Proof of Intent (30 page)

Stash sat down, and I popped right up.

“Mr. Gough,” I said, “it seems like you have a great deal of contempt for the American reading public.”

Gough smiled, apparently somewhat amused at the fussy Midwestern lawyer. “Not at all. I have contempt for a certain slice of the American reading public. There's a difference.”

“Ah!” I said. “So you're suggesting that this book is appealing, what, to stupid people?”

“Hey, I really like the book,” Gough said after a moment of consideration. “I think it's a terrific read, a nice fun creepy clever ingenious book. But, yes, I'd admit our marketing campaign was aimed more toward the down-market reader than toward the connoisseur of sophisticated crime fiction.”

“ ‘Down-market reader.' That sounds like a code word for idiot.”

Gough's mouth turned up slightly at the corners. “That's not entirely inaccurate.”

“So are you implying that only an idiot would believe that this book incriminates my client?”

“Hm.” Gough looked thoughtful. “I guess here's what it comes down to. I don't honestly know in any detail what the facts show about Mr. Dane's guilt or innocence, or how much similarity there is between the crime in the book and the actual crime that took place here last year. And frankly? The only people who matter when it comes down to what incriminates or doesn't incriminate Mr. Dane are the people over there in the jury box. I imagine they're bright enough to make that call.”

“So it's fine and dandy to smear Mr. Dane's reputation, to poison his life in front of the entire world . . . as long as he walks away a free man?”

“For whatever it's worth, I anticipate that Elgin Press will be sending him quite a sizable royalty check before this is all over with.”

“That doesn't answer my question. Do you feel comfortable poisoning this man's reputation by trying to confuse the difference between reality and fiction?”

Bob Gough looked at me unblinkingly. “He wrote the book, not me.”

I returned his gaze for a long moment, then said, “I hope that assuages your conscience. No more questions.”

Stash Olesky stood. “Brief redirect, Your Honor. Mr. Gough, let's amplify an issue that Mr. Sloan has just raised. You're not just being callous here, are you, when you imply that you don't feel responsible for poisoning Mr. Dane's reputation? No, let me rephrase that. Do you feel that you've done anything of your own volition to harm Mr. Dane's reputation?”

“I don't, no.”

“Why not?”

“Look, in my earlier testimony I said something to the effect that ‘it was brought to my attention' that Elgin owned the paperback rights to this book. It had been out of print so long, nobody at Elgin even knew we still had the rights to it.”

“I'm sorry, Mr. Gough, but that doesn't answer my question.”

“What I'm saying is,
he
called me and suggested we put out a new edition of the novel.”

“Who called you?” Stash said.

As Bob Gough smiled, his long blond goatee jutted out from his chin. “Who do you think?
Him
.” His finger was pointing right at Miles Dane.

“Good God, Miles! What were you thinking?”

We were sitting in the conference room next to the courtroom, Miles with his left ankle chained to the floor.

Miles looked away. “You were the one saying I couldn't afford a decent defense. I just, I was thrashing around trying to think of a way to bring in some money, and I made the call on the spur of the moment. I didn't even think about the titles of the books, or what they were about. Hell, Charley, I wrote that stupid thing thirty years ago.”

I studied his face. “I asked you about this book the day I heard about it. Remember what you said? ‘Gee, I've written forty-seven books and I barely remember it.' You lied straight to my face.”

“I guess . . . I guess I was just afraid you'd tell me I was an idiot for putting the book out again.”

“Which, frankly, you were.”

“Well, what difference does it make? It's done now.” Miles looked hangdog. “Anyway, the good news is you'll get paid for your work,” he said quietly. “Which was kind of in doubt for a while there.”

“That's not the issue. At the very least, if I'd known you were responsible for the book coming out, I'd have steered around that particular line of questions.”

“Surely you don't think I'd do this intentionally? Sabotage my own case?”

“I don't know what I think,” I said finally.

After the midmorning break Stash Olesky looked at the next witness, and said, “Agent Pierce, could you state your full name and occupation?”

“My name, sir, is Orvell John Pierce, Junior. I am an agent with the Michigan State Police. My area of specialization is crime scene investigation. As such, I offer the resources of the state police to jurisdictions such as the city of Pickeral Point, which don't have their own crime scene specialist.”

Orvell Pierce was an angular black man with a pencil-thin mustache and protuberant black eyes. He was dressed in a brown suit that looked about half a size too large. His speech and manner seemed excessively formal. Though he was undoubtedly experienced at testimony, he looked stiff and ill at ease. Maybe it was that camera in the back of the room. Then again, maybe he was just a nervous man.

“Agent Pierce, did you receive a request for assistance from the Pickeral Point Police Department early on the morning of October 21 of last year?”

“Yes sir, I did. I was paged at my home at approximately four-twenty-seven in the morning, and I responded to the scene of an apparent homicide at five-oh-eight in the morning.”

“Could you tell me what you did at the scene?”

Agent Pierce explained how he had met Detective Denkerberg at the scene, how—at Detective Denkerberg's direction—he had videotaped the area surrounding the house, then had gone inside and assisted her in the processing of the crime scene.

“Did you have occasion to make any analysis of the blood spatter evidence in the room?” Stash prompted.

“Yes I did.”

“Could you tell us what blood spatter analysis is?”

“It will not be news to the jury that when the skin of a live human being is broken, the individual bleeds. Or that when a human body is struck or cut or shot, it also bleeds. Blood spatter analysis is the study of how drops of blood are disseminated through space in the course of violent assaults.

“Using the principles of physics, it is possible to reconstruct—based upon the size, shape, and location of blood drops found at a crime scene—exactly where that blood came from and how fast it was moving, thus assisting in reconstructing the nature of the crime. In this case there was a copious amount of blood in the room, so a considerable amount of my time was invested in documenting and analyzing that blood spatter evidence.”

Stash Olesky had a thick report marked as evidence, then presented it to the witness. “Agent Pierce, can you identify this document?”

Agent Pierce narrowed his eyes, studied the document. “Yes sir. That would be my report based upon the blood spatter evidence present at 221 Riverside Boulevard.”

“And is that your signature on page six?”

“Yes sir, it is.”

“Good. I'd like to direct you to the first paragraph on the first page. Could you read that?”

“It begins, ‘Executive Summary.' Then it reads, ‘It is the opinion of the undersigned agent that blood spatter evidence on and around the body of victim Diana van Blaricum Dane at 221 Riverside Boulevard is consistent with the following conclusions:

“ ‘One. The victim was struck while she lay in the bed.

“ ‘Two. The victim did not move appreciably during the course of the assault.

“ ‘Three. The victim was struck by a person of normal stature using an overhand (i.e. baseball bat) type grip.

“ ‘Four. The attacker used a grip consistent with that of a right-handed person.

“ ‘Five. The victim was repeatedly struck with an object approximately one and a half to three feet in length.

“ ‘Six. As the assault proceeded, the attacker circled the bed on which the victim lay, attacking her first from the direction of the door, and moving toward the window as the attack continued.

“ ‘Seven. The assailant struck the victim approximately thirty-seven times.' ”

When Agent Pierce had finished reading, Stash Olesky said, “Now come on. You expect us to believe you can really figure all of that out just based on a few little drops of blood on the wall?”

“On the wall. On the floor. On the bed. On the door. On the ceiling.” Pierce might have been stiff. But that didn't make him a poor witness. He knew exactly what he was doing up there. “As you may have noted, Mr. Olesky, the phraseology I used in my report is that the evidence presents in a manner, quote,
consistent with the following conclusions
, unquote.”

Olesky nodded earnestly. “Tell me a little about how blood spatter analysis works. The physics of it, I mean.”

Agent Pierce launched into a mind-numbingly dry discourse on the physics of blood spatter. First he explained about his training on the subject in various FBI seminars and university courses, then he cited a host of journal articles that confirmed the substance of the blood spatter field's analytical tools. Then he wrote various formulas on the board that meant nothing to me, or, I suspect, to anyone else in the courtroom.

The upshot, though, according to his testimony, was that it was possible to measure the direction and size of blood drops, to punch in some numbers on an HP calculator and determine within about a ten to twenty percent range of accuracy which direction the blood came from, and what angle it had fallen from, and, by inference, how hard it had been slung.

“Okay, fair enough,” the prosecutor said. “But who's to say you didn't push the wrong button on your calculator?”

“Personally, my standard operating practice is that I perform each and every calculation three times to ensure that doesn't happen.”

Stash nodded with theatrical impatience. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. But still, I mean some smart professor over at some big university has a theory about this, and maybe some ivory tower types wrote up an article or three about this thing in a university journal somewhere. That's all real nice. But I'm still skeptical. How do you
prove
this stuff works in the real world?”

“Yes sir, I understand your concern. To alleviate the possibility that the theory is not in accord with reality, what I do is I make a reconstruction of each and every constellation of spatters. As I said earlier, each time there is contact with the body or the blood-covered weapon is slung, you get what we call a constellation, a set of related blood spatters from that particular motion or blow. What I do is I map each of those, diagram them, photograph them, make my calculations. Then I go back to the lab, where I have a special room set up in which I can personally reconstruct each and every constellation and/or drop of blood spatter on the wall, ceiling, and floor.

“In this case, we had a suspicion as to the nature of the actual weapon used to kill Mrs. Dane. It was believed to be a Japanese wooden martial arts practice sword, an object called a bokken. So I went to a martial arts store in Detroit and purchased a bokken of the approximate physical dimensions of the object we believed to be the actual murder weapon. Then I took it back to my blood spatter test room at the lab and I reconstructed each constellation. The way I did that is I tacked large sheets of white paper to the ceiling and to the wall, and then I dipped the bokken in pig's blood, which I obtained from a slaughterhouse. Then I slung blood off the bokken based on what my calculations and my observations had predicted. I then compared the length, breadth, diameter, and pattern of the spatters I made on these pieces of paper with those found at the crime scene.

“You'll find the actual reconstructed spatter patterns appended to my report. I found that each reconstructed constellation was materially similar to that found at the scene. Which is to say I have an extremely high degree of certainty that my report represents an accurate reconstruction of the physical dimensions of the assault against Mrs. Dane.”

Stash Olesky looked at Agent Pierce for a long time. “Whew!” he said finally. “That must have taken an awful lot of time.”

“It did. But some things, sir, cry out to be done right.”

Stash Olesky thanked the crime scene investigator for his testimony, then I stood.

“Agent Pierce,” I said, “I, too, want to commend you on the fine and thorough job you did with the blood spatter evidence. That's very impressive indeed.”

“Thank you, sir.” He looked at me coolly, as though he was the sort of man who was well-bred enough to turn the other cheek despite the fact I'd spit on his shoes.

“Would you direct your attention to page one of the report? Conclusion number five. Could you read that?”

“It says the victim was struck by an object approximately one and a half to three feet in length.”

“One and a half to three feet.” I handed him the ebony bokken. “Agent Pierce, how long is the bokken that has been marked as exhibit 37?”

“Approximately forty inches.”

“I think forty-one inches would be the right number, wouldn't it, Agent Pierce? That's practically
four
feet.”

“Yes. But when I say it was one and a half to three feet in length, I meant that portion of the weapon which extended beyond the hands. So . . . If the bokken was held in a two-handed grip, like a baseball bat, there would be about three feet of the stick extending beyond his hand. Possibly even less if he choked up on it a little.”

“But you didn't say that in the report, did you? You didn't say one and a half to three feet
beyond the hand
. Sounds to me like you were talking about the whole weapon!”