Linda Fairstein - The Kills

I flushed out the promotions she had been given and the number of people she supervised, establishing the stability of her professional performance.

"Are you single, Ms. Vallis?"

"Yes, I am. I've never been married."

"Do you know the defendant in this case, Andrew Tripping?"

Vallis cleared her throat and glanced quickly at the defense table. The few moments of relaxed testimony she had given came to an abrupt end, as she visibly tensed as she answered the question. "Yes, I do."

"For how long have you known him?"

"I met him in February of this year. February twentieth, to be exact."

"Your Honor, may we approach?" Robelon got to his feet. This was his style. Just as my victim was about to get her narrative going, he would interrupt as frequently as he could. It served the dual purpose of rattling the witness and distracting the jury from her story.

Moffett shrugged and reluctantly waved us up. He made Paige step down to the side as we huddled before the bench. "What is it?"

"I'm having trouble hearing Ms. Vallis. I'd like permission to move my chair over there." Robelon pointed to a spot behind my seat, directly in front of the jury panel.

"Sure. Go-"

"I'll just ask the witness to keep her voice up. Peter can sit exactly where he's supposed to."

"What's your beef, Alex?" Robelon asked.

"You ought to use one of your client's bayonets to clean the wax out of your ears. The only time you develop a problem is when a witness is testifying and the prosecutor's back is turned. The last time you repositioned yourself between me and the twelve angry men in the box, you spent the entire time rolling your eyes at them in disbelief and mumbling under your breath just loud enough so they could hear your comments."

"Cut it out, you two," Moffett said, turning to Paige. "Do you think you can speak any louder, young lady? Mr. Robelon needs to hear everything you say."

"I can try, Your Honor."

He waved us back to our seats and I picked up my questioning.

"I'm going to direct your attention, Ms. Vallis, to the evening of February twentieth. Would you tell us where you were and how you met the defendant?"

"Certainly. I attended a lecture at the Council on Foreign Relations, at their building on Park Avenue. I'm a member of that organization, and I had arranged to meet a girlfriend at the event, which started at seven o'clock. Then we were going to go to dinner together."

"Did you keep that plan?" I asked.

"No. I mean, I did go to the lecture, but my friend's plane was held on the runway in Boston because of snow. She called on my cell phone to tell me she wouldn't be able to make it."

Paige Vallis paused. "There was a cocktail reception after the lecture. I knew a number of the people there, so I decided to stay and chat for a while."

"Did you have anything to drink or eat at the reception?" Bring it out on the direct case, so that it didn't look like I was trying to hide any alcohol that was involved.

"Wine. I had a couple of glasses of white wine. Two. Nothing to eat."

"Did Mr. Tripping approach you that evening?"

"Objection. Leading."

"Overruled. Ms. Cooper's just trying to set some background up here."

Paige waited for the judge to tell her to proceed. "Three of us were standing together, talking about the situation in the Middle East, and what our own personal experiences had been there. Andrew must have heard me-"

"Objection as to what he might have heard."

"Sustained. Just tell us what he said or did."

The objections had their desired effect. Paige Vallis was shaken each time Robelon called out the word, as though she had done something wrong.

"Andrew Tripping asked me about Cairo," she said. "He wanted to know when I had lived there and for what reason."

Tripping started fidgeting as she spoke, trying to get his lawyer's attention. Robelon brushed him off, continuing to take notes on the details in Vallis's testimony that he had not heard before. The defendant put his head together with Emily Frith, whispering to her, distracting several jurors from the flow of the testimony.

"What did you tell him, exactly?"

"I talked about my father's career and told him what I remembered of his tour of duty in Egypt. I hadn't been back there since finishing high school."

"For how long did you talk?" I asked.

"Probably half an hour."

"Did you leave the council alone?"

Paige Vallis blushed and picked up her water cup again. "No, no, I didn't. Andrew told me he knew a nice restaurant in the neighborhood and invited me to go to dinner."

"Did anyone else-"

I started to ask the next question but Paige Vallis wanted to explain her decision to the jury. "I don't normally do that. I mean, go off somewhere with a man I don't know. But I can't imagine a safer place to meet a guy than a political policy discussion with the members of the council," she said, giggling a bit.

Laughter didn't work in the middle of a rape trial. I knew it was just a nervous reaction, but she would need to get beyond it. Don't apologize for anything you did, I had told Paige for weeks. Just tell the jury the facts. In my summation I would have lots of opportunity to talk about her judgment calls.

"Did anyone else go with you to dinner?"

"No. I said good night to the people I knew, got my coat from the checkroom, and we walked three or four blocks to a small bistro on a side street."

She took us through the dinner and conversation. Yes, there was another glass of wine for each of them. Yes, they both discussed their personal lives. Andrew told her that he was widowed, and that his mother had raised his son until her recent death. No, she certainly could not remember everything that they had talked about.

I would argue that was because there was no significance to most of the conversation at this first meeting. Robelon would attribute her lack of specifics to the third glass of wine.

"What time did you leave the restaurant, and where did you go?"

"I saw that it was getting late-after ten o'clock. I told Andrew that I had to be in my office before eight the next morning. He put me in a cab outside the restaurant and we said good night."

"Who paid for the meal?"

She looked at me and reddened again. "We split the check. I paid for my dinner and he paid for his."

"Did you kiss each other?"

"No."

"Was there any kind of physical contact-touching each other or holding hands as you walked on the street?"

"None."

"Did he ask for your phone number?"

"No."

"Did he say-"

"Hey, Ms. Cooper," Judge Moffett said, "whatever happened to woman's lib? Ms. Vallis, did you ask him for his number?"

"No, sir."

"Was there any discussion about seeing each other again?" I asked.

"No, there wasn't. I got in the cab, closed the door, and went on my way home. I thought it was a pleasant evening, but that was the end of it."

"When was the next time you had any contact with Andrew Tripping?"

"About three or four days later, when he called me."

"Where were you when he called?"

"At my office. Dibingham Partners," Vallis said, looking over at the jurors. "My personal phone isn't listed. I had told Andrew where I worked, and I guess-"

"Objection."

"Sustained. You can't guess in my courtroom, Ms. Vallis," the judge barked at the young woman from his elevated position over her head, and she recoiled, shaken again. "I'm sorry, Your Honor."

"Would you please tell us what the defendant said in that conversation?"

"It was a very short discussion. I told him I was about to go into a meeting. He asked if I wanted to have dinner with him the following night, and I said, 'Sure.' We arranged to meet at the Odeon. That's a restaurant near my apartment. That's all."