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

by Steve Cavanagh

  I nodded, told him to calm down. Arnold whispered, “Pryor’s got the jury. You have to shake them out of it.”

  He was right. Pryor had used an old attorney’s trick called the mathematical truth. It’s all about the number three. Every word Pryor used had been carefully weighted, tested and rehearsed. And it all revolved around the number three.

  Three really is the magic number. It holds some kind of important place in our minds and we see it all the time in our culture and daily lives. If you get a call from a wrong number once, well that’s just life. If you get the same call from a wrong number again – that’s coincidence. If you get a third call – you know something is going on. The number three equates to some form of truth or fact in our subconscious. It is somehow divine. Jesus rose on the third day. The Holy Trinity. Third time lucky. Three strikes and you’re out.

  Pryor made three promises. He said the word “guilty” three times. He said the word “three”. He held up three fingers. The rhythms and cadences of his speech revolved around the number three.

  I’m not going to speculate, I’m not going to theorize, I’m going to show you the truth … this case is about sex, money and revenge … he plunged the knife into her body over and over and over again.

  Even the structure of Pryor’s speech was built around that number.

  First, he told the jury he was going to tell them three things. Second, he told them three things. Third, he told them what he’d just said.

  He had every right to look pleased with himself. It was well rehearsed, well thought-out, psychologically manipulative and persuasive as all hell.

  Before I stood to speak, I met Bobby’s worried stare. I knew what he was thinking. He was wondering if he had the right lawyer. His life was on the line. People usually don’t get second chances at a murder trial.

  I didn’t take it personally. If I was in Bobby’s shoes, I’d probably feel the same way. I stood up, buttoned my suit jacket and stood just a few feet from the jury stand. Just close enough to be intimate.

  While Pryor spoke with the force and command of a seasoned actor, I kept my voice at a level which the jury could hear, but it wouldn’t hit the back of the room. As devastating as Pryor had been, he had revealed one weakness – vanity.

  “My name is Eddie Flynn. I now represent the defendant, Robert Solomon. Unlike Mr. Pryor, I don’t need you to remember my name. I’m not important. What I believe, doesn’t matter. And I’m not going to make you any promises. I’m going to ask you to do one thing. I want each of you to keep the promise you made yesterday when you took the bible in your hand and you swore to deliver a true and faithful verdict in this case.

  “You see, when you became a juror you took on a responsibility. You are responsible for every person in this courtroom, for every person in this state, for every person in this country. We have a justice system which says that it is better that a hundred guilty men go free, than one innocent man goes to prison. You are responsible for every innocent man and woman who is accused of a crime. You have to protect them.”

  I took a step forward. Two of the female jurors leaned toward me, and one man. My hands gripped the rail of the stand, and I bent low.

  “Right now, the law of our country says Robert Solomon is innocent. The prosecution have to change your mind. They have to convince you beyond all reasonable doubt that he committed these murders. Keep that in your head. Are you sure that everything you hear from the prosecution is right? Is it true? Is that what really happened? Or could it have happened another way? Could it have been someone else who killed Ariella Bloom and Carl Tozer?

  “The defense will show you that there is someone else who the prosecution have overlooked. Someone else who left their mark at the crime scene. Someone who the FBI have been chasing for years. Someone who has killed before, many times. Could it have been this killer? At the end of this trial, you’ll have to ask yourselves that question. If the answer is yes then you send Robert Solomon home.”

  I held onto the rail, eyeballed each juror, then made my way back to the defense table. On the way, I couldn’t resist glancing at Pryor.

  His gaze spoke loud and clear – Game on.

  For the first time today I saw something blossom behind Bobby’s eyes. Something small, but significant.

  Hope.

  Arnold leaned over and gestured that I should do likewise.

  “Good job. The jury ate that up. There was this one juror …” he said, but Pryor had gotten to his feet and Arnold saw him do it.

  “It’s nothing, doesn’t matter,” he said.

  “The prosecution calls Detective Joseph Anderson,” said Pryor.

  He didn’t want to leave the jury with my speech ringing in their ears. He needed to move fast – win them back and keep them. I’d read Anderson’s statement. He was the lead detective.

  A big guy in gray pants and a white shirt came forward. Six-foot-five. Short dark hair. He stepped into the witness stand and turned to face the room. Small, dark eyes. A thick mustache and no neck. He wore a cast on his right hand that went all the way to his elbow. The shirtsleeve rolled up to the top of the cast.

  I didn’t know it at the time, but I’d met Detective Anderson last night. He’d been one of the guys in Detective Mike Granger’s crew. The one who’d tried to punch a hole in my chest and I’d T-boned his hand with a block-punch.

  He’d already recognized me. I could see it in those little sharp eyes.

  For the first time in three days, I relaxed a little. If Anderson was as dirty as Granger that meant there was a good chance they were taking the easy way out with this case. They’d probably cut corners, planted evidence, whatever it took to nail their perp.

  This was going to be interesting.

  CARP LAW

  * * *

  Suite 421, Condé Nast Building, 4 Times Square, New York, NY.

  Strictly Confidential,

  Attorney Client Work Product

  Juror Memo

  The People -v- Robert Solomon

  Manhattan Criminal Court

  Terry Andrews

  Age: 49

  Former basketball prospect. Suffered major ligament damage and retired from sport at 19. Restaurant owner – traditional deli and grill in the Bronx where he is also the grill chef. Divorced twice. Father of two. No contact with family. No voting history or political affiliations. Jazz fan. Poor financials, restaurant has been threatened with closure.

  Probability of Not Guilty vote: 55%

  Arnold L. Novoselic

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  “Detective Anderson, if you simply raise your left hand, that will suffice. I can see you can’t hold the bible. The clerk will repeat the oath to you,” said Judge Ford.

  He watched the detective repeat the oath and take his seat in the witness stand. All the while, Kane thought back on the defense attorney’s opening statement. He’d referred to another possible perpetrator. A killer. And the FBI were tracking him.

  Kane thought back to a time long ago. His mother had lost the farm. They’d moved far away and changed their names. A new life, a new start. For a while, his mother had been happy. The cloak of a new identity had proved intoxicating. His mother had tried and failed at every job she’d managed to get – waitress, cleaner, bartender, store clerk. And the bills mounted up. Little brown envelopes were strewn all over their damp apartment. Until there was simply too many, and the landlord threw Kane and his mother onto the street.

  They moved around a lot until she managed to hold down a job in a local factory, principally because it was a job no one else wanted. She cleaned the vats, after they’d been used for God knows what. Chemicals, was all she said to Kane, but she didn’t know what kind. Day after day she came home a little paler, a little thinner, a little sicker. Until one day when she couldn’t go to work. There was no health insurance, or any money for a doctor. Kane graduated high school with the highest grades the school had seen in years. Even though his education had been sporadic, there
was no denying Kane’s vast intellectual ability. He had a scholarship waiting for him at Brown University.

  His mother died a week after his graduation. She died in bed in their little, grubby apartment. Same day she got a letter from the factory manager telling her she was fired. At the end, she could barely breathe, and every small movement was agony. That’s when Kane knew he had to end it. She wasn’t strong enough, but he knew how to be strong. There were various ways to end it: clamping shut her mouth and nose with his hand, holding a pillow on her face or maybe giving her an overdose of the cheap black-market morphine. Kane thought the morphine would work, but didn’t know how much he would need to do the job. She could suffer with any of those methods. He needed something more efficient. Faster.

  In the end, Kane settled on a method which he knew would be quick and reliable.

  He fetched his axe.

  Before he struck the single mercy blow to the head, Kane’s mother saw what her son had become.

  In her purse Kane found twenty dollars and forty-three cents. He went through the rest of her things and found what he thought was a scrapbook. Old photos of his mother when she was young. And newspaper clippings. Several of them. They all carried the same story and they were all around six years old. A man’s body had been found buried on the outskirts of a farm. The police were looking for the former owner and her son. Seeing his name in the paper, his real name, gave Kane a rush like he’d never experienced. It was right there. In black and white.

  Joshua Kane.

  He kept the scrapbook. Stuffed it into a bag with some clothes.

  Kane wasn’t going to Brown. He’d known for some time that he couldn’t. In a way, his mother’s illness had been a blessing. She had been too sick to notice the smell coming from his room. He’d graduated on May 31st. His senior prom had been May 20th – the night his prom date, Jenny Muskie, had disappeared with another student named Rick Thompson. Cops put out a state-wide APB on Rick’s car, but to no avail. The police had searched Kane’s apartment the day after they went missing, apologized to his mother and found nothing. They’d spoken to Kane, three times after that, and he’d given the cops the same story each time. He’d gone to the senior prom with Jenny, or huskie Muskie as she was known in school, and soon after they arrived she took off with Rick. He hadn’t seen them again.

  No one had.

  Kane put on his backpack, and returned to his room. He popped the can of gasoline he’d siphoned from the neighborhood cars and soaked his bed, the floors, his mother’s room and the kitchen. But most of the gas he’d poured onto his bedroom floor. He didn’t want the police to know about all of the things he’d done to Jenny’s body. They would probably find it, when the floorboards broke in the heat.

  Kane took one last look at the place, struck a pack of matches, threw them down and left.

  He stole a car, and couldn’t resist one last drive past the reservoir. If they ever drained the water they’d find Rick’s car at the bottom. They’d find his body in the trunk, and his head jammed in between the dashboard and the accelerator.

  That was the beginning. The push that he’d needed to go out into the world by himself. With purpose. His mother died chasing a dream of a better life. The dream that all poor Americans share – that if they work hard enough they can make it. She worked all those hours, in all those terrible places for what?

  Forty-three dollars. His mother was all that he knew, and now she was gone.

  Kane knew the dream his mother had chased was a lie. A lie that kept being perpetuated in the press and on TV. People who’d worked hard, or caught a lucky break and made it were held up as icons. Kane would make sure those people suffered for giving life to that dream, for adding fuel to that lie. Oh, how he would make them suffer.

  Now, sitting in court, Kane remembered that feeling he’d had when he saw his name in the old clipping in his mother’s scrapbook. He’d just felt it again when Flynn spoke. A killer who’d left his mark. A man the FBI have been chasing for years. A shiver of fear and pleasure washed over Kane. Like a cold, welcome hand reaching out and touching him on the shoulder.

  I know your name. I know what you’ve done.

  For a second, Kane was aware that the mask had slipped. His passive expression, open and neutral body language had changed as those thoughts flooded through his mind. He coughed, looked around. No one on the jury panel had noticed it. He looked at the defense attorney. Flynn didn’t seem to have noticed either.

  Something was wrong. Kane knew it. He felt it. This time, it wasn’t the thrill that came with remembrance of his past labors, or even the gentle pleasure of nostalgia. This was something else.

  Fear.

  He suddenly felt naked. Exposed. As much as he desperately wanted to look around the courtroom, he did not dare to do so. Instead, he focused on Flynn, and let his peripheral vision do the work.

  And there it was.

  Kane confirmed it with a second’s glance. Now there was no doubt.

  The jury consultant, Arnold, was staring hard at Kane. He’d seen something. He’d seen his true face.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Anderson blazed through his fourteen years of experience as a New York homicide detective and cut to the chase.

  “You see a lot in this job. After a while, you can read the murder from the crime scene. My experience told me this was personal.”

  My experience told me Anderson was full of shit. He had the guy he wanted for the crime, and he was gonna make everything else fit that case. If there was evidence that didn’t sit with Solomon as the perp – the evidence got lost, or wasn’t important.

  “Detective Anderson, in what way was this personal?” asked Pryor.

  “A young woman and her lover being murdered in their bed sounds pretty personal to me. Doesn’t take a detective’s badge to make you think the husband was a likely suspect. Yeah, we think we’ve got our man over there. The defendant, Robert Solomon.”

  Pryor took a moment, turned to look at Bobby, made sure the jury followed his gaze then returned to his direct examination.

  “Detective, I’m going to post a photograph on the screen. It’s an overhead shot of Ariella Bloom and Carl Tozer in the bedroom. It was taken by a forensic crime scene photographer and as I understand it these photos can be admitted without argument as exhibit one. I just want to warn the jury, and members of the public, this is a graphic image,” said Pryor.

  I’d already agreed we could skip calling the photographer. The photos didn’t lie, so there was no reason to waste time calling him as a witness to formally prove the exhibit.

  I wasn’t looking at the screen beside the witness stand when Pryor loaded the picture. My attention was on Bobby. He’d closed his eyes, and pointed his head at the table. Gasps from the audience told me the photo was up. I heard Harry call for silence.

  No camera phones were allowed in court. This photo wouldn’t make it onto the daily news. It was far too graphic, anyway.

  Bobby glanced at the screen, once, put his hands over his face.

  Arnold shrugged, nodded at Bobby and then at the jury. I knew what he was trying to tell me. I’d had the same thought. It would be hard on Bobby, but it was in his interests.

  “Bobby, I need you to look at the screen,” I whispered.

  “I can’t. And I don’t need to. I’ve had that image in my mind and I can’t shake it,” he said.

  “You have to look. I know it’s hard. That’s why you have to do it. I know you don’t want to look at what someone did your wife. I need the jury to see that in your eyes,” I said.

  He shook his head.

  “Bobby, Eddie is giving you a choice,” said Arnold. “Would you rather stare at the ceiling of a prison cell every night for the next thirty-five years or look at this photo? Do it now,” he said.

  I never thought I’d say it, but I was grateful Arnold was here.

  Bobby sniffed, took a breath and did what he was told.

  I didn’t know if the jury s
aw it, but I did. Tears streaked his face, and his eyes spoke of loss, not guilt.

  I nodded at Arnold, thanking him. He met my eyes with a sideways glance, nodded back.

  “Detective Anderson, from this photograph, and the victim’s injuries, could you tell the jury what you believe happened in this bedroom?” asked Pryor, plainly. As if he was asking Anderson if it was cold outside.

  I didn’t want to look at the photo either, but like Bobby I had no choice. I needed to follow Anderson’s testimony.

  Jesus, it was brutal.

  Anderson and Pryor looked at the screen. The scene of two human beings destroyed in a torrent of violence, almost casually. They were business-like, as they discussed how these young people died.

  “You’ll notice first that Mr. Tozer’s head is pointed down, and his legs curled up. According to the autopsy report, Mr. Tozer died from a massive head wound. His skull had been fractured, and there had been catastrophic injury to the brain. Even if he didn’t die instantly, he would’ve been incapacitated from that blow. My reading is that Mr. Tozer would’ve been viewed as a threat to the murderer. Tozer was a trained security specialist. It makes sense to deal with him first. A single, forceful blow to the back of the head while he slept would cause such an injury and would account for the lack of defensive wounds,” said Anderson.

  “Have you been able to identify the weapon that was used on Mr. Tozer?” asked Pryor.

  “Yes. I found a baseball bat in the corner of the room. It had blood on it consistent with it being used to strike someone. Subsequently, the lab confirmed the blood on the bat belonged to Mr. Tozer. It seems likely that this was the murder weapon. And before you ask, yes, the defendant’s fingerprints were on the bat.”

  I felt sick watching Pryor break out a Hollywood smile at this answer. The jury didn’t see it, they were too focused on Anderson.