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

by Steve Cavanagh

  “It’s simple physics, Detective. Carl Tozer was much heavier than Ariella Bloom. His weight caused the mattress to sag. Any blood escaping from Mrs. Bloom’s body would trickle downhill, according to the laws of gravity, and would be found on Mr. Tozer, correct?”

  He hesitated. His lips moved but no sound escaped from his throat.

  “It’s possible,” he said.

  I went in for the kill. The screen showed the photo Harper had taken of the staining on the mattress.

  “If Tozer was on that bed when Mrs. Bloom was murdered, he would have blood on him. Detective, isn’t it obvious, having seen the demonstration, that Carl Tozer was not in this bed when the other victim was murdered? The blood must have had time to dry and settle before Carl Tozer’s weight was placed upon it?”

  “It’s possible,” he said.

  “You mean it’s probable?”

  He spoke through gritted teeth. “It’s possible.”

  “And at the beginning of this cross-examination, you told the jury the murders could only have happened when both victims were in that bed, laying down together. The evidence now points somewhere else, doesn’t it?” I said.

  “Maybe. It doesn’t change the fact that your client is the one who killed them,” he said.

  I was about to go at it with Anderson. There were a lot more questions about his investigation. Except the judge held up his hand and called for me to stop. A court officer was whispering to the judge. Harry got up and said, “Twenty-minute adjournment. I need to see both counsel in my chambers right this second.”

  He sounded pissed. The court officer and Harry exchanged words, Harry disappeared into the back corridor before the clerk yelled, “All rise.”

  I didn’t know what was happening. Neither did Pryor.

  But something was up. I saw the jury keeper collecting notebooks from the jurors. Shit. Last thing I needed was a fresh jury. I was just starting to win these people over.

  Whatever had happened, Harry was real mad.

  A noise caught my attention. Raised voices. I located the source of the commotion and took a step back. In all my years, I’d never seen anything like it.

  A full-blown argument had erupted in the jury stand.

  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

  Manuel Ortega

  Age: 38

  Pianist, flautist, guitarist. Main income is as a session musician. No bands currently. Divorced. One child, boy, aged eleven lives with the ex. Poor financials (aggressive creditors). No voting history. Moved to New York from Texas twenty years ago. Brother in prison. Social media posts show strong opinion against the prison system.

  Probability of Not Guilty vote: 90%

  Arnold L. Novoselic

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  He’d waited for exactly the right moment.

  Hard to judge. So many people around him. Sitting close to others had always been a particular source of discomfort for Kane. He had spent years being attuned to the finer details of the people he targeted: their tone of voice, speech patterns, body posture, habits, tics, the rhythm of their breath, their smell, even the way they folded their hands at rest.

  When he sat amongst the other jurors, he was unable to just switch it off. This acute sense of others. At times it became overwhelming. At times, he was glad of it.

  Like now.

  He could sense it without even looking. Flynn had led the prosecutor into a hole. The tall, fat man in the second row. Cheeseman. Even the furniture seemed to turn toward him. It was a mesmerizing move.

  Kane flicked out his right leg, then brought it smoothly over his left knee. He folded his hand over his crossed legs, and waited. He knew the ball of paper had been propelled forward, into the row in front. He’d felt his foot make contact. And heard only the briefest rustling of paper.

  Spencer glanced to his left, looking for the source of the noise. Then right. He didn’t see anything. He would’ve had to bend over to see the paper.

  Kane could no longer see the wad of notepaper although he knew where it was, instinctively.

  The juror to the right of Spencer, Betsy, put her palms down beside her, and adjusted her position on the seat, swinging her legs out, then tucking them underneath the bench by crossing her ankles.

  She’d heard something. Kane heard it too. It had been louder this time. A crunch of paper. Betsy bent down to investigate, and came up with the wad of paper in her hand. She stayed motionless for a time, holding the paper in her hand and staring at it like it was a crystal ball.

  The word, “Guilty” could clearly be seen on the paper. Rita was beside Kane. She’d watched Betsy pick something off the floor. Rita shuffled forward and placed a hand, delicately on Betsy’s shoulder.

  “Oh my God, does that say guilty,” whispered Rita.

  “Yeah, it does,” said Betsy.

  Both women craned their necks in Spencer’s direction.

  “What are you doing, Spencer?” said Betsy.

  Spencer faced Betsy, momentarily perplexed.

  “What is that?” he said.

  The jury keeper heard their voices, and passed by Kane as she leaned down, ready to tell them to be silent. That’s when she saw the wad of paper. Betsy swiveled it around so the jury officer could see what had been written upon it. The officer stood bolt upright. Told them to be quiet. Took the wad of paper and marched toward the judge.

  Kane remained passive, and adopted a confused expression. Without the jury officer present, Betsy let it all out.

  “You’re a manipulative little bastard, you know that?” she said.

  And the rest of the jury heard it.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  In the end it took all of the court security officers to calm the jury. Five of them. And they were still arguing as they were led out of the jury stand. In all the trials I’d done over the years, this was the first time the jury risked being in contempt of court.

  Chris Pellosi, the pale-skinned web designer, pulled Spencer’s sweater with one hand and pointed at Manuel Ortega with the other. Daniel Clay, the sci-fi fan, joined the elderly Bradley Summers and James Johnson, the translator, in shouting down the entire crowd. They’d lost the argument. Hollering at people to be quiet never worked.

  Manuel, the musician, was in the face of big Terry Andrews. All the while, Betsy and Rita unleashed a torrent on Spencer Colbert.

  Only one man kept out of the argument, sitting quietly with his head bowed – Alec Wynn. The court officers got the jury out of the room.

  Even as the corridor door closed behind them, we could still hear the argument.

  “Jesus, what is going on?” said Bobby.

  I returned to my client, and sought to reassure him.

  “I have no idea, but whatever it is, it might be good for you,” I said.

  “How? Good in what way?” he said.

  “It’s early days yet, but the jury look a little divided at the moment. That’s a good sign. We hope it stays that way.”

  He seemed to understand. Bobby was looking better. The color had returned to his cheeks. It gave him a glow.

  It was all worth it. I’d given up a lot to sit beside Bobby Solomon and represent him. Looking at him now, I knew I’d made the right choice.

  “So we’ve got a chance? I mean, I’ve never laid eyes on that knife before today, Eddie. I promise you I’ve never even seen it before, never mind touched it,” he said.

  “Bobby, the bat that was in the bedroom. Rudy told me you would’ve normally kept that in the hallway, is that true?”

  “Yeah, absolutely. I grew up on a farm and my dad didn’t like guns. He kept a two-by-four beside the front door at all times. It’s for protection, you know? He broke that wood over a debt collector�
��s head once. He did a few months for that one. When he got out he went and bought himself a baseball bat. Kept that in the same place. Little alcove beside the door. Said it wouldn’t break so easily. I’ve always done the same, no matter where I’ve lived or how much security I got. I never used it, though.”

  “Fair enough,” I said. I had an idea about that bat in the hall and how it linked to the mysterious bruise across Carl Tozer’s throat.

  The clerk came rushing over. Harry wanted to see counsel right away. We followed the clerk to Harry’s chambers, and this time Pryor kept his mouth shut. He must’ve been worried about the jury. Twelve people that don’t all get along will not give him a unanimous guilty. He was fighting to win the jury back and he knew it.

  Harry sat behind his desk. He’d taken his robes off and hung them up. He wore a white shirt and braces with black pants. A balled-up piece of paper sat on his desk and beside it a tall stack of notebooks.

  We sat down in the plush chairs opposite Harry. The clerk sat down at her desk, and the stenographer came in too. She started typing as soon as Harry spoke. We were on the record for this conversation.

  “Gentlemen,” said Harry, “We’ve got ourselves a rogue juror.”

  “Goddamn it,” said Pryor, slapping Harry’s desk.

  I rubbed my face, asked Harry for water. I took another dose of painkillers. I needed them, too. Now more than ever. Aside from the broken rib, my head had started to pound. My head had been fine for the most of the day, as long as I didn’t touch the bump on the back of my skull. Now I could feel a full-blown headache coming on. And it had nothing to do with the bat that hit me last night.

  Harry’s words were like getting hit with a piano falling out of a crane sling.

  A rogue juror.

  Never had one before, but I’d heard lots of stories and read about them in the newspapers. A rogue juror is a juror with their own agenda. In most cases, they know the defendant. They’re a distant family relative, or a friend. They have one goal in mind – to get on the jury and swing the trial in whatever direction suits their purpose.

  “Who is it?” said Pryor.

  Harry said, “Take a look at this, but don’t pick it up. It has quite enough fingerprints on it already.”

  We both stood and examined the ball of paper on Harry’s desk. Seeing that word, “Guilty” written on a piece of paper and passed around the jury, well, that sent another shockwave of pain through my skull.

  “Are you going to pull the trial?” I said.

  “I’m not sure yet. I’ve been through the notebooks that the court supplied to the jurors. I think I’ve got a match. Two notebooks are blank. The rest of them, well, the handwriting doesn’t even get close to this. I’m no handwriting expert, but that looks remarkably similar to me,” said Harry.

  Harry gestured to an open notebook on his desk. The handwriting in the notebook didn’t look similar to the handwriting on the balled-up note on the desk, it looked identical.

  “Looks like a match to me, Judge,” said Pryor.

  “Me too,” I said.

  Harry asked the clerk to bring the juror to his chambers. We didn’t have to wait long. The clerk brought Spencer Colbert inside, and asked him to take the extra chair at the edge of Harry’s desk. I wouldn’t necessarily mind losing this juror. On paper he looked like our kind of people. Creative, hipster, liberal who wore a lot of tight turtleneck sweaters and smoked weed. He should’ve been ideal.

  He sat down uneasily, like a kid brought to the principal’s office for fighting in the schoolyard.

  “Mr. Colbert, we’re on the record here. I want to know if you wrote that word on this piece of paper and left it as some kind of message for your fellow jurors?” said Harry.

  “What? No, I had nothing to do with that.”

  “It sure looks like your handwriting,” said Harry.

  Colbert made an attempt to say something, then thought better of it. He shrugged, and then said, “I don’t know anything about this note. It wasn’t me, Judge.”

  “I’ve been around the block, sir. I’ve looked at the note and your notebook. This is your last chance,” said Harry.

  The juror stared at the floor, he was about to say something then shook his head.

  “Wait now, Mr. Colbert. Before you say anything, you should know I can go in and question each juror. Or you can save me some time. Cause if I have to waste more of my day talking to the other jurors you can bet that you’ll have to spend the night in the Tombs next door while I make up my mind about what to do with you,” said Harry.

  He didn’t need to say any more. The thought of spending an evening with twenty guys in a lock-up made an honest man out of Colbert.

  “I didn’t write the note. I don’t think he’s guilty anyway,” he said, and immediately wished he hadn’t said a word.

  The judge swiveled around in his chair to face us, and said, “Mr. Colbert you are dismissed from this jury. You’re not supposed to have made any kind of judgment yet. On that basis alone, you’re gone. I have to say I don’t believe you. I think you wrote that note. I think you wanted to persuade your fellow jurors that the defendant is guilty. In any event, I won’t have you interfering with this trial any further. I haven’t yet made up my mind about the note. I’m going to ask NYPD to look into it, and look into you. I hope you are telling the truth for your sake. If your fingerprints are on this, you’ll hear from me again. Is that understood?”

  Spencer nodded, and got the hell out of there before he made things worse.

  “Jurors are just falling off the tree like overripe apples, Judge,” said Pryor.

  “Tell me about it. I should’ve appointed half a dozen alternates. I’ll tell the jury to disregard the note. Either of you want to say anything else? I can tell each of you that I’m not entertaining any motions for a mistrial here.”

  Pryor and I shook our heads. No point in trying to get a mistrial on this. If Harry told the jury to disregard the note, legally there were no grounds for a mistrial. Nothing more I could do.

  “Good,” said Harry, “We’ll bring in the second alternate juror. She’s been here for the whole trial, and I don’t see her having any problems. Now, let’s get back to work,” said Harry.

  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

  James Johnston

  Age: 43

  Moved to New York two years ago from DC. Parents deceased. One sibling, brother, who remains in DC. Translator (Arabic, French, Russian, German). Works from home for a translation service with private video-conferencing base. Sound financials. Volunteers to a number of community groups, mostly in an effort to meet people. No social life. Enjoys French cinema, non-fiction and cheese tasting. Non-voter.

  Probability of Not Guilty vote: 50%

  Arnold L. Novoselic

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Two court security officers stayed with the jury while they waited on their return to the courtroom. None of the jury spoke. Kane had some coffee and watched his fellow jurors. Most of them looked more and more pissed off.

  When the jury were led back into court a new juror was waiting for them. Valerie Burlington was in her mid-forties, dressed in expensive black jeans and a black top. She wore a lot of jewelry, all of it gold and all of it real. The heavy chain around her wrist probably cost twenty grand on its own. Despite the expense, it made her look cheap. She sat away from Kane, at the opposite end of his bench.

  The judge informed the jury that Spencer had gone, and he had appointed one of the alternates as a replacement. As promised, Harry instructed the jury to disregard the note, and he gave them a stern warning about discussing the case before they’d heard all of the testimony. He made it clear what the consequences would be.

&nbs
p; With Spencer gone, the only other juror Kane had to worry about was Manuel.

  But he would have to wait.

  The voice of Bobby’s lawyer broke Kane’s concentration. He had underestimated this man – Eddie Flynn. He would not do so again.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Detective Anderson didn’t look too pleased to see me again. Few witnesses were. I had lost my momentum, and Anderson had had time to think about what I might ask him. I’d lost the element of surprise.

  “Detective, we’ve established that you accept these murders could have happened in a manner different to what you originally described to the jury. Let me suggest how. Take a look, again, at the autopsy report for Mr. Tozer,” I said.

  Anderson found the document in front of him and said, “I still believe both victims were murdered in that bed, Counselor. I don’t know why there was no blood on Mr. Tozer, but that doesn’t change a thing.”

  I ignored his statement for now. I had every intention of coming back to it.

  “You’ll see on the third page of the report, it mentions a line of bruising on Mr. Tozer’s throat. It’s a third of an inch wide, and three inches long. See that?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you suppose he got that bruise, given your scenario of the victims being murdered in the bed while they slept?”

  He thought about it, turned a page on the report and looked at the diagram of the body, where the ME had made a body chart showing the injuries.

  “I don’t know. Maybe he got it before he got into bed? Perhaps it’s nothing to do with the murder?” he said.

  “It’s certainly possible that it’s nothing to do with the murder. Or it might be the most important thing. Take a look at these photographs, please,” I said.

  Arnold brought up the police photographs showing the rest of the house. The kitchen, the hallways, the living rooms. With the exception of the kitchen, all of the floors were covered in that snowy white carpet.