Linda Fairstein - Final Jeopardy

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?“

“No. Talk about using me. You know the crap she gave me about being stalked and needing to get away? Well, she neglected to tell me that she was taking someone with her. A guy.”

“Maybe it was platonic, a friend-‘ ”Well he left some very un platonic condoms in my garbage. I suppose if I look at it scientifically instead of with my gut, at least when they get a suspect they can always test what’s in the condoms for DNA.“

“Don’t the police know who he is? Didn’t anybody see them together?”

“Not many people. That’s the beauty of the Vineyard.”

Jed had not been to the island with me yet because he had spent most of his free weekends commuting back to the West Coast to spend time with his kids.

“Anyway, they’re talking to everyone who Isabella ever crossed in her inimitable fashion, so I think this is going to be a long haul.”

“But are they sure the killer was after Isabella and not you? That’s what had me tortured when I couldn’t get here.”

“Now it seems quite obvious, but it was truly frightening before we could reconstruct the timetable. I was pretty distraught when I called you that first time.”

I knew Jed had been harassed by a stalker during his brief foray into politics last year, when he lived in California.

“I remember those stories you told me about that woman who had followed you all around during the primary.” He had been a candidate in the Senate race, and like most people in prominent positions had attracted a few nuts in his search for legitimate support.

“You know what sitting ducks men and women become when they achieve some kind of celebrity status. Most of the time it’s just a nuisance, but quite harmless. Then one of those psychos loses all connection to reality and the result is suddenly lethal.”

“I tell you, when you’re in the middle of it, there’s nothing worse. Every time I was giving a speech or standing on a reception line, I’d look up and she’d be there. Nothing threatening, mind you. Just the opposite. She attended a single campaign rally in Century City probably because there were supposed to be a lot of movie stars there shook my hand once, and was smitten.”

“Hey, she’s only human,” I teased.

“Yeah, well that’s half the problem. Nobody took it seriously because she told everyone we were lovers.”

“And?”

“Of course not. She was completely delusional. But nobody my staff, the police, private security nobody thought it was worth worrying about because she was a woman, and because I think most of them really believed we had been having some kind of affair. She was smart, reasonably attractive, knew my travel schedule better than my staffers did. She was everywhere I was supposed to be.

They all knew my marriage was hanging by a string and they just winked at each other whenever I tried to deny that something was going on.“

“What did you do about it?”

“Got an order of protection, finally. I sure as hell didn’t want to do that in the middle of a campaign prosecute someone for being at my events. Hell, some days she was the only one who showed up. And paid to do it.”

We both laughed.

“One of the reasons I was thrilled to move to New York for CommPlex was to put all that behind me. I assume she’s still in graduate school in L.A., and that she’s attached herself to some other unsuspecting soul. Anyway, I know how distracting and unsettling that kind of harassment is, even if I didn’t know it was so dangerous. Now I’ve got you to protect me I went right to the top.”

Jed got up from the table and came around to my side.

“Alex, I’ll never let you down again, I promise,” he said, as he leaned over behind me, brushed the damp strands of hair away from my neck, and kissed me softly below my ear until I turned and offered him my mouth. We left our uneaten dinner on the table, carried the wine bottle and glasses into my bedroom, and stripped down a second time to get under the covers.

“Forgive me, darling, but I don’t think I’ll be much good to you now,” he whispered as he let me cradle his head on my breast.

“I’m really exhausted.” He was asleep almost as soon as his eyes closed, and I looked at the clock, noting that it was barely ten as we settled in for the night.

I stared at the dark, silent figure lying beside me, and thought about how my life had changed in the three months since we had started to date. I met Jed through my closest friend from law school, Jordan Goodrich. Jordan had left Skadden, Arps to go into the investment banking business and worked a few deals with Jed on the other side. When Jed’s twelve-year marriage broke up and he moved to New York, Susan Goodrich began to invite him to some of her dinner parties. She obeyed my rule about no blind dates, but Susan had grown to like Jed and was convinced that I would, too, so she was intent on coming up with an easy introduction.