Cover Story

by Brenda Buchanan

  Mansfield’s body language telegraphed a flash of annoyance, but his pause was momentary. He moved on to question Francis about the fingerprints found on the knife.

  “We weren’t able to get any prints off the blade, it was covered with blood and tissue. But the handle showed three distinct sets of prints, and a lot of smears, so there may have been more.”

  “Were you able to match the prints on the knife to any individuals?”

  “Two sets. The defendant—Mr. Boothby—his fingerprints were on there. So were the prints of the victim—Mr. O’Rourke. We weren’t able to identify the third set.”

  “Frank O’Rourke’s fingerprints were on the handle of the knife?”

  “Yes, a clear print was found on the side with the writing, where it says ‘Victorinox Fibrox.’ Another was found on the same side, but a half a centimeter from the blade.”

  Mansfield elicited more technical details for another fifteen minutes then turned the witness over.

  I composed a quick tweet about the fingerprint testimony while Cohen prepared to begin cross-examination. His questions about the knife had a different slant. How sturdy was it? Not particularly, Francis said. What was it designed for again? For cleaning and filleting a fish, or maybe boning a piece of meat, she replied. Were there others in the house like it? No, they didn’t find another one in the Boothby house that was in any way similar.

  “You testified earlier that there were at least three sets of fingerprints on the knife, but you could only identify two of them. Mr. Boothby’s and Mr. O’Rourke’s. Where was the third print, the one you couldn’t identify?”

  “On the tip of the handle there’s a partial that appears to be a thumbprint.”

  “Could it have been made by the defendant’s thumb, or the victim’s thumb?”

  “It doesn’t match up with either of them.”

  Cohen walked over to the evidence clerk and retrieved the knife in its plastic bag.

  “By ‘the tip of the handle,’ please show me what you mean.” He handed the knife to the evidence technician.

  She held the sealed bag sideways, the blood-stained blade pointing toward the judge’s bench.

  “Right here.” She touched the end opposite the knife blade’s sharp tip. “This is where we found the partial.”

  Cohen walked to the defense table and picked up an unbagged knife that appeared to be identical to the one Francis was still holding in the air. As he turned toward the prosecutor, Mansfield jumped to his feet.

  “I object, your honor.” His voice was loud and his tone was sharp. “Relevance! This isn’t evidence.”

  Justice Herrick told them to approach the bench.

  Mansfield and Cohen were already toeing their marks, ready to launch into argument about the second knife. A couple of jurors leaned forward and all but cupped their hands behind their ears in an attempt to hear what was being said. I used the opportunity to knock out another tweet: Knife testimony brings drama to Machias courtroom. #Boothbymurdertrial.

  After several minutes of furious whispering, Justice Herrick tapped her gavel and motioned them back to their respective tables. She turned to the jury.

  “We’ve been discussing a technical point of evidence, which is whether Mr. Cohen may use a knife like the one that has been introduced into evidence—” she nodded to the clerk, who held up the bagged knife Mansfield had been using to support his examination of Francis “—to make a point relevant to the defense case. I’m going to allow Mr. Cohen to use this facsimile knife during his cross-examination of the witness for the limited purpose of illustration. You will not be allowed to handle it, and it will not be allowed into evidence.”

  She nodded at Cohen, who retrieved the knife from the clerk and handed it—blade clean and shiny—to the prosecutor for inspection. Mansfield took a full minute to examine the knife, then handed it back. I couldn’t see the prosecutor’s face, and wondered if it betrayed the tension I could read in his shoulders.

  Cohen walked to the witness stand and handed the clean knife to JoAnn Francis. “Is this the same model as the knife used to kill Mr. O’Rourke?”

  Francis asked to see her evidence report, consulted it for a moment, turned the clean knife over in her hands several times. “It appears to be the same.”

  “Can you show me where on that knife you found the partial print, the one you couldn’t identify?”

  The evidence technician pointed to the butt end of the handle.

  “Can you grip the knife in a way that has one of your fingers, or perhaps your thumb, in that area of the handle?”

  Francis experimented for a few seconds, moving the knife around in her right hand. “Yes, I can.”

  “Can you demonstrate that grip for the jury?” Cohen asked.

  Francis grasped the handle with her four fingers curved back toward her palm, and her thumb on the end, then gestured like she was stabbing at something. The motion was short and awkward. I moved my own fingers into the same hold on my pen.

  Cohen let a beat or two pass. “In your view, Ms. Francis, is this an effective grip to use to stab something with this knife?”

  The objection was out of Mansfield’s mouth before he could get his feet under himself. “The question calls for speculation, your honor. He’s asking the witness to assume facts not in evidence.”

  Justice Herrick sustained the objection, so Cohen tried another tack. He picked up the bagged knife, and studied it a moment.

  “Could the smudged fingerprint at the end of the handle of this knife have been left by the killer?”

  “It’s impossible to say for certain. There are too many prints on the handle.”

  “But is it possible that the partial print was left by the person who stabbed Mr. O’Rourke?”

  “Yes,” she said. “But then, anything is possible.”

  Cohen thanked her for her testimony and sat down. I figured he’d accomplished his aim, which was to confuse everyone about the knife and the fingerprints found on its handle. At least I assumed that had been his goal—to use a partial fingerprint to cast some doubt on the state’s case.

  Mansfield did a brief redirect in which he further developed Francis’s testimony about Danny Boothby’s prints being on the knife. He ended with a variation of Cohen’s last question.

  “Is it possible that the partial print at the end of the handle on this knife was left there by someone who has nothing to do with this case, perhaps the clerk who sold it?”

  “Yeah,” Francis said. “That’s possible, too.”

  Chapter Eight

  Wednesday, January 7, 2015

  It was twenty past twelve when Justice Herrick sprung us for lunch, which meant I was due in Claude LeClair’s barber chair. I hoofed it down the hill and found the clip joint behind the hardware store. A traditional barber’s pole with its helix of red, white and blue stripes announced its location between a car parts supply house and a bar.

  A round guy was sitting in the waiting area, not reading a magazine or anything, just watching my soon-to-be stylist, who was zipping himself into a pale green polyester jacket with short sleeves. LeClair grinned in my direction, but there was no feeling behind it. “I didn’t think you were gonna show up.”

  I stuffed my gloves and hat into the sleeve of my parka. “It’s been too long between haircuts. I’m not looking for a high-and-tight, mind you, just a little trim.”

  I nodded at the chubby guy in the waiting chair, who nodded back without a word. He was pretty much bald, so I figured he wasn’t waiting for a haircut, but I didn’t want to ignore him so I asked if he was waiting for service.

  “Heck, no. That’s my brother-in-law, Lenny. He helps out around here.” LeClair snickered. “You don’t need a trim today, do ya, Lenny?”

  The old guy smiled but didn’t say a wo
rd.

  I climbed into the chair and LeClair snapped a smock around my neck. It was the only barber chair I’d ever seen that faced a blank wall instead of a mirror.

  “Confusing morning of testimony,” I said. “I couldn’t figure out the point of all the questioning about the fingerprints.”

  LeClair grunted and pulled a comb out of one of those glass jars full of that mysterious blue liquid that I’ve always assumed sanitizes hair-cutting implements. I stayed quiet as he attempted to pull the comb through the tangle of my hair.

  “Asshole Danny never denied he done it, so I don’t know why it matters whose fingerprints are on the knife.” His voice was tight. After extracting a pair of electric clippers from a cabinet, he used his thick fingers to pull a hank of wavy hair away from my neck.

  “Cohen seems to know what he’s doing. Seems like a bright guy.”

  “He’s got a name for being smart, and hardworking.” LeClair fired up the clippers. “Still a kid, but a decent lawyer, from what they say.”

  “What about Danny? What’s his reputation?”

  “Danny’s a loser, always has been.” The clippers were mowing a path across the back of my neck. “He was an immature kid with a lazy streak when my daughter took up with him. I told her he was like his no-good father, but would she listen? No, sir.”

  I closed my eyes for a moment, hoping LeClair heard me say I didn’t want a buzz cut.

  “In case no one’s filled you in, Danny’s father was a drunken brawler who drowned at sea. Fell overboard early one morning, hungover. Cap’n didn’t see him till he was going under. Never came up for air.”

  His voice was angry despite the sadness of the tale. I didn’t move a muscle.

  Lenny spoke up from the spectator section. “I knew Sam Boothby.” He had a soft, sing-song voice. “Treated his dogs better than he treated his kids.”

  “I ain’t saying Danny had a good growing up, but at a certain age, you’ve gotta straighten up and fly right.”

  I thought of the WWII-era song of the same name, and wondered if LeClair had served in the military. Before I could ask I got my answer.

  “He should have gone into the service. The discipline would’ve served him. Grew me up quick, I can tell you that.”

  “Danny’s older brother enlisted in the Navy the day after he graduated high school,” Lenny said. “Ended up a career man, I think. Hasn’t been back around here for a long time no how.”

  “The day Karen and Danny came home and told me they’d decided to get married I about had a fit,” LeClair said. “I figured she might be pregnant but she wasn’t. She just liked the guy.” He blew air out of his lips in an angry blast. “Go figure.”

  Despite his snarling tone, his stubby hands were steady, and fast, too. I’d been sitting there less than ten minutes and I figured my haircut must be about done. But LeClair kept clipping, and I sat still.

  “He was never a go-getter, you know what I mean? If a job knocked on his door, he worked, but he didn’t hustle anything up when fishing was slow.” He exchanged the clippers for a razor and began trimming up my sideburns to a height they hadn’t been in a long while. “Nope, Danny wasn’t the guy you’d see out there digging clams on the early tide, or taking a night class over to the voc-tech. He kind of floated along, always looking a little dopey, like he’d been smoking something.”

  He shrugged his beefy shoulders and set down the clippers on a cart next to the barber chair. Picking up a pair of scissors, he resumed his monologue.

  “Corrie, she didn’t come along till they’d been married about three years.” His voice softened at the mention of his granddaughter’s name. “You seen her?”

  “No, I haven’t met your granddaughter.”

  He pulled a scuffed black leather wallet out of his hip pocket. His sausage-like fingers flipped it open and extracted a small photograph. The school photographer had captured a sandy-haired girl with luminescent green eyes. She was just this side of lovely, and there was plenty of time for her to grow into her beauty.

  “She’s very pretty. How old is she?”

  “Thirteen next month.” He cleared his throat to cover what sounded like tears. “She’s awful close to my wife since Karen died. Dolores is like her grandmother and mother all wrapped into one.”

  “I’m sure it matters a lot to Corrine to be so close with her grandmother, and vice-versa.”

  Lenny piped up from the corner. “Dolores is so upset she’s on nerve pills. Makes her so foggy she can’t drive herself over to Cherryfield to see Corrie. I’m the one that takes her over there three times a week.”

  Cherryfield? What’s Corrine doing in Cherryfield? Before I could ask LeClair rebuked his brother-in-law.

  “That’s family business, Lenny.” LeClair’s voice was sharp as he retrieved the scissors and resumed trimming around the edges of my hair.

  “Are Corrine and Danny close?” I asked.

  “Well, that’s the damnedest thing. She thinks the guy hung the moon. Doesn’t see him for the no-good lunk that he is. She writes to him in jail every day, from what I understand. I guess she thinks he’s going to be set free and come home. I keep telling her that she shouldn’t get her hopes up that the jury’ll find him innocent, but she doesn’t answer me.” He’d moved around to work on the front of my head and his neck was right in front of my face. I watched his Adam’s apple jump.

  “Not too many people in this world are innocent.” The anger had drained out of his voice. “My Karen—she was innocent. Now she’s gone.”

  I wondered if her death left her grieving parents all to their lonesome. “You have any other kids?”

  “A son,” he said. “Michael. Five years younger than Karen.”

  “And a bad boy.” Lenny had a giggle in his voice.

  “Aw, he had his stupid days, but what normal boy hasn’t?” Claude’s voice showed his irritation at tattletale Lenny, and the cadence of his scissors slowed as the trim part of my haircut came to an end. “He hasn’t been running with those jerks from Calais for a few months now, and I can attest he’s home most every night, ’cause he’s living in my basement. It makes his mother happy to have him at the dinner table on a regular basis, and he helps her out with chores around the house.”

  He walked around behind me and unclipped the drape from around my neck. I didn’t even glance in the mirror on the opposite wall, not wanting an audience while I examined the new me.

  I thumbed through my wallet for a ten and a five. “Raising kids is hard.” I had no first-hand experience raising kids, but I figured there was no harm stating the conventional wisdom.

  “You got any?” Claude asked.

  “Not yet. Someday, I hope.”

  “Havin’ kids can make you happier than you’ve ever been, but sadder than you’ve ever been, too,” he said. “Take it from me. I’ve seen both sides.”

  * * *

  My trusty wool watch cap kept my ears from freezing and my pride intact as I trudged up the hill to the courthouse, thinking about Claude’s double-standard. Danny, despite raising his daughter by himself after losing his young wife to cancer, got no respect from his father-in-law. But Michael—in his late twenties if I was doing the math right in my head—got all kinds of props, even though he was bunking in the family rec room after what sounded like some screwups.

  Pulling off my hat as I ducked into the first floor men’s john, I groaned when I saw my reflection in the mirror. It wasn’t that the haircut was hideous. It was a regular kind of haircut for a guy who likes to keep his hair short. Like the frat boys at Bowdoin who starched their boxer shorts and had a trim every ten days whether they needed it or not. That had never been my kind of haircut. I was tempted to put the watch cap back before walking into the courtroom. But Aunt Gert’s voice echoed in my head, calling men who wear hats indoors hool
igans.

  The Peabody sisters were already in their seats. One of them was wearing a silver pin in the shape of a capital A on her red sweater. Arlette, I thought. No flies on me.

  Noticing my new look, she elbowed her sister, who was clad in a yellow sweater.

  “You look so handsome with that new haircut,” Arlette said. “It makes your whole face look different.”

  I smiled as I slid into my seat.

  “Makes him kind of look like Burt Lancaster, don’t you think?” Trulette said to her sister. “Or maybe Gary Cooper.”

  Great, I thought. I look like a 1950s movie idol.

  The evidence clerk looked up, raised her eyebrows and smiled. “Nice haircut,” she mouthed, pointing at her own head.

  I couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic.

  Mansfield called State Police Trooper Nicholas Day as his first witness of the afternoon. Day had big shoulders and a thick neck, but he walked up the courtroom’s center aisle with the grace of a dancer. I guessed him to be in his mid-thirties. He set a navy blue canvas briefcase on the edge of the witness box and stood at attention as the clerk administered the oath. He sat in the witness chair, back ramrod straight, holding his briefcase and trooper hat in his lap.

  After asking a few perfunctory questions about his background and training, Mansfield zeroed in on the trooper’s movements on the day O’Rourke was killed.

  Day testified that he was about eight miles from East Machias when he got the call about a possible homicide. Day recited the relevant facts in a clear, deep voice.

  “I got the call at 3:53 p.m. Dispatch said a Daniel Boothby called one minute earlier to report a killing had occurred in his dooryard. He hung up before the dispatcher could get any additional details. There was no answer when the dispatcher called back, so it was unknown if the perpetrator had fled the scene or was still there.”

  Day then described in minute detail how he rocketed over back roads with the siren and blue lights going till he reached East Machias, where he bumped into something very rare in Washington County: a traffic jam.