Aftershock

by Andrew Vachss

  MaryLou’s mask cracked wide open. Her trance broke like a dam giving way. She buried her face in her big hands, but the tears kept oozing through her clenched fingers, the truth finally seeping through the wall she had spent so many years building around her baby sister.

  “I have no more questions,” Swift said, as if there were no more questions anyone with an ounce of decency in them would ask.

  The courtroom was graveyard-silent, except for the horrible sounds of a young woman mourning the betrayal of her own supreme sacrifice.

  “Perhaps, then, this is a good time to break for lunch,” the judge said.

  I didn’t despise him for that. I wouldn’t have known what to do, either. And Dolly was already up and moving toward MaryLou.

  After lunch, a woman got up to do the cross-examination of T.D. Maybe she’d been brought in for that purpose. Or maybe the DA himself heard how his Deputy Fat Face had built his whole case out of translucent Swiss cheese.

  “You’re not a medical doctor, are you?” the woman closed in on T.D.

  “Not unless someone sent me to medical school when I wasn’t looking.”

  The jury laughed. By then, T.D. was one of their own, not some hired-gun outsider.

  “Your Honor!” the woman protested.

  “The jury is hereby admonished to …” The judge let that one trail off. He had to run for office, too.

  “What I mean is, you’re not a psychiatrist, isn’t that true?”

  “Sure.”

  “You seem rather lighthearted about it, Doctor. Are you telling this jury that you are more qualified than a psychiatrist to render a diagnosis?”

  “That would depend on the training, background, and experience of the individual psychiatrist.”

  “And what is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means what I just said it does. A lot of psychiatrists spend their career treating wealthy neurotics. Or the rich and famous, for whom a psychiatrist would be a lot better choice than me.”

  “Because they could afford the higher prices a psychiatrist charges?”

  “No, because they can write prescriptions.”

  The judge started to tell the jury to be quiet, but then snapped his mouth closed like the jaws of the trap he’d almost stepped in.

  “Can we stop telling jokes and get back to the question at hand, Doctor?”

  “Is that a question?”

  “It’s … Very well, isn’t it true that a psychiatrist would have much more training than a psychologist?”

  “Maybe yes, maybe no. It’s always on a case-by-case basis. Anyway, it’s what you have training in that matters.”

  “Can you give the jury one single example of where a psychologist would have more useful experience than a psychiatrist?”

  “I could give you hundreds. And that doesn’t apply only to psychologists. It’s not some food chain, like you’re trying to make the jury believe. Some social workers—and, yes, they go to school for even fewer years than we do—have more expertise in any given subject than anyone else might.”

  “So you’re saying that field experience is worth more than academic knowledge?”

  “Of course it is,” T.D. said, smiling. I’d seen that smile before—on a man facing a straight razor, with a Derringer concealed in his hand.

  You could see that the woman wanted to stop T.D.’s train from rolling, but she was stuck on the flypaper. Anyone could see the jury was listening, and if she was the one to rob them of what they all wanted to hear …

  “Passing a written test doesn’t mean you’re actually going to be good at whatever you’re licensed to do,” T.D. went on. “You want a perfect example, think of all those incompetents on the road who passed the same driving test you did.”

  The woman finally had enough. “That’s your opinion,” she said, red-faced.

  “I don’t think much of any title—I look at people as individuals, not by whatever membership they hold,” T.D. rolled on, as if he was still answering her question. “Sometimes I see things on TV, like those guys who go deep-sea fishing for a living, and I realize they probably don’t have a degree in anything, but they must have had one hell of an education.”

  The prosecutor knew there was nothing more likely to tap the hearts of a jury coming from what was essentially a fishing village, and she just couldn’t leave it there.

  “Are you trying to tell us—?”

  “Your Honor, I have to object.” Swift rose wearily to his feet. “Counsel has not asked a single relevant question of this witness for quite some time. And every relevant question she asked has been answered. In depth. Her personal inability to understand what the expert is saying should not be attributed to anyone else in this courtroom.”

  Before the judge could rule, the woman stalked off in a huff. Walking right past Fat Face, as if this had been all his fault, before taking her seat.

  “My goodness!” Debbie said that night. “I was so worried about testifying. As an expert, I mean. But you make it seem so easy.”

  “It is easy, as long as you remember one rule: always tell the truth.”

  “But if the truth hurts your—”

  “That doesn’t matter,” T.D. insisted. “You don’t even bend the truth. You tell it straight out. Everyone who hires me knows that’s what they’re going to get. I do my work and tell them what I found; and then they either ask me to testify or they don’t.”

  “You mean, sometimes they don’t?”

  “Oh yeah,” T.D. said, smiling. “But when anyone asks me to step off the line, I always tell them I may not know much but I know that trying to ice-skate down a mountain is guaranteed not to work out.”

  “That’s perfect!” Dolly clapped her hands.

  I didn’t applaud. But I knew he was right.

  Qualifying Debbie never got past her saying she had personally interviewed more than one thousand rape victims, and had written several papers and a book on the subject. And her answer to Swift’s front question was the “education” T.D. had already told everyone was more valuable than any degree.

  “Secondary Rape Trauma Syndrome is what happens when someone has seen too many rape victims, heard too many rapes re-enacted, watched the permanent damage it does no matter what efforts are made to help. In a way, it’s worse than primary.”

  “That doesn’t seem logical, Doctor. Could you explain—?”

  “I’m not a doctor,” Debbie said, rather sternly. “I am a licensed clinical social worker.”

  “I apologize. But, for now, could you please tell the jury why those who have only seen rape victims after they had been raped could possibly be more traumatized than the victims themselves?”

  “Yes. Some children who have been raped have also been betrayed. That would be what we call a ‘Circle of Trust’ sexual assault. Either the perpetrator is trusted by the victim—this is most common in incest cases—or the perpetrator is trusted by the victim’s own parents: an athletic coach, a dance instructor, a religious figure.… That list is endless.

  “And some women learn to expect rape. During wartime, in many countries, rape has been the privilege of any soldier on the winning side. That’s why so many nurses who volunteer to work in a war zone carry cyanide capsules.

  “Despite all this, no matter what was done to them, some victims actually work through the trauma. For them, the victimization happened, but it never hardened into a permanent state of mind. The primary Rape Trauma Syndrome shows all the symptoms we would expect. But it’s only recently that we accepted that the secondary syndrome may often be more damaging.

  “Why? Because, to the individual who works in the field, the rape never stops. They see so many victims, one after the other after the other in an endless stream, that they begin to internalize some of the same symptoms.”

  “Such as?”

  “The feeling that rape is inevitable. That it can happen to anyone, at any time. To the wealthy as well as the poor. It doesn’t matter where they live, or how careful
they are, it can happen. After a while, the ‘can’ becomes ‘will.’ And once that terror is implanted, it takes years of intensive counseling to have even a chance against it.”

  “You examined the defendant in this case, MaryLou McCoy, did you not?”

  “I did.”

  “And your findings?”

  “MaryLou is a classic case of Secondary Rape Trauma Syndrome, although the full diagnosis would include a ‘by proxy’ subcategory.”

  “By proxy?”

  “MaryLou was not a rape victim. But she believed her sister was about to become one. Not only that, but there were definite indications that her sister may have been sexually abused prior to what the defendant believed was inevitable rape by this Cameron Taft and his gang.”

  “Judge …” Fat Face said.

  “The court has already ruled on this exact same issue, counsel. If you want me to repeat ‘subject to connection,’ you’ve got it.”

  “Your Honor,” Swift said wearily, “it should be obvious by now that the police department itself considers Tiger Ko Khai to be a gang, a gang most recently led by Cameron Taft. At least, we thought it was obvious. If Your Honor requires it, we can adjourn at the end of our case until Detective Lancer returns from training, and ask him to be even more explicit. But given the testimony this court has already heard, we are forced to now ask for a ruling as to whether the term ‘gang’ may be applied to Tiger Ko Khai by this and other witnesses.”

  “Your objection is overruled,” the judge told Fat Face. His meaning was unmistakable: If you hadn’t opened your big mouth, you wouldn’t have forced me into this. But, seeing as you couldn’t leave it alone, now you’re screwed.

  “You were saying?” Swift said, turning to face Debbie.

  “MaryLou feared not only that rape—the rape of her baby sister—was absolutely inevitable, but that it was imminent.”

  “What is the difference?”

  “It’s not a linguistic difference; it’s a therapeutic one. I mean, those are terms we use in my profession. ‘Inevitable’ means something that will eventually happen; ‘imminent’ means that something could happen at any minute.”

  “Or, perhaps, as soon as the victim drops her guard?”

  “Precisely. In Secondary, the victim believes that, the instant she drops her guard over all the victims she’s already seen, the trauma will reappear, like a fresh outbreak of a fatal disease.”

  “And as for MaryLou in particular?”

  “MaryLou believed, beyond any doubt, that when Danielle was no longer under her personal protection she would be gang-raped.”

  “This is a difficult question for me to ask, Ms. Rollo, but I have no choice. Was MaryLou’s fear justified?”

  “If you’re asking if her fear was based on reality, no, it was not, as both Danielle’s and Mr. Wayne’s testimony proved. As did Dr. Joel’s own evaluation. But if you’re asking if MaryLou’s fear was justified, the answer is: ‘Absolutely.’ On the evidence she had, MaryLou believed she could only protect Danielle if she … did what she did.”

  Swift was already seated before the final words were out of Debbie’s mouth.

  The third member of the prosecution team was male. Apparently, it was his job to make Fat Face look like a master of the courtroom.

  “Are you trying to tell us—?”

  “I am not trying to do anything but speak truthfully, in response to whatever questions I am asked and feel competent to answer.”

  “Fine. Tell us, then, how many rehearsal hours you put in with the defendant’s attorney?”

  “None.”

  “You are saying that you did not go over your testimony in advance? That defense counsel put you on the stand without knowing what you were going to say?”

  “I don’t know what Mr. Swift thought. He certainly was aware of my findings, and what I was going to testify to. But he never asked me specifically what I was going to say. And he most certainly never attempted to put words in my mouth.”

  “Oh, really?” the ace cross-examiner asked, putting all his years of practice behind his slimy sarcasm. “So you didn’t know that the defense in this case was going to be ‘justification,’ is that what you’re saying? And you didn’t know that a justification defense only works if the defendant had a ‘reasonable’ belief that an attack was ‘imminent’? Is all that what you want this jury to believe?”

  “What I want the jury to believe is that I told the truth. If your questions were actually questions, instead of nasty little cracks—”

  “Objection!” the idiot shouted. “Will the court please instruct this witness to confine her testimony to answering questions, not—”

  “Don’t call him any more names,” the judge told Debbie, risking his comb-over to make sure she could see he was on her side. And to have another look at her legs.

  Several members of the jury laughed out loud. The judge didn’t seem to have any objection to that, either.

  “Well?” the prosecutor demanded, as if the judge had ruled in his favor and the jury was in love with him.

  “I did know that the defense was going to be what you call ‘justification,’ although I suppose anyone in the courtroom would know that, just by listening. I had no idea of the legal significance of words such as ‘inevitable’ and ‘imminent.’ They may well have a different meaning in law than they do in counseling.”

  “I’ll just bet,” the little snot said.

  That was enough for Swift. “Judge, the prosecution has repeatedly requested that expert witnesses refrain from characterizing without a proper foundation. So, unless the prosecution has some actual evidence of these secret ‘rehearsals’ he wants the jury to believe took place, I think he owes this witness an apology.”

  “Nobody wants to hear your opinions,” the judge told the prosecutor, his voice reflecting the pulse of the room. “If you are ready to make an offer of proof, you and defense counsel may approach the bench. If you are not, you may sit down.”

  “But, Your Honor, I have not concluded my cross-examination of this witness.”

  “I think you have,” the judge told him.

  On redirect, all Swift did was ask Debbie if there would have been any way to stop MaryLou once she believed that the rape of her little sister was going to happen, and that it was going to happen as soon as MaryLou had left town.

  “Yes,” Debbie said, surprising the hell out of me, and making the jury sit up straight in their seats, some of them leaning forward to be sure not to miss a word.

  “How could that have been accomplished?”

  “If MaryLou had been referred to counseling, and the counselor was familiar with Secondary Rape Trauma Syndrome, then MaryLou could have been given the chance to process her feelings.”

  “Her feeling that her little sister was about to be raped?”

  “Her feeling that her little sister was certain to be raped. What is so difficult for those who haven’t actually seen the phenomenon to understand is that, to MaryLou, she herself had already been raped. When a person is made to watch or hear accounts of a loved one being raped, it is as if they themselves have been raped. Tortured. Dehumanized.”

  Swift started to ask another question, then shook his head as if to say, There! That should be enough for anyone, and simply said, “Thank you, Ms. Rollo.”

  A whispered discussion broke out among the four deputies. Finally, Fat Face himself rose to his feet, making sure everyone knew he was in charge.

  “Ms. Rollo, you used the word ‘dehumanized.’ Are you telling this jury that the defendant didn’t know right from wrong at the time she shot and killed Cameron Taft?”

  “No, I am not.”

  “Well, then, will you tell us what ‘dehumanized’ means?”

  “In the context I used it, ‘dehumanized’ refers to a person who feels absolutely powerless. Facing an inhuman situation—being forced to watch the gang rape of a loved one, for example—the victim would feel as if she herself had no human persona. That she ha
d been robbed of the power to do what any decent human being should do—”

  “Like kill an unarmed man?”

  “If that unarmed man was engaged in the rape of a loved one, not to interfere, not to stop the—”

  “But there was no gang rape going on when the defendant shot and killed—”

  “Your Honor,” Swift said, “I have yet to hear of a cross-examination style which consists of constantly interrupting the witness. May I respectfully request that the court instruct counsel for the—”

  “Oh, this witness seems to be handling herself just fine,” the judge said.

  Christ, why doesn’t he just ask her for a date? I thought.

  “As I was saying,” Fat Face continued, the grin on his greasy face showing he was actually stupid enough to think he was winning this round. But before he could go further, Debbie cut him off at the knees:

  “There was no gang rape actually in process,” she told the jury, “but MaryLou believed one was going to happen. As you said, ‘imminently.’ ”

  “I didn’t say any such—”

  “Does the prosecutor think he’s on the stand now?” Swift said.

  Before the judge could rule, Debbie started talking again.

  “In Secondary Rape Trauma Syndrome, the person who believes they should have prevented the rape of another and failed to do so feels as if they had been raped themselves. A person who cannot protect themselves, especially a physically gifted individual such as MaryLou, can become so trapped in self-blame that they often act without regard to consequences.”

  “So the defendant did know right from wrong?”

  “Those concepts would not have been in her mind at the time of … the event.”

  “Because she was out of her mind?”

  “No,” Debbie said, with just a little exasperation in her tone. “That, again, is not what I said. MaryLou wasn’t what you seem to be implying. That is, ‘crazy’ in some way. She knew what she was doing. What you fail to understand is that, in her mind, she was doing the right thing. Not only to protect her little sister, but to regain her own humanity.”

  “Those are some pretty extreme terms, aren’t they, Ms. Rollo?”