Degree of Guilt (47 page)

Paget hesitated. Shelton had just hurt him; lulled by her air of candor, he had forgotten how good she was. He struggled to find another question before he looked too rattled. ‘But you don’t know,’ he managed, ‘whether Mr Ransom was grasping the gun itself or Ms Carelli’s wrists.’

‘No.’

‘Nor do you know the position of his hands at the instant that the gun went off.’

‘No.’

It was, Paget thought, the best he could do. ‘Let us move,’ he continued, ‘to other points of your direct testimony. You testified, did you not, that Ms Carelli seemed lucid at the time that you first spoke to her.’

‘Yes.’

‘But you weren’t present when Mr Ransom died.’

‘No. Of course not.’

‘Then you have
no
understanding as to whether, from the moment of death until she called 911, Ms Carelli was in shock. Or at least, as you put it, disoriented.’

‘No.’

‘So that, in contrast to Ms Sharpe’s hypothetical scenario, in which Ms Carelli spent that time in a state of hyperactivity, creating evidence and mutilating corpses, it is entirely possible that Ms Carelli was seized by torpor and confusion.’

‘Objection’, Sharpe cut in. ‘Mischaracterizes the prior testimony.’

Masters gave her a quizzical look. ‘Does it? If so, not by much. Overruled.’

‘That is
possible
, yes.’ Shelton’s voice became firm. ‘My answer to Ms Sharpe’s question was based on anomalies in the physical evidence. Anomalies which did not support Ms Carelli’s account of events between the time of Mr Ransom’s death and the call to 911.’

‘Speaking of which,’ Paget said, ‘have you ever heard the 911 tape of Ms Carelli’s call?’

Slowly, Shelton shook her head. ‘No. I have not.’

Paget turned to Masters. ‘Your Honor, the prosecution has already stipulated to the admissibility of that tape. I would ask leave of the court to play it for Dr Shelton.’

‘For what purpose?’ Sharpe interjected. ‘Everyone acknowledges that Ms Carelli placed the call and, moreover, that the call was
not
to Dr Shelton. I don’t know what you could possibly ask her about.’

‘It’s simple,’ Paget responded. ‘Dr Shelton has testified to Ms Carelli’s lucidity at the time of her arrival, based partly on her tone of voice and the content of her speech. I’d like her to compare her impressions of Ms Carelli
then
to Ms Carelli’s earlier call to 911.’

‘I object,’ Sharpe answered. ‘We have not attempted to qualify Dr Shelton as a voice interpreter. Or, for that matter, as a mentalist. Her earlier testimony was based on a doctor’s physical impression of a woman sitting right in front of her.’

‘That’s true,’ Masters answered, ‘but you also attempted to use Dr Shelton’s impressions, at least by implication, to cover Ms Carelli’s mental state for a good half day. I’m going to allow the tape to be played.’

When Paget turned, Terri already had the tape recorder on the table in front of him. She smiled with her eyes: this line of questioning had been her suggestion. Beside her, Mary stared at the tape machine with a somewhat haunted look; Paget could not tell if this was because she did not wish to relive the moment of her call or was thinking of another tape, which she hoped never to see.

Terri switched on the tape recorder. As it spun, Paget suddenly saw Carlo, listening intently for the sound of his mother’s voice.

The courtroom was silent.

‘San Francisco Emergency,’ the male voice called out.

No one answered. The voice snapped again, ‘San Francisco Emergency.’

There was yet more silence. Then, quite softly, Mary said, ‘There’s been an accident.’

In the courtroom, her tone was thin, uncertain. It was as if she were repeating a dream she vaguely remembered, to someone she did not know.

‘What happened?’ the man asked.

‘There’s been an accident,’ she repeated. Her voice was weary; its tone said that her explanation was perfectly adequate and that he should listen more closely.

Listening, Caroline Masters narrowed her eyes, as if at some subtle alteration in her perception. The expression on Shelton’s face was one of deep concentration.

On the tape, the man became more patient. ‘What kind of accident?’ he asked.

There was a long pause. In a tone of disbelief, Mary said, ‘A gun went off.’

Paget turned to Mary. Staring down at the table, she slowly shook her head. To Paget, the gesture bespoke a tragic wonderment, the helpless desire to reach back in time, change what had happened.

‘Someone’s been shot?’

‘Yes.’ The voice quavered. ‘I think he’s dead.’

‘Where are you?’ he demanded.

‘The Hotel Flood.’ There was a long pause. Then, in a tone of mystified apology, Mary said, ‘I can’t remember the room.’

‘Who is this?’

‘Wait,’ Mary interjected. ‘It’s registered to Mark Ransom. A suite.’

The last words held an odd note of relief, as if Mary had been frightened by a loss of memory.

‘Who is this?’ the voice demanded.

‘Just come,’ Mary answered shrilly, and hung up.

When Paget gazed at Mary again, she had turned to Shelton with tears in her eyes. Shelton had lost color.

The audience was silent. A few shifted in their seats, some looked away. Paget was reminded of the eerie feeling he had once had, listening to the taped words of a flight crew in the moments before their airplane crashed.

Softly, he asked Shelton, ‘Does that sound like the woman you remember?’

Shelton gazed up. There was no good answer to the question; Mary’s voice on the tape sounded shaky enough that to answer ‘yes’ would make Shelton seem unfeeling. ‘No,’ Shelton said at last. ‘In person, she sounded somewhat different.’

‘How so?’

‘When I saw her, she seemed to think slowly but to be in control.’ She paused. ‘The voice on the tape sounds more
distant
, I suppose. More overwhelmed.’

‘And the woman on the tape,’ Paget said, ‘was also much closer to the events the prosecution faults her for not remembering quite as well as it would like.’

‘Objection,’ Sharpe called out. ‘This time
I
don’t hear a question.’

‘There was none,’ Caroline Masters said. ‘Do find a question, Mr Paget. A proper one.’

‘Surely.’ Paget turned to Shelton again. ‘So you would concede,’ he pursued, ‘that her tone of voice in speaking to you does not mean that trauma didn’t affect her behavior that evening – either alone with Mr Ransom’s body or answering questions from Inspector Monk?’

‘I would concede that, for what it is worth.’ She gave Mary a cool, quiet gaze. ‘As Ms Sharpe pointed out, I’m not a mentalist.’

‘Then we’ll return to the physical evidence – which, I believe you testified, contained “anomalies.”’

‘Yes.’

‘And one of these anomalies was that, unlike Ms Carelli, your test turned up no skin samples under Mr Ransom’s fingernails?’

‘Yes.’

Paget looked puzzled. ‘Did Mr Ransom have long fingernails?’

Shelton paused. ‘No. Not at all.’

‘But Ms Carelli did.’

‘Yes. In fact, she’d broken one.’

Page paused. ‘Isn’t it easier to retrieve skin samples from someone with long fingernails?’

Shelton nodded. ‘Easier, yes. But it’s common to do so with fingernails of ordinary length, from a man.’

‘Were Mr Ransom’s nails of “ordinary length”?’

Shelton hesitated. ‘They were a bit shorter, I think. It appeared that he’d just clipped them.’

‘Might that affect the test?’

‘It might, Mr Paget. But if you take this line too far, one is left to wonder
how
Mr Ransom managed to scratch Ms Carelli.’

There was a murmur in the courtroom; with one thrust, Shelton had stopped Paget’s momentum and refocused attention on the prosecution’s case. Stunned, Paget tried to summon a weary look, as if he had expected this. ‘It is nonetheless true,’ he said, ‘that your test doesn’t always work.’

‘Yes. That’s true.’

‘So that Mark Ransom could have scratched Mary Carelli and yet not collected enough skin beneath his nails to show up on his test.’

‘That’s possible, yes.’ Shelton paused for emphasis. ‘But in the majority of cases, that test works. At least for scratches as deep as Ms Carelli’s.’

Shelton had begun to fight him, Paget realized: partly out of professional pride and partly, he suspected, because whatever Shelton’s doubt about the evidence, her experience told her that too much was wrong with Mary’s story. He tried to search for a lower key. ‘One of the areas I found most troublesome,’ he said, ‘was that regarding Ms Carelli’s panty hose. I’d like to ask a few questions and see whether there might not be some other way to look at it.’

Shelton gave a small shrug. ‘All right.’

‘You testified that you found nylon fibers, of the kind appearing in Ms Carelli’s panty hose, under
her
nails but not under Mr Ransom’s, is that correct?’

‘Yes.’

‘And in part, it was based on that conclusion that you agreed with Ms Sharpe that Ms Carelli might have fabricated evidence.’

‘In part, yes.’

Paget paused. ‘I don’t know precisely how to broach this, Dr Shelton, but putting on panty hose involves considerable effort, does it not?’

Shelton gave him a long, speculative gaze, which culminated in a slight change in her eyes. ‘It can,’ she said.

Paget nodded. ‘And in the course of that effort, it’s a common thing for panty hose to rip.’

Paget felt Masters’s expression hover between interest and amusement, and then decide on interest. Shelton’s eyes narrowed slightly. ‘Yes,’ she said with an expert’s gravity, ‘panty hose commonly rip.’ She paused. ‘At least in my observation.’

‘So that in the normal act of putting on panty hose, as Ms Carelli did that morning, it would be possible to rip them.’

‘Yes. Of course.’

‘And it would also be possible, in the normal course of putting on panty hose, for Ms Carelli to get fibers of nylon under her fingernails.’

Shelton watched him. ‘Yes.’

‘Common, even?’

She hesitated. ‘I suppose not uncommon.’

Turning, Paget nodded to Terri, whose questions these were. Then he looked out at the media people, crowding the benches between the cameras and behind the dock of the court. Perhaps half, as he already knew, were women; most wore skirts or dresses. ‘I wonder, Dr Shelton, if you could cast an eye with me on the representatives of the media.’

‘Objection.’ Sharpe stood. ‘I don’t know what diversion Mr Paget intends, but we’ve moved far afield from the evidence surrounding Ms Carelli’s shooting of Mark Ransom.’

‘You really don’t know what Mr Paget intends, Ms Sharpe?’ Masters paused, eyes sweeping the press. ‘
I
know, and I’m curious about the answer. If only because this is yet another indignity to which women are subjected.’

Sharpe flushed. ‘I don’t find much amusement here, Your Honor.’

‘Nor do I, Counsel. And as I understand Mr Paget’s underlying point, it’s very serious indeed.’

‘Thank you, Your Honor.’ Paget turned back to Shelton. ‘Taking a rough count of the press, I’d guess that around fifty or so are women. Would you agree?’

‘I haven’t counted. Sitting here, I see a number.’

Paget nodded. ‘And what percentage of those women reporters,’ he asked softly, ‘would have nylon fibers under their nails if you subjected them to the same test that you administered to Ms Carelli?’

Paget watched the faces in front of him focus on Elizabeth Shelton; beneath the particulars of the question, Paget sensed the press absorbing its subliminal impact – the instinctive fear of being falsely accused. ‘I have no idea what percentage,’ Shelton answered.

‘But certainly some.’

‘In all probability. At least a few.’

‘None of whom, we can assume, murdered anyone on the way to the courthouse.’

Shelton looked out at the faces as if searching for suspects. Without smiling, she answered, ‘I assume not.’

‘Thank you. Having eliminated the media as suspects, I’d like to return to Ms Carelli. You’ve already agreed that she could have gotten nylon fibers under her nails simply by putting on her panty hose.’ His voice softened. ‘But it is also possible, is it not, that Ms Carelli could have grasped the panty hose in an effort to stop Mark Ransom from pulling them off.’

For a long time, Shelton simply stared at him. ‘Yes,’ she said finally. ‘That’s also possible.’

‘And these various possibilities tend to undercut Ms Sharpe’s hypothesis that Ms Carelli manufactured evidence.’

Shelton looked pensive. ‘They
cast doubt
,’ she corrected, ‘on one element of that hypothesis. But in addition to the absence of skin under Mr Ransom’s nails, we do also have the absence of semen and the apparent infliction of postmortem scratches on Mr Ransom’s buttocks.’

Paget nodded. ‘Let’s take the semen first. That test is hardly foolproof, is it?’

‘No test is. But in the vast majority of cases, erections cause secretions well before ejaculation.’

‘But not in all cases.’

‘No.’

‘And even in cases where there
may
have been secretions, your test is not one hundred percent?’

‘No.’ Shelton sat straighter, a note of professional challenge entering her voice. ‘But you may have noticed, Mr Paget, that your questions presume an unusual confluence of test failures. I believe that our tests are better than that and, for that matter, that
we
are.’

Paget paused. He was coming to the most delicate part of his examination; he could not afford to antagonize Dr Shelton. ‘I was not suggesting,’ he said easily, ‘that you and your office are not highly professional. Merely that your office handles the cases you are given and that this particular prosecution case is highly circumstantial.’

Sharpe rose again. ‘Mr Paget complained about speeches. I’d like to register my own complaint. Particularly when Mr Paget’s only purpose is to attack the prosecution.’