Antonelli - 03 - The Judgment (7 page)

” ‘Mr. Antonelli,’ Jeffries interjected. ‘Isn’t there something you wish to take up with the court first?’

“It had become a war between us, and I was not about to give him the satisfaction of ruling against me again. ‘No, your honor, there is not,’ I replied. At that moment, all I could think about was getting Janet Larkin onto the witness stand. She had waited a long time for the chance to reply directly to the awful things that had been said about her and the terrible thing she was accused of doing. She deserved to have it.

“That was the only thing I knew I could do for her, give her that chance. Even after all these years, I don’t think I ever had a case where anyone was put in a worse position. In a lot of ways, it is easier to be convicted of something than just accused of it.

If the truth be told, it was easier to be Edward Larkin than Janet Larkin. He did something, he admitted it, and it became a tangible fact, something to be dealt with, something that gave a sort of definition to everything else. She was accused, and there was nothing she could do. She was helpless, impotent. Guilt clings to no one the way it does to the innocent. Imagine the shock of it. If you did something, something wrong, and you are caught, there is no surprise when you hear yourself accused. But when you did not do it, when you never would have thought about doing it, it eats you alive. You feel guilty. You think everyone who looks at you, everyone you pass on the street, is thinking of nothing else but this thing you supposedly did. The whole world is watching you, convinced you did it. Your friends—the ones who still come around—tell you they believe you, but you’re not sure they really do; you’re not sure they don’t look upon themselves as victims, caught between their obligation to you and the embarrassment they start to feel every time they come near you.

No one believes you, and you begin to wonder whether you should believe yourself. Could you have done this thing, and then, because it was such an awful thing to do, blacked it out as if it had never happened? You don’t really believe that, but you have to admit that, impossible as it seems, it could conceivably be true.

Does anyone really know when they first begin to go mad?

“Janet Larkin had been living with thoughts like these for nearly a year. It was a miracle that she had any sanity left. When I called her name as the first witness for the defense, she had the look of someone not quite awake, not quite certain that this was not still part of a bad dream.

“She did everything wrong. When she answered a question, she looked at me instead of at the jury. When she denied that she had ever done anything improper with her son, she spoke in a timid, quiet voice that instead of carrying the kind of outrage you might expect from someone wrongfully accused, made her sound as if she herself was not quite sure.

“At first, she would not answer the question. I had to put it to her directly. ‘Mrs. Larkin, did you at any time have sexual intercourse or sexual relations of any kind with your son, Gerald Larkin?’

“The courtroom was mobbed. The benches were crowded tight.

Without objection from Jeffries, those who could not find a seat had been allowed to stand along the wall at the back. All those eyes staring at her frightened her, and from the moment she took the stand she refused to look anywhere except at me. Until, that is, I asked her that question. A look of utter hopelessness came into her eyes. Her shoulders sagged forward and she gazed down at her hands. She began to rub them together as if she was trying to wash them clean. It was only when I repeated the question that she stopped and looked up again.

” ‘No,’ she said, shaking her head back and forth. Her sad eyes were wide open. ‘I never hurt my children.’

“I had to remove any possible ambiguity. ‘You never had sexual intercourse with your son?’

“She bit her lip and a shudder passed through her. ‘No.’

“I took her back through all of it, what her husband had done to her daughter and when she had first learned about it. I had her describe what she did to help her daughter and how she tried to help her son.

” ‘He told me one day that he didn’t think his father should have to live alone. I told him he could visit, but he needed to live at home.’

” ‘After he made this accusation, he was taken out of your home and allowed to live with his father, correct?’

“We went on like that for hours, explaining everything that had happened until, finally, we were at the end of it, and I had only one question left to ask.

” ‘You think it’s your fault, don’t you? What happened to your daughter, and then what happened to your son to make him tell a story like this?’

“I do not know how much time or how many different days we had spent together, going over every detail of her married life, but we had never talked about this. Not once. I asked it now because suddenly it seemed the only question that made sense. She looked at me as if I had just betrayed a secret. Her mouth began to quiver and tears came into her eyes. She had to force herself to answer.

” ‘Yes, I do. I should have known,’ she said as she buried her face in her hands. ‘It’s my fault. I should have known.’

“Because he had believed the boy from the beginning, Spencer Goldman had no sympathy for the boy’s mother.

” ‘Are you trying to tell us that your husband was having sex with your daughter, that it went on for years right under your nose, and you knew nothing about it?’

“His manner was cold, caustic, and he threw questions at her so fast that she had barely started to answer one before he was shouting the next. Each time he did it, I objected, and each time I objected, Jeffries overruled it. We went back and forth, like pup-pets in a Punch and Judy show. ‘Objection.’ ‘Overruled.’ ‘Objection.’ ‘Overruled.’ Finally, I bounced up one last time and instead of objecting, said, ‘Perhaps your honor would like to lend Mr.

Goldman your gavel so he can save us the trouble of a trial and just beat a confession out of her?’

“You have never seen such a wrathful look. ‘Do you want to be held in contempt a second time?’

” ‘At least that would be a ruling we could both agree on, your honor,’ I replied with studied indifference.

“There was really nothing he could do. No matter what he said, he was not going to hold me in contempt and have me dragged out of the courtroom. We were too far along in the trial, and besides that, there were too many people watching. Jeffries abused his power too often not to understand that it was best done in private. His only reply, at least for the moment, was a withering glance just before he turned his attention back to the prosecution. ‘Please continue, Mr. Goldman.’

“I continued to object, not because I thought there was any chance that any of them would be sustained, but simply to give Janet Larkin time to collect herself. Goldman never could break her down. She answered every question and she told the truth.

That was all she had left. Her husband had taken everything else.

He had taken her daughter, and he had taken her son, and not just taken them, but in different ways stolen their innocence and destroyed them.

“Afraid of making a mistake, aware that hundreds of eyes were watching her, she formed each word of each answer with the deliberate care of a mother teaching a child the first letters of the alphabet. Goldman, always ready with the next question, could barely contain himself. When he tried to hurry her along, she ignored him; when he tried to interrupt, she went right on talking as if she had forgotten he was there. He kept after her, asking the same thing over and over again, trying to get her to admit what he knew she had done, or to change her testimony so he could use the inconsistency against her. He hurled questions at her with incredible ferocity. He would have stoned her to death if he had been able. It had no effect. She sat there like a glass-eyed automaton, going back to the beginning of the answer to repeat it all over again. Frustrated beyond measure, Goldman finally gave up.

” ‘You can deny it from now until kingdom come, Mrs. Larkin, but we both know you raped your son!’

“With the sound of that accusation ringing in the air, Goldman shot one more glance at the accused and then turned away.

” ‘The defense calls Amy Larkin,’ I announced before Goldman had reached his chair. Until the last minute, I did not know if Janet Larkin’s daughter would show up. She had said she might not. She knew how important it was to her mother’s defense—I had left her in no doubt on that score—but she had let me know it was her decision to make and that she was not going to be forced into anything. I had her served with a subpoena and it did not make any difference. If she decided she was not going to testify, there was nothing anyone could do about it. She was willful, but she was not defiant. She did not question the authority that could drag her in front of a judge and put her in jail for contempt. It was not that at all. She just was not going to do anything she did not want to do. Not anymore.

“I have not seen her since her mother’s trial, and I never tried to find out what happened to her after it was over. Perhaps I did not want to know. Perhaps I preferred the comfort of an illusion, the vague hope that somehow everything had turned out well.

All I know for sure is though she was wise beyond her years, it was not the kind of wisdom that was conducive to what we think of as happiness.

“It never occurred to me that I was doing anything wrong. She was a witness—a crucial witness as far as I was concerned—and she had to testify. If anyone had suggested that I was doing something as obscene as what her father had done, I would have dismissed it as the ignorant comment of someone who knew nothing about the conduct of a criminal trial. But they would have been right. All the unspeakable things that had been done to her had been done to her in private; they were a shameful secret that she had never been able to share with another human being. By confessing, her father had betrayed her twice. He had violated the primal obligation of a parent, and then told the world what he had done. Called to testify on behalf of her mother, she was compelled to tell hundreds of strangers what she had for years concealed from people she might have trusted with her life. What business did I have—what business did anyone have—doing that to her?

“I was not thinking of any of that then. All I cared about was that she was actually there, inside the courtroom, holding up her hand as she listened to the clerk recite the oath.

“She did not seem the least bit nervous, but how many witnesses ever do? They sit there with their hearts racing and their minds filled with a thousand fears, wondering if they will be able to open their mouths when it is time to answer and whether anything will come out if they do. But on the outside they look completely composed, as if this was something they do every day. We are all actors, wearing the mask we think the world wants to see.

“I led with the question that was at the heart of the prosecution’s case. ‘During the time it was going on, did your mother know you were having sex with your father?’

“She shook her head emphatically. ‘No. I’d never allow him in my room if my mother was still awake.’

“I was struck by her choice of words. ‘You wouldn’t allow him in your room?’

” ‘I made him promise me that she’d never find out. I didn’t want her to be hurt.’

“She was sixteen years old, and she talked like a woman who had been having an affair with her best friend’s husband.

” ‘How can you be sure that she didn’t find out?’

“She dismissed it out of hand. ‘She wouldn’t have kept something like that to herself. She would have done something.’

“I turned toward the jury. ‘The prosecutor claims she didn’t do anything about it because she was having the same kind of relationship with your brother your father was having with you.’

” ‘That’s a joke,’ she said. Her voice was filled with scorn. ‘Gerald and my mother! He’s just trying to get back at everyone.’

“Goldman was on his feet. ‘Objection. Move to strike.’

“Jeffries did not hesitate. ‘Sustained,’ he thundered. ‘The jury will disregard the witness’s last remark.’

“His voice was still echoing off the courtroom walls when I asked, ‘And did your brother ever once so much as suggest to you that something improper was going on with his mother?’

” ‘No, never. I told you. He’s just trying to get back at everyone.’

“Jeffries did not wait to hear the objection Goldman was rising to make. He leaned toward the witness stand. ‘Young lady, I know you’ve been through a lot. But your testimony has to be confined to things you saw or heard. You can’t speculate about what someone might or might not have been doing or why they may have said something. Do you understand?’ he asked firmly.

“She was not like any sixteen-year-old girl you’ve ever seen.

Age meant nothing to her. ‘I understand,’ she replied. ‘I’m not speculating about anything. Gerald told me he was going to get back at everyone.’

“There was a dead silence. His eyes still on her, Jeffries drew back, a scowl on his face. ‘Did it ever occur to you that he wanted to get “back at everyone,” as you put it, because of what was done to him?’

She did not back down. ‘Nothing was done to him,’ she insisted.

” ‘Do you have any more questions of this witness, Mr. Antonelli?’ Jeffries asked, eager to get her off his hands.

“Nodding, I gazed down at the floor, reluctant to begin the series of questions that I knew would be unlike anything anyone in that courtroom had ever heard, questions the answers to which might shatter the last illusions we had about who we were and what we could trust.

” ‘Amy, how old were you when your father first started to do things with you?’

” ‘Eleven,’ she replied without hesitation. ‘That’s when he started to touch me. I was twelve the first time we actually had intercourse.’

“She was sixteen years old, with hair that, depending on the light, looked brown or blond, and with just enough freckles on her face so that even in a dress she had the fresh-scrubbed look of a tomboy who could outrun any kid in her class.

” ‘When this first started,’ I asked, ‘why didn’t you tell your mother? Why didn’t you ask her to make him stop?’