No Way Out (6 page)

Alex was making a note of the suggestion. He sensed that the lieutenant was actually trying to be helpful: like he almost didn’t believe that Claymore was guilty.

“Okay,” Kropf continued. “If you’re confident on this one, we can get it now.”

The lieutenant was looking at Alex when he said this.

“How?” asked the lawyer.

“We can go to a judge and file a joint motion for a subpoena on the phone company records.”

“And you think the phone company’s going to haul ass tonight just ‘cause we wave a subpoena in their faces? Get real!”

Alex knew well enough what the lieutenant was up to. He was testing to see how confident they were. It wasn’t a legally binding test of innocence. But it was a good way to know whether or not he was wasting his time on a sure-fire loser.

“OK,” said Kropf, finally. “We’re not going to charge you client.” Claymore breathed a sigh of relief. “At least not right now. We’ll wait for the DNA results to come in and we’ll take it from there.”

Alex smiled. It was beginning to look like the storm had blown itself out before it hit dry land. But he noticed that Kropf looked far from deflated – like he still had one more card up his sleeve.

“Just one more question Mr. Claymore, what car do you drive?”

“Well I’ve been using taxis for the past couple of days.”

“Any particular reason?”

“My car was stolen.”

“Did you report it?”

“Not yet.”

“Why not?

“I haven’t had the time.”

“What make of vehicle was it?”

“A Mercedes.”

“What color?”

“Blue.”

“A blue Mercedes?”

“Aquamarine if you want to get technical.”

“I’m beginning to think that nothing’s changed,” said Andi, bitterly.

They were sitting on the porch of their new house, dining alfresco in the California evening sun: penne pasta with chicken and mushrooms

“How d’you mean?” asked Gene, with measured sympathy. She wasn’t one to encourage self-pity, having seen – in the course of her work – what a self-destructive force it can be. Self-destructive and thoroughly seductive.

Andi attacked her food with a fork displaying such ferocity that Gene was forced to smile. It meant that Andi wasn’t succumbing to the demon of surrender. She was in fighting spirits and that was surely a good sign. She’d be out of it in no time at all!

“We uprooted ourselves from New York and relocated for
what
? It’s not a
department
. It’s just a meaningless title.”

“Give ‘em a chance honey. I mean it’s only your first day. Let’s see what they let you do.”

Gene was calmly re-assuring. She knew that Andi expected no less of her. It was a game they often played: Andi bitched about life and Gene pulled her back down to earth.

“I can just feel the vibes from the start,” Andi continued. “I’m supposed to be on the fast track for a partnership and yet I haven’t even got an office. They’ve stuck me in a glorified broom closet.”

Gene touched Andi’s forearm gently.

“I’m sure that’s only temporary.”

They ate on in silence for a few seconds. Andi was still sulking. But Gene was content to leave her to it. If Andi preferred to sulk for a while longer, that was her business.

I can’t be her mother all the time.

In the end, it was Andi who broke the silence
–
with a change of subject.

“So how was
your
first day?”

She couldn’t understand why Gene looked so upset.

“
My
first day? What? At the Center? Pretty hectic. I mean, I guess I should be used to it.”

“Are you understaffed?” asked Andi.

She knew perfectly well that they were understaffed. Rape crisis centers always suffered from a chronic shortage of employees, exacerbated by the low pay. They were the unwanted step-child of public expenditure in California, languishing even behind education. So when recession hit, the axe fell on their exposed and vulnerable necks. As a result of that, morale was low and the staff turnover rate was high. That’s how Gene got the job as soon as she applied, with nothing more than a four minute interview.

Not that Gene lacked the experience or training for the job. She had headed a Center in Brooklyn and had very impressive resumé.

“Not only under-staffed, but also under-appreciated,” Gene echoed. “Everyone rails and rages against crime, but they’re more concerned with punishing the perpetrator than helping the victim recover from the trauma. Who needs to help the victim when you can get revenge. That’s the American way.”

This was unfair, and they both knew it. They both understood the desire for revenge all too well. But it was strange how guns always counted for more than bandages on the human balance sheet.

Now it was Andi who assumed a tone of sympathy.

“You’ve got something on your mind haven’t you?”

The voice was gentle. It was one of those spontaneous mid-conversation role reversals that characterized their relationship. Before, it had been Gene playing the firm but loving mother to Andi’s frustrated daughter. Now Andi was playing the sympathetic wife to Gene’s tormented husband.

“I had a case this morning...”

She trailed off, but Andi could read the rest of the sentence in the silence.

“They threw you in at the deep end?” This was something that Andi had been hoping for in her own job. But it wasn’t to be. Instead it was Gene who had the dubious privilege.

“Wha’d’you expect. Like I said, we’re understaffed.”

Andi put a gentle hand on her lover’s bare arm and noticed a scratch there.

“What’s bugging you? You’ve seen it all before. You know the score by now.”

A pained expression flipped briefly across Gene’s face.

“I’ve seen
this
before all right,” Gene muttered bitterly. “It’s the kind of case that sets off the talking heads on TV. Feminism versus race politics. A white girl raped by a black man.”

Andi, who had been taking a sip of her orange juice, gulped and put the glass down.

“The press’ll have a field day. It’ll probably turn into another ‘black rights versus women’s rights’ circus.”

“And don’t I know it Andi! The defense will raise the specter of the Scottsboro Boys and the prosecution will use everything they can throw at the defendant from Mike Tyson to O J Simpson.”

Andi nodded sympathetically.

“The old political correctness conundrum.”

“And caught in the middle of it is one frightened little girl, not yet out of her teens.”

“You think you can handle it?”

“Oh
I
can handle it all right. I’ve been there before, remember. The question is can
the victim
?”

“And
can
she?”

Gene shook her head, sadly.

“She doesn’t know what she’s letting herself in for.”

“Have they got a suspect?”

“Yes.”

“Has she ID’d him?”

“Yes. Only they released him pending DNA results.”

Andi sat forward, part eager, part concerned. She had known Gene long enough to pick up the nuances in her words as well as her tone.

“Well if she ID’d him then maybe she’s tougher than you think.”

“She’s not tough. She’s just naïve. She doesn’t realize that she’s going to carry the can for two centuries of racial persecution.”

Albert Carter was an old man. Not a wise old man, not a crusty old man, not even really a frail old man. Just an old man who had lived a full life and been around the block a few times. He wasn’t in the best of health, having done his share of smoking and drinking, before he gave it up when he noticed it slowing him down a bit. But he was a lonely old man, having lost his first wife to divorce and his second to the grim reaper.

Oh yes, the Reaper.

There were many weapons in the Reaper’s arsenal, and Albert Carter couldn’t even
pronounce
the name of the disease that had claimed Hildegard.

His children were still around, but he had lost them to professional migration. He saw them at Christmas and on his birthday, but that was pretty much it. One lived in Utah and one in Boston. The one in Utah was a store manager and the one in Boston some kind of academic. He understood the work of the former more than the latter, but both had families and neither came out west very often.

So he spent his days, watching TV, reading the newspaper and – with diminishing frequency – bowling with his old friends. It was a dull, repetitive chapter towards the latter part of his book of life, but he had his basic needs and he didn’t want more. All he yearned for was a bit less arthritic pain. Oh yes, and he wished that the cops would do more to round up those gang-bangers who were turning the neighborhood into such an unpleasant place – he
knew
who
they
were… in a generic sort of way.

It was while he was watching the TV that he saw a report about the Bethel Newton rape case. They were saying how a famous local talk show host had been arrested and then released. They didn’t have any footage from the police station, but they showed a still photograph of the girl and stock footage from the man’s talk show. Apparently he’d been arrested after shooting the latest show, yet to be broadcast.

And that was when Carter got the feeling.

He didn’t remember the details too clearly – the whole thing had happened just too fast. But there was one thing that he remembered.

For a moment he hesitated, realizing that criminals could sometimes be vengeful towards people who “snitched.” But then he remembered his own, all-too-frequent words about the cowards who don’t speak out when criminals destroy their communities. He didn’t want to be like one of those people whom he routinely criticized. He knew now that it was his civic duty to speak out and he didn’t want to be like all the shirkers.

So he dragged his weary bones out of the comfort of his tattered, dust-ridden armchair and trudged over to the phone.

Detective Bridget Riley was a victim chaperone, but not a counselor. Her duties involved being the principal point of contact between the investigating officers and the rape victim. The detectives investigating the case put most of their questions through Bridget. When they had to put questions directly or when others had to have contact with the victim, such as during the medical examination, the victim chaperone had to be there.

She had a sporty, athletic look about her, not the soft look of a movie queen, but the tough look of kick-boxer. Male colleagues found her attractive and her face, highlighted against a raven-haired background, was potential photographic model material. But what was a blessing in the world of Show Biz, could be something of a curse in the locker-room culture of the police.

Because of her looks, Bridget had been the target of sexual harassment by her colleagues. And like the proverbial “Boy named Sue” it had made her tough. She could take the complements with a smile and a shrug and when they became vulgar she hit back with a glib rejoinder like “in your dreams buster.”

When one of the rookies was bold enough to try and pin her against a locker, showing off in front of three of his friends, she deterred him from further action with a well-placed fist to the groin. He had been anticipating the knee and had been poised to block it with his leg, but the fist took him by surprise. Then she added insult to injury by asking him if he wanted her to kiss it better. The rookies never bothered her again; nor had anyone else in the department during the four years since.

At this moment, Bridget was sitting at her desk typing up a report on a domestic violence case for the DA’s office, when a female officer came over from the fax machine and dropped two sheets of paper on her desk. Bridget was a stickler for clarity as well as detail and so absorbed was she in getting the wording right that she let the fax lie there for three minutes while she played around with the phraseology of a single sentence.

Sarah Jensen, the Assistant District Attorney in charge of the Domestic Violence Division at the Ventura County DA’s office, was no less determined than Bridget to nail these “bastards” who beat their wives or girlfriends. But Sarah Jensen was a realist. She was also very ambitious. She knew that unsuccessful prosecutions damaged the reputation of the department, not to mention giving her a poor track record, personally.

She also knew that failures of prosecutions in such cases, gave right-wing politicians and news editors the chance to accuse the department of a feminist witch-hunt against
men
in the name of liberal political correctness.

So Bridget knew that she had to word the sentence carefully to give the impression that it was a winnable case. Whether it actually would be won was up to a lot of people: the prosecutor, the witnesses, the judge, even the jury. But Bridget was determined that the case should go to trial.

When she eventually looked at the fax, her eyes lit up. She scooped it up and rushed out of the room.

Elias Claymore’s Mediterranean-style villa stood in landscaped grounds on the sand of Montecito’s most prestigious beach and had breathtaking views of the ocean from nearly every room. Although the coveted syndication deal for his TV show had yet to materialize, he had done well out of his best-selling autobiography, his three follow-up books and the movie about his life.

To show for it, he had a huge living room with fireplace, bar and ocean view, a beachside kitchen, two beachside bedrooms each with a fireplace and a third at the back. Even the office had an ocean view. There was also a separate guest apartment, a large beachfront deck, a sunset view seaside spa, majestic trees and flowering gardens and 75 feet of private beach front.

Sitting on a lounging chair on the deck, looking out onto the ocean and thinking about his present surroundings, Elias Claymore realized that crime and repentance had served him well. It was a far cry from the ramshackle hut where he had been born and the rat-infested ‘hood where he had grown up. But how far had he really come?