Question of Consent: A Novel
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I waited, as I always did, alone in that corridor, in front of the steel door with that silver-disk eye staring at me. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that my client was not going to take a plea, but I had to ask him. It was probably the last time that he could make the decision, and the decision would have to be his. He’d be the one to do the time if we went to trial and the jury convicted him.
At some point soon I’d have to have a similar conversation with Lisa. It seemed out of the question that the prosecutor could offer Lisa a plea bargain guaranteeing that she wouldn’t go to prison—and I didn’t think that Lisa would accept a plea even with that guarantee. It would have been impossible for her to say she was guilty when she wasn’t.
A buzz at the door startled me. I turned the handle and entered. A few steps in front of me was another solid green door. To the left was a door whose upper half was glass. I opened it and entered the empty lawyers’ conference room.
A row of carrels, each with a low, metal stool painted a shiny beige, lined the room. Thick glass walls were in front of each of the carrels. A similar row of carrels was on the other side—the prisoners’ side—of the glass walls. I sat on one of the stools and waited.
A few minutes later a guard brought Jack Larsen into the room on the prisoners’ side of the glass. Larsen was the only person on that side. He took the seat facing me. We picked up the telephones in front of us.
“How’re you doing?” I asked through the telephone.
“I’m okay,” Larsen answered.
We stared into each other’s eyes through the glass that separated us.
“We should get started this morning,” I said.
“They ain’t gonna find Perry, are they, Mr. Roehmer?”
“Careful.” I pointed to the phone. “I don’t trust these things.”
“And you’re gonna destroy that faggot, Bruce, right?” Larsen asked.
“I’ll go as far as Judge Taylor lets me. What you’ve got to understand is that after we start the trial, the judge won’t give his approval to the same deal.”
“No deals. I can’t. You’re gonna destroy that faggot, right?”
“I’m going to try, but there’s no guarantee I’ll succeed. That’s why I want to make sure you realize that if you’re convicted, Taylor could give you up to fifteen years, and he’s a tough nut who’d probably give you the full fifteen. If you take the plea, you’ll walk in three, maybe less.”
“Three years is a lifetime.”
“A plea to atrocious assault and battery would give you much less time than a conviction for attempted murder.”
“If they send me down to Rahway, I won’t survive. It’d be a death sentence.”
“I understand.” I immediately thought of Lisa. God knew what would be done to her if she ever had to spend time with the hardened criminals in the women’s prison. The stories were terrifying.
“Bruce has friends down there,” he said.
“I know.”
Jack Larsen paused. He shook his head. “I’d be raped the day I arrived.”
“I’ll do the best I can.”
“That faggot had it coming, right?”
“I’ll tell the prosecutor to forget it.”
“Right. Forget it.”
We sat quietly for a moment. Jack had paid me $25,000 to represent him. I had no idea where he had gotten the money, and I certainly never asked him. I was quite sure he hadn’t gotten it from his job handing out towels at a health club or via a genius grant from the MacArthur Foundation.
“I’ll see you upstairs. We’ll start your case right away,” I said.
“I can’t stand the waiting. It’s going to make me crazy.”
“I know.”
Jack Larsen nodded.
We hung up the phones. I watched as Larsen stood up and walked toward his cell.
We picked a jury in less than an hour, and the direct examination of the victim went quickly as well. The victim simply described how my client had attacked him. Then it was my turn on the cross. It was a little after two and Lisa had not yet arrived.
I stood at counsel table next to Jack Larsen, who was seated. Cheryl Hazelton was in her chair at the prosecutor’s end of counsel table. The jury was in the box. Bruce Snelling, in his late twenties, dressed in a gray suit and a purple sweater, was on the witness stand.
Just as I was about to begin, I turned around and saw Lisa enter the courtroom. I nodded at her, and she nodded back. I waited for her to take her seat in the back with the other spectators.
I returned to the witness. “Mr. Snelling, are you telling this jury that you did nothing to provoke my client?” I asked, sounding incredulous. “He just chased you around the bedroom that the two of you shared, for no reason, with a twelve-inch bread knife?”
“Yes, sir,” Bruce said. He was a handsome young man, with a carefully groomed mustache and goatee. His black skin seemed to have a hue of blue.
“Was this typical of the bedroom behavior the two of you engaged in?” I asked.
“No, sir.”
“Do you know where Mr. Larsen got the bread knife?”
“From the kitchen. Perry Lanier saw him take it.”
“Yes, we already heard you say that your friend was in the kitchen when my client supposedly grabbed a murder weapon and chased you around the bedroom. But, of course, we haven’t heard your friend testify under oath about that, have we?”
Cheryl jumped to her feet. “Objection, Your Honor.”
Judge Taylor looked up. “I’ll sustain the objection.”
“Mr. Snelling, when you say Mr. Larsen suddenly came into the bedroom,” I continued, “did you do anything to get away from this knife you say he was brandishing?”
“Of course,” Bruce said. “I tried to run away. I kept backing away from him. I kept pleading with him to leave me alone.”
“You don’t claim that he had ever chased you with a knife before, do you?”
“No, sir.”
“Did it occur to you to ask him why this night was different from any other?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean did you ask him why on this particular night he saw fit to chase you with a twelve-inch bread knife?”
“No, sir.”
“Weren’t you in the least bit curious?”
“I was too scared to ask him any questions.”
“Isn’t it a fact, Mr. Snelling, that earlier that evening there had been a large party at your apartment?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And didn’t you take large amounts of speed at that party?”
“That’s just not true.”
“Do you have any explanation, then, as to why the hospital that treated you for your wound reported that a large amount of speed was found in your system?”
“No, sir. I may have taken a little of it.”
“You may have taken a little bit. I see.”
Two of the jurors nodded. They had obviously gotten it.
I turned to Judge Taylor. “Your Honor, may I have a few moments?”
“Certainly,” the judge said.
I pushed open the low swinging doors and walked to the rear of the courtroom to where Lisa was sitting.
“You think I was cruel to you when I had you on the witness stand?” I whispered to Lisa. “Wait till you see what I have to do now to this pathetic soul.”
“I know what’s required of you,” Lisa said. “And I know what you’re capable of.”
“The point is you have to be ready for this kind of assault,” I said.
“I will be,” she said, and smiled. I wasn’t sure why she smiled. I assumed it was to show me she was confident. Part of me suspected that she was enjoying my performance, and I found that thought a little chilling. Maybe I enjoyed the prospect of showing her how cruel I could be, but that thought didn’t occur to me until much later.
I walked back to the well of the courtroom.
“Mr. Snelling, may I ask you to step down from the
witness stand and come out here in front of the jury?”
Bruce stood and moved to the spot where I, his cross-examiner, was pointing. I figured the jury would regard him and his walk as effeminate, and have a negative reaction. My client, as luck would have it, walked like a boxer.
“Now, Mr. Snelling, please imagine that I am Mr. Larsen. Could you demonstrate to the jury how you say you tried to run away from the defendant when he was supposedly chasing you?”
“Certainly. Well, if that were the front door to the bedroom…” Bruce pointed to the court stenographer. “I saw him come in the door, and I immediately jumped off of the bed on the side farthest from me.” Bruce took a step back. “He came around the bed, and I jumped on top of the bed.” Bruce jumped, flapping his arms, bending his knees, as if landing on a raised bed. “I got to the other side. I ran around the bed, and I jumped on the bed to get back to the other side. We went back and forth like that a few times.”
As he re-enacted his flight from my client, moving frantically back and forth, Bruce Snelling looked like a hysterical bird. Some members of the jury began to smile. Judge Taylor was staring at the performance; he knew what I was doing and he was angry that I was making the witness look foolish, but he also knew he was helpless to do anything to stop it.
“Then what happened?” I asked.
“He finally caught me.”
“Then what happened?” I asked.
“He cut me.”
Bruce looked at the jury. And he finally realized that he’d been made to look foolish.
I walked back to my place at counsel table. I looked up at the witness, then focused on the yellow legal pad in front of me. I had written “80 sutures.” I picked up the pencil next to the pad. I drew a line through the “80 sutures.”
I turned around, checking to confirm that in the rear of the courtroom Lisa had seen what I had done to the witness. Slowly, knowingly, she nodded at me.
About twenty minutes later I was standing with Lisa in the corridor outside the courtroom. I explained to her that summations would be made the next day, and that, after instructions from the judge, the jury would decide the case.
“Was there nothing that the judge could do to stop you, Michael?” Lisa asked, conscious of how brutally I had treated the witness.
“I thought he was going to explode,” I said, “but there really wasn’t anything he could do.”
“We should go for a walk,” she said.
“Sounds like a good idea,” I said. “I think it was good that you saw it.”
“Yes, I’m glad I did,” she said.
“You have to be prepared for that kind of attack.”
“You reminded me of how frightening you can be,” Lisa said. “And I’m embarrassed to tell you how sexy you were.”
“Sexy?” I said.
“You were wonderful. It felt almost as if I were back on that witness stand with you cross-examining me. You took my breath away then, and you did it again today.”
Lisa and I descended a flight of stairs to the second floor and headed toward the large marble staircase that would take us down to the front door.
“Michael,” Lisa said, stopping to look directly at me, “I wonder if you realize how powerful you are in the courtroom.”
I stared at her lovely, open face with those large, adoring eyes. I didn’t know what to say. Slightly embarrassed, all I could do was smile.
She wrapped both her hands around my arm and held it close to her body. We started walking again.
“That’s where I clerked my first year out of law school,” I said, pointing to a door at the end of the corridor. “It was Bear’s courtroom.”
“You told me about him. He was the judge you worked for?”
“Right.”
“The one who died recently?”
“Right. Would you like to see the courtroom? It’s not being used now.” They hadn’t yet appointed a new judge to replace Bear.
“I’d love to see it,” Lisa said.
The courtroom was empty. The room itself was a handsome, wood-paneled space.
Lisa and I walked down the center aisle to the first row of the spectator seats. The room was as quiet as a church. We sat down.
“This is where I started out,” I said. At the back of the courtroom, behind the judge’s bench, was a door leading to the chambers. The other door at the far end of the courtroom led to what used to be my office over twenty years ago.
Gently Lisa ran the palm of her hand down the side of my face. She knew that this room had a special meaning for me, like no other.
“I keep asking myself how someone could be so astute, so insightful about other people’s actions,” I said, “and at the same time so stupid, so careless about his own behavior.”
“Are you talking about yourself?”
“Of course.”
“What provoked this, now?”
“I really don’t know.”
“Does it have anything to do with me?”
I stood and walked around the empty courtroom. “I remember the first time I ever tried a case in this court. How frightened I was to appear before Bear!”
I walked up the two carpeted steps to the long desk that Bear had used. “It’s amazing how the years go by. It all seems so long ago.”
Lisa walked up to where I stood. She came up behind me as I gazed out at the grand, wood-paneled room.
I turned around and stared into her beautiful face. We kissed, and we kissed again, and then we got down on the carpeted floor under the judge’s bench and made love passionately.
Chapter 17
THE LOUD BELL OF the timer went off in Lisa’s kitchen. Wearing a large oven mitt, I lifted the heavy cover of a big pot on top of the stove and watched the steam escape from the lamb with juniper berries. I took a bottle of wine from the wine rack on the counter and removed the cork with a “pop.”
“Something smells terrific,” Lisa said as she entered.
“I think it’s going to be okay. Are you hungry?” I asked.
“Ravenous.”
“Let me just slice up the meat.”
“It’s been so long since anyone cooked for me.”
“No big deal. I just felt a sudden urge to do something with my hands.”
“Am I impressed! Not only, is the guy a great lawyer, but he cooks, too.”
We both laughed.
A few minutes later, Lisa and I were seated at the table, eating the lamb and drinking the wine. In the dozens of times we’d been together in her apartment over the previous months, we had never talked about the fact that this was the place where my former client had raped her. Lisa had had the grace not to bring it up, and I certainly had never mentioned it. But there hadn’t been a single time I’d been there when I hadn’t looked around and remembered the scene described at the trial.
“Michael, why aren’t you and Jenny still together?” Lisa asked.
“Because of many of the traits that help me to win so many cases,” I said. “Maybe I’m just a tad controlling, perhaps a bit suspicious, a touch competitive. That kind of thing,” I said, with a forced laugh.
“That can’t be true. The way you talk about her, you sound like such good friends.”
“She knows I’m struggling with my demons.”
“And you both care so much about Molly.”
“I don’t think it was a coincidence that Jenny’s thesis in college was about hero worship in Victorian literature.”
“Is that why she fell in love with you? You were some kind of fantasy hero to her?” Lisa asked.
“If I was, I’m sure I’ve disabused her of that bit of folly,” I said.
“If you were, it must have served both your needs.”
“I suppose you’re right,” I said.
“Then why did it stop serving them?”
I leaned across the table and kissed Lisa. “I’m actually uncomfortable talking about Jenny,” I said.
“I respect that.”
Lisa
took a few sips of the wine.
“Well, if it’s any comfort to you,” she said, “I want you to know that I don’t have any illusions about you.”
“That is a comfort.” I took a sip of wine. “Do you miss your performances?” I asked. Lisa had taken a leave of absence from her company when the indictment had begun to draw a lot of negative publicity.
“Of course. I’m desperate to get back. Working out every day isn’t at all the same as being in front of an audience.”
There was a moment of silence.
Lisa held up her glass of wine. “It’s good wine, isn’t it?” Lisa said.
“Terrific.”
“That was quite a job you did on that guy in court today,” Lisa said.
“I know,” I said.
“But you did what you had to do.”
“That was the last time. I can’t stand it anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t do this anymore. Not for people I can’t stand.”
“Well, is this some monumental life decision?”
“I guess so,” I said. “No more ‘hugger-muggers,’ as Jenny used to call them.”
“Sounds healthy,” Lisa said.
We clinked our glasses in a toast.
As I drank my wine, I studied Lisa. I had always maintained a real distance from my clients. I had taken for granted the common wisdom that getting too close to them would interfere with my judgment. I knew I was already too involved with Lisa to be objective—and above all else, a criminal lawyer needed to be objective.
I wondered if the added pressure I felt to win Lisa’s case was going to make it harder for me to make decisions during the trial. There was no question that winning for her was the most important thing in the world to me. I was sure I loved this woman who sat across from me. And I was damn sure I wanted to keep her out of prison.
I was convinced that Lisa didn’t have a clue about who I really was, however much she might have thought she did. It had always been difficult for me to reveal any personal truths about myself. Jenny understood me because she had lived with me for so many years. And it was probably because she understood me so well that she left me. It was so much easier for me to interrogate a stranger under oath about the most intimate details of his or her life than to talk about myself in a way that left me exposed even to the slightest degree.