Illegal Motion g-4

by Grif Stockley

  As I contemplate myself as a newly married ex-Peace Corps volunteer, I’ve always realized that Sarah is much more direct and assertive than I am, even though I’m al most fifty. She was the one who insisted that we return to Bear Creek to confront my past. She is like her mother not only physically but emotionally. Rosa was the realist in our family of three: she confronted her own breast cancer and mortality and insisted that I face it. My good intentions, I’ve always thought until now, were enough. I sip at the glass of weak tea in front of me and watch my waitress banter with the regulars. Enough for what? To call what I do living, I suppose. The women in my life have been grittier than I have and consequently have often dominated me. Should that come as a shock? Oddly, it does. Thinking I should be in control, I have tried to bully them with guilt, the coward’s ultimate weapon.

  Rosa, when I brought her to Arkansas, accepted my decision not to move back to Bear Creek as my unquestioned right to decide where we should live. Later, when I offered the explanation that I had not returned home out of consideration for how she would have been treated, she wouldn’t buy. it

  “You didn’t want to go! I did. She was to madre, no?” Leaving her own mother, Rosa expected to find another one. Not able to screw up my courage, I pretended I couldn’t have found a job and moved us to the center of the state.

  I pay the check and point the Blazer south toward Blackwell County, thinking I’d go out to eat more often if all the help flirted with me like the waitress at Leo’s just did. As I settle in behind a Dodge Caravan on the winding road, almost obsessively my thoughts return to my mother and Bear Creek. Guilt and sarcasm. She was a master of both. She was stronger, too.

  “Are you trying to kill me, son?” she asked when I had said I wanted to come home to live with my new bride.

  “First, you leave me and go to South America, then you marry a nigra, and now you want to bring her home to live next to me. Was I that terrible as a mother? With your father sick all the time, maybe I was.” Weak. That’s what I was. Buying into all that. I should have told her that, by God, this is my wife and you’ll accept her and love her. Instead, for a quarter of a century from a safe distance of a hundred miles, I told myself that mother did learn to love her, but we just didn’t have the opportunity to visit much. Bullshit!

  I stop in Rose Bud to get gas and see on the wall in the service station a six-month-old notice of a parade and a barbecue sponsored by the Rose Bud volunteer fire department and ladies’ auxiliary. A parade of a single fire truck? Bear Creek was too small. We were better off not going home. After all these years, it is the reason I can’t abide. As I drive on, I wonder why has it taken so long to come to terms with my past? No wonder I am so afraid of a jury in this case.

  “You can come see Woogie anytime you want to,” Marty tells Sarah as we say good-bye. We have been invited for dinner, and though the reason for our coming is a sad one, we have had a good visit. With some trepidation I told Marty about our visit to eastern Arkansas over Thanksgiving, but instead of lecturing me again, Marty listened for a change and said little in response. She is not interested in the past, her demeanor says. If I am nutty enough to put myself through that meat grinder, it’s my problem.

  Woogie, knowing something is up, won’t leave Sarah long enough for us to slip out the door. Sarah wipes away her tears and gently nuzzles his battle-scarred ears.

  “Be good, Woogie!” she whispers and kisses him on his graying muzzle.

  Marty’s husband. Sweetness, holds out a dog biscuit in the shape of a bone.

  “Come here, boy,” he coaxes.

  “You’ll like it here” I like Sweetness better all the time. He can’t help hating Bill Clinton any more than I could help liking the looks of that waitress in Heber Springs this afternoon. If he loves my sister and likes dogs, he can’t be all bad. A sucker for food, Woogie trots over to Sweetness, who grabs his collar and gives him the biscuit to distract him.

  I wave at my sister and brother-in-law, and nudge Sarah, and we go out into the cold night air.

  “We’ll never see him again!” Sarah wails as we get into the Blazer.

  “We never come out here.”

  “We will, more and more,” I say, grinding the Blazer’s starter in the darkness.

  “As Nazis go. Sweetness isn’t so terrible.”

  “He was a good dog!” she pronounces, as if we had carried Woogie to his grave.

  “A wonderful dog,” I concur, no longer feeling the need to play the strong, silent type. I will miss him more than Sarah will. I’m the one who will be alone.

  16

  Wednesday afternoon, before I leave for Fayetteville for the hearing on my motion to introduce evidence of Robin’s past sexual conduct, I have an inspiration and call Amy to ask her to sit at the counsel table with me for the trial on the seventh, still five days away. We have been inseparable since her successful Christmas Day visit. With Sarah invited by a friend from school to a party New Year’s Eve in Memphis, I spent the entire night at Amy’s, where we conducted our own private celebration to welcome in the new year.

  When she finally picks up the phone in her office, I ask, “Would you be interested in coming up to Fayette ville for the trial next week? You could examine a couple of the witnesses. I’ll have plenty of time before then to prepare you.”

  Amy is too smart not to guess my motive.

  “You want a female lawyer to try to add credibility to Dade’s defense, don’t you?”

  “What would be so wrong with that?” I ask, trying to conceal my irritation with her tone. She knows what lawyers do.

  “I don’t think you’ll want me,” Amy says abruptly.

  “I feel sorry for the girl. She’s been through hell.”

  Standing in my kitchen, I watch the faucet drip in the sink. This room could stand some major work if I’m going to remain in the house. Lately, I’ve been thinking it’s time I ought to move.

  “Bullshit!” I say emphatically.

  “The National Weather Service, or whoever names storms, ought to name a tornado after her. If you get in Robin Perry’s way, you’re history….”

  Amy interrupts, “First, she gets seduced by a professor, then probably raped by a student, and now she’s going to be publicly humiliated at a trial. She’s just a kid.

  What if this had happened to Sarah? Then you’d see Robin Perry a lot differently.”

  Why did I call Amy? Bad idea.

  “You should have stayed a prosecutor, Gilchrist,” I say, unwilling to start a fight, but wanting to have the last word. Yet, I know I’m not being fair. We both know she loved the prosecutor’s office.

  “Men say they understand, but you don’t,” Amy lectures me.

  “The emotional pain and frustration women go through in a rape case is absolutely sickening. Men can’t even imagine it.”

  Amy’s beginning to sound like Paula Crawford. I look at my watch. It’s four o’clock. I’ll be driving in darkness over the mountain.

  “I need to get on the road,” I tell her, and hang up a moment later, after trying to smooth things over between us. I should have known better than to call her. I need her right now a lot more than she needs me.

  Thursday morning, as Dade and I enter the Washington County courthouse for the hearing, I wince at the irony of the mural’s written script, our hope lies in heroic men.

  My hope is in a man who is hardly heroic. Joe Hofstra, according to Barton, who has had his feelers out for gossip, is suicidal because of having to appear at this hearing The hearing is closed to the public, and with no students in town and the actual trial not to begin until Monday, we have attracted no media attention. Unless I miss my guess, however, word will get around that some thing big is going on in Judge Franklin’s court, and we’ll have a handful of reporters interested in talking to us when we come out.

  In his chambers Judge Franklin studies my Motion to Introduce Evidence of Past Sexual Conduct as if he is seeing it for the first time. He has asked us to leav
e our witnesses in the courtroom. I pick a piece of lint from my new suit. It fits great, unlike my old standby gray pin stripe, which was so tight that if I didn’t wear my coat, the inside of my front pockets were exposed.

  Seated across the table from me, Binkie Cross gives me a pained look, as if what I am doing is somehow un ethical. We have barely talked since he suggested that Dade take a lie detector test. Glowering at me over dimestore reading glasses identical to my own, he seems his usual rumpled, world-weary self. Doubtless, before this morning is over, we will be at each other’s throats. He seems to be taking this rather routine defense tactic a little too personally; yet, by the time this hearing is over, the case may be changed from a relatively straight forward swearing match to a situation that has implications beyond the Razorback athletic program. If Judge Franklin grants my motion, this case will turn much uglier than it is already. The University of Arkansas looms over everything up here.

  I glance at Judge Franklin’s stenographer. A handsome woman, in her early sixties, I would guess, she, too, seems to be irritated at me. Hasn’t your client caused trouble enough? How dare you accuse a professor? I warn myself against the typical paranoia of the outsider and busy myself with the display on Judge Franklin’s walls. A hunter, he has pictures of himself surrounded by dead animals and dogs. Yet, even in this masculine corner of the world, he may be offending somebody. He asks me to summarize my position, and as precisely as I can, I take him through my argument. I conclude by saying, “The bottom line. Your Honor, is that Robin Perry’s past sexual conduct is part and parcel of this case. There was no rape, or if there was, it was purely in the mind of Robin Perry, who couldn’t stand the thought that she was about to lose the attention of Dr. Hofstra, and my evidence is going to show that this morning.”

  Judge Franklin grunts and asks abruptly, “Does the prosecution want to respond?”

  “Indeed, I do. Your Honor,” Binkie says, his voice already harsh and combative.

  “This case is no different from any other situation in which the defense tries to put a rape victim on trial. Following Mr. Page’s reasoning, evidence of prior sexual conduct by any rape victim can be introduced to show some supposed motive to lie. To allow this type of evidence would be to circumvent the rape shield law in its entirety. The probative value of any evidence of a prior sexual relationship in this case is out weighed by its prejudicial and inflammatory nature, which this court has the discretion, fixed by statute, to prohibit. Mr. Page wants to put the University of Arkansas on trial. Your Honor, instead of his client.”

  This is weak. Binkie is down to his last bullet. The judge looks at me, and says, his voice slightly ironic, “Is that what you’re trying to do, Mr. Page?”

  Binkie is already anticipating my closing statement to the jury Monday, but I’m damned if I’m going to admit it.

  “The last thing I want to do in this case is take on the university. Judge. What this case has been about since day one is credibility. If Robin Perry had any motive to lie about what she says occurred to her as a result of my client’s actions, the jury is entitled to hear it.”

  Binkie tosses his pen on the table, a gesture ordinarily reserved for a jury and not a hearing back in chambers.

  “He wants to turn the case into a circus. Judge,” he complains.

  Poor Binkie. This case is unraveling right in front of him. Judge Franklin leans back in his padded chair and puts his hand over his eyes as if to shield the prosecutor from his sight. Finally, he says, “Well, let’s go out to the courtroom and hear some testimony.”

  I feel in control of things for the first time. If this hearing goes as I intend, we could conceivably get a dismissal by Binkie this afternoon. This case will be a black eye for too many people. I come out to the counsel table and smile at Dade, who has been waiting in the courtroom with the other witnesses, who include Lauren, Robin, Joe Hofstra, and Robin’s roommate. Shannon Kennsit. Following my advice, Dade is wearing the same too-tight suit he wore at the administrative hearing. If I have my way, he’ll wear the same clothes throughout the trial, if there is one. The last thing I want him looking like is some slick black pro athlete. As he sits down by me, I tell him that things are going fine. All he will have to do to day is watch. I “invoke the rule” so that the witnesses will not be present in the courtroom. As Judge Franklin instructs each witness not to discuss his or her testimony with any other, I glance back and forth between the faces of Robin and Joe Hofstra. They are about as far from each other in the courtroom as two people can get. As Lauren leaves the courtroom for the witness room, I nod at her, trying to get her to smile. She looks more scared than I would like. Yet, testifying can be an unnerving experience if you haven’t done it before. I forget how young these kids are.

  Before Robin can make her exit, I tell the judge I will call her as my first witness. I want to hear what Robin and Joe Hofstra say first, so I can try to keep Lauren from getting sandbagged. Robin looks at the judge, who tells her to remain in the courtroom and directs her to the witness box. For this hearing she is wearing black heels, a red and green jumper, and a white blouse. She looks stunning. Her blond hair is soft and silky and has grown out since I last saw her. Since the only issue is her past sexual conduct, the judge cautions me to ask only the most basic preliminary questions, and in less than a minute I get to the point.

  “Ms. Perry, have you at any time had a sexual relationship with Dr. Joe Hofstra?”

  Though I expected to have to pull the story from her, Robin answers without any hesitation, “Yes, I did. It occurred last summer. I was in his history class the first term of summer school and began seeing him in June. I stopped seeing him at the end of the summer session in August. I haven’t been alone with him or talked to him since then.”

  Binkie has her well prepared, and though I didn’t expect her to admit that she was sleeping with Hofstra at the time she was raped, I am impressed at how poised she is concerning a subject that has to be a source of embarrassment to her. I can’t imagine it will last too long.

  There is too much pressure on her.

  “Did you tell anyone you were having sexual relations with Dr. Hofstra?”

  “I told Lauren Denney, who was my roommate last summer.”

  “Did you tell Lauren Denney this fall approximately a week before you say you were raped by my client that you were still sleeping with Dr. Hofstra?”

  Robin’s face flushes.

  “No! I never told Lauren any such thing!”

  I press her.

  “You don’t recall having a conversation with her to that effect one day after cheerleading practice as you were walking across campus?”

  “I didn’t tell her that!” Robin says, losing her compo sure.

  “I hated Lauren by that time!”

  She begins to cry. I ask, “You don’t recall telling Lauren that afternoon you’d do anything to keep the relation going with Dr. Hofstra, or words to that effect?”

  “No! No! No!” Robin yells, wiping at her eyes.

  “I didn’t ever, ever tell her any such thing.”

  “Isn’t it a fact that you hated Lauren, in part at least, because you were afraid she would tell others that you had been sleeping with your professor?”

  “She’s a liar!” Robin blurts.

  “I knew I couldn’t trust her not to tell, even though she said she wouldn’t.”

  “But you told somebody, didn’t you?” I ask, knowing I have an easy guess.

  “Didn’t you tell your roommate this fall. Shannon Kennsit?”

  Binkie gets to his feet and objects, “Your Honor, who she told is irrelevant.”

  Judge Franklin shakes his head, not even requiring me to respond.

  “I don’t think so. Answer the question.”

  Robin, still wiping her eyes, answers, “I can trust Shannon. I did tell her.”

  “Isn’t it a fact that you trusted Lauren enough to share an apartment for three months last summer?”

  “I didn�
�t know her very well,” Robin says, sniffing.

  “You had been a cheerleader with her the entire past year, hadn’t you?” I scoff, and wait for her answer.

  Robin mumbles, “But I still didn’t know her.”

  This is a good stopping place, but I need to get her to admit how intimate she and Hofstra became.

  “How often did you see Dr. Hofstra last summer?”

  Binkie pops out of his chair.

  “Objection, Your Honor!

  The issue is whether Ms. Perry was raped by Dade Cunningham in October, not what was happening in the summer.”

  On my feet, I respond, “The issue is her credibility.

  Your Honor. If this was a casual, one-time thing, it might be a lot easier to believe her testimony that she broke it off.”

  “Answer the question,” Judge Franklin says, looking at Robin.

  Binkie is furious, but he can’t do a thing except sit down. Robin blushes deeply.

  “I would go up to his office after class two or three times a week to talk to him.”

  “How many times did you have intercourse?” I press.

  Binkie again objects.

  “Your Honor, that question is irrelevant,” he says.

  “It doesn’t prove one thing in this case.”

  “I would hope it tends to show. Your Honor,” I say, “how deeply involved they were.” I look at Franklin, willing him to agree. The more specifics I can get out of her, the more likely Hofstra is to contradict her.

  “You have to answer,” Franklin instructs her.

  Robin closes her eyes as if she has begun to pray. If Sarah could have known what Robin would go through, I doubt she would have given me any information.

  “I think,” she says through her tears, “six separate occasions.”

  I draw out the moment, pretending I am making notes.