“I found a scarf, pale blue plaid in color, near the door to the kitchen. I noted it because it was on the ground next to the stairs and I thought it fair to assume it wasn’t normally kept there.”
I glanced at the jury and saw that most were taking notes—a good sign—and that a few were smiling at Dorian. A great sign, because it showed that they spotted and appreciated Dorian’s minimalist approach, which meant she was scoring big points for credibility.
“Was it immediately visible to you when you entered the garage?”
“No. The scarf was in a dark corner next to the wall, partially hidden by the shelving unit that was bolted to the wall.”
Point being, Saul Hildegarde wouldn’t have noticed that it had fallen there in the heat of the moment and so never knew to get rid of it.
“Did you process that scarf for hair, blood, or foreign fibers?”
“I did. I found traces of human blood that I submitted for DNA testing, and I found a mixture of hairs, which I compared to hairs from Melissa’s brush, and to her family’s hair, and to the defendant’s hair.”
“And what did you find?”
“I found a number of hairs consistent with Melissa’s that appeared to have been forcibly removed—”
“By that, you mean yanked out of her head?”
Dorian gave me a stern look. “By that, I mean pulled out, as opposed to falling out naturally. And I found some forcibly removed hairs consistent with the hair of this defendant as well.” Dorian nodded in Saul Hildegarde’s direction.
She hadn’t approved of my editorialized yanked, but she hadn’t refuted it. I’d taken the risk of getting smacked by Dorian into account and decided it was worth it. Yanked painted a clearer picture of a violent struggle.
“Did you find any other evidence of note in the garage?”
“Yes. I found what appeared to be damp spots on the floor, which I tested for the presence of blood.”
“And what was the result of that test?”
“It was positive. But I must add that certain other substances may also give a positive result to that test, such as rust and certain vegetable materials.”
“Did you see any spots of rust or vegetable materials on the floor of the garage?”
“I did see some rust spots near an old bicycle.”
“And were those spots damp?”
“No.”
In other words, Saul wasn’t a neat freak who liked to scrub his garage floor. He’d only scrubbed certain spots, i.e., those that were bloodstains. So far so good, on to the finale: Dorian’s findings in the car—the spot of blood on the undercarriage of the seat, which gave me the chance to show the photograph of the car again and the “new” evidence of cleanup.
“Did you find the wipe marks throughout the car?” I asked.
“No. A search of the entire cabin of the car revealed wipe marks only in the backseat area, including the back of the passenger’s and driver’s seats.”
It couldn’t have gone any better. I leaned down and asked Bailey if there was anything I’d missed. She shook her head. I sat down. Time for cross.
Ronnie O’Bryan wisely refrained from getting into Dorian’s credentials—a losing gambit for him since it would only add to her credibility—and went after the damning inferences of the evidence she’d found.
“Now, you’re not trying to say that Melissa got attacked as she pulled that suitcase down off the shelf, are you?”
“Counsel, I’m not trying to say anything. I said what I saw: a suitcase that appeared to be out of place. How it got there, why it got there, is not my business.”
“Exactly so. I agree. And so you don’t know whether Melissa pulled down that suitcase and kicked it under the bench and left it that way herself, do you?”
“Of course not—”
“And you don’t know whether Melissa deliberately cut herself and wiped the blood on that scarf you found either, do you?”
With any other witness, I would’ve objected. The questions called for speculation and were argumentative, intended only to broadcast the defense. But when it comes to objections, less is more. Juries hate objections; it makes them wonder what you’ve got to hide. Besides, this was Dorian. I knew from hard experience that she hated this kind of conjecturing.
Dorian glared at O’Bryan. “Counsel, we can sit here all day talking about the things I don’t know. String theory, the God particle, I don’t know about ’em. I describe what I see at crime scenes. That’s what I know. You want to speculate how the suitcase got where it did, how the scarf landed on the floor by the stairs, how the blood got on it, fine. Have at it. But that’s not what I’m here for.”
A quick glance at the jury told me they were in love with Dorian. Now most of the jurors were smiling, and a few were even chuckling. Score one for the good guys. O’Bryan thanked Dorian and tried to sound as though he meant it. Ronnie had on his poker face, but I was gratified to see that Saul looked worried. That is, until Ronnie sat down and whispered to him. I knew he was telling Saul to chill out. Sure enough, Hildegarde nodded thoughtfully and put on a neutral expression.
I looked back at Nancy and Bennie to see how they were holding up. It hadn’t been gruesome testimony by any means—at least, not compared to what I’m used to. But Dorian’s testimony had left a clear, if inferential, picture of a violent confrontation in that garage, and somehow her understated delivery had made it even more compelling. Nancy stared straight ahead, covering her mouth with one hand and clutching Bennie’s arm with the other as though it were a life preserver. But Bennie was staring hard at Saul and with such searing intensity it wouldn’t have surprised me to see Saul’s head burst into flame.
We moved on. I called Kwan to talk about the blood on the scarf and in the car: it matched Melissa’s. I called a representative of the luggage manufacturer. He testified that the suitcase under the tool bench and the suitcases on the shelf above belonged to the same set.
It was time to put on the “soft” witnesses: the ones who’d describe the demise of Saul and Melissa’s marriage. The friends told of the fights, the lawyer told of how Melissa had consulted him about a divorce, and two of Saul’s girlfriends, who were surprisingly forthcoming, told of how he’d cheated on Melissa with them. I’d wanted to call the volunteer Melissa had caught him with, but she’d decamped to France. Supposedly for a job. Maybe this one would let her perform her duties in a vertical position. Which, come to think of it, wouldn’t necessarily change the nature of her “work.”
“Did you know Saul was married?” I asked the girlfriend named Wendy. Or, as Bailey called her, Winsome Wendy.
“Well… yeah. And I know I was wrong to do that, you know? And I’m sorry. I guess—”
“Objection!” O’Bryan said, half rising from his chair.
But Winsome Wendy, either because she was tougher than she appeared or because she didn’t understand, plowed ahead.
“I guess that’s why I was willing to come here today. To make it right, you know?”
“The objection is sustained,” the judge ruled. “For what it’s worth. You want the answer stricken, Counsel?”
The jury looked at O’Bryan, and I could swear Juror Number Four had raised an eyebrow. O’Bryan did the wise thing and used the moment to endear himself.