Riva, having detoured to the ladies’ room, comes trotting down the steps. “Ready?” she asks.
He nods. “Let’s go.” Out of the courtroom, a familiar safe haven, he’s antsy, anxious to get out of here: he’s acutely aware of being the curious and critical object of a hundred pair of eyes. And not only him, but also this unknown, rather exotic-looking woman with him: Lover? Cocounsel? Associate?
Let ’em guess. Whoever needs to know will figure it out. Taking Riva’s arm, he begins to lead her away through the throng. Then a low concentrated murmur causes him to turn and look back at the large entrance door.
Doug Lancaster has emerged from the courthouse. He’s flanked by a group of his friends and supporters, including Fred Hampshire, his lawyer. They’re immediately swarmed on by the reporter-horde. Questions fly at Doug, cameras and microphones are thrust in his face.
Hampshire holds up a hand for order. “No questions for Mr. Lancaster now,” he says crisply. “He’ll talk to you later.”
Looking towards the street, Doug spies Luke and Riva watching him. For a brief moment his face tenses, then he regains his equilibrium.
“Are you happy that the case is finally getting under way?” This from one of his own field reporters, a young, generically attractive woman.
The smile comes on. A serious smile, the face he presents to the world in this matter. “Yes, Doris, I am. We all are. It’s time to bring justice and closure to this painful event.”
Behind him Glenna Lancaster, with her own small entourage, has emerged from inside and is moving away. As some of the reporters head towards her, two large men sporting close-cropped hair and designer sunglasses, off-duty cops hired as bodyguards for the occasion, block access to her. She sweeps past Luke and Riva. Without a backwards look she gets into the backseat of a Lincoln Town Car with heavily tinted side windows.
“Interesting-looking woman,” Riva comments as she watches Glenna’s car meld into the traffic heading down Anacapa.
“Yeah,” Luke answers distractedly. He’s focused on Doug, still holding court on the steps.
“We need to talk.”
Luke turns. Fred Hampshire has snuck up behind him. His voice is stealthy, edgy; even Riva, standing alongside Luke, can barely hear him.
“What about?” Luke says, turning away, his eyes again fixed on Doug Lancaster.
“Money.”
“What about it?”
Riva has moved away a discreet distance. She doesn’t want any part of this.
“We want it back.”
A minuscule smile creases Luke’s mouth. Still not looking at Hampshire, he says, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’re not seriously thinking of keeping it.” The lawyer’s voice is lower, with a lot of threat in it.
“Like I said, Fred, I don’t know what in hell you’re talking about.”
Fred Hampshire’s face goes crimson. “Listen, you wise sonof—”
“You listen,” Luke says, cutting him off. Keeping his voice low, calm, he says, “My heart goes out to Doug and Glenna. Losing your child, especially under these circumstances, has to be the most horrible thing that could ever happen to someone. And I understand that they want her killer to be brought to justice—which is why we’re going to trial. You’re a lawyer. You know that. And you also know the system has to be allowed to work legitimately, without perversion or coercion.”
He’s getting heated up: mostly show, to tweak the family lawyer. “If, for instance, your client tried to buy a lawyer off from defending someone—we’re talking hypothetically here, in case you’re wired, which would be illegal but not uncommon—he would be committing a major felony that would get him sent to jail for a long time. A good lawyer such as yourself would advise said client never to try something as stupid as that. Beyond that, as I said, I don’t know what you’re talking about. And if I hear another word from anyone about this hypothetical bullshit, I’ll file a complaint that will embarrass the hell out of you people, which won’t help anyone.”
Leaving Hampshire fuming on the sidewalk, he takes Riva’s arm and walks her away. A few television reporters, pole mikes and remote cameras thrust forward, try to get a last-minute quote as he and Riva climb into the old truck, but he fends them off with a polite but firm “no comment.”
They sign a month-to-month lease on a small house on Mountain Drive high above the city, furnishings to be provided by Bekins on a monthly rental. The telephone company puts in two lines, and they’re set. It’s a little box, but the views are great—the entire city, harbor, Channel Islands, the ocean stretching to the horizon. It’s similar in feel to their house up north, a soothing womb to come home to at the end of a trying day, of which there will be many.
Finding suitable office space takes more time. Most of the private lawyers in town, those who practice criminal work, either don’t like him or are scared of him or both. He was their enemy, their nemesis, the man who kicked their asses and took their names. It’s only three feet to cross the aisle in the courtroom from the prosecution table to the defense side, but the psychological distance is vast, almost immeasurable.
And there’s the Doug Lancaster intimidation factor. Doug has already talked, conned, wheedled, and intimidated the good lawyers out of getting involved. Not that any of them needed much persuading—the overwhelming feeling is that this is going to be the Branch Davidian of trials. No lawyer in the area who’s got anything at all going wants an association with this, even as innocuously and indirectly as renting out some offices. Doug Lancaster is an eight-hundred-pound gorilla. Why piss him off when he’s only trying to do the right thing for his daughter’s memory and the community’s redemption?
The old judge comes through. The Anacapa School of Law is a night and weekend law school for people getting their degrees in their spare time. They expanded recently, and have a vacant suite. There’s an adequate law library, computer hookups, students eager to pitch in for stuff like research if the need arises. The ex-judge is on their board of directors, so getting the space is a done deal.
Four days after Luke stands up in court for the first time with his client Joe Allison, he’s ready to go to work.
Both he and Riva are up with the sun. It’s hard to sleep well the first few nights in a new place, and their bedroom faces southeast, so the new-day sun, arising over the south-facing coast like a fresh egg yolk, shines full into the windows. They could close the wide paint-peeling wood shutters, but they both like the feeling of open space.
They separate; they won’t see each other until the day’s end, when they’ll meet up someplace for a drink, checking with each other on their cell phones, to recap the day’s events, then maybe dinner out, or pick something up and bring it back here or, for him, to his office.
He heads to town, parks at his new office, and strolls three blocks over to the courthouse, where he files a discovery motion to obtain Emma Lancaster’s autopsy report. The method of killing, as he understands it, is cut-and-dried, but maybe there’s some off-center wrinkle that might point him in a helpful direction.
The clerk behind the counter instructs him to check back towards the end of the day, or maybe tomorrow. Sealed files, whether autopsy reports or others of a criminal nature, aren’t in the computer.
“For protection against unauthorized access,” she explains.
“That’s a good idea,” he says dryly. He knows about that policy. He instituted it, when he was running the show.
He walks down to Figueroa Street and into police headquarters. They lead him through the maze and sit him down in a small holding room, where he waits to interview the officer who arrested Joe Allison on the DUI charge. Passing through the entrance, signing in with the officer of the day, and following his escort through the hallways, he sees familiar faces. He nods to them, they nod and grunt in return. None of them do anything to make him feel welcome. He used to be their poster boy, their hero—they’d bust the bad guys, he’d put them away. No
w, like most everyone else in town, they wish he’d never come back.
Elton Caramba, the cop who stopped Joe Allison and put all this in motion, sits across the small wooden desk from Luke. He just came off his shift, but he’s alert, buttoned-down, his uniform still crisp after eight hours riding around in a patrol car.
Luke originally asked Caramba, a short, contentious ex-Marine with a discernible chip on his shoulder, to meet him at his office at the law school, but the cop preferred his own territory. Luke acquiesced: interviewing the other side’s witnesses is always a touchy situation. Arguing over where an interview will take place isn’t worthwhile.
“Good morning, Officer Caramba. Thanks for taking time to talk to me.”
Caramba shrugs. He’s got his story straight. He’s been over it enough times.
Luke knows the cop hates his guts. The law says you don’t have to be interviewed in a criminal case, but police department regs say otherwise. The position is that the police work for everyone, prosecution and defense. So you cooperate. But that doesn’t mean you have to bend over and open wide.
Normally, an assistant D.A. would be sitting in; advising Caramba. It’s SOP whenever a police officer is questioned by a defense lawyer. But because of Luke’s former position, Logan had decided, after some deliberation, not to have one of his people present. Most of the current assistants worked under Luke, and there might be some embarrassment. Deeper than that is Logan’s desire to let Luke know that they have nothing to fear from him, nothing to hide. Their cops don’t need that kind of protection. All they have to do is tell the truth. And they will.
Luke opens the folder with the cop’s information. Looking up, he asks, “Where were you when you saw my client’s car on the night you arrested him?”
“When I first spotted him?”
Luke nods. “Yes.”
“I was in my patrol car on Coast Village Road.”
“Driving or parked?”
“I was driving.”
“Towards him, or in the same direction?”
“In the same direction.”
“So you came up behind him.” Another glance at his notes. His notes, like all lawyers’, are work-product, protected by confidentiality—he never has to show them to anyone. But he doesn’t like to take copious notes while he’s interviewing; it breaks the flow, and tends to make the interviewee uptight, knowing that every word he (or she) is saying is being recorded for posterity, usually to be used, in the case of hostile witnesses such as this one, against him.
Later, right after the interview, he’ll flesh them out.
“Yes.” The cop answers.
“And you followed him for a while.”
“A short time.”
“How long is a short time, Officer?”
“Ten, fifteen seconds.”
Luke frowns. “That isn’t much time.”
“It was enough for me,” Caramba says without any hesitation.
“Was he speeding?” He already knows the answer—he wants to find out, as soon as possible, if this particular officer shades things, either out of reflex, nervousness, or plain attitude. He won’t press whatever he learns now—the information will go into the mental file, to be used later when needed.
Caramba starts to say something, changes his mind, says, “No.”
“Then why did you stop him?”
“He was weaving.”
“Could you describe ‘weaving’ for me? How you personally define it, out in the field?”
“Not driving a straight line. Crossing the double yellow line. You use your common sense. And your experience.”
“Right. So Mr. Allison was weaving back and forth across the double yellow line? That was the main reason you thought he might have been impaired?”
Another short hesitation. “Yes.”
Luke waits a moment before asking his next question. “If you only followed him for ten or fifteen seconds,” he says, “how many times could you have seen him weaving back and forth across the double yellow?”
The cop squares himself in his chair. “A couple.”
“A couple?” Luke says dubiously. “In ten or fifteen seconds?”
“Once would’ve been enough. I do this for a living—sir. I’m trained to spot this sort of thing. Better too early a stop for a DUI than too late. If I’m wrong, I apologize and I’m on my way. Most drivers appreciate that attitude, even if they are over the limit.”
Luke changes the subject. He’s going to have this cop on the stand, he knows that already, and he has enough information on this part of the story for now. “You pulled him over …”
Without further prompting, Caramba gives a dry, by-the-numbers description of what went down: He pulled the car over, the driver seemed flushed, impaired, he was talking loud, the usual symptoms. Then he (Caramba) spotted the opened whiskey bottle on the floor of the car, which prompted him to search (legally) for other possible violations.
Luke listens with half an ear—he knows what the guy’s going to say, almost word for word, before he says it. A parrot on a perch.
“And that’s when I found the key ring in the back of the glove compartment,” the cop says, finishing that part of his recitation. “I remembered it because it had been described to us when we were out searching for her. Since the keys were one of the few personal items missing then,” he adds, wishing he hadn’t; he wants to give the facts and that’s all, no editorializing or embellishing.
“Uh-huh. When did you read Mr. Allison his Miranda rights?” Luke asks casually, changing directions. “Before or after you found the key ring that turned out to belong to Emma Lancaster?”
The cop blinks. “After,” he says.
“And was that before or after you field-tested him for sobriety?”
Another blinking, several fast ones, as if the blinking brings up the correct answer. “Before. I mean …” He realizes he’s been caught. He stops talking.
“Hmm.” Luke rises, stretches.
The cop stares at him impassively.
When Luke sits down again, he says, “Don’t you normally wait until after you’ve found out if they’re over the limit or not before you read them their rights? If they’re not over the limit you’re not going to bust them, so you don’t have to read them their rights, right?”
For the first time in the session the cop squirms in his chair, just a small movement, but enough for Luke to know that the guy is feeling uncomfortable. “Yeah, normally that’s how you’d do it.”
“So reading him his rights was about finding the key ring, rather than any DUI thing.”
Reluctantly, the cop answers. “Yes.”
“Because you recognized the seriousness of it. The potential seriousness of it.”
Again, reluctantly, “Yeah.”
Luke casually leafs through the file. “I think that’s all I need, Officer,” he says. He stands and offers the man his hand. The policeman, rising on his own feet, takes it with dubious hesitation.
“Oh, one last thing,” Luke remembers. “When did you test Mr. Allison for whether or not he was over the limit? Did you field-test him out there on the street, or did you wait until you got back to the station?”
“I didn’t test him in the field,” the arresting officer, a career foot-soldier who will never rise higher than his present station, says as flatly as he can. But presented with the opportunity to boast a little, he can’t help but add, “At that point I had bigger problems to deal with.”
Okay, so the cop was lying. That it was a lie of omission rather than commission makes it less of a lie, but in the black-and-white-morality sense it’s still a lie, because it isn’t the full truth. The cop didn’t inform Allison, when he read him his Miranda rights, that he was a possible suspect in an unsolved murder.
The first chink in the armor. Only a technicality, one that no judge, certainly no judge sitting on the bench in this county, will listen to. But it’s a beginning, a possible handhold.
The sheriff’s of
fice is reluctant to hand over the videotape of Allison’s interrogation. But they have to, so he gets his hands on it and watches it at home with Riva.
It’s nighttime. They’re sprawled on the floor of their sparsely furnished living room in the rental house, watching the tape on the VCR and eating take-out Chinese.
“They were playing fast and loose with the rules, Riva. They didn’t tell him he was under suspicion for Emma Lancaster’s murder. He thought all he was sweating was a DUI, which is only a misdemeanor. They don’t normally book someone on that, unless he’s falling-down drunk, which Allison clearly wasn’t.”
“Can you use that?” she asks.
“Probably not, although I’ll raise it.” He remotes the tape off. “It’s too nebulous, and they did read him his rights. It’s SOP cop stuff. I could only use it if there was other malfeasance on top of it, and I doubt there was.”
She maneuvers some noodles with her chopsticks. “You used to do that stuff, didn’t you? When you were running the show.”
He nods. “Like I said, it’s SOP. You have to get the confession, you don’t want to scare the pigeon off. It’s easier now than it used to be. The courts’ve given the prosecution much more leeway in interpreting that stuff.”
“So how does it feel?” She pours him more chardonnay. She’s wearing shorts and one of his T-shirts. Looking up at her long legs from his supine position on the floor, he feels a growing horniness.
“Being on the other side?” He quaffs some wine. “Mildly weird, but it’s not that important. Sooner or later you have to get down to guilt or innocence, and all the ‘side’ stuff gets sifted out. All this jury swaying and jury nullification stuff you read about, it rarely happens. It won’t in this case,” he predicts, “because there aren’t any unique circumstances. No racial issues, no money issues.”
“But it’s so inflammatory. All this stuff feeds the fire, doesn’t it?” she asks.
“Of course. Goes with the territory.”
He follows her into the kitchen. She rinses their plates in the sink. Handing him a towel for drying, she looks at him closely. “Luke—do you think he’s guilty?”
The Disappearance Page 13