False Witness (7 page)

“Until I couldn’t take it anymore. The frustration, the indignation, the sense of separation.”

“And so you looked around.”

“And so I looked around.”

“And so you applied to the District Attorney’s office.”

“And so you interviewed me. My first lady boss.”

His face in repose is so perfect that it hurts me to look at him at times. I feel overwhelmed by the pain of not having known him when I was fifteen years old and in desperate need of him. When I would hide, red-eyed, in the ladies’ room and leave the school dance early, claiming to any girlfriend who would ask that I had sudden cramps. That ubiquitous, irrefutable excuse for all things. Because there was no one to lead me onto the dance floor. No one to take me out of the dark, shameful corner. No Bobby Jones.

He is, at thirty-two, in full masculine splendor. Were he stupid, empty-headed and a fool, it would still be fun to be around him for the sheer esthetic pleasure of his physical beauty. But there is a wonderful, exciting intelligence behind those seemingly guileless, childishly blue eyes: there is an alertness, a sharpness, a weighing and measuring that shows in the depths of those sky-eyes. There is a calculation and a scheming quality also. I am aware of that; I am wary of it; I am suspicious of and alerted to it. Yet I discount it for the pleasure he gives to me.

He has worked for me for nearly three years. We have been lovers for just over a year. His promotion to the position of Chief Investigator was entirely coincidental to the escalation of our interest in each other. Yet he is in a somewhat odd, possibly uncomfortable position: was it for his professional competence or for his personal prowess that he earned his current status? That is his question, not mine.

I wonder how he handles office speculation. I wonder if it makes him uncomfortable. I wonder if it makes him question his abilities. We do not discuss any of this; I am amused and yet sympathetic to his situation. After all, for nearly fourteen years, with every advancement I attained, I encountered and dealt with the same speculation from those around me.

We neither flaunt nor deny our relationship. The matter is never alluded to in any way within my Bureau.

I am proud of the composition of my Bureau. It is a generally acknowledged fact that I have only the best people working for me. It is interesting to note the position of women in my squad of assistant district attorneys and investigators. I am the only Bureau Chief who has the option of turning down a female candidate who I feel is not qualified, not the best. No one can point a finger at me and claim discrimination or violation of equal opportunity. I am the only one with a real option when it comes to this selection; therefore, I have the very best, the cream of the crop, the hands-down, flat-out best women not among the women but among all the applicants. They know; I know; my other people know. It makes for a smoother running, more efficient group effort.

Most of the time, within the boundaries of a working day, I am able to regard Bobby Jones from a cool and professional distance.

In private, it is an entirely different matter. In bed, we are equals. I am delighted by his seeming lack of vanity. He does not make a temple of his body; he does not run, jog, do push-ups or sit-ups or lift weights. He tells me that leanness and good health are family traits like thick hair, excellent eyesight, and good teeth.

He tells me very little about his short marriage to a high-school sweetheart just before he shipped out. It consisted of a filmy-white bride, a flight to L.A., a few days in a hotel. Letters: hers chatty, newsy, gossipy; his stilted, careful, vague. Homecoming: differences; disappointments; disillusions; changes. Quiet divorce.

He does not pry into my dead marriage; we merely exchange the information: file and forget.

Only about sex is he obsessive: that is the one physical activity to which he claims a strong commitment and expertise. He is skilled and playful and clever and considerate; he is adventurous and experimental and mysterious and exciting. He has introduced me to certain games; new techniques. He can surprise me and reassure me.

We are well-matched in bed.

There is a certain precision in our spoken language. We are, after all, both attorneys and therefore careful and wary of forming unwanted commitments. We never say “I love you”; we do say “I love
that”:
that which you have done, are doing to me; that which you make me feel; this moment; this time with you. As though our moments, our time together, were separate and sealed off and remote from our own persons. Games. We play games.

At the sound of the pounding on the door to my apartment, Bobby shook his head and held a pillow over his face: make him go away. It was Jhavi, shouting, excited. He rushed past me as I opened the door. He dashed across the living room directly to the television set, annoyed that it wasn’t turned on.

“My God, Lynne, you’re on TV. Why aren’t you taping it on your Betamax? Where is the damn thing?” He whirled around, checked it out, disgusted to learn that we had a tape of
Casablanca
on the recorder. “Oh, for God’s sake, Lynne, how corny can you get? Hey, Nebraska, look at Lynne. She’s on the tube.”

J
AMESON WHITNEY HALE INTERRUPTED
my morning update on the Sanderalee Dawson case with a vague, puzzled, distracted question.

“Lynne? Lynne, did I see you on the television news last night?”

“You saw a brief clip of me from a show I did about two or three years ago. Sanderalee was having at law enforcement in general and the D.A.’s office in particular. The old song: you only prosecute black men. In the clip they showed, she was accusing me of being part of a genocidal plot.”

Mr. Hale looked over the tops of his reading glasses, his dark eyebrows raised in surprise. “Good God,
are
you part of a genocidal plot?”

“As an advocate of the death penalty, I guess I’m subject to a lot of name calling. ‘Genocidal lunatic’—‘legal murderer of black men.’ That was how Sanderalee Dawson characterized me.”

“Yes. I caught all that. What was it all about? I guess I tuned in about halfway through. I missed the beginning.”

“Well, since Sanderalee Dawson is entering day four of her coma, and since we’re not giving them any tidbits about our investigation, and since her time slot has to be filled, some bright-heads over there put together a rather rushed half-hour of cuts and clips. I’m afraid the purpose was to show the wide range of enemies Ms. Dawson has publicly collected.”

“Ah. So that puts you in the public position of being a known antagonist of Ms. Dawson’s? As I remember it, your closing lines were rather strong.”

What had happened was, the more I tried to present my case calmly, unemotionally, professionally, the more black, down-home, co’npone little nigger gal Sanderalee Dawson became. Finally, she interrupted my assurances that a convicted murderer’s life span of several years would guarantee him the fullest protection of the law and that the death penalty would only be resorted to in the most outrageous, specific circumstances.

“And once he’s dead, baby, he dead, that black man you gonna murder, right? And whut the hell, another black man gone down the road, ri’?” It was her “jes-a-lil-ole-nigrah-gal-fuhm-down-home” best; it’s very effective in walking all over your words to her. I had kept going, then finally had held up my hand and interrupted her bluntly. “You want to do your shuffle-on-home number now or you want an opinion? Is this to be a discussion or a vaudeville routine, because I didn’t bring my dancing shoes.”

They had left that part in. Without the lead-in or any preliminary discussion. I came over as a cold-blooded bitch to Sanderalee’s wounded girl routine.

They were in there working for her, Sanderalee’s crew. Guest after guest, in the clipped and put-together show, was shown “having at Sanderalee.” Although in actuality she always emerged at the top of the heap, in this special thirty-minute tribute to “Our Sanderalee; our brave, outspoken lady whose integrity against all odds has never been questioned,” we slammed at her, mashed her down, in one way or another attacked Sanderalee Dawson.

“Yes, it was a pretty cheap shot, but all of a piece with the way this matter is being handled in the media. Wait, before I forget. ...” He stood motionless for a split second, nodded, lifted up a stack of papers and found the small note to himself, which he extended to me. “Glori Nichols, name ring a bell? About a month ago, she approached us through the public relations office. She’s a television producer. Does documentary things. She said along the lines of the Maysles brothers, does that mean anything to you?”

“They’re very good. Maybe too good. They get in very close to their subjects. Live-in close. I remember something about a city hospital.”

“Well, she spoke to me briefly a month ago, but at the time, it just seemed an intrusion. She called this morning, directly as a result of that clip of you last night, in fact.”

“Oh? And ... ?”

“Seems she’s been putting together a documentary featuring three women who are succeeding in occupations generally dominated by men. So far, she’s been filming a woman commercial pilot and a woman who is one of three top financial advisors in a Wall Street brokerage house. And ... she seems to feel you’d be a good third subject.”

He took off his glasses and thoughtfully tapped them in the palm of his hand. There was something more on his mind; I knew Mr. Jameson Whitney Hale. I waited. He sighed. He motioned me into a leather wing chair, then leaned against the edge of his desk, his face close to mine.

“Lynne. This is strictly confidential: file it and forget it. For now.”

“Right.”

“I’ve been given a definite offer by the Republicans; they can almost guarantee conservative party backing. And strange as it may seem, they feel fairly certain they can count on a large portion of the liberal vote. That would pretty well tie it up in a neat package.”

“U.S. Senate.”

He sighed and smiled tightly. “U.S. Senate. And that leaves us with you. I think we should begin preliminary work to get you known. Your public work for the ERA and nonpartisan backing by various statewide women’s groups is all to the good, but what we’ve got to do is concentrate on this one small tight overpopulated island of Manhattan. This Nichols woman informs me that her documentary has the backing of a major network; it is tentatively scheduled for early fall airing. The timing could be extremely fortunate for you. You would by then be in place”—he leaned back and nodded to the chair behind his desk—“and your name could become at least familiar to the less sophisticated voter before he encounters it on the ballot in November. This could be the kind of publicity it would be impossible to purchase.

“And if by some fortunate set of circumstances you can resolve this Sanderalee Dawson matter favorably with an arrest and an indictment during the filming of this documentary, why I think it would be a foregone conclusion that you’d be the first of your sex to sit on this chair: the first woman District Attorney of New York County.” He stepped back and with a sweep of his hand indicated the ornate, expensive antique chair.

“I thought all this furniture was yours, Mr. Hale. You will take it with you when you resettle in Washington, won’t you?”

He walked behind the desk chair and rested his large and competent-looking hands on the intricate carving. “This will be my gift to you, my dear.”

We held that for a moment, he reaching for his dream and I for mine. Simultaneously, since we are both hardheaded realists, we exhaled and got on with the business of the day.

I brought him up to date as far as our investigation was concerned. Just before I left his office, he reminded me to get in touch with this Ms. Glori Nichols.

S
ANDERALEE DAWSON LAY DEEPLY
comatose and the doctors would not commit themselves as to her condition should she regain consciousness. Her injuries were deep and severe. There was as yet no way of measuring or evaluating possible brain damage; her emotional wounds were speculative.

The three-man microsurgery team was headed by Dr. David Cohen, a tall, slender, low-key personality of surprising good humor. He was comfortable in front of the cameras and easily fielded the questions tossed at him by the medical reporters assigned by the news media. Dr. Cohen had come to international fame a few years ago while he was attending a medical conference in London. As a leading practitioner of the new microsurgery techniques, it was a lucky coincidence that he was nearby when one of the “royals” (one of the endless persons in line for the throne should an unimaginable catastrophe overtake and eliminate most of the immediate royal family of Great Britain) had an extremely unfortunate accident while attempting to saddle a rather jumpy polo pony. There were pictures of a grim-faced Dr. David Cohen being escorted into the ancient private wing of a large public hospital, which frequently housed an injured royal or two—they were such energetic people. There were rumors and wild stories of detached major limbs. There was even speculation in one of the more lurid journals of a nearly severed head. Within an hour after his arrival, a smiling, relaxed Dr. David Cohen emerged to face the mobs of journalists. He gracefully fended off specific questions with the well-received statement: “Surely you gentlemen know I am honor-bound not to discuss any injury incurred by a member of the royal family.” When told that the news had been leaked that it was a royal thumb that had been cleanly detached and successfully reattached, Dr. Cohen shrugged roguishly and gave a winning thumbs-up signal, which was flashed around the world. Without any violation of British ethics, he had confirmed what the journalists already knew and he had done it with style, dash and good taste.

Dr. Cohen had trained most of the world’s specialists in the techniques he had perfected. He was consulted via long distance middle-of-the-night telephone hookups and occasionally was whisked away via private jet to supervise the reattachment of a disconnected limb in places ranging from Mexico to Saudi Arabia.

“This surgery was not unique,” Dr. Cohen told the newspeople. “Fortunately for the patient, her hand was quickly and intelligently preserved, and the fact that there was a minimum time lapse between the severing and the restorative surgery is all to the good.”