Page 77 of The Accomplice
Harry and I had discussed Bloch’s call. He looked pained when I told him what she’d found. Then he shook his head.
‘It’s not Kate. The Sandman needs her.’
‘What if she’s already dead, Harry ?’
‘Then we have to go on defending her client. Look, for now, we have to think that Kate is alive. We have to hope. We have to get our head in the game,right now.’
I nodded, took a sip of water and tried to force all thought of Kate from my mind. I’d nearly lost it completely outside the courthouse. All I could do was hope Harry was right. That she was still alive. And if she was alive, she needed us to win.
Professor Cal Johnson gave us a big problem. It was the only real forensic evidence tying Carrie Miller to the murders. In real terms, this was the prosecutor’s ace card. The other witnesses were high cards, but they all had to stand together to make the straight flush. If we knocked one or two of them down, White was left with his ace.
Considering we were holding nothing in our hand, the ace could be enough to take the whole damn pot.
Forensic evidence is given holy-writ treatment in murder trials. The testimony of expert witnesses linking DNA to homicides was usually more than enough to send any defendant to a cramped, painted cell for a very long time. The defense has two hurdles to mount – the nature of the evidence and the jury’s interpretation of that evidence. Even if you can make a great argument against the DNA evidence, it’s not worth a damn if the jury doesn’t understand your point.
I had to go slowly with this one, as would White.
Professor Johnson wore a thin, brown V-neck sweater under his navy suit jacket. I hoped it was an effort to hide his tie, which was mud-colored, to put it kindly. He was thin and tall, well dressed, I guess, but all of this contrasted with his bushy, scabrous beard. Thick tufts of white and dark hairs stuck out at odd angles as if he’d had a small animal living in there that had suddenly been evicted from its bristly home.
Polished leather dress shoes and a faded gold wedding ring completed his ensemble. I guessed the wife shopped for his clothes, she had some taste at least, and as a traditional suburban professional he always shined his shoes, but the beard spoke of a more manic personality – that eccentric part of the mind, which is such a creative boost for research scientists.
I was a little surprised his wife had let him leave the house with his beard in that state. He was sworn in, took a seat. He poured a glass of water and got himself comfortable in the witness box. I noticed him tugging at the beard, turning the strands over in his fingers. The good con artists can spot a tell. The great con artists can not only spot it, they can use it. This was not a complicated forensic case. It was easy. The same kind of testimony that Johnson had given over and over again, for twenty years. He’d testified in high-profile murder cases many times. This was his job. I’d even watched him testify before. And on those occasions, he looked better.
He’d been tugging at that beard all morning.
He was nervous about something.
That meant I had to find out what it was. And use it.
‘Professor, we are all aware of your qualifications and expertise. You are well recognized in your field of DNA analysis. Let’s start with your involvement in this case. Take a look at photographs eleven, twelve and thirteen, please.’
The screen facing the jury and the witness stand came to life. It showed the photograph of a white blouse hanging in Carrie Miller’s closet. The next shot was a close-up of the cuff. There was a stain there. Rust red. Like a drop of ketchup had splashed on the cuff, dried and faded. The last photo was the same blouse in an evidence bag marked BS9.
‘What can you tell us about these photographs ?’
‘I was given a data sheet with this exhibit, BS9, and these photographs. My data sheet said this garment had been found in Carrie Miller’s closet and had been retained as evidence for examination. I was to examine and extract DNA from the stain on the sleeve fibers and compare that DNA with any known profiles on our systems,’ said Johnson. His speech had the impression of clinical and deliberate thought. Every syllable of every word annunciated and spoken perfectly.
‘What did you do with the blouse, exhibit BS9 ?’
‘First, I examined the garment. It is a blouse, size six. White cotton and woven silk fibers. From the appearance of the stain, which had faded, it was clear that there had been an attempt to clean the garment, probably washed at a reasonably high temperature in a washing machine. Then dried, ironed and hung in the wardrobe. But even washing an item of clothing won’t remove DNA completely. In this instance, I carried out a search for bloodstaining. May I refer to exhibit CJ3 ?’
White turned to his assistant DA, who used a laptop synced with the large screen facing the jury. The picture of the blouse hanging in Carrie’s closet changed. What appeared on the screen was at first unclear. Most of the picture was too dark to see, but if you looked closely you could make out the shape of the white blouse and, on the sleeve and cuff, several spots of varying size and shape in metallic blue green.
‘I treated the garment with Luminol and then examined it in a dark room to see if there were any remnants of blood staining that were no longer visible. As you can see in this picture there were quite a few more splashes of blood, but apart from the largest stain, which is around half an inch long, the remaining blood traces were not visible to the naked eye.’
‘And having identified these traces, what happened then ?’
‘The identified traces were cut from the garment and applied to an Eppendorf microcentrifuge tube. DNA was extracted using the spin colon-based extraction method and the Phenol-chloroform Isoamyl organic method. PCR reaction and amplification process applied, and I used a spectrophotometer machine. The result was a successful DNA extraction and analysis. The DNA from the blood traces on the garment were a match with a profile on the system to a probability of one billion.’
‘Professor, that last part. Your analysis. Can you explain the probability and the matching profile ?’
‘We can never provide an exact match of one person’s DNA to another, but I can say that it is likely the blood on the garment came from the profile attributed to Stacy Nielsen on the database. The probability is one in a billion. That is to say, if I compared this DNA profile to one billion other profiles, it’s possible it might match up with one other profile.’
‘And how likely is that ?’
‘Like I said. One in a billion. It’s as close to certain as I can scientifically be that the blood on the defendant’s blouse came from one of the victims in this case – Stacy Nielsen.’
CHAPTER FORTY
