I remind him of my fee and tell him I have to get off. I pick up Sarah’s line, wondering what she wants. She finishes her first-semester exams tomorrow afternoon, and I can’t imagine any call that can’t wait twenty-four hours.
“What’s up, babe?” I ask.
“Julia says it sounded important.”
“Well, it’s probably not, and I don’t feel good about telling you this, because I don’t know how relevant it is, but here goes: there’s a rumor that’s been going around, and it’s only a rumor, that Robin was having an affair with Dr. Hofstra in the history department this summer.
Depending on the source, it was still going on this fall when Robin filed rape charges against Dade. That may not be true at all though, because the girl who said Robin was still involved with Dr. Hofstra when she said she was raped is a cheerleader and was her big rival.”
I make notes furiously. Ever since Thanksgiving it’s been as if Dade’s case was on hold. He is still refusing to take the polygraph despite his mother’s encouragement. I have been hoping he would begin to feel some pressure of the upcoming trial date and would cooperate.
“How long have you known about this?” I ask, marveling at my daughter’s ability to keep a secret, a feat, despite my obligations as a lawyer, that I don’t always manage.
“I heard it the day before I quit the jay vee cheerleaders,” Sarah admits, “but Paula convinced me not to say anything. She said it was gossip and that a statute called the ‘rape shield law’ made it inadmissible in court. Is that true?”
I try to contain my exasperation. That was back in October
“It’s up to the judge. If the court can be convinced that a past sexual relationship has some particular bearing on the case, evidence of it can be admitted, but under most situations, the statute prohibits mention of it,” I ex plain.
“Why are you telling me now? Have you been talking to Dr. Beekman again?” I ask, hoping she has had a falling out with WAR.
“Some,” she admits, “but I’ve been thinking about this ever since we got back from Bear Creek, and so I finally called Dade this morning and confronted him. He swears he didn’t rape Robin. I think I believe him. He’s pretty convincing.”
Family ties. Even as distant as these are, Sarah must feel them. How odd! Yet, is it? She must have a hundred questions about her own racial past. Now, she has a connection however slight, right on campus.
“I still believe him, too,” I say, encouragingly.
“I take it you heard this from another cheerleader.” If I can get someone to testify, this case might be back in business.
“Dad,” Sarah blurts, “I’m sworn to secrecy! I’ve violated a confidence telling you this.”
“The rest of Dade’s life is at stake,” I press her.
“This may be crucial evidence in the case. It would be horribly unfair to Dade if the case turned on this point and it never got presented to the jury.”
“Don’t make me do this!” Sarah says, her voice anguished.
“You have to, babe,” I scold her. I have no qualms about leaning on my own daughter. She should have told me weeks ago.
“I need the names of everybody you’ve talked to.”
Sarah, her voice now choked with tears, says, “I’ve got to talk to them first.”
Her tears always get to me. I know I’m putting her in a bind. Yet, it is wrong for her to sit on this information.
“I understand,” I say.
“Just let me know as soon as possible.
I’ll be in Fayetteville tomorrow afternoon.”
I make her promise to call me back as soon as she can, and then I go in to Dan’s office to talk this over with him.
For the last month Clan has been disappearing during the day. I know he is still seeing Gina, but today, it appears, he is actually doing some work for a change. He puts down his Dictaphone as soon as I mention I have some juicy gossip about the case.
“What would be the possible relevance to Robin’s allegation that she was raped by Dade?” I ask, after going through Sarah’s story.
As he thinks, Dan’s right forefinger wanders up his face but fortunately misses his nose and comes to rest be-low his eye.
“Maybe she was trying to make her professor jealous,” he muses, “and she went to the hottest guy she knew.”
“With a black athlete on a southern campus?” I ask, unable to accept this scenario. I sit down across from him.
“Maybe this professor knocked her up, and she wanted to get an abortion but needed an excuse, so she claimed Dade raped her.”
Clan shakes his head.
“Why wouldn’t she just get one?” he scoffs.
“It’s no big deal.”
“It is,” I say, “if you’re raised to think abortion is a sin, and the only thing that justifies it would be rape or saving the mother’s life. Robin’s parents are big Baptists. She wouldn’t be able to admit to them she got pregnant.
That’s too big a scandal. But if they knew, they’d make her have the baby. So she lets herself get into a situation with Dade and convinces herself that he has raped her, which justifies an abortion.”
Clan rocks back and forth in his chair like a child.
“You’ve got a vivid imagination,” he says, tacitly admitting I may be onto something.
“Do you have any proof?”
“Not a shred,” I admit, realizing that up until now Robin has been able to create an image of herself that has been nauseatingly pristine. I still know almost nothing about her. That’s going to change. I need to get back up to Fayetteville and start to work on this case again.
I go back to my office and call Dade and, for a change, get him in his room.
“I understand Sarah called you today,” I begin, not at all sure how he will react.
“I didn’t know she was going to. She’s kind of impulsive sometimes.”
“She’s all right,” Dade says.
“At least she told me you went to Bear Creek. Of course, I already knew.”
“I figured you did” I say awkwardly. In the two conversations I’ve had with him since we came back, I never quite knew how to bring it up.
“Mama said she had told you, but you didn’t believe her!” he says.
I should have had this conversation with him long be fore now, but I kept putting it off.
“All my life I had been told it wasn’t true,” I say weakly.
“I needed to find out for myself whether it was or not.”
“Your daughter says it was her idea to go over there.”
I shift uncomfortably in my chair. They had a longer conversation than Sarah led me to believe.
“That’s true.”
“You see why I don’t want to take a lie detector test? I can’t trust white people.”
Who does he think will be on the jury? We have been over this a dozen times.
“Then trust the polygraph: it’s a machine; it just records changes in your body as you answer questions.”
“You’ve said that it’s not what the machine does that’s important; it’s what the man says the answers mean.”
The Man. How do we get past that? I switch subjects and tell him I am coming up tomorrow.
“Have you heard anything about Robin in the last few days that you haven’t already told me?” I ask, determined not to put words in his mouth. I will save Sarah’s story until I’ve talked to her again.
