Due Process (Joe Dillard #9)(61)

“Mr. Dillard hasn’t bothered to inform me,” Armstrong said.

“Your honor, this young lady took a video that we intend to play for the court. I tried to play it for Mr. Armstrong, but he refused to watch. I sent him a copy last week. He obviously hasn’t bothered to look at it. The video depicts what happened at the party where this alleged rape occurred, the witness can authenticate it, and it’s relevant to the issues in the motion we filed.”

“Objection overruled,” the judge said. “Go ahead, Mr. Dillard.”

“Would you state your name, please?” I said.

“Laurie Ingram.”

“Miss Ingram, back on the night of Saturday, August twenty-fourth and early morning of Sunday, August twenty-fifth, did you attend a party held by the majority of the members of East Tennessee State University’s football team?”

“I did.”

“How many people were there?”

“I’m not sure, maybe sixty or seventy.”

“And why were you there?”

“I was dating one of the players. He asked me to come along. He said a stripper was coming and it might be fun. I’d never seen a stripper, so I went.”

“What time did you arrive at the party, Miss Ingram?”

“Around eleven-thirty, I think. Give or take a few minutes.”

“Was the dancer already there when you arrived?”

“No. She didn’t show up until midnight. She got out of a cab and when I saw what she was wearing, I told myself, ‘I have to video this.’ So I pointed my phone at her and started the video.”

“You started as soon as she got there?”

“As soon as she stepped out of the cab.”

“Your Honor,” I said, “we’d like to play the digital recording at this time.”

“Go ahead,” the judge said.

Jack had the recording on his laptop, which he had blue-toothed to the large monitor on the wall of the courtroom to my right. Everyone looked up as the video began. It showed the time and the date. It showed Sheila Self stepping up onto the curb as her cab pulled away. She was dressed in skin-tight, red spandex, fishnet stockings, and stiletto heels. She was carrying a clutch purse in one hand and a boom box in the other. She walked up the short sidewalk as the video camera followed her, and went through the front door into a room full of young men who were whooping and hollering. She seemed lucid enough, friendly and smiling. She waved at several of the players. Laurie Ingram must have been intrigued, because she stayed within five feet of Sheila.

Sheila didn’t touch any of the players, and none of them attempted to touch her. You could hear her say very plainly, “Where can I freshen up just a bit, handsome?” to one of the players. She was directed to a room about ten feet away. She went into the room and closed the door. I asked Jack to stop the tape.

“Miss Ingram,” I said. “Do you happen to know what room the young lady just went into?”

“It’s a bathroom,” she said. “There are two bathrooms in the house. That was one of them.”

“How long was she in there?”

“Objection,” Armstrong said. “Calls for speculation.”

“She stopped the tape when the dancer went into the bathroom,” I said. “But she started it again as soon as she came out. If we can just resume the tape it’ll tell us exactly how long she was in the room. It’s time-stamped.”

Sheila came out seven minutes and forty-seven seconds later. When she did, she was like a different person. Her eyes were droopy, she was moving slowly, and when she tried to speak, it was unintelligible. It took her a full five minutes to get her boom box positioned, set up and turned on. Once the music started, she was totally incapable of dancing and nearly incapable of staying upright. She stumbled around the room for a couple of minutes before falling flat on her face. Two people reached out to help her, but she cursed them and told them not to touch her. After a few minutes, a few of the players started to boo. The chorus grew louder, and Shelia threw up her middle finger. She mumbled a racial slur and turned to walk out the door. Another young woman who was at the party grabbed her boom box and clutch purse and carried them outside. She handed them to Sheila while people behind them yelled about her returning their money and others hooted and laughed.

Sheila pulled a wad of cash out of her clutch purse and threw it at the groups of players outside. While they gathered up bills, she staggered up the street and was gone less than twenty minutes after she arrived. The tape showed her disappearing over a small rise at 12:18 a.m.

“Miss Ingram, after this young lady’s initial visit to the bathroom, did she return to that room?”

“No, sir. She left.”

“You didn’t witness anyone dragging her into the bathroom?”

“No, sir.”

“You didn’t hear any sounds of struggle? You didn’t hear her crying out for help?”

“No, sir. She couldn’t even talk.”

“She didn’t come out of the bathroom later and claim she’d been raped?”

“No, sir. What you just saw on the tape is exactly what happened.”

“Thank you, Miss Ingram. Please answer Mr. Armstrong’s questions.”

Armstrong stood, cleared his throat, and straightened his tie.