Immoral (26 page)

“Well, one day, Rachel came to the bank. She was dressed in a tight halter and short shorts. I scolded her about it, and we got into an argument in the lobby. Graeme saw us together, but he didn’t say anything. Later that day, though, he asked me out on a date.”

Dan zeroed in on Emily’s story, his voice rising. “The day that Graeme approached you was the day he saw Rachel with you in the bank?”

“Yes.”

“After several months of ignoring you?”

“Yes.”

“Had he seen Rachel with you before?” Dan asked.

“I don’t see how. Rachel hardly ever came to the bank.”

“Okay. So the two of you began dating. How did Rachel react to your having a man in your life again?”

“She was friendly to Graeme. She flirted with him.”

“Eventually, you and Graeme were married. What did you observe about Rachel and Graeme’s relationship after that?”

Emily took another deep breath. “They did things together, just the two of them. They went out on photography trips in the woods and were gone for hours. Graeme bought her gifts—clothes, compact discs, that kind of thing.”

“How did you feel about this?”

“Initially, I thought it was fine. I was happy to have a family again. But I began to be concerned that Graeme was spending more and more time with Rachel and less and less time with me. He became very distant, very cold. It was like he was shutting down our relationship, and I didn’t know why.”

Dan took a long look at the jury, then said quietly, “Mrs. Stoner, did you ever have reason to believe that your husband was having sexual relations with your daughter?”

Emily’s eyes flashed with anger. “The signs were there. I was blind to them. I didn’t want to believe it. But looking back, I can point to things that should have set off warning bells in my head.”

“Like what?”

“Well, one time, I was putting groceries in the back of the van. It was a Monday, and Graeme and Rachel had gone out hiking together the day before. I came across a pair of Rachel’s panties in the van.”

“What did you do?” Dan asked.

“I asked Graeme about it. He said Rachel had slipped while crossing a creek and fallen in. Her clothes got wet.”

“Did you talk to Rachel, too?”

“No. I just washed them and put them away.”

“What else did you observe?” Dan asked.

“Another time, I saw them kissing. I had already gone up to bed, and I heard Rachel and Graeme coming up the stairs. Rachel was giggling. The lights were on in the hallway, and I heard her say good night, and then I saw her put her arms around his neck and kiss him. On the lips. It wasn’t a chaste kiss.”

“Did you talk to Graeme or Rachel about it?”

“No. I pretended I was asleep. I couldn’t face it.”

Dan waited, letting Emily’s story sink in. “Did this close relationship between Graeme and Rachel last?”

Emily shook her head. “No, something changed. Two summers ago, Rachel’s relationship with Graeme soured. She became very cold and indifferent. I hadn’t seen anything to precipitate it, no arguments, no fights. But she turned him off like a switch. Graeme tried to win her back. He was almost pathetic about it. He bought her a new car, but nothing changed. Rachel treated Graeme from that point very much the way she treated me. Like an enemy.”

“Objection,” Gale snapped.

“Sustained,” Judge Kassel said.

“Mrs. Stoner, why didn’t you tell any of this to the police when Rachel first disappeared?” Dan asked.

“I tried to tell myself it was impossible that Graeme could be involved. I was fooling myself, as if the things I had seen didn’t mean anything. And I guess it was too humiliating to think that something so horrible was going on under my nose and I never saw any of it.”

Gale objected again and was sustained again. But Dan had made his point. He was ready to wrap up.

“We know you had a difficult time with your daughter. After all that happened between you, did you still love her?”

Passion flowed into Emily’s face. It was the first time that Stride could recall seeing any life at all in her tired eyes. “Of course! I loved her with my whole soul. I still do. I know how much pain she went through, and I would have done anything to reach her. I never could. It tore me up inside. It will always be the greatest regret of my life, that I couldn’t find a way to mend the gap between us.”

Dan smiled. “Thank you, Mrs. Stoner.”

Stride assumed Gale would treat the mother of the victim with kid gloves. He was wrong. There wasn’t a hint of sympathy in Gale’s demeanor.

“The fact is, Mrs. Stoner, your relationship with your daughter was awful, wasn’t it?” Gale began.

“It wasn’t very good. That’s what I said.”

Gale snorted. “Not very good? Rachel regularly said she hated you, didn’t she?”

“Well—she said that a few times.”

“She regularly called you a bitch,” Gale said.

“Sometimes.”

“She would destroy things you owned, personal things, just for the hell of it.”

“Sometimes.”

“She would do despicable things for the sole purpose of hurting you?”

Emily nodded. “That’s true.” Then she lobbed an angry missile: “Like having sex with my husband.”

“Or like running away and leaving your life and your marriage in ruins?” Gale demanded.

“She didn’t do that.”

Gale threw his beefy arms in the air. “How do you know? Wasn’t she bright enough and devious enough to have staged all of this?”

“Objection,” Dan said.

Gale shrugged. “I’ll withdraw it. Mrs. Stoner, by your own admission, you didn’t tell anyone about these so-called suspicions until after the police told you your husband was a suspect, is that right?”

“I was in denial,” Emily said.

“Denial? The truth is, you really didn’t think they were having an affair, did you?”

“Not then, no.”

“And the only reason you think so now is because it seems to fit with Mr. Erickson’s little mystery story, isn’t that right?”

“No. That isn’t true.”

“Isn’t it?” Gale asked, his voice dripping with disbelief. “Everything you’ve told us, it’s all about you and Rachel, isn’t it? Not about Graeme. It was about Rachel playing games with you. Tormenting you. Trying to hurt you.”

“It was difficult,” Emily said.

“So difficult you beat up your own daughter once, didn’t you?”

Emily cringed. She began to withdraw, staring into her lap. “Yes,” she murmured.

“Speak up! You were angry, and you beat the hell out of her, didn’t you?”

“It was just once.”

Gale shook his head. “Oh, so you only abused your daughter once. That’s all right, is it?”

“No! I’m so sorry!”

“Your daughter pushed you until you viciously assaulted her, right?”

Dan stood up. “Mr. Gale is badgering the witness, Your Honor.”

The judge nodded. “Back off, Mr. Gale.”

Gale changed direction. “If she pushed you far enough, you’d do it again, wouldn’t you?”

“No.”

Gale lowered his voice and continued with a wicked calm. “In fact, weren’t you the one with the motive to kill Rachel?”

Emily’s eyes flew open. “No!”

“No? After she humiliated you for years?”

“I would never hurt her.”

“You just told us you did.”

“That was a long time ago,” Emily pleaded. “It happened once and never happened again.”

“Didn’t it?” Gale asked. “Didn’t you finally have it out with Rachel once and for all on that last weekend?”

“No—no, of course not! I wasn’t even there!”

Gale was patient. “Where were you?”

“With my sister in St. Louis.”

“On Friday night?” Gale asked. “The night Rachel disappeared?”

“Yes.”

Alarm bells began to go off in Stride’s head.

“But not on Saturday,” Gale said. “You weren’t in St. Louis on Saturday night, were you?”

Emily shook her head. “No. I stayed at a hotel in the Cities. I was tired. I had been driving all day.”

“Where did you stay?” Gale asked.

“I don’t remember. Somewhere on the Bloomington strip.”

“Could it have been the Airport Lakes Hotel?”

“Possibly. I really don’t remember.”

Gale retrieved a piece of paper from the counsel’s table. “In fact, isn’t this a copy of your receipt from the Airport Lakes Hotel in Bloomington for that weekend?”

Emily paled. “Yes.”

“Well, then,” Gale said, frowning. “We have a problem, don’t we?”

Emily was silent.

Gale held up the paper. “Because this receipt shows you checking in on
Friday
night, not Saturday, doesn’t it?”

Stride murmured, “Son of a bitch.”

Maggie leaned over and whispered, “Goddamn it, the sister covered for her. She swore Emily was there on Friday night.”

In the witness stand, Emily hadn’t spoken. Gale spread his arms, the receipt held high in his left hand. “Well, Mrs. Stoner?”

“It must be a mistake,” Emily said in a ghastly voice.

“A mistake?” Gale was scornful. “They billed you for two nights, and you didn’t notice? Shall we call the desk clerk who checked you in?”

Emily’s eyes darted frantically, looking for cover. As Stride watched, she seemed to look repeatedly in one place, at the man seated a few feet down the row. At Dayton Tenby.

Stride glanced at the minister and saw a look of panic in Dayton’s eyes, too.

Emily crumbled. “All right, yes, I was there on Friday night. I did some shopping at the Mall of America on Saturday. Graeme wouldn’t have liked it, and that’s why I lied. It didn’t seem like a big thing.”

“How convenient,” Gale said. “But the fact is, you could easily have driven to Duluth and back on that Friday night, couldn’t you?”

“I didn’t do that,” Emily insisted.

“You check in, you head north. You would have arrived just after ten, right? Just when Rachel was getting home?”

“No. That’s not what happened.”

Gale smiled. “No? Tell us, Mrs. Stoner, what did Rachel do that night? What did she say? Did she push one button too many?”

“No, no, no.”

Dayton Tenby leaned forward, and Stride saw him whispering furiously to Dan.

“You knew about the barn, right?” Gale persisted.

Emily didn’t answer.

“I need a yes or no. Did you know what the barn was and where it was?”

“Yes.”

“You’d been there yourself, hadn’t you?”

“Not in years.”

“But you had been there? You knew all about it?”

“Yes.” Her voice was a lifeless echo.

“You had the real motive and opportunity to kill Rachel, didn’t you? You had a history of violence toward her. She treated you like dirt.”

Emily stared at him. “I didn’t kill my daughter.”

“You lied to the police. You lied to your husband. You lied to the jury. How do we know you’re not lying now?”

Tears rolled in streaks down Emily’s face. “I’m not lying.”

Gale shrugged.

“That’s all, Mrs. Stoner. I have nothing further.”

Dan stood up on redirect.

“Mrs. Stoner, tell us again what you were doing on Friday night, when you claimed you were at your sister’s house.”

“I was shopping,” Emily repeated.

Dan caught Emily’s reluctant eyes. His voice softened. “You can’t hide it anymore. It’s time for the truth to come out. Now please, tell us. Where were you on Friday night?”

Stride saw Emily stare, stricken, at Tenby. He saw the minister nod his head gently. Emily took a deep breath and turned to the jury. She seemed composed again.

“I was at the hotel in Bloomington, just like the receipt says. I was having an affair. I didn’t want my husband or anyone in the community finding out.”

Dan nodded. “Who were you seeing in Minneapolis?”

“It was—I mean, I was meeting—Dayton. Dayton Tenby. He’s been my pastor for years.” Her words galloped out of her mouth as she tried to explain. “We didn’t meet with the intention of having an affair. He was in Minneapolis for a conference. I wanted to talk to him, so I came back early. We had dinner, and then, well, one thing just led to another. We ended up spending the weekend together. It was beautiful. But I felt guilty and ashamed, and I didn’t want to endanger Dayton’s career. Even though it was my fault, I knew he could be hurt.”

“Were you with him the whole time?” Dan asked.

“Yes.”

“Did you have any opportunity to sneak up to Duluth?”

Emily shook her head. “Of course not. That’s ridiculous. There’s only one person who was at home with Rachel that night. And that’s Graeme.”

“I watched the news tonight,” Andrea said, taking a large swallow from a glass of Chardonnay, which they were gulping like cold beer. “You know how they are, all the experts handicapping who’s winning and who’s losing. But this time, they didn’t sound like they knew. Even Bird wasn’t ready to call the trial one way or another.”

“Nice to know something can render Bird speechless,” Stride said.

“What does Dan think?” Andrea asked.

“He thinks we’re winning.”

“What do you think Gale thinks?”

“I think he thinks he’s winning.”

“So who’s winning?”

Stride laughed. “Us, I think. Then again, I’m an optimist.”

Andrea, who was already more than a little drunk, shook her head. “An optimist? You? I don’t think so.”

“Even better. We must really be winning, then.”

“Does Maggie think so, too?”

“Maggie?” Stride asked. “Maggie hates Dan so much, I think she would be content to have Stoner go free just to have Dan fall on his ass. However, she calls it a draw so far, and she’s probably right.”

Andrea was silent. Then she said, “I don’t think Maggie likes me too much.”

Stride shrugged. “I’ve told you about Maggie. I think she still cares about me and won’t admit it. She’s probably a little jealous. This is about her, not you.”

“She doesn’t think I’m right for you.”

“Did she say that?”

“No,” Andrea said. “Women just know these things.”

“Well, let’s leave us to worry about us, and Maggie can worry about Maggie. Okay?”