"Overruled. Ms. Cooper's just trying to set some background up here."
Paige waited for the judge to tell her to proceed. "Three of us were standing together, talking about the situation in the Middle East, and what our own personal experiences had been there. Andrew must have heard me-"
"Objection as to what he might have heard."
"Sustained. Just tell us what he said or did."
The objections had their desired effect. Paige Vallis was shaken each time Robelon called out the word, as though she had done something wrong.
"Andrew Tripping asked me about Cairo," she said. "He wanted to know when I had lived there and for what reason."
Tripping started fidgeting as she spoke, trying to get his lawyer's attention. Robelon brushed him off, continuing to take notes on the details in Vallis's testimony that he had not heard before. The defendant put his head together with Emily Frith, whispering to her, distracting several jurors from the flow of the testimony.
"What did you tell him, exactly?"
"I talked about my father's career and told him what I remembered of his tour of duty in Egypt. I hadn't been back there since finishing high school."
"For how long did you talk?" I asked.
"Probably half an hour."
"Did you leave the council alone?"
Paige Vallis blushed and picked up her water cup again. "No, no, I didn't. Andrew told me he knew a nice restaurant in the neighborhood and invited me to go to dinner."
"Did anyone else-"
I started to ask the next question but Paige Vallis wanted to explain her decision to the jury. "I don't normally do that. I mean, go off somewhere with a man I don't know. But I can't imagine a safer place to meet a guy than a political policy discussion with the members of the council," she said, giggling a bit.
Laughter didn't work in the middle of a rape trial. I knew it was just a nervous reaction, but she would need to get beyond it. Don't apologize for anything you did, I had told Paige for weeks. Just tell the jury the facts. In my summation I would have lots of opportunity to talk about her judgment calls.
"Did anyone else go with you to dinner?"
"No. I said good night to the people I knew, got my coat from the checkroom, and we walked three or four blocks to a small bistro on a side street."
She took us through the dinner and conversation. Yes, there was another glass of wine for each of them. Yes, they both discussed their personal lives. Andrew told her that he was widowed, and that his mother had raised his son until her recent death. No, she certainly could not remember everything that they had talked about.
I would argue that was because there was no significance to most of the conversation at this first meeting. Robelon would attribute her lack of specifics to the third glass of wine.
"What time did you leave the restaurant, and where did you go?"
"I saw that it was getting late-after ten o'clock. I told Andrew that I had to be in my office before eight the next morning. He put me in a cab outside the restaurant and we said good night."
"Who paid for the meal?"
She looked at me and reddened again. "We split the check. I paid for my dinner and he paid for his."
"Did you kiss each other?"
"No."
"Was there any kind of physical contact-touching each other or holding hands as you walked on the street?"
"None."
"Did he ask for your phone number?"
"No."
"Did he say-"
"Hey, Ms. Cooper," Judge Moffett said, "whatever happened to woman's lib? Ms. Vallis, did you ask him for his number?"
"No, sir."
"Was there any discussion about seeing each other again?" I asked.
"No, there wasn't. I got in the cab, closed the door, and went on my way home. I thought it was a pleasant evening, but that was the end of it."
"When was the next time you had any contact with Andrew Tripping?"
"About three or four days later, when he called me."
"Where were you when he called?"
"At my office. Dibingham Partners," Vallis said, looking over at the jurors. "My personal phone isn't listed. I had told Andrew where I worked, and I guess-"
"Objection."
"Sustained. You can't guess in my courtroom, Ms. Vallis," the judge barked at the young woman from his elevated position over her head, and she recoiled, shaken again. "I'm sorry, Your Honor."
"Would you please tell us what the defendant said in that conversation?"
"It was a very short discussion. I told him I was about to go into a meeting. He asked if I wanted to have dinner with him the following night, and I said, 'Sure.' We arranged to meet at the Odeon. That's a restaurant near my apartment. That's all."
"Did you keep that date?"
"Yes, we did. I got there first. When Andrew arrived, we each ordered a glass of wine and chatted for a while before we ate dinner."
"What did this conversation concern?"
Paige Vallis described a coolly impersonal meeting, in which her companion spent most of the time talking about himself or questioning her about her political views. She only had one drink and again she paid her own way. There were no sexual overtures when he walked her back to her building at ten o'clock.
"Did you invite the defendant up to your apartment?" I asked.
"There was no reason to. I thought-"
"Objection as to what she thought, Your Honor," Robelon said.
"Sustained."
The heavy oak door creaked open behind me. I kept my attention on Paige Vallis, but she picked her head up at the sound and stared off in the distance.
"Ms. Vallis, what did you say or do when you reached your building?"
Her mouth twitched and she answered softly, "Andrew asked if he could come in for a cup of coffee. I told him that would be impossible. I-uh-I had a friend in from out of town who was staying in the apartment. Actually, I'm just remembering that now, as I try to recall the details of our dinner," she said, looking back at me.
I squeezed the pen I was holding so tightly I thought it would break in half and spurt ink all over the jurors. I had never heard that explanation in all the weeks of preparing Paige to testify. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Better late than never. What friend, I wondered to myself, and what relevance did this have to her story?
Paige Vallis was trembling visibly now, as I tried to direct her attention to the night of the crime. "I'm going to ask you some questions about the day and evening of March sixth of this year."
She licked her lips to moisten them and reached for the water. Her hand missed and knocked the cup off the railing in front of her; water began dripping onto the court stenographer, who shoved her machine out of the way and reached for tissues to wipe up the mess. Paige stood and leaned over as though to reach for the fallen cup, bursting into tears as she tried to apologize to the judge for the disturbance.
Moffett banged his gavel on the bench. "Brief recess. We'll take ten minutes."
Paige spoke to him before the jurors could be led out of the box. "I'm so sorry, Judge. I can't testify about this in front of him. Does he have to be here?"
She was pointing a finger, while Moffett answered her, and I moved forward to calm her and bring tissues to wipe her face. "Of course he has to be here. The Constitution gives him that right, young-"
"Not Andrew, Your Honor. Him." Paige lifted her head and I turned around to look.
The older of the two men whom Chapman had tried to identify in the courtroom the day before was seated alone now in the back row. He must have been the person who came in just as Paige had fallen apart a few questions back. He rose as my witness waved her hand in his direction, and he pushed the swinging door to exit.
"That's Harry Strait, Alexandra," Paige said, grabbing my hand as I extended the tissue to her. "That's the man I told you about."
Andrew Tripping smiled broadly, put his arm on his lawyer's shoulder, and broke away to follow Harry Strait out into the corridor.
11