But legally, Jamison intended to use the fact that in real life there is nothing wrong with asking a person questions even when they are the focus of suspicion as long as they don’t know it, as long as a reasonable person would not think they were in custody.
He had learned long ago from O’Hara and Ernie, as well as from watching other detectives, how to slowly dissect a suspect in interrogation. First you see if they will lie or they will say something incriminating, and then you decide whether to read them their rights. Sometimes you kept the conversation going or you decided to let them walk out the door while you continued to build your case. You let them keep thinking that they were misleading you, instead of realizing you were going to use those lies against them when you were ready.
Jamison had decided that he wasn’t going to read Elizabeth her rights unless and until her answers had only one explanation, and he had no choice before he asked the next question, the one that had the barbed point.
It was a slow dance. It took patience and it required the ability to read subtle cues. Sometimes a lie was just as good as an admission, but much depended on whether the person answering the questions was aware of what the interrogator was doing. Letting a suspect walk out the door could be used later to show it wasn’t an interrogation and the DA was still investigating. It was like a tightrope walk. Above all, Jamison needed to keep the suspect talking. He didn’t want them to stop until they either confessed or lied their way into a corner. It was all about control.
But to have control he needed to truly understand the person in front of him. An experienced interrogator would size up the suspect, watch them, measure them, circle around them, and probe for the weak spot. And then plunge in the knife.
He forced himself to smile as she sat quietly, waiting. When he began, Jamison kept his voice soft and modulated. With women O’Hara always said investigators had to have a conversation and had to avoid making them defensive until getting to the point where the interrogator would make a deep cut. “Beth, we want to go over some of the details of the night St. Claire was shot. We need to clear up some questions. It shouldn’t take long, and then we’ll get you back home.”
“Will you take me back?” He could discern the hint of trust, of friendship, as if that was what they were, friends.
Jamison smiled. “Sure.” He paused. “You said you didn’t see the person who shot Alex?”
Jamison caught her hesitation and the way her eyes moved away from him before she responded. It was a cue she was thinking. Jamison could now see that she really wasn’t trying to remember the events of that night so much as she was trying to decide how to answer.
“He must have been behind me or off to the side because I never saw him. I saw Alex walking toward me, and then when he was maybe fifteen feet away, I heard the shots. They were quick. I don’t know how many there were.”
“You say ‘he.’ Did you see the person shooting? How do you know it was a man?”
“When the shots . . . when I heard the shots, I turned my head for an instant. I may have seen a man. But then I looked back at Alex when I heard him cry out and he was falling. After that I didn’t look anywhere else. I began to scream. I know that.”
It wasn’t much, but there was tension building in her demeanor. Still, he wasn’t sure. She was being asked to relive what would be a traumatic experience for almost anybody. She was guarded. He could see it.
The time had come to probe deeper. Keeping his voice low and unthreatening he asked, “Beth, do you have any idea who the person was who shot Alex?”
She looked around the room. They could see she was thinking carefully and there was reluctance in her voice when she answered. “Whoever it was, I think they were trying to keep Alex from hurting me. Isn’t that enough?”
Jamison’s mind was churning furiously. He could see it in her eyes. She knew who shot St. Claire or thought she did. She wasn’t willing to say. She must have guessed it wasn’t necessarily an answer he wanted to hear anyway. “Did Alex say anything before he was shot?”
“He said, ‘Elizabeth.’ He always called me Elizabeth. But that was all he said.”
“When Alex approached you, Beth, did he have his hands out? Was he threatening in any way?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Other than the fact that simply him being there was frightening, he didn’t say or do anything. He was just walking toward me when I heard the shots, and then Alex kind of turned, twisted, you know? He stumbled toward me, starting to fall, and I reached out to him. It all happened so fast.” Her hands showed the tension in her body but Beth’s voice was controlled. “I was frightened, scared to death. I saw a man who still terrified me shot right in front of me.”
Jamison was conscious that he was biting down as he clenched his teeth. He forced himself to keep calm. “Of course, we understand you were frightened. Anybody would be.” He continued to watch her carefully, waiting for an explanation that might exonerate her or, more honestly, one that would not.
“Did Alex say anything after he was shot? While he was down on the ground. Do you remember?”
Beth’s mouth drew into a straight line. Her head leaned back as she looked toward the ceiling. “He said he loved me. That’s what he said. I couldn’t understand the rest. It was just a few words but he said that.”
“And did you say anything to him?”
“Does that really make a difference?” Her tone was questioning and her eyes began to narrow. “Why is that important? Aren’t you concerned with who shot him?”
Puccinelli had been watching carefully and observed the tension building. He tried a different approach. “Ms. Garrett, we’re concerned with knowing as much as we can about what happened. You never know what might help or what’s important. What you said to Dr. St. Claire, is there some reason you don’t want to talk to us about that?” Whether Pooch intended it or not, his last question had a bite to it
Her answer came back with its own edge to it. “I just don’t think it’s important.”
Now Ernie added, his voice soft and non-threatening, “We understand. You say lots of things to somebody who’s dying. You don’t have to mean them, I suppose.”
Elizabeth looked at each man waiting for her answer. “I told him what I thought of him. I don’t want to think about it.”
Jamison could feel the question welling up in him. It was dangerous to shift questions quickly, but an abrupt shift in subject caught people off-balance and what Jamison often got was an unguarded response. His question came out with a sharpness that startled even him. “Beth, who was Bobby Allison, really?”
Perhaps it was her expression. Perhaps it was the sense that he had pulled open a scab, but what came out of her mouth had the anguished sound of a person who had been slapped by someone they trusted. “Bobby Allison? Why would you ask that? He isn’t important.”
Jamison persisted. “Beth, I need to know about this. I know you didn’t write that letter to him that you testified about. So what is he to you?” It was the first time he, in effect, had said she was lying. He expected her to be defensive. The look of betrayal that shadowed Beth’s face also told him he had inflicted pain.
“He’s someone from a long time ago.” Her voice sounded almost childlike before it took on a harsher edge. “Who he was isn’t important. What he did doesn’t matter now. I’ve put it behind me. All I can say is that when I saw that letter his name came out.”
The truth of Levy’s words crystallized in Jamison’s mind. He knew he was opening a door that had long been closed out of fear and self-preservation, but he had to ask. “Beth, did Bobby Allison hurt you? Did he touch you when you were little? Is that what happened?”
The air in the room had grown heavy with visible desperation. Elizabeth’s eyes darted around the room, silently pleading with the three men to stop. She had kept this door closed from everyone, including herself. She was suddenly forced to relive those dark moments, each detail sharply etched in the recesses of her mind. The answer
came out in a whisper. “I was little. It wasn’t my fault. I don’t want to talk about it. Please don’t make me talk about that.”
Even hardened investigators could feel compassion. None of the men in the room said a word. They had no stomach for this. Each of them had seen it before in the faces of too many children, too many investigations into depravity and the human wreckage it left behind. And now they were looking at the adult the child had become. What had the taking of innocence made her?
But the question had to be asked. Jamison had to know. “The letter that you testified you wrote to Bobby Allison, you wrote that letter to St. Claire, didn’t you? That’s why his lawyer had it, isn’t it?” Beth stared coldly into Jamison’s eyes. Her body began to tense, coiling like a snake. Her gaze moved around the room. Her expression darkened. It was no longer the face of a child.
Her voice was harsh as she fought to regain the control she had cultivated so carefully. “I don’t want to talk anymore about this. If that’s what you are going to ask about, then I want to go. I want to go now.”
Dr. Levy was right, Bobby Allison had taken her innocence from her, and now Jamison saw that he too had taken something from her. Whatever trust she had placed in him was gone.
Ernie knew from long experience that there could come a point during an interrogation when a suspect’s body language and tone communicated their real emotions. Particularly they tell you that they feel threatened. It was like watching a man put one foot back and begin to curl his hands when he thought that he might have to defend himself. The edge to his voice and the tension in his body told the observer that the man realized he may not be safe. Every skilled interrogator knew that moment and recognized that he must either pull back or move forward. Whatever he did, he didn’t want the suspect to stop talking.
Ernie saw that Jamison needed to pull back, and he also realized that Jamison didn’t know how. He had anticipated this might happen. It was the reason he had said nothing about the pictures he found in Elizabeth’s car.
Ernie leaned in, sliding his chair to the side so that Elizabeth wouldn’t be looking directly at the prosecutor. He needed to shift the inquiry, or they were going to lose her. “Beth, we want you to look at some pictures.” He reached behind him on the desk for the manila envelope that had been hidden in the trunk of her car. He kept his eyes on her. Her body stiffened. She was staring at the envelope. He slid the photographs out and handed her a photograph of herself when she was much younger. “Do you recognize this picture of you?”
Ernie watched her carefully, maintaining eye contact. He was trying to read her face. He had read thousands of faces staring back at him while he questioned them. Some he could read, some he could not. In this case perhaps what was more important to Ernie was she didn’t ask where he had gotten the photographs. Her eyes were locked on the envelope that contained them.
Jamison said nothing, but he was also caught unaware. Finally Beth answered, “It’s me. I was in high school.”
Ernie shuffled through the photographs, making a point of keeping the manila envelope directly in plain view, and pulled out a photo of St. Claire standing beside a car.
“Do you recognize this picture?”
She glanced at it and then raised her eyes, looking directly at Ernie. “It’s a picture of Alex.”
“And he’s standing next to a car, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Is that your car?”
Elizabeth fought to regain control of herself and her answers. “What are you getting at? I don’t understand. That’s my car but I don’t know anything about it. He could have taken that anytime.” She looked back at Jamison, but he kept his eyes on Ernie, avoiding her attempt to have him deflect the questions.
Ernie turned to the desk, opened a folder, and took out the photograph that had been introduced in court by St. Claire’s attorney. “Do you remember this photograph?” He laid down the slightly blurred photograph of Beth turning away from her car, her hair swirling out behind her.
“That’s the picture that Alex’s attorney showed me during the trial. I said I didn’t know it was being taken.” She turned again toward Jamison, her hand reaching out to touch his arm, as though she was trying to establish some level of contact with him. As her hand touched him, a hint of perfume wafted up. “You remember, Matt. You said it had been taken from a distance.” Elizabeth kept her eyes directly on Jamison, waiting. Jamison looked down at her hand and paused. Ernie could see the heat rising in Jamison’s face. Elizabeth moved her hand away when Jamison didn’t respond.
Ernie put the two photographs next to each another. It had taken him some time to put it all together. “I want you to look at the background in these two photographs. Do you notice the building in the background of the photo of Alex St. Claire next to your car?”
Elizabeth’s face seemed to lose all its softness. “It’s the same building that’s in the picture Alex took of me and used in court. Is that your point?”
Ernie placed the two photographs on the desk. His voice stayed low but had an insistent tone to it. “My point is that somebody took this photograph of Dr. St. Claire standing by your car at the same place that was in the photograph of you that was used in court and the same time. Your car. Do you have any idea who?” He held up the photograph from the trial that St. Claire’s lawyer had offered into evidence and placed it right next to the photograph from the manila envelope that had been hidden in her car that showed St. Claire posing next to her car.
Ernie’s voice hardened as he shoved the photograph in front of Elizabeth that St. Claire’s lawyer had used in court. “You gave this photograph to Alex St. Claire, didn’t you? Isn’t that the reason that St. Claire’s lawyer had possession of it? And you kept possession of the other one, the one with Alex St. Claire standing next to your car, didn’t you?”
Elizabeth moved her gaze past each of the men, before turning back to Ernie. Her voice didn’t conceal the defiance. “I told you before I didn’t know he was taking pictures.” She paused for only a second, looking at Jamison before turning away. “Maybe Alex had a picture taken of him standing there so he could make it look like he was supposed to be there, just like he did with the Queen Mary tickets and baby clothes that he lied about at the trial. Where did you get those pictures?”
Ernie held the manila envelope in his hand, staring at Elizabeth. “Ms. Garrett, we found this envelope in your car, hidden in the wheel well of the trunk. You have no idea how it got there? Do you have any idea how this picture of Alex St. Claire got in this envelope kept in your car, a picture that was taken at the same time as the one used in court?”
Before he could say anything more, Elizabeth lashed out. “My car? You searched my car and found that? After everything else Alex did, you’re asking me how that got in my car?”
Ernie didn’t answer. He picked up the photograph in front of Elizabeth that was used in court. He held his hand on it for a moment, watching her as she watched him turn it one way and then the other. “You gave this photograph of you to Alex St. Claire, didn’t you? And you weren’t telling the truth when you testified you had never seen it before, were you?” Ernie’s voice was low and calm, almost therapeutic.
Elizabeth was silent. She watched as Ernie slid it back in the manila envelope. Ernie could see it in her eyes. She didn’t have an answer. She was off-balance. Nor would she be able to focus on what she was being asked without thinking of what had been found in her car.
The rhythm of the questioning had changed. Elizabeth’s voice had taken on a tone they hadn’t heard from her before. Maybe it was just defensive and she was offended. Maybe she was trying to sound offended, but it was also unnaturally shrill. But there was a pivotal moment here and he couldn’t wait. Puccinelli reached forward. “Ms. Garrett, do you know what this is?” He held up a plastic bag with the aerosol can inside it. “Have you ever seen this before?”
She reached for the bag and Puccinelli pulled it back. “May I see it?”
&nb
sp; Puccinelli shook his head. He held it just out of her reach, the canister glinting dully through the plastic bag.
They watched intently as Elizabeth stared at the aerosol can. “I’ve never seen that before. I don’t know what it is.” Her face was impassive, having no expression, but more importantly to the men watching, she showed no curiosity. She didn’t ask what it was or why he was showing it to her.
Setting the container down on his desk just out of Elizabeth’s reach, Puccinelli focused on her reaction as he said quietly, “We think it was used to subdue the three women we know St. Claire murdered. It has an anesthetic gas in it. The cup on the top was forced against the face of the victims and they inhaled the gas.”
Elizabeth stiffened in her chair, staring straight at Puccinelli. “And you think Alex did that? Murdered those women? Why would he do that?” There was a split-second of hesitation. “You think he killed those women and then came after me?”
Measuring her body language, Puccinelli softened his tone. “Yes, we think he did that to those women. We’re waiting for DNA results from the plastic mouthpiece, but that’s what we think.” Then he leaned forward, his face within a foot of Elizabeth’s. “Did he use something like this on you?”
“No, not that I remember.” Her voice didn’t hold the indignation that they would expect of a person who saw what was used to disable them.
Puccinelli’s words plunged straight at her. “Then do you have any idea how your fingerprints got on this can?”
“My fingerprints? Are you saying my fingerprints are on that?”
Ernie’s voice caused her to turn away from Puccinelli. “Your fingerprints are on that can. You held it and so did Alex St. Claire.” Ernie allowed a gap of silence as he observed Elizabeth’s face, especially her eyes. She would either be defensive and confused or she was going to go on the offensive. Either way it would reveal something.
Fractured Justice Page 39