Prime Witness

by Steve Martini

  Claude issues little nods every few seconds as I pass over critical benchmarks in their scenario. He must be comfortable with this declaration. It is his ass in the flames if some judge thinks he lied.

  I marvel a little at Aikens. Cigarette and all, her fingers move like a blur over the keyboard. She has used the correction key only once in two pages. I am forming a new opinion, regretting my rash assessment of Mario’s leadership abilities. The lady knows her job.

  “What about Lockyer?” says Claude. “He’s an easy touch. We get warrants from him all the time. A slam dunk.” Claude is dropping names in my suggestion box, the process of shopping for a judge who might issue a warrant.

  I shake my head. “Not on this one,” I say. Lockyer may be fine for an auto theft ring, or a drug bust. But he’s a former prosecutor. On this one the appellate courts will be taking a more critical look. I want a neutral, detached magistrate to review the affidavit.

  I’ve already staked out my judge, placed my phone call while Claude was in the other room with his witnesses. Frances Kerney is a former presiding judge of the superior court in this county and known to be on a short list of candidates for elevation to the appellate court. By the time this case arrives on appeal, it is likely that she will be ensconced there. Whatever she touched while on the trial bench will no doubt receive the subtle benefit of any doubt from her brothers of the cloth. A cynical view, perhaps. But in a capital case, you seize every edge.

  I have Kerney on call. I possess her schedule for the afternoon and early evening, and her home phone number should we go late. I am prepared to grovel if I must.

  I’m putting the wrap on the affidavit when I sense motion behind me, the swinging gate at the public counter. I turn. It is Kay Sellig and the patrolman I have assigned to chauffeur her, a courtesy intended to produce a quick turnaround. It has not failed. She has a preliminary analysis of the cord and metal stakes.

  Sellig drops her briefcase, a slim leather affair, on Aikens’s desk and turns a satisfied smile in my direction.

  “Don’t know who he is,” she says. “But he’s hung himself with his own rope.”

  I’m all eyes. I tell Aikens to take a break. She reaches for the package of Camels in her purse and is out the door. In the next five minutes tobacco stocks will go up four points.

  I turn to Sellig. “What did you find?”

  “He must have used whatever was handy. Or else he’s a fool,” she says.

  “The clothesline cord,” she says.

  “It’s traceable?” I ask.

  “Like a trail of bread crumbs in a cave.”

  I am matching her own satisfied smile.

  “It’s composed of bundles of thread,” she says, “tightly woven, and wrapped in a sheath of white plastic. No two manufacturers use the same number or composition of threads.”

  She reaches into her briefcase and pulls out a single typed page.

  “The cord found in the van has a hundred and twenty-one interior filaments, nine different plastic types and one metal filament.” She looks up at me. “Identical in all respects with the cord used to tie down the first four Davenport victims.”

  “The kids?” I say.

  She nods.

  I can see in her expression that this begs a question: the Scofields? Sellig ignores this for the moment. Half a loaf is better than nothing.

  “It’s good,” I say, “but not conclusive. Might be strong enough to secure a search warrant, certainly for the van, maybe for the Russian’s apartment. How common is this stuff?”

  “This particular cord is manufactured by only one company. But as to points of sale, it gets weaker. In this state at least eight thousand stores sell the stuff, nationwide maybe forty thousand.”

  My expression sags. A good defense lawyer would have a field day with this. A critical judge, asked for a warrant, weighing the odds, might say that these tent stakes and this cord are probative of nothing more than the fact that perhaps Mr. Iganovich likes to camp.

  But Sellig is still smiling. I sense in her demeanor that she’s not finished.

  “The white plastic sheathing around the cord is a different story,” she says. “When it’s applied around the filaments, it’s hot. The stuff shrinks to a tight fit when it cools.”

  She’s held the best for last.

  “And?”

  “The outer threads from the filaments leave their impression in the soft hot plastic on the inside of the sheath. The cutest little extrusion marks you ever saw,” she says. “Just like fingerprints all over the inside of the plastic sheathing.”

  There is a nanosecond of bare silence between us, Claude and me taking this in. Then almost in a daze Dusalt puts our mutual thoughts to words: “Whoever possessed the rope in the van is dog meat.”

  Sellig nods. “Pure Alpo.”

  She shows us a photograph, an eight-hundred-percent blow-up of two pieces of plastic sheathing with its filaments removed. This looks like a giant straw, except for the little bumps and nodules on the inside of each tube.

  Even my untrained eye can see that the patterns on the two pieces are an exact match, nodules and bumps in all the same places.

  “These are two matching ends of the same cord,” she says. “The one on the left is the end piece from the coil of cord in the suspect’s van. The one on the right was taken from the wrist of Sharon Collins, the last coed killed. The other pieces taken off the kids.” Sellig’s referring to the student victims. “It is conclusive,” she says. “They all match. Sequential pieces cut from the same length of rope.”

  I will not have to grovel before a judge for a search warrant.

  Chapter Seven

  By the time I follow Claude and Emil Johnson to the third floor, an evidence tech is already putting up yellow tape to block off one end of the hall close to Iganovich’s apartment.

  I grab Claude, whisper in his ear. “We should get Sellig in here, now,” I tell him.

  He nods and issues a quick instruction to one of the cops in the hall.

  Two special enforcement officers packing M-16’s, guys in black combat garb, with paramilitary training and hair triggers, come out of the apartment. One of them is unloading his weapon, soft-nosed cartridges in a clip, lead that will expand like putty when it hits a target.

  The suspect is obviously not home. We wait outside the door. A few seconds later Sellig is escorted up the stairs by a uniformed cop. She’s carrying a small black case, like an undersized brief box. She goes in, and we follow. I have my hands in my pockets.

  I feel a little ridiculous, trussed-up in a Kevlar flak jacket that reaches from belt to collar. Emil has asked that I be here, in case questions arise during the search. His effort I think to spread some accountability.

  “An all-points bulletin has been issued for Iganovich,” he tells me. This based on the arrest warrant I secured, the evidence contained in Sellig’s report on the cord found in the Russian’s van.

  “Be careful by the door.” Emil’s command presence. Across the threshold there’s a bowl of cat food, little white fuzz growing on its contents, and flies, flies are everywhere. The most overpowering sensation about the place is its odor. This is something between rancid meat, and a leaking septic tank.

  Claude has a handkerchief over his mouth. He is trying to make his way through the cluttered filth to a window on the other side of the room. He opens it and there’s a slight cross ventilation. The full fury of this smell passes me on its way to the door where I am standing.

  There are several days’ newspapers piled up in the hall outside. They are rolled, wrapped in an outer cover of blank newsprint, but I can see dates on two of these. I make a mental note of this.

  The place is sparse, what the fair landlord would have to advertise as a small studio apartment. There is a couch in the living room,
a sleeper that looks like it hasn’t been closed up in years, an event that may have coincided with the last time the bedding was changed. A small coffee table—it is difficult to imagine that this might have rested before a neatly closed couch at one time—has been pushed into a corner. It is now cluttered with old mail, newspapers and dirty dishes, remnants of food remaining in some of these.

  I trip through this mess, careful not to disturb anything until Sellig is finished. She is opening the little case, putting on gloves.

  She’s co-opted two of the local evidence techs. They are taking pictures, pinpointing the location of objects in the room. One of the deputies is wielding a video camera, doing a walk-through and panning the rooms. This should take all of thirty seconds on his tape.

  A few of the more curious neighbors are now wandering by the door, for a look inside. One of the uniforms is telling them to move on, back to their rooms or out of the building. He reaches for the door to close it, but Emil calls him off.

  “What you wanna do, kill us?” he says. He’s muttering to himself. “Place smells like the foul end of my aunt Matilda.”

  Sellig is busy carefully pulling clothes from the closet. This is not an extensive wardrobe, two pairs of pants, tattered chinos, and a light jacket. I think she is probably looking for blood stains. She comes up empty. She talks to one of the county technicians and two minutes later the guy is back with a small hand-held vacuum. This is made for police work, with a little box that holds a finely made filter. The technician is giving a pair of jeans the once-over with this thing. When he’s finished he pulls the filter and places it in a plastic bag. Another deputy then marks the bags for identification, and the process starts again on the next pair.

  They are looking for trace evidence, a bit of sand, a piece of reed from the creek, something that might show up later under a microscope, that could place Iganovich on the Putah Creek, something to corroborate the clothesline cord. They package the pants separately in bags, the jacket in another.

  My hands are in my pockets, pushed all the way to the bottom, to keep from touching anything. I wish I could say the same for Emil. He is fingering little items in a half-open dresser drawer, personal trinkets that I assume belong to the suspect. He pulls a set of rosary beads from the drawer and looks at them, then at me.

  “Fuckin’ guy’s probably an altar boy,” he says.

  He drops the rosary on top of the dresser laughing to himself. I hope they have already photographed this surface. If not, the shrinks will soon be working on the theory that we have a religious freak here, a man who does the stations of the cross with each slaying. Johnson and his tripping little fingers will have the archdiocese all over my ass.

  “What do you think?” I’m talking to Claude, a little under my breath as I wander toward him in a corner of the room.

  “I think our guy’s on a trip, that he’s not coming back,” he says.

  I wrinkle an eyebrow.

  “State Department informed us earlier today that he holds two passports, one Soviet,” he says, “issued before the collapse, the other Russian, issued by the current government. First thing we looked for. They’ve now gone through all the drawers, his closets, what clothing is left. The passports aren’t here.”

  Except for trace evidence which they won’t know until they examine the little filters under a microscope back at the lab, Sellig informs me that they haven’t found much.

  Henderson has caught up with us, huffing and puffing from the stairs. He wants to know what instructions to give the officers out on the perimeter, the people whose assignment it is to watch for the Russian.

  “Keep ’em in place until oh six hundred,” says Claude. “Then cut ’em free. It’s a long shot anyway.”

  “Do we know if he might be driving another vehicle?” Claude’s asking the plainclothes detective beside him.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, check DMV.” There’s an edge to Claude’s voice, like this is something somebody should have thought of earlier.

  Emil picks up on this. “Sonofabitch,” he says. “Why wasn’t that done?”

  “See if he has another vehicle registered besides the van,” says Claude. “If he does, circulate the license numbers, especially to the guys on the perimeter.”

  “I want that done now. Immediately,” says Emil. There’s a lot of cheerleading going on here.

  “I want us to see him before he sees us,” says Claude. “If he wanders back home I want him picked up quickly and quietly.”

  “Damn right,” says Emil. “We don’t need some fucking gun battle on the street with civilians in the middle or hostages taken.”

  I don’t say anything, but my senses tell me this is not likely to happen. Investigators who checked with Iganovich’s employer, Ajax Security, have told us that he has not shown up for work in two days. Notwithstanding the prudent actions of Claude Dusalt to cover our presence here, I think Mr. Iganovich is on the lam.

  Henderson turns, sees a phone mounted on the wall behind me. “Can I use this?” He is a big man, and out of shape. Anything to avoid one more jaunt up and down these stairs.

  Claude has wandered off, in another direction. Emil looks at one of the county evidence techs. Sellig is in the bathroom working through a mirrored cabinet over the sink. The tech shrugs his shoulders. “We’ve already dusted it,” the guy says.

  “Sure, go ahead,” says Emil.

  I glance at it for an instant before Henderson can reach for the receiver on the wall, and something catches my eye.

  “Hold on a second.”

  Henderson looks at me.

  “In a dive like this I would think he’d have a rotary dial,” I say.

  Emil looks at the phone. “You can buy that model at Costco for $39.95,” he says.

  “You’re right,” I tell him. But when Henderson reaches for it again I grab his wrist. I have a little micro-cassette recorder in my pocket, smaller than a pack of cigarettes, which I carry for quick dictation outside the office. I take this out.

  “Let’s keep the noise down, please. Cool it with the little vacuum.” Suddenly the place has gone dead. Sellig is out of the bathroom to see what is happening.

  Claude looks at me. I have a single finger to my lips, like I’m hushing a child.

  Emil is looking at me, wondering if I’ve slipped over the edge.

  I click on the little recorder.

  “Paul Madriani, July twenty-third. The time,” I look at my watch, “is seven forty-three P.M. We are in the apartment of the suspect, Andre Iganovich.”

  I press the pause button on the recorder, pluck the receiver from the phone. But instead of dialing, I punch a single button, centered among others at the bottom of the phone. I hold the recorder to the ear piece. There’s a series of little clicks as the forty-dollar wonder on the wall does the one thing that Andre Iganovich would most assuredly undo if he could—it redials the last number called by the Russian before his hasty departure.

  I am busy recording the little clicks that will give me the phone number if no one answers, or if whoever is on the other end hangs up once I speak. Instead, after three short rings the call is met by a recording of its own:

  “You have reached Air Canada. At the moment all of our agents are busy. Please be patient and your call will be answered in the order it was received. Please stay on the line.”

  Chapter Eight

  Three days after the raid on the Russian’s apartment, I am working my way through the in-basket on the desk, sorting the stuff that cannot wait.

  Claude is still busy checking passenger manifests at Air Canada, any lead on where Iganovich may have gone. On reflection Claude says this makes sense. A Russian would not go south, to the warm climes of the Mexican Riviera. Canada makes eminent good sense according to Dusalt, easier to get back to th
e northern reaches of his homeland.

  Suddenly there’s a shadow, like some dark cloud on a summer’s day. I look up. It’s Lenore Goya, in the doorway.

  She’s tapping her wristwatch with her forefinger. “Our meeting,” she says. “Remember?” I can tell by her tone that she’s a little miffed, a woman who likes to be punctual.

  “Yes,” I say. “I’m running a little late. Some administrative chores,” I tell her.

  In fact I’ve been going over disposition sheets for the office, monthly statistics on caseloads for the various deputies. It is not a happy picture. It is becoming increasingly clear that I cannot afford to lose Goya. Without her the office would be up a creek without the proverbial paddle.

  I trail her down the hall to her office. It is where we had agreed to meet.

  The place has the ambience of a coat closet, ten-by-ten with case files in folders stacked halfway up the walls.

  “I hope this won’t take too long,” she says. “I’ve got a court call in forty minutes.”

  “I thought it would be good if we broke the ice,” I tell her. “General discussion about the office, ideas for improvement. Things you would change if you could.”

  Her eyes open wide, a little mock amazement. She looks like the late Gilda Radner playing Emily Litella. “You want to know what I think about the office?” she says. Like, come on.

  I nod a little encouragement.

  She laughs. “In two words—it sucks.” She is grinning at me across the desk now, pearl white, even teeth, a dentist’s dream.

  I smile back. “That’s constructive,” I say. “But maybe you could give me a little more detail.”

  “Fine,” she says. She starts ticking off points on the fingers of one hand. “We’re understaffed. We’re overworked. This year the felony caseload went up twenty-six percent. We haven’t had a salary increase in three years, they’re talking layoffs and a cut in health benefits.”