“He grabbed you by the arm?”
“Not yet. First he grabbed-you know-he put his hand on my breast. He told me I was beautiful.”
“What did you do then?”
“I-I told him to stop. I told him I could lose my job for what he was doing.”
So far MGD had made no threats or used any force. We had a misdemeanor unconsented touching of a breast at most. Blanca Robles was concerned about her job, not about her physical safety and well-being.
She paused and lowered her head. When she raised it, both eyes had filled with tears. “That’s when he grabbed me and pulled me toward the bed. He just pulled me and threw me onto the bed.”
Blanca’s hand gestures were getting very dramatic now. I wanted Ellen to stop and break down every conclusory description offered by the witness to a second-by-second account. How did this smaller man overpower such a large, strapping woman and get her the distance-maybe twenty feet-from the vestibule of the room to his king-size bed?
“That’s when he pulled down your stockings and penetrated?”
“Exactly that.”
I leaned forward. “I’m sorry to interrupt, Ellen. Can we just get a few more specifics?”
Blanca turned her tear-filled eyes to me. “For how long would you say the man had his hand on your breast?” I asked.
“Maybe a couple of minutes.”
That was a stock answer that witnesses gave when they were uncertain about time. “Why don’t you look at the clock on the wall, Blanca? Use the second hand to count out two minutes for me.”
Within thirty-five seconds, Blanca spoke up. “That’s way too long already. So maybe I meant seconds. It wasn’t a couple of minutes. Five seconds, ten seconds? That’s how long he touched my breast.”
“I don’t want you guessing, Blanca, like you did the first time you answered and said ‘a couple of minutes.’ Guessing doesn’t help either of us.”
“It’s not a guess. It was seconds-maybe ten-but no more than that.”
That made much more sense. “Then what did he do?”
“He grabbed me and he-”
“What part of you did he grab?”
She gave me an empty stare.
“Can you show me?”
Blanca Robles stopped to think about it. I flipped through the case folder for the medical records. The body chart prepared at the hospital showed no finger marks on her wrists or forearms.
“I’m not exactly sure. Maybe he just pushed me.”
“Did he push you? Or did he grab you?” I asked. “Do you understand the difference between the meaning of those two words?”
“Yes, I understand,” she said, closing her eyes to rethink it. “Pushed. The man pushed me.”
“So, you don’t think he held on to you with his hand?”
“I’m not remembering that so good. I think he just got behind me and pushed.”
Lem Howell would have a field day with the visual of getting Blanca Robles from the hallway onto the bed. I looked to Mercer for backup, but he signaled me to ease up on the witness.
Ellen Gunsher picked up the narrative and got through the entire crime. The encounter lasted less than twenty minutes from the time Blanca entered the room-a good sign that it was not likely a consensual affair-but still leaving many points that needed to be firmed up before eliciting her sworn testimony.
How did he get her from the bedroom to the bathroom and onto her knees? If he held her down with one or both of his hands, what was she doing with her hands? And-the argument that Lem would undoubtedly tease the jury with-why didn’t she bite him when she had the opportunity to end the attack?
There might be perfectly logical answers to these questions, but Ellen hadn’t coaxed them out of her witness yet, and I wanted to know them before Blanca took an oath to tell the truth to the grand jury.
“Now, there’s something you said yesterday, Blanca, that we have to go over again. You explained to me, just like you told Detective Wallace on Sunday, that you left the room before Mr. Gil-Darsin did, isn’t that right?”
Blanca’s thick eyebrows met over her nose as she frowned at Ellen Gunsher. “I did.”
“And you told us that you hid yourself at the far end of the twenty-eighth-floor hallway until you saw him leave the room and get on the elevator, right?”
Blanca eyed Ellen distrustfully. “So?”
“Well, one of the detectives talked with a guest from that floor who checked out just two minutes before Gil-Darsin. He was in the room opposite the place you said you were hiding,” Ellen said, pointing to the diagram. “And he says there was no one there-no one in the hallway at all when he left his room. Now, he could be wrong-”
“No, no, no,” Blanca said, moving forward in her chair and waving her right hand back and forth. “What I told you? I made a mistake. I was very very nervous and what I told you is a mistake.”
The expression on Ellen’s face froze. She stared at Blanca and then continued. “So you were mistaken on Sunday, when you talked with the detectives?”
“Yes. I’ve been wanting to correct that with you today.”
“And you were mistaken again yesterday when you told all of us the same thing? When did you first realize you had misspoken?”
“I knew it yesterday,” she said, crying again and wringing the handkerchief she took out of her bag. “But I thought you’d get mad at me if I changed my story. I don’t want you to be mad at me, okay?”
Mercer moved his chair closer to Blanca Robles. “Nobody’s going to be mad at you for what you tell us, so long as it’s the truth.”
“As God is my witness, Mr. Mercer, everything I’m telling you is the truth,” she said, making the sign of the cross on her chest before stretching her arms out on the table and putting her head down. She sobbed as I watched her tears flow. “You believe that pig over me?”
“Calm down, Blanca. Everyone is with you here because we believe you. Do you remember what you did when you left the room after you were attacked? That’s what we need to know,” Mercer said.
“How about a fifteen-minute break? You’ll feel better after that,” Ellen said, standing up as she checked the time on her watch. “Maybe Laura can get some coffee ordered in.”
This was the worst possible moment to give Blanca a breathing spell. She had just been caught in a significant inconsistency about the moments after the crime occurred. She was on the ropes, and I wanted to keep her there to find out whether it was just a mistake occasioned by her trauma or an intentional lie.
“I’ll ask Laura to call out an order as soon as we’re finished here,” I said. “Let’s let Blanca explain what happened.”
Blanca picked her head up from the table. “I’d really like some coffee, Miss Ellen.”
“Right away,” Ellen said, walking to the door and opening it. “Alex, you want to show her where the restroom is?”
“Sure.”
Ellen stepped out and I shook my head at Mercer and Ryan.
“I bet you haven’t even had a chance to meet with your priest yet, have you, Blanca?” I asked.
She wiped her tears with the tissue I handed to her.
“Not yet.”
“What church do you go to?”
“’Scuse me?”
“What’s the name of your church?” I asked, walking to the row of windows that faced out on Centre Street, over the courthouse steps.
“Why you want to know?”
“Perhaps I can take you there for an hour or so at the end of the day,” Mercer said. “It might help you to talk with your priest.”
And perhaps I could get one of the answers Battaglia wanted, so he could go to work on the archdiocese to prove his bona fides. The crucifix, the comments relying on God as her witness, the religious gestures-Ellen was convinced of Blanca’s credibility in some measure because of those things.