Degree of Guilt

by Unknown

  Caroline’s gaze was still level, unfathomable. ‘I’ve listened to Laura’s psychiatric tape,’ she finally said. ‘A few days before she died, three men used her with a callousness that was equaled only by the psychiatrist who listened to her.’ Her voice grew quiet. ‘What I’ve just told you can never go beyond this room. But it’s something you should know. Before you start apportioning blame.’

  Terri looked at her in surprise. For the moment, Caroline seemed to have set aside the murder of Mark Ransom; her exchange with Lindsay Caldwell had the unsparing directness of two women concerned with matters deeper and more intimate than a criminal proceeding. Caldwell shook her head. ‘I was with Laura when James Colt called her,’ she answered quietly. ‘Both Laura and I knew what he intended. I left anyway.’

  Caroline folded her hands. ‘We’ve been speaking of blackmail,’ she said. ‘For Laura to put her decision on you was a kind of emotional blackmail. You didn’t force Laura to go with him. Or to kill herself.’

  Caldwell looked away. ‘Mark Ransom touched one other thing,’ she finally said. ‘Although he may not have known it.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘An hour before she killed herself, Laura called me, drunk and desperate.’ Caldwell’s voice fell. ‘I rejected her again.’

  Caroline watched her. Softly, she asked, ‘Did you think Ransom knew that?’

  ‘I didn’t know. He certainly knew enough.’ Caldwell still gazed down. ‘I thought perhaps she’d called Steinhardt that night, and that Ransom knew that. I still don’t know whether that would have made me feel better, or worse.’

  ‘But you wanted to know.’

  ‘I’ve always wanted to know. As much as I feared exposure, that was why I would have seen Mark Ransom.’

  Caroline was quiet. ‘It may be beside the point,’ she said at last, ‘but I believe in personal responsibility for personal choices. You were what – nineteen? Laura let herself go.’ Her voice hardened. ‘But if we’re adding links in some chain of cause and effect, add Steinhardt and James Colt – or Laura’s father, for that matter. It’s not germane to Ms Carelli’s culpability, but the suggestion that Mark Ransom found that tape exciting it almost as appalling as the suggestion he was using it for sexual blackmail.’

  ‘And they are both suggestions,’ Sharpe pointed out. ‘Not facts. Nor defenses to premeditated murder.’

  Caroline Masters turned to Sharpe. ‘I’m not here to bail out Ms Carelli. But it’s probably fortunate that the prosecution isn’t required to show the human decency of the victim.’ Once more, Caroline faced Lindsay Caldwell. ‘As the issues of guilt which must occupy Ms Sharpe are confined to Ms Carelli, perhaps we should turn to the nuts and bolts of your conversation with Mark Ransom.’

  Caldwell leaned back, looking out the window. ‘I was surprised when he called,’ she finally said. ‘But the first thing I really remember was when he said that he’d been hearing so much about me.

  ‘“From whom?” I asked him.

  ‘He hesitated, then he answered, “Laura Chase.”’

  Caldwell paused. ‘I was at my beach house in Malibu,’ she said slowly. ‘In the living room. My husband was sitting next to me.

  ‘When Mark said that, I started – quite literally. I remember looking over my shoulder. Roger was reading a novel by Philip Roth, half smiling to himself.

  ‘In the most normal tone I could manage, I said, “Really.” And then Ransom began laughing.’ Caldwell’s voice became low and angry. ‘The conversation had hardly begun, and I’d already told Mark Ransom that there was someone in the room with me and that I was scared of Laura.

  ‘“Really,” he repeated. “Specifically, what Laura told me is that you’re the most beautiful and sensitive lover she had ever been with.” It chilled me. And then his voice took on the unctuous tone of someone giving an exaggerated compliment. “Coming from Laura, that’s quite extraordinary, don’t you think? It’s certainly impressed me.”’

  Terri turned to glance at Caroline. But the judge’s gaze had moved to her hands.

  ‘The odd thing,’ Caldwell went on, ‘is that beneath the syrupy surface he sounded angry. As if knowing about Laura and me had thrown him off balance.

  ‘“Of course,” Ransom went on, “toward the end, Laura had very poor luck with men – or women, it seems.”’ Caldwell shook her head. ‘And then he said, in a horrible joking tone, “The confusion must have killed her.”’

  Caroline Masters looked up. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Roger glanced over at me. I realized I’d been talking for some time and that he was becoming curious. So I said in the driest voice I could master, “That’s very droll, Mark. Where are you getting your material, the Reader’s Digest?”

  ‘Ransom laughed again. “My Most Unforgettable Lesbian”? No, my material comes direct from Laura. In her own voice.”

  ‘Almost by reflex, I said, “Then I hope she called collect.”’ Pausing, Caldwell looked at the judge. ‘It was so strange: I was trading black jokes with Mark Ransom about my affair with Laura Chase, trying to keep Roger from noticing how intimidated I was by whoever was on the other end.

  ‘“No,” Ransom told me. His tone was suddenly serious. “But I paid for it quite handsomely.”

  ‘Roger was looking at me now. “What rights did you buy?” I asked Ransom.

  ‘Ransom’s voice got very quiet. “Literary rights,” he said. “To the tapes of Laura and her psychiatrist.”’

  Caldwell paused again, looking at Caroline Masters. ‘For a moment,’ Caldwell told her, ‘I forgot where I was. I don’t even know what I said. But for the rest of my life, I’ll never forget what he said next. ‘“Laura seems to have loved you,” he told me. “And you seem to have left her to her fate. Which, as it happens, is the subject of my book.”

  ‘For a time, I could hardly speak. “What,” I managed, “is the book about?”

  ‘“Laura’s suicide,” he told me. “The days and hours before she pulled the trigger. I mean to answer the question ‘Who Killed Laura Chase?’”

  ‘“Who did?” I asked, and then I realized Roger was staring at me.

  ‘More quietly yet, Mark answered, “Whomever I choose, Lindsay. Whom would you suggest?”’

  Terri watched Caroline Masters imagine what Terri could see clearly: Caldwell in the beach house Terri had visited, trying to conduct one side of the conversation for her husband’s benefit while she listened to Mark Ransom exhume the guilt of twenty years. Caldwell’s voice turned dull, as if at the memory of her helplessness.

  ‘“What would you suggest?” I finally said to Mark.

  ‘“That you listen to my tape of Laura, talking about you.” His tone became intimate. “Then you’ll give me a very private interview. If you’re sufficiently cooperative, I may even consider you an ‘editorial consultant.’”

  ‘Roger had gone back to reading Philip Roth. “Is that necessary?” I asked Ransom.

  ‘There was a long silence, and then he said, “Only if you want the tape.”

  ‘I felt sick. “Why?” I asked.

  ‘He was quiet again. “Remember that little quarrel we had about Laura,” he asked, “at the Yale symposium on ‘Women on Film’? You called me ‘the poet laureate of the centerfold,’ I believe.”’

  Caldwell crossed her arms, as if hugging herself. ‘Something in those two sentences,’ she said to Caroline, ‘was as frightening as knowing he had the tapes.

  ‘“Yes,” I told Ransom, “I remember.”

  ‘“I found you terribly arrogant,” he went on. “But I didn’t know then just how well you knew your subject. So I thought it was time that we have a much more intimate chat about Laura. And about centerfolds.”’

  Caldwell sounded tired. ‘If I’d had any doubt at all about what he wanted,’ she said, ‘that ended it.’

  ‘“That’s not my favorite subject,” I said.

  ‘“But it’s mine, Lindsay. Because I’ve always wanted to interview someone who slept wit
h Laura Chase. And hearing from Laura about how it was to sleep with you suggests that you have much more to offer me than I could ever have imagined.”

  ‘I couldn’t think of anything to say. When I turned to look at Roger, he was smiling at his book again. And then Mark Ransom said, “I want you for an entire day. Alone. I promise, of course, to bring the tape.”’

  Caldwell’s voice became wearier. ‘I agreed to see him. At a hotel room in Los Angeles. It would have been the day after he met with Mary Carelli.’

  Caroline was quiet for a time. ‘And you never told your husband?’

  ‘Only in the narrowest sense. After I hung up the phone, Roger asked who it was. I told him it was Mark Ransom and he wanted to sell rights to a book about Laura Chase.’ Caldwell shook her head. ‘It wouldn’t come to anything, I told Roger – it wasn’t my kind of material, and Ransom wasn’t my kind of writer. But I was going to meet him anyway.’ Caldwell’s voice fell. ‘After all, I said to Roger, we were only talking about one day in my life.’

  Caroline leaned back. ‘Why,’ she finally asked, ‘are you willing to come forward now?’

  Caldwell seemed to ponder the question. ‘My reason has changed. When I first spoke with Terri, I was certain that the police had found the tape, or soon would. That my secret was out.’ She paused. ‘And I desperately wanted to hear what Laura had said.’

  ‘And now?’ Caroline asked. ‘The tape is missing. Unless and until it’s found, you’re the only one who knows what happened between you and Laura Chase.’

  Caldwell gave her a level look. ‘That’s true,’ she said finally. ‘But I also know what happened between Mark Ransom and me. And knowing that, I know who Mark Ransom was.’

  ‘And that makes silence difficult.’

  Caldwell nodded. ‘Until Steinhardt’s daughter sold Ransom those tapes, I was content to live with what had happened. Because the only living person it hurt was me. That’s not true anymore. Now Mary Carelli’s on trial for murder, and the tape may surface anyway.’ She paused again, looking at Caroline Masters with an air of fatalism. ‘If you decide that what I know is relevant, I’ll tell Roger and my son and daughter. And then I’ll testify for Ms Carelli.’

  Caroline Masters bent forward, as if in private contemplation. Terri could almost read her thoughts: that the matter of Mark Ransom was far more complex than she had imagined; that she did not wish to harm Caldwell or Melissa Rappaport; that she no longer saw the trial in terms of her own role.

  ‘May I pose a few questions?’ Sharpe asked.

  Almost unwillingly, Masters turned to her. ‘Of course.’

  Sharpe pulled her chair closer, facing Caldwell.

  ‘Do you know where the tape is?’ she asked.

  Caldwell shook her head. ‘No. I don’t.’

  ‘Do you have any idea what might have happened to it?’

  ‘No.’ Pausing, Caldwell looked puzzled. ‘I wish I did.’

  Sharpe cocked her head, as if equally bemused. ‘Did Mr Ransom ever demand sex for the tape?’ she asked.

  ‘No. Not in so many words.’

  ‘Did he propose any kind of sexual activity between you and him?’

  Caldwell stared at her. ‘Did he say, “I’ll trade the tape for sex”? No. Did he have to? You wouldn’t ask if you’d been on the other end of the telephone.’

  ‘I understand. But don’t you agree that, in the literal sense of his words, Mark Ransom could have been asking you for information – albeit of a very intimate kind?’ Sharpe paused. ‘Perhaps pushing you, as journalists sometimes will, but after nothing more than the most sensational book he could write?’

  Caldwell flicked back her hair. ‘Only if you believe that when a man says to a woman, “I’d like to stay the night,” the literal sense of his words is that he admires your living room couch.’ She paused, adding in sardonic tones, ‘Perhaps pushing you, as men sometimes will, but only for a good night’s sleep.’

  The sudden stinging irony startled Terri and seemed to snap Caroline out of her private reverie. Sharpe flushed, and then assumed a tone of exaggerated patience. ‘The literal sense of words does matter if you’re in a court of law. I’ve prosecuted any number of rape cases where the man claimed that “no” meant “yes.” If that kind of Orwellian twist were evidence of guilt or innocence, one of those men would no doubt be raping another woman even as we sit here.’

  ‘Don’t you twist this,’ Caldwell snapped. ‘The only reason Mark Ransom didn’t try to rape me is that Mary Carelli shot him first.’ Caldwell’s voice turned calm but very cold. ‘The curious thing about his call was how clear it was to me, whatever words he used, that part of Ransom’s very sick thrill was that I was a successful woman and a feminist. Like you, I assume.’ Caldwell paused. ‘I can’t help but wonder how you would have felt, Ms Sharpe, if Mark Ransom had placed that call to you.’

  Sharpe pulled back, staring at Caldwell with an odd, hurt expression. ‘That’s completely unfair.’

  ‘Is it?’

  Caroline leaned forward. ‘I understand your point, Marnie. And Ms Caldwell’s. Do you have anything more?’

  It took a moment for Sharpe to turn from Caldwell. ‘Only an observation,’ she said quietly. ‘We have no explicit request for sex, no blackmail which can be proven. And certainly no rape. Quite literally, Mr Ransom did not come within four hundred miles of Ms Caldwell. So all we’re left with is a long-distance call that Ms Caldwell conducted in a deliberately obscure manner and that is evidence of nothing more than Ms Caldwell’s private pain. Which is how it should remain – private.’

  Terri leaned forward. ‘That goes to the weight of the evidence,’ she replied. ‘Not its admissibility. The court should allow Ms Caldwell to testify fully and completely. Ms Sharpe can cross-examine. After that, the court can decide how it sees Mr Ransom’s call to Ms Caldwell – which, as she points out, bears as much resemblance to a request for information as rape does to a honeymoon.’

  ‘The problem,’ Caroline rejoined, ‘is that it doesn’t resemble rape, either. Which is Ms Carelli’s defense.’

  Terri felt Caroline deciding against her, reached for a new argument. ‘Ms Carelli’s defense,’ she responded, ‘involves this man’s sexual character, and his sexual agenda in contacting Ms Carelli. Which, as Ms Carelli can attest, involves the same supposedly “ambiguous” approach Mark Ransom used with Ms Caldwell.’

  ‘But we’re looking for admissible evidence on which to decide whether Ms Carelli acted in self-defense and therefore can defeat probable cause. You’ll admit, Teresa, that we’re nowhere near what could be considered a “similar act” to rape.’

  ‘It depends on which act we’re talking about.’ Terri shifted ground again. ‘Let me suggest this: that the court wait until the entire defense case is in before ruling on whether Ms Rappaport, Ms Caldwell, and the tape of Laura Chase can be part of the record on which the court decides the issue of probable cause. That ought to assure the broadest information and perspective when the court does rule.’

  Caroline gave a small smile. ‘Never face today,’ she said, ‘what you can put off till tomorrow. If you’re losing, that is.’

  Terri smiled back. ‘Never rule today,’ she answered, ‘if your ruling may be better tomorrow.’

  Caroline’s smile faded, and then she nodded slowly. ‘All right, Teresa. You’ve preserved your position for the moment. I’ll rule after your remaining witnesses.’ She turned to Caldwell. ‘I apologize for keeping you in limbo, Ms Caldwell. But from the court’s perspective, Ms Peralta’s request makes enough sense to honor it.’

  Caldwell nodded. ‘I understand.’

  ‘I hope so.’ The judge turned to Sharpe. ‘In the meanwhile, Marnie, if any new tape involving Ms Carelli, Laura Chase, or Ms Caldwell comes into your possession, you are to notify me immediately.’ She paused for emphasis. ‘Immediately, and privately. Because if any of these tapes is made public, and it’s the doing of the prosecution, I’ll be inclined to see that as a deliberat
e denial of due process. The sanction will be to dismiss this case. And in dismissing it, I’d feel impelled to set forth why.’

  Sharpe looked startled. ‘Is it really necessary,’ she asked, ‘for the court to assume responsibility for safeguarding so much evidence in such an extraordinary way?’

  ‘It’s necessary for my own sense of decency. For which I take responsibility.’ Caroline turned back to Caldwell. ‘If I decide to rule for Ms Peralta, I’ll give you reasonable notice. So that you can tell whomever you need to tell.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Caldwell said. ‘At some point, I may tell my family, regardless of what happens here. But whether and when is something I need to work out for myself.’

  Caroline was quiet. ‘In the end,’ she answered, ‘I may force you to. That’s a decision that weighs heavily on me. But it’s part of being a judge. So perhaps you can indulge me while I give you the perspective of a judge.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Sexuality does involved a wide spectrum. But you couldn’t have known that at the age of nineteen. And as simple as it seems, many people find facing that difficult at any age.’ Caroline’s voice slowed, as if to make sure Caldwell heard her. ‘For almost twenty years as a defense lawyer and now a judge, I’ve been mired in questions of guilt and innocence – moral as well as legal. Of all the people involved with Laura Chase’s death, your wounds seem by far the worst to me, and you have by far the least to answer for. Forgive yourself.’

  Caldwell looked surprised. Abruptly Caroline stood, extending her hand. ‘Good luck, Ms Caldwell.’

  Caldwell took Caroline’s hand. ‘And you,’ she said softly. ‘Thank you.’

  Caroline called her deputy. Within a minute, Caldwell and Terri, accompanied by two bailiffs, were in a freight elevator, silently thinking their separate thoughts.