The Forgotten Hours(46)
The second theory was that Sarah’s memory was negatively impacted by a “dissociative memory” disorder, causing her to wrongly attribute early memories of abuse to the defendant. The defendant sought to introduce expert testimony by a psychologist to underpin this theory.
Judge Sonnenheim excluded testimony from both the expert and Sarah’s biological mother, as well as evidence of Sarah’s alleged abuse before her adoption. The judge found that the prejudicial effect of what she considered “entirely speculative” testimony outweighed its probative value.
John F. Gregory received a maximum sentence of six years and was denied a stay of his appeal.
“The error in prohibiting the testimony of his expert witness was prejudicial, and the defendant deserves a new trial,” said defense counsel Herbert L. Schwartz of Schwartz, Danneberg, Weissman, Bein & Johnson in New York. “The state’s case rested wholly on the alleged victim’s credibility. Excluding evidence that could have affected the jury’s evaluation of her credibility was extremely damaging to the defendant’s case.”
Schwartz explained that in sexual abuse cases, the state always poses the question “Why would the victim say this if it isn’t true?”
Out on the stone patio, Katie paced back and forth in her socks. Back and forth, back and forth. The legalese in the article turned their story into something inanimate and distant, a cold-blooded argument. But for her, it was as real as a flesh wound. For a while after her father went to jail, she dreamed of bumping into those jurors in the course of her ordinary life. One night she’d dream of the heavyset woman in her pretty red dress, and the next it would be the older man who sat at the end of the second row, taking notes with a fountain pen. In her dreams she would punch these people in the face, her arm shooting out and smashing through skin, bone, cartilage. There was blood, tons of blood. And there was silence, during which she savored the fear in their eyes, their blood staining the webs between her fingers. When she woke up, that delicious satisfaction would disappear, and she’d be back in her bed, an ordinary girl with no special powers, a girl whose father was in prison and who could do nothing about it.
Now she remembered, too, other dreams she had suppressed, snippets that were just as powerful and that left her drained when she opened her eyes to the reality of another day. In those dreams, she did not rail against Lulu but cried for her, for their lost friendship. But when she woke, that pain was subsumed by the avalanche of her anger. She knew what to do with anger but not what she should do about her grief.
Reading now about Lulu’s past reanimated that chaos. All along she had sensed something was wrong in Lulu’s family, something that no one would confront—not Charlie or John or even Lulu herself. But Katie had felt it, hadn’t she? An indistinct yet disconcerting sense of peril that lay like a scaffold beneath their friendship, giving it strange ballast. It seemed cruel that as close as they had been, they hadn’t really told each other much of anything.
Now it seemed the jury also hadn’t known about the claims that Lulu suffered trauma before her adoption. Had Piper been telling her earlier that Lulu had lied about the rapes when she was a little girl or that she’d been lying about Katie’s father raping her? The jury had no reason to suspect Lulu’s memory might be distorted. But had her memory been distorted? Was it possible that she wasn’t really lying, just remembering the order of events incorrectly? Getting men and pain and fear mixed up?
Finally, she typed Lulu Henderson into the search field.
Lulu Henderson, Profile & History, Ancestry.com
Harriet Lulu Henderson, records
Lulu Fifi Dog Care, New Hampshire
Lulu Henderson, underwear, CafeMom
She clicked on the images tab. There was a gravestone, a puppy, comic books, a puppet wearing office clothes. And then there she was: Lulu’s hair formed a black halo around a soft face. Her expression was wary, her eyes squinting slightly as though she were asking the photographer, And who exactly are you? She was carrying a stack of books and wearing an enormous black sweater that dwarfed her upper body. Under the thick wool the swell of her breasts was unmistakable, but her shoulders were pulled forward, and Katie was hit with the realization that this woman, this grown-up Lulu, was trying to hide herself. She did not look like the person Katie had thought she would become.
There wasn’t much she could glean from Facebook because of the privacy settings, though there were some pictures of Lulu with a bunch of dogs and various dog paraphernalia, which was curious. All along she’d assumed that Lulu would have become a singer, but there was no sign of that from what little she could see. Back then, Lulu’s energy had thrown a shadow over Katie’s—she hadn’t minded, because she’d instinctively known how much Lulu had needed her. Katie had watched and admired, wondering in an almost abstract way what she herself wanted for her future. Lulu’s longings had been enough for the two of them.
She worried at the skin around her fingernails with her teeth. Her father’s lawyer had forbidden Katie to contact Lulu, but she’d ignored him. After the verdict had come in, she’d created a new email account—[email protected]—and sent her a note. No holding back, a torrent of hateful language. She’d said everything in that email that she had dreamed of saying to Lulu’s face. Days of careful crafting, not a word wasted. Each sentence a punch in the gut. It had been an incredible release, and she hadn’t regretted it. Afterward, she’d disabled the email to be sure that she wouldn’t get some sickening, self-righteous response.