The Plea, page 33
part #2 of Eddie Flynn Series
He checked the log, looked at the camera still.
“Correct.”
“After you entered the apartment, what did you do?”
“I took a look around the apartment, made sure it was clear. After that I examined the body. At first I looked at the wounds, established that there were multiple gunshots to the back of the victim’s head and two shots to the lumbar area.”
“What did you do next?”
“I observed a slight bulge in the victim’s hip pocket. Thought it could be a purse or a wallet, so I removed it from the victim’s person and examined it.”
“And what was it?”
“A pink leather wallet. It contained a library card, a driver’s license, an ATM card for a checking account, and around eighty-five dollars in cash.”
“The name on the cards?”
“Clara Reece.”
“What was the date the victim’s driver’s license was issued by the DMV?”
His head rocked back on his shoulders and his eyes flared open in surprise at the inanity of the question.
“I’ve got the license here, Your Honor. May I refer to it?”
Zader held his hands out to the judge, pleading, “Your Honor, this is now a total fishing exercise. This should be stopped right now.”
“I’m inclined to agree with the district attorney, Mr. Flynn. I’ve given you some latitude, but I fail to see the relevance here,” said Rollins.
“This is highly relevant, and I only need three questions to establish that relevance. If you don’t see the relevance after three questions, I’ll move on.”
He considered this, sighed. Letting his hands fall and slap his thighs, Zader did his best to look pissed off.
“Very well. Three strikes and you’re out, Mr. Flynn,” said Judge Rollins.
I waited while Morgan fetched the exhibits from another officer and produced the license, sealed in a clear evidence bag. Turning the license around and still keeping it in the bag, he squinted as he examined the plastic.
“Date of issue is August thirtieth last year.”
“Thank you,” I said, catching Rollins as he made a strike against his page. He was counting down my questions—I had two left.
“What is the date the victim’s checking account was opened?”
From a bag beside him, he flicked open a notebook and turned through the pages, licking his thumb before flipping each page, killing time, stretching out my cross-examination. After maybe half a minute, he found the page in his notebook.
“August thirtieth?” he said. This time he wasn’t declaring a date. He was questioning the note.
“And the date the library card was issued?”
Again, he had to search for the library card and found it in an evidence bag. He read the date, looked at me.
His eyebrows crunched in the middle of his forehead as he said, “August thirtieth, last year.”
“Your Honor, I’d like a little more time,” I said.
Judge Rollins was intrigued.
“A little leeway, Mr. Flynn, not much,” he said.
“Detective Morgan, this is not a case of the victim having lost her wallet—or something similar?”
“I can’t say that for certain,” said Morgan.
“Her bank account, her driver’s license, and her library card were all created on the same day last year. It’s not as if these accounts or licenses already existed and these were simply replacement cards, is it?”
“No.”
“Clara Reece’s IDs were all created months ago, just a few weeks before she met David Child, correct?”
“I believe so,” he said.
“So, from this evidence, you were able to identify the victim?”
“Not only that. After the ME had examined the victim, she was turned over, and I found a cell phone on her person. The phone had a social media app for Twitter and Reeler, and each was logged on to an account for Clara Reece. Subsequently we found a digital picture on the phone, which had been posted to the accounts. The image was of Clara Reece sporting a new tattoo of a purple daisy on her right wrist. The body found at the scene also bore a fresh tattoo in an identical spot. From this we were pretty solid on her ID, and combined with the driver’s license and ATM card, we had ID’d our victim. Also from the surveillance footage of her entering the building, the security guard identified Clara Reece.”
He cleared his throat, sat up. He was going on the attack.
“We couldn’t have a formal identification of the body because, thanks to your client, Clara Reece didn’t have a face anymore.”
I heard a sharp intake of breath, from Zader. He’d shrouded his eyes and blown a large “O” through his lips—as if he’s just watched Sugar Ray Leonard sucker punch a ballet dancer into the hospital.
Rollins seemed to wince, but at least had the knowledge to say, “Detective Morgan, I can see that you are clearly a passionate and dedicated police officer, but kindly leave matters of guilt to one side. You’re a factual witness. You’re not here to make arguments.”
“My apologies, Your Honor.”
I moved on, let Zader think I’d taken a hit. For the next ten minutes I took Morgan through the arrival of the ME, Noble and his three CSIs, the two paramedics who’d taken the body to the morgue. At the arrival of each person, I had him check the homicide log, to check the times of arrival for each person as we rolled through the camera footage.
“And you completed the log at the scene?”
“Yes.”
“Where exactly?”
“I believe I stood in the living room area and completed the log.”
“And according to the crime scene log, when did Officer Noble and his team leave the scene?”
“Um, eleven fifteen.”
I found the relevant footage and played the video of Officer Noble and three other individuals in white coveralls, leaving the apartment, only the footage had it timed at eleven sixteen. However, the time difference between the log and the camera wasn’t the interesting part.
“And the paramedics?”
He flicked over a page of the log and said, “Eleven oh nine.”
We watched the paramedics leaving with the body, zipped into a black bag and placed on a stretcher at around the same time on the hall camera.
“And the medical examiner?”
“Ten forty-five.”
Again, I played the footage of the tall ME leaving.
“Apart from you and your partner, were Officer Noble and his team the last to leave at eleven fifteen?”
He took his time, checking the notes.
“That’s correct.”
“And what time did you and your partner leave?”
“We left together at eleven twenty-seven. Before we left, I spoke to the building’s chief of security, making sure that he understood the apartment was sealed.”
We watched Morgan and his smaller, younger partner in conversation with Medrano. Blue crime scene tape was spread across the door. The camera logged them leaving at eleven twenty-eight.
“So, by eleven thirty, every member of your personnel has left and the apartment is empty?”
“That’s correct,” said Morgan, stifling a yawn.
I fast-forwarded to eleven fifty-one. The view from the camera outside the apartment.
“In that case, do you mind telling me who this is exiting the apartment at eleven fifty-one.”
It was somebody slim, wearing a white hazmat suit and carrying a bag. They exited the apartment, ducking under the crime scene tape. They closed the door behind them and made for the stairs.
He checked the log.
“I’m not sure. I’d closed the scene for the night. It may be one of the CSIs,” he said, still disinterested, believing I was going nowhere.
“But we just watched Officer Noble arrive with three other CSIs, and we watched them leave before you and your partner closed the scene. You logged their exit time yourself.”
He shook his head, stared at the screen.
“Let’s put this another way. When you left the scene at eleven twenty-seven, had you logged everyone else out?”
Flicking through his notes, he said, “I believe I had.”
“Looks like you did log everyone out, from footage we’ve just seen.”
He nodded.
“Is that a yes,” I said.
“Yes.”
“None of the CSIs we saw enter the apartment are as short or as slim as the person who leaves in the hazmat suit. Wouldn’t you say?”
Morgan checked his log, looked back at the screen again, where I’d frozen the image.
“I’m not sure I can identify that officer.”
“You agree we don’t appear to see this officer enter the apartment after the murder?”
A marble of sweat trickled down Morgan’s cheek.
“They may have been missed in the crowd,” he said.
“We don’t see this person enter the apartment in the footage we just played, do we?”
“No.”
Judge Rollins threw down his pen.
“Is this leading anywhere, Mr. Flynn? Are you alleging there is some breach of your client’s constitutional rights by this officer not being logged?”
“No, Your Honor.”
“Then what is the point of highlighting this officer’s movements?”
David sat very still, his hands folded in front of him, his eyes on me, and Cooch gave him a whisper of encouragement.
“Your Honor, the person you can see on the surveillance footage is not a real police officer. It is not a paramedic. It is not a crime scene tech. It is not someone with the medical examiner’s office. This person is not on the CCTV footage entering the apartment after the murder.”
“So who is it?” said Rollins.
I planted my feet before I spoke, straightened my back, and let the words float softly and confidently up to the judge.
“Your Honor, the defense believes that this person is the real killer. This person murdered Clara Reece.”
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE
I took another DVD from my bag and placed it into the player. I explained that the defense had obtained footage from Central Park Eleven and that if need be, Chief of Security Medrano would testify as to its authenticity. I forwarded the footage to just after two o’clock on the day before the murder. A shot of the elevator. It was full of people. Clara Reece among them, perfectly calm and definitely not exhibiting any signs of claustrophobia.
I couldn’t help glancing at David. He saw Clara, calm and collected in the busy elevator. He knew she’d lied to him about being claustrophobic. I watched Clara exit the elevator with her box of possessions, and another female, same hair color, same style and length of hair as Clara, same body type, same skin color, help her carry a box into David’s apartment.
“This is Clara Reece moving into the defendant’s apartment. Another female is helping her.”
I paused as the other woman entered the apartment with the last of the boxes. I skipped forward twenty minutes to see only Clara Reece leaving the apartment.
“The other female is still in the apartment?”
“Yes, from this footage, that’s correct,” said Morgan.
“Have you seen this footage?”
“Not as far back as this, no. We understood that the apartment was empty prior to the defendant and the victim arriving that evening. The building’s security team searched the apartment. NYPD uniformed officers searched the apartment. I searched the apartment myself. It was empty apart from the victim’s body. We didn’t need to look at footage that far back. Minutes before the murder, the victim and the defendant enter the apartment together. The defendant leaves. He was the last person to see her alive. He left her body in his empty apartment—there was no one else there, so we didn’t need to go looking at footage from the previous day.”
People believe what they can see.
I hit fast-forward, skipping ten minutes of camera time for every second. If no one was on the floor for an hour, the lights dimmed. An energy-saving system. So it was easy to see when someone stepped out of the elevator, as the lights went up. I stopped the footage at seven thirty p.m., when David and Clara came to the apartment together. Again at nine fifteen p.m., when Gershbaum came to his apartment. No movement after that until the morning, when Clara and David left around nine a.m. and Gershbaum a little before. Nothing until that evening. As Gershbaum got out of the elevator, I paused, rewound, and let the footage play until he entered his apartment, then hit fast-forward again until David and Clara got out of the elevator for their final visit to the apartment.
“Detective Morgan, from this footage, the female we saw enter the apartment the day before is still in there.”
A huge intake of breath let out in a slow, angry sigh.
“Yes.”
Judge Rollins leaned forward, staring at the footage intently, like I’d just shown him a magic trick and he was trying to figure it out. I ejected the DVD and replaced it with another.
“Your Honor, this is footage that the FBI obtained last night from Central Park Eleven. The camera view you can see is from a small camera hidden in the vent on the east wall. This camera covers the stairs.”
The footage played of David and Clara entering the apartment, and I wound it forward until 20:00, when the front door opened.
“First thing you’ll notice is the clock. The time signature on this camera has the defendant leaving the apartment a full two minutes before the call from Mr. Gershbaum to security. And in case you were wondering, this clock is in sync with the security log clock. I’m going to play this footage, Detective Morgan, and I want you to watch carefully.”
I hit play. The entire room was perfectly silent. I could hear the disk churning in the player, the creak from Rollins’s chair as he strained forward, the tap of Zader’s pen on his lips, the faint electric burr of the cameras. Maybe two hundred people watched in silence.
All except one.
At the back of the court, Dell watched me.
On the screen, David hesitated, turned toward the door, then stopped, swung around with his earphones on, and made his way out of frame toward the elevator.
“Did you see it?” I asked.
“Did I see what? I’m not sure what you’re referring to,” said Morgan.
“Let’s watch again. This time I can slow it down.”
I played it again. On this occasion I heard the news cameraman gasp, and one of the ADAs put his hands up, then remembered where he was and folded his arms. He couldn’t keep the surprise from his face though.
“I’m still not sure what you’re referring to,” said Morgan.
“Nor am I,” said Judge Rollins, but with no indignation in his voice—only curiosity. I gave them both a heads-up.
“Detective, Your Honor, don’t watch the defendant. Look beyond him. Look in the mirror.”
The DVD played again, still on slow motion. They couldn’t miss it this time.
David closed the door behind him, took a few steps, then stopped, and I wondered if he was resisting the temptation to turn around and make sure the door was locked. But no—he stopped because he’d sensed something. Before he turned, the standing mirror in the hallway, beside the little table, held a reflection of the door. It was there, just for a second. The door handle moved. Down, then up. Somebody on the other side of the door making sure it was locked.
With all eyes on the screen, I took a moment to look over toward Zader. He met my gaze—he knew that was game.
“Detective, door handles don’t move on their own. Someone is alive and kicking in that apartment.”
Morgan couldn’t answer. Instead he looked at Zader apologetically, raising his hands palms up. Sorry, we missed that one.
“Detective Morgan, we know from this camera footage that David Child left that apartment at twenty oh two precisely. A full two minutes before Mr. Gershbaum heard the shots and called security?”
“If the time stamp on this footage and the 911 call time is accurate, then yes.”
“That’s more than enough time for the perpetrator to drag the body from the panic room, where, from the residual bloodstains, we now know she was shot in the back, take her into the kitchen, and fire the head shots?”
Teeth gritted, Morgan hissed a yes.
“The perpetrator then had additional time before security entered the apartment—a full four minutes—to shoot through the window, toss the gun into the park, and get into the panic room.”
“That’s one theory.”
I had one last roll of the dice. One final piece of evidence to throw into the mix.
“Detective, as investigating officer, you ordered an independent expert to conduct gunshot residue tests on samples taken from the defendant’s face, clothes, and hands?”
He looked at Zader, terrified in case he said something that he shouldn’t.
“I did.”
“And the result of those tests is contained in this report from Dr. Porter?” I said, holding up his paper.
“Yes.”
“The prosecution is not seeking to rely on this report in this hearing, correct?” I said.
His mouth moved like a fish that had suddenly leaped out of the bowl and into the fireplace. Zader stood and addressed the judge.
“Your Honor, that report is not relied upon.”
“I’d like to enter this report into evidence, Your Honor, along with this academic article.”
“Let me get this straight. You want to rely on a prosecution report?” said Rollins.
I handed copies to the clerk, who stamped them and gave them to the judge.
“Detective Morgan, the prosecution had previously sought to rely on this evidential report from Dr. Porter, which concludes that the defendant was found to have a large amount of gunshot residue on his person?”
“We did, but we don’t seek to rely on that anymore.”
“Why not?” asked the judge.
“Because Dr. Porter conceded that the material was probably not GSR, but the remnants of material deposited on the defendant from the explosion that fires the air bags in the defendant’s car.”
I almost had him; just a little more.
“At first, Dr. Porter believed that the material was GSR, correct?” I asked.
