Degree of Guilt

by Unknown

  But Carlo, of course, did not remember.

  ‘I’m pretty tired,’ he finally said.

  Paget knew the conversation was over, at least for a time. ‘Sure. But if you want to talk, wake me up.’

  Carlo nodded, and stood to leave.

  Paget hesitated. ‘How was your game?’ he asked.

  For a moment, Carlo looked blank. ‘Oh,’ he answered. ‘Fine.’

  Briefly, Paget considered asking who had won and how Carlo had done, wanting to know but afraid his son would see this as indifference to his mother. The moment passed. Silent, Paget watched Carlo climb the stairs.

  He felt more tired than he could remember. But then lying had always done that to him, especially to Carlo, and long before this.

  PART TWO

  The Investigation

  JANUARY 14 – JANUARY 22

  Chapter 1

  ‘The way to shut this down,’ Paget told Teresa Peralta, ‘is to show Brooks that Mark Ransom was who Mary Carelli says he was.’

  For Terri, the moment possessed an eerie normality. They were sitting in Paget’s office the next morning. The ten lawyers and staff could talk of little else. Reporters prowled the lobby, and the receptionist fended off requests for interviews. But Paget was having his calls held, and his office was quiet.

  Seemingly well rested, Paget had reprised Mary Carelli’s statement to Monk with the professional detachment of a lawyer who had been handed the defense of a total stranger. The only apparent difference was the newspaper folded on his desk: the headline read: MARK RANSOM SLAIN; the subheading added: ‘TV Interviewer Claims Rape Attempt’; and the photograph was of Mary Carelli in close-up, swelling beneath her left eye, head resting against Christopher Paget’s face.

  He followed Terri’s gaze to the newspaper. ‘This is difficult, obviously. All the more reason to start thinking like a lawyer.’

  The remark was a concession to feelings that preempted any discussion of them. What he needed, Terri saw, was to deal with Mary Carelli as if she were not part of his life.

  ‘It’s pretty simple,’ Terri answered. ‘We need some prior acts of abuse. Something we can get before a jury.’

  Paget nodded. ‘If we can show that Ransom raped someone before, McKinley Brooks would toss this case quicker than a dead mouse on his kitchen floor. Assuming that the judge would let us prove that.’

  ‘There is the bruise.’ Terri paused, surprised at her own anger. ‘I mean, aren’t blows to the face good enough? Or does some creep unilaterally deciding you want him inside you qualify that as foreplay?’

  Paget shook his head. ‘Hardly. But we have to look at this from Brooks’s perspective. He’s got a case that could ruin his career, not a clue what really happened, and the only witness, Mary, saying what any woman would say who didn’t want to go to jail.’

  ‘But what if we don’t find anyone? What if Mary’s the first?’

  ‘Then it’s a problem.’

  ‘I feel sorry for any woman who’s some guy’s first victim. Who’s going to believe her? Maybe, after a while, she doesn’t want to believe it herself. Maybe, day after day, she has to see this guy again.’ Terri stopped herself. ‘Even if there is someone, I think we’d have a tough time getting her to talk about it.’

  Paget considered her. ‘You were a rape counselor, I recall from your résumé.’

  Terri looked away, surprised. ‘Just for a semester,’ she said, ‘and more in helping with the legal than the emotional side of things. I don’t think I was very good at it – I was busy, and it seemed to take a lot out of me.’

  Paget gazed at the photograph of Mary. ‘It just struck me,’ he ventured, ‘that a woman with a bad experience might talk more easily to you. And that in the remote event this thing ever goes to trial, it might be better if you did the questioning as well.’

  ‘I haven’t got that much trial experience. A few misdemeanors with the public defender, and that’s it.’

  Paget nodded. ‘That would bother me,’ he said, ‘if you were someone else.’

  The tacit compliment surprised her. Mary Carelli was Carlo’s mother; at a time when Paget must surely feel great anxiety, however he might hide it, he had enough confidence to trust Terri and enough perception to treat her with some tact.

  ‘Do you really believe that?’ she asked, and then felt more embarrassed. The Richie effect, she thought; she was no longer used to compliments.

  ‘Not a word of it,’ Paget said. ‘I’m just shopping for a feminist lawyer that everyone on the jury will want to adopt. Someone to offset Marnie Sharpe’s warmth and humor.’

  Smiling, Terri wondered if Paget was helping her cover her own awkwardness. ‘Then I want to help,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry if I sounded funny about it.’

  Paget seemed to appraise her. ‘No matter,’ he said finally. ‘Rape’s a subject that anyone normal feels funny about.’

  Especially, Terri thought, when it happens to someone you know. She searched for a change of subject.

  ‘What,’ she asked, ‘did you think of Marnie?’

  Paget leaned back in his chair. ‘Distrustful, I suppose. And brittle.’

  ‘Try steely. I’ve seen Marnie quite a bit, in court and because she’s on the board of the Women Trial Lawyers.’ Terri paused. ‘Can I give you some advice?’

  ‘By all means.’

  ‘First, don’t make her angry. Somewhere inside Marnie Sharpe is a little girl who knows the boys don’t like her and wants to hurt them back for it. And she can’t make McKinley Brooks the enemy, even though he’s kind of set her up. Which leaves you.

  ‘Speaking as one professional to another, you’re the kind of man – attractive, polished, seemingly secure – that Marnie despises most. It will be easy for her to feel that beating you would make her whole somehow. And like a lot of unhappy people who can function in the real world, she’ll find a socially acceptable way to rationalize her own needs. Not just to Brooks but to herself.’

  Paget nodded. ‘I’ve often thought that a lot of lawyers would be tower snipers if they’d failed the bar exam.’

  Terri shook her head, wanting to make sure he understood. ‘Don’t make her into a caricature. And never underestimate her, ’cause Marnie Sharpe was always first in her class. This may sound like pop therapy, but sometimes it helps me to see people as not too much older than Elena, my five-year-old. To me, Marnie is the kid who always did better than everyone else, even though she wasn’t the smartest, because working by herself gave her the only sense of mastery she ever had.’ Pausing, Terri realized that Paget was close to smiling. ‘Sometimes I take this stuff a little far. It’s just that I can imagine you thinking that maybe Brooks made a mistake if Marnie ever had to take this case to trial, and I’m not so sure he did.’

  ‘I was just thinking that you read my mind. How do you suppose Sharpe will be in court, then?’

  ‘Tough. Hard cases don’t scare her. Rape prosecutions are hard; she’s used to trying cases like this one, where there aren’t any witnesses and the evidence is circumstantial. So she’s won some cases she should have lost.

  ‘There’s something very admirable about her, really. She’s made rape her issue – not just prosecution but better counseling and support – and she’s earned a lot of gratitude from the women she’s helped. And she’ll have thought of absolutely everything, down to the sixth permutation, because that’ll be all she ever thinks about. To a jury, that comes off as trustworthy and professional. They may not love her, but they’ll absolutely believe her.’

  Paget walked to the window, to stare down at the bay. The water was slate beneath gray skies; there were a couple of sailboats, a luxury liner, and a Honda freighter bringing cars in from Japan. ‘I liked my version of Marnie better,’ he said.

  For the first time, Terri heard a note of worry. ‘Of course,’ she observed, ‘this time Marnie’s going after Mary Carelli.’

  ‘I wonder,’ Paget said quietly, ‘how that cuts.’

  Terri tried
to read his mood, gave up. ‘From my perspective,’ she began, ‘Mary Carelli is the whole case. So it’s a good thing she’s a defense lawyer’s dream.’

  ‘How so?’ Paget turned to her again. ‘I mean, from your perspective.’

  Terri nodded. ‘When I was at the P.D.’s office,’ she began, ‘we represented a lot of people who could hardly speak their names: drugs, alcohol, mental illness, simple illiteracy – you name it. Most of them couldn’t even lie well. I tried to keep myself from getting too excited when I found out some client had told me the truth – I might begin to expect it. That was when I started wondering what practicing law did to the psyche.

  ‘But Mary Carelli is more than just credible. She’s successful, well educated, articulate. She’s a role model for women. She has a very sympathetic story to tell, and there are a lot of people who are ready to support her. She understands the legal process. She’s even TV trained, and she was a natural before that – I mean, her testimony before the committee was sensational.’

  ‘Yes.’ Paget looked out the window again. ‘I saw they ran that again last night.’

  ‘She was great,’ Terri finished. ‘And of course, she’s absolutely beautiful.’

  Paget did not answer. Terri paused, wondering how he felt about this woman, whether part of him still loved her. ‘Is Mary all right?’ she finally asked.

  ‘More or less.’ Paget seemed to hear her first, unspoken question. ‘Forgive me if I sound cold. I’m just trying to see Mary as I would any other client. To me, precisely because of all the things you mention, Mary’s someone a judge or jury might turn on if Sharpe could give them a good enough reason. And if I understand Sharpe at all, she’ll be deeply offended if she thinks that Mary’s using her issue as an alibi.’

  Terri considered him. ‘How bothered are you with the gaps in Mary’s story? The bullet, for example.’

  Paget shrugged. ‘I’m less concerned with whether her story is completely right than with what Brooks and Sharpe can prove. Or what they can’t prove, such as that Mary had any other motive than rape.’

  Terri hesitated. ‘I can see you have to detach yourself a little.’

  Paget nodded. ‘There is one area,’ he said finally, ‘where detachment fails me. Carlo. He knows who his mother is, but almost no one else does. We never wanted to bring any publicity down on him.’

  ‘I understand.’ Terri paused again. ‘Isn’t that going to be kind of hard now?’

  ‘It is.’ Paget stared down at the newspaper. ‘I wasn’t expecting to represent her.’

  Nor, Terri was suddenly sure, did Paget want to. And if that was true, it made no sense that he was representing her.

  ‘Before,’ she said quietly, ‘I didn’t think you were being cold.’

  ‘I appreciate that.’ For the first time, Paget sounded tired. ‘I just want to bury this thing. Quickly.’

  Confused, Terri searched for something to say next. ‘How do we do that?’

  ‘First, we hire a detective named Johnny Moore.’ Paget sat, crisp again. ‘When Johnny was an FBI agent in the sixties, he spent three years with the Weather Underground as a double agent, so he’s used to looking strangeness in the eye. The white-collar stuff I do bores him to tears, so it’ll be a relief to Johnny when I ask him to turn Ransom’s sex life upside down.

  ‘Beyond that, we should at least consider speaking to Dr Steinhardt’s daughter. Find out if she had any idea that Ransom was using Laura Chase’s psychoanalysis as an aphrodisiac.’

  Terri looked across at the picture of Mary, imagining what had happened. Her stomach felt tight. ‘Does the media know about that part yet?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That tape gives me the creeps. With or without James Colt.’ Terri folded her arms. ‘Mark Ransom’s little version of “virtual reality.”’

  ‘That’s why it may be useful, from our point of view.’ Paget considered her. ‘For now, that seems like a place to look.’

  Terri nodded. ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Didn’t I tell you?’

  ‘Not specifically.’

  ‘Talk to Mark Ransom’s one and only ex-wife. They were divorced five years ago, with an astounding lack of publicity.’ Paget gave a fleeting smile. ‘You might ask if it was just his books she didn’t like.’

  Within two hours, Johnny Moore had called Terri with a Manhattan telephone number for Ransom’s ex-wife.

  ‘Melissa Rappaport,’ Moore said. ‘Took back her name. She’s a free-lance editor, works at home.’

  ‘How’d you find her?’

  ‘She was hiding out in the white pages, just like a real person. Maybe she figured divorcing Ransom would buy her a normal life.’

  Moore’s voice was less sardonic than matter-of-fact – mild, pleasant, and faintly Irish. Terri trusted him instinctively.

  ‘How do you think I should approach her?’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t wear a mustache or anything like that. The best way is what you’d probably do on your own – call her up, tell her who you are and that you want to talk with her. Just be ready for an answering machine: she’s probably been called by everyone from The New York Times to Women’s Wear Daily, asking how she feels about the great man dying with his pants off. Keep your message short, clear, and professional.’

  ‘I keep thinking Chris should do this.’

  ‘No, he’s right. Chris is hotter than Warren Beatty after being on those TV clips, and if she’s already press shy, a call from him would make things worse. Besides, you’ll be an island of feminine calm in a sea of media maggots whose idea of a story is screwing and death – preferably in that order, although for some publications it’s not a requirement.’

  Terri found herself laughing. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘this really isn’t funny.’

  ‘Of course not. That’s why I make jokes about it.’

  Terri thanked him and hung up.

  She found herself staring at Melissa Rappaport’s number, and then at what little else there was to stare at. Her office began to annoy her – it was half the size of Paget’s, and she’d put nothing in it but a pre-school picture of Elena. Time to stop living like a transient, at work as well as with Richie; maybe she was doing okay here. A couple of posters, something like Picasso or Kandinsky, might make things feel permanent.

  Just call the woman, Peralta. Quit stalling. You were always good at talking to people, and at least they’d listen to you.

  Anyone but Richie.

  Best not to think about that. Richie loved Elena, in his way, and Terri’s job now was to make sure that they raised Elena to be as secure as she was smart. If Terri tried hard enough, she and Richie could make it so.

  What would Christopher Paget think, Terri suddenly wondered, if she couldn’t get Mark Ransom’s ex-wife to even return a phone call?

  It would help, Terri decided, to have an image of the woman she was calling. But it was hard to picture Mark Ransom’s wife. All she could come up with was that Melissa Rappaport would feel far too shocked to carefully weigh the messages of strangers, distinguishing one from another. And all that she could do, Terri decided, was to say what she herself might respond to.

  She composed a speech for the answering machine, committed the basics to memory, and dialed the number Moore had given her.

  The telephone began ringing. One ring. Two. Three. Four. Terri was not sure what would happen if a real person answered.

  ‘Hello,’ the cool voice said. ‘You have reached 501-7216. You may leave a message at the tone.’

  Melissa Rappaport, Terri thought, wasn’t one for insincerity, such as that she was glad to hear from whoever called, or for false promises, like that she’d call back soon or ever. The voice had the crisp economy of someone who got to the point: Terri suddenly envisioned a thin woman, restlessly pacing her apartment, and began mentally editing her message.

  The beep sounded.

  ‘This is Teresa Peralta,’ Terri began. ‘I’m an attorney in San Francisco. Our of
fice represents Mary Carelli.’

  Terri imagined the woman stopping to listen, surprised at who was calling, poised on the edge of hostility.

  ‘It feels foolish to tell you how much I hate bothering you about something this painful, and then to ask you to call back anyhow. I’m asking because this is so painful for Mary Carelli. I need to help her make sense of this, emotionally as well as legally.

  ‘You may think that you can’t help, or just that you don’t want to. All I ask is that you not decide until I’ve told you all I can about what Mary says Mark Ransom did.’

  In her mind Terri saw the woman standing over the machine, caught between the wish to know and the desire to be left alone.

  ‘You can listen,’ she continued, ‘and then not tell me anything. Anything you do choose to tell me will be confidential unless you say otherwise. I’m not the press, and I don’t think people’s lives are entertainment – yours, Mary’s, or Mark Ransom’s.

  ‘I can be reached at work, (415) 939-2707, or home, (415) 232–5455.

  ‘Thank you for considering this.’

  Slowly, Terri put down the telephone.

  She checked her watch, saw that it was eleven-forty-five, and decided not to go to lunch for fear of missing the telephone. She wasn’t hungry anyhow.

  No one called. At two-thirty, her stomach felt concave, her blood sugar seemed to have gone into deficit, and she had begun debating whether it was all right to ask her secretary to get her a sandwich.

  In Manhattan, Terri realized, night had fallen.

  When the telephone rang, Terri was certain it was Richie.

  ‘Terri Peralta.’

  ‘Hello.’ It was the cool voice of the tape. ‘This is Melissa Rappaport.’

  Terri sat upright. ‘I’m so glad you called me,’ she said. ‘Really, thank you.’

  ‘Really,’ the voice answered, ‘I’m not sure why I did.’

  The voice was cultivated and very cautious. Keep this going, Terri thought, engage her. ‘I promised to tell you what happened,’ she tried.