by Parnell Hall
“Yes, it is.”
“And you found Anson Carbinder’s shoes and socks just inside the door?”
“That’s right.”
“What about his jacket and tie—did you happen to find Anson Carbinder’s jacket and tie anywhere in the room?”
“Actually, yes. They were draped over the back of a chair.”
“The back of a chair?”
“That’s right.”
“Was the jacket hung over the back of the chair?”
“No. This was not a straight chair. It was an overstuffed chair. The jacket was lying over the back of it.”
“What about the tie?”
“The tie was on top of the jacket.”
“And did you give Anson Carbinder his jacket and tie when you took him into custody.”
“No, I did not.”
“You did not?”
“No,” MacAullif said. He added dryly, “It was not a formal occasion. He needed his shoes and socks to walk. He did not need a jacket and tie.”
“Uh-huh,” Richard said. “But you did find his shoes and socks inside the door, and his jacket and tie draped over an overstuffed chair?”
“That’s right.”
“And you did notice blood on his white shirt, but can’t recall whether or not there was blood on his gray slacks?”
“That’s right.”
Richard smiled and nodded. “Then, sergeant,” he said, “wouldn’t your findings seem to indicate that Anson Carbinder returned home at approximately 2:00 A.M.; that he found the bedroom dark; that he removed his shoes and socks just inside the door; that he removed his jacket and tie and tossed it over the back of a chair; that he then slipped into bed, trying not to wake up his wife; that he immediately noticed something was very wrong—his hand encountered something wet and sticky; that he tried to rouse his wife, couldn’t, sprang from the bed in mounting horror, and switched on the overhead light; that he discovered his wife’s body lying murdered in the bed; that his first impulse was to go to her, grab her, attempt to revive her; that he did so, getting blood on his hands, face, and shirt; that when he was unable to revive her, he called the police; that after calling them, he pulled on his pants and went downstairs to wait for them to arrive—which is why, when you got there, there was blood on his shirt but not on his pants—isn’t that what your findings show, sergeant?”
ADA Wellington was on his feet. “Objection, Your Honor!” he shouted. “This is outrageous. Counsel is making an argument in the guise of a question. He—”
Judge Blank’s gavel cut him off. “That will do,” he snapped. He pointed. “Attorneys. To the side bar.”
Richard and ADA Wellington moved off to the side of the judge’s bench. The court reporter picked up his stenographer’s machine and moved over there with them to record the conversation. Judge Blank came down from his bench and joined the attorneys, and they conversed in low tones.
I couldn’t hear a word, but I could see their lips moving. Richard appeared quite composed, while ADA Wellington appeared animated and vehement. Judge Blank, for the most part, looked stern.
When they resumed their places, Judge Blank said, “The objection has been sustained on the grounds that it calls for a conclusion on the part of the witness for which no proper foundation has been laid. Should the proper foundation be laid, it might be asked at a later date. However, at the present time you are to dismiss it from your minds, give it no weight. For all intents and purposes, the question was never asked.
“Mr. Rosenberg, you may proceed.”
“Thank you, Your Honor,” Richard said. “Sergeant MacAullif, I believe you stated your qualifications as a police officer?”
“Yes, I did.”
“You’re with homicide?”
“That’s right.”
“And how many homicides have you investigated in your career?”
“I really couldn’t say.”
“Would it be hundreds?”
“Yes, it would.”
“Thousands?”
“Over a thousand is possible. I really couldn’t say.”
“Would it be fair to say you’ve had extensive experience in investigating homicides?”
“Yes, it would.”
“I believe in your direct examination you stated your work in the last few years has been exclusively homicides?”
“That is correct.”
“Your only work in the past few years has been homicide work?”
“That’s right.”
“You did no work in any other areas?”
“No, I did not.”
“Is that so?” Richard said. He crossed to the defense table, picked up a manila envelope, and took it to the court reporter’s desk. He pulled from the envelope a small, rectangular box, handed it to the court reporter. “I ask that this be marked for identification as Defense Exhibit A.”
“One moment,” Wellington said. “Let me see that.”
“You’ll have an opportunity to inspect it when I offer it into evidence,” Richard said. “At the moment, I’m merely marking it for identification.”
When the box had been marked, Richard took it and approached the witness stand.
As he did, I could see the box more clearly. My mouth dropped open.
It was a videotape.
One I knew.
“Sergeant MacAullif,” Richard said, “I hold in my hand Defense Exhibit A, which consists of a videocassette of a movie entitled Hands of Havoc, Flesh of Fire. I hand you that videotape and ask you if you have ever seen it before?”
Sergeant MacAullif’s calm, competent assurance was gone. A number of conflicting emotions took its place: surprise, anger, embarrassment, rage.
I couldn’t blame him. The cover of the videocassette he’d just been handed couldn’t have been worse. It looked like it was straight out of a fifties grade-B movie. It depicted the young hero in a martial-arts pose. Clinging to his arm was a voluptuous blonde with her bosom spilling out of her dress.
“I ask you, sergeant,” Richard said, “if you are not familiar with the movie Hands of Havoc, Flesh of Fire? I ask you if you have ever worked on the movie? More specifically, if you worked on it just last year? I ask you, if we were to play that videocassette, if we would see your name listed in the credits as the technical advisor? Is that not a fact, Sergeant MacAullif?”
“Objection,” Wellington roared. “Incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial.”
“This is cross-examination, Your Honor,” Richard said. “The man stated he held no other job.”
“Objection overruled. Witness will answer.”
“Were you a technical advisor on the movie, Hands of Havoc, Flesh of Fire.”
MacAullif’s face was granite. I swear his teeth never moved. “Yes, I was.”
“So when you stated you had worked no other job but homicide...?”
“I assumed you were referring to police work,” MacAullif snapped. “I had no idea you were referring to this. Frankly, I didn’t even think of it.”
“You simply didn’t remember?”
“That’s right.”
“But you remember now that you worked on the movie Hands of Havoc, Flesh of Fire as a technical advisor just last year?”
“Yes, I do.”
“How long did you work on the movie?”
“For four weeks.”
“You worked for four weeks on this movie?”
“That’s right.”
“As a technical advisor?”
“Yes.”
“Was that your only job?”
Oh, shit.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I’m asking if that was your only job on the movie? Or is it not a fact, that if we were to play this videocassette, we would see you, in person, in uniform, playing a scene with the young star, Jason Clairemont, a scene in which he, as a fugitive on the lam, dupes you and makes good his escape? Is that not a fact, sergeant?”
I now know what is meant by the phrase,
if looks could kill.
31
“I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU DID THAT.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Richard and I were in a cab heading back to his office. Court had broken immediately after MacAullif's testimony, ADA Wellington being quick to intercept the sergeant as he left the witness stand, so as to forestall any possible confrontation between him and Mr. Rosenberg, probably a wise move considering the presence of both the jurors and the press. Anyway, MacAullif had been whisked out the exit, the jurors had been instructed, and court had been adjourned. At which point Anson Carbinder had pulled his own vanishing act, hopping into a Mercedes driven by the renowned chauffeur Connie Maynard. Believe it or not, Richard and I had not been offered a ride and had been forced to hail a cab.
“Come on,” I said. “I mean, Jesus Christ, Richard. That was MacAullif.”
“I know that was MacAullif.”
“So how could you do that?”
“You didn’t like my cross-examination?”
“Are you kidding me?”
“No, I’m not. I thought it was short, snappy, and effective. And what about my summary of the evidence—didn’t you think that was rather neat?”
“That was stricken from the record.”
“Oh, sure,” Richard said mockingly. “Jurors will disregard. Right, like they’ll just forget about it like it never happened. I suppose you think a juror’s decision was never influenced by something he was told to disregard?”
“Never mind that,” I said. “I was talking about MacAullif.”
“I’m talking about MacAullif. He was a hell of a good witness, and I had a hell of a tough job.”
“Yes, and you did it, didn’t you?”
“I sure did.”
“That was not meant as praise.”
“I know that. You’re all pissed off at me for making a fool of MacAullif. Which is stupid. He’s trying to convict, we’re trying to acquit. I was just doing my job.”
“It’s more than that.”
“No, it isn’t. You just think it is because you know the guy. If it was anyone else, you’d be pleased as punch.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Sure you would. Suppose it was that other sergeant— the stupid one that you kept getting involved with—what’s his name?”
“Sergeant Thurman.”
“Right. Sergeant Thurman—suppose it was him.”
“It wasn’t him.”
“Yeah, but if it was, you’d be laughing your ass off.”
I frowned. “That’s not the point.”
“Sure it is. And if you didn’t know the guy at all, you’d just think it was a neat trick. Look, just this morning you were grousing, Oh, this is so boring, oh, there’s no surprises. I give you one and you’re pissed off and you don’t like it.”
I turned around in my seat. “Richard, that was my fucking movie.”
“So?”
“I think that’s the point here. You say, how would I like it if it was some other cop I didn’t know? Well, it wouldn’t happen if it was some other cop I didn’t know. The point is, the only reason you had this information to shoot at MacAullif is because he’s a friend of mine.”
“Yes, of course.”
“What do you mean, yes, of course? You can’t agree with me. That’s my whole argument.”
“Stanley, I’m a lawyer. I’m a paid partisan. I use anything I can get my hands on to help my client.”
“Yeah, I know that.”
He shrugged. “So what’s the big deal?”
“So what’s the big deal?” Alice said when I got home and went in the kitchen to tell her about it.
To my surprise, Alice agreed with Richard. I say to my surprise. I shouldn’t. Over the years I’ve gotten used to Alice’s reactions being a hundred and eighty degrees from what I thought they’d be. So a surprise was no surprise. What would have surprised me would have been if she’d agreed with me.
No risk of that.
“Come on,” Alice said from the stove, stirring something that smelled delicious. “This is not the end of the world.”
“You should have seen MacAullif.”
“I take it he was angry?”
“You could say that.”
“Who was he angry at?”
“Huh?”
“Was he angry at you?”
“You better believe it.”
“Oh? What did he say?”
“He didn’t say anything.”
“Oh?”
“I didn’t see him after court. They hustled him out the door.”
“So how do you know he was angry?”
“Alice, give me a break. I told you what Richard did. Don’t you think he’s angry?”
“Sure, but at Richard. Why would he be angry at you?”
“It’s my movie. I got him into it. If it weren’t for me, Richard wouldn’t know about it.”
Alice looked up from the stove. “When?”
“Huh?”
“When did Richard know about it? Was it something he learned just now, during the trial? Or did he know about the movie then?”
“Don’t be silly. He was at the filming. He saw the dailies, for Christ’s sake.”
“Did he see MacAullif when you were filming?”
“Of course.”
Alice smiled. “Then Richard knew about the movie then. And MacAullif knows Richard knew about the movie then. It’s not like this was some secret bit of information you suddenly supplied Richard with because you were working as his detective for the trial.”
As usually happens when I argue with Alice, my mind was becoming mush. “Alice,” I said feebly.
“So you see,” Alice said. “There’s no reason for MacAullif to be mad at you at all.”
If only life were so simple.
32
“STATE YOUR NAME.”
“Dr. Melvin Fleckstein.”
“What is your occupation?”
“Medical examiner.”
I was not surprised. Dr. Fleckstein looked like a medical examiner. He was an older man, with white hair, pudgy cheeks, and steel-rimmed glasses. Why that looked like a medical examiner, I couldn’t tell you. I guess I must have associated him with some doctor I knew when I was a child, though I can’t remember any such doctor—but that was the initial impression I got, and for once I turned out to be right.
Dr. Fleckstein ran through a list of his qualifications, which were extensive, including twenty-three years as a medical examiner for the city of New York.
ADA Wellington nodded his approval. He included the jury in his gaze, inviting them to share in his appreciation of the doctor’s credentials. “Thank you, doctor,” he said. “Now, then, directing your attention to the early-morning hours of October thirteenth, were you summoned to a residence at One-thirteen East Sixty-second Street?”
“Yes, I was.”
“And what time was that?”
“I arrived there at precisely 2:50 A.M.”
“And what did you find?”
“I found the body of a woman in the upstairs bedroom.”
“Was she alive?”
“She was dead.”
“How did you make that determination?”
“It was not particularly hard. Her throat had been cut.”
“Was that the only readily apparent wound on the body?”
“Not at all. The woman had been stabbed repeatedly. There were stab wounds on the chest and defensive wounds on the hands.”
“Defensive wounds?”
“Yes. The type of wounds that would have occurred had she put up her hands to fend off the blows.”
“The blows?”
“By the blows, I mean the blows of the knife.”
“Did you determine the cause of death?”
“Not then. The apparent cause of death was obvious, but I didn’t verify it till I got her back to the lab.”
“The apparent cause of death?”
“Yes. Her throat
had been slit. No one can live with their throat slit. It is a fatal wound.”
“Then why do you say apparent cause of death?”
Dr. Fleckstein smiled. “Because I’m under oath, and I have to be accurate. The wound was sufficient to have caused death. The question was whether it actually had. You must remember there were other wounds on the body. It was conceivable one of them could have caused death, and the body could have been already dead when the throat was slit.
“That was one possibility. Another was that the cause of death could have been by entirely different means. The woman could have been poisoned, for instance, and all these wounds administered only after death.”
“Are you saying such was the case?”
“No, no, no. Absolutely not.” Dr. Fleckstein held up his hands. “Don’t get me wrong. None of those were the case.” He smiled again. “All I’m saying is, it was necessary for me to eliminate those possibilities in determining the cause of death.”
“Which you were eventually able to do?”
“Absolutely. The woman died from having her throat slit.”
“On what do you base that conclusion?”
“Several factors. For one thing, the defensive wounds on the hands. The woman was obviously alive when she was stabbed, because she attempted to fend off the blows of the knife.
“Then there was the loss of blood. Which was considerable. There was blood on the bed, blood on the floor. The body had bled profusely.”
“Indicating what?”
“That she was alive when she was stabbed. That the heart was still beating, pumping out blood. If she had been dead when she was stabbed, the blood would have merely seeped from the wounds. Clearly, it had spurted.”
“And how do you know the cut on her throat was the fatal wound?”
“Again, from the way the blood flowed. She lost a huge amount of blood from the wound in her neck. Much more than would have flowed had she died first from the other stab wounds. There’s no doubt about it. She died with her throat cut, gasping for air that would not come as her blood gushed out of her.”
Jesus Christ.
I’d been wondering what Wellington was getting at with this testimony. It was obvious what killed her, so why was he making such a big deal?
The answer lay in the faces of the jurors. One glance at those men and women—shrinking in horror and revulsion from the repugnant testimony—told the tale. ADA Wellington had seized the opportunity to drench them in gore.