Gideon - 04 - Illegal Motion (31 page)

Though he is still refusing to take the polygraph test (for reasons I don’t understand), I say stubbornly, “Yeah, I do. If he’s convicted and goes to prison, and you find out later that he was telling the truth, how will you feel?

After all, he’s sort of a half cousin.”

Sarah picks up her purse from the floor and opens the door, refusing my invitation to feel guilty.

“What I found out today is that women don’t usually lie about what men do to them. All those years you didn’t believe that poor woman had been raped by your grandfather. If we hadn’t gone over there today, you never would have known the truth.”

Sarah has a way of learning her own lessons from events, but I let this pass. Anything I say will be seen as denial. I grunt and pick up candy wrappers strewn on the floor before following her into the house.

“What time will you be home?” I ask from the couch in the den as I watch Sarah study herself in a compact mirror. She is going out to meet some friends from high school. I look at my watch. It is almost eight. Amy was supposed to be here by now to meet her. I pet Woogie, who has jumped up on the couch beside me now that he sees Sarah is deserting us.

“I have no idea,” she says vaguely.

“Do you think you’ll be back by noon tomorrow?” I ask sarcastically. I didn’t think it was such a difficult question.

“Oh, Dad!” Sarah says, picking up her purse.

There is a knock at the door, and it is Amy who breezes in past me.

“Did I miss Sarah?”

“Almost,” I say, irritated with both of them.

Sarah, dressed in jeans and an old bomber jacket she has found in her closet, is just barely civil. Rainey, her expression says, was an appropriate companion, but this woman is too young.

Indeed, with her hair in a ponytail and wearing white sweats, Amy looks more like a college student than a woman who surely has to be close to thirty.

“Have fun!”

Amy calls to her as Sarah bounds down the front stoop, keys in hand. My daughter, who has barely said hello to her, nods but doesn’t speak.

I had wanted Sarah to sit down and visit, but Amy was delayed by a phone call. I shut the door and complain, “That was successful, wasn’t it?”

Amy reaches down to pet Woogie, saying mischievously, “Well, you should have had me over to dinner. I would have been on time.”

I lead her into the den.

“Sarah could have waited a few more minutes. It wasn’t as if she had to go put out a fire somewhere.”

Amy comes up behind me and bumps me with her shoulder.

“She’s darling. And mad as hell at her old man for blowing it with Rainey, and taking up with a young bimbo, and probably for a million other sins you’ve committed that I don’t know about.”

“You’re not a bimbo!” I yelp.

Amy sits on the couch, and I plop down beside her.

“I’ve got my work cut out if I want to hang around the Page gang, don’t I?” she says merrily, but I can’t tell whether she’s kidding or not.

“The old guy’s a lush and still mooning over his former girlfriend who’s getting married on him; his daughter is furious because she’s nearly the same age as his girlfriend. This is a tough crowd, huh, Woogie?” she says to my dog, who has jumped up beside her.

“I’m not a lush!” I say plaintively.

“It’s a bit dog that barks,” Amy says cryptically, then reaches up and kisses me.

I don’t get this woman and tell her so.

“Why do you like me?”

“I can’t explain it either,” Amy says, a big grin on her face.

“I know this will end in disaster for me. But what else is new? How was your day?”

Before I tell her, I get the Arkansas-LSU game on the radio from Baton Rouge. As I expected, the rest of the Hogs’ season has been terrible. Without Dade, the offense has shut down completely, and we haven’t won another game. While we listen, I explain to Amy for the first time about my grandfather.

“Goodness gracious!” she exclaims when I am finished.

“A little Southern gothic soap opera. Why didn’t you tell me before?”

I turn off the game. We’re hopelessly behind (21 to 0 in the fourth quarter). “Hell, I don’t know. I was embarrassed, I guess,” I admit. I get up to get a beer. Amy has already refused one.

“You didn’t do it,” she says.

“Besides there’re a million stories like that all over the South. Some worse, some better.”

I come sit back down by her. Things heat up on the couch, and I am all for going back into the bedroom, but am deterred by the possibility that Sarah may return for something.

“She’s practically heard us,” I say, as I put my hand under the top part of her sweats, “she might as well see us” “I can’t imagine a more delightful scene,” Amy says, only halfheartedly pushing my hand away.

“This is your new mother, Sarah. She’s even cuter without any clothes on, isn’t she? Stop it!”

The next morning during breakfast I manage only two sips of coffee before asking Sarah, “Well, what did you think of Amy?”

Sarah chews on a piece of buttered toast, swallows, and then lectures me: “Dad, don’t do anything foolish like getting married right now. You’d just be doing it to spite Rainey. You’re on the rebound. Don’t forget it.”

I put down the sports pages, unable to continue reading about the massacre last night. My daughter is a piece of work.

“I wasn’t sending you a wedding invitation. I just asked, what did you think about Amy?”

“She’s all right,” Sarah says grudgingly.

More than satisfied, I do not risk a followup question.

An hour later after she drives off to return to school, I pick up the house and realize that Sarah did not make me try to agree again that I would ask the court to let me withdraw as Dade’s attorney. Maybe she thinks we should be all one big happy family. The court wouldn’t let me withdraw at this late date anyway.

“your daughter is on the phone,” Julia says, appearing in the doorway to my office.

“She sounds a little anxious.”

I have been ignoring the beeping sound in my ear that indicates another call. Julia does not make a practice of being sensitive to anything involving my welfare, so I dare not ignore her. I check the calendar. December 18.

The last time I talked to Sarah was on Pearl Harbor Day.

It was a curious conversation. The day before. Dr. Beekman, an unlikely ally if there ever was one, had taken up Dade’s cause and argued that Dade might well be innocent. I had to give her a hard time, since the guy parroted every argument I made to her. God knows what else Beekman knows. He probably can trace my family tree now better than I can.

“Tell her to hang on,” I say.

“I’ll be off in two seconds. Thanks.”

Julia nods. Women have to stick together, her expression says. I am on the phone with Gordon Dyson, who has told me his wife is flying off to New Zealand the day after Christmas. I had completely forgotten about him.

He is reminding me to send him a power of attorney for his wife to sign before she departs. He says excitedly, “I can’t even get my son to rake the leaves in the front yard!”

I am amazed that he is actually following through with the eviction. Most of my clients ignore my advice and perhaps for good reason. Now, two months later, my suggestion seems a little extreme.

“Call me the day after your wife leaves, and I’ll draw up the complaint. Don’t worry; we’ll get him out.”

“You’ve got to,” he pleads.

“He’s driving me crazy.”

“It’ll be a piece of cake.” I feel like a pest exterminator.

I remind him of my fee and tell him I have to get off. I pick up Sarah’s line, wondering what she wants. She finishes her first-semester exams tomorrow afternoon, and I can’t imagine any call that can’t wait twenty-four hours.

“What’s up, babe?” I ask.

“Julia says it sounded important.”

“Well, it’s probably not, and I don’t feel good about telling you this, because I don’t know how relevant it is, but here goes: there’s a rumor that’s been going around, and it’s only a rumor, that Robin was having an affair with Dr. Hofstra in the history department this summer.

Depending on the source, it was still going on this fall when Robin filed rape charges against Dade. That may not be true at all though, because the girl who said Robin was still involved with Dr. Hofstra when she said she was raped is a cheerleader and was her big rival.”

I make notes furiously. Ever since Thanksgiving it’s been as if Dade’s case was on hold. He is still refusing to take the polygraph despite his mother’s encouragement. I have been hoping he would begin to feel some pressure of the upcoming trial date and would cooperate.

“How long have you known about this?” I ask, marveling at my daughter’s ability to keep a secret, a feat, despite my obligations as a lawyer, that I don’t always manage.

“I heard it the day before I quit the jay vee cheerleaders,” Sarah admits, “but Paula convinced me not to say anything. She said it was gossip and that a statute called the ‘rape shield law’ made it inadmissible in court. Is that true?”

I try to contain my exasperation. That was back in October

“It’s up to the judge. If the court can be convinced that a past sexual relationship has some particular bearing on the case, evidence of it can be admitted, but under most situations, the statute prohibits mention of it,” I ex plain.

“Why are you telling me now? Have you been talking to Dr. Beekman again?” I ask, hoping she has had a falling out with WAR.

“Some,” she admits, “but I’ve been thinking about this ever since we got back from Bear Creek, and so I finally called Dade this morning and confronted him. He swears he didn’t rape Robin. I think I believe him. He’s pretty convincing.”

Family ties. Even as distant as these are, Sarah must feel them. How odd! Yet, is it? She must have a hundred questions about her own racial past. Now, she has a connection however slight, right on campus.

“I still believe him, too,” I say, encouragingly.

“I take it you heard this from another cheerleader.” If I can get someone to testify, this case might be back in business.

“Dad,” Sarah blurts, “I’m sworn to secrecy! I’ve violated a confidence telling you this.”

“The rest of Dade’s life is at stake,” I press her.

“This may be crucial evidence in the case. It would be horribly unfair to Dade if the case turned on this point and it never got presented to the jury.”

“Don’t make me do this!” Sarah says, her voice anguished.

“You have to, babe,” I scold her. I have no qualms about leaning on my own daughter. She should have told me weeks ago.

“I need the names of everybody you’ve talked to.”

Sarah, her voice now choked with tears, says, “I’ve got to talk to them first.”

Her tears always get to me. I know I’m putting her in a bind. Yet, it is wrong for her to sit on this information.

“I

understand,” I say.

“Just let me know as soon as possible.

I’ll be in Fayetteville tomorrow afternoon.”

I make her promise to call me back as soon as she can, and then I go in to Dan’s office to talk this over with him.

For the last month Clan has been disappearing during the day. I know he is still seeing Gina, but today, it appears, he is actually doing some work for a change. He puts down his Dictaphone as soon as I mention I have some juicy gossip about the case.

“What would be the possible relevance to Robin’s allegation that she was raped by Dade?” I ask, after going through Sarah’s story.

As he thinks, Dan’s right forefinger wanders up his face but fortunately misses his nose and comes to rest be-low his eye.

“Maybe she was trying to make her professor jealous,” he muses, “and she went to the hottest guy she knew.”

“With a black athlete on a southern campus?” I ask, unable to accept this scenario. I sit down across from him.

“Maybe this professor knocked her up, and she wanted to get an abortion but needed an excuse, so she claimed Dade raped her.”

Clan shakes his head.

“Why wouldn’t she just get one?” he scoffs.

“It’s no big deal.”

“It is,” I say, “if you’re raised to think abortion is a sin, and the only thing that justifies it would be rape or saving the mother’s life. Robin’s parents are big Baptists. She wouldn’t be able to admit to them she got pregnant.

That’s too big a scandal. But if they knew, they’d make her have the baby. So she lets herself get into a situation with Dade and convinces herself that he has raped her, which justifies an abortion.”

Clan rocks back and forth in his chair like a child.

“You’ve got a vivid imagination,” he says, tacitly admitting I may be onto something.

“Do you have any proof?”

“Not a shred,” I admit, realizing that up until now Robin has been able to create an image of herself that has been nauseatingly pristine. I still know almost nothing about her. That’s going to change. I need to get back up to Fayetteville and start to work on this case again.

I go back to my office and call Dade and, for a change, get him in his room.

“I understand Sarah called you today,” I begin, not at all sure how he will react.

“I didn’t know she was going to. She’s kind of impulsive sometimes.”

“She’s all right,” Dade says.

“At least she told me you went to Bear Creek. Of course, I already knew.”

“I figured you did” I say awkwardly. In the two conversations I’ve had with him since we came back, I never quite knew how to bring it up.

“Mama said she had told you, but you didn’t believe her!” he says.

I should have had this conversation with him long be fore now, but I kept putting it off.

“All my life I had been told it wasn’t true,” I say weakly.

“I needed to find out for myself whether it was or not.”

“Your daughter says it was her idea to go over there.”

I shift uncomfortably in my chair. They had a longer conversation than Sarah led me to believe.

“That’s true.”

“You see why I don’t want to take a lie detector test? I can’t trust white people.”

Who does he think will be on the jury? We have been over this a dozen times.

“Then trust the polygraph: it’s a machine; it just records changes in your body as you answer questions.”