Three Weeks to Say Goodbye (11 page)

Coates covered his tracks very well. Three of the missing children were taken
after
the regular campground hosts had returned, so his name never came up.

Worst of all, Cody told me, was that the seven children prior to Courtney Wingate was an arbitrary number. The actual number of children Coates took could be ten, or twenty, or fifty. In the three decades across the West—years Coates has not accounted for—Cody said there were over seventy missing-children cases open from Nebraska to California. And dozens more in western Canada.

Why just seven? Because the police found photos of seven missing children on Aubrey Coates’s laptop computer. If
there had been others—and Cody thought Coates had been successful in destroying electronic records on a server located in the trailer as well as most of the laptop—Cody and the computer specialists brought in on the case couldn’t find them.

After initially filing charges against Coates for the disappearance of all seven children in the hope Coates would bargain with them—lesser charges in exchange for a confession or the locations of the bodies—the federal prosecutor ran into a brick wall because Coates admitted nothing and proclaimed his innocence. After a few months, the charges were pared down to the disappearance of Courtney Wingate, who vanished most recently, in Desolation Canyon, where Coates had served as temporary campground host. Several digital photos of Courtney were found on Coates’s laptop, and her parents identified him as lurking around their campsite the night before she disappeared.

As Cody and the prosecutor walked the jury through a PowerPoint pre sentation of the photos found on Coates’s computer—evidence Coates had been targeting the little girl for some time, including shots of her riding a big plastic three-wheeler and outside at an unidentifiable location with pine trees in the background—I found her parents behind the prosecutor’s table. It was painful to imagine what they were going through. Crystal Wingate, Courtney’s mother, was thin, pinched, hard, with the wizened face of a woman who’d seen tough times, none tougher than this. Donnie Wingate, who worked construction, had a big mustache and muttonchops, and he looked very uncomfortable being indoors. He was so tense as the photos were shown that I could see cords in his neck popping out. Donnie looked big enough and capable enough to step over the rail barrier and snap Aubrey Coates’s neck before the bailiff could stop him.
I wished he would. He glared at the back of Coates’s head as Cody explained the other photos he’d found on the laptop and the extensive—but sabotaged—array of electronics they’d discovered in Coates’s trailer.

Cody testified for another hour and a half, much of it a summary and recap of his all-day session on Friday. I was riveted. In unambiguous language and with a manner that had been honed doing exactly this in years of courtroom appearances, Cody let himself be led by Assistant U.S. Attorney Blair. The U.S. Attorney himself—tall, bald, athletic—looked on with obvious approval.

Cody built his case methodically from the initial missing-child call from the Wingates to his suspicion when he arrived at the scene at the request of the county sheriff and first saw the campground tender’s trailer with so much electronic capability.

He said, “Coates’s trailer reminded me of one of those communications units our military uses overseas. You know, the ones that can transmit audio and visual data to some commander all the way in Florida or Nevada, so they can give orders on the battlefield in real time. There were dishes and antennae all over the trailer, and a generator outside if his campground power source wasn’t enough. So I asked myself why a man who wanted to be so connected to the Internet in such an immediate way would choose to be in an isolated campground when he could be in Denver, or any city. It started with that.”

Without consulting his notes, Cody told the jury how, with that question in mind, he started his investigation of Aubrey Coates. The more he learned about Coates’s habits and travels and the missing children that corresponded with his locations, the more he suspected Coates of taking Courtney. The records of Coates’s satellite Internet provider showed
patterns of massive activity, sometimes thousands of megabytes of data being uploaded and downloaded. Most of the activity took place from 2:00 A.M. to 6:00 A.M.

“The Internet activity fit the profile of someone involved in child pornography,” Cody said. “And he was not only receiving streaming-video files and other high-density material, but he was transmitting it—uploading it—as well.”

Aubrey Coates himself sat stock-still during Cody’s damaging testimony. He didn’t shake his head or roll his eyes but seemed to watch and listen carefully. It wasn’t Coates who bothered me, though. Bertram Ludik seemed to behold Cody with amusement and barely disguised scorn. And as Cody built his case—convincingly, I thought, and so did Olive—the more agitated Ludik became. Once, when he sighed loudly, Judge Moreland shot a look in his direction that shut him up.

Blair read from her pad. “So when you entered the defendant’s trailer on June 8 with the federal search warrant, what did you observe?”

Cody said, “We found the defendant in the process of destroying his electronic files. The video camera had been wiped clean, and the memory sticks for his still cameras were missing. He’d already burned a bunch of magazines in a trash barrel next to the trailer, material which through analysis was later identified as photos and magazines containing graphic child pornography. Obviously, he had somehow learned of the raid in advance, but we were still able to find enough evidence to arrest him.”

Blair introduced the exhibits—charred photos and magazine pages in plastic envelopes. Members of the jury passed the evidence from one to the other. Several jurors looked visibly sickened by what they saw, and one lowered
her glasses to the tip of her nose and glared at Coates with undisguised contempt.

“And the computers?” she asked, returning to her podium. “What did you find?”

“The photos of Courtney Wingate we showed to the jury,” Cody said, “and photos of six other missing children.”

When Cody said it, there were audible gasps in the courtroom. Heads of jurors swiveled toward Coates, who still sat impassively. It was a defining moment. How Donnie Wingate restrained himself is a mystery to me.

Blair concluded her questions but asked the judge for the right to follow up with Cody later, which the judge granted. As she walked to her table, there was a noticeable spring in her step. I think at that moment if the courtroom were polled—jury included—the vote would have been unanimous to find a rope and hang Aubrey Coates right there and then.

That is, until Bertram Ludik stood up, cleared his throat, shook his head sadly at Cody as if admonishing a child, and walked to the podium stiff-armed and stiff-legged, like a bear.

AT FIRST
, I couldn’t understand where Ludik was headed, and I didn’t listen closely. Cody’s testimony had taken everyone in the room up a roller coaster and plunged them down, me included. My mind wandered. Ludik’s questions were procedural. When the search warrant was applied for, when it was granted. The exact time of the raid. How the items found inside Coates’s trailer were cataloged. How many officers were present and the duties of each. Several times, Ludik messed up names of officers, and Cody had to correct him. Cody’s patience with Ludik was impressive, I thought. He was gentle and professional, and I could see that the
jurors liked him. Ludik seemed confused and disorganized. His questions bounced all over the place, and he paused after Cody’s answers as if searching on his note pad for what to ask next to fill the time. When I looked to Olive with amusement, wondering what she had seen in the past of Bertram Ludik that so impressed her, she looked back and shrugged.

I looked at my watch, wondering how long it would go before Judge Moreland concluded the session for the day. I reconstructed my meeting with Julie Perala and the black ball of dread returned. My mind drifted back to yesterday.

I was jolted back to the courtroom when Blair bolted to her feet, saying, “Objection, Your Honor! Mr. Ludik’s line of questioning is without foundation.”

I looked to Olive. She had heard his question and was straining to hear more.

“What?” I asked her.

“Bertram asked Cody something about the laptop.”

“Approach the bench,” Judge Moreland said, clearly irritated with Ludik.

The discussion between the attorneys and the judge was heated. Judge Moreland covered his microphone with his hand while they argued. The U.S. Attorney heard enough from the table that he joined in the discussion. I had no idea, of course, what was being said.

Because Cody was in the witness box, he could obviously hear snippets of the argument. Although his face didn’t change expression, it drained of color, and he seemed to be staring at something over our heads as if watching his life pass by. I recognized the look, and it scared me because I’d seen it before. When we were in high school together, Brian’s father gathered the three of us, sat us down in his den, and asked which one of us had broken into his wet bar and taken
two bottles of bourbon. I knew it wasn’t me, and I guessed it wasn’t Brian. Cody was the guilty party and looked it and finally confessed.

What, I wondered, was he guilty of now?

JUDGE MORELAND SENT
the attorneys away. The U.S. Attorney looked furious and sat back down in a huff. Assistant U.S. Attorney Blair seemed tight as a bowstring, and she glared at Cody, her jaws clenched. Ludik, meanwhile, smiled at the jury as he walked back to the podium. I realized now Ludik’s opening act of stumbling and disorganization had been a ruse, a way of getting Cody off his guard. His questions were now crisp, and his tone contemptuous.

“Detective Hoyt, I need you to clarify something for me.”

Cody nodded. Then, before he could be reminded by the judge to speak so the reporter could hear him, said, “Yes.”

“During the raid on my client’s trailer, your report indicates 108 items of so-called evidence were taken.”

“I believe that’s correct,” Cody said.

“I need better than your belief, Detective. You can check your notes or read the file. Don’t worry, I can wait.”

I knew Cody well enough to know he was angry, but he internalized it. It was the face and attitude he used to adopt when he played middle linebacker in high school, just before he fired through the offensive line and crushed somebody. He flipped through the pages of the case file until he found what he was looking for.

“Yes. There were 108 items of evidence.”

“And these items of evidence were logged in at the Denver Police Department facility, correct?”

“Correct.”

“But this was a joint federal and local task force. Why weren’t the items taken to the federal facility, as per normal procedure in this kind of investigation?”

Cody cleared his throat and glared at Ludik. “Because the feds are nine-to-fivers. I
knew
our building would be open.”

“So you not only arrested my client without informing or involving your federal partners, you took the so-called evidence to your friends downtown as well?”

“Yes I did,” Cody said.

“Interesting. Now back to the evidence itself. At the DPD, each item is given a description and assigned a specific number, correct?”

“Correct.”

“Each and every item. Each piece of charred paper from the trash barrel, everything.”

“Correct.”

“I’ve looked this list over many times, Detective, and I can’t seem to find the description or number for the hard drive of the server in my client’s trailer.”

Cody looked up at Ludik.

“Did I miss something?” Ludik asked.

“No. There was no hard drive.”

“What?”

“I said there was no hard drive. Coates destroyed it or hid it before we could have it analyzed.”

Ludik rubbed his face. “Detective, I’m a Luddite when it comes to computers. My wife calls me ‘Luddite Ludik’ ”— this caused some titters from the jury—“so please forgive me if I have to ask you to explain obvious things.”

Judge Moreland, bless him, cut Ludik off at the pass. “Mr. Ludik, please get to the point or drop it,” he said sternly.

“Yes, Your Honor. Sorry. Detective Hoyt, correct me if I’m wrong, but a hard drive is like the brains of a computer,
correct? Where all of the files, all of the memories, are kept?”

“Yes.”

“Without the hard drive, a computer is nothing more than a nonfunctional piece of machinery, correct?”

“Yes.”

“So without the hard drive of my client’s server, there is no way to know what the computer was used for or where my client went in his midnight forays onto the Internet?”

“Correct.”

“Same with the missing memory sticks for the digital cameras?”

“Yes.”

“So all that you supposedly have to connect my client to the disappearance of poor Courtney are photos of her not on the missing hard drive from the computer supposedly used in the middle of the night or from the cameras found in his trailer, but from my client’s laptop computer, correct?”

“Correct.” Cody’s voice was flat.

“And the photos of poor Courtney we saw earlier, they’re from the laptop?”

“Yes.”

“And the other photos of the missing children, they’re from the laptop as well?”