her. Instead, for a quarter of a century from a safe distance of a hundred miles, I told myself that mother did learn to love her, but we just didn’t have the opportunity to visit much. Bullshit!
I stop in Rose Bud to get gas and see on the wall in the service station a six-month-old notice of a parade and a barbecue sponsored by the Rose Bud volunteer fire department and ladies’ auxiliary. A parade of a single fire truck? Bear Creek was too small. We were better off not going home. After all these years, it is the reason I can’t abide. As I drive on, I wonder why has it taken so long to come to terms with my past? No wonder I am so afraid of a jury in this case.
“You can come see Woogie anytime you want to,” Marty tells Sarah as we say good-bye. We have been invited for dinner, and though the reason for our coming is a sad one, we have had a good visit. With some trepidation I told Marty about our visit to eastern Arkansas over Thanksgiving, but instead of lecturing me again, Marty listened for a change and said little in response. She is not interested in the past, her demeanor says. If I am nutty enough to put myself through that meat grinder, it’s my problem.
Woogie, knowing something is up, won’t leave Sarah long enough for us to slip out the door. Sarah wipes away her tears and gently nuzzles his battle-scarred ears.
“Be good, Woogie!” she whispers and kisses him on his graying muzzle.
Marty’s husband. Sweetness, holds out a dog biscuit in the shape of a bone.
“Come here, boy,” he coaxes.
“You’ll like it here” I like Sweetness better all the time. He can’t help hating Bill Clinton any more than I could help liking the looks of that waitress in Heber Springs this afternoon. If he loves my sister and likes dogs, he can’t be all bad. A sucker for food, Woogie trots over to Sweetness, who grabs his collar and gives him the biscuit to distract him.
I wave at my sister and brother-in-law, and nudge Sarah, and we go out into the cold night air.
“We’ll never see him again!” Sarah wails as we get into the Blazer.
“We never come out here.”
“We will, more and more,” I say, grinding the Blazer’s starter in the darkness.
“As Nazis go. Sweetness isn’t so terrible.”
“He was a good dog!” she pronounces, as if we had carried Woogie to his grave.
“A wonderful dog,” I concur, no longer feeling the need to play the strong, silent type. I will miss him more than Sarah will. I’m the one who will be alone.
16
Wednesday afternoon, before I leave for Fayetteville for the hearing on my motion to introduce evidence of Robin’s past sexual conduct, I have an inspiration and call Amy to ask her to sit at the counsel table with me for the trial on the seventh, still five days away. We have been inseparable since her successful Christmas Day visit. With Sarah invited by a friend from school to a party New Year’s Eve in Memphis, I spent the entire night at Amy’s, where we conducted our own private celebration to welcome in the new year.
When she finally picks up the phone in her office, I ask, “Would you be interested in coming up to Fayette ville for the trial next week? You could examine a couple of the witnesses. I’ll have plenty of time before then to prepare you.”
Amy is too smart not to guess my motive.
“You want a female lawyer to try to add credibility to Dade’s defense, don’t you?”
“What would be so wrong with that?” I ask, trying to conceal my irritation with her tone. She knows what lawyers do.
“I don’t think you’ll want me,” Amy says abruptly.
“I feel sorry for the girl. She’s been through hell.”
Standing in my kitchen, I watch the faucet drip in the sink. This room could stand some major work if I’m going to remain in the house. Lately, I’ve been thinking it’s time I ought to move.
“Bullshit!” I say emphatically.
“The National Weather Service, or whoever names storms, ought to name a tornado after her. If you get in Robin Perry’s way, you’re history….”
Amy interrupts, “First, she gets seduced by a professor, then probably raped by a student, and now she’s going to be publicly humiliated at a trial. She’s just a kid.
What if this had happened to Sarah? Then you’d see Robin Perry a lot differently.”
Why did I call Amy? Bad idea.
“You should have stayed a prosecutor, Gilchrist,” I say, unwilling to start a fight, but wanting to have the last word. Yet, I know I’m not being fair. We both know she loved the prosecutor’s office.
“Men say they understand, but you don’t,” Amy lectures me.
“The emotional pain and frustration women go through in a rape case is absolutely sickening. Men can’t even imagine it.”
Amy’s beginning to sound like Paula Crawford. I look at my watch. It’s four o’clock. I’ll be driving in darkness over the mountain.
“I need to get on the road,” I tell her, and hang up a moment later, after trying to smooth things over between us. I should have known better than to call her. I need her right now a lot more than she needs me.
My hope is in a man who is hardly heroic. Joe Hofstra, according to Barton, who has had his feelers out for gossip, is suicidal because of having to appear at this hearing The hearing is closed to the public, and with no students in town and the actual trial not to begin until Monday, we have attracted no media attention. Unless I miss my guess, however, word will get around that some thing big is going on in Judge Franklin’s court, and we’ll have a handful of reporters interested in talking to us when we come out.
In his chambers Judge Franklin studies my Motion to Introduce Evidence of Past Sexual Conduct as if he is seeing it for the first time. He has asked us to leave our witnesses in the courtroom. I pick a piece of lint from my new suit. It fits great, unlike my old standby gray pin stripe, which was so tight that if I didn’t wear my coat, the inside of my front pockets were exposed.
Seated across the table from me, Binkie Cross gives me a pained look, as if what I am doing is somehow un ethical. We have barely talked since he suggested that Dade take a lie detector test. Glowering at me over dimestore reading glasses identical to my own, he seems his usual rumpled, world-weary self. Doubtless, before this morning is over, we will be at each other’s throats. He seems to be taking this rather routine defense tactic a little too personally; yet, by the time this hearing is over, the case may be changed from a relatively straight forward swearing match to a situation that has implications beyond the Razorback athletic program. If Judge Franklin grants my motion, this case will turn much uglier than it is already. The University of Arkansas looms over everything up here.
I glance at Judge Franklin’s stenographer. A handsome woman, in her early sixties, I would guess, she, too, seems to be irritated at me. Hasn’t your client caused trouble enough? How dare you accuse a professor? I warn myself against the typical paranoia of the outsider and busy myself with the display on Judge Franklin’s walls. A hunter, he has pictures of himself surrounded by dead animals and dogs. Yet, even in this masculine corner of the world, he may be offending somebody. He asks me to summarize my position, and as precisely as I can, I take him through my argument. I conclude by saying, “The bottom line. Your Honor, is that Robin Perry’s past sexual conduct is part and parcel of this case. There was no rape, or if there was, it was purely in the mind of Robin Perry, who couldn’t stand the thought that she was about to lose the attention of Dr. Hofstra, and my evidence is going to show that this morning.”
Judge Franklin grunts and asks abruptly, “Does the prosecution want to respond?”
“Indeed, I do. Your Honor,” Binkie says, his voice already harsh and combative.
“This case is no different from any other situation in which the defense tries to put a rape victim on trial. Following Mr. Page’s reasoning, evidence of prior sexual conduct by any rape victim can be introduced to show some supposed motive to lie. To allow this type of evidence would be to circumvent the rape shield law in its
