Fair Warning - Jack McEvoy Series 03 (2020) Read online

  “Mr. Hammond, can you tell the jury what you do for a living?” Walsh asked.

  “I’m a DNA technician,” Hammond said. “I work in the Los Angeles Police Department’s bio-forensics lab located at Cal State L.A.”

  “How long have you had that position?”

  “Twenty-one months with the LAPD. Before that I worked for eight years in the bio-forensics lab for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.”

  “Can you tell the ladies and gentlemen of the jury what your duties are in the LAPD lab?”

  “My responsibilities include processing forensic cases that require DNA analysis, generating reports based on the conclusions of that analysis, and then testifying about those conclusions in court.”

  “Can you tell us a little bit about your background education in the field of DNA and genetics?”

  “Yes, I have a bachelor of arts degree in biochemistry from the University of Southern California and a master’s in life sciences with a specialty in genetics from the University of California at Irvine.”

  Walsh fake-smiled, as he did at this point in every trial.

  “Life sciences,” he said. “Is that what we older folks used to call plain old biology?”

  Hammond fake-smiled back, as he did at every trial.

  “Yes, it is,” he said.

  “Can you describe what DNA is and what it does in layman’s terms?” Walsh asked.

  “I can try,” Hammond said. “DNA is short for deoxyribonucleic acid. It is a molecule composed of two strands that twist around each other, forming a double helix that carries the genetic code of a living thing. By code I really mean instructions for the development of that organism. In human beings DNA contains all our hereditary information and therefore determines everything about us, from the color of our eyes to the function of our brains. Ninety-nine percent of the DNA in all human beings is identical. That last one percent and the myriad combinations within it is what makes each of us completely unique.”

  Hammond gave the answer like a high school biology teacher. He spoke slowly and recited the information with a tone of awe. Walsh then moved on and led him quickly through the basics of his assignment to the case. This part was so routine Hammond was able to go on autopilot and glance a few times at the defendant. It was the first time he had seen him in person. Robert Earl Dykes, a fifty-nine-year-old plumber, had long been suspected of killing his ex-fiancée, Wilma Fournette, in 1990, stabbing her to death, then throwing her body down a hillside off Mulholland Drive. Now he was finally brought to justice.

  He sat at the defense table in an ill-fitting suit his lawyer had given him. He had a yellow legal pad in front of him in case he came up with a genius question to pass to the lawyer next to him. But Hammond could see it was blank. There would be no question from him or his lawyer that could undo the damage Hammond would inflict. He was the Hammer and it was about to come down.

  “Is this the knife that you tested for blood and DNA?” Walsh asked.

  He was holding up a clear evidence bag containing an opened switchblade.

  “Yes, it is,” Hammond said.

  “Can you tell us how it came to you?”

  “Yes, it had been sealed in evidence from the case since the original 1990 investigation. Detective Kleber reopened the case and brought it to me.”

  “Why you?”

  “I should have said he brought it to the DNA unit and it was assigned to me on rotation.”

  “What did you do with it?”

  “I opened the package and examined the knife visually for blood and then under magnification. The knife appeared to be clean but I could see that there was a spring-loaded mechanism in the handle, so I asked for a knife expert from the toolmark unit to come to the lab to disassemble the weapon.”

  “Who was that?”

  “Gerald Lattis.”

  “And he opened the knife for you?”

  “He took it apart and then I examined the spring mechanism under a lab magnifier. I saw what I believed to be a minute amount of dried blood on the coil of the spring. I then began a DNA-extraction protocol.”

  Walsh walked Hammond through the science. This was the boring technical part where the danger was that the jurors’ thoughts could wander off. Walsh wanted them keenly interested in the DNA findings and asked quick, short questions that required quick, short answers.

  The provenance of the knife would have already been testified to by Kleber. The knife was confiscated from Dykes when he was originally questioned in the investigation. The original detectives had it examined for blood by a lab using archaic methods and materials and were told it was clean. When Kleber decided to reopen the case at the urging of the victim’s sister, he took another look at the knife and brought it to the DNA lab.

  Finally, Walsh arrived at the point where Hammond provided his findings that the DNA extracted from the minute amount of blood on the spring of the switchblade mechanism matched the DNA of the victim, Wilma Fournette.

  “The DNA profile developed from the material on the knife does match the profile from the victim’s blood obtained during the autopsy,” Hammond said.

  “How close is the match?” Walsh asked.

  “It is a unique match. A perfect match.”

  “Can you tell the jurors if there is a statistic associated with that perfect match?”

  “Yes, we generate statistics based on the human population of Earth to give a weight to that match. In this case the victim was African-American. In the African-American database, the frequency of this DNA profile is one in thirteen quadrillion unrelated individuals.”

  “When you say one in thirteen quadrillion, how many zeros are we talking about?”

  “That would be a thirteen with fifteen zeros behind it.”

  “Is there a layman’s way of explaining the significance of this frequency?”

  “Yes. The current population of Planet Earth is roughly seven billion. That number is significantly eclipsed by thirteen quadrillion. That tells us there is no one else on Earth or in the last one hundred years on Earth who could have that DNA. Only the victim in this case. Only Wilma Fournette.”

  Hammond stole a glance at Dykes. The killer sat unmoving, his eyes downcast and focused on the blank yellow page in front of him. It was the moment. The Hammer had come down and Dykes knew that it was over.

  Hammond was pleased with the part he had played in the legal play. He was the star witness. But it also pained him to see another man go down for what Hammond did not consider to be much of a crime. He had no doubt that Dykes had done what he had to do, and his ex-fiancée had gotten what she had coming.

  He still had to sit for cross-examination but he knew as well as the defense attorney that he was bulletproof. The science didn’t lie. The science was the hammer.

  He looked out into the rows of the gallery and saw a woman weeping. It was the sister who had urged Kleber to reopen the case after nearly three decades. Hammond was her hero now. Her superman. With an S on his chest for Science, he had taken down the villain. It was too bad that her tears didn’t touch him. He felt no sympathy for her or her long-held pain. Hammond believed women deserved all the pain they got.

  Then, two rows behind the weeping woman, Hammond saw Vogel. He had slipped into court unnoticed. Now Hammond was reminded of the greater villain who was out there. The Shrike. And that everything Hammond and Vogel had worked for was at risk.

  15

  Vogel was waiting in the hallway after Hammond finished answering the weak cross-examination from the defense attorney and was finally dismissed as a witness. Vogel was the same age but not the same demeanor. Hammond was the scientist, the white hat, and Vogel was the hacker, the black hat. Vogel was a guy who only had blue jeans and T-shirts in his closet. And that hadn’t changed since they were college roommates.

  “Way to go, Hammer!” Vogel said. “That guy’s going down!”

  “Not so loud,” Hammond cautioned. “What are you doing here?”

  “I
wanted to see you kick ass in there.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Okay, come with me.”

  “Where?”

  “We’re not even going to leave the building.”

  Hammond followed Vogel down the hall to the elevator alcove. Vogel pushed the down button and turned to Hammond.

  “He’s here,” Vogel said.

  “Who’s here?” Hammond asked.

  “The guy. The reporter.”

  “McEvoy? What do you mean he’s here?”

  “He’s getting arraigned. Hopefully, we didn’t miss it.”

  They took the elevator down to the third floor and entered the large and busy arraignment court where Judge Adam Crower was presiding. They took seats on one of the crowded benches of the gallery. Hammond had never seen this part of the system in which he played a part. There were several lawyers standing and sitting while waiting for the names of their clients to be called. There was a wood-and-glass corral where defendants were brought in eight at a time to confer through narrow windows with their lawyers, or with the judge when their case was called. It looked like organized chaos, a place you would not want to be unless you had no choice or were paid to be there.

  “What are we doing?” Hammond whispered.

  “We’re going to see if McEvoy has been arraigned,” Vogel whispered back.

  “How will we know?”

  “Just watch the people they’re bringing out. Maybe we’ll see him.”

  “Okay, but what’s the point? I don’t get why we’re looking for this guy.”

  “Because we might need him.”

  “How?”

  “As you know, Detective Mattson filed his reports on the case in the department’s online case archives. I took a look. You’re right, the reporter knew Portrero, the victim. The detectives interviewed him and he voluntarily gave his DNA to prove he’s not the guy.”

  “So?” Hammond asked.

  “So, that DNA is somewhere in your lab. And you know what to do.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Hammond realized he had said it too loud. People on the benches in front of them turned to look back. What Vogel was suggesting was beyond anything they had even thought of before.

  “First of all,” he whispered. “If it’s not assigned to me I can’t get near it—different procedures than Orange County. Second, we both know he isn’t the Shrike. I would never frame an innocent man.”

  “Come on, isn’t it just like what you did in Orange County?” Vogel whispered back.

  “What? That was completely different. I kept somebody from going to jail for what should not even be a crime. I didn’t send him there. And this is murder we’re talking about here.”

  “It was a crime in the eyes of the law.”

  “Have you ever heard the saying that it’s better that a hundred guilty men escape than one innocent suffer? Benjamin fucking Franklin.”

  “Whatever. All I’m saying is, we could use this guy to buy us time. Time to find the Shrike.”

  “And then do what? Say Never mind, I cooked the DNA? That might work for you but not me. We need to shut it all down. Everything. Now.”

  “Not yet. We need it open in order to find the guy.”

  The dread that had been growing in Hammond’s chest was in full bloom now. He knew his hatred and greed had led him to this. It was a nightmare he saw no way out of.

  “Hey,” Vogel whispered. “I think that’s him.”

  Vogel surreptitiously pointed his chin at the corral at the front of the courtroom. A fresh line of arrestees had been led in by the courtroom deputies. Hammond thought that the third man looked like the mug shot he had seen the night before. It looked like the reporter, Jack McEvoy. He looked weary and worn down from his night in jail.

  JACK

  16

  The courtroom was the crowded port of entry to the criminal justice system, a place where those swept up in the maw of the legal machinery stood before a judge for the first time for a reading of the charges against them. Then their initial court date would be scheduled, the first step in their long and twisting pathway through the morass that would leave them at least bowed and bloodied, if not convicted and incarcerated.

  I saw Bill Marchand rise from a seat in the row running along the front rail of the courtroom and start making his way toward me. It had been a night without sleep, and every muscle in my body seemed to hurt from the hours I had spent clenched like a fist and fearful in the communal holding tank. I had been in jail before and knew that danger could come from any quarter. It was a place where men felt betrayed by their lives and the world, and that made them desperate and dangerous, ready to attack anybody and anything that appeared vulnerable.

  When Marchand got to the slot through which we would be able to talk, I opened with the five most urgent words in the world to me.

  “Get me out of here.”

  The lawyer nodded.

  “That’s the plan,” he said. “I already talked to the prosecutor and explained to her the hornet’s nest her detectives have kicked over, and she’s going to nolle pros this one. We’ll get you out of here in a couple hours tops.”

  “The DA’s just going to drop the charge?” I asked.

  “Actually, it’s the city attorney because it’s a misdemeanor charge. But they’ve got nothing to support it. You were doing your job with full First Amendment protections. Myron’s here and ready to go to war. I told the prosecutor, you arraign this reporter on that charge and that man over there will hold a press conference outside the courthouse within the hour. And it won’t be the kind of press her office wants.”

  “Where’s Myron now?”

  I scanned the crowded rows of the gallery. I didn’t see Myron but motion caught my eye and I thought I saw someone duck behind another person as though bending down to pick something up. When the man came back up, he looked at me and then shifted behind the person sitting in front of him. He was balding and wore glasses. It wasn’t Myron.

  “He’s around somewhere,” Marchand said.

  At that moment I heard my name as Judge Crower called my case. Marchand turned to the bench and identified himself as counsel for the defense. A woman stood up at the crowded prosecution table and identified herself as Deputy City Attorney Jocelyn Rose.

  “Your Honor, we move to drop the charge against the defendant at this time,” she said.

  “You are sure?” Crower asked.

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  “Very well. Case dismissed. Mr. McEvoy, you’re free to go.”

  Only I wasn’t. I wasn’t free to go until after a two-hour wait to be bussed back to the county jail, where my property was returned and I was processed out. The morning was gone, I had missed both breakfast and lunch at the jail, and I had no transportation home.

  But when I stepped through the jail exit I found Myron Levin waiting for me.

  “Sorry, Myron. How long were you waiting?”

  “It’s okay. I had my phone. You all right?”

  “I am now.”

  “You hungry? Or you want to go home?”

  “Both. But I’m starving.”

  “Let’s go eat.”

  “Thanks for coming for me, Myron.”

  To get to the food quicker we went just over to Chinatown and ordered po’boy sandwiches at Little Jewel. We grabbed a table and waited for them to be made.

  “So, what are you going to do?” I asked.

  “About what?” Myron asked.

  “The LAPD’s flagrant violation of the First Amendment. Mattson can’t get away with this shit. You should hold a press conference anyway. I bet the Times will be all over this. The New York Times, I’m talking about.”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “It’s very simple. I was on a story, Mattson didn’t like it. So he falsely arrests me. It’s not only First Amendment, it’s the Fourth as well. They had no probable cause to detain me. I was doing my job.”

  “I know all of
that but the charges were dropped and you’re back on the story. No harm, no foul.”

  “What? I spent a night in jail where I was backed into a corner with my eyes open all night.”

  “But nothing happened. You’re okay.”

  “No, I’m not okay, Myron. You try it sometime.”

  “Look, I’m sorry for what happened, but I think we should roll with it, not inflame things any further, and get back on the story. Speaking of which, I got a text from Emily. She says she got some good stuff from UC–Irvine.”

  I looked across the table at Myron for a long moment, trying to read him.

  “Don’t deflect the conversation,” I said. “What is it really? The donors?”

  “No, Jack, I told you before, the donors have nothing to do with this,” Myron said. “I would no sooner let donors dictate what we do and what we cover than I would let Big Tobacco or the auto industry dictate to us.”

  “Then why are we sitting on our hands on this? That guy Mattson needs to be raked over the coals.”

  “Okay, if you want to know the truth, I think if we make a stink about this it could come back on us.”

  “Why would that happen?”

  “Because of you. And me. You are a person of interest in this case until we know otherwise. And I’m the editor who didn’t yank you off it when I should have. If we go to war that’s all going to come out and it’s not going to look that great, Jack.”

  I leaned back and shook my head in impotent protest. I knew he was right. Maybe Mattson had known he could do what he did because we were compromised.

  “Shit,” I said.

  Myron’s name was called because he had paid for lunch. He got up and got our sandwiches. When he returned I was too hungry to keep talking about the issue. I had to eat. I mowed through half of my po’boy before saying another word. By then, without the edge of hunger in my anger, my desire for a constitutional battle with the LAPD had waned.