Silent Witness (43 page)

‘Did Marcie tell you, Dr. Cox,
why
secrecy was so important?'

Nora Cox seemed to inhale. In a chastened voice, she answered, ‘Only that he was married.'

Watching, Tony felt each new piece that Cox provided draw the jury in. The store owner scowled; the beautician – a blond, chatty type whom Tony had watched strike up several friendships during jury selection – gazed at the Calders with open sympathy. Across the courtroom, Sue's eyes looked dead.

‘What did you do then?' Marz asked Cox.

Cox drew a breath. ‘I fitted her for a diaphragm and said I hoped she'd tell her mother.'

‘What was her reply?'

Cox studied her hands. ‘To ask – no, beg –
me
not to tell her parents.'

‘To which you said . . .'

‘That I was
her
doctor, and wouldn't. And then, because she seemed so frightened, I asked what she meant to say when her parents got the bill for her deductible and asked why she'd come to me.' Her voice was soft again. ‘Marcie was so naive, so scared, that she'd never thought of that.' Cox paused a moment, looking down. ‘It was like she was visiting the tooth fairy.'

In seeming compassion, Stella paused. ‘What did you do?'

‘What I'd thought of doing was just to send the bill and let her parents figure it out. It was clear to me that Marcie was in a bad situation, way over her head, and needed the help of an adult. Other than the man who'd taken her virginity.'

Stella stepped closer. Softly, she inquired, ‘Did you ask if Marcie
had
such a person?' and Tony saw how well the prosecutor had anticipated him.

‘Yes.' Now Cox looked at her steadily. ‘Marcie said she had someone else to confide in. Another adult.'

‘Did she tell you who?'

Slowly, Cox shook her head. ‘Only that he was like a counselor, someone she'd known for a long time. I made Marcie promise that she'd talk to him.'

‘Did you say anything else?'

For a moment, watching the Calders, Nora Cox did not answer. Then her gaze broke, and she touched her eyes. ‘That if Marcie promised, I wouldn't send her parents a bill.'

In the jury box, the beautician's lips parted. Still watching her witness, Stella Marz asked Karoly for a ten-minute recess.

Down the corridor, Sue Robb and her children looked lost; they stood together, isolated, speaking little. Huddling with Tony and Saul, Sam Robb seemed muted. ‘I'm sorry,' he said to Tony. ‘You can't be objecting all the time. It would only make this worse.'

For the first time, Saul looked at their client with something like tolerance. ‘Nothing Tony could do about the real problem. Marcie wasn't screwing around with Ernie – she was faithfully carrying out a promise to her doctor, like the honest girl she was.' He turned to Tony. ‘Stella's seen us coming.'

Tony shrugged. ‘There's no wind so ill,' he said for Sam's sake, ‘that it doesn't blow a little bit of good.' But he could not help wishing that he were home in San Francisco or, even better, that he believed his friend and client innocent.

When Nora Cox resumed the stand, Tony's mood lingered.

Cox had regained composure. With Stella's help, she began to paint a picture of Marcie's last visit, on the last day of her life. So accustomed was Tony to imagining Marcie Calder that, as Cox spoke, he saw a slender, dark-haired girl, solitary and frightened, sitting on an examining table. Tears ran down her face.

‘It's only a home pregnancy test,' Cox said gently. ‘But for positives, it's close to a hundred percent.'

Marcie's voice was light, less that of a woman than a girl. ‘But you think I'm having a baby.'

Cox sat next to her. ‘You've thrown up the last three mornings, Marcie. And this HPT is quite reliable.' She took her hand. ‘Your period is two weeks late. The timing works out with the broken condom.'

Marcie folded her arms, as if she were cold. The examining gown she wore made the crinkling sound of crumpled gift wrap.

‘Let's think together,' Cox said softly. ‘In case you are.'

Marcie blinked back her tears. ‘There's nothing to think about,' she said. ‘I'm a mother, that's all.'

It sounded so absolute, and so pitiful, that Nora Cox shook her head. ‘Teenage pregnancies are
hard
, Marcie. You may see this as the beginning of a life, but it may be the effective
end
of yours. You
do
have choices . . .'

‘
No
.' Marcie's voice turned stubborn. ‘I can't do that.'

‘You can.' In her despair for this girl, one of the first patients she had ever had, Nora Cox left behind her role as doctor. ‘Marcie,
listen
to me. When I was in medical school, I became pregnant. The whole thing was just impossible.' Cox paused, softening her voice. ‘The father was a teacher I admired, a surgeon. He was married. To have his baby might have damaged his career and maybe ended mine – worse, it might have destroyed his marriage. Your situation is that much worse.'

Tearless now, Marcie shook her head. ‘I'm Catholic, Dr. Cox.'

‘So was I.'

For some reason, Marcie's fingers curled into Nora Cox's. ‘Do you ever think about it?'

Cox understood the subtext of the question: that the doctor, recently married to an older man with grown children, had no children of her own. It made her quiet for a time. ‘Yes,' she answered. ‘But I still think I was right.'

Marcie gazed into her eyes with a look of precocity and insight that, in Cox's mood, took her by surprise. ‘I'm sorry,' Marcie answered. ‘But I don't think you were.'

Gently, Nora Cox released Marcie's hand, pulling back a little. To make this child face reality, she said in her most clinical voice, ‘There's adoption, I suppose.'

Marcie blinked. Watching the girl's lips tremble, Cox saw with pity and sadness how wholly unprepared she was. Softly, she asked, ‘Does
he
know how worried you've been?'

Marcie shook her head, unable to speak.

‘Then maybe it's time,' Cox told her, ‘to turn to your parents. Sometimes families are best when things look worst. I know your mother, and I know how much she loves you.'

Rocking forward, Marcie looked down, writhing in apparent anguish. ‘I can't tell my father, ever. I just can't.'

Cox was quiet for a moment. ‘Then there's only one way out, isn't there?' She took Marcie's hand again. ‘If you change your mind, I'll help you. And find you counseling afterward.'

Marcie leaned against her. ‘I can't,' she said at last.

‘Then what will you do?'

Marcie shook her head. ‘I don't know. Only that I have to tell him, right away.'

‘The father?'

‘Yes.'

‘And you think he can help you?'

‘No.' Suddenly Marcie's voice was cool and clear. ‘I have to warn him.'

Once more, Nora Cox was surprised. ‘Because he's married?'

Tears came to Marcie's eyes again. ‘God,' she murmured. ‘It's so much worse than that . . .'

Cox put an arm around her. ‘What could be worse?'

Marcie did not answer. Gently, she disengaged, and began to take her blue jeans off the hook.

The paper gown dropped to the floor; Marcie looked so slim that Cox saw, or perhaps imagined, the first slight swelling of her belly.

Naked, Marcie looked at her own body. ‘Please . . . don't tell them.'

She had nearly resolved to do so, Nora Cox realized. But all that she said was, ‘The lab results won't be back for a day or so.'

When Marcie squared her shoulders, Nora Cox's heart went out to her.

‘I'll tell him tonight,' Marcie answered.

After lunch, Tony commenced his cross-examination.

It was delicate: Cox was a sympathetic witness and, at this point, the jury would have no sympathy for Sam Robb. The challenge for Tony was to do his job without exciting more dislike.

He began casually, hands in his pockets, keeping his tone mild. ‘As I recall, Dr. Cox, you knew Marcie Calder for roughly twelve years. How would you describe her?'

Cox hesitated. ‘Polite, quiet. Thoughtful, I would say.'

Tony nodded, adding a pause of his own; the trick was to make each new question seem spontaneous, creating the illusion that he and the jury were discovering things together. ‘Did Marcie strike you as a girl who kept things inside?'

Cox frowned. ‘It would only be an impression.'

‘But from what you saw . . .'

Cox considered him, pensive. ‘Well,' she answered, ‘she was certainly guarded about this sexual experience.'

Tony placed a finger to his lips. ‘With respect to her pregnancy, she was also very frightened, wasn't she?'

‘Yes.'

‘And alone?'

Reluctantly, Cox nodded. ‘So it seemed.' For the first time, the doctor sounded defensive. ‘That was the only reason I shared with her what I did – my own experience.'

But not, Tony thought to himself, the reason you shared this conversation with the jury. That was something Tony, the lapsed Catholic, thought he understood: a public act of penance from a woman steeped in guilt – perhaps from her own past, certainly for Marcie Calder's death – in the hope that Marcie's parents would forgive her. It made his task that much more difficult.

‘But she rejected even the thought of an abortion, is that correct?'

Cox gave him a brief, puzzled look, as if certain that her answer could only hurt Sam Robb. ‘That's right – she did.'

‘And she also told you that she couldn't ever imagine telling her father. In fact, she seemed afraid of him.'

Cox gave the Calders a brief glance of apology. ‘With respect to being pregnant, yes. But that's not so surprising.'

Cox seemed distracted by her own remorse, Tony thought. But, in one or two questions, she would see where he was headed. ‘When you mentioned adoption,' he asked, ‘how would you describe Marcie's reaction?'

Cox looked down. ‘It was as I said: she seemed completely unprepared to have this baby. I don't think she'd had time to consider the reality of it.'

‘So when you asked her to consider taking the baby to term, she seemed frightened by that too?'

‘Yes.'

To his side, Tony saw Stella Marz lean forward with a new attentiveness. Softly, he said, ‘Let me try to summarize Marcie's state of mind as you perceived it. She was opposed to an abortion, afraid to tell her father, unprepared to have a baby, and isolated from adult guidance. Is that correct?'

Cox's eyes were cool now. ‘Yes. Essentially.'

‘Did she suggest what she thought her choices came down to?'

‘No.' Cox's tone hardened. ‘Except to tell this man.'

Tony tilted his head. ‘What about marriage?'

Cox glanced at Sam Robb. ‘The man
was
married, Mr. Lord.'

‘Did Marcie suggest to you, one way or the other, whether she'd considered the idea of marrying this man herself?'

Cox's eyes flew open. ‘She said that her pregnancy could ruin him. . . .'

‘But did she, in words or substance, rule out the idea that this unknown man – or
some
man – could marry her?'

‘Objection,' Stella said. ‘There's no foundation for this question. How can this witness know what Marcie Calder thought about an option that Marcie never mentioned?'

‘That's precisely the point,' Tony said to Karoly. ‘It's an open question.'

Judge Karoly pursed his mouth. He had a gift, Tony was beginning to notice, for making his job look harder than it was, and he did not seem in command. Turning to Cox, Karoly said at last, ‘You may answer.'

Cox gave a shrug of irritation. ‘I don't know what – if anything – Marcie was thinking about marriage. . . .'

‘Or how her emotional state might be affected were that option later foreclosed to her?'

Cox folded her arms. ‘I have no reason to believe that Marcie thought it
was
an option.'

Tony did not argue with her. ‘But she was frightened.'

‘Yes.'

Tony moved a step closer. More quietly, he asked, ‘And lost?'

He felt the jury watch him now. Stella was up quickly. ‘The question is hopelessly vague, Your Honor. What does “lost” mean?'

Tony turned to Stella. ‘Oh, I think Dr. Cox knows. But I can ask it another way.' Turning to Cox, he asked, ‘Have you ever had a patient who committed suicide?'

Stella stood at once. ‘Objection,' she snapped. ‘Irrelevant.'

‘Hardly,' Tony said to Karoly. ‘This goes to the heart of our defense.'

Slowly, Karoly nodded. ‘You may answer,' he told Cox.

Cox's face had set. ‘If you're suggesting –'

‘Just answer the question,' Tony cut in. ‘Please.'

Cox gave him a trapped look. ‘Yes. I have had. As I guess you know.'

Tony nodded. ‘For the jury's benefit, how many patients does this involve?'

‘Two.'

‘Two teenage girls, to be precise. Fifteen and sixteen.'

Cox grimaced. ‘Yes.'

‘Do you have any idea why they killed themselves?'

‘Only what I read in the papers. Unfortunately.'

Tony tilted his head. ‘Is it true that you saw one of the girls, Beverly Snowden, roughly three weeks before her death?'

‘Yes.' Cox made her voice even now. ‘But I had no idea. In fact, she seemed quite normal.'