Fairstein, Linda - Final Jeopardy (15 page)

“Good for her. I take it we know who the guy is, right?”

“Yeah. We found a lot of papers in his room with his name on it.
Worked in a body shop in the Bronx, only he didn’t show up this morning. It’s just a matter of time, Alex we’ll drop him.”

“Okay. I’ll assign it to someone in the unit on Monday, so we’ll be ready when you pick him up.”

“You’ll like Mrs. Zalina. She wants to go all the way with this. Says she could recognize his penis anywhere - ”looks just like a teeny-weeny, crooked little sausage.“

Cops put that right in the original report with the rest of the description.

“Ought to be an interesting line-up, Frank. Maybe we should hold it in a butcher shop instead of the precinct.

If that’s it on the bad news, what’s the good news?“

“This could be a new one for you, Alex. I had a call today from a young lady who wants to remain anonymous for now. She was raped a week ago by her ex-boyfriend.

They both work at Merrill Lynch, went out for drinks, reminisced, and then she brought him home with her.

Wants to know how long she can wait before she reports it and still has a case. But her big question was about the evidence. Seems she kept a washcloth that he wiped himself off with, put it in a baggie, and then stuck it in her freezer so she’ll have his semen to prove he did it.
Wants to know how long she can keep it and still have the police lab be able to use it.“

“Are you serious? What did you tell her?”

“I told her it depended on whether she had it stored with the frozen peas or with the ice cream…”

“Frank, that’s revolting.”

“And I told her that I absolutely refused to go to her house for dinner until she got that stuff to the lab. Anyway, what I really told her was to call your office next week and one of the lawyers could answer all her questions about prosecuting.”

“That’s it?” I asked.

“For the moment, that’s all we’ve got, Alex. You’ll be the first to know if we need you.”

I hung up and decided to busy myself in getting ready for Jed’s arrival: setting the table, straightening up the apartment, and removing the tags from Isabella’s slinky birthday present to dress up for the occasion. The Four Tops were singing to me as I tried to lighten my mood for the night ahead, urging me to reach out for them if my life was filled with confusion. I put the list of people with motives to kill Isabella, which I had started to scratch out during the funeral, in a drawer, closed the file which contained the motion and bill of particulars that I had to respond to by Thursday for the Vargas case, and finally settled down unable to concentrate on anything else with a two-month-old copy of Architectural Digest.

“Mr. Segal on the way up, ma’am,” the doorman announced on the house phone when Jed finally arrived from the airport.

I checked myself again in the bathroom mirror and got to the front door just as I heard the elevator opening. Jed stepped out, carrying his suitcase, and did a double-take when he saw me in the doorway of my apartment at the end of the hallway wearing my sexy silk outfit. It was a radical departure from my usual lounging uniform: an oversized man-tailored shirt and a pair of leggings.

“You’re in the right place, darling. Welcome home.”

“You may have found the perfect antidote for my jet lag, Alexandra,” he said with a smile as he pinned me against the wall and reached down to find my mouth.

We kissed for several minutes, hard and deep, our tongues exploring each other’s mouths. Jed ran his hand down the smooth surface of the pajama top and found my nipple waiting at attention for him.

“Are you okay?” he whispered to me as he started to work at the buttons of my shirt.

My eyes were closed now and I nodded my head in answer to his question.

“Tell me what happened, Alex. Tell me how you’ve been involved and what they’ve put you through all week.”

I pushed away from the wall, looked at Jed, and pressed my finger to his lips to silence him as I led him by the hand into the bedroom.
‘I’ll tell you everything you want to know later, but for now, I have other plans.“
”But did they actually think the killer was after you and not Isabella?
Do they think they know who did it?“

“Really, Jed, you’re the one who’s always telling me not to talk about my cases all the time, and when I finally want to leave it behind me, you become the Grand Inquisitor.”

“I’m sorry, darling. I’ve just felt so useless being in Paris while all this was going on, worried about your safety, and…”

“If you want me to prove to you that I’m absolutely fine, you’re going to have to take off all your clothes right now and save the conversation for dinner.”

“Sounds fair to me,” Jed responded, starting to undress.

“I’ve been traveling for hours you’ll be much happier with your suggestion if you give me a few minutes for a shower.”

I watched him undress and smiled at the familiar sight of his lean body. It had only been three months since we’d met in June, but the attraction had been immediate and intense, and I was relieved to know he would hold me and tether me to reality as the circumstances of Isabella’s death continued to unravel.

“I didn’t have any time for shopping, but I just want you to know that I thought of you wherever I was,” Jed said, smiling as he tossed bottles of Chanel 22 perfume and body lotion onto the bed and headed for the bathroom.

“Thank God for airport duty-free shops,” I laughed and unwrapped the cellophane from the sharp black-and-white packages. Nothing could distract Jed from his deal-making when the numbers were on the table and the stakes were climbing so I was delighted that he had thought of me at an odd moment during his trip. As he knew, shopping was a passion of mine, and there weren’t many things other than crime scenes that could dull my interest in a good sale.

I was pleased that he had remembered my brand and that he had tried to cheer me up with these luxurious tokens.

I heard the shower water running, so I slipped out of Isabella’s satiny garment, dropping the pajamas onto the floor, and opened the bathroom door. Steam had filled the tiny room and clouded the mirror completely. I held apart the white eyelet curtain and stepped in with Jed, whose head was arched back so that the hot water was spraying in his face and running down the length of his frame. I took the bar of soap from its niche in the tile wall and began to lather his shoulders and back. He sighed approval and shifted his body, so that his hands leaned against the front of the shower and his head dropped forward between his arms. My hands gently rubbed every inch of his torso, then down each leg and back up to the top of his thighs, like a slow wet massage on a very compliant subject.

I stood as Jed let go of the wall against which he had braced himself and turned to face me, his penis fully erect, but his eyes barely able to see through their water-soaked lids. I reached up to kiss him and again we embraced, tasting each other and letting the shower rinse me free of any thoughts except the man and the moment. He entered me and all my fantasies of a slow and languorous reunion on my comfortable bed yielded to the reality of our eager bodies finding each other and mating against the slick tile wall.

When we released each other a minute later, I turned off the water and we stepped out to wrap ourselves in heavy bath sheets. I left Jed to shave and change and vent back to my bedroom to put on my more familiar costume of leggings and a shirt.

Jed followed me in after he had dressed. I hugged him to me and told him how much I had missed him during the week. We rolled back onto my bed together, and I let him kiss the dark circles under my eyes, which I teased him that he had caused by making me sleep alone. I rested in his arms, delighted at not having to talk or explain or resolve any of the problems which had plagued me since he had last been with me in this room so many days ago.

“Can I fix you a drink?” he asked, as I finally untangled myself and started for the kitchen, prepared to nuke our dinner in my microwave.

“Sure, if you’ll join me.”

“I think I’ll just have a glass of wine with dinner.

Between the jet lag and your magic-fingers-welcome-home treatment, I’m not going to last too long this evening. Is that very rude?“

“I’m so glad you’re here, Jed, of course not. I haven’t slept in three days, so we’ll just eat and go to bed early.”

“When I got off the plane I almost changed my mind and went directly to my own apartment. I never thought I’d have the strength to, well, to…”

“I’d have been so hurt if you hadn’t come here.”

“But, Alex, I want you to understand that I had to come here, too, for my own sake. Not just because you needed me. Because of everything that’s happened. Now it’s clear to me that I really love you and that I had to be with you and that once I held you in my arms there wasn’t any way I couldn’t make love to you.”

My mind scrambled for a diversion from the direction this conversation had started to take. Our romance had progressed with great speed, and for weeks it seemed that I had been more anxious to engage Jed’s sentiments than he had wanted. The physical attraction had been a perfect fit, and I knew he would be slow to involve and yield his reserve. He had left Santa Barbara earlier this year when his marriage split up, and he was plagued by thoughts about the effects of the divorce on his two kids. By late-summer, I knew I was falling in love with him, once he had opened himself up with a warmth and playfulness that I found irresistible.

Still, I reminded myself that at the height of my crisis he had been an ocean away and unwilling to cancel the deal he was negotiating to wing his way to my side. It excited me physically and calmed me mentally to have him with me tonight, but I wasn’t ready to confuse it with loving him.

“Darling, I wish I could have dropped my clients or called in one of my assistants, but you know-‘ ”Sssssh. Stop apologizing. Do you think I’m going to say I’m sorry for pouncing on you in the shower?“

”Nothing to apologize for. I didn’t seem to mind very much, did I?
Kind of reminds me of that story you told me about your first rape trial I think you were just showing off.“

The first sex crimes“ case I had ever taken to trial was a ground ball so easy the jury should have reached a verdict without ever leaving the box. The victim was a twenty-one-year-old college graduate on her way to her first job interview in a towering office building on Lower Broadway in the middle of the afternoon. As she entered the elevator to go upstairs a man got on with her and as the elevator started to move pressed the button to stop it between floors. Before the startled young woman could react, the defendant grabbed her by the neck and slammed her head against the wall to daze her and render her semi-conscious. Then, as he held her pinned in place with one arm, he lifted her dress, ripped down her panty hose, unzipped his pants, and penetrated her while she stood up slumped in the corner of the elevator.

Impatient workers on the ground floor kept ringing for the stuck car, which finally returned to the first floor. When the doors opened, the girl screamed and the defendant bolted for the street. An off-duty cop the building coincidentally housed the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association offices chased the rapist for two blocks and dragged him back to the scene where other officers arrested him.

No wonder the bureau chief had given it to me as a first trial. The defendant’s attorney made a very weak argument for mistaken identification, and there didn’t seem to be any reason to worry about the outcome of the case. The jury got the charge at noon, and should have been back before lunch. By ten that night, we all knew some issue was giving them trouble. When the twelve very angry men and women returned with a guilty verdict close to midnight, several of them asked to talk with me.

The hang-up? An elderly man married and the father of four children simply didn’t believe the victim’s story, even though the defense had conceded that the rape had occurred exactly as she described it. Number eight told the others that she had to be lying: no one could have intercourse in a standing position it just wasn’t possible!

Eleven jurors had spent the rest of the day arguing with this old-fashioned gent, whose four offspring had been conceived in the missionary position. He was convinced that was the only manner in which sexual coupling could be accomplished… until jurors three (a thirty-six-year-old masseuse) and eleven (a forty-three-year-old mailman) volunteered to demonstrate to him, in the interest of justice, exactly what the victim had described.

From that experience I learned that a prosecutor could never assume any aspect of a case, especially when it comes to the complicated world of sexual assault. Jurors bring to the courtroom with them their own biases, prejudices, and personal knowledge, which was frequently quite limited.

And the biggest problem is their natural impulse to confuse consensual sexual events, familiar within their own lives, with the very different phenomenon of forced, assaultive acts. Never again have I presented an event to a jury without using my closing argument to explore the distinctions between what I could suppose were their own private habits and the criminal elements of the acts charged.

Jed poured me a drink while I opened a bottle of wine for him. I set out the meal, lit the candles, and tried to bring the conversation around to what he had seen and done in Paris and at which restaurants he had eaten.

But I had put off the obvious topic of conversation for as long as I could and he was determined to be brought up to speed.

“Alexandra, don’t you want to tell me what happened?

Do they know who killed Isabella?“

Like anything else, I had answered this question so many times since Wednesday evening that I could respond quite easily at this point. I summarized the details of her death and the investigation.

“No suspects right now. At least none that they’re telling me about.
Ex-husband, psycho co-stars, pen-pal psychiatrist, obsessed fan maybe even a secret lover. What’s your guess? I think I’m too close to it to see it clearly.”

“I didn’t know she’d ever been married. And what lover?

Had she told you about him?“