by C F Dunn
“Odd? In what way?”
“This is a pretty unusual case as it is, but I wouldn’t normally expect an attorney to be so keen to put all the facts of the attack upfront of the jury like this. I’d have thought he’d have held off till after the criminal trial so as not to prejudice his client. Still, Staahl’s pressing for this lawsuit, so here we are.”
“Do I have to attend?”
Duffy flicked her hair over one shoulder and slid off the desk. “Unless you want to be in contempt of court, you do. Of course, you could still refuse, but you’d be likely to face a jail sentence for your trouble, and you wouldn’t want to be doing that, now, would you, hun?”
I certainly did not. “No, I suppose not, but he tried to kill me, and if it hadn’t been for Dr Lynes…” I had to remember to distance myself from him. “I would be dead. Staahl’s not trying to claim he’s innocent, surely?”
Duffy undid the single button of her jacket, letting it swing open, revealing a silky purple shirt tucked into the top of her suit trousers. “Sure what he did was a criminal offence and, even if you consented to it, he’ll stand trial for it. But if your claim that it was an unprovoked assault is shown to be untrue, what you did makes it malicious, and that’s defamation. The fact is, honey, Staahl has lost his job and suffered damage to his reputation. As for the state of his mind, he’s saying that he’s experienced mental anguish as a result of your allegations…”
“But… but,” I stammered, “he must have been unhinged in the first place to do what he did to me.”
“Well, if he was there’s no record of it. Now, we can try entering a plea to mitigate the sentence. If you’re willing to admit fault, he might just drop the charges altogether and you’re home and dry…”
“No way! I haven’t done anything wrong!”
She took a moment in which I felt myself unstitch beneath the severity of her gaze, then she shook her head. “That’s the darnd’est thing about this. It’s normal – hell, expected – that negotiations take place between us and them before trial, to come to some sort of arrangement that means trial can be avoided altogether, but they’ve refused. He wants a jury trial. What’s more, he’s not only going for damages, but an injunction against you. Hell, you must’ve tweaked his whiskers. Even if he wins, the award is likely to be negligible, and the trial’ll be all over the media, and what’ll that do to his reputation, I want to know?”
“To say nothing of mine,” I muttered. And Matthew’s safety, I thought.
Duffy ran a nail under her chin and scratched thoughtfully. “They must have good reason to risk it; it’s all or nothing now. He’s claiming you led him on.” She dropped it in, scrutinizing my face again for my response. I blanched but didn’t say anything.
“You’re not surprised by that?” she asked, still watching.
“I’ve heard the rumour before. It surprised me then, but I’ve sort of become used to it now.”
“You’ll have to do better than that if you’re going to convince the judge – she’ll be watching your reactions. Once an idea’s been planted it’s damned hard to shift it. Remember, you’re the victim, you didn’t lead him nowhere. Now, I want you to take me back through each minute of that evening.”
That was hard, gruelling. Duffy took her time, interleaving detailed questions about the attack with anecdotes from her childhood in a village near New Orleans I’d never heard of. She tried to make it easier, but her questions were direct, incisive, making my stumbling answers look contrived and evasive. At the end of it I felt pummelled and stretched like pizza dough, and my hand, holding a plastic cup of water, shook.
“I know this isn’t easy, but the prosecuting team’ll be a lot harder on you than I am, so you’ve got to get your story straight. And, about the way you dress, make it plain and dark – professional-looking. If you wear jewellery, keep it simple. The cross is just fine, but your earrings…” my hand flashed defensively to touch the earrings Matthew had given me, “… they look darned expensive and the jury’ll spend their time looking at your earrings and not listening to you. Got anything plainer?” I nodded. “Now, tell me,” she picked up a magazine from a pile by her desk and flicked through it without looking, “about your relationship with Dr Lynes.”
I had been expecting something like it ever since I entered her small, cramped office overlooking the parking lot at the back. She worded it as if it was understood that we had a relationship, but she could have had no certain knowledge of it.
I ran my cross up and down its chain. “We’re friends.”
“And that’s all?”
“Is there supposed to be more?” I countered, dropping my cross. It fell cold against the skin of my neck.
“I’m the one doing the asking.”
I fixed her with as steady a look as I could muster. “Yes, we’re friends.”
“Dr Lynes came across you and Staahl by accident? Chance? Fate? What?”
“I don’t know.”
“The prosecution will claim he was following you.”
“Dr Lynes? Why?”
“They’ll say he was jealous.”
“Of what, for goodness’ sake?”
“Your relationship with Staahl.”
“Relationship? There was no relationship. He was stalking me.”
“Can you prove that? Did you go to the police?”
“No – no I didn’t, but… but Elena…”
“Professor Smalova?”
“Yes – she was there in the diner when Staahl followed me there. She can tell you – he took my keys.”
“You saw him?”
“No.”
“Did he threaten you, shout at you, abuse you?”
“No, nothing like that.”
“Then what did he do that made you think he was in any way a danger to you?”
I hunted desperately for words that described how I’d felt that evening, faced by the man who seemed so sinister, so unwholesome. “He talked.”
“About what?”
“About… oh, I don’t know… about how I liked monsters, things like that. It was the way he said it; it made my skin crawl,” I faltered, seeing where this was going. “He was following me,” I finished feebly.
“So you said.” She walked around the side of her desk, and tossed the magazine onto the pile and picked up another. She opened the front page and glanced down the list of contents. “You told him to leave you alone, when you were at the diner?”
I had been distracted by her movements. “Yes, no – I can’t remember. He wouldn’t leave me alone. He held onto my bag, he touched me.” I felt physically sick as I recalled his touch on my hand.
“But he did leave?”
“Yes, but only when Harry…”
“Dr Lynes’ nephew – is that right?”
“Nephew… yes. Harry saw me there and came over and Staahl left.”
She rolled the magazine into a tube like a telescope and tapped her hand with it.
“What, he just left?”
“Yes, well – no. Harry knocked a drink over him.”
“On purpose?”
“No… I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“Where was Professor Smalova during this conversation you had with Staahl?”
“She was in the bathroom, then she went to pay.”
“So she didn’t see you with Staahl, hear what was said, anything?”
“She saw him leave.” I wiped the back of my hand across my forehead and it came away damp. “This is hopeless, isn’t it? I can’t prove he stalked me; you only have my word for it.”
She gave a small smile, the first I’d seen for a while. “No, we have more than that, we have physical evidence…” she nodded at my arms, “… and we have the testimony of a highly regarded surgeon – that’s got to count for something. By the way, did you know that Dr Lynes’ sister is the clinical psychiatrist in charge of assessing Staahl?”
If I looked startled it was because she referred to Maggie as Mat
thew’s sister and it took me a moment to make the connection through my addled brain.
“So you didn’t. Quite a coincidence, don’t you think?”
I felt almost past thinking anything. I found it bad enough having to regurgitate the events leading up to the attack, but I also danced on coals with any and every piece of information I gave her to prevent any slip, any look, any word that might lead someone with an inquisitive frame of mind down a different, more dangerous path, that would make Staahl look positively normal.
“One last thing,” she said, “and I don’t want you to be unduly worried by this or anything, but have you any idea how Staahl has been able to buy the services of one of New York’s better legal firms?” I shook my head. “Because – between you and me – you academics don’t get paid enough, and Professor Staahl hasn’t any other income that we know of, so where has he come by the means to afford the likes of them, that’s what I’d like to know. Sure as hell I would.”
“Are you saying we haven’t a chance?”
“No, not exactly, but it won’t make this as easy as getting a tan on a summer’s day, that’s for sure.”
The consequences of failure were too horrific to contemplate. “And if he succeeds in persuading the judge I’m guilty as charged, what then?”
“You can probably say goodbye to your job prospects in these United States of America for a start – you might even be deported – and it’ll make it one step easier for him to go back to work with a clean sheet.” She slapped the rolled-up magazine against her leg. “Isn’t worth thinking about, is it? So we’d better get this right and get the charge against you dismissed and the judgment he deserves. Ready to go to trial?”
Matthew waited for me in my apartment, pacing up and down in front of the window, his face drawn. I ran to him and he drew me into the protective circle of his arms. He held me until I stopped shaking.
“They’ve been asking questions,” I said, when at last I found my voice.
“It’s all right,” he murmured into my hair.
“But I thought they were going to ask about you…”
He tightened his hold on me. “Shhh, it’s all right – this has nothing to do with me.”
But it wasn’t all right and I had to make him understand how close to the edge I had come.
“I didn’t know what to say when she kept asking me about you – about us – and I was sure I was going to say something I shouldn’t because I forget you’re not normal. And, Matthew, she’s on my side; what’ll I do if they ask me in court?”
“It’s over for now, don’t worry.”
I could feel him trying to draw the anxiety out of me down the long, fine strand that bound us, but I wasn’t ready to let it go, not until I’d told him.
“But it’s only over for today. Then there’ll be the trial and they’ll try to unpick your evidence. Staahl’s brought in a hotshot team from New York or something. My attorney is nervous about it.”
He leaned back a little so that he could see my face. “Did she say so?”
“No, but it was pretty obvious.”
His face broke into a frown. “I wish you’d let me get in someone else to represent you… all right, sorry, I promised I wouldn’t mention it again. But why should you be any more likely to say or do something that could possibly harm me, any more than Pat or Joel or Henry might?”
“Because you are normal to me. If I saw you as being so very different – if you had two heads or were green – I would remember it. But I’ve always lived buried in the past, and living and breathing centuries of history is as natural to me as… as stepping from shadows into light. It’s easy to forget that you’re different,” I fretted, “and they’ll want to question you, too – as a witness.”
“Of course.”
“And?”
“And – nothing. They’ll ask me some questions. I’ll answer them. Everything’s fine.”
“Would you tell me if it wasn’t?”
He paused as if deciding whether he would or not, then smiled. “Yes, I would.”
“I think I might have gone to pieces today if I’d known you were being questioned too,” I said a little mournfully.
He kissed my hair and smoothed it out of my eyes. “I don’t think you would – you’re stronger than you think.”
I didn’t feel very strong at that moment. I had a dim memory, almost lost to time, of when I was very little and something had frightened me, and my father held me and sang to me until I wasn’t frightened any more. I had forgotten that until now.
“Have you eaten?” he asked, ever practical.
Lunch seemed a very long time ago and my tummy was thinking about feeling hungry, but hadn’t quite made up its mind. “No.”
He went into the kitchen. It was his way of distracting me and concentrating my mind on the here and now, and not the dread phantoms on which I would dwell given half a chance. I had only the benefit of a few months to come to terms with what he had acclimatized to over many lifetimes, and while I considered that I had made a pretty good start to what might become an existence of obfuscation and dissembling, I had yet to face a hostile prosecution team intent on gunning me down.
Matthew handed me some bags of vegetables and then selected a packet of pale meat, possibly chicken, from the fridge. I peered into one of the bags containing broccoli; he wanted me to eat a more balanced diet. I felt my forehead wrinkle as I tried to remember what to do next.
“You have to take it out of the bag first,” he reminded me with a sideways grin, placing the meat in the frying pan.
I watched the meat hiss and spit, reminding me of Archbishop Cranmer at the stake, writhing as the flames ate the wood beneath his feet. I wasn’t ready to drop the subject of the trial.
“We’re not supposed to talk about the trial.”
“I know.” He scrubbed his hands like a surgeon and stirred the already browning meat.
“Matthew…”
He looked up. “What, sweetheart?”
“I’m going to have to take an oath in court, aren’t I?”
He found a chopping board and rapidly dissected some carrots. “Yes,” he said quietly.
“What if I’m put in a position where I can’t tell the truth because of what it might expose?”
“About me, do you mean?”
“Uh huh.”
He put the knife down and turned to me gravely. “I can’t answer that for you. I’m not going to ask you to lie for me, Emma. You must do what your conscience dictates.”
My conscience? My conscience didn’t know which way up it was at the moment. Once I had sworn an oath, I would have to tell the truth, whatever the consequences, and I couldn’t rely on awkward questions not being asked – Sod’s Law dictated they would.
I poured boiling water over the broccoli. His answer hadn’t helped. There were times when I would welcome someone dictating to me, taking away the responsibility of having to make a decision, and this proved to be one of them.
“Matthew, what will you do if you are under oath and you’re asked a compromising question?”
He pointed to a pile of carrot sticks on the board. “Would you like these raw or cooked?”
I gave him a pained look and pinched a carrot from the board. “Raw, please, and that’s not in the least bit helpful. I’m not asking you to make a decision for me, I just want to know what you’d do in a similar situation.”
“I don’t know if I can answer you. If it’s a question of integrity, I will always try to tell the truth; but if it’s a case of swearing before God and having to choose between the truth and protecting my family, I can’t say for sure. I would have to judge at the time.”
“So you’re not so concerned about lying in a court of law?”
“My life is one big fabrication, so no, that’s not my main concern, but my soul… well, that’s another matter.”
I gnawed down the length of the carrot stick, pondering.
“Emma, does it bother you that I
would be prepared to lie to the State?”
I waved the carrot in the air dismissively. “The State? No, not really. The State does it all the time and calls it expediency. What does the State care as long as you pay your taxes and refrain from killing thy neighbour – unless it tells you to do so. Anyway, I’m not sure who’s side the State would be on if they knew who you were. You’d be wired up to a computer in a windowless room and damn your rights as a citizen in the time it took to sign your life away, and all in the name of State security, or science, or… whatever.”
The boiling saucepan rattled urgently. He adjusted the lid and the escaping steam scalded his hand. He examined the already healed skin then folded his arms and leaned back against the counter, regarding me thoughtfully. “You’re too young to be so cynical.”
“And you’re old enough to know better. I’m a historian, what do you expect? History is littered with examples of expedient behaviour, whether by the monarch, the church, even presidents. If it’s given a name and a law, the State can get away with… murder.” Matthew didn’t say anything, so I continued. “All right, then, what would have happened to you if you hadn’t left Rutland when you did? What would have been the natural progression of events given the time in which you were living?”
He turned and switched off the stove. “You know what would have happened,” he said quietly.
Yes, I knew, but I wanted him to say it out loud. “I can guess, but you were there. What would they have done to you?”
He put the saucepan down, my food momentarily forgotten as he stared at the floor, remembering. “I would have been arrested and arraigned before the magistrate…”