Second Degree (Benjamin Davis Book Series 2)

by A. Turk

  That’s the note I wanted to end on, thought Davis.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  A TOUGH COP

  BUT A BAD WITNESS

  Monday, February 12, 2001

  Amy Pierce got up early. She needed to spend some time with her son, Carter, an eighth grader at Montgomery Bell Academy. He was an honor student, and Pierce was driven to provide him with the best. In her mind, that did not include his father, Dan Smith. He’d struggled with addiction for about fifteen years. He’d sold drugs and been arrested. He’d been calling because he wanted to reestablish a relationship with Carter. He was a thorn in Pierce’s side who was interfering with her desire to protect Carter and her deep need to be in control of her life. Dan Smith was simply not part of her plan. He was more than a bump in the road; he was an obstruction.

  Despite her commitment to the Garcia case, her office was functioning fine, and her two associates were serving clients and managing the office. They’d helped her get prepared for the Garcia trial, but now it was her show. She wanted the glory. This morning she could afford to spend time with Carter. Court wasn’t scheduled till ten. Tanner was delaying court for another matter.

  As they ate breakfast together, Pierce asked, “How’s school, darling?”

  “It’s fine. I aced my math test, and we won our debate.”

  “Sorry I missed that. I couldn’t help it; I was in court.”

  Carter just shrugged his shoulders, which made Pierce feel guilty. She’d realized spending her time away from home was the price of a successful practice.

  Court opened with an insincere apology from Judge Tanner. Pierce knew the judge looked at his courtroom as his kingdom, and there was no question who was king.

  Davis called Chief Detective Haber to the stand. Both sides knew she was going to be a dangerous witness.

  Pierce composed herself and got in the zone as the oath was given. She needed to listen carefully so she could twist Haber’s testimony on cross in the afternoon. She’d take detailed notes during Davis’s examination and prepare her cross at lunch.

  She was tired of this case and Charlie Garcia. Harrelson was no longer any help. He relegated himself to the audience, whispering into the father’s left ear.

  Davis spent a good twenty minutes having Haber recount her background. She’d been to the Body Farm adjacent to the University of Tennessee campus in Knoxville twice for seminars organized by the TBI, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. The Body Farm was a world-renowned homicide and pathology facility that trained law enforcement officers. It was an honor to attend and was a reflection of the officer’s abilities. She’d been on the force sixteen years and rose through the ranks to chief detective. Her job was to assign a detective to appropriate cases.

  Under Davis’s questioning, she explained that she first heard about the Eden case when the 911 calls came in. Looking at her report, she testified that at ten twenty-six Officer Dawson called in and confirmed the transport of a white female to the county hospital. He also informed her it was probably a drug overdose.

  “Following protocol, I told him to seal the apartment from the public and to wait in the apartment parking lot for further orders. I assigned myself the investigation and drove to the hospital.”

  “Is it unusual for you to take the lead in an investigation?”

  “No, I do that from time to time. I like to get in the field so I don’t get rusty.”

  Pierce watched the jury as they watched Haber. She spoke with both authority and brashness. Pierce was biding her time. She’d get a bite out of Haber after lunch.

  Haber described what happened when she arrived in the hospital. She first met with Dr. Mann, who confirmed the overdose, provided the three pill bottles, and told her that the patient’s doctor was in the waiting room and was with her when she collapsed. Haber took a picture of the bottles and put them in an evidence bag to be sent to the TBI lab.

  Pierce knew what Davis was doing. He was about to expose the weakest part of his case. That was the right thing for a good lawyer to do, bring up your case’s worst problems first and diminish the hurt.

  “Where are those bottles now?”

  “Gone. We discovered they were gone during a periodic audit of the evidence locker.”

  “You lost them?”

  “Not me personally. They were signed in, but they’re not in the locker any longer.”

  “You never checked the bottles for fingerprints?”

  “We couldn’t. They were gone.”

  Pierce thought Davis’s effort was a good one. He’d minimized the sting.

  “Dr. Mann was pretty busy, so I first sat and watched Mr. Garcia. After observing him, I went up and spoke to him. He was sitting in the waiting room with his face in his hands. I walked up and introduced myself.”

  “We’ve all seen it on television. Before you spoke to Mr. Garcia, did you read him his Miranda rights, a right to an attorney, etc.?”

  “That wasn’t necessary. He wasn’t a suspect at that time. I treated him as if he’d just lost a loved one.”

  Davis, despite the fact that Judge Tanner denied the defendant’s motion on this issue, knew that Pierce would bring it up on cross, and it was much better if the state brought it out first.

  She testified that she learned in that conversation that he was more than her doctor. He was also her fiancé. She discussed the specifics of what Mr. Garcia told her about the long weekend. He described it as a sex marathon. He mentioned that Robyn had been sick the whole time, suffering from nausea and headaches.

  “Despite those problems, he told me that she kept having sex.”

  Haber testified that he admitted taking several doses of Viagra to keep up with her. He admitted she disappeared into the bathroom and was high on something but wasn’t sure what. He’d seen her consume two liters of vodka and smoked several joints.

  “When I pressed him on what she might be on, he turned doctor on me. He gave a very technical answer about her being an addict and not having any specific drug of choice. He said he didn’t want to guess.”

  Haber explained that while they were talking, Dr. Mann walked up and informed them that Robyn Eden was dead. After a few minutes Mr. Garcia asked to be excused to call the Eden family. Haber testified that Mr. Garcia was visibly shaken and walked away without a good-bye.

  “You mentioned that Mr. Garcia told you he was Ms. Eden’s fiancé.”

  “I later determined that he wasn’t.”

  There was that unnecessary lie again. Charlie Garcia was his own worst enemy. Pierce knew it, Harrelson knew it, Señor Garcia knew it, and even Charlie knew it.

  Pierce looked into the faces of the jurors, trying to read into their minds. What was their disposition at this moment? Did they like Haber? More important, what did they think about Charlie Garcia? She didn’t care if they didn’t like him or thought that he was a disgusting pig. The critical question was, did they think he was a murderer?

  Most of them had good poker faces. If she had to guess, jurors 3, 7, 8, 12, 13, and 15 were leaning against her. Jurors 1 and 2 had smiled at her several times. They at least liked her. The rest looked undecided. Pierce reminded herself that all she needed was one juror, and it was a hung jury. Tennessee law required a unanimous guilty verdict, and proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt was a tough burden.

  Haber testified about the three search warrants and that the court found they were invalid because of inaccuracies in her affidavit. She swore she wrote down exactly what the Jefferson County Clerk told her.

  Davis asked to approach the bench. He asked Judge Tanner if he could read the court’s order concerning the motion to suppress. Instead the judge announced he’d explain his ruling to the jury from the bench.

  “The state on July 5th, 6th, and 8th searched Ms. Eden’s apartment. I’ve held that those searches were invalid because the affidavit of Detective Haber was not technically accurate. She mischaracterized Mr. Garcia’s criminal record. I also held that, under Tennessee cr
iminal law, what was in plain view in an apartment where there was a suspicious death was admissible in this case. I’m marking and entering into evidence as the next exhibit my written order so that you can read my order when you deliberate and understand what transpired. The important thing is that you as the jury get to weigh the value of this evidence, which is only a piece of the puzzle we’re asking you to consider.”

  Pierce again thought Davis did a good job minimizing a bad problem. He next admitted the evidence list created by the Hewes City Police Department, and Haber testified how the document was generated. There were three hundred sixty-two items.

  “There were one videotape in the camera and thirty-two videos in plain view on a shelf; two hundred seventy-two still photos from two cell phones that were in plain view; and five sex toys.”

  Using the evidence list, Davis spent the next hour and a half parading items from the evidence list before the jury. He would from time to time ask the court’s clerk to pass an exhibit to the jury. Pierce watched the jurors’ faces as they handled naked photographs of Robyn Eden. Several depicted her inserting a sexual device in all available orifices. The men looked at the sex toys in plastic evidence bags, and a few of the women seemed to brighten up.

  Pierce figured the photos hurt Eden as much as Garcia or more. Davis didn’t mention that three of the photos were of Eden and another man. She wondered whether that was intentional or an oversight.

  Davis turned his attention to the video. He was brief. Judge Tanner ruled that the video could not be characterized. It was to be played, and the judge wanted the jurors to draw their own conclusions.

  Tanner ruled the video was just another piece of the puzzle in the jury’s ultimate decision, murder or not. The courtroom was darkened, and the video started. Every eye in the courtroom was glued to the monitor.

  It was raw and graphic. It wasn’t what the jury considered lovemaking. It was much better than amateur quality. They used good equipment and from practice knew how to stay in frame. The audio was excellent. No one looked away; no one took a breath. The sessions lasted a total of two hours. A Friday night episode and a Saturday episode together lasted forty-one minutes. Each time Charlie turned off the camera within a minute or two of completing sex.

  The last session, when Robyn overdosed, started with her entering the frame and bleeding from her crotch, and Charlie commenting that she was bleeding like a stuck pig and then yelling at her to put pressure on it. Then there were ten minutes of sex, and Robyn’s cardiac arrest was captured on audio with Charlie and Robyn just off camera. The jurors heard the 911 call and then Charlie talking to Robyn as he gave CPR. Charlie did give the wrong address. They could hear the arrival of the paramedics. They could hear some but not all of the conversation between Charlie and paramedic Mackey. When Charlie got the three pill bottles, he came into frame, and off camera he described what they were. The jurors could hear his description of the drugs and why Robyn took them.

  The jury heard him talk about the Viagra and boast about the sex marathon. It was very damaging evidence, yet the jurors also heard the stress in Charlie’s voice. Eventually after Robyn was taken from the apartment, the camera ran out of tape.

  The most damaging evidence was when the tape showed Robyn returning from the bathroom. In his own words, Charlie proved that he knew that Robyn Eden was injecting something IV into her femoral artery.

  It was the biggest problem with Haber’s testimony, and Pierce still hadn’t figured out how to counter this proof.

  Davis continued with the witness through lunch and into the early afternoon. Haber did well; she recovered from her slow start. Davis then brought up the final weakness of Haber’s testimony, the erased last four photos on Robyn Eden’s cell phone. Pierce knew Davis must have had more questions for this witness because he wouldn’t end on this proof.

  “I don’t know what the erased pictures were. I was trying to e-mail them to my phone, and they accidentally got erased,” Haber said.

  Davis ended with proof that Mr. Garcia’s shaving kit was found in the master bathroom where needles and crushed pills were in plain view. Another very damaging puzzle piece. He couldn’t bring up the white powder and syringe in the nightstand because they weren’t in plain view and therefore weren’t admissible under Judge Tanner’s ruling.

  Pierce needed to attack Haber’s credibility, so she stated accusingly, “You gave a false affidavit upon which this court issued an invalid search warrant.”

  Davis objected, and Tanner agreed. He reminded the jury the affidavit was inaccurate.

  “You lost the pill bottles, didn’t you?”

  “They’re gone. I didn’t lose them. I turned them over to the evidence locker, and then they went missing.”

  “If you hadn’t lost them, we’d know that Mr. Garcia’s fingerprints weren’t on them.” That was a big jump, but Pierce was willing to take it.

  Haber didn’t know what to say.

  Davis objected, and the court instructed Pierce to move on.

  “You erased the last four cell phone pictures of Robyn Eden.”

  “It was an accident. I was trying to e-mail them to myself.”

  Pierce asked the court to instruct the jury about lost evidence. He explained that since the evidence was in the state’s control, it is to be presumed that the lost evidence was relevant to the defendant’s innocence and supported that innocence.

  Haber confirmed that Ms. Eden’s computer was on the evidence list. Pierce handed to Haber the history of the sites visited by Ms. Eden. There were 304 sites, and more than 25 were about oxycodone. Another 65 related to securing pharmaceuticals online, on such sites as drug dealer.com and homedelivery.com. Then there was the pornographic stuff. Pierce introduced some of the drug-related sites and pornographic ones as separate exhibits individually and then made the hard drive an exhibit.

  “Ms. Eden made these site visits independent of Mr. Garcia?”

  “Yes.”

  “She was the drug addict, not him.”

  “Yes.”

  “She visited these pornographic sites without Mr. Garcia?”

  “How would I know that?”

  “Didn’t Mr. Garcia live in New York, and weren’t these downloads done over a period of several months?”

  “Yes.”

  “So she was engaged in perverted sex without Mr. Garcia?”

  “Yes.”

  She answered too fast before Davis could object, but in fairness it was pretty perverted.

  “It was Robyn Eden’s idea to make these videotapes and to take these photographs?”

  “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask Mr. Garcia.”

  “Well, before she met Mr. Garcia, she’d made lewd and pornographic photos with other men.”

  “Yes.”

  Pierce introduced the two photos of Robyn Eden and Ron Harris, which Davis tried to exclude. They left nothing to the imagination involving oral sex and intercourse.

  Davis watched the jury carefully. The two older women made faces of disgust. Those jurors felt no sympathy for Robyn Eden.

  “Did Mr. Garcia tell you why he’d come to Tennessee?”

  “He said he’d had a sex marathon. I figured he came in for that.”

  “We now know he was invited to Hewes City by her sister to convince Ms. Eden to go to rehab.”

  “Right.”

  “He came down to help, and now he’s charged with her murder.”

  “Yes.”

  It was four fifty-three, a good time to end the day and the witness.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  A FOOLED PHYSICIAN

  Tuesday, February 13, 2001

  The TBI lab administrator was the first witness of the morning under Steine’s examination. He testified as to the chain of evidence and that all of the samples tested based on photographs of the bedroom and master bathroom were in plain view. He introduced the forensic chemistry report into evidence. Steine had the TBI agent summarize the report and dumb it down for the
jury. There were three syringes: two used and one still in its wrapper. The two used syringes had residue of oxycodone and acetaminophen. He explained that both drugs were painkillers. There was a too lengthy discussion of the difference between a Schedule II drug compared to a Schedule III drug. The lower the schedule, the more serious the drug. Heroin was a Schedule I. What Eden took was a Schedule II. Not the most exciting witness, Davis thought, but the proof went in and later witnesses can rely on that evidence.

  The next witness was a young woman technician from the TBI lab. Sammie questioned her. The testimony was concise. The sex toys in plain view were tested for DNA evidence, and the only DNA found was that of Robyn Eden. Neither Mr. Garcia’s nor anyone else’s DNA was found. The sex toys were deposited in the evidence locker. They were removed once, and the chain of evidence was preserved. The witness handed the items directly to an independent DNA testing facility at the instruction of a court order. After the tests, the items were handed directly back to the Sheriff’s deputy and deposited in the evidence room. Pierce had no questions for the witness.

  Davis next called Dr. Thomas Barnard, Ms. Eden’s internist. Davis moved into evidence Barnard’s office record of Ms. Eden. The doctor had seen her twice and prescribed Xanax, Lexapro, Ambien, Norco, and hydrocodone twice.

  “Why did you prescribe each of those medications?”

  “Xanax and Lexapro are for depression. Ambien is for sleep. Norco and hydrocodone are for headaches.”

  Davis reviewed with Barnard his two physical examinations of Robyn Eden. He knew she was a former IV drug user. He checked her arms but not her groin area. It would not have been pertinent to his exam. Davis asked if that was a common site to inject recreational drugs.

  “The arms and the legs are where most users go. I wouldn’t check the groin unless I was doing a gynecological examination.”

  “Is it an easy site to get to?”

  “You can’t see, and the femoral artery is real fragile. It would be very difficult to inject oneself. If the femoral artery were to tear or be punctured, that could be fatal. It really takes a skilled user or a second person who is trained to give injections.”