“And could that feeling of betrayal in a child make him exhibit some of the symptoms of PTSS that we’ve been talking about?”
“Hypothetically, yes.”
“Did you ask Robbie if he’d witnessed the primal scene?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“And yet you just said that a child who sees the sex act may exhibit some of the symptoms of PTSS, did you not?”
“We are speaking hypothetically.”
“So you did not think it necessary to ask a child who has sexual knowledge and symptoms of PTSS if he had witnessed the primal scene?”
“Not in this case, no.”
“And from your description of the primal scene am I correct that this is usually presumed to be the sexual act between the child’s parents?”
“That’s the presumption.”
“Now, Doctor, if that child were to witness the primal scene, but let us imagine that the sexual act was a violent one, involving bondage, or whipping, would it be fair to say that this could cause an even more severe reaction?”
“Yes, that’s fair.”
“And suppose further, if you would, that this scene is not only violent, but is between the child’s mother and a veritable stranger—not rape, but a man who does not know or care to know anything about his paramour’s child. Couldn’t that result in even more pronounced symptoms of PTSS?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“You stated in your report that Robbie’s nightmares, his acting out, his regressive behavior were pronounced symptoms of PTSS, did you not?”
“If it’s in the report, then I did.”
“You stated in your report and in your testimony that Robbie had pronounced symptoms of PTSS.”
“Yes—as a result of—”
“That will be all my questions, your honor.”
The last person to testify for the prosecution was Officer Melby. He was put at the end so that the jury would be left with my own words, my admission, the “I hurt everybody” line. It began to snow while he described my conduct at the school-board meeting. Susan Dirks asked him several different questions about my admission, so that he kept repeating the incriminating sentence. I watched the flakes come sifting down past the windows. It was going to be Christmas soon. Dan and Theresa had only had two Christmases with Lizzy. There would be milestones every year: the day of the drowning, the day of her death, Christmas, Easter, her
birthday. The years couldn’t ever simply go forward because of the cycle that would keep them anchored in the past: the day of the drowning, the day of her death, Christmas, Easter, her birthday. I didn’t dare think about Christmas, about where I might be. I had thought that I should buy a few things in case I wasn’t with the family, so that Howard wouldn’t have to brave the mall. If I’d been fanciful, I might have felt Lizzy’s presence because of the snow; I might have thought it was her way of being with us, assuring us with the soft, white cover.
I couldn’t listen anymore and Howard had to tell me on the way home that he thought Rafferty had sufficiently clouded Melby’s case. Howard didn’t sound entirely convincing. He said that Rafferty had forced the officer to admit that he hadn’t investigated any other explanations or any other possible suspects. Rafferty had moved for a directed verdict at the end of Dirks’s case for some technical reason I didn’t want to understand. He knew the judge would deny it, but it would be necessary to have made the motion in the event of an appeal. We stopped at the hardware store outside of Spring Grove and bought two plastic green sleds. It was Thursday and we were set free until Monday, sent out into our new world like moon walkers on a tether. After dinner we turned on the spotlight outside and we all took turns sliding down our driveway into the empty street.
Chapter Twenty-one
——
T
HE TEACHER FROM
R
OBBIE’S
preschool, Rafferty’s first witness on Monday, was a tall, graceful woman named Linda Gildner. Her brown hair was done up in a French braid with pretty, tightly curled tendrils framing her face. She was wearing a navy dress with a scooped neck and a dropped waist, speckled all over with light blue birds. Howard, during the break, in a moment of surprising levity, said that she looked like a Disney version of the caretaker, the sweet nanny who had magical powers. I said that she could probably make the birds in her own dress come to life and fly around to amuse her charges. He snorted and his lips widened. Although as a family we hadn’t gone anywhere over the weekend, he had disappeared for several hours Saturday afternoon with the car. I suspect he had driven to the farm. It had been a long, quiet two days and the girls had bickered quite a bit. Although our joke wasn’t too funny, it nonetheless gave me a sense of relief. It was communion, of sorts. Howard and I had been in a holding pattern, like two aircrafts circling each other, around and around in the fog, the heavy weather preventing us from landing or straying from our loops.
Linda Gildner spoke about Robbie as if she didn’t want to mention his bad behavior, that it wasn’t her nature to squeal on people, but of
course she had sworn to tell the truth and must please the court. Rafferty managed to act as if he also was suffering throughout, as she quietly explained that Robbie had been a belligerent, troubled child two and three years before, and that her staff had repeatedly suggested that the Mackessys have him evaluated. Rafferty nodded periodically and then shook his head slightly, saddened, shocked, that one so young had gone awry. I thought to myself, Oh, but Robbie wasn’t that bad. Truly he wasn’t so awful. They were drawing him as a budding psychopath, based on his performance at preschool. It disturbed me that both the Gildners and Rafferty belonged to the Yacht Club and had spent vacations boating together. Linda told the court that even at the ages of three and four Robbie had had a pattern of lying, and not lying about isolated things here and there as all young children will, but deliberately telling falsehoods so that others would get into trouble. He lied to place blame elsewhere, and while that is not an unusual practice in three- or four-year-olds, Robbie, she said, had carried the tendency to extremes. He was a bright boy, sensitive to group dynamics, further along cognitively, she thought, than other three-year-olds in terms of knowing how to manipulate an adult. I wondered if it was evident only to me what gestures and phrases Rafferty had suggested she use in her testimony.
When Robbie had held a little girl’s arm on the jungle gym, and wouldn’t let go, so that the arm was broken, in full view of his teachers, Linda said that he vigorously denied having done so. He lied in the face of reality, she added, pursing her lips and nodding. He hadn’t been withdrawn or frightened, the way so many other children would have been, when he was gently questioned about the incident. He stormed and shouted, blaming the other boys, calling them by name, saying that they all had been on the jungle gym with him, that everyone but himself had twisted her arm.
It was one thing to be on trial as an adult, to have every past act come bubbling up and held to the light as a misdeed, every poor judgment fitting so nicely into the desired profile, but it was altogether different, shameful, to do the same for a boy of six. I should have been grateful for Linda Gildner, but I thought she rang false, coached to death, exaggerating the few naughty pranks that Robbie had pulled as a three-year-old.
Susan Dirks, in her cross-examination, asked why Robbie had been allowed to break a girl’s arm when the teachers were looking on. “That sounds like negligence to me,” Dirks said quickly, before Rafferty protested.
“How many teachers were watching while the girl’s arm was broken?”
“Three.”
“Three teachers standing by while a girl broke her arm on the jungle gym?”
Later Dirks said, “In your testimony you spoke about the cognitive abilities of Robbie Mackessy at three years of age. Do you have your Doctorate in Psychology?”
“No, I don’t, but I—”
“Do you have, at the very least, a Master’s in Social Work?”
“No, but I—”
“A degree in education, Mrs. Gildner, hardly qualifies you to speak with authority about childhood psychology. Isn’t it true that it is normal for a three-year-old to lie to get out of trouble?”
“Yes, but I said—”
“You said that he had a pattern of lying, Mrs. Gildner, and yet you’ve only mentioned one incident.”
“I—I remember that he had a pattern of lying, but now, with the years passing, and all the children I see, I can’t tell you more about that. I mean, children lie about little things, about toys and food, so that for me to bring back a specific—”
“You don’t remember other incidents?”
“Well, I—I know they happened, but like I said—”
When we were leaving the courtroom after her testimony Rafferty whispered to me, “Don’t look so glum.”
“She was a disaster,” I said.
“No, no she wasn’t at all. The jury will remember how mild she was, and that Dirks preyed upon her. They’ll remember that Robbie broke a kid’s arm when he was three.”
“Did he really do that?”
Rafferty’s chin shot down to his chest and he looked severely up at me over his glasses.
“I don’t think the boy is as bad as you’ve made him out to be,” I said. “I’m not sure it happened like that.”
He drew me to him as we walked down the hall. “This is stressful,” he said. He was still whispering but his hold was firm; the pressure from his fingertips on my arm was almost painful. “You have to understand that I would never put a witness on to lie. Never. And it’s not going to do you much good at this juncture to start feeling sorry for Robbie. It’s admirable but beside the point right about now. Go get yourself a drink and let’s keep calm.”
I heard Dyshett, heard her loud and clear, her voice nearly strong enough to make my own tongue move. She was saying, “I’d walk down the street lookin’ at ch’you, Mr. Raff-er-ty, thinkin’ you was a smart-ass lawyer, but you nothin’ but some kind of pop-eyed, mangy half-breed dog, rippin’ that boy limb from limb, chewin’ him up, spittin’ him out, and then you expect us to study what’s all over the floor and say, ‘Yes sir, that pile of shit is a boy.’ ”
That first afternoon Rafferty called James “Grinder” Perkins. He worked as an office manager at the Oscar Mayer plant in Madison, overseeing those who process beef and pork into hot dogs. He was a fine-boned man, not much taller than Mrs. Mackessy. He had expensive-looking hair, layered and conditioned and blown dry, and blue wire-rimmed glasses. No one around Prairie Center, except Dan, wore skinny ties and designer glasses. Shortly after he took the stand the judge summoned Rafferty and Dirks into his chamber. Howard and I waited out in the hall. He was trying to study his vehicle registration handbook so that he might soon advance to Team Captain, and I looked out the window wondering about the girls across the street in the jail. Rafferty had expected that the judge would ask for an offer of proof that his witness was not collateral to the case, that the witness would provide relevant information. Howard was unable to stop jiggling his foot, what for him could pass as hysterics. I had to say his name three or four times before he looked away from his manual. “I just wonder,” he said after a while, “I just wonder what makes Rafferty think the judge is going to take our side.”
“Judge Peterson promised when he took office that he would treat those who appeared before him with fairness and impartiality,” I said.
“Oh, please.” He had his hand at his throat. “You sound like you’re reciting a Scout’s oath.”
“There is still hope,” I said.
He sighed. “What I find hard to believe is that she actually dated a man who makes hot dogs. Someone called ‘Grinder.’ Did Rafferty assume she’d fall for someone who made hot dogs and brats? Did he go to the Oscar Mayer plant and ask all the workers if they’d gone out with her? Why does it have to be hot dogs? Why couldn’t she go out with someone who works for the Sierra Club?”
“Howard, I don’t know,” I said. “He works in an office, anyway. Rafferty said he wasn’t the first choice, that there was some other boyfriend, a real piece of work, who the neighbor lady saw. At least Grinder’s not down on the line, pulling the wieners out of a machine. He’s not some big, beefy Neanderthal guy who can’t speak in complete sentences and wears a loincloth. I was surprised that he’s a white-collar worker, not some awful redneck—” I heard Dyshett again, talking to me this time. “You always sayin’ things like you think you God, lookin’ down at the half-ass work you made, like you don’t like nothin’ you spent all that tahm makin’. You always sizin’ people up and you don’t know shit about them, girl. You don’t know shit!”
“Who knows,” I said. “Who knows about any of them.”
When Rafferty and Dirks and Judge Peterson reappeared, the trial resumed.
Jim Perkins wasn’t harsh or vulgar in appearance. He was a quiet, well-mannered, well-dressed citizen. It would have been easier for the jury to understand him if he’d seemed stupid or coarse. Later Rafferty articulated so well what came across about Perkins, what the jury, with a bit of luck, may have perceived and found distasteful beyond the prurient details of his sex life. “Did you notice,” Rafferty asked me, “how earnest Perkins was about his pleasures? He takes himself very seriously. He didn’t have any qualms about getting up in front of us to tell us about his mastery. And he made it clear that his recreation was his constitutional right, and that he was proud of his potency. Perkins wasn’t my first choice but he did all right. He was better for us than I’d hoped.”
“Did you usually stay the night at Carol Mackessy’s?” Rafferty asked him during the questioning.
“Maybe once or twice. Not usually.”
“Where was Robbie when you had your trysts at her house?”
“He wasn’t around.”
“Do you know where he’d been sent?”
“We didn’t talk about him.”
“He wasn’t a concern?”
“He was hers.”
“I see. So you were not involved in her personal life.”
“That’s right.”
“And if Robbie had been around you might not have known it?”
“I never thought about it. I didn’t know she had a kid until pretty near the end.”
“Did you meet him?”
“I saw him a couple of times.”