Degree of Guilt Read online

  There was silence.

  ‘Would it be better,’ Terri asked, ‘if I came to New York?’

  ‘Just to satisfy my curiosity?’ The voice paused again. ‘What is it you want?’

  Terri gazed out at the bay, unseeing. She imagined Melissa Rappaport in the darkened bedroom of her apartment, weary from a day’s worth of calls she had not answered, connected to Terri by a thread she could break simply by hanging up.

  ‘I guess part of what I’m asking,’ Terri responded, ‘is whether the Mark Ransom that Mary describes is anyone you recognize.’

  ‘And if it were.’

  ‘Then I could at least tell Mary Carelli she’s not alone – that she’s not the only one who can imagine what your ex-husband did to her.’ Terri’s voice grew softer. ‘It’s awfully lonely to accuse someone of trying to rape you.’

  There was silence. ‘In other words,’ Melissa Rappaport finally said, ‘did Mark ever use force.’

  ‘I was going to ask that, yes.’

  ‘No.’ The voice was toneless. ‘He never used force.’

  Terri tried to replay the words; heard something careful, literal. ‘Was there something else?’

  ‘Yes.’ The word had a certain edge. ‘You said that you would tell me what happened. Or, more precisely, what Ms Carelli says happened.’

  Terri felt deflated. ‘Where would you like me to start?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Melissa Rappaport answered, ‘with how Ms Carelli happened to find herself in Mark’s suite.’

  Terri stood, striving to remember all that Paget had told her. ‘He said he wanted to talk to her. About an interview.’

  ‘She knew him, I assume.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then why did Mark contact her?’

  There was a moment’s pause. Terri hesitated, trying to track the careful cross-examination. ‘What he first told Mary,’ she answered, ‘is that he liked watching her on television.’

  This time, the silence was much longer, the voice a little flatter. ‘Watching her on television.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Really. I’d have thought her a bit dark for Mark’s tastes. But then I hadn’t seen him in several years.’

  ‘What were his tastes? That is, when you knew him.’

  More silence; Terri froze, fearful that she had gone too far. ‘I’m sorry,’ Melissa Rappaport said. ‘That last was a pointless remark. It may take me a couple of days of living with Mark’s death to get the emotional range just right.’

  Terri had begun to feel the long-distance voice as if connected to her nerve ends. For the first time, she was certain that the rigid self-control sealed off some well of feeling.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Terri answered quietly.

  ‘No matter. The etiquette for this conversation has yet to be written.’ There was another pause. ‘Tell me, how is it that Mark is supposed to have – to put it politely – introduced the subject of sex?’

  ‘He suggested that she sleep with him in exchange for an intervew.’

  ‘For an interview?’ Over long distance, Melissa Rappaport’s mirthless laughter was close to eerie. ‘We are not discussing Garbo or Howard Hughes. Mark Ransom was hardly a rare commodity. If the price of far too many words from Mark was sleeping with him, then he’s screwed every talk show host but Regis Philbin.’

  Terri felt humiliated. ‘What he said, to put it less politely, is that he liked to fuck women he’d seen on film.’

  She heard the edge in her own voice a moment after she spoke. Perhaps, Terri thought, that had caused Melissa Rappaport’s latest silence; she was about to hang up.

  Tonelessly, Melissa Rappaport said, ‘What a very charming story.’

  ‘Our client didn’t think so.’

  ‘No. I suppose she wouldn’t have.’ There was another pause. ‘But what makes it so implausible is the idea of Mark offering his face on television as if that gave him sexual leverage.’

  Terri hesitated. ‘Not just his face. He was going to talk about a new book.’

  ‘Less plausible yet. We in what the more precious among us might call the “literary community” may find it rather melancholy, but the publication of a novel is rarely the stuff of prime time television. Even a novel by Mark.’

  Again, Terri heard some buried emotion, a faint rueful edge. ‘I think,’ she answered with studied calm, ‘that this book might have been different.’

  ‘Different? I must confess that I don’t even know what this one was about. I suppose I’m feeling a little left out.’ Rappaport hesitated, and then spoke more quietly. ‘You see, on top of everything, I used to edit his novels.’

  Terri thought she heard the last vestige of widowed intimacy. ‘It wasn’t a novel,’ she said. ‘It was a biography.’

  ‘Biography?’ Rappaport sounded surprised. ‘Not autobiography? That is a departure. Who was it that Mark found so uniquely worthy?’

  ‘Laura Chase.’

  There was silence. Terri waited, heard nothing. Decided to speak again, go for broke. ‘He had a tape. Of Laura Chase talking to her psychiatrist. He asked Mary there to hear it.’

  ‘I see.’ Rappaport’s voice seemed oddly detached. ‘What is on the tape?’

  Terri hesitated. Paget had instructed her not to discuss the tape unless it was a strict necessity: knowledge of the tape would cause a scandal, outraging James Colt’s family and those who loved him still. ‘This part isn’t public,’ she said. ‘I don’t think anyone wants it to be.’

  Terri’s own words came back to her as tentative, untrusting. ‘What makes you suppose,’ Rappaport said in a cold voice, ‘that I do.’

  Terri felt the tension run from Rappaport to her, the thread between them close to breaking. ‘It’s about Laura Chase and Senator Colt,’ she finally said. ‘A weekend in Palm Springs just before she died, where she drank too much and took too many pills.’ Terri paused. ‘Colt brought two friends with him. On the tape, Laura Chase describes what they did to her.’

  There was more silence. Then Rappaport asked quietly, ‘Did Mark actually have her listen?’

  ‘Yes.’ Terri heard the tightness in her own voice, paused once more. ‘That excited him, Mary says. He tried to rape her while the tape was still playing.’

  The silence lengthened. It was more than seconds, perhaps close to a minute, before Melissa Rappaport spoke again.

  ‘I think perhaps I should talk with you,’ she said. ‘In person.’

  Paget picked up the telephone. Without preface, she asked, ‘Is Carlo all right?’

  For a moment, Paget did not respond. Dark had fallen, and the lights of the city were bright and clear; it reminded him of the moments, only an evening ago, before her telephone call had changed everything.

  ‘Terrific,’ he answered coldly. ‘Not only are both his parents famous once more, but this morning there were reporters outside when he went off to school. He’ll never be lonely again.’ Paget paused. ‘Of course, his friends don’t know where to call, given that we’ve had to change our telephone number. But I’m sure the press will ferret it out.’

  Mary ignored his tone. ‘Do they know about me?’ she asked.

  ‘Not yet. But think what a career-maker that’ll be for our son. I rather like imagining Carlo’s face on the cover of People, superimposed on his birth certificate.’

  There was quiet. ‘Do you have to be like this?’

  ‘Oh, I certainly think so.’ Paget stared out the window. ‘Someone once told me that sarcasm is the safe alternative to expressing anger. And I’m far too civil to be angry at such a difficult moment in your life. To invert what I said to our TV friends last night, those who truly know you should try to extend the same compassion as those who know you only through the media.’

  Paget sensed, rather than heard, a sharp intake of breath. ‘You know, Chris, you really are a bastard.’

  It was curious, Paget thought, that any words from her could still carry the memory of hurt. ‘You already told me that, Mary. On a particular
disenchanted evening, fifteen years ago.’

  Mary was silent for a moment. ‘All right,’ she said dismissively. ‘Then let me be redundant on a subject I care much more about. How is Carlo?’

  Paget found himself gazing at Carlo’s picture. ‘How Carlo is,’ he answered, ‘is worried and confused. Not just about you but about us, in the past as well as the present. This has opened up a lot for him that you and I both know would be far better buried.’

  There was another silence; it came to Paget as the sound of something Mary had decided not to say. ‘You may not believe this,’ she said at last, ‘but if there were anything I could have done to stop Mark Ransom from doing this to all of us, including jump from the twenty-third story of the Hotel Flood, I would have done it.’

  Paget leaned back in his chair. ‘Well,’ he said at length, ‘it hasn’t been a dead loss. You certainly have Carlo’s sympathy, even if you find my response a little wanting. In fact, Carlo seems to find my response a little wanting.’

  ‘What does he say?’

  ‘Very little. Sometimes, with Carlo, you have to read between the lines. But he seems to want me to exhibit more compassion, and us to act more like his parents than two strangers.’ Paget realized that his gaze had not moved from the picture; Carlo, a year younger, smiled back from a time of seeming innocence. ‘I suppose there are certain archetypes that arise from something deep in all of us, like it or not. Such as those involving mothers and fathers.’

  ‘Yes.’ Mary’s voice was drained of feeling. ‘Mothers and fathers. Which brings us back to what I, or we, can do for Carlo now.’

  ‘It’s quite simple. Get me off this case.’

  There was more silence. ‘Other than that,’ she answered quietly.

  It was a moment before Paget felt his own anger. ‘Then why,’ he said, ‘did you ever ask the question? Had you read somewhere that caring was good form?’

  She did not answer. Paget sensed her framing some retort, then repressing it with effort. ‘I have my reasons. And they are mine.’

  Paget felt his eyes narrow. ‘When, Mary, were your reasons ever anyone else’s?’

  Paget heard her exhale, the sound of impatience. ‘This gets us nowhere. I asked about Carlo, not you.’

  Paget stood, angry, then found his self-control. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Short term, the only thing I can think of is for you to give him some reassurance that you’re okay and, as you put it during your unexpected visit, that you care a little.’

  Mary was silent. ‘You asked me for dinner,’ she said coolly. ‘Maybe I should accept. That way you and I can pretend for Carlo that we’re not the Addams Family.’

  Paget hesitated; the image of Mary inside his home felt more invasive than the cameramen outside it, the pretense it would require far more wearing. But he had already lost control of things, and the sole remaining question was how Carlo would respond.

  ‘Let’s do it on Friday,’ he said at length. ‘By that time I’ll have revisited Brooks. If we can get some time alone, we can talk about whatever’s happened without your coming to the office.’

  ‘Fine,’ she answered briskly. ‘I certainly wouldn’t care to invade each and every one of your private spaces. Incidentally, what has happened?’

  With surprise, Paget absorbed the fact that she had killed a man yesterday and yet had talked mainly of their son. ‘My associate’s going back east to see Ransom’s ex-wife. Terri thinks there’s something there but has no idea whether it’s helpful stuff or just emotional confusion.’

  ‘And you’re sending some associate – this Terri – rather than go yourself. How old is she?’

  ‘Twenty-nine.’ Paget paused, then added stiffly. ‘The exact age you were when the Lasko case went down.’

  With equal quiet, Mary answered, ‘That means nothing.’

  Paget began pacing. ‘You wanted me to represent you, and you won. Now you’ll have to start trusting me, just like any lawyer you were desperate to have.’

  ‘Do you trust me, Chris?’

  ‘No.’ Paget gazed out the window. ‘But then I wouldn’t anyhow. I only trust my clients when long experience has taught me that I can.’

  Mary did not answer. Something in her silence made Paget feel less than human and then wish for a way out.

  ‘Has the press bothered you much?’ he asked.

  She seemed to consider whether to even respond. ‘Not much. The guards have kept them away. And room service has exceeded my expectations.’

  How was it, Paget wondered, to be a prisoner in a strange hotel room? ‘A few days,’ he said, ‘and we should be able to get you out of town. In the meanwhile, don’t talk to the press until we’ve both worked out a script.’

  ‘Then we should do that.’ Her tone was businesslike again. ‘I may be going on 60 Minutes this Sunday.’

  ‘You’ve already talked to them about it? The day after Ransom dies?’

  ‘Not me,’ she said coldly. ‘My agent. As you said, this is now a problem in public relations. And that’s who deals with public relations when I’m too devastated to speak for myself.’

  The uneasy mix of irony and truth made Paget feel a kind of shame. ‘How are you?’ he asked.

  ‘Fine. Wouldn’t you be?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then you have one more reason to admire me,’ she said, and hung up.

  ‘Why New York?’ Richie asked. ‘I thought there was no travel in this job.’

  Bringing Elena home from day care, she had found him intently focused on the computer in the bedroom of their apartment, creating a complex graph that represented his imaged new enterprise. The computer, Terri realized, symbolized the differences between them: Richie looked at the screen and envisioned his ideas turning into money; Terri remembered what the screen had cost them. Forty-five hundred dollars, sitting on their charge card.

  They had argued for two days, until Richie had worn her down, and then spent another three days while a newly energized Richie had dragged Elena, Terri, and her Master-Card through a half-dozen computer outlets, excitedly querying salespeople about the latest options. At the end, Terri was exhausted from watching Elena, and Richie had a laser printer and the best new color graphics.

  ‘I said not much travel,’ she told him now. ‘Almost any law job has some travel.’

  ‘But why you?’ he queried. ‘It’s his girlfriend.’

  Once more, Terri was glad that she had not told Richie about Paget’s son; her own confidences to Richie had a funny way of coming back with a little twist at times when she felt most vulnerable.

  ‘Not girlfriend, old friend. And I feel good that Chris trusts me to do this.’

  ‘So it’s “Chris” now.’ Richie gave an exaggerated shrug. ‘Absolutely, then . . . whatever “Chris” wants.’

  ‘Don’t be an ass, Richie. Do you want me to call him “Mr Paget,” like Mary Tyler Moore used to call her boss “Mr Grant”?’

  She felt Richie watch her, saw him choose a lower key. ‘What it is,’ he said, ‘is I’ve got plans, dinners with people who might invest in Lawsearch. I can’t be baby-sitting Elena.’

  ‘“Baby-sitting”?’ Terri repeated. ‘You mean the thing teenagers do with kids who aren’t theirs?’

  ‘You know what I mean,’ Richie snapped. ‘Tied up.’

  ‘Maybe you can talk to them during the business day.’

  ‘Can’t. They’ve all got jobs.’

  Terri searched his face for conscious irony, saw none. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘A surprising number of people do.’

  Richie flushed. ‘That’s abusive, Ter. How can I share my plans with someone who uses them to hurt me?’

  For a moment, Terri found herself just observing him. Thin, wiry, with curly brown hair and intense black eyes, which had always made him seem consumed by some compelling inner vision. When she first met Ricardo Arias, he was only twenty-two. But he had struck her as different from anyone she’d ever met – full of ideas, yet always in motion, driven to make his
best dreams real. Between Richie then and now were a law degree, the MBA she had helped him pay for, and three jobs he had not kept, and the endless motion seemed less that of an achiever than of a wind-up toy Terri had placed before Elena in the living room, to distract her while they talked.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, Partly for the thoughts. Partly to deflect him.

  ‘It’s okay.’ Richie kept his voice deliberately flat. ‘Maybe you don’t always hear the way you talk to me.’

  The words were meaningless. Did she imagine, Terri wondered, the triumph in his eyes whenever she backed down, or had he taken so much out of her that she, like him, had begun to believe that every hurt was meant to help steal from the other some essential self. ‘I guess I worry about the dinners,’ she said finally. ‘Our credit’s at the limit.’

  ‘It can’t be helped. I can’t get their attention during the day. Besides, dinners are a better place for them to get a feel for me.’

  Terri said nothing. In Richie’s mind, a fancy restaurant, and not their bare apartment, spoke to who he was. Only Terri seemed to see Richie at the dining-room table they had never owned, the down-payment money lost on his last deal, the new dresses she too seldom bought Elena. The night before their latest move, when the last place had gone condominium, she had found herself staring into a packing box and thinking that the fruits of their marriage were their old college yearbooks and two honeymoon albums, complete with funny captions that seemed to have been written by some other woman.

  ‘Mommy,’ Elena asked, ‘can we have macaroni and cheese tonight?’

  She was standing in the doorway, holding her wind-up duck. A beautiful five-year-old with Richie’s eyes. The real fruit of their marriage.

  ‘Sure, Lainie.’ Richie scooped Elena up in his arms. ‘Mommy’ll make that. Daddy likes it too.’

  Terri went to the kitchen, Elena and Richie chattering behind her.

  That night, she did not sleep. The next morning, she left money for a baby-sitter, drove Elena to day care, and caught an eight-thirty flight to New York.

  Chapter 2

  Melissa Rappaport waited in the doorway of her apartment.