Before Dobey re-entered the courtroom he made a phone call of his own. It took him ten minutes to finish the call and make arrangements at the main desk. By the time he sat again behind Starsky the judge had already begun the hearing and opened the floor to McCallister.
They rolled through the legal jargon and due process steps once again at twice the speed, and Dobey watched Forrest where he sat squirming, checking and rechecking the notes in front of him, aware that this was his last opportunity to save face with Judge Haydn.
Once they established that all parties had seen the evidence the defense planned to enter, Forrest, with an exaggerated sigh, presented the photos to the judge.
The courtroom sat in near silence while the judge flipped through them, making no comment. When he finally handed them back to the bailiff, Forrest drew in a breath to speak, but the judge put up a hand, and sat writing for a few more minutes.
"Exhibit G, your honor," Forrest continued, once the judge's hand had rested once more on the bench. "The ring shown in several of the photos is identical to this ring, taken from the personal property of Sergeant Starsky following his arrest."
Forrest waited this time, expecting another lengthy session of note taking, but Haydyn merely glanced at the ring and gave it back to the bailiff, giving Forrest an annoyed look.
Dobey and McCallister exchanged glances, certain that Haydn was toying with the attorney intentionally, but they kept their faces blank.
"Exhibit H, I, and J are detailed photographic exposures taken from exhibits A-F that establish that the vehicle was the same as the 1966 GTO convertible that Sergeant Starsky requisitioned from the Bay City Police Department Impound lot on the evening of May 18th."
The new photos got a tempered sigh from the judge and Forrest scrambled to get through the rest of what he had to show.
"Exhibit K, your honor. Lab reports initiated by Officers Simonetti and Dryden that show that an unidentified substance found on the seat of the GTO is semen."
The judge glanced at the lab report and kept it longer than the last few items, before handing it to the bailiff, his hand in the air again. Forrest waited until the hand fell and said, "The defense would now like to call Ms. Clare Donovan to the stand."
Dobey heard Starsky's chair creak and glanced toward his man. Starsky had begun to sweat again but his face wasn't showing the same strain it had before. He was pale, but not overwhelmed by physical pain. The pain of the mire he was about to be dragged through was entirely different.
Clare was sworn in and sat primly in the chair, staring forward. She was as wide eyed and innocent as the photos of her younger self, her eyes trained solely on Forrest.
"Ms. Donovan, you've been made aware of the charges against you?"
"Yes."
"The charges we're here to contest, today, you understand what each of them means?"
"Yes."
"And you feel that you aren't guilty of these charges-"
"Objection, leading the witness." McCallister called, without rising.
Haydn lifted a hand and said, "Sustained."
"Are you guilty of these charges, Ms. Donovan?"
"No."
"Would you tell us, in your own words, what occurred on the afternoon of Saturday, May 19th?"
Clare swallowed and nodded, then began to tell a story of a perfectly innocent mistake. She had followed Hutch out of the library, she said, hoping to return something to him that he had dropped in his haste to leave for lunch. She was surprised to see him duck into an old car with someone else she recognized…
"Is that man in the courtroom today?"
"Yes."
"Can you point him out to the court?"
Clare pointed and Starsky's jaw jumped, but he kept his head up.
"Let the record show that Ms. Donovan has indicated Detective Sergeant Starsky as the man she saw in the car with Detective Hutchinson. You may continue."
"I was very surprised to see that they knew each other. Dave…" Clare paused, swallowing dramatically. "...he had made a point of indicating that he didn't know the blonde man. I was curious, and after Hutchinson left to return to the library I went to speak to Dave."
The tears started, Clare swallowing more frequently, and dropping her gaze to her lap.
"What happened then, Ms. Donovan?"
"He...he was angry. He started yelling. He said I was stupid and I was going to blow his cover. He...forced me into the car. I told him I wouldn't tell anyone, that I didn't even know what was going on. He said...he had a way to make sure I wouldn't tell anyone and...he-" Clare started to become hysterical, but her movements weren't orchestrated anymore.
Her arms had lost their delicate poise, her head twitching away from Starsky and toward Forrest. Her eyes narrowed, her gaze lost somewhere in the past before the act went out of her voice, the tears dried and Clare said plainly, "He raped me."
"What else did he do, Clare?" Forrest asked, gently.
"Over and over. Every night. I didn't know what it was." Clare's head tilted to the side and her voice took on a lighter, more childlike quality. "I didn't know why. He said he was loving me. Like he loved her."
"Ms. Donovan?"
Clare's head came up and she blinked, the doe-eyed expression back on her face. She stared at Forrest, slack jawed and he asked again, "What else did Sergeant Starsky do?"
"H-he hit me." She said, her face still slack, stunned, struggling to regain the momentum she'd lost.
"And then what?"
Starsky, Dobey and McCallister watched her lose herself.
"He was drinking." Clare said. "He was drunk and sloppy and crying." Each adjective brought more hate and disgust into Clare's voice, the skirt of her tan smock so twisted in her fingers that she was cutting off circulation to her fingertips.
Forrest was stuttering. "Uh...S-sergeant Starsky was drink-"
"He always drank. It was the only way he could get it up." Clare's voice had risen to an insistent volume that projected her voice around the courtroom. There was no mistaking what she was saying. "He figured that's why Ma was always gone. He couldn't get it up for her, so she went to someone else and he was stuck at home...with me. The pipsqueak he couldn't sire on his own."
Forrest's mouth hung open, and he cast a concerned look over his shoulder. Both Dryden and Simonetti were as baffled and surprised as he was. "Y-your honor, can I request a brief recess?"
Haydn glanced to Donovan's attorney, his face awash with the disturbing testimony Clare was giving, aware that it wasn't what Forrest had in mind, but equally aware that it was precisely what the people in that courtroom had come to hear, including Clare.
"Justification?" He asked, simply, raising his brows.
"Um…" Forrest tried to think of a way to say that his client was clearly crazy, without accidentally perjuring her in some way. "I'd like to confer with my client in a less...strenuous environment."
Judge Haydn looked to Clare. Her head had dropped and she'd noticed the condition her hands and skirt were in. She'd unwound the cloth and tried to straighten it against her knees, her movements exaggerated, like a child not yet accustomed to how quickly she was growing.
"How brief?" Haydn asked.
"Ten minutes, your honor."
"Very well." Haydn agreed. At the pound of the gavel Forrest, Simonetti, Dryden and the women's advocate rose from their chairs and hustled Clare out of the witness box and into the ante room on their side of the courtroom.
Dobey blinked at how quickly DA McCallister turned on him. "Tell me you know what's going on here, Harold."
Dobey stared wide-eyed at him, then looked to the ante room door. "You're lookin' at a police captain, not a psychologist."
"You spent two..three days in her hometown, digging into her past. What's your best guess?"
"This is about her father." Dobey said. "Her adoptive father. He was accused of statutory rape but the case never went to trial, and at the time there was so much concern about the bad press it was gainin' for the town, Clare...Julie was treated by a counselor for two years and remained in her parents custody. It was covered up." Dobey said, meeting Starsky's clear blue eyes as he finally looked up.
"She set her father on fire." Starsky said, squinting.
Dobey leaned forward, surprised. "How-"
"She told me." Starsky said. "Before all..this. She and I would exchange stories out in the stacks. She would tell me about the novel she was working on...and it was all...strange. Fantasy, you know? About a princess taken in by commoners. But the father in the story was always dark, evil. The king tried to sell the princess to slave traders and she...set him on fire trying to escape."
Dobey's lips came together in a grim line and he nodded. "Julie Donotelli, aka Clare Donovan, was accused at age eight, of setting the family home on fire, but the fire marshall told me most of the damage was centered around John Donotelli's den chair. Based on the hospital's report, the fire started in John's lap."
""He was drinking."" Starsky said, his cuffed hands gesturing toward the witness box. "Clare just told us how it happened. John was drinking, spilled on himself, she either accidentally or intentionally tossed a match or a lighter…and the princess escapes. Free of the abusive king, forever."
Dobey shook his head. "Julie and her mom, Frita, left John and moved out, but John wasn't gone. Not until the following summer. Right before the case would've gone to trial, John disappeared."
"You don't think Julie-" Starsky started.
"No. She was still too young then. They found enough evidence to indicate John died of a gunshot wound, probably to the head. A Mob style hit. They had started digging into Donotelli's connections in Illinois when the head of the ATF, out of Chicago, rolled into town, took everything they had on John's disappearance and told them to drop their investigation." Dobey said.
"Chief of police in a little town isn't likely to go over the head of Chicago ATF." McCallister added, getting a nod of confirmation from Dobey. "So...Clare is reliving the trial that Julie never got?"
"According to her step-father, it's not the only time she's had flashbacks." Dobey said, then glanced back toward the double doors at the back of the courtroom as they creaked open. A uniformed porter from the airport was admitted and hurried down the outside aisle toward Dobey, a piece of luggage in his hands.
Even as Dobey was signing the claims ticket, Clare was being lead back into the courtroom. The bailiff guided her onto the stand quietly reminding her that she was still under oath. Clare seemed drained, paler than before, and genuinely unable to stand on her own.
Judge Haydn watched her for a moment then looked to Forrest. "Are we ready to continue, counsel?"
"No, your honor." McCallister interjected. "Forgive the interruption, but the piece of evidence that the prosecution was unable to account for earlier this morning has just arrived. I feel it is in the best interest of the health and well being of Ms. Donovan that this hearing move to the privacy of your chambers, sir."
Haydn's brows rose in surprise and he stared at McCallister for the length of a long sigh, "I suppose, that in the string of bizarre requests today, I shouldn't be surprised to finally receive one from you, McCallister. Justification."
"In the course of this investigation, Captain Dobey conducted an interview with the stepfather of Ms. Donovan, a Mr. Matt Rode. A summary of that interview was included in the evidence that the court and the defense received late yesterday evening, but the rest, the transcript and the tapes of the interview, had been...mislaid...by Western Air. These items were just delivered and indicate a pattern of behavior very similar to what we've seen in the courtroom today. That pattern may end tragically, your honor."
Haydn sat back until his chair squealed, then asked, "Mr. Forrest, do you have any objections to moving this hearing into my chambers, sans the presence of Ms. Donovan?"
Forrest hesitated, his eyes bouncing between the women's advocate who was studying him intensely, the four holes he felt boring into his back from Simonetti and Dryden, and the client he was no longer certain he could trust.
"My client has a right to view any evidence used against her in a cou-"
"Your honor, I am authorized to state, for the record, that at no time during this hearing will the evidence contained in this transcript be used against Ms. Donovan. I'm concerned purely with her well-being." McCallister interrupted.
"Let the record so state." Haydn repeated then looked to Forrest. "Any further objections?"
Forrest's mouth closed and he looked to his table, then sat, quietly saying, "No, your honor." His voice was quiet, but sure. Forrest had come to a decision, but it wasn't clear where his loyalties lay anymore. He sat and took the five page transcript that McCallister held out to him, reading through it quietly and saying nothing more.
Haydn leaned forward in his chair and declared, "Since my chambers will not accommodate the large party that I assume would like to continue to participate in this hearing, we will remain here. But for Sergeant Starsky, Captain Dobey, DA McCallister, Mr. Forrest, Mrs. Kelly-Robinson and myself I would like the courtroom cleared. Bailiff please take Ms. Donovan and Ms. Janeway into the antechamber and see to it that Ms. Donovan is made comfortable."
The gavel came down and the courtroom gradually cleared but for the bodies gathered around the two tables, and the court stenographer hunched over her machine. Dryden and Simonetti's protests were the loudest and first voices to be ignored before the buzz of bodies, heartbeats and voices dwindled to the kind of silence that fills an empty theatre. Void of life, but filled with anticipation.
"DA McCallister…" Judge Haydn prompted.
"Your honor…" McCallister took a deep breath, then continued, straying out from behind the prosecution table for the first time. "We've just heard what might be considered gibberish to someone not familiar with the past of Clare Donovan aka Jewell aka Julie Donotelli, but Ms. Donovan is a storyteller.
Detective Starsky and Detective Hutchinson, both on the record and off, have previously attested to Clare's talent as a writer and an actress. To play a role, an actor has to put aside his or her own tendencies, mannerisms and speech patterns, and become someone else. As Sergeant Starsky well knows, there are plenty of other circumstances that require so complete a divorce from reality."
McCallister paused then gestured to the stacks of case files on the table in front of him.
"An undercover officer, for example, may be at great risk if his cover is exposed by a slip in speech pattern or a wrong move. The psychology reports that Captain Dobey provided previously, indicate that there is still another reason for someone, like Clare, to have to learn to lie or act as convincingly as I believe she can. To preserve sanity, to preserve the mental stability needed to survive a traumatic childhood like that is indicated by the testimony given by Matt Rode."
McCallister walked to the defense table and picked up the transcript, flipping to the third page. "With your permission I'd like to read the following from the aforementioned interview."
Haydn checked for Forrest's assent before he leaned back in his seat and nodded, and McCallister began to read.
"Rode: Julie had these fits. She'd be playing make believe with her dolls, only male dolls, never with the female dolls, and she'd have a tea party going on...but one of the male dolls would spill on himself. She'd start to scream and wail, pounding angrily at the doll before she touched it with her fingers and shouted, "Bodies don't kill." Just those words. "Bodies don't kill." I come home from work one day to find my wife, Frita, in the kitchen cryin'. She said she was scared for Julie and I asked her what was wrong. She pulled a male doll from the trash where she'd hid it. She said Julie had set the doll on fire."
McCallister flipped to the next page and read again.
"Dobey - You said there were two incidents. What was the second?
Rode - There was a boy...in her fifth grade class. Frita had convinced herself that Julie would be fine. That whatever John had done to her wasn't really that bad. She and Julie were getting along finally and then...Julie came home and said that the boy had touched her. Just...out of the blue. It was a boy that we thought she liked, and he liked her back, and then she came home and told us, "Jimmy touched me. Like John used to do. I want him dead." Then she went into her room. An hour later we had a call from the superintendent and the school principal telling us that Julie was being suspended from school.
Dobey - What were they accusing Julie of doing?
Rode - It wasn't just an accusation. She had done it. We went in that evening to a conference with the principal, the police and the boy's parents. We saw the boy's neck. She'd left deep, purple marks with her belt. She'd tried to choke him to death.
Dobey - Did he touch her?
Rode - I don't know if he was lying about how far he'd gone, but he seemed innocent. He...he said he kissed her. On the lips. The way school kids do, you know?
Dobey - Then what happened.
Rode - Then, I think Frita realized. She…(crying)...she was gone the next day, and so was Julie.
Dobey - I'm sorry for your loss, Mr. Rode, but for the record, please?
Rode - Frita shot herself. She killed herself because of what she couldn't stop John from doin' to Julie. Julie was home when she did it. She must'a found her mother and then...she ran away."
Judge Haydn sat forward and folded his hands in front of him, the blades of his palms resting on the edge of the bench. He sat quietly in thought, long enough for the voices outside of the courtroom to bleed through faintly.
"Mr. Forrest. Do you have anything further to add on Ms. Donovan's behalf?"
Forrest looked up and resolutely said, "No."
"Do you wish to have her returned to the courtroom for further questioning?"
Forrest didn't rise. He sat at his table thinking about the line of bull he'd been fed by Donovan, Simonetti and Dryden. He knew enough about criminal profiling to see Clare's testimony as a creatively orchestrated lie. Whether they had all been aware of the lies, or only his client, he was looking at his first major criminal case from the business end of a shotgun. With both barrels loaded and the trigger in easy reach. It wasn't how he'd intended to start his career as a criminal defense lawyer.
"Ms. Donovan's behavior today has proven too erratic for me to...in good conscience, continue to expose her to what would seem to be traumatic stimuli." Forrest said carefully, then sighed and closed the folder that was open on the table. "I have already informed Officers Simonetti and Dryden that I do not intend to continue to represent Ms. Donovan." Forrest got to his feet and glanced over to the ragged looking officer. "However, I will stand by my client until his honor has reached a conclusion."
Forrest's lips worked against his teeth, his fingertips tapping the table top as he debated, before adding, "Sergeant Starsky, you weren't the only one left intentionally in the dark."
Starsky met the man's gaze and held it. He didn't nod or look away, and eventually Forrest took a deep breath and focused on the judge.
Haydn slid his pad of notes in front of him. "DA McCallister, despite the alarming turn of events in the past few minutes, some serious allegations remain on the record concerning the officer you represent. Have you any response?"
"Yes, your honor." McCallister said, then launched into a lackluster exposition that, never the less, got the job done. "After viewing the photographs that would seem to indicate Sergeant Starsky's guilt, the sergeant pointed out a key fact. The photographs show a man's left hand, which suggests that the photos, which have exceptional clarity and quality, were taken by someone who is right handed. Sergeant Starsky is left handed. If need be, a demonstration or further documentation to that fact can be provided for the court."
Haydn shook his head and put up a hand.
"To that end, your honor, Sergeant Starsky also pointed out that the clarity of the photos seemed to indicate some measure of either coercion or...cooperation on the part of the victim. Given the violence that Ms. Donovan indicated with her testimony today, it is illogical for the photos, entered as evidence of that violence, to be so well focused."
"Does this reflect your considered and professional opinion, Sergeant Starsky?" Haydn asked.
"Yes, your honor."
"Very well. Anything else?"
"No, your honor."
Haydn's palms came to rest on the bench top, then he stood, prompting Dobey, Starsky and McCallister to stand as well.
Haydn gathered his notes and aligned them with a single tap before he said, "I've been a judge for ten years. Prior to this I was District Attorney for 20 years and before that...I was an eager defense lawyer like you, Mr. Forrest. The more time I spent in courtrooms, defending criminals that I knew were guilty, and a very few that I thought for sure were innocent, the less and less I believed that anything another human being did would surprise me.
When I walked into this courtroom today I was in a hurry. I thought certain I had read each of you right, pegged from the start. I'm...pleased to say that I was wrong...at least, about some of you." There was a tiny quirk in the corner of Haydn's mouth that each of them caught before it disappeared.
"My mother was a librarian. She was fond of telling her patrons to give every book a chance. Never...judge a book by its cover. I've learned that today, again, in spades." Haydn's eyes brightened briefly, then he looked to the DA.
"DA McCallister, I'm pleased to see you do have a dramatic flair after all, but, as always, keep it to a minimum. Captain Dobey, take good care of your men. I plan to make short work of dismissing the charges Simonetti and Dryden have brought against them, and hereby order Sergeant Starsky into your custody.
As to you, Mr. Forrest, I would suggest that you remain with Ms. Donovan. It is not to your benefit to abandon a sinking ship. I am upholding the charges against Ms. Donovan and further, remanding her to psychiatric care until her trial."
Haydn opened his mouth and took in a breath, then dropped his chin to his chest and looked to the witness box. There was always a back story. He'd learned that as a defense attorney and later in the DA's office.
There were always layers hidden by the glossy cover, that as a judge, he rarely got to see anymore. Too frequently the arguments became about technicalities and mistakes, and less about what was right for the victim. The victims...on both sides of the crime. The missing ingredient was a measure of compassion - a sympathetic pity for the sufferings or misfortunes of others. Like what McCallister had shown by using damning evidence to protect an opposing witness, at the risk of his own case. Like what Forrest had shown by accepting what might have been a trick by the prosecution, for the sake of the mental well being of his client.
Haydn brought himself back, meeting the eyes of each of the men still standing in his courtroom. "Court is dismissed, gentlemen."
They had only just left the courtroom when one of the phones against the wall started to ring. Dobey and McCallister missed it at first, but Starsky zoned in immediately, remembering the dream, or nightmare, he'd had in the hospital. A ringing phone with Hutch on the other end, needing his help.
Starsky used his crutches to rush toward the phones, jerking each receiver off its cradle until the ringing stopped.
"Hello?" He demanded, breathlessly.
"Somebody called me from this number." A voice scratched on the other line, and Starsky's face went from heart-wrenching fear to tear-filled joy in seconds. He gritted his teeth and couldn't stop the smile that took over his face, or the brief wetness in his eyes.
"Damned good to hear your voice, Ollie." Starsky said, his tone breaking a little.
He could hear the smile in Hutch's response, "You too, Gordo. Though I could'a sworn you been here all the time." Hutch's voice was raw, a soft, scrape of a sound, but stronger than it'd been in a long time. "Been hearin' your voice for days. Where've you been?"
"The nut farm." Starsky laughed, wiping the tears from his cheeks. "And the court house."
"Who'd ya get mad at ya, now?"
Starsky still wore the stupid grin, finally attracting the attention of Dobey and McCallister. "Doesn't matter. I'll tell you when I get there."
"Hurry up, will ya. Doc's tryin' to shove more pills at me."
Dobey had started to smile, he recognized the look on his detective's face and knew it generally only applied to one person.
"You mind if I take the time to change out of prison orange?" Starsky asked, glancing down at the jumpsuit he still wore.
"According to Bonnie, I'm still a little pale yellow. Maybe we'll match."
Starsky laughed, a belly laugh that he'd needed for what seemed like years.
"Hey." Hutch said.
"What?"
"Take your own advice, huh? Me and thee ain't nothin' without thee."
"I'll bring you a pizza."
"Don't you dare."