CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Monday came all too quickly. Claire knew the witness order: the SVU detectives, the attending physician at Hudson, Jack, and then herself. She knew she didn't have to be at the courthouse until mid-afternoon. She wished she could hear opening arguments, but since she was banned from the courtroom until she testified, she settled for sitting outside, in the hall. Jack sat with her, on a hard bench. At least she knew she wasn't pregnant, she thought, Annie and her universe's tests didn't materialize.

Yes, they did, she realized. She'd spent hours trying to decide what to do if the unthinkable happened, locked inside her mind to wrestle with moral choices. In the end, she'd decided that abortion was her only option. She and Jack could conceive a child later, when the timing was better, when there wouldn't be a single doubt. She reconciled that decision with her view on capital punishment, and convinced herself they were not contradictory. She wondered why Olivia Benson seemed to be everywhere she turned, then she repressed the message her subconscious might be trying to telegraph.

Benson appeared then, with Elliot Stabler, and Claire looked at her watch. Closing arguments should be ending any minute, and the short list of witnesses would be summoned, one at a time. She saw a middle-aged woman in a business suit approach the detectives, and recognized her as the doctor who'd taken care of her in the ER. The courtroom door opened about fifteen minutes later and the bailiff called Elliot Stabler. He followed the uniformed court officer inside, and Claire watched the door close.

Elliot was gone half an hour, then Olivia was called. Elliot stopped in front of Claire. "Hang tough," he said.

Claire nodded. Olivia was in court longer than Elliot, and Claire wondered why. Then she came out and Jack was summoned. As Jack disappeared into the jaws of the legal system, Olivia sat next to Claire. Claire looked at her.

"It went well," Olivia said. "Alex concentrated on your injuries and your reactions. The defense didn't ask anything."

"Thanks," Claire said. "I feel for Jack, this is hard on him."

"He'll be fine. How are you? Are you ready?"

"As ready as I can be."

"Trust Alex." Olivia looked at her watch. "I have to get back to work. Take care, Claire." She got up and Claire watched her walk away before returning her focus on the courtroom door. Her stomach began flip-flopping. Jack was in there a long time, and then the door opened and the bailiff looked at her. "Ms. Kincaid," he said.

She got up. She'd dressed in a black pantsuit, with a white shell blouse, adding her string of pearls for luck. She followed the bailiff up the aisle, saw Jack seated in the gallery behind the prosecution's table, and made her way to the stand. She was sworn in, and in the few seconds before Alex approached, she looked at Marc Meadows.

He grinned at her. Her stomach rebelled, and she quickly looked away, concentrating on Alex as she approached the witness box. Alex led her through her story, reminding the jury of the photographs they'd seen of her neck and face when Claire described the brutal beating and slashing of her neck. Her voice was clear and calm, hiding the gymnastics in her stomach. And then it was over, Alex had led the jury through a grim description of rape and attempted murder, through the victim's eyes.

The defense attorney stood, buttoning his suit coat. "Ms. Kincaid," he said, pleasantly. "That's a terrible tale you narrate. The physical and emotional trauma must have been dreadful. Did you seek counseling?"

"No," Claire answered, glancing at Alex as if to ask 'what the hell?'

"But you were traumatized, emotionally."

"Yes."

"But not badly enough to seek professional counseling?"

Claire shrugged. "I had support from friends who loved me."

"Were any of them trained counselors?"

"No."

"How are you now, emotionally?"

Claire looked at him. "I'm trying to heal, to put it behind me and get back to work."

"I see. With all this emotional trauma, the shock of being so brutally assaulted, is it possible you mistook your assailant for my client? That Marc Meadows was fresh in your mind because you'd just been notified he'd been released from Rikers pending a retrial?"

"No. No mistake, it was Marc Meadows in my apartment that night. He raped and beat me and cut my throat, leaving me to die slowly on my bed."

"But you weren't going to die, Ms. Kincaid. We've heard testimony that the wound itself was shallow, too shallow to do more than bleed heavily, and you were expecting Mr. McCoy at any minute, were you not?"

"Yes."

"You and Mr. McCoy are close, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"You work together, spend many hours a day working on prosecuting cases, correct?"

"Yes."

"Do you have a social relationship with him? You were expecting him for dinner."

Claire glanced at Alex. "Yes."

"Would you describe that relationship for us, Ms. Kincaid?"

"Objection, Your Honor, relevancy." Alex was on her feet.

Defense counsel looked at the judge. "I'm establishing a continuous pattern in Ms. Kincaid's behavior, a matter of her character, goes to her credibility."

Ellen McMurtry thought, then sighed. "I'll allow it, but be careful where you step, Mr. Dutton."

"Ms. Kincaid?" Mr. Dutton inclined his head. "Describe your relationship with Mr. McCoy, please."

She took a deep breath. "We go out for dinner or drinks occasionally, or we eat at each other's apartment. Sometime we go to the movies. Or rent one."

"Have you ever slept together?"

"Objection!"

The judge looked at Mr. Dutton and Ms. Cabot. "Approach, counselors." When the two attorneys stood before her, she covered her microphone with her hand. "Mr. Dutton, you are forbidden by law to introduce a victim's sexual history."

"I'm trying to show that Ms. Kincaid is not always truthful, to be kind about it," he said. "If she'll lie about one thing – violating rule 312 concerning fraternizing in the district attorney's office, perhaps she'll lie about who raped her."

"That's absurd, Your Honor," Alex said. "Ms. Kincaid saw her rapist very clearly, knew who he was, has no reason to lie about his identity."

"If it gets him convicted and saves her a retrial on his original charges, I'd say she does."

Alex sneered. "Then counsel is forgetting the forensic evidence against his client."

"The objection is sustained. Be very careful, Mr. Dutton."

Alex returned to the prosecution table and Mr. Dutton stood before Claire again. "Do you currently live with Mr. McCoy, Ms. Kincaid?"

"Your Honor," Alex called.

"It's a legitimate question, Your Honor, and it returns to that pesky question of credibility."

Glaring at Mr. Dutton, Judge McMurtry nonetheless said "Overruled."

"Ms. Kincaid?"

"Yes, I do."

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the district attorney's office prohibit fraternizing between superiors and their subordinates? Isn't that policy known as the 312 rule?"

"Yes," Claire said, "but given the circumstances I felt safer staying there. I still have my apartment."

"Have you returned to it?"

"Once."

"Spend the night?"

"No. Too many memories."

"Have you and Mr. McCoy remained close throughout this ordeal?"

Claire glanced at the judge, who stared at the defense attorney, but his question was answerable. "Yes. I can talk to him, I feel like he'll protect me. I feel safe with him." Her eyes found Jack in the gallery.

"So nothing's changed in your relationship?"

"No," she answered, truthfully, they had indeed had sex once since she was raped.

"I'm glad to hear that, every victim needs her knight in shining armor. Ms. Kincaid, wouldn't it make your work life easier if you didn't have to retry Mr. Meadows on the original charges?"

"No," she said, before realizing Alex was standing.

"He always proclaimed his innocence, it seems a new witness has come forward to support that claim."

"Objection," Alex bellowed, "assumes facts not in evidence."

"Sustained."

Dutton shrugged. "Accusing him of rape, that saves the state the expense of a retrial, does it not?"

"I don't see how, since they're paying for this trial."

Dutton smiled. "Indeed they are. But is it possible, just possible, Ms. Kincaid, that you invited Marc Meadows over, knowing Mr. McCoy had gone to Sing-Sing and wouldn't be back for some time, and seduced him, then gloated about it, which caused him to lose his temper? And that he broke your bedroom window escaping when he heard Mr. McCoy unlock your front door? Mr. McCoy does have a key to your apartment, does he not?"

"Yes, he does, and no, it is not possible that I'd willingly have sex with that creep."

"Your Honor, I object to Ms. Kincaid's terminology regarding my client."

"Keep it in bounds, Ms. Kincaid," McMurtry said, gently.

"I would not willingly have sexual intercourse with your client," Claire said.

"Thank you, Ms. Kincaid, I have no further questions."

Claire looked at Alex, then Jack. "You're dismissed, Ms. Kincaid," the judge said. Claire nodded and left the box, then slid into a seat next to Jack.

"The prosecution rests," Alex Cabot said.

"Mr. Dutton?" Judge McMurtry looked at him. He held up his hand as he whispered to his client, then said, "The defense calls Marc Meadows."

The little man wore an ill-fitting new suit, with a white shirt with a red and black tie. He sat in the witness chair and swore the oath. Then his attorney walked up and smiled. "So what did happen, Marc, on that night a few weeks ago?"

Meadows cleared his throat. "I knew Ms. Kincaid would prosecute me again, and I wanted to talk to her, explain about the new witness. I knocked on her door but she didn't answer. So I went back to the street, and I looked up, there was light in her window. I'd been drinking, so call me stupid, because I was, but I decided to climb up and make her listen to me."

"You were armed?"

"I had a K-bar, from my tour in the Marines. After what I went through in prison, I wasn't going to go around defenseless. I tried her window, it was locked, and I broke the glass with my knife handle and unlocked it. When I was actually inside, I got scared, I knew what it looked like. I thought I really had to talk to her, explain everything. I heard the crapper flush, so I waited outside the bathroom door. I got more and more scared, so I grabbed her when she came out. I seen she was scared, so I pulled her into her room and sat her on the bed. I talked to her, told her I didn't rape that woman, and she was yelling at me to get out. She called me a rapist pig, and I got really mad. I was really drunk, and so I thought I'd show her what a rapist pig really was. And when it was over, she spat at me, and I just went off on her. I didn't try to kill her, though, I made sure the cut wasn't but a scratch."

"You admit raping and beating her."

"I wouldn't have done it if I wasn't shitfaced."

"When you were arrested later that night, did the detectives do a blood alcohol test on you?" Leon Dutton asked, quickly, before an objection about his client's language was lodged.

"No, they was too busy entertaining themselves hitting me. You got the pictures, show them."

Dutton walked to his table and said "Your Honor, defense exhibit one." He opened an envelope and slipped a few eight by ten color photos out. He showed them to the witness first, and as he said "I took these of you, correct, shortly after your arrest?" he passed them to the jury. Marc Meadows had clearly taken a pounding.

"Yeah."

"Did you tell them you were drunk?" He collected the photographs from the jury, noting the discomfort on a few faces.

"They found me in a bar. I tried to talk to them, but they wasn't listening. Guess they was getting their payback for one of their own."

"If you'd been sober –"

"Your Honor, sidebar," Alex said. The judge nodded, and the attorney approached. "Your Honor, he's going for an affirmative defense. You know that requires notice."

"Your Honor, I'm trying to establish that my client was acting out of character."

"Baloney," the judge said. "You're trying to backdoor an AD."

"Judge, I'm fighting for my client's life, literally. I know the people can't seek the death penalty, but if he goes to prison for this, you know perfectly well the CO's will eventually find reasons to beat him to death."

"A little dramatic today, Mr. Dutton?" The judge looked from one attorney to the other, then glanced at the little man in the witness box. "Let him argue it, Ms. Cabot, he doesn't have the required proof for an affirmative defense. You can demolish his arguments during cross. Retreat." She sat up straight and waited for the attorneys to resume their positions.

"Marc, is it fair to say that if you'd been sober, you wouldn't have thought of trying to talk to Ms. Kincaid, that this tragic chain of events triggered by that impulse, would not have happened?"

"Yeah. I know it was stupid, that I had no business talking to a DA at home, but it was so important to me to tell her I had a witness who would prove I didn't rape that other woman. But she wouldn't listen." His eyes found Claire, sitting next to Jack, with a glimmer of satisfaction. "She acted like I was something you scrape off your shoe. All she had to do was listen."

"But she didn't. Do you think that excuses what you subsequently did?"

"No, but it don't mean I should spend the rest of my life in the can." He leaned toward the microphone as he looked at the jury. "I'm really sorry for what I did, I know I can't take it back, and I should be punished, but I didn't try to kill her."

"We know, Marc, the medical evidence proves that. No more questions." Dutton touched the witness stand's rail, then turned and walked back to his table.

Alex waited until Dutton was seated, then she stared at Meadows for a moment before rising. She walked toward the witness stand. "Mr. Meadows. Do you truly expect these good people," and she inclined her head toward the jury box, "to believe you brutalized Claire Kincaid because you were drunk? That it somehow excuses your offense?"

"It don't excuse it, but I wouldn't have done it if I hadn't been drunk on my ass."

Alex glanced at the judge, who didn't correct Meadows's language. "If you were so drunk, why isn't there some mention of your condition in the police reports? In the medical summary provided by the emergency room physician your own attorney took you to?"

"You'd have to ask him."

"The truth is you wanted to humiliate and brutalize Ms. Kincaid, isn't that correct? She was going to send you back to Rikers for twenty years, and you wanted to make her pay for that, didn't you? And raping her wasn't enough, you had to beat her, you wanted to silence her forever, so you cut her throat. Isn't that the truth, Mr. Meadows?"

"No."

"If letting her know about your exculpatory witness was so important, why didn't you wait for your lawyer to meet with her?"

"I was drunk. I thought I could make her see reason."

"At knifepoint? After breaking into her apartment?"

"I wanted to be sure she'd listen to me. I had no intention of killing her, I had no intention of hurting her at all. She just made me so mad…"

"And when you're mad, you become violent, isn't that true? Isn't that why you were dismissed from the Marine Corps? Isn't it true you resisted arrest, that even in handcuffs you tried to headbutt the arresting officer?"

"No. He slammed my head on the floor, on the car, like he wanted my skull cracked."

"The simple truth of the matter is that you wanted to make Ms. Kincaid pay for past and future 'offenses' against you, and what better way to do that than to rape her, as she charged you did to another woman. And isn't true that, after raping and beating her, you realized she would immediately identify you to the authorities, so you decided to kill her? It's just luck that your blade was so dull that it didn't penetrate deeply enough to kill her." Alex cleared her throat. "And isn't true that you told me you wanted to go to trial to further humiliate her? I offered you a generous deal, and you turned it down, telling me you wanted to see 'the bitch squirm,' isn't that true?"

"Objection, Your Honor, she's testifying!"

"Sustained."

"I'll rephrase," Alex said. "Did I offer you a plea bargain, Mr. Meadows?"

"Yeah."

"And did you reject it?"

"Yeah."

"Would you tell us why?"

"Cause I wanted to explain my side."

"You've certainly done that. I have no more questions." Alex turned away from the man in the box, meeting Claire's eyes as she walked back to her table.

"Mr. Dutton?" the judge said as Marc Meadows returned to his chair beside his attorney.

"The defense rests, Your Honor."

"Closing arguments in the morning. We're in recess until ten a.m." She rapped her gavel and got up.

Alex turned around, facing Claire. "He's going down."

"I know." Claire held Jack's hand.

"You don't have to be here tomorrow."

She nodded. "I may skip it. Looking at him makes me ill."

Alex gathered her papers. "Go home, relax, and leave it to me. I'll call you when we have a verdict, which I predict will be within fifteen minutes of the commencement of deliberations."

Claire stood, still holding Jack's hand. "We'll see. Thank you." She looked up at Jack. "Let's get out of here."