Extreme Malice

by R E Swirsky

  Chapter 30

  Wednesday, December 7th 8:45 am

  Ron Baxter called Dean Daly to the stand to start the day, and led Dean through the multiple pieces of evidence.

  Dean answered questions about the scene of the crime without fanfare or enhancement. Jack noticed that Dean kept glancing over at him as he answered many of Ron's questions. Every time a question about the DNA was asked, Dean looked at Jack before answering.

  Ron led Dean through every piece of DNA evidence collected and entered all of them as evidence.

  A few of the jury members caught Dean's repeated glances towards Jack and appeared disturbed by his behavior.

  Ron moved on from the DNA evidence found at the home to the footprints found inside the back door.

  "...and where were exactly were these footprints?" Ron asked.

  Dean again stared at Jack before answering, causing a few of the jury members to look at Jack as well. Even the judge looked at Jack. This was not how it was supposed to go down, Jack thought and looked over at Josh, hoping the others would do the same. But they continued to stare only at Jack until Dean finally answered the question.

  "On the floor of the kitchen. Just inside the back door."

  "And why are these footprints significant, Detective?"

  Dean glanced over to Jack again before looking back at Ron. "The footprints match the running shoes of the suspect, Josh Anderson. They are the footprints of a size nine, Nike Air Max running shoe. The same kind of shoes were found in Josh Anderson’s home."

  The evidence trail questions slowly moved to the inside of the Anderson house. Dean reviewed the inspection of the Anderson home and Josh's room specifically.

  Dean identified the tip of a shoe lace that was found in the bedroom where Donna was murdered and an older pair of shoes from Josh's bedroom that matched the tip perfectly.

  Jack smiled inside as Dean stared at him again. The tip of the shoelace was an unexpected extra. He was in Josh's room when he spotted the shoe with the tip of the shoelace nearly broken off. He ripped the tip off, stuffed it in his pocket, and later dropped it into the trash beneath the condom the night Donna was murdered.

  Ron led Dean further down the list of evidence and focused on the earring. Dean explained where the earring was found and stated that Jack had identified the earring during his interrogation.

  Jack nodded slightly as Dean confirmed that this was the earring belonging to Donna and that the mate was found in Donna's jewelry box.

  Jack remembered when he bought the earrings for her. He purchased them from Spence Diamonds in Calgary. They were very expensive. He gave them to Donna for their anniversary, along with the certificate of quality indicating all four C's of measurement. He even drove her to the bank to put the certificate in her safety deposit box for insurance purposes. But there was more about these earrings still to come.

  Dean continued to stare at Jack and Jack continued his unbreakable gaze back. Ron noticed the juror's attention on Jack and he turned to look at Jack and back at Dean. Jack smiled at Ron and shrugged.

  "Am I missing something, Dean?" he said. Ron's focus and flow was interrupted by Dean's countenance on the stand. Jack could see Ron was pissed. Dean was a witness for the prosecution, and he was behaving in a very strange manner.

  Dean sat up straight. "Nothing," he said.

  Ron paused, stared hard at Jack for a moment, and then looked back at Dean. Jack suspected Ron was deciding whether or not to ask Dean a direct question about why he was always looking over at Jack.

  "Can you look at me while I am speaking to you? I want your complete attention. I don't care what is going on over there behind me." He waved his arm behind him at Jack, and then pointed to the defendant’s box where Josh sat. "This man's life is at stake, and the murder of Donna Gardner is a very serious matter to everyone in this court room."

  Dean nodded but accidentally glanced once more at Jack.

  "Do you need a break, Detective?"

  Dean shook his head. "No. Please continue."

  "Well, I think you need a break. No more questions, for now."

  Dean was asked to step down, and Ron didn’t skip a beat. Jack was called up once again to testify.

  Ron began immediately with questions about his relationship with Donna. He touched briefly on her background and asked Jack when and where they met. It was a quick set of questions that Ron was asking to allude to the short time they had been together.

  "Just two short years?"

  "Yes," Jack replied.

  "So you didn’t know her as a teenager or through her days at university?"

  "No, I didn't."

  "So you didn’t really know her very well, then?"

  “I think I knew her very well. We talked about everything." Jack half-expected Josh's lawyer to object to the question, but he stayed silent.

  "The evidence tells a different story, now doesn't it?"

  "I'm not sure how I am supposed to answer that question." Judge Rumpoldt instructed Ron to rephrase the question.

  "We found DNA from three different men in your bedroom." A murmur floated across the gallery. "Three different men, Mr. Gardner."

  Ron presented the evidence bags containing all of the different DNA samples into evidence. He held up a number of the bags.

  "These hairs were pulled from your shower drain and carpet. Where they were found indicated that these hairs had been there for some time. Weeks, maybe months, before she was murdered."

  Six weeks would be pretty close, Jack thought.

  "And these..." He held up four different bags for all to see. The bag held more hair samples, a coffee cup, cigarette butt, and ashes. "These were found in different locations in and outside of your house. The hairs were in your bedroom shower drain and carpet. The coffee cup was in the kitchen trash, and the cigarette butt and ashes were found outside in a tin can you kept for guests who smoked."

  Jack pretended to be terribly upset. He wondered if Ron could relate to how difficult it was to collect such samples from one single subject. It took a number of repeated close encounters with a subject over a number of different trips to Saskatoon to attain such samples. Stay at the same hotel every time, and you eventually meet the same guests. Share a drink or two and a smoke out back. Meet for a coffee at the local Timmy's in the morning, or bring back a coffee from the 7-11 for a friend. Jack had even more from this one individual. He had a lighter, glass with fingerprints, fingernails (don't ask), used straws, and a toothbrush. He opted only to use the minimum necessary components.

  "You look upset, Jack?

  "I am. I just don't believe it."

  Ron placed the evidence bag with the hairs in front of Jack on the ledge of the witness box.

  "These are the hair samples from this mysterious un-named man. The samples were in your bedroom shower drain.”

  He placed the second bag onto the ledge.

  "These are the hairs found on the carpet under your bed.”

  He placed the bag with the coffee cup next.

  "This is a coffee cup with the same DNA found under your kitchen sink in the trash, and this," he said as he placed the cigarette and ashes in front of Jack. "This is the cigarette butt found in your tin out back. Didn't you tell detective Dean Daly that you had emptied that tin the Friday before you left on your trip?"

  "That is what I said. Yes. It was the Friday before I left. I finished cleaning the yard for the winter. Emptying the ash can was part of the cleanup I did that day."

  "So how did the cigarette butt and ashes get in the tin can you just emptied, do you suppose?"

  "Someone put them there, I guess," Jack responded.

  Ron was pleased. He grabbed the evidence and rambled on about it and asked more questions about who and when, and Jack denied knowing that anyone had come around prior to him leaving. He agreed that it was possible someone had even been around while he was in Calgary on the Sunday before he left
.

  "So you don't have any idea whose DNA these might belong to?"

  Jack shook his head and remained calm. He leaned into the microphone. "No, I do not."

  "If you didn't let these men into your house, there could only be one other person who did, don't you agree?"

  "I still don't believe Donna was having any relationship with anyone else."

  Ron smiled at Jack. "Really, Jack? Your wife has been murdered, and we have a suspect right over there that we believe killed her. I have just showed you evidence that two other men have been in your bedroom...men you claim not to know."

  Jack said nothing.

  "Let's move on." Ron picked up the last three bags from the evidence table. He lifted each one of them one at a time as he explained what was inside each.

  "These three bags also contain DNA evidence found in your bedroom from a third unknown man. The DNA again does not match you, nor does it match our suspect Josh."

  "This first bag is hair samples. Pubic hairs found in your bed. We also found six head hairs in the bed and numerous hairs in the shower drain. What would you say to that Jack?"

  Jack shook his head. He was thinking about how he remembered placing seven hairs in the bed, not six.

  "This second bag contains a tissue with the DNA from the same subject. We even have a mucus sample from the subject from the bedroom trash bin.

  "This last bag contains a used condom with semen inside, and it's not yours!"

  A large roar erupted in the courtroom, and Judge Rumpoldt had to hush the crowd. The effect was not lost on Jack. Jack was using the gallery’s reaction to impress the jury. He already knew the DNA was not his.

  "This condom, according our analysis, was in your trash bin for at least a week, maybe two, but it was not from the night your wife was murdered. I want to repeat that again: This condom was not from the night your wife was murdered. Now do you understand what I am getting at, Mr. Gardner?"

  Jack nodded. "But it would be nice if you just said what you are getting at."

  "We believe your wife had another man in your bed prior to the night she was murdered. We believe she had intercourse with this man a few weeks prior to her murder.

  "Now, let me ask you again. Did you know your wife was having an affair or relationship of any other kind with any other man?"

  "No…I…I didn’t." Jack replied and lifted the tension in the courtroom again.

  "Then you do not know how the hairs, tissue, and condom ended up in your bedroom?"

  "No, I do not," Jack said.

  But Jack did know how they got there. This was the seediest part of what he did, and he never ever wanted to remember how low he to go to get this evidence. He would certainly never sink that low again. It disturbed him now just to think about it.

  Ron ended his questioning and left the jury wondering about Donna and her faithfulness to Jack. The defense did not have any questions, and Jack was excused from the witness box.

  Jack returned to the gallery and sat down while Ron called the medical examiner up for a few questions. Jack's mind continued to reflect on the condom and hair samples he collected. It was only two weeks before her death when Jack decided he would act to finish what he had been planning for nearly three long years. He wanted fresh evidence, but he didn’t want it to be too fresh. He had already scouted the area many times looking for possible subjects. Fred told him of the trip to Denver, and Jack was ready to jump on the opportunity. He had to work fast to gather the last few incriminating samples in the next few weeks.

  Fred told him about the conference in Denver at one of dinner parties about month before Donna's murder, and Jack decided he needed to collect this most important sample the Thursday night two weeks prior to them leaving. Donna did not suspect anything as Jack worked the late night local sales calls into his routine. He made this his practice on his out of town trips, and he was careful to do the same in town on a regular basis so there would not be any suspicion about where he was during the evening.

  He first drove through and past the downtown core of Calgary to Motel Village in the northwest where he paid cash for a room. It was a seedy hotel known as a hub for drug dealing and prostitutes. The receptionist took no notice of Jack’s identity and asked no questions.

  Darkness descended and Jack ventured back to the city core to the hooker stroll on Third Avenue. He was wearing his all-weather windbreaker with the removable hood pulled up high on his head. He would only wear this coat two more times in the next couple of weeks before he would dispose of it. The sunglasses he donned had limited sun block, allowing him enough vision in the dark while still concealing his eyes. He drove slowly up and down the blocks looking for a particular subject. He had picked out a few favorites on his earlier scouting trips, but one stuck out. Jack was hoping he was out tonight. After a few trips around the block, he spotted the young man a block down from the French Maid strip joint. To Jack, he looked like he could have been no more than seventeen or eighteen. He was skinny, had spiked black hair, and wore a black Goth-style leather jacket and skintight jeans with high-heeled boots. He was alone and leaned against the concrete parkade at the back of a downtown hotel provocatively.

  Jack drove up alongside the young man and slowed down. The kid looked at Jack, and Jack tipped his head and motioned for the kid to come over. Jack rolled the window down as the kid approached. He tucked his head inside the window.

  "You clean?" Jack asked.

  The kid nodded.

  "Shaved?"

  The kid frowned. He didn’t understand Jack's question.

  "Down below, man. You shaved?" he repeated.

  "No," he replied and shook his head.

  "Good. It's your lucky night. Meet me two blocks over and up one in fifteen minutes. I'm paying double tonight. I'll be parked on the side with my lights on and engine running." The kid's eyes grew momentarily, and he nodded with excitement.

  Jack drove down the street and left the kid with his hands tucked in his pockets as he hustled up the walk. Jack rolled over a couple blocks, then back down two more before turning up yet again. He circumvented the entire hooker stroll until he was over the two blocks and up one from where he found the boy. He parked the car, left the engine running, and kept the lights on. He watched the mirror for the young man in the black leather jacket.

  The young man spotted Jack's vehicle and hurried forward. Jack unlocked the door and the young man jumped in, smiled at Jack, and said hello. Jack stole a glance at him, said nothing, and drove on. He thought the kid may be even younger than he first thought.

  Jack's heart raced as he drove the five minutes in silence to the motel. He kept facing forward; he was now unsure if he could go through with this. He took a deep breath and realized he had stopped breathing as a strange fear took hold of him.

  "Where are we off to?" the young man asked.

  "Motel Village," Jack replied. Jack could see the young man's curiosity as he tried to get a good look at who had picked him up, but Jack had the hood pulled forward and his sunglasses on. The vehicle was dark inside and the kid could not see his features.

  Jack pulled up in front of the hotel and turned off the ignition. He handed the motel keys to the young man. The two stepped out in to the cool summer evening together. Jack pointed to the room on the end and ushered the young man forward in front of him.

  The young man opened the door and stepped inside. Jack had already laid out several items where he wanted them. He motioned the kid towards the bed and closed the door.