The Disappearance (44 page)

“She called him her boyfriend?”

“Yeah. I mean, it was, you know—a joke.”

“But did you think she liked him?”

“Oh, yeah! She liked him, for sure. He’s a neat older guy, he’s on TV, he drives a cool car,” the girl rhapsodizes.

Luke steals a look at his client. Allison is looking down at the table, his head shaking imperceptibly, almost an involuntary reflex.

Logan continues, asking his witness, “So even though Emma talked about Joe Allison as her boyfriend in a joking manner, it felt to you like maybe she really believed it, too?”

“Objection, Your Honor.” Luke’s on his feet. “That’s a leading question. Calls for speculation.”

“Sustained,” Ewing agrees. “Rephrase your question, Counselor,” he instructs Logan.

Closing the file folder in which his notes are gathered, Logan asks Deanna, “Did Emma ever tell you that the defendant, Joe Allison, was her boyfriend, or that she was in some way involved with him beyond liking him, and his being someone who worked for her father?”

She nods her head, furrowing her brow as if to say are-you-kidding-me? “Oh, yeah.”

“What did she say?” Logan asks.

“She said he was her main man. That was the way she called him: ‘my main man.’ She said he wasn’t anything like the jerk boys in school.”

“What did she say he was like?” Logan asks, turning to the jury to make sure they’re paying attention. He sees, with satisfaction, that a few are even taking notes.

“She said he was a real man. Not a boy, a real man. She, like, emphasized that. Him being a ‘real man.’”

“Those were her exact words?” he says.

A final nod. “A real man.”

Luke wants Deanna off the stand and out of the jurors’ minds, so he only asks her a few specific questions.

“Did you ever get the impression that Emma didn’t want people to know about Mr. Allison picking her up after school?” he asks her. He’s treating this casually, to the point that he isn’t standing at the podium, he’s questioning her from his seat.

She squinches her eyes up, opens them. “No.”

“Did she ever say to you, ‘I don’t want my parents to know about this’?”

“No,” again.

“She was open and aboveboard about her being with Mr. Allison.”

“Uh-huh. Everybody saw him. Saw them leave together.”

“So you didn’t think she was sneaking around with him.”

“No.” The girl shakes her head. “She had a crush on him. Like, you know, she was fourteen.”

“Did you, like, have a crush on him, too, Deanna?” Luke asks, smiling at her.

She blushes. A quick eye-shift towards Allison, sitting stoically at the defense table next to Luke, then down at her shoes. “Uh-huh,” she murmurs.

“And some of the other girls. Did they have crushes on him?”

Another muttered uh-huh.

Judge Ewing’s clerk catches his eye. The judge leans down to Deanna. “Please speak up a bit, Miss Dalton. We’re having a hard time hearing you.”

“Yes,” she says, in a low but clearly audible voice.

“So wasn’t their being together like, you know, a fantasy trip on Emma’s part, rather than anything real going on between them?”

“I don’t know,” she says. “I mean, once they left school together, I don’t know what they did. She’d hint around that something was going on, but it was, like, maybe trying to be adult, you know what I mean?”

Looking miserable, Dr. Janet Lopez, the doctor from the Free Clinic who was consulted by Emma about her pregnancy, takes the oath and sits in the witness chair. She’s a reluctant witness for the prosecution, but not a hostile one.

Riva got the call the night before. Ray Logan had been playing hardball with the doctor, threatening to subpoena records and bring pressure on the clinic. The clinic, being a nonprofit organization, depends on the support of the community, especially rich people with social consciences. But even though their supporters are progressive, this case has violated their sense of propriety; their normal broad-minded attitudes have been suspended. In other words, the doctor had told Riva, if she didn’t testify, some of the clinic’s strongest supporters, many of them friends of Glenna Lancaster, might abandon them. The capper came when Glenna, who is now responsible for making these decisions, since her daughter is dead, personally told the doctor to come forward with whatever information she had.

Riva had commiserated with her. She was doing the right thing. A young girl was murdered. If the doctor’s testimony can shed light on who did it, then she shouldn’t think she’s violating her dead patient’s trust.

She’s testifying under duress, so Logan gets right to it. “Did Emma Lancaster come to your clinic for a pregnancy test?” he asks.

“Yes, she did,” Dr. Lopez answers.

“And did you administer one?”

“Yes, we did.”

“And what were the results?” he asks.

“They were positive. She was pregnant.”

Logan nods. The jury is paying close attention to this testimony. “Were you able to determine where she was in the pregnancy? How long had she been pregnant, Doctor?”

“About eleven weeks,” is the answer.

“She was three months pregnant,” he states, setting it in the time frame he wants the jury to be aware of.

“Almost three months,” she corrects him. “She was about two weeks shy of three months.”

“Did she look pregnant to you?” he asks. “Was she showing visibly?”

Dr. Lopez nods. “She was just beginning to. Her breasts were swelling, and there was some distension of her belly. If you didn’t know it, her looks wouldn’t strike you that she was.”

“If she had not been killed,” Logan says, “how soon would her condition have become noticeable to the casual observer?”

“Within a month.”

He nods. “Okay, let’s go on. When you told her she was pregnant,” Logan continues, “what was her reaction?”

“She was concerned, but—” She stops.

“But what?” he prompts her.

“But not as much as I would have thought,” she tells him.

“Why do you think that is?” he asks.

Dr. Lopez thinks for a moment. “She was a very composed girl, especially for someone her age. She seemed to take the news pretty much in stride.”

“Did she ask you if you could perform an abortion on her?” He looks at the jury after he asks the question. They’re poised and listening, every one of them.

“She asked what her options were,” the doctor answers deliberately.

“Her options. Such as having the baby and giving it up for adoption, for instance?”

“That is one option I presented to her.”

“What were the others?”

“Terminating the pregnancy was also an option she was informed of.”

“Having an abortion,” Logan says plainly.

“Yes.”

“Do you perform abortions in your clinic, Dr. Lopez?”

“We do abortions, yes.” She’s visibly ill at ease.

“What conditions do you place on performing abortions at your clinic, Doctor?”

She rearranges herself in the chair. “The patient has to be in good general health,” she states. “She has to be fully informed, and conscious of the ramifications of her decision.” She pauses. “She cannot be pregnant beyond the first trimester,” the doctor concludes.

“What about age? Are there any age restrictions on performing an abortion on a patient?” he asks.

She demurs. “No. There are no age restrictions. As long as the patient is healthy, and knows what she wants, there aren’t any age restrictions.” She stops.

“No matter how young a patient might be?”

“Age is not a restriction,” she repeats.

“So you—your clinic—would perform an abortion on a fourteen-year-old girl if she was healthy and wanted one, wouldn’t you?” He’s coming on stronger than he wanted to, despite his desire to stay cool. He takes a deep breath, forces himself to relax, be friendly towards her. She is his witness, he doesn’t want her clamming up on him.

“Yes, we would.” She takes a beat. “We have.”

He nods. “And when you perform these abortions, do you tell the girl’s parents?”

She shakes her head emphatically. “Not unless the patient wants us to. Everything we do is in complete confidentiality.”

“A fourteen-year-old girl can have an abortion in your clinic and you don’t tell her parents?” Logan asks, seemingly disbelieving.

Luke is on his feet. “Objection, Your Honor!” he calls out sharply. “Counsel is well aware of the law in this case. He’s pandering to the jury, inflaming the issue.”

“Your Honor—”

Ewing guns Logan down. “Sustained,” he says sharply. He turns to the jury. “Parental consent is not obligatory for termination of pregnancy in the state of California,” he explains to them. “The prosecution knows that,” he says, glaring at Logan. He pauses for a moment, then explains his action and amplifies their understanding of the law, something he rarely does. “Many young, pregnant girls come from abusive situations,” he explains. “If these unfortunate girls, already in distress, were compelled by law to inform their parents of their pregnancy, an unfortunate situation could be made even worse. This problem has gone back and forth in our courts, and the supreme court of the state has ruled this way, and that’s the law.” He leans forward, towards the jury box. “You are to forget that you heard that question,” he tells the twelve men and women. “Strike it from your minds. It has nothing to do with this trial, or your deliberations.” Turning away to Logan, “You may proceed,” he says coldly—he’s pissed off and he wants Logan to know it, and he wants everyone in the courtroom to know it. “But no more inciting questions like that one, or I’ll hold you in contempt. Are we in agreement?”

“We are, Your Honor,” Logan says quickly. “I certainly didn’t mean to incite the court.”

“Then don’t” is the brusque reply.

In subtle ways, Luke thinks, this judge wants me to do well. Ewing isn’t trying to tip the scales, but he doesn’t want Luke to be streamrollered, either. All the good he’d done in the past, doing the county’s work, is, in an unknown, unfathomable, but real way, a force in this trial.

Logan has turned his focus to the stand again. “Three months is the end of the first trimester, isn’t it, Dr. Lopez?”

“Yes, it is.”

“So if Emma Lancaster had wanted to have an abortion in your clinic, she would have had to do it right away, from the time you told her.”

Dr. Lopez nods. “Two weeks, that was the timeline.”

“So it was urgent that she make her mind up in a hurry,” he says.

“Emma had already made her mind up. She was going to have an abortion.”

Luke surveys the jurors. They’re listening intently. Some look like they are not drawing breath.

Logan shakes his head slowly, up and down. “She was going to have an abortion,” he repeats. “Was she going to tell her parents?” he asks. “Did she discuss that with you?”

“We discussed it,” the doctor admits. She looks at him squarely. “She wasn’t going to tell them.”

All eyes seem to pivot to the same direction: towards Doug Lancaster, now again sitting a few rows from the front of the prosecution side of the aisle, and Glenna Lancaster, all the way in the last row.

Doug’s head is buried in his hands, his shoulders slumped over. Hampshire, his lawyer, has a comforting arm around Doug’s shoulders, which are shaking visibly. If he’s making a sound, he’s muffling it with his fist and sleeve.

Glenna is completely still. Eyes ahead, staring in the direction of the witness, but not seeing her. Not seeing anything specifically, it feels like. Just being there. Her body present, her mind who knows where?

They shouldn’t be here, Luke thinks. Especially Glenna, the mother. But she cannot do otherwise. She comes because this is all there is to her life now, and even pain, as tormenting as it might be, is better than nothingness.

Logan continues with his questioning. “When was Emma planning on having the abortion?” he asks.

“The following Friday. She was going to come to the clinic after school and have it performed that afternoon. That way, she’d have the weekend to recover.”

“Did she say how she was going to get there? Or more important, how she was going to get home afterwards? You wouldn’t let her leave without a proper escort, would you?”

Lopez nods in agreement. “No, we wouldn’t.” She pauses. “I told her I’d drive her home, if she couldn’t get anyone else she could trust.”

“It wasn’t going to be her mother. Or father. I want to be clear on that.”

She agrees. “It wasn’t. She did not want them to know.”

Logan pauses for a moment. “Did she ever tell you who the father was, Dr. Lopez? Of her unborn child?”

A vigorous shaking of the head, the woman’s dark, wavy curls rustling up in the air. “No. She never said a man’s name.”

“Did she make any reference to him at all? Who it might be?”

If the courtroom was quiet before, now it’s dead still. Dr. Lopez answers carefully. “She didn’t say anything … precisely. The closest she came to anything about who he was … um … he may have been an adult. An older man. But I got that indirectly, so I’m not sure.”

“Was she going to tell him? The father? Did she say anything about that?”

A slow nod. “Yes. She was going to tell him.”

“But she hadn’t yet.”

“She’d just found out herself,” the doctor points out.

“Yes, right. So she had just found out she was pregnant, and she wanted to tell the father that she was pregnant and that she was going to have an abortion. Is that correct?”

Another nod. “Yes.”

“Before or after?” he asks. “Do you know if she was going to tell him about being pregnant before or after the abortion was performed in your clinic?”

That’s a cheap shot, Luke thinks. He’s the only one in the courtroom who feels that way, though.

“She was going to tell him before the procedure was done.”

“I see.” Logan looks away from her, towards the defense table. The jury, which had been pivoting their looks back and forth between him and the witness, like spectators at a tennis match, follow his look directly to Joe Allison.

The D.A. turns back to the doctor. “How soon before Emma Lancaster was abducted from her bedroom did you tell her about her test being positive for pregnancy?” he inquires.