Conclusive Evidence Read online

  “I’m pleased to meet you, Ms. Romero.” Finn kept a cordial smile on her face. She asked me to come over and talk to her and then sat down at the prosecution table.

  I wasn’t able to tell what Carly was thinking from her face. She could be almost as inscrutable as Jen, even to her brother. I got her settled then stepped over and sat next to Finn.

  She put her hand on my forearm. “Garrett, the new evidence I’m going to present just came in yesterday morning. I would have given you a heads-up if I’d had time.”

  Looking into her blue eyes, I sensed deceit, but perhaps it was my imagination. I’d never decided whether she was tough but fair, or just tough. I leaned toward the latter.

  “What is it?”

  “We had to get it translated, and that took some time.” Her black outfit emphasized her pale skin. She had only a hint of freckles on her neck. She was going to make me wait, and I could handle that.

  I shrugged as if in no rush even though the curiosity—and some anxiety—was burning a hole in my brain. “Tell me, Finn, you use that Irish brogue at home or only in public?”

  She said a sentence or two, and I didn’t understand a bit of it. Her voice lilted up and down, with some words that sounded like “quare,” “fierce,” and “yoke.”

  “Right.” I put on my own version of her accent. “Sure’n ya should be talkin’ like that all the time. Throw in a wee bit o’ dancing, aye?”

  She dropped her jaw and jerked her head back. “I sound like that? Like a Pakistani?”

  I couldn’t help but laugh, just as I couldn’t help but like Finn. She has a way about her. Unlike Billy Joel, I did know what it was: a sense of calm confidence that impressed juries and judges.

  Our banter was interrupted when the bailiff commanded us to “all rise,” and Judge Irene Stevens swept into the court. “Swept” was a gross exaggeration, since she suffered from osteoporosis. When she walked, she resembled a lowercase “r” with a cane. I wasn’t the only one who held his breath when she climbed the steps to the bench, breathing a sigh of relief when she didn’t tumble out of view.

  Stormy Stevens looked like a rich dowager from some Gilded Age English estate. Her long face was topped with yellow-white hair, and her inverted-V eyebrows looked as if someone had painted them on and way too high on her forehead. We were lucky to get her. Since the brain is a bone-free zone, her osteoporosis didn’t affect her intellect. She was impartial and trustworthy, but cross her, and she lived up to her nickname. I’d once engaged in some courtroom theatrics that barely crossed the line, and the dressing down I received so diminished me in the eyes of the jurors that I only eked out a victory that should have been a slam dunk.

  I went back to the defense table and sat between Carly and Jen.

  Jen whispered in my ear, “The new evidence is a video, apparently.”

  The court clerk took care of the housekeeping, announcing the case number and so on.

  Judge Stevens cleared her throat. “All right. Would counsel state their appearances for the record?”

  “Good morning, Your Honor, Sibyl Finn for the People.”

  “Garrett Goodlove and Jen Shek for the defendant.”

  “Good morning,” Stevens said. “Do you understand, Ms. Romero, that we are not here today to determine guilt or innocence, we are here only to determine whether this case should proceed to trial?”

  Carly replied, “I do.”

  I’d explained that to her, and I’d made her understand that the level of proof was much lower than it would be if we went to trial. That is, the prosecution did not need to prove anything beyond a reasonable doubt. They just needed to show that there was a reasonable suspicion that a crime had been committed by Carly.

  The ASL translator was the same one who’d been at the arraignment.

  Judge Stevens turned to the prosecution table. “All right. Ms. Finn, are you prepared to call your first witness?”

  “I am, Your Honor. The People call Mr. Zeke Kapkowski.”

  Most surfers here on the North Coast were older men with gray hair and yellowed longboards. Like me. Zeke looked more like a Southern California transplant. He had a bushy beard and scraggly hair that fell to his shoulders, as if he surfed so much he didn’t have time for barbers. Or shaving. He wore a Hawaiian shirt with the top buttons undone and a surfboard pendant on a leather string around his neck. If he used the word “gnarly” or “stoked,” I’d ask for a mistrial.

  After the required preliminary questions, Finn asked, “Can you tell me what you saw while you were surfing on December third?”

  “I saw someone fall off the cliff north of Camel Rock. That simple.” Surprise. The board-head had a strong British accent.

  “Tepona Point is about a thousand feet north of where you were surfing, does that sound right?”

  “Yeah. Around three hundred meters.”

  “Yes. How did you happen to notice when he fell?”

  “Just lucky, I guess. I heard a loud horn, maybe a car horn. It sounded like it came from that direction, but I didn’t see anything. I went back to watching the waves, they were awesome that day, and then I guess I just happened to look that way again, and there’s someone falling off the cliff. ‘Tumbling’ would be the word.”

  “Did it look like he jumped, fell, or was pushed?”

  “He didn’t jump, that’s all that I can say, you know?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Well, I got the feeling that he bounced off part of the cliff as he fell. It wasn’t like a swan dive or anything. It was messy. He was spinning in the air.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I would have paddled over to see if I could save the guy, but there are too many rocks between him and where I was. Big waves, too. Really gnarly.”

  Oof!

  “Then what did you do?”

  “I paddled in, ran up the path to the car, and called the police.”

  Finn said, “No further questions” and sat.

  I went to the lectern. “Mr. Kapkowski, is the point you saw him fall from, straight down?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m sorry, I mean, is it a straight shot down from the edge of the cliff to the water?” It wasn’t. I’d checked it out from many angles.

  “No, some of the rocks stick out.”

  “Did it seem that if someone took a running jump from the cliff, he could hit the water without hitting any rocks along the way?”

  “Sure. I could do that. Sounds like fun, you know?”

  “What if the jumper weren’t so enthusiastic? Say, he was depressed or something? In that case—”

  Finn stood. “Objection, Your Honor. Mr. Kapkowski isn’t a psychologist.”

  “I’ll allow it.”

  “In that case,” I continued, “with someone who was depressed, who didn’t feel like springing out from the edge of the cliff like an Olympic diver, would that person maybe hit the outcroppings along the way?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Or let’s say the man just stood at the edge and let himself fall, would he hit the outcroppings? Could that be what you saw?”

  “Yeah, maybe, but I had the feeling this guy didn’t want to fall into the ocean.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  Kapkowski chewed his lip. “Well, I can’t really say. It’s just a feeling, I guess.”

  “A feeling you got from a third of a kilometer away.”

  “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “No further questions.” Had I gotten the judge to consider that whoever dropped off that cliff may have been committing suicide? Hard to say. Stevens was smart; she’d probably already considered that. I wasn’t worried that I’d tipped my hand with my questions, since it was an obvious defense: My client didn’t do it. Angelo committed suicide.

  “The People call Mr. Wenzel Rozetti, Your Honor.”

  Finn had established that someone fell into the ocean. Next, she needed to demonstrate that that person was
Angelo Romero, and that he was dead.

  Finn brought the crabber to the stand and ran him through his description of seeing but not retrieving Angelo’s body, returning to port, and handing over the boat hook to Detective Crawford. It matched what Louella had described to me.

  Finn returned to her chair.

  When I didn’t get up right away, Stevens cleared her throat. “Mr. Goodlove?”

  “Excuse me a second, Your Honor.” I whispered to Jen, “What do you think?”

  She put her mouth up to my ear, shielding it with a hand. “Pass. Nothing to be gained. Angelo’s dead. We knew that.”

  “Agreed.” I turned to the judge. “No questions, Your Honor.”

  “The People call Detective Damon Crawford.”

  “Just a moment.” Stevens leaned forward. “How many more witnesses are you going to call?”

  I looked at Crawford, who had just stood up. When we locked eyes, he brought up his hand and shot me with a finger pistol.

  Finn looked at her notes. “Only five more, Your Honor.”

  “Uh, no. That’s too many. Why so many?”

  “Detective Crawford lays the foundation for some evidence regarding Mr. Rozetti’s boat hook, and I have a witness who will describe the collection of hair from Angelo Romero’s apartment.”

  “I think we can save that for the trial, if there is one.”

  Finn nodded. “In that case, I will call Dr. Olga Magroski.”

  Ah, the DNA expert I’d consulted concerning the sperm “donation” case. She had the same big smile and flyaway blonde hair, but instead of a lab coat, she wore a wrap dress with flowers on a black background.

  Finn began running through her qualifications. I stipulated that she had the necessary expertise, and we got down to the meat of the matter.

  “Dr. Magroski,” Finn said, “did you analyze the boat hook Mr. Rozetti used to try to retrieve the body he discovered in the ocean?”

  “I did.”

  “And can you tell us what you found?”

  “Sure. There were some cheek cells—like those you’d get by scraping the inside of your mouth with a swab—on the boat hook as well as some other organic material. There was degradation of the material, as you’d expect if the body had been in the ocean.”

  “Thank you. Did you extract the DNA and compare it with DNA from the hair samples we’d provided you?”

  “Yes. And they matched.”

  “The DNA analysis showed that the tissue on the boat hook and the hair came from the same individual?”

  “With an extremely high probability, yes.”

  “No further questions.”

  It would have helped if the DNA didn’t match. No point in a cross-examination. I looked at Jen to confirm, and she shook her head.

  “No questions, Your Honor.”

  “Without objection, we will recess for lunch.” Stevens banged her gavel when neither Finn nor I opposed the break.

  Things didn’t look good for getting the charges dismissed. My cautious optimism had been wishful thinking. Finn had established that someone had fallen off the cliff. Given that Angelo’s car was abandoned in the parking lot and his DNA was on the boat hook, it followed that Angelo was dead.

  Finn’s next task wouldn’t be as easy. She had to show a reasonable suspicion that Carly had pushed him to his death.

  Chapter Eight

  Carly, Jen, and I had lunch at The Hangar Cafe at Murray Field. The county-owned public airport catered mostly to private planes, and the greasy spoon served the best $100 hamburgers in the area. They didn’t cost us $100, that term was some aviation humor referring to pilots who wanted an excuse to fly. They’d get in their small plane, fly for a few hours, have lunch, and fly back. The cost of those burgers was $100. Probably a lot more.

  The only other diners were a pilot and his wife, who were unlikely to know ASL. I explained our situation to Carly. She bit her lip, something she used to do as a teenager when she was stressed. I was seeing the first cracks in her stoicism. She had circles under her eyes.

  “I would die in prison,” she said. “I wouldn’t be able to communicate. It would be like solitary confinement.”

  “Hey. It’s way too early to panic, sis. Our hands are tied now, but we’ll be able to punch back if it goes to trial.”

  Jen turned her face to Carly. “Garrett is very good at that.”

  Carly nodded. She’d speech-read. I didn’t tell her that the toughest part might be the months leading up to that trial. The suspense.

  We finished our burgers and went back to court.

  When the judge was ready, Finn rose. “The People call Ms. Yvette Dowzer.”

  Ms. Dowzer was a fit and somewhat trim senior citizen with long white hair.

  After some preliminaries, Finn asked, “Ms. Dowzer, can you tell us what you saw on the morning of December third?”

  “I had just parked my car down the street a bit. I was going to walk along Scenic Drive. I know it was a little after ten. I’d just listened to part of the news. KHSU. I saw the woman when I was at the start of the trail.”

  “Was this the short trail to Tepona Point?”

  “Well, I didn’t know that then, the name of the place where I was. But after I saw the news that night about what happened, about the man who was pushed off—”

  “Move to strike, Your Honor.”

  “Sustained.” Judge Stevens turned to the witness. “Please testify only about what you observed, Ms. Dowzer.”

  “Okay. Sorry. I heard about what happened, and they talked about Tepona Point on the news. I looked it up on Google, on the maps. I saw that that was where I was. Tepona Point. I like to go out there and look at the view. The waves were very big.”

  “And what happened then?”

  “Right. Well, there are a few steps up from the parking lot. There’s the trail along that ridge there that goes out to the point. I had just gone up the steps, when a woman came rushing up the trail. She had on a green sweatshirt. It was a hoodie. It had the name of Bizet University. The deaf school here, you know. She was in a hurry. She had her head down.”

  “Were you able to see her face?”

  “Only for a second.”

  “Is that woman here in the courtroom today?”

  “Well, I’m pretty sure, yes. Yes, she is. Can I point?”

  “You may.” Finn stood aside to give the woman a clear view of Carly.

  Ms. Dowzer pointed to my sister.

  “Let the record show that the witness pointed to the defendant.”

  Carly wrote on my pad. Not me! She underlined it hard enough to rip the paper.

  Finn continued, “Ms. Dowzer, was the woman scared?”

  “Objection. Your Honor, the witness apparently only got a quick glance at the woman’s face. Even if Ms. Dowzer were an expert at interpreting facial expressions—”

  “Your Honor, I think most people are able to tell when someone is—”

  “Sustained. Please rephrase the question.”

  “Yes, Your Honor. Ms. Dowzer, can you tell us anything more about what you saw?”

  Of course, the witness then knew exactly what Finn was asking, but her response was a gift to us. “Well, I do admit that I only got a very quick look at her face. Just a flash, you know. I guess I kinda felt that the woman was scared because she was rushing, as I said. I may have said that to the policeman, Mr. Crawford, when he asked, but now, you know, I’m not really sure.”

  Finn didn’t want to leave it on that note. “But you are sure the woman you saw is now sitting there at the defense table?”

  “Objection. Asked and answered.” I put a bored tone in my voice, like, Oh, gee, this is so lame. I had no jury to play to, but habits are hard to break.

  “Sustained.”

  Finn sat down. I stood and stepped to the lectern. “Thank you, Ms. Dowzer, for contacting the police about this. They rely on helpful citizens like you, and many people would have decided to not get involved.”

  Sh
e smiled self-consciously.

  “Did you contact the police when you saw this woman?”

  “No, no. Of course not. It was only when I saw the story on the local news. I realized I was at the exact place, Tepona Point. I was there when the man—when the thing happened. I told my husband the next morning. He said, ‘You know, Yvette, maybe you should call the police. Maybe that woman was involved somehow.’ So that’s what I did. I called the sheriff’s office.”

  “And what happened then?”

  “Well, they said they’d send a police officer to my house. I told them where it was. Maybe they already knew. Because of the telephone system, you know. Caller ID.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Well, Detective Crawford drove up and came into the house. I told him my story. He took out a photograph and asked me, ‘Is this the woman?’ I said yes.”

  “How sure were you at that point, when he first showed you the photo?”

  She looked toward the ceiling as if the answer were written there. “Well, maybe not so sure then. But I’ve played it over. In my head. I realized that it was her.”

  “Did he just show you the one photo?”

  “Well, then he did, yeah. Later, when I went to the police station, they showed me what he called a six-pack because it was six photographs of women. And I picked out the same woman as before. The same one as is sitting here.”

  “No further questions, Your Honor.”

  Next up was Ms. Rice, a woman with skin that looked somehow artificial—like a realistic Japanese robot I once saw on TV. She was an RPPD technician who dealt with electronic evidence. As expected, Finn led her through Carly’s search history, showing that she’d sought information on how to kill someone. “How to murder someone and not get caught” was one of the more dramatic examples, sending a wave of murmurs through the spectators. I saw a reporter friend of mine rush out of the courtroom.

  When Finn was done, I said, “No questions, Your—”

  Carly hit my arm. Hard.

  “Just a moment, Your Honor.”

  Carly wrote, Tell them!!! on my pad.

  Trust me, I wrote back. I didn’t have time to explain.