Prime Witness (12 page)

“Judge.” It’s all that will come out of my mouth. I nod, forced deference.

The Coconut has a woman by the arm, dark complexion like his own, a fierce resemblance. I suspect this is his sister, the mother of the dead victim Sharon Collins. There are no introductions. It is not that friendly. Instead he whispers in the woman’s ear, and a second later she walks off by herself toward the seats in the auditorium.

“I want to talk to you,” he says. This is no request. He wags a finger in my face, backs out, through the stream of bodies jostling in the doorway. He finds a quiet area outside, in front of the building, on the steps. Once there he turns on me quickly, mincing no words.

“I don’t know how you got here,” he says. He means my appointment as prosecutor. “I had hoped for somebody,” he searches for the right word, “more competent,” he finally says. “Judge Ingel talked to you?”

I nod.

“Then you know why I’m here,” he says.

“I do. And you have my sympathies,” I say.

He looks at me, something halfway between meanness and a surly smirk.

“I don’t want your fucking sympathies,” he tells me. He suddenly loses the clipped tones of affected English. “You can shower all of that on the suckers inside,” he says. “What I want is a look at the file, everything the cops have, in the Collins case,” he says. He looks at me stone-faced. He knows I cannot give him this, confidential files on a pending murder investigation.

“Everything is being done that can be,” I tell him.

“Is that so?”

“It is,” I say.

“I can give you some help,” he tells me.

“In what way?”

“I have access to people in Capital County who have made offers of assistance.” He’s talking about special treatment for a member of the bench. He tells me some cops, old friends, are willing to dog leads for him in their spare time. They will no doubt be given special treatment the next time they come looking for a search warrant or take the stand in his court. Such is the common currency in the halls of justice.

He tells me Davenport is a cow county. “You know as well as I that they have limited resources. I have no intention of sitting back and watching as they close the books on my niece,” he says.

“No one’s closing the books.”

“Then you won’t mind if I look at the files.”

“You know I can’t do that.”

“Can’t or won’t?” He’s picking lint off the shoulder of my coat now, his message that I do nothing right, not to his level of expectations, even to the point of my dress.

“Your honor.” I back away a full step. The lint on my shoulder belongs to me.

“I’m not looking for an argument or a difficult time. You know as well as I that the files in a pending case are not public,” I say. “They are not available to anyone but the investigators working the case.”

Cold beady eyes, like some Aztec high priest about to do sacrifice on an altar of stone. In this moment he is, I am sure, measuring the myriad ways a judge can screw over a hapless lawyer. I suspect he has made promises to his sister that now, because of my intransigence, he cannot keep.

“What I would have expected,” he says, “from someone like you.” Then his forefinger is in my face, manicured and long, and shaking with anger. “Don’t fuck up,” he says. His expression cold and dead.

Then I hear the click of hard heels as he turns and leaves me standing alone on the steps.

Against my own better judgment I have drawn the private duty with family members, along with Claude in a smaller conference room off the main auditorium. I can hear table-pounding and loud voices outside, in the other room. Emil is having his own come-to-Jesus meeting with the press.

We are seated around a large table now, conference style, Julie Park’s parents, her father Kim Park, a physician from Southern California at one end of the table. The Sniders are next to him, then Mr. and Mrs. Collins and Acosta. Next to him is Rodney Slate’s mother. I am told that his father is hospitalized with a serious heart condition, no doubt worsened by the loss of his only son.

Acosta is silent in this meeting, his brooding eyes on me every second. He has always been one for the
appearance
of propriety. It is one thing to bend the rules, to slip a peek at official files, another to come here dripping saliva and demanding blood with the unwashed masses. That would be unseemly. He would rather backdoor me with Ingel. So here, he will sit, bide his time and listen to the others, ever the proper jurist, the soul of restraint.

There’s a young kid in his teens seated next to Mrs. Snider, a strong family resemblance. My guess is that this is a younger brother of the victim, Jonathan Snider. At the other end of the table is a man in a blue serge suit passing out business cards. He flips one down the table in my direction.

GEORGE CAYHILL
ASSISTANT DEAN FOR STUDENT AFFAIRS

He has insinuated himself into this meeting, representing the interests of the university.

A woman next to Cayhill, in the dark glasses, removes these to reveal high, prominent cheek bones, and wide-set hazel eyes, a bit reddened I think by recent tears. She is tall and slender, taller than I, with feminine and fetching moves. She has thick brunette hair, generous waves which cascade around her shoulders as she shakes it free. Her mouth matches the breadth of her other facial features, with generous pouting lips. It is the face, I think, of classic design, not the simpering beauty of a covergirl, but more unique. Her gaze is intense, like maybe there is something more than good looks behind these eyes. She wears little makeup. There is something wholesome in her looks, like the snapshot of a dressed-up farm girl in the 1940s. She reminds me of images I have seen recently on the silver screen, of Geena Davis in vintage flashbacks.

Without warning she fires a quick glance in my direction and catches me staring. She smiles, dimples forming in the recesses of her cheeks. She reaches across the table, long delicate fingers.

“I should introduce myself. Jeanette Scofield.” She says this matter of fact, like what you see is what you get, no pretensions here.

She is the widow of Abbott Scofield. He no doubt got the better bargain in this marriage. The woman sitting across the table from me could easily pass, in age, for his daughter.

She looks to the man beside her. “My brother, Jess,” she says. I get all five fingers and a squeeze like an iron vise from the fellow sitting next to her. “Jess Amara,” he tells me. I notice that Claude is eyeing the widow Scofield palpably. He exchanges nods with the man, like maybe the two already know each other.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he says. “I wish we were meeting under more pleasant circumstances.” Claude has no notes and is reaching a bit for a good opening in awkward circumstances. I can tell he is a little pissed at Emil for putting him in this position.

“At the present time there are more than a hundred law enforcement officers working around the clock to catch this killer. The full resources of the state, through the office of the attorney general, have been committed to this case and we are at present pursuing active leads.”

A dozen eyes are boring in on Dusalt, looking for something, more than a ration of statistics. Kim Park, Julie Park’s father, is getting antsy at the end of the table. But the interruption is a deep baritone from another quarter.

“Lieutenant.” It is the man just introduced to me as Jess Amara.

“I think maybe we can cut through some of this,” he says. “It’s been in all the papers. This man, your suspect. What is his name?” he says, searching for the proper pronunciation.

“Iganovich,” says Claude.

“Yes. Iganovich,” says Amara. “What can you tell us about him?”

Claude is looking at Amara, a picture of exasperation, as if somehow he’s been outflanked.

“I should introduce you,” he says. “For those of you who haven’t met him, Sergeant Amara is a member of the Davenport City Police Department.” The reason for Claude’s cool reception of Amara is clear. He knows, through scuttlebutt in his department, that Amara will have more information on the Russian, as well as other aspects of the case, than has appeared in the local newspapers or on the tube.

All eyes around the table fix on Amara. Suddenly this group of grieving orphans has found a common resource, someone on the inside who like themselves has suffered a personal loss in this thing.

“Are you close to an arrest?” says Amara.

“We have leads,” says Claude. “We’ve issued an all-points bulletin.”

“Then you think he’s left the area?”

The others are watching and listening, leaving the inquiries to someone who knows what to ask.

“We have reason to believe that he has.”

“Then you know where he’s gone?”

“We have leads.” Claude is back to safe ground.

Based on the Air Canada information, police now believe that Iganovich has fled north. The cops cannot confirm that he boarded a flight, as he no doubt used an alias to buy his ticket. There is an open border between the two countries not requiring passports. In his apartment the cops have found two credit cards issued in his name. Iganovich knows that to use these is to leave a trail like irradiated bread crumbs. Authorities have frozen his small bank account to prevent any further ATM transfers. They believe this was the source of purchase for the airline ticket. When you’re on the lam, cash is king. Broke, they believe he will be forced to the surface soon, driven to commit some foolish act for money.

“But you’re focusing on a general area?” says Amara. He’s back to geography.

“We have an idea,” says Claude. It’s clear he’s not going to give anything else away. If Amara knows more he will have to say so.

“Do
you
have any idea where they are looking?” This latter comes from Park, but it’s not directed to Claude, instead to Amara.

The officer shrugs his shoulders, like this is not his party.

Park has a look of bewilderment about him, like a favorite dog when its master moves a ball too quickly from one hand to the other. It is a dazed expression I have seen before, in the eyes of loved ones seeking answers in the days and hours immediately after a brutal murder.

“This man,” says Park. “This Ivan Iganovich.”

“Andre,” says Claude. “We believe his name is Andre Iganovich.”

Park absorbs this without much interest. “According to the newspapers he was a security guard at the university? Is that true?” he says.

Claude makes a face of concession.

Park cannot seem to comprehend how the suspect in his daughter’s murder could hold such a position of trust.

“Dr. Park. The university didn’t hire this man.” It is Cayhill from the far end of the table. “We hired a licensed private security firm under a contract to provide some basic security for a number of buildings owned by the university.”

None of this seems to make much of a dent on Dr. Park or his wife. The woman, it seems, is in another world, a cocoon of grief. She seems not yet to have come to grips with the notion that twenty years of tender love now lies on a coroner’s cold steel slab two blocks from here.

“The important point,” says Cayhill, “is that the suspect, Mr. Iganovich, was not a university employee. He was an employee of the security firm.” Cayhill smiles likes some Fuller Brush salesman.

“No,” says Park. “The important point is that my daughter is dead.”

“Oh, of course,” says Cayhill. “I didn’t mean . . . well, you know what I mean.”

Cayhill is busy riding the wooden rocking horse of civil liability, putting forth the theories of defense as laid out by the university’s lawyers, trying to stem any early thought of a civil suit. This is the farthest thing from Park’s mind at the moment.

He looks at his wife with a wrinkled expression, like who could care about such details at a time like this. From the look on their faces they still hold out hope that something said here perhaps will relieve a little of the pain of this loss. It is the perpetual quest of survivors in violent crime, the search for some explanation to a random death, the pursuit of an element of reason that at least in their minds gives some justification to a senseless act. The Parks have not yet reached the horn of cynicism. That will take hold as days and weeks turn to months, as the justice process moves through its slow grind.

Suddenly there is a loud clamor and noise from the other room, Emil’s little meeting with the press. It’s one of the sheriff’s deputies coming through the door behind us. He closes it, again locking out the din from the other room, leans over and passes a message slip to Claude, who reads it.

“Excuse me,” he says. “Mr. Madriani will handle the briefing for the moment. I will be right back.”

Suddenly eyes are on me.

“I have a question,” says Amara. “Do we know how the suspect came into the country?”

This draws a blank expression from me. “I don’t,” I say.

“In order to get into the country an immigrant usually requires a sponsor,” he says, “a relative, friend, maybe an employer.”

“I’m sure that investigators are looking into that.” Actually I am not, but I make a mental note to talk to Claude about it in a private moment.

The gathering starts to digress, private conversations cropping up around the table as the survivors begin to communicate their common pain.

Park is talking to Amara, quietly about the immigration item, sponsors and the like. He is taking notes on a piece of paper he’s taken from his pocket. As I watch him I wonder what the purpose of this missive can be. I had been warned by the shrinks that survivors of crime often react in predictable patterns. When the suspended disbelief of death finally dissolves it will first turn to rage, and then obsession.

Claude has come back. He settles into his chair and leans into my ear, the hissing of words. “Go home,” he says, “and pack. Enough for several days. We have a flight, ten, tomorrow morning.”

I look at him. He says nothing more, but from the expression on his face the message is clear. Somewhere on this planet Andre Iganovich has come to ground.

Chapter Ten

A
fter three days and four phone calls I have finally hooked up with Kay Sellig. I brace myself for bad news. It is written in her eyes.