The Disappearance

by J. F. Freedman

  “That’s fine by me,” Williams agrees. “I don’t want to blow this conviction on a technicality.”

  Logan says, “Good.” A moment’s thought, then he goes on. “What’s happening with Garrison’s shooting? Anything? Any leads?”

  Williams shakes his head. “Nothing. It’s frustrating.”

  Logan’s tight-lipped. “It looks like we’re stonewalling. Punishing him.”

  “No.” Williams is adamant. “I want to know who it was, more than anyone.” He pauses. “You know, Luke’s on the other side now, but he and I made a lot of cases together. The man’s a standup guy. I don’t like the idea of some vigilante madman out there trying to take him out.”

  “No more surprises, okay?” Logan stands, concluding the meeting.

  “All we can do is our best,” the sheriff says.

  The call comes to the house at 10:30 that night. “I hope I’m not waking you up,” Judge Ewing says to Luke, “but I assumed you’d want to know as soon as I made my decision. It’s a three-way call. Ray Logan’s on the other line, listening.”

  “I haven’t been to bed this early since grade school,” Luke tells the judge. “And I do want to hear, of course.”

  “I’m denying your motion.”

  The receiver feels hot in his hand. He was expecting this; he couldn’t get his hopes up so high as to think Ewing would, in essence, throw the case out. But still, it’s an empty feeling in his gut.

  He finds his voice. “Well, thanks for calling so promptly, Judge.”

  “It was a close call,” Ewing says, both defending his decision and assuaging Luke’s feelings. “But it isn’t conclusive. In a situation like this, there has to be no doubt. You understand.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “I’ll announce it tomorrow morning, before we begin jury selection,” Ewing says. “You can file an exception, of course.”

  “I’ll think about that.” The guy’s almost telling him out loud to protest. Let a higher court reverse, if they see fit. He must have spent some troubled time figuring out how to play this, Luke thinks. He wonders what Logan’s thinking, listening to this.

  He didn’t expect to win. Outside of that, this is as good as he can get. Not a victory, but a notch on the wall.

  “I’ll see you in the courtroom tomorrow,” Ewing says, signing off. There’s a momentary silence. “Good luck, Luke.” The phone goes dead.

  “That was Judge Ewing,” Luke tells Riva, who’s been listening to his end of the conversation. “He turned us down.”

  She’s in her nightgown. Her hair is up, her face is clean of makeup. She looks young, innocent, he thinks, gazing at her as she’s curled up on the couch. She looks beautiful. She isn’t showing yet, but she will, soon. He’s looking forward to it. “You should be going to sleep,” he says. “You need your rest.”

  “I’m fine.” She smiles. “You’re going to take care of me now?”

  “Of course. I’m the father of our child.” Our child. The words have a magical ring to them. “Do you think we should …” The magnitude of it hits him all at once.

  “We should what?” she asks.

  “You know.” He can’t say it. He never thought he’d ever say it again, or even think it.

  “What?” She’s smiling at him, her face screwed up in a question.

  He feels like a prime doofus. “Get married,” he stammers.

  Her jaw drops. “Get married? Are you serious?” She sits up.

  He comes over, sits next to her. “Well, I don’t know. Isn’t that what people do when they get pregnant?”

  She stares at him. “What for?”

  “So the kid won’t be a bastard. So …” He’s at a loss.

  “Nobody cares about that,” she says. “What do you think, my father’s going to lay a shotgun upside your noggin?”

  “I’ve never even met your father. We’ve never even talked about him.”

  “And we never will.” Her smile has faded.

  “You’ve never mentioned your parents. I don’t even know if they’re alive,” he says.

  “My mother died when I was young,” she informs him. “My father might as well have. I haven’t seen him in years, since I was old enough to get away.”

  He looks at her. “You’ve never talked about any brothers or sisters, either.”

  “I don’t have any. My life started at seventeen, Luke,” she says with finality, closing the subject. “Before that, that was another life.”

  “Okay.” Maybe later. He isn’t going to push it now. He reaches his arm out. She nestles against his body. “I’m your family. Me and Bubba here,” he says, patting her stomach. It’s just beginning to protrude—now that he knows, he can feel the difference.

  “If that’s what you want.” She seems shy suddenly.

  “It’s what I want, Riva.” He pulls her closer. “It’s going to make all this so much better.”

  Eight in the morning. The courtroom is empty except for the principals. The court clerk hands copies of Judge Ewing’s decision to the prosecution and defense tables. Luke already went over to the jail at six to deliver the news.

  “Don’t be down about this,” he told his client. “The judge had no choice. We got what I wanted.”

  “What was that?”

  “Their attention.”

  “In the motion under section 1538.5, the court denies defendant’s motion,” Ewing says in a flat voice. “However,” he continues, turning his look to Logan’s table, a look of I don’t like being fucked with: “I am strongly admonishing the prosecution regarding the withholding of evidence. Any more such incidents and the court will hold you in contempt. Do I make myself clear?”

  Ray Logan gets up, the color in his face rising. “Yes, Your Honor. This was not intentional, I assure you. We have no intention of—”

  Ewing swings his gavel hard, silencing Logan. “Intentional or not, I don’t care,” he says sternly. He’s giving Luke everything he can short of a victory. “Don’t do it.”

  “Yes, Your Honor.” Logan stands in place like a chagrined schoolboy.

  Ewing turns to the clerk. “Bring in the first group.”

  The jury selection process is excruciatingly slow. Glaciers move faster. Because of technicalities and legal objections from both sides, more than half the candidates have to be privately examined in Judge Ewing’s chambers, and that slows things down even more.

  More than anything, what makes selection go so slowly is that this is a capital crime, which means the death penalty is an option. And that means that the jury has to be death-penalty qualified. Every potential juror has to be asked, in specific detail, about his or her attitudes about capital punishment, for or against. Any jury candidate who stipulates that he can’t vote to send anyone, regardless of the circumstances of a crime, to his or her death, is automatically excluded from the jury pool.

  When Luke was on the other side, he loved picking these juries, because anyone who’s willing to approve of a death sentence is more likely to convict; it’s human nature, and the statistics bear it out. A defense lawyer already has one strike against him going in on a death-penalty case, Luke always figured.

  Now he’s that defense lawyer. So he has to fight like hell to find jurors who can convict, but aren’t knee-jerk about it. A tough proposition. By the end of the first week, only five jurors have been accepted, while one hundred nine were rejected. Luke’s had to use only four of his twenty peremptory challenges; the prosecution’s used six. So many people have been disqualified for cause by Judge Ewing that the process starts to become a joke in the corridors outside—the trial that will never take place because of the jury that will never be impaneled.

  Friday is the court’s dark day. On Thursday afternoon, during the midafternoon recess, Ewing, clearly frustrated by the lack of progress, meets with the lawyers in his chambers. “We’re moving too slowly,” he says, showing his irritation. “It’s partly my doing, although you guys are taking way too much time with some of t
hese jurors. Come Monday, I’m going to start moving things through faster, so if there are any potential jurors still on the current list that you really think you don’t want, save your objections for them. I don’t want to bring in another two hundred prospective jurors—there aren’t any. The jury’s going to come from this group, and I won’t keep trying to get jurors that both sides think are perfect.”

  True to his word, Judge Ewing is brisk to the point of curtness on Monday morning. Five more jurors are selected Monday, and two on Tuesday makes twelve. Ewing wants at least four alternates, to be extra careful, although the most jurors he’s ever lost on a panel are three. This isn’t going to be an O. J. deal, with jurors dropping like flies for any trivial reason. This train is going to run on time.

  Three alternates come on board Wednesday, and by the time Ewing recesses at the end of the day on Thursday two more are set. Twelve jurors, five alternates. More than enough.

  It’s a multiethnic jury, six men, six women. Seven anglos, three Latinos, one black, one Chinese-American. Luke isn’t crazy about this jury. If he were prosecuting this case instead of defending it, he’d be happy with the group—but there are a few members he thinks he can work. It’ll be interesting to see how they react when they discover the myriad sexual transgressions the family members were involved in. If they can stomach those and still see the forest for the trees, which is that a girl was kidnapped and then murdered, forget her sexual history, then he and his client are in trouble.

  The show starts on Monday. In the morning Ray Logan will give his opening statement. Then, barring any unforeseen complications, it’ll be his turn on stage, for the first time in this county in more than three years. And wearing a different hat.

  Luke always gets to the courthouse before anyone else. He prides himself on that. It’s been a ritual since he started litigating as an assistant D.A. Today, though, as he walks down the long tile hallway towards the courtroom, he sees, from a distance, that others have beaten him to the draw.

  The inside of the building is dim—the lights have not yet been turned on, only slivers of predawn sunlight filter through the high windows. Three people are huddled in a corner, faces furtively turned inward towards the wall, as if by not looking out they won’t be seen. Although they are in darkness, he immediately recognizes them: Ray Logan and Doug and Glenna Lancaster.

  They are unaware that someone else has intruded on their private rendezvous. He stops and watches for a moment; then silently, carefully, he moves against the wall, melding into the dark, cool bulk as much as he can, straining to hear them. Even from far away, at least forty yards—the hallway is as long as a football field—it’s clear to Luke that they are having a strenuous argument.

  The voices drift down towards him, inchoately echoing off the walls of the cavernous corridor, a natural echo chamber. The words are muffled, but the intent is clear—the Lancasters don’t want Logan to introduce Emma’s sexual history. Logan keeps shaking his head, shifting back and forth from foot to foot, Doug Lancaster leaning in towards him, haranguing him, Glenna standing back from both of them, her body rigid.

  This must be mighty important, Luke thinks, if Doug and Glenna are in each other’s proximity. They avoid each other at all costs.

  She knows, Luke realizes. He should have figured she would—it was naive of him to believe otherwise. She was Emma’s mother.

  Now that he thinks about it, they would have been the main proponents for sealing the coroner’s report in the first place. And now, two hours before the coroner is to take the stand, they’re still trying to protect their daughter’s image. And their own. A cynical attitude to take, but a truthful one.

  One last harangue from Doug and then Logan turns to him, says something that Luke can’t make out, and walks away. Doug starts to go after him, almost lunging at him, but Glenna grabs him by the biceps and restrains him.

  Luke watches the divorced couple staring at each other. Not a word is spoken. Then Doug spins on his heel and strides off in the opposite direction from Ray Logan.

  Glenna Lancaster is alone. A lonely figure in a large, barren space. She starts to weep, her shoulders shaking from the sobbing. Luke watches, a fly on the wall, mortifyingly embarrassed at being an intruder on her excruciating sadness, but locked in place with no means of escape. The sounds of her sobs drift down to him, the lamentation of a mother in perpetual grieving for her lost child.

  “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury …”

  Ray Logan is standing in front of the jury, beginning his opening statement. All eyes are on him, and he knows it. Especially the eyes of Luke Garrison, the man he used to report to.

  He’s nervous, going up against Luke. He would be nervous anyway, it comes with the territory. It’s like standing on the first tee of the U.S. Open in front of a gallery of a thousand spectators and starting your backswing for the first drive of the day. All you want to do is make contact and not kill anybody or, worse, whiff it. Once you’ve taken that first swing, the butterflies start to go away.

  “My name is Ray Logan. I am the district attorney for Santa Barbara County.”

  And right on cue, the calmness begins to come over him. He’s feeling better already—saying the words “district attorney” make him feel good, give him a sense of achievement.

  Courtroom Number 1 is the legendary mural courtroom, where the history of California, from the Spanish conquistadors to the Depression migrants, is depicted on the walls and ceiling, like an antinativist Sistine Chapel. This courtroom is rarely used anymore, reserved for special cases. And now it’s packed, every seat taken. You have to have a pass to get in. Much of the space is taken up by reporters from newspapers and television stations. The rest is family members, friends, public people like politicians, and others with juice.

  Doug and Glenna Lancaster are present. They’re both sitting on the prosecutor’s side of the aisle, but apart from each other. Doug is in the second row directly behind Ray Logan’s chair, while Glenna is in the back, looking like a wraith. She’s all in black, including a scarf tied over her head, like a woman in mourning, which she still is, more so now that this trial is beginning and her life and her daughter’s life are going to be exposed. She is wearing no makeup, no jewelry.

  Lancaster is dressed conservatively, in a dark business suit. For the briefest of moments, when he first entered the courtroom and walked down the aisle to his seat, his eyes locked with Luke’s. There was pure hatred in them. This man, Luke thought, wants me dead.

  Under normal circumstances, neither Doug nor Glenna would be allowed in the courtroom: they’re potential witnesses. Logan has both on his witness list, and Doug is on Luke’s as well. Tearing up Lancaster’s non-alibi is going to be a cornerstone of his defense. Logan, however, had beseeched the court that they be granted exceptions to the rule, in the interest of compassion.

  “It’s their daughter who was murdered, they’ve already suffered terribly,” he passionately argued in the judge’s chambers. “Not allowing them to observe the trial would be cruel and inhumane.”

  It was Luke’s call; and to both Ewing’s and Logan’s surprise, he acquiesced. Having Doug Lancaster in the courtroom will mean that Lancaster will learn, from Luke’s opening statement, what Luke is planning to do; but Lancaster is going to find out anyway—Logan will be briefing him daily. To exclude the grieving parents will be bad public relations. He and his client already have enough negative publicity.

  He also has a more practical motive. He hopes that as the trial progresses Doug Lancaster will become increasingly agitated, to the point where he might do something stupid, something that will play into the defense’s hands. Knowing Doug Lancaster as Luke does, this isn’t a far-fetched notion.

  One person isn’t here: Nicole Rogers. She may be a witness later on—both he and Logan have her on their witness lists—but that isn’t why she’s absent. Luke talked to her days ago about coming, to offer moral support, and she turned him down flat. She and Joe weren’t goin
g on anyway, and she wants no part of this. “I thought I knew him,” she told Luke over the phone. “It’s terrible to think you know someone intimately, and suddenly you don’t know a damn thing about them.” Luke knew then that, despite her former assertion, she thinks his client is guilty.

  Logan’s voice rings strong in the vaulted-ceilinged room. “You have been chosen to make a momentous decision. To decide whether or not Joe Allison, the accused in this case, kidnapped and murdered Emma Lancaster, a fourteen-year-old girl.” He turns and points. “That dark-haired man seated at the defense table, next to his lawyer, is Joe Allison.”

  Luke has anticipated this, and worked with Allison in the jail. About returning looks, not being vague or ambiguous in demeanor, staring straight ahead. And keeping his cool.

  Allison is doing that. He’s doing okay. He holds eye contact with the jury members who are looking at him. Not with aggression or evasiveness. A firm, clear look. A man who has nothing to hide.

  Riva, sitting in the row behind Luke and Allison, also stares at the jury, and at Logan. She is going to be here much of the time, and she is going to stare daggers at Logan’s back.

  In a deliberately dismissive manner, Logan drops his hand, turns back to the jury. “You are going to be given a lot of information that is not directly related to this case. It’s peripheral information—information about people’s personalities, their foibles, their imperfections. My associates and I will share some of this with you, not to confuse you, but to set the background, and to show you the difference between the truth, as it applies to this case and this case only, and innuendos the defense is going to allude to, to try and confuse you from the issue at hand, the only issue you are here to consider—did Joe Allison kidnap and murder Emma Lancaster?”

  He pauses to let that settle in. Then he continues. “We are going to show you proof that Mr. Allison did kidnap and murder Emma Lancaster. Real, tangible proof. Not theories. Not conjecture. Not ‘what-if’s.’ We’re not going to try to dazzle you with smoke and mirrors. We are going to show you motive, we are going to show you opportunity, we are going to show you physical evidence that connects Joe Allison and Emma Lancaster on the night of her abduction, and before then.”