He seemed relieved. “Yes, that’s right.”
“Then tell me this. You gave us an extraordinarily clear account of the way this works. The genetic code you described, made up of billions of very specific directions-is it all right to put it like that?”
He was sitting straight up, following every word. “Yes, that’s a fair way of putting it.”
“It’s like a vast, enormously complicated computer program, isn’t it?”
“Yes, that’s a good analogy.”
I stopped and looked at the jury. “It’s a miracle, isn’t it?”
“Yes, I suppose one could say-”
“A miracle that science has now proven the existence of God?”
“No, I don’t think you can say-”
“But you said it, didn’t you? You said it was like a computer program. Every program has a programmer, someone who designed it, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, but-”
“Do you know of any computer program more intricate and complex than the genetic code?”
“No, but-”
“You’re a scientist, Dr. Zoeller. Would it be reasonable-would it be rational-to assume that less complex systems can only come into being by design, but more complex systems come into being by chance?”
He sat back, a condescending smile on his mouth. “Or millions of years of evolution.”
“Which is chance plus duration,” I said with a dismissive glance.
“Now, Dr. Zoeller, however the genetic code was first written, you were able to establish that the blood on the knife was the blood of the victim in this case because the DNA in one sample matched the DNA in the other, correct?”
“Yes.” He gestured toward one of the charts left on the easel.
“I see that. You showed how the pattern of horizontal marks which represents the DNA taken from the body of the victim matches the marks which represent the DNA taken from the blood left on the knife. And because each of the marks in these two samples match each other, we can be confident that they belong to the same person, correct?”
“Yes, that’s absolutely correct.”
“We can be confident, in other words, that they have a common origin?”
He seemed amused at the way I was struggling to understand something which to his well-trained mind was self-evident. “Yes, they have a common origin; they belong to the same person. As I said, they’re identical.”
“So we can all be confident-with scientific certainty-that if two things are in all important respects the same, they’re identical and have the same origin?”
“Yes, yes of course,” he replied, relaxed and self-assured.
“Even two murders?” I asked innocently as I turned toward the jury on my way back to the counsel table.
Loescher shot an angry glance at me as she got to her feet and, eager to show everyone just how wrong I was, almost shouted out the name of the prosecution’s next witness. “The state calls Detective Jack Stewart.”
Though long since abandoned by even the most senior members of the department, Stewart still adhered to a formal dress code. Perhaps he remembered the time when he made his first appearance in a courtroom, a uniformed patrol officer, testifying in front of a jury in which every woman wore a dress and every man wore a tie; perhaps, living alone and close to retirement, he just needed an excuse to put on a suit.
Cassandra Loescher was wearing one as well, a dark-striped tailored suit that fit her perfectly. It was new and it was expensive, and more than the way she looked, it changed the way she felt.
She held her chin just a little higher and her shoulders just a little straighter than she had before. When she turned on her heel, there was a bit more confidence in her step and a kind of hard sparkle in her eye. While Stewart took the oath, she stood with one hand on her arm, stroking her sleeve.
After a few quick questions established Stewart’s rank and experience, Loescher moved directly to the only issue left, the utterly absurd suggestion that the defendant could not have killed Quincy Griswald because whoever killed him had killed Calvin Jeffries as well. Her hand still on her sleeve, she tapped her fingers, impatient of the necessity of having to prove what everyone already knew.
“You were the lead investigator in the case involving the murder of Judge Calvin Jeffries?”
“I was one of them,” Stewart explained.
She pivoted a quarter turn. Facing the jury, she asked, “And was an arrest made in that case?”
“Yes, there was. Jacob Whittaker was charged with the murder of Judge Jeffries.”
“And would you please tell the jury,” she said as she plucked lint from her sleeve and brushed it away, “did the person you arrested confess to the crime?”
There was no response from the witness. Loescher glanced up.
“Detective?”
“He made a confession. That’s true.”
It was not as emphatic, nor as immediate, as she would have liked, but when he finally gave it, the answer was clear enough.
One more question and there would be no more room for doubt, and that slight hesitation in his voice would be all but forgotten, a momentary lapse of memory, the sort of thing that happens to witnesses all the time.
She settled her eyes on the jury, a confident smile on her lips.
“And tell us, Detective Stewart, what did the confessed killer of Calvin Jeffries do after he confessed?”
“That evening he was found dead in his cell.”
The smile froze on her face. Her eyes flared as she turned on him. “You mean he committed suicide, don’t you?”
“That was the official finding, that’s correct,” Stewart replied without expression.
She looked at him, trying to figure out why he did not answer her questions the way he was supposed to, instead of insisting on all these unnecessary distinctions. He was a police officer, not a lawyer, and while he was not supposed to lie, neither was he supposed to make the truth more difficult to grasp.
“Just to sum up, then. There was an arrest, there was a confession, and the man who confessed, it was officially decided, then took his own life. One last question, Detective Stewart. After the arrest, after the confession, after the suicide, what happened to the investigation? Did it continue, or was it closed?”
“It was closed,” he replied.
Loescher looked at the jury. “The killer was caught, and the killer confessed, and the case was closed.” She sat down, and then, as if she had just remembered, glanced up at the bench. “No further questions, your honor.”
I stood up so fast I had to catch the chair from falling over.
“We’ve met before, haven’t we, Detective Stewart?” I asked, laughing at myself as I stumbled free of the chair.
He did not hesitate. “Yes, we have.”
Loescher’s head came up, and she looked at him and then at me.
“You’ve been a witness for the prosecution in several trials in which I’ve been the attorney for the defense, isn’t that correct?” I asked as I straightened the chair and moved away from the table.
“Yes, that’s correct,” he said.
Loescher looked back at the legal pad on which she had begun to scribble a note to herself.
“Jacob Whittaker-the man who was arrested, the man who confessed, the man found dead in his cell-how did you know where to find him?”
“An anonymous phone call.”
“And where did this anonymous caller say the killer could be found?”
“Under the bridge.”
“That’s the Morrison Street Bridge, correct?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“And that’s where he was found-under the Morrison Street Bridge-living as one of the homeless?”
“Yes.”
“How do you imagine the caller-this anonymous caller-knew who the killer was and where he could be found?”
Stewart shook his head. “I don’t really know.”
“Did Whittaker have any idea who the informant might have been?”
With an audible sigh, Loescher stood up. “Your honor, I fail to see the relevance of any of this.”