The Disappearance

by J. F. Freedman

Luke smiles. Peter Manachi, M.D., the county’s leading authority on cause of death, has now gone on record as declaring that a golf club is a weapon that could have killed Emma. Before this trial is over, Luke is going to hammer the point home. Everyone will know who the golfer is among the close circle that had sure access to the Lancaster estate and could have taken Emma out of her bedroom without a struggle from her and then—in the heat of passion, argument, or anger—killed her.

  “Thank you, Doctor.” Taking his leave of the podium: “I have no further questions for this witness, Your Honor.”

  The reference to a golf club as the possible murder weapon, that bothers Logan. It pushes Doug Lancaster deeper into the center of the story. Sooner or later he’s going to have to face that and figure out how to defuse it, if he can. Otherwise, it’s going to be the elephant in the parlor—no one’s talking about it, but you can’t help but notice it.

  Logan knows that Luke expects him to follow a certain chronological line, going from the autopsy report to a year later when Joe Allison was arrested, but he throws a curve: another young girl, a friend of Emma’s who wasn’t there that night but in whom Emma often confided.

  “Deanna, thank you for coming here today to help us out.”

  “That’s okay, Mr. Logan. Emma was one of my best friends. Whatever I can do to help, I want to.”

  Her name: Deanna Dalton. A pretty girl, more sophisticated-looking than Lisa Jaffe. The kind of girl who would have been in Emma’s fast-life crowd, as much as a fourteen-year-old from a sheltering family could have a “fast life.” She sits straight-backed in the witness chair. Disdaining normal courtroom protocol for someone her age, Deanna makes no concessions to youthful innocence—she has on an adult-style dress, makeup, heels, sheer pantyhose. Girls her age don’t wear hose, Luke thinks as he watches her on the witness stand, unless they want to be seen and known as someone who does. A girl who wants the world to think she’s grown up. On her left ankle there’s a small tattoo. From where Luke sits it looks like a beetle. Each earlobe is pierced with four or five earrings.

  Logan quickly establishes Deanna’s relationship with Emma: same schools from third grade, same interests—they both rode horses, played tennis, sang in the school chorus. They were very close friends. Emma told Deanna things she didn’t tell other girls. She definitely told her things she would never tell her mother.

  Pointing across the room to Allison, sitting alongside Luke at the defense table, Logan says, “Do you recognize that man, the one with the dark hair?” he asks.

  She nods. “Yes, sir.”

  “How do you recognize him, Deanna?”

  “He used to pick Emma up at school.”

  “What grade was that?” he asks.

  “Eighth grade,” she answers. “The last year Emma …” she hesitates.

  He waits her out patiently, not prompting her.

  “The last year until she was killed,” Deanna finishes awkwardly.

  Logan nods gravely, as if the statement requires a moment of silence in respect for the memory of Emma Lancaster. “How often did Joe Allison pick Emma up?” he then asks, after an appropriate pause.

  “I don’t remember. There wasn’t any particular pattern. He’d be there after school sometimes, waiting for her out on the street.”

  “Not in the school parking lot? He wouldn’t wait for her there?”

  She shakes her head. “That would’ve been weird. Like, he wasn’t her parent or anything.”

  “How did Emma get home otherwise?” Logan asks.

  “The usual,” she answers. “Sometimes her mom would pick her up, sometimes one of the people who worked for her mom. If Emma didn’t want them to come, she’d tell her mom she had a ride. Or she would tell her she was going with me, or some other friend. Her mom didn’t seem to pick up on who all was giving her rides. Emma said she didn’t care, because her mom wanted her to be a free agent. Her mom’s one of those real forward-thinking moms.”

  Luke, glancing back into the crowd, spots Glenna, who has returned to the courtroom now that Dr. Manachi has finished testifying. She’s looking straight forward, her face expressionless. An iron maiden, Luke thinks. She’d have to be, to get through this ordeal.

  “Was the accused, Joe Allison, easy for you to recognize? When you saw him waiting for her?”

  “Sure.”

  “Why is that?” Logan asks.

  “’Cause he drove a really cool car,” she says brightly.

  Smiles break out in pockets of the courtroom, including some in the jury box.

  “Do you remember what kind of car it was?”

  A vigorous nod. “It was a Beemer convertible. A Z-3. Gunmetal blue, with tan leather interior.”

  “That is a cool car,” Logan agrees. He leans casually on the lectern, as if this is a natural conversation in some ordinary setting, instead of testimony in a murder trial. “Did Emma ever say anything about Joe Allison to you, or to anyone else? Did she ever talk about him? Either when he was outside your school waiting for her, or when he wasn’t around?”

  “Uh-huh.” Her low-heeled shoe has slipped partially off her foot. She jangles it from the ends of her toes. She’s only been on the stand for a few minutes and already she’s getting jittery, her attention span starting to slip.

  Deanna’s inability to focus is fine with Logan—he’s about done with his examination. Luke can have her with her mind wandering. “What did she say?” he asks.

  “She’d joke around. She’d say, ‘There’s my boyfriend, come to pick me up.’”

  “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?”