That’s the spin Logan tries to put on it. It works, but not really, because it wrecks the image of Emma Lancaster being some innocent young virgin who was seduced by a predatory adult. Young, yes, but not the rest.
The lack of innocence is important, and that’s why Luke has decided, after agonizing over the decision, to put Fourchet, the health-food store owner, on the stand. The man’s testimony is going to be grueling, painful. Emma’s character and behavior will be scrutinized and picked over, not only more than it already has been, but more distastefully. This is the worst part of a job like this—dissecting a dead person’s character in the open without her being able to defend herself. But he has to do it. He has to show that Emma was not a victim in her sexual experiences but a willing participant.
Fourchet, of course, was not about to come forward voluntarily. Luke had to issue a subpoena for him to appear, like most of his witnesses. The man called Luke at his office, tearful, hysterical. “Please don’t make me do this,” he begged. “Don’t put me on the stand. My life is already in shambles. This will destroy me.”
Luke couldn’t care less. “No one made you sleep with this young girl,” he reminded Fourchet. “You could have said no. That’s what a man of character would have done. It’s too bad that I’m going to have to put you and your family through this, but you made the choice. Now you’re going to have to live with the consequences of it.”
“Call Adrian Fourchet.”
Luke stands at the podium waiting for the appearance of his reluctant witness. It’s nine in the morning; Judge Ewing has just gaveled his court into session. Everyone is in the usual places. Doug Lancaster again is not present but Glenna Lancaster is, sitting in her back-row seat, still dressed somberly. Riva isn’t here either. She begged off; she had interviewed Fourchet, and seeing him up on the stand would be too uncomfortable. Also, she has errands to run. She’ll stop by at lunchtime.
The doors to the corridor through which Fourchet should be entering don’t move. Ewing peers over the top of his desk at Luke. “Where’s your witness, Counselor?”
Luke is at a loss. “I don’t know, Your Honor. He knew when he was supposed to be here.” He glances at his watch. “Maybe he went to the wrong courtroom.”
There are six courtrooms in the building, all of them in session. It’s a big building, people frequently lose their way. But he’s pissed at himself for not making sure the man was here on time, even if it meant picking him up at his house and escorting him here personally.
Ewing turns to the chief deputy in charge of courtroom security. “Go find him. We’ve got to get going.”
The deputy nods and exits into the long hallway. Luke takes the opportunity to walk over to the defense table and look at some notes that he hadn’t brought up to the lectern with him. He glances at the clock on the wall: eight-fifteen. Fourchet should surely have been here by now.
Another few minutes tick by. Finally Ray Logan gets to his feet. “Your Honor, we can’t wait all day for this witness. I move that he be struck from the roster.”
“Objection, Your Honor,” Luke says heatedly, looking up from the defense table. “This happens. This isn’t—” His head turns to the side doorway, where the deputy is making a hurried entrance.
The deputy hustles to the bench. Ewing leans over, so that they can have a private conversation.
Shock and surprise are clear on the judge’s face, which is reddening rapidly. “I’ll have lawyers in my chambers. Now.” He bangs his gavel, harder than he normally does. “We’re standing in recess until further notice.”
The woman, Luella Fourchet, a full-on earth-mother-commune type down to her Birkenstock sandals, stands in Ewing’s small office. Wordlessly she hands the judge a legal-size envelope. He opens it, takes out a single folded page, and reads the letter, his expression turning to dismay as the contents sink in.
He looks up. “You have no witness,” he tells Luke in an uncharacteristically shaky voice. “He’s defied the court’s subpoena.” He turns to Fourchet’s wife. “Do you know where your husband is?”
She shakes her head. “No. I found this on the kitchen table this morning. He didn’t tell me anything.” Head thrust up, she adds, “And even if he had, I wouldn’t tell you. I’m not going to be a party to his ruination, even if what he did was wrong. I know what he did …”
She breaks down. She’s sobbing, no sound coming, shoulders heaving, her hands covering her face.
They watch her. Nobody makes a move to touch her.
The soundless sobbing lessens, subsides. Looking up, eyes red and tear-filled, she says, “We were working through this, he and I. And now this—he couldn’t take it. I can’t take it.” She looks at each man in turn, her eyes fierce in accusation, ending on Luke, staring through him. “He had nothing to do with that slutty girl’s disappearance, and you know it, Mr. Garrison, but you want to ruin him anyway. You want to ruin me, us, our family.” She swipes at her cheeks and nose with a tissue. “He isn’t going to come here, no matter what. You can find him, because sooner or later he’ll have to come back, but he isn’t going to testify. You can put him in jail, or whatever you do. But he’s never going to talk about this. Not here, not with anyone. Never.”
She turns away, wanting to leave, wanting to get out of here, but Luke won’t let her go.
“I’m sorry that you’re going through grief,” he says, his anger at the flash point, “but that’s not my fault, and I’m not about to let you make me the fall guy.” He’s in her face, inches away.
“Luke.” Ray Logan, alarmed at his behavior, moves towards them.
Luke waves him away. “Let me finish.”
He stares into the woman’s eyes. “Your husband did a vile thing. He had sexual intercourse with an underage girl. I don’t care how old she looked, or how much he lied to you about how she vamped him, or anything. That was a crime, and he could go to jail for it—if Emma Lancaster were still alive to press charges.”
Now it’s Ewing who’s distraught. “Stop that, Luke!” He’s out from behind his desk, moving towards them.
Luke won’t stop. “Your husband might not have physically killed Emma Lancaster, but he killed her soul. Him and everyone else who took advantage of her. She was too young to get it, don’t you get it? She wasn’t accountable!”
The lawyers and Ewing sit in the judge’s chambers. It’s a few minutes later. Luke has calmed down some, but he’s still agitated. More important, he has to put somebody on the stand, now that his witness has flown the coop. “What’s your ruling going to be on my bringing Sheriff Williams back on and bringing up the synergy between this case and the attempt on my life?” he asks the judge, looking over at Logan. “Are you going to oppose that? You’ve admitted to me there’s a good possibility the two are joined.”
“I don’t think they’re joined for the purposes of this case,” Logan answers in rebuttal. “I would oppose that vigorously. You can’t connect these two crimes, Your Honor,” he argues to Ewing, “no matter how subjective or personal they might be.”
Ewing ponders this. “I’m inclined to agree with the district attorney,” he says to Luke. “Do you have any case law that can bolster this connection?”
“I’m researching it even as we speak,” Luke scrambles immediately. “Can you give me until after lunch?”
Another look from judge to prosecutor. “I don’t know, Your Honor,” Logan says. “With all due respect, Luke, if you knew you were going to bring that up, you should have had your material in order already.”
That’s true. He can’t argue it logically. “I don’t have the staff I used to,” he says pointedly. “I don’t have twenty paralegals running down every case on their computers. Give me a break, Judge,” he implores Ewing. “Just until this afternoon. If I can’t please you by then, I’ll pass it by.”
“That’s acceptable to me,” the judge says. “Let’s go back out there. We’ll recess until after lunch. But then we’re moving forward,” he warns Luke,
“one way or the other.”
Back at his office at the law school. He has three of the best students helping him research his point. Two hours after they started, they haven’t come up with anything strong enough for Luke to convince the judge to let the sheriff testify about his shooting being connected to Emma’s murder.
He doesn’t want to end his defense here. Not on a missing witness. It’s a huge letdown. You want to end on a high note, something that the jury will remember vividly when they go into that stuffy little room to begin their deliberations.
He looks at his watch. A quarter to twelve. Court will reconvene at one-thirty. He has less than two hours. Not enough time.
His cell phone rings. Snatching it up: “Yes?” It’s Riva; he figured it was her; only a few people in Santa Barbara have this number. He listens, then his face brightens in an ear-to-ear grin. “Are you serious? Where did you find her?” Then: “Yes! Get her up here, right away!”
The woman swears to tell the truth, so help her God.
A middle-aged woman. Plain-looking. The kind of working-class woman whose face tells you she’s spent too much time on her feet, so that the soreness never leaves them. She’s a waitress at a Carrow’s family restaurant in Camarillo, off Highway 101, midway between Santa Barbara and Los Angeles.
As with Essham, the gun-store owner, Ray Logan has tried mightily to keep this witness off the stand. This time Judge Ewing is on the defense side. He’s already opened the door to Doug Lancaster’s actions and whereabouts being examined in open court; this witness’s testimony clearly falls under those set of circumstances. Doug Lancaster is not present. Luke excluded him from attending today.
He establishes the date that Emma was found missing. “Were you working the morning shift that day, Mrs. De Wilde?” he asks her.
“Yes.”
“From when to when?”
“I go on at six in the morning, when we open, finish at two. The other shift works two until ten, when we close.” Even her voice is tired.
Walking to the witness stand, he takes an eight-by-ten color glossy out of a folder and hands it to her. “Did you see this man that morning, in your restaurant?”
She looks at the photograph. “Yes. I did.”
“You’re positive? There’s no doubt in your mind?”
“Absolutely not. He was there.”
He walks over to the jury box, holds the picture up for all to see: a head-shot photograph of Doug Lancaster. “This is the man,” he repeats, talking to her, but looking at the jurors.
“Yes.”
“When was he there? Do you recall the time?”
“Between seven-fifteen and eight, give or take ten minutes.”
“How can you be sure of the time?”
“We take a five-minute break every two hours,” she explains. “Like I said, I came on at six, so my break was at eight. He had left a few minutes before.”
Luke nods sagely. “How can you be so certain you aren’t mistaken about his identity?” he asks, turning back to her. “This happened over a year ago.”
“I know that. But he was very upset. He was sitting in a booth at my station and he looked like somebody who had just gone through something terrible. I didn’t know what, but I asked him if he was all right. I asked him twice.”
“What was his answer?”
“That he wanted to be left alone.”
“Did he have anything to eat?” Luke asks.
“He had black coffee. I refilled his cup twice.”
“You’re not an expert, of course,” Luke says, “but did it look to you like he might have been up all night?”
“Objection!” Logan calls out. “Speculative, calls for an opinion.”
“Overruled,” Ewing says immediately, surprising both men. He instructs the woman to answer the question.
“People come in all the time that’ve been up all night,” she says. “It’s easy to spot. Their clothes are wrinkled, their hair isn’t combed, they’re yawning.” She smiles. “You don’t have to be a genius to know if someone’s been up or not.”
“Waitress’s intuition,” Luke says warmly. This is a good witness; hell, this is a great witness. “So your answer is …?”
“The man in that picture looked to me like he had been up all night.”
“Good,” Luke says. He pauses for a moment, then continues. “Getting back to the identification. You said you know it was the man in the picture I just showed you because he had been visibly upset, and that drew your attention.”
“Yes.”
“But still, that was over a year ago. Over that long period of time, isn’t it possible you could be mistaken? That the man you thought you saw wasn’t really him, maybe it was someone who looked like him? Isn’t that possible?”
She shakes her head. “But that’s not why I know.”
He smiles at her. “And why is that?”
“Because two days later I saw him on the television set. He was talking about how his daughter had been kidnapped. It was such a shock, seeing him. I was watching with my girlfriend, another waitress from work, this was on the six o’clock news, and I said to her, ‘That man was in the restaurant two mornings ago. He was so upset then.’ That’s what I told her. And I thought, when I was watching him, that he was upset because she had disappeared.”
“And it wasn’t until later that you realized that he had been in your restaurant before she was discovered to be missing?” Luke asks, leading her on.
Her quiet “Yes” and Logan’s earsplitting objection come simultaneously.
“Overruled!” Ewing comes back with equal force.
Jesus, Luke thinks, standing there, this could actually work. “Please answer the question again, so the jury can hear you clearly,” he tells her.
“Yes,” she says. “He was in the restaurant that morning.”
It’s getting towards the close of day. Ray Logan worked Mrs. De Wilde over vigorously, cajoling, bullying, threatening, but she stuck to her story: She had personally served Doug Lancaster in her restaurant on the morning his daughter went missing from her bedroom. As far as she is concerned, there is absolutely no doubt about that.
Judge Ewing excuses her. He looks down at his witness sheet, then up at the clock. “Do you have any more witnesses you plan on calling?” he asks Luke.
Luke shakes his head. He’s done all he can do with what he has. He had thought, long and hard, about calling Doug Lancaster. Lancaster’s non-whereabouts on the night his daughter was abducted, now buttressed by this witness, could go a long way towards establishing good reasonable doubt in the minds of the jurors. And he was itching to tear into Lancaster, for reasons both professional and personal.
He and Judge Freddie had debated the situation at length.
“Don’t do it,” De La Guerra had counseled, after they’d hashed the pros and cons over for half the night.
“He’s a sitting duck,” Luke had protested. “I can tear his ass up from here to Bakersfield.”
“You think you can,” the judge had retorted. “But are you positive, one hundred percent?”
“Meaning what?”
“What’s the old adage, Luke? You don’t ask a question if you don’t know what the answer’s going to be. Yes, he’s been stonewalling and lying from day one, and you may nail him, nail him good. But he could be lying in the weeds, waiting for you to come at him with this, and then slam you with something unexpected.”
It was too strong a point to ignore. In the end, he decided to err on the side of caution. He had this witness who had placed Doug within forty miles of his house a few hours after Emma had been kidnapped. He would use that in his closing statement, hammer it home. The father had lied, the father was close by. And there wouldn’t be any surprises. The only other thing he could do that he hasn’t is call Joe Allison to the stand, and hell will freeze over to the core of the earth before he does that.
“No, I don’t.” He pauses, then says the magic words: “Your Honor, pending
rebuttal witnesses, the defense rests.”
A collective sigh of relief wafts up to the ceiling. Ewing makes a couple of notes to himself. “Tomorrow being Friday, our dark day, we will recess this trial until eight o’clock Monday morning, at which time I will instruct the jury. Counsel for both sides should be prepared for closing arguments immediately following.” One final whack of his gavel, and he sweeps out of the room.
Luke sits at the defense table, trying to make eye contact with the individual jurors as they’re led from the room. Starting tonight, they’ll be sequestered until they’ve reached a verdict.
Sitting next to him, Joe Allison leans in close. “You did great, Mr. Garrison. Thanks a lot.”
Luke doesn’t conceal what has become a growing distaste for the man. “Don’t thank me,” he says sourly. “It isn’t over, not by a long shot.”
The jail deputy leads Allison away. Luke remains sitting, waiting for the courtroom to empty out. He’s drained; he doesn’t want to face anyone this evening, especially the press. Finally, the chamber empty, he gathers his papers into his briefcase, rises wearily to his feet, and starts to leave.
One spectator still remains. Glenna Lancaster, in her ever-present black, is standing by the back door, watching him. Staring at him, no expression on her face.
A harpy, he thinks, in the classical sense, a guardian at the gate of her own private hell, standing watch over her daughter’s fate. Trying to will him to go away, him and Joe Allison. Especially Joe. The man she had befriended, taken to her bed, who then turned his back on her and took up with her daughter (that Allison had never been serious about her is out of her ken), who, Luke knows she’s convinced, abducted and killed her daughter.
The Disappearance Page 42
