Chapter 20
Eddie
A week passed with Vanessa hiding out in the Hilton Garden downtown.
I’d gotten the call from Voss the morning after Vanessa checked in, asking where our client might be. I told Voss I didn’t know. She said I was lying to her, and I told her she was correct. I said Vanessa needed some processing time. And that I would be in touch when we got discovery in the case.
The prosecution discovery arrived in my office on a wet Thursday morning. Denise signed for the package from the police officer, and brought it straight to me and Harry.
Hard-copy pages, a booklet of photographs and everything duplicated on a pen-drive. Harry inserted the pen-drive into his computer. I sat at the edge of his desk with the paper and photograph book.
It’s always my way to look at the pictures first. I want to see what story the crime scene tells on its own, without having first read the other evidence. It’s a way of keeping the mind open. If I knew the prosecution narrative already, it might taint my view of the photos.
The DA doesn’t send the defense all of the evidence. The rule is they disclose the evidence they want to rely on in court, plus any evidence they uncover that might be helpful to the defense.
There were only five photographs.
So few that they should have come with their own alarm bell.
The forensic photographer would have taken dozens of pictures.
Of the five, two were wide shots of the apartment, the headless corpse of a young woman in the foreground. She was lying on the floor, chest down, arms by her sides, legs straight. She was naked and pale.
I remembered the autopsy report mentioned a cut on the sole of her left foot. There was no close-up of that cut, but the second picture was from the reverse angle, so I could just about see the small dark line on the sole. Her feet were dirty, perhaps from walking around the apartment barefoot.
There was no glass on the floor. Nothing was broken. No furniture disturbed.
A final picture was a close-up of what looked like a jewelry box sitting on a steel desk.
This photo wasn’t taken in the apartment.
The box was studded with either crystals or semi-precious stones.
An exhibit sign beside the box gave me an approximation of its size and scale.
About eight inches long, five inches wide and six inches deep, styled to make it look as though it was a treasure chest in miniature.
It looked heavy. Three stones were missing in the right corner of the box, just where some dark staining was present.
I flipped through the photobook again, then checked the binder of documents and the envelope, just to make sure I hadn’t missed anything.
This wasn’t a case of what the pictures told me. It was more about what they were trying to conceal.
‘Do you have five photographs on that pen-drive?’ I asked.
‘Just looked through them,’ said Harry. ‘Only five. That’s got to be a first for a murder trial. You can bet they took about a hundred pictures. Where are the rest of them?’
‘They’re in the DA’s file. They’re focusing on the body, maybe minimizing the cleanliness of the rest of the apartment. I can see the sense in that. Bloch said the scene was way too sanitized.’
‘You read the witness statements yet?’
‘Just about to do that.’
‘Fair warning: they don’t help us.’
‘Give me the highlights.’
‘Patrick’s campaign manager, Geoffrey Gilbert, says that Vanessa kept a close eye on Molly. That she was jealous of her, and suspected that Molly was trying to seduce her husband.’
‘That’s not good.’
‘Wait till you get to forensics. We don’t have the full report yet, but it looks like Molly’s blood was found on that ornate jewelry box. There’s also another set of DNA on the box, probably from skin contact. It’s Vanessa’s.’
‘Our client’s DNA and Molly’s blood on that box is the DA’s case.’
The DA had nearly all that they needed to get a conviction, right here.
During a heated argument, Vanessa hits Molly over the head with the jewelry box, killing her.
I couldn’t see exactly how they were going to make the case that Vanessa cut off Molly’s head, nor why she would do such a terrible thing.
That was a big problem here for the prosecutor.
I could see a competent DA convince a jury that Vanessa killed Molly in a fit of jealously because she believed her husband was having an affair with her, but I couldn’t see anyone proving that Vanessa then decapitated her victim.
Harry said, ‘Then there’s this,’ and clicked on a file.
It opened a video. Security camera footage from an emergency exit at the rear of the building, out by a small parking lot.
The footage was time stamped. It showed a man who looked like Patrick Vanderpool going into the building, coming out a while later.
Then a woman, who was clearly Vanessa Vanderpool.
When she left, she was carrying a gym bag.
‘Shit,’ I said, ‘you know what they’re going to argue, don’t you?’
‘Yep,’ said Harry. ‘The DA will say Molly’s head is in that gym bag. That it was a desperate attempt to hide the evidence of her crime. We have to go talk to her. See if there’s an explanation for this.’
‘What if there is an easy explanation?’ I asked.
Harry leaned back in his chair, crossed his legs.
He tossed aside the laptop, laced his fingers over his stomach and let his thumbs roll over each other.
This was Harry’s way of thinking, and relaxing.
It somehow helped his mind wander onto paths that led us out of a myriad problems, but this time it was different.
Harry wasn’t thinking about our case. He was thinking about me.
I could tell from that deep, penetrating look he gave me.
Not that he busted this expression out often, but when I saw it I knew he was trying to dig his way into my head.
Harry already knew what I was going to say.
But he didn’t speak. He just sat there, quietly, waiting for me to give it breath and let it float into the air around us, so that we could get a good look at it, taste it, see it for what it really was and try to figure out how we felt about it.
I let the thought breathe as I said, ‘Maybe the easy explanation is our client is guilty.’
Harry said nothing. He nodded, acknowledged it was out there. Let the thought permeate.
Then said, ‘Are you asking me if I think she killed Molly?’
‘I’m asking,’ I said.
‘No,’ said Harry, flatly and without hesitation.
‘Why not?’
His gaze drifted off. Then he said, ‘You’re much better at reading people than me, but I just don’t think she cares about Patrick enough to kill Molly Green.’
‘That’s dark,’ I said.
‘He’s rich, but I’d guess that Vanessa would do well out of a divorce.
I think he’s controlling her, Eddie. There could be some violence in that relationship too.
You’ve been thinking the same thing. It’s just a matter of time before she tells us.
Spousal abuse coupled with her husband’s infidelity would give her strong grounds for a favorable divorce.
The best thing to happen to Vanessa is her husband’s affair with Molly. ’
‘Then why is she lying to us? Why is she not telling us the whole story? And now the DA can prove that she lied to police. She told them she’d never been to Molly’s apartment.
Now they’ve got her DNA on a possible murder weapon, and thanks to a security camera they can prove she was there on the night of the murder and lied about it to everybody.
There’s a lot of heavy lifting to do before we could persuade a jury of reasonable doubt. ’
‘And yet the murder doesn’t make sense to me,’ he said.
‘Then what are we going to do?’ I asked.
My phone rang – Bloch.
‘I finally got a lead on Teresa Chase,’ she said, no greeting or small talk. All business.
‘Who is she?’
‘Lake and I are on our way to East Hampton to find out. We were looking for victims, crimes, deceased, but this morning I tried a different kind of search. Got a hit. Teresa Chase is a missing person.’
‘Missing? For how long?’
‘Six years.’
‘Do we have any kind of link with the Vanderpools yet?’
‘Just one,’ said Bloch. ‘According to the reports, the last person to see her alive was Patrick Vanderpool.’
She said she would check in later when she knew more and hung up.
Harry and I spent the afternoon going through the discovery, over and over again, re-reading everything. Denise made an appointment for us to call at Vanessa’s hotel that evening. I wasn’t looking forward to this, but it had to be done.
I heard footsteps coming up the stairs to our office. Fast, excited. A light step.
I knew exactly who it was. I got up and opened my office door, stepped into reception and was standing there when Amy walked in. She was carrying an overnight bag, wearing her jeans and a hoody. A dress was in a travel bag.
‘Dad, you haven’t forgotten,’ she said.
‘Of course not. Harry and I can take you to dinner, then we’ve got to see a client while you’re at the party and when you’re done I’ll pick you up.’
I heard heavier footsteps on the stairs, and Christine followed Amy inside.
‘He’s forgotten,’ said Christine.
‘I haven’t forgotten. I’ve been looking forward to tonight. I swear.’
‘Are you excited for the party?’ asked Denise.
‘Stressed. I don’t have time for dinner. I’ve got to do my make-up and get ready. Dad, can we go back to your place?’
‘Sure, let me grab my coat. Christine, how are you?’
‘Fine, just don’t forget to pick her up.’
‘I won’t. Jesus. What makes you think I forgot about today?’
‘Because we were supposed to meet at your apartment. We just came from there.’
Denise got up from her desk and muttered something about getting Harry to sign a discovery motion.
‘I’m sorry. I knew it was today, I just lost track of time,’ I said, and then tried to change the subject. ‘How’s Kevin?’ I asked, politely.
‘He still has a functioning memory,’ she said.
‘Come on, Dad. Let’s go,’ said Amy.
She was smiling, trying to head off the argument that was brewing between me and her mother.
‘I’ll be right there,’ I said, and turned to get my coat.
‘Eddie,’ said Christine, and I turned. She had followed me to get out of earshot of Amy.
‘I’m sorry. I know you’ve got a lot on your mind. I can tell when you’re on a big case. A lot of everyday stuff gets pushed out of that big brain of yours, especially when you’re dealing with life and death trials. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.’
‘It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. And don’t worry about her – she’ll have a great time.’
‘That’s what I’m worried about. Remind her she promised no champagne, no alcohol of any kind.’
‘I will.’
She turned away, and kissed Amy goodbye before she left.
Harry came out of his office with Clarence, who bounded toward Amy. She knelt down and nuzzled him, and giggled when he rolled onto his back so she could stroke his stomach.
‘I’ll meet you at Vanessa’s hotel later. I gotta drop Amy at her friend’s party.’
‘We can blow this off till tomorrow, you know?’ offered Harry.
‘I can’t. I need to know where the hell we’re going with this case, and why our client lied to everyone, including us.’