After he’d gone, Bell leaned close to me. “I call him ‘Doubting Thomas.’ He’s not a thug like some of the others. That skinny man outside-Tolman-he’s a thug. But Thomas is not too bright, either, and he’s very young. All the experienced guards, the ones with smarts, they know Erland is innocent.”
So Sheriff Baker had told me.
The protocol was for Bell and me to sit on the same side of a table-every item in the room was bolted to the floor-while the guards went to fetch Jefferts. The long wait gave Bell a chance to return to his dissertation on rigor mortis.
“I think you’re missing the important point about the time of death,” he said in his smoke-strained voice. “Maybe you didn’t have a chance to read the trial testimony in full, so I don’t blame you. Danica Marshall-I call her ‘the Black Widow’-is an expert prosecutor. She builds her cases very methodically, like spinning a web. I wasn’t present for Erland’s trial, but I’ve watched her in action since I joined the J-Team. I wanted to study her approach the way an entomologist studies a spider.”
“A spider is an arachnid,” I said.
Either he didn’t hear me or he didn’t find the correction worthy of acknowledgment.
“The Black Widow leaves nothing to chance. She studies every scrap of evidence and coaches each witness for the prosecution. She uses her looks, too, but that’s neither here nor there. I suspect she was raped as a young woman. That would explain her hatred of men.”
I kept my eyes on the door through which they would soon be bringing the prisoner. Bell and his relentless lectures had begun to annoy me.
He continued anyway: “In every murder trial, the prosecutor asks the medical examiner, ‘Based on your examination, at what time did death occur?’ And the ME specifies between which hours it might have taken place. The prosecutor wants to prove to the jury that the victim died at a certain hour, when the defendant had an opportunity to commit the crime. But the Black Widow didn’t do that! She asked Kitteridge if he had reached a conclusion about when death occurred, and he said, ‘Probably thirty hours or more.’ Why be so fuzzy? Because she knew Erland couldn’t have murdered Nikki, and she wanted to confuse the jurors.”
“What would be the point in her railroading an innocent man?”
“You are a game warden, so perhaps you feel a certain loyalty to the prosecution. But you are intelligent and open-minded. I know you attended Colby College. You see, I have studied you, too.” Was I supposed to feel flattered or stalked? “And you must admit that there are times when the cops fixate on a suspect too quickly. They know in their bones that so-and-so is guilty, but they don’t have the evidence to convict. What happens then? If they are professionals, they keep investigating until they find the evidence. Or they admit they are wrong and begin looking at other suspects. But not all detectives and prosecutors are so scrupulous. Some are lazy, like Winchenback and Marshall, who just decide that Erland Jefferts is guilty, and then do everything within their powers to convict him-even by withholding evidence and misleading the jury.”
It was at this stage of his diatribe that I’d begun to wonder whether coming to the prison had been such a smart move on my part. Then the doors slid open and the guard whom Bell called Doubting Thomas emerged. He was leading by the arm a handsome blond-haired man in a light blue work shirt and jeans.
“Erland!” Bell exclaimed, rising to his feet.
27
The two men did not kiss, but Bell did wrap one heck of a bear hug around the prisoner.
“It’s always good to see you, Ozzie,” said Jefferts, taking a seat across from us. He seemed slightly shorter in real life, but his eyes were an aqueous blue and the strong jawline was familiar to me from the GQ photo shoot.
Bell waved his arm like a magician gesturing at an empty cabinet from which his assistant has just vanished. “Allow me to introduce Warden Michael Bowditch. He’s read your case file and would like to assist us in getting you a new trial.”
I put my functional hand on Bell’s arm to slow him down. “That’s not entirely accurate. But I did want to meet you.”
“I don’t get many visitors.” He had a lobsterman’s accent-not as strong as his aunt’s-but it branded him as a native Mainer. “What happened to your hand?”
“I broke it.”
“That sucks.” He settled back in his chair and made unblinking eye contact with me. “I recognize your name. When your old man was on the run, it was all over the TV. We get to watch the news sometimes. But mostly they try to keep us ignorant in here.”
“Erland is the exception,” Bell interjected. “He has used this opportunity to better himself. He’s learned more about Maine law than half the attorneys in the state. I bet he could pass the bar on the first try.”
I held my tongue. It’s an old cop trick. People don’t like speechless intervals. Keep your mouth shut, and eventually they begin to babble. I wanted to see if my silence unnerved the convicted killer.
Erland Jefferts stared right back at me with a canny smile.
“So you must have questions for Erland,” Ozzie Bell blurted out.
“Just one,” I said. “Did you kill Nikki Donnatelli?”
“No.”
There was no hesitation, not a twitch around the mouth or a blinking of the eyes. Jefferts was either telling the truth or he had convinced himself of a lie he’d told repeatedly over seven years. The third alternative was that he was a stone-cold psychopath.
“So who killed her, then?” I asked.
He began to pick with his fingernail at something in his teeth. “I thought you had only one question.”
“I lied.”
He smiled broadly. “Here I thought cops always told the truth.”
“Sadly, we know that’s not the case,” said Bell.
“So who killed her?” I repeated.
“Hell, man, it could have been lots of guys. Didn’t Ozzie show you his list of local perverts? At the moment, I’d look at that Westergaard guy if I were you. He’s still missing, right? Have you checked out his whereabouts seven years ago?”
I leaned back and rested my splint on the table. “I’m guessing you have someone else in mind, though. Someone other than Professor Westergaard, since his name isn’t in Ozzie’s files.”
Jefferts let his eyes go blank. He had no intention of answering me.
Bell jumped into the conversation. “Erland is not required to do the police’s job. The defense only needs to suggest that other individuals had the means, motive, and opportunity to commit the crime. And our affidavits do that.”
I tried circling around for an unobstructed shot. “What happened at the Harpoon Bar? Why did Folsom throw you out?”
“Because I was flirting with Nikki.” His hard tone told me he was still carrying a grudge. “Folsom didn’t like it because he wanted to bang her himself.”
“Describe Nikki to me.”
“She was a spoiled little cock tease. We made out in my truck a few times-which is why they found her hairs and clothing fibers in it-but she wouldn’t let me touch her between the legs. Not at first. She said she had a boyfriend in Italy.” He laughed. “You think I’m incriminating myself by saying that we fooled around a little.”
He was right that the admission had thrown me for a loop. Was this apparent candor a ploy to win me over? “Tell me what happened after you left the bar.”
“I didn’t see Nikki again.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
A pink flush rose along his pale throat and spread across his cheeks. “I’ve been interrogated about this a thousand times before, you know.”
I could feel waves of nervousness rippling off Bell beside me. This wasn’t how he’d expected our conversation
