The Quiet Game

Stone makes no move to leave the witness box. He looks down at Livy with contempt and says, "You're not worth a hangnail on Catherine Neumaier's little finger. Your father is a murderer, and you know it. But you stand there-"

"Mr. Stone!" snaps Franklin. "Leave the stand, or I'll be forced to hold you in contempt."

Stone looks away from Livy like a man looking away from a dead enemy, then limps off the stand with his soldier's bearing. As he passes me, he stops, shakes my hand, and leans close.

"I told you you didn't want me as a witness."

I squeeze his hand and whisper, "Bullshit. I wanted the truth, and you gave it to me. The question is, was the jury ready for it?"

As Stone passes the spectators' benches, his cane rapping on the hardwood floor, his daughter rises, takes his elbow, and helps him toward the doors.

"Ms. Sutter," says Judge Franklin. "This is an unusual request. Whose testimony are you calling Mr. Cage to rebut?"

"Mr. Stone's, Your Honor."

Franklin considers this for a few moments. "Mr. Cage, do you plan to call additional witnesses?"

I had planned to recall Portman, but now that Livy has undercut everything Stone said by making him look bent on revenge, I'm not sure what to do. And now she wants to question me? I suppose she is finally answering the question of how far she is willing to go.

"I have no more witnesses, Your Honor."

"Does the defense rest, then?"

A strange sense of sadness flows through me, not for myself but for Althea Payton, sitting out there in the benches. She nods at me as though to say, At least we tried. "Subject to calling rebuttal witnesses, the defense rests."

"Very well. Please take the stand, Mr. Cage."

Without looking at Livy, I mount the steps to the witness box and seat myself. Everyone in the room is watching me. My parents. The Paytons. Austin Mackey, who looks like he's in shock from the revelations he's heard in the past half hour. High in the back of the court, more faces watch from the balcony, and among them the larger gleaming eyes of the CNN and WLBT cameras.

One pair of eyes is not watching me. Livy Marston's, and it's a damn good thing. If she had the nerve to look me in the eye while playing out this obscene charade, I might decide to stand up and announce her sins to the world. But I won't do that. And she knows it. It's not in me to do something like that. But maybe it is in her.

"Mr. Cage," she says, facing the jury. "Did you and I have a romantic relationship when we attended the St. Stephens Preparatory School?"

"Yes."

"Was it a serious relationship?"

"Define serious."

"An extended relationship of a sexual nature."

She has guts, I'll give her that. "Yes."

"When did that relationship finally end?"

Two minutes ago. "Our freshman year of college."

"Did it end that year because my father, Leo Marston, handled a malpractice suit against your father, Thomas Cage?"

"Yes."

"In the course of that lawsuit, did your father suffer a near-fatal heart attack?"

"Yes."

"Did you blame my father for that?"

"Yes."

"Did that lawsuit effectively end any chance of you and I getting married?"

"Yes."

At last she turns to me, but her eyes look opaque, as though she has closed them against all my feeling for her, steeling herself against mercy. "Did you blame my father for that as well?"

Does she want me to tell the truth? Does she want me to say, No, I blame you? The whole goddamn thing happened because you got yourself pregnant by a stupid redneck murderer and couldn't deal with it?

"For a long time, I did."

"And did you conspire with former Special Agent Dwight Stone to destroy my father and John Portman?"

"I did not."

She holds my eyes a moment longer, as though waiting for me to counterattack with everything I know about her.

I say nothing. What would it accomplish, besides convincing Livy that I'm willing to sink as low to destroy her father as she is to protect him? Would it convince the jury that Marston and Portman are guilty? If Stone's testimony didn't do that, the Marston family's dirty laundry certainly won't.

"No further questions," Livy says, turning away at last.

Judge Franklin looks at me as though I have fulfilled the assertion she made on the day we met in her office. I have a fool for a client. "Mr. Cage," she says, "I find myself in the curious position of asking if you would like to cross-examine yourself."

I almost laugh out loud. Here it is, my chance to say anything I want. And curiously enough, I have no inclination to say anything. Without Ike Ransom or Ray Presley to confirm Stone's story, I can add nothing that will sway the twelve people in the jury box.

"No questions, Your Honor."

"You're excused, Mr. Cage."