Free The Woods by Harlan Coben Page B

out. She shook her head. "You need to answer out loud." "No," she said. "Why did you go?" "I wanted him to like me." "And you thought he would like you if you went upstairs with him?" Chamique's voice was soft. "I knew he wouldn't if I said no." I turned away and moved back to my table. I pretended to look at notes. I just wanted to give the jury time to digest. Chamique had her back straight. She kept her chin high. She tried to show nothing, but you could feel the hurt emanating from her.
    "What happened when you got upstairs?"
    "I walked past a door." She turned her eyes back to Jenrette. "And then he grabbed me."
    Again I made her point out Edward Jenrette and identify him by name.
    "Was anyone else in the room?"
    "Yeah. Him."
    She pointed to Barry Marantz. I noticed the two families behind the defendants. The parents had those death-mask faces, where the skin looks as if it were being pulled from behind, the cheekbones appear too prominent, the eyes sunken and shattered. They were the sentinels, lined up to shelter their offspring. They were devastated. I felt bad for them. But too bad. Edward Jenrette and Barry Marantz had people to protect them.
    Chamique Johnson had no one.
    Yet part of me understood what really happened here. You start drinking, you get out of control, you forget about the consequences. Maybe they would never do this again. Maybe they had indeed learned their lesson. But again too bad.
    There were some people who were bad to the bone, who would always be cruel and nasty and hurt others. There were others, maybe most that came through my office, who just messed up. It is not my job to differentiate. I leave that to the judge during sentencing.
    "Okay," I said, "what happened next?"
    "He closed the door."
    "Which one?"
    She pointed to Marantz.
    "Chamique, to make this easier, could you call him Mr. Marantz and the other one Mr. Jenrette?"
    She nodded.
    "So Mr. Marantz closed the door. And then what happened?"
    "Mr. Jenrette told me to get on my knees."
    "Where was Mr. Flynn at this point?"
    "I don't know."
    "You don't know?" I feigned surprise. "Hadn't he walked up the stairs with you?"
    "Yeah."
    "Hadn't he been standing next to you when Mr. Jenrette grabbed you?"
    "Yeah."
    "And then?"
    "I don't know. He didn't come in the room. He just let the door close."
    "Did you see him again?"
    "Not till later."
    I took a deep breath and dove in. I asked Chamique what happened next. I walked her through the assault. The testimony was graphic. She spoke matter-of-factly, a total disconnect. There was much to get in, what they had said, how they had laughed, what they had done to her. I needed specifics. I don't think the jury wanted to hear it. I understood that. But I needed her to try to be as specific as possible, to remember every position, who had been where, who had done what.
    It was numbing.
    When we finished the testimony on the assault, I gave it a few seconds and then approached our trickiest problem. "In your testimony, you claimed your attackers used the names Cal and Jim."
    "Objection, Your Honor."
    It was Flair Hickory, speaking up for the first time. His voice was quiet, the kind of quiet that draws all ears.
    "She did not claim they used the names Cal and Jim," Flair said.
    "She claimed, in both her testimony and prior statements, that they were Cal and Jim."
    "I'll rephrase," I said with a tone of exasperation, as if to say to the jury, can you believe how picky he's being? I turned back to Chamique.
    "Which one was Cal and which one was Jim?"
    Chamique identified Barry Marantz as Cal and Edward Jenrette as Jim.
    "Did they introduce themselves to you?" I asked.
    No.
    "So how did you know their names?"
    "They used them with each other."
    "Per your testimony. For example, Mr. Marantz said, 'Bend her over, Jim.' Like that?"
    "Yeah."
    "You are aware," I said, "that neither of the defendants is named Cal or Jim."
    "I know," she said.
    "Can you explain that?"
    "No. I'm just telling you what they