“Two o’clock. Can you make it?”
“What else have I got to do? I’ve been suspended from teaching, and the police haven’t exactly deluged me with forensic cases since they arrested me for murder.”
“Damned shortsighted of them,” he said. “I’ll see you at two.”
The next two hours passed with excruciating slowness. Finally, at one-fifteen, unable to wait any longer, I headed for DeVriess’s office. Even taking the long way around the UT campus, I pulled into the parking garage beneath Riverview Tower a good twenty minutes early. Too bad, I thought. Worst case, I’ll have to sit in the waiting room for a while. No worse than sitting anywhere else. Maybe better-Chloe’s always nice to me.
As I stepped into the elevator and punched the button for DeVriess’s floor, I noticed a slight man pushing a large, wheeled case in my direction. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to realize he wouldn’t be using the stairs, so I held the elevator for him. The case-actually two cases, one atop the other-bumped over the sill and into the car. “Thanks,” said the man. He was breathing hard and had broken a sweat. He didn’t look muscular enough to be a deliveryman, and his shirt and tie suggested that he was a professional of some sort. The fact that the tie was a clip-on suggested that the sturdy black cases contained computer gear of some sort.
“That’s quite a load you’ve got there,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said. “Weighs more than I do. Plane fare for it costs more than mine, too, time I pay all the excess baggage charges.”
“Computer hardware?”
“Sort of,” he said. “Video and audio equipment. Plus a computer.”
That would explain why he’d glanced at the elevator console and not pushed a button: he was bound for the same floor I was, and the same lawyer’s office. I was on the verge of introducing myself when it occurred to me that I didn’t know a graceful way to do it. “Hi, I’m Bill Brockton, accused murderer?” Or maybe, “God, I hope you’re good enough to save me from the electric chair?” So instead I decided to focus on him. “What do you use it for?”
“I do forensic video and audio analysis.”
“You mean like enhancing recordings?”
“I’m careful not to call it ‘enhancing’ in court,” he said. “The word ‘enhancing’ makes it sound like I’m adding something to it. What I’m really doing is subtracting-filtering out noise, static, and other interference-to extract the best possible images and sounds from what’s already recorded.”
“How much difference does that make?”
“You’d be surprised,” he said. “Or maybe disappointed, if you watch CSI. On shows like that, video analysis is like magic-they take these really crappy, blurry images and zoom in by about a factor of ten, and hit a button and suddenly the image is razor-sharp. Doesn’t work that way in real life-if you start out with a crappy camera and a worn-out tape, you can’t end up with a great image. But TV makes people think you can.”
“I’ve heard that called ‘the CSI effect,’ I think,” I said.
“Exactly,” he said. “The public-and jurors-now expect miracles from people in law enforcement. They think all this razzle-dazzle, instant-answer technology that some scriptwriter has made up must really exist. And if a prosecutor can’t produce that sort of thing in court, they tend to discount the evidence.”
“What about the defense?”
“Funny thing,” he said. “On TV, it’s nearly always the cops and prosecutors pulling the rabbits out of the high-tech hats. So the jurors expect more bells and whistles from them than they do from the defense.”
This gave me some comfort.
The elevator stopped on Burt’s floor, and I held the door button again while the man levered and bumped his gear over the threshold. Then I squeezed past him so I could open the door to Burt’s suite of offices. “Thank you,” he said. “That’s very nice of you.”
“Maybe you can do me a favor sometime,” I said with a smile.
Chloe looked startled to see me coming in with the video consultant. “Well, hello, Dr. Brockton,” she said. “You’re here early.”
“I am,” I said, “and look who I found wandering around on Gay Street.” She looked confused. “I’m kidding, Chloe,” I said. “We just happened to ride up on the elevator together.”
Her relief was almost palpable. “Hi, you must be Mr. Thomas,” she said. “Welcome to Knoxville. I’m Chloe Matthews, Mr. DeVriess’s assistant. I hope your flight was good?”
“It was fine,” he said. “We circled Atlanta quite a while-a thunderstorm had blown through, and the planes were stacked up-so it was nice to be up in first class.” I raised my eyebrows at Chloe but she ignored me. “I had just enough time to make my connection to Knoxville,” Thomas was saying. “Fortunately, my gear made it, too. I wouldn’t be much good here without it.”
“And you’ve already met Dr. Brockton,” she said.
“Not exactly,” I said. “On the ride up, we just talked about TV and reality, and the difference between the two.”
“Oh, then let me introduce you,” she said. “Dr. Brockton, this is Owen Thomas, our forensic audio and video expert. Mr. Thomas, this is Dr. Bill Brockton. He’s…” She floundered here.
“…the reason you’re here,” I said.
“He’s a famous forensic scientist,” she said. “That’s how I was going to describe you.”
I smiled. “Chloe, you’re not a very good liar. Mr. Thomas, I’ve been charged with a crime. A murder, in fact. The prosecution says a surveillance video shows me and my pickup truck delivering the body to the place where it was found. I’m hoping you can prove them wrong.”
Thomas looked uncomfortable, and I couldn’t say as I blamed him. “I’ll do my best to clarify the tape,” he said. “What ever it shows, it shows. Like I told Mr. DeVriess, I don’t really think of myself as working for the defense, or for the prosecution; I think of my role as clarifying the truth.”
“Good for you,” I said. “That’s my philosophy, too. You know, when I’m not on trial for murder. As a forensic anthropologist, I usually get called by the prosecution, but not long ago I testified for Gre-for Mr. DeVriess-and helped him clear an innocent man of murder charges. I’m hoping he can do that again this time.”
Burt DeVriess turned a corner of the hallway and strode into his reception area. “You guys having this meeting without me?” He shook my hand and then introduced himself to Thomas.
“Let’s go back to the conference room,” Burt said. “That’ll be better than my office. My office is too bright for looking at video.”
The conference room was on the opposite side of the hallway from Burt’s office; it was an interior room, with no windows except for a wall of Burt’s trademark frosted glass along the hallway. A fair amount of daylight bled through from Burt’s window and frosted-glass wall, but he lowered a set of blinds in the conference room, and the daylight vanished. “That dark enough?”
“Oh, plenty,” said Thomas. Burt flipped on a set of Art Deco wall sconces, and the room took on a high-design feel, with the light itself looking like something sculpted. Between the Bentley, the first-class airfare, and the décor, I began to suspect that my $20,000 retainer was likely to be merely the first of several installments.
“How long do you need to set up?” Burt asked.
“Seven minutes,” Thomas said. The clip-on tie was not just for effect.
“Okay, we’ll be right back. Bill, come across the hall with me and let’s talk trial strategy.” I followed him into his office, where the bank of windows revealed a rain squall moving up the river channel in a wall of solid gray. As it advanced, it enveloped the railroad bridge, the graceful arches of the Henley Street bridge, and the bright green trusswork of the Gay Street bridge, Knoxville’s favorite venue for suicidal jumpers.