Defense for the Devil (34 page)

He said yes.

“Was flesh and skin sloughed off his wrists or hands?”

“Where they were in contact with the floor when they burned, some tissue sloughed off,” he said. “And there was a small track of tissue two inches long trailing from one hand area.”

“What about the rest of the cabin? Any burned tissue anywhere else?”

“No.”

“As a medical examiner, do you sometimes try to reconstruct the events at a homicide to clarify in your mind the sequence of actions, how it might have happened?”

“Yes, I usually do that.”

“Can you do it for the jury in this instance? There is a dead man lying facedown, with his hands outstretched over his head. How could you lift him in such a way that only the tops of his feet drag on the floor, in such a way that you don’t slough off the burned tissue from his wrists or hands, in such a way that his hands, necessarily dangling down from his body, avoid contacting the floor? Can you reconstruct that scenario, Dr. Tillich?”

Roxbury had started objecting halfway through this, but she persisted to the end. For the first time, Judge Waldman used her gavel, not a heavy-handed banging, a tap only.

“Object!” Roxbury said furiously, red-faced. “Same grounds as before. Beyond the scope, not his expertise.”

“But it is within his scope,” Barbara said coldly. “This is what he often does, as he stated, and this time we do know the condition of the man being moved. He was dead.”

During this exchange Dr. Tillich leaned back in his witness chair, frowning thoughtfully. Waldman overruled the objection.

Before Barbara could repeat the question, Dr. Tillich said, “I don’t know how one person could have moved him without leaving a trail of tissue and blood.”

“Could two people have done it, one grasping each arm, lifting him under the armpits?”

Roxbury objected on the grounds that it was sheer speculation. The objection was sustained.

“Back in your autopsy room, having only the evidence of the dead man and his clothes, during your attempt to reconstruct what had happened at the crime scene, did you surmise that more than one man had moved the deceased?” Barbara asked.

Roxbury objected, but this time Judge Waldman allowed the question.

“Yes,” Dr. Tillich said. “That was my first assumption.” Barbara nodded. “In your original testimony you stated that you could tell approximately how long before death the deceased had suffered various injuries. His broken arm, for example, had time for a great deal of swelling to take place, and the fingers were swollen to a much lesser extent. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Did he have blood under his fingernails? Could you tell?”

“I examined them; there was no blood.”

“Would the deceased have been able to use his hands in a meaningful way at the time he received the final, fatal blow?”

“The right hand, absolutely not; the left hand, I doubt it.”

“Would he have been able to grasp a stick or any other object and write his name with his left hand?”

“It would be most unlikely.”

“Just one more detail, Doctor,” she said then. “When you examined the deceased, did you find any teeth marks or claw marks on his leg or on the jeans?”

He said no, and she thanked him and sat down.

Roxbury came on hard then. The doctor was not at the scene when the deceased was injured and moved, was he? He couldn’t know how the defendant handled the body, could he? Hadn’t he seen domestic pets, cats and dogs, carry objects, move them, play with them, leaving no teeth marks?

Barbara kept thinking she had laid the first stone in the structure she had to build.

After a brief recess, the next witness was Detective Gil Crenshaw. He had been one of the detectives sent to search Ray’s house and car. He was a heavyset man in his thirties, with blond hair so pale that it looked white. It was cut short, in almost a skinhead effect, and he squinted as if he needed glasses.

Barbara had the schematic of Ray’s house placed on the easel and now pointed to it. “Detective Crenshaw, you testified in some detail about your search for additional bloodstains, out here on the back patio, along the stepping-stones to the garage, and in the garage itself. Did you examine the front walk?”

“We looked it over,” he said.

“But did you give it the same kind of painstaking examination you gave the other areas?”

“I looked it over and didn’t see anything.”

“Did you test it with chemicals the same way you tested the garage and stepping-stones, and the patio?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Why not?”

“The defendant said they always used the back entrance, and that’s a long walk around the front to the driveway. It didn’t seem likely that he would have dragged the victim all that way when it was so much closer to a car from the back door.”

The house was laid out in such a fashion that the front walk from the driveway passed two bedrooms, then the living room, to the main entrance. The garage was detached and set back even with the edge of the patio, and reached by slate stepping-stones from a redwood deck and patio. Barbara pointed to the drawing of the house and garage, then asked, “Would a stranger to the premises be able to tell how much closer the car would be to the back entrance? It isn’t evident from the road, is it?”

Roxbury objected, and his objection was overruled. “You’d have to walk around it to tell,” the detective said.

“Is that front walkway concrete?” He said yes. Then she asked if there was concrete anywhere else on the premises.

“The garage floor is concrete,” he said.

She picked up his report and asked politely if he could summarize his findings regarding the garage floor.

“There wasn’t any blood,” he said.

“In your report did you state that the floor was dusty and dirty, with old oil stains, and no evidence of having been disturbed for a long time?”

“Yes, I wrote that.”

“All right. Did you fingerprint the house?”

“No, we didn’t.”

“Why not?”

“It wasn’t the crime scene. And the defendant admitted his brother had been in the house. There wasn’t any point in it.”

“Did Ray Arno tell you he found evidence of a scuffle when he returned home from the coast that weekend?”

“Yes, he said that.”

“But you determined that no crime had been committed there.

Is that correct?”

“We knew the cabin was the crime scene,” he said doggedly.

“Did he tell you his father’s house had been broken into over the same weekend?”

“Yes, he told us that.”

“Did you investigate the break-in?”

“I asked his father some questions.”

“Did you fingerprint his house?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“They had changed the locks, there wasn’t anything to find there. Too many people had been in and out.”

“Did you remove the vacuum cleaner bag from Ray Arno’s house?”

“We did.”

“What did you find in it?”

“Just the usual dust and stuff, and a little bit of glass.”

“Glass from a light bulb?”

He said yes.

“Did you remove a shovel and a garden spade?”

He said yes.

“Did you find any forest duff, forest dirt, or fir needles on either of them?”

He said no, and she quickly went down the list of things they had not found: no lighter fluid, no charcoal starter, no bloody clothes, no shoes with forest dirt embedded in them, no pigskin hand grip, no plastic sheeting….

“Did you remove a gasoline can with approximately a gallon of gasoline in it?”

“Yes, we did.”

“Why?”

“We knew an accelerator had been used on the victim; we didn’t know yet if it was gasoline or something else.”

“Did you notice a lawn mower in the garage, or a tractor in the barn?”

“Yes.”

“Yet you thought a can of gasoline might be incriminating? Is that what you’re telling us?”

“I thought it might be evidence,” he said. He was squinting at her, ignoring the jury, and he looked a little flushed. He was so fair that any flush at all on his cheeks was apparent.

“Did you search Ray Arno’s car?”

He said yes, and she asked him to tell what he had found. A gum wrapper, a boy’s sock, a soda can, some comic books, a library book, the usual tire tools and spare tire.

“After you removed those items, did you proceed to vacuum the car?” He said yes, and she asked him if he found bits of glass from a broken light bulb, forest dirt, fir needles, bark mulch, forest duff, trace evidence of plastic sheeting, or blankets. He said no to each item.

She asked if he found bloodstains, and he said no.

“Detective Crenshaw, in your entire search did you find any incriminating evidence?”

“Yes, the bloodstains in the family room.”

“When you questioned Ray Arno, did you consider him to be not only the prime suspect but the only suspect in this case?”

His flushed deepened perceptibly. “No. We never make an assumption like that.”

She shook her head at him, then said to Roxbury, “Your witness.”

“Detective Crenshaw,” he said briskly, “on what day did you question the defendant and search his house and car?”

“Saturday, August tenth.”

“And on what day was the deceased killed?”

“Early morning, on Tuesday, August sixth.”

“Was the defendant alone in his house during those intervening days, to your knowledge?”

“Yes, he was.”

“With plenty of time to get rid of incriminating evidence?”

“Objection,” Barbara said. “Speculation.”

It was sustained.

“Were there any visible signs of a struggle in the house—broken furniture, forced entry, anything of that sort?”

“No, sir.”

“If the deceased had been wrapped in a plastic sheet, something of that sort, would you expect to find traces of blood in the car? Or anywhere else?”

She objected; there had been no evidence of the use of a plastic sheet or anything of that sort.

“You brought it up,” Roxbury snapped.

“Only to indicate that there was no evidence of such a thing,” she said calmly. “If I had brought up a teleportation device, would you now suggest he might have been moved with it?”

Roxbury wanted to argue about it, but evidently the judge didn’t want any more argument; she sustained the objection and almost brusquely asked the prosecutor to get on with it.

He was surly when he asked the detective, “Do you know how the victim was transported from the defendant’s house to the cabin?”

“No, sir, I don’t.”

As soon as he was finished with the detective, Barbara said no further questions, and Judge Waldman recessed for lunch.

The fog had not lifted: it was even denser than it had been earlier, and everyone was edgy. Palmer was still holed up, Bailey said, no planes were flying, little traffic was moving. There was a mammoth pileup on I-5 down around Medford. A bright spot was provided by Patsy Meares, who had ordered duck soup, along with potstickers and spring rolls with shrimp filling. She ate with them that day, as reluctant to go out into the fog as Barbara was.

Lieutenant Stacey Washburn had been the lead detective in the case, heading the joint special homicide investigation team made up of county and city detectives.

Washburn looked hungry; he always looked hungry. He was lean with sharp features, and black hair and eyes. His teeth were bad, which might have accounted for his hungry look; they were crooked, and his bite probably was terrible. Frank said rumor had it that because his temper was fierce, the only way he could testify in court was by taking a tranquilizer first. In the witness chair he appeared relaxed and at ease now.

“Lieutenant Washburn, during your investigation of the murder of Mitchell Arno, did you become aware that he had carried a large sum of money into the state?” She could hear a ripple like a collective sigh pass through the spectators; this was the first mention of money in the case.

“Yes.”

“When did you learn about the money?”

“Back in August. I don’t remember the exact date.”

“In your testimony you stated that Mitchell Arno had been driving a Lexus automobile that had been wrecked and recovered by the police in Corvallis. Do you recall that?”

He snapped his answer, yes.

“Did you go to Corvallis at any time to inspect the automobile?”

“No. I talked to the officers by phone.”

“Did you interview Mr. Stanley Trassi, the attorney representing Mitchell Arno regarding the large sum of money?”

“Yes.”

“In person?”

“Yes.”

“Did you talk with R. M. Palmer, the man Mitchell Arno was working for?”

“Yes, by telephone.”

“Not in person?”

“No. He’s in New York.”

“Did you request a sworn deposition from Mr. Palmer?”

“No. I took his statement over the phone.”

“Do you know when the Lexus was repaired and released to Mr. Palmer’s representatives?”

“No.”

“Were you aware that fingerprints from Ray Arno’s house had been collected and delivered to the district attorney’s office?”

“I learned about them.”

“Did you do an independent check on those fingerprints?”

“No.”

“Did you do a follow-up investigation of the men identified through those fingerprints?”

He said no, more sharply.

“When did you become aware that such fingerprints existed?”

“Back in September sometime.”

“Perhaps we can refresh your memory for exact dates. In your report you state that you talked to the Corvallis police officer on August tenth. And it says that you talked to Mr. Trassi about the Lexus on August twelfth. And on September second you learned about the fingerprints. Are those dates in your report correct?”

“If they’re in the report, they’re correct.”

“All right. So you knew a very expensive automobile had been wrecked, possibly stolen, and that Mitchell Arno had been wandering around on the coast. Did you at any time consider a different reason for the murder of Mitchell Arno than the one you proceeded to pursue?”

“No. His business had nothing to do with his death, that was our conclusion.”