Move to Strike (49 page)

Amanda Carmichael began by asking Bond to outline the details of his impressive career – including his extensive experience in the high-tech FBI laboratory. And Bond paced himself as he took the hushed gallery through his myriad of accomplishments until Carmichael, obviously sensing it was time to speed things up a little, eventually cut to the chase.

‘Special Agent Bond,' she said, ‘could you tell the court how you came
to be assigned to the analysis of the audio message left on the voice mail of attorney Harry Harrison on the morning of Friday the eleventh of May?'

David stole a glance at Arthur – Carmichael was starting back to front. David had expected her to work in chronological order, starting with the life insurance emails before moving on to the ‘change of will' voice mail left the morning of Stephanie's death – and the anomaly unnerved him.

‘Yes, I am the laboratory's most experienced examiner in the areas of audio evidence – including authenticity, enhancement and voice comparison, and as such, when the evidence came in marked as a priority, I immediately assigned myself to the job.'

‘More like he saw an opportunity to increase his super agent profile by giving evidence in the highest profile case of the year,' whispered David in Arthur's ear.

Arthur nodded.

‘And could you explain to the court the nature of the voice mail you examined?' Carmichael continued.

‘Yes. It was a one-minute-twelve-second recording from a person purporting to be Stephanie Logan, requesting certain changes to her will.'

‘Right, well, before we continue, Special Agent Bond, I might request the court listen to said recording, tabled as item number three.' Carmichael looked towards Kessler for her approval.

‘Go ahead,' said Kessler, her left hand gesturing that Carmichael had her permission to continue.

The next minute or so played out like an eternity – the entire courtroom staring directly at Chelsea as the somewhat apprehensive female voice, identifying itself as Stephanie Tyler, requested the lawyer, one Harry Harrison, remove her major beneficiary – her husband, Doctor Jeffrey Logan – from her will. The message was smooth in a scripted sort of way, almost as if the caller had written notes before attempting the call. And while at first hearing the speaker could well have been identified as the voice of an older woman, the slight lifts in intonation at the end of each sentence seemed to suggest the caller was somewhat younger – which indeed she was.

‘Special Agent Bond,' said Carmichael then, positioning herself so that she was equidistant from the jury, her witness and the defence table to her
left, ‘did you and your fellow technicians go on to confirm the identity of the speaker in this case?'

‘Yes. The caller was identified as Miss Chelsea Logan.'

Carmichael swivelled slightly to meet the eyes of the transfixed jury. ‘And could you explain how you came to this conclusion, Special Agent?'

‘Yes. The laboratory was also given a second recording – of Chelsea Logan reciting a speech at a school assembly. The assembly was recorded by a staff member on a hand-held video camera and the FBI issued a warrant to gain possession of said recording. In short, we were able to use this second piece of audio to get a 100 per cent match in voice identification.'

‘And this is done by . . . ?' Carmichael led her witness.

‘Identifying similar and dissimilar exemplars in voice characteristics,' finished Bond. ‘Basically, specialised software that produces digitally calculated spectrograms is used to compare frequency characteristics of the graphic representation. We also used specialised forensic voice identification algorithms to identify automated voice comparisons between different voice samples.'

‘And all of these investigations led you to the conclusion that it was indeed Chelsea Logan who left that message on Mr Harrison's voice mail?' reiterated Carmichael, her eyes flicking towards David as if in anticipation of his objection.

‘Yes,' said a satisfied Bond. ‘It was Miss Logan, and I have no hesitation in stating that I believe my investigations to be unequivocally correct.'

Moments later Carmichael moved on to Chelsea Logan's computer and the highly controversial life insurance emails, beginning by asking Bond how his laboratory came to receive the laptop in question.

He explained that the computer was recovered by the FBI Boston Field Office's emergency response team or ERT, and transported to Quantico for further testing. ‘As head of the computer analysis unit, the laptop was given to me as a priority and along with two fellow technicians we spent a good twenty-four hours pulling the hard drive apart – searching for the emails in question and the login and password origins. We also studied other emails sent by the defendant to friends and associates in an effort to find similar word patterns and grammatical habits.'

Carmichael then proceeded to ask Bond to outline the nature of the
four emails in question – two from ‘a person purporting to be Stephanie Tyler' to Mr Shane O'Rourke from APS Insurance, and two return emails from Mr O'Rourke in response.

‘The first email, sent on the thirtieth of April from the Logan family's home email account, was written by a person identifying themselves as Stephanie Tyler and requested further information on how Ms Tyler might increase her life insurance cover. The first return email, sent by Mr O'Rourke on the first of May, consisted of an attached brochure describing the upgrade alternatives available.'

‘So Mr O'Rourke responded quickly, giving Ms Tyler all the information necessary to upgrade her portfolio.' Carmichael was obviously determined to make this as easy for the jury as possible.

‘That is correct,' nodded the ever-efficient Bond.

‘All right, Special Agent – please continue.'

Bond went on to give details of the next two emails – the one sent by the person once again identifying themselves as Stephanie Tyler outlining the substantial changes she wanted to make to her already large insurance policy; and the fourth, a return email from O'Rourke saying the changes would be made as soon as possible but effective from the return email date. He explained these two emails were sent on Friday fourth May and Monday seventh May respectively, a mere seven and five days before Tyler's murder on Friday eleventh May.

At that point, Carmichael moved back to her desk to retrieve copies of all four emails, after which she requested Bond read some highlighted paragraphs from the third email – the one where ‘Stephanie Tyler' listed her specific upgrade requests. Bond pulled his square-framed glasses from his pocket – the lenses tinted just enough to make them look like sunglasses – before explaining he was far-sighted and placing them on his nose and proceeding to read.

‘Jesus,' said David, leaning in to Arthur. ‘Can the guy look any more Clint Eastwood?'

Arthur nodded. ‘Let's hope we can help Dirty Harry here shoot himself in the foot.'

Despite the fact David had read and re-read the emails scores of times since they had been provided by the prosecution as part of initial discovery, the words were difficult to hear – as Carmichael had chosen
the two sections which outlined ‘Stephanie's' request for her lump sum payout upon death to be increased from five to a massive twenty million dollars, and the paragraph requesting the addition of the ‘supplementary rider' which would effectively give Stephanie's beneficiaries an extra two million dollars if her life ended as the result of unforeseen misfortune.

She also told Bond to read a further section where ‘Stephanie' identified her beneficiary as her husband, Jeffrey Logan – and David finally realised why Carmichael had gone with the audio line of questioning first. The ADA needed the jury to see just how clever Chelsea Logan was – how she set up the insurance details
before
cutting her father out of the picture by removing him from her mother's will. She was painting David's client as a teenage murdering mastermind, and there was nothing he could do about it – at least not yet.

‘Special Agent Bond,' Carmichael continued, now pacing towards the jury, ‘could you please tell us what your analysis showed? Could your investigations identify the sender of the two emails – and in turn, the identity of the person purporting to be Stephanie Tyler?'

She flashed a look at David, once again expecting him to object – but David knew if he contested Carmichael's theory of an imposter emailer by claiming Stephanie had indeed sent the requests herself, he would screw himself later, when he felt the time was right to offer another possibility – that it was Jeffrey Logan who sent the insurance alteration requests.

So he sat mute – in a now familiar sedentary position which had also obviously piqued Judge Kessler's curiosity, given her face was now contorted in a frown of unmistakable bewilderment.

‘Yes,' Bond responded. ‘The login and password investigations showed the emails were sent by Miss Chelsea Logan,' he said, plain and clear. ‘And once again, there is no doubt in my mind, that my findings are unequivocally correct.'

‘Pepsi,' said David, jumping from his seat to approach the witness, his bizarre cross-examination opener now having all in attendance on the edge of their seats.

‘Excuse me?' said the obviously confused Bond.

‘Pepsi,' David repeated. ‘You asked me if I liked Coke or Pepsi and I am
telling you that I am a Pepsi man. It has a little extra bite or something, a slightly more bitter edge.'

Bond immediately looked to Carmichael who responded by rising from her chair.

‘Objection. Your Honour, I have no idea what Mr Cavanaugh is referring to, but I wonder if all that sitting down this morning, teamed with his lack of Pepsi might have . . .'

The entire room laughed – and David knew Carmichael had won them over. Now if only Sara's idea could win them back.

‘I am sorry, Your Honour,' said David, with a smile. ‘I know my statement is a little left of centre, but I promise my point will soon become clear if you just allow me a little latitude.'

‘All right, Mr Cavanaugh,' said Kessler, the only one in the room not smiling. ‘But make it quick.'

‘Special Agent Bond,' said David, lowering his voice slightly to approach the witness. ‘Forgive me for confusing you. I was trying to make a point, see – about email origins and so forth.'

But it was obvious the wide-eyed Bond still did not understand, and so David moved back to his desk to ‘assist' him.

‘Here,' he said, moving once again towards the witness to hand him a piece of paper. ‘It's an email I received from you late last night – and it asks the question, you know . . . the one about the Pepsi and the Coke.'

‘I didn't send you an email late last night. I was out, at the theatre with my wife and . . .' Bond grabbed the piece of paper from David, now putting on those trusty tinted glasses once again.

‘But the note came from your personal email account,' said David, scratching his head in feigned confusion. ‘That is your home email address isn't it, Special Agent Bond – [email protected]? And I am gathering the “ltk” stands for licence to kill – your last name being Bond and all.'

‘
Objection
,' yelled Carmichael once again, this time her face contorting in a knot of anxiety as she saw where this was headed. ‘Your Honour, this line of questioning is intolerable in a million different ways. Defence counsel is badgering the witness. He . . .'

David guessed Amanda was probably dying to accuse him of hacking into Bond's personal email account, but she was too smart for that – for
to make such an accusation and have it
denied
would simply consolidate the point that David was trying to make.

‘You're right, Miss Carmichael,' said Kessler, now turning towards David. ‘But I want to see where this is going. You can continue, Mr Cavanaugh, but the line you walk is a fine one.'

But David did not get a chance to . . .

‘
I didn't send him an email
,' snapped Bond, not waiting for another question, simply turning away from David to look directly up at the judge. ‘I mean, why in the hell would I . . . ?'

‘I agree,' interrupted David. ‘Why on earth would you care which kind of soda I prefer? Which leads me to believe that someone
else
sent this email, Special Agent Bond – someone who has access to your username and password and . . .'

‘Objection.' Carmichael was up again.

‘
He can't do that!
' yelled a now horrified Bond.

‘By “can't” do you mean that I shouldn't have invaded your privacy, or that getting access to your personal email information was impossible?' asked David.

‘
Mr Cavanaugh
,' said Kessler then, believing she knew what David had done, ‘if we find evidence you have manipulated this man's personal emails then . . .'

‘On the contrary,' said David. ‘I simply rang Special Agent Bond's home last night and identified myself as the defence attorney in the Logan case. The special agent's oldest son, a lovely kid named James . . . which I guess actually
does
make his name James Bond –' and now the jury were smiling again, but this time with David ‘– Well, James answered the phone and I asked him to send me an email from his dad's home computer – I said he could ask me any question he liked.'

‘And he asked you about the Pepsi?' said an incredulous Kessler.

‘The Pepsi, and the Coke,' finished David, and for the first time since this trial began the entire jury was now laughing and smiling warmly at a representative from the defence, while a red-faced Carmichael tapped her pen anxiously on the yellow legal pad before her, a straight-faced Logan remaining expressionless, apart from the slight tensing of the muscles at the base of his lower jaw.

‘So you see, Special Agent, I guess my point is that anyone with access to
Chelsea Logan's computer could have sent those insurance request emails. Wouldn't you agree, Special Agent?' asked David, as the room fell silent, awaiting Bond's response.