Finally, when he can’t dawdle any longer, Tuchio starts another line of questioning.
“Detective Detrick, have you ever had occasion to meet or personally talk to the defendant, Carl Arnsberg?”
“I have.”
“When was the first time you met him, if you can remember?”
“It was the day after the murder. The following morning, I believe.”
“Can you tell the jury why you met with the defendant?”
“In order to interview him.”
“Why?”
“We were in the process of questioning all the employees who were on duty at the Presidential Regis Hotel on the day of the murder, and information came to us that the defendant, Mr. Arnsberg-”
“Objection, Your Honor. Hearsay.”
Quinn looks up.
“We don’t even know what the witness is going to say, Your Honor.” Tuchio tries to edge in.
“May we approach the bench?” I want to get it away from the jury.
The judge waves us forward. He pushes the little button on the bench. This creates a tone barely audible to the human ear, but if we were to shout, people in the jury box as well as those in the audience would never hear a word.
“We know what the witness is going to say, Your Honor.” I talk before Tuchio can get a word in. “He’s going to tell the jury that Arnsberg ran, that he fled the scene, when in fact there’s no evidence of that at all.”
“He left work unannounced,” says Tuchio. “He didn’t tell his supervisor or anyone else why he was leaving or where he was going. And that’s why the police bumped him up on the list of employees to be interviewed. Pure and simple,” says Tuchio.
“That’s not why the prosecutor wants it in, Your Honor. He’s wants it to infer flight from the scene.”
“It is what it is,” says Quinn. “The jury will have to decide.”
“It’s also hearsay, Your Honor. The witness is testifying to information given to him by others-the hotel supervisor, for one-and he’s not on the stand.”
“Oh, he will be,” says Tuchio, “to testify that your man disappeared, didn’t say a word to any of the other employees, and that the last time anybody saw him was before the victim’s body was found by the maid and reported.”
“Overruled,” says Quinn.
Just like that we’re back out, the dead button switched off. The prosecutor puts the question to Detrick again.
“As I was saying, we were in the process of interviewing all the hotel employees who were on duty that day-”
“The day of the murder?” says Tuchio.
“Yes. And information came to our attention that the defendant, Mr. Arnsberg, had left work early that day, unannounced. He hadn’t told his supervisor or anyone else that he was leaving. So we wanted to interview him at the first opportunity.”
“And that opportunity was the following day?”
“Correct.”
“When you interviewed him the next day, where did that interview take place?”
“At the defendant’s apartment in downtown San Diego.”
“And did you ask him why he’d left work early the previous day?”
“I did.”
“And what did he say?”
“He said he wasn’t feeling well, so he went home.”
“But he didn’t tell his supervisor?”
“No.”
“Or anyone else he worked with?”
“Not that we’ve been able to locate.”
“Did you ask him why he didn’t tell his supervisor?”
“I never had the chance.”
“Why was that?”
“Because I received a phone call on my cell phone from headquarters that fingerprint evidence from the crime scene had been analyzed and that that evidence appeared to link the defendant, Mr. Arnsberg, to the crime.”
“What did you do then?”
“We took Mr. Arnsberg into custody.”
“You arrested him?”
“That’s right.”
Now Tuchio starts making repeated trips to the evidence cart and back to the witness on the stand. First comes a paper bag containing the plastic raincoat. Detrick identifies it, along with a bloodied towel from the hotel that the raincoat was wrapped in when police found it in the Dumpster near the hotel parking area.
Another trip, another paper bag, this one larger than the bag containing the hammer.
“After you arrested Mr. Arnsberg, did you at any time obtain a warrant to search the premises of his apartment, the location where you first questioned him?”
“One of my officers did.”
“And did you conduct a search pursuant to that warrant?”
“We did.”
“When did you conduct that search?”
“The same day. The day we arrested the defendant.”
“And did you find anything during the course of that search?”
“We found a pair of dark slacks that appeared to have a few small stains of what looked like dried blood. These appeared to be ground into the fabric near the knee and hip areas.”
“Can you tell the jury where you found these slacks?”
“In a clothes dryer in the basement of the apartment building where the defendant, Carl Arnsberg, lived.”
“So these slacks were being dried after being washed?”
“Objection. Calls for speculation.”
“Sustained,” says the judge.
Still, the point is made. Unless he was removing wrinkles, why would Arnsberg be drying a pair of slacks if he hadn’t washed them?
“But they were being dried?” Tuchio comes right back.
“They were already dry,” says Detrick. The machine was off, but it was still warm when we found the slacks inside.”
“Did you find anything else during your search?”
“We found a pair of dark Nike running shoes with rippled soles that appeared to have traces of blood in some of the grooves. There were also stains that looked like they could be blood on the outside of the upper part of the right shoe.”
“And where did you find these shoes?”
“They were on the kitchen counter near the sink.”
“Did you find anything else during the course of this search?”
“A small, hard-bristled brush and a can of cleanser,” says Detrick.
“Where did you find these?”
“On the sink right next to the shoes.”
This time Tuchio comes back from the evidence cart with an array of bags. One at a time, he hands them up to the witness, and they do the drill.
Detrick, still wearing the white gloves, identifies the dark slacks found in the dryer, then the shoes, along with the brush and the can of cleanser that was found on the sink next to them.
The jury is taking it all in, most of them busily making notes.
Like pixels on a screen, the pieces of evidence in Tuchio’s case start to flicker and glow with the early outline of a picture. At the moment there’s nothing I can do to dim it, the image of a killer diligently doing his laundry, busy scrubbing the blood of his victim from his slacks and shoes.
Finally he has Detrick recap the evidence presented so far by putting it all together. He asks the witness, as an expert in crime-scene reconstruction and based on his investigation and observations at the scene, to give the jury his studied opinion as to the sequence of events surrounding the commission of the crime.
According to Detrick, the killer entered Scarborough’s hotel room probably by using a master key, as there was no evidence of a forced entry. The killer probably already had the murder weapon, having secured it from a maintenance closet on that floor by using the same master key used to enter the victim’s room. The electronic key employed in a lock by someone who is experienced in its use would be virtually silent. According to the witness, the killer was already wearing the clear plastic raincoat that the police found in the Dumpster near the hotel parking area, this to prevent blood from splattering all over his clothes. The perpetrator approached the victim, who was seated in the chair facing away from the door and was probably engrossed in studying or reading documents that were later found near the body by police. According to Detrick the killer could have covered the eleven feet from the door to the back of the victim’s chair in less than two seconds, striking the victim with the murder weapon from the right side and making contact in the area near the base of the skull, thus immediately rendering Scarborough unconscious.