No Way Out (26 page)

Throughout the case against him, Claymore had sat there in silence, not even leaning over to Alex when he wanted to tell him something. Alex had warned him against any behavior that might make him seem anxious or concerned. Instead, if he had anything important to say, he was to write it down on a note in front of him. Alex would see him writing and read it without turning his head.

But now before he was led away back to jail, he wanted to know where things stood.

“What do you think?” asked Claymore, quietly.

“How do you mean?” replied Alex, not really anxious to answer the question that he understood only too well.

“What are my chances?”

Alex didn’t look at his client as he put the last of his papers into his attaché case. He still believed in his client, but he had a duty to be candid and honest.

“I won’t bullshit you Elias. We’ve got an uphill struggle ahead of us.”

“Mm, that feels good,” said Andi as Gene’s hands moved up and down, her thumbs squeezing Andi’s shoulders and upper back.

The room was dimly lit. Andi was lying on the bed in her underwear, while Gene gave her an intense yet soothing and relaxing massage. When Gene had turned up unannounced at Andi’s hotel room, a beaming smile had lit up Andi’s face. But now as she recalled the week’s events, the stress and strain of the trial began to take its toll.

“And the judge isn’t going to do anything about it unless we can
prove
that there was deliberate tampering,” Andi continued. “But the thing I’m worried about is that we just find some accidental glitch in the software that’s reducing the number of African-Americans on jury panels.”

By tacit agreement, Andi and Gene had suspended their rule against talking about the case together, although Gene was still prevented by an injunction from any contact with Bethel.

“But at least that’ll help in the future,” Gene comforted.

“Yes but it won’t help in this case.”

 “You shouldn’t lose any sleep over it. Claymore isn’t exactly the most deserving client.”

“But he
is
the client and I’ve got a duty to do my best for him.”

“Then
do
your best. But don’t beat yourself up over it if the judge doesn’t accept your arguments. You’ve done your best by
presenting
the arguments. The rest is out of your hands.”

“It’s just that I can’t help feeling that this is some sort of a test of my integrity.”

Gene’s hands stopped working Andi’s shoulder muscles.

“
You’re
not on trial Andi. Elias Claymore is. The only duty that you and Alex Sedaka have to Claymore is to give him the best of professional services.”

“But how can I be sure that I
am
giving my best?”

“Judging the by the TV coverage of the trial, I’d say you’re going
above and beyond
the call of duty.”

“Then how come I feel this case slipping away from us?”

“Maybe that’s because the outcome of the case isn’t in your hands.”

Andi turned her head slightly.

“How do you mean?”

Gene’s voice became surprisingly gentle.

“Has it occurred to you he might be guilty?”

“It occurred to me. But I think – I know as a lawyer I should be thinking with my head, no my heart – but I
think
that he’s innocent.”

“Are you sure that isn’t just what you
want
to think? The evil man redeemed by repentance? Good ol’ Christian forgiveness and the fairy story ends with ‘they all lived happily ever after.’?”

Gene was about to start massaging again. But Andi swung round into a sitting position, her feet touching the carpet. She looked lost in thought.

“Are you coming to bed now?” asked Gene.

“Not yet. I forgot to check my E-mail today.”

And with this, Andi stood up and went over to the desk. She switched on her laptop and logged on to the office network at Levine and Webster to download her E-mail. There was only one message, but when she saw it, she felt that claw of fear and anger ripping at her insides. The screen contained the following message.

You are still helping that slimy nigger rapist. By helping him you are stabbing your sisters in the back and your blood will be upon your own hands!

Lannosea

The first thing Andi felt was a jolt of anger. But as she thought about the message, she remembered that she had never really made any effort to find out who this Lannosea was. Whatever the cause of the anger of this “Lannosea”, it must have a background. She knew that Lannosea was the name of one of the daughters of the ancient English queen Boudicca. But why would anyone choose such a name?

Determined to find out more. she typed in Boudicca and looked up the wikipedia entry. It didn’t give the names of Boudicca’s daughters but it stated that when their father
Prasutagus
– a vassal of Rome – died, the roman’s seized his kingdom, flogged Boudicca and raped her daughters.

Raped her daughters?

So that was it!. “Lannosea” was a rape victim. – maybe even one of
Claymore’s
former victims!

All of a sudden things were different. Andi realized that she was not being taunted by some evil creature motivated by hatred, but rather by a victim who was motivated by anger.

And she couldn’t hate a victim.

She tried to tell herself that she was only doing her duty. Once she took on the case, she had to give it all her professional skill. But that sounded like the pathetic excuse of every other pragmatist who ever sold his conscience down the river for a quick buck or an easy life. She knew now that she had been rationalizing when she justified taking the case. She had become like one of those people whom she despised
–
a mercenary, devoid of conscience.

As this ugly realization swept over her, she broke down in tears, her face resting her on her arms and her arms on the desk, her whole body shaking from the violent sobbing.

It was Saturday morning, and David Sedaka was in his apartment in Berkeley, studying the decompiled jury selection program. He didn’t yet have the source code –
LegalSoft
had at least until Tuesday to produce it and even then would probably appeal. So all he had to work with in the meantime, was the decompiled source code, without any programmer comments and with hopelessly counter-intuitive names for the variables and arrays.

Still, now that his working week was over, and he was relaxed and in his own home, he was able to give it his undivided attention The trouble with most modern “Object oriented” computer programming is that it doesn’t really have a beginning, a middle and an end. It jumps around and branches off in all directions. But it does have a so-called “main object” which is the control center of all this branching. So if he wanted to debug the program it made sense to start off by looking at its “Main” object and see where these branches led.

 It was at the Main object that David was staring now, as he tried to figure out how it held the other parts together. To make it clearer he started drawing a flow chart, showing how the parts connected and branched. In effect he was reverse-engineering the way in which the program was created in the first place.

It was then he noticed a small discrepancy. He chased it up by looking at how the program handled duplicates – that is names that were in both the voting register list and the Department of Motor Vehicles list.

And that was when he realized!

“Just ignore it,” said Martine.

Alex had been about to reach for the phone when Martine spoke.

He had invited her for Friday evening dinner and she had stayed the night, entranced by his home-made, gefilte fish, chicken soup with kneidelech and chicken schnitzel with potato kugel. His mother had taught him to cook, but it was from Melody that he had learned that sometimes the way to a
woman’s
heart was through her stomach. He hoped that the ghost of Melody had been smiling down on him last night, as he availed himself of this knowledge to take the first delicate steps towards moving on from the pain of the past.

“It could be important.”

“Isn’t it supposed to be the Sabbath?” she asked with a girlish grin, as he reached for the phone

“Don’t be cheeky,” he said, picking up the phone with one hand and smacking her bottom playfully but firmly with the other.

“Hallo,” said Alex, his greeting almost masked by Martine’s squeal of pain, or delight.

“What was that?” asked David.

“Oh, er hi David. Nothing. I was watching the TV.

“That’s not like you. You’re usually all work and no play.”

“I guess the case is taking it’s toll. Anyway it’s not like you to phone this early on a Saturday.”

“I know, it’s just that I’ve had some results looking at the jury selection program.”

Alex sat bolt upright and signaled Martine to be quiet. David’s tone had been ever so calm and measured that anyone else hearing it would not have known how tinged with excitement is was. But Alex Sedaka had known his son for 26 years and he could tell when he was gripped by excitement.

“What did you find?”

“The solution! To the jury selection software problem! I’ve found out how the software was rigged! I mean I’ve discovered what the tampering actually
does
.”

“So tell me!”

David’s tone took on the aura of embarrassment.

“I’m not sure if I can explain it to you.”

Alex wasn’t in the least bit offended. He was, at worst, mildly irritated.

“Oh don’t do the old ‘ignorant father’ routine. I
need
to know.”

“Okay, but look, it’s hard to explain it in words alone. I may need to show you some things. I can drive round there.”

Alex didn’t want David coming round there now. Obviously he would have to tell him at some point about how the relationship with Martine had progressed. But now was not the time.

“Can’t you eMail them over? Besides, Andi needs to hear it too.”

“Maybe you can get her to come round as well. That way I can show you the print outs and diagrams and everything.”

Alex had to think quickly.

“I’ve got a better idea. Let’s do one of those three-way video conferences that you’re always on about.”

“Okay. We can use Oovoo. Phone Andi and tell her to log in, then you log and I’ll log in and I’ll invite both of you. You just have to accept the conference and we’re up and running.”

It was Saturday morning and Bethel was miserable. Last night she would normally have been out on the town with her friends. As a double rape survivor she kept trying to tell herself that she had almost recovered. Almost, but not quite. The experience of testifying at the trial and listening to the other witnesses, brought it all flooding back. And now when she should have been out having a good time, she was sitting at her friend’s home feeling miserable and depressed. She was staying with her friend Linda for the duration of the trial. At the end of the trial she would go back to her parents and try and get on with her life. Not that she was sure what “getting on with her life” meant any more.

She had planned to go back to college. But the idea no longer held its appeal. She couldn’t face people after the rape
–
the second rape. She couldn’t face men. She had gone out on a few dates since the rape, but they always made her feel cheap and dirty. Not that they were aggressive. Most of them went out of their way to be respectful, almost to the point of timidity. But the kid gloves treatment reminded her that she was damaged goods. It was as if they were saying to her that they didn’t want to touch her. Or if a few of them became bold enough to touch her, she flinched away from them.

And this rape had in some way affected her more than the first.

The first was date rape. It had hurt her deeply at the time. But somewhere along the line, she had seen it coming. Orlando had been building up to it the whole evening. Although she didn’t want to have sex with him, she had been mentally prepared for the rape as she saw Orlando’s frustration steadily degenerate into anger and then violence when he didn’t get his way, like a frustrated child throwing a tantrum. And because he was such a big child and she was alone with him, it was obvious long before it happened that she wouldn’t be able to hold him off.

Also, she knew that Luke Orlando had suffered for it too in some ways. He had lost friends as a result of it: his friends knew full well that he had raped her – just as they knew he had raped the other girl who came forward at the time, but whose case was never heard.

But this time it was different. When she got into the Mercedes with that smooth-talking man, she hadn’t expected it all. She had heard all the racist generalizations, but it was precisely for that reason that she was determined not to be intimidated by them.

The last time she was raped, some of the men she knew had even offered to “beat up that bastard”. But that did nothing to ease her pain. They were seeing it in terms of revenge. But they were missing the point. What she wanted was not revenge but
empowerment
. Perhaps, in a way, that was really what men wanted too. Perhaps revenge
made
men feel empowered.

But in any case, the feelings of empowerment eluded her. When she had testified in court, she didn’t feel empowered, in spite of all the pep talks they had given her at the rape crisis enter. The opening bars of “For what it’s worth” rang out from her cell phone.

It startled her out of her thoughts and jarred her into awareness of her surroundings. More to the point, it brought her down to earth and made her realize that in the real world she was just a weak little girl. She looked at the display and it showed a number, but not one that she recognized. She wondered who was calling. She didn’t like answering the phone when was alone. Since the rape she had been afraid of strangers. Even strangers at the other end of the phone frightened her.

And so now, listening to the phone ring, the apprehension grew inside her as she wondered who it was. Her hand tried to find the phone, fumbling its way around the low table. But fear held it back. Eventually, her curiosity overcame her fear. She picked up the receiver.