Madriani - 02 - Prime Witness

by Steve Martini

  “And why did you do that?”

  “Because certain facts came to light during our investigation, which caused us to suspect that this was not the case. That there was more than one killer at work here.”

  “Can you tell the jury what those factors were?”

  “There were several discrepancies with the Scofield murders that did not square with the others. The age of the victims for one thing. They were older than the college-age students taken in the first four murders. The method of killing was somewhat different,” he says.

  “Also,” he says, “there was considerable facial disfigurement on one of the Scofield victims, Karen Scofield, a practice that was not followed in the murders of any of the other victims.”

  He could reach for more, the blind in the trees, the dead birds at the site, the inkling that these have something to do with the Scofield crimes. But Claude is conservative. We have decided to stay away from these things for the time being.

  “And what did you conclude, based upon these differences?”

  “That there was a second killer, working independently, who was responsible for killing the Scofields, a copycat killer,” he says. “Someone who apparently had followed the details of the first four murders sufficiently to mimic them closely, but not precisely.”

  “In your years in law enforcement have you ever experienced or heard of such a so-called copycat crime?”

  “It’s not unheard of,” he says. “I’ve never investigated one before, but I know of cases.”

  “And at the present time, the officers investigating the Scofield murders, are they continuing to operate on the belief that another killer, not Mr. Iganovich, is responsible for the Scofield crimes?”

  “They are,” he says, “unless and until we receive other evidence, other information that may cause us to change our minds.”

  Claude and I have carefully gone over this, some middle ground giving us enough wiggle room to charge the Russian if the evidence turns up, if we can find our prime witness. I take my chair, turn Claude over to Chambers.

  Adrian is slow, deliberate in his movements toward the witness.

  “May I approach?” he says, asking permission of Ingel to walk up to Claude on the stand. Adrian’s holding photographs in his hand.

  “You may,” says Ingel.

  “Lieutenant Dusalt. I’m going to show you some photographs and ask you if you can identify these.” He hands three eight-by-ten glossies to Claude. About the same time Bob Haselid, Adrian’s Keenan Counsel, delivers a set to the judge and drops another on me. These are investigative photographs of the Scofield murder scene, subpoenaed from our files by Adrian during discovery. He has everything but pictures of the bird blind, which is still under wraps of Judge Fisher’s modified discovery order, at least until we can find the witness.

  “Do you recognize these photographs?” says Adrian.

  Claude studies them, turns them over to examine the evidence stamp on the back. “They’re taken by our department,” he says.

  “The Davenport County Sheriff’s Department?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what do they depict? What are these pictures of?”

  “They are various angle shots of the victims, Karen and Abbott Scofield and the murder scene.”

  “Did you direct the taking of these photographs?”

  “I did.”

  “You have the other photographs there, next to you.” Adrian’s pointing to the shots I have already put into evidence, what is left of my legion of photographs.

  He reaches in and grabs one of these. “This is a good one,” he says. He holds it up from a distance to show the judge and me. It’s a closeup of a hand, a fist clenched in the agonies of death, flesh the color of blued steel. This is blood trapped, coagulated at the extremity by the confines of the cord, tightly coiled around the wrist.

  “What is this photograph?”

  Claude looks at it, reads the label on the back side. “That’s the right hand of Jonathan Snider.”

  “Good. Now look at this photograph.”

  Claude takes the second shot from Chambers, again reading the label on the back. He looks at the lawyer.

  “Can you identify that photograph, lieutenant?”

  “It’s the right hand of the victim Abbott Scofield.”

  “Looking at the two photographs side-by-side, can you tell me,” says Adrian, “is there any difference in the way the rope is tied around the wrist of each of the victims?”

  “No, a common loop,” says Claude.

  “And the knot used to tie the cord, any difference between the two knots?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “Well, you’re the investigating officer, if there was a difference in the knots you’d be aware of it, wouldn’t you?”

  “I suppose.”

  “Well, is there a difference?”

  “No, it’s a common knot. If I were to tie ten, I’d probably tie nine like that myself.”

  “But there’s no difference?” says Adrian, coming back to the point at hand.

  “No. There’s no difference.”

  “Besides the knots and the way the victims were tied off on the ground, was there any difference in the position of the victims on the ground as between the college students and the Scofield victims?”

  Claude thinks for a moment. “No appreciable difference.”

  “Was there any difference?”

  “No.” A grudging admission.

  “The metal stake that was used to kill each of the six victims, the students and the Scofields, was there any difference in the positioning of this stake in the bodies, generally?”

  “Objection. The witness is not a medical expert.” I’m up trying to give Claude a little close cover.

  “I’m not asking for medical expertise,” says Chambers. He turns on me. “I assume the witness knows the difference between the head on the human anatomy, and the abdomen. Were all of the stakes driven into the abdomen in generally the same location, at roughly the same angle?”

  “The witness may answer,” says Ingel.

  Chambers smiles at me, tight, intense.

  “Yes.” No more from Claude but the bare essentials.

  He takes Claude over the falls on the arrangement of clothing, in an arc over the heads of all six victims, and draws a quick concession that there was no marked difference in the arrangement of these items in the Scofield cases from the others.

  Chambers moves away from the stand, a few steps.

  “Now the facial disfigurement,” he says. “You make a big thing of the facial disfigurement of Karen Scofield.”

  “I guess I’m funny that way,” says Claude. “To me, tearing an eye from the head of a human being is a big thing.”

  Ingel looks at him sharply, but says nothing.

  “You know what I mean,” says Chambers. “Is it really that significant in terms of distinguishing one of these killings from the others?”

  “According to some people,” says Claude. “The psychiatrists and psychologists who study such things.”

  “Oh, so then you’re relying on the advice of others in this.”

  “Yes.”

  “So you yourself wouldn’t know whether such facial disfigurement is significant, a basis to distinguish these crimes?”

  “Not really.”

  Adrian seems happy with this.

  “And of course,” he says, “if the facial disfigurement were incidental to the crime, an unintended consequence of other violence, it might take on less significance, perhaps no significance at all?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Isn’t it possible that this injury could have happened during the physical altercation prior to death, perhaps when the victim was being initially attacked or restrained, that it was not specifically intended?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well surely, lieutenant, during your years as a law enforcement officer you’ve seen injuries arising from assault
s, physical altercations between people? Haven’t you ever seen an injury to the eye occasioned during such an altercation?”

  “I suppose,” he says.

  “And if a perpetrator of a crime attacked six separate people assaulting each of them, and in one case he just happened to injure an eye, perhaps take an eye out during the altercation, would you attribute any particular significance to that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “If it was unintended?” he says. “I mean if you knew it was unintended, you wouldn’t go running off and assume that because of the eye injury, that this crime necessarily was committed by a different perpetrator?”

  “Not if I knew it was an unintended injury.”

  “Then it would really be insignificant, wouldn’t it?”

  “Yes. I suppose.”

  “Lieutenant Dusalt, do you know whether the loss of Karen Scofield’s eye was intentional or unintentional?”

  Claude looks at me.

  “I’m going to object to that,” I say. “Calls for medical expertise.”

  “No. No,” says Chambers. “I’m not asking him for any opinion on his part. I want to know whether he has any facts, knows of any information from whatever source, that would inform him as to whether the eye of Karen Scofield was removed intentionally or was the result of some unintentional act.”

  “The witness will answer the question,” says Ingel.

  “I don’t know.”

  “So you do not know whether it was the result of an intentional act?”

  “No.”

  “So you don’t know whether it’s really significant or not, do you?”

  The many faces of pain from Claude on the stand. It is the problem with logic, how it has a way of coming around and biting you in the butt.

  “Well?” says Chambers.

  “No,” says Claude. “I don’t know for certain whether it’s significant.”

  “Well, we can disregard that then, can’t we?”

  Nothing but stone silence and deadly looks from Claude.

  Like pulling a set of rear molars, Adrian has dragged him this far.

  “Let’s talk,” he says, “about the cord used to tie the victims and the metal stakes. Let’s take the cord first,” he says. Adrian looks at me as he says this.

  “This is pretty common stuff, isn’t it? I mean you or I could go out and purchase a similar type of cord in a dozen different stores in this town today if we wanted to, couldn’t we?”

  “I haven’t counted the stores that sell it.”

  “But it’s not just sold in one store?”

  “No.”

  “This is what we commonly refer to as clothesline cord, isn’t it?”

  “I’ve heard it called that.”

  “It’s made up of interior filaments and covered with a white plastic sheathing?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the metal tent stakes, these were common metal stakes, L-shaped, with a point at one end, what I would find if I went into a store that sold hiking gear, back-packing equipment?”

  “I suppose.”

  “Now you testified,” says Adrian, “that one of the factors that caused you to change your theory that it was a single common murderer who killed all of the victims, including the Scofields, was the fact that different cord and stakes were used in the Scofield case from the other murders?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “How did these differ?”

  “They were made by different manufacturers.”

  “And you could tell this when you looked at them?”

  “No. I was advised by our lab.”

  Adrian gives him a questioning look.

  “The State Crime Lab,” says Claude.

  I could object on grounds of hearsay, but what is coming in here is doing us no harm. It will only serve to reinforce what Sellig will tell the jury later.

  “So the cord used in the student murders was all made by the same company, and the same is true about the stakes. Whereas the cord used to tie down the Scofield victims was made by another manufacturer, as were the stakes?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “There was nothing else, no other characteristic other than the point of manufacture that served to distinguish these items one from the other?”

  Claude looks at me, a dilemma. He would, of course, like to tell the jury that all of the pieces of cord used in the student murders came from a common length, the balance of which was found in the defendant’s van, but he has a problem. Without the missing piece we cannot say this.

  I’m out of my chair. “Your honor, may we approach the bench?”

  Ingel waves us on.

  Adrian and I huddle with the judge.

  Ingel is being scrupulous here. He cannot allow the state to put testimony on the record concerning evidence we may not be able to produce. Adrian of course knows this, and has struck early to force the issue, to exploit this weakness in our case.

  “Your honor, Mr. Chambers knows we have not had time to find the missing piece of cord. He knows there is a common link for all of these pieces. He’s trying to put the issue before the jury before we can locate it.”

  Chambers looks at me. “You lost the cord,” he says.

  I ignore him, appeal to the judge. “But the witness can’t answer the question truthfully,” I say.

  Ingel puts a little pressure on Chambers, subtle hints that maybe he could withdraw this line of questioning, reserve it for a later witness, perhaps Sellig.

  “It’s a fair question,” says Adrian. “Nothing improper,” he says. “It is one thing to ask the court to give some leeway, another to ask me to lay down and roll over.”

  Ingel looks at me. “Does your witness have the missing piece of cord?”

  “You know he doesn’t, your honor.”

  “Then the truthful answer to the question is no.” He cuts me off before I can say more, puts an end to the little sidebar. We retreat.

  Chambers has the question read to the witness by the court reporter.

  Claude sits composed in the box. While we have been talking he has been thinking.

  “The answer to your questions is yes,” he says, “there was another characteristic difference in these items,” he says.

  Ingel nearly tears his head off, turning to look at the witness, ready to come out of his chair at the mention of the cord.

  “The metal stakes,” says Claude, “the ones used to kill the students were each sharpened to a point, probably on a grinding wheel. The ones used to kill the Scofields were not.”

  Adrian looks at him, dead in the eyes.

  “I was thinking about the cord,” he says. “Were there any other differences, other than the common manufacturer, that would distinguish the cord in the student cases from the Scofield cord?”

  Claude bites his lip.

  “Answer the question,” says Ingel.

  “Not at this time,” he says.

  “Yes or no?” says Adrian. “Were there any other . . .”

  “No.”

  “Thank you.”

  Chambers moves away from the witness stand, takes a few seconds to regroup, and then comes back at Claude.

  “Now, Lieutenant Dusalt, isn’t it possible under the circumstances that you describe that a single killer could have murdered all six of the victims in question, the students as well as the Scofields, and simply used different cord and metal stakes for the last two murders, the Scofields?”

  “Possible,” he says.

  “I mean these items are readily available to anyone who wants to purchase them at a number of stores, are they not?”

  “Yes.”

  “And if you did purchase them, there’s no absolute assurance that they would be of the same manufacture as the original cord and stakes used in the first four murders, is there?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “As long as we’re supposing,” says Adrian, “let’s suppose that whoever killed the students discarded his supply of
cord and stakes after the second set of murders. Threw them away,” he says, “maybe dumped them in a trash can, or better yet, tossed them through an open window of a vehicle in a public garage, some stranger’s vehicle, to get rid of them,” he says. “Suppose this had happened. Wouldn’t it be necessary for this person to obtain other cord and stakes?”

  I’m about to come up and object when Claude answers.

  “Unless he had access to the vehicle where they were dumped,” says Claude. “Then I would think he would go back and get them.”

  “Oh, but let’s suppose that he didn’t have access to such a vehicle. Then he’d have to get new cord, new stakes, wouldn’t he?”

  “Objection, calls for speculation on the part of the witness.”

  “Sustained.”

  Claude does not answer. He does not have to. The picture painted by Adrian for the jury is clear, bold and blunt, all the finesse of a crayon wielded by a child. Still, it is effective, like any good defense, simple and consistent.

  “Lieutenant Dusalt, you talked earlier about the defendant’s van, found in the public garage on the university campus. You’re aware that at the time the van was discovered by authorities that a rear window on the passenger side of that vehicle was broken, smashed out?”

  “I am.”

  “During the course of your investigation did you, your department, or the prosecutor form any theories as to how that window came to be broken?”

  It is the problem when you follow a lead, search for evidence and come up empty. This is now pointed out to the jury.

  “For a while we thought that perhaps the window had been broken as an act of random vandalism.” Claude does his best to make this sound as if we abandoned this theory. It doesn’t work.

  “Did you conduct an investigation on the basis of that theory? Did you search for such a vandal?”

  “We did.”

  “And were you successful in finding that person, the person responsible for breaking the window of the van?”

  “No.”

  “I have nothing further of this witness,” he says.

  From beyond the interpreter I can see a big smile, broken pickets and a lot of yellow to the gums, Andre Iganovich looking my way.

  I look over at Lenore, at the sinking feeling written on the wrinkles of her brow. Many more days like this and Adrian will not need much for his case-in-chief. A few carefully crafted lies could break our back.