Prime Witness

Chapter Thirty-three

We are minutes from the start of this morning’s session, Lenore and I, busy at counsel table arranging the documents, and items of physical evidence needed for today’s witness, Dr. Lloyd Tolar, our pathologist. He is outside in the hall, sequestered from the courtroom, going over his notes. We have decided that Lenore will take this witness on the stand. She may possess powers of persuasion and suggestion with this witness which I lack. At trial you learn to use every advantage.

Lenore is oblivious to the defense lawyers, the interpreter and Andre Iganovich at the other table. She is focused on the task at hand. The only one who pays much attention to us is the Russian, from whom we draw unremitting icy stares. It seems he has not picked up on the proper etiquette for these proceedings, the quiet and polite contempt that passes for professionalism among adversaries in court. He seems not to fathom why, in these moments when we are here alone in the courtroom, his representatives do not cross the gulf between tables and bludgeon us.

The guards are outside in the hall by the rear entrance, two bulls who look as if they would rather eat iron than pump it.

Claude comes into the empty courtroom and through the railing. Today he will join us at the counsel table. Under the law of this state each side has a right to designate a chief investigator to join them, somebody who can whisper in your ear critical little details of the case at opportune times.

This morning he appears agitated, slides into the empty chair next to me and tells me he has some news.

“A couple of items,” he says. This is all done in low tones, under his breath.

First he has checked with the Davenport Police Department. It seems the department subscribes to the Criminal Law Reporter, the publication clipped to make the threatening letter sent to my house. He tells me they throw out old editions as they are updated, a ready source for the print used in the note.

“Guess where they keep them, the old editions?” he says.

“Tell me.”

“In the basement at City Hall,” he says. “The same place our friend Jess Amara burned all of Scofield’s old notes.”

Clearly his suspicions are heightened.

“But that’s not all,” he says. Claude is leaning into my ear now so that even Lenore does not hear what comes next.

“The title search,” he says, “the one you asked for on the property where we found the Scofields’ bodies. It’s not done, but some interesting information.”

The owner, whom they have yet to identify because of what appear to be a series of bogus strawman transfers, was bankrolled by foreign money, he tells me.

“A bank in Tokyo,” says Claude. “A consortium of Japanese investors.” With this I get heavily arched eyebrows from Claude. Jess Amara’s little sideline business, the Asian trading company.

I had not pursued this earlier, but it is a curious point. The bodies of the four students were staked out on public lands, open and unfenced. But the Scofields were killed on private property, fenced, if you could call it that, and posted against trespassers. It struck me that perhaps the Scofield killer had used this property because it was familiar. Maybe it was a place where he would feel comfortable, where he knew he would not be disturbed.

Claude asks me what I want to do about all this.

I tell him to finish the title search, to get the results to me as soon as possible.

“Should I put a tail on him?” He’s talking about Amara.

“He’d know it in a minute,” I say, “and lose them in two.”

Claude ponders this for a moment, then concludes that I am right. He may not respect the man, but suspects as do I that he is competent at his job and would know if he were being followed.

Claude tells me they should have all the information from the title search by the end of the day, first thing in the morning at the latest.

Dr. Lloyd Tolar has the portent of a troublesome witness for Adrian. His opinions will be grounded in harder science than the seeming whimsy of the psychiatrists and their theories of criminal profiles. The physician examined the bodies of each of the victims, explored their wounds. Before the missing piece of the cord, I would have gauged Tolar as my next strongest witness behind Sellig. With the turn of events, unless Kay can find the missing cord, he may now be the summit of my case.

This morning Lenore has him up on the stand. Tall and imposing, piercing blue eyes and a countenance like some feted solon inside the beltway, his eminence, he sits on the stand like the patriarch of medicine.

“Dr. Tolar, you are the medical examiner for Davenport County, is that correct?”

“I am.”

“You are also on the teaching faculty of the medical school at the university here in Davenport?”

“That’s correct.”

“And what do you teach?”

“Several courses,” he says, “but I hold the chair in medical pathology and am board certified in forensic pathology.”

All the while he is giving Lenore enchanted looks. Tolar never takes his eyes off of her, the form-fitted blue suit and ruffled blouse, her feline moves below the bench.

Lenore is meeting him with a dark Mediterranean look, a brooding expression that fails to engage his ardent interest.

“Tell the jury,” she says, “what forensic pathology is.”

Goya moves to the jury railing and leans on a distant corner, out of the way, an effort to take herself out of the picture, to create at least the illusion that the witness is talking to the jury.

“Pathology is the study of human diseases,” says Tolar, “abnormal changes in body tissues or functions caused by disease.

“Forensic pathology is generally concerned with sudden, unexpected or violent death,” he says.

“So you teach in the field as well as perform the duties of a forensic pathologist for this county?”

“That’s correct.”

“What are your credentials in this field?”

“I’ve brought a copy of my curriculum vitae,” he says.

He holds this up, a résumé thicker than this city’s phone directory.

Tolar has taught at three different medical schools in this country, is board certified in two specialties, is licensed to practice medicine in this state as well as two others, and belongs to a dozen professional societies and associations. Beyond this he has authored volumes of scholarly articles in the field of pathology, the most recent appearing four months ago in the New England Journal of Medicine. He is nearly breathless, and three inches higher in his chair when he finishes touting this background. The male ego at work.

Lenore moves smoothly through the common elements of these murders.

Tolar explains that he served as ME responding to the murder sites and performed all of the autopsies, on the four college students as well as the Scofields.

I notice as we edge toward the details of death, that Kim Park and his wife leave the courtroom. This is apparently too much for them. Two of the other parents stopped coming after the second day of trial, though they now send surrogates, an uncle and a cousin. Only Jess Amara and Jeanette Scofield, of the immediate families, are here in the courtroom at this moment.

“Then, doctor, you personally performed the autopsies on Julie Park and Jonathan Snider, Sharon Collins and Rodney Slater?”

“That’s correct.”

“Can you tell us the date that those autopsies were done?”

He’s looking down at something on his lap, I suspect copies of the autopsy reports. He gives Lenore the dates.

“And you also performed the autopsies on Abbott and Karen Scofield?”

“Yes.”

Lenore is moving back toward the counsel table when she thinks of something.

“Probably not significant,” she says, “but were you acquainted with Dr. Scofield?”

“I know that he taught at the university. We may have met a few times at faculty functions. I knew who he was. The university is a big place,” he says, “forty-six thousand students, twelve hundred faculty.”

“On the Scofield post mortems, do you recall the date that those were performed?”

He looks down in his lap.

Suddenly Chambers is on his feet. “If the witness is reading something, we’d like to know what it is.”

“Dr. Tolar, are you reading something?” says Lenore. “Notes?”

“Yes,” he says. “My notes.” He holds these up above the railing that surrounds the witness box for all to see. “And a copy of the autopsy report in the Scofield matter.”

“Are these notes that you took yourself, close to the time of the autopsies?”

“Yes, they are.”

“And the autopsy report on the Scofields, is it something that you prepared, at or near the time that you performed the autopsy?”

“It is.”

“And do you have independent recollection of these events, the autopsies, the dates that you performed them?”

“I do.”

“So these documents merely help to refresh your recollection of the events, the details, is that correct?”

“Precisely,” he says.

Lenore looks at Chambers. He sits down.

She repeats her initial question. Tolar says he did the Scofield autopsies both on the same date, July twelfth, this year.

Lenore is moving steadily toward the object of her pursuit, the revelation, not fleshed out in the reports, but attested to here by Tolar, that the Scofields were killed someplace else, a major departure from the Putah Creek MO, something that will cause Adrian major grief in his quest to show that another common killer did them all.

Right now, as I look over, Adrian is busy talking to co-counsel, he and Haselid in heated dialogue, some problem or other. For co-counsel, they seem not to get along. Then anyone working with Chambers is likely to have a difficult time. Haselid is no doubt straining to hold up his own ethical skirts, clear of the mud from Adrian’s witness hunting. I can imagine that this is no mean feat. The rising chorus of whispers finally overtakes Ingel’s concentration.

The judge interrupts the testimony. “Mr. Chambers. I’d like the jury to be able to hear,” he says.

Adrian looks up at him. I sense that there is disagreement between the two lawyers on some matter of strategy with this witness.

“Your honor,” says Chambers. “We’d like to voir dire this witness, as to his qualifications,” he says, “his expertise.”

Lenore looks at me, a little funny, like what does he want, the dean of Johns Hopkins? This is not some country quack.

Still, Adrian has an absolute right here, to challenge the qualifications of the witness, his professional pedigree. To do this he is entitled to break into our direct examination and question the witness on this limited issue.

Goya shrugs her shoulders, like good luck, but she doesn’t sit down, instead she leans against the jury railing out of the way. This should not take long.

Adrian’s out from behind his table.

“Doctor, you say that you performed the autopsies on all of the victims, the four students as well as Abbott and Karen Scofield. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“And as to the Scofields, you said that you performed these autopsies on July twelfth. Is that correct?”

A face from the physician. “Yes.”

I look over at Lenore. She is thinking what I am: what does this have to do with qualifications?

I give her a signal, a little shift with my shoulder, a psychic nudge.

“Your honor, we agreed to voir dire, not cross-examination. Counsel’s not talking about the witness’s qualifications.”

Ingel looks down. “How about it, Mr. Chambers?”

“If you’ll allow me, your honor, a couple more questions, you will see that this line of inquiry goes directly to this witness’s competence to testify on issues before this court.”

Ingel makes a face. “A couple more questions,” he says, “but make ’em quick, and keep ’em on point.”

“You say the Scofield autopsies were performed on July twelfth, that is correct?”

Tolar looks at the report again. “That’s right.”

Adrian moves toward his counsel table, picks up a couple of documents but keeps his distance from the doctor.

“And you did these, the Scofields?” he says.

I can see a little bead of sweat begin its journey from Tolar’s temple down one cheek, but no change of expression.

“I did the Scofield autopsies, that’s right,” he says.

“That’s because you have a contract with the county, isn’t it, to perform all post mortem examinations referred by law enforcement agencies in this county?”

“That’s right.”

“And you are contracted to perform these examinations, these autopsies yourself, isn’t that correct?”

“Right.”

“You don’t have another licensed physician working with you to service this contract, do you?”

“No.”

“It’s just yourself, assisted periodically by some of your students, whom you supervise. Is that correct?” Adrian knows that it is. He has a copy of the county contract for pathology services in his hand.

“That’s right.”

“Well then, doctor, can you tell this court how it was possible for you to have performed the autopsies on Abbott and Karen Scofield on July twelfth of this year, between the hours of oh-eight-hundred and sixteen hundred, when during that time, on that date, you were in Los Angeles speaking before a seminar of the American Medical Association-a seminar on forensic sciences?” he says.

Like the air has left my lungs, I feel light-headed. I know that at this moment I sit at counsel table with the most witless expression painted on my face for the jury to see, but I cannot help myself. I have visions. The last stop in the sieve that is my case is collapsing. We are going down like a colander in dishwater.

“You must have your dates wrong,” says Tolar.

“The date of the autopsy?” says Adrian.

“Objection.” Lenore is faster than I. She is away from the railing, steaming toward the center of the courtroom, a cruiser trying to draw fire, laying down smoke.

“This has nothing to do with the witness’s qualifications,” she says. “He’s a physician licensed in this state, qualified to comment and give opinion on the medical reports in this case.”

This ignores of course the fact that the witness is halfway to being caught in a dozen lies.

“It has everything to do with his competence to testify as a percipient witness to an autopsy which he did not perform,” says Chambers, “which he did not even observe.”

Ingel is giving Tolar sharp looks, the kind reserved for the smell of perjury.

“I’ll allow counsel to go on,” he says. “A few more questions.”

Lenore looks at me, one of those expressions that pleads for fate to intervene, a quick earthquake, the rumble of Mount Saint Helens, anything.

“Dr. Tolar, isn’t it true that on July twelfth, the date of the Scofield autopsy, you were in fact in Los Angeles, three hundred miles away attending a seminar of the American Medical Association?”

“I attended a seminar,” he says. “I don’t know the date.”

“Well, let me refresh your recollection.” Adrian approaches the witness box. He hands Tolar one of the documents from the counsel table. “Do you recognize that signature?” Chambers points with his pen. “Right there.”

Nothing from Tolar, but he brings his eyes up to look at Lenore. It is this expression, the shallow, ineffective attempt to control his panic, the bobbing Adam’s apple like an epileptic yo-yo, that for the first time confirms that we are now in deep squish.

“Do you recognize the signature, doctor?”

“It looks like mine,” he says.

“And the date on the form?”

“July twelve,” says Tolar.

“The same date as the Scofield autopsies?”

“Yes.”

“Isn’t that the attendance sheet for the seminar in Los Angeles?”

“They must have misdated it,” says Tolar.

“Doctor. I have the tapes of the autopsy performed on Abbott and Karen Scofield,” says Adrian. “Do you want me to bring them in and play them for the jury? Do you want them to hear the voice, the name of the medical intern who performed these autopsies?” Adrian looks at him, then turns his head to the jury, looking at them square on for emphasis and effect. Adrian is good at this, maximizing the effect of the blow.

“Your name,” he says, “your voice, doctor, are notable by their absence from those tapes,” says Chambers.

Silence from the doctor.

“OK,” says Tolar. “I may have forgotten. I do a lot of autopsies,” he says.

“Forgotten?” says Adrian. “Forgotten whether you performed an autopsy? You have the report there in your hand. You’ve read it. You apparently know the details, and now you tell us that you forget that somebody else, one of your students, unlicensed in medicine, unsupervised under the terms of your contract, did this autopsy. That this student”-Adrian makes the word sound like it should have four letters-“that some student wrote the report. His opinions, his conclusions.” Chambers’s voice bellows in the courtroom like an angry god.

Ingel slaps his gavel. “Enough,” he says. “We will take a recess. I will have counsel back in my chambers.”

“So what did you know and when did you know it?” Ingel is in my face. I am in the hot seat directly across from him in chambers. Lenore may have taken the witness, but it is my ass in the flames.

“Believe me, your honor, we had no idea. The county’s own medical examiner. The man has testified in hundreds of trials, an experienced expert witness. How could we know that he would do such a thing?”

I tell him that we prepped him in detail, went over his testimony carefully, that he never gave any hint, any clue, that someone else might have performed the Scofield autopsies.

“He signed the report,” I say.

“He signs all the reports,” snaps Ingel. “You could have checked the autopsy tapes,” he says. “It seems somebody had the presence of mind to do that.” He looks over, the slightest of smiles, a psychic kudo for Adrian.

Chambers sits next to Haselid on the couch in the corner, one leg draped loosely over the other. Strangely he does not seem to be enjoying this as much as I would have thought. He fidgets nervously, like he’s uncomfortable to be here. Maybe the bad blood is beginning to sour in his own veins, though I doubt this would stop him producing tainted testimony, if it served an end.

“You’re batting a thousand.” Ingel is seething over his desk. “So far you’ve managed to lose a vital piece of evidence, and trotted a lying son of a bitch up onto the stand in my courtroom.”

He ignores that this lying son of a bitch has been there, on a regular and repeated basis before, that the county may now have scores of tainted convictions. When this news gets out, the filing counter at the court of appeals will look like a gasoline line during an oil embargo.

“What’s in store for us tomorrow?” says Ingel. He’s looking at me intense, unremitting. “Perhaps doctored evidence?” He leaves me sitting there with nothing that I can say.

Goya jumps in the void. “The problem goes to the weight,” she says. Lenore means that Tolar’s testimony should not be stricken, that the jury should be allowed to hear what he has to say, to weigh it for themselves, considering his misconduct on the bench.

“He is still an expert,” she says. “He can comment on the autopsy report, his conclusions and opinions from reading the document.”

“Not likely,” says Ingel. “Not in my court. If he wants to talk about the four kids, that’s fine. Unless we find out he didn’t do those,” he says. He looks over at Chambers to see if Adrian has any contribution on this point. The lawyer shrugs his shoulders, an expression like maybe he should take the time to look.

“As to the Scofields, you can forget it,” Ingel says.

Adrian unfolds his legs and edges closer to the edge of the couch like maybe he thinks this meeting is over. Then he pipes in.

“Your honor, we’d like to renew our motion,” he says, “to dismiss the first two counts.” It is like Adrian to seize the advantage in a moment of crisis, to capitalize on Ingel’s anger. Though in his position, seeing the chance for a quick end, I would no doubt do the same.

The judge looks at him, drowning for the moment in his own wrath, he has trouble focusing on the change of subject.

“The lost piece of cord,” says Adrian. “We’d like to renew our motion at this time to dismiss the first two counts.”

“Not now.” Ingel brushes him off with the back of his hand, too busy chewing on my ass to be bothered with distractions. In a strange way I have been saved by the seething fury that now grips the Prussian, his eyes fixed on me. He dismisses the others, tells me to stay put. I am in for a tongue-lashing from hell.

“The biggest goddamned owl I ever saw.” This is how Denny Henderson over the telephone describes the great horned owl at the San Diego Wild Animal Park. “A wing-span like a B-fifty-two,” he says.

It is just after one in the afternoon. I am still smarting from the verbal battery administered by Ingel in our private meeting. He has threatened to bring me up on charges before the state bar, suborning perjury of a witness, notwithstanding that he has no evidence to support this charge, not the slightest inkling that I knew about Tolar’s lies. Within an hour I’m sure that his lecture will be the talk of the courthouse, chewed on by judges and their clerks. Such is the grapevine that grows in these places.

After kicking my ass the judge adjourned early. I can imagine the phone call he is having with Coconut across the river. Between the two of them, they no doubt are planning my future.

Lenore and I have a meeting with Ingel and Chambers at four, to go over jury instructions. This is a little premature, but Ingel has made it clear that nothing at the end of this trial is going to delay his vacation. Once the jury gets the case they’d better move quickly, or they’re in for a trip. I have visions of the panel, flowered leis around their necks, cracking coconuts and fingering poi during deliberations.

Claude is in my office. We are on the speaker phone. Denny has managed to find his way to this place, the Wild Animal Park in San Diego. He has spent the entire morning dogging the bird show, talking to the staff, the trainers at work, before he keyed on one guy. He is now at the San Diego PD.

“He doesn’t work there anymore,” he says. “Used to. His name is Cleo Coltrane,” he tells us. “They canned him last year. Wanna know why?”

“Tell us,” says Claude. Dusalt is in no mood for twenty questions. He sees his case twirling down the tubes.

“He’s got a record, two federal convictions,” says Denny. He reads us a section number from the U.S. Codes which he says comes off a rap sheet on the man Coltrane.

“What the hell’s that?” says Claude.

“Violations of the Endangered Species Act,” says Henderson.

“He worked at the park part-time, until the first conviction,” says Denny.

“He killed birds?” I say.

“No. In the two cases they nailed him on, he was caught taking rare birds from the wild, trapping them alive.”

Close enough, I think. All the pieces are falling into place. Scofield had somehow gotten a lead on this guy, and traced him back to San Diego and his place of employment. It is probably not a large fraternity, the people who deal in endangered species.

“Do they know where he is?” I say.

“Sure. Right now he’s sitting in a cell down the hall.” Denny sounds cocky as hell. I can picture him with his feet on somebody’s desk drinking coffee from a borrowed mug.

“You arrested him?”

This concerns me. We have no legal authority to hold this man. It would take a subpoena issued by a superior court judge coupled with some unwillingness on the part of the witness to comply before we could lawfully take him into custody, even as a material witness, for his own protection.

“Didn’t have to,” says Denny. “This guy was made to order,” he says. “Seems there was an outstanding warrant on a traffic violation. The cops down here are real nice, real cooperative.” What he means is any excuse to roust a necessary witness.

“Have you questioned him?” I ask.

“That’s the bad part. He denies knowing anything. The guy’d make a good mason,” says Denny. “He builds a real solid stone wall. Can’t get him to budge.”

I can imagine that with two prior federal convictions, Mr. Coltrane is not anxious to volunteer information about more. What he was doing in the blind that night could probably get him accommodations at one of the federal country clubs for at least a few years.

But right now I’m more interested in how I’m going to get him transported north, where Claude and I can maybe work our magic on him, a subtle psychic rubber hose.

I tell Denny to stay put, that I will call him back. I place a call to the district attorney in San Diego. He is out but I draw his chief deputy. I introduce myself. There’s some bowing and scraping here, the deputy extending professional courtesy unaware that I’m not really elected in this county. I let him live with illusions. I am on my hands and knees over the phone, the desperate suppliant. In five minutes I have walked him through our dilemma. He agrees to help, to serve a witness subpoena on our behalf. He will do it immediately if I can fax him a captioned copy along with a copy of the complaint in our case. I hang up, tell one of the secretaries what to do, and I call Denny back.

“Where’s your guy?” I ask him.

“Still cooling his heels down the hall.”

“Can you bring him in there so I can talk to him?”

“Sure.”

There’s a lot of noise on the other end, shuffling of feet, doors being opened and closed. Three minutes later the speaker phone is back on and I’m introduced to Cleo Coltrane.

“Mr. Coltrane?”

Some dead air, like maybe the guy doesn’t recognize his own name.

“Yeah.” A surly voice, standard fare in this trade.

“My name is Paul Madriani, Mr. Coltrane. I’m the district attorney of Davenport County. At the present time a witness subpoena is being received down there in San Diego to be served on you.”

Silence from the other end, some coughing in the background.

“Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Umm umm.” I can visualize tight lips, like perhaps I have said the words that will give this man quick amnesia.

“We have reason to believe, Mr. Coltrane, that your life may be in danger, because of what you saw along the Putah Creek up here that night. You don’t have to answer any questions,” I say. “But I think you know what I’m talking about.”

Nothing but dead air on the line.

He is not likely to say things on the phone to me, which he would not reveal to Denny and others who are there, whom he can see, offering warm smiles and empty promises. This is just as good. Without specific confirmation that this is our prime witness, I need not comply as yet with Judge Fisher’s discovery order, to disclose the identity of this witness to Adrian and company. At this point Coltrane is merely a lead, though I can feel in my bones that he is more.

“Are you there?”

“Yeah.” More wary this time.

“I understand that you are being held on an outstanding traffic warrant. That’s not a serious charge, as you know,” I say. “Still it would cost you some money, maybe some jail time. I’m in a position to help you.” The prosecutor as Good Samaritan.

“I would be willing to talk to the district attorney down there to request that those charges be dropped, dismissed, if you will voluntarily travel north with my officer, under the subpoena to talk to me. Now I can’t guarantee that the DA down there will do this, but I think he will. I can get a firm commitment before you leave. Do you understand?”

“Yeah.”

“Now you don’t have to say anything when you get here, just listen,” I say. “I think you should be aware of what physical danger you face. You are not under arrest. I want to make that clear. We simply want to talk to you. Are you willing to do this?”

“Ah. Let me ask ya a question,” he says. “You gonna put me in jail up there?”

He should worry more about bright lights and sleep deprivation.

“No. We will fly you up here at our expense, a round-trip ticket, and put you up in a hotel.” I don’t tell him that he may be batching with Denny and a dozen other cops down the hall. Right now I have only one goal, to get him in my physical clutches. He can watch Jekyll turn to Hyde after he gets here.

“All I want to do is talk to you,” I say, like the spider to the fly.

Silence. He is weighing his options.

“If you don’t come voluntarily, we will simply wait until after your current problems down there are over and then we will have to serve our subpoena. Then if you don’t come, we’ll have to arrest you,” I tell him. I don’t explain that by that time the ship will have sailed, my case against Andre Iganovich will be history.

“Sounds like I have no choice,” he says.

“You do,” I say. “You can either come the easy way or the hard way.”

“I guess,” he says, “I’ll come up there.”

“Good,” I say. “They’re gonna put you back in the cell now, just for a few minutes while we make all the arrangements. I look forward to meeting with you.”

“Sure,” he says, his tone dripping with cynicism.

I let him go and Denny is back on the line. I hear the door close, probably behind Coltrane on his way to the cell. Denny’s snickering, a high-pitched giggle. “You should sell shoes,” he says, “suede loafers.” A lot of cackling from the other cops.

I give Denny a few quick final instructions. There’s one final afternoon flight from San Diego to Capital City. Denny’s not sure he can make it. If he doesn’t, he says it will be tomorrow morning before he can get Coltrane up here for questioning. I tell him to do the best he can, to keep us posted, and then I hang up.

“You think it’s him?” says Claude.

“Don’t you?”

He nods. “Doesn’t even ask why somebody would want to kill him. Isn’t that the first thing you’d ask if somebody told you your life was in danger and you didn’t know why?”

“You caught that, too,” I say. “When he gets up here we can test him. There are a few things to play with. Details only the man in the blind would know.”

Claude heads out to make travel arrangements for Henderson and get some sleep. It is sure to be a long night.

As the door closes to my office I am left alone for the first time since arriving at the office this morning, left to consider the options available to me, my back to the wall.

With Tolar imploding on the stand this morning, I have no choice but to play the long odds. I can no longer sit back and finesse the issue of the copycat killer. I must know before I go further whether Andre Iganovich is the Scofield murderer. Cleo Coltrane is my last chance to salvage this case, my reputation and perhaps my career.

It is a hunch, the longest of shots, but one based on the dissolute nature of Adrian Chambers, that the Russian’s Canadian alibi, Adrian’s coveted ace which to date he has managed to conceal from us, is cooked up.

I start to believe that I have been wrong from the inception, that there is no copycat, that for whatever reason Iganovich used a knife on the Scofields, killed them someplace else and brought them to the river. When I know the truth, I will know the reason. If Cleo Coltrane can identify Iganovich as the killer on the creek that night, then this prime witness will be my poison pill, something I can use to put down Chambers’s case, his theory of defense, like a rabid dog.

I pick up the phone to call Nikki at the bed and breakfast. The man at the front desk answers.

“Laura Warren,” I say. It is the name we have registered Nikki under.

“Ms. Warren has stepped out,” he tells me. “With her daughter.”

“Where did they go?”

“I don’t know. They left several hours ago.”

“Have her call her husband when she gets back,” I tell him. I give him the number, and wonder where Nikki would go, left in a country village with no mall or shops, where they roll in the sidewalks at dusk.