The Disappearance (42 page)

“We would have found him,” Williams responds evenly. “If he had moved to the moon, we would have found him.”

“On the moon,” Luke says, not keeping some sarcasm from his tone. “Okay. Whatever.” He continues: “Was my client ever read his Miranda rights once he was under suspicion? Out in the field or in the jailhouse?”

“He was read his rights in the field,” the sheriff answers.

“About being a murder suspect, or that he might have to go up on a DUI, which is only a misdemeanor, not a felony?”

“He was read his rights,” Williams doggedly reiterates. “He wasn’t a suspect when he was brought into the jail.”

“Then why did you question him about the murder? You had Emma Lancaster’s key ring. You must have been suspicious, at least.”

“Some,” the sheriff parries. He knows exactly how far he can go without casting doubt that he violated Miranda. “Law enforcement is permitted a certain leeway. You know that better than me, from when you had a different job description, Mr. Garrison.”

This is true, Luke thinks, admiring the man’s control. You know how far you can bend the law without breaking it. “But sooner or later, during Mr. Allison’s police interrogation, where he was held without advice of a lawyer, and wasn’t informed of the extremely serious charges against him, sooner or later you suspected him enough of somehow being involved in Emma Lancaster’s death that you persuaded a judge to issue a warrant to search his apartment. Once you’d gone that far, weren’t you then obligated to read him his rights?”

“Yes, of course,” Williams answers. He’s maddeningly calm, and stonewalling for all he’s worth.

“When did you inform him of his rights?” Luke asks. “There’s nothing in the record that states you Mirandized Mr. Allison.”

“I did it at the same time my detectives came back from his apartment.”

“Isn’t that too late?
After
you found some dubious evidence that suggested his involvement with Emma Lancaster’s disappearance and subsequent murder?”

“It happened that way,” Williams says with no apology or trace of guilt in his voice. “These things happen fast, they’re spontaneous, all over the place. You do the best you can. We did, that night and in every single element of this case. And the evidence isn’t dubious,” he adds.

Luke wants to make a motion about this, but this is the wrong time and the wrong witness. For now, with a sheriff who is the most popular politician in the county, he’ll furrow out as many inconsistencies and disregardings of the law as he can.

“Going back to the day that Emma Lancaster was reported missing, and you and your people were at the house beginning your investigation—there were dozens and dozens of footprints all over that backyard, weren’t there? All those police snooping around, trying to find clues. And the Lancasters’ personal staff, also trying to help. There had to have been dozens of different footprints and shoe prints all over that backyard, weren’t there?”

“There were some, yes,” Williams agrees.

“Some leading from the vicinity of the bedroom to the gazebo in question, I would guess.”

“I’m sure there were. My people were doing all kinds of different things. I was with the worried parents for the most part, trying to find out as much as I could from them.”

“But the particular shoe prints,” Luke goes on, “you singled them out. Of all the different shoe prints found in that backyard that night, they were the only ones you took castings of.” He pauses for a moment, to make sure the jury realizes there’s some significance to his questioning. “Isn’t that true, Sheriff?”

Williams nods readily. “That is absolutely true,” he says, projecting his reply in the jury’s direction.

“Why did you pick that particular shoe print? What was so special and unique about that shoe, except that a year later it would happen to turn up in Mr. Allison’s home, a rather fortuitous coincidence, wouldn’t you say?”

Williams leans forward, almost on the balls of his feet even though he’s sitting, like a boxer ready to throw a knockout punch. “We were lucky to find them, of course,” he agrees easily. “But luck had nothing to do with our reason for taking impressions of those shoe prints and not others.”

“And why is that?” Luke asks.

Williams turns to face the jury. “Because that shoe had made a significantly deeper imprint in the grass and dirt than any other shoe,” he tells the jurors. “It was worn either by an extremely heavy man, a man who would have weighed three hundred pounds or more”—here he stops for a moment, takes a drink of water, wipes his lips—“or by someone carrying something, or someone, who was heavy. Like a person. And then, of course, when we found the identical shoe print at the site where the victim’s remains were discovered, we knew we had made the correct assumption—that whoever was wearing that shoe kidnapped, and subsequently murdered, Emma Lancaster.”

The sky just fell. Williams had set his trap, and Luke, the dumb-schmuck prey, had stepped right in it.

Bad lawyering. Pathetic. He should have seen that one coming. Now he’s got to get the hell off the stage, as fast as he can.

“No further questions, Your Honor,” he says in a low, mortified voice.

Dinner will be the usual—order-in pizza while he hunkers down, going over everything he knows about tomorrow’s witnesses from his interviews and profiles and personal knowledge. It’s going to be a long night. All of them are.

“Do we have any Cokes?” Riva is scrounging around in the pantry.

“I don’t know,” Luke answers distractedly. He’s in the living room, his paperwork spread out on the coffee table, the floor, the couch. He couldn’t care less about what they have to eat or drink.

“There’s nothing to drink in this house except wine and beer,” she says in exasperation, coming into the room. She checks her watch. “The pizza guy won’t be here for twenty minutes, they always take forty-five minimum. I’m going to run down to Von’s and grab some drinks.” Being pregnant, she isn’t drinking wine. “Do you want anything?” She’s grabbing the keys off the front hallway table.

“Do we have juice for the morning? And maybe some yogurt? You’ll still be asleep when I leave.” Ewing’s courtroom opens for business at eight in the morning, but he’s out the door at six. “And remind me to set the coffee timer tonight for five-thirty.”

She gives him a quick peck on the cheek. “I’ll be right back.” The door shuts with a loud thunk.

The deputy sheriff on duty, sitting in his patrol car, stirs to attention as he sees the figure come out of the house and head towards the old truck. He starts to turn the ignition on, then he realizes it’s the woman, not the man. His job is to watchdog the man. He leans back in his seat, relaxed.

Riva slowly backs the truck out of the driveway, checking for oncoming traffic. She pops the clutch and wrestles the gearshift into first, waving to the ever-present sentry. Luke’s being protected—she feels safer, knowing that.

The road, sloping downhill all the way to town, is twisty and narrow, barely wide enough for two vehicles to pass each other. It’s a dark night, foggy too, and there are no streetlights on Mountain Drive. The only light comes from her own headlights. One hand on the wheel, she rubs her belly. She’s just beginning to show—you can’t see it when she has clothes on, only a tiny bit when she’s naked—but she can already feel the life inside her.

No one knows. Only she and Luke.

The radio is tuned to public broadcasting, nighttime jazz. She taps a finger on the gearshift lever as Miles Davis percolates out of the old speakers. A couple of cars pass her on her way down the hill. She slows to make sure there’s room to go by, edging slightly to the right, but not very much—the road drops off sharply here, and there are no guardrails. This old, pot-holed mountain road that’s barely five minutes from the center of Montecito is charming, but it’s a bitch to drive.

Another car is coming towards her. She can’t see it yet, the road is too twisty here, it’s around the next curve, but she can see the headlights cutting through the fog. It seems to be coming fast, considering the bad visibility. She slows down, edging towards the right side of the road, making sure the other car has enough room.

Then the other car is out of the curve and coming in her direction, about a hundred yards down the road. It has high headlights, too, another truck or SUV. Every other car around here is a four-wheel-drive of some kind, it’s become the housewives’ station wagon. It’s moving at a good clip, faster than it ought to be going, she thinks again. People get these four-wheel-drive contraptions and they think their off-road capability makes them invincible.

The other vehicle is slowing some, seeing her headlights, but it’s still going too fast for her taste. Now it’s almost upon her, and it isn’t giving enough ground, it’s too far over the center line, she can’t get by, and then suddenly, without thinking of the consequences, the other hits the high beams, they shine right into her eyes, blinding her, she isn’t expecting that, it feels like two searchlights suddenly turned full onto her.

She slows more, staying to the right. The oncoming vehicle comes abreast of her, and as its headlights slide by she begins to swing back towards the center of the road.

Then she realizes what’s happening and she screams to herself:
You’re not giving me enough room!

The Range Rover, seemingly oblivious to the danger, almost brushes against the side of the truck. She stands on the brakes as hard as she can and fights the steering wheel, straining to hold her course.

Somehow, she hangs on. The other vehicle powers by her, lost in a cloud of fog and dust.

She pulls over at the first wide spot on the road. She’s shaking. Was that deliberate? she thinks. Someone thinking it was Luke driving the truck?

It takes her five minutes to calm down enough to drive into town. Even in the safety of the supermarket, her purchases in her basket, she’s still shaking.

She takes a different, longer route back to the house. No cars in sight.

It was an accident. Some road-raged crazo oblivious to anything else on the road. As she heads into the last section before their place, she glances up the ravine towards the house. It’s easy to spot—the only one with the lights on, blazing in the darkness. Almost everyone else around here seems to have gone to bed.

For a moment, on the other side of the deep barranca that separates the two sides of the canyon, two or three hundred yards from their house as the crow flies, a flashlight comes on, probing—a distant neighbor looking for a cat that won’t come in. Coyotes are all around this area. They don’t fear humans—they’ll come into your yard and take your pet cat or small dog or even—it’s rare but it did happen a couple of years back—a toddler. The mother heard the baby screaming and managed to save her, but it was a reminder that you’re living close to nature up here, and you have to be careful.

She continues on to their house, where the cops are keeping them safe, tomorrow morning’s yogurt for the father of her yet-to-be-born child resting on the seat next to her.

Doug Lancaster is in the courtroom. He isn’t in his normal seat, directly behind the prosecution table. Today he’s sitting in the very last row, in the seat closest to the door—insurance in case he feels compelled to bolt. Glenna is absent. Luke, scanning the audience as he awaits Judge Ewing’s entrance, knew she wouldn’t appear for this testimony, not after what he had witnessed in the corridor.

“All rise, the Honorable Prescott Ewing presiding.” The bailiff sings out the ancient courtroom salutation. Everyone stands as Ewing sweeps in through the private door from his chambers directly behind the bench. Sitting, he wastes no time. “Call your next witness,” he tells Ray Logan.

“Call Dr. Peter Manachi,” Logan says.

The coroner takes the stand, the oath is administered.

“Good morning, Dr. Manachi,” Logan says.

“Good morning.” The coroner sits erect in the wooden captain’s chair, lord of all he surveys. He’s testified in thousands of trials, they’re all the same to him. He gives his results, fends off questions from the defense that in any way cast aspersions on him or his staff or their findings, and goes back to his lab in the pathology department of Cottage Hospital, of which he is the head. He’s hardly ever challenged on points that are substantive, and on the rare occasion when the veracity of his conclusions is called into question, he always has a decisive, black and white answer that brings any further doubt to a screeching halt.

The interrogation begins. “Will you describe for the jury the condition of the murder victim, Emma Lancaster, when you first saw her?”

“I will,” Dr. Manachi says. He has his report in his hand, reads from it. “The victim was a Caucasian female, approximately fourteen years of age. She had been wearing a flannel nightgown. She had been dead for some time, at least five days, more likely a week. There was gross swelling and discoloration of her abdominal area and gross swelling also of her extremities. Decaying of the flesh had commenced on various parts of her body.” He flips the first page, continues. “There was a significant indentation of her right temple, in the soft area almost directly above her right ear. This was black from occluded blood. And there were the usual atrophic conditions associated with a corpse that has been unattended for this period of time. Do you wish me to elaborate?”

“No, that won’t be necessary,” Logan says quickly. Blood and guts turn juries off, even when the victim is good evidence for you. He wants to skim over this part of his examination. He doesn’t want to overload the jurors with any more than the bare necessities.

Luke is watching the jury keenly. They’re attentive, all twelve of them. This is going to be a tough day all around—for the prosecution initially, and then for him and Joe Allison. Much of the jurors’ collective attitude is going to be formed today. That may change, move around, ebb and flow, as future witnesses and contradictory evidence come forth. But opinions formed today will last for the rest of the trial, and have a powerful effect on the outcome.

Logan moves on. “Were you able to determine the cause of death?”

“Yes,” Dr. Manachi says authoritatively. “The victim was killed by a single blow to the right temple. The impact caused a rupture of the blood vessels in the right side of the brain, creating massive trauma.”