Leaving the lineup, Wesley didn’t have the confident swagger, the disdain and amusement exuding from his eyes, that he’d had at the motion hearing. Instead, he seemed furious. It almost made Yardley smile.
“What’s the matter, Wesley?” Baldwin said, seeing it as well. “Didn’t expect Jordan Russo to come back and bite you in the ass?”
As marshals led Wesley back to the jail, he sneered. “You must really be desperate to find a random homicide you think you can pin on me. When I am acquitted of this farce, and I will be, I will file suit against the US Attorney’s Office, the FBI, and against you in particular for malicious prosecution and false imprisonment.”
“We found the ring, Wes,” Baldwin said. “And the hair, and everything else. You disgust me. And I’m going to laugh my ass off when that judge hands down a life sentence without parole.”
Wesley’s jaw clenched as the marshals dragged him away.
It was two in the afternoon when the message came in: the hair found in Wesley Paul’s private lockbox was a match to hair taken from Jordan Russo’s brush. Yardley had remembered seeing one in the boxes in her mother’s attic.
Within seconds, she was standing in Lieu’s office.
“The lab called me,” he said before she could speak. “It’s a solid case with the mother’s testimony, the journal, the ring, and the hair. The mother said she would agree to an exhumation order on the body as well, so maybe we’ll get lucky that something’s still there.”
“He’s going to argue circumstantial evidence. That she gave him all of it and it’s just a coincidence that she was murdered later and it had nothing to do with him. I don’t think the jury will buy it, but we’ll keep looking for someone that saw them together the day she went missing. In the meantime, I’ll get the indictment drafted up and get everything submitted to the grand jury by—”
“I’m not having you prosecute the case, Jessica.”
She let a beat of silence pass. “This is my case. I built it from the ground up. You wouldn’t even know about this evidence if I—”
“I’m giving it to Tim.”
“You can’t be serious. Tim’s part of the reason our original case fell apart.”
“I stick by my original assessment. It would look improper to have you prosecute this.”
When she started to argue, Lieu raised a hand and gave her a hard stare. “He is your senior in this office and was prosecuting homicides while you were still a first-year law student. You need to show him the respect he deserves.”
“Tim is no match for Wesley. He—”
Lieu continued as though he hadn’t even heard her. “I spoke to Tim about it, and he agreed that you could second chair. Help him out in trial, hand him evidence and other things he might need, take notes where appropriate, give him ideas for questions he may miss on direct and cross.”
“Hand him things? Are you serious?” She folded her arms. “If I were a man, would you be telling me right now to second chair and hand him things?”
“Don’t play that card with me. Sorry your feelings are hurt. But what can I say? You chose these men. You got yourself into this mess.”
Yardley barely made it back to her office without screaming. She took a pencil out of her drawer, closed her eyes, breathed deeply, and snapped it in half, savoring the crunch in her hands. When she opened her eyes, she tossed the pencil in the trash and called Baldwin.
“Tim is going to be prosecuting this.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“We have to make certain there’s no chance this ends in acquittal.”
He sighed. “Well, where should we start?”
63
The gray sky had hints of coming sunlight, and Baldwin wished he were lying on a beach somewhere. Weather affected his mood, and he didn’t like the rainstorm that had clung to the city the past month.
He sat in his car outside of Yardley’s house and texted her. She replied that she was finishing up a workout and would be out. She had, apparently, been working out two hours a day since Tara had left to stay with her grandparents in New Mexico a few days ago. She wouldn’t discuss it, but Baldwin knew how worried she had to be about Tara’s safety to send her halfway across the country.
She came out in yoga pants and a zip-up hoodie and got into his car. She smelled like mint shampoo, her hair still wet from the shower. He could see the portion of her leg between the ankle and knee, stared a little too long at her muscular calf, and felt a twinge of guilt for doing so.
“I’m glad you came instead of Tim,” Baldwin said as he pulled away from her house.
“He said to report back to him what the medical examiner says. He didn’t want to miss his afternoon walk.”
Baldwin glanced at her. “I’m so sorry you have to put up with this. It’s bullshit. Everyone knows you’re the one running this case, and no one’s going to forget it.”
She stared out the window. “Doesn’t matter. I just want to make sure Wesley never gets out.”
“If he ever tried to come after you—”
“There would be nothing you could do. You can’t stay with me every minute. Remember that he followed me quietly for years. He’s inhumanly patient. He would just wait until my guard’s down and get at me then.”
“I’m not going to let that happen, Jess.”
“No,” she said, looking at him. “I’m not going to let that happen.”
The Clark County Office of the Coroner and Medical Examiner sat near a children’s museum in an office park. Across the street was a barren field that the owners had been trying to develop as far back as Baldwin could remember.
They signed in and were led back to an all-white room with a metal gurney in the center and a green tarp over it. One of the assistant MEs came in, chomping on a donut, his face bent over his phone. He saw them and put the phone in his pocket. “Cason, been a bit.”
“How are ya, Matt?”
“Hanging in there. Jessica, good to see you again.”
She gave him half a grin but said nothing.
“So you found something?” Baldwin asked.
“Yup.” He took a large bite before tossing the rest of the donut into a biohazard trash bin and washing his hands. He put on latex gloves and pulled back the tarp.
Baldwin had seen so many corpses in so many different conditions of decay that it meant almost nothing to him. It no longer shocked him, and if he wasn’t mindful about his thoughts, it didn’t even register as once having been a human being. So he could understand how Matt was still chewing on the remaining donut in his mouth as he stared down at the desiccated body. Yardley’s eyes remained fixed on the corpse and revealed nothing to him.
“Right here,” Matt said. “Take a look.”
Baldwin stepped close to the body and bent over it. The muscle and flesh were gone, only the skeleton and some of the thicker sinew remaining. With all the teeth having fallen out, her head was nothing more than a skull with jagged cracks where the rock had crushed bone.
“Right here,” Matt said, pointing to the right foot. “That’s called the medial cuneiform bone. See those indentations right there? Hardly noticeable, but it’s a bite mark.”
Matt retrieved a plastic set of teeth from a cupboard and came back to the skeleton. He carefully lined up the teeth in the grooves on the bone. The mouth twisted to the right. “He had to have bitten down at an angle, like this.”
“She kicked him,” Yardley said. The two men looked at her. “She fought him and they ended up on the ground, or he was standing above her. She kicked him, and he grabbed her and bit down so hard he notched the bone.”
Matt nodded and made the teeth snap shut before putting them back. “If her shoes were off or she had low-cut shoes, that’s a pretty good theory. And would explain why there’re no other bite marks. Your guy have a history of biting?”
“No,” Baldwin said. “None of his victims displayed any.”
“Then I think Jessica’s explanation is probably best.
She was crawling away or on her back and kicked him; he grabbed her and bit down into the first section he could. There’s not much flesh on the medial cuneiform, so as long as that section isn’t covered by a shoe, he pretty much just bit straight into the bone. That’s why we have such good markings.”
“How was this missed before?” Yardley asked.
Matt blew out a puff of air. “Well, she still had flesh on her, and with discoloration and being left out in the desert and all that, it could be easy to miss something like this. Plus, you know how you don’t really wash your feet much in the shower but spend a bunch of time washing your chest and stomach, even though the feet are actually the part of your body with the most bacteria? It’s kind of the same with autopsies. Something to do with an inherent bias. Even the most careful of us tend to glance over the feet and focus on the rest of the body. A newer resident at the time was the one that did the initial autopsy, and . . . I mean, honestly, I think they just plain missed it. It was probably hard to see, and they assessed the feet too quickly. I apologize for that, and I’ll say as much in an updated report.”
Baldwin said, “It happens. What’s important is we have it now.”
He nodded, staring down at the skeleton. “Get out your forensic odontologist and get to work and see if it’s your guy. You need anything from me, let me know. I gotta run. Good seeing you both again.” He covered the body back up with the tarp.
“What do you think?” Baldwin said when they were out in the hall. “We call our dentist to get out here with a cast?”
She shook her head, folding her arms as she leaned against the wall. “No. Wesley will file a motion to quash the order to allow a dental cast.”
“Yeah, but he’ll lose that for sure, right?”
“Maybe, maybe not. It’s not worth the risk. I have a way, though. When we were at the storage unit, I saw his orthodontic retainer. Jury selection wraps up in the morning, so you need to get in touch with the dentist and see if he can make a cast just from the retainer.” She watched him a moment. “Are you sleeping more?”
“Some. Why?”
“You look better. You seem . . . I don’t know. Not as melancholy.”
“Don’t worry about me, I’m fine. You just focus on getting a conviction against that prick.”
64
The first day of trial was a mess of emotions for most attorneys. Yardley kept her emotions in check as much as she could, pretending she was a mechanical device in court, there to perform a certain purpose and nothing else. Today, on the first day of Wesley Paul’s trial, she had to take a beta-blocker in the morning because she couldn’t stop trembling.
“Any preliminary matters to address before bringing out the jury?” Judge Aggbi asked.
“No, Judge,” Tim said.
“Nothing, Your Honor, thank you,” Wesley said.
“Then let’s bring out the jury.”
Yardley watched the men and women file in. Wesley smiled warmly at them. He held a pencil in his hand. He had purposely chosen a sports coat with patches on the elbows, and he’d taken spectacles out of his pocket and put them on. His appearance was that of a harmless schoolteacher. During jury selection, he had managed to make the jury panel laugh several times, annoying Tim so much his face had turned pink as he swore under his breath.
The judge went through the preliminary instructions, then said, “Opening remarks, please. Mr. Jeffries?”
“Thank you, Judge.”
Tim adjusted his tie and took his notes with him to the lectern, which had been pushed up near the jury box. He cleared his throat and began reading the facts in the case like they were uninteresting musings on the side of a cereal box. No eye contact with the jury. Yardley thought the only effective thing he did was show a blown-up photo of Jordan Russo, point to Wesley, and say, “The beauty and potential of that young woman was snuffed out by this man here. Ladies and gentlemen, Wesley Paul was in a relationship with Jordan Russo, and a subsequent search of his personal belongings revealed Ms. Russo’s ring and a lock of her hair. The hair, tested by the FBI’s very efficient trace laboratory, triggered a DNA match to the hair taken from a brush of Jordan Russo loaned to us by her mother, who you’ll also hear from in this trial.”
“The ring could be explained away, but how would you explain to a jury why you had a lock of the victim’s hair?” Tim had said to her yesterday, commenting that the case was a slam dunk.
“I don’t know, but if anyone can, it’s him,” she had replied.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Tim continued, “this is a very simple case. Open and shut. Mr. Paul killed Jordan Russo. He caved her skull in with a rock. He bit so hard into her foot his teeth marked her bone. He—”
“Objection, Your Honor,” Wesley said.
Everyone looked at him. It was customary to never object during opening or closing arguments, as it derailed thought, and opposing counsel would take retribution when it was their turn.
Tim looked over to him and then looked to the judge. Judge Aggbi said, “Grounds?”
“It’s not clear those items will be introduced, Your Honor. My understanding is the teeth marks are not confirmed as of yet.”
“They will be soon, Your Honor, and I plan on introducing them.”
Damn it, Tim.
She had specifically asked him not to mention the teeth marks in opening, in case they weren’t a match.
Wesley folded his hands in front of him and said, “There are considerations that I would like taken, Your Honor, in the introduction of that evidence and will object when it is so moved to be introduced. As Mr. Jeffries cannot anticipate my objections, he does not have concrete knowledge as to whether these items will be introduced.”
Tim began arguing. Yardley knew an attorney should never argue the merits of an objection during opening or closing; they would lose momentum and concentration, and if they lost the objection, they would immediately create an impression of lack of knowledge with the jury.
“I’ll allow it,” Judge Aggbi finally said.
“Thank you, Your Honor,” Tim said. He adjusted his suit coat and turned back to the jury, visibly annoyed, and continued with his statements, laying out the facts of the case. “Don’t let this man’s legal trickery fool you,” he concluded. “Find him guilty of first-degree murder, and make sure he doesn’t kill anyone else again.”
Wesley stayed silent until Tim sat down. Then he rose and approached the jury. He stood in front of them, a warm smile on his face, his hands behind his back.
“Ladies and gentlemen, let’s go back to that horrific day in February nearly two decades ago when this beautiful young lady’s life tragically ended. That morning, Jordan Russo rose and had breakfast, she spoke with her friend Ann on the phone for twenty minutes, routine conversation of the young about the day’s plans, and then she decided she would go to the gym where she was employed for a quick workout.
“She dressed in shorts and her Nike T-shirt, slipped on her sneakers, and kissed her mother goodbye as she headed out the door. And that would be the last time anyone saw her alive. The police, FBI, and prosecution have no knowledge of what happened to Ms. Russo from the moment her front door closed until they found her body twenty-two days later. How far did she make it to the gym? Did she meet anyone? Did she stop somewhere for water or a sports drink? Did she get into someone’s car or walk down some deserted alley? Was she assaulted in the middle of the street, and someone saw but didn’t report it? Did she die that day or later?” He took a step to the right, his face to the floor, before looking back to the jury.
“The government cannot answer these questions. And they cannot answer the questions about my involvement with Ms. Russo, which is none. I have no doubt that Ms. Russo’s mother, Isabella Russo, will get up on that stand and tell the truth: that she saw someone at the restaurant where Jordan Russo was employed as a hostess. I have been to that restaurant multiple times over the years. To the dismay of my waistline, because they happen to have the best Germa
n chocolate cake in the state.”
A few muted chuckles.
“But the fact is I did not know Jordan Russo. I did not know she was murdered until the day I was charged for her murder. And frankly, it shocked me to my core. I thought, How can this be? I know the innocent get accused of crimes, but I know it intellectually, almost as an exam question. To actually be on the receiving end of such injustice, I can tell you, ladies and gentlemen . . . well, it is the most horrific thing you can imagine. I feel as if the entire world has fallen on my head, and I’m frightened. I’ve been frightened since that first night after being charged. I didn’t know what to think. Had I offended someone who went to the police and made up some half-baked story about me? Was it an innocent mistake?”
He held up a finger, casually strolling past the first row of jurors and looking each in the eye.
“Then, when I saw that the case had been taken up by the US Attorney’s Office, and I saw Jessica Yardley’s name on the indictment, I knew what it was. You see, Ms. Yardley and I were dating and lived together. I even had plans to propose soon.”
Yardley sat still, staring forward.
“It was a beautiful relationship,” he said with a smile. He lost the smile slowly, as good as any soap opera actor. “But it was one not destined to last.”
He looked to Yardley.
“Ms. Yardley was once Jessica Cal. Her husband was the mass murderer Eddie Cal. He killed fourteen people, that we know of, and is currently sitting on Nevada’s death row. Ms. Yardley told me on multiple occasions that she feels responsible because she was his wife, and she should have known she was married to a monster.”
Yardley remained motionless. Looking forward and not meeting his eyes.
He turned back to the jury and said, “Ms. Yardley told me she would never let that happen again.” Wesley inhaled and shook his head. “Unfortunately it began affecting our relationship. Her paranoia became uncontrollable. She began hallucinating things that were not there. She had been in therapy for quite some time, but I recommended that she ask the doctor to adjust her medications. She began—”
A Killer's Wife (Desert Plains) Page 22