Falls the Shadow (33 page)

I was late for my date with Carol Kingsly.

What with the police and the paperwork, the arrest warrant sworn out for Randy Fleer. What with returning to Julia’s apartment and packing up Daniel’s clothes in a spare black garbage bag and driving him to Social Services, where Isabel worked the phones to find him a foster home. What with going along with Isabel as she drove Daniel to the house of a nice, smiling couple, parents of two older children, who had volunteered to take a foster child on an emergency basis and had already been interviewed and examined and prequalified. What with all that, I was late, yes, I was late. But I didn’t think it was anything to cry about.

Obviously I was wrong. Because there was Carol Kingsly, at our table in a crowded little restaurant called Rembrandt’s, a place not far from the great blackened hulk of Eastern State Penitentiary, with a half-drained glass of white wine in front of her, and she was crying.

“What’s going on?” I said as I sat. “I’m not that late, am I?”

She just waved away my question and tried to compose herself. She wasn’t doing a whole sobbing-out-loud thing, which would have been really uncomfortable. It was more a soft, contained cry, like her cat had died or something. Except Carol Kingsly didn’t have cats.

“Carol?” I said. “Are you okay?”

She gained control, expertly wiped her eyes with her fingertips, leaving her mascara intact. “No,” she said, shaking her head.

“What happened?”

“I received some really bad news. I’m not okay.”

A bolt of terror slashed through me. She had some sort of disease, I could tell. She had cancer. I was sure of it. I had a vision of Carol Kingsly in her hospital bed, her limbs withered, her head shaved, looking up at me with sunken eyes. Gad. Looking up at me with the expectation that I would care for her. Me. Somehow now she was my responsibility? We had only been going out for a couple of weeks, I didn’t even like her all that much, and still I was on the hook? What were the rules on that? And with whom could I lodge my appeal? I had the almost uncontrollable urge to excuse myself, to stand up, step outside, and run like the wind. When it’s fight or flight, my first impulse is always to gallop the hell out of there. But this time I gripped the edge of the table, pressed myself back into my seat, tried to not show my terror.

“What is it?” I said. “Something serious?”

“Very.”

“Tell me. What?”

“Remember I told you about my yoga instructor, Miranda? Who recommended I start going to Dr. Pfeffer?”

“Your yoga instructor?”

“She’s very concerned about me. She said I looked out of sorts, and after class, she gave me a private reading. What she found was terrible.”

“Your yoga instructor?”

“Yes. Victor, the quality of my chi has turned. The energies of the five elements are not interacting within me in a positive way. Everything’s feeding upon itself. Water extinguishes fire, fire melts metal, metal cuts wood, wood controls earth, and earth absorbs water. Do you see?”

“No, I don’t.”

“My life is out of balance. Do you know feng shui?”

“All that mumbo jumbo about where to place the couch?”

“It’s not mumbo jumbo, Victor, and it’s about more than interior design, though the interior-design part of it is really lovely. But it’s also about keeping a balance in every part of your life.”

“And your life is out of balance?”

“So she says. I have to make a change, or the destructive energy is going to cause serious damage to all my chakras.”

“Okay,” I said. “That’s okay, Carol. Stay calm. It’s not a disaster. We’ll make some changes. What is the problem? Is it your job?”

“No.”

“Your apartment?”

She shook her head.

“Do you need a new car? An upgraded wardrobe?”

“Do you think I need an upgraded wardrobe?”

“Well, you always say there’s not much a new pair of shoes can’t cure.”

“It’s not my shoes, Victor.”

“Then what is it?” I said, like a dope.

She sat and stared at me for a moment, and tears again began to fill her eyes.

“Oh,” I said.

“Yeah,” she said.

“Does this mean now? Right away? Can we at least have dinner?”

“I’m sorry, Victor. I’m so sorry. But I felt that things weren’t exactly perfect with us, even from the start. And you must have, too. There was always this distance between us. I tried, I thought maybe time might help. But now Miranda tells me that I don’t have so much time. I’m sorry.”

“So am I,” I said, and surprisingly, I was.

I had never given Carol a real chance, and that was a crime, because if I sensed anything about her, it was that she had a true and yearning heart. Maybe she was too pretty for me, too well dressed, too obvious in her attempts to find answers where there are no real questions. Or maybe she was too damn connected with Dr. Bob. But whatever it was, I had never really made the effort to see her clearly. She had seemed to me like a finished product, picking a man the way she picked a blouse, trying to find something that matched her sense of style, but I think I was wrong in that judgment. She was no different from the rest of us, searching for something solid to hold on to in this world. I don’t know if I could have been that for her, or she for me, but I had blown any possibility of our finding out.

She downed the rest of her wine, wiped a tear from her cheek with a knuckle, gathered her things, clutched her bag to her chest as she stood. I stood, too. It seemed the polite thing to do.

“Good-bye, Victor,” she said.

“Good luck with your…whatever.”

“My chi.”

“That’s it.”

“Thank you,” she said before she started walking off.

“Carol.” She stopped and turned. “I’ve got something I want you to have.”

I reached up to my collar, loosened the knot of my yellow tie, untied it, held it out to her.

“Victor, that’s yours.”

“It’s not really my color. Keep it as a memento. Or give it to your friend Nick. He could use a neckwear upgrade. Take it. Please.”

She looked at me for a moment and then took the tie. She closed her eyes as she rubbed the silk against her cheek. Tears welled, and I wouldn’t have been surprised had I heard the sweep of violins.

“We’ll always have Strawbridge’s,” I said.

Damn, I thought as I watched her walk out of the restaurant and out of my life, she sure is pretty.

And then something caught my attention at the bar on the other side of the restaurant. It was an old man, tall and dapper, staring at me through the bar’s entranceway.

Whit.

He stood there and stared until he was sure I had seen him, before following Carol out the door. I suppose he figured he didn’t have to stay, that just his presence left enough of a message. This wasn’t simply the inevitable ending of a tepid affair, though it was certainly all of that. This was also another shot across my bow. Dr. Bob, my dentist, had told his patient, Miranda, the yoga instructor, to instruct Carol Kingsly, my sort-of-fulfilling sexual relationship, to give me the boot. And Whit, my old friend Whit, had shown up just so I got the full impact of the message.

The D.D.S. giveth, the D.D.S. taketh away, blessed be the name of theD.D.S.

I sat back down at my table and was thinking it through, the breakup, the warning, the sacrifice of my tie, the increasing amount of pressure being brought to bear, when the waitress appeared at the table.

“There’s only one of you now?” she said.

“Afraid so.”

“So what will it be?”

I looked up at her. She was pretty cute actually, short orange hair, black lipstick, a stud in her nose. She looked like she might be fun. I know she was only a waitress, and men are helplessly attracted to waitresses, it is something in our jeans, but still, it was a pretty good sign. I guess it hadn’t taken me too long to get over Carol.

“Let me have a hamburger,” I said, “and burn it.”

They have damn good hamburgers at Rembrandt’s, and I suppose, after being pushed around once again by Dr. Bob, I was in the mood for charred red meat.

A professor in law school used to tell us that we, as lawyers, were like gods of creation in the courtroom. Nothing existed unless we chose to show its existence. We picked the evidence, we picked the witnesses, we framed the questions, we created the universe of the trial. The next day in court, I was one angry deity, ready to shift that universe on its very axis, and I felt, strangely, up to the task.

I was feeling more myself than I had for weeks. I was bursting with energy, my mood was brighter, I had a little bounce in my step. What was the cause of my newfound confidence? Let’s put it this way: Popeye needs his spinach, Queeg needs his strawberries, Sauron needs his ring. And me, I suppose I need my red polyester tie. With my old friend rescued from the bottom of the sock drawer and back around my neck, I was ready to rumble. And my tag team partner that day was our criminalistics expert, Dr. Anton Grammatikos.

You want your expert witness to be tall and gray and well spoken, or maybe short and energetic and familiar to the jurors from the O. J. Simpson trial, or at least someone who doesn’t look like he’s ready to sell you a used car at a steep discount. Which is why Anton was available at a moment’s notice and a pauper’s price. But the thing about Anton Grammatikos, despite the underwhelming impression he made on the witness stand, was that he really knew his stuff.

“Your Honor,” I said after I had exhaustively questioned Anton on his credentials, which, despite his checkered sport coat, unshaven face, and truck driver’s manner, were quite impressive, “I move to qualify Dr. Grammatikos as an expert in the forensic sciences.”

“Any objection, Ms. Dalton?” said the judge.

“Could I ask just a few questions on his qualifications, Judge?”

“Go ahead.”

Mia Dalton winked at me as she stood up. “Dr. Grammatikos,” she said, “I understand you have written a book on the forensic sciences, isn’t that right?”

“Yeah, that’s right,” he said. “It’s like one of those educational books, you know, like
Golf for Idiots
and
Piano for Dummies
.”

“And your book is in one of those series, Doctor?”

“Nah. When I pitched them, they said they wanted someone a little more famous, like that Dr. Lee guy, who doesn’t really know as much as he thinks, believe me. So instead I decided to start my own series. Well, you know, the idiot thing and the dummy thing had all been copyrighted, so I had to come up with something new, something fresh.”

“So what is the title of your book, Dr. Grammatikos?”

“Forensic Science for Mental Midgets.”

Dalton turned to the jury and watched as they laughed. I told myself they were laughing with my expert and not at my expert, although my expert wasn’t laughing.

“How is it selling, Doctor?” said Dalton.

“Not so good.”

“Any idea why?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s not quite the right title for Harvard.”

“I wouldn’t think so,” said Dalton.

“But you should read it, Counselor,” said Anton, leaning forward, nodding his head sagely. “It’s right up your alley.”

Mia Dalton’s jaw tightened as the jury laughed again.

“No objection,” said Dalton.

“Dr. Grammatikos is hereby qualified as an expert in the forensic sciences,” said the judge. “Go ahead, Mr. Carl.”

“I want to ask you now, Doctor, about the E-Zee Self Store just outside Exton, Pennsylvania. Are you aware of that facility?”

“Now I am, sure.”

“How did you become aware of it?”

“You gave me a call, asked me to examine one of the units there, number twenty-seven.”

“Did you ever learn who had rented that unit?”

“Yeah, I did. I examined the records at the self-store office.”

“And whose unit was it, Dr. Grammatikos?”

“It turned out to be rented by the defendant sitting over there, François Dubé. He rented it out about the time he and his late wife separated, but before the murder. According to the books, he paid for five years of storage in advance.”

Every head in the courtroom swiveled to stare at François, who looked up at me with a quizzical expression. I gave him a look that said it was going to get worse before it got better.

Slowly, carefully, I took Anton into the storage locker, let him describe the strange scene, with the lounge chair, the television and VCR, the box of videos, the six-pack of beer. He had taken photographs of the locker, and after a long bit of legal wrangling, I was able to introduce those into evidence. He testified, based on the amount of dust, the state of insects trapped beneath the recliner, the self-store records, that the locker had been set up in this weird way at least two years before he examined it but after the date François Dubé was first arrested.

“Now, Doctor, it’s important to know if this was indeed set up after François was in jail, because he has not been out since his arrest. Are you sure about your analysis?”

Anton shrugged. “I been doing this for a while, Counselor. I even wrote that book. Besides, I had something a little more concrete as to date.”

“What was that?”

“The beer bottles had dates printed on them based on the day and date they were brewed. That batch was brewed two months after the defendant’s arrest.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” I said. “Now, you mentioned a box of videos, is that right?”

“Sure, there was a box. You can see it in a couple of the pictures.”

“What kind of videos were in the box?”

“It was a rather eclectic selection. There were two types of commercial videos. There were some kids’ videos, about five or six, and then a number of commercial pornographic tapes. You want me to give you the titles?”

“Sure, go ahead.”

“Aim to Please, Succubus, Oh My Gush 7—”

“Is this necessary, Mr. Carl?” said the judge.

“Not really, sir, I just get a kick out of the titles.”

“Then that’s enough.”

“Fine. Now, Doctor, were there any noncommercial videos?”

“Yes. There was the defendant’s wedding video, they made a beautiful couple, and one family video, with shots of the defendant and his wife and his very young daughter. And then there were three homemade videos of, how should I put it, a more prurient nature.”

“Sex videos?”

“There you go.”

“Who was in them?”

“The defendant and a number of other persons I couldn’t identify. Along with some objects and masks that were also in the storage locker.”

“I want to show you some videocassettes,” I said as I brought three cassettes, each in its own plastic bag, to the witness. “Do you recognize these?”

“These are the sex videos I was talking about. I recognize the labels with the spots, and I put a tape on each of them with my initials.”

“Now, after you took the photographs and examined the videos, did you examine the storage unit for fingerprints?”

“That’s what you told me to do.”

“Did you find any?”

“Sure. The place was thick with prints.”

“Even after all those years?”

“A place like that, a storage locker with little air circulation, almost zero foot traffic, and a layer of dust over everything, is a perfect place for the maintenance of prints. There’s no limit to how long they could stay in such an environment.”

“Were you able to match up any of the prints you found?”

“Sure I was. Some of the prints, I am sorry to say, were yours. You got to be more careful, Victor. In fact, I found two of your prints on the one opened bottle of beer.”

“Sorry about that.”

“I also found prints on certain of the stored objects that matched the defendant and the victim. This was not unexpected, since some of the stuff in the locker apparently came directly from the apartment they shared.”

“Were there any prints that you were not able to identify?”

“Absolutely. There were a number of prints that I couldn’t account for. This was to be expected also, especially since the guy in the self-store office had records that movers were used to transfer the stuff from the defendant’s apartment to the unit.”

“Were you able to match up any of those unidentified prints?”

“One.”

“Go ahead.”

“You provided me police records that showed certain unidentified prints found at the scene of Mrs. Dubé’s murder. One of the prints found on the light switch at the crime scene matched up with a print found in the storage unit. It appears to be a right index finger.”

“How confident are you in the match?”

“Very confident. I found twelve matching ridge characteristics in the two prints. I’d like more, but I found no dissimilarities, so it looks pretty solid. I also found the same print on one of the homemade porno videos.”

“Any idea who belongs to the print?”

“None.”

“But based on your testimony, some unidentified person was in the locker, held the video at some point, and was also at the crime scene.”

“That’s right.”

“The murderer, perhaps?”

“Objection,” said Dalton.

“Sustained,” said the judge. “This is not argument, Counselor.”

“I am so sorry, Judge,” I said, staring at the jury, who could tell I was not sorry at all. A few of the jurors had dazed expressions on their faces, as if nothing was getting through one way or the other, but some were looking at Anton with creases of concentration spreading across their foreheads. They saw the possibilities, and they would tell the others. This case all along had begged for another suspect. I had intended to use Sonenshein to create one for me, until that blew up in my face. Now I was using a fingerprint to do it. Whose fingerprint? Who else’s? Dr. Bob, come on down.

“Now, back to the videos,” I said. “I notice that these labels are spotted and stained.”

“That’s correct.”

“Were you able to identify the stains on these labels?”

“Sure.”

“What were they?”

“Blood,” said Anton Grammatikos. “Human blood.”

I let the murmur in the courtroom rise and swell and recede again, like an ocean wave, before I continued.

“Whose blood was on the label?” I said.

“I took a small sample from each of the labels and came up with a DNA signature. Then I matched that signature with the police forensic reports for this case. I’ve concluded that the blood on these labels is the blood of Leesa Dubé.”

I looked at the jury. Puzzled expressions all around. Mia Dalton had the same puzzled expression. She seemed to want to jump up and object, but she couldn’t quite find something to object to. It was fun to watch her search and fail.

“Could you make any conclusion, Dr. Grammatikos, as to whether these tapes, found in the locker, were at the crime scene at the time of the murder?”

“After analyzing the photographs of the pattern of blood on the floor and the walls of the crime scene, and then comparing the blood patterns on the labels, the best I can say is that it is quite possible that the videos were at the apartment at the time of the murder.”

“Your Honor,” I said, “I’d ask that these videos be placed into evidence, and then I ask that we be permitted to play these videos, in their entirety, to the jury.”

I said it calmly, matter-of-factly, I didn’t put any undue emphasis on the words, so it was rather interesting the reaction my simple statement received. As I expected, François jumped up in protest, shouting
“Non, mon Dieu, non,”
which I think is French for “My lawyer is screwing me up the ass.” Beth jumped up and stared at me as if I were an idiot. There was quite the commotion all through the courtroom, tittering from the jury and spectators alike. Only Mia Dalton surprised me by not joining the melee. She sat calmly, deep in thought, as the judge cut through the commotion with his gavel and his high-pitched voice and said, none too kindly:

“In my chambers, now.”