Laughing Heirs (A Robin Starling Courtroom Mystery)

by Michael Monhollon

  “No further questions of this witness?”

  “I guess not, your honor.”

  “I don’t mean to prevent you bringing out exculpatory evidence.”

  “I know you don’t.”

  “Or probing the prosecution’s evidence to test its validity.”

  I gave him a closed mouth smile, and Cochran sighed. He looked at the clock and sighed again. “Court is adjourned until tomorrow morning at nine a.m.”

  I had some work to do before I went home. The prosecution seemed likely to rest its case the next day, and as of yet I had no witnesses. Last week I’d gotten the court clerk to issue three subpoenas for me, signed but otherwise blank. All I had to do was fill them in.

  Back in my office I did that and walked them over to Rodney. “You ever serve a subpoena?” I asked him.

  He looked up, blinking. “Yes. It’s been a while.”

  “There’s another outfit I can use, if you don’t want to do it. Maybe that would be better. I need help finding Jack Packard.”

  “You think he’s alive then?”

  “I don’t know. But say he is alive and he’s still in the Richmond area.”

  “He hasn’t been back to Gold’s Gym. I told you that, didn’t I?”

  “There are other Gold’s Gyms in Richmond. Could he have been to one of those?”

  “No. I checked them all.”

  “How do you check things like that?”

  He shrugged.

  “Doesn’t anybody keep their customers’ records confidential?”

  “Sometimes you have to give something to get something.” He smiled. “You have a date with one of the assistant managers this Saturday.” He smiled again at my expression. “Just kidding. I was a son concerned about where his elderly father disappears to everyday. ‘He used to go to the gym pretty regularly, but I’ve begun to suspect he isn’t doing that anymore, that maybe he’s meeting up with people who are looking to take advantage of him.’ You know the sort of thing.”

  “Rodney Burns. You’re a gifted liar. And you’ve got a sense of humor.”

  “It hurts to learn that’s a revelation to you. If it helps, Jack Packard last worked out at Gold’s on Friday, February 11.”

  “The day of the murder.”

  “Right. And before that day he was as regular as clockwork. He came in a little after six four days a week…”

  “Six a.m.?”

  “A.m., yes. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. He’s always gone by seven-thirty.”

  “Could he be going to another gym—Planet Fitness, World Gym, the YMCA?”

  “Still working on your exercise-addict hypothesis?”

  “It’s what I’ve got. We’re looking for a muscular old man in his late seventies with shoulders and a big, bull neck. He may or may not be using his real name. Works out in the mornings. Paid cash for his membership, or maybe pays by the workout. If he’s hitting the same place every day, somebody has to have noticed him.”

  “Personally, I think he’s dead or in California, but I’ll do what I can.”

  Chapter 19

  Aubrey Biggs, the district attorney, was sitting next to David Miller when I came into the courtroom the next morning. Nevertheless, it was David Miller who called the first witness of the day, Dr. Harold Pavlicek from the Office of Chief Medical Examiner. I had last seen him at the crime scene the night of Macy’s murder. He came to the stand wearing a heavy sports jacket with elbow patches, a goatee, and glasses with round, owl-like lenses.

  “Dr. Pavlicek. Could you give us your full name, please?” Miller asked him.

  Dr. Pavlicek gave it and followed with his credentials, which included a residency in pathology and twenty-two years’ experience with the Office of Chief Medical Examiner, Virginia Department of Health. He had arrived on the murder scene at 8:25 the evening of February 11 and found a dead Caucasian female lying on the floor of the kitchen. She had been dead between two and four hours, meaning she had died between four-thirty and six-thirty. Body temperature and the beginnings of livor mortis, or postmortem lividity, were used to establish the time window—which unfortunately included the time Victoria O’Neal had seen Brian Marshall running down the sidewalk away from the house. Pavlicek had also detected the beginnings of rigor mortis in the eyelids and jaw, which usually starts about two hours after death.

  “The cause of death appeared to be exsanguination secondary to a penetrating wound to the upper right quadrant of the abdomen,” Dr. Pavlicek said, an hour into his testimony.

  Miller smiled. “Could we have that in English, doctor?”

  “She died of blood loss secondary to a stab wound.”

  “Close enough. What can you tell us about the murder weapon?”

  “It wasn’t present, but it would have been a blade roughly four inches long with a point and no edge, possibly something like an old-fashioned ice pick. It made a straight puncture wound about four inches deep that penetrated the liver and caused extensive bleeding both internally and externally.”

  “How long after injury did death occur?”

  “Probably thirty to forty-five minutes. She’d lost about half her blood. By the time the heart stopped pumping, the abdominal cavity had darkened considerably, making it look bruised, and as I said, there was a great deal of external bleeding, too.”

  “Did you take samples of her blood?”

  “We did.”

  “And make a DNA profile from those samples?”

  He’d done that, too.

  “Did you also make DNA profiles from the blood on the T-shirt and the ice pick given you by Detective Jordan?”

  “Yes. We were able to obtain enough blood from both sources to make adequate samples.”

  “The results?”

  “Both samples matched the reference sample.”

  “And the reference sample was…”

  “The blood taken from the body of the decedent.”

  That testimony alone might have been enough for the prosecution to make its case. There was probable cause to believe Macy Buck had been murdered, and probable cause to connect both Brian Marshall and Whitney Foster with the crime. “No further questions,” Miller said.

  I went to the podium. “I understand there was quite a bit of blood on the T-shirt, but was there really enough on the ice pick to make a DNA profile?”

  “Oh, yes. We used to need about a nickel-sized spot of bodily fluid. That’s when we first started making DNA profiles using restriction fragment length polymorphism…”

  “Excuse me?” I said, waving a hand to stop him.

  “It’s a technique that usually goes by its initials, RFLP. It required a relatively large sample and often took as long as a month to complete. Now with PCR—polymerase chain reaction analysis—we can replicate a small amount of DNA to create a larger sample for analysis.” He was just getting started. The first step in PCR was to add a special enzyme—the polymerase—to the DNA before heating and cooling it about thirty times. After the first step, it just got complicated.

  When he came to a pause that might have indicated he was done, I said, “When you say there was a match between the various samples of DNA, what do you mean?”

  He was still in lecture mode. “Each DNA profile consists of a combination of traits. When there’s the same combination of traits in the reference sample and the evidence samples, we say there’s a match.”

  “Were any of the traits in the samples especially rare?”

  “No. Most of the traits occur in one-fourth to one-third of the population. It’s the combination of traits that is rare. Take two traits and assume that each occur in one-fourth of the population. The chances that a given sample contains a single trait is one in four, but the chances that it also contains the other trait is also one in four—so the probability of a DNA sample containing both traits is one in 16. Do you follow? But of course, we were looking at many more than two traits here.”

  “Okay,” I said. “What would the probability be of an
y two samples containing all of the traits you looked at?”

  “About one in 7,000.”

  I frowned, having expected odds more on the order of one in a billion. “So if there are 1.2 million people living in the Richmond metropolitan area, that suggests there would be…a couple hundred people with this same DNA profile walking around town?”

  Dr. Pavlicek’s eyes cut to the ceiling. “About a hundred seventy,” he said after a moment. “But before you get too excited, ask yourself how many of the hundred-and-seventy are likely to have bled onto a T-shirt of one of the defendants and an ice pick at the business of another. You can’t consider the DNA evidence in isolation.”

  I thought for a moment, trying to decide if I could or I couldn’t.

  “The probability that a person is one in 7,000, left blood in both places, and left fingerprints in the decedent’s house is vanishingly small,” the doctor said.

  Small enough to bind over the defendants in a preliminary hearing anyway. I let it go. “Did you compare any other evidence samples to the victim's blood?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Specifically, did you make a DNA profile of blood found at the home of Jack Packard and compare it to your reference sample?”

  “Yes, we did. It was a match.”

  That was easier than I expected. “Thank you, Dr. Pavlicek. That is all.”

  At the prosecutor’s table it was Aubrey Biggs who stood. “Call Wilma Henderson to the stand.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to rest your case?” Judge Cochran asked him. “I’m going to bind the defendants over.” I stood, and he waved his hand at me. “Unless of course,” he added, “the defense is able to produce video of someone else committing the murder and vacuuming up blood to squirt on various items belonging to the defendants.” He gave me a tired grimace.

  I sat down. I had no such video.

  “Your honor,” Biggs said. “The questions posed by counsel have suggested the possibility that a man named Jack Packard is implicated in this crime. We wish to rebut that suggestion.”

  “It isn’t necessary for purposes of this hearing.”

  “We are not ready to rest our case,” Biggs said.

  Judge Cochran rolled his eyes, sighed. “Very well.” He straightened, then, and his gaze focused. “I warn you, though, that we’re going to stay on topic. Understood?”

  “Understood.”

  I don’t think Cochran believed him any more than I did.

  The bailiff brought Wilma Henderson from the witness room. She was the old biddy who claimed to have seen me climbing in Jack Packard’s basement window. Of course, I had been climbing in Jack Packard’s window, so perhaps my resentment was misplaced, but that didn’t keep me from feeling it all the same.

  “Your name is Wilma Henderson?” Biggs asked her when she had been sworn in.

  “It is. Wilma Alice Henderson.”

  “Where do you live, Ms. Henderson?”

  She gave him the address, adding, “That’s right across the street from Mr. Packard.”

  “Did you observe any activity at Jack Packard’s house on Tuesday, February 15?”

  “I did. I saw this young woman remove a screen from my neighbor’s basement window and climb through it.”

  Having been an English major, I noticed the misplaced modifier. I had not in fact climbed through the screen, and if I were this woman’s English teacher, I would let her have it.

  “Which young woman?”

  “That young lady sitting at the table there.” She pointed at me, but of course Whitney Foster was also at the table.

  “Which young lady?” Biggs repeated.

  “The tall, skinny one.”

  My antipathy toward this woman was increasing exponentially.

  “Could you see Mr. Packard’s basement window from your house?” Biggs asked.

  “No. His lawn slopes down, so I can only see the top part of his house. I had to come to the end of my sidewalk to see to the bottom of the driveway. The basement window I’m talking about faces the driveway.”

  “How did you come to move to the end of your sidewalk? Were you getting your mail, or was it something else?”

  “I was not getting my mail. I had just seen this woman at Mr. Packard’s mailbox going through his mail—adding some stuff to it, taking other stuff away.”

  “You saw Robin Starling, counsel for the defense, tampering with Mr. Packard’s mail?” He was keeping a damper on the moral outrage, probably saving it for a full-fledged explosion. “That would be a crime unless Mr. Packard had authorized her to take care of his mail. Do you know if he had?”

  “I know he could have. She had been at the house just a few days before, and he could have given her permission then.”

  I felt suddenly cold.

  “When was Ms. Starling there, a few days before?” Biggs asked.

  “She was there the previous Friday.”

  “Friday, February 11?”

  “That would be the day.”

  Judge Cochran was beginning to look interested, which I took as a bad sign.

  “What did she do at Mr. Packard’s house on Friday the 11th?”

  “I wouldn’t know, would I? All I know is she drove down his driveway, and fifteen or twenty minutes later she drove out again.”

  “What time was this?”

  “That I’m not sure of. Late afternoon, I think.”

  “No further questions.”

  The judge looked at me. “Counselor?”

  “Could I have a fifteen-minute recess, your honor?”

  He looked at the clock. It was 11:05. “Is there a problem, Counselor?”

  Biggs said, “You see what this testimony means, your honor. Ms. Starling is most probably an accessory after the fact to the crime of murder. She had possession of the victim’s blood on the very day of the murder, and she went to Jack Packard’s house to sprinkle it around and talk him into leaving town on an extended vacation. A few days later, when no one had found the evidence she had planted, she was back at the house, where she dialed 9-1-1 to make sure the police did find it. I have the police report to prove it. Here at this preliminary hearing, yesterday and again today, she’s done her best to bring out what was found in Jack Packard’s house, injecting it into the case when she knows it has nothing at all to do with it.”

  “Do you intend to charge her as an accessory?”

  “Possibly. At the very least, we’ll be charging her with altering physical evidence, and we’ll be filing a complaint with the disciplinary committee of the state bar.”

  The judge turned his gaze to me. “Ms. Starling?”

  When at a loss, accuse the accuser. I took a breath. “Your honor, these personal attacks seem to have become a regular courtroom tactic of Mr. Biggs’s.”

  “Just as playing fast and loose with the evidence has become of regular tactic of Ms. Starling’s,” Biggs said.

  “Mr. Biggs is always going to make a complaint to the state bar, or he’s going to charge me with some crime. He never has. His sole purpose is to intimidate me into providing a less-than-zealous representation for my clients—or maybe he’s just throwing mud at me in an effort to smear my clients, I don’t know. Either way, it’s way outside the bounds of professional conduct. You should admonish him for it or even impose sanctions.”

  Biggs’s his neck was puffed out like the body of a blowfish, and his face was reddening, but the judge held up a hand to forestall his outburst. “We’re going to recess until after lunch. When we reconvene, we’re going to proceed witness by witness and question by question, and we’re not going to have any more of these personal exchanges. Is that understood?”

  Biggs started to say something, then closed his mouth and nodded, tight lipped.

  “Ms. Starling?”

  “Yes, your honor.”

  “Mr. Biggs, I don’t want another reference to any charges you’re filing or planning to file against Ms. Starling. Is that understood?”

  �
��Yes.”

  “Yes, your honor,” the judge said. He tapped his gavel. “Court is recessed until one o’clock.”

  “You weren’t at Jack Packard’s house the day of the murder, were you?” Brooke asked me as we speed-walked toward our cars.

  “No. I wasn’t. I went home early to spend time with Deeks.”

  “So that awful woman is lying.”

  “Maybe.”

  “There’s no maybe about it. She’s just a twisted, miserable little creature, peering out of her windows all day like a big, bloated spider.”

  The description startled a laugh from me. “How about this?” I said. “Suppose she’s involved in this whole sordid mess and is perjuring herself for reasons of her own.”

  “Involved how?”

  “No idea.” I fished out my phone and called Rodney Burns to ask him to look for possible connections between Wilma Henderson and Jack Packard, or Wilma Henderson and the Walsh clan, or Wilma Henderson and Macy Buck.

  “That’s a lot of possibilities,” he said. “What kind of connection do you suspect?”

  “None. I just need to rule out the possibility that there is one.”

  “It’s your dime.”

  “Your rates have gone down,” I said. “Thanks.” I ended the call before he could clarify his fee structure.

  “Where’s Mike?” I asked Brooke as we got into my car. “He was there when we started up this morning.”

  “He slipped out an hour ago for a hearing at the federal building. He’ll text me when he gets out.” The federal building was just across the street from the courthouse. “So where are we going? Not to lunch, I assume.”

  I turned out of the parking lot. “Patterson Avenue. Macy’s house.”

  “Not to Jack Packard’s?”

  “No. I can’t think of anything to do there.”

  “What can you do at Macy Buck’s?”

  “Probably nothing. Her car was a boxy little SUV crossover of some sort. I’ve seen it twice, once when I met her for lunch the day she was killed and then again the night of the murder, but I really didn’t paid any attention to it.”

  “You’re thinking Wilma Henderson might have mistaken it for your Beetle?”