Chapter 6: A Brief

Although in the same room, its expanse allowed privacy between Bess and Devi and young women ranging in age from 17 to their mid-twenties to talk without a man--meaning me--hearing. I sat at a desk and read through several files. Both the information written and photographs taken involving the rapes and assaults disturbed me. I had involved myself in enough assault cases to gain some distance, but the relentlessness cracked already sensitive emotional responsiveness. Women baffled me and unnerved me throughout my life--including my sisters, my mother, Bess, my ex-wife and other relationships--but I still loved them. I preferred their gender over mine and not just sexually.

Glancing at the small square wooden table on the opposite side of the room where my love, the beautiful Indian escort and a parade of victims sitting one at a time with them talked, I noticed Devi suffering though holding her emotions bravely throughout her relentless interviews. Taking notes seemed to help her by giving her an excuse to look down and not suffer the pain of the interviewee or reveal her pain to the woman.

The interviews having ended, the three of us entered a small conference room and discussed what we'd learned. We created a triage of sorts. We combined the files I studied with the subjects just interviewed and decided plans of attack. Not being a prosecutor anymore but knowing several, I wondered who might be receptive to our involvement in building the best case and who might feel stepped on. Obviously they should accept all the help they could get, but attorneys like most professionals trained for years in high falutin schools and seemingly endless successions of experience inevitably build walls of arrogance. We arranged the cases from the easiest to the hardest to prosecute and I sketched in names of prosecutors accordingly. The DA's office obviously made the choices, but preparing my preferences might help promote greater possibilities for success.