After Anna

by Lisa Scottoline

  ‘Your lawyer was present counsel Thomas Owusu, isn’t that correct?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Isn’t it true that the real reason you wanted to get off the phone with 911 was to call your lawyer?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you called your lawyer one minute after you hung up with the 911 operator, so you must have been thinking of calling your lawyer while you were talking with the 911 operator, isn’t that correct?’

  ‘No.’

  Linda arched her eyebrow again, and Noah realized it was her tell, when she was about to tear into him. ‘So when you told the 911 dispatcher that you wanted to get off the phone, you had absolutely no idea you were going to call your lawyer next?’

  ‘Yes.’ Noah felt confused, and suddenly beaten. Maggie was witnessing this disaster. It would haunt her forever.

  ‘Dr Alderman, didn’t you lie to the 911 dispatcher so you could get off the phone and talk to your lawyer?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Didn’t you lie to the 911 dispatcher when you told her you were doing chest compressions?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you did lie to her when you told her why you were hanging up, didn’t you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you called your lawyer one minute later, didn’t you?’

  ‘I was just reacting.’

  ‘Right, like a doctor, as you testified?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A doctor who calls his criminal lawyer?’

  ‘Objection, Your Honor.’ Thomas rose. ‘Is that a snide comment or a question?’

  ‘Your Honor, I’ll withdraw it,’ Linda said without pausing. ‘Dr Alderman, isn’t it true that you made up that bit about the compressions, lying to the 911 dispatcher, because you knew that the 911 tape would be evidence later?’

  ‘No.’ Noah had to help himself. ‘As you point out, if I were trying to make a fake story, I would’ve acted upset or said “oh my God” and things like that, as you said before. But I didn’t.’

  Linda arched an eyebrow again. ‘Isn’t it also true that if you knew you were going to try to sell this phony-baloney story of the doctor-reacting-as-a-doctor, you wouldn’t exhibit any of those behaviors?’

  ‘No, no.’ Noah didn’t elaborate. He couldn’t. There was nothing more to say. He’d tried to score but it had backfired.

  ‘You weren’t too shocked, horrified, and grief-stricken at Anna’s murder to call your lawyer, were you?’

  ‘I was horrified. I had those emotions.’

  Linda crossed her arms. ‘But nevertheless you carried on somehow and called your lawyer, did you not?’

  Thomas shifted uncomfortably back at counsel table, and Noah took it as a signal. They had discussed how to deal with these questions. Their defense was that the prosecution’s case was circumstantial, and Noah was supposed to remember to use the term circumstances.

  Noah cleared his throat. ‘As I said in my direct testimony, I called my lawyer because, given the circumstances, I knew it could look like I killed Anna even though I didn’t do it.’

  ‘So you admit you were thinking of yourself at that time, weren’t you?’

  ‘Partly, yes.’ Noah had no choice but to admit it. He and Thomas had decided that was the best strategy.

  ‘You weren’t concerned with Anna anymore, were you?’

  ‘I still was, but I had determined that she had no pulse. There was nothing I could do.’

  ‘But you tried chest compressions earlier, after you had determined she had no pulse, did you not?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So, there was something you could do, wasn’t there?’

  ‘Okay, yes.’

  ‘I’m confused, were you or were you not administering chest compressions at the time you called your lawyer?’

  ‘I was, I said I was.’ Noah didn’t believe for one minute that Linda was confused.

  ‘Dr Alderman, when during the twelve minutes of that conversation with your lawyer did you stop administering chest compressions?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Between one and five minutes, or between five and ten minutes?’

  ‘Between one and five.’

  ‘Did you have a hard time talking with your lawyer and compressing Anna’s chest, is that why you stopped?’

  Again Noah couldn’t say yes or no. ‘I stopped because it was futile. She had passed.’

  ‘But you said she had passed before you even called 911, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The phone record shows that you spoke with your lawyer for twelve minutes, isn’t that correct?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So your conversation with your lawyer was twelve times as long as your conversation with the 911 dispatcher, isn’t that correct?’

  ‘Yes.’ Noah got the implication, and so did the jury. He could hear them shifting. He had to fight back.

  ‘And isn’t it true that you spent a minute and ten seconds on the phone trying to save Anna’s life and twelve minutes trying to save yourself?’

  Noah’s mouth went dry. ‘I called my lawyer, and that’s how long we spoke. I was concerned for Anna the whole time and I was also concerned for myself. Both things can be true.’

  ‘Dr Alderman, after five minutes into that conversation, you weren’t doing any chest compressions for Anna, were you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yet you were continuing the conversation with your lawyer about yourself, were you not?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Dr Alderman, although the 911 dispatcher had offered to stay on the phone with you until the police arrived, you in fact stayed on the phone with your lawyer until the police arrived, isn’t that correct?’

  ‘Yes.’ Noah heard the jury shifting in their seats.

  ‘You didn’t call your wife after you hung up with 911, did you?’

  ‘No.’

  Linda frowned, telegraphing disapproval. ‘So you did not call your own wife, the mother of this child, to tell her that you had found her only daughter dead on your porch?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Isn’t it true that you didn’t call her because you couldn’t face her?’

  ‘No.’ Noah felt the pressure to answer building inside him. Maggie would want the answer.

  ‘Dr Alderman, isn’t it true that you didn’t call her because you knew that your wife, the woman who knows you best, would know that you had killed her daughter?’

  ‘No, I didn’t call her because I knew she wouldn’t answer. She wasn’t taking my calls.’

  ‘But you called her from the car after you left the gym, did you not?’

  ‘Oh. Yes, I did.’ Noah had forgotten he did that. It was a habit. Maggie always left work before he did. He always called her on the way home. It had been when he missed Maggie the most, the in-between times, the interstices of his life that she filled in, connecting everything. He had never known that until he’d lost her. And then it was too late.

  ‘So you called her after the gym, knowing that she wouldn’t take the call, yet later, holding her precious daughter dead in your arms, you didn’t call her?’

  Noah didn’t know what to say. He knew Maggie would be listening to every word. He couldn’t see her face. He knew what it would look like. Devastated.

  ‘Dr Alderman?’

  ‘I forget the question,’ Noah blurted out, and there was shifting in the jury box behind him, but he didn’t dare look over. He knew what their expressions would look like too. Distant. Incredulous. Furious.

  ‘Isn’t it true that you didn’t call your wife because you wanted to call your criminal lawyer?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But as you testified, you were worried that you were going to be suspected of Anna’s murder, weren’t you?’

  ‘Okay, yes, I was.’ Noah was confusing himself, his mind on Maggie. The gallery. The jury. The judge.

  ‘Dr Alderman, isn’t it true that when the police came, you declined to answer any ques
tions?’

  Thomas rose. ‘Objection, Your Honor. The jury is not permitted to draw any adverse inference regarding Dr Alderman’s exercise of his constitutional rights.’

  Judge Gardner nodded. ‘Sustained.’

  Thomas rose. ‘Your Honor, this cross-examination has gone on quite some time. May I request a brief break, Your Honor?’

  Linda frowned. ‘Your Honor, I don’t think that’s necessary.’

  ‘I do, Ms Swain-Pettit.’ Judge Gardner reached for the gavel. ‘We’ll recess for fifteen minutes, ladies and gentlemen.’

  Noah breathed a relieved sigh, avoiding Linda’s eye. He was looking for Maggie.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Maggie, Before

  ‘So this will be fun!’ Maggie cruised down the street with Anna, seeing her neighbors inside their houses, the kids hunkering down to homework in the family room and the parents getting ready for the work week, fighting off the Sunday night gloom. She knew that feeling, but she didn’t have it tonight. Everything felt like a new experience, with Anna.

  ‘Agree!’ Anna smiled.

  ‘And King of Prussia is a great mall. It has every store imaginable. J. Crew, Abercrombie, Free People, Nordstrom.’ Maggie left out Neiman Marcus, since that may have been in Anna’s price bracket, but not her and Noah’s.

  ‘There’s a pop-up store there, too. I saw it online. It’s called Circa. It sells really cool stuff, like vintage. Boho.’

  ‘Okay, sounds great.’ Maggie felt suddenly cool and hip. Pop-up stores. Mall trips. Girly fun. She wasn’t an odd duck anymore, with a secret daughter. She was a full-blown mom.

  ‘And I want to pay for this, okay?’ Anna looked over, her ponytail swinging. ‘These are my expenses. James approves them. I never even spend that much.’

  ‘I know, but let me treat you tonight.’ Maggie turned onto Montgomery Avenue, taking the back roads.

  ‘Then let’s split it, okay?’

  ‘Okay.’ Maggie wondered if Noah would agree. ‘You know, Noah and I were talking about house rules, and how to make rules for you.’

  ‘Rules?’ Anna looked over, blinking.

  ‘Nothing too onerous. We’re not really strict with Caleb. But we should probably have some rules for both of you.’

  ‘Okay,’ Anna said, slowly enough to make Maggie wonder if she was pushing the point.

  ‘I don’t want to make a big thing of it. I’m just thinking that with respect to purchases, whether it’s the clothes or the car, we might discuss those things as a family.’

  ‘If you want to, I will.’ Anna shrugged. ‘You’re right, you guys should make the rules and I’ll follow them. I followed the rules at Congreve.’

  ‘What rules did they have? Curfews?’

  ‘Yes, but I never went out. I don’t think following a curfew is going to be a problem here, either.’ Anna shot her a sideways glance. ‘It’s not like my social calendar is going to be crazy busy.’

  ‘I know you’ll make friends, and like my mother used to tell me, “it only takes one.” ’ Maggie hadn’t remembered it until this very moment.

  ‘Did you have a lot of friends, growing up?’

  ‘Yes, I did, but it wasn’t easy. I was insecure.’ Maggie realized she had stumbled onto something. Maybe a way to get Anna to talk about herself was to be open about her past. ‘I used to be fat. My dad always said “pleasingly plump,” and in an Italian family, plump is always pleasing. I never thought it was a bad thing until I got to school. I got bullied and called names.’

  ‘Fat-shaming.’

  ‘Right.’ Maggie stopped at a traffic light, the red burning into the increasing darkness. ‘So I felt shy, but there was one girl in my Latin class and we became best friends.’

  ‘So it only took one.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s not like I had a lot of dates.’ Maggie felt a twinge, surprised she carried the dumb high-school hurts, even now. She was fifty-two pounds lighter, but a fat kid inside. ‘I got asked to the senior prom by a guy I liked, and his friends called him a chubby chaser.’

  ‘That’s so mean!’

  ‘I know, and he was a great guy.’

  ‘It’ll be strange to go to school with boys,’ Anna said, after a moment.

  ‘You didn’t have a boyfriend at Congreve, did you?’ Maggie asked, trying to keep her tone casual. She was asking for Noah.

  ‘No.’

  ‘You could meet a guy this week who could ask you out. Or you could even ask him out.’

  Anna waved her off. ‘No one will ask me out.’

  ‘You don’t know that. You’re beautiful and smart and any guy would be lucky to date you.’ Maggie steered through the night, heading toward Route 202. ‘And if a guy happens to ask you out, and you like him, you should say yes. You could have a date this weekend.’

  ‘You think?’ Anna squealed, which made Maggie laugh.

  ‘Of course! You’re assuming things will go badly. Why not assume that they’ll go well?’

  ‘Because they never have?’

  ‘Things are changing.’ Maggie thought a minute. ‘And listen, I have to bring this up because I’m the mom. You know we can talk about sex, right?’

  ‘Oh my God, really?’ Anna burst into laughter. ‘Are you serious right now?’

  ‘Yes. That’s the one thing I want to do differently from my mom.’ Maggie felt her smile fade. ‘It took a lot of growing up and therapy for me to feel comfortable talking about sex, much less having sex.’

  ‘Really.’ Anna’s tone turned surprised.

  ‘Yes.’ Maggie hesitated. ‘May I ask you, have you had sex?’

  Anna covered her face, giggling. ‘I can’t believe you!’

  ‘It’s okay, you can tell me. No judgment.’

  Anna’s hands slid from her face. ‘I feel weird talking about this.’

  ‘I’ll go first, then. I had sex for the first time when I was seventeen, just your age.’

  ‘Whoa! Okay. We’re jumping right in.’ Anna laughed again.

  ‘There was a guy I had a crush on. He was in my Latin class, he was a swimmer. Little-known fact, they have the best bodies. Take it from me.’

  ‘Ha!’ Anna giggled.

  ‘We went to a party where everybody was drinking. He told me he wanted me to be his girlfriend, which he didn’t, and we had sex in the basement. Then he dumped me and started calling me Meatball.’

  ‘Oh no!’

  ‘Let me tell you, being Meatball Ippoliti is no fun. The sex lasted five minutes, but the nickname lasted until graduation.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Anna groaned.

  ‘It’s okay, it happens.’ Maggie glanced over, but couldn’t see Anna’s expression in the dark. The only light was backlighting, emanating from the townhome developments.

  ‘Do you regret it?’

  ‘Not really. I learned from it, and it wasn’t the end of the world. I fell in and out of love a few times with some wonderful men until I got it right.’

  ‘Like with my father?’

  ‘Yes,’ Maggie answered, though she had been thinking of Noah. ‘But it’s not what I would want for you. So, you see where I’m coming from? How about you?’

  Anna paused. ‘I haven’t really had sex yet.’

  Maggie kept her hands on the wheel, cruising past the homes. She knew she had been right. She couldn’t wait to tell Noah. She loved being right.

  ‘There was this one guy, from our brother school, but we didn’t have sex. He wrote poetry, too. I showed him my poems, and he said they were “pedestrian.” ’

  ‘Oh please. What a jerk.’

  ‘Anyway, it never came to anything. I never even went on a date with him.’

  ‘His loss.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Anna giggled again. ‘This is kind of fun, hanging with my mom.’

  ‘Aw, I feel the same way about my daughter.’ Maggie spotted the lights of the King of Prussia Mall and aimed for the exit ramp.

  ‘I think I’m going to like living here.’

 
‘I think you are, too,’ Maggie said, hopeful.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Noah, After

  TRIAL, DAY 5

  Linda gestured to the projection screen, where the Petition for Protection From Abuse was showing. ‘Dr Alderman, that hearing on the Petition for Protection From Abuse took place on an emergency basis on Monday, May 8, did it not?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The hearing lasted only a single morning, isn’t that true?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And there were only two witnesses, isn’t that correct?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And isn’t it true that Anna testified at that hearing on her own behalf?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you testified on your own behalf, isn’t that correct?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You had your present counsel, Thomas Owusu, represent you at this hearing, didn’t you, Dr Alderman?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘However, Anna relied upon legal services, did she not?’

  ‘Yes.’ Noah suspected he knew why Anna had used a legal services lawyer, but Thomas had told him to keep that to himself. Anna’s trust fund never came into the record at the PFA hearing, and using legal services made her look helpless and sympathetic, in contrast to the rich, powerful doctor.

  ‘You were present when Anna testified, were you not?’ Linda strode to counsel table, picked up a packet, and returned to the stand with them.

  ‘Yes.’

  Linda turned to face Judge Gardner. ‘Your Honor, may we approach the bench for a sidebar?’

  ‘Certainly,’ Judge Gardner answered, and Thomas shot up and barreled toward the dais. Noah was close enough to hear whatever they were going to say, though he assumed the jury couldn’t, in theory.

  Linda cleared her throat. ‘Your Honor, the audiofile from the PFA hearing has become available and I would like to move it into evidence and play that to impeach Dr Alderman.’

  Judge Gardner blinked. ‘Ms Swain-Pettit, are you saying that you have the victim’s actual testimony on audio?’

  ‘Yes, exactly.’

  Noah held his breath. It would be terrible if they played Anna’s PFA testimony, her voice echoing throughout the courtroom. She had testified that day, so credibly. It would kill Maggie and convict him, for sure.