A Case of Redemption (19 page)

It wasn't until we were kissing again in my bedroom that it finally registered completely that I was about to have sex with someone other than Sarah. I didn't feel as guilty as I'd thought I might when this moment finally arrived. It reminded me of my more drunken nights, when I reveled in the warmth of intoxication, even as I knew in the back of my brain that there would be a reckoning when the euphoria subsided.

“God, Dan, I want you so much,” Nina moaned in my ear the moment I put my hand on her breast.

Everything was how I remembered it was supposed to be, but it was still vaguely foreign, like when you revisit a place after a long absence. Nina's body differed from Sarah's in almost every way—her breasts were more than a full cup larger, while the rest of her was smaller, from her mouth, which seemingly fit inside my own, to her neck, which seemed impossibly narrow as I kissed its length.

We were like this—kissing and groping—for what seemed like a very long time. For some of it, we were undressing each other, and each time another part of Nina's flesh came in contact with my own, I'd lose myself that much more. It was ironic, considering the benders I've had, but I couldn't recall ever feeling so out of control. Even so, I held back the ultimate goal. It was as if I couldn't be the one to initiate the act, so Nina would have to take control to bring us to that point.

As if she could read my mind, Nina rolled around me, so smoothly
that I didn't quite realize it had happened, until I saw her on top of me, her breasts still in my hands. She reached behind her, clutching me in her hand, and then guided me inside her.

I had been watching her, almost curiously, wondering what was going to happen next, but the moment I felt her wetness, my eyes closed, and there was nothing but blackness, which only heightened the sensation that everything was happening in my head as much as anywhere else. I didn't know how much time passed, but it seemed to me that virtually from the moment I was fully immersed in her, Nina's pace quickened.

When Sarah and I made love in this position, I always knew when she was about to climax because she'd angle her body away from me. Like everything else so far, Nina was the opposite. She bent completely toward me, locking her mouth on mine so tightly that for a moment I couldn't breathe. And then it felt as if she was breathing for me, and I could hear her pleasure, the sounds coming directly through her mouth into mine.

When I felt what I thought was the rush of her orgasm, I clasped her elbows tightly, holding her quivering body in place, but then I realized that I might have been wrong, because a new wave came over her that was far more intense.

A millisecond later, I heard my own groan as I ejaculated. Almost simultaneously with that joyous release, I experienced the sadness that I'd been expecting.

M
arty Popofsky showed up fifteen minutes early for our four o'clock meeting. When the meeting was originally scheduled, I apologized for asking Popofsky to work on New Year's Day but explained that we needed to see him before the January 2 court conference, and it made sense to give him as much time before then to do the work he needed to do. He didn't seem to care at all.

“Happy New Year,” I said.

“You, too,” Popofsky said. “I made sure not to overdo it last night so I'd be good and ready for today.”

The very idea of Marty Popofsky overdoing it on New Year's Eve made me chuckle.

Popofsky methodically removed his coat, and then his scarf, rolling it in a ball and tucking it into the sleeve, the way they teach you to do in kindergarten. After that, he tucked his Mets cap into his coat pocket.

When he was finally ready, I led him into the apartment, where, like seemingly every man, everywhere, he lit up when Nina came into view.

“So what do you have for us?” I asked, if only to snap Popofsky back to reality.

“Something quite interesting, actually.” He put his beat-up briefcase down on the table and started to rummage through it. “Now, if I could only find the report . . . Okay. I got it here.”

The report we'd sent him had been fastened together by a black binder clip, but now the pages were loose and folded in every which way. He began to rearrange them again, smoothing over some of the more crinkled pages with his hands. Most pages were covered in yellow highlighter.

“I've read through the report,” Popofsky finally said. “Several times, in fact. And I've done some preliminary work, but don't hold me to what I'm going to tell you because other factors might come into play. First thing is that I don't have much quibble with the estimated time of death being around midnight. As I understand it, that's not a critical issue for your client because he's home from about eight p.m. until the morning, right?”

It didn't escape my notice that Popofsky referred to L.D. as “your client.” As a technical matter, that was correct—Popofsky's retention was by Sorensen and Harrington, and not by L.D., which was done purposefully so that his conclusions would be within the attorney-client privilege until such time as we decided to waive it. At the same time, I couldn't rule out that his choice of language wasn't just him being precise but was a way of distancing himself from Legally Dead.

“Yeah, that's right,” I said.

“So there's not too much help I can give you on that front,” he continued. “I also took a shot at trying to figure out the approximate height and weight of the murderer. You can do that through an analysis of the blood spatter. To a point, anyway. It's never exact, but juries eat that stuff up because it's like what they see on television.”

“So were you able to do that?” I asked, undoubtedly sounding exasperated at Popofsky's roundabout way of getting to the point.

“Not to a certainty, because you're not certain of the murder weapon. The way you do the calculation is that you look at the blood spatter and you can determine the velocity with which it hit the wall. It's funny because most people think it's based on the
speed
the blood
hits the wall, but that's actually not the way you do it. It's the splash that's important. So I'm not looking at the blood that flew off Roxanne's body and then stuck. I'm looking at that blood's splash onto another part of the wall.”

He had the expression that experts sometimes get when they think the minutiae of their findings is fascinating in every way. Jurors, however, like lawyers, and like everyone else for that matter, want to know the conclusion first. Expert testimony is a lot like journalism in that way—you should never bury the lead.

“Marty . . . can you give us the bottom line, please?” I asked.

“That's what I'm trying to tell you.” Now
he
sounded exasperated, as if any idiot would have figured this out already based on his discussion of blood spatter. “I can tell you the speed with which the blood hit, but all that tells you is the force with which the victim was struck. To extrapolate that back to figure out how large a person would have to be to create that type of force, you got to know what she was hit with. And what she was hit with is inconclusive.” He paused and looked around, as if this simple point needed a visual aid. “Okay, let me try it this way. I could tell you that if the injuries were caused simply by someone's fist, your murderer would have to be enormous. So that tells you the killer either has a place in
The Guinness Book of World Records
, or a weapon of some sort was used. But what kind of weapon? Now, that's critical. Because a five-foot-tall woman might be able to create the same impact with a golf club as a six-foot-tall man would generate with a baseball bat. And that, in a nutshell, is the problem.”

“Assume a baseball bat,” I said. “How big is the guy?”

“Five ten to six two. Reasonably strong, too.”

“So you're telling us that you've excluded women and short men. And that's it?”

He chuckled. “I can't even say that, I'm afraid. A strong woman, although she'd have to be very strong . . . an athletic woman, sure, she could have done it, too.”

“Okay. I hope you don't mind my saying this, Marty, but we already knew all that.”

“Yeah, I know,” Popofsky said, seemingly oblivious to my frustration with him. “But you know the way there were Caucasian pubic hairs found on Roxanne's bed?”

He actually paused to get our acknowledgment. As if we might have forgotten that minor detail.

“Please tell us you know who they belong to,” I said, if for no other reason than to avoid another dissertation on the science behind Popofsky's findings.

“I already told you, I can't do a DNA analysis without the follicles, which these samples don't have. If you get me a hair to compare against those found in the bed, I can offer an opinion as to whether they match. But it'll still be a qualified opinion. Without the follicle, you can never say with certainty that it's a dead-on match. The way it'll be is that I'll tell you that the victim's hairs and the hair we're comparing it to have certain matching characteristics. There are twelve comparison points in all. So if one or two of the characteristics match, that likely means they're not from the same source. If five or six of them match, it's a maybe, and if ten or more match, I'll be able to say it's likely, but I couldn't rule out that there might be some others that match, too. A twelve-point match is pretty conclusive, but there's also a lot of judgment that goes into determining what's a match and what isn't. What I think is a ten-point match our friend Harry Davis may turn around and say is a six-point match. You see what I'm saying?”

I truly felt like shaking him.

“Forgive me, Marty, but did you find out who the hair belongs to or not?”

“No, no, no. Like I said, I can't tell you who they came from.” He paused, and then a smile came to his lips. “But I think I can tell you whose hairs they
aren't
.”

Popofsky said nothing else, milking the suspense. Everyone likes being the center of attention.

“I'm not following you,” I said. “Who
don't
they belong to?”

“They're not Roxanne's,” he said triumphantly.

“How do you know that?” Nina said.

“It's on page seven of the autopsy. Hang on . . .”

He shuffled a few of his rumpled pages until he came upon one that had, in addition to extensive yellow highlights, a paper clip stuck to the side. “Right here,” he said, pointing to the highlighted portion.

I'd already read the section when we reviewed the discovery on Christmas Eve, but I must have missed something. I started through it again, slowly. All I saw, however, was a sea of medical jargon that meant as little to me as it did the first time.

When I looked back up, it must have been clear to Popofsky that I didn't fully understand, because he said, “What that all means, in layman's terms, is that she waxed her pubic region.” I knew what that meant, of course, but Popofsky must have thought it was possible I was confused because he then offered: “Roxanne didn't have any pubic hair at the time of her death.”

•   •   •

Like my joke to Nina when we searched Roxanne's house, although our SODDI guy hadn't left a bloody wristwatch with his fingerprints all over it, the pubic hairs were a close second. But that didn't mean it was all good news. For one thing, we still had to match the pubic hair to the proverbial haystack of male genitalia out there.

Nina didn't see that as much of a problem, however.

“We've got evidence that she was having sex with another guy,” she said, “and that the guy was in her bed right before she was murdered. So what difference does it make if we can't identify the guy by name?”

“I doubt L.D. is going to conclude that Roxanne's sleeping with another guy is really a good thing for him,” I said.

“The fact that she was cheating on him is the least of his worries right about now, don't you think?” was Nina's response.

Which led to the second issue.

“I assume you've considered the potential downside of proving another lover?” I said. “That we're giving them strong evidence of a jealousy motive.”

Nina chuckled. “You're really a glass-is-half-filled kind of guy, now, aren't you,” she said.

•   •   •

Nina shared my bed that evening for the second night. There wasn't much discussion about it. After dinner, we watched television for a little while, and then she announced that she was going to bed, and I followed her into my bedroom.

“You're going to have to bring some clothing over here,” I said.

“No worries.” She smiled. “I don't like wearing pajamas anyway.”

Intellectually, I realized that there was no reason for me not to be with Nina; in fact, many people would have said I should have rejoined the living much sooner. But each moment with her felt like I was letting go of Sarah a little more, as if my brain had limited memory and I was overwriting my recollections of making love with Sarah with these new experiences.

I lasted longer this evening than the two times we'd gone the previous night, the jitters gone, I suppose. And for parts of it, I could almost rein in my thoughts, focusing on how beautiful Nina looked below me, her eyes tightly shut, a wide, unabashed smile across her face.

After we were finished, our bodies glistening in sweat and the musty scent of what we'd just done permeating the room, Nina nestled her head on my chest. “Thank you,” she said. “That was . . . I don't know what word to use. Magical?”

In the moments before I dozed off, as I went back over in my mind exactly how Nina looked at her highest peak, the irony of my life struck me with full force. I had stopped one descent and replaced it with another, for there was no denying that I was falling hard for Nina.

J
udge Pielmeier never took the bench until everyone was present and she had finished whatever else she needed to do. On January 2, that meant ten forty-five a.m., for a conference originally scheduled for ten.