Silent Witness

by Richard North Patterson

  Eyes narrow, Seed seemed to consider this. “No one has.”

  Tony glanced at the jury, noting their attentiveness, and then saw that Stella Marz was already poised to object. “So,” he went on, “the only reason Sam Robb is sitting here, charged with Marcie Calder’s death, is because he came to you when Marcie was reported missing.”

  “Objection,” Stella said at once. “The question calls for speculation. We can only know what did happen—not what would have happened given a different chain of events.”

  Karoly nodded. “Sustained.”

  Tony was prepared for this: he had made his point with the jury and was ready with a question to which Stella could not object. “But you’ve found no one in Lake City who can link Sam Robb, by name, to the events surrounding Marcie’s death?”

  Seed slowly shook his head. “No, sir. We have not.”

  “No one else has even placed Sam Robb in Taylor Park that night, correct?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “So even now, you still have no other witness who could tie Mr. Robb to the events surrounding Marcie’s death.”

  “No.”

  This was more than enough, Tony thought, to suggest Sam’s candor with the police, and to belabor it created a problem: if Sam Robb was the only witness, he could imagine the jury wondering, should he not testify on his own behalf? Promptly, Tony moved to his next point. “Based on your knowledge of the law,” he asked, “did you consider that by coming to you, Sam Robb might damage his career? Even lose his job?”

  “Objection,” Stella called out. “There’s no foundation for assuming that this witness knows what the consequences might be. Also, it calls for speculation.”

  Karoly, Tony saw, looked curious. But the objection was a good one. “Sustained,” he said to Tony. “Maybe you can ask some other way.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor.” Tony turned back to Seed. “Sam Robb came to you, voluntarily, to tell you where and when he’d been with Marcie Calder.”

  “Yes.”

  Tony paused. “Doesn’t it make sense to you,” he asked, “that Sam Robb wouldn’t want to admit to the kind of relationship which would end his career?”

  “Objection,” Stella said with asperity. “What makes sense to this witness might not make sense to Mr. Robb.”

  “Sustained,” Karoly ruled. But this was what Tony had anticipated; once more he had made his point with the jury.

  He faced Jack Seed again. “After Mr. Robb’s voluntary statement, you asked him for a blood sample, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Mr. Robb also gave that voluntarily?”

  “Yes.”

  “And, as you’ve already mentioned, let you visit his home.”

  “One or two days later, yes.”

  “At that time, Mr. Robb also gave you the clothes and shoes he’d worn that night.”

  Seed paused. “The ones he said he’d worn, yes.”

  “Until the time that I stepped in, Sam Robb had no lawyer, correct?”

  “Not that we saw.”

  “And not until after you impounded his car.”

  “That’s right.”

  “That period was roughly a week?”

  “Yes.”

  “During that time, did Mr. Robb ever refuse any request for information?”

  Seed’s lips thinned. “No, sir. He did not.”

  “After you impounded his car, Mr. Robb told you he’d called a lawyer, right? Someone who also was an old friend.”

  “Yes.”

  “And, for the record, that lawyer was me.”

  “That’s what he said.”

  “Did Sam Robb also tell you that I’d advised him that, in the future, I should speak for him?”

  “He did.”

  Tony cocked his head. “As of that time, Detective Seed, were the Lake City police investigating any other suspects?”

  Seed folded his arms. “We were considering any possibility that the facts suggested.”

  “Including suicide? Or accident?”

  “Yes.”

  “But was there any other individual you considered to be a suspect should this become a murder case?”

  Seed considered this. “What I’d have to say, Mr. Lord, is that no other individual ever became a suspect.”

  It was a skillful answer. For a moment, Tony hesitated, and then he saw his next question. “Isn’t it true that once you found the blood on the steering wheel of Mrs. Robb’s Volvo, and further found that Mr. Robb’s shoe size matched that of the footprint by the edge of the cliff, you focused on Sam Robb as the sole suspect in a potential murder prosecution?”

  Seed paused, and then Tony saw him decide on candor. “Certainly the primary suspect. But we also had his statement, placing him at the scene.”

  “Precisely. But based on your experience, and the files of your department, aren’t there a fair number of people who pass through Taylor Park at night?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve had a problem with drug dealers there, correct? As well as transients and homeless people who stay in the park at night?”

  “That’s true.”

  “In the course of investigating the death of Marcie Calder, did you make inquiries with respect to violent crimes in other nearby localities?”

  “Not specifically.”

  “Or review records of sex crimes occurring in Lake City, or nearby, within the past few years?”

  “We did not.” For the first time, Seed sounded defensive. “From the evidence as it developed, we were satisfied that this was not a random event and that Sam Robb had motive, means, and opportunity.”

  Tony paused for a moment. “Are you familiar with the last homicide which occurred in Lake City? The murder of Alison Taylor?”

  Tony felt a stirring in the gallery; to his side, the Vanity Fair reporter looked up sharply from his notes. Seed appraised Tony with open curiosity. “Not personally,” he said at last. “The Taylor case was before my time, and there’s no one still on the force who worked on it.”

  “But you’re aware that no charges were brought?”

  “Yes, sir.” Seed’s tone was dry. “Recent events have brought that to my attention.”

  “Then you must also be aware that one suspect in that case was a transient, Donald White, with a prior record of sexual assaults and no prior connection to the victim, Alison Taylor?”

  “I’m aware of that, yes.”

  “Are you further aware that what first focused attention on Donald White was a search of police records in other jurisdictions?”

  “Objection,” Stella said. “There’s no foundation that this witness has any personal knowledge.” Pausing, she glanced at Tony. “Moreover, the facts of the Taylor murder—whatever they might be—are irrelevant to this one. Except in counsel’s mind.”

  “The facts are irrelevant,” Tony said to Karoly. “But the methodology is very relevant. My question, Your Honor, is whether the Lake City police considered the methodology used in the Alison Taylor murder to investigate the death of Marcie Calder. As we believe they should have.”

  Judge Karoly frowned at Tony, clearly befuddled by this flirtation with the facts of Tony’s own life. “On that basis,” he said finally, “you can have your answer.” Turning to Seed, he asked, “Did you contact other jurisdictions for information about similar crimes?”

  It could not be better, Tony thought—for the jury, the question now bore the imprimatur of the judge. “No,” Seed answered. “Based on the facts of this case, we were absolutely satisfied that we knew who was responsible.”

  “So,” Tony put in quickly, “you did not investigate anyone other than Sam Robb, whether known to Marcie Calder or not?”

  “We certainly made inquiries about other people Marcie knew, including friends or boys she may have dated. But nothing resulted which gave us reason to suspect them.”

  “Including Ernie Nixon?”

  Seed sat back, folding his hands. “We did not consi
der Ernie Nixon to be a suspect.”

  There was something missing in the answer, Tony thought; it seemed careful, considered. “Do you now?” Tony asked.

  The answer “yes,” Tony knew, would end the case in moments. Slowly, Seed shook his head. “We do not.”

  “When did you first meet Mr. Nixon?”

  “Four, maybe five years ago. When Mr. Nixon came to run the rec center.” Seed paused. “My kids go there a lot.”

  “When he came to tell you he’d seen Marcie Calder the night she died, were you surprised?”

  Seed shrugged. “I can’t say I was or wasn’t.”

  “Is it fair to say, then, that your attention was focused on how Mr. Nixon’s story fit the case against Sam Robb?”

  “What I’d say, Mr. Lord, is that we were interested in whether what Ernie Nixon told us—that Marcie was pregnant, that she was going to see the father—might shed light on her death.”

  “Fair enough.” For a split second, Tony paused. “At that time, were you aware that Marcie Calder was a frequent visitor to Mr. Nixon’s home?”

  Seed glanced at Stella Marz. “I was not.”

  “Did you ever search his house?”

  “No.”

  “Or Mr. Nixon’s car?”

  “No.”

  “Or take any article of his clothing?”

  “No.”

  “Or take a sample of his blood?”

  “No.”

  Tony skipped a beat. The next question was a risk, he knew; not knowing the answer, he could be walking into a trap, set by Stella. But to set it, Tony knew, she would have to take a risk herself. Softly, he asked, “Or check his shoe size?”

  Seed folded his hands. “At what time?”

  He had been right, Tony knew—Stella had found out, but not until Tony had tried to implicate Ernie Nixon. “At any time,” he said.

  “Yes.” Seed looked grim. “We did.”

  “And when was that?”

  “Approximately three days ago.”

  Tony could feel his own tension. But there was no choice now; the questioning had gone too far. “And what,” he asked, “was Mr. Nixon’s shoe size?”

  Seed’s face became opaque. “Size eleven.”

  Tony felt relief course through him, overwhelming his ambivalence. He could sense the jury stirring with surprise. Confidence renewed, Tony asked, “So based on size, the footprints by the edge of the cliff could have been Sam Robb’s, Ernie Nixon’s, or someone else’s altogether.”

  “Yes.”

  “All you know for sure is that the tread didn’t match any tennis shoe you found at Sam Robb’s home.”

  Seed hesitated. “That’s true.”

  “Nor did you find any blood on Mr. Robb’s clothes, or in his home.”

  “No.”

  Pausing, Tony shoved his hands in his pockets. “Wouldn’t you expect to, judging from the nature of Marcie Calder’s injuries?”

  Seed paused, resistant now. “Not if Sam Robb, as we believe, got rid of the clothes he’d been wearing.”

  Then Sue Robb would have noticed, Tony thought. But this was not a point he could make without calling her as a witness—which, next to calling Sam himself, was the last thing Tony wanted. “But you have no idea, do you, when and how Mr. Robb could have disposed of what he was wearing?”

  “Not at this time, no.”

  “And you never found any clothes with bloodstains—either in Sam Robb’s house or at the school, where Mr. Robb told you he went after Marcie left his car.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Or any traces of blood in his office?”

  “No.”

  Tony stood straighter. “What did Sam tell you he was wearing?”

  “A sweatshirt and sweatpants. The ones he gave us.”

  “Do you have any evidence that he didn’t wear them that night?”

  Seed gave him the measured gaze of a man trying to maintain his patience. “There was the blood on the steering wheel, Mr. Lord.”

  This was the answer Tony had hoped for. “Did you consider that an important piece of evidence?”

  Seed shrugged. “Important? We didn’t go right out and indict him.” When Tony simply stared at him, silent, Seed added grudgingly, “At the time, we thought it could be significant.”

  Pausing, Tony framed his final question with care. “And at the time, did this trace of blood help persuade you that Sam Robb—and not someone else—was the potential murderer?”

  Seed gave Tony a querying glance. At length, he answered, “Yes. It did.”

  “Do you have any notion how it got in Mrs. Robb’s car? Based on personal knowledge, that is.”

  Again, Seed hesitated. “No, Mr. Lord. Not personal knowledge. But there’s no way Mr. Nixon put it there, and I sure know we didn’t.”

  Tony gazed at him a moment, silent. “Thank you,” he said politely. “I have nothing more.”

  TWELVE

  Walter Gregg, the Lake City crime lab specialist, had wire-rim glasses, a neat mustache, intense blue eyes, a thin, ascetic face. To Tony, he looked like either a scholar or a terrorist. But his voice and manner were a scholar’s—dry and precise—even when Stella Marz took a color photograph of Marcie Calder’s too-pallid face and pinned it to the bulletin board.

  Marcie gazed at the jury, eyes frozen in death, the ribbon of blood purple on her cheek. For Tony, a moment passed before he could shake his instinctive recall of Alison Taylor. Then he glanced at Marcie’s parents.

  They were pale and motionless, their fixed gaze at the photograph an eerie replication of their daughter’s. Next to Tony, Sam did not look at the photograph; at Tony’s instance, Sue and her children were gone. Some of the jurors stared at Walter Gregg as though, like Sam, they found Marcie’s face too painful. But no one, now, would forget the victim.

  Yes, Gregg told Stella Marz, the photograph was his. So was the photo of footprints above the cliff, the peculiar scars in the mud beside them. This was the second of six photographs Gregg had taken, arrayed in a collage around Marcie’s picture; with every photograph, the jury would be forced to look at her again.

  Stella pointed to the third photograph. “And what is this, Detective Gregg?”

  “It’s a photograph of Marcie Calder’s tennis shoes.” Leaving the witness stand, Gregg stood next to Stella, placing a finger on the photograph. “What’s important is the mud caked on the toe of each shoe, and nowhere else. According to our analysis, the composition of the dirt on these shoes corresponds to that in the marks running parallel to the footprints. Taken together, they suggest that the victim was dragged to the edge of the cliff and that the marks were made by the toes of her shoes.”

  “Where were the footprints and marks, Detective Gregg, relative to the location of Marcie Calder’s body?”

  “Directly above it.”

  Quickly, Stella moved to the next photograph; taken with Marcie’s body at the foreground, it scanned the cliffside. “And what,” Stella asked, “does Exhibit D-4 portray?”

  “This shows the perspective from the victim’s body, lying at the base of the cliff.”

  “Could you describe the geologic composition of the cliff?”

  “Yes. It’s almost entirely clay, and a little shale. Both the clay and the shale are quite soft.”

  “Would you describe the hill as rocky?”

  “Not particularly. When I say shale, I mean slivers which crumble to the touch.”

  “And did you inspect the cliffside?”

  “We did. In quadrants, four square feet at a time.”

  “What did you find?”

  “We found a trail of crumbled shale and clay leading to Marcie’s body. The fact that the mud found on Marcie Calder’s jeans and sweatshirt were of the same composition confirmed that the trail was caused by the fall of her body.”

  “Did the clay or shale you describe contain any traces of blood?”

  “We found none, no. That helped us conclude that Marcie’s injuries were
not caused by her fall.”

  Stella cocked her head. “Did you find other materials on the beach itself?”

  “We did.” Pausing, Gregg touched the fifth photograph. “A rock, shown here in Exhibit D-5.”

  “Could you describe the rock?”

  Gregg nodded. “As this picture shows, it is oblong, roughly the size of a football. It was smeared with blood and a few dark strands of hair.”

  “Did you subsequently weigh the rock?”

  “We did. It was quite heavy, roughly ten pounds.”

  Stella touched one finger to her lips. “Where did you find the rock,” she asked, “relative to the body?”

  Gregg pointed toward the final picture. “The rock was situated in the sand, further from the base of the cliff. This photograph, Exhibit D-6, shows the distance between the rock and the body. When we measured it, the distance was over seven feet.”

  “Did you subsequently remove the rock and seal it in an evidence bag?”

  “We did.”

  Slowly, Stella walked to her desk, reached into a storage box, and removed a glassine bag that contained an oblong rock. As she carried it toward Gregg, cupped in both hands to suggest its weight, the jury gazed at the rock. Even at a distance, Tony—whose own expert had inspected it—could see the red-orange stain.

  “Jesus…,” Sam murmured. To the side, Tony saw Nancy Calder crying as her husband stared ahead.

  “Is this,” Stella asked softly, “premarked as Exhibit 6, the rock you found on the beach?”

  Gregg made no move to touch it. Gazing downward at the rock, still cradled in Stella’s palms, he answered, “Yes. It is.”

  “Your Honor,” Stella said, “I would like to tender this exhibit to the jury.”

  One by one, the jurors passed the rock, sometimes quickly, always gingerly. The beautician, holding it, gazed from the rock to the photograph of Marcie.

  Quietly, Stella resumed her questioning. “Did you subsequently submit this rock—Exhibit 6—to the county coroner’s office for testing?”

  “We did.”

  “What did the coroner report with respect to the rock?”

  “The results of DNA testing. To which, I believe, the defense has stipulated.” Gregg’s voice remained clinical. “The coroner’s office concluded that the blood on the rock was Marcie Calder’s, that the strands of hair were Marcie Calder’s, and that the surface of the rock had traces of skin tissue. The tissue was from Marcie Calder’s scalp, the area where I observed the lacerations which accounted for the ribbon of blood on her face.”