The Innocence Game (16 page)

“You don’t think I know where she’s buried?”

“Yes, sir. I was just wondering, why all the way up in Evanston? I mean, she grew up on the South Side, right?”

Ned halted a forkful of rice halfway to his mouth. “Excuse me?”

“I was wondering, sir…and I know it’s none of my business…but who paid for Rosina’s burial expenses?”

“That’s what you want to know? Who paid to bury my daughter?”

“Yes, sir.”

Ned put down his fork. “Why?”

It wasn’t going particularly well, but I didn’t see any choice at this point, so I barged ahead. “I think you’re wrong, sir. I think your daughter might have been murdered. Or at least it wasn’t an accident.”

I could see the spark in his eye, the almost involuntary nod of the head. Ned Rolland’s only daughter had been dead a long time, but he was still a dad. Which meant I had half a chance.

“I don’t know who paid for the burial,” he said.

“But someone did?”

“Yes. They insisted Rosina be buried up in Evanston. The whole thing cost some money, so I thought…”

“You did what was best for your daughter. Would anyone else know who paid for the arrangements?”

“Someone from the police called and said it was taken care of. That’s all I know.”

“You don’t remember a name?”

“It was twenty years ago.”

“How about the funeral home?”

“Funeral home was on the South Side. Burned down a long time now. Why you so interested?”

I shook my head. “If you can’t give me a name, it doesn’t matter.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

Ned Rolland wiped his mouth and hands with a napkin and packed up the trash from his lunch. Then he got up to leave. I stayed where I was.

“You coming?” he said.

“I’m just gonna sit for a minute if that’s all right.”

I felt his weight slide back into the booth. “Hey.”

I looked up.

“You studying to be a journalist?”

“That’s the idea.”

“And you think you’re gonna get anywhere giving up that quick?”

“I’m not giving up. It’s just…”

“You said my daughter was murdered. I’m not saying you’re right. I’m not saying you’re wrong. But there’s a few things that always bothered me.”

“I’m listening.”

“Now you listening.” Ned shook his head. “You got an hour?”

I checked my watch. Havens was supposed to pick me up at three for our appointment with Moncata. “Sure.”

“Good. I’ve got something at home you might be interested in.”

“What about work?”

“Thirty years scrubbing toilets, I’m entitled to an afternoon. Finish your chicken and let’s go.”

By the time I got home, it was just past three. Havens’s car was parked in front of my house. I slipped into the front seat.

“Where you been?” he said.

I was tempted to tell him about my lunch with Ned Rolland but decided to keep it to myself for now. Besides, it wasn’t like I didn’t have plenty of other news. “Street Ministry burned down last night.”

Havens whistled. “I’m thinking we got ’em on the run.”

“Yeah. Now if we only knew why.”

Havens chuckled and slipped his car into gear. “Moncata?”

I pointed to the empty road stretching out ahead of us. “Moncata.”

We found Sam Moncata in a midrise not far from Northwestern Hospital. He met us in the lobby and walked us through security. One of the guards asked us to sign in, but the scientist waved her off and pushed us through. We took an elevator to the seventh floor and walked down a long, drab corridor. Moncata stopped before a door that read
itb
labs and swiped his ID through a reader. The door clicked and we were inside.

There was no receptionist. No waiting area. Just two more guards sitting behind a desk. They were watching three security monitors and wearing guns. Moncata led us past what looked like several empty labs to a suite of offices. Moncata’s was a good-sized affair, with no windows, a wall of books, and a desk covered with pictures of what looked like grandkids. The man himself was small with a high forehead, bright eyes, and compact features. He looked to be in his mid-sixties and, from all appearances, still humming along at top speed.

“You guys said you were students?” Moncata took a seat behind his desk and gestured for us both to sit. I felt like we were talking to our dad. Or maybe on a job interview.

“Yes, sir,” I said. “We’re in the innocence seminar at Medill. Professor Zombrowski’s seminar.”

Moncata nodded vigorously. “Yup, yup. Worked with Judy. Sorry I can’t give you a lot of time, but we’re in the middle of a couple of things.”

“You still working for the police?” Havens said.

“Used to. Chicago PD, then the FBI. But I went private long ago. We’re a small outfit, highly specialized. The county hires us when they can afford it. Now, how can I help you?”

“We’re working on the James Harrison case,” I said.

“Yes, you told me as much over the phone.”

“I’m not sure if you remember Grace Washington over at the Street Ministry?”

“You mentioned Grace on the phone as well.”

“She says you did the forensic work for Mr. Harrison. On his appeal.”

Moncata nodded along with me as I spoke. “Sure did. DNA testing on a bloodstain. I pulled the lab work for you.” He pushed forward a black binder.

“Sounds like something about the case might have bothered you?” Havens said.

Moncata shifted in his chair so he could get a better look at my classmate. “And why do you say that, young fella?”

“Busy guy. Couple of students call about an old file, and yet you have time for us.”

Moncata obliged us with a smile. “Either of you want something to drink?”

We shook our heads. Moncata got himself a Diet Dr Pepper from a small refrigerator. “You’re right.” Moncata popped open his drink and poured it into a cup. “Harrison bothers me. Always has.”

“Why?” I said.

Moncata slipped on a pair of reading glasses and thumbed through the binder until he found the report he wanted. “We got a thirteen loci match. No doubt about it. The blood they sent us belonged to the victim.” He flipped the binder shut. “I guess the thing that bothered me was that Harrison raised money for the testing himself. I mean, who does that? A guy who’s guilty knows how it’s gonna come back. Anyway, it always bugged me.”

“How did you obtain the sample?” I said. “The one you tested?”

“The clerk’s office sent it to us.”

“What exactly did they send you?” I said.

“Little swatch of fabric from the defendant’s jeans. Tagged as evidence and sealed. I signed for it.”

“So you get the evidence, do your test, and return the sample?” I said.

Moncata rocked his head from side to side. “Depends. I mean that’s how it’s
supposed
to work, but sometimes I use up all the sample. Sometimes I just keep whatever I have left. Depends on the case. Depends on the court.”

“How about in this case?” Havens said.

“Harrison? Hell, by the time I finished my testing, the man was dead.”

“So you never shared your results with the court?” Havens said.

“I forwarded the results, but no one seemed very interested.”

“And what about the swatch?” I said. “Do you still have it?”

Moncata flashed another quick grin. “Thought you might ask that.” He pulled up a thick case file from the floor and dug through it. “Here she is.”

The swatch was a ragged piece of washed-out fabric, maybe an inch square, covered in pencil marks and sealed up in a plastic bag.

“As you can see, pieces have been cut out,” Moncata said.

“Can I touch it?” I said.

“Just don’t take it out of the bag.”

I picked up the Baggie and stared at the tiny piece of cloth, wondering what the hell I’d hoped was going to happen. Then I handed it to Havens, who seemed equally at sea.

“No easy answers, huh?” Moncata returned the swatch to the file and folded his hands over it. He glanced expectantly, first at me, then at Havens. We had nothing. The scientist didn’t seem surprised. “Maybe you should just tell me what this is all about.”

“We think Harrison might have been framed,” I said.

“I figured that much. Why?”

I explained about the ministry’s inventory log. And Grace’s recollection of the surgical scrubs Harrison was wearing on the night he was arrested. Moncata rubbed his lower lip with his thumb while I talked. When I’d finished, he flipped open the document binder again. This time he took out a one-page report from the Chicago PD. At the top were the words
chain of custody log
in large block letters.

“This came with the swatch. It establishes chain of custody. In this case, it indicates the defendant was wearing jeans on the night he was arrested. And the sample we have came from those jeans.”

“Not according to Grace,” I said.

“Unfortunately, the world doesn’t spin according to Grace.”

“You said yourself the case bothered you,” Havens said.

“Lots of cases bother me, but that doesn’t really matter.”

“Why not?” I said.

“Because science is science. And when it’s the science of DNA, there’s not a lot of wiggle room.”

“What if someone took the blood from Skylar Wingate’s body after he was dead,” I said. “Sprinkled it on the jeans.”

“What if they did? Blood’s blood. Whether the person is alive or dead, I have no real way of knowing.”

“So there’s no way to tell if this stuff was planted?”

Moncata twitched his lips at the last word and scratched an ear. Just then his phone rang. He looked at the caller ID, then back at us. “You guys mind waiting outside? I’ve got to take this.”

We sat in an empty hallway. A man and a woman in lab coats walked by. Then another man with a gun on his belt. No one gave us a second look.

“What do you think about Moncata?” Havens said.

“Seems like a good guy.”

“Should we tell him about the Street Ministry burning down?”

“Hell, no.”

We were quiet for a bit more.

“I’m gonna tell him about the other old cases,” Havens said. “Scranton and Allen.”

“Why?”

“I think they’re all connected.”

“What if they are? There’s nothing he can do. Let’s stick to the jeans.”

Things got quiet again. This time I broke the silence.

“How was the boat?”

A shrug. “Good time. You should have come.”

I tried to catch his eyes, but Havens kept them glued to the floor.

“You guys out late?” I said.

Just then the door opened. Moncata swept us back in with a hand.

“Sorry. Like I said, busy day.” He didn’t offer us a seat this time. The man was in wrap-up mode and didn’t try to hide it. “I’m gonna have to hustle you guys out of here, but let’s do this. I’ll take a look at the material we have from Harrison. Run a few tests. See if anything interesting shakes out. No promises. In fact, I’m pretty sure we’ll turn up nothing. But I won’t charge the school for the work and maybe you’ll learn something. Fair enough?”

I reached out and shook his hand. “Thanks so much, Mr. Moncata.”

“Sam.”

I took a card from a holder on his desk. “If it’s okay, I’ll e-mail you our contact info. We’ll follow up next week?”

“Great.” Moncata started herding us toward the door. Havens, however, wasn’t budging.

“Actually, Sam, I’ve got one more question.”

Moncata checked his watch.

“It won’t take a second,” Havens said.

Moncata shook his head. “Not a great time, son.”

Havens ignored him. “We think there might be two other old cases that are linked to Harrison.”

“Write it up and send it to me,” Moncata said, now literally pushing us, albeit gently, out of his life.

“They’re linked by time, manner of death, proximity to water.”

Moncata’s phone started ringing again. He looked to me for help.

“Jake, let’s go,” I said. “We can send him details on the other cases later…”

“And they all feature bite marks,” Havens said.

Moncata’s hand fell off my shoulder. The scientist cocked his head and studied my classmate. “Did you say bite marks?”

“I did.”

The phone was still ringing. Moncata ignored it. “Sit down for a second.”

So we sat. And Moncata listened as Havens outlined his theory on Billy Scranton and Richmond Allen. Then he showed Moncata paperwork from each case, including the bite-mark photos.

“We believe there was biting on Skylar Wingate as well,” Havens said, “but we don’t have any photos.”

Moncata looked through the material Havens had given him and studied the bite marks with a magnifying glass. Then he put the photos up on a light board and studied them some more.

“Do you have these on a disk?” he said.

“This is all we have,” Havens said.

“Do you mind if I keep them for a while? I can assure you they’ll be safe.”

“We’ve had problems,” Havens said.

Moncata no longer seemed in a hurry. “What sort of problems?”

So we told him. About my traffic stop. And the Street Ministry. And finally, the fire. I left out any mention of Theresa. Right now, I didn’t want to think about her myself. When we finished, Moncata was silent. He got up from his chair and began to pace.

“If there was biting in the Harrison case,” he said, “it was never brought up at trial.”

“We saw a mention of it in Wingate’s autopsy report,” I said.

Moncata stopped pacing. “Do you have the report?”

“No. The cops took it at the traffic stop.”

“Right. Still, there might be a way to get photos of Wingate’s body. Let me work on that. If I can get them, I’ll send all three cases to a colleague who’s an expert in the area. He has a program that can enhance the marks and perhaps tell us a little more.”

I’d heard about bite-mark technology, but that didn’t explain Moncata’s sudden interest. Before I could ask about the change of heart, the scientist again shifted gears.

“You guys ever heard of the Needle Squad?”

We hadn’t.

“Downtown everyone just called them the Squad. They were an elite prosecutorial team. About twenty men and women who made their bones in the late eighties and nineties. Renowned for their high conviction rate, especially in capital cases. The leader was a prosecutor named Teddy Green. You’ve heard of him?”