Czernek rubbed the bridge of his nose. 'It's a simple ques-tion, Mrs. Chandler. Did you suspect that you were involved in something that was wrong?'
'No, I did not.'
'I see. And now that you have been caught, do you feel any remorse?' Johnson shot to his feet again. 'Objection, Your Honor! The question of remorse is totally irrelevant.'
Judge Lyang sustained.
Czernek shrugged and turned to face Karen. 'I have no more questions.' On his way to the witness stand, Johnson glared at the more experienced lawyer, turning his head so that his expression was hidden from the jurors' view. Czernek smiled cordially and regained his seat.
'Mrs. Chandler,' Johnson began, his hands in his pants pock-ets, jacket bottoms draped over his wrists. 'Please tell the court why you had to seek out the services of a fertility clinic.' She looked at the women in the jury, speaking softly. 'David and I had always wanted to have children, and we tried right from our wedding night. But nothing ever seemed to happen. We went to doctors, and they determined that it was sort of both our faults.' She lowered her head for a moment, then looked up, this time at the men. 'I had very poorly developed ovaries, and David had an industrial accident when he was twenty and had a very low sperm count.'
'And what options did you consider?'
'Non-surgical ovum transfer was one method,' she said, glancing over at Czernek in pleasure that the truth could now get out. 'Of course, since David couldn't contribute the sperm, we used eggs that had already been fertilized.'
'Did you actually undergo such an operation?'
'Yes. Four times.'
The spectators began to trade whispered sounds of aston-ishment. Johnson stepped close to Karen.
'What was the outcome of each?'
'I miscarried all four.'
The murmuring in the courtroom increased an increment. The judge gaveled for quiet. The sounds abated momentarily.
'At what point did these pregnancies spontaneously abort?'
'All of them within the first three weeks.'
'And were these your first attempts?'
'No. We had tried in vitro fertilization with donor ova and sperm.'
'How many tries there?'
'Three.'
'Any other methods?'
'Yes,' she said in an almost ashamed tone. 'Three attempts at artificial insemination before my problem was properly di-agnosed. But that was long before I found Dr. Fletcher.'
'So altogether, how many times had you tried orthodox methods of artificial impregnation?'
'Ten times.'
'And the outcome each time?'
She looked straight at the jury. 'They all miscarried.'
'How soon after each procedure?'
'All within the first three weeks, when they took at all.'
