“I'll start off by telling you that the feathers of all birds have basically the same structure,” he said. “You've got a central shaft, barbs, which in turn branch into hairlike barbules, and you've got a broadened base, at the top of which is a pore called the superior umbilicus. The barbs are the filaments that result in the feather's feathery appearance, and when they're magnified you'll find they're actually like minifeathers coming out of the shaft.”
He turned on the monitor. “Here's a barb.”
“It looks like a fern,” I said.
“In many instances, yes. Now we're going to magnify it some more so we can get a good look at the barbules, for it is the features of the barbules that allow for an identification. Specifically, what we're most interested in are the nodes.”
“Let me see if I've got this straight,” I said. “Nodes are features of barbules, barbules are features of barbs, barbs are features of feathers, and feathers are features of birds.”
“Right. And each family of birds has its own peculiar feather structure.”
What I saw on the monitor's screen looked, unremarkably, like a stick figure depiction of a weed or an insect leg. Lines were connected in segments by three dimensional triangular structures that Downey said were the nodes.
“It's the size, shape, number, and pigmentation of nodes and their placement along the barbule that are key,” he patiently explained. “For example, with starlike nodes you're dealing with pigeons, ring like nodes are chickens and turkeys, enlarged flanges with prenodal swelling are cuckoos. These” - he pointed to the screen - “are clearly triangular, so right away I know your feather is either duck or goose. Not that this should come as any great surprise. The typical origin of feathers collected in burglaries, rapes, and homicides are pillows, comforters, vests, jackets, gloves. And generally the filler in these items comprises chopped feathers and down from ducks and geese, and in cheap stuff, chickens.
“But we can definitely rule out chickens here. And I'm about to decide that your feather did not come from a goose, either.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Well, the distinction would be easy if we had a whole feather. Down is tough. But based on what I'm seeing here, there are, on average, just too few nodes. Plus; they aren't located throughout the barbule but are more distal, or located more toward the end of the barbule. And that's a characteristic of ducks.”
He opened a cabinet and slid out several drawers of slides.
“Let's see. I've got about sixty slides of ducks. To be on the safe side I'm going to run through all of them, eliminating as I go.”
One by one he placed slides under the comparison microscope, which is basically two compound microscopes combined into one binocular unit. On the video monitor was a circular field of light divided down the middle by a fine line, the known feather specimen on one side of the line and the one we hoped to identify on the other. Rapidly, we scanned mallard, Muscovy, harlequin, scoter, ruddy, and American widgeon, and then dozens more. Downey did not have to look long at any one of them to know that the duck we sought was being elusive.
“Am I just imagining it, or is this one more delicate than the others?” I said of the feather in question.
“You're not imagining it. It's more delicate, more streamlined. See how the triangular structures don't flare out quite as much?”
“Okay. Now that you've pointed it out.”
“And this is giving us an important hint about the bird. That's what's fascinating. Nature really does have a reason for things, and I'm suspicious that in this case the reason is insulation. The purpose of down is to trap air, and the finer the barbules, the more streamlined or tapered the nodes, and the more distal the location of the nodes, the more efficient the down is going to be at trapping air. When air's trapped or dead, it's like being in a small, insulated room with no ventilation. You're going to be warm.”
He placed another slide on the microscope's stage, and this time I could see that we were close. The barbules were delicate, the nodes tapered and distally located.
“What have we got?” I asked.
“I've saved the prime suspects for last.”
He looked pleased. “Sea ducks. And top in the lineup are the eiders. Let's bump the magnification up to four hundred.”
He switched the objective lens, adjusted the focus, and off we went through several more slides. “Not the king or the spectacle. And I don't think it's the stellar because of the brownish pigmentation at the base of the node. Your feather doesn't have that, see?”
“I see.”
“So we'll try the common eider. Okay. There's consistency in pigmentation,” he said, staring intensely at the screen. “And, let's see, an average of two nodes located distally along the barbules. Plus, the streamlining for extra good insulating quality - and that's important if you're swimming around in the Arctic Ocean. I think this is it, the Somateria mollissima, typically found in Iceland, Norway, Alaska, and the Siberian shores. I'll run another check with SEM, “ he added, referring to scanning electron microscopy.
“To scan for what?”
“Salt crystals.”
“Of course,” I said, fascinated. “Because eider ducks are saltwater birds.”
“Exactly. And interesting ones at that, a noteworthy example of exploitation. In Iceland and Norway, their breeding colonies are protected from predators and other disruptions so that people can collect the down with which the female lines her nest and covers her eggs. The down is then cleaned and sold to manufacturers.”
“Manufacturers of what?”
“Typically, sleeping bags and comforters.”
As he talked, he was mounting several downy barbs from the feather found inside Susan Story's car.
“Jennifer Deighton had nothing like that in her house,” I said. “Nothing filled with feathers at all.”
“Then we're probably dealing with a secondary or tertiary transfer in which the feather got transferred to the killer who in turn transferred it to his victim. You know, this is very interesting.”
The specimen was on the monitor now.
“Eider duck again,” I said.
“I think so. Let's try the slide. This is from the boy?”
“Yes,” I said. “From an adhesive residue on Eddie Heath's wrists.”
“I'll be damned.”
The microscopic debris showed up on the monitor as a fascinating variety of colors, shapes, fibers, and the familiar barbules and triangular nodes.
“Well, that puts a pretty big hole in my personal theory,” Downey said. “If we're talking about three homicides that occurred at different locations and at different times.”
“That's what we're talking about.”
“If just one of these feathers was eider duck, then I'd be tempted to consider the possibility that it was a contaminant. You know, you see these labels that say one hundred percent acrylic and it turns out to be ninety percent acrylic and ten percent nylon. Labels lie. If the run before your acrylic sweater, for example, was a lot of nylon jackets, then the very first sweaters that come off afterward will have nylon contaminants. As you run more sweaters through, the contaminant is dissipated.”
“In other words, “ I said, “if somebody is wearing a down-filled jacket or owns a comforter that got eider contaminants in it when it was manufactured, then the probability is almost nonexistent that this individual's jacket or comforter would be leaking only the eiderdown contaminants.”
“Precisely. So we'll assume the item in question is filled with pure eiderdown, and that is extremely curious. Usually what I'm going to see in cases that come through here are your Kmart-variety jackets, gloves, or comforters filled with chicken feathers or maybe goose. Eider is a specialty item, a very exclusive shop item. A vest, jacket, comforter, or sleeping bag filled with eiderdown is going to have very low leakage, be very well made - and prohibitively expensive.”
“Have you ever had eiderdown submitted as evidence before?”
“Thi
s is the first.”
“Why is it so valuable?”
“The insulating qualities I've already described. But aesthetic appeal also has a lot to do with it. The common eider's down is snow-white. Most down is dingy.”
“And if I purchased a specialty item filled with eiderdown, would I be aware that it's filled with this snow-white down or would the label simply say 'duck down'?’
“I'm quite sure you'd be aware of it,” he said. “The label would probably say something like 'one hundred percent eiderdown.’
There would have to be something that would justify the price.”
“Can you run a computer check on down distributors?”
“Sure. But to state the obvious, no distributor is going to be able to tell you the eiderdown you've collected is theirs, not without the accompanying garment or item. Unfortunately, a feather isn't enough.”
“I don't know,” I said. “It might be.”
By noon I had walked two blocks to where I had parked my car, and was inside with the heater blasting. I was so close to New Jersey Avenue that I felt like the tide being pulled by the moon. I fastened my seat belt, fiddled with the radio, and twice reached for the phone and changed my mind. It was crazy to even consider contacting Nicholas Grueman.
He won't be in anyway, I thought, reaching for the phone again and dialing.
“Grueman,” the voice said.
“This is Dr. Scarpetta.”
I raised my voice above the heater's fan.
“Well, hello. I was just reading about you the other day. You sound like you're calling from a car phone.”
“That's because I am. I happen to be in Washington.”
“I'm truly flattered that you would think of me while you're passing through my humble town.”
“There is nothing humble about your town, Mr. Grueman, and there is nothing social about this call. I thought you and I should discuss Ronnie Joe Waddell.”
“I see. How far are you from the Law Center?”
“Ten minutes.”
“I haven't eaten lunch and I don't suppose you have, either. Does it suit you if I have sandwiches sent in?”
“That would be fine,” I said.
The Law Center was located some thirty-five blocks from the university's main campus, and I remembered my dismay many years before when I realized that my education would not include walking the old, shaded streets of the Heights and attending classes in fine eighteenth-century brick buildings. Instead, I was to spend three long years in a brand-new facility devoid of charm in a noisy, frantic section of D.C. My disappointment, however, did not last long. There was a certain excitement, not to mention convenience, in studying law in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol. But perhaps more significant was that .I had not been a student long when I met Mark.
What I remembered most about my early encounters with Mark James during the first semester of our first year was his physical effect on me. At first I found the very sight of him unsettling, though I had no idea why. Then, as we became acquainted, his presence sent adrenaline charging through my blood. My heart would gallop and I would suddenly find myself acutely aware of his every gesture, no matter how common. For weeks, our conversations were entranced as they stretched into the early-morning hours. Our words were not elements of speech as much as they were notes to some secret inevitable crescendo, which happened one night with the dazzling unpredictability and force of an accident.
Since those days, the Law Center's physical plant had significantly grown and changed. The Criminal Justice Clinic was on the fourth floor, and when I got off the elevator there was no one in sight and offices I passed looked unoccupied. It was, after all, still the holidays, and only the relentless or desperate would be inclined to work. The door to room 418 was open, the secretary's desk vacant, the door to Grueman's inner office ajar.
Not wanting to startle him, I called out his name as I approached his door. He did not answer.
“Hello, Mr. Grueman? Are you here?” I tried again as I pushed his door open farther.
His desk was inches deep in clutter that pooled around a computer, and case files and transcripts were stacked on the floor along the base of the crowded bookcases. Left of his desk was a table bearing a printer and a fax machine that was busily sending something to some- one. As I stood quietly staring around, the telephone rang three times and then stopped. Blinds were drawn in the window behind the desk, perhaps to reduce the glare on the computer screen, and leaning against the sill was a scarred and battered brown leather briefcase.
“Sorry about that.” A voice behind me nearly sent me out of my shoes. “I stepped out for just a moment and was hoping I'd get back before you arrived.”
Nicholas Grueman did not offer me his hand or a personal greeting of any kind. His preoccupation seemed to be returning to his chair, which he did very slowly and with the aid of a silver-topped cane.
“I would offer you coffee, but none is made when Evelyn isn't here,” he said, seating himself in his judge's chair. “But the deli that will be delivering lunch shortly is bringing something to drink. I hope you can wait, and please take a chair, Dr. Scarpetta. It makes me nervous when a woman is looking down on me.”
I pulled a chair closer to his desk and was amazed to realize that in the flesh Grueman was not the monster I recalled from my student days. For one thing, he seemed to have shrunk, though I suspected the more likely explanation was that I had inflated him to Mount Rushmore proportions in my imagination. I saw him now as a slight, white-haired man whose face had been carved by the years into a compelling caricature. He still wore bow ties and vests and smoked a pipe, and when he looked at me, his gray eyes were as capable of dissection as any scalpel. But I did not find them cold. They were simply unrevealing, as were mine most of the time.
“Why are you limping?” I boldly asked him.
“Gout. The disease of despots,” he said without a smile.
“It acts up from time to time, and please spare me any good advice or remedies. You doctors drive me to distraction with your unsolicited opinions on every subject from malfunctioning electric chairs to the food and drink I should exclude from my miserable diet.”
“The electric chair did not malfunction,” I said. “Not in the case I'm sure you're alluding to.”
“You cannot possibly know what I am alluding to, and it seems to me that during your brief tenure here I had to admonish you more than once about your great facility for making assumptions. I regret that you did not listen to me. You are still making assumptions, though in this instance your assumption was, in fact, correct.”
“Mr. Grueman, I am flattered that you remember me as a student, but I did not come here to reminisce about the wretched hours I spent in your classroom. Nor am I here to engage, again, in the mental martial arts you seem to thrive on. For the record, I will tell you that you have the distinction of being the most misogynistic and arrogant professor I encountered during my thirty-some years of formal education. And I must thank you for schooling me so well in the art of dealing with bastards, for the world is full of them and I must deal with them every day.”
“I'm sure you do deal with them every day, and I haven't decided yet whether you're good at it.”
“I'm not interested in your opinion on that subject. I would like you to tell me more about Ronnie Joe Waddell.”
“What would you like to know beyond the obvious fact that the ultimate outcome was incorrect? How would you like politics to determine whether you are put to death, Dr. Scarpetta? Why, just look at what's happening to you now. Isn't your recent bad press politically motivated, at least in part? Every party involved has his own agenda, something to gain from disparaging you publicly. It has nothing to do with fairness or truth. So just imagine what it would be like if these same people possessed the power to deprive you of your liberty or even of your life.
“Ronnie was torn to pieces by a system that is irrational and unfair. It made no difference what earlier precedents were appl
ied or whether claims were addressed on direct or collateral review. It made no difference what issue I raised because in this instance in your lovely Commonwealth, habeas did not serve as a deterrent designed to ensure that state trial and appellate judges conscientiously sought to conduct their proceedings in a manner consistent with established constitutional principles. God forbid that there should have been the slightest interest in constitutional violations on furthering the evolution of our thinking in some area of the law. In the three years that I fought for Ronnie, I might as well have been dancing a jig.”
“What constitutional violations are you referring to?” I asked.
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