The Wrong Man

85

Wendy Kotowski, Detective Frank Danilo, and I huddled around a table in the office of the chief deputy medical examiner for the county, Dr. Mitra Agarwal.

“These,” said the doctor, “are photos of a man who hanged himself three weeks ago in a mental institution.” She pointed to the bruising on the decedent’s neck, which angled downward from each side of the neck to a point at the center of his throat.

“The force of gravity from the fall off the platform-this decedent jumped off a ladder-causes the ligature mark to form this V shape,” said the doctor. “His neck wasn’t broken. A hanging almost never results in a broken neck, certainly not from a fall of six feet or less. This decedent suffered no hemorrhaging in the strap muscles of the neck, which is consistent with a suicide. And here.” She showed another set of photos. “You see no ancillary bruising near or surrounding the ligature marks that would indicate any kind of a struggle. Not cuts or abrasions.

“This,” she concluded, “is a classic suicide by hanging.”

Okay. Fair enough. Now, I assumed, we were going to talk about our favorite dead lawyer, Bruce McCabe.

“And here are photographs of the decedent under examination, Mr… McCabe.”

She dropped down two photographs, from slightly different angles, of Bruce McCabe’s neck and shoulder. My heart did a leap.

“Note the ligature marks are a straight line across his throat,” she said. “In addition, the decedent suffered a broken neck. And we found internal hemorrhaging into the sternohyoid and thyrohyroid-the strap muscles of the neck.”

She threw down two more photos.

“And finally,” she said, “you see some other bruising and cuts near and around the ligature marks, including some on the chin and cheek. Evidence of struggle. He was desperately grabbing for the rope around his neck.”

I looked at Wendy, then at the doctor.

“Bruce McCabe didn’t commit suicide,” I said.

“Bruce McCabe was strangled from behind.” The doctor nodded. “He was dead long before they strung him up and hanged him.”

“Oh, come on, Wendy,” I said outside the M. E.’s office. It was a rare December day that the sun was out. A little snow had fallen last night, and it lit up under the sunlight. “The lawyer who tried to cover up what Kathy Rubinkowski was uncovering shows up dead just as I’m sniffing around? These guys are covering their tracks, circling their wagons.”

Wendy stood with her arms crossed and made sure I was finished before she answered.

“You’ve had this information for a while, Jason. You never said anything, wanting to maximize the element of surprise-but now, now you spring it on me and expect me to immediately embrace it? To lap it up like a dog?”

I shook my head. “I expect you to carefully consider it,” I said. “I expect you to evaluate it and realize that your cops may have rushed to judgment on my client. I’m not asking you to drop the charges, Wendy. I’m saying take a damn breath. Let’s suspend the trial or go in together and ask for a mistrial without prejudice. You have more than a good-faith basis to believe that you’re prosecuting an innocent person. I’ll have to go back and re-read the Constitution, but I think that’s something you’re not supposed to do.”

She shook her head. “If you’d given me the information sooner, I might have been able to process it, to investigate it. I would have done that, Jason. But you decided to hold this back and spring it-”

“You know damn well that if I brought my evidence to Nash before it was in solid shape, he would have bounced it in a nanosecond. With you cheering him on,” I added. “I couldn’t introduce this until I had more than speculation. I would’ve preferred to wait a little longer, but you rested your case and it was now or never. Every day I learn more, Wendy, and every day it supports what I’m saying more and more. Look at what you just showed me in there.”

“You’re welcome, by the way.”

“Yes, thank you for doing your job, even though we both know if you hadn’t, I would have subpoenaed Mitra and let the judge know you refused to help me.”

I probably shouldn’t have said that. We both knew it, anyway, but it made more sense to make her feel like she was doing this of her own free will. It enhanced her cooperative spirit, kept her from going into her corner, and me into mine, before we came out duking.

“Look, Wendy. A guy I’m looking at hard for complicity in murders and maybe something worse shows up dead before I can subpoena him to trial. A murder staged to look like a suicide. So we wouldn’t see it for what it is-more evidence of a cover-up.”

She knew all of this already. I was just trying to crystallize it for her. It was a guilt trip of the highest order. Here was the knockout punch:

“Doesn’t a guy who put his ass on the line for his country, and got totally messed up for doing so-doesn’t the government that sent him there at least owe it to him to take a careful look at the evidence before they put him in prison for life?”

“Okay.” She waved him off. “That’s quite enough. You have a theory, I have mine. I still believe that your guy is the doer. You don’t. Fine. Let’s go to war. If I wasn’t ready for trial, I don’t think your shoulder would be available to cry on.”

“Our jobs are different, and you know it. You have a higher obligation.”

She pointed a finger at me. “Don’t you ever again tell me what my obligation is, Jason. I’m sick of your preaching. I’ve got my guy and I’ve got my case. I’ll let the judge decide about continuances or mistrials. I got you access to this information about the autopsy, and now you have it. I’ve gone over and above. Now do your job, and I’ll do mine.”

She walked off in a huff. I’d never seen her so angry. But it was still time well spent. I didn’t get what I wanted from her, but I knew she would keep thinking about it. However much I was getting under her skin, she was right-she did know her obligation, and it was higher than winning a case. It was about justice. I still held out hope she’d take my side tomorrow morning.

Speaking of. I looked at my watch. It was high noon on Sunday. We’d be back in court in twenty-one hours.

My cell phone buzzed. It was Joel Lightner.

“I’m at the firm,” he said to me. “Where the hell are you?”

I sighed. “Me? I’m at the beauty salon having my eyebrows plucked.”

“Well, get your ass back here, gorgeous,” he said. “I’ve got something for you.”