Move to Strike

by Perri O'shaughnessy

  “I don’t remember. Sorry.”

  “Was the moon out?”

  “I don’t recall.”

  “Could you see far, up the street, for example?”

  “No-o. Wait a minute. I saw a hawk. Late for a hawk to be flying around. Wait just a darn minute.” Arthur trotted over to her, and she bent down and scratched his ruff. “Well, now. Imagine that. You got me thinking some more.”

  “Was there—” Paul began, but she held out a hand to stop him. She closed her eyes and screwed up her forehead and nothing happened for a minute. Paul had another quick sip of the elixir. He was already feeling better. He didn’t care what was in it, and he didn’t want to know in case it was opium or something.

  “I have just one word for you . . . convertible,” Louise announced, her eyes still closed. Then she opened them and said, “Imagine that,” again.

  “Go on.”

  “Not much happens on this road. It’s dirt. It’s private. Doesn’t lead anywhere. But that night, I saw a hawk, and it seems to me that there was a light-colored convertible parked up the street a ways, one of those little ones. Old. Some type of Volkswagen, I think.”

  “What time did it get here?”

  “No idea. But it wasn’t too long after I saw Dr. Sykes and the girl when I noticed it.”

  “How long was it parked there?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “You didn’t see a driver?”

  “Sorry, no.”

  “Tell the police about it?”

  “I’d forgotten about it. It was thinking about the hawk that helped me remember. I’m going to call that nice officer just as soon as we’re finished. Could be a clue, eh? Help the little girl?”

  “Maybe. What else do you remember about the convertible?” Paul tried everything he could think of to jog her memory further, but she couldn’t remember anything else.

  “Okay,” he said at last. “Thanks again. I better get started up those stairs so you can have your walk.”

  “He told me once I was crazy to let the sun shine on my face all afternoon when I was working in the garden,” Louise said. “He actually took my chin in his hand and turned my head back and forth and said a face-lift would make me look a lot better.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “What’d you think?”

  “Honestly? It shook me,” she said. “You feel pretty happy, you’re healthy and getting along fine, and along comes somebody who makes a remark and then you can’t stop thinking about it.” She grimaced a little. “I’m still thinking about it.”

  “Well,” Paul said, “you’re a fine-looking woman, Louise.”

  “Am not.”

  “I’d be going after you if I didn’t have that broken heart.”

  “Now, you stop that.”

  “You saved my life with this syrup of yours. I feel like I can get up those stairs now. I feel much better.”

  “Well, you better get on up, then.” She helped him this time, and she may have been weathered but she was a strong support who smelled like fresh cinnamon, and Paul disliked Sykes more than ever because he had shaken Louise.

  Easing himself up into the driver’s seat of his van, Paul turned the key and his engine sputtered. He tried it again and the engine sputtered again.

  He waited until Wish found him, playing the radio and taking small sips of red elixir. Wish got under the hood and it took a while, but it was no problem. Paul felt very mellow about the entire incident. Very damn mellow.

  CHAPTER 13

  SUPPORTED BY ROCK-FACED pillars and covered in a wide shingled roof that created the illusion of an unassuming one-story building, the courthouse at South Lake Tahoe sat at the top of a gentle incline. Its location, in the middle of parklike woods, lent a deceptive tranquility to the setting.

  But in Department Three, the second-floor Superior Court, at some time or another, the violent crimes that plagued the inner cities all put in an appearance. The wife-beaters whined excuses, the molesters lied, seeking to justify heinous transgressions. The casino muggers, the thieves, the carjackers—all faced hard time in front of the judge.

  On Wednesday morning, June fifteenth, it was Nikki’s turn in the courtroom. Today, during the preliminary hearing, the court would decide whether or not there was probable cause to believe that Nicole Zack murdered Dr. William Sykes. If the court found there was cause, she would go to trial. If Nina could pull a miraculous fast one, the case would be dismissed and Nikki would be home free.

  “Let the record show that the defendant, Nicole Zack, is present in court. Are you ready to proceed, Counsel?” Judge Flaherty looked at Henry McFarland, who was standing.

  Henry had taken over the Sykes case but retained Barbara as his cocounsel. Deeply tanned and looking refreshed after a weekend she was rumored to have spent with Henry in Palm Springs, she was busy organizing files on the table. She wore a gold bracelet that flashed even under the dull green tinge of fluorescent lights.

  “Yes, Your Honor.” Henry wore a meek look that complemented his respectable gray pinstripes. I am the humble instrument of the People of the State of California, his expression said. Flaherty liked him. No matter how much subjectivity the law tried to remove from the courtroom, a judge’s personal likes and dislikes still played a big part in the game.

  “Is Counsel for the defense ready to proceed?”

  “We are, Your Honor.” Nina had dumped the soft colors imposed on her by her jury consultant in a previous case and was wearing a black suit with a white shirt and a silver pin given to her by Sandy for her birthday. She wanted to look serious and be taken seriously and peach didn’t cut it.

  Nikki had promised to wear a dress with a jacket, but, as Daria had breathlessly explained when they finally showed up, Nikki had gone into her cell at the last minute and emerged five minutes later in a denim jacket and baggy black jeans. With her pale, thin face, jaw thrust forward and downturned eyes, she radiated teenage hostility and angst. Nina didn’t need to look at her. She understood that Nikki’s hard looks masked fear. Unfortunately, the judge probably wouldn’t. Reaching over under the counsel table, she squeezed the girl’s limp hand.

  Now, face to face with the prosecution, Nina could already feel her blood pressure surging, her heart beating so furiously she thought everyone in the courtroom could hear it. She had read something in one of Paul’s reports the night before that disturbed her a lot, but wasn’t sure how to handle it. Closing her eyes, she counted until the quivering stopped and a calm descended.

  Now she could fight.

  Nina sat with Ginger and Nikki. Paul was nosing around the Re-Creation Clinic today and had some other errands. He had been so busy the day before he hadn’t even been able to stop by the office.

  “We’ll keep it short today, Your Honor,” Henry was saying. “We have probable cause to believe a crime has been committed, and after we’ve presented evidence today, I don’t think there will be much doubt we have probable cause to assert that this defendant committed that crime.” He cleared his throat. “The prosecution calls Dr. Ben Baruch.”

  The new medical examiner wore blue jeans and an ironed white shirt underneath a permanent fiveo’clock shadow. Heavy, gold-rimmed glasses sat askew his nose. With scruffy, boyish black hair without a hint of silver, he looked young for a man in his position, but when he spoke, any doubts about his maturity fled.

  He gave an abbreviated account of the autopsy. No, there was no doubt about the cause of death. The weapon used was an ornamental sword. He talked briefly about how the cuts matched various aspects of the weapon. The doctor’s throat had not been slit. The fatal blow had been one strike to the front of the neck. Another major blow to the back of the neck was noted but would not in itself have been fatal. Mutilation of the face most likely occurred shortly after death. He ruled out suicide or accident. He gave details as required, but Henry, apparently trying to minimize any troublesome complications, put on
a minimum of evidence. Time of death—between eight and ten P.M.

  The next witness, Lieutenant K. C. Potts, was one of the officers who had taken Nikki into custody. Medium-sized, with freckles and fair hair, his blue eyes were narrowed into permanent slits, as if to protect against the potential violence in any situation, including this one. Henry led him through the sequence of events that night, which hardly differed from what Nikki had told Nina. They had gone to the Zack house because they found some correspondence relating to land matters in Dr. William Sykes’s study.

  “Mrs. Zack became quite upset when we attempted to talk to her,” he said. “Hysterical, you might say.”

  “After that, what happened?”

  “Her daughter called my partner and me a few choice names. She was belligerent.”

  “Object to the characterization,” said Nina.

  “Sustained,” Judge Flaherty said.

  “She yelled at us. Used a lot of language. We took a good look at her. We had just been talking to the doctor’s neighbor, a lady who said she saw a teenage girl at the pool behind the house at around the time of the murder. This girl fit the description. I asked the defendant if she’d gone to her uncle’s house the night before. She wouldn’t say. I noticed she had a bandage on her hand and some fresh-looking blood had leaked through. We had seen signs of blood on the wall outside the doctor’s study, and her recent-appearing injury seemed very suggestive.

  “So we Mirandized her. She signed the card with the warnings. Then I asked her if she killed her uncle.”

  “And what was her response?”

  “She refused to answer. I took her into custody.”

  “Call Detective Jamie Ditmar.” The diminutive evidence technician for the department was sworn. In full uniform, with a head covered in natural brown curls, she looked bright and competent. She was established to be a fingerprinting expert, a blood expert, and an expert at crime reconstruction.

  “Were you called to the scene of a possible homicide on Sunday morning, May ninth this year?”

  “I was. The time was eight-oh-seven when the nine one one dispatcher called it in to the main South Lake Tahoe station, where I had just arrived. Lieutenant Potts assigned me and Detective Sergeant Russ Balsam to go out there and secure the scene. We arrived at the scene at eight-eighteen. The ambulance had already arrived and the techs had gone in. The police photographer and the medical examiner, Dr. Baruch, arrived just as we were entering the house. Two women who work for a cleaning service were standing outside, and we questioned them for a minute or so before we went in.”

  “And what did you observe when you went in?”

  Detective Ditmar outlined, with admirable conciseness, the succeeding events; the examination of the body, the photographs, and the painstaking collection of physical evidence and recording of other information that had followed. The fingerprint evidence was sparse. Other than family members and cleaning personnel, no marks were found in the study or house that seemed relevant. The only useful fingerprints were found outside the study door. They were also able to match a blood sample from the defendant to some blood found on the wall outside.

  In the 8x10s that were introduced next, Bill Sykes’s body lay spread in the middle of the study. Nina and Ginger had studied and discussed all of her copies of the photos. They weren’t pretty. The naked, bloody corpse on his back on a beautiful spring morning was hyperreal and yet not quite convincing, like a Dali painting. The marring of his face after death added a macabre touch to an already gory scene. Flaherty examined the crime photos with an impassive expression as Ditmar described the placement of the body and the scene in detail.

  Henry turned to the antique sword found lying two feet from the corpse, and everybody looked at those pictures, including more shots taken in the lab, where the long, curved sword, lying on a stainless steel table, clearly showed that the bottom two-thirds was covered in blood. “We removed blood samples for testing. On May tenth we tested the sharpness of the blade.”

  “How sharp was it?”

  “It had been retempered. Sharpened. I couldn’t say when, could have been twenty years ago. Odd for a weapon that qualified as antique, but anyway the steel blade had been honed down to extreme sharpness. I understand some collectors like to keep them that way.”

  “Sharp enough to have caused the wounds on the decedent’s neck?”

  “Sharp enough to have cut his head off, if more pressure had been applied. I would say that the pressure applied was relatively light.”

  “Based on all the evidence before you, have you come to a conclusion as to how the weapon was in fact wielded?”

  “It’s my conclusion that the assailant went to the wall at the far end of the study, withdrew the weapon, swung the weapon blindly, or wildly, however you want to put it, probably using both hands. An initial strike to the back of the neck may have slowed the victim, but it’s our reading of the evidence that the victim then turned and faced his attacker and at that point, received the fatal blow to his neck. May I demonstrate this?”

  “No objection,” Nina said. Detective Ditmar came down from the witness box, picking up the long wooden stick used to point to evidence on the easel by the wall as she came around. “If you’d be so kind,” she said to Henry, taking him by the arm and standing him in front of the judge.

  Now the detective stood with her back to Henry, between him and the stick, facing Flaherty. She was almost the same height as Nikki. Suddenly she seemed to leap forward, grabbed the stick, whirled around to the left, holding it with both hands, and as she turned raised the stick chest high—

  —And thumped Henry right in the chest. Not the neck.

  “Ow!” Henry said, clutching his chest through the suit.

  “Sorry,” the detective said. “Let me run through that again. That wasn’t quite right.”

  Nina leaned over to Nikki and whispered, “Stand up! Look at the judge!”

  Nikki obeyed. She stood up.

  Nikki was about the same height as Jamie Ditmar. Standing behind the defense table she looked as tiny as a ballerina in a music box. The judge stared at her, getting the message.

  Henry collected his wits. “We will need to do that one more time,” he said.

  Nina sprang to her feet. “Oh, no. I object to any further demonstration,” she said. “We’ve seen what we’ve seen. And I don’t think Mr. McFarland can stand another hit.”

  Flaherty smiled.

  “Let’s do this again. The witness feels . . .” said Henry gamely, holding his hand to his aching chest like he was about to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

  “I don’t care what the witness feels,” Nina said. “I don’t care if Counsel wants to keep on getting hit until his witness finally raises that pointer high enough to hit him in the neck. I think we’ve all seen where a person who is about the height of the defendant—excuse me, I mean the witness—would connect. Not nearly high enough.”

  “Okay,” Flaherty said. “Enough. I get the point.”

  Detective Ditmar went back to the box and Henry, fuming, went back to his examination. The morning break came and went before they moved into the physical evidence. The judge had warmed to the detective, who was exhibiting both stamina and a steel-trap memory.

  After explaining that the assailant must have wiped the handle of the weapon, since no fingerprints were found, she went on to tell what they had found. “There were deposits of sodium chloride, which was quite possibly dried residue from chlorinated pool water, near the pool where water had dripped, on the towel by the body, on the floor of the study, on a brandy bottle found in the bushes by the pool, on the cell phone found next to the body, and on the frames of the French doors that led to the pool,” Ditmar said, reading from her notes. The preliminary hearing settled into the forensic details that make a murder case.

  “Now, did you supervise the collection of fingerprints at the scene?”

  “Yes, Sergeant Balsam did the actual collection under my direct supervision
.”

  “And the collection of blood samples?”

  “Yes. Sergeant Balsam again. I was present at all times and accompanied him to the lab in Sacramento where this evidence was actually analyzed. I have the reports right here.”

  They broke for lunch. Ginger and Nina ate together in the cafeteria, or rather, Ginger did business on her cell phone while Nina read over her notes. They both managed to gulp down a cup of coffee and eat a few bites of sandwich before returning to court.

  At one-thirty they reconvened, Detective Ditmar still on the stand. The South Lake Tahoe Police Department wasn’t a big one to start with, and wasn’t fully staffed, so the usual chain of police officers had boiled down to one. Nina hadn’t objected to the forensics work because she hadn’t found much to challenge. The conclusions were what she wanted to challenge.

  “Does blood on the outside door frame match the defendant’s blood sample provided to your office?” Henry asked.

  “Yes.” Jamie Ditmar was all business.

  “There was blood all around the study?”

  “Yes. The victim’s blood.”

  “And where else if anywhere did you find blood?”

  “On the murder weapon.”

  “Did you identify that blood?”

  “Yes. Almost all the blood belonged to the victim. However, while confirming that the blood on the sword belonged to the victim, instead of the expected two alleles which would match all other samples of the victim’s blood, the testing lab detected a weak contaminating band in one of the PCRs. A third allele.”

  “Can you explain a little better for us what that means?”

  “Certainly. The lab ran polymerase chain reactions, PCR, on the blood found on the sword. Basically, what they do is take a small sample of DNA and make more, essentially copying it millions of times to make analysis possible.” Her description of the process was much like the one Ginger had given Nina before only in more exhaustive detail. Nina listened, but listened harder when the detective got to the results that mattered.

  “During one routine,” Ditmar said, “the lab was running random checks of the blood from the sword to make sure it all matched the victim’s. In one of those reactions, instead of the expected two alleles on the autoradiograph which matched all the other samples, they picked up a third allele. That suggests that particular sample was contaminated with traces of a second person’s blood.”