False Witness

by Uhnak, Dorothy

  The newsman tried to draw parallels and to explain differences between the two peoples. He was earnest and seemingly nonpartisan except for his abhorrence of terrorism.

  Sanderalee Dawson seemed hardly to listen to him; failed to respond to any of his gentle questions. She played with the rings on her fingers and the bracelets on her arm, with the scarf around her neck, with the long silk of her shoulder-length hair. She waited. At the last possible moment, when even her crew thought Sanderalee had been bested and silenced at last by a kindly, well-informed, eminently qualified and universally respected journalist, Sanderalee smiled at her guest, and everyone who knew her tensed and waited. Her producer, in the control room, bit down on his thumb, hard.

  “Tell me something, Philip,” Sanderalee spoke softly, turned directly to her guest, leaned forward as he regarded her politely, “you’re a Jew, aren’t you?”

  There was a split second left. Sanderalee turned full-face into the camera, shrugged expressively and in a hard, cold, deadly tone she said, “I rest my case.”

  Cut to black.

  A followup to this incident was carried in the New York Post and was also acknowledged by the journalist himself. As soon as the screen went dead, there was a stunned silence in the studio, a total lack of sound or movement. Sanderalee looked up, startled, to see the stricken face of her guest, the deathly white complexion of her director, the frozen positions of the crew.

  “Oh, my God,” Sanderalee had said, rushing to her guest’s side, “oh my God, Philip, I’m so sorry how that came out. It was just the ... the absolutely theatrically perfect thing to say. You know I love and respect you, my dear.”

  The funny part was, the journalist believed her and later stated that she was a woman totally innocent of the possible effects of what she said or did.

  CHAPTER 6

  JAMESON WHITNEY HALE LACED his long white fingers over his long flat stomach. His custom-made three-piece suit hiked up slightly at the ankle as he stretched his basketball player’s legs, then repositioned himself thoughtfully. He was an aristocratic-looking man; genes did, indeed, tell. Fifty-eight years of good clean living and earnest dedication to the task at hand had carved themselves on his classic features: in another time and place, he’d have made a nifty king.

  “Do you think,” he asked me carefully, “there is a possibility that this attack was politically motivated? Or do you think that it’s just a case of out-and-out sexual assault?”

  Automatically the response rushed from my lips. “Sexual assault, in and of itself, has been a politically motivated act throughout all of history.”

  He frowned at my lapse into the semantics of the women’s movement. Surely, we were far beyond that; his arched eyebrows, his intelligent light brown eyes, showed disappointment.

  “Well, you asked me.”

  “Really, Ms. Jacobi. I am merely asking you for an informed guess in this specific case. Are we dealing with a political matter or with a lunatic nut?”

  “We are dealing either with a politically motivated act or with the act of a depraved lunatic nut.”

  “Thank you. We’ll see if events justify your initial guess.” He gestured to the neat, systematically stacked case folders on his desk with a shake of his head. He went over to his memo pad and made a check mark, probably next to my name; consulted his wristwatch and then his appointment calendar. “Keep me closely informed. I assume you of course have someone at the woman’s bedside.” I nodded. He walked around his beautiful antique desk, avoiding his genuine leather chairs, stepped lightly on his Oriental rug and led me to the door. “Lynne, good morning.” He peered down at me, frowned. He was a very attentive, critical man. “You should get more sleep, Lynne. You’ve circles under your eyes. Shame about this Dawson woman. Very beautiful, judging from her pictures. Lives it up pretty good, according to the News. If one is to believe the News. I’ll await your word on her condition.”

  I heard the door close softly behind me and found myself in the long marble-floored corridor that led to his assistant’s and his secretary’s offices. It was a softly lit, portrait-lined walk past the former District Attorneys of New York County. Their faces all looked very stern, very masculine and very self-righteous. Some of them had been low-down crooks. Most of them had been honest and decent. I could feel their cold eyes slide over me, then glance at one another in indignation: how dare she aspire to join us? Is there no end to their ambitions?

  I thought about Mr. Hale’s remark, “Lives it up pretty good, according to the News.” That reminded me of my bone-marrow belief that somewhere engraved in the deepest, darkest recesses of Jameson Whitney Hale’s psyche exists the unalterable conviction impressed on male children the day they are told about female children: She asked for it.

  It is what is in the minds of most male jurors and too often in the conditioned response of female jurors when we deal with rape or sexual assault.

  It is not just a street-common, uneducated belief. My gynecologist once gave me, gratis, a physiologically oriented lecture on the impossibility of such a thing as rape (barring a dead or unconscious woman). At some crucial moment, he told me, the woman makes a conscious decision to the effect that What the hell, it isn’t worth losing your life over. At that crucial moment, he told me, she becomes an active participant in a sexual act, so how the hell could this be rape? he asked me.

  As a Legal Aid attorney for one less than shining and glorious year, I defended against the charge of rape in the ludicrous days when corroboration by a third person was required. So tell me, Johnny, was there anyone else in the dark alley where you took the girl, or were there any windows facing into the clump of bushes, did anybody see what the hell you were doing to her, was there a possible witness? Thank God, then you’ve got nothing to worry about.

  Every now and then—not often, but every now and then—to the consternation of my colleagues (after all, a guilty plea is a conviction, is a loss-column item), I would advise the perpetrator, the alleged perpetrator, the defendant, my client, to cop a plea. Say, Yeah, I did something to her; we’ll work out what it was later; we’ll bargain it out so you won’t have to spend too much time at Riker’s or upstate; so you won’t be out of action in your alley/park/subway/stairwell for too long. Do you think I really ought to do this, counselor, I mean, after all, if you really look at this in a certain way, it was almost like, ya know, like what the hell was she doing on the street at that time of day/night/morning or on that particular street at any time, day or night, or going into that elevator or that park or that building or that subway station and dressed like she was in a long/short/loose/tight/dress-skirt-slacks, what right did she have? It was almost like, you know, she asked for it.

  I was well schooled in the traditional male response to any and all sex crimes against and perpetrated on the female body. Except, of course, where tiny little girls were concerned: they hadn’t yet learned to ask for it.

  I had used the Legal Aid experience the way most young attorneys did: to gain experience, insight, savvy—rather than to serve justice. I applied for a position in the District Attorney’s office when I had learned all there was for me to know on the loser’s side of the fence. My one year among the rapists and the smug, nearly universally defensive reaction of all the men with whom they came in contact, from the arresting officer to attorney to court clerk to judge, taught me that there was an underlying leer and brotherhood summed up in those immortal words: She asked for it.

  CHAPTER 7

  THE NAME ON BOBBY Jones’ birth certificate was Michael Bobby Jones; the father’s name: William Arthur Jones; mother’s name: Mary Anne Bobby. Since there were two other boys named Michael Jones at the grammar school he attended, one already called Mike and the other Michael, and since he did not want to end up a Mickey, he opted for the use of his mother’s maiden name. Hence: Bobby Jones.

  Bobby Jones grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska, doing all those things only Gentile kids in the Midwest did. He played on his high-school baseball t
eam. He marched with his high-school marching band, playing a trumpet as he high-stepped in his school’s uniform. He went skiing in the winter with a bunch of his blond, blue-eyed, well-adjusted pals; went off shooting up deer and rabbits with his dad and big brother, and they actually ate what they killed. They had a real fireplace in their small two-story house; a real live Sis who played the piano for them so they could sing Christmas carols and “Onward Christian Soldiers.” He also had a kid brother. Bobby’s father was a small-town “doc”; his uncle was an Assistant State Attorney General. Both men had been decorated heroes in World War II and one of Bobby’s oldest cousins had been killed in Korea.

  Bobby’s older brother, Billy Jones, enlisted in the Marines and was sent off to Vietnam even though no one in the family could quite figure out what Vietnam was all about. Two weeks after his family was notified of Billy’s death, Bobby received his last letter ever from his brother. In a cramped and hard to read P.S., his brother told him “Don’t let them get you into this fucking war; it sucks.”

  Bobby Jones served in Vietnam for two years and then he came home with his long hair, his captain’s bars, his changed eyes, his foul mouth, his hardened heart, his air of puzzled displacement and hardly contained anguish.

  Why did you come to New York, Bobby Jones?

  “My hair; my language; my general appearance; my attitudes; my recreational habits. I ... was no longer able to cope with the innocence of Lincoln, Nebraska.”

  “And so you went to Columbia Law School?”

  “And so I went to Columbia.”

  “And so you made the Law Review. And then spent a year and a half at a church-funded counseling service for Vietnam vets.”

  “Until I couldn’t take it anymore. The frustration, the indignation, the sense of separation.”

  “And so you looked around.”

  “And so I looked around.”

  “And so you applied to the District Attorney’s office.”

  “And so you interviewed me. My first lady boss.”

  His face in repose is so perfect that it hurts me to look at him at times. I feel overwhelmed by the pain of not having known him when I was fifteen years old and in desperate need of him. When I would hide, red-eyed, in the ladies’ room and leave the school dance early, claiming to any girlfriend who would ask that I had sudden cramps. That ubiquitous, irrefutable excuse for all things. Because there was no one to lead me onto the dance floor. No one to take me out of the dark, shameful corner. No Bobby Jones.

  He is, at thirty-two, in full masculine splendor. Were he stupid, empty-headed and a fool, it would still be fun to be around him for the sheer esthetic pleasure of his physical beauty. But there is a wonderful, exciting intelligence behind those seemingly guileless, childishly blue eyes: there is an alertness, a sharpness, a weighing and measuring that shows in the depths of those sky-eyes. There is a calculation and a scheming quality also. I am aware of that; I am wary of it; I am suspicious of and alerted to it. Yet I discount it for the pleasure he gives to me.

  He has worked for me for nearly three years. We have been lovers for just over a year. His promotion to the position of Chief Investigator was entirely coincidental to the escalation of our interest in each other. Yet he is in a somewhat odd, possibly uncomfortable position: was it for his professional competence or for his personal prowess that he earned his current status? That is his question, not mine.

  I wonder how he handles office speculation. I wonder if it makes him uncomfortable. I wonder if it makes him question his abilities. We do not discuss any of this; I am amused and yet sympathetic to his situation. After all, for nearly fourteen years, with every advancement I attained, I encountered and dealt with the same speculation from those around me.

  We neither flaunt nor deny our relationship. The matter is never alluded to in any way within my Bureau.

  I am proud of the composition of my Bureau. It is a generally acknowledged fact that I have only the best people working for me. It is interesting to note the position of women in my squad of assistant district attorneys and investigators. I am the only Bureau Chief who has the option of turning down a female candidate who I feel is not qualified, not the best. No one can point a finger at me and claim discrimination or violation of equal opportunity. I am the only one with a real option when it comes to this selection; therefore, I have the very best, the cream of the crop, the hands-down, flat-out best women not among the women but among all the applicants. They know; I know; my other people know. It makes for a smoother running, more efficient group effort.

  Most of the time, within the boundaries of a working day, I am able to regard Bobby Jones from a cool and professional distance.

  In private, it is an entirely different matter. In bed, we are equals. I am delighted by his seeming lack of vanity. He does not make a temple of his body; he does not run, jog, do push-ups or sit-ups or lift weights. He tells me that leanness and good health are family traits like thick hair, excellent eyesight, and good teeth.

  He tells me very little about his short marriage to a high-school sweetheart just before he shipped out. It consisted of a filmy-white bride, a flight to L.A., a few days in a hotel. Letters: hers chatty, newsy, gossipy; his stilted, careful, vague. Homecoming: differences; disappointments; disillusions; changes. Quiet divorce.

  He does not pry into my dead marriage; we merely exchange the information: file and forget.

  Only about sex is he obsessive: that is the one physical activity to which he claims a strong commitment and expertise. He is skilled and playful and clever and considerate; he is adventurous and experimental and mysterious and exciting. He has introduced me to certain games; new techniques. He can surprise me and reassure me.

  We are well-matched in bed.

  There is a certain precision in our spoken language. We are, after all, both attorneys and therefore careful and wary of forming unwanted commitments. We never say “I love you”; we do say “I love that”: that which you have done, are doing to me; that which you make me feel; this moment; this time with you. As though our moments, our time together, were separate and sealed off and remote from our own persons. Games. We play games.

  At the sound of the pounding on the door to my apartment, Bobby shook his head and held a pillow over his face: make him go away. It was Jhavi, shouting, excited. He rushed past me as I opened the door. He dashed across the living room directly to the television set, annoyed that it wasn’t turned on.

  “My God, Lynne, you’re on TV. Why aren’t you taping it on your Betamax? Where is the damn thing?” He whirled around, checked it out, disgusted to learn that we had a tape of Casablanca on the recorder. “Oh, for God’s sake, Lynne, how corny can you get? Hey, Nebraska, look at Lynne. She’s on the tube.”

  CHAPTER 8

  JAMESON WHITNEY HALE INTERRUPTED my morning update on the Sanderalee Dawson case with a vague, puzzled, distracted question.

  “Lynne? Lynne, did I see you on the television news last night?”

  “You saw a brief clip of me from a show I did about two or three years ago. Sanderalee was having at law enforcement in general and the D.A.’s office in particular. The old song: you only prosecute black men. In the clip they showed, she was accusing me of being part of a genocidal plot.”

  Mr. Hale looked over the tops of his reading glasses, his dark eyebrows raised in surprise. “Good God, are you part of a genocidal plot?”

  “As an advocate of the death penalty, I guess I’m subject to a lot of name calling. ‘Genocidal lunatic’—‘legal murderer of black men.’ That was how Sanderalee Dawson characterized me.”

  “Yes. I caught all that. What was it all about? I guess I tuned in about halfway through. I missed the beginning.”

  “Well, since Sanderalee Dawson is entering day four of her coma, and since we’re not giving them any tidbits about our investigation, and since her time slot has to be filled, some bright-heads over there put together a rather rushed half-hour of cuts and clips. I’m afraid the p
urpose was to show the wide range of enemies Ms. Dawson has publicly collected.”

  “Ah. So that puts you in the public position of being a known antagonist of Ms. Dawson’s? As I remember it, your closing lines were rather strong.”

  What had happened was, the more I tried to present my case calmly, unemotionally, professionally, the more black, down-home, co’npone little nigger gal Sanderalee Dawson became. Finally, she interrupted my assurances that a convicted murderer’s life span of several years would guarantee him the fullest protection of the law and that the death penalty would only be resorted to in the most outrageous, specific circumstances.

  “And once he’s dead, baby, he dead, that black man you gonna murder, right? And whut the hell, another black man gone down the road, ri’?” It was her “jes-a-lil-ole-nigrah-gal-fuhm-down-home” best; it’s very effective in walking all over your words to her. I had kept going, then finally had held up my hand and interrupted her bluntly. “You want to do your shuffle-on-home number now or you want an opinion? Is this to be a discussion or a vaudeville routine, because I didn’t bring my dancing shoes.”

  They had left that part in. Without the lead-in or any preliminary discussion. I came over as a cold-blooded bitch to Sanderalee’s wounded girl routine.

  They were in there working for her, Sanderalee’s crew. Guest after guest, in the clipped and put-together show, was shown “having at Sanderalee.” Although in actuality she always emerged at the top of the heap, in this special thirty-minute tribute to “Our Sanderalee; our brave, outspoken lady whose integrity against all odds has never been questioned,” we slammed at her, mashed her down, in one way or another attacked Sanderalee Dawson.