Line of Vision

by David Ellis

  “Well,” I said, “what would be a better thing to say?”

  “I’m not sorry he’s dead,” Paul tells the jury. “He said to that detective, who stood over him, describing the sordid, horrible details of Rachel Reinardt’s marital life—he said, well, if that’s true, then I’m not sorry he’s dead.”

  A couple of jurors write in their books. One of them, an aerobics instructor, looks right at me. Paul continues quickly, holding up his hands.

  “Now, we can all agree that that was a dumb thing to say. Marty would be the first.” Paul shakes his head. “No question about it. A dumb thing. But it is not—and I think we can all agree on this, too—it is not a reason to charge someone with murder.”

  Ogren lifts his palms off the table, even looks at the judge, like he’s about to object. But he just settles back in, once again preferring to look unpersuaded.

  “So there you have it,” Paul says. “Three strikes and you’re out. Marty mouths off when they accuse Mrs. Reinardt of adultery at the first interview. Marty stops in for a short visit at the Christmas party. And Marty says he’s not sorry Dr. Reinardt, an abusive husband, is dead.”

  Ogren has had enough. He objects to the argument. The judge sustains.

  “I apologize, Your Honor, and to the jurors,” Paul says with a grand nod. “The evidence, as Mr. Ogren said. The prosecution will not offer one single piece of evidence—not a single piece—that Marty was in the Reinardts’ house on the night Dr. Reinardt disappeared. They will not show you fingerprints of Marty in that house. They will not show you any hair follicles of Marty in that house. They will not show you any of Marty’s blood in that house. They will not show you any of Marty’s footprints in that house. And they will not put a single person on this witness stand”—Paul shakes a finger at the witness box—“who will say they saw Marty in that house that night. Not even Rachel Reinardt, who was in that house, who saw her husband struggle with whomever came into the house. Not even she will tell you that that person was Marty Kalish.

  “Nor will the prosecution show you any evidence that Marty was outside the Reinardt house that night. They will not show you any evidence whatsoever that Marty was anywhere near the Reinardt home on November eighteenth.

  “Mr. Ogren told you that Dr. Reinardt has never been seen or heard from since the night of November eighteenth. But they will not show you any evidence that Marty had anything to do with Dr. Reinardt’s disappearance. You will learn that they searched Marty’s house. They found nothing that shows that Dr. Reinardt was ever in Marty’s house. No hair. No blood—they say he was shot twice, but no blood at Marty’s house.

  “You will learn that they searched Marty’s car. But the prosecution will not show you any evidence that Dr. Reinardt was ever in Marty’s car. Nothing.

  “They will not show you any evidence whatsoever that connects Marty to the so-called murder weapon. No fingerprints on a gun. No gunpowder residue on his hands. Again, folks, nothing. Not a thing.”

  Paul has made his way back to the defense table. He stands so that we are across the table from each other.

  “Marty Kalish has been accused of a terrible act,” he says quietly, with a trace of bitterness. “For the last two and a half months, he has been faced with these incredible charges. He has had to live with it every day.

  “Mr. Ogren said that this was the People’s day in court. Well, you know what? This is also Marty’s day in court. Marty has been waiting for this day ever since he was arrested. He has waited for this day, when he can come in to a court of law, and show you, twelve fair people, that he didn’t do it.”

  61

  “THE PEOPLE CALL DETECTIVE THEODORE CUMMINGS.”

  Detective Cummings looks much more presentable than he did the last time he testified against me. I figure it’s a new suit. He wears a blue shirt and a patterned red tie. His wife must have dressed him. As he takes his seat in the witness stand, he raises his chin and moves his head around, uncomfortable with his closed collar. He’s one of those guys who has the top button on his collar open, tie yanked down, before he’s had his first cup of coffee in the morning.

  This is the second time I’ve had to listen to Cummings give his credentials, and he plays it up well enough, but however you slice it he’s telling us he’s a lifer in a town where the closest thing to a major crime is when the high school cheerleaders wet the toilet paper before they string it over the football coach’s front yard. He mentions sexual assaults and burglaries, which I assume means an eighteen-year-old feeling up a seventeen-year-old in the backseat and a skateboarder smashing a car windshield to swipe a radio. (Although in spite of my spite, I should admit he did a pretty nice job of tripping me up.)

  Gretchen Flaherty is handling Cummings. Her posture is flawless, her dark hair pulled back tightly into a bun. She is not particularly attractive, her features a little too severe, but she looks about as good as she can today in a dark blue suit and silk blouse. Her arms are crossed, and she nods a little too often and a little too eagerly as Cummings speaks. She stands a foot or so from the lectern that is next to the prosecution table and tends to shuffle her feet back and forth. As Cummings talks, she peeks at her notes resting on the lectern. For some reason, this gives me a sense of comfort. She is nervous, too.

  Cummings talks about his initial response to the crime scene. He describes the 911 call from Rachel. A young woman who was sitting behind the prosecutors wheels a cart carrying a large tape recorder to near the jury box. More questions between Flaherty and Cummings.

  The large, circular reel on the machine begins to turn. First, static, very loud, which startles the jurors. The assistant adjusts the volume just before the voices start.

  “Please . . . please . . . come quick . . . he’s going to hurt me.”

  “Ma’am, where are you?”

  “He’s going to hurt me.”

  “Who is going to hurt you? Ma’am, where are you?”

  “Please . . . my husband . . . please . . . oh God.”

  The courtroom is silent. The assistant turns off the tape and wheels the cart back behind the prosecution table. The jurors sit quietly, probably replaying in their heads the words they’ve just heard. Please . . . my husband . . .

  “It was very cold in the house,” Cummings says in reference to the crime scene, “with the glass door broken. It was a windy night.” He gestures a lot as he speaks.

  The prosecutor carries the wooden chair over to Cummings. “Yes, this was the bench we found in the victim’s den. We believe this bench was used by the intruder to gain entry into the house.” So that’s what I did. I didn’t break in. I gained entry.

  Flaherty asks Cummings a few questions about the bench and admits it into evidence. Cummings then describes the den. “The coffee table was turned over. One of the cushions was off the sofa. There was a stain of blood in the middle of the carpet.”

  We stipulated that the bloodstain in the den was Dr. Reinardt’s blood. Flaherty reads the stipulation to the jury, then turns to Cummings and asks him about it.

  “It was approximately eighteen inches in diameter. There was a trickle of blood leading out of the den to the broken glass door.”

  As Cummings finishes his sentence, the young woman who pushed the tape recorder in front of the jury carries an easel over next to the witness stand. Flaherty approaches Cummings with some blown-up photographs and shows them to him. Cummings identifies them as accurate depictions of the crime scene. A police photographer took the pictures; Cummings watched him do it. Flaherty admits them into evidence and places the photos, one behind the other, on the easel for the jury to see. The easel is turned so that the defense can see it, too.

  Cummings steps off the witness stand. Flaherty hands him a pointer. Professor Cummings points out the bloodstain, the coffee table, the cushion of the sofa. The next photo is a close-up of the bloodstain. Then we see close-ups of the trail of the blood leading to the glass door. The next photo shows the bar, with an opened door and the
empty bottle of whiskey.

  “Why was the cabinet door open?” Flaherty asks.

  “Objection,” Paul says, rising. “The detective would have to take a wild guess.”

  Well, okay, Paul, maybe not a wild guess. But Judge Mack sustains the objection.

  Flaherty nods. “During the course of your investigation that night, Detective, did you come to learn what was underneath the bar in that cabinet?”

  “Yes. Dr. Reinardt’s handgun was located in there.”

  “Did you find Dr. Reinardt’s gun in that cabinet?”

  “No, we did not.”

  “Did you find Dr. Reinardt’s gun anywhere?”

  “No,” he says flatly. “We’ve never found it.”

  Flaherty pauses. She asks Cummings to return to his seat on the stand.

  “Based on the condition of the room, Detective, did you form an opinion as to what transpired in that room on the evening of November eighteenth?”

  “I did.”

  “What is that opinion?”

  “Obviously, from the broken glass and the presence of the bench in the den, we believe the defendant entered the house by using the wooden bench to break through the glass. He attacked Dr. Reinardt. He threw Dr. Reinardt against the sofa. We believe he struck Dr. Reinardt while he lay on that sofa and then dragged him onto the carpet. Maybe he continued to attack Dr. Reinardt as he lay on the carpet. From the open cabinet door beneath the bar, we conclude that the defendant opened the door, removed the gun, and shot Dr. Reinardt with it as he was lying on the carpet. That would account for the large stain of blood on the carpet. And the few splatters of blood that appear several inches away from the big stain came when Dr. Reinardt was lifted off the carpet. As Dr. Reinardt was carried out of the den, he continued to spill blood on the carpet. All the way out the door, and onto the patio.”

  The next photo shows the blood on the patio. Flaherty next asks about Rachel.

  “She was sitting on the stairs when I arrived at the house. She had a blanket thrown over her shoulders, and she was shivering.”

  “Did you speak with her?”

  “I attempted to. She was practically incoherent. She would alternate between sobbing and just staring into space. Obviously, she was very upset.”

  Flaherty turns to the subsequent investigation. First, they talk about physical evidence, or more accurately, the lack of it. They know Paul is going to make a big deal out of this, so they front it. It was a very cold night, Cummings explains. The intruder, in all likelihood, would be bundled up well. Hat, scarf, gloves. Makes it tough to find prints or hair or fibers. They found a couple of boot impressions in the mud on the path through the woods, and similar partial treads on the carpet of the Reinardts’ den. At that point, the prosecution reads a stipulation into the record about the boot prints. They all came from a men’s size-eleven Explorer boot, a boot that is sold all throughout the area.

  They also tell the jury that I wear a size-eleven shoe. What is not read to the jury, but will be pointed out by Paul, is that they never found such a boot in my house. It got incinerated along with the rest of my clothes. I’ve had those boots for about six years, and almost never wore them. And, more important, never wore them into my house. I’d always toss them off in the garage, on an old newspaper. Ergo, no carpet fibers from my house. Nor could anyone the police interviewed testify that they saw me in these boots. They were a little tight on me, and I almost never wore them. In fact, as I think about it, the only time I’ve worn them in the last few years was to Rachel’s; I needed them because there was so much mud by the stream near her place.

  My special boots. Only for Rachel, and never brought into my house. Lucky me, I suppose, though not for the first time the thought crosses my mind: Did I know this day would come? Have I been preparing for this moment without knowing it? I want to think not, that my conscious feelings alone drive my actions. But I have come to a simple realization as I’ve pondered the events of November 18. I am not in control.

  “Initially, we couldn’t rule out that this was a kidnapping for ransom,” Cummings says. “We tape-recorded all incoming calls to Mrs. Reinardt’s home phone, beginning that very evening.”

  “Did Mrs. Reinardt receive any phone calls that next day?”

  “Yes. The defendant called her.”

  I feel the jury’s eyes on me as Cummings says yes. The woman sitting behind the prosecution table wheels the large tape recorder back in front of the jury box. More questions between Flaherty and Cummings.

  This time, the volume on the machine is perfect. The first voice is that of Rachel’s mother, answering the phone.

  I watch the jurors. Most of them sit with wrinkled brows and slanted eyes, the height of concentration, hanging on every word.

  “Mrs. Reinardt, this is Marty Kalish. I work at the foundation. I don’t mean to disturb you. I just wanted to tell you that we’re all praying for you. . . . Do they have any idea who did this?”

  With this last statement from me, the accountant in the jury nods knowingly. The real estate agent sits back in his chair. About half a dozen pairs of eyebrows are raised. Already, I am tainted. If I knew Rachel so well, why did I have to introduce myself to her, tell her I worked at the foundation? And Jesus: Do they have any idea who did this?

  The prosecutor is talking again. Cummings talks about his first visit to my house.

  “Why did you go to the defendant’s home?”

  “Two reasons. One, because we wanted to speak with people who worked with Doctor and Mrs. Reinardt at the foundation.”

  “The Reinardt Family Children’s Foundation?”

  “Yes, that’s right. The defendant was a member of that foundation. The Reinardts were chairs of the organization.”

  “What was the other reason?”

  “The defendant’s phone call to Mrs. Reinardt. He seemed very interested in knowing whether the police had any suspects.” I see a couple of heads nod in the jury box. Yeah, they’re thinking, he sure did seem interested.

  I look over at Paul to see if he’ll object, but he just runs a hand over his hair.

  Cummings describes our first encounter. “We asked him fairly routine questions. We asked him how well he knew the Reinardts, whether he knew of anyone who would want to harm Dr. Reinardt.”

  Flaherty holds up a hand; Cummings is going too fast. “When you asked him how well he knew the Reinardts, what did he say?”

  Cummings turns and looks directly at me when he answers, to be sure I know who’s delivering the punch. Just like I looked into the doctor’s eyes just before he died.

  “He said he didn’t know them that well,” Cummings says. “He said that if the Reinardts saw him, they probably wouldn’t even remember his name.”

  Some of the jurors have followed the direction of Cummings’s stare, to me. I probably should look back at them, or stare Cummings in the eye. But I look at the floor. Again, the jury’s thinking, why would I lie about my relationship with Rachel? Why be so secretive, unless I had something to hide?

  Flaherty also notices that Cummings is looking at me, and she doesn’t like it. She clears her throat loudly. “Did you ask the defendant anything else, Detective?”

  Cummings turns to the prosecutor. “Yes. We asked him whether he had any reason to suspect that Mrs. Reinardt was involved in an extramarital affair.”

  “And how did the defendant respond?”

  Cummings has this next line of testimony memorized. “The defendant said, ‘I highly doubt Rachel is capable of adultery.’”

  “He used Mrs. Reinardt’s first name?”

  “Yes.”

  “Describe his demeanor at that time.”

  “He was defensive. He snapped at me. He told me that I should show Mrs. Reinardt some respect.”

  “Detective, as a result of this conversation with the defendant, did you begin to suspect that the defendant was involved in Dr. Reinardt’s disappearance?”

  Cummings has to be careful here. If he su
spected me, Miranda rears its beautiful head at the station house interrogation. Just because we lost that issue once doesn’t mean we can’t argue it again; we still have the appeal if I’m convicted. But the prosecution wants to walk the tightrope. They don’t want it to look like the police were completely clueless when they brought me in.

  “Well,” Cummings answers, “let’s say that I felt he knew more about Mrs. Reinardt than he was letting on. I believed he was hiding something. But I wouldn’t go so far as to say I suspected him. I was trying to keep an open mind.”

  I lean back in my chair. An open mind, sure. I look over at Mandy and smirk. She returns a blank, solemn stare, reminding me without saying so that the jury is watching me.

  “And after this meeting with the defendant at his house, did you take further steps to investigate his possible involvement in the disappearance of Dr. Reinardt?”

  “Yes, we did. We met with the Reinardts’ maid, Agnes Clorissa. We showed her a number of photographs, including the defendant’s. Ms. Clorissa identified the photo of the defendant as someone she had seen at the Reinardts’ house before.”

  Flaherty asks Cummings some more questions about the photographs he showed the maid. She hands these photos to Cummings, who identifies them as the ones he showed her. He confirms that he hasn’t moved them out of order since he showed them to the maid. The photo of me was neither first nor last; it was the fifth one. The photos are admitted into evidence as a group exhibit.

  “How often had Ms. Clorissa seen the defendant at the Reinardts’ home?”

  “Objection. Lack of foundation, and to the extent there is any foundation, it is based on pure hearsay.”

  Judge Mack sustains the objection.

  Cummings goes on to explain that he put a tail on me after the maid identified me. Paul objects to any discussion about what the plainclothes detective saw at the Christmas party between Rachel and me. It doesn’t really matter; that cop, Janet Brewer, will testify in this case, too.

  Cummings testifies that he paid another visit to my house the following day. I accompanied them to the police station.