Guilt by Association (64 page)

Tess allowed a visible shudder to run down her slender body.

“The facts of this case were clear from the moment Karen Doniger spoke them, no matter how hard the defense attorney tried to contort them. But even if there remained a flicker of doubt in the most stubborn of minds, Margaret Holden Smith had to have doused it. Because if the defendant did not rape these two women—who have never met and have never spoken to one another—how then did they manage to come up with almost identical stories? The answer is painfully simple. They couldn’t have. Robert Willmont raped both of them, exactly as they said he did, and that’s the sad fact of it. He’s a rapist, ladies and gentlemen.
The great hope of America is a rapist. As brilliant as he may be politically, that’s how warped he is personally. And that’s the only sinister plot at work here.”

Amanda Drayton Willmont clutched her handbag to hide her anger.

Felicity clutched her handbag to keep from clapping.

The crafty ADA sighed deeply.

“But why would he have to resort to rape, this United States senator and presidential candidate who, on the face of it, has everything? This matinee idol who walks along the path of life with women literally dropping at his feet? That was the one question that I wrestled with, the one thing that I couldn’t understand, until I heard the testimony of Dr. Linderman. If ever a man fits his psychological profile of an acquaintance-rapist, one who sets out to seduce and ends up choosing to violate,
it’s Robert Willmont, a man used to taking what he wants —even when it’s not offered.”

Now it was Tess’s turn to pace.

“This isn’t about political intrigue, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, about secret cliques out to seize America for them
selves. This is about one two-hundred-and-fifteen-pound man overpowering one one-hundred-and-ten-pound woman in the middle of Golden Gate Park—and you saw for yourselves the graphic and gruesome results of her resistance.”

Now it was Tess’s turn to look each juror in the eye.

“Robert Drayton Willmont raped Karen Doniger, despite his background, despite his position, and despite the extent of his exposure. Why would he be foolish enough to risk it? Perhaps that’s the simplest question of all—
because he thought he could get away with it.
Because he thought that his looks, his charm, his power, and his money would protect him from things that ordinary people like you and me are held accountable for every day. Look at him. Payoffs, perjury, denial, coercion—those are the ways of his world. What he can’t lie his way out of, he’ll try to buy his way out of.”

Tess didn’t think Karen would mind her borrowing the line. She raised her left arm and jabbed her finger in the direction of the defendant.

“Sitting over there is a man who thinks he’s above the law,” she declared. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, tell him he’s not.”

Oliver Wendell Washington took almost an hour to charge the jury, making sure that he walked the fine line of neutrality without a slip. He was known as a by-the-book judge, and by the book he went. By the time the five men and seven women retired to consider their verdict, there was no doubt in their minds about what they could and could not do. It was four-thirty in the afternoon.

Robert Willmont went home and closeted himself in the library. Randy Neuburg did not go with him. Mary Catherine O’Malley went to her apartment on Telegraph Hill and began to pack. Hal Sutton went to his office and sat at his desk, staring into space as he waited for the telephone call he knew would not be long in coming.

Tess left word with Anne Jenks that she could be reached at the Donigers’ home in St. Francis Wood.

“I want to be in the courtroom for the verdict,” Karen announced. “I have the right.”

The ADA nodded. “I suppose you do,” she said. “But what if it doesn’t go our way?”

“I can handle it,” Karen replied. “I just want to be there. I need to be there.”

“I’ll be with her,” Ted said. “We’ll all be with her.”

Everyone was at the house, preparing for the vigil without knowing how long it would last. Felicity and Ione were cooking.
Amy and Jessica were setting the table. Demelza was sitting quietly in the study. In the laundry, Jenna was ironing the simple beige dress Karen had chosen to wear. Mitch was pacing nervously up and down the living room. John was fixing drinks. Nancy was outside, talking with the reporters who still lingered on the front lawn.

“They’ve certainly changed their tune,” she observed with a chuckle when she came back inside. “They were actually polite.”

“How long does this sort of thing normally take?” Jenna wondered as they seated themselves at the table.

“I’ve learned never to try to second-guess a jury,” Tess replied as the salad was passed around. “They could be out a day,
they could be out a week.”

“If he’s convicted, will he go to prison?” Amy asked.

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

“Maybe for the rest of his life.”

“What makes it so complicated?” Felicity asked.

“There are two separate charges that the jury must deal with,” the ADA explained. “The charge of sexual assault, which is the rape, and the charge of battery, which is the beating. All twelve jurors must agree on each count.”

“You mean, they could find him guilty of the battery but not the sexual assault?”

“Yes. They might decide that Karen contributed to the rape but was in no way responsible for the beating.”

“You mean, just because she had a few drinks with him and let him drive her home?”

Tess sighed. “As hard as you try to read the people you put on a jury, you never really know how they’ll react. You also have to consider the dynamics of the group and what kind of peer pressure will be brought to bear.”

“I served on a jury once,” John said. “Not a big case, like this one, and I remember how two of the jurors squared off against each other and tried to force everyone else to take sides.”

“What happened?” Amy wanted to know.

“They hung the jury.”

“Can that happen here?” Jessica asked Tess.

“Anything can happen,” the ADA had to admit.

“But it’s not going to,” Ione said, bringing in a huge pan of lasagna. “It might take the jury a while, but I watched them and I know, in the end, they’ll get it right.”

The telephone rang at ten minutes past seven.

Karen sat beside Ted in the third row on the right side of the gallery, her hand tightly clasped in his. From the corner of her eye, she could see Elizabeth Willmont across the aisle. Whichever way this went, she felt sorry for the woman. Beyond the glass partition, the defendant sat calmly in his chair, waiting.

The courtroom was bursting. Every inch of space that was not taken by friends and relatives was filled with reporters. The closed-circuit television camera next door had been fine for the trial, but everyone wanted to be on the scene for the verdict.

Tess stared at the jury, trying to read something in a stray glance or a shift in position. The five men and seven women sat silent and unmoving, with their eyes on the judge.

“Has the jury reached a verdict?” Washington intoned.

“Yes, we have, Your Honor,” replied Brian Barstow, the computer software salesman and elected foreman.

“How do you find?”

A sudden stillness fell over the entire courtroom as those with and without any vested interest strained to hear.

“On the count of battery,” the foreman read from the slip of
paper in his hand, “we find the defendant… guilty as charged.”

From every corner of the gallery, there was a sharp intake of breath. Karen’s hand tightened in Ted’s.

“On the count of sexual assault,” Barstow continued, “we find the defendant… guilty as charged.”

“So say you all?”

“So say we all.”

The courtroom exploded. Reporters scrambled to get out, everyone wanting to be the first to file the story, the first to get it on the air. A number of Willmont supporters wailed in protest, even as the small contingent of Doniger allies shouted in glee. Robert sat as though paralyzed, stone-faced with disbelief and rage, oblivious of his attorneys, who were reassuring him of an appeal; of his wife, who rose and quietly left the courtroom; of his mother, who was unable to grasp what had happened.
He was oblivious of everyone, even the two bailiffs who took up positions behind him.

Hal Sutton was on his feet demanding that the verdict be set aside, even though it was clearly nothing more than a formality.
Judge Washington was futilely banging his gavel, shouting over the din as he thanked and dismissed the jury and set the sentencing for September 14 at 2:00
P.M.

It was over.

Karen felt so weak she wasn’t sure she could stand. In all her dreams, she had not dared to hope that this moment would ever come, and now it was here—after thirty years of anguish, it was here. So she stayed where she was and savored it for a time,
closing her eyes and letting it wash over her like a gentle rain. And Ted put his arm around her and sat wordlessly by her side.

She didn’t see Robert jump from his chair, knocking it over in the process, or push past the startled bailiffs as he stormed up the aisle. She was aware of him only when he stood in front of her, his aquamarine eyes glaring down at her.

“Why, goddamn you?” he insisted. “Why?”

A cold winter night came into focus in Karen’s mind, a night when she could do nothing—and merged with a mild
spring night a lifetime later, a night when she could do anything. She saw the clump of bushes by Stow Lake, as much like Central Park as she could find. She saw her face, as bruised and bloodied as she felt she needed to make it. She saw a soul that was shattered finally made whole again.

There were any number of times during the past few months when she felt her confidence slipping and doubted she would get away with it. But in the end she was strong enough to pull it off and the irony of it did not escape her. Thirty years ago,
she had told the truth, and was not believed. This time,
he
had told the truth, and was not believed. She couldn’t remember now how the idea had come to her—to frame him for the crime he had already committed—but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she had succeeded.

An eye for an eye, the Bible said. So be it. As he once took from her the thing she wanted most in the world, now had she done the same to him, and she felt no remorse.

She looked up at him, her blue-gray eyes calm, her conscience clear.

“December 22, 1962,” she said softly.

D
ecember 22, 1962: A pretty:-coed is brutally beaten and raped by her date, a handsome, wealthy Harvard student. No one sees him do it. The police don’t believe her story. Her life is ruined. His flourishes. Now he’s running for president, and a desperate woman decides to do the unthinkable. Get even…

From former lawyer Susan R. Sloan comes a masterpiece of psychological suspense that could be written only by an insider.
It’s a novel about the law and a shocking abuse of power. More than that, it’s a no-holds-barred look at a woman’s struggle for survival in a society that somehow still shifts blame onto the victims of sexual crimes. And it ends with a shocker of a conclusion—a final justice that will make you stand up and cheer.

“ENGROSSING…INVITES FAVORABLE COMPARISONS TO THE WORK OF ANOTHER TRIAL LAWYER, SCOTT TUROW.”

—New York Newsday

“READS LIKE A HOUSE AFIRE!”

—Kirkus Reviews

“DON’T PASS UP SLOAN’S BOOK!”

—Denver Post