Prime Witness

by Steve Martini

  GEORGE CAYHILL

  ASSISTANT DEAN FOR STUDENT AFFAIRS

  He has insinuated himself into this meeting, representing the interests of the university.

  A woman next to Cayhill, in the dark glasses, removes these to reveal high, prominent cheek bones, and wide-set hazel eyes, a bit reddened I think by recent tears. She is tall and slender, taller than I, with feminine and fetching moves. She has thick brunette hair, generous waves which cascade around her shoulders as she shakes it free. Her mouth matches the breadth of her other facial features, with generous pouting lips. It is the face, I think, of classic design, not the simpering beauty of a covergirl, but more unique. Her gaze is intense, like maybe there is something more than good looks behind these eyes. She wears little makeup. There is something wholesome in her looks, like the snapshot of a dressed-up farm girl in the 1940s. She reminds me of images I have seen recently on the silver screen, of Geena Davis in vintage flashbacks.

  Without warning she fires a quick glance in my direction and catches me staring. She smiles, dimples forming in the recesses of her cheeks. She reaches across the table, long delicate fingers.

  “I should introduce myself. Jeanette Scofield.” She says this matter of fact, like what you see is what you get, no pretensions here.

  She is the widow of Abbott Scofield. He no doubt got the better bargain in this marriage. The woman sitting across the table from me could easily pass, in age, for his daughter.

  She looks to the man beside her. “My brother, Jess,” she says. I get all five fingers and a squeeze like an iron vise from the fellow sitting next to her. “Jess Amara,” he tells me. I notice that Claude is eyeing the widow Scofield palpably. He exchanges nods with the man, like maybe the two already know each other.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he says. “I wish we were meeting under more pleasant circumstances.” Claude has no notes and is reaching a bit for a good opening in awkward circumstances. I can tell he is a little pissed at Emil for putting him in this position.

  “At the present time there are more than a hundred law enforcement officers working around the clock to catch this killer. The full resources of the state, through the office of the attorney general, have been committed to this case and we are at present pursuing active leads.”

  A dozen eyes are boring in on Dusalt, looking for something, more than a ration of statistics. Kim Park, Julie Park’s father, is getting antsy at the end of the table. But the interruption is a deep baritone from another quarter.

  “Lieutenant.” It is the man just introduced to me as Jess Amara.

  “I think maybe we can cut through some of this,” he says. “It’s been in all the papers. This man, your suspect. What is his name?” he says, searching for the proper pronunciation.

  “Iganovich,” says Claude.

  “Yes. Iganovich,” says Amara. “What can you tell us about him?”

  Claude is looking at Amara, a picture of exasperation, as if somehow he’s been outflanked.

  “I should introduce you,” he says. “For those of you who haven’t met him, Sergeant Amara is a member of the Davenport City Police Department.” The reason for Claude’s cool reception of Amara is clear. He knows, through scuttlebutt in his department, that Amara will have more information on the Russian, as well as other aspects of the case, than has appeared in the local newspapers or on the tube.

  All eyes around the table fix on Amara. Suddenly this group of grieving orphans has found a common resource, someone on the inside who like themselves has suffered a personal loss in this thing.

  “Are you close to an arrest?” says Amara.

  “We have leads,” says Claude. “We’ve issued an all-points bulletin.”

  “Then you think he’s left the area?”

  The others are watching and listening, leaving the inquiries to someone who knows what to ask.

  “We have reason to believe that he has.”

  “Then you know where he’s gone?”

  “We have leads.” Claude is back to safe ground.

  Based on the Air Canada information, police now believe that Iganovich has fled north. The cops cannot confirm that he boarded a flight, as he no doubt used an alias to buy his ticket. There is an open border between the two countries not requiring passports. In his apartment the cops have found two credit cards issued in his name. Iganovich knows that to use these is to leave a trail like irradiated bread crumbs. Authorities have frozen his small bank account to prevent any further ATM transfers. They believe this was the source of purchase for the airline ticket. When you’re on the lam, cash is king. Broke, they believe he will be forced to the surface soon, driven to commit some foolish act for money.

  “But you’re focusing on a general area?” says Amara. He’s back to geography.

  “We have an idea,” says Claude. It’s clear he’s not going to give anything else away. If Amara knows more he will have to say so.

  “Do you have any idea where they are looking?” This latter comes from Park, but it’s not directed to Claude, instead to Amara.

  The officer shrugs his shoulders, like this is not his party.

  Park has a look of bewilderment about him, like a favorite dog when its master moves a ball too quickly from one hand to the other. It is a dazed expression I have seen before, in the eyes of loved ones seeking answers in the days and hours immediately after a brutal murder.

  “This man,” says Park. “This Ivan Iganovich.”

  “Andre,” says Claude. “We believe his name is Andre Iganovich.”

  Park absorbs this without much interest. “According to the newspapers he was a security guard at the university? Is that true?” he says.

  Claude makes a face of concession.

  Park cannot seem to comprehend how the suspect in his daughter’s murder could hold such a position of trust.

  “Dr. Park. The university didn’t hire this man.” It is Cayhill from the far end of the table. “We hired a licensed private security firm under a contract to provide some basic security for a number of buildings owned by the university.”

  None of this seems to make much of a dent on Dr. Park or his wife. The woman, it seems, is in another world, a cocoon of grief. She seems not yet to have come to grips with the notion that twenty years of tender love now lies on a coroner’s cold steel slab two blocks from here.

  “The important point,” says Cayhill, “is that the suspect, Mr. Iganovich, was not a university employee. He was an employee of the security firm.” Cayhill smiles likes some Fuller Brush salesman.

  “No,” says Park. “The important point is that my daughter is dead.”

  “Oh, of course,” says Cayhill. “I didn’t mean . . . well, you know what I mean.”

  Cayhill is busy riding the wooden rocking horse of civil liability, putting forth the theories of defense as laid out by the university’s lawyers, trying to stem any early thought of a civil suit. This is the farthest thing from Park’s mind at the moment.

  He looks at his wife with a wrinkled expression, like who could care about such details at a time like this. From the look on their faces they still hold out hope that something said here perhaps will relieve a little of the pain of this loss. It is the perpetual quest of survivors in violent crime, the search for some explanation to a random death, the pursuit of an element of reason that at least in their minds gives some justification to a senseless act. The Parks have not yet reached the horn of cynicism. That will take hold as days and weeks turn to months, as the justice process moves through its slow grind.

  Suddenly there is a loud clamor and noise from the other room, Emil’s little meeting with the press. It’s one of the sheriff’s deputies coming through the door behind us. He closes it, again locking out the din from the other room, leans over and passes a message slip to Claude, who reads it.

 
“Excuse me,” he says. “Mr. Madriani will handle the briefing for the moment. I will be right back.”

  Suddenly eyes are on me.

  “I have a question,” says Amara. “Do we know how the suspect came into the country?”

  This draws a blank expression from me. “I don’t,” I say.

  “In order to get into the country an immigrant usually requires a sponsor,” he says, “a relative, friend, maybe an employer.”

  “I’m sure that investigators are looking into that.” Actually I am not, but I make a mental note to talk to Claude about it in a private moment.

  The gathering starts to digress, private conversations cropping up around the table as the survivors begin to communicate their common pain.

  Park is talking to Amara, quietly about the immigration item, sponsors and the like. He is taking notes on a piece of paper he’s taken from his pocket. As I watch him I wonder what the purpose of this missive can be. I had been warned by the shrinks that survivors of crime often react in predictable patterns. When the suspended disbelief of death finally dissolves it will first turn to rage, and then obsession.

  Claude has come back. He settles into his chair and leans into my ear, the hissing of words. “Go home,” he says, “and pack. Enough for several days. We have a flight, ten, tomorrow morning.”

  I look at him. He says nothing more, but from the expression on his face the message is clear. Somewhere on this planet Andre Iganovich has come to ground.

  Chapter Ten

  After three days and four phone calls I have finally hooked up with Kay Sellig. I brace myself for bad news. It is written in her eyes.

  “So much for special weapons and tactics,” she says. She is looking up at me, leaning on one of the metal tables in her stainless steel kingdom where we meet this morning. Sellig is commenting on the curious circumstances surrounding the capture of Andre Iganovich.

  I am anxious to hear what she has to say, but I am in a hurry. “I’m on my way to the airport,” I tell her, “with a flight in less than two hours.”

  “Vancouver?” she says.

  I nod.

  I am booked with Dusalt to fly to British Columbia. It seems that Claude’s strategy, the full-court press on the Russian’s finances, has spun gold. Iganovich was picked up by Canadian authorities yesterday afternoon, after an altercation with, of all things, two department store security guards. He was detained by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police after some suspicious conduct involving a scarf in a Hudson Bay Company store. While no shop theft charges were brought, the officers discovered the outstanding American warrant for murder. He now sits in a detention facility in Vancouver.

  “Then I guess we can say that at least we’ve got one of them.” Sellig deadpans this as she gives me the news.

  “A copycat?” I say.

  She nods.

  I cannot say that I am surprised. It was something I had seen that day, outside Iganovich’s apartment door, as police searched inside.

  I’m wiping sleep from my eyes. I have been on the phone with the State Department in Washington since six this morning, being briefed on the U.S.-Canadian extradition treaty. Iganovich is making noises of a legal battle to come. He is refusing to waive extradition.

  “I wanted to break the news to you first,” she says. “I haven’t told any of the investigators yet. I can’t stand crying.”

  She is right. Emil and company have been busy for the last twenty-four hours, spreading the official line to every reporter who will listen, that citizens in Davenport, undergraduates at the university, are again safe, that from all appearances they have caught their killer. They are telling community leaders that they can now get back to what they do best, business.

  “You’re sure about this?” I say.

  “No conclusive evidence,” she says, “nothing I could give to a court. But the discrepancies, they keep piling up. If you’re asking me my opinion, the answer is yes. Someone is mimicking our killer. And I’m not alone in this feeling. Have you talked to Lloyd Tolar, the medical examiner?”

  I shake my head.

  “You should,” she says.

  “How would a copycat have the details, the folded clothes, the kind of rope, the stakes?” I say. It is an axiom in the business of serial crime that police will withhold certain details from the press and public, a means of testing the compulsive confessors, the small and elite legion of crazies who plague every sensational case.

  “In this case he could have gotten enough from news photos,” she says. “God knows we’ve gotten the coverage.”

  She is right. There have been a dozen pictures, two in national news magazines that showed the victims tied to the ground, a little editorial taste to blank-out the faces and genitals. There were closeup window shots of the stakes, and the rope, and the clothes folded in an arc like a halo over the victims’ heads.

  Sellig moves to one of the other stainless steel tables. The surface is divided into three separate sections, each containing several pieces of cord and some metal tent stakes, shiny and new. The cord is the kind my mother used when I was a child to hang clothes on the line in our yard, bundled pieces of thread wrapped in a white plastic sheathing.

  She picks out four of the stakes and moves these to another nearby table. They look like the others, except these have been taken down on a grinder to a needle-like sharpness. They resemble nothing so much as the point on a dagger.

  “These,” she says, “were used to kill the first four victims, the college kids.”

  There are two remaining stakes in this group, like the others store-bought, but with more rounded points. These have not been modified.

  “The two here,” she says, “were used to kill the Scofield victims.” She raises an eyebrow and moves on, to the other end of the table, where assorted pieces of rope are assembled in plastic trays.

  “Garden variety clothesline,” she says. “You can buy it in ten thousand stores, across the country. Except that,” she says, “these pieces”—she’s sweeping her hand over the first two trays, the rope from the student killings—“these pieces each came from the same length of rope, each cut in sequence. It matches the stuff found in Iganovich’s van. It also matches the rope used in Oregon and Orange County. From what I can see, Iganovich did ’em all.”

  I remember her discourse on the subject, the affidavit used to search the Russian’s apartment.

  “The extrusion marks from the thread filaments on the inside of the plastic sheathing, they all match,” she says.

  She moves to the last tray, the cord used to tie Abbott and Karen Scofield to the ground.

  “Here we have a different kind of rope,” she says. “A hundred and twenty-seven plastic filaments and different chemical composition. Produced by a different manufacturer.”

  She waits for a moment, a pause for effect, to let this settle in.

  “It was only what he couldn’t see from the photos, the buried points on the stakes, and the composition of the cord, where he went wrong.”

  I say nothing. I just listen. It is not what I want to hear. I am thinking maybe this guy just bought another rope, maybe his grinder broke down.

  But she is dashing my hopes. “Too many other discrepancies,” she says. “The fact that victim identifications, driver’s licenses, wallets or purses weren’t found on any of the kids. Yet Karen Scofield’s purse was left in plain view, with her wallet and complete ID inside. Abbott Scofield’s wallet and driver’s license were found in the pocket of his pants.”

  Police haven’t found any of the victims’ personal effects in Iganovich’s apartment. It was one of the first things they looked for, an evidentiary linchpin. They are checking now to see if he rented any other property, a storage facility, maybe the key to a bus locker.

  “Nothing fits,” she says. “The age
of the Scofields, the location of their bodies, close to a county road.” At first Sellig thought maybe it was a case of the man becoming more daring. Now she’s not so sure.

  And there is more. Sellig is troubled by the profile. “It fits Iganovich to a tee,” she says, “every item. But if it’s consistent, the killer didn’t know any of his victims. The pattern is he never took familiar game,” she says. She looks at me, a single index finger to pursed lips. “But if this is true why the mutilation of Karen Scofield, why did he take her eye?” She has checked with the psychiatrists on this one. They are all in accord. They believe the killer mutilated the body and removed the eye because he knew this victim, and she knew him. It is the only explanation they have for this deviation.

  “There’s something more,” I tell her.

  She looks at me.

  “The newspapers outside of Iganovich’s apartment door, the day the police searched.”

  I had noticed them when I entered the apartment, the rolled and unread pile of local papers against the door. Two of these daily editions had predated the Scofield killings. To me it seemed strange, that unless Iganovich was staying somewhere else in the Davenport area during this period, that he should leave these papers on the floor in the hallway. I tell Sellig this.

  I have asked Claude to gather the Russian’s telephone records for my review. There was something strange here. Again it is not conclusive, but it points in a definite direction. It seems the telephone call made from the phone in Iganovich’s apartment to Air Canada was placed two days before Karen and Abbott Scofield were murdered.

  “Either the man believes in long-term planning,” she says, “or he was already gone, before the last two victims were killed.”

  “I’ll need a copy of your report on this,” I tell her. “As soon as possible.”

  “I’ll fax it to your office this afternoon,” she says.