Chapter Nine: Cross Examination

Barba sat at the witness stand with Addison Knight standing before him following the script she had built to the letter. He answered the questions exactly as she had told him. All eyes were on him as he spoke about the night Darner attacked him.

"I had gotten back from a date with my girlfriend and I was too tired to notice right away that the door to my apartment was unlocked." Don't mention that you had been drinking. "I walked in and sat down on my couch." Don't sound to emotional but make sure they know that this was traumatic for you. "Then the defendant came up behind me and knocked me out before I even knew he was there. When I woke up I was tied to my bed, naked and gagged." He took a moment to breathe deeply through his nose. He made the mistake of glancing at Darner across the room. The defendant gave him a crooked half-smile as if they were friends in an unfortunate situation. Flashes of Darner slowly circling him around the witness stand assaulted his thoughts. Ghosts of the touches from Darner's fingers in his hair and lips on the side of his face distracted him. He didn't realize he had been silent for too long until Addison cleared her throat.

"Mr. Barba, please continue."

"Sorry," he muttered as he made the conscious effort to tether himself in the present. "The defendant was wearing a mask while standing at the foot of my bed. He spent several hours sodomizing me and forcing me to perform oral sex on him. Once he left I called for help."

Addison walked back to the prosecution's table to glance at a file. "That was at four fifty-one in the morning that you called Lieutenant Olivia Benson, a member of the NYPD's Special Victims Unit that you have worked with repeatedly. Correct?"

Barba met Olivia's eyes in the gallery. She nodded at him encouragingly and that was enough to keep him going. "Yes. I trusted that Olivia would handle the situation as she did every case: taking it seriously and following protocol to the letter. She is also my friend and I needed her support."

Addison approached the witness stand again. "Did she show you any preferential treatment when investigating your case?" she asked as she turned to the jury.

"No. I do not believe she did anything differently than she did with any other case."

"Thank you." Addison went to sit down as Buchanan stood.

As Buchanan approached the witness stand Barba felt his heart begin to pound in his chest. He wondered if the jury could hear his heart throwing itself against his rib cage in a panic, attempting to escape. He already knew exactly what the attorney would do. Buchanan was going to twist and manipulate every word that came out of his mouth and make it sound as if he was some sort of man-slut who threw himself at anyone who came his way. He would just have to hope that Addison would know how to counteract the damage.

"You have prosecuted many rape cases in your career. Correct?" Buchanan asked facing the jury.

"That is accurate," Barba replied slowly.

"Do you prefer to prosecute sex crimes?" His tone was nonchalant, as if they were having a friendly chat over a cup of coffee.

Barba shifted uncomfortably. He could sense where this was going and he wanted to stop it. Unfortunately, his mind was in as much of a panic as his heart. Thinking clearly was not coming easily in this state. "I believe that is where I can do the most good."

"But you have almost exclusively prosecuted sex crimes in the past four or five years. It sounds like you're a bit obsessed with them."

"Objection!" Addison injected with indignation.

The judge gave Buchanan a stern look then addressed the jury. "You will disregard that last statement." She turned back to the defense attorney. "Get to the questions, Mr. Buchanan."

"Of course, your honor," Buchanan said with a respectful nod. He turned to Barba and took a step closer to the stand making him flinch minutely. Buchanan didn't seem to notice and leaned in a little. "Have you ever experimented with bondage before?" he asked in a stage whisper.

Addison leapt to her feet. "Objection! That is entirely inappropriate!"

Barba sat back, trying to lean as far away from Buchanan as he could manage. Consciously keeping himself from glancing at Darner was made more difficult when he could feel the other man's gaze boring into him.

"Your honor," Buchanan huffed a disbelieving chuckle as he gave a helpless shrug. "How else am I supposed to confirm if this is a pattern of behavior or not?"

The judge took a deep breath before nodding at Buchanan. "You may continue the line of questioning but you better keep this relevant." She turned to Barba and her expression became less harsh. "Answer the question, Mr. Barba."

"No, I have never experimented with bondage," Barba answered through gritted teeth.

"So this was your first time." Barba opened his mouth to interject but Buchanan cut him off. "Don't be embarrassed. I'm sure at least half of the people in this courtroom have experimented sexually."

Addison was glaring at Buchanan and Barba wanted to warn her about alienating the jury. He shook off the thought and refocused on how he was going to reply. "This was my first time being raped."

Buchanan cleared his throat and continued. "You see I think that you became so obsessed with rape cases that they began to excite you. Tell me what happened when you were cross examining Adam Cain."

"What?" Barba felt his mouth go dry. He couldn't help it and he let his gaze stray to the defense table. Darner winked at him and licked his lips. A chill ran down his spine and it felt as if that chill deposited a bucket of ice in his stomach.

"Your honor," Addison said incredulously. "How is this relevant to anything?"

Buchanan refused to look away from Barba. "I am establishing a pattern of behavior."

"He's the victim!"

The judge glanced at Darner who was now the picture of a pitiful innocent. "I'm willing to grant some leniency, Mr. Buchanan, but my patience is wearing thin. Please answer, Mr. Barba."

"Adam Cain was being accused of raping Jocelyn Paley," Barba began in a low voice. "I cross examined him and he was found guilty."

"Did you not take off your belt, put it around your neck, and ask Adam Cain to choke you with it?"

"I was trying to show the jury what he had done to the victim. It worked. He was convicted." He did his best to emphasize that he had gotten Adam Cain convicted. At this point the tables had turned and he was the one on trial not Darner. Buchanan was putting Darner in the place of the victim. The defendant was now an innocent lawyer who was being unfairly accused of something heinous in the eyes of the jury.

"But when he didn't pull hard enough on the belt did you not shout at him," Buchanan had made his way back to the defense table and looked down at a file he had pulled out. "'Pull it! Tell me how you like it! Show me how you like it, Mr. Cain. Come on! Pull it! Pull it!'" he read directly from the transcripts.

Barba felt shaky as he listened to Buchanan repeat his words he had spoken several years ago. It was a case he had been proud of. He had put Cain away. Now he just felt sick being reminded of it. "I was trying to provoke him. I was proving a point of how hard he had choked the victim to leave the bruises he had left."

Buchanan hummed as if Barba had said something particularly interesting. "You have to understand, Mr. Barba, those sound like the words someone who is enjoying themselves. How can you expect us to believe that you don't enjoy rough sex now that we know you said those words while a man was choking you with a belt from behind?"

"Objection!" Addison called out as she met Barba's eyes, silently telling him to not answer the question.

The judge gave Buchanan as harsh look. "That's enough, Mr. Buchanan."

Buchanan nodded. "I have no more questions."

Barba swallowed hard as he glanced at the jury. Two of the women looked sympathetic to him and one man was glaring at Buchanan with contempt. Everyone else was either smiling as if Barba had been caught in a lie or looked disgusted with him.

"I don't think I'll be able to eat anything," Barba said as he looked over the menu.

Olivia gave him a sympathetic look over the top of her own menu. "You should try. You told me that you haven't eaten all day."

He set down his menu and rubbed his hands over his face. "It was horrible," he groaned. "I should have gone after him harder for taking my words out of context. I'm usually fine when I'm under pressure. I've done some of my best work when being put on the spot. But today… I could have done better. I should have done better."

"You can't be so hard on yourself. You couldn't have known that Buchanan was going to bring all of that up." Olivia met his eyes and gave him a stern look. "Stop blaming yourself."

Barba felt like he should have known. Darner had brought it up when he ambushed him during witness prep. He should have realized that Darner would suggest bringing that up to Buchanan. "Did you see the way the jury was looking at me? At least nine of them believe the crap Buchanan is spewing."

"At this point we have to trust that Addison will be able to show who Darner really is during his cross examination."

The waiter came to take their orders pausing their conversation. After he left, Olivia excused herself to use the restroom. Barba sat at the table still trying to process everything that happened in the courtroom. The image of Darner licking his lips had seared itself into his mind. It mixed in with the memory of this assault and now he could see that image instead of the ski mask when he remembered the assailant straddling him as he strangled him with the belt. A wave of nausea came over him and he was certain that he would not be able to eat lunch.

"Mr. Barba," Barba looked up and saw Judge Richter had approached his table. He looked around wondering why this judge was talking to him in the middle of a restaurant.

"Judge Richter," he greeted. "what can I do for you?"

Richter smiled easily and sat down in Olivia's vacated seat. "Please, call me Glen. We aren't in a professional setting right now."

"If that's what you would prefer,…Glen."

"I wanted to ask how you are doing. I heard you've been going through quite the ordeal." Richter sounded sympathetic but there was something strange in his voice that gave Barba pause.

"I've been getting through it," he replied shortly.

Richter suddenly leaned in and looked around as if afraid someone might listen in. "Look, I want to give you some advice, if I may," he said in whisper. "I know that you want to preserve your reputation and maybe Darner did something to hurt you. Either way, I understand where you're coming from but this is not the way to go. Affairs can be forgiven but falsely accusing someone and taking it as far as a trial… That's going to be difficult to come back from. You should stop this while you can. I- I speak from experience when it comes to affairs, so take my advice."

Barba was too shocked to speak as Richter stood, patted him on the shoulder, and made his exit. He didn't know if he was angry, frustrated, upset, or maybe all three. He started to wonder if there was any point to going through this if he was the one getting punished in the end. He couldn't even be guaranteed that Darner was going to serve any time for his crimes. But Barba, he would be the one having to deal with everyone in his line of work whispering about him. The victim always seemed to be the one who suffered the most, even after the initial assault.