“Right. How did you know?”
“What did Rudy tell you about why you were being hired?”
“I kind of worked it out. I’m an expendable asset. I go after the cops. If it doesn’t hit home with the jury, I get dropped by the defense team and they get to make like it never happened. I’m a buffer between Rudy and the jury. He gets to keep his reputation with the jurors if the play doesn’t work out. It’s not a great deal, but I want to help this guy, Bobby. I know he’s a movie star, and all, but I like him. And I think he’s innocent.”
“I guess Rudy needed a story you’d buy. In a way, it’s more convincing if you believe you’re not getting a good deal. It explains why they hired you the day before jury selection.”
It was my turn to get nervous. I sat up straight and gave Harry my full attention.
“Harry, stop messing around. Spit it out.”
“Judge Collins called me Friday. Said she felt really strange. I wasn’t surprised. For the past year she’s been handling the trial prep for the Solomon case. There’s already been a dozen evidential hearings, motions to dismiss, you name it. Two weeks ago she moved into a hotel so she could have space and peace to work. Rowena Collins, for all her faults, is a judge that doesn’t mind hard work. Anyway, I thought it was stress. Case like that takes a toll.”
Harry trailed off, lost in thought. I said nothing. He would tell me the rest when he’d gathered his thoughts.
“The hospital called me on Saturday morning. Rita had collapsed the night before, not long after we’d spoken. If it hadn’t been for her regular room service delivery she might have died. A busboy found her on the floor. She was in respiratory failure. Thank God somebody found her when they did. Paramedics saved her life. She had some kind of cardiac episode and she’s receiving intensive care. Critical, but stable. I saw her today. She’s in bad shape.
“Apart from everything else, it put the Solomon trial in jeopardy. I didn’t have anyone that could abandon their dockets for two weeks – so I stepped in. I’m the judge in the Solomon case.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Harry left my office pissed as all hell. He didn’t like lawyers trying to game the system. The way Harry figured it, Rudy Carp was calling Harry’s impartiality into question. There’s no problem with lawyers and judges being friends. Judges don’t drop their lawyer buddies soon as they get appointed to the bench. Lawyers and judges maintain friendships outside the courtroom, so do some prosecutors and defense attorneys. And when they find themselves in court together, they play by the rules. It’s accepted. For one reason only. If they are on opposite sides, that relationship is stalled for the duration of the case. As long as I was part of Bobby Solomon’s defense team, I couldn’t drink or socialize with Harry. And that was what grated on him the most.
I took the laptop out of the briefcase, powered it up, and called Rudy Carp.
“Eddie, you couldn’t have read the whole file already?” said Rudy.
“I haven’t opened it yet. Just having a drink with my pal, Harry Ford.”
Silence.
I waited for Rudy to say something. The only thing I heard was his breath on the line. Part of me wanted him to just admit it. Another part of me wanted him to stay silent, and squirm a little.
“Rudy, I should probably quit.”
“No, no, no, no. Don’t quit. Look, I had to hook you into the case somehow. And you’re an excellent lawyer, Eddie. We wouldn’t have you on the case if we didn’t think you were good.”
“How do I believe anything you say, now?”
“Look, what I told you is still true. We need somebody to go after the cops. You can do a great job working that angle. You’ve done it before. If you miss and hit the wall, we’re still going to fire you to save face with the jury. If you happen to be best friends with the judge, well, maybe he won’t be inclined to burn us for what you did. That wouldn’t reflect too well on his pal, Eddie Flynn, now would it?”
It was smart. There are plenty of good lawyers in this town. Plenty with experience of roasting cops on the stand. Not many are best friends with Harry Ford.
“If you think Harry will give your client an easy ride because of me, you’re mistaken.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not questioning the judge’s character. He’s not biased in our favor. I’m not saying that, but this strategy is risky. If the jury aren’t buying it, Judge Ford won’t let it reflect badly on our client, or you. That’s all I’m saying. That doesn’t make him biased, that makes him fair.”
It was my turn to bite my tongue. I wanted to tell Rudy that I quit. That I would be sending the laptop right back with Holten. The laptop screen prompted me for a password. While I thought of what to say, I typed in “NotGuilty1” and the screen changed. An image of Bobby Solomon flashed up in front of me. Bobby and Ariella, in Christmas sweaters in their Brownstone, standing in front of a Christmas tree. The photo showed two young people who clearly did love each other. They held hands, and looked at one another. There was a promise in their gaze. A promise to each other. If I quit, I let Bobby down. For the wrong reasons.
“I don’t like being used. You want me on the case, then the price just went up.”
“I can see how this could make you angry, but we don’t have an unlimited budget. Maybe we could sweeten the money a little, so there’s no hard feelings. How about an extra twenty-five per cent?”
“How about a partnership at Carp Law? Junior partner. Full benefits. And I pick my cases. I don’t need another bump of money to get me through the next six months. What I need is a steady job that doesn’t put my head on the block.”
“That’s quite the ask,” said Rudy.
“It’s quite a case,” I said.
He paused. I could hear him mumbling as he thought it over.
“How about a two-year contract as a senior associate? You bill your targets for two years, like every other senior associate, and we make you a junior partner. That’s about the best I can do, Eddie,” said Rudy.
“I’ll take my original fee and the deal,” I said. The fee would help, but I needed a job. Christine wanted me to have a regular gig that didn’t get me or my family into trouble. That might go a long way to repairing our relationship, as well as providing a future.
“You got it,” he said.
“Great, now what else haven’t you told me about this case?”
“Nothing. I swear it. Read the file. And again, I’m sorry about the judge thing. It’s not like I could’ve kept it a secret. You would’ve found out anyway, soon as you walked into court. Look, I think Bobby is innocent. I know it. I feel it. You know how rare that is for me? I would do anything to get this kid off. Read the file, and you’ll see our case. Call me in the morning. I’ve got jury selection at nine.”
He hung up.
I wondered then, exactly how far Rudy would be willing to go to save his client.
My fingers slid across the touchpad and brought up a selection of files on the home screen. No internet browser, no apps, nothing on this laptop apart from the files. There were five of them. Statements and Depositions. Photographic material. Forensics. Defense statements. Defense experts.
I grabbed a pencil off my desk, spun it around my fingers. It somehow allowed me to think better. It also kept my hands sharp. Before I was a lawyer, I’d worked all kinds of cons. Some required the ability to lift a wallet, a set of keys or a cell phone. My father always told me to keep my hands smart – which meant practice to maintain my reflexes and hand speed. So if I was thinking about something, it helped if I picked up a pen or a poker chip and ran it over my knuckles.
The first three files made up the prosecution case. The files marked “defense statements,” and “defense experts” were made up of material generated by Carp Law. Most lawyers would go straight to the prosecution case, open up the statements and depositions and read every word. Each one is a story. An individual’s recollections. Together they made up an overall narrative. This was the narrative the pro
secution would try to feed to the jury.
The worst thing about narratives is that they’re often unreliable.
My approach was a little different. The real story was in the photographs. Crime scene photos don’t lie. They’re not witnesses. They can’t make a mistake, they can’t hide the truth. And it made me imagine the prosecution’s case. What kind of case would I build against Bobby Solomon if I were a prosecutor. In a murder trial it’s not enough to know what your defense is going to be – you need to know what moves the DA is going to make, and plan for them.
The photos loaded on screen in a gallery view. Only the first one wasn’t a photo. It was video. I hit play.
The screen turned black and for a moment I thought the video hadn’t loaded properly. Then I saw that it was the security feed for a camera mounted outside somebody’s front door. I could see the street below. A man in a hoodie and black jeans walked up the steps to the front door. Head down. No doubt his eyes were glued to the iPod screen he held in front of him. He flicked through some kind of list on the screen. A white cable led to earbuds. The man paused at the door, then when it opened he raised his head slightly. Enough for me to get a grainy view of a pale thin face and the beginnings of heavy, dark sunglasses. The man disappeared from view, presumably going inside.
The time stamp said 21:02.
Bobby Solomon on video getting home just after nine.
Switching off the video, I returned to the photographs. I could tell from the first image that somebody from the DA’s office had attended the scene of the murders. The first batch of photos showed the front door. Smart.
It was an ordinary, thick, wood-paneled door. Painted dark green, recently. The photos had been taken that night, and the flash shone in the relatively fresh paint. A thick brass door knob sat in the center of the door. A close-up of the lock showed it to be in pristine condition. No chipping around the paint in this area. No damage to the lock. No damage to the door at all.
With two people lying butchered in the room upstairs, taking photos of a perfectly ordinary front door wouldn’t be too high on the NYPD priority list. They want to catch a killer. Every minute they spend at the scene is designed to do just that. The DA’s office has a different mindset. They want to make sure that when the killer is caught, they get convicted. Part of that process is anticipating a potential line of defense – that an intruder murdered Ariella Bloom and Carl Tozer – and cutting it off at the source.
No damage to the front door or lock.
I brought up the next set of photos. This is the beginning of the story. A series of shots taken of the hallway, living rooms, kitchen, the upstairs bathrooms, the spare bedrooms, every room in the house that didn’t have two dead bodies in it.
The décor looked to be the same throughout the property. Modern. Minimalist. Everything in shades of white, gray, or beige. Only the odd splash of color here and there. A purple cushion on a taupe couch. A red, abstract canvas on the kitchen wall and an impressionist seascape in shades of muted blue hung on the living-room wall above a white fireplace. Everything looked impeccably clean and tidy. It looked like a house bought straight out of a catalog. There was no stamp on it. Nothing to say two young people lived there. Maybe they didn’t get to spend too much time in the place given their professions.
Ten minutes of looking through the pictures cleared up a few questions. There was a back door. It was locked, with the key still in the deadbolt on the inside. On the outside of the back door was an ornamental metal grille. Padlocked. No signs of damage to either door.
The carpets were almost white. It looked like a fine covering of day-old snow on the floor. Soft. Fluffy. The kind of place where you take off your shoes at the door. The whole house was covered in this carpet. One drop of blood would be easy to spot. There were none.
The only photo that really stood out was the second-floor landing. A table was overturned and a broken vase lay on the floor. The table had sat beneath a large window, with ornate coving around it. People paid dearly for original features on a property like this. The next photo was the first of more than two dozen showing the murder scene. A violent death tells its own story. It’s written on the victims. In their wounds. On their skin. Sometimes, in their eyes.
I’d never seen anything like this.
The NYPD crime scene photographer had taken the first shot standing at the foot of the bed. Ariella lay face-up on the left side of the bed, closest to the window facing the street. Carl lay beside her, on the right. The duvet was piled on the floor, beside Carl. Ariella wore pants, but nothing else. Her arms were by her sides, feet together. Mouth open. Eyes open. Her torso was red. A small pool of blood had formed in her belly button. I could see darker blotches dotted all over her chest. Stab wounds. The sheet beneath her was red too. Only spots of blood on her neck. No staining on her face, or her legs.
Carl lay on his right side, naked, facing Ariella. His legs were bent at the knee and his torso curled forward. From this angle his body lay almost in the shape of a swan. Far as I could see, there wasn’t a single mark on him. No stab wounds. No bruising. He looked peaceful. As if he’d just curled up beside her and died. It wasn’t until I saw a photo of his back that I saw the cause of death. The back of his head had been caved in. There was little blood, a dark red stain below his head, but from the shape of the wound a single blow had likely killed him. That probably accounted for his body position; legs curled up, in almost a fetal position, and head pointed down from the force of the blow.
Criminal defense attorneys, like cops, get used to looking at the horrific finality of life, the violence that we write on each other’s bodies. It’s human nature. If you do something often enough, it ceases to hold the same meaning, it ceases to have the same impact as it did the first time.
I had never gotten used to looking at violent death. I prayed I never would, because that part of me would die and never return. And I needed it. I welcomed that pain. A man and a woman had been ripped from this world – everything they had in life and everything that they would ever become had been taken from them. One word rolled around in my head. Innocent. Innocent. Innocent. They did nothing to deserve this.
Snap.
I looked at my hand and found I’d stopped twirling the pencil. I’d been gripping it so tightly I’d snapped it in two without realizing.
Whatever else my job entailed, I owed a duty to Ariella and Carl. Whoever had visited this hell upon them had to be punished. If that person was Bobby, then he had to be dealt with by the law. Somehow, looking at the victims, I became even more doubtful that Bobby was capable of such a thing.
Then I remembered. Deep down, we’re all capable.
The causes of death, from what I’d seen, didn’t fit exactly with what the media were reporting. The newspapers and TV were saying both victims were hacked to pieces in some kind of jealous, frenzied attack. That wasn’t what I saw in the photos. And no stab wounds on Carl. Scrolling through a further set of photos led me to a close-up of a baseball bat on the bedroom floor. The business end of the bat looked as though it had been responsible for Carl’s head injury.
Playing it through in my mind, what I’d seen didn’t quite fit somehow. The killer had access to the house. He snuck in, or walked in with the keys, went up to the bedroom and found Ariella and Carl in bed. Carl would the first victim. It made sense to take out the biggest threat first. Delivering a wooden bat to the head with enough force to break the skull is going to make noise. A lot of noise. There would be no way to muffle that sound without lessening the impact damage of the blow itself. And yet Ariella had no defensive wounds. No cuts or bruises on her arms or hands. It appeared as though the first or second stab wound must’ve been fatal. Or at least severe enough to render her immobile.
Something was off about this scene.
Before I finished with the photo files, there were just two more collections. One had shots of Bobby Solomon. He was dressed in a red hooded top, white tee, and black track pants. The sleeve
s of the hooded sweatshirt had blood on them. His hands too. No blood anywhere else.
The last set of photos worried me. They were taken in the morgue. Carl Tozer lay naked on the steel table. I saw, for the first time, a thin purple bruise about three inches long across his throat. Like he’d been hit with a thin metal rod, or something had been briefly strung around his throat and tugged hard. But that wasn’t what worried me. The bruising didn’t cause death, and may have been lividity; blood pooling in the fat around his neck as the heart stopped pumping.
No, it was the next set of images that worried me. The series of photos closed in on his mouth.
There was something under his tongue.
The photographer had switched to video to capture this last twist. I hit play. I watched a long set of metal tweezers entering Carl’s mouth. When they came back out again they held something in their jaws that at first I didn’t recognize. Whatever it was, it landed in a petri dish, and another set of tweezers worked on it. It looked like a note, folded in half with a small cone attached to it. The cone looked to be around the same size as the top of a pen. Both sets of tweezers worked on the note, unfolding it and the camera zoomed in.
This hadn’t been in the papers. No way.
It wasn’t a note. It was a bill. A one-dollar bill – folded many, many times. On the reverse side of a buck is the great seal of the United States. And in each corner of the bill is a figure “1” which sits behind the word “ONE”. This representation sits on what looks like a spider’s web. This bill had been folded in such a way that each corner looked like a pattern, or marking on a wing. Four wings spreading out from the central cone shape. Only the cone was the intricate fold of the center of the bill. It had been shaped to look like a thorax, and below, an abdomen. Spreading out from the thorax, on each side, was a forewing and a hindwing.
The killer had folded a one-dollar bill to look like a butterfly and put it in Carl Tozer’s mouth.
Thirteen_The serial killer isn’t on trial. He’s on the jury Page 7