Degree of Guilt (70 page)

All at once, Mary stopped talking.

She pulled up her knees, hugging them close to her. Paget watched her force rhythmic breaths through her body, in and out and in again, until the quivering ceased. When she looked up, her face was naked once more: it was as if the long-repression of her feelings had exhausted her. The wetness in her eyes was fresh.

‘That was when it happened,’ she said quietly.

Her voice had changed again. It was sadder and softer, one human speaking to another; for once, appearing vulnerable seemed less like a choice she had made than all she could do. It made Paget feel a kind of dread.

‘
What
happened?’ he asked.

Her eyes opened wide, as though comprehending something for the first time. ‘As I sucked him,’ she said, ‘his penis started turning soft.

‘He began cursing me in a strangled voice, telling me to suck harder. Nothing worked.’ Stopping, Mary took another deep breath. ‘I looked up at him. The back of my head was against the wall, his penis still in my mouth. He was staring down at himself. His eyes were angry and frightened all at once.’ She paused again, voice lower. ‘When his gaze met mine, his penis slipped from my mouth.

‘He looked down again, watching himself shrivel.

‘I was afraid to look away. I stayed very still, trapped between Ransom and the wall, watching with him. Every second he grew smaller scared me more.

‘I was still watching when he slapped me.

‘I looked up, stunned, eyes blurring with tears. He slapped again, looked down at himself, slapped me again, looked at himself. Like slapping me would make him hard.

‘I spun away, the room turning black in front of me, began crawling toward the coffee table. In the background, Laura was still describing what they did to her. It made me crawl faster. When I looked back, he was still staring at himself.’ Her voice sounded shaken. ‘Tears were running down his face.

‘It stopped me. I just knelt there by the coffee table, naked, watching him as he cried.

‘Then he saw me.’

Mary’s gaze was fixed; she seemed to be looking not at Paget but at Mark Ransom. ‘The rage and humiliation came to his eyes. He stared at me like an animal, face red with anger, pants around his ankles. It was like he felt too much hatred to speak.

‘He began walking toward me.

‘His pants were still down, and his movements were jerky, almost bestial, as if his failure had swept away whatever made him human. Then he raised his hand again.’ Her voice took on a visceral intensity. ‘There was something primal about it – an absence of limits. Before, he wanted to punish me, to help make himself hard. Now he wanted to destroy me.

‘Looking at each other, we both knew that.

‘I grabbed my purse.’ She stopped again: in her silence, Paget felt the combustible moment when Mark Ransom’s pathology triggered Mary’s will to survive. ‘My fingers were numb. I could barely get the gun out.

‘When I turned with it, still shaking, he was maybe six feet from me.

‘His eyes widened.’ She paused at the memory. ‘For an instant, he just stood there. Then he started toward me again. He seemed so enraged that he could imagine nothing else but reaching me.’

Mary’s voice became staccato. ‘I was still on my knees. “Stop,” I called out. He didn’t.

‘Now he was four feet away. I still couldn’t shoot.’ Her eyes closed. ‘And then he called me a worthless cunt.

‘All at once, I hated him enough to shoot.

‘Maybe I could have stopped him – his pants kept him from moving fast. Maybe I could have shot him in the leg. It didn’t matter anymore.’ Pausing, Mary shook her head. ‘All that abuse and then, with a single word, he made me the same person
he
was.’ She stopped again, and spoke her next words slowly and distinctly. ‘The only thing I cared about was killing Mark Ransom.

‘My hands stopped shaking. He was four feet from me when I shot him in the heart.’

The new calm in her voice gave Paget a chill. Her eyes opened again, staring past him. ‘He didn’t so much fall as stop. His eyes were blind with shock. It was as if he were no longer in the room, and I was no longer there.

‘He slumped a little. His face became sad, almost puzzled. Then he crumpled, sitting on the floor.

‘Tears came to his eyes again. The last thing he did was mumble a single word.’ Mary’s voice filled with wonder. ‘“Laura.” He whispered the name “Laura.”

‘The blood drained from his face. I knew he was dead before he had fallen backward.

‘Suddenly I was alone.

‘I tried to take it in. A moment before, Mark Ransom might have killed me. Now he was a corpse with his pants around his ankles.’ The tone of wonder returned. ‘I was sitting next to him, naked in a strange hotel suite, with a tape filled with secrets sitting on the coffee table.’

Paget tried to imagine it. But there were too many layers – shock, horror, shame, and disbelief – for him to understand how Mary could have coped. As if by reflex, he looked at the tape in his hand.

Her gaze followed his. ‘I had killed a man,’ she said slowly. ‘For a prosecutor, my tape would explain why. But without my tape, there was no explaining his naked genitals, exposed so I could please him. Or the tape of Laura Chase.

‘On some level, even through my shock, I understood all that. It was like being under anesthesia but still conscious.

‘I never really had a plan. It came to me in pieces – jumbled, out of order. The only thread was that I had come there to conceal the tape, and now I had to conceal why I’d come.’

Her voice was thin, emotionless. It was as if she had been drugged and now was trying to reconstruct actions she dimly remembered and barely understood.

‘It all seemed too hard,’ she said. ‘For a moment, I thought of giving up, just telling the truth. Then I thought of Carlo.’ She paused. ‘And, of course, myself.’

There would be no more tears, Paget thought. She was too spent for emotion or, it seemed, dissembling. There was nothing left to hide.

‘Finally,’ she went on, ‘I forced myself to look at Ransom. He was lying there, mouth open, sprawled on his back like someone who had died in the middle of dressing himself. And then the first thought came to me: there was no explaining
anything
with Ransom as he was.’ Her voice turned cold. ‘I couldn’t explain why he was half naked, or why I was naked with him. Let alone why he deserved to die.

‘I remember being angry. What he had done to me was not just a violation of my body, but of
me.
And yet I could tell no one.

‘He
violated
me, I kept thinking. He deserved to die, I told myself – what he did was worse than rape.’ Her voice filled with discovery, as if replicating the moment. ‘Rape,’ she said simply. ‘The first cousin of sexual blackmail. The only explanation I could give them.

‘But how had he gotten me there? I wondered. He could be a rapist, but not a blackmailer. And then I remembered: he was writing a book about Laura Chase.

‘Of course, I thought –
that
was why you came. For a
story
. To hear him play that tape.

‘I suppose it was like writing a play. It explained my presence, Laura’s tape, the cassette player. And when I looked down at him, remembering his pathology, I realized that Laura’s tape would help explain why he was naked.’

Through his grief and anger, Paget felt a kind of fascination. ‘So you rolled him over,’ he said softly. ‘Because a rapist would have been on top of you.’

Mary met his eyes and then slowly nodded. ‘He was heavy,’ she said softly. ‘I had to reach beneath his buttocks to flip him over. That was when I left the scratches, and broke my nail.’

Paget touched his forehead. ‘I said it was the paramedics.’

‘
Sharpe
said I did it to fake a stuggle. Not even
I’m
that cold. I hated touching him.’

Paget felt his eyes close, heard a shiver of shame in her voice. ‘Once he was on his side, I gave him a push. He fell sprawling like a rag doll, more limber than in life, his buttocks in the air.’ She paused, and then added, in a tone of surprise, ‘As I looked at him, my story became real.

‘I felt a surge of crazy energy. Don’t
feel
, I told myself – just
do.
But I didn’t know
what
to do.’ Her voice slowed, as if she were reliving the process of thought. ‘He hadn’t penetrated me, of course. But I didn’t know what that meant. So I thought of all the things a rapist might do before penetration, and did them.’

Paget imagined her, standing naked over Ransom’s body: half horrified, half rational, trying to think her way to freedom. His eyes opened. ‘You scratched yourself,’ he said.

‘Yes.’ She paused. ‘And put a run in my panty hose. I didn’t think about getting fibers beneath my nails.’

Paget found himself trying to think with her, floundering and desperate, knowing little of police work. Quietly, he said, ‘There were still the tapes.’

After a time, Mary nodded. ‘I knew that. But I couldn’t think anymore. Not until I got dressed.’

She looked bemused. ‘It was strange,’ she said quietly. ‘He’d taken so much from me. But with clothes on, I was more myself. Only Mark Ransom was naked.

‘I walked to the coffee table and picked up the tape.

‘I stood there, the tape clutched in my hand. Somewhere out of reach was another tape, which could ruin my life. But the tape I was holding would ruin Carlo’s, and yours.’ She stopped for a moment, adding quietly, ‘Once I got rid of it, I could tell them I was only there because of Laura Chase, and hope they never found the other tape.

‘One by one, I clicked off the possibilities.

‘I couldn’t throw my tape out the window. If I tried to flush it down the toilet, the cassette might get stuck there.’ She paused. ‘I’d started checking my watch, trying to fight the panic I was feeling. And then, for some reason, I remembered the mail slot in the hallway.’

Mary began speaking faster. ‘In a kind of frenzy, I began looking for an envelope. I was too rushed to worry about fingerprints. Too panicky to look first where it was logical to look – the desk.

‘I got to it last. When I opened the drawer, there were envelopes.

‘Then I saw the other tape. I thought it might be
my
other tape, and that Ransom had been listening to it. But I didn’t know; Steinhardt’s numbering system meant nothing to me. I couldn’t listen to it myself – I didn’t have time, and I’d leave fingerprints on the cassette player.

‘I just grabbed it.

‘There was a pen in the drawer, but I couldn’t use it – fingerprints again. All at once, I saw how stupid I was being. If I mailed it to myself, and they arrested me, the police would find it before I did.’ She paused, catching her breath. ‘And then something more basic came to me. I had no stamps.

‘I started shaking.

‘I couldn’t stop myself. I took a pen from my purse and crossed out ‘Hotel Flood’ on the envelope. I stood there trembling while I tried to imagine the fate of an envelope with no postage and no return address, wending its way through the postal system.’

Mary stopped, shaking her head. ‘I had no idea. The only image I could fix on was some bureaucrat sorting mail at the post office, uncaring and uncurious, throwing out the tapes because no one had sent them and no one could receive them.’ Mary gave a small, mirthless smile. ‘So I decided to put Carlo’s fate in the hands of the government. The one thing that never occurred to me was that
his
fate was Lindsay Caldwell’s.’

Silent, Paget stared at the tape he held. She saw that and looked away.

‘I put them in the mail slot,’ she said softly. ‘Just before that pompous investment banker got off the elevator.

‘When I went inside the room and closed the door behind me, I knew I was out of time.

‘I didn’t really have a story. Only fragments.’ She paused again. ‘When I called 911, all I had were my own resources. As you’ve been so fond of pointing out, that was hardly enough.’

For a moment, she was silent. Then she looked up at him again. ‘Of course,’ she said quietly, ‘I also had you.’

His eyes met hers. ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Because you could manipulate me?’

‘You underestimate yourself, Chris. You’re the smartest lawyer I know. I also counted on your feeling for Carlo.’ Paget saw her hesitate, the shame in her eyes becoming a question. ‘I believed you’d protect the tapes better than anyone. And that, God forbid, if you ever heard them, you’d make sure that Carlo never did.’

For a long time, Paget looked at her without speaking. ‘Fifteen years ago,’ he finally said, ‘I wasn’t sure if Carlo was mine. But after he came to live with me, I stopped wondering. I didn’t want to anymore.’ His voice grew softer. ‘My life may have disappointed me, partly on account of you. But at least I had a son.’

The quiet words seemed to devastate her. Her shoulders slumped, and she looked away. ‘Withdraw as my lawyer, Chris. You don’t have to go to court tomorrow.’

‘Do you think that will fix things, Mary? Knowing what I know? Holding this tape in my hand?’ He paused, voice lower. ‘And it would be like telling the world you’re guilty.’

She gave a tired shrug. ‘I wonder if that’s any worse than living with
this
has been. And I
am
guilty, I suppose. Because I’ll never know whether I needed to kill him.’

‘Nor do I. If that matters.’

She straightened, as if gathering strength. ‘I lied to you. You owe me nothing. I ask only that you never tell Carlo what you know.’ She looked into his face, a quiet plea in her voice. ‘I’ll plead guilty, if you like. But destroy this tape, Chris. Please.’

Paget watched her, not answering. Then he stood. ‘You’ve no right to ask for anything, Mary. But you’re certainly free to hope.’

He turned abruptly, and left.

‘How’s it going, Dad?’

Carlo stood in the entrance to the library. He was trying to sound casual, Paget realized, but he had the abstracted gaze of someone who had spent the afternoon in thought, and his voice was too quiet. Paget did not want to look at him.