Michael Gresham: Secrets Girls Keep Part 22

d.i.c.kinson describes the finding of the dead girl's body by groundskeepers-filthy and thinly flaked with dirty ice by morning. He describes the detectives and CSI and gives thanks for their efforts and their handling of the corpse; he describes the terrible task faced by the medical examiner who, upon opening Amy's mouth made a horrifying discovery; and he talks about the importance of the ISP crime lab, its efforts and findings.

On the other side of the street, as d.i.c.kinson tells our jury, lurks the devil himself in Jana Emerich. The defendant is the embodiment of evil, a pot-smoking, devil-worshipping transplant from California. He murdered our Amy with a coiled guitar string and then besmirched her dead body with a live rodent glued inside her mouth. The jury visibly recoils at this disclosure. Several turn away and close their eyes. d.i.c.kinson walks up to our table and points at Jana. He tells them that the killer is a monster with homicidal tendencies and a dysfunctional family life. I actually glimpse the jury looking over at Jana-sitting beside me and working up a pen-and-ink rendering of the judge on a legal pad I've provided to him for notes. Their look is one of distaste, at first, trailing off into various degrees of fear and loathing by the time d.i.c.kinson takes his seat and smolders under his terrible burden of grabbing justice by the neck and wringing it into submission for Amy.

d.i.c.kinson's words have sucked all sound out of the room by the time I take my feet and offer my own opening statement on behalf of Jana. But how, really, do you unring the bell that has just been rung? By telling the jury that the police arrested the wrong man? That the virtuoso work of the crime lab might prove certain facts but that it fails to create the bridge between the dead girl and Jana that is needed to convict?

I decide to begin slowly and keep it low key. I don't have facts to argue except that the cops have nailed the wrong person and that a large number of people keep snakes and mice and that Jana shouldn't be convicted on that weak tie-in alone. Then I shift into second gear as I realize that, as overwhelming as d.i.c.kinson's presentation has been, the only physical evidence tending to incriminate my client is the mouse hair and the Superglue batch number and the m.u.f.fler. But how many tubes of that Superglue have been sold in Chicago, I wonder aloud for them. Surely not just one tube out of the thousands the batch produced and distributed.

Then, shifting into high gear, I begin the refrain that I will come to over and over during this trial, the refrain that argues a jury cannot convict on circ.u.mstantial evidence alone. Not in a first degree murder case where so much is at stake. Then it's into overdrive as I hammer home the duty upon the State's Attorney to convict not with circ.u.mstantial evidence but with evidence that proves beyond a reasonable doubt that Jana killed Amy.

When I take my seat, I have made circ.u.mstantial evidence into a dishonest tool of prosecutors who know they don't have a real case. And that's how I leave it with them, hopefully wanting and demanding more than what they have been told thus far.

When I was speaking, maybe half of the jury made eye contact with me. And only one-maybe two-indicated any kind of buy-in to my view of the case. That would be a woman who grabbed the last chair in the jury box even though she had a son who was cited for possession of marijuana. The state couldn't rid itself of her and I wanted her. She nods imperceptibly as I mention abuse of power by police agencies generally and continues to nod after I mention abuse of power by the Chicago Police Department in particular.

Largely, my presentation is ineffective and wins no converts. As I sit down, I wonder whether my client wouldn't be better off if I had just waived opening statement until it was my turn to present his defense.

The judge takes the morning break. We refill water gla.s.ses and Danny comes forward and clasps me on the shoulder. She squeezes, letting me know she's there for me. Jana sits, head down, adding shadow to the judge's inky features. So this is it, I think. This is my defense team: a lawyer (me) who probably just came across as slightly befuddled and bewildered, joined at the hip to a teenage boy who refuses to look at the jury despite my admonitions to him to do so early when any of them want to make eye contact with him. But now his fledgling art skills are working into a full-time experience for him, an experience to replace the reality of sitting in on his own first degree murder case. Perish the thought that he should actually help his attorney out. But I am feeling sorry for myself and I haven't even cringed and dissolved emotionally yet as I will when the jury speaks as one: WE FIND THE DEFENDANT GUILTY. So I put on my big boy pants and resolve that I will come out swinging when it is my turn to cross-examine the State's first witness. And its second, third, and so forth, until I am convinced I have done all anyone could do to defeat their testimony and exhibits.

"How are you feeling?" Danny asks me with another squeeze of the shoulder.

"Am I looking that bad?" I reply.

"You look peaked."

"Wouldn't surprise me. It's the mouse and the glue. Who would've thought?"

"Hey, man, lots of my friends have snakes," Jana says without looking up. "And probably every house has a tube of Superglue somewhere in some drawer."

"Hey, we covered this before. I asked you if any of your friends keep snakes."

"No, you didn't. You asked whether I had any friends who raised snakes. I don't."

"Who else among your friends keeps a snake?" I ask half-exasperated. I didn't realize he was such a hair-splitter.

"For one, that f.u.c.king Rudy Gomez."

"He's a suspect in the Franny Arlington case," Danny says.

"Has Rudy ever seen your snake?"

"Sure. Lots of times."

"When?"

"He brings his snake over after school. We let it fight with Leonard. It's gnarly watching them go at it. But we don't let them actually hurt each other."

On my feet now, I'm beginning to see the reasonable doubt that all criminal cases have.

"He comes to your house? Has he ever taken one of your mice with him when he leaves?"

"Sure. We trade mice when we run out. Sometimes I give him three pinkies, sometimes he gives me three pinkies."

"Pinkies?"asks Danny.

"You know. The little ones. Just born."

"Do they have hair?"

"Some. Not much."

"But some."

"Yes."

He drops his head back to his pen and ink, and Danny and I look at each other for a long moment.

"Well?" she says to me with a shrug.

"I've got nothing better," I tell her.

"It gives you something, for G.o.d's sake."

"But there's still the glue."

"Ask Rudy if he uses Superglue," she says and smiles slyly.

"Come on. This is d.a.m.n serious."

She shakes her head. "I know. I'm sorry. But there is the batch effect. Chicago probably distributed thousands of tubes out of the same batch."

"Get Marcel working that up."

"He already is. He's out in the hall making calls to the manufacturer and distributor. We'll have answers for you by the noon break."

"Bless you two. Thanks, Danny."

"Eat 'em alive," she says and gives me a caress on my cheek before turning and resuming her seat in the gallery. Danny isn't second-chairing the trial with me because she has other duties, other hearings on her calendar. You can't have attorneys coming and going in a trial; it's unsettling to the jury, which always wants consistency. That's why real trial lawyers never cut their hair or style it during a trial. It can distract a jury from the important stuff.

Any little thing can.

33.

Judge Lancer-Burgess calls us to order.

Edward Ngo is called by SA d.i.c.kinson as the State's first witness. Ordinarily the State wants to set the scene at the beginning. It wants to give the jury the twenty-thousand-foot view. Ngo will be perfect for that. As he goes through his name, age, business address, and employment he comes across as sincere, well-spoken, and a man who doesn't tend toward embellishment, even when asked about the studies and exams he underwent in order to earn his detective's shield. Normally, police officials love to add merit badges to their history at such times, but Ngo doesn't.

"After you received your detective's shield, what was your a.s.signment?"

"Burglary. Four years working residential burglaries."

"Are there also commercial burglaries?"

"Yes, but at the time our bureau handed those off to a team that specialized in commercial."

"And from Burglary, where next?"

d.i.c.kinson is standing at the lectern, his right leg balanced behind him on the toe of his shoe, as he lays down the man's history and credentials. He is rock solid, veering neither right nor left, adding pebble after pebble to the case he hopes to build into a monument that convicts Jana Emerich.

"After Burglary, I was promoted to Robbery-Homicide."

"In what capacity?"

"Detective, night shift at first."

"Did you go out on robbery calls?"

"Hundreds."

"On homicides?"

"Hundreds too."

"What do you do when you go on a homicide call in your present position?"

"a.s.sess the scene. Decide what workups I want. Examine the victim or victims. Make a preliminary determination of cause of death. Instruct the CSI to obtain cameras, videos, trace and transfer, fiber and hair, blood and fluids, DNA, and fingerprints. Plus I'll direct a ballistics crew when there's been a shooting. They'll dig slugs out of walls, locate and photograph spent bullet casings, take control of any weapons at the scene-those sorts of things."

"Tell us about the Amy Tanenbaum case. How did you become involved?"

"Rotation a.s.signment. It was my turn. My partner and I rolled out to the scene and took command."

"Who was your partner?"

"Andy Valencia. He was my same grade."

"Who drove to the scene?"

"Andy. I handled the radio."

"Did you run code three? Lights and siren?"

"No. No need. The uniforms had control at the scene. Nothing would be touched before we got there."

"Tell us where and when you arrived."

"We arrived at the Wendover High School football field at nine-thirty-two a.m. It was Friday morning."

"What did you do first?"

"We parked, badged the uniforms, and took over the scene. The crime scene was underneath the bleachers at Wendover Field at Wendover High School. The uniforms had already strung crime scene tape all around and we didn't cross it beneath the bleachers. Unlike what you see on TV where the detective walks up to the body and turns it to see better, we don't do that. We take pictures and measurements first."

"Why is that?"

"Less risk of contamination. Your CSI's can locate the tiniest bits of evidence, including hairs and fibers and who knows what as long as the scene is virgin."

"Did you and Andy have a name for that?"

"Yes. Entering a scene, we pop its cherry when we duck inside the tape. Not a pretty expression."

"But we get the idea," says d.i.c.kinson. "Where was the body located?"

"About thirty-five feet underneath the bleachers. She was lying face-up, her head toward the west and her feet almost due east. She was fully clothed except no panties, lying on top of her right arm and her left arm flung out to the left. One eye was partway open; the other eye was closed. There was a ring of blood around her throat as far to the rear as we could make out without moving her. She was very obviously dead."

"Had another officer made that determination?"

"Yes, the first-on-scene officer had checked her wrist pulse. He didn't touch her carotid because of the injury to her throat. Didn't want to disturb any latents."

"Latents?"

"Sorry. Fingerprints. He didn't want to smudge any fingerprints she might have on her neck where she was garroted."

"By the way, have you ever located the item used to choke her?"

"We have not."

"What did you do after observing Amy's body?"

"Made CSI a.s.signments. I told them I wanted the entire scene vacuumed."

"You actually vacuum the ground?"

"We do. That's something else you don't see on TV. Then we check the bag for hair and fiber. Those things can be very revealing."

"Did you find any hair or fiber?"

"Not on the ground."

"On her body?"

"In her mouth. There was mouse hair in her mouth."

The jury recoils. Hands tighten on purses, pens pause from note-taking, several people in the front row cross their arms on their chests. It isn't pleasant to see. It's having a huge, negative impact and I hate that. Still, I'm powerless to do anything about it. It is what it is.

"Tell us about that."