The Perfect Alibi

by Phillip Margolin

  “Sounds interesting. Give me what you’ve got tomorrow, and I’ll look into it.”

  “Will do.” Robin looked at the TV. “Who’s playing?”

  “Broncos and Colts, but the game’s a snooze.”

  Robin smiled. “Does that mean you don’t want to watch anymore?”

  Jeff smiled back. “Why? Can you think of something we could do that would be less boring?”

  Robin put her hand on Jeff’s thigh and gave it a gentle squeeze.

  “I might,” she said, as she took the remote and switched off the set.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  In the morning, Robin thought about Doug Armstrong’s case as she walked from the gym to her office through a cold, damp drizzle. As soon as she got in, she gave the discovery she’d received from Rex Kellerman to her secretary with instructions to make copies for Jeff.

  Moments after her secretary left with the reports, the receptionist told Robin that she had a call.

  “My name is Herschel Jacobs,” the caller said in a heavy New York accent. “I’m a homicide detective in Manhattan. Carrie Anders gave me your name. She says you represent Douglas Armstrong.”

  “That’s right. What’s your interest in Mr. Armstrong?”

  “None, actually. I’m calling because he’s Frank Nylander’s law partner.”

  “Was,” Robin corrected. “Mr. Nylander was murdered, and Mr. Armstrong is charged with his murder.”

  “Yeah, Detective Anders filled me in on the case.”

  “I still don’t get why you’re calling.”

  “I’m investigating the murder of Tyler Harrison III, an attorney in a firm with offices on Park Avenue. Mr. Harrison was found in a vacant lot Saturday morning, about five days after he met with Mr. Nylander to negotiate a case.”

  “I’m still confused. Mr. Nylander was killed on Tuesday evening, the day he returned from New York. That’s several days before Mr. Harrison was murdered. So why do you want to talk to my client?”

  “We’re stuck, Miss Lockwood. The vacant lot is in a part of Manhattan where someone like Mr. Harrison wouldn’t go. It’s high crime rate, drugs, prostitutes. No one in his law firm or his acquaintances or his family can give us any reason why he would be there. And to answer your question before you ask it, no, he didn’t have a drug habit and he was happily married.”

  “How about clients? Did anyone he represented live in the neighborhood?”

  Jacobs laughed. “Mr. Harrison represented financial institutions and Fortune 500 companies. Aside from one bank with a branch that’s fifteen blocks from the lot, there’s nothing that connects his practice with the area. Our theory is that he was killed someplace else and the killer dumped his body in the lot.”

  “I still don’t understand why you’re interested in Mr. Armstrong.”

  “I’m talking to everyone who had contact with Harrison the week he was murdered, so I called to talk to Mr. Nylander and I found out he was murdered the same week. I don’t like coincidences.”

  “Sometimes a coincidence is just a coincidence.”

  “True, but I’d still like to talk to your client to find out about the case Harrison and Nylander were working on and any guesses he can make that might help with Harrison’s murder.”

  “I can’t let you talk to Mr. Armstrong, for obvious reasons, but let me make a suggestion. Why don’t you send me a list of questions you’d like him to answer? If he has no objection, I’ll send you his answers.”

  “That sounds fair.”

  “And I’d like a copy of the Harrison case file so I can advise Mr. Armstrong on how he should proceed.”

  “The whole file?”

  “You seem like a straight shooter, Detective Jacobs, but I don’t know a thing about you. This could be a trap to get Mr. Armstrong to incriminate himself.”

  “He’s not a suspect. We’re just out of ideas, and I’m fishing around, hoping I’ll latch on to something helpful.”

  “I believe you, but I find it’s better to be cautious anytime there’s a murder and a homicide detective wants to talk to one of my clients.”

  * * *

  Robin didn’t have any meetings or court appearances, so she decided to go to the jail and tell Doug about the call from New York. She didn’t expect to learn anything interesting, but she thought that Doug would appreciate the break in his deadly dull jail routine.

  “I had a call about an hour ago from Herschel Jacobs, a homicide detective from New York.” Robin told her client. “He wants to talk to you.”

  Doug tensed. “About what?”

  “Don’t worry. It’s about Tyler Harrison, the lawyer Frank met with in Manhattan. He was murdered.”

  “What’s that have to do with me?”

  “Nothing. The police in New York are stumped. They don’t know who killed Harrison or why he was murdered. They’re just talking to anyone he met with the week he was killed. Jacobs called your office to talk to Frank and found out he was dead. He wants to talk to you about Frank’s case to see if it sheds any light on what happened to Harrison. So, what can you tell me about it?”

  “Not much. Frank and I met for dinner once every week to talk about our cases. During dinner, we would discuss problems we were having and talk out solutions. It also helped for us to know about each other’s cases in case one of us got sick or went on vacation.”

  “We do something like that in my firm. Did you talk about the case he was negotiating in New York?”

  Doug nodded. “Right before he left, but all I remember him saying is that there was a good chance it was going to settle.”

  “What do you know about the New York case?”

  “It wasn’t really a New York case. We were suing a pharmaceutical company in Connecticut that was represented by a firm in Manhattan. It had something to do with a side effect. I think someone in Oregon had a stroke after using the drug, but that’s all I know. You might want to talk to Ken Norquist, one of our associates. He did some work on the case for Frank.”

  “Okay. The detective is sending me the file on Harrison’s murder and questions he’d like you to answer. I’ll review the file and the questions before we talk about it.”

  CHAPTER FORTY

  The file in the Tyler Harrison murder along with Herschel Jacobs’s questions arrived two days later. Robin went through it while she ate a sandwich at her desk. The body had been found in a vacant lot, and Harrison had been shot in the back of the head. The crime scene and autopsy photos were gruesome, but Robin was used to gore and she had no trouble eating her lunch while she viewed them.

  Interviews with members of Harrison’s law firm, his friends, and his family had yielded no clues. Harrison was well liked in the firm and at his clubs. The fifty-eight-year-old attorney had been married for more than twenty years. He appeared to have loved his wife, and everyone said that he doted on his two children.

  Harrison’s wife had consented to a search of the victim’s home office, and the firm had permitted a search of his law office—but the searches had yielded no clues. Robin studied the photographs of both offices and found them neat and well ordered, decorated with the college and law school diplomas and family pictures she would expect to find. She concluded that Harrison was a man who abhorred a mess and who liked to dot every i and cross every t—excellent traits for someone who dealt with contracts and corporate business.

  One of Jacobs’s interviews was with Marvin Turnbull, an executive at Norcross Pharmaceuticals. He told the detective that Harrison was defending a lawsuit filed by Leonard Voss, Frank Nylander’s client. Harrison had called Nylander and asked him to come to New York to discuss settling the lawsuit.

  After finishing with the file and going over Jacobs’s questions, Robin walked across town to the offices of Nylander & Armstrong. The receptionist had been subdued when she used the intercom to tell Ken Norquist that Robin had arrived. Robin glanced in the offices she passed on the way to the conference room. The lawyers who glanced at her when she walk
ed by looked grim.

  Norquist was seated at a long conference table. Several folders and three-ring binders were stacked on it. The associate got up when Robin walked in. His handshake was limp and he looked depressed.

  “Thanks for meeting with me,” Robin said. “This has got to be awful for you.”

  Norquist flashed a humorless smile. “That’s the understatement of the century.”

  “How is everyone in the firm holding up?”

  “Not well. One associate left already and a few are looking around.”

  “What about you?” Robin asked.

  “I can’t believe Doug would kill Frank. You know better than I what his chances are, but I have to believe he’ll be acquitted.”

  “So, you’re staying?”

  “Yeah. We’ve lost several clients, but enough are sticking with us so we can keep the firm afloat until Doug is back. Of course, if he goes to prison…”

  “Let’s hope he doesn’t. So, Doug said that you worked with Mr. Nylander on the case he went to New York to negotiate?”

  “I did.”

  “Can you fill me in?”

  “The suit was against Norcross Pharmaceuticals.”

  “Why did you use the past tense?”

  “Leonard Voss, our plaintiff, died recently. He and his wife were murdered during a burglary and they don’t have any living relatives, so the suit is as dead as they are. That’s a big hit for our firm.”

  “How so?”

  “Norcross Pharmaceuticals manufactures an anticholesterol drug Voss was taking when he had a stroke. It hasn’t been on the market long. Voss had a preexisting heart condition, but the claim is that the drug caused the stroke. There have been a few other cardiac problems and even one death by users of the drug, but Norcross’s position is that the medical problems have been a coincidence and not the result of using their product.”

  “I understand that Mr. Nylander went to New York to try to settle the case.”

  Norquist nodded. “Mr. Harrison told him that a settlement might be possible. Frank thought that Norcross didn’t want to litigate because of the bad publicity.”

  “Did they resolve the case?”

  “I don’t know. Mr. Nylander was killed shortly after he returned from New York. The only person who could have talked to him after he got back is Doug, and he said that he doesn’t remember anything that happened on the evening Frank was murdered.”

  “Was the drug responsible for your client’s stroke?” Robin asked.

  “It’s not clear. Our expert says yes, but there are other experts we talked to who told us they couldn’t say for sure. In court, it would be a battle of the experts, and no one knows how that would come out. That’s why Frank thought the case would settle, and the settlement would have been big. We’re talking several million dollars. Our expert’s opinion was in the minority, so Frank was playing poker with Harrison and Norcross, counting on them to want to avoid publicity enough to settle, even when the product might be okay.”

  “Can you think of any reason connected to this case that could account for Mr. Harrison or Mr. Nylander being murdered?”

  “Norcross is relatively new, and this is their first big product. The company would take a big hit if a jury found that they were manufacturing a killer drug.”

  “Are you saying that you think Norcross may have been involved in a murder?” Robin asked.

  “No, no. You just asked if I could think of a theory. Look, do you need me here? I’ve got a lot to do in our other cases, especially now that Frank and Doug…”

  “I understand. I’ll call you if I need you. And hang in there. I’ve just started representing Doug, but my gut tells me he’s innocent. Hopefully, I can get him back to work soon.”

  Robin spent an hour going through the files Norquist had provided, but she didn’t see anything that would help Doug. Still, on the way back to her office, Robin couldn’t help thinking about her conversation with Detective Jacobs. He’d said that Harrison and Nylander being murdered so close together had raised a red flag, and Robin remembered responding that sometimes a coincidence was just a coincidence.

  Voss, Nylander, and Harrison had all died violently within a short time, and Leonard Voss’s death had ended his suit and may have saved Norcross Pharmaceuticals millions. She could see why the company would want Voss and Nylander dead, but Tyler Harrison was Norcross’s attorney. Why would the company want to kill him? Robin couldn’t come up with a single theory that would connect all three murders. By the time she arrived at her office, she decided that it didn’t matter who killed Voss and Harrison, since she couldn’t think of any theory that would help Douglas Armstrong.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Robin had just returned from her meeting with Ken Norquist when Jeff walked into her office. She smiled.

  “You interested in Thai, tonight? I’m treating,” Jeff asked, as he dropped into a seat across from Robin.

  “Sounds good”

  “I’ve got interesting news on that DNA thing,” Jeff continued.

  “What did you find out?”

  “You know that expert witnesses in an area of science are permitted to give opinion evidence only when their testimony is based on a scientific principle or discovery that has passed the experimental stage.”

  “Sure. The side that wants the jury to hear the evidence has to convince the judge that the science behind the evidence has been generally accepted as valid in the relevant scientific community.”

  Jeff nodded. “That’s so junk science, like astrology, can’t be used in court. Now, Oregon courts have long held that it’s okay to admit DNA evidence in a trial when it’s obtained in a lab, but no Oregon court has ruled on the admissibility of DNA evidence that uses mathematical probability to match a sample to a defendant.”

  “Do you think we’ve got a chance to knock out Rex’s DNA match?”

  “Probably not. Unfortunately for Armstrong, other courts have let a jury hear it.”

  “Are we dead?”

  “There is an argument you can make. I just don’t know if it will win.”

  “Explain it to me.”

  “There are courts in several states that have accepted conclusions based on analysis by probabilistic genotyping software. These courts have held that forensic biologists accept the method’s validity. You can argue that this is not the scientific community in which the decision should be made. The method uses software, so the relevant community should be the computer science community, because it is inappropriate for forensic biologists with no or little training in software development or engineering to decide if the software works.”

  “Have you found an expert who can make our case for us in a hearing?”

  “Yeah. There’s a guy I know at Reed College. He needs to look at the source code for the software to see if it’s been rigorously tested, validated, or verified using current software engineering practices. If it hasn’t been, we can move to exclude the evidence. But I think it’s a long shot given the number of courts that have accepted the use of the method.”

  “You said you had interesting information. What you’ve said would be interesting if I were prosecuting Doug.”

  “Sorry. There is something else. Nilson Forensics is the lab that did the analysis. The report Kellerman gave you in discovery was one page and didn’t include any of the raw data about the tests Nilson conducted. I called the lab and spoke to Dr. Nilson. He sounded very nervous, and he told me he couldn’t talk about the test without Kellerman’s permission. I told him he didn’t need the DA’s permission, but he still refused to talk to me. So, I drove over to the lab to see if my incredible charm would melt his resistance.”

  “Did it?”

  “His secretary told him I was in the waiting room, and he came out. I told him I wanted to see the raw data and the source code for the software. He refused. He said the source code is a trade secret.” Jeff paused for emphasis. “Robin, he sounded scared.”

  “Can you thin
k of any reason why he should be?”

  “Maybe there’s something about the test he doesn’t want us to know.”

  “I’m going to move for discovery of the source code and the raw data that was used to determine that the blood under Nylander’s fingernails was Doug’s. Once we get it, we can try to see if there’s a reason Dr. Nilson is scared.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Robin was shocked by Marsha Armstrong’s appearance when Doug’s wife walked into her office. Marsha’s eyes were red from crying, she’d lost weight, and it looked like she’d thrown on her clothes without any thought as to how they would look.

  “Why are you here, Marsha?” Robin asked, not trying to hide her concern.

  “I was just at the jail. Doug told me that they’re going to say that the blood under Frank’s fingernails is his. How bad is that for Doug’s case?”

  “It doesn’t kill us. I may have a witness who will testify that there are flaws in the method that was used to make the match. I can argue to the jury that the results are unreliable.”

  “But the district attorney will argue they’re not, and the jury might believe Doug was in a fight with Frank?”

  “That’s possible.”

  “And Doug won’t be able to say anything, because he has amnesia.”

  “Yes.”

  Marsha looked at her lap. When she spoke, Robin had a hard time hearing what she said, and she asked her to repeat it. Marsha looked up. There were tears in her eyes. “I did something terrible,” she said. “It’s why Rex Kellerman is trying to send Doug to prison.”