We took particular care with the last page, the one with the filigree of blood on the center fold on the back. I knew that this would be critical, that the pattern of these little spots was now most likely the key item of evidence in our entire case. I tried to copy the scripted side as best I could without entirely flattening the paper.
I also copied the front of the large envelope with the label, not that it was going to tell us much without a return address or postmark.
Then I took a long, deep breath. I wasn’t sure this was a good thing to do, but I was going to do it anyhow. The way you might gingerly handle a touchy detonator on a bomb, I carefully laid the back of the last page on the glass surface of the copier. This was the side with the filigree of blood across the center. I left the other two folds, the top and bottom third of the page, sticking straight up, and with the cover of the copier lifted, I pushed the “copy” button again. As the heat of the light element from the copier warmed my face, I prayed that it would do nothing to impair or destroy the spiderwebs of dried blood touching the glass.
After taking photos of the pages, including the blood on the back of the last page, I placed the call and waited for Quinn to call back.
Ninety minutes later, with our forensics expert already at the office, a uniformed officer and a plainclothes investigator from the D.A.’s office arrived to collect the transfer box with the Jefferson Letter, the envelope, and the small Ziploc bag containing the strands of hair. Together with our forensics expert, the whole caboodle headed for the crime lab.
24
As we head off to court Tuesday morning, Harry and I are plagued by the thought that some sick mind reading of the details of the trial in the newspapers or online may have put together its own package of manufactured evidence and slid it under our door.
The world is full of such sickness, armies of miscreants giving birth to computer viruses and laying waste to other people’s lives for their own amusement. If they have, the crime lab and our own expert will know, before the morning is out.
Seven A.M., and we are with Quinn in chambers, behind closed doors.
Tuchio is already wading in. Having been briefed by his forensics people, who are still laboring over the bloodied Jefferson Letter and the blond hairs in the bag, the prosecutor is busy working up options, trying to stretch the sidelines for some open-field running, if it turns out that the evidence is real.
New evidence, so he demands the right to reopen his case. Quinn assures him that if the evidence is verified, he will entertain the motion. Fairness requires this.
“It could be nothing, a sham, but if it turns out to be the item that was taken from the scene, it doesn’t change a thing,” says Tuchio. “The defendant himself could have taken it at the time of the murder.” He pauses to look at Harry and me, just for a second. “Of course, this could explain how it showed up so conveniently in his lawyer’s office at the last minute.”
“In case you forgot, our client is in jail,” says Harry. “He would need long arms to slip it under our door.”
“Use your imagination,” says Tuchio. “A confederate, a friend, a family member-or maybe it was already there.”
What he means is, in our office. He is suggesting that Harry and I have had this, the bloodied Jefferson Letter, for some time, presumably given to us by Carl, or one of his friends or a family member, and held it for just such an occasion, so that it could be mysteriously delivered to ourselves and used in just this way.
This is the fanatic divide between prosecutors and the criminal defense bar. So ingrained is it that I am barely annoyed by the innuendo. Any prosecutor in the same situation who didn’t at least make the suggestion, you would have to assume had the flu and a sufficiently high fever to affect his normal instincts.
“And what about the blond hairs in the little Ziploc bag?” I ask him.
“They may be nothing,” says Tuchio.
“But what if they are?”
Tuchio is biting his lip on this one. We are both thinking the same thing, that the loose blond hairs that arrived with the letter may match the ones found by police forensics techs on the bathroom floor of Scarborough’s hotel room. If not, and unless there is some sick brain teaser out there, why were they included with the letter?
“If there’s one thing we know with certainty, it’s that Arnsberg isn’t blond,” says Harry.
Tuchio knows that if the hairs turn out to be a match, the prosecution will find itself waving off ghosts in its closing argument. The specter that some other dude did it will not only be walking in front of the jury, this phantom may be doing the jig.
Tuchio turns to Judge Quinn. The judge thus far has been leaning back in his chair, counting ceiling tiles, taking in all the various arguments and innuendos.
“It could be,” says Tuchio, “if those hairs, the ones in the plastic bag, prove a match, then it’s possible there could have been two assailants in the hotel room that day.”
I was wondering how long it would take him to arrive at this.
The prosecutor pushes this thought out in front of the judge to see if he might start a test drive for a new theory-that is, if the wheels don’t fall off-one that might carry him to the end of his case.
“The only problem, Mr. Tuchio, is that I don’t remember you talking about any assailants other than the defendant in your opening statement, or for that matter presenting any evidence in that direction,” says Quinn.
Tuchio could reopen his case and try to bring some in, but the fact that this evidence would be at such stark odds with what he has already presented does not allow this as a real and viable option.
“That’s not entirely true, Your Honor.” He argues that there’s evidence of possible conspiracy in the state’s case, or at least that efforts were made by the defendant to enlist the assistance of others in the commission of violence against Scarborough.
Tuchio reminds the judge of the testimony from Charlie Gross, about the bravado by Carl in the bar about kidnapping Scarborough from the hotel, and the fact that Carl’s words, according to the witness, were all cast in the plural-that “we” could kidnap the victim, that “we” could haul him out of the hotel, that “we” could take him out into the desert and shoot him.
Quinn is suddenly sitting forward in his chair. “I hope you’re not suggesting to this court that your own witness is a co-conspirator to the crime?”
Tuchio had better hope not, because if he is, he has just rung the bell for a mistrial, in which case we can all go home, including Carl, at least until Tuchio charges him again.
“No, no, not at all.” Tuchio’s hand is up like a traffic cop’s. “Not at all. I’m not saying that. What I am saying is that there is evidence already in the state’s case that the defendant himself spoke in ways that might lead a reasonable person to conclude that others may have joined him in the commission of the crime. That’s all I’m saying.”
This is the seam, as narrow as it is, that Tuchio wants to crawl through.
You can bet that this sudden parsing of the language off the tripping tongue of Charlie Gross is not something that has sprung from the cortex of Tuchio’s nimble mind as we sit here. He has probably been up all night praying that the letter and the hairs in the envelope are a hoax, while periodically measuring the depth of the crater he’s in if they’re not. He is testing the judge to see if Quinn will go for it, if the court will allow him to argue on close, despite the state’s earlier theory that Carl acted alone, that there may have been two perpetrators, Carl and a blond person whom apparently they have not been able to identify.
He explains to the judge that this could make sense-that is, if he can just pound all the little parts that are sticking out into place, so that they fit into his own case, the goal being the continued march toward the death house for Carl.
“Don’t you see, Your Honor? The defendant’s blond confederate was probably the one who slipped the envelope under their office door,” he says.
This is, of course, more polite than suggesting that we opened the door and that Blondie handed it to us, along with a lengthy explanation of what it was.
But as Quinn says, “All this”-Tuchio’s sudden sighting of a second killer-“is strangely missing not only from your
