Motion to Dismiss (4 page)

"The complaining wit -- "

Otherwise known as
the bitch
. "Deirdre," I said. "The woman making the complaint."

Grady looked glum. "She says I raped her. That's what people are going to remember."

I drove Grady home, dropping him off at the door without going in myself. I figured Nina and Grady had a lot of ground to cover in private.

"I'll come by this evening," I told him. "Fill you in on anything new I learn."

Then I headed back downtown to see Madelaine Rivera, the prosecutor assigned our case. Muni court, where we'd been earlier that afternoon, is housed in a boxlike building that also holds the city jail. The offices of the district attorney, along with superior court, are located in a historic and charming, if less well-appointed, building that actually looks like a courthouse.

I took the elevator to the ninth floor, passed through the D.A.'s reception area, and knocked on Madelaine's door. Our paths had crossed professionally in the past, and although I didn't know her well, we were on good terms.

"Hi, Maddy," I said leaning into the office. "You got a minute?"

She looked up and smiled briefly. "Three of them. But no more. I've got a hearing I need to prepare for."

Madelaine Rivera is shorter than I am, probably about five three, and thickly built. Her hair is dark, as are her eyes. She's not unattractive, but there's a harshness about her that, in my opinion, detracts from her appearance.

"Is this about the Barrett hearing?" she asked in her customary clipped tone.

I nodded, slipping in to take the seat across from her. "You really think you have a strong enough case to take this to trial?"

"I wouldn't have pushed for an arrest if I thought otherwise."

"It's my client's word against the woman's."

"It usually is."

I crossed my arms and leaned back. "Grady Barrett is going to be a strong witness." It was the same argument I'd discounted last evening with Marc. And I wasn't any more convinced now than I had been then. But Madelaine Rivera didn't have to know that.

She bunched a handful of wiry hair with her fist and pushed it off her face. "I know who he is. I saw that big writeup about him in the paper last week. One of the Bay Area's entrepreneurial hotshots. But that doesn't mean he's not human. Even priests and presidents screw up." She smiled. "Frequently by screwing around."

"I'm serious, Maddy. It's not just his reputation. Grady's a believable guy. He's got that charming, sincere demeanor that wins people over."

"Are you saying that good-looking guys shouldn't be held accountable?"

"He didn't rape her. The woman's story is going to unravel before your eyes."

"Now, where have I heard that before?" Her voice was thick with sarcasm.

There was a shuffling sound in the hallway. Madelaine turned and smiled at the lanky blond cop outside her door. "You waiting to see me?"

He gave her a look, something between a grin and a wink. "I'll catch you later."

She turned back to me and for just a moment I caught an unexpected softness in her eyes. Then it was gone.

"Guys like your client think they're above the law," she said, sounding as though she were winding up to address a political rally. "The way they see it, they don't have to answer to anyone. And if you ask me, they get away with it far too often. It's an opinion shared by a lot of folks out there, I might add."

"Is that why you're pushing this forward? To get even with guys who've managed to make it to the top?"

Madelaine rolled her pen between her palms. "What I'm doing is upholding the law."

"What about this complaining witness, Deirdre Nichols?" I heard the sneer in my voice, and I didn't like it. "How's she going to stack up against a guy like Grady?"

The corners of Madelaine's mouth twitched. "Better than you think."

"She let herself get picked up at a bar. How smart is that?"

"It was a private party, not that it matters. And Ms. Nichols isn't some simpleminded airhead. She's got a steady job and a young daughter. She does the mom thing for the kid's birthdays and holidays. Goes to church regularly, plus she's taking classes at night to get her degree."

Great. A regular Ms. Wholesome.

"Anyway, we've got more than just her complaint." Madelaine picked up a pen from her desk and clicked it a couple of times. "People at the party saw them together. Your client was drooling over her. Several people saw them leave together. And we have a witness who heard shrieks coming from her place that night."

"Shrieks?"

"Okay, heated sounds. But it's enough."

"So maybe they had sex. Two consenting adults and all." That wasn't the way Grady wanted to play it, but he might not have a choice.

"Then why would she suddenly change her mind and cry foul? It's not like she's some sixteen-year-old kid with a mother looking over her shoulder."

I shrugged. "Women sometimes feel guilty, even in these enlightened times."

"Besides," Madelaine said, brushing aside the pop psychology, "there were bruises on her arms. Big, ugly ones. And a nasty-looking abrasion on her cheek."

"Fresh?"

"You betcha." Madelaine held her pen eye level, as though sighting down the barrel of a gun. "Your client's going to pay for this, Kali. All his money and fancy house and club memberships won't help him one bit." She dropped the pen and smiled. "They may even work against him."

Grady wasn't at home when I dropped by later that evening.

"He's at the office," Simon told me, narrowing his eyes as though I'd been personally responsible for Grady's recent tribulations. "Would you like me to see if Mrs. Barrett is available?"

I nodded. "Please."

I'd brought along a briefcase containing copies of the police report and sworn statement of the complaining witness, as well as a yellow pad of notes from my conversation with Madelaine Rivera. I'd promised Grady an update, but I was just as happy he wasn't there. I much preferred to visit with Nina, who had been "asleep" both times I'd called earlier in the day.

Simon returned a moment later and invited me inside. "I'm glad you're here," he confided. "I think she could use some cheering up."

I wasn't so sure I was the right person for the job. Not under the present circumstances at any rate. I was uncomfortable with Grady's behavior, and even more uncomfortable with his lying to Nina. I felt sure she would sense some of my awkwardness.

I knocked on the open bedroom door. Nina was propped up in bed amid a cloud of soft down pillows -- a position she'd once considered the height of luxury and had come, over the last month of forced bed rest, to detest.

"You up to some company?" I asked.

"Absolutely." Nina hit the remote, lowering the volume on the television. I didn't recognize the movie, but since it featured Cary Grant, it had to have been an old one. On the covers next to her lay an open book, spine out. The same biography she'd been reading for over a week.

I pulled the floral chintz chair closer to the bed. "How are you doing?"

"Truthfully?"

I nodded.

She picked at a thread of the comforter, then laughed. It was a harsh, almost hysterical sound devoid of any humor. I could see that her neck was red where she'd been scratching it, a nervous habit she'd had as long as I'd known her. "I think I'm about to lose my fucking mind. Aside from that, I'm feeling just dandy."

"You do have a lot coming at you all at once."

"Don't I though." Another stab at a laugh. "Funny thing is, before this stuff with Grady, I'd sort of made peace with the situation. I mean, we're almost out of the woods with the baby, and the other ... well, I'm not looking forward to the chemo, but I figured I'd buy a wig, smoke some grass, and hope to hell the drugs massacre every damn one of those cancer cells. I'd even gotten to where I could think about something else on occasion. Something normal, like having the carpets cleaned or what I'd wear to Emily's ballet recital. And now this ... this mess with Grady. I can't figure out whether I'm hurt, angry, or worried."

"You have every reason to be all three." I felt my throat growing tight, as it often did when we talked of Nina's troubles. It seemed unfair that fate had chosen to dump so many ills on such a good person.

"It's so hard to lie here, helpless. There's nothing normal at all about my life anymore."

"Someday all of it will be behind you. Look at the progress you've made with the baby. He's going to make it, Nina. And so are you." The words sounded hollow to my own ears, but I didn't know what else to say.

"The power of positive thinking. If only it were that easy." But Nina smiled, this time with genuine warmth. "I appreciate what you're trying to do, all the same."

She hugged herself and shifted her gaze to the window and the blue of the San Francisco Bay beyond. If you had to be confined to bed, you couldn't ask for a better view. "How's it look, Kali? The truth."

"I'm not sure I know enough yet to form an opinion."

"First impression, then."

"Better than I expected."

Based on the reports at least.

The woman had admitted that she'd been drinking, that she and Grady had been "flirting," as she put it, and dancing "close." She acknowledged that she'd invited him in after he'd given her a ride home. The fact that the alleged rape occurred on a Saturday and she hadn't reported it until Tuesday cut in our favor as well.

On the other hand, there were the bruises. They weren't as ugly as Madelaine Rivera had suggested, at least not in the photograph I'd been given, but they weren't the sort of thing you got bumping into an open door either.

"How come Marc wasn't there today?" she asked.

"He's got his hands full at ComTech. Damage control." I tried to make light of it, but I was irked that Marc had tossed it in my lap at the last minute. Rape defense attorney wasn't a title I much wanted.

Nina twisted her wedding ring. "Do you know anything about the woman?"

"Only what Grady told me. She apparently has a friend who works at ComTech." I hesitated a moment. "Did you ask him about her?"

"He says he can't even remember what she looks like. He met her at the office party and she asked for a ride home. End of story." There was a moment's pause, then Nina pulled herself straight and smacked her open hand against the bedcover. "How could Grady do this?"

I shrugged noncommittally. I didn't think she was looking for an answer.

"If nothing else, it's just plain stupid."

"I can't argue with that." Grady might be a hotshot in the world of computers and marketing, but that didn't mean he was immune to stupidity. Particularly male stupidity.

"In case you're wondering," Nina added, "I don't believe he raped her. Grady is a lot of things, but not that." She shook her head, as though to convince herself.

"I'm glad you're on his side," I told her. "He's going to need your support."

She shook her head again, more emphatically. "Don't misunderstand me. I don't think he raped the woman, but I'm not naive. There's more to this than the innocent lift home that Grady claims. You don't cry rape for nothing."

That's what troubled me. If the sex had been consensual, which I was inclined to believe it had been, why would she later say she was raped?

"If you don't mind my asking -- " I hesitated, uncertain whether I was speaking as lawyer or friend. "You said something last night about Grady having had an affair."

Nina swallowed, then nodded. "It was a couple of years ago, right after you moved to Silver Creek. His secretary, of all things. I mean, how trite. She was practically young enough to be his daughter."

"You never said anything."

"I was numb. And as soon as I found out, Grady broke it off. He said he was sorry, stupid, ashamed. And I think he really was."

Nina's fingers grazed the comforter, tracing the outline of a pink rosebud. "I fell in love with Grady because he's generous, compassionate, intelligent, funny too -- although that's a side of him most people don't see. He's someone I enjoyed being with, and I still do. But he's also someone who needs to have his ego indulged. He needs to know that he's
somebody
."

The intricacies of human relationships always amaze me. "So you forgave him," I said, thinking how difficult that must have been.

"I don't know that
forgave
is the right word, but we moved on. I was terribly hurt. He promised me it would never happen again."

Nina ran a hand through her hair, pulling the top section back in a knot. She looked at me. "Why? Do you think he was having another affair?"

This was the moment to come clean if I was going to. Tell her that
affair
might not be the right word, but that Grady had cheated on her. Get it out in the open. I could feel my pulse racing as I debated.

Finally, I shook my head. "Just asking."

With a sigh of exasperation Nina let the hair fall loose again. "What do you think really happened that night?"

Once again the friend in me warred with the lawyer. I hedged with a shrug.

We'd probably never know what actually transpired that night. Two people, two different versions of the evening's events. Most likely, one of them was embroidering the truth, at least a bit. Perhaps both of them. It was even possible that each honestly believed the evening had unfolded the way they claimed it had. The hardest thing of all was to predict which variant the jury would accept.

"On the bright side," I said, leaving the slippery slope of half-truth, "the jury in the Sandborn case came back today. We won. Sandborn didn't get a cent."

"Good work, Kali."

"You'd done all the work. All I had to do was follow the script."

The flickering television screen caught Nina's attention. She reached for the remote and turned up the volume. "I bet Grady made the evening news."

"Maybe you shouldn't -- "

She glared in my direction. "Don't patronize me, Kali."

The arrest of Grady Barrett was, in fact, the evening's lead story. His picture -- the same one I'd seen splashed across the business section on several occasions -- flashed on the screen while the newscaster reeled off a summary of the arrest.