Chapter Twenty-Two.
The offices of Oregon Forensic Investigations were located in an industrial park a few blocks from the Columbia River. Late in the afternoon of the day after her unsuccessful meeting with Jon Dupre, Amanda drove along narrow streets flanked by warehouses until she found the complex where Paul Baylor worked. A concrete ramp led up to a walkway that ran in front of the offices of an import-export business and a construction firm. The last door opened into a small anteroom. It was furnished with two chairs that stood on either side of an end table on which were stacked several scientific journals. She rang a button on the wall next to a door, for assistance. Moments later, Paul Baylor walked into the anteroom. Baylor was a slender, bookish African American with a degree from Michigan State in forensic science and criminal justice, who had worked at the Oregon State Crime Lab for ten years before leaving to set up his own shop. Amanda used him when she needed a forensic expert.
Baylor ushered Amanda into a small office outfitted with inexpensive furniture. A small desk was covered with stacks of paperwork, and a bookcase was crammed with books on forensic science.
'I've got a few questions I wanted to ask you about a new case I've got,' Amanda said as she opened her briefcase and took out a manila envelope.
'The Travis and Hayes murders?'
Amanda smiled. 'You got it on the first try.'
'It wasn't hard. I can't read a paper or turn on my TV without seeing you. I should probably get your autograph.'
'If I gave you my autograph you'd be able to sell it and retire. Who'd do my forensic work?'
Baylor laughed as Amanda took a stack of photographs out of the envelope and handed them to him.
'Jail personnel took these right after Wendell Hayes was stabbed to death. What do you make of these cuts?'
Baylor shuffled through the pictures, stopping to study some of them longer than others.
'They're defense wounds,' Baylor said when he was ready. 'When you have a homicidal attack with a knife, the victim's wounds will normally be deep or long and haphazardly spaced. You're going to find cuts like the ones in the photos on the victim's hands, fingers, palms, and forearms, because he's going to throw up his hands and forearms automatically to ward off the attack, or he'll try to grab the weapon. That's what we have here. A long deep cut on the forearm, a slice on the webbing of the hand, and cuts on the palms and fingers.'
'Is there any way that the person wielding the knife could have received those wounds?'
'Sure, if this was a knife fight where both people were armed or one person lost the knife and the other person got it for a while. But those wounds were received by someone who was being attacked.'
'Very interesting.'
'Not to me. They're exactly what I'd expect to find on Wendell's arms and hands.'
'Oh, I agree there. Only these arms and hands belong to Jon Dupre.'
Frank Jaffe worked in a spacious corner office decorated with antiques, which was basically unchanged since the firm was founded shortly after his graduation from law school over thirty years ago. When Amanda rapped on Frank's doorjamb, he looked up from a brief.
'Do you have a minute, Dad?'
Frank put down his pen and leaned back. 'For you, always.'
Amanda threw herself onto a chair that stood before Frank's immense desk and told her father about Dupre's violent reaction when she suggested that he might be guilty of the Hayes and Travis murders and about Ally Bennett's assertion that Senator Travis had attacked Lori Andrews. Finally she told her father about her meeting with Paul Baylor.
'What's your take?' Frank asked when Amanda was through.
'Those defense wounds bother me. Dupre was treated for them immediately after his arrest in the visiting room.'
'Any chance they're self-inflicted?' Frank asked.
'Why would he cut himself?'
'To fashion a self-defense argument in a case that's impossible to win any other way.'
'Who would believe Dupre, Dad?'
'No one. Which is the problem you're going to have trying to sell this theory to a jury. The logical explanation for those cuts is that Dupre brought the shiv into the visiting room and Hayes somehow got the knife away from him and stabbed Dupre in self-defense. Before you can argue that Dupre acted in self-defense, you're going to have to prove that Hayes smuggled the shiv in, which presents another problem. What motive could Hayes possibly have to attack Dupre?'
'What motive did Jon have to kill Hayes?' Amanda countered. 'Don't forget the fix Dupre was in when Hayes came to the jail. If he's convicted of killing Senator Travis, he'll get life in prison or a lethal injection. Wendell Hayes was a terrific trial lawyer. Why kill someone who could have saved his life?'
'Good point. Unfortunately the prosecutor doesn't have to prove motive.'
'Yeah, I know.' Amanda looked dejected. 'There is something else that's bothering me, though. If Dupre brought the shiv to the interview room because he wanted to kill Hayes, he'd have to know that Hayes was the lawyer who was coming to visit him. Grant didn't appoint Hayes until shortly before Hayes went to the jail.'
'So, we need to know when Dupre learned that Hayes was going to be his lawyer.'
