The Disappearance (43 page)

“Can you speculate as to how soon the victim died after this occurred?” Logan asks.

Manachi nods. “Instantaneously. A blow of this force causes almost as much damage as a bullet. The brain would have gone into spasm and ceased to function.”

Luke is impassive as he listens. He’s heard testimony like this, much of it from Manachi, dozens of times. The jury, though, hasn’t. The shock and anguish they’re feeling about how Emma died is clearly registered on their faces. Stealing a glance over his shoulder, he spots Doug Lancaster in his back-row seat. The man’s face is splotchy red; he looks like he’s holding himself back from vomiting, or breaking down.

Where were you that night? Luke thinks for the umpteenth time. Are you feeling pain? Guilt? Both?

Logan asks his next question. “Could you speculate as to the type of weapon or object that was used?”

“It wasn’t a sharp object, like a knife or a tool,” Manachi says. “More likely a hammer, a brick, a two-by-four. Something with weight and a certain massiveness to it. It was a very hard blow to have caused the amount of damage that was inflicted.”

Logan nods. “All right. I think we’ve covered this sufficiently.” He walks from the podium back to the prosecution table, picks up a manila folder, walks to the witness stand, takes some pages out of the envelope, and hands them to his witness. “Would you examine these, Dr. Manachi?”

Manachi leafs through the six-page report.

“Can you tell the jury what this is, Doctor?”

“This is an autopsy report. A standard form used throughout the state of California.”

“Did you prepare this report?” Logan asks.

“With the assistance of my staff, yes,” the doctor replies.

“Request to be placed in evidence, Your Honor,” Logan intones. “Counsel for defense and the court have copies.”

Ewing nods. “This will be marked as People’s exhibit fifteen,” he states, looking at his evidence chart.

Logan hands it to the clerk, who marks it and places it on the evidence table.

Luke knows what it says. It’s the hand grenade from which Logan pulled the pin during his opening remarks.

Crossing back to his questioning spot, Logan says, “Was there anything in your report that goes beyond what you’ve told us? Any special injuries, abnormal circumstances surrounding the death, anything out of the ordinary?”

Manachi looks at Logan, then at the jury. “Yes, there was,” he says gravely.

Here we go, Luke thinks.

“What was that, Dr. Manachi?” Logan asks. “What did you find upon your examination of this victim that you felt was unusual, considering the death and how it was caused.”

“She had been sexually penetrated.”

Although Logan had introduced this in his opening remarks, a gasp still comes from everyone in the courtroom, powerful in its intensity.

“Was she raped?” That’s the logical question to ask. A fourteen-year-old girl is abducted, raped, murdered. It’s even worse than people thought, but it’s understandable.

Dr. Manachi shakes his head. “No, she wasn’t raped.”

Logan has to play this out. He is the liaison between the facts and the jury that will judge guilt or innocence based on those facts, and the emotions that arise from them. “I don’t understand,” he says.

“Penetration and rape are two separate and distinct acts,” Manachi says carefully. “Rape is not consensual.”

Now the gasp is a murmur, a buzzing, people speaking in whispers.

“Are you telling us that Emma Lancaster had consensual sex with her killer?” Logan asks, his voice ringing with incredulity.

“Yes.”

More buzz, a swarming. Ewing thinks to gavel it down, but he can’t, it has a life force of its own. He could only stop it by clearing the courtroom, and that would cause worse problems.

“What leads you to believe that, Doctor?” Logan asks. “She had been dead for a week or more. With her body decaying as it was, how can you tell if sexual penetration is consensual or rape?”

“The extent to which the tissues are damaged, and so forth,” Manachi says. “But there was the reason, the physical condition that our autopsy revealed, that indicated that forcible entry had not occurred. She was pregnant, as you have already told this courtroom. That indicates an ongoing history of sexual activity, which would lead a reasonable person to believe that the sexual encounter, as well as other sexual encounters, was consensual.” He pauses. “But as I said, the evidence points in that direction as well.”

Even though Logan had already lobbed this grenade into the arena, talking about it now, and so dispassionately, causes a collective stopping of breath. Luke, as much as anyone else, feels the importance of what this means.

Logan waits a moment for the hubbub to subside, then continues questioning the coroner. “Was there sperm present in the victim’s vaginal cavity?”

“We couldn’t tell.”

“But you’re convinced that she’d had sex shortly before death.
Could
contraception have been used?”

“Yes.”

The condoms in the gazebo, the condoms in Allison’s house. It doesn’t take a genius to make that connection, Luke thinks.

“Once more about the method of killing, to make sure we all understand you correctly, Dr. Manachi. It was one blow, strongly delivered, from an object such as a hammer or brick?”

“That is correct.”

And with that, the prosecution’s direct examination of perhaps their most important witness, certainly their most attention-grabbing one, is over.

Luke notices that Doug Lancaster isn’t in the courtroom when he begins his cross-examination. He isn’t surprised.

“Good afternoon, Doctor.”

“Good afternoon, Luke—” He catches himself. “Mr. Garrison. I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay,” Luke says. “We’ve carried a lot of water together, you and me. But you’ll forgive me if I don’t call you Peter.”

The doctor smiles.

Luke glances at his notes. “Did you make your determination that there was sexual activity before or after you performed the autopsy, Dr. Manachi?”

Manachi thinks for a moment. “After,” he answers.

“You’re sure it wasn’t before? No one called your office and told you that the victim was pregnant? Or might be pregnant?”

The doctor has to think about that. “Not to my knowledge.”

“You’re positive.”

“I suppose it’s possible,” Manachi temporizes, “but I don’t recall getting such a call.”

Luke shifts gears. “You speculated as to what kind of weapon was used. Hammer, brick, two-by-four were examples you gave.”

“Yes.”

“She wasn’t shot, knifed, anything like that?”

“No,” the doctor says. “Absolutely not.”

“Would you conclude, then, Doctor, from your long and expert experience in the field, that this killing was accidental or, at least, spur-of-the-moment? Considering the type of object you’re claiming had to have been used?”

Logan, immediately on his feet, calls out, “Objection! Leading the witness, Your Honor.”

“This is cross-examination, Your Honor,” Luke says sharply. “That’s the point.”

Ewing nods in agreement. “Overruled.”

Shaking his head in disgruntlement, Logan sits down.

Luke repeats his question. “Is it your opinion that the killing of Emma Lancaster was either accidental or unpremeditated?”

Manachi looks up at the ceiling, exhales slowly, squares his shoulders. “Given the nature of the fatal injury, that was probably what happened. Not definitely—you could plan to kill someone using an object such as those—but it’s more logical, when a killing occurs as this one did, that it’s a spur-of-the-moment thing and the killer used whatever was handy.”

Luke pauses to let that sink in. Again, a strong admission to have on the record. Little Lisa Jaffe took forcible abduction off the table. Now the coroner, the most expert witness the state is going to offer on this matter, has proclaimed the killing
not
to have been premeditated:
not
first-degree murder.

Ray Logan steals a look at the jury. They’re listening with interest, but the importance of the point seems to have escaped them. Luke will remind them during final arguments, of course, but for now the shock of the coroner’s recitation of Emma Lancaster’s pregnancy has dulled their critical antennae to anything else.

“A few more questions, Dr. Manachi,” he says, gathering his notes. “The object that caused Emma Lancaster’s death. You said it was a blunt object, like a hammer.”

“Yes.”

“Could it have been something other than a hammer? Say a golf club? Like a three-wood, or a five-iron? A golf club is a blunt object.”

Manachi considers. “That’s an interesting angle. I’d have to say yes. A golf club could certainly be the murder weapon. The arc of the swing would generate tremendous force.”

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.’”