Steve Martini - Prime Witness

Lenore is oblivious to the defense lawyers, the interpreter and Andre Iganovich at the other table. She is focused on the task at hand. The only one who pays much attention to us is the Russian, from whom we draw unremitting icy stares. It seems he has not picked up on the proper etiquette for these proceedings, the quiet and polite contempt that passes for professionalism among adversaries in court. He seems not to fathom why, in these moments when we are here alone in the courtroom, his representatives do not cross the gulf between tables and bludgeon us.

The guards are outside in the hall by the rear entrance, two bulls who look as if they would rather eat iron than pump it.

Claude comes into the empty courtroom and through the railing. Today he will join us at the counsel table. Under the law of this state each side has a right to designate a chief investigator to join them, somebody who can whisper in your ear critical little details of the case at opportune times.

This morning he appears agitated, slides into the empty chair next to me and tells me he has some news.

“A couple of items,” he says. This is all done in low tones, under his breath.

First he has checked with the Davenport Police Department. It seems the department subscribes to the Criminal Law Reporter , the publication clipped to make the threatening letter sent to my house. He tells me they throw out old editions as they are updated, a ready source for the print used in the note.

“Guess where they keep them, the old editions?” he says.

“Tell me.”

“In the basement at City Hall,” he says. “The same place our friend Jess Amara burned all of Scofield’s old notes.”

Clearly his suspicions are heightened.

“But that’s not all,” he says. Claude is leaning into my ear now so that even Lenore does not hear what comes next.

“The title search,” he says, “the one you asked for on the property where we found the Scofields’ bodies. It’s not done, but some interesting information.”

The owner, whom they have yet to identify because of what appear to be a series of bogus strawman transfers, was bankrolled by foreign money, he tells me.

“A bank in Tokyo,” says Claude. “A consortium of Japanese investors.” With this I get heavily arched eyebrows from Claude. Jess Amara’s little sideline business, the Asian trading company.

I had not pursued this earlier, but it is a curious point. The bodies of the four students were staked out on public lands, open and unfenced. But the Scofields were killed on private property, fenced, if you could call it that, and posted against trespassers. It struck me that perhaps the Scofield killer had used this property because it was familiar. Maybe it was a place where he would feel comfortable, where he knew he would not be disturbed.

Claude asks me what I want to do about all this.

I tell him to finish the title search, to get the results to me as soon as possible.

“Should I put a tail on him?” He’s talking about Amara.

“He’d know it in a minute,” I say, “and lose them in two.”

Claude ponders this for a moment, then concludes that I am right. He may not respect the man, but suspects as do I that he is competent at his job and would know if he were being followed.

Claude tells me they should have all the information from the title search by the end of the day, first thing in the morning at the latest.

Dr. Lloyd Tolar has the portent of a troublesome witness for Adrian. His opinions will be grounded in harder science than the seeming whimsy of the psychiatrists and their theories of criminal profiles. The physician examined the bodies of each of the victims, explored their wounds. Before the missing piece of the cord, I would have gauged Tolar as my next strongest witness behind Sellig. With the turn of events, unless Kay can find the missing cord, he may now be the summit of my case.

This morning Lenore has him up on the stand. Tall and imposing, piercing blue eyes and a countenance like some feted solon inside the beltway, his eminence, he sits on the stand like the patriarch of medicine.

“Dr. Tolar, you are the medical examiner for Davenport County, is that correct?”

“I am.”

“You are also on the teaching faculty of the medical school at the university here in Davenport?”

“That’s correct.”

“And what do you teach?”

“Several courses,” he says, “but I hold the chair in medical pathology and am board certified in forensic pathology.”

All the while he is giving Lenore enchanted looks. Tolar never takes his eyes off of her, the form-fitted blue suit and ruffled blouse, her feline moves below the bench.

Lenore is meeting him with a dark Mediterranean look, a brooding expression that fails to engage his ardent interest.

“Tell the jury,” she says, “what forensic pathology is.”

Goya moves to the jury railing and leans on a distant corner, out of the way, an effort to take herself out of the picture, to create at least the illusion that the witness is talking to the jury.

“Pathology is the study of human diseases,” says Tolar, “abnormal changes in body tissues or functions caused by disease.

“Forensic pathology is generally concerned with sudden, unexpected or violent death,” he says.

“So you teach in the field as well as perform the duties of a forensic pathologist for this county?”

“That’s correct.”

“What are your credentials in this field?”

“I’ve brought a copy of my curriculum vitae,” he says.

He holds this up, a résumé thicker than this city’s phone directory.

Tolar has taught at three different medical schools in this country, is board certified in two specialties, is licensed to practice medicine in this state as well as two others, and belongs to a dozen professional societies and associations. Beyond this he has authored volumes of scholarly articles in the field of pathology, the most recent appearing four months ago in the New England Journal of Medicine . He is nearly breathless, and three inches higher in his chair when he finishes touting this background. The male ego at work.

Lenore moves smoothly through the common elements of these murders.

Tolar explains that he served as ME responding to the murder sites and performed all of the autopsies, on the four college students as well as the Scofields.

I notice as we edge toward the details of death, that Kim Park and his wife leave the courtroom. This is apparently too much for them. Two of the other parents stopped coming after the second day of trial, though they now send surrogates, an uncle and a cousin. Only Jess Amara and Jeanette Scofield, of the immediate families, are here in the courtroom at this moment.

“Then, doctor, you personally performed the autopsies on Julie Park and Jonathan Snider, Sharon Collins and Rodney Slater?”

“That’s correct.”

“Can you tell us the date that those autopsies were done?”

He’s looking down at something on his lap, I suspect copies of the autopsy reports. He gives Lenore the dates.

“And you also performed the autopsies on Abbott and Karen Scofield?”

“Yes.”

Lenore is moving back toward the counsel table when she thinks of something.

“Probably not significant,” she says, “but were you acquainted with Dr. Scofield?”

“I know that he taught at the university. We may have met a few times at faculty functions. I knew who he was. The university is a big place,” he says, “forty-six thousand students, twelve hundred faculty.”

“On the Scofield post mortems, do you recall the date that those were performed?”

He looks down in his lap.

Suddenly Chambers is on his feet. “If the witness is reading something, we’d like to know what it is.”