Motion to Dismiss (7 page)

Grady squirmed in his chair. "Not true," he muttered under his breath.

"And afterward," I asked. "What then?"

She dabbed at her nose. "What do you mean?"

"What did you do after he'd ... completed the act?"

Deirdre hugged herself, as if for reassurance. "I cried."

"Did you say anything to him?"

"Nothing important. It's like part of me couldn't believe what had happened."

"Did he say anything to you?"

She looked directly at Grady. Her eyes flashed anger and something else I couldn't read. "He just pulled up his pants and left. I've never in my whole life felt so ... so devalued."

"When you finished crying," I said with a gentleness that wasn't entirely feigned, "what did you do then?"

Deirdre shook her head in confusion. "I don't understand. I cried off and on the whole night."

"Did you take a shower?"

"Not that night, no." Her tone was wary.

"Did you wash yourself?"

"I might have."

"But you don't remember for sure?" With most victims of rape, including date rape, there's a strong impulse to wash away the remnants of the crime. Even women who know they shouldn't destroy evidence succumb.

"I was upset," Deirdre said.

"Yet you waited until Tuesday to make a police report. Why is that?"

"I was ashamed, frightened. I tried to forget about it, but I couldn't."

"Did you tell anyone what had happened?"

She shook her head. "Maybe you don't know what it's like, Ms. O'Brien. Being raped is an awful experience. It makes you feel worthless. Humiliated. You can tell yourself that it's no reflection on you personally, but it doesn't matter. I didn't want to talk about it with anyone."

"Not even a friend? Your sister, perhaps?"

"No." A thin whisper of a word.

I stepped back. "I see."

My tone was skeptical, as I'd intended. But there was a part of me that found Deirdre's testimony disturbingly convincing. She might well have been lying through her teeth, but my suspicion was that there was some element of truth there as well. And I had the sinking feeling the judge felt it too.

"You were too soft on her," Grady grumbled when we broke for afternoon recess. "You should have come down a lot harder, made her squirm."

"I explained before, what we're trying to do at this point is lock in her testimony. We can discredit it later, at trial."

He snorted in disgust. "If you'd nailed her today, we wouldn't have to
go
to trial."

"It's your word against hers. That's something for a jury to decide, not the hearing judge."

Grady shoved a hand into his pocket and jingled his keys. The tension he'd kept in check all morning had exploded now that we were no longer in the courtroom.

"You didn't even touch on the outfit she was wearing that night," he said. "I told you the skirt was skintight, and that little crop top was so flimsy she might as well not have been wearing anything."

I looked at him in disgust. "You're out of touch with the times if you think the she-was-asking-for-it defense still works."

"Well, she was." He caught my expression. "Not asking to be raped, but asking for a good time. Her story is nothing but a pack of lies."

"Except that you
did
have sex with her." It angered me that Grady took no responsibility for his role in setting events in motion.

Grady's expression was tight. "I told you, I don't want to use that."

"So what do we say about the bruises on her arm?"

"I was
not
the cause of those bruises, okay?" His voice was low and urgent. "I had nothing to do with that. Or the scrape on her cheek."

"What about the raised voices the neighbor heard?"

He shrugged. "Lots of people raise their voices. She's out to get me for some reason. That's what you should have focused on."

My mouth tasted bitter. "If you'd been home with your wife, we wouldn't be having this conversation."

"You trying to rub my nose in it?"

"I'm just trying to interject a little reality."

Grady sighed heavily. "Believe it or not, I know all too well what's real." He shoved a hand into his pocket and was silent a moment. "You really think it will go to trial?"

I nodded. I'd explained at the outset that the judge wasn't a trier of fact.

"I can't have this shit dragging on. I've got a business to run. A public offering in the works. A wife who is facing chemo and God knows what else. I don't want my name dragged through the mud on every goddamn front page and news hour for the foreseeable future."

"I'm afraid that's something you don't have a lot of control over at this point."

He stepped closer. "That's why you needed to pulverize her in there."

I turned away in disgust. "I've got to run to the ladies' room," I told him.

"Fine." His tone was as clipped as mine. "I have some phone calls to make. I'll meet you back here when court reconvenes." Grady turned to go.

"Don't forget to call Nina. I know she's waiting to hear how it's going."

He looked at me with reproach. "I don't think she needs
more
bad news."

It was clear he considered the bad news my fault.

I pushed open the heavy wooden door of the women's rest room and was glad to find it empty. After a day of being constantly onstage, even a moment's solitude was welcome.

I used the facilities, washed the afternoon's buildup of grime from my hands, and began to repair the damage to my makeup. I was dabbing a blush of color on my cheeks when the door opened and Deirdre Nichols entered.

"Hi." She gave a self-conscious laugh.

I nodded in response. "I'll be through here in a minute." I figured Deirdre might be in need of some solitude herself. I've always found these rest room encounters somewhat awkward.

She didn't seem at all surprised to find me there, however. She glanced at the stalls, making sure we were alone. "I wanted to talk to you," she said, rubbing her hands over her upper arms as though to warm herself.

"I can't -- "

"If you're busy, maybe later." She reached into her purse and pulled out one of those multipurpose calendar and address books.

I shook my head. "I meant, it's not a good idea. Not without your attorney present."

"You mean Madelaine Rivera?"

I nodded.

"She's not really
my
attorney."

"Not technically, but she's working on your behalf."

Her expression was skeptical. "Madelaine is part of the problem."

I wasn't sure I wanted to be a party to this. Both legally and ethically it was only asking for trouble. "You shouldn't be talking to me in any case," I told her.

Deirdre didn't appear particularly interested in what she should or shouldn't be doing. She sucked on her bottom lip a moment, studying me. "Madelaine says that you'll say bad things about me at the trial. That you'll try to make me look like a tramp, like someone who deserves what she got. She says you'll bring up all kinds of embarrassing stuff about me and say that I'm lying."

"It's my job to discredit your testimony." I didn't tell her that the dirt I could bring in was limited by law. "It's your word against my client's."

"Aren't you interested in what really happened?"

Curious as hell, but that wasn't my role as attorney. I shook my head. "Not really."

She frowned. "You seemed nice in there. Even when you were trying to make it look as though I wasn't really raped. You seemed like a real person, not just a lawyer. Like someone who had feelings. I thought you cared about the truth."

"Ms. Nichols, you need to remember that we've been assigned roles here. Personal qualities have nothing to do with it." I turned back to the mirror and finished applying my lipstick.

"Madelaine doesn't care either. She's taken over. She tells me how to dress, how to wear my hair, how to sit, what to say, and what not to say. All she wants is to win. It's like a game for her."

"Madelaine has got a job to do as well. But ultimately, she wants the same thing you do."

"All I want is some respect."

I recapped my lipstick.

"I'm a person too, you know. Not just something to be used and then discarded."

"Of course you are," I said, turning so that I was no longer addressing the mirror. I could understand Deirdre's frustration. Legal proceedings were driven by their own rules, which sometimes seemed very far removed from the emotionally charged event that triggered them.

Deirdre hugged her arms tighter across her chest. "I feel like I've been violated twice. Once by Grady Barrett and once by Madelaine Rivera."

"Have you tried telling that to Madelaine?"

Deirdre shook her head. "I know she's trying to help me. The police would never have done a thing if she hadn't given them a push."

Advising the complaining witness wasn't my role, but I couldn't help myself. "There are victims' advocates, you know. Rape counseling services, support groups. They're available to you without cost."

"Madelaine told me." She leaned against the wall and closed her eyes for a moment. Her lashes were long and soft, like brushstrokes against her creamy complexion. "The press will be covering the trial, won't they?"

"Probably. I doubt there will be cameras in the courtroom, if that's what you're worried about."

Deirdre pursed her lips in thought.

"Besides," I added, "you talked to news reporters the other day with no problem." It came out with a nastier edge than I'd intended.

Deirdre brushed at the skirt of her jumper. "I know I shouldn't have. It's just that I was angry."

Her tone was apologetic, as if Madelaine had chastised her for telling her story before the camera. That surprised me. It wasn't a bad move in terms of strategy. And Madelaine had never been one to shy away from the press.

"I take it Madelaine wasn't happy about the exposure."

"No, it was ... something else." Deirdre sighed and tapped her heel against the ceramic tile at the base of the wall. "I don't know whether I want to go ahead with this," she said, her voice thin and thoughtful.

I held my breath. Looked away. Kept my expression impassive. Never let it be said that I tried to influence a witness. But inside I was delirious at the prospect that she might withdraw her complaint.

"I've got my daughter to consider," Deirdre said. "Among other things."

I dropped the lipstick into my purse.

"There's bound to be talk. Adrianna is smart. She'll pick up on it."

"You have to do what you think is right," I told her. I hoped the gods were watching, because I figured I'd earned a few bonus points for good conduct in the face of temptation.

"I don't know what to do," Deirdre lamented.

I glanced toward heaven and bit my tongue.

"I don't like to be treated like dirt. I'm a person too." It was the second time she'd used the phrase in less than five minutes.

I nodded.

"Men think they own the world."

No argument there.

She tucked a strand of loose hair behind her ear. "I really didn't know," she said after a moment. "I didn't know he was Emily's father, didn't know he had a lot of money and a big important job."

I didn't say anything.

Deirdre began crying softly, with the look of an injured child. "You think I'm lying about the whole thing, don't you?"

"You shouldn't concern yourself with what I think."

"Just because he's rich and educated and wears designer suits -- and I'm some dumb receptionist with bouncy hair and big tits, it doesn't mean he's right and I'm wrong."

There was something in her voice I couldn't ignore -- a touch of real misery mixed with hurt and anger. "No," I said gently, "it doesn't."

She slouched against the bathroom wall. "I want him to know it was wrong to treat me the way he did. I want him to know how much it hurt." The words were capped with a pathetic whimper. "I'm a person too. I have feelings."

"I think you need to talk with Madelaine Rivera," I told her.

Deirdre nodded but made no move toward the door. I decided to skip the fresh mascara and leave. Whatever else the encounter had accomplished, it left me feeling oddly protective of a woman whose testimony I was supposed to tear to shreds.

I wondered, in passing, if that had been her intent.

The cocktail waitress leaned low across the table so that her ample cleavage was not only at eye level but bountifully displayed. I was fascinated, but neither Grady nor Marc took notice. They were too deeply entrenched in some fine point of quarterly earnings and SEC filings.

The bar was noisy with Friday-night revelry. If you wanted to be heard, you had two choices -- yell or huddle close to your companions. Marc and Grady were huddling. They weren't excluding me, but I'd grown tired of sitting forward in my chair and straining to hear. Instead, I sipped my wine leisurely and waited for them to finish.

Grady lifted the skewered onion from his martini and bit into it. Despite the intensity of the discussion, which I gathered focused on some less-than-favorable financial report, he was more relaxed than I'd seen him in the last few days.

The outcome of the hearing had come as no surprise. Judge Riley had issued a holding order Tuesday morning. We would proceed to trial.

I'd tried to prepare Grady for it, but the news had shaken him all the same. He'd been short with me then, and even more irritable later that afternoon when I'd tried to lay out the main issues of the case. His mood in the intervening days hadn't improved. But this evening he'd greeted me warmly, interrupting his conversation with Marc to include me, albeit only briefly.

My glass of wine was half empty when they paused again.

Marc offered me a smile that was both apologetic and conspiratorial. "Sorry to monopolize your client. I know you two were planning to go over pretrial strategy, but there were a couple of things that needed Grady's attention right away."

A perfect segue to my reason for being here. "How badly has the rape charge hurt the offering?" I asked.

"It hasn't helped," Marc said. "That's for sure. But it's too early to tell if there's permanent damage."