Aftershock

by Andrew Vachss

  “Hotel? No, I mean L.A. Because, as I said, if my instincts are correct, that will be your new address by the time school starts in the fall.”

  “Really?! But what about the other test? Don’t you have to—?”

  “The other test would be … superfluous. It is now clear to me that you could not play both roles. As you pointed out yourself, in fact.”

  “Oh.”

  “May I drive you home? It’s rather late, and I didn’t see a cab stand anywhere when we checked in.”

  “Uh … well, sure. Can you take me to the same place you did last time? Like I said, walking from there is actually easier.”

  “Very well,” I said, pushing the button on my phone that would send audio to Franklin. “I’ll take you home and then come back and load the equipment. It should not take more than a few minutes.”

  I don’t know whether Danielle was eager to get on the phone and tell her friends how she’d just been discovered—which is why we’d decided to leave the website in place for now—or whether she was crafty enough to keep it to herself.

  Whichever path she chose, we had it covered.

  When I got back to Franklin’s suite, the giant was holding his huge head in his meat-hook hands, not ashamed of the tears on his face when he lifted it to respond to my “You okay?”

  “She hates her own sister,” Franklin said, his voice damaged by the sadness of deep pain. “And she’s a big liar, too.”

  “That’s right, Franklin. Now do you see what I meant when I told you that you could help MaryLou?”

  “I … No.” His face flushed. “I know I’m stupid, okay? But I can’t … I can’t see what … I can’t see how I can help MaryLou, like you said I could.”

  “That’s my fault,” I assured him. “Look, you heard Danielle tell lies, right?”

  “I sure did.”

  “So you could swear she’s a liar—stand up in court and swear it—couldn’t you?”

  “Sure! Sure, I could.”

  “That’s all we need, son. That might be enough to get MaryLou off, right there.”

  “But …”

  “What, Franklin?”

  “She did … I mean, MaryLou shot those guys, right?”

  “Yeah. But it’s not so much what she did as why she did it.”

  “I’m … sorry.”

  I knew what he was really saying. And the need to find a way to explain what I’d just told Franklin sliced through the mist in my mind like a surgeon’s scalpel seeking a tumor. It hit me so hard I had to steady my own breathing.

  “Danielle’s a liar, right?”

  “Right.”

  “And what do liars do? They lie.”

  “Right.”

  “She wasn’t Cameron’s girlfriend—you know that, right?”

  “Sure!”

  “And Danielle said MaryLou was jealous of her,” I said, treading more carefully now. “But that was a lie, too.”

  “It was all a lie. MaryLou’s beautiful. And she’s not gay, either. I took her to the prom.”

  “You really like her, don’t you, Franklin?”

  “I think I love her.”

  “Now, how could you be in love with a lesbian?”

  “Right!”

  “So that’s another lie. Once a person lies about one thing—in court, I mean—the jury can throw out everything else they say.”

  “But she still shot them.” Franklin may have been the size of an ox, but he could give a mule fits in the stubbornness department, too.

  “That’s exactly right. But Danielle said there was a reason she did that. Remember? That she was jealous of—”

  “I get it! I get it now. MaryLou, she wasn’t jealous of Danielle, so that couldn’t be why she shot those guys.”

  “Perfect! Now, listen, Franklin. You have to keep this a total secret.”

  “Sure. But why? I mean, if I can—”

  “It’s like football. You need strength, and you need speed. And what else?”

  “Timing!”

  “That’s it. You nailed it, Franklin. We know MaryLou shot those boys for a reason. And we know it wasn’t because she was jealous of Danielle. So it has to be for another reason.”

  “Right.”

  “We’re on the trail of that reason. And we’re going to get there. But if we get there too soon …”

  “Now I understand! It has to be … timed just right.”

  “That’s it’s, son—you got it perfect. Now, help me get all that damn equipment into my car and I’ll run you home.”

  “What’s next?”

  “Well, I might have to go talk to some of these ‘society’ guys. I wouldn’t want to do that alone. Will you go with me?”

  “You’re helping MaryLou. I’ll do whatever you say.”

  The kid wasn’t half as dumb as they were taking him for. I’d talk to Dolly about that some other time. But now I had to tell her about how I found the path I’d been looking for … by stumbling over the lies I’d told MaryLou’s psychopath of a “little sister.”

  “Dell, are you serious?”

  I just nodded.

  “You actually think there’s some kind of ‘syndrome’ for what MaryLou did?”

  “There is,” I said, prepared to match Franklin’s stubbornness twice over if I had to. “I’ve seen it myself. Just listen. What if somebody shot me and I almost died?” I said, watching her face. “What if I was in the hospital, all hooked up to machines, and you were watching over me? And, all of a sudden, you saw the man who shot me walking down the hall. What would you do?”

  “I … know. But Danielle wasn’t raped.”

  “How do you know? That’s what those people do. Why else would you have that big red mark at the spot where they hang out? I think everybody knows. The kids, I mean.”

  “They … might. I mean, Iris said that girls don’t even report rapes anymore.”

  “Like Cameron’s crew had immunity. Safe passage.”

  “No. That can’t be.”

  “Why not? You’ve been in places where certain people would be above the law … if there’d been any law. If I’m so crazy, then tell me something else that explains what that boss SANE nurse told us.”

  “I can’t,” she said.

  If I’d been part of this Tiger Ko Khai bunch, and I’d seen my Dolly’s face at that moment, I would have gotten as far away as I could, not even saying goodbye to anyone who might know where I was going.

  Before I could stop her, Dolly was up and moving, almost knocking Rascal over as she charged to the computer.

  “Leave me alone,” is all she said.

  It was almost four hours before she said another word. When she came down to the basement, she was so sweaty her hair was plastered to her face, and she smelled like she hadn’t been near a shower for weeks. But I recognized the smell. It wasn’t fear, or even anger—it was Warrior’s Perfume.

  “Rape Trauma Syndrome” is all she said. Then she slumped forward like there was nothing else in her. I caught her easily, carried her upstairs, laid her down on our bed, and wrote in heavy blue marker, “At lawyer’s. All phones turned off.”

  Then I propped the note up where she couldn’t miss it when she opened her eyes.

  “You guard!” I told Rascal.

  “We don’t call it ‘self-defense,’ ” Swift said. I had to blink a couple of times to make sure I was looking at the same person. It wasn’t his suit or his haircut; it was like he’d been taking self-respect pills. Even the pig at the desk had asked, “You’re here for Mr. Swift, aren’t you?” as if she really was his receptionist.

  “What do you call it?”

  “Justification.”

  “That makes more sense,” I told him. “I’ve met plenty of men who should have been killed, no matter what scale you measured them on. Wouldn’t matter if you shot them in their sleep or in a firefight, getting them dead was the only thing that mattered.”

  He gave me a strange look, but not a surprised one. Then he sna
tched a law book off a shelf behind him. I couldn’t help noticing it was already tabbed with several of those little colored sticky notes.

  “I’ll read you the legal language right out of the statute so we can be sure we’re on the same page. Okay …

  “A person is generally permitted to use physical force for self-defense or to defend a third person from what the person reasonably believes to be the use or imminent use of unlawful physical force.

  “Clear enough?”

  “Yeah. So, if I thought someone was about to hurt my wife, I could strike first?”

  “The key word is ‘imminent.’ So you could strike first only if you actually believed another party was about to attack.”

  “A crazy person could ‘believe’ anything.”

  “It still has to be a reasonable belief, not some delusion. Listen to this:

  “The degree of physical force a person may use in self-defense or defense of another is limited to that degree of force reasonably believed to be necessary for the purpose.

  “See?”

  “So, even if I reasonably believed someone was going to slap my wife, I couldn’t shoot them in the head.”

  “No. The law requires this ‘reasonable’ standard, true, but it is never defined. So what’s ‘reasonable’ under the circumstances, that’s up to a jury. What’s reasonable to a jury in New York might not seem so reasonable to a jury in Dallas. That’s why there’s such state-specific case law on the subject. Here …

  “A jury instruction on self-defense is appropriate when evidence supports that theory. Thus, no matter how unbelievable the trial judge finds the defense testimony, it is an error for the judge to refuse a self-defense instruction on that basis; it is for the jury to assess credibility. Further, the defendant is entitled to an instruction on the state’s burden to disprove the defense beyond a reasonable doubt.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “I … I don’t believe I understand what you’re asking.”

  “That’s because I don’t know what I’m doing, trying to swim in your pool. I meant, what’s the difference between these ‘statutes’ and ‘case law’?”

  “Ah, okay. A statute is the law as the legislature wrote it. Those are just words. Case law is how the appellate courts interpret those words. And since only the defense can appeal—”

  “Wait! So, if a jury was to cut MaryLou loose, no matter how bogus their reason, there’s nothing the law could do about it?”

  “Ask O.J.,” he said. When he saw my blank look, he said, “That’s absolutely correct. There’s even a concept known as ‘jury nullification.’ That’s when a jury finds a defendant innocent even though there’s no way he actually could be innocent. This was common in many of the racial murders in the South in the fifties and sixties. In fact, that probably did more to bring about the passage of the Civil Rights Act than any other kind of advocacy could.”

  “You read this?”

  “Yes. How else could I—?”

  “I mean, it’s written down in the books you studied in school. And nobody argues about it anymore; it’s an accepted fact?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Goddamn, this could actually work! But all I said aloud was “Remember what you were telling me? About battered-woman syndrome?”

  “Yes. In fact—”

  “Have you ever heard of Rape Trauma Syndrome?”

  “I have. But I’ve never tried a case using that defense. And I don’t think you’ll find anyone around here who has.”

  “Not a lot of rape cases here?”

  “Well, stranger rapes, yes, there are some. But if the victim knew the alleged attacker … no. And, remember, that defense is only valid if the defendant uses force to defend herself from a person she reasonably believes is about to rape her.”

  Yeah, because they never get prosecuted. But it wasn’t the time for that yet.

  “What about if a guy was a known rapist, okay? Let’s say he had a record for it, and he just shows up at a girl’s trailer, parked out in the woods, in the middle of the night, and starts kicking in her door. Could she shoot him?”

  “In Florida, sure. Here, I … think she’d have to warn him she was armed, and give him a chance to retreat.”

  “That’s a joke, right? The only edge she has is the gun, and she has to tell him about it? Why? That way he gets a chance to start shooting.”

  “I think that’s one of those questions you have to put before a jury.”

  “I get it. Okay, what if the woman had a baby, and this guy was known for raping babies; would that change things?”

  “The law, no. The outcome, absolutely.”

  “So—this Rape Trauma Syndrome, it plays by the same rules.”

  “I believe it would. Let me just look.…” This time, he went right to his computer. It only took a few seconds.

  “No question. In fact, if we went that way … Yes. Yes! A justification defense is not any form of an ‘insanity’ defense. So the prosecution isn’t entitled to any advance notice.”

  “You can just spring it on them?”

  “Not quite. But you can have the best experts already on your side. And the only way you’re going to get any of the syndrome defenses before a jury is to have an expert testify that the defendant was suffering from it at the time of the … well, in this case, at the time of the homicide.”

  “I get you them—those experts, I mean—and you’re ready to try this case?”

  “I’m ready to try it without them, if that’s the client’s wish. And, as you know—”

  “I’ll get MaryLou to go along, too,” I promised. “The faster the better, right?”

  “No question! The DA’s Office is sure we’re going to want to plead this out, on some kind of temporary-insanity deal. If we start making speedy-trial motions, they’ll have a cow.”

  “Speedy-trial?”

  “In this state, if I—the defense, I mean—if we don’t consent to a delay, either the prosecution has to go forward within whatever the court decides is a reasonable time, or the judge could even dismiss it outright … and no judge is going to want to do that in this case.”

  “Couldn’t they just arrest her again and start all over? There’s no statute of limitations on murder, is there?”

  “No,” Swift said, his voice dropping as he spoke, as if we were sharing a secret. “But once jeopardy has attached, if the case is dismissed it’s done. They only get one bite at the apple.”

  That’s what Cameron knew, I thought to myself. That’s what all of them knew. No matter what they did, as long as they did it to the right girls, no “jeopardy” was ever going to attach.

  I stopped off to check on Franklin. He was still in the same big chair he’d gone to sit in when I’d dropped him off last night. Didn’t look like he’d moved.

  “You have to lock your front door, Franklin. One of those guys, the ones who raped Danielle, they’re the same ones who got MaryLou locked up for trying to protect her. They could just walk right in.”

  “I wish” is all he said. “I know what they look like now. That’s why I’m staying here. I know if I went out, if I saw anyone in one of those jackets …”

  Dolly had showered, and the kitchen was full of girls like usual, but most of what they had to say seemed to be focused on Dolly’s outfit: camo cargo pants, a sleeveless T-shirt of the same material, and jungle boots, soft-soled, with mesh tops and steel toes.

  “No, this is not some new thing,” Dolly said to one of them, the pug-nosed redhead. “These clothes are older than you are.”

  “Retro is new,” another pronounced, knowingly.

  “This never went away,” Dolly said quietly. “Maybe someday I’ll tell you about it. For now, either get on the plane or stay on the ground.”

  That sent them back to work quicker than chain-gang slaves who had stretched their smoke break and spotted the Boss Man coming.

  “Dell,” she said, after following me to my den—the same direction she’d
pointed me in when I’d opened the back door—“I went back through the network. Listen to this: Rape Trauma Syndrome seems to actually hit the secondaries harder than the primaries.”

  I made a gesture she understood to mean “keep going.”

  “Primaries have actually been raped. In Kosovo, rape was a weapon of war. Worse than death. If you get pregnant from a soldier of another … ethnic group, an abortion is your only chance to prevent your child from being an outcast all his life. Like in Africa, but even worse. Because, for many in that area, abortion is a mortal sin. A choice between killing your own child and going to hell, and letting your child live and sending him to hell. That’s why so many of them went catatonic.

  “But for the secondaries, those who either had to watch the rapes happen or even help repair the physical damage from them, it was actually worse. The primaries had already taken the worst that could happen, and they went someplace where nobody could hurt them again—you know what I mean. But the secondaries lived with the fear. As if they themselves had been raped, but they had no place to go … not even crazy. Their job was to stand there and deal with the waves and waves of rape victims coming in.”

  “There’s books on this?” I asked, thinking of Swift. If enough people had written it down and it hadn’t been challenged, maybe …

  “You mean, is it accepted within the profession?”

  “Yes.”

  “By anyone who served with Médecins Sans Frontières, there would be no question. But I’m not a psychologist. I’d have to … Wait! I know just the perfect person! Debbie Rollo. She is the best. Nobody would even try to argue with her qualifications. But, Dell, are you sure this could really work?”

  “I’m damn sure what happens if it doesn’t. Can you get in touch with—”

  I looked up, but Dolly was already gone.

  Ryan Teller had touched down here less than fifteen years ago. And his ’06 conviction would have kept him local for at least five years. Only a few years between then and today. It didn’t feel as if he got in the wind. More like he was still hovering somewhere close by, holding on to his status as the founder of a gang that specialized in raping young girls.

  I remembered the five men who had braced me outside that convenience store on the highway. They were in their twenties; Teller would be in his mid-thirties.