by Larry Crane
“Nail them on every point. Right? Are we back to you helping me again?” he said.
“You only need one point, but it has to be a good one. Look, I don’t see it as helping you get out of here. This is for my own benefit. Money. Pure and simple. I have to work as an independent reporter. As soon as I’m not objective, my effectiveness evaporates. I’m conveying the ways my work on the story can have beneficial effects for you.”
“You’re lying. You haven’t written shit for Carnival or any other rag,” he said. “I checked you out. You have one crappy little piece in the Bergen Record.”
“So what? You understand lying. You’ve done it ten times more than I have. But you got what you were after in the end. We understand each other. Concentrate on the outcome you want, and forget everything else. You need one strong issue. Invoke Miranda. It wasn’t in effect when you were questioned, but it’s pertinent to questions about police’s conduct in your case.”
“Fuck off! Miranda. What do you know about Miranda?”
“The shoe fits. I know that.”
“Do you really know anything about me? I’m recognized as an authority on criminal law and appeal procedures. I’ve got three books published.”
“Lie. You had help writing your appeals, and you only have two books published.”
“You stroll in here with some fuzzy headed bullshit you cooked up with last night’s nouvelle cuisine…”
“Back when all this started, when the police were questioning you, before you were officially charged, did they not at one point push you down in your chair?”
“Miranda again. Forget it. You can never nail the man,” he said.
“Unless you’re Miranda.”
“Okay, you’re thinking. I’ll give you that. Most people I talk to aren’t doing a lot of thinking.”
“I’m schooled in the use of the media. External to your legal wrangles. An objective reporter. TV, newspapers, magazines, they’re all salivating over this story. We work together on this. Revisit the facts, all the key witnesses.”
“You don’t need me to do that,” he said.
“Yes I do. You give me authenticity. You have insights no one else has. I want you to put me onto aspects of the case that only you know about. Point out people who have been ignored or overlooked or underestimated. Look, I know the case. I know you had a conversation with a priest at one point. People wonder about that. Why talk to a priest? I suggest I interview the priest first. Father Al. Al Sokol from Don Bosco. His part in it is mostly unknown. He’s living in—”
“Father Al. So, you actually did some research. Don’t tell me where he is. I know exactly where he is.”
“When do we start?”
“You got an old man?”
“Yes,” I said. “No. Leave him out of it.”
“And he says nothing when you go trotting off to Trenton? Forget it. I’m not playing grab ass with horny women. Find a hobby. Get a dog.”
“If this appeal is denied, it’s what?—five more months, minimum, just to get another one read?”
“Say it straight out. You want to help me get out of here, and then—”
“I want to do this story. It’s good for me and it’s good for you.”
“All right. Play it out some more. Maybe you make a name for yourself. Maybe you use me against a pussy chasing husband—or you want to turn him into one—or show him that you’ve turned into one—a prick teaser that is—or maybe you just want me to ‘do you’ right here on the floor.”
“You fuck off, Smitty! I want information,” she said.
“Ha! Good! That’s good. You know, you have a look to you, like you think you know me—like I’m going to clear something up for you. You’re quick. You’ve done a little homework. You got balls. Nah. I don’t like it.”
“Pussy! The Bergen Record won’t be able to resist this. They came to life as a newspaper with your story back then. Through them, you bring the case back alive, which puts pressure on the courts. Then you file the Miranda appeal.”
“No,” he said.
“What are you afraid of? You’ll have readers writing letters by the thousands—bringing out the facts you want known.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Forget it. Guard!”
“Tell me why,” she said.
“You’re here for more than a story, and I don’t know what it is, other than the fantasy of fucking a convicted killer. You’re dried up and desperate to get your juices going again.”
The man is scared and confused about what I might be up to. Lay in to him.
“You’re afraid of me,” she said.
“Guard!”
“You’re rigid. You can’t allow even the slightest glimmer of outside light to shine on your case. Your approach is inbred and stale. You wouldn’t even open up to your defense counsel. He was flying blind. So you lost the case. I know you. I know you better than you know yourself. You’ve had one person on your side since you came here, and he’s famous and you feel lucky. You are lucky to have him telling the world how smart you are—how much the world has lost with you behind bars. But, he could publish fifty pieces in his magazine, and it wouldn’t stop the pointing and the staring. You don’t merely want to get out of this place. You want relief. That’s what you want. Okay, convince me. Add me to your list of believers. And I’ll add them out there to your list.”
“Get outta here,” he said.
“I know you. Getting out is not enough. You want to turn the last pointing finger. You want reparations—to walk in a crowd, accepted as one of them. You want them to feel guilty for locking you up in the first place. You want an invitation to the party. Their party. Well, you’re looking at the hostess, pal. What do you have to lose?”
He said, “You show everything to me before it goes in any newspaper. You go where I want you to go. No funny stuff. No rich bitch stuff. No—”
“Are you going to work with me or not?”
“Go see Gilady. He’s the jackass who—”
“I know who Gilady is,” she said.
“Call this a tryout. I want to see what you come up with. He’s like a freaking turtle. Go for the belly on him. He’s soft on the sweet-sixteen-and-never-been-kissed bullshit. Yeah, that’s it. Go talk to him. Hey, you’re so fucking smart. What’s the maximum sentence for second-degree murder in the State of New Jersey?
“Hey! Fucking forever,” she said, clutching her throat.
Out in the car, she saw Hannah’s face in the rearview mirror again but when she looked into the back seat, she saw nothing.
“I get a D minus today, Sweetie. I was right about mincemeat. I froze. He murdered me. I forgot everything I thought I’d say—if I ever knew what that was. He went straight for the jugular. It’s what they do, men. It’s all about who’s on top and who’s not, and how does he keep it that way. They actually want to physically fight to the death. It’s occurred to me to be like a man when I go in there. Not for the fun of it. It wouldn’t be fun. But then I realized I can’t think like a man—think that everything has a physical dimension. I don’t even know if I want to think like that. It’s better to use a man against himself. Play mind games with him. When he tries to overpower you, you stand your ground. When he backs off, you slug him with words, zingers, and see how good he is at handling that. I got a couple of zingers in, didn’t I, Sweetie?”
Chapter 29
Dr. Gilady’s wife showed her into his dark little office. He rose to shake her hand, a short man with white hair. She could barely feel his grip. “Doctor Gilady. How do you do, sir? My name is Marcella Armand. I called earlier.”
It was the same room he’d used to examine Smith. He was brought there in the early morning hours at some point in his lengthy questioning all those years ago. In Brief Against Death Edgar stated Gilady had been brusque, a sleepy grouch, ordering him to strip. The old man had pronounced him fit, and except for some scratches on his knees, and on the knuckle of his left hand, unmarke
d.
“Ah yes,” he said. His voice was pitched high without much oomph.
She leaned in to make sure she could hear everything. Would it do me any good to ask the doctor exactly where Smith had stood, just to form the picture in my mind? God no. Forget that.
She told him he looked just as she imagined he would. That she’d done some studying of the transcript of the Edgar Smith case from back in ‘57 and felt as though she knew him.
He’s suspicious of me. He’s used to being questioned both in courtrooms and afterward when the lawyers got hold of his autopsy reports. He’s measuring me, gauging how dangerous I am to him.
“Tell me, Doctor, are you able to remember details of the trials where you testified?” Dumb dumb dumb. Should never have said that. Give him some credit. Assume he remembers, she thought.
“Pardon me, I didn’t get what you do,” he said.
“I’m a researcher. The Edgar Smith case. There was a girl murdered. In a sandpit. Mahwah. 1957.”
“Do you actually believe I wouldn’t remember? Missus…?” he said.
“Armand, sir. Marcella Armand.”
“The fact is, I’ve been raked over the coals for my autopsy report on the girl almost from the moment I wrote it. It’s as if there were no other cases in the thirty years since. Do you want to revisit my estimate of time of death? Everyone else does.”
“You went by observation of the effects of rigor mortis,” she said.
“Let’s go back to the beginning," Gilady said. “I was called in the morning about ten o’clock to perform an autopsy on the body of a fifteen-year-old girl who was reported missing the night before and had been found dead in Sam Braen’s sandpit. Her body had been brought to Van Emburgh’s Funeral Home. So, I went over there.”
“Why the undertaker? Why not the lab?”
Gilady slumped with exasperation—here we go with another request for an explanation of how things were back in the day. I should never have asked, she thought.
“In those days there was no lab. My job was to go all over the county to various places where bodies were brought in. It could be a hospital, a funeral home, any number of places.”
“Thank you for your patience with me,” she said. “I know you have been down this road many times. So, when you responded to a call, you had to bring along whatever instruments you might need. In your little black bag.”
“It was on the primitive side back then,” Gilady said. “No explanation. It’s just the way it was.”
“When a heart stops beating, the flow of blood stops too and gravity takes over. It was cold, so the body stiffened up right away. Much faster than normal. Correct?”
“Not so fast, Dombrowski,” he countered, smiling at his old Army joke. “Let me finish. It was half past noon. Her body was on a gurney. It was undressed, the undertaker did that. It was also quite stiff. It was well below freezing outside, something like twenty-four degrees Fahrenheit. Some of the stiffness was attributable to the temperature, but most of it was the effect of rigor mortis.”
The image of Hannah materialized out of nothing at all, lying naked and cold under a bare white bulb dangling from the ceiling, with a block of wood propping her head up—eyes staring and mouth wide open—her skin light blue. She hated lying there with her clothes off and people, men, looking at her. If it were real, I would have run for a blanket to cover her up and to ward off the chill rising from the steel gurney she was lying on.
Gilady went on: “Maximum muscle stiffness caused by the loss of a chemical called ATP when death occurs takes at least twelve hours. Of course, that’s true only when the ambient temperature is normal, sixty degrees Fahrenheit.” It sounded as if he’d probably educated hundreds of juries about rigor mortis through the years with this spiel.
“Cold weather slows the loss of ATP. So, it takes longer than twelve hours for maximum stiffness to occur. In examining a dead body in which the large muscles are quite rigid, death is assumed to have occurred at least twelve hours prior for certain. Then add in additional time to account for cold weather slowing the process down. It was quite cold outside, which meant possibly several more hours beyond the normal twelve had elapsed since death. From 12:30 p.m. when I examined the body, counting backward twelve hours plus an additional three to four hours let’s say, would project the time of death to anywhere between 8:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. the previous day. That was my report.”
“I’m not making any judgments here, Doctor Gilady, but there was no examination of the contents of the stomach according to your testimony in court.”
What does it mean to examine the contents of the stomach exactly? Marcella saw Hannah on the gurney, not Victoria. Gilady presses the scalpel on Hannah’s flat torso and the flesh parts. My god, to refer to Sweetie so dispassionately, I want to puke. He uses an instrument to spread further. He opens the stomach and observes that the food she’s eaten still looks like food. The digestive process progresses at a known rate. It’s a more accurate way to determine time of death. But, it has to be specifically requested to be performed by the coroner, and it wasn’t requested.
“I didn’t do that. Nor did I check the body temperature,” he said.
“Any reason, sir?”
“At that time, there was no standard autopsy report prescribing exactly what procedures should be performed. The police could specifically ask for whatever determinations they wanted. In this case, they didn’t ask me to go beyond a simple observation of the body, and to report any evidence of physical abuse or rape. They knew the girl had been murdered sometime during the night. Nowadays, there’s a complete protocol for autopsy reports on murder victims—a checklist that one fills out. Now, have you gotten the answers you expected? Or did you come here with preconceived notions about how far into dementia I had slipped since my disastrous testimony?”
He actually has me right on, she thought. But no way am I going to admit it.
“It was cold, she said. “That was the whole story for all intents and purposes. Correct? It affected everything. Your original estimate of time of death was midnight, give or take an hour. That was your testimony in court. Not what you just said, but what you said in court.”
“Got the whole thing figured out clear as a picture window, don’t you?” he said.
“I’m sorry, Doctor Gilady. It’s that this question has been bandied about all over the place. Smith, in his book, presents your estimate as the single most important piece of evidence exonerating him.”
“But you, I presume, are on the other side. You want the time of death to be earlier,” Gilady said, smiling.
She told him she was only interested in the truth.
“The truth? The truth is that determination of the time of death based on observation of the effects of rigor mortis is flaky to begin with.”
“What’s flaky about it?”
“Look for the answer somewhere else. It’s too inexact, especially because of the temperature outside, in this case, and also because of the loss of blood and the battering of the face.”
“Why didn’t you say that on the witness stand?” she said.
“Whatever I say, I’m in trouble,” Gilady said. “I have to be the absolutely unbiased messenger in these cases. I was simply trying to be as accurate as this inaccurate science permitted me to be, and the lawyers took that and ran with it to their own purposes. It’s our system. It shits sometimes.”
“Everything shits sometimes.”
“Yes. Everything. Riots, lynching, troops lining up against our own people. Who had any time for a murder case?”
“You were old enough to be retired at that time, doctor.”
“Autopsies were the last thing I wanted to be doing. Night after night on the TV. Another blasphemy, another affront. Emmitt Till, Rosa Parks, Orville Faubus.”
“Yes, hell warmed over. But, doctor—”
“You couldn’t have been much more than a stripling yourself back then. Probably going door-to-door with some petition of one s
ort or another.”
“Well yes, I did some of that in college and after.”
“The Russians trying to sneak nuclear bombs into Cuba.”
“Sir, you’re bending your history a little bit there, aren’t you? That was—"
“Apocalypse, and there I was, sitting with a medical degree. Busy being Medical Examiner.”
“Sitting there—you weren’t just sitting there. Hell, the best thing I ever did was to take a bunch of inner-city kids swimming. The most important events of the last twenty years spinning all around me like an asteroid and I’m planting azaleas.”
“Do you know anything about autopsies, Marcella? They’re dumb-ass accurate most of the time if you want to know the truth. This time, not so much.”
“How could I not have been on the barricades? Busting police lines—sitting in trees, singing ‘We Shall Overcome’—something—anything.
“Yes. The country was coming apart. And me, inadequate to the exigencies of the moment, being only a medical doctor and—history all around me, and I just kept walking.”
“Doctor, your testimony was critical to the outcome of the trial. If the girl died even the slightest bit after 9:30 p.m., it means that Edgar Smith couldn’t possibly have killed her.
“I wasn’t thinking guilt or innocence. Just practicing sound autopsy procedure—looking at everything.”
“Of course.”
“Who are the ones? Maybe you can tell me. A young fella snatched off the streets of Paterson to go die in a steaming Vietnamese jungle, a little high school girl with her life’s blood running out in a sandpit. A person is going along fine and (snap) they’re gone. The weak? The ready? Which ones?”
She told him she didn’t have the answer.
“Your man Smith, he was on the edge of his seat throughout, leaning forward to hear the testimony, more interested in the logic of the arguments than the fact that he was accused of murder. The defense was nearly as skillful as you in trying to trip me up on the adding and subtracting. Madam, I have performed over 700 autopsies and testified in hundreds of court cases. I know what I’m doing.”