[Marc Kadella 03.0] Media Justice

by Dennis Carstens

  Following another commercial break, Melinda wrapped up the show with another dumbest criminals’ story. This one about a bank robber who tried to cash a check at a small bank in Georgia. Because he did not have an account there, the teller, following bank policy, refused to cash the check. At that point, the twenty-two-year-old pulled out a gun and made the terrified teller fill a bag with cash. The young man ran out of the bank and forgot that he had given his driver’s license to the teller when he tried to cash the check. According to the police, he was shocked to find them waiting for him when he arrived back at his apartment.

  Melinda’s show was rerun at 6:30 following the six o’clock news. The viewing public was anticipating this, and the overnight ratings showed a thirty percent increase for the time slot. Of course, there were smiles all around at the jump in numbers and the additional revenue this would bring in along with bonuses to be paid out.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Marc and Madeline departed in the parking lot when they arrived back at his office. Maddy was going to start interviewing Brittany’s friends and ex-boyfriends first, then try to track down Bob Olson.

  Marc opened the office’s exterior door and immediately saw a small, mostly bald, older man with an obvious uninterested look on his face leafing through an issue of People magazine. As the door automatically closed behind him, Carolyn told Marc the man’s name as their visitor arose from his chair. The two men shook hands and Marc invited the man to join him in his office.

  His name was Jason Briggs and he was a criminalist Marc had been in touch with regarding Brittany’s case. A criminalist is basically an independent CSI type investigator. Briggs was in his early fifties, though he looked older because of his bald head and diminutive frame. He had earned a bachelor’s degree in forensic science from Northwestern and a Masters from Boston University. Briggs had spent ten years with the Chicago police department and six more in the Chicago office of the FBI. He had watched many people of lesser ability making a lot more money as independent agents and decided to go that route himself over ten years ago. Because of his reputation from the CPD and FBI, he immediately tripled his income and worked less doing it.

  Marc, having never met the man before, looked him over and saw a fairly small man dressed casually in brown loafers, tan Dockers and a light blue polo shirt. Briggs sat down in one of the client chairs while Marc hung up his suit coat.

  “I’m not what you imagined,” Briggs said smiling.

  “Actually, you’re exactly what I expected.” Marc smiled. “Maybe missing a bow tie.” Both laughed at the image then Marc asked, “Can I call you Jason?”

  “Of course.”

  “How was the drive up from Madison?” Marc asked.

  “Uneventful,” he shrugged. “Would it be possible to go out and look at the scene where the body was found? The sooner the better.”

  “Did you get a chance to watch the DVD I sent that was taken by the cops?”

  “Yes,” Briggs shrugged as he reached in his leather satchel, retrieved the disk and placed it on Marc’s desk. “I hope you don’t mind, I had a copy made.”

  “Sorry,” Marc said as he picked it up. “I should’ve told you. The one I sent you was a copy for you.”

  “Not much on it,” Briggs said. “I really need to get out there before the area becomes any more degraded.”

  Marc looked at his watch and did a quick mental calculation of the time and how much daylight was left. “How much time will you need?”

  “A couple of hours should be enough for now,” Briggs answered. “I can go back tomorrow if I need to.”

  “Let’s go,” Marc said as he removed his tie. “Do I need to bring anything?”

  “No, we’ll take my van. I have my cameras and equipment in it.”

  As they were walking through the office, Carolyn handed Marc a message from Gabriella Shriqui. He folded it in half and put it in his shirt pocket and the two men left. On the drive to the crime scene, Marc returned Gabriella’s call and they set up a date and time to meet for another interview. Marc told her he had serious misgivings, but she assured him she would be fair, objective and professional. Having dealt with her before, Marc figured it was probably worth a try to counter at least some of the reports that were so grossly biased against Brittany. And if nothing else, she was nice to look at and pleasant to be around.

  Next, he placed a call to Marcia Lindquist to let her know they were going to the crime scene. Marcia answered on the second ring and after Marc told her why he was calling, she said, “Go ahead. I don’t know what you’ll find that wasn’t on the video. Plus Cale let the media go over it after the crime scene people were done.”

  “He did what?” Marc practically shouted into the phone.

  Lindquist repeated what she told him about the media being allowed onto the grounds. “What’s the big deal?” Lindquist asked. “Everything you need is on the disk. There had already been hunters and who knows how many others through the place anyway.”

  “You allowed the media to trample over a crime scene, Marcia,” Marc said as patiently as he could. This statement caused Briggs to jerk his head toward Marc and stare at him with his mouth hanging open.

  “They did what?” Briggs said before turning back to his driving.

  “Goodbye Marcia,” Marc said and cut off the call without waiting for a reply.

  “Did I hear you right?” Briggs asked. “They didn’t cordon off the grounds and keep people out? They let the media trample all over the place?”

  “Yep,” Marc quietly said.

  After a minute of silence between them, Briggs finally said, “What kind of Mickey Mouse outfit is this?”

  “Don’t kid yourself,” Marc said. “They knew exactly what they were doing. They didn’t want us to find anything that they didn’t find.”

  “Well, we’ll go out there anyway but I’m not optimistic,” Briggs replied.

  Some of the yellow crime scene tape was still up but most of it had blown away. The two men walked slowly and carefully over the entire area, including the parking lot and the small peninsula that jutted out into the river. They spent over an hour doing this with the criminalist leading the way while Marc carefully followed behind. Occasionally, Briggs would stop, stoop down to examine something and usually take several pictures when he did and then make a notation in his notebook about the picture to remind himself later what it was.

  They methodically worked their way over to the spot where the body had been found. Briggs had put on waterproof rubber hip boots when they first arrived. While Marc waited, he jumped down into the washed out spot that led to the river bank. The long metal pole the CSU people had placed in the water where Becky’s remains were found was still there. Briggs slowly, very carefully began wading out toward the pole. As he did so, he moved his camera back and forth over the entire area taking still photos of all of it.

  Briggs worked his way out to the pole and even went out several feet more beyond that spot. When the water reached the top of his boots, he stood up straight, looked around and satisfied he had covered it all, cautiously made his way back to shore.

  Marc held out a hand and helped the smaller man climb out of the washed out spot up onto the grass. Briggs stood there, the river water dripping from his boots and casually looking over the crime scene. Facing the parking lot while looking to his left, he noticed a brown spot in the grass a short distance past the peninsula about three hundred feet away “What’s that?” he asked rhetorically as he started walking toward the object, Marc trailing behind.

  Before the two of them reached the spot Briggs was looking at, they could see what it was. It was a patch of dried grass, leaves, sticks and twigs about a foot long and six inches wide. It was a small spot of river detritus that had been left over when the river had swollen from the spring and summer rains then receded back to normal.

  “Hold this,” Briggs told Marc as he handed him a tape measure. “I want to measure the distance to the shoreline.”

>   Marc knelt down and held the end of the tape on the patch of washed up grass while Briggs walked down to the river’s edge. The spot measured almost exactly fifteen feet. The two men then went back to the place where the body had been found. Marc held the tape at the spot where the washed out indentation was farthest from the river’s edge. Briggs walked it down to the shoreline and measured it. The distance was exactly the same as the place where the detritus they had just checked was from the high water mark just past the peninsula.

  For the next half hour, Briggs, with Marc’s help, took multiple pictures of both spots. He retrieved two metal poles from his van, four-foot sections of half-inch rebar, and used them as stakes. Briggs pounded one into the ground where the river wash remained and at the place where the body had been found. He then strung a highly visible yellow rope between them and took several shots of the marker from both places.

  Briggs then took the yellow rope and walked it out to the metal pole in the water and took a few pictures of this as well. By this point, the sun was starting to set and the two of them decided to knock off for the day.

  “So, what significance do you think the high water mark means?” Marc asked as Briggs rolled up the yellow rope.

  “I don’t know,” Briggs answered. “At this point, maybe nothing. Pull up the stake, will you please?” he asked Marc. “We need to find out when the river was this high. And then when it started to recede in relation to when the body was placed in the water.”

  “We had a pretty wet spring and early summer,” Marc said. “Not much flooding but every lake, river and stream was full. We can find out but as I recall, it was rainy up until about mid-July.”

  “About the time the child went missing,” Briggs said.

  “That would be about right,” Marc agreed. “This is an open hunting and fishing area. Being this close to the Cities, the state DNR probably patrols it regularly. We can find out from them which of their deputy’s has this on his route. He would know when the river was at its peak. Again, though, I’m not sure why that matters.”

  “Let’s find out then we’ll see how, if at all, it fits in with the other physical evidence,” Briggs said.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Marc arrived at the Channel 8 building intentionally fifteen minutes late. He realized this was an almost childishly petty thing to do, but he really didn’t care. The station was located in the western part of Minneapolis not too far from downtown. If need be, he could always claim there were traffic problems. He parked in a visitor’s slot next to the handicap parking and sat in his car for a couple of minutes before going in. Marc stared at the array of satellite dishes behind the building. They were situated in a large lot surrounded by an eight-foot, chain-linked cyclone fence topped by two feet of razor wire. Marc thought the setting gave the place an almost eerie, government-like, Big Brother appearance.

  Gabriella came through the security door behind the receptionist less than a minute after Marc checked in. She greeted him warmly, almost too effusively and ignored his tardiness. As she was leading him back toward the soundstage where the interview was to be filmed, Melinda Pace saw them and immediately made a dash to catch up with them. Marc sensed someone approaching from behind and turned his head to see who it was.

  “Hello, Marc,” Melinda chirped as if they were the best of friends.

  Deciding to play her game a little bit, Marc stopped, turned around and said with a smile, “Why hello, Melinda. You’re looking lovely today. How’ve you been since you backstabbed me?”

  “You’re not still angry about that, are you?” Melinda sweetly asked. “That’s just showbiz.”

  “And that’s probably the number one problem with the news media these days. It’s all just show biz,” Marc said mimicking her.

  “We don’t make the news, we just give them what they want,” Melinda countered still smiling.

  By this point, Gabriella was standing next to Marc with a tiny smirk on her face. She was thoroughly enjoying watching Melinda squirm.

  “How about you come on my show again? I swear you’ll be glad you did.”

  “Well, maybe if you stop proclaiming my client guilty, I’ll consider it,” Marc replied. “Bye, Melinda.” At that Gabriella lightly took his arm and they continued on their way.

  The makeup woman finished applying just enough makeup to Marc’s forehead, cheeks and chin to reduce the shine. The camera crew did their sound, light and video checks and the interview began.

  Gabriella and Marc were seated opposite each other at a small, round, wooden table in two comfortable chairs. They both had a camera pointed at them to simultaneously record the questions and answers that would be edited afterward and shown as one continuous conversation.

  Gabriella started out by tossing a few easy questions at him likely to be left on the cutting room floor, just to get the ball rolling. They almost casually conversed about the case, the presumption of innocence and burden of proof. She let him take a shot at the police and prosecutors whom Marc believed were using the media by leaking damaging information. While he was making this point, the station’s news director, Hunter Oswood, quietly slipped in and settled into a chair to watch.

  “You believe that the police and prosecutors are leaking details about the case?” Gabriella asked.

  “I don’t know for sure exactly who it is but I am seeing things on TV that should have been sent to me first. Things that could only have come from them.”

  “Can you give me an example?”

  “The DNA results of the remains that positively identified Becky Riley,” Marc replied. “Worse was when Brittany was arrested the first time. The cops show up just past midnight on a Friday night to arrest her for child neglect. You were there,” Marc continued. “How did you just happen to be there with a cameraman? And was it really necessary to kick her door down at midnight and then parade her out in the middle of the night in her pajamas in front of the cameras? Of course not. The cops should be embarrassed about pulling a stunt like that.”

  “You’ve insisted from the beginning,” Gabriella said changing subjects, “that Brittany is innocent and had nothing to do with the death of her daughter.”

  “That’s right,” Marc agreed.

  “Why not have her take a lie detector test and prove it?”

  “Take a what?” Marc asked with a puzzled look on his face.

  “A lie detector test. Would you be willing to let Brittany take a lie detector test?” Gabriella repeated, uncertain why Marc appeared not to understand her.

  “There’s a test people can take that can tell when someone’s lying?” Marc asked keeping a straight face. “When did this happen?”

  Gabriella’s brow furrowed, a look of confusion on her face not quite comprehending why Marc appeared not to know what she was talking about. “Well, um, yeah,” Gabriella responded. “In fact, it’s been around for a long time.”

  “Oh!” Marc exclaimed with an acknowledging expression. “I know what you mean. You’re talking about a polygraph machine.”

  “Yes, that’s right, a polygraph lie detector,” a relieved Gabriella said.

  Marc leaned forward a little, looked at the beautiful reporter and with a sly smile said, “Gabriella, there’s no such thing as a lie detector. At best, that’s an urban legend,” he finished as he sat back.

  “Would she be willing to take the test?”

  “Gabriella,” Marc politely continued, “polygraphs cannot detect when someone is lying. They detect certain bodily functions. Skin temperature, pulse rate, breathing and those kinds of things. Some people believe this allows them to tell when someone is lying. It’s nonsense. There’s a good reason the results are not allowed in court. They’re not reliable.”

  “Still, if the police believe them, wouldn’t that help your client if she passed?”

  After a moment of silence went by as if Marc were thinking it over, he said, “No, it wouldn’t. Think about it. Let’s say she took the test and passed. The cops believe the
y have enough evidence to prove her guilty. If she passed the poly, do you think the cops would say: ‘Well, she must be innocent’ and the prosecution would drop the case? Of course not. They would believe she figured out how to beat the machine.”

  “Probably true,” Gabriella conceded.

  “Now say she took it and failed. What good would that do her?”

  “As you say, it’s not admissible in court.”

  “Yeah, but if she took it and failed, I guarantee you the media would know about it and report it before Brittany and I left the building.”

  “That’s probably true too,” Gabriella agreed with a big dazzling smile and mischievous look in her eyes. “But if she passed it, you’d be sure to leak that to the reporters yourself.”

  “You’re right, I would,” Marc said nodding his head. “But I can see it now. Melinda Pace would have an expert,” ― Marc made air quotes with his hands at this point ― “to convince her audience that beating the machine was simple. And she wouldn’t be the only one.

  “There’s nothing good that can help my client by agreeing to a polygraph. So, to answer your question, I would not allow her to take the test. In fact, I can’t think of a single reason to ever allow anyone to submit to a polygraph.”

  Having received a huge piece of news, Gabriella decided the best thing to do was wrap up the interview. She genuinely thanked Marc for coming and cut it off at that point.

  Hunter Oswood stood up, pleased with what he had witnessed and motioned for one of the assistant directors. Oswood quietly told the woman to have Gabriella come to his office when she was finished and left as quietly as he entered.

  “What did you want to see me about?” Gabriella asked after knocking on Oswood’s door and entering his office.

  “Have a seat,” he gestured. “I watched your interview with the lawyer.”

  “You did? I didn’t see you because of the lights,” Gabriella said a little nervous at being summoned so abruptly.