Somebody walked off with some parts before they put a match to this baby. Definitely took your pony bucket seats. Probably got the rally pack gauges, wood steering wheel, shifter console. I can already see he got the four barrel carb and manifold from the engine compartment, and I’m just getting started in there.”
“What would he do with all that stuff, sell it?”
“Duh. We’re talking a vintage Mustang convertible. You can easily haul away a small fortune in parts.”
“So the guy stole some parts? Where does that get you?”
“Like I said: Follow the parts. I just do some checking around with repair shops that specialize in collector cars. See if anyone unloaded some Mustang parts in the last few days.”
Jack nodded, following his logic. “Actually, there aren’t that many. At least not that many good ones. I can tell you that much from experience.”
“Exactly. So, all I gotta do is go around shopping for the right parts. When I find the guy who has them, I just get him to tell me who sold him the parts.”
“Sounds good on paper. But no grease monkey is going to tell you where he bought stolen parts.”
“Wrong again, Jacko. No grease monkey is going to tell you where he bought the stolen parts.” He slid the big wrench out of his pocket, then tapped it into his open palm as he spoke. “But he’ll tell me. Trust me. He’ll beg to tell me.”
“I didn’t hear that,” said Jack.
“I never said it,” said Theo.
32
The morning was all about bodily fluids. Jack had been expecting blood-crime-scene photos, spray-pattern analysis, that sort of thing. The prosecutor had something else entirely on tap.
Torres said, “Dr. Vandermeer, would you please introduce yourself to the jury?”
A small man with neatly cropped beard and mustache leaned toward the microphone. The witness box almost dwarfed him, and Jack had the sense that he should have been sitting on a phone book or something. He leaned toward Lindsey and whispered, “You know this guy?”
“Never seen him before,” she said.
The witness cleared his throat and said, “My name is Timothy Vandermeer. I have a Ph.D. in psychology, and I am an M.D. who specializes in treatment of patients with problems of infertility.”
“Are you board certified in this area?”
“Yes. I am an American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology Certified Diplomate. I am also board certified in the subspecialty of reproductive endocrinology.”
“What other experience and education do you have in this area?”
His response went on and on, everything from his undergraduate dual major in biology and psychology to the numerous scholarly articles he had written for medical journals around the country. Jack stopped taking notes when Vandermeer mentioned a research piece entitled, “It’s a Boy/It’s a Girl-The Joy of Spinning Sperm.”
The prosecutor glanced toward the jury, as if to make sure they were still with him. He seemed satisfied. “Doctor, you mentioned earlier that you have a Ph.D. in psychology. Do psychological factors ever come into play in your treatment of patients with infertility problems?”
“Oh, yes, absolutely. You don’t need a Ph.D. in psychology to know that emotional factors, such as stress, can affect one’s ability to procreate.”
“Does that hold true for both men and women?”
“Surely. It works both ways. Men, however, can generally be less willing than women to talk about these psychological factors. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t there.”
Again the prosecutor checked the jury, perhaps to make sure he wasn’t embarrassing anyone. Then he shifted gears. “Doctor, was the defendant, Lindsey Hart, ever your patient?”
“No, she was not.”
“Was her husband, Captain Oscar Pintado, ever your patient?”
“Yes, he was.”
There was a quiet rumbling in the courtroom, and the judge perked up a bit, too. Jack managed to cut his visible reaction to a sideways glance at his client. He could see in her eyes that she had no idea.
The prosecutor said, “Tell us how that came about, please.”
“Captain Pintado first came to my office in Miami about a year ago. He was on military leave with his wife and son. But they weren’t with him. In fact, I should point out that Captain Pintado specifically asked me not to tell his wife that he was consulting me.”
“What was the purpose of his visit?”
“As he explained it, he and his wife had been trying to have a child for many years. They adopted a son, but they had not given up hope of getting pregnant. He told me that he and his wife had seen an infertility specialist together. Unfortunately, that doctor was unable to help them.”
“Did he tell you why he came to see you?”
“Yes. His father recommended me. Alejandro Pintado-or perhaps Mrs. Pintado-happened to see me on a television talk show discussing my latest research on infertility issues.”
“Briefly, doctor, could you please describe the nature and findings of that research?”
His face lit up, as if he would have liked nothing better. “Gladly. In the most general sense, the nature of my research was sperm analysis. I compared two groups of men. In the first group, I analyzed the sperm of men who were in a completely monogamous relationship with a woman, either married or with a long-time partner. The other group was made up entirely of men who admitted to having sex with women who had multiple sexual partners.”
“Let me make sure I understand this second group. It was not the man who had multiple sexual partners. It was the woman.”
“That’s correct. I was looking for a one-woman man, so to speak, where the woman had made no commitment of exclusivity to that particular man. Frankly, most of the men in this category were single men who were in a relationship with a married woman.”
“All right. I assume you collected sperm samples from men in both groups.”
“That’s correct.”
“What kind of analysis did you do?”
“The first step was a standard semen analysis. I wanted to make sure that I was dealing with sperm samples that fell within normal ranges. Particularly with respect to motility and forward motion.”
“Would you explain those terms, please?”
“Motility refers to the extent to which sperm actually moves. Like the old macho saying, ‘My guys can swim.’ If they don’t move, they’re fairly useless. Swimming, however, is not the be-all and end-all. If your sperm is doing the backstroke, you’re probably not going to fertilize the egg, either.”
A little laughter wafted across the courtroom. Even the judge smiled. The prosecutor said, “So, forward motion is a separate component of motility?”
“That’s right.”
“That makes sense. What was the next step of your analysis?”
He grinned, as if too pleased with himself. “Not to pat myself on the back too firmly, but this is where my analysis was somewhat groundbreaking. I examined the motility of sperm in two different environments. First, I looked at each man’s sperm in isolation and took my measurements. Once I’d done that, I would introduce the sperm of another man into each man’s sample. And I got the most interesting results.”
“What did you find, Doctor?”
“In both groups of men, some of the motile sperm continued to swim forward, as if headed straight for the egg. Other motile sperm, however, swam directly toward the foreign sperm. These sperm attacked the invader, pummeled it, and destroyed it.”
“What did this tell you, Doctor?”
“My conclusion is that men have two kinds of sperm. One has fertilization as a primary mission. The others act
