Gideon - 04 - Illegal Motion

by Grif Stockley

  She’ll get over it, I think but don’t say.

  “What’s her number in Heber Springs?”

  Sarah gives it to me, and I hang up and dial Lauren Denney’s number. She may be a terrible person, but she has a nice voice, unusually low but distinct, and she agrees at once to meet me at Danny’s, my diner that plays the golden oldies. I started to suggest the Ozark, but one rumor floating around is enough in this case When Lauren strolls into the restaurant twenty minutes later, I get a good look. She is wearing tight jeans and a tobacco-colored sweater that blends nicely with her long, honey-colored hair. If I were a Razorback, I wouldn’t have any trouble being inspired. We are escorted to a booth in the rear by a boy in a ponytail. I ask her what she would like to eat, but she says she just wants coffee, and I order some for both of us. She looks tired and admits it.

  “Exams,” she explains needlessly.

  “I haven’t slept for two days.”

  I feel selfconscious, but she could easily pass for my daughter.

  “I won’t keep you long,” I say, deciding to get to the point. If Sarah is correct, this girl doesn’t need any priming. I explain briefly what Sarah has told me and that I believe Dade has been set up, but that I can’t explain the motive.

  “Why would she pretend she was raped?”

  As if on cue, Lauren narrows her eyes.

  “To keep Dr.

  Hofstra seeing her for as long as she could. He was trying to break it off, and she thought she could get his sympathy by claiming she had been raped.”

  I put down my spoon.

  “How do you know this?” I ask, dumbfounded.

  Lauren doesn’t miss a beat. She tries her coffee first and then says, “She told me.”

  “Told you when?” This girl has a way of dramatizing everything she does. I see what Sarah means. She is charming, but I don’t trust her and I’ve only been with her five minutes. The jukebox plays “Runaround Sue” by Dion. There must be five guys my age in here by them selves. It suddenly occurs to me that Danny’s is a gay hangout. Boy, I’m dumb. I thought they just liked the music.

  “See, Robin and I used to be good friends. We were in school together up here this past summer, and we shared an apartment. She took a history course, and like an idiot, he showed up one day in our living room. I wasn’t sup posed to be there that weekend, and I walked in on them.

  They were just sitting there, but after he left, it was so obvious they were sleeping together that I made her admit it.”

  All this comes out in a voice that drops even lower as she continues to talk. The lack of sleep has turned her into a junior Lauren Bacall. I ask, “Did he say anything?”

  She stretches, straining her breasts against the wool until I think they are going to pop through. I don’t know whether this is for my benefit or she thinks I’m so harm less that I don’t even notice.

  “He muttered something ridiculous about her exam, turned red as a beet, and got out of there. You see, Robin is supposed to be so sweet and demure, but she attracts guys like you wouldn’t believe When I heard she spoke at the WAR rally, I nearly died laughing. She’s no more a feminist than I am. What a hoot!”

  It sounds as if Lauren is the jealous one, but I can’t imagine why. Even exhausted, she looks great.

  “How do you know she was still having an affair with him when she accused Dade of raping her?”

  “Just the week before she told me she was!” Lauren says, wideeyed and innocent as a lamb.

  “We had just finished practice, and were walking across campus, and I asked her if she was still seeing him. She didn’t say any thing, but she nodded her head like this.” Lauren moves her head quickly up and down, and then stares into my face to see what kind of effect she has made.

  “She said he was trying to break it off, but she had gotten in so deep that she’d do anything to keep him.”

  Do anything, huh? It sounds plausible, but because of Sarah’s skepticism, I find I am doubting her. Why? If people were disqualified from testifying in court because of character flaws, there would be no judicial system.

  “What did you say?”

  “I told her that she’d just end up getting him and her both in all kinds of trouble.”

  St. Lauren. It’s a bit of a stretch.

  “Why did y’all have a falling out?” I ask.

  “Because she’s a hypocrite!” Lauren exclaims.

  “I was sympathetic until she started acting like such a martyr.

  Robin knows exactly what kind of impression she makes when she walks into a room. Lots of guys love an ice queen like her. They want to be the one to melt her. I can’t prove this, but I think she had liked Dade back in the spring. She never would admit it, and gave out all that crap about helping him in communications. I could understand her liking him, but he’s black and that’s just not worth it up here.”

  The jukebox starts up with “The Great Pretender” by The Platters, but she doesn’t seem to be holding much back.

  “Who else did she tell about the affair with her teacher?”

  “I have no idea,” Lauren says breezily.

  “I haven’t told but a couple of girls about it.”

  A couple of dozen probably. Honesty mixed in with lies is an irresistible combination, but her story is for the jury to decide.

  “Would you be willing to testify at the trial and at a hearing before then if I need you?” If I’m going to be able to get this information into evidence, according to the rape shield statute, I’ll have to file a motion with the court and ask for a hearing.

  Lauren stares at the bright red lipstick she has left on the lip of her cinnamon-colored coffee cup.

  “Do I have to?” she asks.

  “I’d hate to hurt Robin.”

  Yeah, right. I resist the temptation to laugh in this girl’s face. Lauren would run over her with a truck if she had the opportunity.

  “I’ll have subpoenas issued for you, and that way you won’t have any choice about coming. You’ll have to come back early from Christmas vacation. Is that okay?”

  “Cool,” she says, the fingers of her right hand beginning to tap out the beat of the song though I can’t imagine she has ever heard it.

  I take out my card and slide it across the Formica top.

  “What’s the woat thing Robin knows about you?” I ask, wondering what ax is being grinded here.

  “That I can be a real bitch sometimes,” Lauren says, smiling sweetly at me.

  I just barely resist saying that I have heard that. We talk for a few more minutes, and then she leaves, but not before I get an address and phone number at her home in El Dorado. I watch her walk out. The other guys don’t even look up. With friends like Lauren, who needs enemies?

  At ten o’clock the next morning I watch as a student comes out of Dr. Joseph Hofstra’s office and heads for his door. I want to surprise the guy and watch his immediate reaction. My guess is that he might like to avoid Dade’s trial almost as much as Dade. If Robin is still involved emotionally with him, she might not want to go forward with the trial if he is going to be dragged into it.

  The door to his office is open, and I introduce myself to a dark-haired man who looks around the eyes like a young Warren Beatty. He is around thirty, dressed in blue denim pants and a blue workshirt. I can see how the coeds could keep his office hours busy. He squints as if he ought to know who I am but can’t place me. He puts down a book whose title I can’t make out, and asks, his voice droll, “Are you one of my students?”

  He probably thinks I’m a book salesman. From the hundreds lining the walls I’d say he doesn’t need any more. I say bluntly, “I represent Dade Cunningham in the rape trial that is coming up in a couple of weeks. I under stand Robin was one of your students last summer.”

  I have to give the guy credit. For an instant only I think I see him react, but, in fact, I can’t be sure. He pushes his chair back from his desk and says blandly, “Yes, I had Robin in summer school. I was shocked to
hear she had been assaulted, but I don’t see the relevance to my class.”

  I look behind his head and see he was awarded his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan only three years ago. He must feel he has come down in the world, but a guy has to start somewhere.

  “Let me get to the point. I just talked to a friend of Robin’s who said you had a sexual relationship with Robin this summer. Do you deny it?”

  With as much dignity as he can muster under the circumstances, Hofstra stands up, and in a hoarse voice says, “I think you better leave my office immediately.”

  I pretend he hasn’t moved a muscle.

  “Dr. Hofstra, if you will answer a couple of questions right now, it will be a lot easier on you than if I have to embarrass you at the trial. I’d appreciate it if you’d talk to me.”

  “Whatever you’ve heard is purely gossip,” he blurts.

  “Now, leave my office before I call security.”

  “If you get a lawyer,” I say, dropping my card on his desk, “ask him to call me, please.”

  His brown eyes beginning to bulge, he loses his composure.

  “Get out!” he screams, his voice betraying his panic.

  On his desk I can see a picture of what must be his family. Two girls. His wife is pretty, a blonde just like Robin. I stand and walk out, not feeling so good. How much nicer it would be to be a book salesman.

  After checking out of the Ozark and stopping by Barton’s office (only to find that he is in Colorado skiing), I head the Blazer east for home, wondering how this latest turn of events will play out. Hofstra may be my best weapon to keep this case from going to trial. Right about now, I imagine he’s calling his lawyer or is on the phone to Robin. Outside of Fayetteville, the solitude gets to me, and I turn on the radio.

  “The Little Drummer Boy.” In less than a week it will be Christmas. Not a favorite holiday since Rosa’s death. I nudge the heater up a bit. It is cold up here in the mountains. This morning there was so much frost on the grass in front of the motel it looked as if it had snowed. Though it has been the mildest fall I can remember in central Arkansas, it will be a frigid January for some people up here. I will file a motion for a hearing, and then in two or three days, after they’ve had a chance to stew, I will drive south to Texarkana to visit Robin and her parents. With a chance that it will turn messy beyond their wildest dreams, they may not want to see this case go to court after all.

  december 21 the shortest day of the year, I realize, looking at the calendar behind Judge Blake’s head. He doesn’t look sympathetic. For Rainey’s sake, I hope it isn’t the year’s shortest hearing.

  “Ms. McCorkle,” I say, “would you tell the court about Ms. Alvarez’s ability to live more independently?”

  Rainey smiles at Delores, who is sitting next to me and proceeds to testify about my client’s management of routine household skills. It is nothing short of bizarre to be calling as a witness the woman I would have married, but Rainey acts as though we have perfected a dog and pony show that we’ve been taking on the road for years. She turns to Judge Blake and tells him that Delores is a better shopper than she is.

  “Your Honor, I went to Megamarket with Ms. Alvarez, and she not only picked out the food but did comparison shopping by using a pocket calculator and then cooked a full dinner on my stove. I have no doubt she can live very well independently.”

  Judge Blake massages the temple of his large, bald head as if he is hearing a complicated tax case involving millions of dollars instead of a two-page petition to modify a mental patient’s conditional release. He interrupts, “How can I be certain she will take her medication each day?”

  Prepared for the question, Rainey barely lets him finish

  “She takes a Prolixin injection at the Community Mental Health Center every two weeks. If she doesn’t come in, the case manager can call her to find out what happened, and if she’s not satisfied with her answer, she can ask the court for an emergency pickup order.”

  Judge Blake comes dangerously close to picking his nose in front of us.

  “Now what is so wrong with where Ms. Alvarez is right now?”

  Rainey launches into a passionate denunciation of the Confederate Gardens. After describing physical conditions that make even the judge wince, she says, “It’s especially inappropriate for a woman who can manage as well as Ms. Alvarez, Your Honor. The Blackwell County Community Mental Health Center is supposed to be acting as an advocate to help people like Ms. Alvarez live in the community as independently as possible. In this woman’s case it means helping her find an apartment and a job. Instead, the case managers do the easiest thing possible find them a place like Confederate Gardens, which lumps all persons with mental illness together in what amounts to a hellhole and takes their Social Security Disability checks. With just a little help from BCCMHC Ms. Alvarez can be a productive, taxpaying citizen…”

  As I listen to Rainey sing a song whose verses are all the same (she has sung it to me more than once), I realize again how much I will be missing. Her spunk alone is worth the price of admission. As a social worker at the state hospital, she is deliberately courting criticism by daring to attack publicly a community mental health center for not doing its job. The rule in the mental health bureaucracy is: Don’t break my rice bowl and I won’t break yours. The beautiful thing about Rainey is mat she doesn’t give a shit. I realize belatedly how much she is like Rosa, who never thought twice about telling a doctor to his face that he needed to call in a specialist.

  Judge Blake finally cuts Rainey off.

  “I understand your point, Ms. McCorkle, but my concern with Ms. Alvarez is that she has threatened the life of the President of the United States. I’m surprised to hear that she has as much freedom as she does.”

  The old fraud, I think. He ordered her placed there himself. He’s either stupid or dishonest. Rainey speaks to him as if they were the only ones in the courtroom.

  “She didn’t threaten him. Your Honor. She just went to the Mansion to try to collect money she thought she was owed.”

  “She went three times until she was arrested,” the judge says, his tone becoming frosty.

  “As I’m sure you know, just a month or so ago, a mental patient killed an innocent person here in Blackwell County. We need more confinement, not less.”

  “You’re not listening. Your Honor,” Rainey says, near tears.

  “This woman is not dangerous to anybody!”

  Judge Blake is not the type of jurist who likes to be told he is nothing short of perfect. A vein bulging in his forehead, he says to me, “Call your next witness!”

  The attorney from the prosecution coordinator’s office, Diana Bateman, giggles, “No questions. Your Honor.”

  She is too chickenshit to point out that she isn’t being al lowed to cross-examine Rainey. Of course, she doesn’t need to. Since the community mental health psychiatrist, the case manager, and Ms. Alvarez have already testified, I have no choice but to rest my case, and the judge rules before Rainey has even gotten back to her seat that he is refusing to modify the order requiring Ms. Alvarez to live at the Confederate Gardens. As a sop to me, he grants my motion to review her case in six months.

  Once we are outside in the hall, Rainey begins to cry.

  “You tried as hard as you could,” Ms. Alvarez says, pat ting Rainey’s shoulder as if she were the social worker trying to ease the pain of a dejected client.

  “That judge wouldn’t have let Hillary Clinton out today. He was scared.”

  I marvel at the accuracy of the remark. As the old saying goes, Ms. Alvarez may be crazy, but she isn’t stupid.

  “We’ll try again in six months,” I volunteer, relieved I haven’t wasted more than a couple of hours.

  “If there hasn’t been any recent negative publicity, Blake might change his mind.”

  “Can’t we appeal?” Rainey asks, biting her lip.

  “The state doesn’t pay for an appeal on this kind of case,” I say quickly to discou
rage her.

  “It’s better just to come back.” I am not willing to pay for a transcript out of my own pocket and then waste my time by writing a brief. The court of appeals is elected, too.

  “We’re better off waiting until the headlines shrink a little.”

  “It just makes me so angry!” Rainey says, wiping her eyes.

  “They’re all so lazy, and the judge is such a coward

  I look around uneasily, hoping there is nobody to re peat this comment. Rainey is in enough trouble as it is.

  Why should I care, I think irritably. In a few days, she’ll never have to work again.

  “I’ve got to go,” I tell Rainey.

  “Sorry it didn’t go better.”

  Preoccupied, she nods perfunctorily.

  “Thanks, Gideon.”

  She’ll be married the next time I see her. Resisting the temptation to hug her, I say, “Sure.”

  As I turn to go, she reaches in her purse and pulls out a small box wrapped in Christmas paper. How odd that she should get me a present.

  “This is for Sarah,” she says, be fore I can make a fool of myself.

  “How nice!” I reply, trying to smile. Amy is coming over on Christmas Day. For the last three years it has been Rainey who has come by.

  Before I know it, Rainey reaches up and kisses me on the cheek.

  “I won’t see you again before I’m married,” she whispers.

  “Be good!”

  I nod, and turn away, not trusting myself to speak. I drive back downtown to get back to a case that has begun to seem more promising.

  From my office I call Lucy and Roy Cunningham to let them know that I will be driving down to Texarkana late this afternoon to drop in on the parents of Robin Perry. If this case is dismissed, I want them to realize who is responsible

  It is Roy who answers the phone, and as I explain to him what is going on, he becomes more communicative than he has been since this case began.

  “I figured she was setting him up!” he says in a loud voice.