Thirteen_The serial killer isn’t on trial. He’s on the jury

by Steve Cavanagh

  As we walked up the steps, the cop got up, nodded and held his finger against his lips. His eyes darted over my shoulder, then he winked at me and he said, “Come on in, officers.”

  I nodded. The fans outside were mourning Ariella. I hadn’t seen any T-shirts or posters of Bobby. If the cop let the crowd know we were representing Bobby things might get ugly. The cop pulled aside the crime scene tape and opened the front door a couple of feet, just enough for us to squeeze inside one by one. I could hear the rush of feet on the steps as the fans ran forward, hoping to catch a glimpse inside.

  “Get back,” said the cop. All of us made it inside and the cop closed the door behind him.

  “Goddamn, those kids are crazy,” he said. Harper approached the cop, her hand extended, “Hi, I’m Harper,” she said, smiling. She’d been a fed for a long time. The kinship to law enforcement was still strong.

  The cop put his hands in his coat pockets and said, “Back up, bitch. Don’t nobody touch nothin’. Be out of here in a half-hour.”

  “Welcome to world of criminal defense, Harper,” I said.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Before he’d left the apartment that morning, Kane had thrown open the tarp covering the bathtub. He’d reached down and pulled the plug, turned on the shower. Within a minute, he was rinsing brittle, white bone. Careful to gather up the bones and teeth, Kane wrapped them in a towel and hammered them to dust. He then sprinkled the dust into the soap powder box and closed it. The bullet he put in his pocket. It would find its way into the river or into a storm drain shortly after Kane left. Job done. He showered, put on a fresh bandage to his leg wound, dressed, applied his make-up, checked the ice-pack had sufficiently reduced the swelling to his face, put on his coat and made his way onto the street.

  Not long afterwards, Kane joined the line waiting to get through security outside the Center Street Criminal Courts Building. There were two lines. The people in Kane’s line all held letters with a red banner at the top, warning them that they had to report for jury duty.

  Both lines moved fast and it didn’t take Kane long to get inside out of the cold. Despite the stab wound, he wasn’t limping. No pain meant no natural alteration to his gait. He was searched, and had to put his jacket through the X-ray scanner. He didn’t bring his bag with him that day. No weapons of any kind. Way too risky. After security Kane was directed to a bank of elevators and told to report to a court officer who would be waiting on his floor. Crowded elevators always made Kane uncomfortable. People stink. Aftershave, deodorant, cigarettes and body odor. Lowering his head, Kane buried his nose in his thick scarf.

  He could feel the excitement in his gut, and he fought it down.

  The elevator doors opened onto a pale, marble tiled corridor and Kane followed the crowd to a round-faced court officer standing at a reception desk. Kane waited his turn. He affected a look of mild bewilderment. Checking his summons, checking his ID. Looking around, tapping his fingers against his belt buckle. The court officer sent the woman ahead of Kane into a large antechamber to the right of the reception desk. A tingle of electricity started at the back of Kane’s neck. Like somebody holding a hot bulb close to his skin. These delicious feelings of anxiety were a bonus for Kane. He loved the sensation.

  “Summons and ID, sir,” said the court officer. She wore bright red lipstick, some of which had smudged on her front teeth.

  Kane handed over the ID and summons and looked over the officer’s shoulder, toward the chamber behind her and to the right. She scanned the barcode on the summons, looked at the ID, glanced once at Kane, handed him back his ID and said, “Go on through and take a seat. The video presentation will be starting shortly. Next …”

  Kane took the ID, put it back in his wallet. The ID wasn’t his. The New York State driver’s license belonged to the man who’d disappeared in his bathtub the day before. Kane suppressed the urge to pump his fist in the air. It wasn’t always so easy to get past the ID check. Kane had chosen the mark well. Occasionally, even with the latex, dye job and make-up, Kane just couldn’t get close enough to the mark’s appearance. North Carolina had been one such occasion. The photo on the ID was over ten years old. Even the target himself didn’t look anything like the photo in his own ID. The court officer had stared at Kane and the driver’s license for a good two minutes, even called her supervisor before letting him through. Thankfully, New York was smiling on Kane today.

  The antechamber looked tarnished. There were still nicotine stains on the ceiling from the time when prospective jurors could smoke while they awaited their fate. Kane joined another twenty or so potential jurors in the room. Each sat on a chair with a swivel half-desk attached to one arm of the seat. Another court officer approached him and handed him two pieces of paper. One was a questionnaire, the other was an information pamphlet – Jury Service FAQ.

  Two seventy-five-inch TVs were mounted on the wall facing the desks. Kane completed the questionnaire, perhaps too quickly. He looked around and others were biting the top of their pens – thinking about their answers. The questionnaire had been designed to weed out jurors who knew any of the witnesses or major players in the trial ahead. It also asked generic questions designed to spot bias. None of the questions gave Kane any trouble – he was well-practiced in appearing neutral on paper.

  No sooner had Kane put down his pen, than the TVs came to life. He sat up straight, put his hands in his lap and paid attention to the instructional video. It was a short, fifteen-minute film made by judges and lawyers to introduce jurors to the concept of a trial, let them know who would be in the courtroom and what roles they have, and of course to explain what justice expected of the typical New York juror. They had to keep an open mind, not talk about the case with anyone until its conclusion, and pay attention to the evidence. In return, each juror would be paid forty dollars per day, either by their employer or by the courts. If the trial lasted over thirty days, the courts, at their discretion, added an extra six bucks per diem. Lunch would be provided. The court would not reimburse traveling expenses or parking.

  During pauses in the action, when the narrative stopped to change scenes, Kane glanced at the men and women sitting around him. A lot of them were more focused on their phones than the video. Some were paying attention. Some appeared to have drifted off to sleep. Kane looked back toward the screen, and that’s when he saw him.

  A man in a beige suit, standing under the alcove that led to this room. He was bald, and what little hair remained on each side of his head was slowly turning white. The man was overweight, but not obese. He carried an extra twenty or thirty pounds. No more. Spectacles hung at the end of his nose, almost as if they were about to slide off his face. The man kept his head down, pointed toward the screen on his smartphone. His fat thumb flicked over the screen. The light from the screen highlighted the man’s double chin, and made him look like a villain from a fifties horror movie. It also allowed Kane to get a view of the man’s dark, pitted eyes. They were a heavy brown, almost black. Small and pitiless. And those eyes were nowhere near the phone screen. Those eyes sought out each potential juror in turn. Lingering over them for four or maybe five seconds at most. An intense gaze. And then on to the next one.

  Perhaps only Kane noticed the man. He’d seen him before. He knew his name. No one else in the room had spotted him. The man liked it that way. Kane knew it. He dressed in a boring suit. White shirt and pale tie. And none of his clothes looked to have been bought in recent years. That suit was ten years old at least. There was nothing distinguishing about his face either. This was a man you could sit down opposite on the subway, for an hour, and within ten seconds of leaving the subway car you would not be able to recall a single thing about him.

  His name was Arnold Novoselic. Hired by Carp Law as their jury consultant for the Solomon trial. Night after night, for the past month, Kane had sat in the parking garage and watched Arnold moving faces around on a corkboard in the Carp Law offices. A whole team had been assembled to investigat
e every juror on the list. Photograph them. Probe their lives, their social media accounts, their bank accounts, their families, their beliefs. The man whose identity Kane had stolen had appeared on that board. And the face of the man he’d burned in a backlot last night.

  In many ways, Arnold was the acid test for Kane. If anyone could spot that Kane had stolen the life of a man in the jury pool, it would be Arnold. He was watching the jurors – seeing which ones were taking this seriously and which were not.

  All at once, Kane became hyper-aware that shortly Arnold’s beady eyes would fall on him. The thought made him take a breath. He felt hot. Sweat was Kane’s enemy. The make-up might run and slowly reveal the bruising around his eyes. While focusing on the screen, Kane absently took off his scarf and unbuttoned the collar of his shirt.

  And then he felt it. Arnold’s eyes were on him. He wanted to glance at him, to make sure, every nerve and instinct Kane possessed made him want to turn his head and stare back at Arnold. He didn’t. He kept his neck and head firm and looked at the screen. His peripheral vision picked up Arnold. He couldn’t be sure, but it looked like he’d put down the phone and was staring hard at him.

  Kane shifted in his seat. He felt like he was caught in a police floodlight. Frozen. Exposed. Kane willed the video to end. Then he could look around. Then he could check what Arnold was doing. Every moment was agony.

  Finally, the film ended and Kane looked at Arnold. He was staring to Kane’s right. He’d moved on to someone else. Taking a peach-colored napkin from his shirt pocket, Kane dabbed at this forehead, gently. The perspiration wasn’t as bad as he’d feared. Very little make-up came off on the napkin, and what had come off was roughly the same color as the paper. He’d thought ahead this time.

  Kane heard a court officer making her way from the back of the room to the front. Her boots echoed on the parquet floor. She turned around and faced the group. Behind her, Kane saw another line of potential jurors waiting to come into the room.

  The officer at the front of the room addressed the crowd.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attention. If you’d like to put your questionnaires, with your juror number marked on the top of the page, into the blue box at the back of the room and follow my colleague Jim into the courtroom. Before you go, in case it hasn’t been pointed out – this is the jury assembly room. If you are not selected to serve, please make your way back here and wait for a court officer. You are not free to leave if you have not been selected. Thank you.”

  Kane quickly gathered his things and walked fast to the back of the room. The closer he was to the top of the line, the better chance he’d have of getting a seat on the jury. He put his questionnaire into the box and stood in line behind a middle-aged woman with curly brown hair and a heavy green coat. She turned around and smiled at Kane.

  “Exciting, isn’t it,” she said.

  Kane nodded. This is it. He could plan, and work hard, even making mortal adjustments to the jury pool to increase his chances of being chosen by the defense, but it all came down to a bit of luck now. He’d been at this point before and failed. He reminded himself that he made his own luck, that he was smarter than everyone in that room.

  The doors at the back of the room opened, and beyond Kane could see a corridor. That corridor led to the courtroom. Finally, after all this time.

  His moment had arrived.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  There was ten feet of hard wooden flooring between the front door and the beginning of the white carpet that spread throughout the house. We all took time to wipe our feet on the welcome mat. The officer leaned up against the door and watched us. Before we came in I’d clocked the little black camera in a two o’clock position above the front door. I looked around the hallway, but couldn’t see an alarm panel.

  “Here,” said Harper.

  She hadn’t found the panel, but she’d found where it used to be. Four screw holes in the wall, just to the right of the door. There was even a light snow of plaster dust sitting on the skirting board.

  “Where’s the security panel?” I said.

  “It’s been removed for examination, probably,” said Harper. I made a note to ask Rudy about that when I saw him later.

  The hallway was wide enough for three of us to walk abreast, even with Holten being one of those three. He had to hang back when we reached the table that leant against the left-hand wall. Holten went ahead on his own, Harper and I let him pass, then walked side by side past the table. It looked antique. Rosewood, maybe. A lamp stood, unlit, on the table beside a phone, an internet router and a stack of unopened mail. The staircase was on the right.

  Holten hooked a left into what I guessed to be the kitchen. It looked bigger than what I’d imagined from the photos. Nothing untoward there. I glanced into the living room. The couches and chairs were torn up. Stuffing billowed out of the seats. There was one thing missing in the police files. And Bobby had been questioned about it extensively by the cops – they couldn’t find the knife that had been used on Ariella.

  The first floor contained a study and a room still full of boxes. A bathroom and two spare bedrooms. Nothing of significance. A large window on the landing gave me a good view of the back garden. It was small, walled in and overgrown. No ladders that I could see. In any event, the back door had been locked from the inside. No way anyone could’ve fled the scene that way.

  The second floor housed the master bedroom. We went upstairs. Harper first.

  One thing that was missing was the overturned table on the landing that sat beneath a window. I’d seen it in the crime scene photos along with a broken vase lying on the floor.

  The master bedroom held all the secrets. Harper went in first. She stopped, pulled the top of her T-shirt out of the collar of her jacket and hooked it over her nose.

  “It’s dusty. Dust kills my sinuses,” she said.

  Again, I saw little furniture. A bedside table with a reading lamp. A dressing table. Both were white. The mirror on the dressing table was surrounded by forty-watt bulbs, the kind you’d see in a theatre dressing room. The bed had an antique, oval headboard. Wrought iron painted white, and twisted into patterns with decorative flowers painted red.

  The mattress was still in place. A red and brown circular stain lay on one side of the bed from when Ariella bled out. No bloodstains that I could see on Carl’s side. Harper stifled a sneeze. The place had lain empty for the best part of a year. While the house had a fusty kind of smell, there seemed to be a lot of dust in this room, and another smell. I thought it smelled like rust and bad cheese. The smell of old blood.

  I closed my eyes and tried to ignore Harper. My mind filled with the images of the crime scene captured by the NYPD photographer. I thought about the bed covers lying on the floor, the bat in the corner, the way Ariella and Carl lay in the bed.

  “Cops don’t have the knife, do they?” said Harper.

  I kept my eyes shut, said “No. They tested all the knives in the house. None had any trace of blood and they didn’t quite match the wound pattern. They checked the garden. The attic. Tore the place apart at one stage. I imagine they even trawled the sewer. No knife. It gives us a fighting chance. We can argue that whoever killed Ariella took the knife with them when they left.”

  I heard Harper step across the room. Floorboards creaking beneath the carpet. I opened my eyes, and stepped slowly around the bed. Not a drop of blood on that carpet. The only bloodstain on the floor was in the corner and came from the bat.

  Harper pulled her T-shirt down, reached behind her back and fetched a bottle of water from the hip pocket of her jeans. She unscrewed the cap and took a drink. She must’ve breathed in with the water in her mouth, as a sudden sneeze and a cough shook her. Water spilled from between her fingers as she tried to cover her mouth.

  “Shit, sorry,” she said, and pulled her tee back up over her mouth.

  “You okay? It’s just water, don’t worry,” I said.

  I came over and saw a
small damp patch in the carpet, and some droplets on the bed. I knelt down and rubbed the carpet with a handkerchief, dried it up.

  “I’m sorry, Eddie,” she said.

  “It’s fine,” I said. I was about to get up and wipe down the mattress when I stopped. There were fine droplets of water sitting on top of the mattress. They hadn’t dried in. Harper put her palm on the mattress and quickly brushed away the droplets. I felt the mattress. It was bone dry.

  We both looked at the bloodstain on the bed. Looked at each other.

  “Son of a bitch,” said Harper.

  I nodded. She took her bottle of water from her pocket and dribbled at little on the mattress. The water lay there in fat pearls.

  We waited.

  Thirty seconds later the water was still there. Harper tapped at her phone, and I heard the digital sound effect of a camera shutter.

  “We need a bed sheet,” said Harper.

  “I’m way ahead of you,” I said, opening up the closet doors. Two of the built-in closets contained Ariella’s clothes. A third closet held bunched-up linen sheets and bedclothes. I imagined that they had originally been folded neatly, but the cops had rifled through every inch of the place searching for the murder weapon that had been used on Ariella. I pulled out a sheet and laid it on top of the stain, then doubled it over. Harper lay down on it. I lay beside her. We looked at each other. Harper was smiling. I hadn’t seen her since we wrapped on a case about a year ago. I’d spent many hours with her, working closely, talking, holding on for dear life in the passenger seat of her car while she drove.