Line of Vision

by David Ellis

  “Describe how Mrs. Reinardt appeared.”

  “She was, you know, kind of off in space. Like she didn’t even notice me. Her whole body was trembling. I think maybe her lips were moving, but she wasn’t saying anything that I could hear. And her skin was real clammy. She had a cut just above her eye, and bruises on her face.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “Well, I ran over to her. I asked her, ‘Are you all right, ma’am?’ But she didn’t respond.” The officer looks over at the jury for the first time. “She didn’t even look in my direction.”

  “What happened next, Officer?”

  “Well, I bent down next to her. I asked her if she was okay.”

  “Did she respond?”

  “No. She didn’t even look at me. She just sort of stared off.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “I kept trying to talk to her. I asked her if she was okay. I asked her if her husband or boyfriend was in the house. I mean, the call was a domestic. I expected to see a guy somewhere.”

  “And she didn’t respond?”

  “No, ma’am. She just stared off. Her lips moved, like she wanted to say something. But she couldn’t talk at first.”

  “What did you do next, Officer?”

  “Well, I took off my jacket and placed it over her.”

  “Why did you do that?”

  “Number one, because it was really cold in the house. That seemed weird, because I could feel the heat coming through the vent in the living room right by Mrs. Reinardt’s head. But it was really cold.”

  “And what was the other reason?”

  Fandrei stares at the prosecutor.

  “Why else did you put your jacket over Mrs. Reinardt?”

  “Oh. Because she might’ve been in shock. That’s what you’re supposed to do.”

  “So what happened next?”

  “Well, I drew my weapon, and I called out for Mr. Reinardt.”

  “Did you get a response?”

  “No, ma’am. So I started walking the downstairs floor. I went into the kitchen, and then into the den.”

  “Tell us what you saw in the den.”

  “Well, there was a very strong breeze. The curtain to the back door was flying around, you know, into the room, because of the wind. There were big chunks of glass on the carpet by the door. And there was a big spot of blood on the carpet. And little trickles leading out onto the patio.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I had my gun drawn, like I said, and I walked toward the patio door. There’s a light switch for outside, and I flicked it on. I looked through the hole in the glass onto the patio. But there was nobody outside.”

  “And what—”

  “So I walked outside. I unlocked the door and slid it open, and I walked out onto the patio. And I looked around. I ran out into the yard and looked around. I shined my flashlight all over that yard. But I couldn’t see anything. Nobody was out there.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “I went back inside, and I radioed for assistance. I told dispatch we had a possible homicide and kidnapping.”

  “Then what?”

  “Well, I thought maybe someone was upstairs. I hadn’t looked up there. So I went upstairs and looked around. But there was nobody.”

  “Did you return downstairs?”

  “Yes, I returned downstairs. I went over to Mrs. Reinardt again. I asked her what had happened. She didn’t say anything at first. She just stared and trembled, you know, like before. Then I asked her, ‘Did something happen to your husband?’ And she grabbed my uniform. She said, ‘My husband.’ Actually, she kind of whispered it. I asked her if she knew who it was who broke into her house. She didn’t say anything. I asked her if she had been hurt. She didn’t respond.”

  Fandrei goes on for another ten or fifteen minutes, talking about how the other patrol cars arrived, as well as the detectives. They tended to Rachel, they went outside and tried to find where Dr. Reinardt had wandered off to. They thought the woods would be a good bet, and they searched them, but they found nothing. After a good half hour, they got the K-9 unit out to the scene, but the winds were way too strong for the dogs to be able to trace a scent.

  Mandy gets to handle this witness. She looks really cute today. Her bushy hair sits on each shoulder. She wears a brownish coat with muted stripes, purple or red, I think. The painter in the jury box watches her with particular interest as she approaches the lectern.

  “Good morning, Officer,” she says.

  “Good morning.” Fandrei is a little more reserved now, furrowed brow, narrowed eyes, waiting for the enemy to cross him. I wonder if he has ever testified before.

  “You were dispatched to the Reinardts’ home at nine-thirty-eight on the evening of November eighteenth of last year, is that correct?”

  “Nine-thirty-eight, ma’am, yes.”

  9:38 . . .

  “And dispatch described the incident at the Reinardts’ as a domestic dispute.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Dispatch did not say that the caller from the Reinardt home said she was in fear for her life.”

  “No, ma’am, nothing like that.”

  “You have handled many domestic disputes as a patrol officer, haven’t you?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I have.”

  “Before this date, November eighteenth of last year, you had handled a number of such disputes.”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it fair to say, Officer, that none of these other disputes involved a life-or-death situation?”

  Fandrei looks off for a moment. “Well, one time some guy was waving a knife around, threatening to kill his wife.”

  “But he didn’t.”

  “No. I don’t think he was ever going to. He was just mad.”

  “Do you recall being dispatched to that incident? The one with the knife?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I do.”

  “When that call came to you in the patrol car—well, let me back up. Were you in the patrol car when that call came in?”

  “Yes.”

  “On that occasion, did dispatch tell you that the husband was wielding a knife?”

  “Yes, ma’am, they did.”

  “So in your experience, if a situation involved a weapon, or immediate danger to someone’s life, you would expect to be told that over the dispatch.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I most definitely would.”

  Fandrei is enjoying this line of questioning, and Mandy knows it. He is covering himself for why he took so long to make it to the house that night. They just said domestic disturbance, nothing about a gun or that someone was in danger. I don’t know why the dispatcher was so calm; the 911 call sure sounded like more than a domestic dispute. Highland Woods’ finest, at your service.

  “So you had no reason to know about a gun being used at the Reinardts’.”

  “No, ma’am. No idea at all.”

  “You had no idea that, supposedly, someone had broken into the Reinardts’ house.”

  “That’s right. I didn’t.”

  “You figured it was probably a bunch of shouting, probably nothing more than that.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And you didn’t arrive at the Reinardts’ home until”—Mandy looks down at her notes—“nine-forty-nine, is that correct?”

  One of the women, I think the office manager in the back row of the jury box, makes a noise. Eleven minutes to respond.

  9:49 . . .

  “That’s right.” Fandrei shrugs his shoulders apologetically. “Like I said, I had no idea it was a break-in. And I was clear on the other side of town.”

  The first siren had come much earlier than I expected. . . .

  How had they gotten here so fast?

  Mandy doesn’t push Fandrei on his late arrival to the scene. There’s no need. The only point she will make is that they took a very long time before they got their act together and actually started searching for Dr. Reinardt.

&nb
sp; “Once you arrived at the house, Officer, you say you knocked on the door.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He’s glad to be on a new line of questioning.

  “You knocked for quite a while.”

  “Well, I don’t know. Pretty long, I guess.”

  “A minute’s worth?”

  “Oh, probably a little less than that.”

  “Okay. Then you went inside.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And you say the first thing you saw was Mrs. Reinardt.”

  “Yes.”

  “And as any good officer would do, you attended to her.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You checked to see if she was okay.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You tried to revive her.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “You tried to talk to her.”

  “Yes.”

  “And that would have taken a minute or two as well.”

  “That sounds right.”

  “Then you walked around the first floor.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You went into the den.”

  “Yes.”

  “You saw the bloodstain.”

  “Yes.”

  “The broken glass door.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you went out onto the patio.”

  “Yes.”

  “You looked around.”

  “Yes.”

  “You went out into the yard and shined your flashlight.”

  “Yes.”

  “You went over that yard pretty good, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You were very thorough, I imagine.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I was.”

  “Just looking around the patio and the yard, that must’ve taken at least five to ten minutes.”

  “Somewhere in there.”

  “But at least five minutes.”

  “Yeah, I’d say so.”

  “So from the time you first left Mrs. Reinardt, until the time you were finished searching that yard, you took anywhere from ten to fifteen minutes.”

  Fandrei crinkles his face and does the math. “That sounds pretty much on target.”

  “And it was after you returned into the house that you radioed for backup.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Thank you, Officer. We have no more questions, Your Honor.”

  67

  AGNES CLORISSA HAS BEEN THE REINARDTS’ MAID for over four years. She moved to the area from Mexico City with her husband almost six years ago. She didn’t live with them, but she would come to their house every weekday at six-thirty A.M. and make breakfast. She would stay at least through the early afternoon. She would also work in the evenings whenever the Reinardts did something social, which was about once every two or three weeks. Since about a week or two after the doctor disappeared, her time has been cut to three days a week.

  She is a good-sized woman with big hands and a worn Latin face. The gray in her hair has almost completely overcome the jet black. She has declined the use of an interpreter, but her English is not so good. Roger Ogren does the best he can with her.

  “Ms. Clorissa, have you ever seen the defendant before?” He points to me, and Paul tells me to stand.

  “Jes,” she says. “I seen him.”

  “Where have you seen him?” Ogren speaks verrrry slowwwwly.

  “At the house.”

  “At the Reinardts’ house?”

  “Jes.”

  “How many times?”

  She holds up two fingers. “Two times.”

  “Why was he there?”

  “He come for the party.”

  “The party. Do you mean parties the Reinardts threw for their charity?”

  “La caridad. Jes. The foundation.”

  “These were parties for the Children’s Foundation?”

  “Jes.”

  “Okay. Did you ever see the defendant talk to Mrs. Reinardt?”

  “Jes.”

  “When was this?”

  “Spring. April.”

  “April of last year?”

  “Jes.”

  “At the Reinardts’ home?”

  “Jes.”

  “A party?”

  “Jes.”

  “Were they alone? When you saw them?”

  “Jes. He follow her.”

  “He followed her?”

  “One time, I come into the keetchen. He come in to talk to her. She tell him, go away. He don’ want to go. He talk to her.”

  “Do you know what he said to Mrs. Reinardt?”

  Now I see why Ogren didn’t want an interpreter. If the maid is going to repeat a conversation Rachel and I had, she has to appear to understand English pretty well.

  “He say, what wrong? What wrong? He say, why do you avoid me? She say she don’ want to be bothered. She say so.”

  I saw her break away from a group of two or three volunteers and walk into the kitchen from the living room. I was talking to someone, I don’t remember who. I took the other route, down the hall, through the den, into the kitchen. I’d had a couple of scotches, and I was getting a little annoyed at how she kept avoiding my looks all night.

  “Rachel,” I said.

  She was over by the sink, opening a bottle of wine. She turned her head and saw me, then turned back. “What is it?”

  I walked over and leaned against the counter next to her. “I was wondering if you were ever going to acknowledge my presence tonight.”

  She shook her head as she worked the cork. “Please,” she whispered. “No one can know.”

  I replied, probably a little too loudly for her liking, “You can have a conversation with me without it meaning we’re having an affair.”

  Rachel stopped her work on the bottle but kept her head down. “Marty, please don’t make this difficult.”

  I leaned into her. “Well, it’s difficult for me, too. I mean I know—”

  “Shh—”

  I actually raised my volume. “There’s a difference between discretion and completely avoiding me.”

  Noise from behind us, shuffling of feet. Rachel looked over my shoulder; I turned around to see Agnes Clorissa.

  “Sorry,” Agnes said with uncertainty. I can only imagine the look on my face.

  “How did Mrs. Reinardt appear at that time?”

  Agnes looks at him funny. She leans forward. “I don’ . . .?”

  “How did Mrs. Reinardt look?”

  “She look . . . oh, claro. She look upset. Upset.”

  “How about the defendant?” Ogren points at me.

  “He all red.” She waves a hand down over her face. “Face all red.”

  “His face was red?”

  “Jes.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Clorissa. That’s all we have, Your Honor.”

  Paul stands up and walks over to the jury box at the far end. “Ms. Clorissa, you were born in Mexico City, right?”

  She is leaning forward as Paul speaks, her neck craned, her eyes intent. “Jes.”

  “You grew up there.”

  “Jes.”

  “You spent thirty-six years there.”

  “Jes.”

  “And you spoke Spanish.”

  “Jes.”

  “No English.”

  “Poquito. Leetle.” She holds her index finger and thumb an inch apart.

  “How’s your English now?”

  “Is okay.” She nods.

  “Does Mrs. Reinardt speak to you in English?”

  Agnes smiles. “She speak Spanish.”

  “And you and your husband speak Spanish to each other?”

  “Jes.”

  “All the time?”

  “Jes.”

  “You live in the city here, correct?”

  “Jes.”

  “You live at 106th and Caroway.”

  “Jes, I do. I take bus to Reinardts’.”

  “That is a Mexican neighborhood, pretty much, right?”


  “Jes.”

  “Most of the stores you go to, they speak Spanish.”

  “Jes.”

  “Okay. Now, I want to talk about the time you saw Mrs. Reinardt and Marty talking in the kitchen, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “His back was to you, right?”

  She looks at Paul with a contorted face. Paul stands there and waits for an answer. They stare at each other for a good ten, fifteen seconds. Finally, she says, “I don’ understand.”

  “Marty wasn’t facing in your direction, was he?”

  She looks Paul over for a second with that crumpled face, then sighs. “I don’ understand.”

  Judge Mack leans forward. “I wonder, counsel, if it would be more appropriate to bring in an interpreter.”

  “Judge,” Paul says with a hand up, “I would ask that she be asked these questions in English. If she claims to have heard a conversation in English, then I’m entitled to explore the credibility of that testimony. The jury is entitled to know whether she can really understand English that well.”

  The jurors, most of them, anyway, nod at this argument. The judge lets Paul proceed. Agnes is sitting up there bewildered, not sure what exactly is going on, but getting the idea that the heat is being turned up a notch.

  Paul takes a step closer to Agnes. “Was Marty standing face-to-face with you?” He points at his face and to her, waving his finger back and forth. “Or”—he turns his back to her—“was he turned around?”

  “Like—now,” she says, wagging a finger at him.

  “Turned around, you mean?” Paul cranes his head around to ask this.

  “Jes.”

  “How far away from you?”

  She leans over the witness stand—smacking the microphone in the process and treating us all to a nice reverberation—and points to a spot on the floor near Paul’s feet. “’Bout there,” she says.

  Paul takes two steps forward. “Here?”

  “Jes.”

  “For the record, about”—Paul strides toward Agnes and stops at the witness stand—“six strides away from you.”

  “Jes.”

  “Marty was upset, you said.”

  “Jes.”

  “So he was talking fast.” Paul nods his head agreeably.

  She thinks it over and nods. “Jes.”

  “You came into the kitchen from the living room.”

  “The leeving room. Jes.”

  “That’s where the party was.”

  “Jes.”

  “Was there music?”