grating on the jury from the moment he asked her about her credentials. But he needed her testimony. She was, after all, Kelly Moore’s therapist. By the same token, he couldn’t afford to lose the jury in the process. He skipped whole pages of questions, flipping through his notepad to elicit her key testimony so he could get her off the stand as quickly as possible.
For her own selfish reasons, Rachel hoped Dr. Lawrence’s testimony would end quickly. She wanted to corner Alkins at the lunch recess and ask him what he remembered about Jenny Stills. When Rachel returned to her hotel the previous afternoon after talking with Estelle, she immediately tried to contact Alkins. She’d left several messages with his personal assistant but hadn’t received a call back from him or his staff.
Rachel stifled a yawn. Alkins worked through his questions, growing increasingly frustrated as the psychotherapist gave long, dry responses when short answers would have both sufficed and gone down much better with the jury.
Rachel took notes as the psychotherapist testified that Kelly had been a well-adjusted teenager before that night with Scott Blair. Afterward, Kelly exhibited all the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, which Dr. Lawrence said was common among victims of sexual assault. The effects ranged from anxiety and depression to panic attacks and nightmares.
“Dr. Lawrence, what is the normal reaction of a victim in the aftermath of a sexual assault?” Alkins asked.
“It depends,” she responded, leaning into the microphone.
“On what?”
“On the victim,” she answered. “There’s no typical reaction. Some victims become hysterical, cry and so on. Others seem calm and normal, as if nothing happened, and only later show the effects. Others are in shock. They’re numb. They don’t cry, but they can’t cope.”
“Dr. Lawrence, is it normal, for instance, for a sexual assault victim to get on a bus, buy a bus ticket, and sit alongside other people without showing any indication of having been assaulted hours earlier?”
This was a crucial question. Dale Quinn was expected to call to the stand the bus driver and several passengers from the bus that Kelly took home that day. Already, some of them had publicly said that Kelly acted normally that day, smiling at the driver when she disembarked, and they didn’t believe she’d been raped.
“It’s common for the emotional and psychological effects after a sexual assault to be delayed by hours, days. Even weeks,” Dr. Lawrence responded. “I believe Kelly was trying to hold herself together emotionally until she was in a safe space. Indeed, once she arrived home, she broke down.”
“In your dealings with Kelly, have you found her to be truthful and credible?” Alkins asked.
“In every way,” she said.
“Is there a chance that she misinterpreted what happened? Or exaggerated, maybe even lied about some details, or all of it?”
“I’ve spent more than ten months seeing Kelly as a patient. I have found her account of what happened and her emotional responses to be consistent throughout. I have absolutely no reason to doubt her word on what she says happened that night. No reason at all.”
Dale Quinn bounded out of his seat to cross-examine Dr. Lawrence. He happily dragged out his questioning for as long as possible, knowing that the longer she was on the stand, the less the jury liked her, and by extension, the less they’d believe anything she said. He effectively gave her enough rope to hang herself as a witness, thought Rachel. When Quinn was ready, in his softest, folksiest voice he reeled her in for the kill.
“Dr. Lawrence, did you work for an organization called the Women’s Rape Network after college?”
“Yes, I did.”
“I’ve been told that the Women’s Rape Network’s philosophy is that women who say they are the victims of a sexual assault should be believed no matter what. Is that accurate?” Quinn asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“Isn’t it true that your testimony today is based on that same view, that your role is to support Kelly and not question whether she is telling the truth?”
“I have no reason to doubt Kelly.”
“You weren’t there that night, were you?” Dale Quinn asked.
“No, I wasn’t.”
“And you didn’t see any of it happen. Did you?”
“No.”
When Dr. Lawrence left the stand, Judge Shaw announced they’d take a lunch break. It was already running late enough for Rachel’s stomach to rumble.
Rachel hung back until most of the court had cleared out, except for the lawyers. Mitch Alkins and a young female lawyer on his team were talking and packing files into their briefcases.