Anatomy of a Murder

by Robert Traver

  Mitch’s opening statement was good; it was clear and brief and contained no less than it should. In fact it was so well organized that I suspected that the clever hand of Claude Dancer might have manipulated the strings. I stole a look at Parnell. From the delighted grin on his face I knew he was thinking the same thing. “Why, that nasty old man,” I thought, “he’s really enjoying seeing me put on the spot.” Mitch’s statement was as significant in its omissions as it was in what it contained. He made no mention of rape or the taking of any lie-detector tests. It was now plain that the prosecution intended to hew to the line of murder and to block, if it could, any proof of anything else. I clamped my jaw shut and hunched myself forward and stared at Mitch. It had also grown plain that there was no danger of my falling asleep.

  “The defense claims that the defendant was temporarily insane at the time the fatal shots were fired,” Mitch was saying. “We expect to prove that he was sane and that what he did was done in the heat of passion and anger. We further expect to show that the killing was premeditated and the result of malice aforethought, as the Judge will define those terms. In other words, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we fully expect to prove and will prove, that the defendant, Frederic Manion, was guilty of the crime of first-degree murder. I thank you.”

  Mitch returned to his table, where Claude Dancer was silently but rather obviously congratulating him on his opening statement. Rather too obviously, I thought; if my guess was right about the inspiration and source of the statement this byplay smacked a little too much of self-congratulation. And corny deception. If it was true that all good trial lawyers were part actor, then this little man Dancer bid fair to be a little dandy. In any case I found myself growing unaccountably irked with him—and he hadn’t yet opened his mouth. He might think he could fool the jury with his behind-the-scenes manipulation of this case, but I resented his thinking he could so easily fool me. But maybe, I thought—maybe he didn’t give a damn about fooling me; after all, I didn’t have a vote on the jury. I was suffering, I saw, the first vague pangs of a blossoming and abiding love for Mr. Dancer.

  “Mr. Biegler,” the Judge said. “Do you wish to make your statement now?”

  “If Your Honor please,” I said, rising, “the defense would like to reserve its statement until later.”

  “Very well,” he said, looking at Mitch’s table. “Call your first witness.”

  “The People will call Dr. Homer Raschid,” Mitch announced.

  Dr. Raschid, the pathologist at St. Francis’ Hospital in Iron Bay, came forward and Clovis Pidgeon popped up dramatically to swear him in, much like a poised tympanist in a hundred-piece orchestra who has waited patiently for a half hour to hit a tiny triangle a single blow. “Clovis the Oath-giver,” I thought.

  “You do solemnly swear that you will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God,” Clovis quavered in that lovely far-ranging tenor. There was one thing about Clovis: when he swore witness that witness stayed sworn. How could any man possibly lie after such a solemn and moving injunction? Yet it was remarkable how many found that they could … .

  “I do,” Dr. Raschid said, and took the witness chair. He was a lean, thin-faced, high-domed sort of individual who looked as though he would be more at home writing sonnets than carving up cadavers. I had never read any of his poetry but I knew him as a highly competent pathologist.

  “Your name, please?” Mitch asked.

  “Homer Raschid,” the doctor replied.

  “What is your business or profession?”

  “Medical doctor.”

  “Do you have any specialty, Doctor?”

  “Pathologist. St. Francis’ Hospital, this city.” The doctor spoke rapidly, as though he were anxious to get away for a dental appointment. In a dozen years I had never seen him otherwise, in court or out.

  “How long have you practiced medicine, Doctor?”

  “Ah … .” The doctor blinked his eyes as though he was astonished over the way time flew. “Thirty-one years.”

  “Where did you obtain your medical education?”

  I arose swiftly. “The doctor’s eminent qualifications are admitted,” I said and Mitch nodded and the doctor looked gratefully over at me, as though I had conferred an honorary degree. I was not trying to butter him up but to get on with the trial and avoid as much needless boredom as possible. Everybody knew that Doc Raschid knew his stuff and that he wouldn’t lie to save his own grandmother. On with the butchery … .

  “Did you have occasion to perform an autopsy on the body of one Barney Quill?” Mitch asked.

  “I did.”

  “When and where?”

  “On Sunday night, August seventeenth, in St. Francis’ Hospital, this city.”

  “At whose request?”

  “Coroner Leipart’s.”

  “Who was present?”

  “The coroner and Detective Sergeant Durgo of the state police and two or three other officers–and of course myself.”

  “Who identified the body?”

  “They did.”

  “Will you please tell us your findings, Doctor?” Mitch asked.

  The doctor reached in a manila folder he was carrying and extracted some sheets of paper. “I made up an autopsy report,” he said. “It is fairly long and I will summarize in lay terms if you like.”

  I arose. “We will agree to such a summary if the People will.”

  Mitch turned and glanced at Claude Dancer. “The People agree,” he said. “Go on, Doctor.”

  “Well, there were multiple penetrating and perforating wounds of the body such as might be caused by bullets. All in all there were ten such wounds, as though all the bullets had entered and left. One bullet had entered the front of the right shoulder and emerged at the posterior aspect of the right shoulder at the posterior axillary line—pardon me, came out on the other side.”

  “Go on, Doctor.”

  “Two bullets entered at the region of the right clavicle and came out at the spine; another went through the heart and right lung and emerged at the right thoracic wall at the level of the ninth rib in the mid axillary line, resulting in massive hemorrhage in both pleural spaces. The fifth bullet perforated the abdomen two inches below the level of the umbilicus and passed through the recti abdominal muscles and emerged about four inches to the left of the mid line. The peritoneum and abdominal cavity were not penetrated.”

  The wry thought occurred to me that if this was a summary in lay terms, then all of us would have had to take advanced Latin if the good doctor had chosen to give us the full treatment. It also occurred to me that lawyers were slaves to barroom idiom compared with these doctors.

  “Were you able to determine the cause of death?” Mitch asked.

  “I was.”

  “Could death have been caused by these wounds you have testified to?”

  “They could—it could, I mean.”

  “In your opinion, Doctor, was death caused by these wounds?”

  “It was. In my opinion the wound through the thorax and heart was the immediate and major cause of death. The other wounds of course contributed to death.”

  “Have you made a typewritten report of your findings?”

  “I have. I have it and some copies here.”

  “May I have them?”

  The doctor handed Mitch the copies of the report. “I ask that this original autopsy report be marked People’s Exhibit 1 for identification,” he said, handing one to the court reporter, who looked up at the clock and then scribbled the People’s exhibit number on the paper. Mitch then brought the report over and handed it to me, along with an extra copy. “The People hand the defense the autopsy report for examination,” he said.

  “A little time, please, Your Honor,” I requested, and the Judge blinked and nodded his assent.

  The report consisted of five pages of closely typed analysis, tracing in vast detail the course of the bullets and the massive damage done. I was wrong; the doctor�
��s oral summary had been a form of abbreviated slang compared with this. It also reported on other and undamaged areas of the body. Near the end of the report an interesting phrase caught my eye. “Spermatogenesis was occurring in both testes,” it said. Had that finding been necessary to determine the cause of death? I read the report to the end and carried it up to Mitch, who stood by the witness. “The defense has no objection,” I said.

  “The People offer in evidence People’s Exhibit 1 for identification as People’s Exhibit 1,” Mitch said, handing the report to the reporter.

  “It may be so received and marked,” Judge Weaver said.

  “You may examine,” Mitch said, and he went back to his table.

  I advanced before the witness. “Doctor, did it appear to you that Barney Quill had been shot five times with bullets from a gun?” I asked.

  “It did.”

  “And it appeared that each shot had plowed through him—as a layman might say—and come out on the other side?”

  “That is correct.”

  “A layman might even say that the deceased was well ventilated?”

  “Ha … . Precisely.”

  “Then I take it you did not find any bullets?”

  “No. I mention that in my report.”

  “Yes, I noted that. But your conclusion that the wounds were caused by bullets was more or less of a surmise, then, was it not?”

  “Well, in a sense yes.”

  “Based to some extent upon the history of the case and the information given you by the men who requested and were present at the autopsy?”

  “Yes.”

  “You understood when you performed this autopsy that the subject had been shot by the defendant in a barroom?”

  “Yes.”

  “And this and certain other information had been supplied you by the officers?”

  “Well, yes. From them and from reading the newspaper, of course.”

  “But the officers gave you certain background information before you did your post?”

  “That is correct.”

  Someone was walking softly behind me and I turned around. It was Claude Dancer, of all things, now rocking on his heels and staring up innocently at the skylight. I turned back to the witness. “So that to some extent your explorations were suggested by information you had received from them?”

  “Yes. But my primary purpose was to determine the cause of death. And I did determine it. I didn’t need any information from anybody to do that.”

  “Of course not, Doctor,” I said. “You have made it very plain that the deceased was well drilled.” I too wanted to make it perfectly clear to the jury that the defense was not trying to cast any doubt upon the evident fact that the Lieutenant had shot Barney; my design in fact lay quite the other way. But right now I was gunning for different if not bigger game—and the clever Claude Dancer was perhaps smelling a rat. In any case I would soon see. “Tell us then, Doctor,” I said slowly, “tell us how come you checked to determine whether spermatogenesis was occurring in the subject’s testes?”

  “I object!” a deep booming voice exploded in my ears, and Claude Dancer had finally flung off the mask of being a mere helper.

  “On what grounds, Mr. Dancer?” the Judge inquired mildly.

  “On the grounds of incompetency and immateriality,” he said. “The People have called this witness to show the cause of death. He has shown it. Cross-examination should be confined to that issue. Surely the question of whether this man was capable of—of spermatogenesis or what not would have no bearing on that issue.”

  “Mr. Biegler?” the Judge said.

  “That is precisely why I asked the question, Your Honor,” I said. I turned and picked up the autopsy report from the stenographer’s desk. “I now read from that portion of the doctor’s report called General Findings on the top of page five, and I quote, ‘Spermatogenesis was occurring in both testes.’ That is part of the People’s autopsy report. That report has now been admitted in evidence in this case and I think I am entitled to inquire into anything that is in their report.”

  “The objection is overruled,” the Judge said. “Take the answer.”

  “You may answer now, Doctor,” I said.

  “Answer what?” the understandably bewildered doctor said. “I—I guess I forgot the question.”

  “Read back the question,” the Judge told the reporter.

  The reporter scowled and flipped the pages of his notebook, at the same time rapidly moving his lips, whether in reading or profanity I knew not. He found the place and cleared his throat. “‘How come, Doctor, you checked to determine whether spermatogenesis was occurring in the subject’s testes?’” he read back in the bored singsong monotone that all court reporters seem occupationally compelled to cultivate.

  “You may venture to answer now, Doctor,” I suggested. “The coast is clear.”

  “Because they asked me to,” the doctor replied.

  “Who asked you to?”

  “The officers present.”

  “I see,” I said. “Now did you know when you made that examination that another doctor had taken a vaginal smear from the defendant’s wife and had reported it negative for spermatozoa?”

  “I did.”

  “Objection,” Claude Dancer boomed. “Based on hearsay, irrelevant … . Report of other doctor best evidence.”

  “You’re a little late, Mr. Dancer,” the Judge said mildly. “The question seems to have been answered.”

  “Then I move that the answer be stricken and the jury instructed to disregard both the question and answer.”

  The Judge’s voice seemed to rise a trifle. “The motion is denied. Please proceed, Mr. Biegler.”

  “Now the primary purpose of this portion of your examination was to determine whether or not the seminal fluid of the deceased contained sperm?” I went on.

  “Correct.”

  “And that inquiry had nothing to do with determining the cause of death?”

  “Nothing whatever.”

  “In determining death you would ordinarily never make such an examination on a body that had so obviously met death from gunshot wounds?”

  “Never.”

  “And you made this particular examination solely because you were asked to do so by the prosecuting officers?”

  “I did.”

  “Now, Doctor, if a question ever arose as to whether a man had had intercourse with a woman who claimed that he had, and her smear for sperm showed negative, whereas the tests on the man were positive for seminal sperm, all that might be some evidence that he had not had intercourse, might it not?”

  “Objection,” Claude Dancer thundered behind me.

  “Overruled,” the Judge said.

  “Yes,” the witness answered.

  “So that if that question ever arose at some later date—like say at a murder trial—nobody could argue or claim—not even a defense lawyer, for example—that the claimed absence of sperm in the woman might have been caused by the absence of sperm in the man?”

  I turned around and looked at Claude Dancer, jerking my head sideways, as though ducking a snowball, and the courtroom tittered and Claude Dancer regarded me stonily. I turned back to the witness.

  “I suppose that is true,” he said. “I assumed then as I do now that that was the main purpose of their request.”

  “Objection—the witness assumes,” Claude Dancer pressed.

  “Objection sustained,” the Judge ruled.

  “Move that the answer be stricken and the jury instructed to disregard.”

  “The motion is granted. The jury will please disregard the last answer. Proceed, Mr. Biegler.”

  “Now, Doctor, were you asked to make an examination to determine whether the deceased had recently had intercourse and reached a sexual climax?”

  “I was not.”

  “Did you make any such examination?”

  “I did not.”

  “Could you have done so?”

  “I
could have.”

  “Would it have disclosed the answer?”

  “It should have.”

  “But you were not asked to, and you did not?”

  “Correct.”

  “And you did not hear the subject discussed?”

  “I did not.”

  I stole a look at the jury. Some of the jurors were looking at each other and my Finnish ex-soldier was staring straight at me. Did I seem to detect a sort of half-smile on his face?

  “Now, Doctor, one or two more questions and I think we’ll about be done. Did you make any examination to determine the alcoholic content of the blood of the deceased?”

  “I did not.”

  “Were you asked to?”

  “No.”

  “Could you have made such a determination if requested?”

  “Very easily.”

  “That’s all, Doctor. Thank you,” I said, and I went back to my table.

  “Nice going,” the Lieutenant whispered.

  “We’ve at least got our foot in the door,” I whispered back.

  “Any re-direct, Mr. Prosecutor?” the Judge inquired.

  Mitch and his helper conferred. “No further questions,” Mitch said, half rising.

  The Judge turned to Dr. Raschid. “You may go, Doctor. That is all.” As the doctor gratefully sped on his way the Judge looked at the clock. “We will take a fifteen-minute recess,” he said gravely. “All right, Mr. Sheriff.”

  Max hammered the crowded courtroom to its feet. “Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye—this honorable court is recessed for fifteen minutes.” There was a collective sigh, like an escaping jet of steam, and most of the crowd scraped and shuffled its way to the exits.

  chapter 7

  Parnell had disappeared and was nowhere to be found. I hoped that he had not developed a sudden and overpowering thirst. I hurriedly joined the Manions in the conference room, with the Sheriff hovering importantly outside the door—the observant jury had to pass that way—and explained to them the possible significance of some of the testimony that had been developed from the good Dr. Raschid, most of which I was pleased to see they already grasped. Yes, the prosecution now seemed bent on suppressing all mention of the rape, they readily saw. Perhaps if they saw it that way the jury also might, I hoped. Anyway, I could take care of all that later in my argument. I scribbled a quick reminder in my trusty notebook, without which most trial lawyers would fly straight out into space.