Jodie Picoult - Salem Falls

She looked lovely, Jordan thought, even when she was reaming him. Abandoning that line of defense, he said, “You testified that the blood found on the victim’s shirt is a match for the defendant’s, isn’t that correct?”

“No. I testified that the locations I tested matched.”

“Whatever.” Jordan waved away the distinction. “Can you tell whether the blood you tested came from a scratch on the defendant’s cheek . . . or from a cut above his eye?”

“No.”

“Is it possible to tell from the blood on the shirt whether he was scratched by a human, or by a branch?”

“No,” Frankie said, then shrugged. “However, DNA was found beneath the victim’s fingernails, a mixture from which the defendant couldn’t be excluded as a cocontributor.”

“Was the victim wearing nail polish?”

She smiled a little. “As a matter of fact, she was. Candy-apple red. The nails were fairly long, too, which made for a very good sample of skin cells beneath.”

“Do you have to scratch someone to get his skin under your fingernails?”

“Not necessarily.”

“You can get his skin beneath your fingernails if you massage his scalp, right?”

“I suppose so.”

“Or if you gently rake your hand down his arm while you’re flirting?”

The forensic scientist made a face that let him know what she thought of his alternative scenario. “It’s possible.”

“Let’s examine some of the evidence,” Jordan said. “The semen and the nail residue . . . those are both mixtures of DNA?”

“Yes.”

“Presumably, they’re mixtures of the two known samples you have here-Ms. Duncan’s and Mr. St. Bride’s?”

“Possibly, yes.”

“Then how come the two lines aren’t identical?”

“You’re noticing the discrepancies in intensities-the numbers that are parenthesized versus the numbers that aren’t. And those can come from a variety of sources,” Frankie explained. “If we did the mixture of the DNA in the lab, it would be very precise-two drops of each cocontributor’s blood. But a mixture that was handed to us to analyze may not be equally divided between the two contributors. Obviously, in the fingernail residue mixture I wasn’t detecting as much DNA from the cocontributor as I was from the victim.”

“But if we’re talking about semen, shouldn’t there be a pretty good amount of DNA from the male?”

“Depends on how much sperm he has in it,” Frankie said. “If he’s a frequent ejaculator, he won’t have much sperm. If he’s a crack addict, he won’t have much sperm. If he’s an alcoholic or a diabetic, he won’t have much sperm. Many factors are involved.”

“To your knowledge, Ms. Martine, is the defendant a frequent ejaculator?”

“I have no idea.”

“Do you know if he’s a crack addict?”

“No.”

“Do you know if he’s alcoholic or a diabetic?”

“Again, no.”

Jordan rocked back on his heels. “So when you looked at those two different mixture profiles . . . it didn’t bother you to see so many incongruities between them?”

She hesitated. “An intensity difference isn’t really an incongruity. Sometimes we’ll see a number come up in parentheses that we didn’t expect . . . but that can be due to many things-from the percentage of each contributor’s DNA in the mixture, to whether or not the contributors are related. We don’t exclude a suspect based on such an infinitesimal differentiation.”

“There’s a big difference between being two hundred forty million times more likely than anyone else to be a cocontributor-such as in the fingernail sample-or being seven hundred forty thousand times more likely to be a cocontributor-like in the semen sample.”

“That’s true.”

“What if you’d had results at the two locations that dropped out?”

“That’s a big if, Mr. McAfee,” Frankie said. “It’s possible that your client might have been excluded. It’s also possible that he might have been further included.”

“Isn’t it true that certain labs test more than eight locations?” Jordan asked.

“Yes. The FBI lab does thirteen.”

“Isn’t it possible that if you typed more systems, you might have excluded Jack as a suspect?”

“Yes.” She looked at the jury. “If you narrow the search even further, to a 1991 blue Acura hatchback with a sunroof and bumper sticker . . . and a cracked windshield and dent on the fender and all-weather tires, the group of potential suspects shrinks even more.”

“Did the state ask you to perform this additional test?”

“Our state lab doesn’t yet have that capability.”

“Ms. Martine, if you don’t mind, may I add a line to your chart?” When she nodded, Jack walked up to the projector and set down a handwritten sheet, adding a new profile.

“Ms. Martine, is this sample different from the known sample you profiled of Jack St. Bride?”

“Yes.”

“So it would have come from a different person?”

“Theoretically,” Frankie said.

“Now, if you don’t mind . . . could you estimate what we might see in a controlled mixture of line one hundred and the new sample . . . Gillian Duncan and a hypothetical suspect?”

Frankie picked up a marker and began to write on the bottom of her chart.

“Ms. Martine,” Jordan asked, “what does that line remind you of?”

“The semen profile.”

“So could the person who gave this hypothetical blood sample have been a contributor to the semen mixture?”

“Yes, this person would not be ruled out, either.”

“Then it’s possible that there’s someone other than Jack St. Bride walking around out there . . . someone with this particular DNA makeup, for example . . . who might be included as a suspect?”

Frankie met his eye. “Anything’s possible, Mr. McAfee, but my lab deals with concrete evidence. I didn’t have this hypothetical blood sample, and I don’t know this hypothetical suspect. But when you find him? You give me a call . . . and I’ll run the tests.”

As Charlie tried to concentrate on the prosecutor’s questions, his attention kept straying to Addie Peabody.

She sat behind the defense, almost in a direct line from Jack St. Bride, her eyes boring a hole into the back of the man’s neck. Her hair was slipping out of a bun, and her suit-the only one she had, he’d bet-was wrinkled as a newborn’s skin.

He didn’t want to be there. He wanted to be home, unraveling the mystery that was his daughter. He wanted to grab Addie and shake her until all the truths Meg had confessed to her spilled onto the floor at Charlie’s feet.

“What was her demeanor at that time?” Matt was asking, the words swimming to Charlie from a long tunnel.

Frightened. Withdrawn. Numb.

He had wanted to run home after Chelsea’s testimony, to grab Meg and ask her if she, too, was a witch. But he had already accused her once, and look at where it had gotten him. What if he did it a second time? How much damage could be done before the bond between a father and his daughter was irretrievably broken?

Broken.

He didn’t realize he’d spoken aloud until Matt asked another question. “After you took her statement, what did you do?”

“I went to the station and typed up an affidavit for an arrest warrant,” Charlie said.

“Did you obtain this warrant?”

“Yes.”

“Where did you go to serve it?”

“Addie Peabody’s house,” Charlie answered, and although he did not look her way, he could feel her straighten in her seat. “I asked for Mr. St. Bride and told him he was under arrest for the aggravated felonious sexual assault of Gillian Duncan the previous evening.”

“What happened?”

“He said he was nowhere near her that night.”