Immoral (23 page)

“That’s what I’m going to show you in this trial. Facts. Evidence. Blood and fibers that don’t lie. My job is to lay out those facts for you, to show you what we found.

“Now, the defense has a different job in this case,” Erickson told the jury. “They need you to overlook the facts, or to find wildly improbable explanations for them. Mr. Gale there, he’s a showman, kind of like one of those magicians you see in Las Vegas. Magicians are talented people. They can dazzle an audience and pretend to levitate a beautiful girl right before your eyes. In fact, a good magician can be so convincing, you might even be tempted to believe that the girl really is hovering above the stage. But you know and I know it’s nothing but a trick. An illusion.”

He locked eyes with each juror, his face turning serious.

“Don’t be fooled. Don’t be tricked into giving up your common sense. Mr. Gale’s going to try his magic out on you, but I want you to look at the physical evidence of this case. And you will see that the evidence leads you to one explanation only—that on that terrible night when Rachel disappeared, Graeme Stoner’s obsessive relationship with his stepdaughter finally crossed the line into violence and murder. We may never know exactly what happened between them, or why. But an incestuous relationship is so ripe with evil that it can literally explode at any time. No one may have been there that night to see how the violence came about. But it happened. That’s what the evidence will show you. It happened.”

Archibald Gale stood up, taking off his glasses and depositing them carefully on the defense table. He looked down at Graeme Stoner, smiled, then turned his attention to the jurors. Gale wandered closer, patting all of his pockets, as if looking for something.

“You know, I was hoping to surprise you by pulling a rabbit out of my pocket, but I seem to have left all my magic tricks back at Caesars Palace.”

The crowd in the courtroom tittered, as did several of the jurors. Gale’s eyes twinkled.

He rubbed his graying goatee, then slowly let his eyes travel around the courtroom. Gale had a flair for creating suspense. It didn’t really matter what the facts were. What mattered was who told the most convincing story to the jury. With his commanding size and talent for drama, Gale was a natural.

“I have been in this courtroom many, many times over the past few decades,” he began softly. “We have had some very newsworthy trials take place here. But I don’t recall ever seeing such a crowd and such intense interest in a trial before today. Why do you suppose that is?”

He let the jurors think for a moment.

“Because what we have here is a mystery. Everyone wants to know how the last chapter ends. A girl has vanished. What happened to her? Did someone do violence to her, or did she run away, like tens of thousands of unhappy teenagers do each year? If something did happen to her, what was it? And why? Was it really the fault of her stepfather, as the prosecutor contends? Or did one of the other people in Rachel’s life, who had reason to be angry and jealous of her, let their emotions become violent? Or did a brutal serial killer, who is still at large in our city, claim another victim?”

Gale nodded thoughtfully.

“I’d like to promise that when we’re done here, you’ll know what happened to Rachel. But you won’t. Because we don’t know. Graeme Stoner doesn’t know. And neither does Mr. Erickson. All you’ll end up with is questions and doubts. But that’s all right. You may want to find the truth yourself, but it isn’t your job in this courtroom to pick an ending to a mystery story.”

He cocked his head. “Yes, I know what you may be thinking. There he goes again. The magician. Isn’t that what the prosecutor told you to watch out for? That I’d be twisting his nice little facts and trying to make you go off on some improbable flight of fancy? Well, no, I’m not asking you to take my word. The difference is that Mr. Erickson plans to show you
some
of the facts, and I want to make sure you see
all
of the facts. When you do, you’ll realize that Graeme Stoner is innocent of the crime of murder, and you’ll send a message to the police that they need to go back and find out what really happened to this strange, unhappy girl.”

Gale leaned over and grabbed the railing of the jury box. “Mr. Erickson says you should pay attention to the evidence. I agree. I want you to watch the evidence closely, so you can see what the prosecution isn’t telling you.

“They’re not telling you that Graeme was in his van with Rachel on the night she disappeared. Because they have no evidence that he was.

“They’re not telling you that the Stoners’ van was at the barn on the night Rachel disappeared. Because they have no evidence that it was.

“They’re not telling you that they know Rachel is dead. Because they don’t.

“They’re not telling you that they can prove Graeme Stoner was having sex with his stepdaughter. Because they can’t.

“Instead, they want you to make a leap. They’re going to give you little unrelated facts and stitch them together to try to make you believe what they can’t prove. That’s not evidence, circumstantial or otherwise. That’s fiction. That’s guesswork.”

Stride felt his insides go soft. Bang bang bang, Gale was punching at the weaknesses in their case. Of course, he was right. They really couldn’t prove any of those things. All they could do was lay out the pieces of the puzzle and hope the jury was smart enough to put it together.

“But there’s more,” Gale continued. “You’ll also see that the prosecution, in its zeal to package a neat ending to the mystery, has ignored many other possible solutions. I’m afraid that Mr. Erickson is the kind of man who would find a lot of parts left over after he put his engine back together and conclude they must not be very important.”

He winked at the jury, then grinned at Dan.

“Let’s look at a few of those extra parts,” Gale said. “Another teenage girl named Kerry McGrath, who lived within a couple miles of Rachel and who went to her school, disappeared the year before Rachel did. She, too, has never been found. The circumstances of her disappearance are remarkably similar to Rachel’s. The police know that Graeme Stoner had nothing to do with Kerry McGrath’s disappearance, and yet they ignore the grim possibility that a serial killer could be stalking the young girls of this city.

“Extra parts. On the night she disappeared, Rachel was behaving strangely. Why? Did she know something? Was she meeting someone? Was she planning to run away?

“Extra parts. Who else was with Rachel on the night she disappeared? Who else had reason to be happy if she vanished forever?

“Extra parts. What was the real source of Rachel’s unhappiness? Was it her relationship with her stepfather? No. It was the miserable, bitter,
violent
relationship she had with her mother. Remember that word. Violent.”

Stride glanced at Emily and saw a tear slip from her eye. She looked down at her lap, weeping silently.

Gale continued. “Questions and doubts. You’ll have many at the end of the trial. But there will be no question, and no doubt in your minds, as to the right action for you to take. And that is to find my client not guilty of the crime of which he has been wrongfully accused.”

Gale held the stares of the jurors for a few long seconds. Then he returned to the defense table and sat down.

Stride examined the jurors’ faces. He figured it was a tie ball game heading into the first inning.

Batter up.

Stride took his place in the witness stand. He had done so hundreds of times before, so many that the chair felt familiar, as if he had worn an impression in it so it clung to his body. He made eye contact with the jurors.

Duluth jurors believed the police. He saw it in their eyes. This wasn’t an urban jury pool, where the citizens felt the police were sometimes an enemy. He saw them studying his craggy features, the strands of gray in his dark hair and his sturdy physique, and concluding they could trust him.

Dan took him through introductions and allowed Stride to talk about his history on the force, his years of experience, his expertise on crimes and crime scenes. Only after the jury had gotten to know him did Dan begin to talk about Rachel. Stride explained how he had first been notified of the girl’s disappearance and then, step by step, led the jury through a reconstruction of the evidence from Rachel’s last night.

He described the bank video showing Rachel’s car gliding by shortly after ten o’clock. Dan played the video for the jury. Then he held up a grainy, enlarged photograph, showing a girl’s face behind the wheel. Despite the blurry image, everyone could see it was Rachel. She was smiling. She looked happy.

It was the last image, Dan reminded the jury, that anyone ever saw of Rachel Deese.

“Lieutenant, what is Rachel wearing in this photograph?”

“A white turtleneck,” Stride said.

Dan returned to the prosecution’s table and retrieved an exhibit—a receipt neatly packaged in a plastic bag. “Can you identify this item?”

Stride nodded. “It’s a receipt found in a Gap bag found on the floor in Rachel’s bedroom. We discovered it during our initial investigation.”

“What is the receipt for?”

“It’s for an item of clothing sold the Sunday prior to Rachel’s disappearance. A white Gap-brand turtleneck.”

“Did you find any white turtleneck during your search of Rachel’s bedroom?”

“No, we did not.”

Dan nodded thoughtfully. “Lieutenant, please tell us how you and your officers conducted a search for Rachel.”

“We mounted an immediate and exhaustive statewide and region-wide search. My officers interviewed all neighbors within twelve blocks around the Stoner house. We checked the bus station, the airport, the train station, and all taxi companies in both Duluth and Superior. Throughout the state, police checked every service station and convenience store along the major highways, distributing Rachel’s photograph and interviewing clerks. We posted a notice on our Web site and faxed information to police across the country. These efforts generated hundreds of leads, which were methodically researched by our officers and our fellow officers in other states. We had excellent photographs of Rachel to use with witnesses. We conducted literally thousands of interviews. Nonetheless, we did not receive a single verified sighting of Rachel after the videotape at the bank. Not one. Not anywhere.”

“What conclusion did you draw from this?” Dan asked.

“We began to discount the possibility that Rachel had run away. No one had seen her alive since that Friday night. Plus, we were doubtful from the beginning that Rachel would have run away and left her car at home. It seemed highly unusual to us that a teenager with a car would leave her sole means of transportation behind her. And as I said, we covered all possible means of public transportation and found no evidence that she had used any of them.”

“Did you consider the possibility that she had been abducted by a stranger?”

Stride nodded. “We interviewed all known sex offenders within a hundred-mile radius of the city. We investigated several who could not provide definite alibis for Friday night. There was no evidence that they were anywhere near Duluth. No one recognized their photographs or their vehicles in the area surrounding Rachel’s house.”

“Are there other elements of the crime that, in your experience, are inconsistent with a stranger abduction?” Dan asked.

“Yes. Virtually all stranger abductions occur in rural or isolated areas. Country roads, for example. It’s highly unusual for a girl to be taken off a city street near her home. Most sexual predators don’t want to risk identification by waiting in a populated area or abducting someone where their screams and resistance could attract attention from neighbors. Instead, they commit crimes of opportunity. A lonely road. An unfortunate victim. Since we know Rachel made it home that night—her car was parked outside—we know she was in a well-traveled neighborhood.”

Dan returned to the prosecutor’s table long enough to take a drink of water. He didn’t want to rush the jury. Stride was presenting a complex scenario, and it was important that the jury follow the chain of evidence and conclusions.

“Eventually, did you find further evidence of what happened to Rachel?” he asked.

“We did.”

Stride described the tip from Heather Hubble that led to the discovery of Rachel’s bracelet and the search of the area near the barn where it had been found.

“As a result of that search, did you find other evidence that Rachel had been at this location?”

“Yes. We uncovered a scrap of white cloth with dark stains on it. The stains appeared to be blood.”

Again Dan produced the evidence and introduced it. “Why was this discovery significant?” Dan asked.

“We believed that Rachel was wearing a white turtleneck that she had purchased the weekend before on the night she disappeared. The cloth matched the general characteristics of the turtleneck. We forwarded it to the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension in Minneapolis for analysis.”

Dan didn’t pursue any more questions about the turtleneck. Immediately after Stride, Charles Yee—Dr. Unshakable, as he was known in the Minnesota criminal court system—would take the stand to begin putting the forensics pieces in the puzzle. Yee had compared the cloth to another turtleneck from the same manufacturer and concluded that it was consistent with the brand and style of turtleneck Rachel was wearing, and the bloodstains would be linked to her by DNA matching.

“At that point, Lieutenant, did the nature of your search change?” Dan asked.

“Yes. We concluded that Rachel was dead and began searching for a body.”

“But you didn’t find a body, did you?”

Stride shook his head. “No, we searched miles and miles of forest surrounding the barn. We used both police and volunteers to go yard by yard through a precise grid. Unfortunately, there are simply too many places to hide a body up here.”

“Nonetheless, are you firmly convinced that Rachel is dead?” Dan asked.

“Objection,” Gale called. “The witness has no direct knowledge of whether this girl is dead or alive.”