Authors: William Bernhardt
“And you’re sure of this?”
“Beyond a doubt. To a medical certainty.”
“Thank you, Doctor. Your witness, Ms. McCall.”
Christina slowly made her way to the podium. She hated experts. Cross was bad enough with normal people—it was all but unbearable with someone who was only on the stand because it was an accepted fact that she knew more about the matter at hand than you did.
“First, Dr. Wilson, I’d like to talk about the cause of death.”
“Very well,” she said, all forthright and chipper. Christina knew that wouldn’t last long.
“I appreciate your honesty in telling the jury that you really don’t have the slightest idea what the cause of death was. Very forthcoming of you.”
“Ye-ess,” Wilson said, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“I was troubled, though, by your assertion that the death must’ve come as a result of the beating by Johnny Christensen and Brett Mathers. Since you don’t know what the cause of death was, how can you pretend to know who caused it?”
“I believe he has admitted beating the boy—”
“Yes, but not to killing him.”
“And I saw the results of the beating. Given the severe trauma of the body, it would be ridiculous to suggest that anything else could’ve caused the death.”
Was that a challenge, Doctor? “My point is that you don’t know exactly what Johnny did. The killing stroke—to use your own words—could have come from another person.”
Wilson shook her head. “Even if it was his fraternity friend—”
“But what if it was another person altogether? A third person.”
“I’ve heard no evidence of a third person.”
“But you can’t rule out the possibility.”
“When we have two self-confessed perpetrators who conducted an extensive torture and beating, it seems absurd—”
“Dr. Wilson, could Tony Barovick have been strangled?”
Christina’s sudden switch threw the coroner off balance. “Uh—strangled?”
“Sure. You said he died of oxygen deprivation to the brain. You hypothesized that a jaw or neck injury might’ve caused asphyxiation. Wouldn’t a simpler explanation be that someone strangled him?”
Wilson hesitated. “I haven’t heard anything about any strangling . . .”
“And that’s the problem, isn’t it? You don’t want to attribute the death to strangulation—because Johnny never confessed to any strangling. You want to attribute death to one of the things he did confess to. But that doesn’t make it the cause of death. Especially if a third person was involved.”
Wilson was beginning to squirm. “I think it’s pointless to speculate when we know the victim endured a hideous assault.”
“You’ve read the transcript of Johnny Christensen’s so-called confession, haven’t you?”
“Of course.”
“So let me ask you, Doctor—is it possible that a person could have endured all that Johnny described and still live?”
“Oh, anything’s possible, but—”
“In fact, judging from Johnny’s description, the beating—although horrible, to be sure—did not involve anything that would absolutely, positively cause death, right?”
“I assume the defendant downplayed the intensity—”
“Well, now assume he told the absolute to-the-letter truth. Despite the severity of the injuries, those wounds were not necessarily fatal, right?”
“I agree that survival was possible. But given that he didn’t—survive, that is—and that we know this horrible assault occurred, to speculate about third parties and intervening causes is just indulging in fantasy.”
“Were there contusions on Tony Barovick’s neck?”
Again, the switch caught her flat-footed—which, of course, was exactly what Christina wanted. “It’s true, there were abrasions on the anterior neck, but—”
“And streaking arethema on the lateral aspect of zone one?”
Wilson did a double take. “Ye-esss . . .”
“And the cartilaginous tracheal rings were crushed?”
Wilson sighed. “Been doing some reading, Ms. McCall?”
“I try to stay informed. All of those factors are possible indicators of strangulation, aren’t they?”
“True. But just the same,” Wilson continued, “with a body so severely tortured and mutilated, those injuries could have been caused by any number of things.”
“Including strangulation by a third person?”
Wilson’s frustration was mounting. “This whole speculation about a third person is useless.”
“Useless to the prosecution, yes. You don’t want to suggest strangulation as a possible cause of death, because in his confession Johnny didn’t say anything about strangulation. You want to pin it on something he confessed to doing.”
“No, that isn’t—”
“Nonetheless, simple strangulation, subsequent in time to the beating, is a possible cause of death. Correct?”
Wilson took a deep breath. “As I testified, the time of death was shortly before the body was found. There wasn’t time—”
“Well, let’s talk about that,” Christina said, flipping a page in her notebook. “You say the time of death was about 11:15—and in no case earlier than 11:00.”
“That’s correct.”
“And you base this conclusion on the body’s decomposition, which you tell us is steady and predictable.”
“Absolutely.”
Christina snapped her fingers. “Come to think of it, what you actually said was that
absent extraordinary circumstances
, the rate was steady and predictable. What would some of those extraordinary circumstances be, Doctor?”
“They are all wildly improbable.”
“Try me.”
“If the body was exposed to radiation—which it wasn’t. If he’d been feverish at the time of death—which he wasn’t.”
“What about if he’d been refrigerated?”
“Excuse me?”
“Refrigerated. What if?”
“But the body wasn’t refrigerated. It was found in a fraternity house.”
“Was it terribly cold in that fraternity house?”
She looked at Christina as if she’d asked to see her knickers. “Not that I recall.”
“Think harder, Doctor. When I visited your office last week, you mentioned that the room was cold. And Officer Montgomery told us it was so chilly he sent his partner after his coat.”
“If you say so.”
“But it was you who said so, Dr. Wilson. And you were right. Do you know how cold it was? When the doors and windows in the room were shut? Before the police arrived?”
“I couldn’t possibly know. No one could.”
“Well, actually, Doctor—I could.” From the defendant’s table, Vicki passed her a photo that had already been admitted into evidence. “The crime scene technicians photographed and videotaped the entire room where the body was found—including the north wall, which is where the thermostat is located. I took the liberty of having that section of the photo enlarged.” She slid it across the witness stand. “Let me ask you again, Doctor—what was the temperature in that room?”
Wilson frowned. “Sixty degrees.”
“Sixty? Now that’s pretty cold, especially in a small room with all the doors and windows shut. Wouldn’t have taken long to cool to that temperature.”
Wilson tossed down the photo. “I will admit that it is an abnormally low temperature, but it’s hardly a refrigerator.”
“So how much effect do you think that low a temperature would have on the body’s decomposition?”
“I couldn’t say exactly. Not much.”
“I might have to argue with you there, Doctor.” Vicki passed Christina a large and heavy leather-bound book. “This is called
Principles of Forensic Science and Criminology
and was written by the late Dr. T. S. Koregai. It’s generally considered one of the definitive works on the subject. In fact, I think you have one in your office, don’t you, Doctor?”
“You know I do.”
“Dr. Koregai provides a chart in which he sets down the effect of increasingly low temperatures on postmortem decomposition. According to him, if the temperature is sixty degrees, you can expect decomposition—get this—to happen a third as fast as normal. He says the entire process would be slowed.” She pondered a moment. “You know, I’m no math whiz, but I think that means that instead of the time of death being an hour before you arrived, it was more like 9:30 or 10:00—when Johnny Christensen was in the company of several friends.”
“I suppose it’s theoretically possible—”
“Thank you, Doctor. No more questions.”
There was quite a stir in the courtroom after she finished. Half the reporters in the gallery ran out the back doors clutching their cell phones; the others were scribbling furiously in their notebooks. They seemed to think this was a breakthrough. And it had been a good cross—if she did say so herself.
But Christina didn’t kid herself. She might have established that Johnny
could
be telling the truth—but not that he
was
telling the truth. Unless she could come up with an explanation of who killed Tony Barovick and why, it was all too likely that the jury would conclude that the beating Johnny admitted to caused the death. Or that anyone capable of doing such a horrible thing to another human being deserved to die whether he delivered the killing stroke or not.
One observer who was not a reporter nonetheless headed out the back doors as soon as the judge called for a recess, thinking this was not supposed to happen. Johnny Christensen had to be convicted. If these two shysters kept doing what they were doing—well—this case might never be put to rest.
Should’ve killed them before, back when they were pinned down in front of their office. Before they had a chance to stir up more trouble than they could possibly imagine.
Never mind. There were many more cheap, readily accessible handguns in the world. If the case continued to progress in this manner—and there was any chance at all of Johnny Christensen escaping punishment—the sniper scene would be reenacted. With more positive results.
Warning had been given—and ignored. There would be no more warning shots. Now it was time to shoot to kill.
36
Outside the courtroom window, four stories down, Christina could hear chanting. Some of the gay rights protesters were getting rowdy, it seemed. “Don’t wait—punish hate!” they chanted, over and over again. Probably heard about what just happened in court today, Christina mused. Just hope they didn’t bring their snipers this time.
“Christina?” It was Ellen Christensen, standing just behind the rail. She saw Ben flinch the instant the woman spoke. “That was wonderful, what you did up there.”
“Well, thank you.”
“Will the jury believe Johnny now?”
“We still have a lot of work to do. But we’re off to a good start.”
A new voice barked in her ear. “You should be ashamed of yourself, you cheap little hustler!”
Christina instinctively ducked. She froze. Then, not hearing any gunfire, stood back up. Was she getting jumpy? Considering all that had happened, she thought she had good cause.
It was Mario Roma, the owner of Remote Control. “Tony was a good boy!” he bellowed. “He deserves better than to have some two-bit lawyers playing tricks to put his killer back on the street!”
Ben ran to her side. She was aware that her knees were knocking. All this turmoil was really starting to get to her. “Sir, all we’re trying to do is bring the truth to light.”
“Bullshit!” From the corners of the room, the bailiffs were advancing. “I know exactly what you’re trying to do. You should be ashamed of yourself!”
One of the bailiffs—Boxer Johnson—tapped Roma on the shoulder. He did not stop.
“There’s a word for a woman who will do anything for money. You’re nothing but a cheap, two-bit whore!”
The bailiffs took one arm each and forcibly removed him from the courtroom, still screaming. “Remember this, lady, everyone gets theirs in the end. What goes around, comes around. Count on it!”
“That was bizarre,” Ben said. “Talk about coming out of nowhere. Why would that guy want to—” He turned and saw that Christina was trembling.
“Hey.” He took her by the arms without even thinking about it, then did and let them go. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know,” she said, with a tremor in her voice. “I’m just . . . tired of all these threats.” She put a hand on the gallery railing to steady herself. “I’m starting to get a bad feeling about this case. This whole mess. Like something horrible is going to happen.”
“Buck up, Chris. We’ve still got a long way to go.”
“I know,” she said, her voice grim. “That’s what worries me.”
Ben had handled psychiatrists in the past, so Christina asked him to take this one. He wasn’t sure he was the best choice; he might have a slight edge on Christina in the psychojargon department, but she had it all over him when it came to understanding people. But it was her case and her call, and he knew that for whatever reason she was feeling a bit on edge. He could do it this time for her.
Drabble’s decision to call a psychiatrist to the stand during his case-in-chief was an interesting and somewhat unusual choice born of one central reality of trial practice: The prosecution never knows what the defense is going to do. They can guess, but they can’t be certain. The prosecution is supposed to tell the defense every detail of their case, their evidence, witnesses, everything. But the defense doesn’t have to reveal anything. Often the prosecution has no idea what the defense case will be till they hear it live and in person in the courtroom. Prosecutors have many other advantages—most notably the tight connection with law enforcement, the institutional resources, and usually, the judge. But in the department of foreknowledge, they were vulnerable.
Which led to the psychiatrist. Drabble couldn’t be certain Christina wouldn’t try some sort of insanity defense. The violence of the beating would certainly support it. She could argue that Johnny had been temporarily insane, or that he had been brainwashed by peer groups. Not their best shot, in Ben’s view, but a definite possibility. And Drabble couldn’t count on being able to call the psychiatrist later in rebuttal. Kevin Mahoney had advised Ben that Judge Lacayo adhered to the “heart attack” standard—he allowed the prosecution to call additional rebuttal witnesses only if some surprise development in the defense case had been of such magnitude as to induce a heart attack. Suggesting that a man who mercilessly beat a homosexual to a pulp was crazy wouldn’t qualify. Thus, the psychiatrist—now. The fact that he was also an expert in hate groups was a bonus.