Degree of Guilt (42 page)

‘All that I meant to say,’ Terri answered wearily, ‘is that you should quit worrying about Chris and start worrying about Elena.
And
me.’

‘I thought our interests were synonymous.’ He stood straighter. ‘In a real family, Terri, that’s how it’s supposed to be.’

Married all this time, Terri thought, and she was still not sure when Richie meant to be manipulative and when he was merely obtuse to any feelings but his own. She supposed it did not matter. ‘Let’s stop fighting,’ she said. ‘Please. I just got home, and tomorrow the hearing begins.’

He lowered his voice still further. ‘Your job. That’s all you seem to think of now.’

Terri picked up her hair dryer. ‘Tonight,’ she answered, ‘that’s pretty much true.’

She switched on the dryer, using its sound as a buffer. Richie lingered in the doorway of the bathroom, watching with an expression of stubbornness. Then he shrugged and turned away. Something in the gesture told Terri that their quarrel had not ended.

Terri stood in her transient zone of peace: the light of the bathroom, the drone of her hair dryer. Looked at herself in the mirror: the serious eyes, the first lines at their corners. Thought of Elena, sleeping in her bedroom, face lineless and untroubled, so much like Richie’s that Terri still found it startling. And then her mind wandered again to Marcy Linton. To the way Mark Ransom had broken her down, used her fears and vulnerabilities until Linton felt a kind of paralysis. To whether Terri had any right to make her face a trial.

Tomorrow it would begin.

She finished. With more deliberation than normal, Terri put things away, hung the towel up. And then she breathed in, once, and walked into the bedroom.

Richie was waiting.

He lay propped up on one elbow, torso showing, half covered by the bed sheet. Even before he pulled the sheet down to make room for her, Terri knew that he was naked.

‘Come here, Ter,’ he said. ‘It’s no good for married people to end the night like this.’ He gave his most ingratiating smile. ‘Afterwards, I’ll rub your back.’

In the dim light from the lamp on Richie’s side, Terri walked naked to the bed. ‘I’m really tired,’ she parried. ‘Think we can take a rain check?’

He shook his head, smiling as if to say that his insistence was well intended, that he knew what was best for them. ‘It’s early yet,’ he answered lightly. ‘And I have to reclaim my territory.’

‘Really, I don’t think that I could even come.’

Persisting, his smile seemed to become an act of aggression. ‘Then we’ll do the short version, rather than the deluxe.’

What, Terri wondered, was the difference?

She turned out the light, slid inside the bed on her stomach. Passive resistance, she thought; maybe he’ll give up. She felt his hand lightly stroke her thighs; his touch was idle, aimless, as if he had nothing on his mind. Then it came to rest between her legs.

‘Come on, Ter,’ he murmured. ‘Just for a little while.’

His hand began to move again, small strokes where it had rested. Mentally, Terri shuddered.

As he touched her, Terri moved on her stomach, calculating the value of sleep. If she resisted, a quarrel would ensue. Richie could be relentless in his anger; the fulcrum of their marriage, Terrie realized, was his uncanny sense of when her resistance would become fatigue. She could not afford to be tired; she owed Christopher Paget and Carlo, owed
herself
, the best she could offer as a lawyer.

How many times, Terri wondered, had Richie been inside her? How much would this time matter?

How long had she been dead this way?

Silent, Terri rolled over on her back. Richie’s murmur of satisfaction seemed to come from some great distance. He would enter her without words, she knew; like many things, the act of sex was something that took Richie deep within himself, until Terri felt a bystander. She no longer thought of what they did as making love.

Sliding across her, Richie put his hands beneath her bottom, to move her as he wanted. She felt him push inside her. As he went as deep as he could, moaning his pleasure, she draped her arms across his back and wished that he were someone else.

The next morning, Teresa Peralta found herself with Christopher Paget on the fourth floor of the Hall of Justice, Mary Carelli between them, pushing through a lobby jammed with reporters.

Three broad-shouldered police ahead of them parted the crowd – reporters with microphones or notepads; photographers with flash-bulbs; cameramen with minicams mounted on their shoulders, backpedaling to film the progress toward the courtroom. Terri glanced sideways. Mary Carelli looked composed and determined; Paget’s expression was abstracted, removed from his surroundings, as if focused on the hearing ahead. In the last days, Paget’s face or Mary’s had been on the cover of four weekly magazines and on every network newscast; inside the courtroom waited the cameras of Court TV. Terri had hardly slept last night; she wondered if Paget had slept at all.

At the end of the green hallway she saw the double doors of the courtroom. From the side, reporters shouted questions, flashbulbs hissed, footsteps echoed off bare walls. In another minute or so, they would be inside, and it would begin.

Instinctively, she looked at the boy walking next to her: Carlo Carelli Paget, awkward but handsome in a coat and tie, looking so much like his mother that Terri thought some reporter would surely notice. Carlo turned to her, flashed the crooked, uncertain smile she had come to recognize; once again, Terri hoped that her advice to Christopher Paget would not damage a boy she had come to care about.

A flashbulb exploded in their faces.

She touched Carlo’s arm, too quickly for anyone to see. Then she forced herself to look straight ahead, the dots of light from the flash still blurring her line of vision.

Thirty feet from the doors of the courtroom, Terri saw Paget turn at the sound of a question.

The noise had grown louder; the media people were backed against the doorways as if they had hit a wall. It was a red-haired woman reporter whose question had pierced the din: she slid behind the police and stood looking from Mary to Carlo.

‘Who
are
you?’ she asked Carlo again.

Carlo gazed down at her with a pained expression, as if trapped in an awkward social situation by a drunken and rude adult. ‘I’m Carlo Paget,’ he murmured.

Turning, Terri saw that Mary Carelli was stiff with alarm; Paget began pushing in front of her to get to the reporter. ‘He’s my son,’ he snapped in a preemptive tone.

Carlo looked at him, as if startled. Then a slight smile of amusement crossed his face, relieving his look of tension. ‘I can’t deny it,’ he said to the reporter.

The crowd kept moving toward the door. ‘What are you doing here?’ the reporter asked. ‘Learning about the law?’

‘No,’ Carlo answered calmly. ‘I’m thinking about medical school. In case I don’t make the NBA.’

Paget had stopped to watch him; it was as if, Terri thought, he was seeing who Carlo Paget had become.

‘You don’t want to be a lawyer?’ the reporter asked.

From the side, a minicam moved in on Carlo. He glanced over, taking that in, and then looked back at the reporter. ‘Not at all,’ he told her. ‘I just want to be a son.’ He turned to face Paget and Mary. ‘Christopher Paget is my father, and Mary Carelli is my mother. And all I really have to say to anyone is that I’m very proud of them both.’

The reporter was momentarily speechless. Touching Terri’s arm, Carlo gave Mary a slight smile, shot a grin at Paget, and turned back toward the door. Then they opened, and Carlo Paget walked through.

FEBRUARY
10 –
FEBRUARY
12

‘All rise,’ the courtroom deputy called out. ‘The Municipal Court for the City and County of San Francisco, the Honorable Judge Caroline Clark Masters, is now in session.’

A handsome woman on the worst of days, Caroline Masters looked close to regal as she surveyed a courtroom filled by media representatives from around the world, with a small section reserved for members of the public who had lined up outside for the privilege of attending in hour-long shifts. More reporters watched in adjacent rooms fed by closed-circuit television; two cameras in each corner of the courtroom broadcast the hearing nationwide. On the steps of the courthouse, a coalition of women’s groups carried signs and placards asking justice for Mary Carelli.

Mary herself stood beside Paget; the awe of finding herself in the cockpit of a crowded courtroom, charged with premeditated murder, showed in the way she grasped the table reserved for the defense. On his other side, Terri looked tired and troubled. Carlo sat behind them in the first row; Johnny Moore had joined him and sat primed to feed Paget scraps of information for use in cross-examination.

Turning, Paget glanced at Marnie Sharpe. She looked pale. But her alertness of expression said that she was ready. Paget was certain that she, like him, had committed every pertinent fact to memory; had designed and redesigned lines of questioning; and had prepared herself against surprise. The one edge he carried to the courtroom was how much he had at stake.

From the bench, Caroline Masters appraised them both. The judicial frown she wore seemed the residue of pleasure and anticipation.

‘Ms Sharpe,’ she began, ‘Mr Paget. A few ground rules. I suggest you listen carefully.

‘First, the presence of television is a responsibility, not a chance to entertain. There will be only one “personality” in this courtroom – and you’re listening to her.’

The judge paused, her voice becoming crisp and surgical. ‘Second,’ she continued, ‘we will be ruling on contested points of evidence – whether certain witnesses are relevant or other evidence should be made public – by holding private sessions in chambers. The transcript of those proceedings will be sealed, so as to avoid prejudice to all participants. If anyone alludes to the subject matter of those proceedings without my prior permission, this court will personally bring them before the disciplinary committee of the California State Bar.’

This, Paget knew, was a warning not to mention the Laura Chase tapes; James Colt; Steinhardt’s recording of Mary; or the proposed testimony of any witnesses to Mark Ransom’s sexual character until Masters ruled on them in private. The pressure of those issues, Paget thought, made even Masters seem apprehensive.

‘Third,’ the judge went on, ‘I reserve the right to pull the plug on all or part of these proceedings. If either the People or the defense makes an argument, or even asks a question, which I believe is designed more to create bias than to advance their legitimate interests, they will be severely penalized.

‘Do I make myself clear?’

‘Yes, Your Honor,’ Sharpe said.

Paget nodded. ‘Quite clear, Your Honor.’

‘Good.’ Masters looked down at Paget. ‘Not to single you out, Mr Paget, but you singled yourself out by asking for this. I expect exemplary behavior.’

‘The court has every right to that,’ Paget answered mildly. ‘From everyone.’

Masters raised her eyebrow. ‘I’m sure
everyone
,’ she said with the slightest edge, ‘is aware of that as you are.’ She turned to Sharpe. ‘I’ve suggested opening statements. Do you have one?’

‘We do,’ responded Sharpe. She stepped to the podium, looking up at Caroline Masters, and the hearing began.

‘
This
,’ Sharpe opened, ‘is a simple act of murder.’

Her voice quavered slightly, Paget thought, as if her larynx had been squeezed. But it was a good first sentence, and he was certain that the words themselves were crafted to get better.

‘Mary Carelli admits shooting Mark Ransom to death. The one thing standing between the People and the “probable cause” is Ms Carelli’s story about
why
she killed him.’ Abruptly, Sharpe’s voice was etched with scorn. ‘Or, I should say, her
stories
.

‘Because if Ms Carelli presumes to testify before this court, she must tell the court a far
different
story than she told Inspector Charles Monk.’

This was clever, Paget saw: make Mary’s credibility the focus of her argument; suggest that Mary will insult the court by lying; and then, in chambers, finish the job by asking to introduce a tape in which Mary admits perjury before the United States Senate. Next to him, Mary watched the prosecutor intently, as if preparing for cross-examination. Paget dared not look at Carlo.

‘Let us start with the only things about which Ms Carelli appears to have told the truth to anyone.

‘Mark Ransom
did
contact her.

‘Thereafter, Ms Carelli
did
purchase a gun.

‘She
did
come to San Francisco, at her own expense, without telling ABC or anyone else.

‘She
did
go to Mark Ransom’s suite with the Walther .380 hidden in her purse.

‘And then, at about noon, Mary Carelli shot Mark Ransom to death.

‘Right there, we have a probable cause for first degree murder.’ Sharpe paused for effect, and then her voice dropped. ‘And from there on,’ she added, ‘things get much worse for Ms Carelli.’

Caroline Masters leaned forward, betraying her interest. Terri was utterly still. The courtroom was far too quiet for Paget’s liking.

‘Mary Carelli claims to have purchased the handgun because of anonymous phone calls, to her
unlisted
number, which she failed to report to anyone.

‘She says that Mr Ransom lured her to the hotel room with information regarding Laura Chase.’ Sharpe paused. ‘On that point,’ she said dryly, ‘I will say nothing for the moment. I simply ask the court to keep that claim in mind.

‘She says, even more fundamentally, that Mr Ransom tried to rape her.’ The contempt returned to her voice. ‘That while maintaining an erection, Mark Ransom scratched her throat and leg and threw her to the ground. And then, in the ensuing struggle, that she shot him from a distance of two to three inches.’