21st Birthday by Patterson, James (mystery books to read txt) 📗

of wine. Alvarez was still waiting for me to finish my theory on why Burke shot Jane Doe.

She shook my arm and said, “Speak.”

“Okay. My theory goes like this. Burke saw Berney at the Bellagio. He rightly assumes that Berney is there for him. When we crashed his party at the Eagle, he put it all on red. Better to risk a murder charge in Vegas than in federal court.”

“Mmm. Nevada has a death penalty,” Alvarez said.

“Okay, say he gets a great defense lawyer, a local pit bull who’s looking for a showcase trial. Burke could cook up a convincing story about the Jane Doe shooting and maybe win over the jury. If so, he’d get light time or no time. You heard him, Sonia. He can say anything, spin anything, with feeling.

I went on with my hypothesis.

“So, Burke says, ‘The room was totally dark.’”

“It was,” said Alvarez. “And noisy.”

“Right. There’s pounding music from the wedding dancers overhead, pots clanking and shouting in the kitchen. And of course, Burke says he and Jane Doe were doing some heavy breathing when his door was kicked in.”

Alvarez said, “He could say she never yelled for help.”

“They’re having a good time, right? As Burke’s lawyer tells it, his client didn’t hear us knock. He didn’t hear us say ‘Police.’ He was otherwise engaged. Then, the door is kicked in and Burke sees silhouettes with guns. What’s he supposed to think?”

Alvarez said, “That we aren’t room service. That he’s a target because of his winnings. He grabs his piece and fires.”

“Right, and now the girl in his lap is screaming. He tries to push her head down as he aims around her, towards the doorframe —”

“— but she pulls away or otherwise moves her head. Oh, noooo.” “You got it,” I said. “She catches a round with her skull. Now, it’s an accident. Manslaughter, not murder, and we cannot prove otherwise.”

Alvarez said, “His lawyer calls it bad freaking luck.”

“Burke’s a gambler,” I said. “Win some. Lose some. This could be the best bet of his life.”

CHAPTER 101

NEWT GARDNER MOVED with the confidence and deliberation of a jungle cat as he approached the stand to cross-examine Yuki’s star witness.

Gardner said, “Director Hallows, I just have a few questions for you. Regarding the razor that you say was used to kill Ms. Fogarty.

“Assuming the blood on the blade was Ms. Fogarty’s —”

“It was.”

“— and you assert that the fingerprints on the handle belong to Mr. Lucas Burke. Did I get that right?”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“How long can fingerprints remain on an item like that?”

“As long as the surface isn’t handled. Could be for quite a long time.”

“So, if someone picked up the razor with gloved hands, and didn’t wipe the handle, the fingerprints would be preserved?”

“If the person who picked up the razor wanted to preserve them, yes.”

“Now, you saw the video of Lucas Burke leaving his house? And some twenty minutes later Tara Burke left the same house with the baby?”

“Yes, I saw that video many times. Frame by frame.”

“Did you see Tara lock the front door?”

“No. Her hands were full.”

“So, could Luke’s razor have been taken from the unlocked house by a person wearing gloves who had an interest in preserving the fingerprints that were on it?”

“It’s possible.”

“So …” said Gardner, turning away from the witness, keeping the spectators and the jury waiting for him to finish his point, then spinning back around to give Hallows his fifteen-hundred-dollar-an-hour stare.

“We agree. If someone wearing gloves took Mr. Burke’s razor from the house and the handle had Mr. Burke’s prints on it, that someone could have killed Ms. Fogarty with it. And if that razor remained concealed by weeds for months, it would still have the victim’s blood and the defendant’s prints on it, correct?”

Yuki listened to Gardner lay out his case on Hallows’s back. Hallows was a very good criminologist, but Clapper had blamed him for not searching the vacant lot sooner.

Hallows said, “I’m a scientist, sir. You’re asking me to give definitive answers to a number of compounding possibilities, all untested. That isn’t how I work.”

“I’m asking you as an expert, director. Is this scenario possible?”

“It’s possible.”

“Okay. Now, the prosecution uses your photographic analyst’s work to substantiate their case. Is this type of ‘photographic analysis’ a science?”

“Facial analysis by measurement of features is not all that technical or theoretical.”

“All right. For sake of argument, let’s say that the method Dr. Werner Stutz is using is what’s called the golden ratio. Its purpose is to establish perfect facial proportions for the standards of beauty. My eyesight is twenty-twenty and I can barely see the features of the unknown subject taken in the school parking lot now called photo.”

“Dr. Stutz uses high-powered digital microscopes and calipers.”

“Even so. You say this isn’t a hundred percent dead cert match because the man in the parking lot was wearing a cap?”

“Yes. The knit cap covered 5 percent of his features.”

“Okay. I follow,” said Gardner. “So, here’s the question. If my client closely resembles his father, and it’s dark of night and the camera is a big box store item of C minus quality —”

“Objection, leading like crazy, Your Honor.”

“Sustained. Save it for your closer, counselor.”

“Sorry, Your Honor. The question is, if Dr. Stutz is using a flawed photo 1 to make his match, by definition this match is flawed. And that photo might be the defendant’s father, Evan Burke.”

Yuki stood. “Argumentative, Your Honor. Defense counsel is leading and argumentative and taking liberties with the court.”

Gardner said, “Your Honor, the witness is trying to establish questionable methods as science.”

Hallows wasn’t having it. “If an experiment is repeated innumerable times with the same precise result, it’s scientifically proven —”

Judge Passarelli said, “That’s enough, everyone. Prosecution’s objection is sustained. Mrs. Clemons, please strike defense counsel’s statements from ‘Okay, I follow.’ Mr. Gardner. Do you have anything else for this witness?”

“No, Your Honor,” said Gardner. “That’s all.”

“Ms. Castellano. Redirect?”

“Yes. Thank you.