Dark Justice bk-8

by William Bernhardt

  The only remotely interesting bit of testimony came late in the morning, when Granny called Deputy Goldsmith to the stand. Goldsmith had first reported to the crime scene, then was instructed by Sheriff Allen to join him on an expedition to the Green Rage camp.

  “First I went back to town and woke up the judge,” Goldsmith said, glancing up at Pickens. “Then I got a search warrant. Then me and Sheriff Allen and two of the boys drove out to the Green Rage camp. Luckily, we’d had a report from some campers that gave us a good idea where the camp was that night. Even so, it took us a good half hour of driving around before we found it. When we finally did, we woke everybody up and started asking questions.”

  “Did you learn anything of interest?” Granny asked.

  “Not from them. They didn’t know anything about it. Or so they said.”

  “Did you conduct a search?”

  “Definitely. We went through all their tents, all their papers and equipment.”

  “Did you find anything?”

  “Yes, ma’am. The Bigfoot suit.”

  Granny brought out the costume, wrapped in clear polyethylene, and went through the rigmarole necessary to have it admitted into evidence.

  “Deputy Goldsmith,” Granny continued, “why was this Halloween costume of interest to you?”

  “We’d been having a large number of Bigfoot sightings in the last few months prior to the murder. We always get some of that, but this was way above average. So we knew that either there really was a Bigfoot or someone was running around in a costume. And the latter seemed more likely.”

  “Does this have anything to do with the murder of Dwayne Gardiner?” Granny asked innocently.

  Ben frowned. As if she didn’t know.

  “We thought so. See, the tough thing about that murder was trying to figure out who would be running around in the forest at that time of night. But we had three reports of Bigfoot sightings in the area that night, ranging from about a quarter after twelve until about one-thirty. Campers think they see things, then call us on their cellular phones. Anyway, those calls suggested that someone in the Bigfoot getup was awake and in the area-at exactly the time the murder took place.”

  “So you thought whoever was wearing the costume would be a murder suspect.”

  “Yeah. Particularly since the last report said that Bigfoot was running at full speed. Like maybe he was chasing someone.”

  Chasing someone? Ben thought. He couldn’t chase Gardiner, not after the explosion. Was there a third person at the crime scene?

  Come to think of it, Deputy Wagner had said the anonymous call about the murder had come from a woman.

  Could it have been Tess? Could she have been there, at the crime scene? That would explain a great deal.

  “I think we can all understand now why you were so interested in the suit, Deputy Goldsmith. Would you now please tell the jury where you found it?”

  “Certainly. The suit was in the tent belonging to the defendant. George Zakin.”

  There was an audible gasp in the courtroom. Ben didn’t know why-did they really think Granny would be bringing this up if the suit had been in someone else’s tent? Nonetheless, the jurors’ eyes all moved, if only briefly, toward Zak. And the expressions on their faces were not kind ones.

  “Did he share the tent with anyone else?”

  “Nope. It was his and his alone.”

  “Thank you, deputy. No more questions.”

  Ben didn’t even bother cross-examining. There was nothing to be gained. He didn’t believe Goldsmith was lying, and like it or not, the suit had been in Zak’s tent. That was just an unfortunate bit of evidence they were going to have to live with.

  Next up, Granny called a fingerprint expert to the stand, a Michael Hightower. Hightower had found a latent thumbprint on a piece of metal plating, possibly part of the bomb casing. Evidently the metal had been thrown clear in the explosion and thus remained largely intact, preserving the print.

  Which matched Zak’s right thumbprint. Perfectly. Unquestionably.

  Granny finished the morning by calling her next forensic expert to the stand. Mark Austin specialized in footprints, and as the jury soon learned, he had taken several from the crime scene, particularly from the area surrounding the corpse. Many, he explained, could be dismissed as having come from members of the sheriff’s office or other investigators. But one set of prints could not. He had made plaster casts, which Granny had admitted into evidence and displayed to the jury.

  Those prints were size elevens-the same size that George Zakin wore.

  This time around, Ben definitely saw a reason to cross-examine.

  “Mr. Austin, did you conduct an analysis of the tread left by these footprints?”

  Austin, a short, prim man wearing a suit coat and bow tie, straightened. “Unfortunately, the ground was relatively dry the night of the murder. The print left did not have sufficient depth or distinction to identify the tread. So trying to trace the prints to a particular shoe was out of the question. What we could see was the broad outline of the print-that is, what size it was.”

  “Mr. Austin, before this thing gets too far out of control, let’s be clear on just what exactly you’re saying. You’re not saying that George Zakin left those footprints, are you?”

  “Well …”

  “What you’re saying is that someone-you don’t know who-left those footprints.”

  “And whoever it was wore a size eleven. As does George Zakin.”

  “That’s correct. And there are a whole heck of a lot of people who wear a size eleven, aren’t there?”

  “No doubt.” Austin adjusted his bow tie. “But only one of them is on trial for murder.”

  “Mr. Austin, aren’t the police supposed to use evidence to find the culprit, instead of picking a culprit and then finding evidence that fits?”

  “Objection,” Granny said. “Mr. Kincaid is way out of line. Again.”

  Judge Pickens made an unhappy grunting noise. “Kincaid, you almost got to spend last night in jail. Let’s not go down that road again, all right?”

  “Yes, your honor,” Ben said placidly.

  “And you may consider that your absolutely last warning.”

  Right, right. Bully. “Let me ask you a different question, Mr. Austin. How many people were at that crime scene?”

  Austin shook his head. “Quite a few. Twenty or so, I would guess.”

  “And every one of them left footprints, right?”

  “No doubt.”

  “Some of them, like Deputy Wagner, probably left a lot of footprints.”

  “Yes.” Austin grinned. This was obviously a topic he had been prepared for. “But none of them wears a size eleven.”

  “Oh? And how do you know that?”

  “Because I checked every single one of them.”

  Oh. Damn. “And none of them wore a size eleven?”

  “None of them.”

  “You checked everyone who was at the crime scene?”

  “Every single one.”

  His smug smile was almost more than Ben could bear. “And you’re sure no one wore a size eleven.”

  “Right.”

  “Not a single person at the crime scene.”

  “Not a one.”

  “And you’re sure of this?”

  Austin drummed his fingers on the witness chair. “Absolutely sure.”

  All at once, Ben lurched forward, grabbed Austin’s right shoe, and yanked it off his foot.

  Austin rose. “What in the name of …!”

  Judge Pickens pounded his gavel. “Kincaid! Have you totally taken leave of your senses?”

  “Not totally,” Ben answered. He turned the shoe around so Judge Pickens could see inside the opening. “Size eleven.”

  Austin froze.

  “Permission to publish this shoe to the jury, your honor?”

  Pickens responded with a grumpy wave of the hand.

  Ben tossed the shoe to the female juror on the end of the
first row and turned back to the witness. “Mr. Austin, it seems there was someone at the crime scene wearing size elevens after all.”

  Austin’s mouth began to work, but not much sound was coming out. “I … never thought …”

  “About yourself, right? You thought to check everyone but yourself.”

  “I guess.”

  “And of course you left footprints at the crime scene, didn’t you? You didn’t fly in?”

  Austin frowned. “No. I walked from the car to the crime scene.”

  “So you must have left footprints.”

  His head fell. “So I must have left footprints.”

  “Thank you, sir. I appreciate your honesty.” He started back to defendant’s table.

  “My pleasure,” Austin said, as if acid were dripping from his tongue. “May I have my shoe back now?”

  Chapter 47

  Ben stayed in the courtroom during the lunch hour and reviewed his notes. Maybe it was overkill, but he had never cross-exed anyone like this next witness before and he didn’t know what to expect. Best to be as prepared as possible.

  At one-thirty, the bailiff escorted the jury back into the courtroom and Judge Pickens reconvened the trial. Granny called her next witness.

  “The State calls Dr. Richard A. Grayson to the stand.”

  The bailiff stepped out of the courtroom and called for Grayson, who was standing just outside the door. He was a middle-aged man, probably thirty or forty pounds overweight. He was bald, but compensated for it with an exceptionally bushy beard. He walked like a man altogether at ease with himself, one hundred percent confident, not a worry in the world.

  Granny took him through the painstaking process of establishing his background and expertise. Dr. Grayson was a dentist who had an office in the suburbs of San Francisco, was a graduate of UCLA, and was a member of several medical and dental professional associations. But part of his office was devoted not to private practice but to research.

  “What is the nature of your research?” Granny asked.

  “I’ve spent the last eighteen years investigating ways to make trace injuries more apparent.”

  “Can you tell us what you mean by trace injuries?”

  “Well, for instance, bite marks.”

  Several jurors’ heads lifted. They had been all but dozing during the credentials, but now they began to see where this testimony was headed.

  “Is there a reason why trace injuries would need to be made more apparent?”

  “Dealing with trace evidence is always a problem for law enforcement,” Grayson explained. He had an easy manner, informative, confident, but not too pretentious. “I think you’ve already gotten a taste of that in this trial. Footprints are found, but the imprint is not deep enough to identify the shoe tread. A bite mark is found on the victim’s arm, but the impression is not sufficient to allow the coroner to make a conventional analysis via dental records. I’ve been working on ways to make what is not immediately apparent more so.”

  “You mentioned the process of identifying bite marks by conventional dental records. Could you explain that to the jury?”

  “Certainly. It’s really very simple. May I have my charts?”

  Granny stepped back to her table and lifted a tall stack of enlarged exhibits mounted on poster board. She placed them on a lectern next to the witness stand. Ben winced when he saw the thickness of the stack. By the looks of it, they could all settle in for a long winter’s nap.

  Grayson stood next to the exhibits and pointed toward the first one, which appeared to be an enlarged bite mark on flesh. “This is an example of a good bite mark, that is, one that’s absolutely clear. The indentations of most of the teeth are quite evident. Even so, there can be problems.” He pivoted toward the jury. “The principal identification difficulties come from the fact that human tissue is soft. It can be stretched and compressed. Therefore, the record left by the bite can be distorted.”

  “Are there ways of dealing with that problem, Doctor?”

  “Of course. We have a battery of tools for just that purpose. We use a measuring rule, scale or tape, moulages of the tissue and teeth indentation, and of course models of the suspect’s teeth. Computers can also be used to create a probable range of orientations a bite mark could take. By comparing with the dental records of the suspect, we can determine whether the bite mark came from his teeth.”

  Grayson displayed the next poster board in the stack. What the jury saw was a long row of teeth, and beneath them, a series of numbers. “This is a standard tooth-numbering chart. It uses two of the most common tooth designation systems, Universal and Palmer, plus the new Federation Dentaire International System.” He pointed to the numbers beneath the first tooth on the left. “For instance, the lower right molar is designated number 30-on the Universal system, L.R. 6-on the Palmer, or 36-on the new FDI. Actually, the FDI recently changed its quadrant designations so that the first odd numbers consistently refer to the right side and the first even numbers consistently refer to the left side.”

  Absolutely fascinating, Ben thought. Probably had nothing to do with this case, but it made Grayson seem like one smart dental dude.

  Grayson turned to his next chart. “On the right, beside the teeth, you can see the marking codes commonly used to identify teeth anomalies. Any unusual characteristics, rotations, tooth and bone color oddities-such as pink, yellow, or tetracycline discoloration-can be noted here. Antemortem dental records, those most commonly found in a dentist’s office, will also typically contain notes regarding various treatments and services rendered. Postmortem records will not have that, but will typically provide far greater detail about the current condition of the teeth.”

  Grayson then took the jury through the remainder of his charts, explaining the role of X-rays and other dental tools, which he called armamentaria. All in all, Ben thought it was boring as hell, but it served Granny’s purpose. After hearing the man rattle on in this manner for well over an hour, it was hard to doubt that he was in fact an expert in the science of forensic dentistry.

  “And in this manner,” Grayson concluded, “we are able to trace an injury back to the person who made it. After taking these extensive and detailed records, we simply compare the chart compiled on the injury with the chart compiled on the suspect. If they match, we know the suspect is guilty. Dental patterns are quite unique. They’re like fingerprints; no two mouths are exactly alike.”

  Granny smiled. “Thank you, Dr. Grayson, for that exhaustive”-Ben would’ve said exhausting-“description of contemporary dental identification techniques. You indicated that you have been doing some research yourself. Why?”

  “Well, these traditional methods work fine as long as the imprint of the wound is such that the teeth marks can be distinguished. But sometimes, even when there’s been a good solid bite, the imprint is not immediately clear. As I said before, flesh tissue is soft. It’s not the ideal medium for a bite mark. So I’ve been working on ways to make difficult bite marks more apparent.”

  “Have you had any success?”

  “I have. It’s taken years of research, but I’ve managed to develop a way of making visible imprints that would otherwise be invisible to the naked eye. Mind you, they’re there. They just can’t be seen without visual augmentation.”

  “How do you enhance the injury traces?”

  “I use a long-wave ultraviolet light-what you would call a blue light. Then I wear a pair of yellow-lensed safety goggles that have been chemically treated in a solution I developed myself. The combination of the ultraviolet light and the chemically treated goggles enhances features on the surface of the skin.”

  “That seems amazing, Doctor. How does it work?”

  “It’s simple, really. For years, scientists have experimented with different light frequencies as a means of increasing visual acuity. We all know that light takes many forms, depending upon its frequency. Some of those forms are visible to the naked eye-what we call visible light-and some of th
em are not-such as infrared light and X-rays. But even though we can’t see X-rays, we know that if they are used properly, they can enable us to see things that would not otherwise be apparent to the naked eye. My process is just the same. I use infrared light to make visible what is there, but can’t be seen in the visible light spectrum.”

  “That’s fascinating, Doctor. You should be congratulated for your pioneering research in this field.” Ben wondered if she was going to offer him the Nobel Prize on the spot. “Have you done any work with regard to the current case, the murder of Dwayne Gardiner?”

  “Yes I have.”

  “Please tell the jury what you’ve done.”

  Grayson retook his seat, then adjusted himself to face the jury. “I was asked to examine the bite mark found by the coroner on the victim’s arm. The injury was clearly a bite mark, but the impression was not deep. To make matters worse, the burning of the skin in the area made any identification all the more difficult. Conventional identification techniques were of no avail.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “I used the ultraviolet technique I described for you earlier. Frankly, I was not optimistic. The damage to the skin was so extensive I wondered if even my special techniques would work. Happily, they did.”

  “Were you able to make a dental identification?”

  “I was. May I return to my charts?”

  Judge Pickens nodded. Grayson retook his former position and pointed to the last remaining chart. “This is a record of the bite mark as it first appeared when the coroner discovered it. As you can see, the impression is vague in places and indistinct. It was not useful. But after being viewed through my special infrared process”-he overlaid a clear transparency that fit perfectly atop the principal chart-“it became this.” Jurors’ eyes widened, obviously impressed. What they now saw was an almost perfectly detailed row of teeth.