He sighed. "You're a perceptive lady."
"I'm a writer. It's part of my job to observe things a little more closely than most people do. And I'm also persistent. So you might as well answer my question and get me off your back."
"One of the things that bothers Lieutenant Howard is the fact that you know the man who attacked you."
"So?"
"This is awkward," he said unhappily.
"Let me hear it anyway."
"Well..." He cleared his throat. "Conventional police wisdom says that if the complainant in a rape or an attempted rape knows the victim, there's a pretty good chance that she contributed to the crime by enticing the accused to one degree or another."
"Bullshit!"
She got up, went to the desk, and stood with her back to him for a minute. He could see that she was struggling to maintain her composure. What he had said had made her extremely angry.
When she turned to him at last, her face was flushed. She said, "This is horrible. It's outrageous. Every time a woman is raped by someone she knows, you actually believe she asked for it."
"No. Not every time."
"But most of the time, that's what you think," she said angrily.
"No."
She glared at him. "Let's stop playing semantical games. You believe it about me. You believe I enticed him."
"No," Tony said. "I merely explained what conventional police wisdom is in a case like this. I didn't say that I put much faith in conventional police wisdom. I don't. But Lieutenant Howard does. You asked me about him. You wanted to know what he was thinking, and I told you."
She frowned. "Then ... you believe me?"
"Is there any reason I shouldn't?"
"It happened exactly the way I said."
"All right."
She stared at him. "Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why do you believe me when he doesn't?"
"I can think of only two reasons for a woman to bring false rape charges against a man. And neither of them makes any sense in your case."
She leaned against the desk, folded her arms in front of her, cocked her head, and regarded him with interest. "What reasons?"
"Number one, he has money, and she doesn't. She wants to put him on the spot, hoping she can pry some sort of big settlement out of him in return for dropping the charges."
"But I've got money."
"Apparently, you've got quite a lot of it," he said, looking around admiringly at the beautifully furnished room.
"What's the other reason?"
"A man and a woman are having an affair, but he leaves her for another lady. She feels hurt, rejected, scorned. She wants to get even with him. She wants to punish him, so she accuses him of rape."
"How can you be sure that doesn't fit me?" she asked.
"I've seen both your movies, so I figure I know a little bit about the way your mind works. You're a very intelligent woman, Miss Thomas. I don't think you could be foolish or petty or spiteful enough to send a man to prison just because he hurt your feelings."
She studied him intently.
He felt himself being weighed and judged.
Obviously convinced that he was not the enemy, she returned to the couch and sat down in a swish of dark-blue silk. The robe molded to her, and he tried not to show how aware he was of her strikingly female lines.
She said, "I'm sorry I was snappish."
"You weren't," he assured her. "Conventional police wisdom makes me angry, too."
"I suppose if this gets into court, Frye's attorney will try to make the jury believe that I enticed the son of a bitch."
"You can count on it."
"Will they believe him?"
"They often do."
"But he wasn't just going to rape me. He was going to kill me."
"You'll need proof of that."
"The broken knife upstairs--"
"Can't be connected to him," Tony said. "It won't be covered with his prints. And it's just a common kitchen knife. There's no way we can trace it to the point of purchase and tie it to Bruno Frye."
"But he looked so crazy. He's ... unbalanced. The jury would see that. Hell, you'll see it when you arrest him. There probably won't even be a trial. He'll probably just be put away."
"If he'a lunatic, he knows how to pass for normal," Tony said. "After all, until tonight, he's been regarded as an especially responsible and upstanding citizen. When you visited his winery near St. Helena, you didn't realize you were in the company of a madman, did you?"
"No."
"Neither will the jury."
She closed her eyes, pinched the bridge of her nose. "So he's probably going to get away clean."
"I'm sorry to say there's a good chance that he will."
"And then he'll come back for me."
"Maybe."
"Jesus."
"You wanted the unvarnished truth."
She opened her lovely eyes. "I did, yes. And thank you for giving it to me." She even managed a smile.
He smiled back at her. He wanted to take her in his arms, hold her close, comfort her, kiss her, make love to her. But all he could do was sit on his end of the couch like a good officer of the law and smile his witless smile and say, "Sometimes it's a lousy system."
"What are the other reasons?"
"Excuse me?"
"You said one reason Lieutenant Howard didn't believe me was because I knew the assailant. What are the other reasons? What else makes him think I'm lying?"
Tony was about to answer her when Frank Howard walked into the room.
"Okay," Frank said brusquely. "We've got the sheriff looking into it up there in Napa County, trying to get a line on when and how this Frye character left town. We also have an APB out, based on your description, Miss Thomas. Now, I went to the car and got my clipboard and this crime report form." He held up the rectangular piece of masonite and the single sheet of paper affixed to it, took a pen from his inside coat pocket. "I want you to walk Lieutenant Clemenza and me through your entire experience just once more, so I can write it all down precisely in your own words. Then we can get out of your way."
She led them to the foyer and began her story with a detailed recounting of Bruno Frye's surprise appearance from the coat closet. Tony and Frank followed her to the overturned sofa, then upstairs to the bedroom, asking questions as they went. During the thirty minutes they needed to complete the form, as she reenacted the events of the evening, her voice now and then became tremulous, and again Tony had the urge to hold and soothe her.
Just as the crime report was completed, a few newsmen arrived. She went downstairs to meet them.
At the same time, Frank got a call from headquarters and took it on the bedroom phone.
Tony went downstairs to wait for Frank and to see how Hilary Thomas would deal with the reporters.
She handled them expertly. Pleading weariness and a need for privacy, she did not allow them into her house. She stepped outside, onto the stone walk, and they gathered in front of her. A television news crew had arrived, complete with a minicam and the standard actor-reporter, one of those men who had gotten his job largely because of his chiseled features and penetrating eyes and deep fatherly voice. Intelligence and journalistic ability had little to do with being a performer in televsion news; indeed, too much of either quality could be seriously disadvantageous; for optimum success, the career-minded television reporter had to think much the same way that his program was structured--in three- and four- and five-minute segments, never dwelling longer than that on any one subject, and never exploring anything at great depth. A newspaperman and his photographer, not so pretty as the television man and a bit rumpled, were also present. Hilary Thomas fielded their questions with ease, answering only those that she wanted to answer, smoothly turning away all of those that were too personal or impertinent.
The thing that Tony found most interesting about her performance was the way she kept the news people out of the house and out of her most private thoughts without offending them. That was no easy trick. There were many excellent reporters who could dig for the truth and write fine stories without violating the subject's rights and dignity; but there were just as many of the other kind, the boars and the con men. With the rise of what The Washington Post glowingly referred to as "advocacy journalism"--the despicable slanting of a story to support the reporter's and the editor's personal political and social beliefs--some members of the press, the con men and the boars, had gone on a power trip of unprecedented irresponsibility. If you bristled at a reporter's manner and methods or at his obvious bias, if you dared to offend him, he might decide to use his pen to make you look like a fool, a liar, or a criminal; and he would see himself as the champion of enlightenment in a battle against evil. Clearly, Hilary was aware of the danger, for she dealt masterfully with them. She answered more questions than not, stroked the news people, accorded them respect, charmed them, and even smiled for the cameras. She didn't say that she knew her assailant. She didn't mention the name Bruno Frye. She didn't want the media speculating about her previous relationship with the man who had attacked her.