"Objection! Objection! He's badgering the witness," Winesapp shouted in his high, nasal voice.
The judge looked at Macintosh with a steely stare and said, "I'll give you one warning and one warning only. Ask a question, Mr. Macintosh."
Macintosh did not apologize to Judge Stafleese and went on with his questioning. "Ms. Rutledge, can you prove to the court that you had this so-called affair with Mr. Bouchard? Do you have candid photos of the two of you? Love notes, anything?"
Sarafina shook her head slowly. "No..."
"Thank you, Ms. Rutledge," said Macintosh sharply, cutting her off. He wanted "no" to be the last thing in the jury's minds and not her explanation.
"But, wait. We had to be discreet--"
"Thank you, Ms. Rutledge," Macintosh said firmly. "I have no more questions."
The lying bitch had gotten the last word in after all.
The next to be called was Detective Myles Jorgensen. Macintosh was most afraid of him because he was the most credible and impartial witness the prosecution had. And Macintosh knew the detective had seen a lot of damaging physical evidence.
Jorgensen wore a baggy tan suit with a pastel lavender tie. His demeanor was calm and poised, and he spoke without hesitation as he swore on the Holy Bible to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Winesapp, python-like, sidled up to the front of the witness box and thanked Detective Jorgensen. Jorgensen nodded and Winesapp began his questioning.
"Let's start at the beginning, Detective Jorgensen," he said, drawing a deep breath. "You first had occasion to meet Mr. Bouchard while investigating the murder of his employer, Joshua Brookhouse Ryan, is that correct?"
"It is," Jorgensen answered, offering no further elaboration. He was a seasoned witness who knew better than to leave anything open for interpretation by the other side.
"And you questioned him in reference to that murder, did you not?"
"I did."
"You then more or less forgot about Cary Bouchard until a certain DV tape showed up at your house, correct?"
"I object," said Macintosh, standing, "The Prosecutor is leading the witness."
Judge Stafleese looked at Winesapp and said, looking almost apologetic, "Sustained."
"Forgive me, sir," he bowed his head in the judge's direction and then continued. "Would you please tell the court about the tape which came into your possession?"
"Yes. About two weeks prior to the murder of Diana Moon and Mr. Bouchard's subsequent arrest, a DV tape was anonymously delivered to my home. I found it in my mailbox, but it had not been mailed. There was no stamp or postmark. Curious, I took the tape inside and played it. It was a surveillance tape from the security camera that watched the entrance door to the Arts Building on the night of Mr. Ryan's murder. Prior to this, the tape had been missing. I assumed that the killer had somehow taken it before he left."
"And what was on the tape, Detective Jorgensen?"
"The image depicted a man in a hooded sweater jacket and jeans entering the building at precisely 9:00 P.M. There was no activity at the door until the same man left again 10:30 P.M. I immediately identified the man on the tape as Cary Bouchard."
Cyrus Winesapp turned toward the judge and presented the tape as Prosecution Exhibit A. A television monitor and player were wheeled into the courtroom by two of Winesapp's assistants, and someone dimmed the lights. Winesapp popped the tape into the maw and let it play. Cary watched intently along with everyone else in the room.
The image was grainy, the quality poor. The black and white film showed someone of Cary's general height and build go inside the art gallery, opening the security door with a card-key. The angle looked downward, and the hooded jacket shaded the man's face. Cary could not contain himself.
"That isn't me!" he shouted, jumping up. "I've been set up. You can't prove that's me." Besides, he would never dress so shabbily--not even to commit a murder.
Macintosh grabbed his arm, wrenching it painfully, and forced Cary to sit back down in his chair. The lights snapped on and the two armed guards looked at Cary, their right hands poised above their holsters, just waiting for him to give them a reason.
"Control your client, Mr. Macintosh!" the judge snapped.
Cary gasped, seeing the true color of the judge's eyes for the first time. They were a brownish yellow and had no sclera. They were the surreal eyes of a goat. I'm seeing things again, I'm just too upset.
"My apologies, your Honor," Macintosh mumbled with contrition. "It won't happen again."
Winesapp was still standing before the witness box. "Is that the tape, Mr. Jorgensen?"
"It is."
"How did you know the subject was Cary Bouchard?"
"The build, the walk, the access. Also, just prior to the delivery of the tape, I had gotten a call from Detective Soren Gray of the LAPD, asking me about Cary Bouchard."
"How did she know to call you?"
"She knew Mr. Bouchard was from New York, and when she called the station asking about the man, the call was transferred to me."
"What did she ask you?"
"Hearsay," interjected Macintosh.
"We will have Detective Gray on the stand to corroborate Detective Jorgensen's statements, your Honor," Winesapp said, addressing the judge.
"I'll allow it. You may answer."
Myles Jorgensen cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. "Well, she gave me some background first. She told me that Cary Bouchard the famous writer had just been brought in to her office for questioning in reference to some Insta-Pics of dead women he had been caught red-handed with."
"I object! I object most emphatically," Macintosh cried. "Inflammatory. It is not a crime to be in possession of such photographs, and the Defense resents the implication of guilt."
The judge told the jury to disregard the statement "caught red-handed" and instructed the witness to go on.
"Mr. Bouchard apparently was picked up in downtown Los Angeles for suspicious behavior. When the two LAPD offers searched him, these particular photographs were found and confiscated. Detective Gray told me over the telephone that she had decided to let Mr. Bouchard go after he had answered a few questions. It was her conclusion that the photographs were most probably setups to aid in a publicity stunt. She even went so far as to call the publisher, Carousel Books in New York, and admonish them. But then, she told me, the more she looked at the photos, the more concerned she became. That was when she decided to call the NYPD. Luckily she talked to me, because Mr. Bouchard had never been arrested by us at the time and I was probably the only one who would have remembered him."
"I see," said Winesapp, nodding. "What did you do next?"
"I pored over the Ryan file, trying to find something I might have missed. I had the tape, but it wasn't clear enough. I had the Insta-Pics, but no corpus delecti. I wasn't sure how I could make a solid case against the suspect, but I got lucky. He delivered himself to me on a silver platter the night he killed Diana Moon and crashed his car with her body in the trunk." He shook his head and smiled. "What a putz."
The jury tittered, and Cary wondered why Macintosh didn't object.
"You were at the scene that night?"
"Yes. I was called out of bed at 4:30 A.M. and arrived on the scene at approximately 6:00 A.M. Mr. Bouchard had already been removed from the scene. I observed the car, which narrowly missed oncoming traffic and crashed into a tree on the northbound side of the highway."
"No other cars were involved?"
"No other cars were involved. Mr. Bouchard's testimony that he was rammed off the road by a mysterious white Cadillac is preposterous." Jorgensen snorted with disdain for good measure.
"Please tell the court what else you saw at the scene and the chain of events that followed, Detective." Winesapp took a step back and leaned against the railing of the jury box, knowing that Jorgensen's answer would be lengthy.
"I saw Diana Moon's body. That poor thing was still in the suitcase, but it had been open
ed so that the photographers could record the way she looked when she was found. It was sad," he said, shaking his head and running one hand over his head. "How undignified she looked, crammed into that small space like a dead mouse in a matchbox. And dismembered... ugh. Finally, she was put on a stretcher and taken away by ambulance to the morgue.
"I then went to Mr. Bouchard's apartment with a search warrant. Among the first things I found were the letter from Mr. Bouchard's lover and a dead canary, boiled to death in the tea kettle. After a search of the bedroom, we came up with an Insta-Pic camera, two photos taken of Terry Applegate and Corinna Stubbs while they were still alive, a woman's black lace brassier not belonging to Diana Moon, and a badly damaged Brandie doll."
Cary's mouth dropped open. He did not own an Insta-Pic camera, nor did he recall ever having the other items found in his bedroom. The evidence must have been planted. Who hates me so much?
There was a pause, then Winesapp said, with a slight smile, "And what did you make of all of this?"
"I thought the guy was one joker short of a full deck."
The jury snickered, and Cary shut his eye. This wasn't going well at all.
"Let me state," said Winesapp, addressing the jury, "that Detective Jorgensen has no authority in the area of mental competence. Mr. Bouchard has pleaded innocent, and therefore sane. An insane defendant cannot be found guilty and sentenced to death, which is what the Prosecution is seeking in this case. Death." Cyrus Winesapp turned his small, beady bespectacled eyes back to Jorgensen. "Please answer the question again."
"Sorry," Jorgensen muttered. "But anyone who kills other people can't be completely normal, you know. Anyway, my conclusion in my capacity of NYPD Detective was that Mr. Cary Bouchard was guilty of at least four murders. I didn't know about Marlisa Moon at the time," he added.
"And then you went to Diana Moon's apartment, correct?"
"Correct. We found very recent fingerprints from Mr. Bouchard in the apartment, and there was no sign of a forced entry."
"So Diana Moon knew her killer."
"Yes. Either she let him in, or he let himself in with a key." Jorgensen cleared his throat and looked directly at the jury. "We found a key to Diana Moon's apartment in Cary Bouchard's coat pocket."
"Thank you, Detective Jorgensen," said Winesapp as he took his seat. "Your witness," he added, turning toward Macintosh.
"Thank you," Macintosh said politely as he stood and approached the witness box. "Good afternoon, Detective."
"Good afternoon," Jorgensen returned.
"You have been on the force, what? Twelve years now? And a detective for five of those years?"
"Yes..." Jorgensen answered suspiciously, not sure of where the questions were leading.
"And how many times have you been investigated by Internal Affairs?"
"Three. But I was cleared--"
"Three. And what were the charges, Detective?"
Jorgensen's face was red and flushed. "The charges were dropped--"
Winesapp stood and said, "Objection! Relevance."
"Sustained," replied the judge.
Macintosh smiled and nodded. "Okay, Detective. My client asserts that he is innocent. That he was set up by a deranged fan. He further asserts that the only reason he was in possession of Diana Moon's body was that he was afraid he would be accused. People do irrational things when they are afraid, but that doesn't make them murderers. Mr. Bouchard may not have acted rationally, but his story could be true, couldn't it?"
Jorgensen was shaking his head. "Anything is possible, but--"
"Thank you, Detective Jorgensen," Macintosh said quickly. "I have nothing further."
Stafleese banged his gavel so hard and so suddenly on the podium that Cary bit his tongue. Adjournment was put in effect until the following day at noon.
Cary tasted the tang of his blood and wondered what tomorrow would bring.
Chapter 14
The next day LAPD officers Joseph and Ramirez gave short testimony as to the events of the night Cary was picked up in Los Angeles. Macintosh had no questions for them. He was waiting for the big game. Detective Soren Gray.
When she was called, Detective Gray came into the courtroom looking just as harried and fatigued as she had the night she questioned Cary. Her hair was pinned back and she wore a shapeless, loose-fitting dress that stopped at an unflattering spot just above her thick ankles.
Tea length, Cary thought, but she's not going to a tea party. She's here to destroy me. He watched as she sat down and was sworn in. She crossed her legs and rested her left hand on her knee. Her nail polish was a shocking fuchsia, completely out of kilter with the rest of her look. Then Cary saw it. The left pinkie, painted black. His head began to swim and he almost fainted. He'd forgotten all about the odd fashion statement until that moment; how could he have forgotten? He meant to look it up, or ask about it, but it had a strange way of slipping his mind.
Cary wasn't listening as the questioning began, but he managed to clear his head after a moment. "He struck me as being overly nervous about something," Detective Gray was saying.
Winesapp nodded. His hands were clasped behind his back in the manner of absolute subservience. He was letting his witness have the ball. "Tell me, Detective Gray, why did you think that?"
"Well, he was visibly trembling and sweating, for one thing. At the time I attributed his guilty behavior to being caught trying to pull off a publicity stunt. Now we know different."
"Objection!" Macintosh shouted vehemently. "Speculative. My client has not been convicted."
"I have nothing further," Winesapp said, striding back to his seat, before the judge had a chance to make a ruling.
Charles Macintosh stood and approached Detective Gray. He did not smile or condescend. "Detective Gray, you let Cary Bouchard go, didn't you?"
"Yes, but--"
"Yes. You let him go. You didn't think he had committed any murders, did you?"
"Not at the time," Gray said grudgingly. "But now--"
"Mr. Bouchard was not arrested for anything, was he?"
"No, he was not," she replied stiffly. "But the girls in the Insta-Pics were dead. We know that now."
"Yes we do," Macintosh agreed with mocking pleasantry in his voice. "But we don't know that Cary Bouchard did it, do we? You don't know that there isn't a stalker, do you? Just what do you know, Detective Gray?"
"Objection," said Winesapp with an exasperated sigh. "Badgering."
"Sustained."
Macintosh nodded his acquiescence and went on. "One more question, Detective Gray: Why didn't you arrest Cary Bouchard for murder on that night?"
Soren Gray wrung her hands and took a long time to answer. Then she mumbled something.
"Please speak up, Ms. Gray," Macintosh prompted. "The jury can't hear you."
Soren Gray looked up sharply with venom in her eyes and said through clenched teeth, "Because I didn't think he was guilty of anything."
Macintosh smiled with obvious satisfaction. "Thank you. I have nothing further."
He sat back down next to Cary and they both watched as Soren Gray leave the courtroom. "Why do you suppose she has so much animosity toward me?" Cary asked, hurt and perplexed.
"It's not you," Macintosh assured him. "Those cops are all on a power trip. She's probably been getting razzed by her superiors for not arresting you. Don't worry about it."
Cary relaxed a little. Sure, that had to be it. That explained her hostility. But why the black pinkie nail? He would have to find out what that meant. He vowed not to forget this time.
But he did.
The next day the prostitute from Dallas, Ice, who'd been born Demetria White, was called to testify against Cary.
She had dressed respectably in a nondescript pantsuit for her court appearance, but Demetria White's cheap whore look could not be completely camouflaged. She walked and talked it. She was a tall woman of about six feet, and she was bone-thin. She was only about thirty but she looked much older, and her
eyes had the hollow, haunted and hungry look of a drug addict. She was a dark-skinned black, but her hair was bleached a yellowish blonde, and she wore a contrasting pink frost lipstick on her herpes-blistered lips. She wiggled suggestively down the aisle when her name was called and seated herself in the witness box. She turned, smiled suggestively at Cary, then winked.
Cary averted his eye. She was disgusting. To think that people might believe he'd actually had sex with that woman...
Ice was sworn in and Winesapp began his questioning.
"Hello, Ms. White," he said pleasantly. "I'm glad you could join us."
As if she, too, was a guest at a tea party. This is more like The Mad Tea Party, Cary thought darkly. I wish there was a rabbit-hole I could dive into.
"What do you do for a living, Ms. White?" Winesapp asked with a vague smile. The overhead lights were shining off of his sweating forehead, and his suit jacket was hanging off of him like a limp rag. Cary looked at the beads of sweat and thought how curiously greasy they looked; the man sweated, but not like a man. He sweated like cheddar cheese.
Demetria "Ice" White looked nervously at the judge. "It's okay," he said. "You're not on trial here."
She smiled and answered almost proudly, "I'm a prostitute."
Winesapp smiled and nodded; judging solely by his reaction she might have said she was a nuclear physicist. "And tell me, Ms. White, was it through your, uh, work, that you had chance to meet the Defendant?"
"Who?"
"Cary Bouchard."
Suddenly she was enraged. Like a spitting wildcat, she hissed, "That lousy, murdering bastard! He killed my sister!" Tears began to flow down Ice's pockmarked cheeks and she pointed accusingly at Cary. "You rotten son of a bitch! I hope you roast in Hell!"
"Order!" The judge's gavel pounded resoundingly. "Ms. White, you will control yourself. Jury, you will ignore Ms. White's outburst."
"I'm sorry," she said softly, sniffling, deflated. Ice looked up at the judge, her pupils pinprick dots. She looked as though she'd gotten high earlier and was having trouble focusing. She turned to Winesapp and said, "I'm sorry. Yes, I met Cary Bouchard while I was walking my beat. He was a trick."
The Tragedy Man: A Serial Killer Thriller Page 23