Degree of Guilt

by Unknown

  ‘Of course, I thought – that was why you came. For a story. To hear him play that tape.

  ‘I suppose it was like writing a play. It explained my presence, Laura’s tape, the cassette player. And when I looked down at him, remembering his pathology, I realized that Laura’s tape would help explain why he was naked.’

  Through his grief and anger, Paget felt a kind of fascination. ‘So you rolled him over,’ he said softly. ‘Because a rapist would have been on top of you.’

  Mary met his eyes and then slowly nodded. ‘He was heavy,’ she said softly. ‘I had to reach beneath his buttocks to flip him over. That was when I left the scratches, and broke my nail.’

  Paget touched his forehead. ‘I said it was the paramedics.’

  ‘Sharpe said I did it to fake a stuggle. Not even I’m that cold. I hated touching him.’

  Paget felt his eyes close, heard a shiver of shame in her voice. ‘Once he was on his side, I gave him a push. He fell sprawling like a rag doll, more limber than in life, his buttocks in the air.’ She paused, and then added, in a tone of surprise, ‘As I looked at him, my story became real.

  ‘I felt a surge of crazy energy. Don’t feel, I told myself – just do. But I didn’t know what to do.’ Her voice slowed, as if she were reliving the process of thought. ‘He hadn’t penetrated me, of course. But I didn’t know what that meant. So I thought of all the things a rapist might do before penetration, and did them.’

  Paget imagined her, standing naked over Ransom’s body: half horrified, half rational, trying to think her way to freedom. His eyes opened. ‘You scratched yourself,’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’ She paused. ‘And put a run in my panty hose. I didn’t think about getting fibers beneath my nails.’

  Paget found himself trying to think with her, floundering and desperate, knowing little of police work. Quietly, he said, ‘There were still the tapes.’

  After a time, Mary nodded. ‘I knew that. But I couldn’t think anymore. Not until I got dressed.’

  She looked bemused. ‘It was strange,’ she said quietly. ‘He’d taken so much from me. But with clothes on, I was more myself. Only Mark Ransom was naked.

  ‘I walked to the coffee table and picked up the tape.

  ‘I stood there, the tape clutched in my hand. Somewhere out of reach was another tape, which could ruin my life. But the tape I was holding would ruin Carlo’s, and yours.’ She stopped for a moment, adding quietly, ‘Once I got rid of it, I could tell them I was only there because of Laura Chase, and hope they never found the other tape.

  ‘One by one, I clicked off the possibilities.

  ‘I couldn’t throw my tape out the window. If I tried to flush it down the toilet, the cassette might get stuck there.’ She paused. ‘I’d started checking my watch, trying to fight the panic I was feeling. And then, for some reason, I remembered the mail slot in the hallway.’

  Mary began speaking faster. ‘In a kind of frenzy, I began looking for an envelope. I was too rushed to worry about fingerprints. Too panicky to look first where it was logical to look – the desk.

  ‘I got to it last. When I opened the drawer, there were envelopes.

  ‘Then I saw the other tape. I thought it might be my other tape, and that Ransom had been listening to it. But I didn’t know; Steinhardt’s numbering system meant nothing to me. I couldn’t listen to it myself – I didn’t have time, and I’d leave fingerprints on the cassette player.

  ‘I just grabbed it.

  ‘There was a pen in the drawer, but I couldn’t use it – fingerprints again. All at once, I saw how stupid I was being. If I mailed it to myself, and they arrested me, the police would find it before I did.’ She paused, catching her breath. ‘And then something more basic came to me. I had no stamps.

  ‘I started shaking.

  ‘I couldn’t stop myself. I took a pen from my purse and crossed out ‘Hotel Flood’ on the envelope. I stood there trembling while I tried to imagine the fate of an envelope with no postage and no return address, wending its way through the postal system.’

  Mary stopped, shaking her head. ‘I had no idea. The only image I could fix on was some bureaucrat sorting mail at the post office, uncaring and uncurious, throwing out the tapes because no one had sent them and no one could receive them.’ Mary gave a small, mirthless smile. ‘So I decided to put Carlo’s fate in the hands of the government. The one thing that never occurred to me was that his fate was Lindsay Caldwell’s.’

  Silent, Paget stared at the tape he held. She saw that and looked away.

  ‘I put them in the mail slot,’ she said softly. ‘Just before that pompous investment banker got off the elevator.

  ‘When I went inside the room and closed the door behind me, I knew I was out of time.

  ‘I didn’t really have a story. Only fragments.’ She paused again. ‘When I called 911, all I had were my own resources. As you’ve been so fond of pointing out, that was hardly enough.’

  For a moment, she was silent. Then she looked up at him again. ‘Of course,’ she said quietly, ‘I also had you.’

  His eyes met hers. ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Because you could manipulate me?’

  ‘You underestimate yourself, Chris. You’re the smartest lawyer I know. I also counted on your feeling for Carlo.’ Paget saw her hesitate, the shame in her eyes becoming a question. ‘I believed you’d protect the tapes better than anyone. And that, God forbid, if you ever heard them, you’d make sure that Carlo never did.’

  For a long time, Paget looked at her without speaking. ‘Fifteen years ago,’ he finally said, ‘I wasn’t sure if Carlo was mine. But after he came to live with me, I stopped wondering. I didn’t want to anymore.’ His voice grew softer. ‘My life may have disappointed me, partly on account of you. But at least I had a son.’

  The quiet words seemed to devastate her. Her shoulders slumped, and she looked away. ‘Withdraw as my lawyer, Chris. You don’t have to go to court tomorrow.’

  ‘Do you think that will fix things, Mary? Knowing what I know? Holding this tape in my hand?’ He paused, voice lower. ‘And it would be like telling the world you’re guilty.’

  She gave a tired shrug. ‘I wonder if that’s any worse than living with this has been. And I am guilty, I suppose. Because I’ll never know whether I needed to kill him.’

  ‘Nor do I. If that matters.’

  She straightened, as if gathering strength. ‘I lied to you. You owe me nothing. I ask only that you never tell Carlo what you know.’ She looked into his face, a quiet plea in her voice. ‘I’ll plead guilty, if you like. But destroy this tape, Chris. Please.’

  Paget watched her, not answering. Then he stood. ‘You’ve no right to ask for anything, Mary. But you’re certainly free to hope.’

  He turned abruptly, and left.

  Chapter 4

  ‘How’s it going, Dad?’

  Carlo stood in the entrance to the library. He was trying to sound casual, Paget realized, but he had the abstracted gaze of someone who had spent the afternoon in thought, and his voice was too quiet. Paget did not want to look at him.

  ‘I’m pretty tired.’ Paget stared at his drink. ‘I have a lot to think about.’

  His voice was not welcoming, nor did he wish it to be. He did not know what he would do about anything: reassuring Carlo was beyond him, and he did not have the resources to lie. All that he wanted from anyone was that they want nothing from him.

  But Carlo could not know this. He walked inside, flicking on the illuminated chandelier. ‘This room is pretty weird without the lights.’

  Paget sipped his drink. ‘I’m capable of finding the switch.’

  Carlo paused, as if deciphering his mood. Quietly, he said, ‘You think she’s guilty, don’t you?’

  Paget did not turn. ‘If you really care to know, Carlo, I’m sick of thinking about her at all.’

  ‘Jesus.’ Carlo’s voice rose with sudden strain: it still had the lightness of youth, but there was something new in it. ‘Why
do you hate her so much? What did she ever do to you?’

  The words had an angry timbre that Paget had never heard from Carlo and yet touched a chord of memory: it was like that of Jack Woods on the last night they had faced each other, with Mary Carelli – their lover – standing between them. The thought made Paget turn to Carlo.

  The boy he saw now startled him. His face was older; it had the look of a man whom Paget had despised. The blue eyes were not Paget’s at all.

  How, Paget wondered, could he have failed to see it?

  ‘It’s as she’s always said,’ Paget replied. ‘I’m an insensitive bastard.’

  Carlo stared at him, as if at a stranger. ‘You think she’s guilty,’ he repeated.

  Guilty of a thousand things, Paget thought. Guilty of this moment, as he faced the son who was no longer his and yet who felt the anger of a son. ‘You were the one who wanted to be there,’ Paget said. ‘What do you want from me now? To tell you that she’s wonderful?’

  Carlo reddened. ‘What are you angry at me for? I didn’t ask for any of this. Or for either one of you.’

  Paget caught himself, expelled a long breath. ‘I know you didn’t,’ he said tonelessly.

  Carlo watched him. ‘You’ve been surprised in court before. You can’t just fall apart on her.’

  ‘Who said I’m falling apart? I’m just sick of people leaning on me.’

  Carlo stiffened. ‘Like me?’

  ‘Like your mother. It seems I’ve spent my life cleaning up her messes.’ Paget lowered his voice again. ‘It’s complicated, and much too personal. You wouldn’t understand.’

  ‘Try me.’

  Paget shook his head. ‘No,’ he said softly. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You mean you’d rather take it out on me.’ Carlo’s voice was raw. ‘Do you think you’re alone? This hasn’t been any day at the beach for me, you know. She’s my mother, and I have to live with you.’

  ‘I’m sorry I’ve been such a burden.’ Paget answered politely. ‘Would you rather not live here?’

  Carlo shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘Would you like me to go?’

  The boy’s words quivered with pain and anger. ‘I didn’t want to have this conversation,’ Paget said. ‘I don’t want to have this conversation.’

  Carlo turned from him. ‘All I wanted was to talk to you. It didn’t have to be about her.’

  The stark request took Paget by surprise. For a moment, he saw not Jack Woods but a lonely seven-year-old boy.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Paget told him. ‘This case has taken a lot out of me. Too much, it seems.’

  Carlo looked down at him with Jack Woods’s eyes. ‘Mark Ransom was a piece of shit.’

  Paget shook his head. ‘This isn’t about Mark Ransom.’

  ‘Then what is it with you and her?’

  ‘History.’

  ‘Fifteen years is too long to hold a grudge.’ Carlo paused. ‘She doesn’t hate you.’

  ‘You don’t know anything about us, Carlo. It was a mistake for me to do this. Perhaps it’s best if Mary gets another lawyer.’

  Carlo stared at him. ‘Now?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you can’t do that. Not on the last day.’

  Paget faced him again. ‘She and I have already discussed it. She left it up to me.’

  Carlo paused, trying to absorb the implications. ‘What is it that I don’t know?’

  There was no use in lying. ‘Quite a lot.’

  Carlo sat down. Softly, he asked, ‘Did she admit killing him?’

  The conversation was so pointless, Paget thought: the central issue between Paget and Carlo’s mother was not Mark Ransom’s murder, and had never been. ‘She did kill him,’ Paget answered. ‘The question was whether she killed him in self-defense.’

  ‘“Was,”’ Carlo quoted. ‘So now you don’t think she’s innocent.’

  The anxious questions annoyed Paget – he no longer cared whether Mark Ransom had deserved to die. But the only way to explain that to Carlo was to tell him the truth: Your mother lied to the Senate. She lied to this court. I covered for her fifteen years ago, and tomorrow, if I’m still her lawyer, I’ll have to cover for her again. And by the way, you’re not my son. I just found out she lied about that too.

  ‘I don’t think she planned to kill him,’ Paget said. ‘But I question my effectiveness. So does she.’

  ‘Because of that psychiatrist?’

  ‘No. Because of us.’

  ‘“Because of us,”’ Carlo repeated. ‘What has she ever asked you for? You sit here telling me what a burden she is, and she’s never even been around. And now that she is, and really needs you for once, you treat her like dirt.’

  Paget stood. ‘I will not talk about this, damn it.’

  ‘We’re going to.’ Carlo rose to face him, voice trembling. ‘You drove her away, didn’t you? She was never welcome here –’

  ‘Stop this, Carlo. Right now.’

  Carlo shook his head. ‘I never had a mother because you never wanted me to have one. You wanted me to yourself. And now that I may lose her again, you won’t lift a finger.’ Carlo paused, catching his breath, and then spoke more slowly. ‘I always looked up to you. But now I see how selfish you are. You say you’re sick of my mother? Well, I’m sick of you.’

  Paget clenched his fists, rigid with hurt and anger. ‘You have no right to be sick of me, Carlo. You don’t know how little right you have.’

  Carlo’s face was a mask of pain. ‘Don’t talk down to me. I don’t respect you enough to listen.’

  In one angry motion, Paget picked up his drink glass. Carlo’s white face was three feet from him. Paget suddenly turned and flung the glass at the palm tree outside.

  As the window shattered, Carlo flinched but did not move.

  ‘Then you won’t have to listen,’ Paget said softly, and left the house.

  Teresa Peralta’s headlights cut the darkness.

  The beach was deserted. A full moon lent the ocean a touch of light, silver on obsidian, shimmering at low tide. But the sand itself was dull black, as if stained by an oil slick. At its edge, perhaps a hundred yards away, Terri saw the lone figure of a man, staring out at the water.

  There were no other cars. She parked where the cement ended, got out. The man turned at the sound of her car door slamming.

  Terri moved toward him, sand giving way beneath her feet. The night was still warm; she hardly felt the breeze in her face. The rolling tide was a deep susurrus of sound.

  The man stood waiting, as if uncertain of who she was. His hands were shoved in his pockets; backlit by the moon, he looked slender and solitary. As she came nearer, she saw that he had not changed from court; his shirtsleeves were rolled up, and his tie and collar loosened. He looked much too young to have lived the life he had lived and to bear what it had brought him now. All that she wanted to do was hold him.

  She stopped two feet away, looking up into his face.

  ‘It’s all a mess,’ Christopher Paget said.

  Terri nodded. After hours of aimless driving, he had called her on his car phone, ostensibly to explain why he had not called her before; he had told her just enough for her to sense that beneath his emotionless words, Paget felt lost.

  ‘The beach is where I come,’ she told him, ‘when it gets to be too much. But never at night.’

  Paget gazed at her. ‘Was there trouble with Richie?’ he asked.

  Terri hesitated. It was she, not Paget, who had suggested that they meet; it was not the night to explain her relationship to Richie, and there might never be such a night. Best to stick to the simple truth – that Richie had not objected much – and omit the reason: that Richie had commenced a relentless campaign to keep her, appealing to her sense of family while reading one self-help book after another, swearing that their marriage could be healed if only Terri tried as hard as he was trying. It made her weary, and guilty about her dead emotions. She felt as though by asserting herself she had changed him, so that now
he – and Elena – deserved the second chance Terri was not sure she wanted to give. Letting her leave without complaint was part of the new Richie: if Christopher Paget would ever be one of Richie’s weapons again, Terri sensed, it would be after she was bound to the marriage once more, perhaps by the second child Richie had begun to press for.

  ‘Richie was fine about it,’ she told Paget. ‘He knows we still have work to do.’ She paused, looking into his face. ‘Do we?’

  He gave a weary shrug. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What happened, Chris?’

  Paget did not answer. He turned from her, hands still in his pockets, and began walking along the edge of the water. Terri understood that she was to walk with him; they moved in silence, tide lapping near their feet, the Golden Gate Bridge to their back, scattered car lights moving slowly across it. To their left was a rocky hillside; above them, the sprawling stucco houses of Seacliff overlooked the water, much as Terri imagined an Italian hill town. Paget did not seem to notice; he was silent for a long time, and when he began to speak, he gazed at the sand in front of him.

  He talked for perhaps an hour.

  He told her everything. His voice was uninflected, yet unsparing of himself or anyone else. When he had finished, they had turned back toward the Golden Gate, and Terri was exhausted.

  ‘What will you do?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’ He paused. ‘It’s like something’s broken. I don’t even know where to start.’

  Terri watched him for a moment. ‘It’s so unfair, Chris. I feel that for you.’

  ‘Carlo?’

  ‘Everything.’

  Paget gave a tired shrug. ‘Carlo doesn’t know,’ he said. ‘If I’m looking for perfect justice, I suppose I’ll have to look somewhere else. Mary seems to have that particular market cornered.’

  Terri moved closer. ‘She is his mother, Chris. When a parent isn’t around, kids invent a person who makes them feel better about that. I think that’s what Carlo must have done with Mary.’

  Paget’s repeated shrug seemed the only way he had to slough off feeling. ‘That’s how God made it big, I guess – by not being seen. So why not Mary?’