Prime Witness (7 page)

They already have a psychological profile of the killer. There was a time when I would have given this all the credence of tarot cards. But I have become a believer.

“Except for the last two, he doesn’t know his victims,” she says. They have deduced this from the fact that the faces of the victims were untouched, not battered or mutilated. Psychologists have determined that it is usually only in cases where the killer knows his victim that the face is battered. The closer the relationship, the more severe is the facial disfigurement.

“You say except for the last two. What’s different there?”

“I’ll get to that,” she says.

“He’s probably white,” she says. Statistics show that in mutilation murders the victim is most often of the same race as the killer.

They gauge the age at between twenty-five and forty. Teenagers who kill are usually violent and impulsive, not the measured ritual of the Putah Creek killer. And anyone too old would have had his hands full with the male victims.

According to the profile the killer probably lives alone. This is almost a “touchy-feely” surmise, I think. But the shrinks reason that the killings evidence signs of alienation—the murderer sees himself as an outsider, not part of any family group or close social setting. This may account for the fact that he always takes couples, his way of lashing back.

“We think he’s spent a lot of time around the creek, he might live near there, or maybe he worked there in the past,” she says.

They have come to this conclusion based on the ritual nature of the crimes; the meticulous arrangement of the bodies on the ground, the careful array of clothing around the victims all indicate that the killer was taking his time, confident that he would not be disturbed.

“He sees this area as his turf,” she says. “He feels safe here.”

The cops are now keying on this last one, canvassing the area for anyone who might have worked or been seen living in the area, a field hand on one of the ranches, maybe a transient who camped there for awhile.

One aspect of the psychological profile is most troubling.

“Killers who rely on ritual,” she says, “don’t usually stop until they’re caught.” It is a sobering thought, but it gets worse.

“We don’t know if he’s becoming more violent,” she says, “or if maybe he might have known the Scofield woman.”

I look at her, a question mark.

“He appears to have gouged the eye from her head,” she says. “We’re still trying to figure why.”

Since the panties were drawn tight over her head, I could not see this at the scene.

We talk in more general terms about the investigation. Except for the profile, the cops are dabbling in the dark. According to Sellig, police can find nothing that connects any of the couples killed.

“The last ones, the Scofields, present a real problem,” she says.

I look at her, my interest piqued.

“Their age,” she says. “He’s broadened the boundaries. He’s not confining himself to the college-age crowd anymore.”

“Maybe it’s not age,” I tell her. “Maybe the common link is the academic set, the university.”

She makes a face like this is a possibility. But she is still troubled. It is an axiom of serial crime that, when killers depart from the usual order of things, those pursuing them have even more reason to worry. The fact that the Putah Creek killer has now taken victims in their fifties injects a random element into the equation of pursuit. We talk about this, but she is stymied. Until Sellig gets the autopsy report on the Scofields she can form no real conclusions.

“What about the thing in the trees?” I ask. “The platform.”

She’s taking her shoes off now, moving toward a locker against the wall. It appears that even the half-heels were a concession to the company dress code, something used only for greeting the public. She is warming to me now, a little more casual. I take this as a sign of trust.

I ask her whether this perch in the trees is connected with the murders.

“We’re still looking into it,” she says.

I probe her on what they found up there.

She makes a face. “Some feathers, and blood,” she says.

“Animal or human?”

“Mostly animal, but there were traces of human blood as well. And some small bones, avian, we think.” There are more puzzled looks from Sellig on this. Like the loose ends just keep piling up.

“We’ve sent the bones and feathers off to the National Wildlife Forensics Lab, up in Oregon,” she says, “for analysis.”

It seems there are only two people in the country who have any background in such things. One of them is eighty-seven years old, a woman on the east coast. The other is a younger woman, her protégée, who has now been enticed away from the Smithsonian to the wildlife facility in Ashland, a kind of criminalistics lab for offenses against nature and the environment.

“They should have some answers for us in a few days,” she says.

“Your best guess?” I ask her.

“Based on the little bit we have?” she says.

I nod.

“I’d say our guy,” she’s talking about the Putah Creek killer, “had nothing to do with the blind in the trees.”

“Then who did?”

“It’s only a hunch right now. I’d rather wait till we get something back from the lab up in Oregon.”

I accept this, and back off.

“Did they find anything like this at the other two sites, down in Orange County and up in Oregon, a platform in the trees, feathers, bones?” I say.

She shakes her head. “No. And we’ve gone back to check the area again at the other two sites here in Davenport. We thought maybe we missed something. But there was nothing there either. No platform or ropes.”

She is pulling on a pair of white running shoes, the kind secretaries around the capital use for fast walks at lunch, their answer to midday aerobics.

“You didn’t happen to go up there?” I ask. “On the platform?”

She nods. Suddenly she’s all cryptic gestures.

Looking at her, somehow I knew that, after the platform was processed by the evidence tech, she could not resist going up and looking.

“Pretty good view?” I ask her.

“An understatement,” she says. There’s a sly smile. She moves toward the locker against the wall and opens the door again. I think she’s putting the half-heels away. But when she turns to face me again she’s holding a long cylindrical object wrapped in a terry cloth towel. As she unwraps this I can see metal and glass and on the side, some lettering, the words “Mirador TTB.”

“It was found on the platform,” she says. “The owner appears to have left in a hurry.” She hands this to me, to inspect.

“It’s a spotting scope. This is a good one. It would cost about a thousand dollars. Shooters use them for long-range shots, to zero their weapons, to find the strikes on a target without walking two hundred yards.”

I’m turning it over in my hands looking at it.

“It’s been dusted for prints,” she says. “We got one smudged latent, unusable, and found some traces of blood on it.”

“It makes no sense,” I say. There’s an instant of dead silence between us as I look at the scope.

“You think whoever was up in the tree had nothing to do with the murders.”

She makes a face, like this is a definite possibility.

“But they may have seen the killer?” I say.

She smiles. “Take a look,” she says. She’s motioning toward the scope in my hands.

I look through the thing, out one of the windows on the far side of the room. Across the broad verdant lawn like the gardens at Versailles, a secretary is taking lunch, seated on a bench with a brown bag. I turn the focus ring, a fraction of an inch, a view like water through crystal. There is moisture on her cheek. She is reading, a little paperback cushioned in one hand—the title clear as the morning newspaper, Erich Segal’s
Love Story
.

I consider for a moment in my mind’s eye the elements presented; the magic of this little cylinder I hold in my hand, the scaffold high in the trees along the Putah Creek. I conjure the sum of this equation, the thought that perhaps somewhere, out there, is an aimless spectator to death, a prime witness to the murder of Abbott and Karen Scofield.

Chapter Five

T
he building that houses the Davenport County district attorney’s office is classic governmentesque. It dates to the 1930s, something put up by the WPA which at the time was viewed merely as functional and built to last. It exhibits a kind of timeless grace, a classic architecture not seen in today’s public buildings. The granite exterior and its broad stairway lead to a portico capped by three-story stone columns. These speak of authority in a populist democracy, though the facade is now a dingy brown, and inside the building is littered with overcrowded offices and marked by a neglect of maintenance.

It rests on high ground across from the courthouse, among a grove of tall oaks and walnut trees planted in the city center in the last century, a break against the oppressive heat of valley summers when temperatures routinely climb into the triple digits.

The prosecutor’s office is small, only four deputies. Two of these are new, people out of law school less than two years, assigned only to misdemeanors.

And then there is Roland Overroy. Thirty years with the office, Overroy is part of the petrified forest of civil service; perennial deadwood. In this county motions to challenge the competence of counsel are called “Roland motions,” at least among lawyers who have dealt with Overroy. He has never seen a court file he has read, or had a case he has not overcharged.

His special talent is a terminal lack of preparation, and a penchant for overlooking the obvious.

Ever since Feretti demoted him two years ago as chief deputy, banished him to the doldrums of juvenile court, Overroy has searched for petty problems in the office which he could amplify. He has played these like some maestro to anyone who would listen.

This morning the small staff is not a particularly cheerful group, camped as we are around the scarred metal table in the coffee room that doubles for conferences.

While I have met them all in passing, in the day-to-day chores of the office, this is our first formal staff meeting since taking on this assignment a month ago. I would like to make a good impression.

As I survey them the only faint smiles are from Gary Boudin and Karen Samuels, the two newest additions to the office.

Overroy is trying to size me up, wondering how much opportunity lies in the chaos caused by Feretti’s sudden death. Lenore Goya’s on the phone in her office. She will join us shortly.

Overroy has appropriated the only chair close to me at the table, as if my authority, as temporary as it may be, will somehow rub off.

On paper, the chief deputy’s position has been empty for two years. Instead of firing him, which in civil service would take endless hearings and a forest of paper, Feretti with the stroke of his pen simply abolished Roland’s supervisory position. While Roland remained on salary at his current pay, Mario figured pride would in time take its toll. It was an attempt to send a message, that his career in the office was tapped out. But with Roland messages are best conveyed by Western Union, in plain English.

“A real tragedy,” says Overroy. He’s talking about Mario’s death. I suspect he did handstands when he read the obituary. Roland’s middle name is duplicity. If he were a politician he would be the kind to cut down a redwood, then mount the bleeding stump to make a speech about conservation.

“The guy was simply working too hard,” he says. Roland’s way of offering condolences. “He took too much on himself. Refused to share the load. I know.” Roland’s shaking his head now, solemnly like some ultimate truism is about to follow. “This job can be a killer,” he says.

This is clearly not a fate that Overroy intends for himself. At sixty he is anything but burned out. He has a full head of silver-gray hair, and a deep tan, not an ounce of fat on his body. I am told that Roland keeps a boat moored on the river at the marina, that in the summer he routinely checks out before three for afternoon cruises. He calls this ATO (administrative time off), allegedly for all the long hours he puts in prepping at home for juvenile court. This had become a standing joke, but Mario had ignored it, finding Roland’s absence easier to take than his interference and the constant poison he emits into the atmosphere of the office.

Overroy is clearly trying to take the lead in this gathering. He has made the introductions around the table, “the junior staff,” as he’s described them to me in a more private moment.

He has ordered Jane Rhodes, Feretti’s secretary, to furnish all of us with refreshments, coffee and, if I want it, Overroy offers to send her three stories, to the basement, for a cold soft drink from the vending machine.

I waive off on this and ask Boudin and Samuels how things are going in the misdemeanor section, a little small talk to take the edge off.

“We manage,” Overroy answers for them. “But I think we all agree that the office needs a little more structure,” he adds.

“Things worked a little more smoothly when there was more supervision.” What Roland means is when he was chief deputy.

“As for the office,” he says, “you’ll find that we all know our jobs. The place just needs a little continuity. Somebody who knows where things are, how they work.” He smiles at me, big and broad—“Mr. Continuity.”

I had been warned by Feretti that Roland prays at the altar of seniority. In Overroy’s world longevity would be the only measure for advancement.

Goya has just entered the room and is standing behind Overroy in the doorway.

I give her a quick greeting.

Lenore Goya is a tall, slender woman. She wears a dark gray suit, skirt at the knees, and a silk blouse. All very professional. Hers is a dark complexion which in the leisure set might pass for a tan. She has the narrow nose and high cheek bones of a fashion model. If I hadn’t seen her personnel file I might think she is part of Talia’s country club set, all except for the eyes. These are deep set, piercing and dark, with an expression that belies little mirth.