Chapter 25

Instead of calling the first defense witness, Matthew now exercised his right to cross examine Officer Robert Duncan. Once Bob was on the stand, and had been reminded he was still under oath, Matthew began what he believed in his own mind was some of the most important questioning he'd do. He didn't want to ruin Bob, but uppermost in his mind was Lacey's welfare.

"When did you first meet my client?" was his first question.

Bob named the date and said, "I needed to interview her as the complainant of a crime."

"What crime?"

"She had made a complaint that she was sexually assaulted."

"You mean she was raped," said Matthew, wanting the jury to hear the more ominous word.

"She alleged she was raped," said Bob, being politically correct.

"So you didn't believe she was raped," Matthew paused, expecting an objection for leading the witness.

None was forthcoming, though, because Roger was hoping some doubt that a rape had even occurred would enter into things. Nothing had been proven in a court of law, after all.

"I developed probable cause to believe her complaint was founded," said Bob.

"Does that mean you believed she was actually raped?"

"Yes." Bob was just as silent for the defense as he'd been for the prosecution. It was important for him to maintain the illusion of distance, or at least objectivity.

"Please describe your interviews with her," said Matthew, throwing the door open for whatever Bob wanted to say.

Bob described how he'd met her at the hospital, and included that a rape advocate was present. He recounted his questions and her answers, describing her body language and what it had meant to him.

There was no objection to his lack of qualifications as an expert on body language. There was, however, a vociferous objection when he calmly stated that he'd asked Lacey if she'd had an orgasm while she was being raped.

"OBJECTION!" yelled Roger.

"Grounds?" asked the judge.

Roger spluttered. "That's outrageous! What POSSIBLE reason could there be for a putrid question of that type!?"

"Grounds?" asked the judge again, warning in his voice.

"It's the very definition of immaterial!" barked Schwartz.

"It goes to motive, your honor," said Matthew instantly.

Judge Gunderson leaned back in his chair. It was so quiet in the courtroom that the squeaking of the springs in his chair seemed loud. He looked at the bailiff.

"Take the jury to the deliberation room. I'll tell you when to bring them back."

There was a pause while the members of the jury, looking confused, stood and moved hesitantly out of the box, following the bailiff. Maggie stepped to one side, like a mother hen, waiting to bring up the rear, as if she expected someone to stray, or that they might be attacked from behind.

The door closed, and Gunderson's eyes flicked to Lacey, who looked completely relaxed. Then he looked interestedly at Bob. "Please explain why you shouldn't be impaled on punji stakes for asking a question like that of a woman who has just been through a sexual assault."

Bob explained the MO of the rapist who wants to take as much from the victim as is possible, without killing her. Gunderson was thunderstruck.

"Could you provide any victims to which this has happened?" he asked. He held up a hand as Roger tried to interrupt. "This is just for my own edification," he said. "Not this trial. I've never heard of this kind of predator before, and I'd like to know if it's true or not before I rule."

"Besides Lacey," said Bob, forgetting to call her by her last name until it was too late, "I know of seven other victims of this perpetrator, and I could probably get three or four women from different cases to agree to be interviewed. It's very stressful for them." He went on without a break. "And the psychiatrist who has been treating Mrs. Fetterman is familiar with this phenomenon in a clinical manner."

"I'm going to call her as an expert witness," interjected Matthew.

"Has she been vetted?" asked Gunderson.

"She's testified in dozens of trials as an expert witness," said McDill.

"And she'll back you up on this orgasm business?"

"Absolutely, sir," said McDill.

Roger had been thinking furiously. At first he'd been horrified, on a personal level, by the issue at hand. Now, though, he thought he saw a chance to remove any chance that the jury would feel any sorrow for the Fetterman woman at all. It was obvious that McDill was going to say she'd had an orgasm during the rape. By some twisted, perverted kind of thinking, the idiot must think that could be used to get pity from the jury. All Roger could think of was that he could expose the slut. And it would all be on the head of the defense. THEY were the ones bringing this up. Now he could show her to be a degenerate slut who enjoyed being forced.

No! Wait! It all came clear to him now. The rape was all just smoke and mirrors. It was her excuse for killing him, and it was possible they really COULD get some mileage from that. But what if it wasn't a rape at all? What if she KNEW Kinneson? Or even if she didn't, and he was a complete stranger, what if her perversion led her to want more that Kinneson wouldn't give her? Could she have killed him in revenge for that?

For the first time he wished he'd gone ahead and charged the bitch with murder one. Second degree was an automatic lesser offense she could be found guilty for, but if he could prove she'd done it intentionally, he could have gotten her the chair!

It was too late now, of course, unless he asked for the charges to be dismissed so he could re-charge her later. It was tempting, but his boss would scream.

No, it was better to just expose her now, get the conviction, and close the books.

"Your honor," he said. "I withdraw my objection."

In the jury room, Maggie was trying to keep some semblance of order. Reggie had set off the commotion by saying, "Orgasm! Can you believe that shit?"

"I can't believe that happened," gasped Jane, horrified that such a question would be asked.

"Why would he ask her that?" complained Helen, bristling.

"He didn't really think she was raped," said Danny.

"I don't think we're supposed to be talking about this," complained Maggie.

"Why not?" asked Danny. "We're the jury, and we've heard some testimony."

"We haven't heard everything," said Kelsey.

"I don't need to hear anything else," said Rick. "She did it. All they're doing in there is playing lawyer games."

"You mean all those objections," said Jane.

"Exactly," said Rick. "That defense attorney is trying to get her off. They always do that. She killed that guy and that's that."

"But he was a rapist," said Kelsey.

"Yeah, right," said Rick. "Like soldier boy here, I have my doubts about that. So did the cop."

"What was all that about the lighter?" asked Judy.

Waldo felt left out. What he'd heard thus far had horrified him. The man was burned alive. The rape disgusted him, sure, but while rape was a sin, murder was a bigger one. He felt like he should say something. The woman, as usual, wasn't controlling things.

"It was her lighter," he said. "The policeman found it at the scene, and there was a fire. Obviously she set the car on fire."

"That's not obvious to me," said Tim. "I think they call that circumstantial evidence."

"Well there wasn't anything circumstantial about her burning that guy to death," said Rick. "Just ask him." He made his mouth go into an O shape. "Ohhhh, we can't!" he said in a high falsetto voice. "He's fucking DEAD!"

"Please!" moaned Maggie. "We shouldn't be talking at all. And please don't curse!"

"What we shouldn't be is here," barked Rick. "This is a monumental waste of time."

It would have gone on, but the bailiff opened the door and called them back to the courtroom.

When the jury was seated no one told them anything. The trial just resumed from where it had stopped.

McDill asked Bob to explain his earlier comment.

"The reason I asked her about the orgasm was based on a hunch, really," said Bob. "We'd had a string of rapes in the same area, with the same MO."

"Explain what MO means," said McDill.

"It stands for the Latin Modus Operandi, which is a term that describes the habits, or preferences of someone ... criminals in my line of work. An example of an MO is a thief who steals only silverware, and leaves other valuables behind. It might be because he likes silverware, or because he has a regular buyer for that product. For whatever reason, when he steals, it is only that."

"How is that helpful in an investigation?" asked McDill.

"It can help tie one person to a number of different incidents," said Bob. "Statistically, twenty percent of the criminals commit eighty percent of all crimes. So it's reasonable to expect, when you catch a criminal, that he's committed other crimes than the one you caught him for."

McDill nodded and Bob went on.

"In the example I was using, if we have ten unsolved thefts of silverware, and we catch a thief stealing silverware, he's automatically a suspect in the other ten crimes. We can sometimes use that during an interrogation, to get confessions to those crimes. Conversely, an MO can also be used to set up a situation where a criminal might be lured into a trap. It's not a very good example, but say we announced there was going to be a big showing of silverware. The thief might try for it, and we could catch him at it."

"All right, so back to the MO of this rapist."

"I suspected that the rapist who was preying on women in this particular neighborhood tried to commit his crimes in such a way that women would not report it. If he was able to manipulate the victim in such a way that she had an orgasm, it could embarrass and confuse her. She might be less likely to report the assault, fearing scorn or disbelief."

"How can a woman be manipulated, by a rapist, to force her to have an orgasm?" asked McDill.

"Objection!" said Roger, standing. "This officer is not an expert medical witness."

"Sustained," said Gunderson, but it was obvious he wished he could have overruled it.

"To your knowledge, Officer Duncan," said McDill, trying another avenue, "are you aware of any documented cases wherein a woman was forced to have an orgasm during a rape?"

Roger wanted to object to that too, but couldn't find a basis for it.

"I know of two cases, personally, in which there was testimony to that effect," said Bob. "I have spoken with one other woman who claimed it happened, but refused to make a complaint because she was afraid to admit it in public."

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