When the defense attorney sat down, Mark rose to make his closing argument. First, he marshaled all the evidence in the case, detailing every word and act that the complaining witness had described about her assailant during the course of the several hours he spent in her apartment when they had returned there after a dinner date. Mark was candid about the weak spots – how much liquor she had consumed, how much foreplay she had consented to but firm about the fact that neither of those factors gave the defendant a license to force her her to have intercourse with him. As Sarah and I had coached, he was graphic and emphatic about the defendant’s threats, and about the force with which he had restrained his prey when she had tried to resist and escape his attack.
The victim’s outcry had been prompt, which is somewhat unusual in many date rape cases when women are conflicted about whether to report the crime, fearful of not being believed. The medical record was a useful tool in this case, and Mark took the jury through it carefully. The finger marks on the young woman’s wrists and inner thighs corroborated her story about the defendant’s application of pressure – no, she hadn’t been beaten and bruised, but she had been held down against her will, and these marks did not support his story of tender lovemaking.
The internal exam had revealed redness and swelling in the vaginal vault, with several very minor abrasions noted on the accompanying diagram, again inconsistent with the protection afforded by lubrication during consensual sex.
I was impressed with the construction of Mark’s argument, and with the manner in which he made the jury confront the unpleasant details that established the elements of the crime. These were cases that had little to do with the business of a police investigation, but rather rose and fell based on the candor and credibility of the complaining witness. He placed that all before the panel of twelve jurors, some who nodded in agreement as he hammered home his strong points, some who sat stone-faced in their chairs, and some who appeared to be napping through all of the argument. He worked his way painstakingly toward his conclusion.
‘… and I ask you to find the defendant guilty of the crime of rape in the first degree. Thank you very much.“
Mark had taken more than an hour for the delivery of his summation, and I smiled my approval to him as he returned to his seat at the prosecution table. The judge would now begin his charge to the jury, in which he’d explain the various laws that had to be applied to the facts in the case. I noted that it was after noon, so I slipped out of the courtroom and returned to my office, knowing that it would be hours before the jurors finished deliberations and reached a verdict in a case like this.
“Rod called. Wants to know if you’d like to go out for lunch,” Laura greeted me when I returned to my office.
“Please tell him I’m stretched for time – let’s do it next week. And would you order me in a salad and soda?”
“Sure. Call Mercer at Special Victims. And Lieutenant Peterson at the Homicide Squad.”
I was excited when I picked up the phone to dial Mercer’s number. We were overdue for a break in the serial rape pattern and I was hoping it had come.
“Special Victims. Wallace.”
“Any luck? Heard you went out on a call.”
“A bullshit run. Nothing.” Mercer sounded discouraged.
“Every time some pimply faced plumber rings a doorbell on the Upper West Side, somebody calls 911. Not our guy, not even close. It’s a bad month to be a repairman – this poor slob was scared out of his wits. Took me two hours to calm him down. Then I had to call his old lady and explain the situation – make sure she understood it was all a mistake. Sorry for the false alarm. I’ll be talking to you.”
Peterson was Mike Chapman’s boss at the Homicide Squad, a tough old-timer who had worked Homicide most of his career, and knew the business better than anybody.
“Hey, Loo, how’ve you been?”
“Pretty good for an old guy, Alex. Can’t complain.”
“What do you need?”
“It’s on the Lascar case. Mike’s due in at four. I just called him to let him know what’s been going on, and I thought you should know, too. Then we had an idea, maybe you could help us with.”
“Shoot.”
“Chief Flanders just called. I don’t know the case as well as you do, but Mike says you’d understand what I’m talking about. First of all, Flanders got a hit on the photo ID of this Segal guy from the two sisters at the lunch place. That make any sense to you? Mike says it would.”
Butterflies began floating in my stomach and my spirits sank to a new low. It made no sense at all to me.
“Yeah, Loo, it makes perfect sense. Go on.”
Now it was no longer speculation. And now it was no longer just a matter of infidelity. Mike had been right. Jed had been with Isabella less than one hour before she was killed. Despite all the indications, I had kept on hoping he had left earlier. I had refused to consider him a serious possibility as a suspect, but I had to come to grips with the reality of that fact. No wonder it was Peterson who made the call. Mike was too afraid I’d be shattered by the confirmation of that news.
“The next thing Wally says to tell you is that Burrell – I guess he’s the ex-husband – has something to hide, too. Must’ve followed his wife from Boston to the Vineyard. Stayed at a hotel in Edgartown called the Charles Inn. Know it?“
“The Charlotte Inn. Gorgeous. Expensive.” Son of a bitch, doesn’t anybody believe in telling the truth anymore? Burrell shows up here to pitch me his case, then he looks me in the eye and lies. Interesting approach, I got to give him credit. Admit the gun possession, admit the fight in the Boston hotel. Just leave out the part that puts you within fifteen miles of the crime scene. Mike’s right – they think we’re all stupid if we’re in law enforcement.
“Now that suggests two things to me, Alex. One is, he didn’t go to the island planning to off his ex-wife. I think he woulda known to use an alias at the hotel. Even in the movies cops canvass hotels and motels to check the guest lists. But it doesn’t mean something didn’t set him off once he got there maybe he saw her with the other man, maybe they had a phone conversation that made him crazy. He’s in town, so we’ll set up the interview and sweat him. It always helps to go in with a piece of information that he obviously doesn’t think we have.”
I was still focused somewhere back on Jed.
“The rest is just local gossip. People who claim they saw and heard things all week. Someone in the post office says a woman was in asking directions to your place. Doesn’t exactly remember what day it was. Could that have been Isabella or did you have other company?”
“I gave directions to Isabella a week before she went up there. But she could easily have left them behind or stopped in somewhere to check. Maybe she invited someone else over I sure as hell didn’t even know she had Jed Segal there.”
“Also, American Express confirmed the Chanel sale. Only thing is Segal bought the stuff in New York, on Saturday afternoon, after his European trip. Looks like he got it at a drugstore about two blocks from your place. Sorry. The good news was that he had purchased the Concorde ticket to Paris weeks ago, then he moved his departure back a day or two at the very last minute. So he hadn’t planned the trip to the Vineyard for long. Well, that’s today’s report. Next thing, that FBI agent, Luther Waldron is in town. The feds had to make calls to get some of these guys to come to New York, which leads me to the favor we want to ask you.