Degree of Guilt (6 page)

Monk was quiet for a time. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said finally. ‘How does a dead woman “remember” anything?’

Mary found herself staring at the tape recorder. ‘Ransom had a tape of Laura Chase. Talking to her psychiatrist.’ She paused again. ‘That was what Mark Ransom called to tell me.’

For the first time, Monk’s inflection changed. ‘When you said she
remembered
 . . .’

‘It’s on the tape.’ Mary hesitated. ‘The one on the coffee table.’

Monk studied the tape recorder, as if newly fascinated by its workings. Mary could see him imagining the tape: the husky voice of a famous actress, describing her abuse by a senator from California – a man who millions wished had become President and whose death in a plane crash was still widely mourned. A man whose son was now poised to become governor.

‘You could hurt people,’ Monk said softly, ‘with a tape like that.’

The words held the resonance of feeling, reminding Mary that Monk lived a life outside this room and that some image of James Colt was surely part of that. Mary had images of her own: James Colt marching with migrant workers; speaking with passion on the Senate floor against the tragedy and waste of Vietnam, yet demanding of college students that they give up their deferments to ‘fight against a war the less advantaged are fighting in your place.’ Looking now at Monk, Mary reflected that James Colt occupied a special place for blacks: he had been the last potential President to speak for social justice without apology. The people Ransom’s tape would ‘hurt,’ as Monk had put it, were not just James Colt’s family.

‘Yes.’ Her eyes rose from the tape recorder. ‘Tapes like that could hurt people.’

Monk seemed to settle in his chair; something about him, Mary thought, seemed more tired than before. ‘Did Ransom say how he got the tape?’ he asked finally.

‘He bought it.’ Mary felt the edge in her voice. ‘From Dr Steinhardt’s daughter. She wanted to keep the house in Beverly Hills.’

‘Dr Steinhardt.’

‘The psychiatrist. He’s dead.’

‘But aren’t there rules about that? In this state, we have a psychiatrist-patient privilege.’

Mary shrugged again. ‘Laura Chase and Steinhardt are both dead. Who’s left? Only Steinhardt’s daughter and . . .’ And Ransom, she had been about to say.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes.’ Mary realized that she had touched her eyes with the fingertips of one hand. ‘It’s just that I saw him for a moment.’

‘Him?’

‘Ransom. When he died, he was staring at me.’

‘Yes,’ Monk said. ‘We’ll get to that.’

Beneath his voice, she heard the faint whirring of the tape recorder. ‘Let’s do that now,’ she said. ‘I’m tired.’

‘We just need to cover things.’

She opened her eyes. ‘May I have some water?’

‘Sure.’

He got up, went out, returned with a styrofoam cup of cold water. The tape kept spinning.

Monk leaned against the wall. ‘You’ve mentioned conversations – he called you at work, you called him at home. Before the interview, were there any more?’

‘He called again. To tell me where and when he could see me.’

‘He chose San Francisco.’

‘Yes.’

‘Was that convenient for you?’

‘No.’

‘Why did you do it?’

Mary flushed. ‘He said he might play the tape for me,’ She said finally. ‘If I came alone.’

Monk’s eyes widened, almost imperceptibly. ‘That was what persuaded you.’

Mary sipped water, selecting her words. ‘I wasn’t interested in destroying James Colt’s memory – or in Laura Chase’s death, for that matter. I was interested in the ethics of it. Buying and selling people’s most intimate secrets, things they wouldn’t tell you.’

‘How did you feel about that?’

‘That he shouldn’t use the tape.’ Mary paused. ‘But I’m also a journalist. Ransom told me that truth was more important than privacy or sentiment, for the dead and for the living.’

‘Did you agree?’

‘No.’ Mary examined her broken nail. ‘But it was impossible not to see him.’

‘Did he say why he contacted you?’

‘Yes.’

‘And why was that?’

She felt herself stiffen. ‘That he liked watching me on television. And that the “subject matter” might interest me.’

‘Did he elaborate?’

‘No.’ Her voice cooled again. ‘Not until I saw him.’

Monk sat down and contemplated her across the tape recorder, hand touching his chin. ‘What happened,’ he finally asked, ‘when you came to his suite?’

Mary looked past him at the wall. Think about each detail, she told herself, one sentence at a time.

‘I got there at eleven-thirty.’ Her voice turned cool. ‘I expected him to have a publicist. But he was alone.’

Monk sat back. ‘Instead of me asking questions, why don’t you just go through it. We can go back over any details later.’

Mary found herself watching the tape recorder, mute.

‘Maybe,’ Monk prodded, ‘you can start with what he was like.’

Mary raised her eyes, looking straight at Monk. ‘He was disgusting.’

‘In what way?’

‘
Every
way.’ She exhaled. ‘To really understand, you would have to be a woman.’

Monk seemed to smile without changing expression. ‘Try me,’ he said.

Mary looked down. ‘To start,’ she said finally, ‘he was repellent physically. He was a tall man, and he tried to be so patrician – his Anglo-Irish accent, the way he would stand, as if posing for a portrait. But it was like watching a figure in a wax museum. Even his skin looked cold. He had this soft white stomach . . .’ She stopped herself. ‘That wasn’t until later.’

Monk’s eyes narrowed. ‘Take it from the beginning.’

Slowly, Mary nodded.

‘At the beginning, it was the
way
he looked at me. He was Irish, of course, but he had these ice-blue eyes and kind of Slavic features – a face with a lot of surfaces, and eyes that seemed to pull up at the ends, maybe from plastic surgery. And even when he smiled, his eyes never changed.’ She turned away. ‘I remember suddenly thinking that he looked less like an intellectual than like a Russian general at a May Day parade. One whose grandfather had raped his grandmother in some peasant uprising . . .’ Mary found that she was clasping her wrist. Quietly, she finished: ‘I thought that before I even sat down, and congratulated myself on what a clever observation it was.’

Monk waited, letting her collect herself. ‘What did he say when you first got there?’

‘That I was a beautiful woman.’ Monk looked up again. ‘That the camera didn’t capture all of me.’

‘What did you say?’

‘I thanked him.’ Her voice was ironic. ‘Of course. Then I changed the subject.’

‘To what?’

‘To his writing. What else do you talk about to a writer who has already proposed his own obituary: “More than anyone, he saw and wrote the truth about his times” . . . ?’

Monk said nothing. He was waiting her out, she realized; she was digressing, trying to avoid the essence of her story. ‘It was while we were talking,’ she said, ‘that I noticed the tape recorder.’

‘Tell me about that.’

Mary nodded again. ‘It was on the coffee table.’

‘Yes?’

‘At first I didn’t understand. When I sat down, I asked him what it was for.’

‘You didn’t know?’

Mary realized that she was staring at the tape recorder. ‘I thought he might be recording us for some reason.’

‘What did he say?’

‘That it was the tape of Laura Chase. He was going to give me an exclusive opportunity, he said.’

‘What did he mean?’

‘What he
said
he meant was that when the book came out, I could do the first television interview.’ She paused again. ‘All about Laura and James Colt.’

Monk folded his hands. After a moment, he asked, ‘Did Ransom say why he’d brought the tape with him?’

‘As bait. He said he might let me listen.’ She stared at her wrist.

‘The tape seemed to excite him – he kept looking at it.’

‘What did
you
say?’

‘Nothing. He said that he wanted to talk first, about the book. That we should have some champagne.’

‘Did you?’

‘I didn’t want to. But it was a story, and I was there, and champagne was part of his pretense of elegance. So I let him order champagne from room service. We sat on the couch, talking, and I had one glass.’

Monk raised his eyebrows. ‘The bottle was empty,’ he observed.

‘He drank the rest.’ Mary closed her eyes. ‘While we listened to the tape.’

Monk was silent. ‘You listened to it?’ he finally asked.

‘Yes. At some point, I realized that was why I was there. He wanted to
share
it.’ She paused, speaking more slowly. ‘He needed me to hear what James Colt had done to Laura Chase.’

Monk seemed to search for another question. Then he asked simply, ‘What happened?’

Mary felt cold. ‘It was horrible. The last time I had heard Laura Chase was at the movies, or perhaps on her early records. It was the same voice, but there weren’t any pictures. Instead I was sitting in a hotel suite with Mark Ransom, while an actress who’s been dead for twenty years decribed how a senator I remembered admiring watched two of his friends take turns with her.’ She found herself staring at the tape recorder again. ‘I’m not sure, at first, that I even felt his hand on my knee.’

‘Ransom fondled you while the tape was playing?’

She nodded. ‘At first, I thought it was a mistake. I mean, it was more like grazing than touching. Then I stopped and looked at him.

‘He just stared back at me. When he knew he had my attention, he looked down at his lap. Slowly, to make sure I would follow him.’

‘And.’

‘He had an erection. That was what he wanted me to see.’

The gold-rimmed glasses seemed to magnify Monk’s eyes. ‘He had his penis out?’

‘No. It was obvious enough.’

‘Did he say anything?’

‘He offered me an “arrangement,” to play the tape on
Deadline
.’

‘Did he say what kind of arrangement?’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Just what he said.’

‘All right. What he said, exactly, was, “I like fucking women I’ve seen on film. It’s as if I’ve made them real.”’

Monk touched his chin. ‘What did
you
do?’ he finally asked.

‘I told him I was much too smart to fuck him, and took his hand away. Then I said to him, much more calmly, that I was willing to deal with him as a news professional and make some other kind of “arrangement.”’

‘What did he say?’

‘That
his
arrangement was the
only
arrangement. That I’d like it.’ Mary paused again. ‘All this time, Laura Chase is still talking on the tape, about having sex while James Colt watches.’

The room was silent. Mary could hear the whisper of the tape.

‘What happened next?’ Monk asked.

‘I stood up, grabbed my purse off the coffee table . . .’ Her voice trailed off.

‘Yes?’

‘Ransom caught me by the arm.’

Monk waited for a moment. ‘Take your time.’

‘Can I have more water?’

‘Sure.’ Monk stood again. ‘Anytime you want something, just tell me.’

Mary picked a spot on the wall. Don’t think about Monk, she told herself. Concentrate on the words. When Monk returned and handed her the full cup of water, she kept her eyes on the wall.

‘Go ahead,’ Monk said.

She nodded. ‘Ransom spun me around and clasped both of my arms. It threw me off balance . . .’

‘Yes?’

‘He pushed me to the floor. It was so sudden – I was still holding my purse. And then he was on top of me.’ She drank water. ‘Really, I can’t remember all of it.’

‘Why don’t you tell me what he did.’

‘He was grunting, almost – for me to stay still. That he was going to fuck me, no one would know. His face was against my neck. He was hot and smelled like champagne and men’s cologne.’ She stopped for a moment. ‘Somehow, he pulled open my legs. That must be when my thigh got scratched.’

‘Go on.’

‘It was like the wind had been knocked out of me. I remember feeling sick, the room getting dark for a moment, Laura Chase’s smoky voice in the background . . .’

‘The tape was still on?’

‘Yes.’ Mary nodded. ‘For some reason, I could hear it clearly. She was talking about the second man, doing whatever he wanted.’

Monk examined his tie clasp. ‘What happened then?’ he asked.

Mary touched her face. Coldly, she said, ‘That was when I started fighting.’

‘How?’

‘I made fists. Hit his face, arms, anything.’

‘And then?’

‘He put one hand on my chest and leaned on it to pin me to the floor, propping himself over me. His face was red, and his eyes were fixed and full of hate. It stopped – just for a second. I half raised my head to look at him.’ She paused, took one breath, and finished: ‘Then he raised his arm, very slowly, and slapped me across the face.’

‘What happened then?’

‘I cried out.’ Mary paused. ‘So he hit me again.’

‘And then?’

She looked away. ‘I stopped fighting.’

‘Is that the bruise?’

‘Yes.’ Mary kept staring past him. Her voice had become a monotone. ‘My head hit the floor. Pain shot through my neck. For a moment, it got dark again. I think maybe he was choking me.’

‘You’re not sure.’

‘No.’ She swallowed. ‘The next thing I remember is that my skirt is around my waist and my legs are spread apart, with the panty hose still on.’

‘What is Ransom doing?’

‘He’s kneeling between my legs, staring down at me. His pants are around his knees.’ She paused. ‘It’s so crazy – somehow it shocks me that his pubic hairs are red. There’s a red birthmark on his thigh . . .’