by R. D. Cain
Nastos saw that the jury was immersed in her words. There was no way that she could not be effective. She came across as obviously intelligent, poised and well-spoken. Nastos glanced at Carscadden, who met his gaze. Carscadden took a breath that seemed to be an apology with just a hint of surrender — a ghost of things yet to come.
“Good morning, everyone,” he said, getting to his feet. “My name is Kevin Carscadden and I’ve been a defense lawyer here in Toronto for about two years. Before that, I was on the west coast, where I practiced law for ten years. In all of that time, I’ve never seen a police service and prosecution office so determined to get a conviction. It’s pretty simple to figure out why. They learned a long time ago that the appearance of justice being done matters more than justice actually being done. The shame about this is not just that an innocent man who dedicates his life to catching criminals is now wrongfully accused, but that he has been taken away from his daughter — the real victim in all of this, not Dr. Irons. The fact remains that Dr. Irons participated in high-risk behaviour, much as if he were running drugs or drinking and driving. What happened to him was the result of his lifestyle and had nothing to do with my client. Officer Nastos is completely innocent of these charges, as will be proven very clearly.”
He took his seat next to Nastos, who was still watching the jury to determine his effectiveness. Male jurors seemed more interested in the ruminations that involved Ms. Dewar and probably never heard a word Carscadden said. One younger and very muscular guy in the back row was trying to see down the top of a young girl in front of him and off to the side. She had breast implants that he found particularly interesting. There was a middle-aged man, heavy-set wearing a denim jacket — an East York dinner jacket — and a baseball cap. Nastos named him Trucker Billy-Jim.
Some of the women scratched a few notes down on the pads of paper that the court provided. One woman, the oldest, in her seventies with a pink-tinged elder afro, enthusiastically wrote down every word like some crime fiction fan who had finally gotten the call-up to the big leagues. All the Agatha Christies on her bedside table were finally going to come in handy.
Montgomery had the floor after Carscadden sat down. He paused a moment as if to consider his words, then spoke softly. “Madam Dewar, are you ready to call your first witness?”
“Yes, sir,” she began. She stood and took up a position at the podium with her notes in front of her. “The first officer on scene please, Constable Thomas.”
The young officer made his way up to the stand. Tall, a little too thin, with black hair, he seemed too young to carry a gun — the recoil would likely knock him flying backward. He entered the witness box, the small gate creaking shut behind him. He stood firm, facing Dewar, waiting to begin. The bailiff approached, a plump woman in her forties. Her uniform was ready to burst at the seams. She barked loudly in case the guys three courts over had hearing problems. “State and spell your name for the record please, Officer.”
“Thomas,” he replied, “Gary Thomas, T-H-O-M-A-S.” The officer was calm and smooth.
“Do you swear or affirm?” the bailiff asked.
“Swear, ma’am.”
“Place your left hand on the bible, raise your right hand. Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, so help you God?”
“I do.”
Dewar finished absentmindedly flipping through her notes, then smiled warmly to the officer. “Officer, how long have you worked for the Toronto Police Service?”
“Six months, ma’am.”
“And on the fourteenth of August of this year you became involved in an incident; can you tell us about that, please?”
Thomas took a moment to get his thoughts in order then began. “At 0745 hours I received a radio call from Communications that a body had been found floating in the lake in Cherry Beach. I pulled into the park and went up to the gazebo. A man was standing there with his dog. I walked over to him and he led me to a spot where I could see a body floating face up near the shore.”
The crime fiction fan in the jurors’ box was leaning so far forward Nastos thought she was going to tumble out onto the floor. Even the men were able to concentrate on the facts, maybe because when men eventually tire of ogling a beautiful woman, the only thing that interests them is gore.
“Did you have any immediate thoughts or observations?” she asked.
“It was a male and he was code five. Sorry, I mean, that he had been dead for some time.”
“And what did you do then?” she asked.
“I called Communications, told them to get a coroner on the way and the homicide unit.”
“That’s it for my questions here, Your Honour. Thank you, Officer Thomas.”
Once Dewar was sitting, Judge Montgomery asked Carscadden, “Do you have anything, Mr. Carscadden?”
Carscadden stood and walked to the podium slowly. “Yes, sir, just a few,” he said. Then, turning to the officer, he asked, “Constable Thomas, how long had you been a police officer at the time of this event?”
Thomas took some time to do the math. “It was six months at that time.”
Carscadden smiled condescendingly then smiled to the jurors’ box, shaking his head. “So you really had no idea how long the male had been dead. What did you do before joining the police service, pump gasoline? I can’t imagine you see many dead people under those circumstances.”
“Not exactly, sir,” Thomas replied. He appeared a little insulted.
Dewar lifted herself just barely from her wooden chair. “Objection. Relevance, Your Honour? What’s the relevance to how long Officer Thomas has been a police officer?”
Montgomery stopped typing and peered over his laptop.
Carscadden took the invitation and began, “Your Honour, the officer’s initial decisions were not based on experience or knowledge. It set in motion the chain of events that brought us here. Without that decision, none of the subsequently obtained evidence would have been available for the prosecution to taint against my client. It boils down to witness reliability, if the officer had no more experience with murders than the average guy on the street.”
The judge seemed about to speak, but the officer gently interrupted. “To clarify, Your Honour, before joining the police service I was a paramedic for five years, so I know a dead body when I see one.”
Montgomery smiled broadly. “That satisfy you, Mr. Carscadden?”
Carscadden’s shoulders drooped and he chewed a little on his lower lip. “No further questions for this witness, Your Honour.” He took his seat next to Nastos. “Not off to a great start, are we?”
Nastos wished he shared Carscadden’s levity.
Turning to the officer, Montgomery said, “Thank you, sir, you may step down,” then back to Dewar: “Next witness, Madam Prosecutor?”
“Yes, Your Honour, I’d like to call the lead homicide investigator in this matter, Detective-Sergeant Clancy Brown.”
Carscadden watched Clancy Brown as he was sworn in on the stand. He was the man who had interrogated Nastos for nearly twelve hours when he was arrested. Carscadden had read the brief on him that Ms. Hopkins and Nastos had prepared. He had a reputation for being a robot. The only self-generated thought he ever had was when he first joined the police service, and from then on he decided to just do whatever the hell he was told. He had no ability to think for himself. He was the perfect detective to investigate Nastos because he made sure the investigation reached the conclusion he was told to reach.
Watching the jury, Carscadden could see that many of them seemed to regard Detective-Sergeant Clancy Brown as royalty, the cumulative hero of all of the tv shows and movies that they had ever seen. Brown was six-four, with short brown hair and a lean, muscular build, in his late forties. He resembled Rock Hudson and had an easy, friendly smile. The old lady in the front of the jurors’ box, the crime fiction fan, had her elbows on the railing an
d her head resting in her hands. She had put down her writing pad and seemed confident that she could just hang on his every word. Carscadden winced, not liking his appraisal. We’re fucked.
Nastos knew he had to think of a way to separate the humble, unshakable exterior from the arrogant company man who was bereft of independent thought. He considered the history of the police service, the history of scandals. The most obvious scandal was the Cherry Beach Express. He reached out to Carscadden’s notepad, picked up the pen and wrote a few thoughts.
“Detective Brown,” Dewar began, “can you please take us through your thoughts and impressions upon arriving at the crime scene?”
“Certainly.” Brown patted down the front of his suit, then began. “Your Honour, I was called to the crime scene by the radio dispatcher. I arrived at around nine that morning. The uniformed officers had cordoned off an area and I was able to walk right in. I immediately thought that it was a homicide when I saw the body. I observed trauma to the head and face. A forensics team was arriving, so I touched nothing and walked out the way I had gone in to disrupt the scene as little as possible.”
“And you had some thoughts as far as what you were dealing with?” Dewar asked.
“Well, it seemed the man was beaten to death. He was well dressed, low body fat, seemed fit. I would imagine that he would hold his own in a fight against one to two men unless he was drunk or taken by surprise or the assailant was armed. The toxicology screen turned out to be negative. He had suffered fifteen to eighteen direct and glancing blows with a rounded blunt wooden object. It seemed the suspect decided to break the victim’s arms and legs before taking any head shots. A few teeth had been smashed out. He could have used some of his own dental work, actually. A baseball bat was found nearby in the water. It was stained with what appeared to be, and turned out to be, blood and had a tooth embedded in it. The bat was initially perplexing.”
Carscadden saw that the jury were listening intently.
“Why was it perplexing?” Dewar asked.
Brown arched his back slightly to stretch. “Well, it occurred to me that the killer chose a good enough location for the murder, had a good hour of night, but discarded the weapon recklessly. I began to think that the killer might have been exhausted and careless at that point.”
“And at what point were you actually assigned the homicide?”
Detective-Sergeant Brown paused for a second, thoughtfully considering his answer. He leafed through his notebook to reference something. “Yes, my, umm, supervisor in Homicide spoke with the ds of Sexual Assault and they told me to run with it. When the lead suspect turned out to be the defendant, Detective Nastos, his supervisor, Detective-Sergeant Koche, reiterated that I should go with the investigation no matter where it led.”
Brown explained the link to Nastos for them. “Nastos arrested a molester named Sean Harper. In his apartment, Nastos found a picture of Harper and two other men standing there with a small boy with them. The second man was George Costello, a horse farrier of no fixed address who was out on probation for sexual assault. The third man was later identified as the murder victim, Dr. Irons. Nastos had submitted a brief property report listing the names of the two men with Harper, but nothing else.
“A name check of the police database linked the name Irons with the Harper case, of which Nastos was the lead investigator. Nastos was almost perfect at covering his tracks, but he was just sloppy enough to get himself caught.”
Nastos saw the way the jury was reacting — the trucker nodding his head, the crime fiction fan concentrating on the second draft of her manuscript, the ending already written. He felt that they’d lost the jury right at the start of the trial and getting them back was going to be like turning the Titanic around.
Carscadden leaned over and nudged Nastos from his thoughts. “Why did Brown check with Sexual Assault before you were a suspect?”
“That’s the million dollar question. I told you this whole thing is bullshit.”
Carscadden fidgeted with his pencil, then scribbled something on his writing pad.
Dewar took a sip of water from her glass; it tinkled against the jug when she put it down. “No more questions for now, Your Honour, but I would like to recall if necessary for different aspects of the case.” Dewar was beginning to tire; she was ready for a break.
Judge Montgomery looked at Carscadden, who was just getting to his feet. “Granted, Ms. Dewar. Mr. Carscadden, to cross?”
Nastos slid his pad of paper over to Carscadden.
“What’s this?” Carscadden asked.
“It’s a suggested approach for Brown.”
Carscadden glanced over the page. Nastos continued. “He’s a company man and a robot. Make him have to think for himself. Put him in a position where he contradicts the police service.”
Carscadden considered those words, then read the page over quickly.
Judge Montgomery glowered at Carscadden. “Any time you’re ready, Mr. Carscadden.”
“Yes, Your Honour.” He took his position at the podium and placed some papers on the face for him to reference.
“Now, Detective Brown, how would you have disposed of the murder weapon?”
10
“SORRY?” BROWN’S EYES SQUINTED IN confusion.
Carscadden tried again. “Use your imagination, sir. You’ve been a policeman for eighteen years and in Homicide for the last five. From what you have learned in that time, how would you dispose of the bat?”
Dewar stood to object. “Your Honour, that’s speculative.”
Montgomery flipped back a page in his notebook. “Fair question. Ms. Dewar, the witness may answer.”
“Well, let’s see,” Brown began. He pursed his lips, trying to imagine a scenario. “I would either dump it in another body of water, cover it in peroxide or bleach — or both and bury it someplace or possibly burn it. No one would find it, I’ll tell you that much.”
Nastos thought it was a decent plan. That’s what he would have done, too.
Carscadden continued. “As would anyone with experience, such as yourself or my client here. Certainly a detective with Mr. Nastos’ experience would do a better job of disposing of the weapon. Aside from making sure the body is never found, it’s got to be the most basic instinct a knowledgeable killer would have.”
Brown responded condescendingly. “Well, like I said, maybe he got so tired after swinging it and killing Irons that he got careless.” Then he turned directly at the jury to emphasize his next point. “Or he knew it did not have his prints, so he didn’t want to take the chance of transporting it and contaminating his car or clothes with the victim’s blood.”
Carscadden countered. “So none of the evidence ever linked my client to the bat? Is that right, Officer Brown?”
“No.” He corrected himself, “I mean yes.” He took a disappointed breath. “It didn’t link in any way to your client.”
“So, really, that would make two things that do not link the crime to my client: no forensics linking him to the weapon, and my client would be too experienced to let it even be found.”
Dewar stood to object. “I did not hear a question in that last statement, Your Honour.”
Carscadden put his palms up in surrender and clarified what he meant. “Isn’t that true, Officer Brown, two things that do not link to my client?”
“Well, it’s my experience that most pre-planned murders seldom take place where there are witnesses or video cameras. Your client had the most understandable of motives. There is just no denying that. There is not a person in the world who would not consider killing the man who assaulted his daughter, me included. And that’s the God’s honest truth. On top of this motive, Detective Nastos had a unique perspective into what was going on. As far as we can tell, he was the first to learn of the assaults. He had come across the victim during another investigation. No one else knew that Na
stos was connected to Irons; no one else knew Irons was a molester. On top of that, the murder happened in a place where the detective had obtained numerous excessive force complaints. We didn’t just pick his name out of a hat.”
Carscadden turned to Nastos, appraising him. Maybe he didn’t believe what he had just heard. Nastos didn’t realize that he had missed something.
Carscadden continued, “Excuse me, Officer, did you just say that we did not pick his name out of a hat? Who, besides you, makes up the ‘we’ you speak of?”
“I meant to say I, I did not pick his name out of a hat.”
“So it was you alone that felt that there was enough evidence to pursue my client?”
“It was my decision and I made the right one.”
Carscadden, shaking his head from left to right, was totally unconvinced by Brown’s answer. Nastos read the jury. They saw Carscadden as incensed. Unlike them, Nastos was used to it, the way lawyers responded incredulously to mundane testimony, trying to impart by body language that a comment is scandalous. Classic lawyer bluster. It was a last-ditch move, right before you’d admit that, oh, my client did it, but he had one hell of a reason. Brown stood tall and stoic; the jury seemed confused.
“Now, sir, you’ve already testified that you’ve been a police officer for nearly two decades. Isn’t it true that Cherry Beach is notorious among petty criminals as a place where police in general get rough with career criminals, drunks, the homeless?”
Brown’s lips tightened briefly. He was obviously reluctant to engage the line of questioning. “Sure, maybe fifteen years ago. Policing isn’t done like that anymore.”
“Isn’t it true that a late-night trip to Cherry Beach was often referred to as the Cherry Beach Express among officers and the street community to this day? I think there was even a rap song titled ‘The Cherry Beach Express.’ The band was called Pukka Orchestra; I could sing you the verse —”