Tell Me No Secrets Read Online Free PDF Page A

and that’s exactly what she got. Oh, she may have gotten a little more than she bargained for, but, hey, she should have known better.
    “Well, maybe she should have. Maybe going to a bar like the Red Rooster and leaving her panties at home wasn’t the smartest thing Erica Barnowski could have done. But don’t think for a moment that a lack of common sense on one person’s part eliminates the need for common decency on another’s. Don’t believe for a second that Douglas Phillips got his signals crossed. Don’t be hoodwinked into accepting that this man, who repairs state-of-the-art computers for a living, who has no difficulty whatsoever decodingsophisticated software terminology, has trouble understanding the difference between a simple yes and no. What part of ‘no’ is so difficult for a grown man to understand? No, quite simply, means no!
    “And Erica Barnowski said no loud and clear, Ladies and Gentlemen. She not only
said
no, she
screamed
it. She screamed it so loud and so often that Douglas Phillips had to hold a knife to her throat to silence her.”
    Jess found herself directing her remarks to a juror in the second row, a woman in her late fifties with auburn hair and strong, yet curiously delicate features. There was something about the woman’s face she found intriguing. She’d become aware of her early in the trial and had occasionally found herself speaking almost exclusively to her. Maybe it was the intelligence that was obvious in her soft gray eyes. Maybe it was the way she tilted her head when trying to come to terms with a difficult point. Maybe it was simply the fact that she was better dressed than most of the jurors, several of whom wore blue jeans and baggy, ill-fitting sweaters. Or maybe it was just because Jess felt she was getting through to her, and that through her, she might be able to reach the others.
    “Now, I don’t claim to be an authority on men,” Jess stated, and heard her inner voice laugh, “but I have a very hard time accepting that any man who has to hold a knife to a woman’s jugular honestly believes she’s consenting to intercourse.” Jess paused, choosing her next words very carefully. “I suggest to you that, even in today’s supposedly enlightened times, the double standard looms very large in Cook County. Large enough for the defense to try to convince you that the fact Erica Barnowski wasn’t wearingpanties that night is somehow more damning than the fact Douglas Phillips held a knife to her throat.”
    Jess’s eyes traveled slowly down the double row of jurors and two alternates, all of whom wore a red adhesive strip with white letters that said JUROR . “Douglas Phillips claims he thought Erica Barnowski was consenting to sex,” she stated. “Well, isn’t it time we stopped looking at rape from the rapist’s point of view? Isn’t it time we stopped accepting what men are
thinking
, and started listening to what women are
saying?
Consent is not a unilateral concept, Ladies and Gentlemen. It cuts both ways, requires agreement from both parties. What happened between Erica Barnowski and Douglas Phillips on the night of May thirteenth was decidedly
not
an act of consensual sex.
    “Erica Barnowski might be guilty of an error in judgment,” Jess said simply in conclusion. “Douglas Phillips is guilty of rape.”
    She returned to her seat, gently patted Erica Barnowski’s surprisingly warm hands. The young woman thanked her with a hint of a smile. “Well done,” Neil Strayhorn whispered. No such acknowledgments were forthcoming from the defense table, where Douglas Phillips and his lawyer, Rosemary Michaud, stared resolutely ahead.
    Rosemary Michaud was five years older than Jess but looked at least twice that. Her dark brown hair was pulled into a severe bun, and if she wore any makeup, it had been applied so subtly as to be invisible. Jess had always thought she resembled the stereotype of a maiden aunt, although this maiden aunt had been