William Bernhardt - Dark Justice

“What was it they wanted you to do?”

“It was something they were all planning to do. Something beyond the pale. So I left.”

“And … do you know whether they did it?”

“I know they did. After I left. I’m certain of it.” She placed her hand over the big strong hand on her knee and squeezed. “If they hadn’t, you wouldn’t be here now.”

After the lunch break, Granny brought her next witness to the stand.

“The State calls Detective Arnold Cath.”

Ben watched as Cath ambled up to the front of the courtroom. He was a middle-aged man with about thirty pounds he didn’t need riding his midsection. He was wearing a suit jacket with complementary slacks, the standard issue plainclothes-cop-in-court regalia.

Granny quickly established the man’s credentials, including the twelve years he’d spent covering homicides in the county. She touched on a few of his past cases. None of them meant anything to Ben, but they garnered appreciative nods from some of the jurors.

As before, Granny spent no more time on the preliminaries than was absolutely necessary. “What were you doing on July thirteenth? Say about two in the morning.”

“Well, I was sound asleep in bed, like most everyone else, I expect.” He seemed amiable and good-natured, an appealing witness. “Till the phone call came.”

“And who was calling?”

“Sheriff Allen. He’d received a report of a homicide from one of his deputies. Poor kid had found the body-what was left of it-all by himself in the middle of the night. Sheriff Allen asked if I’d come out and take charge of the investigation.”

“Is that standard operating procedure?”

“Absolutely. Sheriff Allen’s a fine officer, but he’s not a homicide specialist. He always calls me when he has a murder on his hands. Not that that happens very often.”

“And what did you do after you received the call?”

“Well, I told him I’d get out there as soon as I could. I live in Mount Collie, ’bout twenty-five minutes out of Magic Valley. Plus I had to get dressed, splash some water on my face. Then I had to find this crime scene out in the middle of the green leafy nowhere. I got lost about six times; had to get on my cell phone and have Sheriff Allen lead me in step by step.”

“When did you arrive?”

“I think I got there about four-thirty, which I thought was pretty damn good, given the circumstances.”

“And what did you do when you arrived?”

“I conferred with Sheriff Allen briefly, then took control of the crime scene.”

Granny nodded appreciatively. “Detective Cath, for the sake of the jury, would you please explain what you mean by taking control of the crime scene?”

“Sure.” He turned to face the jury box. “Everything I do can probably be boiled down into two categories: restricting access and preserving the evidence. Obviously, we don’t want the crime scene contaminated. Something like seven out of ten homicides are solved in the first six hours based upon evidence found at the crime scene. We don’t want to lose that window of opportunity. So I cordon off the area and post guards at the entrances, to make sure no one gets in unless they have my okay.”

“And after that?”

“Then I start preserving the evidence on the site so it will still be there when the forensic teams arrive. I lay butcher paper down on the walkways so we can get in and out without damaging any evidence. In this case, out in the forest, there really weren’t any walkways as such, so I just created some, around the perimeter of the area and through the middle, near the remains. That way our footprints wouldn’t obliterate any evidence.”

“And what else?”

“I make sure no one sheds on the crime scene or bleeds on it or moves things around. We want everything to be just as it was when the killer left. Once that’s done, I admit the forensic teams.”

“Such as?”

“The hair and fiber team. The photographers and videographers. Trace evidence teams. Fingerprint experts. And of course the coroner’s team.” He shuddered involuntarily. “Man, I wouldn’t have wanted their job for all the tea in China.”

“And did all these forensic teams you mentioned appear?”

“They certainly did. Took some of them a while to get out there, but they all made it.”

“And did they find anything?”

“Objection.” Ben had been taking it easy on the objections, trying not to alienate the jury. But this one he couldn’t let go. “Hearsay. Detective Cath shouldn’t be testifying about what someone else did.”

Judge Pickens shrugged. “Well, I’ll allow it.”

“Your honor,” Ben insisted, “it hasn’t been established that the witness has any expertise in these various forensic fields.”

“The prosecutor just asked if they found anything. He can answer that, if he knows, without going into any great detail about what was found. Will that make you happy, counselor?”

“Ecstatic,” Ben murmured under his breath. Christina suppressed a giggle.

“So I’ll ask you again,” Granny said. “Did the forensic teams find anything? If you know.”

“They did. They found footprints. And they also recovered a few fingerprints from a piece of the tree cutter that was thrown clear of the explosion.”

“And were they able to identify the fingerprints?”

“Objection,” Ben said. “Now the prosecutor is asking for analysis. Analysis that was not conducted by this witness and is not within his field of expertise.”

“Very well,” Judge Pickens said wearily, as if Ben were an annoying insect that he couldn’t quite swat. “We’ll save that for the fingerprint expert.”

Granny didn’t seem particularly annoyed. And why should she be? They both knew she had the proper expert waiting in the wings. “Thank you very much. No more questions.”

After the judge gave him the nod, Ben took his place behind the podium and launched into his cross-examination. He tried to adopt a tone somewhere in the middle ground-insistent, but not overbearing. He knew it was critical that he remain in control during cross or he wouldn’t get anything. On the other hand, if he came on too strong with Mr. Friendly, the jury would resent it.

“Detective Cath, how reliable is the evidence found at the crime scene?”

Cath seemed a bit taken aback, but it didn’t last long. His placid smile soon reasserted itself. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Well, the jury has to know what they can believe, what they can trust. Can they trust the crime-scene evidence?”

“Of course they can.”

“Isn’t it true that evidence is only reliable if it hasn’t been contaminated?”

He shrugged. “Sure.”

“And if it has been contaminated, then all that evidence you mentioned is unreliable.”

“Right. Garbage in, garbage out. That’s why they have me on the scene.”

Ben raised a finger. “Ah, but you didn’t arrive at the crime scene till four-thirty, right?”

Cath chuckled. “Well, I can’t deny it, since I just said so myself a few minutes ago.”

Ben did not chuckle back. “No, you can’t. Who was at the crime scene when you arrived?”

“No one, really.”

“No one? Are you sure?”

“Well … except the obvious.”

“And that would be?”

“The deputy who found the body.”

“Deputy Wagner.”

“Right, that’s the one. And Sheriff Allen, of course.”

“And who else?”

“I guess some of his deputies were there.”

“Any of the forensic teams?”

“No. Well, the coroner’s squad was there. They hadn’t done anything yet.

“So, we’ve gone from ‘no one, really’ to-what? Eight or ten people?”