Marcia Clark - Killer Ambition

Declan gave me a tight little smile. “Thank you, Rachel.” He raked a hand through his hair. “Just what you need right now. My bullshit drama. What can I do for you? Is Gelfer up next?”

“Yep. So if you could organize the exhibits, I’ll go back over my notes.” I turned to go, then stopped with my hand on the door. “Thank you for telling me, Declan.”

He gave a rueful smile. “Sure, any time.”

“And that wasn’t bullshit drama. If you want to hear bullshit drama, remind me to tell you about my last fight with Graden. If that doesn’t make you feel like the model of sanity, nothing will.”

I headed back to my office and reviewed Gelfer’s reports for the millionth time. I’d saved our most damning piece of physical evidence for last: the DNA typing of the bloodstain on the trunk, which had shown a mixture of both Hayley’s and Ian Powers’s blood. I knew this would be a pitched battle.

Declan and I headed down to court early so we could get set up. I wanted to make everything as tightly organized as possible. Gelfer’s CV was solid, but from what I’d heard, he wasn’t super-smooth. I had to give him points for promptness, though; he showed up right on time, at one twenty-five. As always, he had that disheveled nutty professor look-badly cut mousy brown hair, wire-rimmed glasses, and a lopsided-looking jacket. I’d noticed before that even his lab coat seemed crooked on him.

“Hey, Tim. Ready to go?”

“Yeah, sure,” he said in a breathless voice.

“Got your reports in there?” I gestured to the file in his hand.

“Uh-huh. Want to see?” He opened the file with shaking hands and started to take them out.

“No, I’m good.” I’d gone over them so many times I could recite his findings in my sleep.

I wished he had time to take a walk around the block to calm down, but it probably wouldn’t have helped. Even seasoned witnesses would find the pressure cooker that was this courtroom daunting. As usual, we were filled to capacity, every row tightly packed. The judge swept onto the bench and called for the jury. When everyone was settled, Judge Osterman asked, “People, ready with your next witness?”

“Yes, Your Honor. The People call Mr. Timothy Gelfer.”

Gelfer moved up to the witness stand with stiff, self-conscious steps.

I took him through his résumé, which was actually fairly impressive. At first his voice quavered as he told the jury that he had a master’s in microbiology and was in the process of getting his Ph.D. But he got a little steadier as he described the four articles that had been published in major scientific journals on various aspects of DNA testing and his work as a criminalist for the FBI.

“So you were stationed in Quantico?”

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

“Five years.”

“What made you leave?”

“My wife wanted to move back here to be closer to her family.”

“And how long have you been a criminalist for the Scientific Investigation Division here in Los Angeles?”

“Four years.”

Gelfer had calmed down now and seemed to have hit his stride. I established that he’d done the DNA typing on blood samples taken from Brian Maher, Hayley Antonovich, and Ian Powers, then had him describe the procedures for DNA typing. Declan started the disc that showed Gelfer in action in the lab, and Gelfer explained how each photo depicted the steps he’d performed in his testing. The visual aid made the testimony a little less dry and made it easier for Gelfer to break it all down. When he’d finished, I moved on to the crime scene evidence. I signaled Declan to run the disc that showed the photos of the bloodstain on the trunk of Brian’s car and asked Gelfer what his analysis had shown.

“I found a mixture of two DNA profiles. The dominant profile matched the DNA of Hayley Antonovich, and the secondary profile matched the DNA of Ian Powers.”

I briefly scanned the faces of the jurors to see how we stood. All were paying close attention, and a few were taking notes. Excellent.

“With regard to Ian Powers’s profile, can you tell me how many other people might possibly have that same profile? Or to put it another way, what is the statistical likelihood that the bloodstain could have come from someone other than Ian Powers?”

“The odds of that are one in one quadrillion, four hundred and seventy-seven trillion, two hundred thirty-six billion-”

“I can’t even picture a number as long as that, so just to cut to the chase: How many people are there on this planet?”

“Just over seven billion.”

“So when you say the odds of finding another person with the same profile as Ian Powers’s is one in one quadrillion, are you basically saying there’s no one else on this planet with the same DNA profile as Ian Powers’s?”

“In a word, yes. We would have to look through more people than there are on earth to find another person with the same profile.”

“And in plain English, that means the blood that was found on Brian’s trunk was Ian Powers’s, correct?”

“Correct.”

There was no topping that, so I didn’t try. “Thank you, Mr. Gelfer. No further questions.”

When I sat down, I noticed that Bailey was gone. “What happened?” I whispered to Declan.

“She said she had to take care of something and not to worry.”

I wouldn’t-I had enough to keep me busy right here. Terry moved a giant binder to the lectern.

“There are two forms of DNA testing: RFLP and PCR, correct?”

“Well…those are the tests relevant to this case.”

“And you used PCR testing in this case, isn’t that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Isn’t it true that PCR testing is more vulnerable to contamination?”

“Well…yes. If proper protocols aren’t followed.”

“When you say protocols, you mean there are things that should never be allowed to happen during PCR testing, right?”

“Yes.”

“And that’s because you need to follow certain procedures in order to ensure that evidence doesn’t get contaminated, right?”

“Right.”

“One of the biggies in terms of things you should never do is bring a suspect’s blood sample into the lab while evidence is being tested?”

“Yes, that would be a very bad thing to do.”

“Tell us why, Mr. Gelfer.”

“Because PCR is a very sensitive testing method. If you bring a suspect’s blood sample into the lab while you’re testing an evidence bloodstain, you run the risk of contaminating the evidence stain with the suspect’s blood sample.”

“And that would make the suspect’s DNA show up in the evidence bloodstain, wouldn’t it?”

“Well…I…it could.”

“To be more specific: If you brought Mr. Power’s blood sample-the blood you removed from his arm-into the lab while you were testing the bloodstain on Brian’s car, you could contaminate that stain with Ian’s DNA. And that would make it look as though Ian’s DNA was in the blood on the trunk of Brian’s car when it really wasn’t. Isn’t that true?”

“Objection!” I’d had enough of this b.s. questioning based on shadows, smoke, and mirrors. “Improper hypothetical, Your Honor. There is no evidence whatsoever that there was any contamination here.”

Terry didn’t wait for the judge to rule. “Actually, Your Honor”-Terry brandished a stapled sheaf of papers-“These are the quality control and proficiency test results that just came in this morning on Mr. Gelfer and his lab.”

“Does the prosecution have these reports?” the judge asked.

This had to be some kind of scam. Some smack written about SID by a defense hack so he could get his name in print and his butt on the witness stand in a high-profile case. I tried to look unconcerned as I answered. “No, Your Honor. I need time to review these reports before cross continues. It’s unfair to allow questioning based on data I’ve had no chance to examine.”