Legal Thriller: Michael Gresham: Secrets Girls Keep: A Courtroom Drama (Michael Gresham Legal Thriller Series Book 2) (15 page)

P
riscilla has agreed
to stay on until after the trial. At least one issue had a solution. As for
State vs. Jana S. Emerich
, I'm still searching.

Jana came to me a day after the Priscilla incursion. He was contrite and maybe embarrassed, but determined. Determined that I allow him to use another attorney and for me to "get off his case." I said that would be fine, but he would need to speak to his father first. “Why?" he wanted to know. “Because,” I told him, “you don't have the money to hire another attorney.” I stop short of telling him that I haven't been paid for his defense, that I'm defending him because of my love for Father Bjorn. He was confused, by the time he left, saying he will go see his dad. Which he did. Father Bjorn called me and begged me to stay on, which wasn't necessary. I wasn't planning on going anyplace anyway. So, here we are, Jana and I, a team consisting of a less-than-thrilled attorney and a distant, withdrawn client. A team in name only.

Father Bjorn and Danny arrive at court early and commandeer two front seats in the gallery. He looks pallid and sleep-deprived. Danny and I have discussed what a terrible toll this whole thing is taking on our friend. He calls frequently, sometimes just to ramble and express his regrets and seek reassurances that everything is being done for his son that can be done. Danny and I take turns assuaging him, though we would need ten more clones to fashion the show of force his doubts really crave. Like the priesthood, one dedicated actor can make a huge difference in the practice of law. While the one is designed to save souls, the other is designed to save corporeal beings. How very different they are not. And so I understand his angst over the unconfessed sins of his congregants; I have the same worries about the young man I am defending and his apparent lack of remorse. We are brothers, Father Bjorn and I, far more than we are priest and penitent.

W
e have been selecting
a jury for three days now. We have twelve jurors in the box and we are exercising peremptories and challenging for cause until we, like the armies of the Spartans and Trojans, lay exhausted upon our shields and our swords and accept the inevitable when our objections have all been spent.

The State's Attorney has just used his final challenge. The departed juror was a middle aged mother of three boys who had all been arrested for underage drinking. The eldest had served a week in juvie, which still rankled the mother and skewed her vote to favor the defendant. And so at last we have left ourselves with spice-free, tasteless vanilla. A jury of peers without important opinions, that have no relations in law enforcement, have never been arrested, have never been the victim of a crime, have never committed one, and weren't smart enough to come up with some bias or ailment that would have sent them home to watch
Bonanza
reruns and play hooky from work. The American jury system at its very best. And when they screw up the verdict in the case, which they too often do, the appellate courts will hold sacrosanct what that tribe of twelve in the court below has done because, after all and thank God, they were the almighty, all-knowing, all-wise and judicious jury. Their findings will go untouched. Only the law itself will be questioned. In that regard, the law will have on its side only law-school-trained advocates who will use every skill and cunning to pervert it.
That
is the American judicial system which I have come to know and fear.

But maybe I overstate. And maybe not.

So we are ready to begin.

Media comes bursting into the courtroom once the jury is sworn and seated. They were not allowed to broadcast jury selection, for anonymity purposes. This is Mayor Tanenbaum's daughter we'll be talking about. Judge Lancer-Burgess has allowed one TV camera inside. The jury cannot be shown. Court TV and WGN will receive and broadcast the feed. The news channels will get their soundbites as well from the feed. I recognize a few of the reporters from other cases and other days. They know better than to approach me when I'm at counsel table and so it is a safe zone where the attorneys and defendant and police and court personnel work on the north side of the bar.

Giving the first opening statement is Assistant State's Attorney Trey Dickinson, who now finds himself surrounded by two junior attorneys who will review his every strategy and will catch him should he fall. Mr. Dickinson begins with a diatribe against crime generally, then, knowing he must offer more statement and less argument, switches gears to cover the case the jury will actually hear. He talks about Amy Tanenbaum and her place at Wendover High, the leader of the spirit squad, the freshman class vice-president, a student who aspired to be a pediatric surgeon and her commitment to all the science and math classes the school had to offer her. She was a mild-mannered girl, Dickinson tells the jury, a girl less willing to speak out in a group setting and more apt to share in a one-on-one basis. She was active in her synagogue's
Rosh Hodesh: It's A Girl Thing!
for teen girls. Why anyone would choose to murder this particular angel (Dickinson's words) was beyond imagination and he promised the jury that they would soon fall in love with her too as they learned more about her.

Dickinson describes the finding of the dead girl's body by groundskeepers--filthy and thinly flaked with dirty ice by morning. He describes the detectives and CSI and gives thanks for their efforts and their handling of the corpse; he describes the terrible task faced by the medical examiner who, upon opening Amy's mouth made a horrifying discovery; and he talks about the importance of the ISP crime lab, its efforts and findings.

On the other side of the street, as Dickinson tells our jury, lurks the devil himself in Jana Emerich. The defendant is the embodiment of evil, a pot-smoking, devil-worshipping transplant from California. He murdered our Amy with a coiled guitar string and then besmirched her dead body with a live rodent glued inside her mouth. The jury visibly recoils at this disclosure. Several turn away and close their eyes. Dickinson walks up to our table and points at Jana. He tells them that the killer is a monster with homicidal tendencies and a dysfunctional family life. I actually glimpse the jury looking over at Jana--sitting beside me and working up a pen-and-ink rendering of the judge on a legal pad I’ve provided to him for notes. Their look is one of distaste, at first, trailing off into various degrees of fear and loathing by the time Dickinson takes his seat and smolders under his terrible burden of grabbing justice by the neck and wringing it into submission for Amy.

Dickinson's words have sucked all sound out of the room by the time I take my feet and offer my own opening statement on behalf of Jana. But how, really, do you unring the bell that has just been rung? By telling the jury that the police arrested the wrong man? That the virtuoso work of the crime lab might prove certain facts but that it fails to create the bridge between the dead girl and Jana that is needed to convict?

I decide to begin slowly and keep it low key. I don't have facts to argue except that the cops have nailed the wrong person and that a large number of people keep snakes and mice and that Jana shouldn't be convicted on that weak tie-in alone. Then I shift into second gear as I realize that, as overwhelming as Dickinson's presentation has been, the only physical evidence tending to incriminate my client is the mouse hair and the Superglue batch number and the muffler. But how many tubes of that Superglue have been sold in Chicago, I wonder aloud for them. Surely not just one tube out of the thousands the batch produced and distributed.

Then, shifting into high gear, I begin the refrain that I will come to over and over during this trial, the refrain that argues a jury cannot convict on circumstantial evidence alone. Not in a first degree murder case where so much is at stake. Then it's into overdrive as I hammer home the duty upon the State's Attorney to convict not with circumstantial evidence but with evidence that proves beyond a reasonable doubt that Jana killed Amy.

When I take my seat, I have made circumstantial evidence into a dishonest tool of prosecutors who know they don't have a real case. And that's how I leave it with them, hopefully wanting and demanding more than what they have been told thus far.

When I was speaking, maybe half of the jury made eye contact with me. And only one--maybe two--indicated any kind of buy-in to my view of the case. That would be a woman who grabbed the last chair in the jury box even though she had a son who was cited for possession of marijuana. The state couldn't rid itself of her and I wanted her. She nods imperceptibly as I mention abuse of power by police agencies generally and continues to nod after I mention abuse of power by the Chicago Police Department in particular.

Largely, my presentation is ineffective and wins no converts. As I sit down, I wonder whether my client wouldn't be better off if I had just waived opening statement until it was my turn to present his defense.

The judge takes the morning break. We refill water glasses and Danny comes forward and clasps me on the shoulder. She squeezes, letting me know she's there for me. Jana sits, head down, adding shadow to the judge's inky features. So this is it, I think. This is my defense team: a lawyer (me) who probably just came across as slightly befuddled and bewildered, joined at the hip to a teenage boy who refuses to look at the jury despite my admonitions to him to do so early when any of them want to make eye contact with him. But now his fledgling art skills are working into a full-time experience for him, an experience to replace the reality of sitting in on his own first degree murder case. Perish the thought that he should actually help his attorney out. But I am feeling sorry for myself and I haven't even cringed and dissolved emotionally yet as I will when the jury speaks as one: WE FIND THE DEFENDANT GUILTY. So I put on my big boy pants and resolve that I will come out swinging when it is my turn to cross-examine the State's first witness. And its second, third, and so forth, until I am convinced I have done all anyone could do to defeat their testimony and exhibits.

"How are you feeling?" Danny asks me with another squeeze of the shoulder.

"Am I looking that bad?" I reply.

"You look peaked."

"Wouldn't surprise me. It's the mouse and the glue. Who would've thought?"

"Hey, man, lots of my friends have snakes," Jana says without looking up. "And probably every house has a tube of Superglue somewhere in some drawer."

"Hey, we covered this before. I asked you if any of your friends keep snakes."

"No, you didn't. You asked whether I had any friends who raised snakes. I don't."

"Who else among your friends keeps a snake?" I ask half-exasperated. I didn't realize he was such a hair-splitter.

"For one, that fucking Rudy Gomez."

"He's a suspect in the Franny Arlington case," Danny says.

"Has Rudy ever seen your snake?"

"Sure. Lots of times."

"When?"

"He brings his snake over after school. We let it fight with Leonard. It's gnarly watching them go at it. But we don't let them actually hurt each other."

On my feet now, I'm beginning to see the reasonable doubt that all criminal cases have.

"He comes to your house? Has he ever taken one of your mice with him when he leaves?"

"Sure. We trade mice when we run out. Sometimes I give him three pinkies, sometimes he gives me three pinkies."

"Pinkies?"asks Danny.

"You know. The little ones. Just born."

"Do they have hair?"

"Some. Not much."

"But some."

"Yes."

He drops his head back to his pen and ink, and Danny and I look at each other for a long moment.

"Well?" she says to me with a shrug.

"I've got nothing better," I tell her.

"It gives you something, for God's sake."

"But there's still the glue."

"Ask Rudy if he uses Superglue," she says and smiles slyly.

"Come on. This is damn serious."

She shakes her head. "I know. I'm sorry. But there is the batch effect. Chicago probably distributed thousands of tubes out of the same batch."

"Get Marcel working that up."

"He already is. He's out in the hall making calls to the manufacturer and distributor. We'll have answers for you by the noon break."

"Bless you two. Thanks, Danny."

"Eat 'em alive," she says and gives me a caress on my cheek before turning and resuming her seat in the gallery. Danny isn't second-chairing the trial with me because she has other duties, other hearings on her calendar. You can't have attorneys coming and going in a trial; it's unsettling to the jury, which always wants consistency. That's why real trial lawyers never cut their hair or style it during a trial. It can distract a jury from the important stuff.

Any little thing can.

J
udge Lancer-Burgess
calls us to order.

Edward Ngo is called by SA Dickinson as the State's first witness. Ordinarily the State wants to set the scene at the beginning. It wants to give the jury the twenty-thousand-foot view. Ngo will be perfect for that. As he goes through his name, age, business address, and employment he comes across as sincere, well-spoken, and a man who doesn't tend toward embellishment, even when asked about the studies and exams he underwent in order to earn his detective's shield. Normally, police officials love to add merit badges to their history at such times, but Ngo doesn't.

"After you received your detective's shield, what was your assignment?"

"Burglary. Four years working residential burglaries."

"Are there also commercial burglaries?"

"Yes, but at the time our bureau handed those off to a team that specialized in commercial."

"And from Burglary, where next?"

Dickinson is standing at the lectern, his right leg balanced behind him on the toe of his shoe, as he lays down the man's history and credentials. He is rock solid, veering neither right nor left, adding pebble after pebble to the case he hopes to build into a monument that convicts Jana Emerich.

"After Burglary, I was promoted to Robbery-Homicide."

"In what capacity?"

"Detective, night shift at first."

"Did you go out on robbery calls?"

"Hundreds."

"On homicides?"

"Hundreds too."

"What do you do when you go on a homicide call in your present position?"

"Assess the scene. Decide what workups I want. Examine the victim or victims. Make a preliminary determination of cause of death. Instruct the CSI to obtain cameras, videos, trace and transfer, fiber and hair, blood and fluids, DNA, and fingerprints. Plus I'll direct a ballistics crew when there's been a shooting. They'll dig slugs out of walls, locate and photograph spent bullet casings, take control of any weapons at the scene--those sorts of things."

"Tell us about the Amy Tanenbaum case. How did you become involved?"

"Rotation assignment. It was my turn. My partner and I rolled out to the scene and took command."

"Who was your partner?"

"Andy Valencia. He was my same grade."

"Who drove to the scene?"

"Andy. I handled the radio."

"Did you run code three? Lights and siren?"

"No. No need. The uniforms had control at the scene. Nothing would be touched before we got there."

"Tell us where and when you arrived."

"We arrived at the Wendover High School football field at nine-thirty-two a.m. It was Friday morning."

"What did you do first?"

"We parked, badged the uniforms, and took over the scene. The crime scene was underneath the bleachers at Wendover Field at Wendover High School. The uniforms had already strung crime scene tape all around and we didn't cross it beneath the bleachers. Unlike what you see on TV where the detective walks up to the body and turns it to see better, we don't do that. We take pictures and measurements first."

"Why is that?"

"Less risk of contamination. Your CSI's can locate the tiniest bits of evidence, including hairs and fibers and who knows what as long as the scene is virgin."

"Did you and Andy have a name for that?"

"Yes. Entering a scene, we pop its cherry when we duck inside the tape. Not a pretty expression."

"But we get the idea," says Dickinson. “Where was the body located?"

"About thirty-five feet underneath the bleachers. She was lying face-up, her head toward the west and her feet almost due east. She was fully clothed except no panties, lying on top of her right arm and her left arm flung out to the left. One eye was partway open; the other eye was closed. There was a ring of blood around her throat as far to the rear as we could make out without moving her. She was very obviously dead."

"Had another officer made that determination?"

"Yes, the first-on-scene officer had checked her wrist pulse. He didn't touch her carotid because of the injury to her throat. Didn't want to disturb any latents."

"Latents?"

"Sorry. Fingerprints. He didn't want to smudge any fingerprints she might have on her neck where she was garroted."

"By the way, have you ever located the item used to choke her?"

“We have not.”

“What did you do after observing Amy's body?"

"Made CSI assignments. I told them I wanted the entire scene vacuumed."

"You actually vacuum the ground?"

"We do. That's something else you don't see on TV. Then we check the bag for hair and fiber. Those things can be very revealing."

"Did you find any hair or fiber?"

"Not on the ground."

"On her body?"

"In her mouth. There was mouse hair in her mouth."

The jury recoils. Hands tighten on purses, pens pause from note-taking, several people in the front row cross their arms on their chests. It isn't pleasant to see. It's having a huge, negative impact and I hate that. Still, I'm powerless to do anything about it. It is what it is.

"Tell us about that."

"The killer left a mouse in her mouth. It tried to gnaw its way out did serious damage to her cheek, then died."

A hand immediately shoots up from the jury box and juror number eight rushes toward the restroom door without seeking the court's permission. Next to me I can feel Jana stiffen and inhale sharply when the mouse details come out. He stops doing his art. Judge Lancer-Burgess takes a ten-minute recess. The other jurors file out of the courtroom. They are clearly in shock.

Once the judge disappears through her door in the wall, the courtroom erupts in pandemonium. This is the mayor's blessed daughter we're discussing here. Phones are produced and frantic calls made to media outlets and offices. Voices are raised: "Yes, a mouse in her mouth! Yes, you heard me right!"

A
fter another dozen
questions about the scene and tasks undertaken, State's Attorney Dickinson begins asking questions about Jana.

"Did you have a chance to interview the defendant?"

"We asked some questions and he gave some answers."

"Was he under arrest when this happened?”

“No. We were down at the station, but there was no arrest. We were just investigating."

"Investigating what?"

"Actually, we were investigating the murder of Franny Arlington. This investigation happened several weeks after Amy was killed."

"Was Jana Emerich a suspect?"

"Objection!" I cry and leap to my feet. "Relevance."

"Sustained. Counsel, you know better."

"Was Jana Emerich a person of interest?"

"Same objection!" I shout. "This is purposeful and grounds for reversal, Your Honor."

"Counsel," the judge says to Dickinson, "let's move it along. Ask something else."

"Why was Jana Emerich at the police station?"

"Because he had said something to the football security people. He was taken by the uniforms to the station and that's where we asked him a few questions."

"What did you ask him?"

“We asked about mice, for openers. Whether he had any mice.”

“What did he say?”

"All he would say is he wanted to see his lawyer."

"Did you then cease asking questions?"

"Yes. We took him with us to identify another person of interest."

"In the Franny Arlington case? Not this case?"

"Correct. It had nothing to do with Amy Tanenbaum."

"Very well, I think that's all for right now, Your Honor."

"Counsel? You may cross-examine."

I stand and step up to the lectern. Laying my yellow pad on its surface, I immediately ask, "Detective Ngo, isn't it true you know of no evidence linking my client to the death of Amy Tanenbaum?"

"No, that's not true."

"Well, tell the jury what links you know about, please."

"Mouse hair. Mouse hair in her mouth that matched mouse hair taken from your client's mouse cage."

I decide to open the Franny Arlington case; it has already been referenced and I might as well clear the air.

"Could that mouse hair also have come from Rudy Gomez's mouse cage?"

The detective shoots a look at the State's Attorney. Knowing he is being watched by the jury, the SA makes no move to suggest an answer.

"Without looking at the State's Attorney, please answer my question."

"Would you repeat it?"

"I asked whether the mouse hair removed from Amy's mouth might also have matched mouse hair at Rudy Gomez's house."

"I don't know."

"Did you investigate that possibility?"

"Yes. We searched Mr. Gomez's house."

"Why did you do that?"

"He admitted being present when Franny Arlington hit her head and died."

"Did he admit killing her?"

"Killing her? No, you couldn't say that."

"What could you say?"

"He was there when she fell and struck her head."

"Did he cause her to fall?"

"He says not. He says she tripped and fell."

"Do you believe he killed her?"

"We have a working hypothesis. We always do."

"Which is what?"

"That he was with her under the bleachers and he killed her by pushing her against the bleacher metal. She hit her head and died. We also believe he held a knife to her throat."

So we’re getting the mouse hair at Rudy’s into evidence and we’re learning Jana had nothing to do with Franny’s death. To top it off, we have another student who might have killed a classmate. If he did, then he might also have killed Amy. This is a good first witness for the defense and the questions and answers have definitely not been what the State’s Attorney expected, at least not on cross.

"Why do you believe he held a knife?"

"We seized a knife when we frisked him. We had it tested. Franny's blood was found along its blade."

"Detective Ngo, I want to suggest another hypothesis to you. What if you worked up the Amy Tanenbaum case from the same starting point as the Franny Arlington case? What if you went in with the idea that Rudy Gomez killed them both? After all, he admitted the second, so why not the first too?"

"I don't know. Because your client's muffler was found near Amy's body."

"Speaking of which, the muffler proves what, exactly?"

"That it was near her body. He might have been under the stands with her."

"He might just have easily have lost his muffler when it fell through the bleachers, correct?"

"Correct."

"Did Jana Emerich ever admit killing Amy Tanenbaum?"

"No."

"But Rudy Gomez admitted being with Franny Arlington when she died beneath the same bleachers as Amy?"

"Yes."

"Do you see a pattern there?"

"I knew you would see one. That's your job."

"What about you? Do you see a pattern?"

"Maybe. Maybe not."

"Well, doesn't it seem supremely coincidental that two high school boys would suddenly go off on killing sprees in the same month of football season?"

"I don't know."

"I mean, what are the odds of that happening?"

"I don't know."

"Have you ever known it to happen before?"

"No."

"And how long have you been a cop?"

"Fifteen years, give or take."

"And during those fifteen years you've never seen two murders in close proximity at the exact same location like we have here by two different assailants?"

"No. But that doesn't mean it didn't happen. It could be a conspiracy.”

"But you have no proof, correct?"

He draws a deep breath.

"We have the muffler, the mouse hair, and the Superglue that sealed her mouth.”

"Would it surprise you to hear that my investigator will testify the company that manufactured that tube of Superglue you told the jury about shared that it actually was sold along with twenty thousand other tubes in Chicagoland over the past two years?"

"It wouldn't surprise me."

"So your Superglue theory has twenty-thousand ways it's possibly wrong, true?"

"I guess."

"So what proof do you really have that my client and not Rudy Gomez murdered Amy Tanenbaum?"

"I've said what our investigation uncovered."

"Asked and answered," says the State's Attorney, arriving late to the party.

"Sustained. Please move along, counsel."

The remainder of the morning is spent with me covering and recovering the same ground again and again as much as possible, given that the second time around the State's Attorney is on his feet objecting that I'm re-asking the same questions. I am, truth be told, but I'm enough of a trial lawyer to phrase them just differently enough the second and third time through that his objections are mostly denied. Good on me.

When I at last take my seat, I am feeling much better about our defense.

The next witness is late in showing, so we break for lunch.