The Innocence Game Part 22

"And what about the swatch?" I said. "Do you still have it?"

Moncata flashed another quick grin. "Thought you might ask that." He pulled up a thick case file from the floor and dug through it. "Here she is."

The swatch was a ragged piece of washed-out fabric, maybe an inch square, covered in pencil marks and sealed up in a plastic bag.

"As you can see, pieces have been cut out," Moncata said.

"Can I touch it?" I said.

"Just don't take it out of the bag."

I picked up the Baggie and stared at the tiny piece of cloth, wondering what the h.e.l.l I'd hoped was going to happen. Then I handed it to Havens, who seemed equally at sea.

"No easy answers, huh?" Moncata returned the swatch to the file and folded his hands over it. He glanced expectantly, first at me, then at Havens. We had nothing. The scientist didn't seem surprised. "Maybe you should just tell me what this is all about."

"We think Harrison might have been framed," I said.

"I figured that much. Why?"

I explained about the ministry's inventory log. And Grace's recollection of the surgical scrubs Harrison was wearing on the night he was arrested. Moncata rubbed his lower lip with his thumb while I talked. When I'd finished, he flipped open the doc.u.ment binder again. This time he took out a one-page report from the Chicago PD. At the top were the words CHAIN OF CUSTODY LOG in large block letters.

"This came with the swatch. It establishes chain of custody. In this case, it indicates the defendant was wearing jeans on the night he was arrested. And the sample we have came from those jeans."

"Not according to Grace," I said.

"Unfortunately, the world doesn't spin according to Grace."

"You said yourself the case bothered you," Havens said.

"Lots of cases bother me, but that doesn't really matter."

"Why not?" I said.

"Because science is science. And when it's the science of DNA, there's not a lot of wiggle room."

"What if someone took the blood from Skylar Wingate's body after he was dead," I said. "Sprinkled it on the jeans."

"What if they did? Blood's blood. Whether the person is alive or dead, I have no real way of knowing."

"So there's no way to tell if this stuff was planted?"

Moncata twitched his lips at the last word and scratched an ear. Just then his phone rang. He looked at the caller ID, then back at us. "You guys mind waiting outside? I've got to take this."

We sat in an empty hallway. A man and a woman in lab coats walked by. Then another man with a gun on his belt. No one gave us a second look.

"What do you think about Moncata?" Havens said.

"Seems like a good guy."

"Should we tell him about the Street Ministry burning down?"

"h.e.l.l, no."

We were quiet for a bit more.

"I'm gonna tell him about the other old cases," Havens said. "Scranton and Allen."

"Why?"

"I think they're all connected."

"What if they are? There's nothing he can do. Let's stick to the jeans."

Things got quiet again. This time I broke the silence.

"How was the boat?"

A shrug. "Good time. You should have come."

I tried to catch his eyes, but Havens kept them glued to the floor.

"You guys out late?" I said.

Just then the door opened. Moncata swept us back in with a hand.

"Sorry. Like I said, busy day." He didn't offer us a seat this time. The man was in wrap-up mode and didn't try to hide it. "I'm gonna have to hustle you guys out of here, but let's do this. I'll take a look at the material we have from Harrison. Run a few tests. See if anything interesting shakes out. No promises. In fact, I'm pretty sure we'll turn up nothing. But I won't charge the school for the work and maybe you'll learn something. Fair enough?"

I reached out and shook his hand. "Thanks so much, Mr. Moncata."

"Sam."

I took a card from a holder on his desk. "If it's okay, I'll e-mail you our contact info. We'll follow up next week?"

"Great." Moncata started herding us toward the door. Havens, however, wasn't budging.

"Actually, Sam, I've got one more question."

Moncata checked his watch.

"It won't take a second," Havens said.

Moncata shook his head. "Not a great time, son."

Havens ignored him. "We think there might be two other old cases that are linked to Harrison."

"Write it up and send it to me," Moncata said, now literally pushing us, albeit gently, out of his life.

"They're linked by time, manner of death, proximity to water."

Moncata's phone started ringing again. He looked to me for help.

"Jake, let's go," I said. "We can send him details on the other cases later ..."

"And they all feature bite marks," Havens said.

Moncata's hand fell off my shoulder. The scientist c.o.c.ked his head and studied my cla.s.smate. "Did you say bite marks?"

"I did."

The phone was still ringing. Moncata ignored it. "Sit down for a second."

So we sat. And Moncata listened as Havens outlined his theory on Billy Scranton and Richmond Allen. Then he showed Moncata paperwork from each case, including the bite-mark photos.

"We believe there was biting on Skylar Wingate as well," Havens said, "but we don't have any photos."

Moncata looked through the material Havens had given him and studied the bite marks with a magnifying gla.s.s. Then he put the photos up on a light board and studied them some more.

"Do you have these on a disk?" he said.

"This is all we have," Havens said.

"Do you mind if I keep them for a while? I can a.s.sure you they'll be safe."

"We've had problems," Havens said.

Moncata no longer seemed in a hurry. "What sort of problems?"

So we told him. About my traffic stop. And the Street Ministry. And finally, the fire. I left out any mention of Theresa. Right now, I didn't want to think about her myself. When we finished, Moncata was silent. He got up from his chair and began to pace.

"If there was biting in the Harrison case," he said, "it was never brought up at trial."

"We saw a mention of it in Wingate's autopsy report," I said.

Moncata stopped pacing. "Do you have the report?"

"No. The cops took it at the traffic stop."

"Right. Still, there might be a way to get photos of Wingate's body. Let me work on that. If I can get them, I'll send all three cases to a colleague who's an expert in the area. He has a program that can enhance the marks and perhaps tell us a little more."

I'd heard about bite-mark technology, but that didn't explain Moncata's sudden interest. Before I could ask about the change of heart, the scientist again shifted gears.

"You guys ever heard of the Needle Squad?"

We hadn't.

"Downtown everyone just called them the Squad. They were an elite prosecutorial team. About twenty men and women who made their bones in the late eighties and nineties. Renowned for their high conviction rate, especially in capital cases. The leader was a prosecutor named Teddy Green. You've heard of him?"

"He was the Illinois attorney general," Havens said. "Before that he was the state's attorney for Cook County. Dropped dead last year from a stroke."

"He was also lead prosecutor in the Wingate murder," I said. Moncata shot me with his index finger. "Bingo. Teddy's right-hand man was a Chicago detective named John Carlton." The scientist circled back behind his desk and picked up a couple of the doc.u.ments we'd given him from the Scranton and Allen murders. Teddy Green's name was on one. John Carlton's on the other. "Looks like they handled your other cases as well."

"What are you saying?" Havens said.

Moncata dropped the doc.u.ments back onto his desk. "What am I saying? It's a pattern. In forensic science, we like patterns. You should, too. The fact is that Detective Carlton never met a suspect he didn't want to beat a confession out of. And Teddy Green liked to win. Period. So they put together a team and started banging out murder convictions. Indigent defendants. Public defenders. One-day trials. Eventually, Teddy got himself elected attorney general. Carlton became chief of detectives. And everyone lived happily ever after. Except the guys they put in jail. What did they wind up getting your defendant on in the Scranton case?"

"They linked Michael Laramore to the victim through hair and fiber samples," Havens said.

"And how about in the Allen case?"

"Blood typing."

Moncata snorted. "Pure garbage. I a.s.sume the bite marks were never mentioned at either trial?"

Havens shook his head.

"Problem is everything was so long ago," Moncata said, talking mostly to himself now. "Green's dead. Carlton, I'm not sure ..." He typed a few lines into his computer and nodded slowly. "John Carlton. Took retirement in 2005. Died last year."

"There's gotta be something," Havens said.

Moncata tapped a thumbnail against his teeth and stared at the bite-mark photos still up on the light board. "Leave this stuff with me. I'll have my guy take a look at the marks. See what we see. Now I really gotta run." Moncata got up from behind his desk and showed us to the door. "I'll call you if I find anything."

31.

Jake and I didn't talk much on the ride back to Evanston. Moncata had thrown out a lot of new pieces, and I think we were both trying to absorb them all. Havens pulled his car up in front of my house.

"Well?" he said.

"Moncata certainly perked up when you mentioned the bite marks."

"Sure did."

"Do you still trust him?"

"Not entirely. You?"

"I don't know. What about Z?"

"What about her? She's gotta stay in the dark. At least until we know if our three cases are connected."

"Moncata knew more than he told us," I said.