Burden of Truth (Cass Leary Legal Thriller Series Book 1)

by Robin James

  “Personal crimes,” Jack said, his tone easy, conversational.

  “Right. That’s crimes to persons. Assaults, homicides. As opposed to the property crimes division where they handle theft.”

  “Thank you,” Jack said. “And can you tell me how long you’ve held that position?”

  Bowman settled in. “I was hired in just out of college. I’ve been with D.P.D. for twenty-six years. I made detective sixteen years ago. Worked in property crimes for about three years and I’ve been over in personal crimes for going on thirteen years now.”

  “Okay. And within the personal crimes division, is there a particular type of case you specialize in?”

  Bowman shifted in his chair. “Well, I do the majority of the homicides that take place within the city of Delphi. It’s not all homicides. Thankfully, our homicide rate is fairly low for a city this size. But when there is one, I’m most likely going to catch it. Either myself or one of the three other senior detectives in our division. Megan Lewis, George Knapp, and Eric Wray. But of that group, I’ve been in the bureau the longest.”

  Bowman went through the rest of his credentials methodically. He served on a human trafficking task force with the F.B.I. and received a series of accolades from the department. The jury listened with rapt attention for about the first five minutes, then their eyes started to glaze over. Perfect, it was what I was after. This was part of the dance.

  Finally, Jack steered him to the night in question.

  “Detective Bowman, can you explain your role on the night of June 22nd?”

  “Sure.” Bowman had been getting bored with himself too up until that point. He put his shoulders back again and spoke into the microphone.

  “I caught the call from a uniformed unit at five minutes past one in the morning on the 23rd”

  I made a quick note to circle back to that with him.

  “Can you tell me what happened when you came on the scene?”

  “It’s in my report, but I arrived at Shamrock Park at one twenty-one. I worked with our crime scene unit, they arrived at the same time, and we finished efforts to secure the scene. But as I arrived, I immediately saw a white male victim, approximately fifty years old, lying face up in a pool of blood with what looked like a knife wound in his side. He was already dead.”

  “Who else was there at the scene?” Jack asked.

  “Four uniformed officers, their names are in my report. I can refer to it. Myself. Officers Wyler and Forste from crime scene. The M.E., uh, medical examiner had already been called and was en route. There were two witnesses there as well. The uniformed officers had taken them some distance away and they were sitting in the back of one of the patrol cars. That would be Frank and Marian Emmett. I later learned they were the ones who found the body.”

  Jack established Bowman’s credentials and experience. Bowman was folksy, looking straight at the jury for most of his testimony. He was good. But the gut punch came as Jack moved to introduce the first of the crime scene photographs.

  As they went in one by one, I’d already told Aubrey to brace herself. She’d seen them in my office, of course, but not in the giant display Jack LaForge had prepared. Once the photos had been admitted, Jack turned the easel he set up with the collage of Larry Drazdowski’s dead body toward the jury. I objected and succeeded in getting some of the more gruesome and gratuitous photos left out, but the ones they saw were disturbing enough.

  Jack played it just how I would have. He said nothing for a few seconds and let the jury absorb it. Larry Drazdowski was dead, his lips blue and curled. The worst was his eyes. Frozen. Staring directly at the camera and therefore directly at the jury. And there was that damn Fighting Shamrock t-shirt he wore. Two of the male jurors looked like they might be sick. Two of the women had tears in their eyes.

  It would only get worse from here.

  “Detective Bowman,” Jack said. “What evidence did you find at the scene?”

  “Objection to use of the word evidence,” I said. “It’s for the court to determine what is or isn’t admissible evidence.” It was a nitpick of an objection, but I used it to break up Jack’s flow a little.

  “I’ll rephrase,” Jack said. Castor nodded.

  Bowman described the knife, the contents of Larry Drazdowski’s pocket, and the cell phone. Later, Jack would call a forensics expert to establish that the phone was Aubrey’s and enter the transcript of her text messages. But the introduction of the phone now captured the jury’s attention. I debated objecting to the crime scene photos just being left out during the remainder of Bowman’s testimony. It was a catch-22. On the one hand, they were jarring. Horrifying. LaForge wanted to keep the severity of the crime in the forefront of their minds at all times. On the other hand, the longer the jury stared at those photos, they would become desensitized to them. I would let it go until it was my turn to cross.

  “Detective, were you able to make an arrest in this case?”

  “I was,” Bowman said. “Later on the morning of the 23rd.”

  “On what basis?”

  “On the basis of further witness testimony and after receiving the preliminary phone forensics.”

  Careful, I thought. The forensics report wasn’t in evidence yet. But Bowman was cool. He never mentioned the results of those reports.

  “And who did you arrest?”

  “We arrested the defendant, Aubrey Ames, for the murder of Coach Drazdowski.”

  “Did you read the defendant her rights when you arrested her?”

  “I did. And she exercised them. She asked for an attorney straight off.”

  “Did you question her after that?”

  “After her initial arrest? No, sir, I did not.”

  “Did you have occasion to speak with the defendant anytime after that?”

  Bowman cleared his throat. “Yes. I did.”

  “All right. So if you would, explain to the jury the circumstances of that communication.”

  “Well, it was July 10th of this year. I was working at my desk. Mark Ramos was working as my desk sergeant that day. He called me up and told me that the defendant had come into the station and wanted to talk to me.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Well, I’ll admit, it shocked me. I had Detective Lewis, that’s Megan Lewis, show the defendant to an interrogation room. I met them there. I asked the defendant if she wanted me to contact her attorney.”

  “Objection,” I said. “Hearsay.”

  “Sustained,” Judge Castor said. “Let’s just stick to what she said to you, all right?”

  “Fine. The defendant said she didn’t want her lawyer. She said she wanted to talk to us. She said she wanted to confess.”

  “Detective, did you make a recording of this conversation?”

  “Of course. Yes. Immediately. But first, the defendant wrote out her confession.”

  “Detective, I’d like to direct your attention to what’s been marked for identification as exhibit fourteen. Can you tell me what that is?”

  “This is the statement that was handwritten by the defendant. It’s got her signature.”

  “Objection, foundation,” I said.

  “Sustained. Jack, let’s try for a little finesse here,” Castor said.

  “I watched her write it out and sign it,” Bowman interjected. Castor narrowed his eyes, but let him proceed. Jack moved to admit the written confession.

  “I would like to renew my objection to the admission of this exhibit and any videotaped statement by my client.”

  The judge called us over for a sidebar. He covered his microphone with his hand. “You got anything new for me other than what you argued in your motion to suppress Ms. Leary?”

  “Your officer just admitted that the defendant was in custody before she gave her statement. He took her to an interrogation room.”

  “Nice try,” Castor said. “That’s not new. I told you before, I hate the shit out of the way this was handled, but I don’t see anything other than a volunt
ary waiver, counselor. I’m admitting the witness’s written statement. I’m admitting the videotape of that statement if Jack authenticates it.”

  “Fine by me,” Jack said.

  “And for the umpteenth time, I need to renew my objection on the record to the admission of it.”

  “You do what you gotta do,” Castor said. “Let’s get this going.”

  He sat up and we went back on the record. “Counselor?” he looked at me.

  “Thank you, Your Honor. The defense would like to renew its objection to this testimony and the proposed exhibits fourteen and fifteen as marked for identification on the grounds that they were improperly obtained in contravention of my client’s Sixth Amendment rights.”

  “I appreciate that,” Judge Castor said. “And for the reasons set forth in my written opinion, your motion is denied. We’re moving on.”

  Ten minutes later, the jury got to watch Aubrey’s so-called confession to killing Larry Drazdowski.

  On the big screen in the courtroom, Aubrey looked even more pale and frail. She trembled and stumbled over her words.

  “Tell us what happened.” Megan Lewis’s voice was hard to hear on the tape, but subtitles ran beneath it.

  “I did it,” Aubrey said. “Okay. I just … I did it. I killed Coach D. I just want this to be over.”

  Over and over, Lewis and Bowman tried to get Aubrey to elaborate on what happened that night. Over and over, she simply said she’d just “done it.”

  “Walk me through it,” Lewis said. “Just tell us exactly what happened.”

  “I wanted to meet with him. With Coach D. You read my texts. You already know this.”

  “Your words, Aubrey. We need to hear your words.”

  She buried her face in her hands. “You say all this like you want to help me. You don’t want to help me. You want to help you. I just want it all to be over. I don’t want anybody else getting hurt by this. It’s enough.”

  “Who’s going to get hurt?”

  “Me. My dad. My friends. You don’t have any idea and if you did, you wouldn’t care. I killed him. I just killed him. I took a knife and I killed him. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t plan it. It was in the heat of the moment. It just happened. I got angry. The next thing I knew, he was dead.”

  “How did you kill him?”

  “With that knife. You know how he died.”

  Lewis was good. I thought it the first time I saw this tape. And the hundred and first time. She kept Bowman on a short leash. But Aubrey would never say more than that she “just killed him” and that she hadn’t planned it. Her written statement was identical.

  I couldn’t read the jury. They looked from the screen to Aubrey then back again. I knew what they wanted though. It was the same thing I wanted. Details. I could only pray they’d come away from watching that tape with more questions than answers. If that happened, Aubrey still had a chance.

  There were muffled voices on the tape. Chair legs scraping the ground. It was at this point I arrived at the station and the interview ended. The screen went black.

  “Is that the last time you spoke to the defendant?” Jack asked Bowman. One of the jurors snapped her head back, as if she’d just been pulled back to reality.

  “I believe so, yes,” Bowman answered.

  LaForge spent some time cleaning up a few things, but he finished with Bowman’s testimony at ten minutes to four. Castor looked at his watch. I was ready to throw a fit if he recessed for the day. It would put us at an extreme disadvantage if the jury were allowed to go home after Jack’s direct and before my cross.

  “Your witness,” Castor said to me, edging my respect for him another notch.

  “Thank you, Your Honor,” I said and rose from my seat. “Detective Bowman, you indicated you’ve been a police officer for twenty-six years, correct? And a detective for sixteen of those?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’ve been trained to remember the specific details of any case, correct?”

  “I have.”

  “So, you’re observant. You have to be. Thorough.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’d never come to court without being thoroughly prepared.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “So, you reviewed your reports, your notes, your case file on the Drazdowski matter before coming here today, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “Have you been thorough and complete in your testimony today?”

  “I have.”

  “Haven’t left anything out?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Would you add anything to the answers you gave the prosecutor if given a chance?”

  He considered it for a moment. “I don’t believe so, no.”

  “Thank you,” I said. I had to tie Bowman to the statements he made today and his report. If he tried to change or elaborate on anything, the jury would notice. It was a thin straw, but an important one.

  “Detective Bowman, were you in the courtroom when Mrs. Emmett testified?”

  “I was,” he said.

  “And you interviewed her in the early morning of June 23rd, correct?”

  “I did.”

  “And you testified and wrote in your report that you arrived at the crime scene just past one in the morning on the night in question, isn’t that right?”

  “That’s right. Yes.”

  “And you also heard Mrs. Emmett testify that she called 911 after discovering the victim’s body a minute or two before twelve fifteen, correct?”

  “Uh, yes. That’s what she said.”

  “So it was a full hour from the time the crime was reported before you arrived, right?”

  “Apparently,” he said, not liking where I was going.

  “And you testified that when you arrived at one twenty-two or thereabouts, you assisted in securing the crime scene. Is that right?”

  “I did. Yes.”

  “How did you secure the scene?”

  He took a breath. “Well, we cordoned off an area around the victim’s body. Put up tape. I had patrols looking for other potential witnesses. We took pictures of the body and such.”

  “Before you arrived … or rather, when you arrived, did you observe the uniformed officers walking around the scene?”

  “Did I what? Yes.”

  “Thank you.” I left the rest of it alone. For now, it was enough to let the jurors wonder what, if anything, may have happened at the scene in the hour before it was fully secured.

  “Now, Detective, did you know who the victim was when you arrived on scene?”

  He shifted in his chair. Tim Bowman had been around the block plenty. He knew exactly what I was teeing up. “I suspected,” he said. “When I got the call, one of the uniformed officers on scene already knew who it was.”

  “How did he know?”

  “Officer Marrin. He played basketball for the victim about ten years ago.”

  “Got it. But what about you? Did you know Larry Drazdowski personally?”

  Bowman paused for a second. Of course he knew this was coming. “I did. Yes.”

  “By reputation? Or did you know him to speak to him?”

  “I knew him to speak to him. He was hired at Delphi after I graduated, but I have a nephew he coached.”

  “Who was that, your nephew?”

  “Luke Bowman. He graduated, I think, six years ago.”

  “So he was on one of the state championship teams the victim coached?”

  “He was,” Bowman answered. “He was the captain.”

  “Thank you. So, how well did you know the coach? Did you go to your nephew’s basketball games?”

  “Every single one,” Bowman answered; his lips got tight.

  “Did you socialize with the victim outside of those basketball games?”

  “My brother, Luke’s father. He invited Drazdowski over for dinner a few times during Luke’s years. I attended some of those dinners.”

  “Okay. So you knew him well enough to
sit across a dinner table from him.”

  “Objection,” Jack finally popped up. “This is irrelevant.”

  He knew damn well it wasn’t. His objection was more to put that thought in the jury’s mind than any real legal basis.

  “Establishing a witness’s relationship with a victim is relevant, Your Honor,” I said.

  “Overruled,” Castor said. “But I believe you’ve made your point, counselor.”

  I moved closer to the witness stand. “Detective Bowman, you said you questioned the defendant in the early morning hours of June 23rd. Did you also examine her?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Well, this was a violent crime, was it not?”

  Bowman let out a sigh. “I’d say anytime a man is stabbed in the gut and left bleeding to death, I’d call that violent.”

  I gritted my teeth. I’d walked into that, but not in the way Bowman thought. “Detective, did you notice any marks on the defendant?”

  “What? No.”

  “No defensive wounds?”

  “Not a scratch on her, as far as I could tell,” Bowman said. Perfect.

  “Detective, how many other suspects did you focus on in this investigation?”

  Bowman shifted again. “None.”

  “In your sixteen-plus years as a detective, have you ever had a suspect confess to a crime he or she didn’t commit?”

  “What? Yes. A few times.”

  “Generally speaking, what’s the reason for that? Why would a suspect confess to a crime she didn’t commit?”

  “Objection, calls for speculation.”

  “Your Honor, this witness is trained to act on his powers of observation. I’d like to explore that. He just testified he’s worked on cases where suspects confess to crimes they haven’t committed.”

  Castor checked his watch. “Short leash. You may answer.”

  “Can you repeat the question?”

  “Why would a suspect confess to a crime she hadn’t committed? In your experience, from the other cases where that happened.”

  “Usually it’s because they’re trying to cover for somebody. They’re scared. They were threatened. That sort of thing.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I have nothing further.”

  “How long are you going to need for redirect?” Castor asked Jack.