The Tenth Case

by Joseph Teller

  found it in, we turned it over.

  MR. BURKE: And what, if anything, did you

  observe at that time?

  DET. MALONEY: We observed—

  MR. JAYWALKER: Objection.

  THE COURT: Yes, sustained. You can tell us only what you yourself observed.

  DET. MALONEY: I observed a large area of what

  appeared to be a bloodstain on

  the front of the victim's clothing.

  At this point Burke walked to the prosecution table and

  retrieved a large brown paper bag. Returning to the lectern,

  he withdrew an item and handed it to one of the uniformed

  court officers, who in turn placed it in front of the witness.

  MR. BURKE: I show you what has been marked People's One for identification, and ask you if you recognize it.

  DET. MALONEY: Yes, I do.

  MR. BURKE: And what is it?

  DET. MALONEY: It's a white cashmere sweater,

  the outer garment Mr. Tannen

  baum was wearing.

  MR. BURKE: How do you recognize it?

  DET. MALONEY: From the large stain on the front of it. Also, these are my initials, A.L.M. I wrote them on the label that day, in ink.

  Burke repeated the process with the inner garment, a long-sleeved beige turtleneck. The stain on it was even larger than the one on the sweater. Both stains were almost black in color, with only a suggestion of red around the edges.

  After photographing and examining the body, Maloney had conducted a search of the apartment, finding nothing remarkable and nothing out of place. There'd been no signs of a forced break-in, and nothing to suggest a burglary. From the absence of bloodstains anywhere else in the apartment, she'd been able to conclude that the victim had been killed right where he'd fallen.

  Maloney had taken a series of photographs, which Burke now entered into evidence. She'd made measure ments and drawn a rough sketch, which she'd later enlarged into a poster-sized diagram, also received in evidence. She'd also dusted the apartment for fingerprints, paying particular attention to the Chinese food containers and the area around the doorknob to the entrance. She'd succeeded in lifting several latent prints, and she'd photographed several others. She'd also taken the fingerprints of the victim and the two uniformed officers, so their prints could be ruled out when comparisons would later be made.

  Next, Burke had Maloney describe how she'd collected a number of hairs and fibers from the body and clothing of the victim. She'd retrieved each one with tweezers, inserted each into an individual plastic bag, and marked each bag with the specific location where the enclosed evidence had been found. Later, she'd catalogued the items and turned them over to the Criminal Identification Division for analysis.

  Burke asked Maloney if her search of the apartment, or any of the areas surrounding it, had turned up anything in the way of a possible weapon. No, she replied. Along with other CSU members, she'd combed the hallway, the elevator bank, the trash area, the rooftop and even the air shafts and ground level beneath the apartment, all without finding a knife or similar instrument that might have been used in the murder.

  Burke was finished with the witness, but before turning her over to Jaywalker for cross-examination, he asked Judge Sobel for permission to "publish" the diagram and the pho tographs. The judge agreed, and an easel containing the diagram was placed directly in front of the jury box, so that the jurors could see it. They leaned forward to look at it, but gave no sign that they were overly impressed with it.

  The photographs were a different matter.

  Prior to jury selection, Jaywalker had fought hard to keep them out. The worst of them showed Barry Tannen baum, lying facedown and slightly curled up, in a puddle of what looked like very, very dark red paint. In one par ticular photo, the body had been turned over to reveal a large stain of the same color on the chest area of Barry's otherwise white cashmere sweater. Jaywalker had lost the fight, and although he'd made a point of describing the photos during jury selection and eliciting the jurors'assur ances that they wouldn't be overwhelmed when they saw them, he now heard audible groans from the jury box. Death had a way of doing that, he knew. Especially gruesome death, recorded in glossy, 81/2 x 11" living color.

  On cross-examination, Jaywalker asked Maloney if she'd fingerprinted Mr. Mazzini, as well.

  DET. MALONEY: Who?

  MR. JAYWALKER: Mr. Mazzini, the building

  superintendent.

  DET. MALONEY: I didn't see any building

  superintendent.

  MR. JAYWALKER: The officers didn't tell you

  he'd had the run of the apart ment for half an hour?

  MR. BURKE: Objection to "run of the apart

  ment."

  THE COURT: Sustained.

  MR. JAYWALKER: Did the officers tell you that

  the super had let them in?

  DET. MALONEY: Not that I recall.

  MR. JAYWALKER: And that he'd remained in the

  apartment for a good half an

  hour?

  DET. MALONEY: No.

  MR. JAYWALKER: During which time he'd

  walked from room to room?

  DET. MALONEY: No.

  MR. JAYWALKER: If you'd known those things,

  would you have fingerprinted

  the super, as well?

  MR. BURKE: Objection, calls for specula

  tion.

  THE COURT: Sustained.

  MR. JAYWALKER: Would it have been good po lice practice to fingerprint everyone who'd been in the apartment that day?

  MR. BURKE: Objection.

  THE COURT: Overruled.

  DET. MALONEY: I guess so.

  MR. JAYWALKER: You guess so? Or is the answer,

  "Yes, it would have been"?

  DET. MALONEY: Yes, it would have been.

  It wasn't much, but it was as good a place as any to quit. When it came time for deliberations, juries often requested read-backs of various witnesses' testimony, and Jaywalker liked to end on a positive note whenever he could. He'd even toyed with the idea of asking Maloney if she'd bothered to fingerprint the co-op board president, or Barry Tannen baum's accountant or his recently fired lawyer, knowing he would get a "Who?" from the witness. But he knew that line of questioning would also get him a series of objections from Burke and likely an adverse ruling from the judge, the combination of which would serve to dilute any gains the questions might earn him. Once again, less was more.

  Next Burke called Roger Ramseyer, a detective assigned to the Criminal Investigation Division. Ramseyer had received a number of items brought in by Detective Ma loney, including latent prints, hairs and fibers. He'd sub sequently been supplied with fingerprint cards and sample hairs representing individuals who'd been known to have been in Barry Tannenbaum's apartment the day his body was discovered. He referred to the first group of items as "questioned" and the second group as "known." Burke took him carefully through each item.

  With respect to the latent, or questioned, fingerprints found in the apartment, Ramseyer was able to make positive comparisons to the known prints of Barry Tannenbaum, Police Officer Susan Connolly and Samara Tannenbaum. Specifically, Samara's prints had been found on the interior doorknob to the apartment, as well as the exterior doorknob and lock plate, two of the Chinese food containers, and on two glasses, one empty, the other partially filled with water. Two hairs removed from Barry Tannenbaum's sweater proved to be of human origin and microscopically indistin guishable from known hair samples supplied by Samara. And one red silk thread, also lifted from Barry's sweater, was similarly indistinguishable from the red threads of a multicolored silk woman's blouse, separately delivered to Ramseyer by a different detective, two days later.

  Jaywalker started to rise to object, but decided against it. The detective who'd brought the blouse in hadn't testified yet, so technically there'd been no proper foundation laid as to where the blouse had been found. But the judge would no doubt either take Ramse
yer's testimony about the threads subject to later connection or make Burke recall his witness later on in his case. Either way, Jaywalker's victory would be short-lived, and in the long run it would only place more emphasis on the testimony. Better to let it in unchallenged. Trying to keep it out would only highlight it for the jury.

  So, too, with the reliability of hair and fiber compari sons. Jaywalker had tried enough cases and done enough reading to know that the science behind such testimony was shaky, particularly when judged by DNA standards, or even against fingerprint research. But he had little interest in showing off, and none in disputing Ramseyer's conclusions. His defense, he'd already told the jury, was that his client was being framed. She'd been in Barry's apartment on the evening of his murder, and she was going to testify to as much. It was only to be expected that her fingerprints would be found there, on the food containers she ate from, the glass she drank from, and the doorknob she turned to let herself out. So, too, her hairs, and even a fiber from her clothing. Either those items had ended up on Barry's sweater naturally or they'd been planted there. No mileage was to be gained by arguing with Ramseyer that the scientific basis for his findings might be dubious.

  So when Burke finished with the witness, Jaywalker had only a few questions for him.

  MR. JAYWALKER: Detective Ramseyer, did you end up with any latent prints that you still would have to classify as "unknown"?

  DET. RAMSEYER: Yes.

  MR. JAYWALKER: How many?

  DET. RAMSEYER: May I review my notes?

  MR. JAYWALKER: By all means. In fact, why

  don't you turn to the top of

  page four of your report.

  DET. RAMSEYER: Thank you. Yes, I was left with

  six unknown prints, corre

  sponding to four individuals.

  Jaywalker asked him the same question with respect to hairs and fibers. The detective answered that he'd been left with four unknown hairs, belonging to three individuals, and three unknown fibers, each one indistinguishable from the others.

  MR. JAYWALKER: So you ended up knowing for a fact that at least four additional individuals left their fingerprints in the apartment. And three or four individuals, perhaps the same ones, perhaps not, left human hairs or fibers on the victim's body or cloth ing. Is that correct?

  DET. RAMSEYER: That's correct.

  MR. JAYWALKER: And yet you have absolutely no

  way of telling us who those

  people were?

  DET. RAMSEYER: Correct.

  MR. JAYWALKER: Tell me, detective. Were you

  ever supplied known finger

  prints, hairs or fibers corre

  sponding to one Anthony

  Mazzini?

  DET. RAMSEYER: No, sir.

  MR. JAYWALKER: Corresponding to one Alan

  Manheim?

  DET. RAMSEYER: No, sir.

  MR. JAYWALKER: To one William Smythe?

  DET. RAMSEYER: No.

  MR. JAYWALKER: To one Kenneth Redding?

  DET. RAMSEYER: No.

  MR. JAYWALKER: Thank you.

  It was after four-thirty, and Jaywalker guessed that Judge Sobel would adjourn for the day. But Burke indi cated at the bench that he had a short witness he'd like to get in before they broke.

  "Who is he?" the judge asked.

  "She," said Burke. "The victim's sister."

  "Body ID?" Jaywalker wanted to know.

  Burke nodded.

  "I'll stipulate," Jaywalker offered. He was ready to concede that it was in fact Barry Tannenbaum who'd been murdered, and the last thing he wanted was a sobbing relative on the stand, particularly at the end of the day.

  "No, thanks," said Burke, who had the right to refuse Jaywalker's offer.

  "Keep it brief," said the judge.

  As soon as they'd returned to their tables, Burke called Loretta Tannenbaum Frasier. A stooped-over woman was led into the courtroom. By Jaywalker's estimate, she couldn't have been five feet tall, even in shoes. A short witness, indeed.

  As soon as she'd been sworn in and had identified her self as the victim's sister, Jaywalker stood up, the judge's ruling notwithstanding. "We're quite willing to concede that it was indeed her bother who was murdered," he said. "If that's what calling this witness is all about."

  "You may proceed, Mr. Burke," said Judge Sobel, as annoyed at Jaywalker's theatrics as Jaywalker was at Burke's.

  With a shrug that would have done Samara proud, Jay walker sat down. But he'd made his point. As early as jury selection, one of the things he'd warned the jurors about was that the prosecution might bring in a grieving family member to stir their sympathies. What's more, he would remind them of this stunt in his summation. But for the moment, all he could do was feel sorry for this poor little woman whose only brother had been stabbed to death.

  Just as the jurors were no doubt doing.

  Then again, had Jaywalker been in Tom Burke's shoes, he would have done the same thing. Hell, he would have brought in a dozen family members, each one of them sobbing more pitifully than the previous one.

  To his credit, Burke got to the point with Mrs. Frasier and didn't overdo things. When Jaywalker indicated he had no cross-examination, they broke for the day.

  They'd gotten through six witnesses, and Samara wasn't dead yet. But to Jaywalker, that was little comfort. Tom Burke was a good lawyer with a strong case, albeit a cir cumstantial one. He was putting it together brick by brick. If the first day's witnesses had only touched Samara tan gentially, that was by design. Tomorrow would be another day, Jaywalker knew. The jurors would hear from the real witnesses, the detectives who'd investigated the bulk of the case. They would tell the jurors about Samara's lies, what they'd found hidden in her apartment—and her motive.

  The worst, in other words, was yet to come.

  20

  A MASSIVE LOSS OF BLOOD

  Jaywalker had left court Thursday afternoon expecting Tom Burke to begin the next day's session by calling one of the two detectives who'd "caught" the case and done the major investigative work on it. But Burke called Jaywalker at home that evening to let him know that the detective would be unavailable, and that as a result Burke would be reshuffling the order of his witnesses.

  "Thanks for letting me know," said Jaywalker, who was genuinely appreciative. He'd long had mixed feelings about what sort of prosecutor he liked going up against at trial. There were the sneaky ones, and there were the open ones, of which Burke was a perfect example. But the thing was, with the sneaky ones, Jaywalker could feel free to fight fire with fire. With someone like Burke, he was com pelled to return decency with decency. Not as much fun sometimes, but in the long run, probably better for every one. "By the way," he asked Burke, "how'd you get my home number?" It was unlisted, and although Jaywalker gave it out freely enough, he didn't remember Burke's ever having asked for it.

  "Ve haff our vays," said Burke.

  They shared a laugh, and said they'd see each other in the morning. Jaywalker poured himself a cup of coffee, his third of the evening, all sans Kahlúa, and retrieved the files he now knew he would have to review for Friday, thanks to Burke's sense of fair play.

  A week or so before the trial had begun, Burke had confided to Jaywalker that he was putting in an applica tion for a Criminal Court judgeship and might ask Jay walker for a written letter of recommendation.