"What did he say?"

"He asked again if I was going to the police, and started to walk towards us. I turned to face him, putting the boy behind me, nearer the stairwell that led to the building's exit."

"Did you answer him?" I asked.

"Yes, I did. I told him not to worry, not to come any closer, either. 'I can't go to the police,' is what I said to Andrew Tripping. 'I killed a man last year.'"

12

We take our witnesses as we find them, as I had told the jury in my opening statement. Now they would hear for themselves what had happened to Paige Vallis several months before she met Andrew Tripping.

"Is that statement you made to the defendant about killing a man true?"

Paige was strangely calmer now, as she told the story. "Yes, it is." She shifted her body in the chair and faced them squarely. "I mean, not on purpose. Shortly after last Thanksgiving, my father died. He was almost eighty-eight years old and passed away in his sleep.

"He had lived alone, in a small house in Virginia, since he retired more than twenty years ago. I was the only child-he had married late, and never really wanted a large family because of all the moving around his professional life entailed."

Robelon was on his feet, objecting again. "Your Honor, this would be a lovely retrospective for the Biography Channel," he said snidely, drawing a few smiles from the jury box, "but I think that all we need to know is that Ms. Vallis killed a man. Period."

"May we approach?" I asked.

Moffett waved my witness off the stand and away from the bench, while we conferenced the issue. "Where are you going with this, Alexandra?"

"If Peter doesn't intend to cross-examine my witness about how and why she-uh, she got into the situation she did, I'll leave it alone. But if he plans to ask a single question about the man's death, I'm going to bring out the facts on my direct. Ms. Vallis has got nothing to hide."

"How about it, Pete?"

"I've got a couple of questions for her, sure. But I'd rather give them up and move this along."

"You're telling me you're not going to touch the subject in summation, either?" I asked. I knew that when Robelon heard all the facts, he would be eager to remind the jury that Vallis had once defended herself when she was in mortal danger. He would say she was just as capable of defending herself against Tripping. I wanted to compare and contrast the circumstances, acknowledging-as she did-that it was the boy's life, not her own safety, that had concerned her on the night of March 6.

"I won't concede that."

Moffett was ready to think like Solomon and split the baby. "Alex, what are you trying to bring out here? That Ms. Vallis killed a man in self-defense? She have a weapon?"

"She didn't, Your Honor. There was an intruder-he's the one who had a knife. He held it to her throat and they struggled over it, and when they fell to the floor, he landed on the knife."

"Okay. So I'll allow you to ask that much. Skip over 'This is your life, Ms. Vallis.' You," Moffett said, addressing Peter Robelon. "I'm gonna limit you, too. Nothing beyond the scope of Cooper's direct, then short and sweet in summation."

That meant Moffett was reading the jury as already being in Robelon's favor. He was trying not to prolong my agony.

Paige recounted the short version of the event. I took her back to the night of the crime, letting her tell the panel that Tripping allowed her to walk out with his son after hearing that statement. I would later argue that the reason the defendant stayed in the apartment, the reason he didn't flee before the police arrived, is that he believed what Paige Vallis told him and thought she would not go to the police.

"What did you do when you left the apartment?"

"I got out on the sidewalk with Dulles. I needed to explain to him what I was going to do. I wanted him to understand that he wouldn't get hurt any more if I told the police, to know that he was entitled to be safe in his home. The first thing I did was take him to a coffee shop. I bought him breakfast-I don't think-excuse me, sir. He didn't look as though he'd had a real meal in months-and talked to him for almost an hour. Then, on our way out, I found the first uniformed policeman around, and asked him to drive us to the station house."

I could anticipate Robelon's cross now. So, Ms. Vallis, I expected him to say to her, after you were raped- beforeyou went to the police, before you talked to a doctor-you had two eggs over easy with a side order of bacon? Or were they scrambled? Did you back up your coffee with a mimosa or a Bloody Mary?

"And when you finished making your statement at the police station, where did you go?" I asked.

"To the hospital. They took me to Bellevue Hospital."

"Were you examined there?"

"Yes, by a nurse. I think they call them forensic nurse examiners. She did a very thorough physical exam."

I started to take Paige through the many steps of the painstaking procedure necessary to complete a rape evidence collection kit, everything from swabs for DNA to pubic hair combings to finger-nail scrapings.

"We'll stipulate to the medical findings," Robelon said.

Of course he would. None of them was harmful to his client.

"Did you sustain any injuries, Ms. Vallis?"

"No, no, I did not."

Physical injury was not an element of the crime of rape. In fact, fewer than a third of women reporting sexual assault have any external signs of injury or abuse. I couldn't go into that with Paige, but the nurse examiner would be qualified as an expert next week and take us through those facts.

"Did you ever see or speak with Dulles Tripping again?"

"No, I did not."

"Until you walked into this courtroom this morning, did you ever see or speak with the defendant again?"

"Never."

I finished all the steps of my direct examination, cleaned up the loose ends, and told the court that I had no further questions of this witness. It was shortly before four o'clock in the afternoon, and a quick look over my shoulder confirmed that the spectator seats were still completely empty.

Robelon stood to begin his cross, but the judge wiggled the pinky ring in his direction and we both approached the bench. "That woman ought to be here with the kid any minute. Why don't we hold this until Monday morning?"

"I'm ready to go, Your Honor."

I knew that Robelon wanted to ask his first few questions. If he started with Paige Vallis, she would then be directed to have no conversation with me about the case throughout the weekend. The strategy was obvious, and though I objected, I really had no grounds, nor any reason to discuss the evidence with her. My curiosity about Harry Strait, who had not reappeared, would have to wait until she was off the stand.

It was also clear that Robelon didn't want the jurors to linger over her previous testimony with any sympathetic thoughts during the two-day hiatus. He wanted to score a few points about Paige's lack of injury that would sink in their minds over the weekend, so that they would be receptive to his consent defense.

"Good afternoon, Ms. Vallis, I'm Peter Robelon," he said, communicating the fact that in contrast to my easy familiarity with the witness, he had never met her before. "I see from your hospital records that there were no signs of trauma in your physical exam, is that correct?"

"It is."

"Any bleeding?"

"No."

"Redness or swelling, internally?"

"I-uh, I wouldn't know."

"Well, no discomfort that you complained of, was there?"

"Not once I left your client's bedroom."

"No lacerations that needed stitching or sutures?"

"No."

"No follow-up treatment necessary, was there?"

"Yes, actually, there was. I had to be tested for sexually transmitted disease," Paige told defense counsel, now looking at him instead of the jury. "I was quite worried about being forced to have unprotected sex." Robelon had made the same slip that many lawyers did, failing to get someone to interpret the seemingly illegible notes in the body of the medical record.