Degree of Guilt (56 page)

He turned to her, expression hovering between relief and apprehension.

Terri stood. ‘I’d tell you not to threaten me with Elena, Richie. But it might be far too late.’

‘
I
didn’t threaten
you.
It was
you
who wants to separate.’

‘Don’t twist things.’ She shook her head. ‘You told me to face reality. The sad reality of our marriage is that you’re always three moves ahead of me, and I still can’t bring myself to believe that there are even more moves to make.’

He stared at her. ‘What exactly are you saying?’

‘That you don’t love me. And that I haven’t loved you for a long time, and hid that from us both.’ Terri paused. ‘If you want to blame me for something, blame me for that.’

He flushed with anger. ‘Don’t bullshit me, Ter. It isn’t our marriage. You had this alleged breakthrough when you started spending time with Christopher Paget.’

Terri walked silently to the sink, tossed the coffee down the drain, turned to face him again. ‘Chris and you don’t belong in the same conversation. First, you’re nothing alike. Second, this has nothing to do with him. It’s all about
you
.’

‘I can’t believe that.’

‘Believe it. It’s
you
, Richie. You, and the fact that you can never accept that it’s you. And never will.’

He was silent; for the first time, Terri saw the panic in his mental calculation. ‘It’s about Elena, Terri. Our daughter, remember?’

She felt a surge of anger. ‘Didn’t you hear me? Don’t use Elena to cover for yourself or to blackmail
me
.’ She paused, lowering her voice. ‘I’ve got a case to try, and I’m going to do it right. For as long as I’m doing that, you’ve got me to support you. As long, that is, as you don’t touch me.’

Terri turned and went to wake Elena.

Watching Caroline Masters greet Lindsay Caldwell, Terri thought that they seemed like members of the same species, who recognized each other without ever having met. Caroline’s manner bespoke a respectful sense of how difficult Caldwell must find this; Caldwell’s quiet command seemed tempered by the knowledge that she could not control what Caroline did. Both spoke softly; neither smiled.

‘Did they get you past the press?’ Caroline asked.

Caldwell nodded. ‘They took me through the underground garage and then up a private elevator. I felt like plutonium.’

‘Which you are, in a way.’ Caroline Masters paused. ‘Unless I decide they have to, I don’t want the press to ever know that you were here.’

Caldwell glanced at Sharpe. ‘I appreciate that,’ she said, and the four women sat, Caroline behind her desk, Terri next to Caldwell, Sharpe a few feet back.

They were a strange assortment, Terri thought. Sharpe’s alertness suggested some deeper tension, whereas the case appeared to have drawn from Caroline an unforeseen reserve of empathy. As for Terri, she still felt her inexperience. But at least all three were lawyers; here in chambers, Caldwell, with her tawny hair and chiseled profile, familiar only as an image on film, seemed startling.

Caroline faced her. ‘Tell me about Mark Ransom,’ she asked.

Caldwell nodded briskly, as if she appreciated the judge’s directness and would be equally direct. In the corner, the stenographer sat poised over her machine. ‘It’s quite simple,’ Caldwell began, ‘and quite painful. Twenty years ago, shortly before she died, I had an affair with Laura Chase. Mark Ransom found out.’

Caroline’s face was expressionless. ‘Did he make clear how he intended to use what he knew?’

‘It was clear to
me
,’ Caldwell answered coolly. ‘And he made it
very
clear that he was in control.’

Caroline seemed to appraise her. ‘When you say that what Ransom knew was “painful,”’ she finally asked, ‘do you mean something about the affair itself. Or do you mean the fact of it?’

For a moment, the two women looked at each other; to Terri, their silence had a sudden unspoken intimacy. ‘Not the fact of it,’ Caldwell answered. ‘It was confusing to me then, but I’ve come to terms with that part. People’s sexuality can cover a wide range, and my range, it seems, made being with Laura a possibility – at least for that time. No, what was painful was that the circumstances were so tied to Laura’s death.’ Caldwell paused, as if still processing the memory, and then went on. ‘The affair began two weeks before Laura shot herself, with Laura looking out for me at a time I badly needed someone. One week later, I abandoned
her
, out of fear of Laura’s needs and my own sexuality. Her suicide completed the chain of cause and effect.
That’s
the pain Mark Ransom touched.’

Caroline’s gaze was still level, unfathomable. ‘I’ve listened to Laura’s psychiatric tape,’ she finally said. ‘A few days before she died, three men used her with a callousness that was equaled only by the psychiatrist who listened to her.’ Her voice grew quiet. ‘What I’ve just told you can never go beyond this room. But it’s something you should know. Before you start apportioning blame.’

Terri looked at her in surprise. For the moment, Caroline seemed to have set aside the murder of Mark Ransom; her exchange with Lindsay Caldwell had the unsparing directness of two women concerned with matters deeper and more intimate than a criminal proceeding. Caldwell shook her head. ‘I was with Laura when James Colt called her,’ she answered quietly. ‘Both Laura and I knew what he intended. I left anyway.’

Caroline folded her hands. ‘We’ve been speaking of blackmail,’ she said. ‘For Laura to put her decision on you was a kind of emotional blackmail. You didn’t force Laura to go with him. Or to kill herself.’

Caldwell looked away. ‘Mark Ransom touched one other thing,’ she finally said. ‘Although he may not have known it.’

‘Which is?’

‘An hour before she killed herself, Laura called me, drunk and desperate.’ Caldwell’s voice fell. ‘I rejected her again.’

Caroline watched her. Softly, she asked, ‘Did you think Ransom knew that?’

‘I didn’t know. He certainly knew enough.’ Caldwell still gazed down. ‘I thought perhaps she’d called Steinhardt that night, and that Ransom knew that. I still don’t know whether that would have made me feel better, or worse.’

‘But you wanted to know.’

‘I’ve
always
wanted to know. As much as I feared exposure,
that
was why I would have seen Mark Ransom.’

Caroline was quiet. ‘It may be beside the point,’ she said at last, ‘but I believe in personal responsibility for personal choices. You were what – nineteen? Laura let
herself
go.’ Her voice hardened. ‘But if we’re adding links in some chain of cause and effect, add Steinhardt and James Colt – or Laura’s father, for that matter. It’s not germane to Ms Carelli’s culpability, but the suggestion that Mark Ransom found
that
tape exciting it almost as appalling as the suggestion he was using it for sexual blackmail.’

‘And they are
both
suggestions,’ Sharpe pointed out. ‘Not
facts
. Nor defenses to premeditated murder.’

Caroline Masters turned to Sharpe. ‘I’m not here to bail out Ms Carelli. But it’s probably fortunate that the prosecution isn’t required to show the human decency of the victim.’ Once more, Caroline faced Lindsay Caldwell. ‘As the issues of guilt which must occupy Ms Sharpe are confined to Ms Carelli, perhaps we should turn to the nuts and bolts of your conversation with Mark Ransom.’

Caldwell leaned back, looking out the window. ‘I was surprised when he called,’ she finally said. ‘But the first thing I really remember was when he said that he’d been hearing so much about me.

‘“From whom?” I asked him.

‘He hesitated, then he answered, “Laura Chase.”’

Caldwell paused. ‘I was at my beach house in Malibu,’ she said slowly. ‘In the living room. My husband was sitting next to me.

‘When Mark said that, I started – quite literally. I remember looking over my shoulder. Roger was reading a novel by Philip Roth, half smiling to himself.

‘In the most normal tone I could manage, I said, “Really.” And then Ransom began laughing.’ Caldwell’s voice became low and angry. ‘The conversation had hardly begun, and I’d already told Mark Ransom that there was someone in the room with me and that I was scared of Laura.

‘“
Really
,” he repeated. “Specifically, what Laura told me is that you’re the most beautiful and sensitive lover she had ever been with.” It chilled me. And then his voice took on the unctuous tone of someone giving an exaggerated compliment. “Coming from Laura, that’s quite extraordinary, don’t you think? It’s certainly impressed
me
.”’

Terri turned to glance at Caroline. But the judge’s gaze had moved to her hands.

‘The odd thing,’ Caldwell went on, ‘is that beneath the syrupy surface he sounded angry. As if knowing about Laura and me had thrown him off balance.

‘“Of course,” Ransom went on, “toward the end, Laura had very poor luck with men – or women, it seems.”’ Caldwell shook her head. ‘And then he said, in a horrible joking tone, “The confusion must have killed her.”’

Caroline Masters looked up. ‘What did
you
say?’

‘Roger glanced over at me. I realized I’d been talking for some time and that he was becoming curious. So I said in the driest voice I could master, “That’s very droll, Mark. Where are you getting your material, the
Reader’s Digest?
”

‘Ransom laughed again. “My Most Unforgettable Lesbian”? No, my material comes direct from Laura. In her own voice.”

‘Almost by reflex, I said, “Then I hope she called collect.”’ Pausing, Caldwell looked at the judge. ‘It was so strange: I was trading black jokes with Mark Ransom about my affair with Laura Chase, trying to keep Roger from noticing how intimidated I was by whoever was on the other end.

‘“No,” Ransom told me. His tone was suddenly serious. “But I paid for it quite handsomely.”

‘Roger was looking at me now. “What rights did you buy?” I asked Ransom.

‘Ransom’s voice got very quiet. “Literary rights,” he said. “To the tapes of Laura and her psychiatrist.”’

Caldwell paused again, looking at Caroline Masters. ‘For a moment,’ Caldwell told her, ‘I forgot where I was. I don’t even know what I said. But for the rest of my life, I’ll never forget what
he
said next. ‘“Laura seems to have loved you,” he told me. “And you seem to have left her to her fate. Which, as it happens, is the subject of my book.”

‘For a time, I could hardly speak. “What,” I managed, “is the book about?”

‘“Laura’s suicide,” he told me. “The days and hours before she pulled the trigger. I mean to answer the question ‘Who Killed Laura Chase?’”

‘“Who
did?”
I asked, and then I realized Roger was staring at me.

‘More quietly yet, Mark answered, “Whomever I choose, Lindsay. Whom would you suggest?”’

Terri watched Caroline Masters imagine what Terri could see clearly: Caldwell in the beach house Terri had visited, trying to conduct one side of the conversation for her husband’s benefit while she listened to Mark Ransom exhume the guilt of twenty years. Caldwell’s voice turned dull, as if at the memory of her helplessness.

‘“
What
would
you
suggest?” I finally said to Mark.

‘“That you listen to my tape of Laura, talking about you.” His tone became intimate. “Then you’ll give me a very private interview. If you’re sufficiently cooperative, I may even consider you an ‘editorial consultant.’”

‘Roger had gone back to reading Philip Roth. “Is that necessary?” I asked Ransom.

‘There was a long silence, and then he said, “Only if you want the tape.”

‘I felt sick. “Why?” I asked.

‘He was quiet again. “Remember that little quarrel we had about Laura,” he asked, “at the Yale symposium on ‘Women on Film’? You called me ‘the poet laureate of the centerfold,’ I believe.”’

Caldwell crossed her arms, as if hugging herself. ‘Something in those two sentences,’ she said to Caroline, ‘was as frightening as knowing he had the tapes.

‘“Yes,” I told Ransom, “I remember.”

‘“I found you terribly arrogant,” he went on. “But I didn’t know then just how well
you
knew your subject. So I thought it was time that we have a much more intimate chat about Laura.
And
about centerfolds.”’

Caldwell sounded tired. ‘If I’d had any doubt at all about what he wanted,’ she said, ‘that ended it.’

‘“That’s not my favorite subject,” I said.

‘“But it’s
mine
, Lindsay. Because I’ve always wanted to interview someone who slept with Laura Chase. And hearing from Laura about how it was to sleep with
you
suggests that you have much more to offer me than I could ever have imagined.”

‘I couldn’t think of anything to say. When I turned to look at Roger, he was smiling at his book again. And then Mark Ransom said, “I want you for an entire day. Alone. I promise, of course, to bring the tape.”’

Caldwell’s voice became wearier. ‘I agreed to see him. At a hotel room in Los Angeles. It would have been the day after he met with Mary Carelli.’

Caroline was quiet for a time. ‘And you never told your husband?’

‘Only in the narrowest sense. After I hung up the phone, Roger asked who it was. I told him it was Mark Ransom and he wanted to sell rights to a book about Laura Chase.’ Caldwell shook her head. ‘It wouldn’t come to anything, I told Roger – it wasn’t my kind of material, and Ransom wasn’t my kind of writer. But I was going to meet him anyway.’ Caldwell’s voice fell. ‘After all, I said to Roger, we were only talking about one day in my life.’

Caroline leaned back. ‘Why,’ she finally asked, ‘are you willing to come forward now?’

Caldwell seemed to ponder the question. ‘My reason has changed. When I first spoke with Terri, I was certain that the police had found the tape, or soon would. That my secret was out.’ She paused. ‘And I desperately wanted to hear what Laura had said.’