The 3rd Victim (16 page)

34

‘T
urn if off, Gabe,’ called Joe Mannix to his eleven-year-old son Gabriel. Joe was in the kitchen with his wife Marie, Sienna Walker's medical file and Dan Martinelli's forensics report splayed across the table in front of him. Marie was trying to be as quiet as possible as she stacked the lunch plates in the dishwasher – her efforts at keeping the noise to a minimum thwarted by the increasing volume of the argument coming from the living room next door.

‘
It's my turn, dumbass
,’ yelled Gabe's older brother Stephen, who was obviously pissed at his younger sibling for hogging the much sought after Wii. The altercation had started pretty low key but now sounded like it was accelerating to some sort of brotherly pushing and shoving. And that was where Joe and Marie always drew the line with their four sons – not because the boys could not use some physical pushing and shoving every now and again, but because doing so in the living room usually ended in something getting broken, like a vase or a lamp or a –

Suddenly the phone rang and just as suddenly stopped. Joe knew his eldest son Joe Jr would have scooped it up from the extension in the hall upstairs. Joe Jr was fourteen and had taken a liking to Hudson, a girl down the block, and not for the first time Joe found himself wondering why the hell two seemingly sensible people would name their daughter after a filthy river in New York City.

‘
Daaaaad
,’ called Joe Jr down the stairwell. ‘It's David, but you have to make it quick because Hudson was meant to call me at eleven.’

It was 11.01.

Joe picked up the phone.

‘It's me,’ said the voice without stopping for a response. ‘I'm on my way over. Do you have the reports?’

‘Yes.’

‘And it's okay if I come?’

Joe paused, but only for a second. ‘You eaten?’ he asked.

‘I had a coffee at Arthur's. Apparently I'm Team Jacob.’

‘Am I supposed to understand what that means?’

‘No.’

‘Okay then. I'll ask Marie to get out what little is left over from breakfast. My kids eat like hyenas.’

‘I don't want to be a pain, Joe.’

‘Since when?’

David managed a laugh. ‘I'll see you in twenty.’

*

‘There's no post-partum depression.’

Joe threw the first report – Davenport's file on Sienna – across the coffee table at David. Marie had taken the three younger boys to a movie while Joe Jr was hanging out with his girlfriend.

David picked up the report.

‘It's well organised – almost anal,’ said Joe. ‘It notes each of your client's visits to Davenport's surgery – the first with her husband close to sixteen months ago.’

‘They wanted to have a baby,’ said David.

‘That's what it says there,’ he said, standing from his armchair to join David on the sofa. ‘But that alone doesn't appear to make sense.’

David moved over so that Joe could find the page he was referring to.

‘Look.’ Joe pointed at Davenport's notes. ‘According to what's written here, Davenport put them straight on the IVF program, but … wouldn't the first step be to test the pair's fertility? I mean, maybe they just hadn't got lucky as yet. Isn't it standard to test the mechanics before you hand over the keys to the car?’

David nodded. It was a good point.

‘Sienna said they both had fertility issues.’

‘That's what Doctor Dick told me as well. So why not test?’

‘I don't know,’ said David. ‘Maybe he did, but he didn't note it?’

But Joe was shaking his head. ‘No. This guy is super organised. The file has been painstakingly constructed. It's full of his various test requests and results and so forth, but none are to do with questioning either Sienna Walker or Jim Walker's fertility.’

‘Maybe they're in his file?’ asked David.

Another shake of the head. ‘Davenport kindly included Jim Walker's file as an adjunct to his wife's,’ he said, flipping to the back of the file to show David a second lot of paperwork enclosed in a plastic sleeve.

‘He volunteered a report you didn't request?’

‘Nice of him, wasn't it?’

But David said nothing.

‘Bottom line,’ said Joe, moving on, ‘according to Davenport's report your client was in good health, physically, emotionally. The pair underwent two unsuccessful IVF cycles using the more complicated ICSI method before falling pregnant with their daughter.’

This was exactly how Sienna had explained it.

‘Each cycle involved Davenport fertilising Sienna's eggs with her husband's sperm to produce embryos which were then implanted back into your client. The first two cycles didn't work, but the third gave them Eliza.’

David considered the irony. ‘She was a miracle.’

Joe nodded. ‘I know it shouldn't, but somehow it makes it worse.’

David knew exactly what Joe was saying. ‘What does Davenport say about the birth?’

‘Very little given Eliza Walker was delivered by a female midwife at home.’

David looked up. ‘Sienna didn't mention that.’ He shook his head. ‘Then again, I didn't ask.’

Joe shrugged. ‘In a physical sense it's irrelevant, given the birth went to plan. But it sure pissed the good doctor off. He's at pains to show that he was the one who monitored the pregnancy, so I guess he felt like he was left at the altar.’

‘Hell hath no fury like a OB/GYN scorned.’

‘Something like that. Davenport justified the snub by claiming your client preferred to have her child delivered by a female.’ He picked up Eliza's birth certificate. ‘The midwife was Irish. Her name was Mary Brown. I tried to track her down but she's gone back to her native Dublin – not that, like I said, it makes too much difference given the birth was relatively smooth, the baby in good health.’

David nodded once again. ‘And after Eliza's birth?’

‘Davenport saw the baby every week or so – eight times in total before her death.’ Joe turned the page to the child's records. ‘Eliza Walker had minor colic, a little reflux, but she was feeding well, and growing at a healthy rate.’

David flicked through the pages. ‘A normal paediatric file,’ he said.

‘Except for the fact that it stops at nine weeks.’

David shut the file and turned to face his friend. ‘This doesn't tell us anything, Joe.’ He paused. ‘But what it doesn't tell us means a lot. Like there's no PPD.’

‘True, but from my standpoint that doesn't really matter. If anything it screws the Kat.’

‘What?’ asked David. ‘The Kat doesn't
want
to argue PPD?’ This was a major surprise. If the DA wasn't going with PPD as a motive, then what the hell was he planning?

‘It's not like that asshole confides in me, David. But my guess is he's looking for something a little more …’ Joe hesitated, ‘show stopping.’ Joe dropped his eyes, he was getting close to that invisible line, the one David knew he shouldn't push him over.

‘No PPD?’ he had to ask the question. ‘But that means he forfeits the option of securing a guilty verdict for murder two or manslaughter.’ David was thinking aloud – and the process was starting to scare the hell out of him. ‘
Jesus
– he wants to go for broke so the jury can't rule on a lesser sentence.’

Joe nodded. ‘That's what it looks like.’

A frustrated David ran his fingers through his hair.

‘There is one positive,’ said Joe, perhaps trying to give David something to hold on to. ‘If Katz goes for murder one and murder one alone, a “not guilty” will see your client walk.’ Joe was referring to the fact that, if the DA decided to go for first-degree murder without any lesser charges as alternatives, the jury would not have the ‘fall back’ option. If they decided Sienna Walker was not guilty of murder one – a charge much harder to prove than murder two or manslaughter – then she'd be released.

‘Katz doesn't have a motive, Joe,’ said David, knowing he shouldn't push but unable to stop himself.

‘Not an obvious one.’

David knew what Joe was suggesting – that the DA never needed an obvious motive to push his cases over the line. More than once the DA had resorted to reconstructing the facts to secure the verdict he wanted. And David knew he'd want this one – and want it badly. ‘If he wants a fight I'll give it to him, Joe.’

Joe nodded. ‘I don't doubt it, my friend, but …’ he pointed at the second report before them, ‘if this is any indication, you have your work cut out for you.’

David opened Dan Martinelli's report. ‘Don't tell me. The forensics are as bad as we expected?’ As much as this worried him, it wasn't a surprise.

Joe nodded before reaching over to turn the document to page three. ‘The second sample of blood in the bedroom is confirmed as belonging to your client. The blood spatter pattern on the carpet confirmed Svenson's hypothesis that the baby was cradled while she bled to death.’ Joe flipped to page four. ‘Sienna Walker's prints are all over the scene except for on the light switch, and it is most likely that Martinelli's subsequent analysis on the nightshirt and Gus Svenson's autopsy will dot the I's and cross the T's on the DA's case against your client.’ Joe took a breath. ‘I'm sorry, David.’

David was grateful for his friend's sympathy, but it didn't make things any easier.

‘You've spoken to your client about all this?’ asked Joe, now nearing that line from the other side.

David looked at his friend. ‘You're gonna find this hard to believe, Joe, but a lot of this can be explained.’

Joe sat back in his seat and said nothing, perhaps sensing it was now time for David to decide how much they should share. But David trusted Joe implicitly, and so he began by telling him what Sienna Walker had put to them early yesterday morning about the gutter pipe and the timing on its dripping, her queries about the presence of the dog squad on the night of the murder, and the lack of any wounds on her unblemished skin. Next would come Sienna's theory on Daniel Hunt's involvement, but first things first, thought David. He understood the magnitude of what he'd be asking of his detective friend, and as such, out of respect, he sensed he would need to play things the way Joe would want to play them – one careful step at a time.

Joe listened intently, his face expressionless as he took it all in. He relaxed his shoulders, letting the information settle on him, not speaking for moments until, ‘The K9s
were
there the night of the murder,’ he said, perhaps chastising himself for not considering this anomaly earlier. ‘And it was raining all week, so she has a point about the dripping.’

David waited for a contemplative Joe to continue, which he eventually did. ‘Did you get hold of the examination reports done on your client at Mass General and then at County on the night of and two days after the murder?’ he asked. ‘And if so, was there any sign of her having suffered any injury?’

Joe was asking about a knife wound. ‘I did, and there's no record of any cuts, Joe.’

Joe's cheeks flushed. ‘Katz told me the report from County confirmed your client was cut – at least …’ Joe paused, trying to remember, ‘… he alluded to it, shut me down when I asked about it.’

David shook his head. ‘He was lying.’

‘It wasn't somewhere obscure, somewhere it could have been missed?’ asked Joe.

‘I saw her, Joe,’ he said. ‘
There is no cut
.’

Joe's brow furrowed again, but he did not question his friend further. Instead he sat forward again and turned to page five, needing to get through it. ‘Hair samples in the bedroom don't tell us anything given the only ones found belonged to the baby and the mother. The carpet was basically clean of any dirt or other trace minerals, except for some small amounts of soil matter which were matched with that found in the Walkers' courtyard – basically the stuff that the housekeeper's afternoon vacuuming did not pick up.’

More bad news. If someone – say, Daniel Hunt – had come in from outside after the housekeeper had cleaned then there should have been some foreign soil or grain particles tracked in later that night.

‘What about fibres?’ asked David, as Joe turned to page six.

Joe pointed at Martinelli's analysis. ‘The fibres in the room were consistent with those found in the rest of the house. They matched cotton fibres from towels found in the linen closet, wool fibres from the downstairs rug and so forth.’ He looked up at David. ‘Your client keeps a clean house, David, which isn't doing her any favours.’

David sighed, sensing he wasn't about to catch a break anytime soon. And just as he was about to ask his friend if he had made any preliminary enquiries into the ‘accident’ that cause Jim Walker's death, the phone rang and Joe got up from the sofa to take it.

‘Mannix,’ David heard his friend say, before Joe fell silent, obviously listening intently to the speaker on the other end of the line. ‘What does that mean?’ he asked. Another long silence. ‘An injury?’

David's ears pricked up.

‘Oh …’ Joe spoke again. ‘It's in your copy of the report. Pathology results on his testing. Can you ring the lab and confirm it and then text me?’

Another pause.

‘Okay, let me think on it.’ And then he hung up the phone.

‘What gives?’ asked David as Joe returned to the living room, this time taking a seat in the armchair directly across from his friend.

‘That was Martinelli,’ he said.

‘He's examining the nightshirt,’ said David.

‘Yes,’ replied Joe.

‘So what's up?’ asked an anxious David.

‘I'm not sure. Maybe nothing.’

David lifted his hands up in a gesture that said
what the hell does that mean
? He knew he was pushing, but he figured they were now beyond that point of no return.

Joe took a breath. ‘This is early stuff, David.’

‘I know, Joe, and I'm sorry but …’

Joe held up his hand, suggesting that David save it. ‘First up, has your client suffered any sporting injuries of late?’

‘I told you there were no cuts, Joe.’

Joe shook his head. ‘Not cuts – you know, strained muscles, inflammation, that sort of thing?’

David shook his head. ‘I'm not sure – why?’

‘Martinelli found traces of dimethyl sulfoxide in her blood.’

Dimethyl sulfoxide or DMSO – David was familiar with this particular drug. He had not only seen it on other autopsy reports but he had actually taken it himself. ‘It's an anti-inflammatory, right?’ he asked. ‘I used it once for a rugby injury – it came in a powder you could dissolve in water, or you could use it directly on the injured area as a cream.’