”

  I grabbed my purse, slung it over my shoulder and headed to the door.

  “I didn’t rape that girl.”

  “Tell that line to your new attorney. I’m on my time now.”

  What had I done?

  Sitting behind the desk in my darkening office, I stared at my framed diplomas mixed among the sports memorabilia on the wall. A knock on the door caused me to wince. I had asked the staff not to disturb me.

  “Carling?” Kate opened the door and walked in, pausing to pick up my purse and briefcase from where I’d dropped them.

  “Yes?” With my head throbbing, for a disconcerting moment I couldn’t bring her into focus.

  After placing the bags in a client chair, she took the other one, gracefully crossing her legs. “Another migraine?”

  I carefully nodded. I hadn’t been able to make a dash for home when the first warning signs had appeared. The headache swept through me like a tidal wave so I had waited it out.

  “Medications working?”

  The sound of her voice didn’t ping-pong inside my head so that was definitely a good sign. “I’m on the downside of the episode.”

  She studied me. “I hear congrats are in order.”

  “Jared kissed me yesterday!” I blurted out and then winced. I hadn’t meant to mention that.

  “Want me to break his legs?” At the sound of the smooth, amused male voice, I glanced over at the door. Gabe Chavez, the firm’s private investigator and Kate’s boyfriend, lounged against the doorjamb.

  While the thought was tempting, I cautiously shook my head. Thankfully, no brains rattled out. “No, but if you could get one of your police buddies to write him a ticket or two…” Gabe was a former West Palm Beach detective and maintained ties to a number of officers at the station.

  “I’ll get right on it, but first I need to know one thing.” He folded his arms and even in the dim light I could see the flash of his teeth. “Do you need to be ticketed for kissing him back?”

  “Gabe.” Kate’s voice held a touch of that debutante Palm Beach frost. “Close the door, please. Girl talk.”