Jamison thought for a moment. “We’ll use a grand jury subpoena. We’ll call a grand jury for the purpose of investigation into the murders, but we don’t target St. Claire. That way there’s no public case. It’s all confidential and there are no leaks. It will take a few days but you’ll get the records. Fair enough?”
O’Hara gave a crooked grin as he turned to leave. “Okay, it looks like I’ve maybe helped turn you into something more than a worthless piece-of-shit lawyer. Now you’re starting to think like a cop.” He gave a small wave of his hand. “That’s a compliment, by the way.”
Flashing his gold shield long enough to overcome any hesitation at his demands, O’Hara badged his way into the University Hospital lab. He’d spent hours studying the records once the grand jury subpoena had ordered them to be produced. He read and reread and then read them for the third time. And there it was.
Soon he was sitting with Stanley Hill, the supervising technician, a balding fiftyish man in a stained lab coat that hung open. O’Hara didn’t want to think about the source of the stains that covered most of the front. It looked as if he used his coat to wipe his hands. His shirt was unbuttoned near the belt and it was obvious from the paunch hanging over his belt that walking out to meet O’Hara was the most exercise he planned to get that day.
“You are Investigator O’Hara, I understand? What can I do for you?” Hill’s voice maintained a preciseness that went with someone who relished the security of accurate tests and indisputable results.
O’Hara shoved his bundle of lab reports across Hill’s desk. “I’m investigating a series of murders involving the women in these medical reports. Each of these women had some type of medical procedure requiring lab tests of tissue that your people performed here. What I would like is for you to look at these reports, and tell me what were the tests involved and what the results revealed.”
The lab technician slowly separated the individual reports before looking up. “And when would you like me to get back to you on this?”
“Now.” O’Hara didn’t blink.
Hill slowly inhaled. He shuffled through the three reports involving Symes, Johnson, and Ventana, moving his finger down each page before looking up to see if O’Hara was still there.
“Each of these women had minor skin procedures done by their physicians that involved removal of tissue. We looked at the tissue to see if it presented any problems in terms of cancer. Nothing was found of significance.” He shoved the reports back at O’Hara. “Does that help?”
“Not particularly.” He hadn’t come in with any intention of bringing up St. Claire’s name but it was becoming clear that was unavoidable; O’Hara needed to know if there was any link.
“Are you familiar with the name Alex St. Claire? Dr. Alex St. Claire? Would Dr. St. Claire have had any reason to have access to these reports?”
Anxiety and concern registered clearly on his face as Hill shook his head. “Dr. St. Claire is an anesthesiologist here at the hospital. He isn’t a lab technician or a skin or cancer specialist. There is no reason he would have been furnished with these reports.” Hill pushed his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose, appearing satisfied he had answered O’Hara’s questions. He hadn’t.
“Let me put it this way, is there anything in these reports Dr. St. Claire might have been interested in?”
Hill pursed his lips and shook his head. “As I told you, nothing in these reports would have concerned Dr. St. Claire.” Hill hesitated. “Except, well . . .” Hill looked at the reports again. “Perhaps. Yes, each of the test procedures used involved a new type of topical anesthetic. I know Dr. St. Claire is interested in that anesthetic and had been doing some type of study. Let me check with our lab secretary.”
He excused himself, returning within a few minutes. “Dr. St. Claire requested that he be notified whenever we had any lab work that involved this anesthetic. He had a list of anesthetics that he was interested in. Part of a study I suppose he was doing. Our lab would send over the names of patients on whom this anesthetic had been used. So yes, Dr. St. Claire would have been aware of these patients. Our lab secretary has a log book that would show all notifications that were routinely sent to him and others. Presumably those notifications were made with the patients you have asked about.”
Unclear about the implications, O’Hara asked, “So did they send over the reports to Dr. St. Claire?”
“No, just the names and patient ID information such as the type of procedure, sex, age.”
“How would that help St. Claire?”
Hill’s response was impatient and terse. “With the patient ID information, Dr. St. Claire could access our files and look at the patient file if he was interested in doing any follow-up work with the patient’s physician.”
“I see. And that would allow him to look at all the information in the file?”
“Of course.” Hill shrugged dismissively. “Despite the problems your office has created for Dr. St. Claire, he is a highly respected physician in this hospital and can have access to any reports he wants to see.”
O’Hara laid his business card in front of Hill, at the same time tapping his finger on the gold-embossed badge on the side of the card to emphasize his point. “Mr. Hill, this conversation is confidential. You will not discuss my questions or my visit with anyone.” O’Hara hesitated. He needed Hill to understand. “Obstruction of justice doesn’t just happen because you don’t talk. Sometimes it happens because you do. Any questions?” Hill shook his head.
Satisfied that he had made his point with Hill, O’Hara walked over to the hospital’s records office, pulling his badge out. “I would like to see the hospital files for these women.”
Even as he uttered the words, he knew this wasn’t going to be easy. The administrator of the patient files walked out, looked at his badge, and shook her head. “No, they’re confidential,” she said before she turned and walked away. He would have to get a subpoena or a search warrant. Everything was taking time that he didn’t have. He put a call into Jamison, explaining what he had found.
O’Hara wanted access now and he didn’t want copies like he would get with a grand jury subpoena. He wanted the original paperwork because oily residue on hands would transfer to paper and there was a chance they might find a print of St. Claire’s. While it was becoming more and more difficult to get prints off paper because most things were computerized, most of the individual records of the victims had not yet been converted because they contained handwritten notes. O’Hara’s recognition of the loss of a common investigative tool reminded him that not all progress was beneficial.
To get the original records instead of copies, O’Hara would have to get a search warrant, and usually that wouldn’t be easy. However, three murders would make almost any judge bend a little. Four hours later he had the warrant.
With the trial starting in less than five days, including the weekend, O’Hara would have to pursue the investigation without Jamison’s help. In the meantime one thing was clear as O’Hara went through the records. Nothing was there for Elizabeth Garrett except her most recent hospital admittance after the kidnap.
When he heard that, Jamison wouldn’t need much time to think about why. It was obvious that St. Claire already knew all he needed to know about her.
As O’Hara paced back and forth in the sheriff’s office forensic lab, each page of the medical files of the three murdered women was meticulously sprayed and then heated using a common household iron. Numerous prints appeared on the pages, but most were smudges and fragments. The office fingerprint expert examined each sheet, quickly looking at any usable purple print and comparing it to the booking prints of Alex St. Claire.
After three frustrating hours sifting through sheets of paper, Jessie, the print technician, looked up. “Detective O’Hara, I’ve found one. St. Claire left this print on the Symes file. I’ll keep looking.” O’Hara was gleeful, promising the diminutive print technician that he would buy her dinner, which earned h
im a reproachful look because she was aware of his reputation.
This was just what Jamison needed. He could prove Alex St. Claire had looked at one of the files, at least, and that file had all of the personal information he needed to pick her as a potential victim. Late in the day he got one more break. There was a partial print from St. Claire on Ventana’s file, although nothing on Johnson’s.
In the few days left before trial was to begin, Jamison worked ceaselessly. He arrived at the office in the dark and he left in the dark, hoping to grab a few hours of sleep before he had to be back in the office to prepare his trial book, which contained his questions and legal memos and collated reports that matched them to witnesses and interviews. He put any presentation to the grand jury regarding the murders on hold. He wasn’t ready for that yet and the pending trial consumed all his time.
The priorities for each remaining day before trial grew in number and intensity. He had to pay another visit to Dr. Gupta to get some very specific questions answered and he had a trial setting conference on the Garrett case and he had to have another talk with Beth Garrett. But first he had to talk to Gupta. He had a hunch. Maybe O’Hara was right. He was starting to think more like a cop.
Chapter 21
Gupta was not in a good mood. He considered the repeated questions about the blood samples as a challenge to his competence. Neither Jamison nor O’Hara really cared, but they were sensitive to Gupta taking offense. They needed his cooperation and they knew that Gupta could be difficult if he got his back up.
Glowering at both men standing in front of his desk, Gupta responded with irritation. “I have told you before that I was the one who initialed the blood samples and what the lab results were. It is not going to change simply because you keep asking me.”
O’Hara was conciliatory but he also knew what buttons to push. “Dr. Gupta, we know you are very careful with your work. What we suspect is that somebody may have tampered with your results.”
The pathologist became indignant. “Tampered? Do you mean that someone may have interfered with my tissue and blood samples? I have signed for everything. It is not possible.” Gupta shook his head emphatically, repeating himself. “It is not possible.”
Sensing Gupta’s defensiveness, Jamison interjected. “Doctor, you’ve acknowledged that Dr. St. Claire was present during parts of the other autopsies. In fact, I was there once when he came in and I saw him handle the blood samples that you drew.”
“Yes, that is true, but I initialed those blood samples. All I remember Dr. St. Claire doing was placing them in the tray for lab analysis. He did that in other autopsies too. So there is nothing that could have been done to them.” As Gupta convinced himself that there were no lapses in his procedure, his relief was visible, and a smile erased his defensive expression.
“Yes.” Jamison nodded sympathetically. “But suppose Dr. St. Claire switched the blood samples? When did you actually initial them?”
“After I finished with the blood draws they were placed in the evidence tray, perhaps by Dr. St. Claire. I don’t remember. Then when I finished the procedure I stripped off my gloves and signed the blood vials. They were right there.” Gupta’s dark face grayed slightly. “You are saying you think Dr. St. Claire switched the vials of blood from each of those women? It would have been difficult. I think I would have seen it.”
Offering a possible explanation, O’Hara suggested, “Of course you would have seen it if you had reason to suspect something was wrong. But you had no reason to suspect Dr. St. Claire, did you?”
Uncertain, Gupta hesitated. “No, I would not suspect a fellow physician of doing that. Why would I? I cannot say that it is not possible but I do not believe it.”
Not wanting Gupta to linger on the thought that he may have been taken advantage of by St. Claire, Jamison said, “Dr. Gupta, is there any way you can tell if the blood that was tested actually came from those three women? I mean, if the blood vials were switched, then what was tested would not have shown what was actually in the blood of each victim, correct?”
Gupta was pensive; he seemed lost in thought as he considered the possibilities. “If the blood vials were switched before they were tested for drugs, we would naturally conclude that the drug results were those of the victims. But the person switching the blood would have to know in advance what the blood type was for each of the murder victims and substitute contaminated blood of the same blood type as the victim’s. There is routine blood typing done with the toxic screen so if the blood type was different than the patient records, the technician would immediately know something was wrong and the blood did not come from the victim. That did not happen here.”
The implication was clear to Jamison. St. Claire had the patient records. He would have known in advance what blood type to obtain. It was really quite clever. All he had to do was procure the blood samples from another person with the same blood type and substitute them before Gupta signed them, or even after, if he could replace the blood in the vials. He just had to make sure the blood he substituted would show massive doses of the heroin-barbiturate combination.
Jamison quickly concluded that knowing the blood types of the murder victims, St. Claire had obtained blood of a matching type from junkies who probably overdosed from a fatal dosage of the heroin-barbiturate combination that had been killing addicts in the community. Then he just switched the blood in a way that would make it appear that the samples with the contaminated blood were marked as belonging to the murder victims. And he would know that nobody would check the blood samples to see if they actually came from the victims.
As Gupta examined his copies of the autopsy reports, he offered, “If the combination of heroin and barbiturate did not cause the heart stoppage, then something else must have, and I do not know what it was. But I do have another way of determining whether heroin and barbiturates were actually present in each patient. When I do an autopsy in a suspected homicide I routinely save a piece of the liver in case further analysis needs to be made.”
Before Jamison said anything, O’Hara asked, “How would that help us?”
Gupta allowed a sly smile. “Because, Detective O’Hara, the liver is our body’s garbage disposal. All things we put into our body pass through it. With certain exceptions, the liver should normally have traces in it of what actually killed these three women unless the heart stopped immediately, which I doubt. It will also tell us if the blood samples we have are those of the victims.
“Of course, it would be best if we could get more blood samples but that is not possible now.” The reality was that the bodies had long been released to the grieving families. One had been embalmed and buried, the other two cremated. There was no blood sample that could be compared.
Jamison asked his final question. “Would Dr. St. Claire know you took a liver sample?”
“I doubt it. He would have no reason to know, and I would have no reason to give him an explanation. The doctors in other fields of medical expertise depend on pathologists but they do tend to look upon us as not that fastidious because our methods are sometimes, shall we say, rather brutal to those who do not appreciate what we do. I will conduct lab analysis on the liver samples I have. As soon as I receive the results I will contact you.”
O’Hara placed his card on Gupta’s desk. “And you will not share our conversation with anyone?”
“No, Detective O’Hara. I will keep our conversation confidential.”
As they rode back to the office, O’Hara acknowledged that Jamison’s hunch had been right. “How did you figure out that the blood samples might have been switched? St. Claire could have just injected those women with the drugs. Wouldn’t that have been easier?”
“I kept thinking about the fact that everything involving the murders was about misdirection. I remembered that at the Symes autopsy I saw St. Claire do those blood draws and put the vials in the tray. He was present at the other autopsies also. It just occurred to me that he had to have a reason to be at each a
utopsy and maybe the blood had something to do with it. Yeah, he could have injected those women with the drugs, but then there would be the chance that somebody would track the heroin or barbiturates. Those are restricted drugs and records are kept. I didn’t think St. Claire was the type to go buy that shit. So it just occurred to me that maybe he switched the blood. There are plenty of junkies that have been overdosing on it. As long as he knew the blood type and got the blood from a junkie with the same blood type, he could do it.”
O’Hara offered, “You would’ve made a good cop.”
“I’ve watched a few good cops. I even work with one or two.”
Chapter 22
Jamison needed one last interview with his star witness to make sure he knew everything she would say in her testimony, and to watch her tell the story so he could see what the jury would see.
Beth Garrett sat across from Jamison’s desk. As she gazed at him today, he could see a level of nervousness, but she nevertheless held her body erect, composed. Jamison didn’t feel the same level of confidence himself that she was trying to maintain. It didn’t help that his first thought every time he saw her wasn’t about the case. It wasn’t any different this time even though he still had the nagging thought that she was holding something back.
Some of the heads in the office turned when they saw her walk in. There was no question she was beautiful. He wasn’t sure how a jury would react, but he knew how he reacted to it. He wanted a victim in a case like this to look attractive, but not provocative. He made a mental note to bring that up later, about how she should dress.
“Beth, I want to talk again about your relationship with St. Claire when you were younger. This is going to come up in the trial. You have to be ready for it and I need to know everything because St. Claire is going to tell McGuiness everything.” He kept his voice as gentle as possible. He didn’t want Beth to feel cornered by him.
Fractured Justice Page 16
