Degree of Guilt (7 page)

From the corner of her eye, Mary saw Monk pause, absently pushing the gold-rimmed glasses where they touched the bridge of his nose.

‘What does he do then?’

‘He stops for a moment.’ Mary’s voice grew quieter. ‘I think he’s listening to Laura Chase.’

‘And then?’

‘I feel the strap of my purse in my left hand. It’s funny: I’ve never let it go.’ Mary spoke more softly still. ‘And then I remember the gun.’

Monk’s own voice had become quiet. ‘Go on,’ he said.

‘All this time, I’ve never spoken. Now I say, “You can take me. I’ll let you do it, any way you want.” His eyes seem to light up.’ Mary paused, permitting herself a bitter smile. ‘Then I tell him, “But only if you use a rubber.”’

Monk’s impassivity had become a stare. ‘What,’ he asked at length, ‘did Ransom say?’

‘He laughs – kind of a short bark. “No,” I say, “there’s one in my purse.” It seems to startle him. Before he can answer, I twist and reach into my purse. . . .

‘When he pushes me on my back again, the gun is in my hand.

‘When he grabs for it, I knee him. His hands are on my wrists. He gives this cry; his body seems almost to twitch. . . .’ Mary closed her eyes. ‘That’s when the gun went off.’

‘What else do you remember?’

Mary bent forward. ‘Just his face. He looks softer, almost disappointed, as if I had hurt his feelings. I catch him in both hands, an inch or two from my body. His breath still stinks. All my strength, and I can barely push him off.’ She paused once more, and finished. ‘That’s when I noticed that Laura had stopped talking.’

There was silence. Mary felt herself slump in the chair. Over, she told herself. It’s over.

She opened her eyes. ‘Can I go now?’

Monk watched her. ‘I’d like to ask you a few more questions. Just about what you’ve told me.’

Mary felt a surge of anger. She sat, irresolute, replaying the tone of Monk’s voice. His face showed nothing.

‘The gun,’ he said. ‘Why do you carry one?’

She sat back, drained. ‘I’ve had threatening phone calls,’ she said finally.

‘When did they happen?’

‘The past two months . . . I don’t know exactly.’

‘Male or female?’

‘Male.’

‘At work?’

‘No. At home.’

‘Are you listed?’

‘No.

‘Did the person seem to know who you were?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Could it have been Ransom?’

Mary hesitated. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘How many calls?’

‘Two, I think.’

‘What did they say?’

‘Not much. Just that they were watching me.’

‘Did you report them?’

‘No.’

‘Did you tell anyone?’

‘No. Not that I remember.’

‘But you bought a gun.’

‘Yes.’ Mary summoned a tone of weary patience. ‘I’m a public person. Those calls reminded me that there are strange people out there, and that I’m a woman living alone.’

‘When did you buy the gun?’

Mary shrugged. ‘About two weeks ago.’

‘Was that before, or after, you first heard from Ransom?’

Mary stared at him. ‘After, I think.’

Monk leaned slightly forward. ‘You flew here from New York, correct?’

‘Yes.’

‘When?’

‘Sunday morning.’

Monk cocked his head, as if to consider her from another angle.

‘Who made the hotel and plane reservations?’

‘I did.’

‘Did you make them through Deadline?’

‘No.’ Mary paused. ‘I paid for them myself.’

‘Doesn’t ABC pay for business travel?’

‘Of course.’ Mary’s voice grew impatient. ‘Why is this important? They can either pay me in advance or reimburse me.’

‘Did you tell anyone at ABC about seeing Ransom?’

‘No. I wouldn’t have to.’

‘Or about his calls?’

Don’t be defensive, Mary told herself. ‘No,’ she answered.

‘And you brought the gun with you?’

‘Yes.’

‘How did you get it out here?’

‘In my luggage.’

Monk’s eyes seemed to move. ‘Did you tell the airport people you had it?’

‘No.’

Monk paused for a moment. ‘Today,’ he said, ‘did anyone see you in the lobby?’

‘I don’t know. I went right to his suite.’

‘Once you were inside, did anyone come to the room?’

‘Not that I remember.’

‘What about room service?’

‘Yes . . . that . . .’

‘Was the person a man or a woman?’

‘A man.’

‘Can you tell me what he looked like?’

‘I don’t know . . . short. Hispanic, I think.’

Monk leaned back. ‘When you got to the room,’ he said ‘were the blinds closed?’

‘I think so.’ Once again, Mary paused. ‘Yes, I’m sure.’

‘There were scratches on Ransom’s buttocks. Do you know how they got there?’

‘Of course. When I was struggling with him.’

‘You’d mentioned your fists being closed, and I don’t remember anything about scratching his buttocks.’

Mary recalled Dr Shelton, tracing the scratches with her finger. ‘I don’t know,’ she said wearily. ‘Maybe it happened when I was pushing him off me. After the gun went off.’

Monk nodded again. ‘When you were struggling with the gun, were Ransom’s hands on it?’

Shelton had inspected the dead man’s hands, put them both in glassine bags. . . .

‘I don’t remember.’

‘When the gun fired, Miss Carelli, how far was it from Ransom’s chest?’

She had touched his wound, the torn cloth around it. . . .

‘Very close.’

‘
How
close? Was it touching him?’

‘No.’ Mary could hear the tape recorder whirring. ‘Two inches . . .’

Monk leaned forward. ‘Not two
feet
, or three feet?’

‘No.’

‘The scratch on your throat – it happened after Ransom slapped you?’

She had taken samples from her fingernails, then his. . . .

‘Yes.’

‘And then he pulled his pants down.’

‘Yes.’

‘Did he have an erection?’

She had taken swabs from his penis. . . .

‘Miss Carelli?’

The tape kept spinning.

‘Yes,’ She reached for the empty cup of water. The tape still coiled, slowly, repeatedly.

‘The erection.’ Monk’s voice seemed far away. ‘What do you remember about it?’

‘I don’t know. It was an erection, that’s all. I didn’t have time to think about how special it was.’

Monk folded his arms. ‘After the gun went off, what did you do?’

‘I don’t know. . . . I was dazed.’

‘How long did it take for you to call 911?’

She had reached under his armpit, felt his skin. . . .

‘I don’t know. As soon as I was able.’

The tape turned again. Once, twice.

‘While you were at the suite, did you leave at any time?’

Mary looked up.

‘Miss Carelli?’

‘Could you stop the tape a moment? Please.’

‘I can’t do that.’ Monk said calmly. ‘It’s regulation.’

The tape turned again, recording silence.

Mary reached out to push a button. The tape clicked off.

‘I want to see a lawyer,’ she said ‘Now.’

They took Paget to the witness room, opened the door, and closed it again, leaving them alone.

The way she looked startled him.

The fluorescent light captured with pitiless clarity the change since the previous day: puffy eyelids; a yellow pallor to her skin; the slack beneath her face. Slumped in the chair, her slender frame looked drained of energy, much older and too thin.

He gazed at the bruise next to her eye, then at her eyes themselves. They had a haunted, fearful look she would hate if she could see it.

It was that – the sense that some essence had been taken from her – which made Paget want to touch her. And then feel, in the next moment, that this was the last thing he should do.

‘I’m sorry this happened,’ he said.

She studied him. ‘Don’t feel sorry, Chris. It happened, and it’s done. I just want to get out of here.’

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes. Please, just help me.’

Paget nodded. ‘The first thing is to persuade the D.A. he doesn’t have a case.’

‘How do I do that?’

‘I’ll help you find a first-rate criminal lawyer – someone who’s tried these cases a lot and whom the D.A respects. He or she can sit down with the prosecution and tell them why they should drop this.’

Mary gazed through him, as if she had not heard.

‘If you want,’ he said, ‘I can probably get someone here to see you within an hour. Get them started.’

Slowly, she shook her head.

Paget sat across from her. ‘I know you’re tired . . .’

‘You don’t understand, Chris.
You
have to do this.’

Paget felt a kind of dull surprise. It was as if, he thought, her own shock was a contagion.

‘Look,’ he said at length, ‘I know you can’t believe what happened, that it doesn’t seem real. But it is. You need a real lawyer.’

‘And you’re not one?’

‘Not for this. I don’t do homicides anymore.’

‘Do this one.’

Paget stared at her. Were it not for what she wanted, her new animation would have made him feel better; some life was back in her face.

‘If I were going to resume an old career, Mary, yours would be the last case I’d choose. You don’t try cases for someone you know.’

‘Is that what I am?’ she said with irony. ‘Someone you know?’

Paget leaned back. ‘I would have a very hard time defining,’ he said at length, ‘all the things you are to me. You know as well as I do the reasons I can’t take this.’

Mary seemed to gauge his strength of will. ‘They’re the very same reasons,’ she said finally, ‘that you have no choice.’

Paget felt a rush of anger. ‘You’re in no position –’

‘No choice at all,’ she interrupted. ‘As you know all too well.’ The irony stole back into her voice. ‘After all, there is so very much that binds us.’

Paget fought for self-control. In a lower key, he said, ‘Carlo, you mean.’

She looked away. ‘Choose whatever reason you like, Chris. The one that makes you feel best. Just do this.’

‘Damn you,’ Paget snapped. ‘Think. Think of
him
for once. Even if you walk tomorrow, Ransom’s death will be news for months. Whatever else you and I may have done, we’ve at least kept Carlo’s life to himself. But “The Return of Chris and Mary” will be the stuff of TV movies. You’re not just asking me to do something for you. You’re asking me to risk changing Carlo’s world forever.’

Mary looked up again, her gaze level. ‘How do you know,’ she finally said, ‘that I’m
not
thinking about Carlo?’

‘Because you couldn’t be.’

‘You are so very good at believing the worst of me.’

‘It’s hardly a natural gift, Mary. I came by these feelings the old-fashioned way – you taught me.’

Her face closed against him, as if she were withdrawing all feeling. Then she shrugged. ‘Have it your way, then. I am, as usual, a cold-blooded bitch. I’m forcing you to put our son through publicity hell to spare me the minor inconvenience of a trial – or, at most, life imprisonment. Because I know how hard you’ll work to spare
Carlo
the further trauma of having a murderess for a mother.’

Paget watched her face. ‘Why?’ he asked softly. ‘Why force me to do this? Just tell me that much.’

‘Because I know you’ll do whatever it takes to win whatever you decide to win.’ Her voice was quiet, bitter. ‘Isn’t that what every client wants?’

Paget found himself looking at the scratches on her neck, then at the table. ‘No,’ he finally said, ‘there’s something else. I need to know what’s really happening here.’

For a moment, Mary was silent. Paget could not tell whether she was considering what he had said. Then she sat straighter, looked him in the face.

‘What’s really happening here,’ she answered crisply, ‘is that Mark Ransom was a pervert and a swine, who at the moment that I shot him was especially deserving. Or, as I put it more neutrally to the police, at the moment that the gun went off.’

Paget stared at her. ‘The police,’ he repeated. ‘Why did you stop answering Monk’s questions?’

‘Because I was
tired
, half in shock. Because, however good my reasons, I’d
killed
someone. You can’t know how that feels – you don’t believe it, and yet you’re scared to death nothing will ever be the same.’ She paused. ‘For the first time in my life, I stopped coping, that’s all. I think I have a decent excuse.’

‘That’s a reason not to talk to them at all, not tonight anyhow. But once you’ve started . . .’

‘I wanted to persuade them, don’t you see. Wanted all this over with – to get out of this building without ever needing you or anyone.’ She paused, exhaling, head bent forward. ‘The questions became confusing. I couldn’t recall things clearly, couldn’t follow him anymore. I was afraid of making a mistake.’

‘How can the truth,’ Paget asked quietly, ‘be a mistake?’

‘I don’t know.’ Mary shook her head, as if to clear it. ‘You feel like someone in a Kafka novel. Like they’re going to misunderstand something you said, or did or didn’t do, or something you didn’t remember quite right. That tape . . .’ She paused, touching her face with the fingers of one hand. ‘I was dislocated. I just had to stop talking, that’s all.’

Paget folded his hands. ‘Do you have the wherewithal to talk to me? Monk told me only a little, on the elevator up.’

Mary gazed at him. ‘You’ll do it, then?’

She seemed unsure again; it was as if she were too vulnerable to be sure that she had won.

‘What I’m agreeing to do,’ Paget said, ‘is find out what the D.A.’s thinking. For that I’ll need to know precisely what it is you told them.’