Prime Witness

Chapter Twenty-one

Lately I have been drawing subtle pressure from the county grandees to make a package deal of this prosecution, to charge all six of the murders to the Russian. It would be an easy thing to do. It would clean the plate, make a lot of friends for me in this county, among the city and university hierarchy.

But there is a problem. I harbor deep suspicions that Chambers is playing this hand with still one more trump card, something he is holding in reserve, until trial. I got a glimpse of it that day, outside the Russian’s apartment as the police searched inside. It was in the newspapers on the floor, outside in the hallway. Two of these were dated before the Scofield murders, a hint that the Russian was already gone.

It is something you develop in the practice of trial law, a sixth sense. Too often it comes as a prelude in the shadow of disaster, like a fly being swatted on glass.

We have not been able to establish on what date the Russian crossed over into Canada. But I suspect that Chambers can. If I am correct, he is waiting in the weeds, to spring this on me. If I charge his client with these last two murders, he will present a gold-plated alibi, ringing down the curtain of doubt on all of the charges. It is why it is so important that I make a plausible wedge that I can drive between the murders of Abbott and Karen Scofield and the student killings.

There’s a knock on my office door, knuckles rapping on glass. It opens. It’s Jane Rhodes, my secretary.

“Someone here to see you,” she says. She’s holding a business card in her hand, looking down, reading.

“A Mr. Golumbine,” she says. She steps in and drops the card on my desk.

DENNIS GOLUMBINE

DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL

GOVERNMENT LAW SECTION

“Show him in,” I say. I have been waiting for this visit.

A second later, a guy whose age I would not guess, gaunt like some cadaver, thinning dark hair and wire-rimmed spectacles, is ushered into my office. He forces a smile, a thousand more creases in a face like a withered prune.

“Mr. Madriani,” he says. He extends a hand. We shake.

I look at his card. “Mr. Golumbine.”

“Bean,” he says. Pursed lips for precision. “It’s pronounced Golum-bean.”

“Have a seat,” I say. I gesture toward one of the client chairs on the other side of the desk. I can guess why he’s here. The seriousness of purpose is plastered on this countenance like a fresco on a Renaissance wall.

“What can I do for you?”

“We have a complaint,” he says. “Regarding your office, and I’ve been assigned to look into it.”

I give him a face, like is this so?

“Yes,” he says. He reaches down into a briefcase, a bell-shaped affair down by his feet, and comes up with a yellow notepad. “A complaint regarding the current prosecution of,” he looks at his notes, “Andre Iganovich I think is the defendant’s name.”

It has taken a while for the Coconut’s correspondence to float to the top of all the effluent clogging the AG’s in-basket.

“Excuse me for a moment,” I say. I pick up the receiver and press the com-line, then a couple of numbers.

“I wonder if you could come down here for minute?” I hang up.

I turn back to Golumbine. “You were saying?”

“We have a complaint regarding the handling of this case, specifically errors made in the processing of a request for extradition. We would like your cooperation in gathering information so that we can respond to this, and determine what if any errors were made.”

I make a face, an invitation for him to go on.

“It’s a rather serious matter,” he says.

“It’s also ancient history,” I tell him. “You’re aware that Mr. Iganovich now resides in the Davenport County Jail and is awaiting trial on multiple counts of murder?”

“We had read that,” he says. “Still.”

“Tell me a little about this complaint,” I say. “Who filed it?”

“That’s confidential,” he says.

“By law?”

“Department policy,” he tells me.

“Surely you can tell me its contents?”

He shakes his head.

The door opens, and Lenore Goya comes in. Golumbine looks at her and is up out of his chair. I introduce them. He has the manner of a village lecher, leering looks as he takes her in, and a limp handshake.

“Ms. Goya’s been assisting me in the prosecution of this case.” Lenore has also been doing a little homework with Kay Sellig. She had warned us that somebody would be coming over from Justice. She didn’t know who. She also told us that Acosta’s letter did not get a receptive hearing from the attorney general. The man is an astute politician. Why get drawn into parochial battles? He shuffled it down the line to others with no direction or clear mandate.

“You say department policy prevents you from sharing the contents of your complaint with us?”

“That’s correct,” he says.

I look at his card again. “What’s the Government Law Section got to do with extradition?” I say. “I thought extradition was a special section over there.”

He coughs a little hack and straightens his tie. He shoots a glance at Lenore, whose skirt has ridden up a few inches on her crossed thigh. “We help out where we can,” he says.

I nod and smile. “Just helping out.”

“Yes,” he says.

“So what is it you want?” I ask him.

“Access to your working papers, your files,” he says.

I raise an eyebrow. “Everything?”

“Yes.”

He may look like warmed-over milk toast, but the man has balls of brass.

“Can I ask you,” says Lenore, “what’s your authority?”

“Excuse me?”

“Your statutory authority,” she says, “to intervene in a pending prosecution?”

“Oh we’re not intervening,” he says. “Merely making an inquiry in response to a complaint.”

“Fine,” she says, “what’s your authority for such an inquiry?”

He’s no longer looking at her legs. Instead he’s now fumbling through his briefcase which rests in his lap, going through this like Fibber McGee in his cluttered closet. After assorted papers and a day-runner, he comes up with a blue-bound paperback volume, an abridged Penal Code. Several seconds thumbing with a wet finger and he cites her a section.

“Can I see it?” she says.

“Certainly.” He hands her the book.

“This pertains to the attorney general’s right to review requests and orders for extradition, before and while they are pending,” she says. “I see nothing here about requests for extradition which have been dismissed or otherwise terminated.”

“I think it’s not clear,” he says. “We believe we have broader authority.”

“We?” she says. “You’re talking about the attorney general? Has he specifically ordered this inquiry?”

“Well, my superiors,” he says.

“And who might that be?” I ask him.

Golumbine’s beginning to sweat.

He gives me a couple of names, mid-level functionaries in the Government Law Section.

I take him in another direction, over the falls.

“I understand you know Judge Ingel?” I say.

He looks at me, wariness crowding into his eyes now.

“He’s an acquaintance,” he says.

“Oh, I understand you guys used to work together in the AG’s office, that you were pretty close.”

“We know each other,” he says. A little color, the flush of discovery coming into his cheeks.

“He didn’t call you by any chance, in connection with this, did he?”

A lot of coughing, his hand covering his mouth. A handkerchief comes out, but instead of wiping his mouth he uses this to sweep the sweat from his forehead.

“We can’t discuss the particulars of an official inquiry,” he says.

“Ah. Official inquiry.” I nod, like I understand this.

“Do you have a formal opinion interpreting this section?” says Lenore.

Golumbine is beginning to feel like he’s caught in a vise, between Goya and me.

“Emm?” He looks at her.

“An AG’s opinion setting forth your office’s authority relative to this section?” She’s pointing at the provision of the Penal Code that Golumbine would try to ride into the confines of our files.

“I don’t know,” he says.

“Well, maybe you can look.” She dumps the volume back in his lap. “And a letter signed by your boss.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Ms. Goya makes a good point,” I say. “It would be nice, just to cover all our bases, if we could have a letter of request signed by the attorney general before we opened our files. You understand.” I’m up out of my chair, hand extended, like this meeting is over.

“It was good meeting you,” I say.

Golumbine’s scrambling, one hand filled with assorted papers and his notepad, the other holding the Penal Code from his lap. He is trying to juggle his briefcase, clinging to the handle with one pinky finger. He will need a brace on this tomorrow.

Lenore opens the door for him and points the way out. Stooped at the waist he shuffles out the door with all of his shit. For the moment we’ve dodged the Coconut’s latest bullet.

William Geddes has withdrawn from the grand jury, pleading undefined personal hardship. Alienated from his colleagues on the panel, the price of his little performance, an early departure was Geddes’s idea. And I did not discourage it.

Given his ex parte conversation with Goya, brief as it was, the fact that he will not now vote on any of the counts completely dispels even the slightest hint that she might have tampered with this jury. Geddes has been replaced by one of the alternates, a woman who has heard all of the evidence.

She along with the others are now two days in on our dry run of the Scofield case, my test drive of the theory that there are two separate murderers.

Yesterday Goya and Kay Sellig took the jurors on a forensic tour of the rope and tent stakes, the differences between those at the first two murder scenes and the ones used to tie down and kill the Scofields. Goya went as far as she dared, right to the cusp of actually testifying that a copycat did the Scofields.

That is something we have reserved for today’s witness.

In another life, Harold Thornton has taught, but never tenured, at several prestigious university campuses. These appear large on his curriculum vitae. A former instructor in psychology, he is now on call to a handful of law enforcement agencies in this part of the state, their resident expert on criminal profiling.

A good expert witness will advance your cause without appearing to be an advocate. To the jury he will come across as a good teacher, objective, dispassionate, never tending toward overstatement or extremes of position, the very soul of academic integrity. In short, the dreamboat expert is every hustler’s vision of the ultimate flimflam man. This goes double if you are delving, as I am today, into the dark crevices of the human mind.

“Would you state your name for the record?”

He gives it, spelling his surname for the court reporter.

“Do you hold any academic degrees?”

“A doctor of philosophy,” he says, “in psychology.”

“And your specialty?”

“Clinical psychology,” he says.

He gives the jury an overview of his academic background, training, teaching assignments, scholarly papers published, all the items that would qualify him in court as an expert witness, someone allowed to offer opinions on matters within the area of his expertise.

“In your professional capacity have you ever assisted law enforcement agencies in constructing personality profiles, what has become known as criminal profiling?” I ask.

“I have,” he says.

“How many times have you done this?”

He thinks for a moment. “Actual construction, or collaboration?” he says.

“Construction,” I say.

“Six. No. No. Five times,” he says.

I wince a little with this, deep inside where the jurors can’t see. I had hoped for more, a longer train of experience. Thornton was supplied by Kay Sellig for a single reason; on short notice he was the only expert available in the area.

“Can you explain to the jury the science of criminal profiling, how it works?” I ask.

“It’s quite simple,” he tells me, “straightforward.”

A small psychic signal erupts in my head. I get queasy when academics tell me anything is simple.

Thornton kicks into overdrive. “Profiling is predicated on certain psychobiologic presumptions,” he says.

Just what I thought. I cut him off.

“Dr. Thornton. We’re all a few units shy of our medical degrees here,” I say. “In layman’s terms would be nice.” I smile at him, pleasant and warm.

He gives me a pained expression, then wades in. “Profiling,” he says, “is based on a singular observation, that the way any activity is carried out, the way that it’s performed, will tell you a great deal about the person who performs it.”

Good, I think. To the point, unadorned.

“Applied to criminal acts,” he says, “if we know the habits and personality traits of people who have committed certain types of crimes, we can then use these to generate behavioral descriptions of the classic perpetrator of that particular crime.”

I turn to get some papers from the table. By the time I come back Thornton is narrating, hip deep in the bogs of abstraction again. I see heads nodding off at the table, like it’s time for a midmorning nap.

“Sex,” I cut him off in mid sentence. “Let’s talk about sex crimes, Dr. Thornton.”

Two of the farmers who were dozing come out of their chairs, like it’s milking time, reaching for the udders.

“Do you use profiling in sex crimes?”

“Oh sure. Serial rape is a classic example.”

Thank God for little favors.

“But you can’t use it on every kind of crime?” I say.

“No no,” he says. “There are entire categories of crime, in fact most crime, where profiling would not work at all.”

“Can you give us a few examples?” I say.

“Sure.” He thinks for a moment. “Any crime where there is limited contact with the crime scene. Simple robbery, most thefts. These are crimes that don’t usually evidence any particular psychologic disorder. In these cases, little of the personality of the offender can be determined from a study of the crime scene. If somebody reaches into a register and takes money at the point of a pistol, you’re not likely to be left with much but fingerprints,” he says.

Like a slow burning briquette, this jury is beginning to catch. I can see little embers of interest from the jury around the edges. Thornton is taking on the mantle of teacher, the best cover for a good expert.

“Because greed is too common a human vice to make profiling useful in those cases?”

“Exactly,” he says.

“So what kinds of crimes lend themselves best to personality profiling?”

“Usually these are cases with considerable physical activity at the scene, in which the victim is subjected to substantial violence by the perpetrator. Rape as I said is a good example,” he tells us. “Sexual homicide, any crime of violence on a person involving some ritual, severe torture, cases involving mayhem, disfigurement or mutilation of the victim, either before or after death. These are the classic cases for useful personality profiling,” he tells us.

“Why is that?”

“Because these acts would by their very nature involve some serious psychologic disorder,” he says. “The physical manifestations of the crime scene, the act itself is often patterned by the subconscious in predictable ways. We know this from past similar criminal acts perpetrated by others suffering from some of the same mental disorders. This sets the perpetrator apart from the norm, causes him to stand out, not to the casual observer perhaps, but to the trained investigator who looks at a suspect’s background.”

I take him on a little digression. We talk about the traits and markers, the building blocks that make up the personality of the typical offender for the various categories of crime.

These have been developed in hundreds of interviews by experts, talking with the twisted minds incarcerated in prisons and mental hospitals, in some cases pacing the executioner in a footrace to the death chamber in a quest for knowledge.

“Can you tell the jury how these markers, these individual traits, are applied in the usual case, to apprehend a specific offender?”

“What we’ve found is that by the time an individual reaches an age,” says Thornton, “at which he. .” He explains that the perpetrator in these cases is usually male. “By the time they commit such a crime or a series of similar crimes, major felonies that would lend themselves to profiling, these people have already established certain patterns of behavior in their lives.”

Direct examination of an expert is like a song, a form of litigious poetry. There is a proper rhythm. It moves from the general, broad theories, to the specific case studies. If done well, it leaves the jury with a hard concrete view of things, a sense that your man’s views are part of the real world, not some ethereal vapor bubbling over a Bunsen burner.

“Can you give us a real example,” I ask, “of how you’ve applied a criminal profile, a true case?”

Thornton muses for a moment, the intense look of painful experience.

“A case in another county,” he says. “A series of ritual slayings. One of the markers, a common pattern of behavior for this particular brand of sado-masochism, based on the earlier case studies,” he says, “told us that the perpetrator quite likely had an early history, a childhood fetish for mistreatment of animals, torture of pets. That sort of thing. We had four principal suspects. So we searched the record on each, juvenile authorities, schools, family members, friends from years past.”

Thornton tells us how investigators learned to probe for the sick underbelly, to slip the subtle questions without asking: “Did your friend ever pull the wings off some living bird? Fricassee the neighbor’s dog on the run with flaming gasoline for a frolic?” “The sharp investigator, the best cop for this sort of work,” says Thornton, “is the good-old-buddy just indulging in confidences about youthful pranks.”

I look at the jury as they study each other. The message: beware of Joe-six-pack with a badge.

“After two days of questioning by nine different officers, a miniature census,” says Thornton, “one suspect drew a crowd of investigators. Nine hours later he confessed to all five murders,” he tells us. “When done right, and if you are lucky, that’s how it works.”

I look over at the jury. Thornton has achieved critical mass for an expert, he has laid the groundwork, established the practice of profiling as something higher on the plain of science than astrology, more credible than reading tea leaves.

I round the last curve and chase for home, the core issue.

“Dr. Thornton, have you had occasion at our request to study those crimes, those series of murders commonly known in the area as the Putah Creek killings?”

“I have,” he says.

“So as to avoid any confusion among the jury, would you tell us which crimes you have studied in this regard? The names of the victims?” I say.

Thornton wants to look at his records and notes to refresh his recollection. He identifies three separate sets of murders as having been referred to him by the Davenport County Sheriff’s Department, the two sets of student killings and the later murders of Abbott and Karen Scofield.

“And with regard to these murders, were you asked to prepare personality profiles regarding the perpetrator or perpetrators of those crimes?”

“I was.”

I make clear that in doing this Thornton has not had access to Andre Iganovich, no interviews, opportunities for observation, something Chambers would no doubt pursue if he were here on cross-examination. It is the principal weakness of this test run, that no adversary is present. So I play devil’s advocate.

“And applying your expertise as a licensed and trained psychologist, your experience in years of personality profiling, have you formed any opinion regarding a personality profile of the perpetrator in these cases?”

“I have,” he says.

“Could you share that opinion with us?”

He’s looking at his notes. “With regard to the murders of Julie Park and Jonathan Snider, the first of the student victims, and Sharon Collins and Rodney Slate, the last two college victims, it is my opinion that they were killed by the same person.

“With regard to the murders of Abbott and Karen Scofield, it is my opinion, based on scientific evidence, that these victims were killed by a different person or persons, not the murderer of the four earlier college students.”

I wait for a moment, allow this to settle on the jury. It is the zenith of my case on this point. All that is left now is to backfill with the rationale, the reasoning that supports the good doctor’s views.

“And how did you come to this conclusion?” I ask him.

“While there are a number of factors,” he says, “the one overriding and principal element would be the facial mutilation of the victim Karen Scofield. From the pathology report, her left eye was removed from her head after death.

“Studies tell us,” says Thornton, “that facial disfigurement is performed in these cases for a single reason: because the killer and the victim were personally acquainted. In the usual case the closer the relationship, the more severe the facial mutilation. Here, with the removal of an eye, I would venture that the murderer knew the victim well.”

He tells us that the symbolic message in all of this is unavoidable: remove the organ of sight, and in the subconscious mind the killer remains hidden from, undisclosed to, his victim.

To demonstrate this fact to the jury he uses one of the photographs, a color picture of Karen Scofield’s head as it lay on the coroner’s slab.

“The killer used some violence to remove this eye,” he says. He points to three deep slashes, one nearly cutting through the brow on the top, and two more deep into the cheek under the eye. “Not exactly surgical precision,” he says. “He was probably in a panic, a frenzy when he did this.”

“And your opinion regarding the earlier victims, the students?”

“That the killer and these victims were strangers. There was no facial mutilation as to any of the earlier victims.”

“Is it not possible,” I say, “that the same killer might have murdered all of them, that he didn’t know the students, but did know Karen Scofield?” A little counter advocacy here. A show of fairness, exposing a potential softness to our case.

“From case studies, I would say only the most remote of possibilities,” he says. “Highly unlikely.” The true scientist, Thornton abhors the notion of absolutes. It is one of the things that breeds believability.

“There is a general pattern to serial murders,” he says. “There are killers who know their victims, who select them from a pool of acquaintances. There are other pattern killers who murder only strangers, victims of opportunity. As a general rule the two types or categories of killers do not cross over. We know from studying past cases that generally they will not kill some acquaintances, and some strangers.”

This apparently is the linchpin, the keystone of his opinion that there were two killers: Karen Scofield’s missing eye. While there are other factors, this one element is so persuasive in Thornton’s mind that it tends to override everything else.

“Were there other factors, doctor? Any other reason to suspect a separate murderer in the Scofield cases?”

“Yes,” he says. “The age discrepancy between the Scofields and the students. While not unheard of, this is unusual in pattern murders,” says Thornton.

“Also the tools of death,” he says. “The killer would usually not change rope or stakes if he had an ample supply, which according to the police report the suspect Iganovich had in his vehicle. These are generally part of the ritual,” says Thornton. “And these murders are ritual slayings,” he says, “make no mistake about that. The arrangement of the articles of clothing in an arc about the head of each victim, the use of undergarments to cover the face of the female victims, all point to a liturgical crime,” he says.

I look at him, a question mark.

“Ritual murder,” he says for clarity.

“No,” he says. “In my opinion, there is no question. The Scofields were not killed by the same perpetrator who murdered the four college students.”

“Can you explain the similarities in the crimes, the use of stakes and similar cord?”

“A crude attempt to mimic.” He looks straight at the jury with this, the polished performance of one who is no novice on the stand. “What you would commonly call a copycat,” he tells them.

“And your conclusions as stated here,” I say, “these are based on your review of the evidence, your considered professional opinion as an expert in personality profiling?”

“Absolutely,” he says.

I look at my shadow jury, wondering whether I have made my case, whether I have driven a factual wedge between these crimes. Based on theory and conjecture, the food of academic opinion, there is nothing more I can give them. All that would remain, the only recourse if this fails, is to dredge up the killer of Abbott and Karen Scofield, and to lay bare his motive before them.