Shadow of Power (17 page)

“We don’t even know what the witness is going to say, Your Honor.” Tuchio tries to edge in.

“May we approach the bench?” I want to get it away from the jury.

The judge waves us forward. He pushes the little button on the bench. This creates a tone barely audible to the human ear, but if we were to shout, people in the jury box as well as those in the audience would never hear a word.

“We know what the witness is going to say, Your Honor.” I talk before Tuchio can get a word in. “He’s going to tell the jury that Arnsberg ran, that he fled the scene, when in fact there’s no evidence of that at all.”

“He left work unannounced,” says Tuchio. “He didn’t tell his supervisor or anyone else why he was leaving or where he was going. And that’s why the police bumped him up on the list of employees to be interviewed. Pure and simple,” says Tuchio.

“That’s not why the prosecutor wants it in, Your Honor. He’s wants it to infer flight from the scene.”

“It is what it is,” says Quinn. “The jury will have to decide.”

“It’s also hearsay, Your Honor. The witness is testifying to information given to him by others—the hotel supervisor, for one—and he’s not on the stand.”

“Oh, he will be,” says Tuchio, “to testify that your man disappeared, didn’t say a word to any of the other employees, and that the last time anybody saw him was before the victim’s body was found by the maid and reported.”

“Overruled,” says Quinn.

Just like that we’re back out, the dead button switched off. The prosecutor puts the question to Detrick again.

“As I was saying, we were in the process of interviewing all the hotel employees who were on duty that day—”

“The day of the murder?” says Tuchio.

“Yes. And information came to our attention that the defendant, Mr. Arnsberg, had left work early that day, unannounced. He hadn’t told his supervisor or anyone else that he was leaving. So we wanted to interview him at the first opportunity.”

“And that opportunity was the following day?”

“Correct.”

“When you interviewed him the next day, where did that interview take place?”

“At the defendant’s apartment in downtown San Diego.”

“And did you ask him why he’d left work early the previous day?”

“I did.”

“And what did he say?”

“He said he wasn’t feeling well, so he went home.”

“But he didn’t tell his supervisor?”

“No.”

“Or anyone else he worked with?”

“Not that we’ve been able to locate.”

“Did you ask him why he didn’t tell his supervisor?”

“I never had the chance.”

“Why was that?”

“Because I received a phone call on my cell phone from headquarters that fingerprint evidence from the crime scene had been analyzed and that that evidence appeared to link the defendant, Mr. Arnsberg, to the crime.”

“What did you do then?”

“We took Mr. Arnsberg into custody.”

“You arrested him?”

“That’s right.”

Now Tuchio starts making repeated trips to the evidence cart and back to the witness on the stand. First comes a paper bag containing the plastic raincoat. Detrick identifies it, along with a bloodied towel from the hotel that the raincoat was wrapped in when police found it in the Dumpster near the hotel parking area.

Another trip, another paper bag, this one larger than the bag containing the hammer.

“After you arrested Mr. Arnsberg, did you at any time obtain a warrant
to search the premises of his apartment, the location where you first questioned him?”

“One of my officers did.”

“And did you conduct a search pursuant to that warrant?”

“We did.”

“When did you conduct that search?”

“The same day. The day we arrested the defendant.”

“And did you find anything during the course of that search?”

“We found a pair of dark slacks that appeared to have a few small stains of what looked like dried blood. These appeared to be ground into the fabric near the knee and hip areas.”

“Can you tell the jury where you found these slacks?”

“In a clothes dryer in the basement of the apartment building where the defendant, Carl Arnsberg, lived.”

“So these slacks were being dried after being washed?”

“Objection. Calls for speculation.”

“Sustained,” says the judge.

Still, the point is made. Unless he was removing wrinkles, why would Arnsberg be drying a pair of slacks if he hadn’t washed them?

“But they were being dried?” Tuchio comes right back.

“They were already dry,” says Detrick. The machine was off, but it was still warm when we found the slacks inside.”

“Did you find anything else during your search?”

“We found a pair of dark Nike running shoes with rippled soles that appeared to have traces of blood in some of the grooves. There were also stains that looked like they could be blood on the outside of the upper part of the right shoe.”

“And where did you find these shoes?”

“They were on the kitchen counter near the sink.”

“Did you find anything else during the course of this search?”

“A small, hard-bristled brush and a can of cleanser,” says Detrick.

“Where did you find these?”

“On the sink right next to the shoes.”

This time Tuchio comes back from the evidence cart with an array of bags. One at a time, he hands them up to the witness, and they do the drill.

Detrick, still wearing the white gloves, identifies the dark slacks found in the dryer, then the shoes, along with the brush and the can of cleanser that was found on the sink next to them.

The jury is taking it all in, most of them busily making notes.

Like pixels on a screen, the pieces of evidence in Tuchio’s case start to flicker and glow with the early outline of a picture. At the moment there’s nothing I can do to dim it, the image of a killer diligently doing his laundry, busy scrubbing the blood of his victim from his slacks and shoes.

Finally he has Detrick recap the evidence presented so far by putting it all together. He asks the witness, as an expert in crime-scene reconstruction and based on his investigation and observations at the scene, to give the jury his studied opinion as to the sequence of events surrounding the commission of the crime.

According to Detrick, the killer entered Scarborough’s hotel room probably by using a master key, as there was no evidence of a forced entry. The killer probably already had the murder weapon, having secured it from a maintenance closet on that floor by using the same master key used to enter the victim’s room. The electronic key employed in a lock by someone who is experienced in its use would be virtually silent. According to the witness, the killer was already wearing the clear plastic raincoat that the police found in the Dumpster near the hotel parking area, this to prevent blood from splattering all over his clothes. The perpetrator approached the victim, who was seated in the chair facing away from the door and was probably engrossed in studying or reading documents that were later found near the body by police. According to Detrick the killer could have covered the eleven feet from the door to the back of the victim’s chair in less than two seconds, striking the victim with the murder weapon from the right side and making contact in the area near the base of the skull, thus immediately rendering Scarborough unconscious.

“This was followed,” says the witness, “by a savage attack involving multiple blows with the murder weapon to the top or crown of the victim’s head, the rear at the base of the skull, as well as the lower right side of the victim’s head around the right ear and just behind it.” The medical examiner will give chapter and verse, the details of all this.
“For this reason,” says Detrick, “we conclude that the assailant was right-handed.”

This of course includes 90 percent of the world, including our client. “In addition,” says Detrick, “we believe, based on the patterns of blood-spatter evidence and the various locations where this was found, that at some point in the attack—and most probably from its very inception, including the initial blow to the victim’s head—that the perpetrator used both hands to wield and swing the murder weapon, the hammer.”

I look over, and Harry is staring back at me. Unless Carl has a secret life that includes juggling in a circus act, the cops have just abandoned any notion that he was holding the tray while swinging the hammer. So how did the tablecloth and tray get on top of the blood they found on the table? While I can dream, it is not possible that they could have missed this.

“Based on the evidence at the scene, blood spatter on a small table testified to earlier, we believe—it is my opinion—that the perpetrator then proceeded to put into place what he thought was a carefully contrived cover story by retrieving a tray of food and a tablecloth which we suspect he may have left outside the hotel room’s door, probably on the floor in the hallway.”

This is neat, since every hallway in every hotel has a few trays on the floor outside rooms, and therefore no one walking by would notice.

“Based on the evidence, it is my opinion that these items—the tablecloth, tray, and food—were brought inside the room and carefully laid on a table a few feet from the body of the victim after the crime was committed.”

This is how they explain away the presence of the food, the tray, the tablecloth, and Carl’s explanation of how he came to be in the room. The cops have always had two problems here. Explaining away the blood on top of the table and the absence of blood on top of the tray and tablecloth was only part of it. Even if they could somehow sweep away the blood evidence, how could they possibly explain to the jury how Carl could enter the room, waltz behind Scarborough sitting in the chair, set the table that was off to the side, and then walk back and nail Scarbor
ough from behind with the hammer? Harry and I have scratched our heads over this one for months. We thought it was possible they might argue that Arnsberg did just that—set the table, got behind, and somehow distracted the victim, perhaps with the meal check to be signed. In the chair, while he was writing and looking down, Scarborough would have been a perfect target. But the meal check was still on the tray when the cops found it, unsigned and pristine, with no blood on it. Detrick’s explanation, a story that in one fell swoop takes care of all this, is the kind of result-oriented theory that causes your average cynical and jaded defense lawyer to wonder if just maybe his client isn’t telling the truth after all.

“Based on the evidence,” says Detrick, “at some point we believe that the perpetrator became startled, panicked, and ran, and that during this flight his shoes picked up substantial quantities of blood from the carpet in the area surrounding the chair and the victim. This blood was then transferred to the tile floor in the entry as he exited the carpeted area, resulting in two shoe impressions.” The witness points at the location on the diagram.

“This, coupled with a quantity of blood already accumulating on the tile floor in the entry area, caused the perpetrator to slip and fall, resulting in what appears to be the skid mark here”—Detrick points at the chart—“as well as the finger-and palm prints left on the tile.” He points again to the diagram. “Based on the evidence from the scene, it is my opinion that the raincoat worn by the perpetrator at the time of the crime failed to cover or shield his entire body, so that portions of his clothing made contact with the victim’s blood when he fell.”

This is the final stroke. Tuchio’s witness has tied it all up in one neat package. They will argue that the reason Arnsberg left work and ran home without telling anyone is that he had blood on his clothes, something he hadn’t planned for in the original scheme. Tuchio will tell the jury that Carl simply didn’t think fast enough to come up with the story that he ultimately told the cops, the one he related to Harry and me during our meeting at the jail when he admitted to the slip and fall.

This brings the prosecutor to the final order of business with this witness, Carl’s statement to the police the day they arrested him.

Detrick establishes that they Mirandized the defendant, told him that he was entitled to legal counsel, that a lawyer would be appointed if he couldn’t afford one, that he had the right to remain silent, but that anything he said could be used against him. Then they asked him if he wanted to talk.

Of course, by that time Carl was a veritable motormouth, his jaw jacking with every little detail of what he saw and what he did, right down to the slip and slide in the entry hall, everything out on the table so that the police could understand and give him a lift home as soon as possible.

For their part, the cops were measuring the size of the swastika on the inside of his forearm and wondering how hard it would be to get photos of this, or better yet the real thing stretched out and nailed to the top of the jury railing, where the twelve good citizens could study it, a picture being worth a thousand words and all.

The statement in the form of a transcript, questions and answers, is in essence chapter and verse what Carl told Harry and me at the jail—the tray up on his shoulder as he backed into Scarborough’s room, tented under the tablecloth. This along with vigorous denials each time the interrogators, Detrick and his partner, accused him of killing Scarborough. During their questioning they also got into the issue of the bloody pants and shoes. At one point Detrick asked Arnsberg why he simply didn’t burn them, drop them off a pier into the ocean, or toss them into a Dumpster somewhere, where they could not be found. Carl gave him a simple answer, one so hapless and unvarnished that it might just pass for the truth. Carl told the cops that he couldn’t destroy his clothes, because he couldn’t afford to buy new ones and he needed them for work.

It’s one of those ironic situations that can crop up in a trial. As a rule you never want a client to say squat to the cops anytime, anyplace, about anything. But in this case I’m not at all certain that Tuchio would introduce this statement, as there is virtually nothing in it that is incriminating, unless they can punch holes in it with their later witnesses. It also provides us with the argument that, armed with advanced knowledge of the defendant’s explanation for his conduct, the state then reverse-engineered the theory of its case to account for every detail of Carl’s story. Detrick’s reconstruction is just a little too neat.