The Kills (14 page)

"This
isn't a goddamn game, Paige. Do you understand that?" I was furious now.
Maxine tapped on the glass panel of the door, reminding me to keep my voice
down. "Why is it that when people go to doctors to ask for help, you tell
them every symptom, every fact, every ache and pain, so they can make a precise
diagnosis. With lawyers, people leave out whatever they want-things that make
them look stupid or evil or crazy or thoughtless-then they expect the lawyer to
be smart enough to cover their asses without knowing the full picture. Well,
you've come to the wrong place, Paige."

"I'm
sorry, Alex. It's, it's so…embarrassing."

"Well,
it's damn embarrassing to be charged with first-degree rape, too. Especially if
you didn't commit the crime."

"Andrew
Tripping raped me." She was angry now, and I liked that. It was
appropriate that she could still be outraged by the fact of her victimization.

"So
what is it you neglected to tell me?" I pounded my index finger against
the tabletop in the small, hot room. "Did Andrew and Harry know each
other?"

"No,"
Paige answered quickly. She thought for a minute and then said, "Not that
I was aware. I mean, neither had any reason to know about each other, so I had
no way of thinking they were acquaintances. Why does it matter?"

"Because
everything that went on matters, whether you think so or not. I need to know as
much as Andrew's lawyer knows. I need to know every detail that he can provide
to Robelon, because Robelon will use them to blow your ass-and mine-out of the
courtroom. That's the only way I can protect you. If you had been raped by a
stranger who climbed through your window, attacked you, and walked away, then
he wouldn't know a thing about you to tell his lawyer."

She
nodded her head in understanding.

"But
this man spent three evenings with you, talking to you for hours each time. And
you talked to him. You said things to him that I would never expect you to
remember-little things, personal things that would have seemed of no import
before the rape occurred. Yet I can't possibly reconstruct what they were, and
I can't ever know what Andrew has told Peter Robelon. Worst-case scenario, want
to play that out?" I asked.

Paige was
puzzled. She didn't answer me.

"I'll
help you. The night of March sixth, you go out with Andrew. Was Harry waiting
back at your apartment that night?"

"No.
By then-"

"Because
all Mr. Robelon has to do is plant that seed with the jury. All he needs is a
motive for you to lie."

"But
I'm not-"

"Listen
to me, Paige. All he has to do is convince them that Andrew seduced you,
convinced you to spend the night with him at his place. You wake up early in
the morning, realize you have to explain why you didn't come home to an angry
boyfriend-"

"Harry
wasn't my boyfriend by then. I'd ended it weeks earlier. I just couldn't get
rid of him. He wouldn't leave me alone," she said, pleading with me to
understand.

"That's
all Robelon needs to work with. Harry's pissed off because you spent the night
with another man. So you tell Harry it wasn't your choice. He doesn't believe
you so you beef up the story a bit. Make it sound like Andrew forced you. He
held you against your will and raped you."

"Whose
side are you on, anyway?" she asked me. It was not the first time a victim
had been pushed to that question. "Andrew
did
rape me. I swear it. And Harry wasn't in my apartment the night
of March sixth. Why would anyone lie about something as serious as rape?"

"To
save her own neck. To get back at someone who hurt her in another way. I don't
have time to give you all the reasons."

Maxine
knocked again and stuck her head in. "The judge is ready."

"Last
chance, Paige." I was face-to-face with her now, as close as I could get.
"Screw around with me and I'll see that you're indicted for perjury. For
filing a false report. Am I missing anything else?"

"No,
I promise you, Alex. Harry Strait used to scare me to death, he was so jealous,
so demanding. I didn't want his name brought into this. I had no idea that he
had any contact with Andrew Tripping. I still don't know how or when they met,
or why he's here today."

"Will
you tell me about Harry this weekend? Either come in to my office on Sunday
afternoon for a few hours or give me some time on the phone."

Paige
nodded.

I went
on. "I need you to think back about everything you remember, some way we
can connect Strait and Tripping. Who is Harry Strait and what do you know about
him? Why he scared you and what you mean by 'demanding'?" I was still
hoping that my four o'clock interview with Tripping's son would take place, but
I wanted to know why Paige was so fearful of Strait.

Reluctantly,
Paige Vallis whispered, "Yes. Yes, I will tell you."

"And
if he's back in the courtroom now, you're just going to have to suck it up and
carry on. Trials are public. Judge Moffett hasn't got a basis to exclude
him."

I opened
the door, leading the way back inside. There were no spectators in the gallery.
Moffett let the witness resume her seat before bringing in the jurors.

The
smooth flow of the narrative that I had counted on was hopeless. On top of
that, I worried that the jurors would now view Paige Vallis as hysterical and
flighty. The tears, the trembling, and the freaked-out reaction to the
reserved-looking man who had walked into court would be all three or four of
them would need to discount her reliability.

"You
may continue, Ms. Cooper."

"Thank
you, Your Honor," I said, rising once again to stand at the podium.
"I'm going to direct your attention to March sixth. Do you recall what day
of the week that was?"

"It
was a Wednesday. I had just come out of our regular staff luncheon meeting when
Andrew telephoned."

"What
was the purpose of his call?"

"He
asked to see me again, for dinner."

"Had
you heard from him since the last time you saw him, the night of your dinner at
the Odeon?"

She shook
her head back and forth.

"Words,"
Judge Moffett said to her. "You gotta answer in words. The court reporter
can't take down your head movements."

"Yes,
sir."

"Yes,
you heard from him?" the judge asked.

"No,
I meant no to that." Now she sounded confused as well as slightly
hysterical.

"Did
you have dinner with the defendant?"

"Yes,
I met him at seven-thirty, at a restaurant he suggested, near Grand Central
Station." Paige Vallis described the meal, the bottle of red wine they
split, and the conversation, which was mostly about the boy, Dulles Tripping.

"How
was the dinner paid for this time?"

"Andrew
took the check," she said.

Robelon
called out, "What'd she say, Judge? I couldn't hear it."

It was
hard for him to hear the answers that were helpful to his arguments, and those
he would ask Paige Vallis to repeat. I could tell how he would work this fact.
Now that Andrew Tripping had paid for the food and wine, of course his date was
willing to put out for him. Robelon wanted to underscore that for the jury.

Paige had
accounted for most of their time together in the restaurant. Then Andrew asked
her if she wanted to come to his apartment to meet his son, Dulles.

"Yes,
I said that I did. Andrew hadn't told me until that moment that he had left the
boy alone for the evening. I was surprised, considering how young he was. So I
agreed to go with him."

There was
no touching, no hand-holding, no suggestion of intimacy as they walked to the
building on East Thirty-sixth Street.

"Andrew
opened the apartment door with a key. It was completely dark inside, so I
thought perhaps-"

"Objection."

"Sustained."

"What
happened when you entered the apartment?" I asked.

"Andrew
turned on the light. Dulles wasn't asleep-I figured he might have been, because
it was almost ten o'clock, and because it was so strange that he would be
waiting in total darkness," Vallis said, slipping in her
"thought" by the back door. "He was sitting on a chair, a
straight-backed wooden chair, in a corner of the living room."

"Who
spoke first?"

"Andrew
did. He told the boy my name and asked him to introduce himself."

"And
did he?"

"No.
He didn't say a word. He didn't move a muscle. Andrew spoke again, and like a
military commander, ordered Dulles to stand up and come shake my hand."

"What
did you observe as the boy approached you?"

"Tears
were streaming down his cheeks. That's the first thing I noticed. As he got
closer, I could see that his left eye was bruised, and there seemed to be some
scratches on his face, too."

"Did
you say anything to him?"

"I
dropped to my knees and grabbed hold of his elbows. I started to ask if he was
all right, and as I was doing that, his father began shouting at him, telling
him to grow up and act like a man."

"What
did you do next?"

"I
tried to embrace the boy, telling him that he would be okay. But he stepped
away from me and wiped his face with the backs of his hands. I stood up to get
closer, so I could try to examine his eye. 'What happened to you?' I asked
him."

Paige
Vallis explained that Dulles resumed his seat while his father answered her
question. "'He made mistakes,' is what Andrew told me. 'He's going to get
things right this time. Aren't you, Dulles?'"

Then she
described how Andrew pulled up two chairs, facing the boy, and ordered Paige to
sit down in one of them.

"Did
you sit?"

"Yes."

"Did
you make any effort to leave?"

"No.
Not then. I didn't think that-"

"Objection,"
Robelon said.

"Sustained.
Don't tell us what you were thinking, tell us what you did," Moffett told
the witness.

"Yes,
Your Honor." She turned back to the jury. "Andrew began drilling the
boy, talking to him like a soldier. He made him stand up at attention, and then
fired a series of questions at him."

"Do
you remember any of them?"

"I
remember the first thing Andrew asked about. 'The lion's brood,' he said. 'Tell
us their names.' Dulles answered him. He named Hannibal and his three
brothers-they were weird names like Hasdrubal and Mago-I can't think of the
others. He got it right, apparently. Then Andrew told him to list the winning
battles of Aetius, who was some kind of Roman general. Dulles did that right,
too. He knew all the places and the dates."

Paige
continued with a litany of quizzes, all of them about military figures. Mike
Chapman could have answered them without missing a beat, but the ten-year-old
child had been force-fed the list in the few months he had taken up residence
with his schizophrenic father.

She got
through five subjects that she was able to recall and estimated that there was
a handful more that she could not. She tensed visibly as she moved to a more
difficult part of the scene.

"Then
Andrew started peppering the child with questions about Benedict Arnold. 'Death
to traitors,' he kept saying. 'You know what happens to traitors, don't you,
boy?' Dulles knew about the betrayal of West Point and the Quebec campaign, but
Andrew asked him something about the Battle of Valcour Island and the boy
simply froze."

"What
did Andrew say to him next?"

"He
pointed at the closet door. 'The gun, Dulles, don't make me take out the gun
again.'"

Paige
Vallis described how the boy's body shook in response to the threat. She got up
from her chair and went to grab him by the hand, begging Andrew to stop and let
her take the boy with her.

"Did
you attempt to leave the apartment?"

"Objection."

"Overruled.
I'll hear this. Go on, Ms. Vallis."

"Of
course I did. I told Andrew I was going and I was taking Dulles with me. He
stood in front of the door and told me the boy couldn't leave. He said that if
I went to the police, he had people who would take care of me. Those were his
exact words. I swore I wouldn't go to the police, that I just wanted Dulles to
see a doctor. I wasn't worried about myself-this was all about the poor little
boy."

"Did
Andrew Tripping step away from the door?"

"No,
no, he did not. He put his hand on the child's shoulder and asked him if he had
forgotten about the gun. 'Death to traitors,' he repeated. 'Benedict Arnold was
the scum of the earth.'"

Paige
Vallis lowered her head. 'That's when he stepped away from the door."

"Did
you open it?"

"No,
Miss Cooper. Not then."

The
logical thing to ask her was why, but the law wasn't always logical. She was
not allowed to talk about the workings of her mind, just what she did and what
she observed. "What happened next?"

"Dulles
broke loose from me and ran back to the chair. His father followed him."

"What
did you do?"

"I
stayed. I couldn't bear to leave the child in those circumstances."

This was
one of the biggest problems we faced with the jury. I might have proved the
misdemeanor charge of Tripping's endangering the welfare of his own child, but
not much more. At that moment on March 6, Paige Vallis had the clear
opportunity to get herself out of harm's way. She had not witnessed any assault
on Dulles Tripping and had no clear understanding of how he had been bruised.
She heard Andrew refer to a gun, but had not seen any weapon nor been
threatened with the use of one.

"Objection,"
Peter Robelon said. "Move to strike."

"Motion
granted," Moffett said, tapping on the railing in front of him, telling
the reporter to strike the comment about Paige not being able to bear leaving
Dulles behind.

But the
jury had heard the words, and it was impossible to erase them from their minds.

"What
did the defendant do next?"

"He
took something out of his pocket. Something small. At first I couldn't see what
it was. Dulles started to whimper. 'Please don't,' he said, over and
over."

"Did
there come a time when you could tell what the object was?"

"Tweezers.
It was a small pair of metal tweezers. He leaned the child's head back, and
inserted the tweezers in his nose."

Juror
number four slinked down in her seat and closed her eyes. Squeamish, I guessed.
An appropriate reaction. Number eight leaned forward and seemed to enjoy the
detail. Too much television, no doubt.

"What
did you do?"

"I
ran to stop him. But I couldn't. He had already placed them in the child's
nostril, and I was afraid I'd cause more damage if I shook his arm. In seconds,
he pulled a bloody piece of cotton out of the boy's nose."

"Was
there any discussion about that?"

"Yes,
Andrew told me he had packed Dulles's nose to stop some earlier bleeding,
before he came out to meet me for dinner. It looked to me as if the stuffing
must have caused as much pain as the initial blow."

"Objection,
Judge."

"Sustained."

Jurors
were listening intently, some of them occasionally glancing over at the defense
table to see whether Andrew Tripping was reacting to Paige Vallis's testimony.
I desperately needed the testimony of Dulles himself. Without him, there was
only this hint of what his father's nightly torture routine had been.

The
luncheon recess interrupted the narrative's drama once again. Neither Paige nor
I felt like eating. She noshed on a sandwich and I played with a salad, knowing
how likely I was to develop a crushing headache by midafternoon with the
combination of the stress level escalating during the proceedings and my
failure to eat.

Back on
the stand, Paige took us through the rest of the bizarre evening. Eventually,
at some point after midnight, Andrew allowed Dulles to change into pajamas and
go to sleep on the narrow cot that had been placed in the alcove off the
kitchen.

Then,
Vallis said, Andrew spent more than two hours telling her about the terrible
pressures of raising the boy alone.

"It
must have been two o'clock in the morning," she went on. "Andrew
stood up in front of me. 'You're going to come inside,' he said. 'I want you to
come in and take off your clothes.'"

"What
did you do?"

"'No,'
I said to him." Vallis tried to stay composed as she looked at me, instead
of at the jurors. "'Don't do this, Andrew.' That's what I said."

"Did
Andrew respond?"

"Yes.
He said, 'Don't make me hurt you. Don't make me hurt my son.'"

"What
did you do, Paige?" I asked.

"I
had no choice. I, I-"

"Objection,
Your Honor. The jury will decide that," Robelon said, smirking at the
panel.

"Sustained."

"I
went into the bedroom and did exactly what Andrew Tripping told me to do,"
Paige said, finally getting angry with Robelon. "I was afraid he'd kill
his son, and I was afraid he would do something to hurt me."

"From
the time that Dulles went to sleep, did Andrew ever mention his gun
again?"

Vallis
answered softly. "No."

"Did
you ever see a gun in the apartment?"

"No."

"Did
you see any other weapons?"

"Lots
of them. Odd things, hanging on his walls and on table-tops. Machetes and
swords and arcane-looking things with blades. I wouldn't even know what to call
some of them."

"Did
he threaten you with any of them?"

"No.
Not explicitly."

Robelon
and I would both try to use this fact to our advantage. He would argue that
Tripping had the means to scare his companion into submission, if he had needed
to threaten her into sex. I would say that a sign of her credibility was that
despite the presence of so many sharp objects, she had never exaggerated the
kinds of threats that the defendant made.

Paige
Vallis went on to describe the sexual assault, which occurred for the next hour
in Tripping's stark bedroom. Not a word was exchanged between them after he
demanded that she undress and get onto the bed. He moved and positioned her as
he desired, subjecting her to a variety of sexual acts that I made her detail
for the jurors. She cried, she told them, from the moment she crossed the
threshold into the room until her tormentor fell asleep beside her.

"What
time was that?"

"Four
o'clock in the morning, roughly."

"Did
you leave then?"

"No.
I just lay still in the bed until I could see daylight through the crack in the
blinds. I got up and dressed myself. Quietly, very quietly. I awakened Dulles
and helped him to put his clothes on. That's when I saw even more bruises, on
his forearms and thighs. Andrew must have heard-"

"Objection."

"There
was a noise in Andrew's bedroom, so I hurried the boy along. When the two of us
got to the front door, Andrew was in the hallway near the living room. I told
him I was walking Dulles to school, and that I had written my home phone number
on the telephone pad in case I could help in the future."

"What
did he say?"

"He
asked again if I was going to the police, and started to walk towards us. I
turned to face him, putting the boy behind me, nearer the stairwell that led to
the building's exit."

"Did
you answer him?" I asked.

"Yes,
I did. I told him not to worry, not to come any closer, either. 'I can't go to
the police,' is what I said to Andrew Tripping. 'I killed a man last
year.'"

We take
our witnesses as we find them, as I had told the jury in my opening statement.
Now they would hear for themselves what had happened to Paige Vallis several
months before she met Andrew Tripping.

"Is
that statement you made to the defendant about killing a man true?"

Paige was
strangely calmer now, as she told the story. "Yes, it is." She
shifted her body in the chair and faced them squarely. "I mean, not on
purpose. Shortly after last Thanksgiving, my father died. He was almost
eighty-eight years old and passed away in his sleep.

"He
had lived alone, in a small house in Virginia, since he retired more than
twenty years ago. I was the only child-he had married late, and never really
wanted a large family because of all the moving around his professional life
entailed."

Robelon
was on his feet, objecting again. "Your Honor, this would be a lovely
retrospective for the Biography Channel," he said snidely, drawing a few
smiles from the jury box, "but I think that all we need to know is that
Ms. Vallis killed a man. Period."

"May
we approach?" I asked.

Moffett
waved my witness off the stand and away from the bench, while we conferenced
the issue. "Where are you going with this, Alexandra?"

"If
Peter doesn't intend to cross-examine my witness about how and why she-uh, she
got into the situation she did, I'll leave it alone. But if he plans to ask a
single question about the man's death, I'm going to bring out the facts on my
direct. Ms. Vallis has got nothing to hide."

"How
about it, Pete?"

"I've
got a couple of questions for her, sure. But I'd rather give them up and move
this along."

"You're
telling me you're not going to touch the subject in summation, either?" I
asked. I knew that when Robelon heard all the facts, he would be eager to
remind the jury that Vallis had once defended herself when she was in mortal
danger. He would say she was just as capable of defending herself against
Tripping. I wanted to compare and contrast the circumstances, acknowledging-as
she did-that it was the boy's life, not her own safety, that had concerned her
on the night of March 6.

"I
won't concede that."

Moffett
was ready to think like Solomon and split the baby. "Alex, what are you
trying to bring out here? That Ms. Vallis killed a man in self-defense? She
have a weapon?"