Small Sacrifices (60 page)

always been lonely. The heller-vixen and the lonely child fight each other for a spot in the witness chair.

Guns and houses and men and relationships and even children have changed hands so often in Diane's life. She has not been able to hold on to anything.

Jim Jagger appears serene at the defense table. He cannot shut his client up; there seems no point in objecting. Diane is doing damage to herself, as Hugi hoped she would. He has opened the floodgates. He has only to stand aside and let her talk. Jagger will have another chance on re-direct. Possibly he can patch the worst damage then.

During recesses, Ray Broderick sits on one of the long benches outside the courtroom, doodling his endless cartoons on the small pad he always carries. His humor is sometimes macabre, usually pun-oriented. Today, he draws an awe-struck crowd gazing up as a woman floats down in billowing greatcoat and bonnet, clinging to her umbrella. And the crowd shouts in horror, "Wait--it's not Mary Poppins! It's Diane Downs!"

Cartoons--only some of them from Broderick's hand--have

surfaced from time to time. At the CSD office, someone has tacked up a mimeographed copy of a cartoon drawn by an anonymous artist. It portrays a very pregnant Diane Downs attempting to escape from jail. She holds a pistol to her belly, warning, "Stop or I'll shoot!"

But, still, Diane has her champions. There are regulars in the gallery who cannot make up their minds and who may well reflect the jurors' feelings. A sweet-faced woman with tears in her eyes talks to a reporter: "It's confusing. Sometimes I think she's guilty, and sometimes I just feel like going up and giving her a hug."

There is a tall quiet man who says nothing more than that he

.believes Diane's testimony.

Wednesday morning. Hotter today. Really spring. Diane is wearing the royal blue dress with the pattern of gulls flying. It is her prettiest maternity outfit and looks expensive. She finally is forced to repeat some of her outfits; the trial is going on so long. Diane has had all night to mull over her response to Fred Hugi's cross-examination. Jagger has pointed out to her that Hugi deliberately let her rattle on. She is not such an unknowing 420 ANN RULE

adversary this morning. She watches Hugi warily as he approaches the witness stand.

Hugi begins not with the night of the shooting, but back with the incident in the Arizona desert--as if he is reading a book, has put it down for a spell, and must reread a few chapters to remind himself of the story. The jury has heard so much in the past three days; they need this catchup.

Diane acknowledges her terror as she drove with her father into the desert. That was the very last time Wes touched her. She recalls that she screamed, "You're killing me!" Diane explains to Fred Hugi that even when she's "crazy," she's "rational"--that she promotes herself as more rational than she is so that she will appear strong.

"That's not telling the truth then?" Hugi prods.

"OK."

"Were you angry at your mother?"

"No."

"... for not protecting you?"

"Not really. She was just as trapped as I was. She wouldn't have believed me. I was just a little kid and he was a grownup man."

"You believe people should believe a grown-up over a child?"

"Not necessarily."

Damn! He has zapped her again.

Hugi holds Diane's essay on child abuse in his hand. As he begins to question her about it, she offers to read it aloud. She is very proud of it, totally unaware of the damage it can do here. Hugi hands it to her. Diane has just offered the prosecution a coup.

She reads well, her voice strong as she cautions parents and grandparents that if they abuse their helpless children, the vicious circle will continue endlessly, twisting in upon itself and harming children yet unborn.

As Diane finishes, the courtroom is hushed.

"... Remember the cycle--generation unto generation." She turns to Hugi, a genius deigning to engage in conversation with a dolt.

"Do you understand it, Mr. Hugi? If you can stop the cycle--^ / stopped."

"Is that how you stopped the abuse--by eliminating an entire generation?" Hugi asks bluntly.

"No, Mr. Hugi, I did not ... I have never sexually abused

my children. If you stop the cycle, you stop the abuse." She snaps at him, annoyed. "Mr. Hugi, you irritate me! You're not listening. You're not listening—"

But of course, he is. Fred Hugi is listening to every word the witness says, to every inflection. He cares not the least how Diane lectures him.

Diane has also written papers on peer pressure and drugs, smoking, alcohol. "I felt I was lucky—that it was beneficial that I had no friends—no bad habits."

So soon, she has forgotten the warnings to beware of the prosecutor. Diane talks almost as freely with Fred Hugi as she has with Jim Jagger. At times, when she chides him, they seem to be the only two people in the room. From her mythical "seventh level" of intelligence she sees him far below.

She is woefully mistaken.

Hugi asks about her sexual problems with her husband. Had they been her father's fault too?

"No. Because it was fine before marriage. After, he'd come home at 3:00 a.m. from being out with friends and expected me to please him."

And now, they speak of the unicorn:

"I saw it in the window for a week in Cottage Grove and I thought that Cheryl would really like it—but no favorites. I thought

'Hey, this is our new start on life—something eternal.' It was wild and free—a unicorn is a type of horse and a horse is wild and free—"

"Have you ever studied what a unicorn means?"

"No," Diane answers. "I heard from a detective that it was

'magical.' "

"Things did change drastically in Oregon?" Hugi asks.

"Yes."

"He [Lew] wouldn't accept letters, cards—?

• "... after a point."

I "How long?"

"One and a half to two weeks after I got here ... I was hurt

• • • I wasn't devastated, 'cause I already had a male companion. Mr. Samuelson was a better substitute than Lew. Mr. Samuelson paid his own way!"

Substitute for what?

No, Diane replies, she did not confide to friends that Mr. Samuelson was not as gooey n bed as Lew. Yes, she had lied to 422 ANN RULE

Lew about not having other men, " 'cause men don't want to believe you're fooling around."

She will not admit that she longed desperately for Lew Lewiston.

"He told me to write him every day. I really expected him

... I took a lot of time to make him feel loved and secure. He was never the only one. To an extent--I made a commitment to Lew--but he wasn't my whole life. I even dated people you aren't aware of . . ."

What is Diane trying to do? It makes sense for her to make Lew Lewiston sound negligible, and hardly all-consuming. But why is she so eager to present herself as a trollop, greedy for sex--with lovers yet untold? Only yesterday, Diane was too shy to tell the jury that her ex-husband had done something sexually disgusting to her while she lay unconscious from alcohol and, perhaps, drugs.

Is it "power" again? Is it because Steve forced himself on her--and sex is only permissible when she is the one who chooses?

Or is she still only trying to convince herself--and everyone listening--that she is no longer the ugly duckling, that she is pretty enough for men to want her?

Fred Hugi asks Diane about the letter diary. Why had she written all those longing letters--but not sent them?

"If I kept these letters of undying love, I could show them to Lew when he showed up here. I knew he would show up here one day, and I'd show him the letters."

It would be Diane's way to show Lew how much she'd

missed him.

"They were lies then?" Hugi's questions are short--quick jabs to the gut, and as effective.

"They were 'untruths.' 'Lie' is a strong word--like 'hate.' Like saying 'hate' for 'dislike.' The fact is I do love him and I was also relaying my love for him. I simply overdramatized what was the truth."

"You've done that before," Hugi says quickly. "You've never been told you were a histrionic personality?"

"What?"

He has her. She doesn't know the meaning of this word.

"You never heard the results of your psychological tests?" jSi "I've never heard that word."

Diane hastens to explain her diary. "If I loved him as much as I said in those letters, wouldn't I have sent them ... or a telegram he could not refuse?"

"You did send them, and they were refused. You spent $200

for one day in Arizona to see Lew—"

"To return his chain ... to see Lew ... to see Jack." She reminds Hugi that she got a hug and a kiss from Jack Lenta—not from Lew. She couldn't call Lew, because he and his wife had an unlisted number. She couldn't call Jack that night, because he was married—so she'd called Steve. She'd purchased a bottle of Jim Beam on the way from the airport. Her memory has cleared; she now recalls intercourse in the living room of Steve's place—and that she was moaning and calling Lew's name during the sex act. Her moaning had awakened Steve's roommate.

"Was this a rape—or some sort of sex crime?" Hugi asks.

"Yeah—that's a good way to put it."

"You got up in the morning, and had Steve drive you to the post office?"

"Yeah."

"You didn't report it?"

"Ha! I'm often the victim of a crime with Steve—" She sighs at her interrogator's reasoning. "Mr. Hugi, you can believe what you want. I know what happened. Steve knows what happened." Diane's tone grows more sarcastic with each question. Fred Hugi is another man trying to exert his power over her; beating him has become more important than convincing the jury.

She has forgotten the jury.

"Do you know the words to Duran Duran's 'Hungry Like the Wolf?' "

"No. Usually not. With New Wave music, you listen to the music."

"They all have the same theme?"

"I don't know."

"Your activities with the children really started in the first week in May, didn't they?"

"No—since April 4th."

_ "They didn't surface in the letters [to Lew]." I "Only because the letters were to Lew—for Lew. The kids surfaced because they were becoming more important to me than Lew. I was losing interest in Lew. I was running out of things to say to Lew. How many things can you say to patronize someone?" Fred Hugi reads to her from the letter-diary.

"It was a lot of mush," Diane responds. "Something you write to a man. If I felt that mushy all the time, I wouldn't be able to deliver my mail straight."

424 ANN RULE

Undaunted, Hugi reads more of the purple prose aloud.

Diane responds. She is rude; she is insolent. Lew's doubts about kids weren't the only problem. Until now, she hasn't bothered to mention Lew's other excuses. She ticks them off on her long fingers: "Nora's scoliosis . . . Nora's folks' money ... his guilt about leaving Nora after four years.

"Mr. Hugi, all of my boyfriends are married. How can you say I couldn't be comfortable with a man that loves another woman?"

The press row glances at the female jurors--all married. Diane seems bored as Hugi reads from the psychiatric evaluation done in Kentucky--the reports that indicated major psychopathology, anxiety, and depression. She brushes them away with

her hand.

"Those tests were done in 1981. They were Steve's fault. . . It's true [the test results]. I faced the problems. I got a divorce-and then I got pregnant with a surrogate baby." It has grown so hot in the courtroom. Muggy, airless, more confining than ever; the press bench is one solid gel of bodies-the disembodied hands struggling to take notes one hundred miles an hour. The press has never heard a murder defendant reveal herself so nakedly on the witness stand.

A battle of titans continues, a dialogue between masters of debate--one trained, the other instinctual.

Fred Hugi suggests to Diane that she must have felt desperate when she found herself in Oregon without Lew. Trapped

again.

"Circumstances can't trap you--people trap you." Hugi peppers her with rapid fire questions about the night of May 19.

"You went to see Heather? Why?"

To take the clipping, of course--about the free horses.

"Was it dark?"

"No, Mr. Hugi--it was light."

"Were your headlights on?"

"No."

"When you left, were they on?"

t, "Yes."

"You couldn't have just called her--to tell her about the free horses?"

"She didn't have a phone."

SMALL SACRIFICES 425 ?

"So you leave—and it's dark?"

"Yes."

"At Marcola Road, you go sightseeing in the dark?"

"Yes."

"Where?"

"The Deerhorn—"

She talks with Cheryl. She pulls off to work on her checkbook.

"You decided—"

"I didn't decide. I just did."

"How much time passes when you're pulled over?"

"How should I know?"

"Is this a dream or did it happen?" Hugi can match her sarcasm when he wants to.

"It happened."

"How long?"

"I can't tell you because you'll make a fact of it."

"A half hour?"

"NO!"

"A minute?"

"It was more than a minute."

Again, she goes over her little conversation with Cheryl, there as they were pulled over to the side of Marcola Road, while she balanced her checkbook. Diane remembers that they talked about Cheryl's new kitten too.

"OK. You're not sightseeing when you leave there. You're going back to town?"

"Yes."

"Was the tape playing?"

"Probably. It was always playing."

"How were you feeling?"

"Fine."

"Not depressed?"

"Why would I be depressed?"

"You decide to turn on Old Mohawk—a secluded road?"

"Yes. The road didn't look secluded to me."

"You saw a man in the road?"

"Yes."

"You had your three children with you; it was dark enough to have your headlights on. Yet, you decided to stop the car. Why is that?"