“Right, no, I got that. And you don’t know if they even sold that company nitromethane, the other ingredient?”
“I don’t. Trying to find out.”
“So right now, all we can say is this company legally sold a product to another company.”
I nodded. “Same thing I told my associate, Lee. I get it. Maybe this doesn’t give you PC to search-”
“It sure as hell doesn’t.”
“-but you can knock on their door, can’t you? I mean, maybe if they know you’ve noticed them, they slow down what they’re doing. And we build a case, meanwhile.”
“We,” he said. “ We build a case.” He nodded generally to the door. “Could I be so bold as to assume that this is going to help you with that case you got going there?”
“I don’t deny that. Yes, it will. But these guys might be building bombs, Lee. It’s bigger than my case.”
He accepted that but with skepticism. I think it’s fair to say that he’d learned, after our last go-round, not to underestimate me. He thought I was using him to make my case, that I’d call him as a witness to testify that the FBI was actively investigating a terrorist threat regarding Global Harvest, that kind of thing.
“Lee, there’s a time to bullshit and there’s a time to get fucking serious. This is the get-fucking-serious time. These people are scary customers. A paralegal and a lawyer are dead. They’ve tried to kill me. I’d bet my law license they’re up to something big here.”
He thought for a moment. “You get any photos of them firing those assault rifles?”
I shook my head. “They confronted me before I could do it. I screwed up.”
Tucker folded up his small notepad and wagged it at me. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. I’ve got the information.”
I love how these guys talk. Reveal absolutely nothing. Not even a simple We’ll take a look. Just a simple confirmation that he heard what I said.
Which meant, if my history with the FBI was any guide, that they would do whatever they were going to do and keep me completely in the dark about it from start to finish.
Still, I exhaled with relief. I’d done what I could do. I’d handed this over to the experts. I’d keep doing my own investigating, but the feds had resources I couldn’t dream of.
I knew Randall Manning and those guys were up to something.
I just hoped the FBI would take me seriously.
72
The prosecution called the forensic pathologist next. Dr. Mitra Agarwal had been with the county coroner’s office for more than thirty years and currently served as the chief deputy medical examiner. She was old friends with my mentor, Paul Riley, and I’d known her professionally and personally for several years. She testified for me twice when I was a prosecutor. Juries liked her because she had no flash, no spin. She was as straitlaced as they came. Her gray hair fell to her shoulders without style. Her now-weathered brown skin was freckled. She was stooped a bit with age but still spoke with a strong voice.
I didn’t know why she was handling this case, but my assumption was that she was next in the rotation when Kathy Rubinkowski’s body was wheeled in. As the top deputy, she could have passed on autopsies altogether, but the thought probably never occurred to her. She was a workhorse.
All of which made her a good witness for the prosecution and a terrible one for me. The only good news was she was a complete straight shooter-to a fault if you asked prosecutors. But in the end, there wasn’t much to get here. The cause of death was beyond dispute. I would have considered stipulating but we needed a couple of things from the witness, and the prosecution wanted to introduce graphic photographs through her, which I was unable to exclude during pretrial motions.
Wendy Kotowski let her second chair, a woman named Maggie Silvers, handle the witness. She probably figured Dr. Agarwal was a safe witness. The prosecutor took the jury painstakingly through the pathologist’s credentials and then the autopsy she performed.
“The bullet penetrated the skin and musculature of the forehead,” said the doctor, pointing to a diagram of a human skull. “It penetrated the glabella and continued front to back, impacting the occipital bone, where it came to rest.”
“And the blood, Doctor?” asked the prosecutor, pointing to the pool of blood that had formed at the victim’s head. “This was caused by the gunshot?”
“Yes, surely so. The sphenoid and ethmoid bones were shattered. It would cause a large episode of bleeding. Remember that even if brain activity had ceased, the heart would have continued beating. It could have gone on for a good five minutes, while she lay prone on the street.”
“All right,” said the prosecutor. “You mentioned the ceasing of brain activity. In your expert opinion, how did that happen?”
Dr. Agarwal nodded. “The bullet produced a shock wave that essentially ended all brain activity. Her brain activity would have ceased almost instantly upon impact. That explains the injuries to her knees and the side of her skull.”
“Explain, that, please. Is this what we call a ‘dead drop,’ Doctor?”
“That’s a term that is used. She died upon impact of the bullet and fell straight to the street. Her right kneecap was fractured in the fall, and she received significant contusions to the skull on the right side as well.”
“She was dead before she hit the ground?”
“Correct.”
“And the blackening of her eyes, Doctor?”
“Yes, you see here.” The doctor pointed to a close-up photograph of the victim, whose eyes had blackened. “Her orbital plates shattered from the pressure wave from the bullet. But as I said, her heart kept beating, so blood ran into the tissue around her eyes.”
“So, Doctor, the fractured kneecap, the blackened eyes, the contusions to her skull-these were all the result of the gunshot?”
“Without question, yes. The single gunshot caused her death. There is no evidence that she was otherwise beaten or attacked physically.”
The witness appeared to have jumped the gun, anticipating the last question of the prosecutor. Without the final question she’d planned, she fumbled for a moment with her notes. “Thank you, Doctor,” she said.
A little rough with the ending, but she got the job done. She wanted to establish that the only thing that attacked Kathy Rubinkowski was a bullet between the eyes. No punching or kicking or the like, because no evidence of such was found on Tom Stoller. He didn’t have bruising or blood on his hands or shoes. She had done her job, I thought. It was one single shot that dropped the victim.
Shauna was handling the science in the case so she took the cross. “Doctor,” she said before she got to the lectern. “Where the bullet entered the victim’s skull-there was no charring of the skin around the site of the entry wound, was there?”
“No, there was not.”
“And there was no tattooing or spotting, either, was there?”
“No, there was not.”
“No soot or powder stippling, correct?”
“Correct.”
“So to a reasonable degree of medical certainty, you can say that the gun muzzle was not within three feet of the victim’s skull, true?”
“True.”
Shauna paused for effect. “So the shooter was more than three feet away, wasn’t he?”
“That appears so, yes.”
“That’s what you think, right?” Shauna doesn’t like it when witnesses equivocate. It’s one of the things I love about her. It makes her a pain in the ass when we argue, though.
“That’s what I think.”
“It’s possible that the shooter was ten feet away, true?”
“I can’t say it’s im possible.” Another equivocation.
“Meaning it’s possible.”
“Yes, it’s possible. I only say that-”
“You’ve answered my question, Doctor.”
I couldn’t get away with that. I’m not sure if it’s just a gender thing or my relative size compared to the diminutive witness, but I’ve never felt like cutting off a witness played well with the jury. I’m also pretty sure that the judge wouldn’t let me get away with it, but the old goat seems to like Shauna.