Last Lie (15 page)

Interesting.
"When exactly did all this happen? When did Casey get the lid on?"

Sam shook his head. I took it to mean that he knew the answer to my question but he wasn't going to tell me. Casey's involvement had probably started early--sometime Saturday, maybe even Saturday morning, hours after the assault. But if my neighbors left town in that limo on Saturday morning, how could they have arranged for Casey's representation? How could they even have known at that point that they needed representation?

No later than Sunday, I decided. Casey Sparrow was on board by Sunday.

I knew a lot more about the events we were discussing than I was letting on to Sam, but Sam's story was confusing me anyway. "I'm sorry, Sam. I don't get it. I really appreciate that you're telling me this, I just don't think I understand the message that you have buried in there."

Sam's a big guy. His head is the size of a late-summer cantaloupe. His chest is broad. His shoulders and biceps are so thick and strong that his arms don't ever hang perpendicular to the ground. In the time I'd known him he'd gone on and off diets more often than a senior Southwest pilot's gone on and off 737s.

He leaned forward, plopped his elbows on the table, rounded those huge shoulders, and curled his forearms around all of his food and most of mine. Either he was protecting his dinner, or he was creating an enclosure suitable for revealing a confidence.

I'd poked my upper body into caves smaller than the space he'd created for us. He gestured toward the flat screen. "See that layup?"

I looked up. "Kobe?" I said. "He's good."

"Mr. Kobe Bryant. Better than good. Great. Remember the rape accusations? What was that hotel? Up near Vail?"

Oh God,
I thought.
Not that.

19

I
was hoping--okay, I was praying--that Sam didn't really want to rehash one of the most prominent criminal set pieces in Colorado's recent decade of notorious crimes.

I didn't want to talk about Kobe Bryant unless it had to do with the new basketball season. Actually, I didn't want to talk about the new basketball season if it meant I had to talk about Kobe Bryant and that hotel in Eagle County. I almost said that to Sam. But I didn't. I answered his question. "Cordillera," I said. "Above Edwards." When Lauren and I used to ski, and didn't ski closer to the Front Range, we could often be found on Arrowhead Mountain. I knew the slopes near Cordillera well.

"That one. Remember what came down? Between Kobe Bryant and that hotel employee. When was that? It was sometime after JonBenet was killed. The media people--I use both words generously--who were hanging around annoying everyone in Boulder about the Ramsey grand jury ran to their vans, caravanned down 93, hopped on 70, and just started broadcasting Kobe stories from Vail. Didn't miss a beat. Two thousand and three, maybe? Was it that long ago? Man.

"Anyway, Kobe was arrested. For sexual friggin' assault. Actually
arrested.
Booked. Sheriff picked him up before presenting the results of the investigation to the DA, which is not something we would normally do here in Boulder. That's something to remember, Alan. But . . . the media was orgasmic. Almost immediately, accusations started flying in both directions. Lots of mud got thrown by both sides. Crap went on for a year.

"But Kobe just kept up the Kobe magic. Dishing. Playing D
.
Driving the lane. Hitting the impossible J
.
After a year of fancy attorneys jabbering on both sides--the accuser had her attorneys, too--everybody busy sending out their hot-shit investigators and planning all their lawyer wizard moves, the pretrial hearings finally got started. It was a true mountain circus. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my."

Sam attempted a falsetto for the
oh my.
It didn't go particularly well.

"The judge does something then that nobody expects. He grants Mr. Bryant's attorneys' motion to allow testimony about the accuser's sexual behavior in the brief time period just before and
after
the incident in question. It was a big friggin' shock to people who thought Colorado's rape shield law would insulate her. The ruling meant the alleged victim was going to have to testify about her sexual behavior just before and right after her encounter with Mr. Bryant." He raised one of his shrubby eyebrows for my benefit. "There were press reports that the defendant's investigators had a witness who was going to testify that he had sex with the accuser less than a day after the alleged rape. That wouldn't look good to a jury. Right?" Sam shot both hands into the air. "It was a three-pointer at the buzzer for Mr. Bryant's attorney wizard.

"The accuser's attorney wizard can't let that stand, of course. They fire off a response almost immediately. The accuser files a civil suit against Mr. Bryant only weeks
before
the criminal trial begins. DAs I know tell me that is dangerous territory--I mean legally dangerous--for an accuser. Filing that civil suit at that stage of the case got my particular attention. Do you remember all that, how it came down?"

"Vaguely," I said, though I remembered little. I didn't know where Sam was going or what the recent events in Spanish Hills had to do with Kobe Bryant's dark Colorado legal legacy. I did know that I didn't want to revisit any of it. I was hoping there was a quick point. "Is this history lesson necessary, Sam?"

"You betcha," he said. "Well, this thing got bigger, faster. Even the Supremes got involved, but I won't bore you with that. Jury selection finally began--you know, just like it was going to be a real criminal case. Then, like hours or something before opening statements, the accuser--the alleged victim--informed the prosecutor that she would be refusing to testify at the trial."

Sam's face became a bad caricature of a weeping mime. "Turns out the Eagle County prosecutor was no dummy. For law enforcement, in your typical he said/she said acquaintance-rape case, the absence of victim testimony creates a serious problem, you know what I mean? Goes from he said/she said to just, well, he said. My experience is that when only the defendant tells the jury his story, it pretty much guarantees an acquittal. So I'm not blaming the prosecutor for laying down his cards at that point. He knew his choices were limited to either subpoena the vic to testify against her will, or drop the criminal charges against Mr. Bryant. He dropped the charges. No argument from me."

I was hoping to save us some time. I said, "Is that what you think is going to happen here? With what happened in Spanish Hills?"

Sam ignored me. "Turned out that wasn't the end of the story. Since this was no longer going to be the kind of criminal case where the search for justice involves, you know, a courtroom, the lawyers for both sides wanted to do some, well, let's call it damage control. And their next move--both sides, go figure again--was to file motions with the court asking for the charges against Mr. Bryant to be dismissed 'with prejudice.' Do you know what that means, Alan? 'With prejudice'?"

My wife was a deputy DA. I knew. I said, "It means the same charge can't be refiled by the prosecutor in the future. What I don't know is why the hell would the accuser's attorney take that position?"

"Why indeed," Sam said in a self-satisfied tone. "Seems to me that at that moment the accuser took the sharpest arrow out of her own quiver, broke it over her knee, and promised never ever to fletch a new one."

Sam was one of the only people I knew who would use
fletch
in a sentence. I didn't tell him that.

"But the legal surprises were just beginning. At the time, I was thinking that Mr. Bryant would choose to slink away. No criminal charges left to fight? No future criminal charges to haunt him? Training camp about to start? I figured he would jet back to SoCal and take his with-prejudice ruling with him. Let his . . . superstar persona recover in the California sun.

"But no! He did what I consider a remarkable thing. He issued a public statement through--I'm not kidding--his accuser's attorney. Not
his
own attorney.
Her
attorney. To my way of thinking about these things, it was a most surprising moment in the history of alleged perpdom. For me, it was yet another dazzling three-pointer at the buzzer, but Mr. Kobe Bryant appeared to have shot this one into the wrong team's basket."

My mouth hung open for any number of reasons.

"Do you remember it? Mr. Bryant's statement?" Sam asked.

"Sam, I have only the vaguest recollection. I try not to pay much attention to--"

"Celebrities? Right. You're above that."

I looked at him with pain in my eyes, hoping, vainly, for compassion. "Exactly."

He smiled in an unkind way. "The public statement the accuser's lawyer read for Mr. Bryant wasn't your usual I'm-sorry-if-anyone-was-offended or I'm-sorry-if-my-behavior-was-misinterpreted celebrity nonapology apology. Nope.

"A little history. The order of events was crucial. Here's how it came down: First, the alleged vic refuses to testify, and then the charges get dropped.
With
prejudice. Then, Mr. Bryant apparently finds some . . . impulse . . . for public compassion, or he discovers some latent remorse, and he has his accuser's lawyer read that apology.
Kind of
an apology, actually, but I'll get to that later.

"Note the order. B came before C. Absolutely not C before B. Mr. Bryant didn't announce any public compassion or remorse before the alleged vic refused to testify, or certainly before her attorney wizards got the charges dropped with prejudice.

"Keeping track, Alan? With me?"

"Taking mental notes, Sam."

"Glad to hear it. And then
poof,
a surprise. A bit of, well, profound perplexity turns up buried in the middle of that public statement. See, the specific sequence of events, the B before C, allowed Mr. Bryant to announce, as part of that apology--I'm continuing to use the word loosely--that the criminal case against him had ended with
no money
having been paid to the woman."

Sam is generally careful with the English language, or as careful with the English language as a natural born Iron Ranger is capable of being. I asked, "Sam, you keep saying B before C
.
Where's A?"

"Good. Shows me you're paying attention. I like that. We will get there. I promise. May I proceed?"

"Could I stop you?" Sam didn't care a whit about my assent.

"No." He ate a french fry. I didn't think he chewed it. "I don't know how else to read the peculiar statement of Mr. Bryant's--and I've read it a few times, almost have it memorized--but he seems to have been asserting a most mystifying fact: that no money had been paid to his accuser prior to her decision not to testify. He seems to have been announcing"--Sam's face was wide-eyed--"that he had not induced the alleged victim not to testify by, well, bribing her.

"And since her attorney was reading the statement, she, the accuser, must have also wanted the public to know she wasn't a bribed witness. Which is admirable behavior on both parts, yes?"

"Sarcasm?" I asked. I wasn't always sure with Sam.

"Personally?" Sam said, ignoring me. "Regarding Mr. Bryant? I thought it should be one of those 'goes without saying' things. I tend to think it's something we expect of our idols and superstars--they don't trip old ladies, they don't smother kittens, and they don't go around bribing potential witnesses in criminal cases--but maybe that's just me being old-fashioned. But said or unsaid, still, admirable behavior. So, I guess we give Mr. Bryant props for not bribing his accuser, yes?"

I made a mental note to go online and find Mr. Bryant's statement. I couldn't believe the statement actually said what Sam was maintaining it said.

Sam rotated his head side to side in a wide arc, as though pins were standing tall on each of his shoulders and he was determined to use his bowling ball of a skull to try to pick up the 7-10 split. He said, "You think I'm being facetious? We all know that Mr. Bryant had considerable personal wealth at that time in his life, a fortune that a lesser, more morally compromised accused celebrity rapist
might
have attempted to use to encourage his alleged victim's silence. Though, dear Lord, behavior like that would have been tawdry, wouldn't it?"

I laughed. "Did you say
tawdry
?"

"Other than that one time I was in New Orleans, where it just seems so natural a word, I get few opportunities," Sam said.

Sam had a master's degree in lit. In the time I'd known him, evidence of his fondness for language leaked out at unexpected times. This long harangue was like the mother lode. I said, "What you're describing--purchasing his accuser's silence--in addition to being tawdry, also would have been a felony, right? For both of them?"

"There is that. Which, I imagine, was as good a reason as any why the attorneys on both sides were intent on reminding the world in Mr. Bryant's statement that he hadn't, in fact, done it. The bribing-the-accuser thing. Though I continue to think that most people in his shoes would have been reluctant to bring the topic up at all. To me? It was kind of like walking out of your hostess's powder room at a crowded cocktail party and announcing in a loud voice that it wasn't you who had just taken a dump in there."

20

S
am was on his game. I was actually starting to enjoy myself a little.

"In the statement, Mr. Bryant clearly admitted misbehavior. He says he committed adultery. He admitted that sexual acts occurred the day in question in Cordillera with 'this woman.' He also freely acknowledged that, upon further consideration, he might even have misinterpreted the young woman's impression of what was, let's say, 'consensual.' Why do I choose to call it that? Because Mr. Bryant did. And who am I to argue with the accused in his own statement?

"So, Mr. Bryant admits he's a cad, but we all assume that celebrities are cads, don't we? Some of them, at least? Sure, we do. And, because Mr. Bryant apologized publicly--I continue to be generous with the definition of the word; a careful reading will indicate he doesn't
technically
apologize to the young woman, though he repeatedly states that he
wants
to apologize to her. I still don't understand what was getting in his way--what was keeping him from
actually
apologizing, and not just
wanting
to apologize--but that's me picking nits.

"The point is that we, the public, if we're so inclined, could have concluded, after hearing that public statement from Mr. Bryant, that the Laker superstar is a stand-up guy. He was someone who could apologize and admit that he was wrong--or at the very least, he is someone who could sincerely
want
to apologize and freely admit that he might have misinterpreted the whole 'consensual' component of his sexual compact with 'this woman,' whom he'd known for all of fifteen minutes."

Sam had ceased camouflaging his sarcasm. His eyes went wide. "Which is kind of like admitting being wrong, right? In Hollywood, anyway. Or Vail. Yeah?" Sam's grin as he paused was subtle. He didn't want an answer from me. He kept the charming smirk on his face for about five seconds before he added, "Since he knew that all criminal charges had been dropped, with prejudice."

I leaned back far enough that I could take a long draw of my beer without hitting Sam in the face with the bottom of my glass. I was hoping he'd concluded the Kobe Bryant retrospective. No such luck. Over Sam's shoulder, on the flat screen, I watched Kobe hit an impossible fall-away jumper over Dirk. The man had crazy talent.

Sam wasn't done. "In that same remarkable statement, Mr. Bryant revealed another important side agreement between the opposing attorneys. He says that his accuser had agreed not to use his statement of apology against him in the upcoming civil suit."

Sam sighed. I thought it might be at my failure to applaud. Any disappointment he was feeling with me turned out to be brief. He continued. "Now, there was an obvious inference to be made. Since the statement referred to agreements involving the upcoming civil suit, the easy inference was that Mr. Bryant's public statement was
actually
negotiated between his attorneys and the alleged victim's attorneys. Who else, after all, could have given Mr. Bryant the assurances he had received about the future introduction of evidence in the civil suit?

"More puzzles," Sam said, looking puzzled. "Why would the attorneys from the plaintiff's side be negotiating the components of a public-statement-slash-apology with the defendant's attorneys? And why would the plaintiff's attorneys be making agreements about what evidence they would not attempt to admit in a possible future civil trial? Although the charges had been dropped in the criminal case, the civil suit was, after all, still pending. At that time, it represented the alleged rape victim's last hope at justice."

I thought it was a great question. Legal ethics weren't my strong suit, but it seemed that the kind of agreement between the opposing attorneys that Sam was describing must have been a breach of something important. Or if it wasn't, it should have been.

Sam shook his big head again. "Ah, lawyer shit. Honestly, the can't-use-any-of-this-at-the-civil-trial part of the whole public apology was kind of a letdown for me. Why? That meant to me that Mr. Bryant already knew his jeopardy was kaput. E-vap-o-rated. It was like Mr. Bryant had the Get Out of Jail Free card in his pocket the whole time his accuser's attorney was almost-apologizing for him.

"It'd be like my kid saying, 'Yeah, I'm the one who shot the street hockey puck through the front window, Dad,' but only after he'd negotiated assurances with me that not only wouldn't he be grounded, but neither would he have to pay to have the pane of glass replaced." Sam caught my eyes and smiled in the kind of devious manner I wouldn't want to see on a cop's face were I a civilian in some kind of trouble. "Again, though, I'm probably picking nits."

I certainly hadn't remembered the segment of Bryant's statement about the upcoming civil suit. Something else for me to check on Wikipedia.

My level of interest was increasing but was also increasingly irrelevant. I was buckled into a ride of set duration with Sam. I consoled myself that Sam didn't often waste my time. Something relevant this way had to come.

"Know what happened next? After the peculiar statement with the almost apology?"

"Pins and needles, my friend."

His expression revealed disappointment with my sarcasm. But he raised his hands in sudden exclamation. "See, because of the quality choreography accomplished by the attorney wizards--I'm thinking on both sides, accuser and accused--nobody knows what happened next. Well, the choreographers do, obviously. The lawyers. But not us, not Joe Q. All the public really knows is that Kobe went back to L.A. on a private jet and played more Lakers hoops. Over time, he got his full-on celebrity back. Got his endorsements back, or maybe he got new ones, better ones. Fair to say--and this is more personal opinion than fact--he even seems to have gotten his mojo back." Sam glanced up at the TV, where Kobe was busy doing Kobe magic. "Man's on
Sports Center
a lot. I know. I watch it almost every night. Play of the Night? Play of the Week? Mr. Bryant.

"And his pretty wife? Don't forget her. She's a victim in all this, too, right? Who knows, maybe she forgave him for what he did. Tabloids say she got a big ring for her pain and aggravation and humiliation. Mr. Bryant eventually got more rings of his own, too. Championship rings. And later on, he got himself an Olympic gold medal.

"The vic? I mean, if she
was
a vic. To be fair, we don't actually know that, do we? By 'we,' I'm talking Joe Q. Since there was never a criminal trial, or even a trial of the civil complaint, we don't know what really happened in that hotel room, do we? Other than adultery, I mean.

"Well, as far as I can tell, the alleged vic has disappeared. Hopefully--I'd like to think--voluntarily. Some cops have told me that they think the next time we see her will be when she shows up on
Oprah
or
Ellen
. Or as guest host on
The View.
But I don't think that's going to happen. I think the choreography that was put in place includes a prohibition against her ever performing in those particular venues. Anyway, for now? She's history."

I shrugged. The relevance continued to elude me. My fries were almost gone, which was even more of a tragedy.

Sam said, "Big picture? Ready? A cynic--you know, someone like you--might suggest that the entire order of events was . . . choreographed from the start. Not just the part we know about, the B before C
.
But also the crucial step, A, and the concluding step, D
.
"

Finally,
I was hoping.
The point.

"I promised you I would get back to A
,
didn't I? So here goes. Remember O. J.? His acquittal?"

I groaned audibly. "Sam, please. No. Don't make me--"

He held up an index finger. "Not what you think. Only one small point from that dark hole. Promise. Mr. Goldman, the father of one of the murder victims in the infamous Simpson murder case, waited until well after the phantasmagoric conclusion of the criminal trial to file his ultimately successful civil suit against Mr. Simpson. You recall?"

"Yes," I said. "I do remember that."

"When it's done at all--the civil suit option--that's the way it's typically done. If a criminal trial ends with an acquittal, the victim or the victim's family will take their pleas for justice to civil court. Like it or not, fair or not, for aggrieved victims the civil suit, with its lower threshold for culpability, often feels like a final chance at achieving something resembling justice."

I could finally see where Sam was heading. I said, "But in the Cordillera case, the victim--"

"Alleged victim."

"The alleged victim in Cordillera filed her civil suit while the criminal charges were still pending against Mr. Bryant."

"Exactly," Sam said. "For whatever reason, the alleged victim's attorneys must have thought it wise to get an extra card in their client's hand early on. But why would they think that? Were they anticipating losing during the criminal trial? Or were they, perhaps, seeking more leverage? Maybe, but what could possibly be more of an ominous portent to Mr. Bryant than a criminal conviction that promised significant incarceration?"

Ominous portent
indeed. My friend was on a roll.

"The answer to that is 'nothing.' Which leaves me to speculate: Had the young woman's lawyer wizards already decided that the criminal case against Mr. Bryant was about to . . . go . . . away? Had they already advised her, because the judge had ruled that her sexual behavior in the days before and after the rape was fair game in the trial, that she should never testify? We, Joe Q.," Sam said in the voice of an over-the-top documentary narrator, "are left to wonder. I mean, what do we actually
know
? Well, all we can do is look at the public record to observe the sequence of the steps of the public dance that the lawyer wizards choreographed for their respective clients.

"First, the stage is set with the dark prologue: whatever happened in the hotel suite in Cordillera. And then . . . criminal charges hang over the accused's head.

"That leads us to A, when that surprise civil suit got filed, then B
,
when the alleged vic refused to testify and charges got dropped, then C, when Mr. Bryant quasi-apologized, and finally D, when the civil suit is . . . settled.
Da, da, da, daaaa.
"

One of the surprising things about Sam Purdy is that he's a graceful dancer. I'd seen him bust it more than a few times. The man did not embarrass himself on a ballroom floor. He broke into a seated version of some dance moves right then. His shoulders swayed. He rocked his hips. "With me? It's a one, and a two, and a three." He paused, opening his eyes wide. His forehead is so big that for a moment the tableau looked like a couple of dark pool balls hard against the cushion of a pinkish flesh-colored table. "With a surprising little four thrown in at the end. All in all, a nice tight little legal shuffle. All choreographed, in advance, by . . .?"

I applauded gently. "The attorney wizards," I said. I was finally catching on.

"Yessss. Not the court. No. Not the prosecutor. Not the cops in Eagle County, I can promise you that. Take it from me, cops don't know these kinds of steps. To learn these kinds of steps, you need lawyers. The more wizardy, the better.

"And, oh yeah, that civil suit the accused filed? The one that started before the criminal case ended, the one that miraculously went away as part of the attorney tango's final steps? Well, it turns out that the terms of that settlement--there had to be a settlement, right?--were never disclosed. I'm presuming that the alleged vic got a cash settlement of some kind. Big? Small? If I were a betting man, I'd put my money on big. But that's a guess. All details remain undisclosed.

"Now, thing is, I don't recall Mr. Bryant's attorney, or the accuser's attorney, reading another public statement at that point or holding a press conference to repeat the earlier contention that no money had been paid to settle the civil action. I actually went back and looked, but if Mr. Bryant or his attorney or her attorney released a second statement like that, I'm afraid I somehow missed it completely. May mean nothing, but I'm thinking if indeed no money had been paid to allow the civil suit to settle, it would have served Mr. Bryant well to issue another statement. From a purely public relations point of view. Experience has taught me that prominent people do pay heed to PR concerns."

He gave me a moment to disagree. I didn't.

He transitioned to full whisper. "Mr. Bryant's earlier statement that no money was paid to that woman? I'm thinking it became, well, inoperative once the civil suit settled.

"And this is going to shock you, my friend, but I am someone who has dark private moments when I'm known to question the purity of the human heart. I, and I do feel some occasional shame about this, I have even had moments when I've believed that the lawyers in that case--Mr. Bryant's lawyers and the alleged vic's lawyers--may actually have arranged the whole darn thing in advance. Every last bit of it.

"Well, maybe not every last bit. Not all the steps, of course. Not the sexual indiscretion. That was ad-libbed by Mr. Bryant. And the sheriff in Eagle County was solely responsible for his bold move--arresting the celebrity. We can all agree that it's not the same dance without those first notes being played.

"But the other steps? The civil suit getting filed, the alleged vic refusing to testify in the criminal case, the nobody-bribed-anybody thing, Mr. Bryant almost apologizing, the suitable interval ensuing, the civil suit flying away on that private jet with Mr. Bryant, the possibility that money finally did change hands outside the public view, and then . . . no further public statements or quasi-apologies.

"What if those steps were nothing more than the public evidence of an elaborate exit strategy concocted far in advance by lawyer wizards who are very good at dancing just this side of . . . some important line?"

Sam gave me a moment to reply. I shook my head, declining the opportunity. "Do you know that one of Mr. Bryant's own lawyers called the statement read by the accuser's attorney--her client's own statement--the 'price of freedom' required of Mr. Bryant by the accuser? She said 'freedom.' His own lawyer said fucking
freedom.