“What did you say?”
“I told her that there were witnesses. That people had seenher at both the city and capital offices of Dillon and Becker that day, Fridaythe sixth. And that she had been seen going into Sam Dillon’s office at thecapital and slamming the door shut, and she’d been heard yelling at him.”
“What did she say to that?”
“She didn’t speak for a while. I would say about fiveminutes. Then she said, ‘It’s complicated.’ That’s all she said. She got up andleft.” The detective shrugs. “We had no basis at that time to hold her.”
“Was there anything about her personal appearance thatstruck you as significant?”
“Yes,” says Czerwonka, holding up a hand. “She had nails.They weren’t particularly long but they were there. But the left-hand indexfinger-that finger had almost no nail. It was broken down past the fingertip.”
Allison curls her left hand into a fist.
“Were her fingernails painted?”
“Not at that time, no.”
“All right, Detective. What did you do next? After thedefendant left the police station after that brief visit.”
“We got a search warrant.”
Roger Ogren shows Detective Czerwonka the search warrant andadmits it into evidence.
“You searched the defendant’s home?”
“Yes. The following day. The twelfth of February.”
“Can you tell us what you found, Detective?”
“We looked in her jewelry box. I did it myself.”
“What did you find?”
“We found one platinum earring-”
The judge takes notice of this. Chin lifting, mouth parting.
“-with a gold fastener.”
“Pure platinum,” the jeweler told Allison. “A polishedfinish. The post is fourteen-karat yellow gold. It’s our finest.”
They were beautiful. Allison favored platinum, and shewanted to give herself something. Her novel had just been published. Mat hadbeen generous with jewelry over the years, but it was always gold, and nomatter how many hints she dropped, he never bought her platinum.
She put them on and looked into the small mirror on thecounter. She had never bought herself jewelry before. But something felt rightabout it. Something about the very fact that she was doing it for herself. Shehad begun to do such things, as the separation from Mat was becoming morepronounced. It was with a small thrill, mixed with a deepening sadness, thatshe set down her credit card.
Roger Ogren walks from the evidence table to the witness,holding a bag containing the single earring.
“Is this the earring you found in the defendant’s jewelrybox, Detective?”
“That’s it,” he says with assurance. “It obviously stoodout.”
“And why did it stand out?”
“It stood out,” says the detective, “because it is identicalto the earring that we found in Sam Dillon’s house at the crime scene. It’s thesecond earring of the set.”
Ogren shows the detective the other platinum earring, in aseparate evidence bag.
“That’s the one we found near Sam Dillon’s body,” Czerwonkaconfirms.
“And as a reminder to the judge,” says Ogren, going back tothe evidence desk placed behind the prosecution table, “this is a credit-cardreceipt for this pair of platinum earrings, purchased by the defendant eighteenmonths ago?”
“Yes.”
“All right. Did you find anything else, Detective, in yoursearch of the home?”
“Yes. We searched the defendant’s garbage, of course. Wefound cotton balls that contained fingernail polish and nail polish remover.”
“What color?”
“Red. We ran a check on it.” Czerwonka looks at the notepadon his lap. “The actual color is ‘Saturday Night Red.’ It was made by EvelynMasters. It’s pretty pricey.”
“And did you find such a fingernail polish in thedefendant’s home?”
“Yes. There was a bottle of it in her drawer in thebathroom.”
“And remind us, Detective. The broken fingernail you foundin Sam Dillon’s house after his death.” Roger Ogren holds up the evidence bagand approaches the witness. “What was the color of that fingernail?”
“It was the same. ‘Saturday Night Red’ by Evelyn Masters.”
“And yet, by the time you spoke with the defendant at thepolice station, a few days after the death of Sam Dillon-”
“Her nails had no polish on them,” Czerwonka finishes. “Shehad removed the polish.”
“Very good, Detective. Now let me ask, did you find anythingelse of significance?”
“We did,” he answers. “We found, in Mrs. Pagone’s laundry, amaroon sweatshirt. A Champion sweatshirt with the name ‘Mansbury College’ onit.”
“All right.” Ogren retrieves another evidence bag. “Is thisthat sweatshirt?”
“It is.”
“And did you find anything of significance on it?”
“We found blood.”
“Blood that has been matched through DNA testing to SamDillon’s blood?” Ogren asks. This is a leading question, but these are onlyfoundational questions. Ogren, yesterday, called a forensic scientist to thestand to confirm that the blood on Allison’s sweatshirt was Sam Dillon’s blood.Technically, the evidence was presented out of order-it had not yet beenestablished that the sweatshirt was found in Allison’s house-but this is atrial by judge, not jury, and the judge accommodated the scheduling needs ofthe witnesses by hearing the evidence out of order.
So now, Detective Czerwonka is confirming that he found thesweatshirt in Allison’s laundry during his search of the house.
“Yeah,” the detective says, “the sweatshirt we found in thedefendant’s laundry had Sam Dillon’s blood on it.”
ONE DAY EARLIER…
So let’s summarize all of this for the Court,” says RogerOgren. He is directing a deputy medical examiner, an elderly man named ErnestMcCabe, on the second day of trial. “What was the cause of death?”
“The cause of death was blunt trauma to the skull,” says thedoctor. “Four independent blows to the head, from two different sources. One ofthe sources we know about. The clock that was on the mantel. The other source,which was in all likelihood a much heavier and sturdier object, was notrecovered.”
Yes, it was a much sturdier object. The prosecution knowswhat the murder weapon is. The award from the Midwest Manufacturers’Association was conspicuously absent from the mantel above Sam’s fireplace. Itdidn’t take the police long to discover what had been removed from the mantel.The MMA gives out an award annually, so law enforcement had no trouble findinga replica, had no difficulty seeing how easily it could have been used to killSam Dillon.
But they can’t find it, not the one used to kill Sam. Theydragged the lake near Sam’s house. They searched Allison’s home and her yard.They searched every waste-disposal facility in the county and dragged everyriver. They figure Allison killed Sam around seven that night and drove aroundfor hours before returning to Sam’s house at close to one in the morning. Theyassume she has hidden the weapon somewhere. But they couldn’t possibly guesswhere. They would never think to look in the back of a grocery store whereAllison shopped before the family moved to their
