PART THREE
DNA
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Vanessa Cole, Multnomah County’s Chief Criminal Deputy, was a slender, fifty-two-year-old black woman with sharp features and fierce brown eyes. She’d grown up in a wealthy area of Portland’s West Hills and gone to Stanford for college and law school. Cole was known for her smarts and high ethical standards, and stood out from the moment she joined the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office, moving quickly from trying misdemeanors to trying felonies to handling murder cases and then death penalty murder cases.
Vanessa had always been anal. She almost never missed a school assignment from elementary school through law school, and a rare B had caused endless soul-searching. Her office reflected her obsession with order. The case files on her blotter were arranged in neatly squared stacks, and her computer monitor sat in the exact center of her desk.
Carrie Anders knew how much Vanessa detested chaos, and that was why she dreaded explaining the results of the lab tests in Jessica Braxton’s case.
“Have you got a moment?” Anders asked from the doorway to the prosecutor’s office.
Cole looked up from the memo she’d been reading and motioned the detective in. As she took a seat, Anders tried to think of the best way to explain what had happened. She decided to be blunt.
“We’ve got a problem in one of Rex’s cases.”
“Which one?”
“Hastings.”
Cole’s brow furrowed. “That case was open and shut. What’s the problem?”
“A bad one. A woman named Jessica Braxton was raped last week by a guy who said his name was Ray. She met Ray at the Blue Unicorn nightclub. Does that name ring a bell?”
It took Cole only a few seconds to make the connection. “Isn’t that where Hastings’s victim, Randi Stark, says she was when she saw the man who attacked her behind that gas station?”
Anders nodded. “It’s a club she said she went to a lot. Now, get this: Braxton described the rapist she met at the Blue Unicorn as a handsome blond who was over six feet tall and very muscular.”
Cole frowned. “That could be a description of Blaine Hastings. But he’s in jail. So, what’s the problem?”
“That is the problem. Braxton says she and Ray went back to her apartment and that’s where he raped her. According to Braxton, Ray penetrated her without a condom, ejaculated inside her, wiped himself with her panties, and left after throwing the panties on the floor. That meant that the lab had plenty of semen to test for DNA.”
Anders looked directly at Cole. “Ray’s DNA and Blaine Hastings’s DNA match.”
“What do you mean ‘match’?”
“They’re identical.”
“That’s impossible!”
“The lab retested Ray’s DNA as soon as the computer made the match between Ray’s DNA and Hastings’s DNA. When they got the same result, they sent a sample of the semen in the Braxton case to a private lab, and that lab got the same result.”
“Fuck!” exclaimed Cole, who never swore. “It’s got to be a mistake.”
“It’s not.
“Can two people have the same DNA?” asked Cole, who already knew the answer but hoped that she was wrong.
Anders nodded. “If they’re identical twins. But Hastings doesn’t have an identical twin. He’s an only child. And no, he and his evil twin were not separated at birth. I went to the hospital where he was born with a search warrant. Gloria Hastings gave birth to one child and only one.”
“What explanation do the lab techs have?”
“The only thing they can think of is that someone screwed up Hastings’s DNA test.”
“What’s the implication if that’s true?”
“One possibility is that Randi met Ray at the Blue Unicorn and had sex with him. Then she went to the frat party and accused Blaine of rape.”
Vanessa shook her head. “That still doesn’t explain why the two DNA samples match.”
“Correct.”
“So, we’re back to square one.”
“More like one to the nth degree.”
“Have you told Rex yet?”
“No.”
“Then let’s go break the news.”
“He’s not going to like it,” Anders said.
Vanessa led the way down the hall to Rex’s office. He looked up when the women walked in and started to smile. But the smile faded when he saw the looks on their faces.
“That’s not possible,” Kellerman said when Anders finished explaining the DNA match.
“Everyone I talked to agrees with you,” Anders said, “but the samples match.”
Kellerman shook his head. “It’s a trick, a scam. Have you checked the visitor logs? Did this Braxton woman visit Hastings? Could they have fucked in the jail?”
“Hastings’s only visitors were his new lawyer, Les Kreuger, and his parents.”
“There’s got to be an explanation.”
“The crime lab is working on it. They’ve hired Paul Baylor at Oregon Forensics to run tests on the semen in the two cases.”
“Does Kreuger know about this?”
“I’ve got to tell him, Rex.”
Kellerman looked lost. “He’ll try to get Hastings out of jail. He’ll move for a new trial.”
“I expect so,” Vanessa said. “You better brush up on DNA because bad things will happen if we can’t figure out how two people can have the same DNA.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Tyler Harrison III watched Frank Nylander walk toward the elevator before closing the door to his office. Nylander had come to New York assuming that Leonard Voss’s case would be settled by the end of their meeting. That hadn’t happened, and both lawyers were upset by the intransigence of Nylander’s client.
Harrison walked over to his window. Twenty stories below, the traffic crawled along Park Avenue. As he watched it, Harrison thought about how he was going to break the bad news to Marvin Turnbull. A few minutes later, he returned to his desk and dialed Turnbull’s private number at Norcross Pharmaceutical.
The CEO picked up after one ring. “What happened?” Turnbull asked.
“Voss rejected the offer.”
“You’re kidding! It was more than generous.”
“Voss sees this as a matter of principle. He’s on a crusade.”
“Is there any way we can keep the case from going to trial? The publicity could be disastrous.”
“I’ll take another shot at a settlement,” Harrison said, “but Nylander told me both Voss and his wife are dead set on—and I quote—‘exposing Norcross.’ He didn’t seem any happier about having to take the case to trial than I am.”
“Fucking fanatics,” Turnbull mumbled. There was silence for a moment. Then Turnbull said, “Okay, take another shot at settling. It looks like that’s all we can do.”
Marvin Turnbull hung up on Harrison. Then he took out a disposable cell phone and dialed a number in Portland, Oregon.
“Yes,” Ivar Gorski answered.
“We’ve hit a snag, and I may need you to implement plan B, so be prepared.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Robin was in her office when Vanessa Cole phoned.
“Are you representing Randi Stark in her civil suit against Blaine Hastings?” Cole asked.
“Yes.”
“Les Kreuger is Blaine Hastings’s new attorney. He filed a motion for a new trial and release on bail, and Judge Redding is hearing it this afternoon. You should be there.”