The Case Has Altered

by Martha Grimes

  “Twenty,” she said in a voice that was barely audible.

  “I’m very sorry.” Apted sounded as if he truly were. “Could you tell us who else was present in the house besides you when this happened?”

  “My husband and Jack Price, and . . . I don’t mean, you know, that they actually saw what happened—and Mr. Parker and—”

  “Yes, go on.”

  “Verna Dunn.”

  Her movement when she said the name was scarcely more than a flinch, a flicker of eyelids, a trembling of the mouth—tiny signals of distress. Such was the power of sorrow that the years following the event had done nothing to loosen its grip.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Owen.” Pete Apted excused her, turned away. Leaving her high and dry in the witness box. As if she’d had to relive that whole dreadful experience, Grace Owen stood rooted to the spot. Tears tracked down her face. When she didn’t move, the judge asked the clerk of the court to help her.

  It was a moving close to this day’s testimony.

  30

  Jury spent barely fifteen minutes on the witness stand that morning, recounting what Jenny Kennington had told him in Stratford-upon-Avon. For him it was fifteen minutes too long.

  Oliver Stant was winding up. “The defendant lied about her relationship with Verna Dunn.”

  “I wouldn’t say that, exactly. Perhaps it was the sin of omission.” That sounded weak.

  The smile on Stant’s face showed he agreed. He did not even bother to take it up. “But the defendant’s hatred of her cousin was quite clear?”

  Jury paused a beat. “Yes. But—”

  Oliver Stant did not want to hear any qualifications; he cut into Jury’s disclaimers. “Thank you, Superintendent Jury. I have no more questions.”

  • • •

  Jury and Charly were sitting in a dark booth at the back of a pub crowded with the same people who’d been crowding the Castle nearby. It was as if they’d all removed themselves to the Lion and Snake by mutual consent, in packs, like wolves. The air was thick with the fumes from cigarettes, pipes, cigars—the no-smoking section was a joke—and Jury wondered how long it would be before he no longer wanted to claw the Marlboros and Silk Cuts out of the mouths of the people smoking them.

  “I didn’t know Jennifer Kennington had hired Pete to defend you,” said Charly, smoking instead of eating the ploughman’s lunch she’d ordered. It was a point Oliver Stant had disinterred to show that Jury’s defense of Jennifer Kennington was much colored by love, sex, or obligation.

  “There wasn’t anything to it, my so-called ‘case’ I mean. Jenny was actually repaying a favor. Years ago I recovered something for her she’d had stolen. Now, I’m repaying her favor.” He smiled. “Will the two of us go through life repaying favors?”

  Charly looked at him for a long time. “You could do, I expect. Seems a waste of a good relationship, though.” She glanced at her watch. “It’s nearly two. Better get back.”

  “You didn’t eat your lunch, not any of it.”

  “Trials take my appetite.”

  Pete Apted walked into the pub and Charly waved him over, furiously. “My God, Pete—that ballistics expert’s testimony took up nearly the entire morning and did a lot of damage—”

  “Hatter? No, he didn’t.” Apted looked at their plates. “Anything edible here?”

  “Pete! Not only was his evidence damning, but he himself was simply—I don’t know how to say it—‘unimpeachable.’ I was watching the jury; they were fascinated, they were awed.”

  “Of course they were; it’s all that stuff about being able to tell which bullet came from which gun. That kind of stuff even fascinates me.”

  Charly groaned. “I asked you: where’s your expert witness, then? You haven’t even lined one up to refute his testimony.”

  Pete Apted shrugged, pulled an apple from his pocket. “I’ll just use Hatter.”

  Charly stared at him. “He’s the prosecution’s witness. Have you forgotten?”

  “If I don’t get what I want on cross, then I’ll drag in somebody. You going to eat that?”

  • • •

  Matthew Hatter was the picture of probity as he said, yes, he understood that he was still under oath. His testimony that morning had been especially damning to the defense because there was no doubt in Hatter’s mind as to which rifle had been used. The bullet had answered that question for him: the rifle found in the Fengate mudroom, the one that Suggins sometimes used, and Max, the one accessible to anyone.

  “But, of course, you can’t settle on who had fired this fatal shot.” It wasn’t even a question, the way Apted put it.

  “No.” The thing about Hatter was that he didn’t appear to care for whatever havoc his findings wrought. He was a prosecution witness, but that didn’t mean he was especially interested in prosecuting, per se. He was, however, interested in his own reputation, so he would not look happily upon his findings being disputed.

  “The thing that led you to pick this particular gun is the bullet that tore through Verna Dunn, the bullet allegedly fired from the rifle in evidence, is that right?”

  Hatter permitted himself the tiniest smile. “Not ‘allegedly’ Mr. Apted. This bullet did come from this gun.”

  “I chose the word deliberately, Mr. Hatter.” Apted went on: “Now, you have told this court that you ran tests to determine whether this bullet found at the crime scene was indeed fired from this rifle.”

  “That is correct. I showed the court the enlarged photos, the comparison of the bullets. Weapons leave distinctly different impressions. So by comparing the bullet found at the scene and a bullet fired from that gun in our lab—this should remove any doubt that the two come from the same gun.”

  “ ‘Should’?”

  Hatter nodded briefly.

  “You said in your earlier testimony a bullet begins to change the moment it’s fired.”

  Hatter said, serene in his knowledge of bullets: “It does. Microscopic bits are deposited in the barrel of the gun.”

  Apted continued: “And continues to change. Wouldn’t it be extremely difficult if the bullet being tested had been deformed upon impact?”

  “Yes. But what I was speaking of was that everything the bullet passes through, because of the distortion of the nose, can be seen. The passage through fiber, flesh, bone, organs, or contact with soil, stone, whatever—that can be traced. We found, for instance, fibers—”

  Pete Apted cut him off. Bad enough he was managing to testify twice supporting the prosecution’s case. “Yes, I understand that. But I’m more interested in all of these changes that take place. Bullets have been known to go to pieces.”

  “Yes, but one could still determine a number of things merely from the fragments. Anyway, the bullet in question was in fair condition.”

  “Fair? In other words the comparison would not have been ideal.”

  “Not ideal, no. Few things are in this business.” Hatter offered the court a crimped little smile.

  “Kind of touch-and-go, you mean?”

  Hatter flinched. “I would not describe the work of our lab as touch-and-go, no, sir.”

  “I’m sorry. I certainly meant in no way to call your work into question. I’m merely puzzled by your absolute certainty that this bullet came from this gun. I’m not as convinced as you appear to be that the bullet is a fingerprint, has its own DNA.”

  A withering smile from the expert to the amateur. “I am certain, sir. No two barrels have the same striations, for one thing.”

  “Yes, but in your testimony you established that it was impossible to tell that a particular round is fired from a particular rifle.”

  “Well, yes, but that’s only the begin—”

  Apted cut him off, saying (in imitation of a man totally bemused by what he’s heard), “So this is what we’ve got to work with, Mr. Hatter: one, bullets change when they leave microscopic bits of themselves in the barrel of the gun from which they’re fired; two, whatever they pass through—even
something as nonresistant as fabric—alters the bullet; three, even more alterations to this bullet occur when it passes through muscle, organ, flesh of the victim. Yet you can test a bullet that’s undergone all of these changes with a perfectly fresh bullet from the suspect gun and say the match is one hundred percent, the bullet from that particular rifle—the only gun the defendant had access to—that this rifle was the murder weapon.”

  Hatter’s knuckles whitened on the witness box. “If there is any doubt at all, it’s the merest shadow—”

  Hatter looked as if he could cut out his own tongue.

  Apted smiled: “The merest ‘shadow of a doubt’ I believe you were about to say?”

  Hatter just stood there, looking cold as an ice-floe. “Let’s put it this way: I have a ninety-five percent certainty that the bullet retrieved at the scene came from the gun introduced as evidence.”

  Apted just shook his head, as if pityingly. “There’s always that damned pesky five percent, isn’t there? No more questions, Your Honor.”

  • • •

  Your reason for subjecting Verna Dunn’s Porsche to various tests, and also the clothes worn by the defendant and the victim, was to determine where the car had been and if Jennifer Kennington had been in it. Is that correct, Mr. Fleming?”

  Art Fleming was another forensic witness. He headed up the Forensics Department.

  “Fibers were found in Verna Dunn’s car that came from the defendant’s dress. A green wool dress she wore the night of February first.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “What chance is there you might be wrong?”

  “Oh, one in a million, if that.” Fleming was confident, but not arrogant. He was merely stating the facts.

  “That’s fairly certain, I’d say. How did you reach your conclusions, though? Could it not have been another person who also wore a green wool dress?”

  Fleming shook his head once, decisively. “No. Not only are fibers identifiable, colors are also. Every manufacturer has his own dyes and these color-formulae are secret. They’d have to be, wouldn’t they? No two manufacturers produce garments of exactly the same color. To the naked eye, a cursory examination might make them appear to be the same, but they aren’t. I guarantee it.” Fleming smiled. “You can take it to the bank, as they say.”

  • • •

  Mr. Fleming,” began Pete Apted, “you say there’s little question that the car, the victim’s Porsche, had been on that site, near the seawall. Samples of mud, dirt, and sand lodged under the front bumper demonstrate this.”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “And traces of the same mud, sand, and dirt were found on the inside on the mat below the steering wheel, the driver’s side.”

  “Yes.”

  “Yet you found no such specimens on the shoes of the defendant?”

  “No.”

  “Then your reason for subjecting the car itself and defendant’s and victim’s apparel to various tests was to determine where the car had been and whether either or both the victim and the defendant had been on the Wash?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is there anything in the way the mud and sand and dirt of the Wash in general differs from any other wash—Cowbit Wash, for example?”

  “We didn’t of course collect samples from those places but off the top of my head I’d say no—a qualification: there’s been some building going on near Cowbit Wash, I think. That could change the way the soil is constituted; other materials could contaminate it. But, in the case of the Wash itself, no.”

  “Now, in the case of the footpath: you did take soil samples from several different places on this public footpath?”

  “Oh, yes, definitely. Five different places, some hundred different samples.”

  “And you found traces of soil consistent with one or more of those samples on the defendant’s shoes.”

  “Yes, definitely. Several traces of the loam we found halfway along the path and a bit of the soil fifty feet along the path from the house.”

  “You would say, then, unequivocally, that there was no proof the defendant had, number one, been in that car during or after it had been driven to the Wash, and, number two, there was evidence she had walked the public footpath?”

  Fleming seemed to be sorting through this thicket of reasoning, but had to agree: “Yes to both of those conclusions.”

  • • •

  Mr. Fleming, just one or two questions.”

  Oliver Stant was on his feet again, with what looked like perfect confidence in how his questions would be answered. “First, with regard to the defendant’s having been in the Porsche: the lack of residue really proves nothing, isn’t that true? There are a number of explanations for this; one might be that the defendant removed her shoes, covered the shoes, cleaned the shoes—or otherwise removed the possibility of tracking sand or mud into the car. The lack of such residue is merely exculpatory evidence, isn’t it?”

  “Absolutely, yes.”

  Stant nodded. “A second question: is there any way to tell when the person wearing those shoes might have picked up these particles of loam from the footpath?”

  “No, unless something else had been going on that would fix a particular time.”

  “For example?”

  “Well, I mentioned building materials. You know, sawdust, other building materials that might be carried on air to mix with the soil of the footpath.”

  “But nothing like that, nothing that might change the constituents of the soil, was going on?”

  Fleming shook his head. “Not to my knowledge, no.”

  “So the defendant might have picked up this loam on her shoes at any time? The day before? Two days before?”

  “Yes.”

  “Given that, there would be no way of knowing, from the evidence of the soil found clinging to the shoes, that she was on that path between ten-thirty and eleven-thirty on the night of first February?”

  “No.”

  “Thank you.”

  • • •

  Pete Apted rose, smiling: “Mr. Fleming, wouldn’t the same thing apply to Jennifer Kennington’s having been in Verna Dunn’s car? I mean, presence of fibers and hairs doesn’t tell you when the defendant was in the car, even if they tell you that she was in it. You’ve testified that you found green fibers from Jennifer Kennington’s dress, the one she was wearing on the night of the murder, February first. Now, when it comes to the transfer of fiber and hair, there are numerous ways to do it, correct?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “What you appear to be assuming is that, given this green fiber on the front seat, the defendant had sat there?”

  Fleming shook his head. “I’m not assuming anything. I’m telling you what we found.”

  “Good. So if these two women were in physical contact—say, standing close together, or brushing against one another, the fiber could have been transferred to the victim that way, and the victim could have got it on the front seat of the car?”

  “Quite possibly, yes.”

  “So that if we can’t say that the defendant was actually in the Porsche, the ‘when’ she was in it becomes a moot point, doesn’t it?”

  Fleming smiled slightly. “You could say so, yes.”

  Apted smiled back. “I do. You can take it to the bank.”

  • • •

  In the Lion and Snake, Melrose said, with a show of impatience. “But the logistics of Jenny’s being with Jack Price in his studio that night are so difficult—if she didn’t drive to the Wash with Verna, how the devil did she get there?” He had just set their drinks—his, Charly’s, and Jury’s—on the column-table. They never seemed able to get a seat in here.

  “In her own car,” Jury said shortly. “It was parked at the far end of the drive too.”

  “There was only one set of tire marks.”

  “Follow the same reasoning we used for Grace Owen: she could have left it near Fosdyke, walked the rest of the way. It’s not that far. Any
way, Price could have provided an alibi only up until the time she appeared again, a little after eleven.”

  “Nevertheless, why wouldn’t he have come forward?”

  “My guess is because she didn’t want it known she was with him. I’m curious as to why Pete Apted hasn’t called Jack Price as a witness, though.” Jury said this to Charly.

  She had been silent since they’d come in here, nor did she answer at once. Jury prompted her. “Charly?”

  She sighed. “Oliver Stant would have a field day. Doesn’t it occur to you—” She paused.

  “Doesn’t what?”

  “This isn’t what we believe, understand.”

  Jury nodded. “Fine. Just tell us what you don’t believe.”

  “The prosecution could easily raise the question—were they in it together?” She held up her hands when Melrose and Jury were about to protest. “The two of them. The two cars. Each could have driven one back to Fengate.”

  “And his motive?”

  She shook her head. “Don’t know. But I’m sure Verna had a good deal to do with Jack Price in the past. Possibly even in the present.” After Melrose lit her cigarette, she said, “Pete won’t allow Jenny to testify because she’d make a terrible witness. She’s been caught out in lies several times; she hasn’t been registering much emotion; she’s secretive—Oliver Stant would make a meal of her. Did she go to his studio that night? We still can’t be sure.”

  “Since when was sex a motive for murder?” asked Melrose.

  Charly dipped her head to look into his downturned face. “You are kidding?”

  31

  He’s not the sanguine sort of cop people take him for.” Jury was talking about DCI Bannen. They were dining, Plant and Jury, at a local restaurant on roast beef and browned potatoes and drinking a Brazilian wine sturdy enough to stand up to beef and Yorkshire pudding. Melrose planned on mince pie for dessert.

  Jury lay down his knife and fork, tines spearing a bite of rare beef. He had thought he wouldn’t be able to eat. But hunger had consumed him. “As much as we dislike it, old friend, face it: the evidence points to her and her story’s terribly weak.”