The Last Alibi (22 page)

57.

Jason

Katie O’Connor, the prosecutor playing second chair to Roger Ogren, rises from her seat. “The People call Lieutenant Oswald Krueger,” she says.

She takes her position at the podium and adjusts her notes, tucks a strand of her orange hair behind her ear. She has the complete Irish look with the hair and the freckles. She is tall and thin and earnest, but somehow manages to give off the impression that she’s a nice person at the same time. That’s a hard thing to pull off, especially for a female lawyer—as Shauna has often reminded me over the years—being strong and firm but likable all at once. I have to stifle my instinct to root for her. I’ll bet Shauna does, too.

Ozzie Krueger is also tall and thin, a balding man in his late fifties who wears a goatee and wire-rimmed glasses. He looks like my biology teacher at Bonaventure, except that Krueger doesn’t reek of tobacco as he passes me and takes the witness stand.

“I’m a senior supervisor in the County Attorney Technical Unit,” says Krueger.

“Is that sometimes called the CAT Unit, Lieutenant?”

“CAT Unit, CAT squad, sure.”

“Lieutenant, can you describe in general terms what role you played in the investigation of Alexa Himmel’s murder?”

Shauna could object to the use of the word
murder
as a legal conclusion, but she doesn’t. I wouldn’t, either. It’s not like we’re arguing suicide here. There had been some talk of arguing self-defense at trial—Bradley John and my brother, Pete, in particular, pushed for it—but I rejected it out of hand.

“Part of the CAT Unit’s responsibility is to check computers and e-mails and the like,” says Krueger. “I obtained Ms. Himmel’s laptop computer and inspected it.” O’Connor spends a good amount of time establishing how Krueger went about obtaining the computer, how he preserved it, how he discovered she had an e-mail account with Intercast.

Now that she has set the table, the prosecutor is going to return to my interview with Detective Cromartie on the night of Alexa’s death. The prosecution has already shown the jury snippets—my bravura performance in explaining the house key and my vague, shifty discussion about a guy named Jim who I suggested had killed Alexa—but now they want to go back to the beginning of the interview.

Cromartie, I thought, did a nice job during the interrogation. What I liked most—from a clinical perspective, certainly not a personal one—was how the interview began. Most cops, in my experience, lack imagination when they interview suspects. Most would start at the start, would get my name, rank, and serial number, all the essentials, and then the same for Alexa, and then work their way forward to the point where she ended up dead in my living room. When I used to interrogate suspects in Felony Review, I never followed that routine. Because every situation was different, every interviewee different. Sometimes I would start nice and easy, trying to establish a rapport. But I usually started at the pressure point, whatever that would be in the given situation. For a domestic, a situation like mine with a dead girlfriend in the boyfriend’s house, I’d always start right there with the relationship.
Look, I can imagine what you’re going through. You loved her, didn’t you? Did she love you? Relationships can be tough, can’t they?
I would even share some of my personal life, although it was made up.
I love my wife, but Jesus, sometimes—sometimes the ones you love are the ones that make you the craziest, right?
That sort of thing.

Cromartie did essentially the same thing with me. He went straight for my relationship with Alexa, seeing what it would do to me. He couldn’t really lose. If I was cold as ice about her, he would capture me on camera looking like a murderer. If I got weepy, my defenses might break down and the interrogation would be as easy as holding a bucket under a busted glass of water and catching the drips.

Katie O’Connor tells the courtroom that she’s going to reference the video interrogation again. The jury, having already found some very interesting moments during this interview, is wide-eyed with anticipation.

On the basis of the time frozen in the corner of the video monitor, O’Connor wants to start the video at nearly the beginning of the interrogation, just after Cromartie had taken me through the preliminaries—date, time, the presence of counsel, et cetera. The screen comes to life and the jury and spectators are watching the interrogation. Me, I’d prefer not to watch, but that might send some kind of signal to the jurors, so I watch along with them.

Cromartie holds a copy of Alexa’s driver’s license in his hand, looking at it and then showing it to me.
“Wow, Alexa. Nice-looking lady,”
he says.

I don’t answer.

“How long did you say you dated?”

“Several months,”
I answer.

“She’s a court reporter, huh?”

I don’t answer.

“Was this a serious thing, you two?”

“We dated for several months, so, I guess so.”

“Were you engaged?”

“No.”

“Did you talk about that? Marriage?”

“No.”

“Did you love her?”

“It was a serious relationship,”
I say.
“People throw that word around. But it was serious.”

“Did she love you, do you think?”

I shrug, probably too casually in hindsight. I say,
“I think we both thought it was serious.”

“Did she ever say she loved you, Jason?”

I pause. I’m not sure why. I shouldn’t have been the least bit surprised by the question.

“She wasn’t the type to say words like that a lot. Neither am I. Did she
ever
say it? I think she did, but not like a routine thing.”

That was stupid. I should have just said yes. You don’t forget when your mate breaks through that barrier and says the
L
word. It’s a memorable moment in any relationship. They either said it or they didn’t, and you aren’t unclear on that. If you are, then you’re an asshole, which is exactly what I look like. An asshole, or a liar.

At this point in the interrogation, I was just an asshole. But I was about to be a liar, too.

“Did you two have any, uh, y’know, bumps in the road?”
Cromartie asks me.

“No more than the next couple.”

“Did you fight, Jason?”

“No more than the next couple.”

“What about in the last few days? Any fights? Problems?”

“We had our ups and downs. We’d break up and get back together. It was like that sometimes.”

“But no recent fights?”

I shake my head.
“No. Nothing recent.”

Katie O’Connor stops the tape. “Lieutenant, you previously testified that you obtained Ms. Himmel’s computer and her e-mail account?”

“That’s correct.”

“Did you find any e-mails between Ms. Himmel and the defendant within the week or so preceding her murder?”

“We did.”

“I’m going to take you to the date of July twenty-seventh of this year. Did you find an e-mail on that date from Ms. Himmel to the defendant?”

“That’s correct, yes.”

“People’s Seven,” says O’Connor to the judge and Shauna. She pulls it up on a computer screen for the jury to read:

Saturday, July 27, 8:43 PM

Subj: Why??

From: “Alexa M. Himmel”

To: “Jason Kolarich”

Why won’t you return my calls? We can’t even TALK now??? I want to know what’s going on with you and why this is happening. Please call me.

“Is People’s Seven a true and accurate copy of that e-mail?”

“It is,” Krueger confirms.

“Move for admission of People’s Seven,” says O’Connor. Shauna doesn’t object. She objected to all of the e-mails before trial, taking her best Hail Mary shot, throwing out every possible argument she could make with a straight face—lack of foundation, overly prejudicial—but lost. So it doesn’t do us any good here to make a bigger deal about these e-mails than they already are.

“Running objection, Your Honor,” she says quietly, for the record.

“People’s Seven will be admitted,” says Judge Judy.

“Just to refresh everyone’s memory, Lieutenant, what was the date of Ms. Himmel’s murder?”

“July thirtieth,” he says.

“So this e-mail was sent three days before she was murdered?”

“That’s right.”

“Take you to July twenty-eighth,” says O’Connor. “Did you recover an e-mail from that day that was sent by Ms. Himmel to the defendant?”

And then we are looking at another e-mail, technically the following day but really just sent about five hours after the first one they just read:

Sunday, July 28, 1:41 AM

Subj: Hey you

From: “Alexa M. Himmel”

To: “Jason Kolarich”

Hey you, I’m trying to be patient and not push you.
I always said I wouldn’t rush you or push you into anything. But you owe me more of an explanation than you gave me, don’tcha think?

This is very hard for me, Jason. I don’t deserve this. Don’t you think I deserve better than this?????????????

And another, three hours later:

Sunday, July 28, 4:28 AM

Subj: Remember?

From: “Alexa M. Himmel”

To: “Jason Kolarich”

Hi. I’m up and I’m pretty sure you are, too. I’m thinking about you and thinking about US and thinking that maybe we can just wipe the slate clean and start over. A first date? Remember the first date? When I “called” you? That’s when I knew we had the same sense of humor.

I’m sure you know this is killing me. I just want to hear your reasons. I promise, promise, PROMISE I won’t bother you again if you just explain it. But if you keep ignoring me, I don’t know what I’ll do. Please don’t do this to me.

And another, that afternoon:

Sunday, July 28, 3:59 PM

Subj: A lesson

From: “Alexa M. Himmel”

To: “Jason Kolarich”

How To Hurt Alexa Himmel 101: Ignore her. Break her heart, but that’s not enough. Also refuse to give her a good, honest explanation. Don’t tell her you’re a COWARD or why you LIED to her and led her to believe you were a GOOD AND DECENT person when you’re not. Throw her in the trash after you’ve fucked her a bunch of times and had your jollies and leave her to die. You’d probably like it if I died, wouldn’t you? Well, just say the word, Jason, and I’ll do it. I’m dead anyway.

And this one, completing a Sunday of e-mails:

Sunday, July 28, 7:12 PM

Subj: Seriously this is important

From: “Alexa M. Himmel”

To: “Jason Kolarich”

I just had some GREEK food and thought you’d think that was funny. Are you laughing? You’re probably laughing AT me not WITH me. Ha ha ha poor Alexa the fucked up girl.

Anwyay, I just thought of something that could be seriously bad for you and I want to make sure you’re protected so please call me just for that and nothing else, no more explanations or anything else but I’m not kidding.

The prosecutor takes a moment, allowing the jury to drink in everything they’ve seen so far, a portrait of a troubled woman, smarting desperately from a breakup.

“Take you to the following day, Monday, July twenty-ninth of this year,” says Katie O’Connor. “The day before Ms. Himmel was murdered. Did you recover any e-mails from Ms. Himmel to the defendant on that day?”

He did, of course, an e-mail from Monday morning:

Monday, July 29, 9:13 AM

Subj: I wasn’t kidding

From: “Alexa M. Himmel”

To: “Jason Kolarich”

I know you’re awake. I know you’re reading this.