Degree of Guilt (43 page)

Sharpe paused and then began speaking in staccato sound bites, perfect for television. ‘Here is what we will show.

‘There is
no
evidence of sexual arousal.

‘The only skin beneath anyone’s fingernails was found under
Ms Carelli’s.

‘There is no extraneous sign of a struggle.

‘And as the medical examiner will tell us, Ms Carelli’s tale of shooting from two or three inches is off by at least two or three feet, rendering her entire story of the shooting implausible at best.’

Sharpe stood upright, as if galvanized by sudden anger. ‘What Ms Carelli appears to have done,’ she said with scorn, ‘is to fashion a fashionable defense from an issue which is far too real to far too many women to be so cheaply used.’ She turned to gaze at Mary. ‘Indeed, it seems that the only reason Ms Carelli did not accuse Mark Ransom of child abuse is that she has reached the age of majority. For there is about as much evidence of child abuse as there is of rape.’ As she paused, the two women stared at each other. ‘Of course,’ Sharpe added quietly, ‘once one shoots someone to death, one can speak without fear of contradiction. About the
dead
, one can just say about
anything
. The only boundaries are
this
one woman’s sense of honor, and of truth.’

Caroline Masters had begun to look impatient; her expression said that she did not require rhetoric. But Paget could imagine all too clearly the first few moments of the evening news.

‘Unfortunately for Ms Carelli, there is more.

‘At first blush, these discrepancies seem merely a grab bag of anomalies.

‘For example, Ms Carelli told Inspector Monk that when she arrived at Mr Ransom’s suite, the shades were drawn.

‘We will produce three witnesses. One saw Ms Carelli and Mr Ransom sitting in a sunlit room with the shades up. The second witness saw Ms Carelli draw the blinds herself.’ Sharpe’s voice rose, became relentless. ‘And the third saw Ms Carelli outside the room.
After
Mr Ransom died.

‘Ms Carelli told Inspector Monk that she called 911 as soon as possible.

‘The medical examiner, Dr Elizabeth Shelton, estimates that Mr Ransom had been dead for the better part of an hour when Ms Carelli placed that call.’

Suddenly Sharpe’s voice grew quiet. ‘
Ms Carelli
claims to have scratched Mr Ransom’s naked buttocks in the struggle to defend herself.’

She paused again, speaking each word slowly. ‘But Dr Shelton believes that when Mark Ransom received the scratches, he was well beyond struggling. Specifically,’ she finished softly, ‘Dr Shelton believes that Mr Ransom had been dead for a good half hour when Ms Carelli chose to scratch the buttocks of a corpse.’

The audience emitted different sounds: shocked exclamations; murmured questions; the rustle of people turning to each other. Masters raised the gavel. The audience fell silent, waiting.

‘Dead for a half hour,’ Sharpe repeated. ‘The half hour, we will suggest, that Ms Carelli was casting about for a story to tell.’

Sharpe focused her gaze on Masters. ‘And what will all this tell
us?
That Ms Carelli lied to the police, to cover her crime. Just as she must lie to the court.’

Masters’s face was grim; Paget could not tell whether it was intended to foreclose the thought that Sharpe could prejudice her, or to express her determination that Mary Carelli could not lie with impunity.

‘And what of motive?’ Sharpe inquired mildly. ‘As a matter of law, we need not show one. Motive is not an element of the crime, and as to the elements themselves, we have more than enough for probable cause.’ Sharpe’s voice rose again. ‘But we
do
have motive. We will present that evidence to the court, in chambers, and ask the court to rule that it is admissible.’

Paget began to rise. Sharpe was skirting Masters’s instructions, touting evidence the judge might not permit her to present in public. When he hesitated, fearful of drawing too much attention, Masters cut in. ‘On Mr Paget’s behalf,’ she snapped, ‘you’ve crossed the line. When I asked you not to talk about proceedings in chambers
after
the fact, I assumed that you would refrain from describing them
before
the fact. Or is there some distinction that eludes me?’

Sharpe had frozen. ‘No, Your Honor,’ she said in chastened tones. ‘I apologize for any error.’

Masters frowned. ‘If that’s what it was, Counselor. Move on.’

But Sharpe had lost the force of her argument. She paused and then chose to wind up.

‘Your Honor,’ she started again, ‘only one more thing need be said.

‘Rape is a deep and serious societal problem. It should
not
be the issue
de jour
for a media-wise defendant, desperate to avoid the consequences of murder, eager to tell whatever story she thinks will work.’ Sharpe had recovered her confidence. ‘What Mary Carelli
says
is unworthy of belief. What Mary Carelli
did
is commit premeditated murder, and that is what the evidence will show.’ Sharpe stood straighter yet. ‘With respect, Your Honor, this court
must
find probable cause to hold Mary Carelli for the murder of Mark Ransom.’

For a moment, she stood silent at the podium, gazing up at Caroline Masters. When she turned and walked back to her table, taking the room’s energy with her, Paget felt respect and apprehension. Mary Carelli looked away.

‘Listening to Ms Sharpe,’ Paget began, ‘my first thought was that speeches are
not
evidence, and sound bites are not facts.’

There was silence in the courtroom; Paget knew he already had the attention of the media. But Masters’s narrow face registered displeasure, as if anticipating a personal attack on Sharpe.

‘My second thought,’ Paget continued evenly, ‘was that rape is far too serious a matter to be treated as casually as the People have treated it this morning.’ He turned to Sharpe. ‘As serious a matter as the beating of a woman – the kind that leaves her bruised and in shock. And that is far too serious a
fact
to slip the prosecution’s mind.

‘Yet, somehow, it did.’

Paget paused. ‘Listening to the prosecution’s pastiche of circumstantial evidence, I was reminded of a somewhat troubling evening I spent a year or so ago.

‘It occurred, of all places, at the movies.’

Masters’s shoulders moved, a small gesture of impatience. ‘I was with my son,’ Paget went on, and then turned to Carlo and Mary. ‘Ms Carelli’s son.’

Mary gave him a slight smile of appreciation; behind him, Carlo nodded. Then Paget turned again, fearful of losing Judge Masters altogether. ‘The film concerned the assassination of a President, and it was Carlo’s first exposure to the subject. And, like Ms Sharpe’s opening statement, it was gripping entertainment.’

Masters seemed to sit back to see him more clearly, torn between curiosity and concern about Paget’s choice of subject. Paget saw Sharpe half rise, searching for an objection she could put into words.

‘The film’s director,’ Paget continued, ‘managed to slice and dice every stray fact regarding the assassination until he came up with a compelling case that a conspiracy of Cubans, gay men from New Orleans, right-wing fanatics, CIA operatives, missile manufacturers,
and
the Vice President of the United States had murdered the President and then covered it up for thirty years, all with the assistance of countless members of Congress and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.’ Paget paused. ‘It was absolutely riveting entertainment. And like Ms Sharpe’s opening statement, its origin is circumstantial evidence.’ His voice slowed. ‘Circumstantial evidence,’ he repeated. ‘A dangerous thing, when it is left to brew too long in the fever swamp of a prosecutor’s imaginings.’

Paget gazed at Sharpe until her face was stiff with anger. ‘Movie theaters,’ he said coolly, ‘are the proper venue for fantasy and myth.
Not
courtrooms.’ He turned back to Masters. ‘Nor is any courtroom the proper place for the tissue of speculation Ms Sharpe has just presented.

‘I will not try the court’s patience with a story of my own. Nor will I offer previews for all those watching of the evidence
we
will offer the court in chambers. I will merely offer the court one statement of fact, and make of the court one simple request.

‘The statement is that Mark Ransom abused Mary Carelli. That is why she shot him, and that is what we will show.’ Paget turned to Sharpe again. ‘The request is that the court count how many times Ms Sharpe’s version of the facts turns gauzy under cross-examination.’ Paget paused, looking back at Masters. ‘And then,’ he finished softly, ‘I will ask the court to consider just whose credibility really stands at issue.

‘Thank you, Your Honor.’

There was silence; Masters looked surprised that he was finished. Walking to his chair, Paget found that what he felt was not relief but depression.

It was the spare approach: poke holes in the prosecutor’s story; offer no story of your own; promise only to stick to the facts as they unfold. Viewed charitably, it could be read as prickly integrity. It was also, Paget knew, the only thing that was safe to offer Caroline Masters; Mary had no story that Christopher Paget could believe.

Taking the witness stand, Charles Monk sat with his head raised stiffly, turning to look about the courtroom. His face was devoid of all expression; to Mary, he had the unperturbed look of a snapping turtle that had stuck its head out and did not see anything of concern. According to Johnny Moore, he had testified in thirty-seven homicide prosecutions; thirty-six had ended in conviction. On the table next to him was the tape of Mary’s interview, edited to delete the identities of Laura Chase and James Colt.

Quickly, Sharpe established that the tape was what Monk said it was; that it had been in their custody; that Mary had been advised of her rights – in short, that it was admissible. Stiffly, Mary watched the methodical grinding of a first-class prosecution team at work; when Monk began playing the tape, she felt helpless.

Sharpe had two purposes, Mary knew. To prove that she shot Mark Ransom, for there were no eyewitnesses to the crime itself. And, more devastating, to show that Mary had tried to mislead Charles Monk.

Snippet by snippet, Sharpe began to accomplish both. Mary listened to her own voice proving how foolish she had been.

Relentlessly, Mary’s words began to support Sharpe’s case. She had purchased the Walther after Ransom called. She had told no one of her trip to San Francisco. She claimed that Ransom had attacked her after becoming aroused. She believed she had scratched his buttocks. The scratches on her body were Ransom’s. She had shot him at very close range, with his hands on her wrists. She had noticed that the blinds were already drawn. She had dialled 911 as soon as possible. Her words came to her as sometimes cool, sometimes weary or confused, even angry once or twice. But always she sounded lucid. Her voice did not suggest a woman in shock; Mary, listening to herself as if to a stranger, was afraid to look at Carlo.

The courtroom was still.

When the tape ended, Mary felt heads beginning to turn, as if to reexamine her. Judge Masters eyed her with a new wariness.

They had
not
, Mary realized, played the 911 tape.

But then Sharpe and Monk were onto other things. Crime scene procedures; the presence of her fingerprints in several spots in the living room – an end table, a desk filled with stationery – as if she had been moving around the room at will. Only to her, Mary thought, would the woman Sharpe described sound trapped and desperate.

‘In short,’ Sharpe’s relentless voice was asking, ‘Ms Carelli’s fingerprints seemed to be all over the living room, on numerous pieces of furniture?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Was any of this furniture toppled?’

‘No.’

‘Or damaged?’

‘No.’

‘Or seemingly displaced?’

Monk shook his head. ‘No,’ he said slowly. His gold-rimmed glasses glistened in the light.

‘Was the champagne bottle tipped over?’

‘No.’

‘Or the glass?’

‘No.’

‘Or the tape recorder?’

‘No.’

She placed her hands on her hips. ‘Put another way, was there anything in the room itself which suggested a struggle between Ms Carelli and Mark Ransom?’

For a moment, Mary felt bewildered; she had not realized how the absence of evidence could be made to look.

‘No,’ Monk answered calmly.

‘Or anything which suggested other than that, prior to the shooting, Ms Carelli and Mr Ransom had simply been talking?’

‘Objection!’ Paget stood. ‘Calls for speculation. Lack of foundation.’

‘Overruled.’

‘No.’ Monk’s deep voice sounded resonant, satisfied. ‘Nothing whatsoever.’

Paget gazed at Monk with an air of puzzlement.

Watching, Terri felt as bemused as Paget looked; Monk was an experienced witness, whose testimony had consisted of Mary’s own words and a series of simple facts. She did not know how Paget could attack him.

‘Before you questioned Ms Carelli,’ he asked, ‘did you send her to the hospital?’

For a split second, Monk seemed to hesitate; Terri guessed that the first question had surprised him. Very calmly, Monk answered, ‘No.’

It was, Terri knew, the terse answer of an experienced witness; Monk did not wish to look defensive, or to temporize before he knew where Paget was going.

‘As I understood your testimony,’ Paget said, ‘you saw no sign of a struggle, is that correct?’

Monk paused again. ‘Not in the room itself,’ he said. ‘No.’

Turning, Paget glanced at Johnny Moore, now standing at the side of the courtroom. In less than a minute, Moore moved an easel to the center of the courtroom; suddenly the easel held a three-by-five foot photograph of Mary Carelli. There was stirring in the courtroom; the dark swelling on her cheek lent her eyes an air of shock. Judge Masters looked from Mary to the photograph as if at a double image; the well-groomed woman in the courtroom staring at herself as a battered victim. The contrast was striking.