Legal Thriller: Michael Gresham: Secrets Girls Keep: A Courtroom Drama (Michael Gresham Legal Thriller Series Book 2)

by John Ellsworth

  Finally Marcel emerges. He shakes Rudy's hand and gives him a big smile then turns and heads for the truck. He is keeping his right hand tight against his North Face parka pocket. When he climbs inside and turns the key, I understand why.

  "In my pocket, sir, is a half a pound of bedding."

  "Out of the snake's container?"

  "Nope. Out of the mouse cage."

  "What! That's beautiful!"

  "So I'm driving over to the lab. Let's get this tested and compared to the hair from Amy's mouth."

  "Drive on, genius," I say. I'm warming with anticipation way before the heater kicks in.

  "Let's think this through," he says. "We've got the sample of mouse hair from her mouth."

  "And we know from the reports that that hair matches hair from Jana's mouse cage."

  "But what about DNA? Can they compare animal DNA to animal DNA?"

  "What would that prove? That the same mouse was in both places? I highly doubt we're going to get that. Way too much time has passed by."

  "Did you have the DNA tested between the Amy mouse and Jana's mouse?"

  "Yes. Inconclusive."

  "Okay, so we've ruled out Jana."

  "Well, let's say the state can't rule him in. According to microscope study, it's the same type. But so are a million other mice in Chicago alone."

  "Agree. So maybe we're still close enough in time to last night's murder. Do we know if there was a mouse?"

  "Too soon to hear. That news hasn't hit the street yet."

  "Okay, so we need to subpoena the lead detective on that case."

  I nod. "And have him testify about a new mouse in the Newson girl's mouth--we'll use him if there was one."

  "We should use him in either case."

  "Agree. Whether there was or wasn't one."

  "I'll give him a call. But I know he won't talk to me."

  "No, he won't. Especially not with our trial still underway."

  "What's his name?"

  "You know how that works; no need for me to tell you. Marce."

  Meaning, Marcel can simply call the CPD Tipline and get connected to one of the detectives working up the new case. Then he hits him or her with a subpoena. Simple.

  "Did you get anything else out of Rudy?"

  "Nope. He listens to his lawyer."

  "Too bad for us."

  We drive over to the lab and submit our samples for testing. DNA, hair type--the whole nine yards. It's expensive but must be done.

  It's all in the name of my priest. No skimping there.

  39

  Dr. Samuel--"Sammy"--Tsung was called to the stand by SA Dickinson as his first witness Monday morning. The medical examiner looked calm and sounded smooth as he went through the standard foundational questions including education, training, licenses and certificates, work experience, teaching experience, published writings, professional organizations, and previous times and cases where he qualified as an expert witness in a Chicago court: state or federal.

  Then the SA gets down to our case.

  "You have previously examined victims of strangulation?"

  "Yes, thousands."

  "Are you familiar with the signs and symptoms of strangulation?"

  "Yes."

  "Please tell us about strangulation. For example, are there types of strangulation?"

  "Yes. Strangulation is defined as a form of asphyxia or lack of oxygen. Strangulation is characterized by closure of the blood vessels and air passages of the neck."

  "Why would those be closed?"

  "Well, as a result of external pressure on the neck. The three forms of strangulation are hanging, ligature, and manual. Ten percent of violent deaths in the U.S. each year are due to strangulation, six females to every male. Ligature strangulation is strangulation with a cord-like object (also referred to as garroting), and may include anything from a telephone cord to articles of clothing."

  "Is Amy's death a ligature strangulation death?"

  "Yes and no. I say yes and no because her carotid arteries were also severed. Severing of even one carotid artery always causes death if untreated."

  "Were you able to determine what caused Amy's strangulation and carotid cuts?"

  "A thin wire."

  "Could a piano wire do this?"

  "Definitely."

  "Could a guitar string?"

  “Absolutely.”

  "Or even common baling wire?"

  "Without a doubt."

  "Tell us more about the carotid artery involvement, please."

  "Carotid arteries are the major vessels that transport oxygenated blood from the heart and lungs to the brain. These are the arteries at the side of the neck that persons administering CPR check for pulses. Jugular veins are the major vessels that transport deoxygenated blood from the brain back to the heart. The general clinical sequence of a victim who is being strangled is one of severe pain, followed by unconsciousness, followed by brain death."

  "Describe Amy's death."

  "Well, assuming she was attacked with a thin wire, the wire of course destroyed her carotid arteries and she would have bled to death within minutes. Or she would have died from lack of oxygen. Either or both killed Amy Tanenbaum."

  "Was it a painful death?"

  "Extremely. There was great suffering by this young girl."

  "Please describe the injuries to Amy's neck."

  "Of course there was the ligature line. A complete circle around her neck that cut into the flesh all the way around. Also, I observed and filmed scratches, abrasions, and scrapes. These would be from the victim's own fingernails as a defensive maneuver."

  "She was struggling to free herself?"

  "Yes. It was a very violent death as she flailed and fought to free herself from the noose."

  "Describe the scratches, first off."

  "Three types of fingernail markings occurred, singly and in combination. These were impression, scratch, and claw marks. Impression marks occurred when the fingernails cut into the skin. They were shaped like commas or semi-circles. Scratch marks were superficial and long as the fingernail itself. Claw marks occurred near the end of Amy's struggle when the skin was undermined. These are more vicious and dramatic appearing."

  "So she scratched and clawed herself to remove the wire?”

  "Her own skin and some flesh was removed from beneath her fingernails and examined. There was no foreign skin or flesh, indicating to me the assailant attacked her from behind and she wasn't able to reach around or back to him or her."

  "Dr. Tsung, please allow me now to back up with more general questions."

  "That's fine."

  "For the record, are you a medical examiner?"

  "Of course."

  "How long have you been a medical examiner?"

  "Fifteen years."

  The doctor goes on and describes the training and education that goes into becoming a medical examiner. He explained what happens in an autopsy and the reasons we do autopsies. He has performed in excess of ten thousand autopsies himself. He then goes on to describe the role of the pathologist and how the pathologist and medical examiner will work together and complement each other. Finally, he describes Amy's autopsy in detail. The court takes a break at midpoint and the jurors file out of the courtroom, visibly stunned with what they have just undergone.

  Upon taking up again, Dr. Tsung describes photos and injuries and denies internal injuries secondary to physical trauma. Then, for the record, he says the cause of death was strangulation coupled with exsanguination or bleed-out.

  "The last area I want to cover, doctor, is the area of extraordinary findings by you. Were there extraordinary findings?"

  "Yes. The assailant or someone close by had put a live mouse inside Amy's mouth then glued her mouth shut."

  "Was the mouse alive when you performed the autopsy?"

  "No."

  "Had the mouse damaged Amy's oral tissues?"

  "It had chewed almost completely through her right cheek."

>   The State's Attorney turns from the lectern and returns to his table for a glass of water, which he pours and slowly drinks down. Then he returns to the lectern. The moment is a high one for him: the jury is stupefied and aghast at what they just heard.

  "Now. Tell us about the glue."

  "Someone had applied Superglue to Amy's lips. I had to use my scalpel to visualize the oral cavity."

  "You had to cut into her mouth?"

  "Yes. Definitely."

  "Have you ever, in your ten thousand autopsies, seen anything like this before?"

  "I have seen everything. But not this. Never."

  "Thank you, doctor."

  The SA abruptly breaks off and it's my turn to cross-examine. He has caught me just a bit out of rhythm and so I ask the judge for a ten-minute recess. Granted.

  Marcel comes forward through the bar with Danny close behind.

  "How horrible!" Danny says.

  "That was the worst ever, boss," Marcel agrees. "That son-of-a-bitch should get the electric chair."

  "Well, lucky for him, Illinois no longer executes. So we're good there. It was that bad for the jury?"

  Danny's look is grim. Her lips are ringed with white anger lines.

  "Several women were crying. Even the men were having trouble holding it together. One man became visibly ill and was swallowing bile over and over. Dear Amy, what else don’t we know about how painfully she died? The secrets girls keep.”

  "So, are we hurt?"

  "Well," says Danny, "it sure as hell didn't help."

  When we resume, my cross-examination takes no more than five minutes. Why allow this expert to keep repeating what the jury has already found so repulsive? That's my thinking. The girl is dead, the death was violent, and the mouse and glue inexcusable. There, it's over and done, time to move on.

  Hopefully without dragging all of this behind.

  But it hangs on anyway. The afternoon air in the courtroom is polluted by what we've all just heard. We have inhaled it and it has become part of us. A dream that will never die.

  Unlike Amy, who is gone and who now cries out for justice.

  The face of every last juror says so.

  40

  Colleen Takaguchi from the CSI team is telling us about hair and fiber. The jury is somewhat tuned in, but the forensics of the case are beginning to slow the State's momentum from the overdrive of the medical examiner to the less-exciting testimony of this technician who spent over six hours at the scene collecting evidence and over forty hours examining and testing what she found.

  "Tell us about the hair in this case. What do we need to know?" asks SA Dickinson.

  Takaguchi, a strapping thirty-something with the arms of a world-class weightlifter, reaches and adjusts the square eyeglasses on her flat nose.

  "In my workup I used a comparison microscope to view known and unknown hairs side by side."

  "What hairs did you compare?"

  "I compared the hairs taken from the rodent removed by Dr. Tsung from Amy's mouth to the hairs taken from the mouse cage belonging to the defendant."

  "The hairs taken from the mouse cage of Jana Emerich?"

  "Yes."

  "Your findings?"

  "Well, there are common characteristics in the study of hair. My checklist of comparisons includes color and width; distribution pattern of the medulla; and color and distribution pattern of pigment in the cortex; and cuticle pattern."

  "We'll hold off on describing those things. Did your comparisons of these two hair samples result in a laboratory finding?"

  "Yes. The hair in her mouth was the same as the hair from the defendant's cage."

  "You mean it was the same type."

  "The same type of hair, yes."

  "Now, are you saying it's the exact same hair or just the exact same hair type?"

  "Hair type. Hair type only."

  "Now, let's go ahead and describe the hair types you compared."

  "Rodent hair contains coronal scales. Coronal or crown-like scales give the hair a mosaic surface appearance. Human hair rarely has these scales, but they're common among rodents. So, for openers, I knew I was dealing with rodent hair."

  "What else?"

  "The characteristics I've previously mentioned. They all matched up."

  "So hair of the same type of mouse was found in the mouse cage and in the decedent's mouth?"

  "Yes."

  "What about transfer evidence? Any fingerprints, for example?"

  "No, and no DNA samples, either. Not from the rodent where the killer might have handled the mouse and not from Amy's skin where the killer may have touched her. No DNA to study."

  "What about mouse DNA? Did you try to establish whether the mice in the defendant's cage were the same family as the mouse in Amy's mouth?"

  "Inconclusive there. I cannot say."

  "Very well, then, that's all I have. Counsel, you may cross-examine."

  I am immediately on my feet and stepping up to the lectern.

  "Ms. Takaguchi, you've told us about the defendant's mouse study. But isn't it true you also did a study on the mouse hair taken from a second individual?"

  "Yes."

  "Who would that be?"

  "Rudy Gomez."

  "Who is Rudy Gomez?"

  "Another student at Wendover High."

  "And what did your comparison of Rudy's mouse hair to Amy's mouse hair tell you?"

  "They matched. Same kind of hair."

  "So at least one other person in Chicago keeps mice like the one in Amy's mouth?”

  "Yes. At least one."

  "And there could be thousands more, correct?"

  "I'm sure I wouldn't know."

  I knew that. It was the question I was after, not her answer.

  This next one will get me into trouble, but I ask it anyway because defense lawyers should never fear being in trouble with the judge. Not in a criminal case and certainly not in a criminal case as serious as this one.

  "Ms. Takaguchi, wouldn't you agree, being that there is at least one other source of mice in Chicagoland, that reasonable doubt as to the defendant's guilt has been established?"

  "Objection!"

  "Sustained! Counsel, you know better. The jury will disregard the last question."

  "That is all I have," I say meekly, seriously contrite as far as anyone can tell.

  But inside I am singing the praises of Marcel Rainford, my investigator who obtained the Rudy Gomez mouse hair sample.

  Thank you, Marcel.

  We have raised reasonable doubt whether the court wants me to ask about it or not.

  Now to do the same with the Superglue.

  If I can, Jana has a chance of walking out of here a free man.

  Just then he looks up and says, "What are my chances, Mr. Gresham?"

  I look down at him and whisper, "Eighty-twenty."

  "Eighty-twenty?" he whispers back. "That's fantastic!"

  "No. The eighty is at the other table. The twenty is you."

  "Oh. Eight times out of ten I'm dead in the water."

  "In a manner of speaking, yes."

  "Well, do something, man. Do something!"

  I reach down and pat his shoulder. I do it for the effect it has on the jury. They like me, and the theory among defense lawyers is that some of that will rub off on the defendant when I touch or pat him.

  That's the theory.

  Had the jury not been there, I never would touch this young man.

  I just wouldn't.

  41

  We take our afternoon break and, just as we stand and stretch, Danny returns with a venti Starbucks coffee for me. My nectar. I take a sip and smack my lips. It's the little things that get the trial lawyer through the trial. Always the little things.

  Ordinarily on our breaks Jana will disappear. I think he's going outside on the sidewalk to smoke and I couldn't care less. His help to me in the trial has been utterly worthless. I'm even beginning to think he doesn't know anything of use to me because he
's not the killer. He has personal problems galore, like spying on Priscilla in the shower, but I'm almost a hundred percent certain he's not a killer to boot. I have been wrong before, but always find out too late, after I have acquired freedom for someone who goes back out to kill, rob, assault, or drive drunk again. It's happened many times over my thirty years.

  We launch into the final session of Monday afternoon and the SA announces he will be calling his second to last witness of the trial. He calls Mira Kendricks, a gaunt image of a once-beautiful woman who has spent her life inside laboratories and courtrooms, without sun, without exercise, and without personal care. Her hair is stringy and different lengths, her eyes look flat and lack makeup, and her tight lips and small chest give her an almost childlike look that makes me think of an angry high school boy. It's the image.

  The State's attorney asks the witness the usual foundational questions and we discover she's a chemist with the crime lab. If it's got any chemistry, she does it. This time around, it's the Superglue. She has tested what was found and seized in Jana's room and she tells us that it's the same batch of glue that was used to seal Amy's mouth.

  But we knew that and I'm ready for it. I cross-examine her, making a big point out of the fact there are thousands of other tubes of Superglue in downtown Chicago alone that would have come from that sample. She limps from the courtroom, having been bitten several times by me.

  Hopefully that put an end to the Superglue connection.

  Now to wait for the final witness. I can guess that it will be Amy's father, our esteemed mayor, but I can't know for sure. Whoever it is, the State's Attorney has exhausted his list of expert witnesses.

  We are done with the technical portion of the trial. The science has been handed off to the jury for its consideration. Good riddance, I'm thinking as I ride the elevator downstairs, exhausted. Danny is back at the office, finished with her own cases for the day. I close my eyes and visualize my boat and the lake. We are a good team, my boat and I; we have our own special blend of chemistry. Now that's some science I could really spend some time with. But it will be a few more days of trial first.

  Then, I'm all in. I'm gone.

  42

  We're off and running at 9:03 a.m. the next day.