Stephen Penner: Presumption of Innocence

' Don't go inside. Call 911 and wait for the police. '

Brunelle examined the note taped to the impressive front door of the Montgomerys' suburban home. Its neatly penned letters were bathed in the red and blue strobe of the cop cars the neighbors never thought they'd see in their subdivision.

"The parents went inside, didn't they?" Brunelle asked without taking his eyes from the warning.

"Of course they did," answered Detective Chen. "The poor fools. Now they'll never get that sight out of their heads."

Brunelle shook his head. "That's too bad," he said. "You and I get paid to forget, at least once the case is over. Forget and move on to the next one."

Chen put a hand on Brunelle's shoulder. "You're gonna have trouble forgetting this one, Dave."

Brunelle frowned. He was a prosecutor with the King County Prosecutor's Office. He'd been there nearly twenty years, working his way up from shoplifting, through drug possession and burglary, to robberies and assaults, and finally homicides. He'd tried over a hundred cases and handled literally thousands more. He had to forget the details of each, at least a little bit, to be able to prosecute the next. He didn't want to get his facts mixed up in front of a jury.

But Larry Chen had been a Seattle Police officer for going on thirty years. He'd worked his way up from beat cop, to sergeant, to detective. From property crimes, through drugs and vice, to special assaults, and finally major crimes and homicides. Brunelle only saw the cases the cops could solve, but Chen saw all the ones the criminals committed. If Chen thought it was bad, it was bad.

Brunelle pushed the door open.

It was worse.

Hanging from the balcony banister at the top of the sweeping staircase that framed the palatial foyer, blocking what would otherwise have been, as designed, a breathtaking view of the perfectly decorated and immaculately clean home, was the upside-down and very lifeless body of thirteen-year-old Emily Montgomery.

"Fuck," exhaled Brunelle, the dead girl's lifeless eyes swinging grotesquely only a few feet from his own.

"Exactly," agreed Chen.

"Okay!" called out a woman from the other side of the entryway. "You can let her down now."

Brunelle watched as two patrol officers on the balcony slowly began to release the rope holding the victim aloft by her ankles. The woman who had called out to the officers stepped over to guide the body to the floor with latex-gloved hands.

Brunelle had never seen her before.

"Dave Brunelle, assistant district attorney," Chen commenced the introductions. "This is Kat Anderson, our new assistant medical examiner."

Kat was already kneeling next to body, checking for signs of rigor. She looked up long enough to offer the quickest of hellos, then set back to her examination.

"Uh, nice to meet you," Brunelle stammered. He wondered how someone so pretty had ended up choosing cadaver-carving as a career. "I'm David."

Kat glanced up again and smiled. "Got it," she winked. "I was here when he said it."

Brunelle fought back a blush. "Right. So, uh, what did she die of?" he said to change the subject.

"Well, David Brunelle, assistant district attorney," Kat said while palpating the tissue around the girl's neck, "my thirty second diagnosis is cardiac arrest brought on by acute loss of blood."

"She bled out?" Brunelle asked doubtfully. He waved a hand around the home's entryway. "There's not a drop of blood in here."

Kat stuck a gloved finger into the linear wound in the girl's purple-white neck. "There's not a drop of blood in here either."

Brunelle frowned. He had to admit, the corpse was unusually pale. "Really?"

Kat shrugged, her finger still jutting into the lifeless neck. "Well, there's probably a few drops left, and it'll take a full autopsy to confirm it, but it looks to me like most of it's gone."

She pointed to some purple blotching just visible under the dead girl's blonde hair. "The only lividity is in the head. That means she was upside down when she died. There will be blood pooled in her head, but the rest of it left the body somehow."

"Yeah, but to where?" asked Brunelle.

"Sorry, assistant district attorney David," Kat grinned. "That's your job."

Brunelle smiled too. "No. My job is convincing the jury the bad guy did it. But figuring out just what the bad guy did?" He slapped Chen on the back. "That's the detective's job."

"Thanks, Dave." Chen looked sideways at him. "Glad we all know our roles."

"Well, here's one thing to help you." Kat pointed to the wrists of the dead girl. There were thick lines of even whiter skin distinct in her pale flesh. "Her hands were bound when she died. This blanching means the bindings were removed after she died."

"So whoever killed her took the bindings with them," Brunelle realized.

"And apparently the blood," Kat added.

"But why?" Chen asked.

"Don't worry about why," Brunelle grinned. "I don't have to prove motive. Just who did it and how, never why."

Chen ran a hand through his hair. "Well, good. 'Cause I can't imagine any reason why anybody would do this."

Brunelle did a walk-through of the house, but didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. The forensics officers were marking, photographing, and collecting anything that might possibly hold evidentiary value. That meant casting a wide net. Brunelle wasn't looking forward to thumbing through pages upon pages of property reports containing useless enumerations of irrelevant personal property. The problem was that apart from the bloodless girl dangling in the entryway, the house was in perfect order. Better than perfect, it was slightly messy. The girl's bedroom could have used a tidying, there were a plate and cup in the sink, and the kitchen garbage needed to be taken out. Everything was as normal-and therefore as useless to him-as could be.

Time to talk to the parents. See if they could give the murder some context that was lacking in the physical evidence.

***

The parents were outside by one of the officers' patrol cars. The mother was sitting in the back of the car, its door open, her feet on the road, and a blanket around her shoulders to keep out some the wet autumn chill that descended on Seattle after Labor Day. She was crying. Of course. The father was standing near, but not exactly next to her. He was using a cigarette to blunt the cold.

Brunelle hated talking to the family. He hated pretending that he cared. He did care, of course. Anybody would. But he didn't care that much. Not as much as someone who had known the girl. And never as much as a parent. But he was supposed to care. They always expected the cops and the prosecutors and judges and the jurors to care. But the one thing all those people really cared about was being glad it wasn't their daughter.

And in his early 40s, single, with no kids, Brunelle cared even less than that.

Besides, he knew caring wouldn't do a damn thing to bring that girl back.

"Mr. Montgomery? Mrs. Montgomery?" He stepped up with a hand half-extended. "I'm Dave Brunelle from the prosecutor's office. I'm so sorry for your loss."

Mr. Montgomery stared at Brunelle's hand but didn't shake it. He took a long drag on his cigarette. "This is death penalty, right?"

Mrs. Montgomery looked up. "Roger! This isn't the time for this."

"Really, Janet?" he replied. "Then when is? Some bastard killed your daughter and the prosecutor is standing right here."