Without Prejudice (28 page)

‘When we got to the stairwell he wanted me to go first, and I changed my mind again – I just didn’t like the way he was acting, especially when he said I shouldn’t worry. He said, “Trust me.” I tried to go back up, but he grabbed my arm. I yanked it and pushed him to try and get away. That’s when he cut me for the first time. He slashed me across the neck.’ She stopped and gave out a little choking noise, as if she’d swallowed some gum. Tilting her head down until it rested on her chest, she said in a half-whisper, ‘After that I did everything he told me to.’

She explained how he had taken her downstairs, dripping blood, then stopped in what was going to be the new reception area for paediatric neurology. She was precise about the name. Some of the furniture was already in place, and he had pushed her against the reception module, making her lie on its desk surface while he ripped at her blouse until it was off. Then he reached behind her back and cut both straps of her bra.

‘He told me to relax. Then he took his hand and reached under my skirt. He grabbed my tights at the waist and started pulling them down . . .’

It took him some time to get them off. He used one hand to hold the knife against her throat as she lay sprawled on the desktop, while his other hand struggled with the tights, clawing at them, until finally only a bunch of ragged sock-like material remained, balled in a bunch around her ankles. Then he spread her legs apart roughly, and she heard that hand undo his belt and drop his trousers, while the other still pressed the knife against her throat.

The DA said, ‘I know this is hard for you, but can you tell us what happened next?’

She nodded silently, and even from the rear of the courtroom Robert could see the tears in her eyes. ‘I felt him . . . go inside me. It hurt. I was terrified he was going to cut me again, so I didn’t say anything.’

She took a deep breath before continuing. ‘When he . . . finished, he put his face right down over mine. Then I did ask, “Why are you doing this?”’

She seemed to choke again, and kept her head bowed down.

‘And what did the defendant say?’

Her reply came out in a whisper, her voice so faint that even the judge could not hear her. He looked with bafflement at the DA, who said, ‘I’m sorry, Miss Mohan, but can you say that again?’

The courtroom was absolutely silent. Peggy Mohan didn’t raise her head, but the words, spoken in a low murmur, were surprisingly clear. ‘He said, “Do you like my pink shirt?”’

They broke for a recess. When the trial resumed Peggy Mohan seemed more composed.

She had thought after the first rape that maybe he would let her go, but instead he used some cord to tie her hands together behind her back. She’d whimpered when he twisted it tight around her wrists, and he had suddenly lost his temper, and hit her in the face with his fist. She’d felt a bone crack in her cheek, and cried out despite herself. This time he stabbed her, thrusting the knife into her chest between her breasts. It hurt so much she had to use all of her willpower not to cry out again. She was terrified that if he stabbed her again he might hit an artery or vital organ. She’d worked in the emergency room at Billings, and seen enough knife wounds to know that it was a matter of chance whether you survived a stabbing. The more often you were stabbed, the more likely you would die.

Now he forced her off the desk and made her crawl, naked now, to a corner of the room. Here he had made her kneel on the new carpet, facing the corner. She could smell the fresh paint on the walls – she remembered that.

She’d been on all fours, and suddenly he thrust into her again, this time from behind. Then he had withdrawn, and she thought maybe he was finished, but no – she felt his hand probing her anus, and suddenly he entered her there. In her efforts not to shout at the ripping, horrible pain, she clenched her teeth so hard that she bit halfway through her lower lip.

Throughout this he had the knife near her face; she could see it juddering as he jerked in and out of her. With his other hand, he gripped her around the belly, pinching her hard with his fingers as he moved. He didn’t talk at all this time, but as he climaxed she flinched, and he cut her again, drawing the blade against her throat as if he were sharpening the knife against a whetstone.

It was now that Peggy Mohan faltered again. ‘For the first time I thought I was going to die. I was bleeding so heavily.’

‘Did you manage to say anything?’ The DA’s voice was extra gentle.

She shook her head. ‘I couldn’t – my throat was full of blood.’

A woman in the gallery gasped loudly, and the judge looked crossly at the rows of spectators.

‘Did he say anything to you?’

Peggy Mohan took a deep breath. ‘Yes. He made me lie down, on my stomach. I had my head turned to one side, and he put his face down next to me. He was
this close
.’ She held a hand about three inches away from her eyes. ‘He said . . .’ and she shut her eyes as her composure began to break. She managed to get the words out, but her voice sounded half-strangled, like a screechy violin. ‘He said he’d let me go after he did it one more time.’

When the DA finished, Gehringer asked to begin his cross-examination on Monday morning – it was by now four o’clock. Robert saw his reasoning: Gehringer wanted the weekend break to distance Peggy Mohan’s testimony from his client, sitting less than twenty feet from the jury. If even Robert felt shaken by her testimony, God knows what twelve strangers who’d never known Duval would think.

But the judge denied the request. So Gehringer got up from the table, looking war-weary before the battle had even begun. When he spoke, his voice was subdued.

‘Miss Mohan, we all feel absolutely terrible about what happened to you. Nobody admires you more than I do for the bravery you’ve shown today. But you can understand that a man’s freedom is at stake, and we have to make sure justice is done, and that the right person is convicted for this horrific crime. There’s nothing that could compensate you for the injuries you’ve received, but I am sure you would not want another injustice to be done.’

The woman looked stonily at Gehringer. He asked, ‘Do you remember if before the night of the assault, you ever saw Duval Morgan?’

‘It’s possible. But I don’t remember him.’ She spoke tersely, and seemed unwilling to look at Gehringer.

‘Did you know any of the security people at Billings?’

‘Only to say hello to. Usually when I was coming to work or leaving. You pass by the reception desk.’

‘But you don’t recall if Duval Morgan was one of them.’

She shrugged. ‘No. Like I say, it’s possible I said hello.’

‘But would it be fair to say that at some point, during the course of your duties at Billings, you would have come across the defendant?’

‘I—’

‘Objection.’ The DA stood up. ‘This is pure conjecture, Your Honour. The witness is not here to answer hypothetical questions.’

‘Sustained.’

‘Okay.’ Gehringer moved away from the jury box now until he stood in front of Peggy Mohan. It was casually done, but it forced her to look at him. ‘Now, Miss Mohan, when the police came to see you in the hospital, was the first photograph they showed you that of the defendant, Duval Morgan?’

She hesitated. ‘I’m not sure.’

Gehringer nodded as if unsurprised, but he looked to Robert like he was thinking hard. ‘All right. Let me ask another question then. When you first saw the defendant’s photograph, did you identify him immediately as your assailant?’

‘Objection.’ The DA was on his feet. ‘We’ve already heard testimony from the police officer present that the witness identified Mr Morgan as soon as she saw his photograph.’

Gehringer lifted his hands in mock-disbelief. ‘Your Honour, I’d like to hear it from the witness herself. She was the one doing the identifying, not the officer.’

‘Objection overruled. Please answer the question, Miss Mohan.’

She looked confused. ‘I’m sorry, but can you ask it again?’

‘Of course,’ said Gehringer, a model of patience. ‘When you saw the photograph of the defendant, did you indicate right away that he was your assailant?’

There was a long pause. Then she said, ‘I must have.’

The courtroom was suddenly quiet again. Robert could see Vanetta leaning forward, in the row right behind Duval.

Gehringer had been slowly pacing, but now he stood stock still. ‘You must have?’

‘Yes. He’s the one who did it.’

Gehringer ignored this. ‘I’m sorry, Miss Mohan, but I asked if, when you saw Duval Morgan’s photograph, you identified him right away. And you said you “must have”. Not yes or no. I don’t understand.’

And for the first time there seemed a glimmer of hope.

‘I don’t remember,’ admitted Peggy Mohan.

‘Try hard, please, Miss Mohan. I know it’s painful, but it’s important – or I wouldn’t be asking.’

She didn’t answer for several moments. The judge seemed about to prompt her, when suddenly she shook her head, and said, ‘I’m sorry but I don’t remember anything about my first days in the hospital. They told me later I couldn’t even talk – you see, he’d cut my throat so badly that my vocal cords didn’t work then.’

There was another gasp at the back of the courtroom. Gehringer started to speak, but Peggy Mohan talked right through him. ‘When they took me to the station later, I knew. I said right away who it was.’ She looked up past Gehringer towards the defence table. Suddenly she stabbed her finger at Duval. ‘It was
him
. He did this to me.’

Now the judge did intervene, ordering a recess until Monday morning. Robert waited for Vanetta outside the courtroom. She looked terribly tired and had her arm around her daughter Aurelia, who had only arrived that afternoon from St Louis for her son’s trial. Aurelia was weeping.

‘I’ll see you Monday,’ he said, and Vanetta just nodded.

He drove back to Hyde Park in a mild state of shock, trying to banish the images that flashed through his head like snapshots. Whoever had attacked Peggy Mohan had acted without the smallest mercy. It was the act of someone so filled with misdirected hate that they couldn’t see anything human in their victim.

He did not believe it could have been Duval. No one could change that much. Yet as he thought gloomily of Gehringer’s failed attempt to shake Peggy Mohan’s identification, he had the terrible feeling that his old friend was going to take the rap. For just when it seemed the door had opened a crack, Peggy Mohan had slammed it shut.

It was cold that week in February, and on Saturday morning he stayed inside. Merrill didn’t like him there, he knew, so he holed up in his father’s small study, reading while his father came in and out in his robust yet abstracted fashion throughout his showering and shaving next door. He’d been home two days now, and what Merrill didn’t know was that he might be home for another week. Robert would be speaking with lawyer Gehringer on Monday, and he was going to say he’d be happy to testify. Willing, actually; not happy. The odds now looked so stacked against Duval that Robert didn’t feel he had a choice.

The doorbell rang, and he let Merrill answer it, not out of laziness but because she’d made it clear this was her home, not any part of his.

‘Why, Vanetta,’ he heard Merrill say, ‘what are you doing here?’

‘I’m just stopping in, Miss Merrill.’ Vanetta had always resisted calling her ‘Mrs Danziger’. ‘I’ve come to see Bobby.’

He went out to the hall, where Vanetta stood in her coat and boots. ‘Won’t you come in a minute, V?’ Merrill asked.

Vanetta shook her head, and looked at Bobby. ‘Come for a walk with me?’

He was puzzled – why couldn’t they talk in the apartment, where it was warm? But he got his coat from the hall closet while Merrill retreated to her room.

Outside, it was glaringly bright, and the snow sparkled in the midwinter sun, but it was also near-Siberian with cold. At the corner the wind howled down the narrow tunnel of 58th Street. Ice lay under crusted snow on the sidewalks, where rock salt had uncovered only a thin line of concrete to walk on. Crossing Dorchester Avenue, he took Vanetta’s arm, then almost slipped himself on a thin disc of ice.

‘Who’s holding on to who?’ she asked, laughing. They moved along 58th Street until Vanetta stopped to catch her breath. She gazed through the black iron uprights of the fence around Jackman Field, where once Robert had played school games of soccer and softball. Today it lay buried under a frozen blanket of snow.

‘You warm enough?’ she asked, though it was she who was wearing a thin wool coat, while he had on a ski parka, puffed with goose down. A frayed silk scarf covered her head, a cast-off from Merrill. Without her grey hair showing, she looked years younger – her face was still smooth-skinned.

‘It’s not exactly Mississippi weather,’ he said.

‘You tellin’ me.’ She pointed to the field. ‘Hard to believe that in three months kids going to be running around in T-shirts and shorts out there.’

‘Do you want to go get warm somewhere?’ There was a coffee shop inhabiting the Steinways corner spot now, only two blocks away.

‘No. I got to go downtown, see this man Gehringer some more. But I wanted to talk to you first.’

He waited, but she seemed in no hurry. He sensed a terrible sadness in her. She stared out again at Jackman Field. ‘You know, when I first came into your life you was a damaged little boy. I was so worried about you – and I thought, If I can show this boy the love he needs maybe he’ll be all right. I mean, I knew you would be cared for in all the other respects – your daddy wasn’t rich, but he had more money than I’d ever see. You’d always have all the food and clothes you’d ever need, and I knew you’d be going to a good school. What you didn’t have was a mama.’