I was puzzled for a second, picturing customers doing the usual things in some restaurant or store. Then Dunk’s strip club came to mind. His customers might well not want folks to see what they got up to in that dark and windowless place.
“Oh,” I said. “Jesus, blackmailing their customers?”
He shrugged and ate the other half of the cookie.
“So if by chance,” I said, “any of that footage showed customers breaking the law, are you guys offering immunity? I mean, if the customers know something that could help you out?”
“That’s on the table. In cooperation with state prosecutors, for the state crimes.”
“Witness protection, maybe? Is your cartel dangerous enough to need that?”
He nodded. “If you can get your people to talk,” he said, “it’s all on the table.”
I could see from his crossed arms and steady gaze that he couldn’t tell me more. But he’d said enough: there were people, plural, involved in Jackson’s case that he had reason to believe could testify against his drug cartel.
I just had to figure out who. And get them to talk.
33
Tuesday, December 17, Morning
It was time for me to cross-examine the medical examiner. The vivid pictures he’d painted the day before were still going to inflame the jury—there was no way around that—but I hoped if I could get the evidence from him that I needed, his style would help the jury remember it.
“So, Dr. Turner,” I said, “you’ve testified that Karl died of massive blood loss, and your colleague Dr. Armstrong told us that he’d lost at least a liter of blood. That’s a lot, correct?”
“It sure is. For a man Karl’s size, just the amount Dr. Armstrong observed on the boat could put him in hypovolemic shock. And that’s invariably fatal, unless you’re in a hospital when it happens.”
“Okay. And I apologize for this graphic detail, but based on your medical knowledge, if a man’s jugular vein is cut, how would the blood exit the body?” He looked confused. “I mean, and again I apologize, but would you describe it as, for instance, trickling out?”
“Oh, I see what you mean. No, not at all. You have to understand, this was a living man, and his blood would’ve been under pressure, just like yours or mine.” He was gesturing with both hands, getting far too enthusiastic for the topic at hand. “So when the hacking wound I spoke of was inflicted, the blood would’ve exited the artery under pressure, at speed.”
“Is there a plain-English word you might use to describe that? Spray, perhaps?”
“I might use the term ‘spurt,’ myself, but your word works too.”
Two members of the jury recoiled as if the blood he was describing had just sprayed them. I sent them a silent apology, but it couldn’t be helped. This information was a puzzle piece that I needed to put in place before presenting the defense evidence.
“And, Dr. Turner, I believe in your report you indicated that this wound was inflicted from the front. In other words, the assailant would’ve been standing in front of Karl. Is that correct?”
“Yes. I can’t speak to whether he was directly in front or off a little to one side—”
“But in any case, to the front?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. And wouldn’t that be the same direction the blood would, as you put it, spurt?”
“So the laws of physics would suggest.”
“In other words, yes? The blood would spray forward?”
“Yes.”
“So you would expect, wouldn’t you, that the assailant would—well, he’d get a lot of blood on him, wouldn’t he.”
“Well, that depends how far away he was.”
“But—remind me, Dr. Turner, how big was this boat?”
“Oh. Yes, in this particular case, there was only so far apart that they could be.”
“I believe, based on your colleague’s report, with the location of this bloodstain, they can’t have been more than about two or three feet apart, correct?”
“I believe that’s accurate, yes.” My gory question seemed to have inspired him, since he came back to it without any prompting: “So, yes, I would expect the assailant to have a significant amount of blood on him.”
“A significant amount of blood. Okay. And I understand, Dr. Turner, that you also performed tests on all the samples that the police provided you from their search of my client, Jackson Warton? Fingernail scrapings, clothing, hair and so forth?”
“I did, yes.”
“And can you confirm you didn’t find any of Karl Warton’s blood on him? Or anybody’s blood?”
He paused a moment. “That’s correct, but—”
“No blood. Thank you. And I understand you also performed drug tests on Jackson after his arrest, correct?”
“Yes.”
“The usual urine and blood tests, and even hair?”
“All three, yes.”
“Because some drugs last longer in the hair, correct?”
“Yes.”
“About how long after heroin use would you be able to get a positive test on hair?”
“It can vary. Anything from one to three months.”
“And did Jackson’s hair test, or any of those tests, come back positive for heroin?”
“They did not.”
“So you found no sign that Jackson had used any heroin. Correct?”
“That’s correct.”
“Thank you. I have no further questions.”
I went back to the table satisfied. The puzzle was partly assembled, and when I added my pieces—Jackson’s jacket, Mazie’s testimony about the laundry, and the question of how the heck nobody noticed a blood-covered Jackson walking all the way home the next morning—hopefully the jury would see there was reasonable doubt.
Ruiz called Blount next. As the lead detective—and also a timeline witness, given what he was going to say about seeing Jackson—he would probably be on the stand for a good three or four hours.
Blount was, it seemed, the best piece of evidence the prosecution had. I had one shot at weakening that evidence. And I was taking that shot today.
I spent lunchtime with Jackson and Terri in the tiny conference room that the court left empty for criminal defense teams. Over sandwiches from the courthouse vending machine, we discussed what I’d learned from Garrett and how to work it into
