He studies the photo from a distance, adjusting his glasses.
“It would appear so,” he says.
“Wouldn’t this be evidence of the fact that there was sufficient blood to seep through the blanket?”
“Not necessarily,” he says. “It’s possible that the blood on the outside of the blanket was blood that was transferred from the carpet around the area by the body, when the killer initially wrapped the victim.”
“Are you saying that’s what it is?”
“I believe from my examination of the blanket that’s what occurred. The blanket was not saturated with blood. Also the patterns of blood on the outside of the blanket revealed drag marks, like minute brushstrokes,” he says. “I believe these were caused by the blood-soaked carpet fibers as the blanket was dragged across them in the process of wrapping the body.”
“Still, if there was blood on the outside of that blanket wouldn’t you expect to find traces of that blood transferred somewhere to the interior of a vehicle if the blanket and the body were placed in that vehicle?”
“Again, not necessarily,” says Angelo. Like a dog scrapping over a bone, he is not going to let it go. He knows that the cops will never be able to explain the absence of blood in Acosta’s car after the jury has seen photos of the veritable river of blood in Hall’s apartment.
“It’s possible that the blood on the outside of the blanket could have dried before the body was placed in the vehicle. Especially if it were transferred blood from the carpet. It would only be a light coating on the outside of the fabric. It would dry quickly,” he says.
“How quickly?”
“There are a lot of variables. A large pool of blood could be expected to dry perhaps in twenty-four hours. But something like this, a light coating of transferred blood, could dry in a matter of minutes. It depends on the environment.” He sits back, satisfied that he has dodged this one.
“But the pool of blood. What’s on the carpet, that would take longer?”
“Yes.”
“Then perhaps you could explain to me, Doctor, how it would be possible for someone to wrap the body of a victim, dragging a blanket through a pool of blood as you have described, and at the same time avoid stepping in that blood?”
From the look in Angelo’s eyes I can tell that he sees the dilemma. If Acosta wrapped the body and stepped in the blood, why wasn’t it carried on his shoes to the car?
“Again,” he says. “It could have dried.”
“So in your view, the killer stood around the apartment while the blanket and his shoes dried?”
“It’s one explanation.” Though by the look on his face it is not one he is happy with.
“And can you explain to the jury, Doctor, in your view, why the body was moved?”
Angelo sits looking at me, stone-faced. It is as if he has not expected this. The first time I have seen surprise.
“What is your theory on this, Doctor?”
Kline tries to save him with an objection, that it’s beyond the witness’s expertise. Radovich gavels it down on the basis that Angelo has already gone too far in his explanation of how the body was moved.
“You can answer the question, Doctor,” I tell him. “In your opinion, why was the body moved?”
“I’m not sure,” he says.
“You have absolutely no explanation?” The tone of my voice makes this sound like some major scandal.
Mean slits for eyes from Angelo on the stand.
“You can offer nothing?” I say.
Faced with the alternatives, no explanation, and one that makes no sense, Angelo goes the wrong way.
“The killer may have panicked.” The company line.
As the P-word leaves his lips I can tell that he would die to take it back. Two of the jurors suppress smiles in the box. The image that he draws is as clear as it is ridiculous; a panicked killer in the process of moving a body for reasons that no one can adequately explain, standing around in the carnage of a murder scene, waiting for blood on a blanket to dry.
CHAPTER 22
We enter to the sounds of soft strings, a quartet of violins playing on the balcony overhead, something from The New World Symphony-the timbre of Dvorák.
Lenore is dressed to the nines: a black evening gown cinched close at the waist and sleeveless, three-inch patent leather heels. She carries a tiny black sequined bag under one arm, her other hand holding mine. Tonight her silken black hair is up, shimmering like a raven, set off by earrings and a string of pearls that match the white of her eyes and the flashing enamel of her smile.
Overhead in the large gathering room is a glittering chandelier, something that no doubt came around the horn after the gold rush. We are here in the old governor’s mansion, now a museum, with two hundred other swells. The purpose is to be soaked for the latest cause, what passes for political good works. The governor wants to be president.
The place is filled with highbinders and wire-pullers of the lobbying variety, all oozing their particular brand of oily amiability. There are more politicians here this evening than you can count on the floor of Congress during the average workweek, all trying to climb the political bean stalk to dine with the giant.
The tickets for this, a GOP fund-raiser, have come from a judge, a friend who is soliciting a place on the court of appeals, favors from the governor. He bought a table and I am expected to make an appearance, though Lenore and I are flying under false colors. She is a Democrat. I’m a committed political agnostic.
“I’ve never seen so many Republicans in one place,” she says. Lenore assesses this scene with all the fervor of a farmer observing weeds in his rows of corn.
“The flavor of the month,” I tell her. In this town you can do a different fund-raiser every night, all of them stoking the coals of somebody’s burning ambition.
“Do I look okay?” she asks.
“Like you own the place,” I tell her. It is only a mild exaggeration. I would not admit to anyone the spike of adrenaline to my ego as I sauntered up the steps with this woman on my arm. At least a dozen heads, male and female, turned to look. Lenore is an eye-catcher at most times. When bedecked as she is tonight, she stops traffic.
She whispers to me through clenched teeth. “Major-domo off to your right,” she says. Lenore wags her head a little, and I see the governor and his entourage. It is not that Lenore is impressed. It is more a sighting on the order of whale watching, which makes me wonder what she might do if she had a harpoon.
Lenore smiles and nods as we pass a group of people. I suspect that she thinks I know some of these. What Lenore doesn’t realize is that they are all looking at her. She reaches out to squeeze a hand, another woman lawyer she knows from some club.
I glance over at the governor and the circle that has surrounded him. With so many people sucking up to kiss his ass at one time we should have a low-pressure trough over the city any second.
Through all of this, people talking in each ear at once, the governor has both hands plunged into his suit pants pockets like a hard rock miner looking for a nugget he has misplaced.
“Is that a Republican thing?” asks Lenore.
“What?”
“Playing with himself,” she says.
“Maybe you’d like an introduction?” I ask her.
She laughs. “You know him?”
“No.”
“Then what am I doing with you?” she says.
“I’m the only one you know with an invitation.”
“That can easily be remedied,” she tells me, and drops my hand.
I call her a harlot.
She calls it networking.
We wander toward the throng holding forth near a long table in the dining room. This is set with immense ice carvings and hors d’oeuvres, prawns on a silver platter, a guy pouring champagne, a dozen different labels at the other end. All of this is no doubt offered for the cause by the wine and spirits lobby, something to sweeten political dispositions.