Decency (19 page)

14

“Jannie! Can you get the Pierces on the line, please?”

Thirty seconds later, Jannie reported, “Mrs. Pierce is on.”

“Good morning, Kathy, this is Kelly Hawkins.”

“Hello, it’s good to hear from you.”

“I wanted to bring you up to date a little. We have made some progress. Not enough, yet, to get where we want to be, but progress nonetheless.”

“That’s wonderful.”

“First, let me mention something that may be very important or it may not be. It’s simply this. When we talk on the phone we need to be careful not to mention any names. Our firm does not have what are called secure phone lines and we have reason not to be letting names float around. There is nothing to be alarmed about but just understand if I am not as specific as you might expect.”

“All right, but what is the progress you mentioned?”

“We have found out two things that help us to establish the foundation of a possible case.

“First, we can show that the agency used psychological evaluations as part of their management process. In other words, at least on some occasions they used them as a knee-jerk step to get rid of people as Samantha described.

“Second, we have found one individual, and we hope to find more, who has been through the psych eval process and was incorrectly found psychologically unfit - maybe by design.”

“That sounds very good.”

“It is. We are a long way from having a case we can present in court. But we are getting there. Kathy, now comes the tough part. I would like you and Harlan to consider this carefully before giving me an answer. When we think we can establish the important points in a legal case, we may need to ask you for permission to have an autopsy performed. Because there was one, we will have to start there to show something was missed or at least to cover the bases.”

“We discussed it many times. In fact, we thought of trying to have it done ourselves.”

“Then you understand. I’ll send the necessary consent form. Just complete it and send it back.”

“That will be fine.”

“Do you have any questions for me?”

“Not now. Harlan may when he comes in. We won’t hesitate to call if we need to. You know that, Kelly.”

“Excellent. Thank you, Kathy. I’ll talk to you again soon.”

“Okay. Bye, Kelly.”

…that went as well as it could…if only it was possible to tell her how far the case really is from being made….

…we need expert psychologists and psychiatrists…

…we need employees from inside the agency who were exposed to bad psychological evaluations…

…we need witnesses to the facts of the events leading up to her referral to psychological evaluation…

…we need documents showing the events of her referral and the results of her psychological evaluation…

…we need all of the documents relating to her work history…

…we need co-workers who can testify to Samantha’s attitude and condition leading up to her death…

…we need witnesses to the death scene…

…we need whatever exists that shows the results of the police crime scene sample testing or lack of it…

…we need everything…absolutely everything…

…Samantha Pierce can’t speak for herself…if we can’t get the documents and witnesses to speak for her, we have no case…

Gil Van Gilder had worked fast, very fast. Three days after Kelly returned from Nebraska, he came in with a report for Kelly and Bonnie.

“Gil, you must have burned the midnight oil.”

“You got that right. You’ll see it in the invoice.”

“Okay, what have you got?”

“Interviews with the coroner’s assistant, the two uniformed cops at the death scene, the evidence technician, the detective in charge at the scene, the autopsy pathologist, and the detective’s neighbor, his postman, and his former wife. It will take a while.”

“That’s what we’re here for.”

“Okay, first, the coroner’s assistant. Patrick Johnson, 26, single, black male. Pretty straight arrow. Just wants to do the job right. Reasonably ambitious. No longer sure the coroner business is the career for him.

“Only thing he really remembers about the case is that the detective in charge was not from Odenton or Columbia, but all the way from Baltimore. He asked the detective if he was new. The detective told him Baltimore sent someone for a close look because Odenton asked for a more experienced guy…”

“Gil, that could just be because they didn’t want to miss anything in a case of an NSA employee. Did Odenton confirm that?”

“Nobody really remembers for sure. They say it could have happened. They have asked for help from all sorts of agencies over the years.”

“Okay.”

“Next, the uniformed cops. They were there apparently only for scene control and remember little. Cop 1, Corporal Daniel Ogilvy, 32, white male. Overweight, divorced, child support eating him up. Not going much higher on the force. Doesn’t understand much beyond what the command tells him to do. Possibly alcoholic. Vaguely remembers the detective in charge was pretty much in control.

“Next. Cop 2, then a rookie, Melissa Bartholomew, 27, white female, divorced, one child. Biggest concern is day care. She is bright but distrusts men and is more concerned about her schedule so she can be with her child than trying to remember this case. She did confirm the first cop’s recollection that the detective was in control.

“For the evidence technician and the autopsy pathologist I’m going to play the interview tapes.

“First is the evidence technician. Richard Helvorsen, 28, single, white male. Very gung ho, thinks he can solve every case with the right collection techniques. Maybe not as concerned with preservation of what he collects as he should be. Doesn’t think it’s his job, but the cops’.

“Here’s the tape. You hear me start.”

“Mr. Helvorsen, I’m an insurance investigator looking at the death of Samantha Pierce about three years ago in Odenton. Do you remember anything about it?”

“Off hand, no.”

“Here’s a picture of her that you took, does that help?”

“Oh yeah, beautiful woman, who forgets?”

“Okay, do you remember what you did?”

“Hmm…let’s see. It would have been pretty routine because nothing stands out in my memory…the detective said take pictures, light up the sheets, vacuum the floors, and dust for prints not hers… yeah that’s pretty much it.”

“‘Light up the sheets’ is…”

“You spray luminol. It will glow under ultraviolet in the presence of blood or semen.”

“Did it?”

“That should be in the report. I don’t think I remember now.”

“Okay, ‘vacuum the floors’…”

“Yeah, for fibers not associated with the carpet, clothes and other fabrics in the home.”

“Did you do that?”

“Must have.”

“Did you vacuum the body?”

“Sure, that’s pretty standard any more.”

“Vacuum the sheets?”

“Probably. It would be in the report. We collect about as many different samples as we can, you know. Hair, fingernails, cavity swabs, prints. Once you have the world of the unseen evidence in your control you can pretty much figure out what happened.”

“So you did get the woman’s prints?”

“Oh sure. Got all of the things I just mentioned. Even the ones the detective didn’t specifically ask for, now that I think about it.”

“Now. Who did you sign the samples over to?”

“Hmmm…it would have been the detective…don’t remember.”

“Would there have been a chain of custody receipt for each sample?”

“Normally.”

“If there is only one chain of custody receipt in the file, what would that mean to you?”

“More than likely that they were lost.”

“Some evidence techs keep copies of all receipts themselves. Do you?”

“Oh heck no. That’s the investigator’s job.”

“Do you remember which cavities you swabbed?”

“No, but it would have been, vaginal-rectal-oral, maybe nasal too.”

“Do you remember anything else that was significant?”

“Other than it looked like a beautiful young woman just died? No… except the detective in charge at the scene was from Baltimore.”

“Okay, that’s it on the evidence technician. Here’s the most interesting interview tape. The autopsy pathologist, Dr. Scott Gray, 39, black male. Damn smart. My take is, he must truly believe he is allowing the dead to speak. Otherwise, a smart black internist would be out minting money.”

“Dr. Gray, your autopsy report on Samantha Pierce which you have just reviewed for me concludes she died of natural causes possibly occasioned by allergic reaction to prescription medication. Just describe for me how you came to that conclusion.”

“It’s very simple. There were no indications of homicide or suicide.”

“What do you mean ‘no indications?’”

“Let me preface this with a little perspective. If you ask me as a human being, do I want to believe that an attractive young woman just reaches the end of life? My answer is the same as anyone’s, No. “But that’s not the question. If you ask me as a scientist, is there any scientific evidence of unnatural interruption of the life processes in this particular body, my answer is that, based on the technology, we have, that answer is, No, not unless someone can show me a fallacy in my procedure. In the absence of such evidence or faulty procedure, the ineluctable conclusion is death by natural causes.

“So that brings us to the procedure itself. I visually examined the outer skin, finding no trauma. I vacuumed the hair and the surfaces of the hands, feet, and microscopically examined the outer tissues of the vaginal and rectal openings, finding no foreign substances. The only substance worthy of note was the presence of capsaicin in the nasal passage in quantity consistent with seasoning her food with black pepper. I took samples of the nasal, oral, vaginal and rectal cavities and chemical analysis later revealed no unexpected substances. I microscopically surveyed the head and the possible entry points for injection and found no indication of invasion or trauma. I removed and resected the brain, the heart, and the lungs. There was no evidence of gross or small vessel hemorrhage or blockage of blood flow. I surveyed the abdominal cavity and found no evidence of bleeding or other inappropriate presence of fluids. I sampled the contents of the stomach, large bowel and small intestine. Chemical analysis resulted in no evidence of poison or other unexpected compounds, the only compounds not native to the woman were those from her meals and the medication for menstrual pain for which she had a prescription and it was not present in sufficient quantity to cause death or even untoward symptoms.”

“Capsaicin? I like Mexican food, Doctor, so I know what that is. Is it possible that the woman was pepper sprayed?”

“Yes. But unlikely. There was no evidence of it around the head. If you peppered your huevos rancheros this morning you have as much pepper in your nasal cavity. Remember a person hit with pepper spray will draw in only a small amount because they immediately stop inhaling to avoid the stinging. Plus, capsaicin breaks down fairly rapidly. Think about it. What’s the longest you ever felt the effects of, say, a habanero? An hour? After three hours only trace amounts remain.”

“What about in the eyes?”

“Same thing. Beyond three hours, trace amounts. I did not do a microscopic examination of the fluids of the eye nor chemically analyze them. That could be a conceivable flaw in the procedure. However, nothing to suggest that it was warranted was apparent to me.

“More to the point. Even if you pepper spray someone, you have not killed them. You then would have to first subdue the person, because they can still put up a hell of a fight. Presumably, subduing them will create some trauma. Then to kill them you have to interrupt the life processes controlled in the brain, heart, or lungs. None of that was apparent.”