Act of God (31 page)

The day had gone pretty much as the defense team had thought it would. Brian Ayres had spoken for four hours. Dana McAuliffe
had spoken for four minutes.

Y
ou may call your first witness, counsel.”

With those words from Judge Bendali, the second day of the Hill House bombing trial began. Brian Ayres, wearing a navy blue
suit and beige shirt, rose from his seat and faced the jury.

“Good morning,” he said with a comfortable smile, and every juror smiled back at him, and murmured “good morning” in response.
Then he turned to the bench. “The people call Howard Metzger, Your Honor.”

A burly man, about fifty years old, was ushered into the courtroom and directed to the witness box. As he passed between the
rows of spectators, many craned their necks to get a good look. The court clerk administered the oath and asked the witness
to state his name for the record. Then Metzger, who had been called to testify at some three dozen trials in his twenty-three-year
career, sat down and looked calmly at the prosecutor.

“Mr. Metzger,” Brian began, “will you please tell the jury who you work for.”

“I work for the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” Metzger replied, with the barest hint of a southern accent.

“And what do you do for the FBI, sir?”

“I investigate bombings.”

“Were you called to the site of the Seattle Family Services Center last February?”

“Yes, I was.”

“What did you find?”

“I found a building that had been destroyed by fire.”

“And what determination, if any, did you make about the cause of the fire?”

“I determined that the fire had been caused by the detonation of a bomb.”

“Were you and your team able to collect any residue or particles from that bomb?”

“We were.”

“Did you then transport these materials, without any incident of contamination, to your laboratories for extended analysis?”

“We did.”

“And as a result of these analyses, have you been able to ascertain the nature of that bomb?”

“Yes, I have. It was what’s known in the business as an aspirin bomb.”

“Will you explain that?”

“It’s a plastique form of explosive that combines common household aspirin with methyl alcohol, garden-variety fertilizer,
and battery acid.”

“Can you tell the jury, Mr. Metzger, how difficult is it to make a bomb?”

The FBI man shrugged. “It can range anywhere from simple enough for a precocious child, to so technical or intricate that
it would require an expert.”

“How difficult is it to make an aspirin bomb?”

“It would take some knowledge and great care, but it wouldn’t require an expert.”

“Would someone who was, say, trained in military weaponry be able to construct it?”

“Yes, certainly.”

“Does such a bomb need to be made under laboratory conditions?”

“No,” Metzger replied. “It could be made in any well-ventilated area, with very basic equipment.”

“Like a garage?”

“A garage would do nicely.”

“Did you find anything else of significance in the residual material you gathered?”

The expert nodded. “We collected a number of fibers that we were able to identify as having come from a fabric used to make
duffel bags. We think it likely that the bomb was transported in such a manner.”

“Were you able to identify the duffel bags?”

“Yes. We determined that they were standard military issue.”

A slight murmur rippled through the Hill House section of the spectator gallery.

“That’s getting right down to it,” Helen Gamble whispered to Raymond Kiley.

Over the next several hours, Brian had the FBI agent go over the specific aspects of creating the kind of bomb that had blown
up Hill House, and he was pleased to note that the jury appeared to be paying close attention. He kept asking questions until
several of the jurors visibly began to tire of the topic. At that point, almost the end of the day, he was ready to turn his
witness over to the defense.

Dana, dressed in soft gray, stood up. “I realize the hour is late, but if you’ll bear with me, I have just a few questions,”
she said pleasantly, as much to the jury as to the witness. “Now, Mr. Metzger, you said earlier, did you not, that someone
trained in
military weaponry would be qualified to produce the kind of aspirin bomb that blew up Hill House?”

“Yes, I said that.”

“Did you mean to imply that producing an aspirin bomb would
require
that level of expertise?”

“No, I didn’t,” the FBI agent replied.

“Who else then?”

“Well, I guess anyone with a basic knowledge of high school chemistry would probably be qualified.”

“But how would the average high school chemist learn to make such a bomb?”

“Unfortunately, it’s a lot easier than you think,” the FBI agent said. “Aside from books and pamphlets that are available
through the mail, just for the asking, you can get instructions for making a variety of bombs right off the Internet.”

“No special expertise necessary?”

“No.”

“No military weaponry training required?”

“No.”

“Just anyone with the intent, and access to the Internet?”

“Yes.”

Dana nodded thoughtfully. “All right now, let’s turn to the duffel bag fibers,” she went on smoothly. “You say they came from
a standard military issue duffel bag, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“How did you determine that?”

“We compared the fibers to a number of fabrics until we found a match.”

“And the duffel bag that matched, the standard military issue one you identified, where did you get the sample to verify your
test?”

“I guess it came from a surplus store.”

“You mean, you didn’t have to go to the military?”

“No.”

“You didn’t have to borrow a bag from someone currently serving in the armed forces?”

“No.”

“Someone in your department simply went to a retail surplus store, like the one right down on First Avenue, and bought it?
Just like anyone else could?”

“I guess so.”

“I see,” Dana said.

A rustle fluttered through the Hill House section.

“I guess maybe it isn’t going to be as easy as I thought,” Helen Gamble murmured.

“All right then, Mr. Metzger,” Dana concluded, “to summarize your testimony: You collected a quantity of residual material
from the bomb site, which you then put through an extensive and intensive examination, calling in all the best minds in the
FBI to consult with you. Is that correct?”

“Pretty much.”

“Then please tell us, other than requiring a rudimentary knowledge of chemistry and the computer, did anything in this exhaustive
analysis tell you, with any degree of certainty, anything definitive about the person who made the bomb?”

The expert blinked. “No,” he replied.

“Thank you, sir,” Dana said. “No further questions.”

A whole day, Allison Ackerman thought, as she made her way home to Maple Valley. A whole day getting a cram course on how
to make a bomb, only to find the expert couldn’t tie the damn thing to the defendant. And Dana McAuliffe knew he couldn’t.
Allison chuckled to herself. She was smart, that one. And cool, too. There was no way she was going to argue that a bomb hadn’t
destroyed Hill House. All she could do was try to separate the bomb from her client.

So, what had the day been all about? Laying the groundwork for future testimony, she decided, putting the best possible
spin on it. But she couldn’t help feeling a pang of resentment. It wasn’t that her time had been wasted, exactly, but it had
certainly been a letdown.

To Joan Wills, the one thing that set Dana McAuliffe head and shoulders above the rest was that she never forgot she was a
woman, and she never let anyone else forget it, either. As a female who had made the grade in a traditionally male-dominated
arena, she had perfected a combination of softness and directness that gave her the advantage of a one-two punch on an unsuspecting
opponent. It also didn’t hurt that she was a lot smarter than most of the men in the business.

“You nailed the FBI guy,” Joan said exultantly as they sat around Dana’s office after court.

“Not really,” Dana responded. “He was neutral. He was just testifying to the results of his investigation. All I did was let
the jury know that those results didn’t have to point only in the direction the prosecution wanted them to.”

“And you did it so agreeably.”

Dana shrugged. “There’s rarely any need to get nasty with a witness. And as my mother used to tell me, honey almost always
gets you more than vinegar.”

“You’d think some of the guys would figure that out.”

“Well, let’s not tell them,” Dana said with a chuckle. “We need all the advantage we can get.”

“She undercut us pretty good, don’t you think?” Mark Hoffman observed.

“Not at all,” Brian assured him. “We’re not in there trying to say each and every piece of evidence has only one interpretation.
We’re just going to pile up enough pieces of evidence to convince the jury that there’s only one reasonable interpretation.”

“You have to admit, though, she’s smooth.”

Brian smiled. “Yep. I’ll give her that. But being smooth isn’t always the same as being right.”

“I thought things went well today,” Elise Latham ventured to tell her husband during visiting hours. “Ms. McAuliffe certainly
made mincemeat out of that FBI guy’s testimony, anyway.”

“I hope so,” Corey replied. “It’s hard to tell about the jury, though. I watch them sit there and listen, but I can’t tell
what they’re thinking. They don’t give up very much.”

Elise stole a quick glance at her watch. “Look, your folks are downstairs, waiting to see you,” she said. “So, I’m going to
cut my visit short, and let them have the rest of the time. But I’ll see you tomorrow in court, okay?”

Without waiting for an answer, she blew him a kiss through the Plexiglas wall and made her exit. Leaving the jail, she walked
quickly up James Street and turned left at Sixth Avenue. A black BMW was parked halfway down the block. After looking around
to make sure that no one was following her, she slipped into the front seat. Immediately, the big car gunned its engine and
pulled away from the curb.

“I’m afraid you’re famous again,” Sam McAuliffe informed his wife when she got home.

“What did I do this time?” Dana asked.

“You made the cover of
Newsweek
,” he replied.

“Newsweek?”
She was plainly incredulous. “What on earth for?”

“I guess they seem to think you’re newsworthy.”

She wagged her head. “I’m just doing my job,” she said with a sigh. “If it’s newsworthy that somebody’s doing her job, this
world is in a sad state.”

“Don’t you even want to know what they said about you?”

“Is it libelous?” she asked.

“I don’t think so,” Sam replied.

“Then I don’t care what they said.”

“They said you were an enigma,” he told her anyway. “A gifted mystery woman keeping to the shadows.”

“I can’t say much for their reporting ability,” she observed. “I’m hardly in the shadows.”

“They said, even in the direct glare of the spotlight, you seemed to be in the shadows. And they wondered why.”

“If they ask you,” Dana said, dismissing the implication with a chuckle, “you can tell them it’s because I’m shy. “

N
ext on the stand for the prosecution was the head of the King County bomb squad, a lean and weathered man, somewhere in his
forties, named Henderson. And after greeting the jury in the same friendly fashion as the day before, Brian turned to his
witness.

“Will you please tell the court when you arrived on the scene?” Brian asked.

“My unit was called to Hill House at four o’clock in the afternoon,” Henderson replied. “Approximately two hours after the
explosion.”

“And what did you find?”

“We found a mess,” the man said. “By the time we got there, the fire was almost under control and many of the bodies had been
removed, but the place was just one giant hazard. Beams hanging, parts of the second floor suspended in midair, pieces of
heavy equipment teetering. Everything was soaked, and every few minutes something would give way and the whole place would
start to shift. It was very dangerous and very slow going.”