The Undertaker's Widow

by Phillip Margolin

  The woman was Andrea and she was not. Andrea had long black hair. The woman in the hall was blonde and her hair was cut short to frame her face. She also wore glasses. Beneath her raincoat, her clothing was conservative and cheap: a drab, colorless dress, no jewelry and very little makeup.

  "Are you Judge Quinn? Richard Quinn?"

  "Yes. Can I help you?"

  "My . . . my name is Claire Reston. I need to talk to you. It's very important."

  Quinn saw none of Andrea's breezy self-confidence in the woman. They were almost the same height, but Claire Reston slouched and her shoulders were hunched and folded in as if she were trying to hide behind them. She also had trouble looking Quinn in the eye.

  "Why don't you come into my chambers?" suggested Quinn, who was anxious that no one see him with the woman.

  Reston took one of the chairs across the desk from Quinn. She folded her hands in her lap.

  "I ... I know about you and Andrea," Reston said without conviction.

  "Who?"

  Reston looked up. The lenses in her glasses were thick and made her eyes look large. Quinn felt terrible about lying to the woman, but he had no choice.

  "Andrea Chapman is my sister. The ... the day before she disappeared, she told me about you."

  "Okay. Now I understand. Look, Miss Reston, a police detective called me about your sister's disappearance. I'll tell you what I told him. I sat next to her on the flight to St. Jerome, but I didn't see her after we landed."

  Reston looked down. She seemed on the verge of tears.

  "That's not true." Reston's voice quivered as if the effort to disagree with Quinn was monumental. "She told me your name. She was upset. She didn't want to do it. I want you to know that."

  "Do what, Miss Reston? I don't understand."

  "They wanted her to seduce you. They were going to blackmail you."

  "Who was going to blackmail me? What are you talking about?"

  "She didn't tell me anything else. Just that she had been hired to seduce a judge. She told me your name. She was very nervous, very tense."

  "Miss Reston, I assure you that I did not see your sister after we left the plane. If she was hired to do something to me, maybe she changed her mind. I only talked to her during the flight. She was friendly, but she made no attempt to seduce me. I'm married."

  Reston looked confused.

  "Have you told the police that I had something to do with your sister's disappearance?"

  "'No. I . . . Andrea and I . . . we're not close. I don't even see her that much. In fact, the call from St. Jerome surprised me. I didn't even know that she had disappeared until the detective called to ask about her. I Well, I didn't know anything but your name and that you were a judge, so I didn't tell the detective what Andrea said." Reston looked down at her lap. She seemed embarrassed by her lack of courage. "Then I read about Senator Crease's trial and the story gave the name of the judge ..."

  Reston trailed off. She looked very unsure of herself and Quinn believed his bluff would work.

  "Miss Reston, I am sorry that your sister has disappeared. She seemed very nice. But I really can't help you. I talked to her a little on the plane. That's all. I probably mentioned where I was staying, but she never called my hotel. If she did, she didn't leave a message."

  Reston sat up a little straighter. She studied Quinn.

  "I ... I don't believe you. I think you do know something about Andrea's disappearance."

  Quinn heard the hall door open and close. Reston looked over her shoulder toward the sound. She stood up quickly and opened the door between Quinn's chambers and the reception area. Quinn saw Fran Stuart over Reston's shoulder.

  "I'm staying at the Heathman Hotel in room 325. You . . . you have to be honest with me. If you know something ..." Reston was on the verge of tears. "I'll give you until tomorrow."

  Reston saw Stuart. She ran out of courage and bolted past the secretary.

  "Who was that?" Stuart asked.

  Quinn shook his head. "Forget about her. She's confused. It wasn't anything important."

  Stuart started to say something, then thought better of it. Quinn closed the door to his chambers.

  Chapter 19.

  [1]

  The offices of Oregon Forensic Investigations were located in an industrial park a few blocks from the Columbia River. Quinn had to wind through narrow streets flanked by warehouses to find the entrance to the parking lot. After parking in a space reserved for visitors, Quinn walked up a concrete ramp, then followed a walkway that led past several businesses. A door with the company name opened into a small anteroom. There were two chairs on either side of an end table that held a lamp and several copies of Scientific American and Time. In one wall of the reception area was a door and a sliding glass window. Quinn looked through the window and saw a receptionist's desk with a telephone and a second door in the back wall. The door to the receptionist's area was locked. A sign above a button on the wall instructed Quinn to ring for assistance. He pressed the button and heard a muted buzzing somewhere in the building. Moments later, the doors opened and Paul Baylor greeted Quinn.

  Baylor was a slender, bookish African American with a B. S. in forensic science and criminal justice from Michigan State who had worked in the Oregon State Crime Lab for ten years before opening his own forensic consulting firm with another OSP forensic expert. Quinn had been impressed by the slow, thoughtful manner with which Baylor handled the prosecutor's questions when he testified in his courtroom. He did not appear to be taking sides and had answered truthfully, even when the answers were not favorable to the defense. Baylor was wearing a brown tweed sports jacket, a white shirt, a forest-green tie and tan slacks. After shaking hands with Quinn, Baylor brought him into a cramped office outfitted with inexpensive furniture.

  "How can I help you, Judge?" Baylor asked when they were seated. Quinn was carrying a box containing the transcript of Gary Yoshida's testimony, several police reports, a sketch of Yoshida's diagram of the crime scene, a complete set of the crime scene photographs, including the two that showed the blood spatter pattern on the side of the armoire, and a brown paper bag with Ellen Crease's nightgown inside. He set the box on top of Baylor's desk.

  "You may have read that I'm hearing motions in State v. Crease?

  Baylor nodded.

  "Do you know Gary Yoshida?"

  "Sure. We worked together for several years when I was with OSP."

  "What's your impression of him?"

  Baylor looked uncomfortable about being asked to comment on another professional, but he answered the question.

  "Gary does good work and he's very honest."

  "Is he an expert on blood spatter?"

  "He's knowledgeable about it."

  "How exact a science is blood spatter analysis?"

  Baylor thought about the question before answering.

  "Blood spatter analysis is very helpful in determining what happened at a crime scene, but it's not like fingerprint examination. There is a certain amount of subjectivity involved. A fingerprint is not open to interpretation, if you have enough points of comparison. That's not true with blood spatter. You can t just look at an individual blood spot and draw indisputable conclusions. You have to look at the spot in the context of the whole scene. Bloodstains just tell you in general what happened."

  "So two honest experts can look at the same scene and draw different conclusions as to what happened?"

  "Sure, in certain instances."

  "I would like you to look at the evidence I've brought and read Officer Yoshida's testimony. Then I would like you to tell me if there is any analysis of the evidence that would support Ellen Crease's version of how the shoot-out in her bedroom occurred."

  Baylor's brow furrowed. He looked concerned.

  "Are you questioning Gary's honesty?" he asked.

  "No, no. I just want to know if there is a reasonable explanation of the evidence that is different from his conclusions. There isn't any question in m
y mind that Officer Yoshida gave an honest opinion in court. I want to know if he could be wrong."

  "I assume Gary had the advantage of visiting the crime scene?"

  Quinn nodded. "He was out there twice."

  "Can I visit it?"

  "No. Besides, my information is that it has been cleaned."

  "That's going to put me at a disadvantage."

  "I realize that. Just do your best. And let me know if working on the problem without visiting the scene has a critical impact on your conclusions."

  "Okay. When do you want me to get back to you?"

  "Actually, I thought I'd wait. Is this something you can do right away?"

  Baylor looked surprised. "I can get to it now. It might take a while."

  "Is there someplace nearby I can eat breakfast?" Quinn asked. He did not have much of an appetite, but a restaurant would give him a place to pass the time while Baylor worked.

  "Yeah. Sue s Cafe is pretty good. It's two blocks down just when you turn out of the lot on the right."

  "Okay. I'll be back in an hour."

  " Til see what I can do by then. Uh, one other thing. Should I submit a court-appointed witness voucher for my work?"

  "No. I'll be paying for this personally."

  When Quinn returned to Oregon Forensic Investigations, he found Paul Baylor in shirtsleeves with his collar open and his tie at half-mast.

  "You find Sue's okay?" Baylor asked as he led Quinn through a door into a large work area. The walls were unpainted concrete blocks and there was fluorescent lighting hanging from the ceiling. The laboratory equipment that sat on several wooden tables looked new and Quinn figured that this was where Baylor and his partner had sunk their capital.

  "It was a good suggestion." Quinn noticed the papers and photographs that covered one of the worktables. "Are you through?"

  "Yeah. It didn't take as long as I thought it might."

  "Were you able to draw any conclusions?" Quinn asked anxiously.

  "Yes."

  "And?"

  "Okay. First thing, I can't disagree with Gary's findings."

  "You mean the evidence contradicts Ellen Crease's version of the shootings?"

  "I didn't say that. Look, as I said before, blood spatter analysis is not an exact science. People can draw different conclusions from the same evidence in some situations. Gary's conclusions are valid. However, Gary's analysis of the significance of the blood spatter patterns on the nightgown and the side of the armoire is not the only analysis one can make."

  Crease's nightgown was lying facedown on top of butcher paper on a long table. Baylor led the judge over to it.

  "The spatter pattern on the back of the nightgown was the easiest to deal with." Baylor pointed at the dried blood that had sprayed over the back of the white fabric. "In the transcript, it says that the lab concluded that the blood on the front of the nightgown and the spray on the back are Lamar Hoyt's blood, so I'm accepting that as a fact. No question that's high-velocity spatter. So far so good.

  "Now, as I understand it, Crease said that she was in bed with the nightgown on, talking to her husband, when Jablonski entered the bedroom and shot him."

  That's how I heard it."

  "Okay. Now, Gary concludes that she was lying about wearing the nightgown because the spray pattern from the high-velocity spatter is across the back of the nightgown. His conclusion is that she's in the bathroom lying in wait for Jablonski and the nightgown is flat on the bed, front side down. That's one explanation for the pattern being on the back, but there is another that's consistent with Crease's story."

  Baylor grabbed two wooden chairs and set them side by side. Then he motioned to Quinn.

  "Stand over by that filing cabinet and face me." Baylor sat in the chair that faced Quinn's left side. "You're Jablonski and I'm Crease. The filing cabinet is the armoire. I'm sitting on my side of the bed. I've got my nightgown on. The other chair is the side of the bed closest to the bathroom. That's Lamar Hoyt's side.

  "Jablonski comes into the bedroom. He moves to the middle of the bed and to the left of the armoire and raises the gun to shoot Hoyt."

  Baylor bent over the side of the chair to his right.

  "I'm going for the gun that is under the bed. See how my back is suddenly facing my husband? The fabric is stretched out. If you shoot while I'm bent like this and Hoyt is hit at a certain angle, the spray will cover my back, not my front. Then, when I straighten up, the fabric will rumple a little, making it look like the nightgown was tossed on its front on the bed."

  Baylor straightened up.

  "So Crease could have been telling the truth about wearing the nightgown," Quinn said slowly, more to himself than to Baylor. "If she was, she would have had to bend over the west-facing side of the bed for the spatter pattern on the nightgown to look like that? She couldn't have been in the bathroom."

  "Yes. But Gary's explanation could also be correct."

  "What about the blood on the armoire?"

  "That gets trickier, but there is a way that the spray could have gotten on the armoire with Crease shooting from her side of the bed.

  "Let's keep Jablonski on his feet on the west side of the armoire, exactly where Gary placed him. He shoots Hoyt as Crease goes for her gun. Crease's movements distract Jablonski. He turns his head toward the window but does not turn his body. Now Jablonski's right temple is facing Crease's side of the bed. Go on, turn your head."

  Quinn did as he was told.

  "Now, the next part gets tricky." Baylor raised his hand and pretended to fire a gun. "Bam. Crease's first shot enters the right temple, high-velocity spatter sprays from the wound, but the spray would go forward, in front of Jablonski's body and onto the floor, and it would not travel far, since the amount of spray is small and high-velocity spray is atomized. When Jablonski collapses after the body shot, he would fall on top of the high-velocity spray and obliterate it."

  "If the high-velocity spray from the head shot landed on the floor, what caused the blood spatter pattern on the side of the armoire?"

  "Aspirated blood from Jablonski's lungs. A shot to the body frequently causes people to cough up blood. If Jablonski turned his head toward the armoire after he was shot in the body, he could have coughed blood on the armoire before collapsing onto the high-velocity spatter from the head wound. Aspirated blood can resemble high-velocity spray."

  A thought occurred to Quinn. "Is there a difference between blood that is sprayed from a head wound and aspirated blood from the lungs?"

  "You mean, could we test the blood on the armoire to see if it is aspirated blood?"

  "Exacdy."

  "Not anymore. If the blood on the armoire was tested shortly after the crime, it's possible that amylase, an enzyme from saliva, could have been detected. Amalyse could have been caught up in the blood when Jablonski coughed. But amalyse breaks down and becomes undetectable in a week or two, depending on the temperature and humidity in a room. Additionally, amalyse is not always found in aspirated blood, or it may go undetected because it's below the detection limit of the test that's used. Even if Gary had tested the blood on the armoire as soon as he caught on to its possible significance, I doubt that it would have told him anything."

  "So there's no way to tell if the blood on the side of the armoire is aspirated blood or high-velocity spatter."

  "Correct."

  "And there's no way to say for certain where Ellen Crease was when she shot Martin Jablonski."

  "Also correct."

  Quinn's shoulders sagged. He was hoping that Baylor would debunk Yoshida's analysis. All he had done was confuse the situation.

  [2]

  Quinn's head was pounding by the time he arrived at his chambers. If Baylor had told him that the blood spatter evidence proved that Ellen Crease was a liar, Quinn would have let the trial run its course. But Baylor could not say that the shooting of Martin Jablonski had not occurred exactly as Crease described it.

  Quinn gave the exhibits to Fran Stuart a
nd instructed her to hold all of his calls. He reviewed the memos on the law of search and seizure and the rules of evidence filed by the parties. From what he could determine, the blood spatter evidence was the key to the State's case. If Quinn granted all of Garrett's motions, the only evidence left in the case would be Jablonski's history as a burglar who resorted to violence and the indisputable fact that Jablonski had broken into the Hoyt mansion and shot Lamar Hoyt. If this was the way that the evidence stood when the State rested, any judge would have to grant a motion for judgment of acquittal to the defense.

  Quinn rested his head in his hands. He had slept little the night before and he was exhausted and not thinking clearly. He needed to rest, he wanted time to think out his course of action, but court was scheduled to convene in five minutes.

  When Quinn looked up, he saw Lincoln's framed quote on his wall. Lincoln's counsel to do one's best while trying to do what was right had helped him reach his decision to impose a prison sentence on Frederick Gideon when everyone expected him to grant the judge probation. Doing the right thing was the centerpiece of Quinn's personal philosophy. It was something you did regardless of the consequences. Sometimes doing the right thing required courage. Quinn had not been courageous on St. Jerome. He did not report Andrea's murder to the authorities for selfish reasons. While his cowardice protected him, it helped Andrea's killer get away with murder. Now he wanted Quinn to help him destroy another life. Quinn decided that he was not going to do that. This afternoon he would act with the courage he had not shown on St. Jerome.

  "Before I rule on these motions, I want to thank counsel on both sides for their excellent briefs and oral argument. They have been of great assistance to me in framing and resolving some difficult issues."