Chapter 37 Eddie

37

Eddie

Detective Arthur Chase took the bible in his right hand and swore to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help him God.

He was a career NYPD man. Dark suit. Dark shirt. Set off with a dark navy neck tie and flashy silver cufflinks. A chunky chain on his right wrist and a thick Rolex Submariner on his left. Both silver. To match the cufflinks, and the tie pin. He was a man with a mission. Places to be. Bad guys to catch. A year-round tan. A little gray at the temples, but age hadn't slowed him down or dulled his wits. Sharp green eyes flashed like the cufflinks and seemed to take in the whole room. Artie Chase had a good rep. How could you not, with a name like that. He looked after the officers on his team. Filed his reports on time. Pushed up his precinct's clearance rate. Always bought the first round at the bar. He was a straight operator. No ties to New York's Finest. He'd never beaten a suspect. Never broken the rules. He just looked after his team and closed his cases.

Which, in a way, made him the worst kind of cop.

Bad cops see out their twenty years in the job because of guys like Chase. Cops look after cops. All cops. The bad ones too. If you rat on a fellow officer, your life is turned into a living hell and your career takes a nose dive off a ten-story building. And that's the best-case scenario. Chase learned this early. And, like all cops, he learned to keep his mouth shut. That's hard at first, but it becomes easier when you're doing good police work. The price you pay for doing good in New York is ignoring all the bad that goes on under your own roof. The more good you do, the easier it becomes to look the other way.

Chase did a lot of good.

He never got a hard time on the stand from defense attorneys. They knew, instinctively, any jury would admire a guy like Chase. And, if they didn't know it beforehand, the looks jurors would give him during his testimony put all doubt out of their minds. Any criticism of Chase risked alienating the jury. And he told the truth on the stand. The trouble with cops who told the truth in court was that you couldn't catch them out in a lie. There was no weakness in their battle lines. No way to put a hole in their testimony or even shake it.

A defense attorney's worst nightmare.

Castro played up to Chase's charm and natural magnetism, taking him through his résumé – his years of service and seniority – before he got to the juicy parts of his testimony.

‘I got a call to attend a possible homicide on West 74 th Street. A neighbor had noticed a front door lying open. Unusual for that time of the morning. He called out, then went inside and found Margaret Blakemore dead on the floor. He called the police right away . . .'

The neighbor had been Norman Tuttle. He was a tech investor who had moved into the street just a month before the murder. When he left for his five a.m. run, he'd seen the door open. Didn't touch anything, didn't disturb the body by attempting CPR: it was clear Margaret was dead and beyond help. Bloch and Lake had looked into Norman extensively – he was as straight as they come. Much like our client. We had agreed Norman's deposition could just be read to the jury and admitted into evidence. He didn't know Margaret, didn't really know anyone yet, and the less bodies on the stand the quicker this case would be over.

‘I arrived at the scene and spoke to the two response officers who had secured the property. I ran through my standard questions about what they had touched, what areas of the house they had been to, what they had found and recorded all of it. I opened a crime log and called for forensics and the medical examiner.'

‘What did you find when you went inside the property?' asked Castro.

‘I saw a woman lying in the living-room area on her back. Her head was pointed toward the bay window. There was what appeared to be two bullet wounds in her temple and one wound in her chest. Her eyes were open. She was clearly deceased.'

‘Were there any signs of a struggle?' asked Castro.

Right then, I knew the anonymous witness was going to testify to some kind of relationship between our client and the deceased. Castro was setting it up.

‘No obvious signs, no.'

‘Was there any sign of forced entry to the property?'

‘None.'

‘Given your expertise in investigating homicide cases for more than twenty years, were you able to draw any insight from the fact that there was no sign of a struggle and no sign of forced entry?'

There was no point in objecting. Some lawyers would in the hope the judge would intervene and ask the cop to stick to the facts. The jury liked Artie Chase. Best thing to do was to turn that to our advantage.

‘It raises the distinct probability that the victim knew her attacker.'

Some members of the jury nodded, agreeing with Chase.

‘After you had examined the crime scene, and a forensic examination was conducted of the living room and the victim, what happened next?'

‘Our officers canvassed the neighborhood, but no one saw anything suspicious or heard anything on the night of the murder.'

‘What course did your investigation take?'

‘We spoke to the deceased's spouse, Alan Blakemore, who was not in the state at the time of the murder . . .'

He was a good witness. Closing off avenues of potential attack from the defense. Most married women whose lives end in violence are murdered by their spouses. Chase was long enough in the job to know that's an area that defense might go to and he was shutting those doors before we could open them.

‘. . . and we built up a picture of the deceased and her social circle and her life. We continued our investigations and two weeks later we got a breakthrough. An anonymous tip from a caller. The call came in from a public payphone.'

‘Your Honor, we would like to play the recording of that call for the jury, People's exhibit nineteen.'

The DA and his team fussed with a laptop that was connected to the sound system in court. And then the call started to play. I'd heard it already. The caller was disguising their voice. It was low, gravelly, but there didn't appear to be a great deal of depth to their tone. I got the impression the caller was young and more than likely female, but it wasn't possible to tell for sure.

‘I know who killed Margaret Blakemore. I was across the street that night, hiding behind a line of parked cars. I watched John Jackson shoot her, then leave and go back to his house. He still had the gun on him when he left . . .'

The line went dead. The caller never acknowledged the call handler, never answered any questions, just made this statement and hung up.

‘What did you do when you received that tip?' asked Castro.

‘I applied for a warrant to search the home of John Jackson and arrest him for questioning. There was specific corroborating evidence in that anonymous call. We had not released the information to the press that Margaret Blakemore had died from gunshot wounds. The only people who knew that were the killer and the potential witness. The warrant was granted and we made our search and arrest.'

‘What did you find at the home?'

‘Officer Pettifer found a .22 caliber pistol in the defendant's bedroom closet, high up on a shelf between some spare bedding.'

‘What is the significance of the caliber of the weapon?'

‘It's the same caliber ammunition found in Margaret Blakemore's body. She was shot three times. This weapon holds a nine-round magazine. Three rounds had been fired from the magazine in this weapon.'

‘Was a forensic examination made of this weapon?'

‘Yes, an urgent one. A partial latent palm print was found on the gun, but this print wasn't enough to provide a match for the defendant. However, our forensics lab was able to extract DNA from that same print.'

‘Experts will testify about his forensic examination and DNA testing, however, from your perspective and understanding, is DNA evidence more accurate than palm or fingerprint identification?'

‘Yes, sir,' said Chase.

Castro paused for a moment, flicked through the papers on his desk. He was creating tension – building up the finale.

‘Did you ask the defendant about the gun that was found in his closet?'

‘Yes, and I should say, at that time, we didn't have ballistic evidence to confirm that it was the murder weapon, but we strongly believed it to be so. In any event, I asked Mr. Jackson about the gun in his closet and if he could explain how it got there.'

‘What did he say?'

‘He said he'd never seen it before.'

‘And it was subsequent to this denial that the DNA found on the murder weapon matched the defendant's DNA?'

‘Correct.'

‘Do you believe the defendant when he said he'd never seen the gun before?'

‘The gun that we found in the defendant's home, we believe, is the same gun that fired the rounds which killed Margaret Blakemore. It has the defendant's DNA on it. There's a simple explanation for this. The defendant shot and killed the victim. And then he denied it. Like he's denying it today. He's lying.'

‘Nothing further,' said Castro.

I got up, walked round the defense table and stood in the well of the court. The no-man's land between the judge, the witness, the lawyers and the jury. Center stage. Hands in my pockets. I glanced over my shoulder at John.

He sat at the defense table looking utterly lost. Defeated. His eyes were glazed with fear. A man whose life was about to end too soon. He'd lost weight since I'd first met him, and he didn't look the better for it. That suit hung off him. Like a death shroud.

This happens every day in America. Innocent people get caught in a machine that destroys them and their families. I didn't have a magic button to stop the machine. No failsafe device. No cut-off switch. Amid the roar of the grinding steel wheels of justice, I only had words. They were my sole weapon.

The temptation was to scream and rant. And make myself heard over the thunder of the machine.

Yet, I knew, the best thing now was to speak softly. So that those twelve people who could stop the machine might lean in and listen. Really listen. Because, if they didn't, then the machine would roll right over John and Alison. And Tomas.

I nodded at John. I wanted him to know that I was going to fight for him. That there was hope.

He couldn't see it. Not yet. I had to make him hear it.

That meant throwing Chase off balance.

‘Detective Chase, is there anything about your investigation that you would do differently?'

This is an open question. Anything can happen. This is the exact opposite of what lawyers are trained to do in cross-examination. They want to keep their questions tight. Yes or no answers. Control the witness. Control their testimony. But I knew the answer Chase would give.

His eyes blazed wide when he heard the question. Not one he was expecting. He thought for a second, and then gave the only answer he could and put a little sugar on top.

‘No, not at all. I believe our investigation led us to the truth. That your client murdered Margaret Blakemore.'

Castro winced and then smiled at his assistant DAs, like he was watching me get pummeled by a pro fighter. I was expecting the hit. Chase was an experienced witness. And cops who are used to testifying know that when they are given the ball, and they have an opening to make a three-point shot – they'll throw it through the basket every damn time.

The hit was worth taking. Chase had gotten his three points. But the game was just beginning.

I cleared my throat, audibly, looked at the jury and said, ‘Let's talk about this investigation, and the evidence your officers missed, and the evidence you're keeping from this jury . . .'