The Unbidden Truth (20 page)

“Bourbon and water, a residue in both glasses.”

“When you removed clothes from Ms. Frederick's apartment, did you examine her shoes?”

“Yes.”

“Did you find any fibers that matched the fibers in Mr. Wenzel's suite?”

“No. Not on the shoes we found.”

“How many pairs of shoes were there, Lieutenant?” She was keeping her own tone easy, almost conversational, and in comparison his answers sounded more and more brusque.

“Two.”

“Can you recall what kind of shoes they were?”

“Boots and black low-heeled leather shoes.”

Barbara picked up a glossy magazine from her table and showed it to him. “Do you recognize this journal, Lieutenant?”

He said yes.

“It's the
Forensic Sciences Journal,
” Barbara said. “Does your department subscribe to it?”

“Yes.”

She worked at it, question by question, until he admitted that he read the journal regularly, and that the editors and the writers for it were all well established and respected authorities in the field of forensics, and the information contained in it was regarded as the standard for forensic investigators.

“Please turn to page forty-one,” she said. “Did you read that article?”

“I don't recall,” he said. “I read most of them.”

“That article concerns identifying hair, Lieutenant. Will you please read to the court the italicized summary at the bottom of the page.”

He looked it over, then read: “In conclusion, it can be stated that without positive DNA evidence, no two hairs can be considered identical. The most that can be said is that they share similar characteristics.” He handed the journal back to her without a change of expression, still stolid and stoic.

“Did you have a DNA test conducted on those hairs?” When he said no, she asked, “Did you have any chemical tests conducted on those hairs?”

“No.”

“Will you tell the court the difference between hairs that are pulled out and those that fall naturally?”

“If they're pulled, they often have the root and sometimes the follicle attached. If they fall out, the root is often withered or nonexistent.”

She retrieved the photograph of the hairs. It was a sharp photograph with each hair full length against a white background. She pointed to the first hair in the series. “Please tell the court what we are viewing here,” she said to Curry.

“That hair has the follicle attached.”

“So it was pulled out?”

“Yes.”

“And this one?”

“It has a partial follicle attached. It was pulled.”

“Can you tell the court where those two hairs were found?”

“Wound around the button on the deceased's coat.”

“When you say wound around it, does that mean twisted all the way around it at least once or possibly more times?”

“They weren't wrapped all the way around it.”

“Could they have been caught in it in passing, something of that sort?”

“I don't know how they got there.”

“Where did you find the coat?”

“In the closet.”

“All right. Now this next hair, number three in the picture. What are we seeing this time?”

“It looks like it was broken by chemical or heat action or cut.”

“Is there any sign of either chemical or heat action on the hair shaft?” She sharpened her tone for the first time. He said no. She went on to the next hairs, and each time he had the same answer: it appeared to have been broken or cut.

When Barbara finished with her cross-examination, Mahoney was ready for his redirect. “Lt. Curry, are there times when you have DNA tests conducted on hairs to ascertain the identity of the suspect?”

“Yes. If there are several persons with similar hair, I would. In this case there was only one person with long black hair. I saw no need for such a test.”

A
steady cold rain was falling when the luncheon recess was called, and Bailey was illegally parked at the curb with his new and roomy SUV. He handed Frank a ticket as he got in. “It's going to be at least one a day,” he said gloomily.

Frank put it in his pocket.

At the house, Herbert called out a cheerful, “Howdy,” and Morgan met them with a big dog grin and a wag of his tail. Thing One and Thing Two looked at them, then walked away with their tails rigidly upright. Ever since the shaggy dog had moved in, they treated everyone with equal disdain. Barbara headed straight upstairs.

“Soup's on,” Herbert said. “Cream of broccoli soup and hot roast beef sandwiches in the dining room.” They would eat all their meals in the dining room until the trial ended. Alan and Herbert were taking turns sleeping on a roll-away bed in the dinette.

Barbara paced back and forth in the upstairs hall, now and then paused to make a note, then walked some more. She was hardly aware when Herbert brought a tray with a sandwich and coffee. When she paused to make a note, if she remembered she took a bite or two, but what she really needed was not food, but exercise.

 

Then, back in court, it seemed to Barbara that the recess had been merely an eye blink. The first witness of the afternoon was the medical examiner, Dr. William Tillich. She had tried cases before at which he testified, and she sometimes thought he was the only state's witness she trusted thoroughly.

Mahoney had him give in painstaking detail the circumstances of the death of Joe Wenzel, and the probable time of his death. Dr. Tillich talked about lividity, the pooling of blood after the heart stops, the extent of drying of the lost blood, rigor mortis if present, body temperature, stomach contents and the degree of digestion that had taken place, ambient room temperature, the general condition of the deceased before death and how that might have affected timing the event.

Mahoney interrupted him only once to ask him to please use the numerical system more familiar to Americans instead of the metric system. Dr. Tillich bowed his head slightly toward the jury, and continued. He concluded by saying, “The time of death in this instance was from three to five hours at the most from the end of his last meal. Closer to three than to five.”

“So, since we know that he had dinner starting at eight o'clock, ending by nine or a few minutes later, death would have occurred between twelve and two in the morning. Is that correct?”

“That is correct.”

“And the fact that he drank alcoholic beverages after nine o'clock would not contradict that finding?”

“I have taken that into account,” Dr. Tillich said.

The way Mahoney hammered away at how the time of death could be ascertained with such certainty made Barbara suspect that he believed she would try to put the death at three or later, in order to implicate Greg Wenzel and the empty room across the hall.

When she started her cross-examination, she said, “Good afternoon, Dr. Tillich.”

He wished her a good afternoon as well. He was always polite.

“Doctor, is the length of time between death and when you examine the body a factor in determining the time of death?”

“Yes. We have charts that indicate how long it takes to lose body heat at different temperatures. The weight of the deceased is a factor, as well as the room temperature. In this case the deceased was twenty pounds overweight, for a total body weight of 195 pounds, and the room temperature was 74 degrees. Knowing how long it takes to lose one degree of body heat in ambient surroundings at 74 degrees allows us to add that to our calculations. The more correlation we can achieve between the various factors, the closer we can come to the timing of the event.”

“And after the body reached room temperature, the stomach contents would no longer be sufficient to be so certain about the time of death?”

“That is correct. Each person's metabolism is different. We know approximately how long it takes on average to digest
so many grams of steak, for example, but not with precision for any individual.”

“If you had examined the body late in the afternoon, say at two or three o'clock instead of eight-thirty in the morning, would you have given a different estimate as to the time of death?”

“I would have extended the period. I would have estimated the time of death from between twelve and possibly four.”

She nodded. “When you performed the autopsy, did you observe the various organs for disease or injury?”

“Yes. As I stated before, he had been in good health apparently. His heart was somewhat enlarged, suggesting he might have had moderately high blood pressure, but all the other organs were sound.”

“Thank you, Doctor. No more questions.”

 

The next witness Mahoney called was Mark Ormsby. Barbara could sense Carrie drawing herself in, stiffening, when Ormsby took the stand after being sworn in. He glanced in the direction of the defense table, then swiftly away. If he had been nervous talking to Barbara in his own office, it was nothing compared what he was like when he started his testimony. He squirmed and fidgeted, and looked everywhere but at the prosecutor, the jury, the defense table.

He told how he had come to hire Carrie with hesitation, pauses, backtracking and much clearing of his throat.

“Mr. Ormsby, when you interviewed the defendant did you ask for references?”

“Well, uh, I usually do that, but I, uh, I don't think so. I mean she was, uh, from out of state and there's the question of when I could have, uh, checked on them. And I just wanted
her to play the, you know, play on weekends, not wait on tables or anything.”

“Did she tell you why she left her previous job?”

“Well, she might have said something like not, uh, that a customer. I didn't think it mattered since, uh, playing the piano…”

It was painful, and Mahoney was losing his patience and showing it as his questions became more brusque. “Just yes or no, please, Mr. Ormsby. Did you know why she left her previous job?”

“Uh, I think…Yes.”

“What was the reason?”

This time he managed to make a coherent statement to the effect that a customer had tried to embrace her, and she had pushed him away and was fired.

“So you hired her in spite of knowing she had assaulted a customer. Is that right?”

“Well, we don't have customers like, I mean, no one would try, and she was just playing the piano. I mean she wouldn't be interacting. And with business…I mean, I thought it would be all right.”

It was not easy, but Mahoney got him to admit that Carrie had complained about Joe Wenzel and that he had called Larry Wenzel about it.

“Did the defendant complain a second time?”

“No. No. I mean—”

“The answer is no,” Mahoney snapped. He finished with Ormsby soon after that and, scowling fiercely, nodded to Barbara.

When she said good afternoon to Ormsby, he looked as if he suspected a trap. “Mr. Ormsby, when Ms. Frederick took her complaint to you, what did she say?”

She waited out his lengthy reply and then summarized it. “She said he was harassing her, standing too close, brushing against her as she played the piano, watching her like a hawk. Is that right?”

He admitted that it was.

“When you related her complaint to Mr. Larry Wenzel, what did you tell him?”

It was harder to make sense of his tortured answer this time, but she waited him out again. “You told him only that Mr. Joe Wenzel was pestering her, and that you were afraid she might quit. Is that right?”

Bit by bit she had him testify that all of the Wenzels had gone to hear Carrie play and that business had improved after she started. Then she asked, “Did you tell the front desk clerk to inform Ms. Frederick that you were too busy to see her during the weeks that followed her complaint?”

He looked guilty enough to have murdered Joe Wenzel himself as he squirmed in his chair. “I was busy,” he said. “I mean, I had duties…And I had taken care of it as much as I could. I mean, they owned the motel and lounge and everything.”

“All right,” she said. “Is your answer yes, you told the clerk not to let Ms. Frederick in to see you after that?”

He said yes in a miserable voice.

“So you don't have any way of knowing if she would have made a second complaint. Is that correct?”

“But she didn't. I mean, I didn't talk to her again.”

“We know Joe Wenzel used the suite, but who used the other room reserved for the Wenzel family?”

“Objection,” Mahoney called out. “That's improper cross and she knows it.”

“He brought it up when he asked if they had some rooms
reserved for their own use,” Barbara said, facing the judge. He looked as impatient as Mahoney.

“I meant the suite,” Mahoney said.

“And I interpret it as some rooms, meaning the suite and possible other rooms,” she said swiftly.

“So do I,” Judge Laughton snapped. “Overruled.” He turned his frown toward Ormsby. “Answer the question, and please be brief about it.”

But he wasn't brief. Eventually Barbara dragged out of him the fact that he knew Gregory Wenzel used the room on occasion, and that he didn't check in at the desk when he used it. He didn't know how many of the Wenzels had keys for it.

When Barbara finished with him she felt as wrung-out as he looked, and by the time he left the courtroom, there was an almost audible sigh of relief all around. Some of the jurors had begun to regard him with the same kind of look they might have turned on a never-before-seen specimen found under a rock. One or two jury members appeared bemused, as if wondering how Ormsby ever became a manager of anything. Barbara wondered the same thing and chalked it up to his having an MBA. Or maybe he was good at ordering around subordinates. She saw Luther Wenzel scribbling in a notebook and suspected that Ormsby might not continue as manager very much longer.

 

Kristi Kagan was forty-six years old and handsome, with auburn hair streaked with gray. She had worked at the Valley Bank, she testified, for nine years as a teller.

“Do you recall the evening of August ninth when Joseph Wenzel made a deposit at your window?” Mahoney asked.

“Yes, I do.”

“Please tell the court about that transaction.”

She looked directly at the jury as she said, “He came in late, about ten minutes after five, close to our closing time. At that time of day on a Friday we usually are quite busy, and that day there was a line of customers. He had a deposit slip made out for a deposit of five thousand dollars, and he requested a thousand dollars as a cash withdrawal. The check was a Wenzel Corporation check, signed by Nora Wenzel. I asked him the usual security questions, he answered readily and I completed the transaction.”

“Did you also ask for photo ID?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Why was it necessary to ask more than one security question and also see photo ID?”

She glanced at him when he asked his questions, but addressed the jury when she answered like a good little witness, Barbara thought, one who had been coached.

“I did not recognize him. I had never met Mr. Joseph Wenzel. The Wenzel Corporation has an account at our bank, but that day Mr. Wenzel looked more like a construction worker than one of the management. It is our routine if we have any doubt at all to ask for photo ID for a large cash withdrawal.”

“And were you satisfied with the photo ID?”

“Yes. It was an old photo. His license was due to expire soon, and I assumed the picture to be nearly ten years old. But I was satisfied. Also, he was holding a safe-deposit-box key, and I assumed that was the reason for his coming to the main branch instead of one of our neighborhood branches where he usually did his banking. The neighborhood branches don't have safe-deposit boxes.”

Mahoney nodded to her as if well satisfied. “Thank you, Ms. Kagan. No more questions.”

Barbara stood up and walked around her table. “Ms. Kagan, when you said he looked like a construction worker, what exactly did you mean?”

“He was dirty and unshaved, with a stubble of beard. He was wearing a dirty T-shirt and dirty chino pants. His hair was dirty and he had a streak of dirt on his arm, as if he had just come off a job.”

“Was there anything else of note about him that day?”

“Yes. He was wearing a wrist brace, the kind you use for carpal tunnel. It was hard for him to sign the receipt and endorse the check.”

“Was his signature recognizable?”

“It was a scribble, but I never saw another signature to compare it to so I don't know.”

“All right. Now, you said that you were satisfied with his photo ID, and you also said you noticed that it was probably ten years old, or nearly that old. Does that mean his appearance had changed over that period?”

“Yes. He was neat and shaved in the photograph, and not as heavy. But it was the same person, just older and dirtier.”