Gibbon's Decline and Fall (54 page)

And then the trombone, proclaiming an oily importance: Jagger, who began the prosecution case by calling, in sequence, police officers John Martinez and Ben Lujan, who testified to being tipped about the baby's body, subsequently finding the body, and transporting it to the pathologist. Pictures taken by the police photographer were entered into evidence.

Carolyn elicited information about the mattress, which wasn't shown in the police photographs, and the fact that it was bitterly cold at the time.

Jagger called the pathologist, who testified to the identification of the baby as Lolly Ashaler's baby, through DNA testing. The cause of death of the slightly premature male newborn weighing five pounds eight ounces was exposure, he said. Extreme cold.

Jagger asked, “The child was born alive?”

Very brief pause. The witness looked at the ceiling. “It was, yes. It took at least one breath—there was air in the lungs.” When his eyes came back down, he glanced at Carolyn and flushed.

Well, well, she thought without surprise. First suborned witness of this trial. The baby hadn't been alive. Or hadn't lived to take a breath.

Carolyn rose and approached the witness, noting the clenched jaw. The bastard was afraid she'd catch him out in his lie, and she wasn't even going to ask him about that.

“Doctor, when you saw the body, how was it presented to you?”

The jaw relaxed a little. “I don't understand what you mean.”

“Was the body clean, washed?”

“Of course not. It was as found, with the umbilical cord intact, still attached to the placenta, wrapped up in paper toweling.”

“Placenta, cord, and body, all sort of wrapped up together?”

“That's right.”

“To the layman, a bloody mess?”

“I suppose.” He sneered his disregard for laymen, an expression that changed to surprise when she said simply:

“Thank you, Doctor. That's all.”

Dr. Belmont testified that Lolly was mentally normal and suffered from no psychiatric disease. Carolyn asked her how many times she had seen Lolly and was told one time only.

An elementary schoolteacher, Maria Gallegos, testified that she had taught Lolly Ashaler in fifth grade. Lolly had been a slow student, but not in any sense retarded. Jagger grinned at Carolyn when he strutted back to his chair.

“Mrs. Gallegos, do you remember Lolly well?” Carolyn asked.

“Fairly well.”

“Even though it was years ago that you taught her?”

“Yes. I remember some of them. She's one I remember.”

“What made you remember Lolly?”

“Objection, Your Honor. What causes any given memory is irrelevant.”

“The prosecutor wishes us to believe in this witness's memory, Your Honor. I think we have the right to question it.”

“The witness may answer.” Rombauer frowned and made a tally on a sheet of paper. The paper was roughly divided into two columns, one headed with a
J
for Jagger, the other with a
D
for the defense. The tally went into the defense column.

The teacher said, “She was always hungry. I don't think she was given food at home, not at all. I used to bring a sandwich in my purse for her. Toward the end of that year she moved in with her grandmother, and she put on a little weight and looked better.”

“Did Lolly ever come to school injured?”

“Sometimes, yes.”

“What kinds of injuries?”

“The kind that made me refer her to the school nurse, who referred her to the hospital and a social worker.”

“What do you think caused the injuries?”

Jagger stood. “Objection, Your Honor. This calls for a conclusion by the witness.”

Carolyn said, “The witness is an experienced teacher. She sees children all the time. She has enough experience to draw conclusions of this kind.”

Rombauer said in a bored voice, “Sustained.” He made a tally in the
J
column.

The teacher looked daggers at Jagger, which he pretended not to see.

The woman had something she wanted to say. Carolyn gave her an opening. “Was she a good student?”

The witness's reply came too quickly for Jagger to stop her. “No, because someone was beating on her. Probably her mother's boyfriend, that's usually who it is about that age.”

Jagger was getting to his feet.

Carolyn asked, “About that age?”

“Puberty. When they start to look like women—”

“Your Honor,” thundered Jagger.

“The jury will disregard the last questions and answers,” said Judge Rombauer, giving Carolyn a dirty look.

“Thank you,” said Carolyn to the witness.

Jagger was on his feet. “Mrs. Gallegos, did Lolly ever tell you she was abused by someone?”

“No. Not directly.”

“Did she tell you that's why she went to live with her grandmother?”

“Not directly, no.”

“So that's merely your interpretation, right?”

“On the evidence I saw,” said the woman stubbornly, thrusting her chin forward. “That child was hurt, and she was hungry. Then she lived with her grandma and she wasn't hurt or hungry anymore.”

Jagger shrugged, letting it go. He had established that Lolly was normal; that's all that really mattered. He called Lolly's mother to the stand, Maxine Ashaler.

Maxine said she never drank when she was pregnant with Lolly, only years later, when Lolly was in school. Lolly was healthy, she said. The public-health nurse used to come see Lolly every month or so, and Lolly was healthy.

“Your witness,” said Jagger with a grin, not bothering to hide his triumph.

“Ms. Ashaler, how old are you?”

“Twenny-nine.”

“So you had Lolly when you were fourteen?”

“Yeah. 'Bout then.”

“How did your mother feel about that?”

“She wannet me to, you know, not have the baby. She said I couldn't take care of it. Because I'm, you know, a little slow. But some people, they help me have it. They give me baby clothes and stuff.”

“What people?”

“People. They said I had a right.”

“They gave you baby clothes? What else did they give you? Money to support you and Lolly?”

“No. Jus' the clothes. Not new ones.”

“Did they take you to the hospital for checkups? Did they buy you groceries?”

“No, I said awready. Jus' the clothes.” The woman looked fretfully at Jagger, who was paying no attention. Judge Rombauer seemed to be asleep. “They wasn't even new clothes.”

“So it was your mother who supported you and who took care of Lolly when she was a baby.”

“Yeah. Well. She said we should get married, him and me, so we did, but he went off. So me 'n' Lolly, we lived with Mom.”

“Ms. Ashaler, you do drink a lot now, don't you?” Carolyn asked.

“Well, not right now. I got dried out.”

“Up until Mr. Jagger put you into the hospital, you did drink.”

“Well, yeah.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you drink?”

“Whattahell kinda question's that?”

“I'll try to make it clearer. Do you drink because it makes you feel better?”

“ 'Sthere some other reason?”

“You drink because it makes you feel better. When you don't drink, you feel bad pretty much all the time. Is that right?”

“I guess.”

“You moved into an apartment of your own?”

“Yeah. Later on.”

“When Lolly was ten or eleven years old, did your boyfriend live with you?”

“Yeah.”

“And you and he used to drink together, right?”

“Sometimes. Sure.”

“Did he abuse Lolly?”

“All he did was he hugged her some, put her on his lap, like.”

“Hugged her so she couldn't move, and put her on his lap with his penis sticking into her, isn't that right?”

“How'd I know? He said he never did that.”

“When he was drunk, he used to hit her?”

“When he's drunk, he hits on ever'body. Not just her.”

“So Lolly went back to your mother's place.”

“Yeah.”

“But then your mother got sick and died.”

“Yeah.”

“No further questions,” said Carolyn.

After lunch Jagger called Dr. George Fulling, who went over his qualifications and experience at length, went on for some time about fetal alcohol syndrome, and then testified that Lolly Ashaler did not have it.

“Hospital records indicate she was a normal infant. Emergency-room records of several childhood injuries show no sign that she was anything but normal. Looking at her now, I can say that her eyes appear normal, her nose appears normal, she displays none of the facial characteristics of an FAS person.”

“In your opinion, does she have any genetic problem?”

“Not in my opinion.”

“Thank you, Doctor.”

Carolyn frowned at her notes, as though dismayed. Jagger grinned, then hid the grin behind his hand. Carolyn rose. “Dr. Fulling, you mentioned that Lolly Ashaler was treated for several childhood injuries. Can you tell us what those were?”

“Why, let me think. She broke her wrist on the school playground, a spiral break, not too serious. And a broken rib, from a fall. And there were contusions once.”

“You don't work with abused children, do you, Doctor?”

“No. I don't.”

“So you probably wouldn't know whether the injuries in the record were consistent with injuries observed among abused children?”

“I'm sorry. I simply wouldn't know.”

“Do you recall from the records a treatment for a venereal disease when Lolly was ten?”

The doctor frowned, said with distaste, “Yes. I do.”

Carolyn frowned. “Dr. Fulling, you said Lolly was normal. Is there a range of normalcy?”

He looked surprised. “There is wide variation, yes.”

Jagger rose. “Your Honor, what bearing does this—”

Carolyn interrupted. “This witness testified that my client is normal, Your Honor. I am merely trying to ascertain the meaning of ‘normalcy' as used by this witness.”

Judge Rombauer frowned, as though remembering something unpleasant, then mumbled, “Overruled, Mr. Jagger. The witness may answer.” He made a tally.

Carolyn, looking up in surprise, realized that Rombauer was keeping score! He'd been told off by Judge Frieze, so he'd decided to overrule Jagger every now and then. What was he doing, flipping a coin? Or just alternating
yes's
and
no
's?

She went on bemusedly, “Let me see if I understand you. In most respects normal people are genetically much alike, but they can vary considerably in the details.”

The doctor nodded. “There are many variations among people who are considered normal.”

Jagger rose. “Your Honor …”

Rombauer nodded. “Move along please, counselor.”

Carolyn smiled. “So two people can both be normal, and still be quite unlike each other?”

“I said that.”

“That's all, Your Honor. Thank you, Dr. Fulling.”

Carolyn had important questions for only one of the afternoon witnesses, the last one, the neighbor who had told Lolly she was pregnant.

“Mrs. Maquina, when you told Lolly she was pregnant, was she surprised?”

“I dohn know. Maybe.”

“It's important, Mrs. Maquina. Do you think Lolly knew she was pregnant?”

The woman stared into the middle distance, face working, saying at last: “I dohn guess so, no. She never seem to know much. Never seem very much anything, you know? Never happy. Never cryin'. Awways just sort of … nothing.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Maquina.”

The prosecution was finished. Rombauer recessed the trial for the day. Carolyn went home to find that Ophy and Jessamine had fixed dinner and the eastern contingent, newly arrived, was setting the table.

“I may have found a clue to Sophy's whereabouts,” Hal told them when they were seated around the table. “That is, based on what you told Carolyn on the phone last night.”

“How?” breathed Bettiann.

“Where?” demanded Faye, more to the point.

“Well,” said Hal around a mouthful of chicken casserole, “I started with a bunch of dead ends. The foundation correspondence mentions the Lizard Rock or Piedras Lagartonas
schools, but the state education office has no record of there ever being a school at such a place; the postal service says it never had a post office by that name. You got the name of a postmaster, but the federal postal service has never heard of Chendi Qowat.

“The women in Vermont, however, remembered Sophy saying the place was south, near Mexico. I've got a friend who was with the post office in Deming when he was younger. We used to go fishing together and then lie about what we caught, so I called him, told him we were trying to find this Lizard Rock place, and he broke out laughing. Said there hadn't been such a place for thirty or forty years.

“So I asked him where it had been when it was a place, and he told me when he was a young man, he used to drop off mail for Lizard Rock at a roadside box in Cloverdale, to be picked up by someone else. He says once in a while there was an old man waiting for him, driving an old school bus.”

“Old school bus?” asked Faye. “Sophy said the man who brought her food in the desert lived in a … what? Old yellow bus …”

“So you told us. Anyhow, the route man said the old guy told him he was from Piedras Lagartonas, which was a little south of the Spring of Contention—”

“Which is what one of Sophy's women said,” Faye interjected.

“There's no such place,” said Agnes flatly.

Hal picked up a map book from beside her and handed it to her. “I wouldn't have thought so, either,” he said. “But I spent a little time with a magnifying glass, going over the latest edition of Shearer's
Roads of New Mexico
, the 1998 edition. Here on page one twenty-four, just below the gray-blue area labeled Coronado National Forest. Blue letters, very small.”