Illegal Alien

'Very well. You may call your first witness.'

'Thank you, Your Honor,' said Ziegler, moving over to stand in front of the lectern. The Court TV camera panned to follow her. 'The People call Dr. Anne Flemingdon.'

Flemingdon was a tough-looking white woman in her forties, broad shouldered, round-headed, with short-cropped hair that she was content to let show its gray. She was wearing a dark-blue jacket over a pale green blouse, and matching blue pants.

Dr. Flemingdon moved through the little wooden gate that separated the spectators from the lawyers, and took a position next to the court reporter.

She faced the clerk — a small Hispanic man — and raised her right hand before he had a chance to ask her to do so.

'You do solemnly swear or affirm,' said the clerk in a slightly accented voice, 'that the testimony you may give in the cause now pending before this Court shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?'

'Yes,' said Flemingdon. Her voice was quite deep.

'Please have a seat in the witness box and state and spell your first last names for the record,' said the clerk.

Flemingdon sat down. 'My name is Dr. Anne Flemingdon. Anne an E: A-N-N-E; Flemingdon is spelled F-L-E-M-I-N-G, D as in David, O-N.'

'Thank you,' said the clerk.

'Dr. Flemingdon,' said Ziegler, looking up from a sheaf of notes she’d placed on the lectern, 'are you a medical doctor licensed to practice medicine in the state of California?'

'I am.'

'By whom are you currently employed?'

'By the county of Los Angeles.'

'In what capacity?'

'I’m the chief medical examiner and coroner for the county.'

'In that capacity were you called upon to examine the body of Cletus Robert Calhoun?'

'I was.'

'Where was this examination performed?'

'I did the initial examination at the crime scene at Paul Valcour Hall, a residence facility located on the University Park campus of the Unity of Southern California. I did further work on the remains once they were collected and moved to my lab.'

'Your Honor, we would like to enter People’s exhibits one through twenty-five: photos of the corpse taken at the USC crime scene.'

'Mr. Rice?' said Pringle.

Dale exhaled. 'Your Honor, we would like to preserve our objection.'

'Understood,' said Pringle. 'Overruled.'

Three easels were brought in. Each one held up a board with several color photographs mounted on it. Flemingdon left the witness stand and went over to stand near them. The Court TV camera jockeyed to show her but not the photos.

Hask looked down at the cluttered surface of the defense table. Dale looked back; the other Tosoks were averting their eyes from the photos as well, although one of them — Ged, it was — kept surreptitiously peeking at them.

'Dr. Flemingdon,' said Ziegler, 'could you please describe the cause of death?'

Flemingdon unclipped a slim black laser pointer from her inside jacket pocket. 'Certainly,' she said. 'Death was caused by severe hemorrhagic shock. Dr. Calhoun suffered almost complete exsanguination — that is, his body was almost completely drained of blood. As you can see here in photo number four' — her laser pointer danced, a bright red dot amid all the dark-red blood—'Dr. Calhoun’s right leg was severed from his body, by a diagonal cut that began just below his hip. The cut was incredibly clean, resulting in all the blood vessels in the leg, including the femoral artery, being sliced open. The femoral is the principal artery of the thigh, responsible for supplying blood to the leg, and because it was a diagonal cut, the opening was large. It was through this opening that most of Dr. Calhoun’s blood drained out.'

'Drained out?' said Ziegler, her eyebrows rising. 'Surely it was more dramatic than that?'

'Well, yes. Until the loss of blood killed him, his heart would have been pumping, causing the blood to spurt out, actually.'

Dale looked at Katayama and shook his head. But — then again — maybe the Sam Peckinpah quality of all this would numb the jury… and a numb jury wouldn’t cry out for vengeance.

'How was this cut made?' asked Ziegler.

Flemingdon’s laser dot danced again. 'It started on the outside of the right hip, just below the groin line, and proceeded diagonally, at about a forty-degree angle, in toward the inner thigh.'

'Actually, my question was meant to elicit what sort of implement was used to make the cut.'

Dale rolled his eyes. Flemingdon knew damn well what Ziegler had meant; they’d doubtless rehearsed her testimony. But that little show was for the jury’s benefit, to make it look as though they hadn’t planned it all out.

'Oh,' said Flemingdon. 'Well, that’s a tough one. I can make a clean cut through flesh with a scalpel, but Dr. Calhoun was wearing pants — Levi’s blue jeans, to be precise.' A couple of jurors smiled — who could picture Calhoun in anything else? 'The cutting implement passed cleanly through the denim fabric, through the skin, through the muscles, through the femoral artery, and right on through the femur — the thigh-bone. I’d normally need a bone saw to go through the femur, and would never use a scalpel on denim — it would dull the blade. But this cut was made absolutely cleanly, without any snagging even on the bone.'

'Are you sure it was a single cut?'

'Oh, yes. It aligns absolutely perfectly. One single slice was made through the pants and Dr. Calhoun’s leg.'

'What was the maximum diameter of Dr. Calhoun’s upper thigh?'

'A little over eight inches.'

'So if a knife was used, it had to have a blade at least eight inches long, correct?'

'Yes.'

'The sharpest knives made are surgical scalpels, yes?'

'Yes,' said Flemingdon.

'Do any scalpels have blades eight inches long?'

'No standard one does. Of course, medical-supply companies can custom-make surgical tools.'

'But in all your experience, you’ve never seen a scalpel with an eight-inch blade?'

'Objection,' said Dale. 'Leading.'

'Sustained,' said Pringle. 'Rephrase.'

Ziegler nodded at the judge. 'What’s the largest scalpel you’ve ever seen?'

'I’ve seen one with a five-inch blade.'

'Nothing bigger?'

'No.'

'I’m sure the jury has noticed your fancy laser pointer, Doctor. Could the cut have been made by a laser beam?'

'No. A laser is a burning tool — it uses high temperatures to cut. It would have singed the denim, as well as Dr. Calhoun’s skin, and the hairs on his thigh. And a laser — well, a laser doesn’t leave arteries and veins open. Rather, it cauterizes them — sears them shut. That’s why we use laser scalpels for delicate surgery: they sever and seal blood vessels simultaneously. No, this cut was not made with a burning implement.'

'Thank you. Let’s leave the leg cut for the moment. What about the rest of the injuries?'

Flemingdon turned to the photos, pointing with her laser. 'The corpse had been severely — well, mutilated is probably the right word. The chest cavity had been carved open, and the ribs spread wide. Organs had been removed and scattered about, and the head was severed from the body.'

'You said a moment ago that ‘mutilated’ is probably the right word. Why the hesitation in word choice?'

'Well, it was mutilation, by the dictionary definition: ‘depriving of limbs or other essential parts, and/or irreparably disfiguring or damaging.’ But, well, whether the goal was to mutilate or not, I can’t be sure.'

'What do you mean by the ‘goal,’ Dr. Flemingdon?'

'The purpose. This could have just as easily been a deliberate medical dissection, rather than an attempt to disfigure.'

'Objection,' said Dale. 'Speculation. Move to strike.'

'Dr. Flemingdon is certainly qualified to offer an expert opinion in this area,' said Ziegler, looking up at the judge.

'Overruled,' said Pringle.

'What makes you say it might have been a dissection, Doctor?'

'The thoroughness, for one. Disfigurement is often localized — the face will be scarred, or the genitals or breasts will be carved up. This process seemed to concentrate on no one part of the anatomy — or, more precisely, it seemed to involve every part of the anatomy.'

'Would it be fair to say that whoever performed the procedures on this body had expert medical knowledge?'

'Yes and no.'

' ‘Yes and no,’ ' repeated Ziegler. 'What do you mean by that?'

'Yes, he or she clearly knew how to use surgical instruments. For instance, Ms. Ziegler, if I were to hand you or anyone else who had never used one before a scalpel and asked you to carve into a body, you’d likely make a tentative trial cut first — this would show as a hesitation mark, or shallow wound. Whoever dissected Dr. Calhoun showed no such inexperience. I would judge that the person doing it was quite familiar with dissecting technique.'

'Then your answer is yes — the person did have expert medical knowledge.'

'Expert knowledge of equipment, Ms. Ziegler. But the process by which the dissection was done was almost haphazard. No one who knew what they were doing would have spread the ribs in the way it had been done in this case; there are much easier methods. It was almost as if the person doing it, although familiar with general medical techniques, had no specific knowledge of human anatomy.'

At the defense table, Dale sighed. Ziegler had doubtless coached Flemingdon to volunteer this idea, neatly preventing Dale from objecting to a question that invited speculation from the witness.

'No specific knowledge of human anatomy?' repeated Ziegler.