No Way Out

Andi, who had been taking a sip of her orange juice, gulped and put the glass down. ‘The press’ll have a field day. It’ll probably turn into another black rights versus women’s rights circus.’

‘And don’t I know it! The defense will raise the specter of the Scottsboro Boys and the prosecution will use everything they can throw at the defendant from Mike Tyson to O.J. Simpson.’

Andi nodded sympathetically.

‘And caught in the middle of it is one frightened little girl, not yet out of her teens.’

‘You think you can handle it?’

‘Oh, I can handle it all right. I’ve been there before, remember. The question is, can the victim?’

‘And can she?’

Gene shook her head, sadly. ‘She doesn’t know what she’s letting herself in for.’

‘Have they got a suspect?’

‘Yes.’

‘Has she ID-ed him?’

‘Yes. Only they released him pending DNA results.’

Andi sat forward, part eager, part concerned. She had known Gene long enough to pick up the nuances in her words as well as her tone.

‘Well if she ID-ed him then maybe she’s tougher than you think.’

‘She’s not tough. She’s just naïve. She doesn’t realize that she’s going to carry the can for two centuries of racial persecution.’

Saturday 6 June 2009 – 11.00 (#ulink_64125e61-100b-5437-b1d1-93acbf196dad)

Albert Carter was an old man. Not a wise old man, not a crusty old man, not even really a frail old man, just an old man who had lived a full life and been around the block a few times. He wasn’t in the best of health, having done his share of smoking and drinking, before he gave it up when he noticed it slowing him down a bit. But he was a lonely old man, having lost his first wife to divorce and his second to the Grim Reaper.

Oh yes, the Reaper.

There were many weapons in the Reaper’s arsenal, and Albert Carter couldn’t even pronounce the name of the disease that had claimed Hildegard.

His children were still around, but he had lost them to professional migration. He saw them at Christmas and on his birthday, but that was pretty much it. One lived in Utah and one in Boston. The one in Utah was a store manager and the one in Boston some kind of academic. He understood the work of the former more than the latter, but, both had families and neither came out west very often.

So he spent his days watching TV, reading the newspaper and – with diminishing frequency – bowling with his old friends. It was a dull, repetitive chapter towards the latter part of his book of life, but he had his basic needs and he didn’t want more. All he yearned for was a bit less arthritic pain. Oh, and he wished that the cops would do more to round up those gangs who were turning the neighborhood into such an unpleasant place. He knew who they were…in a generic sort of way, at least.

It was while he was watching the TV alone one night, he saw a news report about the Bethel Newton rape case, saying how a famous local talk show host had been arrested and then released. They didn’t have any footage from the police station, but they showed a still photograph of the girl and stock footage from the man’s talk show. Apparently he’d been arrested after shooting the latest show, yet to be broadcast.

And that was when Carter got the feeling.

He didn’t remember the details too clearly – the whole thing had happened just too fast. But there was one thing that he remembered.

For a moment he hesitated, realizing that criminals could sometimes be vengeful towards people who snitched. But then he remembered his own, all-too-frequent words about the cowards who don’t speak out when criminals destroy their communities. He didn’t want to be like one of those people whom he routinely criticized. He knew now that it was his civic duty to speak out and he didn’t want to be like all the shirkers.

So he dragged his weary bones out of the comfort of his tattered, dust-ridden armchair and trudged over to the phone.

Friday 12 June – 9.40 (#ulink_5b5050a0-cf35-5669-8795-32e999a69db7)

Detective Bridget Riley was a victim chaperone, not a counselor. She was the principal point of contact between the investigating officers and the rape victim. The detectives investigating the case put most of their questions through Bridget. When they had to put questions directly or when others had to have contact with the victim, such as during the medical examination, the victim chaperone had to be there.

She had a sporty, athletic look about her, the tough look of a kick boxer. Male colleagues found her attractive and her face, highlighted against her raven-colored hair, was potential photographic model material. But what would be a blessing in the world of show biz, could be something of a curse in the locker room culture of the police.

Because of her looks, Bridget had been the target of sexual harassment by her colleagues. And it had made her tough. She could take the compliments with a smile and a shrug and when they became vulgar she hit back with a glib ‘in your dreams, buster.’

When one of the rookies was bold enough to try to pin her against a locker, showing off in front of three of his friends, she deterred him from further action with a well-placed fist to the groin. Then she added insult to injury by asking him if he wanted her to kiss it better. The rookies never bothered her again; nor had anyone else in the department during the four years since.

Bridget was sitting at her desk typing up a report on a domestic violence case for Sarah Jensen at the D.A.’s office, when a female officer dropped a fax on her desk. But Bridget did not look up.

Sarah Jensen, the Assistant District Attorney in charge of the domestic violence division at the Ventura County D.A.’s office, was no less determined than Bridget to nail these bastards who beat their wives or girlfriends. But Sarah Jensen was a realist. She was also very ambitious. She knew that unsuccessful prosecutions damaged the reputation of the department, and gave her a poor track record, personally. So Bridget knew that she had to word every sentence carefully to give Sarah the impression that this was a winnable case.

When she looked at the fax, her eyes lit up. She scooped it up and rushed out of the room.

Friday, 12 June 2009 – 10.30 (#ulink_d015c249-64d0-57d4-9fc8-94df15db1241)

Sitting on a lounging chair on the deck of his Mediterranean-style villa, looking out onto the ocean, Elias Claymore realized that crime and repentance had served him well. His present surroundings were a far cry from the ramshackle hut where he had been born and the rat-infested ‘hood where he had grown up.

The villa stood in landscaped grounds on the sands of Montecito’s most prestigious beach and had breathtaking views of the ocean from nearly every room. There was a huge living room with fireplace, bar and ocean view, a beachside kitchen, two beachside bedrooms each with a fireplace, and a third at the back. Even the office had an ocean view. There was also a separate guest apartment, a large beachfront deck, a sunset view seaside spa, majestic trees and flowering gardens and seventy-five feet of private beachfront.

But how far had he really come?

‘You can take the man out of the ghetto,’ the racists had taunted, ‘but you can’t take the ghetto out of the man.’ And much as it pained his troubled conscience, the racists were right on this one, albeit in the most literal sense. A ghetto is a place of retreat where one is surrounded by one’s own kind yet is constantly under threat from those outside. And right now Elias felt besieged.

His mind drifted back to what his life had once been like. He used to think that the pain was all over. He had never forgotten what he had done. But after all these years he thought it would no longer come back to haunt him. Yet the events of the past week had proved him wrong – and it was like a slow, drawn-out torture.

He tried to soften the pain by reminding himself what had driven him to do the things he had done and become the man he became, thinking back to the time he was nine when two white policemen raped his mother before his eyes. He had tried to stop them, but one of them had grabbed him and twisted his arm behind his back, forcing him to watch while the other had pinned his mother to the ground, ripped her clothes and forced himself into her as she screamed and begged for mercy.

She had brought up Elias alone, without the help of a man, and she had always been a strong figure in his early years, dishing out the punishment while protecting him from the bigger kids in the ‘hood. But she couldn’t protect herself from this. And Elias Claymore learned in those few minutes that his mother, who had been like a pillar of support for the entire world as he knew it, was powerless in the face of this invading force in their own home.

And through his childish eyes, little Elias knew why. She was a woman – and women were weaker than men. He couldn’t expect a woman to protect him. It was for men to be strong and to protect women…or violate them. That was how it was in other households. He had seen the local pimps slapping their girls around and he quickly learned that this was the natural order in the world. It was normal for men to dominate women.

But these men who had invaded his house and raped his mother were not their men. They were an alien presence. These were the pigs who beat up blacks just because they were black. These were the people who called him ‘Nigger’ and made him afraid whenever they walked by, knowing that he daren’t respond to their racist taunts. And now they were here in his home, doing…this thing…to his mother.

He couldn’t blame her for being weak. But it was her fault that they didn’t have a man to protect them. She had driven him away. That’s what one of his brothers had told him. She had called Elias’s father a no-good, drunken deadbeat and thrown him out of the house. But now he realized how much they needed a man in this household…and they didn’t have one because of her.

He realized in that moment that one day he would be a man. He would be big and strong and then there’d be hell to pay! Because then he’d be able to fight back…and he’d hit them where it hurt. He’d hit their weakness – their women.

He was shaken out of his unhappy daydream by a loud, aggressive knocking on the front door.

‘Who is it?’ he called out.

‘This is the police! We have a warrant for your arrest.’

Friday, 12 June 2009 – 13.00 (#ulink_c3b34b33-7ca0-5e30-803c-350acdff7ce4)