Fractured Justice

by James A. Ardaiz

  When they met outside the medical center, they decided to talk to St. Claire’s lab assistant, Donald Wilson, who had testified in the trial. Wilson was sitting in St. Claire’s lab when the two investigators walked through the door that still had St. Claire’s name on it. Wilson looked up. His face was drawn and gray, either from lack of sleep or the situation with St. Claire, but it was evident that he was emotionally drained. Immediately, Puccinelli sensed that Wilson wasn’t going to be a problem. He didn’t look like a person who would be confrontational. Wilson lowered his eyes when they flashed their badges, focusing on his desk. The muffled sound of dogs barking could be heard through the walls.

  Puccinelli got right to the point, laying the photographs of the aerosol can down on the desk. “Do you have any idea what this is?”

  Wilson picked up the top photograph. “Where did this come from?”

  “That isn’t the question. Do you know what this is?”

  “Yes, it’s an aerosol canister that has anesthetic gas in it. Dr. St. Claire was experimenting with different types of anesthetic gasses and their application, including using them in field hospitals under primitive conditions as opposed to complex anesthetic applications.” Wilson held the photograph, sliding his forefinger back and forth over it as if to rub out the image before gently placing it back on the desk.

  “We found this can in Dr. St. Claire’s car. Our lab has analyzed it and determined it contains some kind of specialized gas.”

  Wilson interjected. “Would it be xenon gas or sevaflurane?”

  Puccinelli nodded. “That’s it.”

  Wilson slumped heavily in his chair. “And you think he used this on those poor women? To subdue them?”

  Ernie said, “And you don’t?”

  “I don’t know. I still can’t believe Dr. St. Claire did any of this. I worked with him. All of this work was supposed to help people. I still think you’re wrong about him. I don’t think he hurt those women. He once told me you thought he had something to do with those murders. He said he didn’t.”

  Ernie softened his voice. It was obvious that Wilson was struggling with the thought that he had worked with someone he had completely misjudged, and maybe even helped. “And do you think differently now? Is there something you’ve thought about that might help us?”

  The lab assistant kept looking down at the desk, his shoulders slumped. “Your people came out during the trial and went over the van. Did they find anything?”

  Ernie decided not to mention the hair from two of the victims found in the van. “Is there something you want to say?”

  “After I testified I thought about what I’d been asked, about body bags and transport. I said that we keep a log about use of the van and that was true, but I looked and there was nothing in the log with Dr. St. Claire’s name. So I had no way of knowing whether the van had been used, and if Dr. St. Claire had taken it out I wouldn’t know unless I saw it.”

  Wilson’s face showed he was struggling. Puccinelli prodded him to continue. “And?”

  Wilson couldn’t make direct eye contact. “There’s a log book when a body is picked up, what time it’s brought in and who the decedent is, who brought it in and made the pickup. But if nobody signs the log sheet, then we would never know the van had been used.”

  Wilson continued to stare down at the desk while his voice dropped down to a whisper. “You see? I looked at the logs after I was asked about it at the trial for the times when those young women disappeared.”

  “So what are you saying?” asked Puccinelli.

  “I’m saying that somebody who had access to the keys to the van used it, and they didn’t use it to pick up a decedent, and they didn’t sign the log. And . . . and . . .” Wilson choked up, turned his eyes away from them, as if he couldn’t pull the words out of himself. After he regained his composure, he continued. “The night Ms. Garrett disappeared? I didn’t connect it to the van until after I testified.”

  Puccinelli’s voice snapped out, “Connect what to the van?” Wilson shrank back at the menacing tone in Puccinelli’s voice.

  “When you sign the van back in, you put down the mileage. Usually the mileage is just twenty or thirty miles, but this time when it was signed back in it had over a hundred miles on it.”

  “So? I don’t understand. Get to the point.” Puccinelli was out of patience.

  “Don’t you see? Somebody used the van and didn’t log it in but when the next person used it, they put down the mileage when they brought it back and there was mileage that didn’t match with the crime scene pickup. The van was used to travel at least sixty or eighty miles, but the mileage wasn’t logged out. Somebody used the van when they weren’t supposed to and they drove it at least sixty miles.”

  “But you didn’t say anything?”

  Wilson’s eyes were imploring. “I—I couldn’t imagine—I didn’t believe,” he stammered. “Why does it matter now?”

  As far as Puccinelli was concerned, Wilson had withheld evidence, although he imagined Wilson may not have understood the importance of what he knew at the time. Puccinelli’s exasperation with the lab assistant was palpable to the point of rudeness. “So is there anything else?”

  “Yes.” Wilson reached for a bottle of water on his desk. “We keep an inventory of body bags that we use in our work. There were bags missing from our inventory that were unaccounted for.”

  Ernie interjected, concerned that Pooch’s aggressive attitude was going to interfere with Wilson’s cooperation. “How many were missing?”

  “Four. Four bags.”

  Now Ernie’s anger spiked. “And you knew three woman had been murdered, and then Garrett disappeared too.”

  It was a statement that seemed to slap Wilson with reality. He shrank even farther into his chair. “Yes, after I was questioned at the trial I realized that the inventory should have shown four more bags. But I didn’t know what they’d been used for. I couldn’t say they’d been used for those women. I just knew the number was the same.”

  Wilson’s face scrunched up in an almost pitiful expression. He looked back and forth at the two investigators. “I admired Dr. St. Claire. You may think I should’ve been suspicious, but how could I be? I knew Dr. St. Claire. It just didn’t make any sense to me. It still doesn’t.”

  Ernie let the explanation hang in the air and then asked, “Do you know what succinylcholine is?”

  “Yes, it’s used in application of anesthesia to relax the air passageways. We use it with our animals.”

  “Is there any reason Dr. St. Claire would have a syringe full of it in his pocket when he was shot?”

  “No, it’s very dangerous, and if he had it with him it would have been in his medical case.”

  Wilson stood up. “I can show you the other canister. They were specially made because of the pressure and are a little heavier than a normal aerosol can. The xenon we order from Europe. I can show you the invoices.”

  The pain on Wilson’s face was evident. He hesitated before leading the two detectives through the door into the lab. “I never thought he could do something like this. He was a brilliant man.” Wilson straightened up. “He was my friend. He wasn’t a murderer.”

  “Did Dr. St. Claire ever use this aerosol-type anesthetic with people that you are aware of?” Ernie asked.

  “That was the next step. He planned on using it eventually in surgery but not yet. Just on animals.”

  Puccinelli followed Wilson and Ernie through the door into the lab. The barking of the dogs and the acrid smell of animals and urine flooded his senses. Wilson went straight to a locked door to a closet. One aerosol can was on the shelf. Wilson started to reach for it when Ernie grabbed his arm. “We’ll take it. Don’t worry about it.”

  When they were finished with Wilson, Pooch and Ernie stood in the parking lot. They had Wilson show them the coroner log for the van. There was a mileage gap between the previous time it was used before the Ventana, Symes, and Johnson murders that didn’t match th
e pickup locations for the next time the van was used. It was obvious that somebody used the van at some point when the other murders took place but didn’t log it in.

  The aerosol can was in a plastic bag in Puccinelli’s hand as he began to evaluate what they had heard. “So the question is why? Why the hell would St. Claire kill those women? Just to find out what would happen with his toy aerosol can? And what about those other prints? Did he do it by himself? Because I can tell that Wilson wouldn’t have been any help. He can barely deal with dogs let alone people.”

  Although nobody was near them, Pooch lowered his voice. “It looks like Jamison was right. St. Claire used the coroner’s van with the lights to pick up those women. He used the body bags to put them in when he dumped them. And then the same van was used to pick them up from the crime scene. That way any evidence that was in the van would be explained, because it had been used to pick up the bodies and transport them to the morgue for Gupta to work on. The red light we found in his trunk? Maybe he used that when he stopped Garrett, if you believe her, maybe he used the van.” Ernie shrugged.

  “Look, I don’t think he did it by himself.” Pooch blurted out the words. “And I don’t think you do either. I’m thinking somebody helped him.” He paused. “And I’m thinking that somebody was Garrett.”

  From Ernie’s expression Puccinelli could tell Ernie hadn’t bought into it yet.

  Ernie’s next words reinforced that impression. “But why? And why the whole thing at the house? I think he was just a sick asshole and he did it to find out what would happen. But why would she help him? Why? This isn’t the kind of thing women do.”

  Puccinelli opened the car door. “Sometimes you never know the reason why, but it’s usually the simple explanation. And the simple explanation is because he could. We know he was tracking these women. He did it and now we know how he did it. Why he did it is something that, at this point, I don’t give a shit about. For all that smooth European doctor act, he was just another asshole with a short circuit.”

  Ernie shook his head. “But why would she help him, Pooch? Look, maybe St. Claire was practicing on the other three women before he went after Garrett. Did you think of that? Maybe she was the target all along. Look at the way he fabricated an alibi. The others were just trial runs.”

  Ernie got in the car and Puccinelli slid behind the wheel before answering. “Maybe, but here’s what we need to find the answer to. Why would she lie?” His sarcastic tone was evident. “Because she’s been lying over and over again. People usually lie for a reason, because they’re afraid or they’re trying to protect themselves. What are we missing here?”

  Ernie expelled a long sigh. “People lie for lots of reasons and sometimes it only makes sense to them. I don’t think she helped him.”

  Puccinelli started the car, shaking his head in disbelief. “You risked your ass trying to save her and you just can’t accept that maybe she didn’t want to be saved. We both know that most women don’t get involved in something violent unless they’ve hooked up with the wrong guy. I’m always amazed at how much some women will do to please some dirtbag.”

  “Maybe, but why would Garrett help him with those other women? We’ve both seen women kill, but usually it was because they’re really pissed. For her to help him do something like this—murder three young women— she’d have to be just as crazy as he was.”

  Puccinelli pulled the car out from the parking lot of the hospital. “I’m telling you our Miss Garrett isn’t the snow queen she wants everybody to believe. And by the way, nobody saw crazy when they looked at St. Claire either.”

  Ernie didn’t respond. He was lost in thought. It barely registered with him when he heard Puccinelli call Faxon. “Charlie, you were asking about a name for those prints on that can? Run Elizabeth Garrett.”

  Chapter 44

  It hadn’t taken Jamison long to find Bobby Allison. As he studied the information on the flickering computer screen, he mentally kicked himself. He hadn’t asked Beth Garrett because he never thought about asking, and he hadn’t checked his facts, something that he always tried to do. He didn’t need to think about why he hadn’t checked. He had allowed what he wanted to believe to obscure his judgment.

  The background check hadn’t been difficult. Bobby Allison died in a car accident when he was fourteen. The Allisons were neighbors, living several houses down from Beth’s family. They would have known each other, but Bobby wasn’t ever Beth’s boyfriend. She was younger than him by almost ten years. Given the time frames, Beth probably would have been around five when Bobby had been their neighbor. He had been dead for over twenty years.

  Beth had a ready explanation during the trial when McGuiness confronted her with the letter, just as she had when Jamison had asked her. And when he asked her mother about Allison, she had said, “No, you must have heard wrong.” Jamison turned off the computer. No, I didn’t hear wrong. What bothered him most was that Beth hadn’t really missed a beat. The response had come out of her mouth so easily; in fact, all her answers had come out that way.

  There were only a few explanations, Jamison decided, and one of them wasn’t one he wanted to think about. The ringing of the phone interrupted his spasm of recrimination. It was Ernie asking him to meet over at Puccinelli’s office.

  When he entered Puccinelli’s office at the sheriff’s building, Jamison could tell from their expressions that something was wrong. Pooch spoke first. “Matt, we’ve run into some”—Pooch seemed to be searching for words—“some issues that we need to discuss with you, so you need to sit down for a minute.” He waited until Jamison situated himself in the chair in front of the desk and continued. “First, it looks like you guessed right about the body bags and the coroner van. We saw St. Claire’s lab assistant, Wilson, and it’s pretty clear that somebody used the van on the nights of the murders and four body bags are missing. It all points to St. Claire using the body bags and the van to move the bodies. So anything we found in the van would be consistent with the van simply being used to pick up murder victims, and any evidence on the floor would be consistent with that.”

  Jamison interrupted. “Four body bags? So he did intend to use that last one on Elizabeth?” He started shaking his head. “I talked to her mother this morning—”

  Pooch shook his head, holding up his hand before he dropped the other shoe. “Just a minute. Look, Matt, there’s more. There was a can in St. Claire’s car, an aerosol-type can. It had a mouthpiece on it and Andy Rhychkov says it has an anesthetic gas in it. There’s some DNA on the mouthpiece that he’s testing for but it’s going to take a while. It won’t surprise me if we find DNA from one or more of the victims on it. According to Andy it would have immobilized any of them almost immediately. We’ve been over to St. Claire’s lab and there’s another can like this. Wilson, his lab assistant, says St. Claire was developing it experimentally, for use on a battlefield or for emergency situations away from a hospital.”

  Jamison immediately leaned forward. “So St. Claire used this aerosol can on the victims and Andy thinks that would have helped him control them?”

  Puccinelli hesitated to reply, and Jamison was surprised to see a shaken expression take hold on his face. “Not him, them. I think it helped them control each victim. Matt, I think two people were involved.” Pooch glanced over at the stone-faced Ernie. “It never really made sense that St. Claire could have done this by himself, although it was possible. St. Claire’s prints are on the can, but there are other prints on the can too that are consistent with somebody else gripping it.” Pooch said nothing more, and looked over at Ernie to pick up the explanation from there.

  “Matt, forensics confirms the prints belong to Elizabeth Garrett.”

  Shock registered on Jamison’s face as he struggled a moment for control of his emotions.

  Both Pooch and Ernie watched the younger man confront the reality of the situation. “I’m sorry, Matt.” It had been obvious to all of them that when it came to Garrett, Jamison’s j
udgment was clouded.

  Silence filled the room. Jamison’s face was ashen. Finally he told them about the letter that McGuiness introduced at trial from Bobby Allison and how she had lied about that too.

  Puccinelli’s voice was as soothing as he could make it. “We didn’t see this coming either.”

  Ernie interrupted before Pooch went any further. “And, Matt, there’s something else. We have the issue of who shot St. Claire. It wasn’t Garrett or her father. We think—”

  Before Ernie could finish, Jamison stood up, holding his palm out to stop the conversation. He measured his words very carefully. “Whoever it was, I don’t think we’ll ever be able to find out.” There was a long, lingering silence before Jamison said with quiet conviction, “It wouldn’t be the worst thing if we never find the shooter in this case. I think I could sleep at night.”

  Puccinelli leaned back in his chair, his eyes narrowing before he gave an almost imperceptible nod of acknowledgment. “What about her? What are we going to do about her?”

  Jamison walked to the door. “We talk to her, but it isn’t her I’m worried about right now. You guys have the other situation under control?”

  Ernie answered cautiously, “Other situation?”

  Jamison’s face had aged measurably in the last few weeks. The prosecutor’s eyes had lost any lingering naïveté. His words came out in a precise, measured tone. “Take care of him.” He paused. “He’s my friend too.”

  Nobody said anything. Jamison opened the door before turning. “Get a wired room set up. I don’t want to talk to her without a recording.”

  Chapter 45

  Back in his office, Jamison sat, brooding about the case and Elizabeth Garrett. It was difficult to keep his mind focused. Confronted with sharply conflicting pieces of evidence and contradictory explanations, Jamison had convinced himself of what was the truth in order to convince the jury. It was what an effective trial lawyers always did; a jury couldn’t be convinced to believe if the lawyer himself didn’t believe it. He had chosen to believe, even though logic should have made him question what the truth was. From the very beginning he had dismissed the uneasy sense that she was looking right through him. Now he realized she had been.