Red Mist

  “In summary, I was to be here in Savannah very briefly for another reason and was informed last night that an appointment was made for me to come to your office. I gather you aren’t being cooperative in a way that suits her,” I say to him. “I told her you’re slightly stubborn and not a redneck.”

  “Well, I am a redneck,” he says. “But I think I’m understanding why you didn’t call me yourself, and that makes me feel better, because I did feel a little dissed. Maybe that’s stupid, but I did, it was so out of the blue hearing from her and not you. Regardless of anything personal, I think I get what’s going on more than you might imagine. Jaime Berger is somewhat histrionic, and it fits her script if I’m the redneck bigoted medical examiner in Savannah who stone-walls her because I’m intent on Lola Daggette getting the needle. You know, kill ’em all and let God sort ’em out. That’s the way everybody thinks south of the Mason-Dixon Line. And west of it.”

  “Jaime says you didn’t come out to greet her when she was here. That you ignored her.”

  “I sure as hell didn’t greet her, because I was talking on the phone to a poor woman who didn’t want to be told that her husband’s death was a suicide.” His eyes narrow, and he gets louder and more indignant. “That his gun didn’t accidentally go off while he was outside drinking beer and mending his crab pots. And just because he hugged her and seemed to be in an unusually good mood and said he loved her before he went outside that night didn’t mean he didn’t have suicidal thoughts, and I deeply regretted that what I filled in on the autopsy report and his death certificate means she won’t get his life insurance. I’m right in the middle of having to tell someone shit like that when Berger shows up here dressed like Wall Street. Then she’s hovering in my damn doorway while the woman is crying uncontrollably on the other end and I sure as hell wasn’t going to hang up on her and offer some pushy New York attorney coffee.”

  “I can see you have no feelings about her,” I say wryly.

  “I’ve got the Jordan cases for you, including photographs of the crime scene, which I think you’ll find helpful. I’ll let you look and get your own impressions, and then I’m happy to discuss anything you want.”

  “There’s a perception you are convinced that Lola Daggette committed the murders and did so alone. As I recall from your presentation of this case during the NAME meeting in Los Angeles, you seem pretty firm in your opinion.”

  “I’m on the side of truth, Kay. Just like you.”

  “I must admit I find it unusual that DNA supposedly from blood and skin under Brenda Jordan’s fingernails wasn’t a match for Lola Daggette. And it didn’t match a family member. An unknown DNA profile, in other words.”

  “ Supposedlybeing the operative word.”

  “I might conclude from the DNA that it’s possible more than one assailant or intruder was involved,” I add.

  “I don’t interpret the lab reports or decide what they mean.”

  “I’m just curious if you have an opinion about it, Colin.”

  “Brenda Jordan’s hands were incredibly bloody,” he says. “Yes, an unknown DNA profile was related to my swabbing under her nails when I did the autopsies, but I don’t know what that means. It could have been from an unrelated source. Her own blood was under her nails. Her brother’s DNA was under her nails.”

  “Her brother’s?”

  “He was in the bed next to hers, and I’m guessing his blood was transferred to Brenda’s body, to her hands, when the killer attacked her, probably after murdering Josh first. Or maybe the killer stabbed Brenda first. Maybe the killer thought she was dead and started on the brother, and Brenda wasn’t dead and tried to run. I don’t know exactly what happened and probably never will. Like I said, I don’t interpret lab reports or decide what they mean.”

  “I feel compelled to emphasize that an unknown donor of DNA at that scene should have caused the police to consider more than one assailant might have been involved.”

  “In the first place, the scene wasn’t contained all that well, and a lot of people ended up in the house who shouldn’t have been there.”

  “And these people who shouldn’t have been there touched the bodies?”

  “Well, not that, thank God. The cops know better than to let anyone near my bodies or they’ll have hell to pay from me. But more to the point, at the time it just wasn’t accepted as a possibility that someone other than Lola Daggette was involved.”

  “Why?”

  “She was in a halfway house to deal with anger management and her problems with drugs. Within hours after the murders, she was discovered washing clothing that was stained with the Jordans’ blood. And she was local. I remember there was some talk at the time that she might have read or heard about Dr. Jordan in the news and realized he had a lot of money, was a successful doctor from an old Savannah family that had made a fortune from cotton. His mansion was an easy walk from the halfway house, where she’d been for more than a month when the murders occurred. She’d had plenty of time to gather intelligence, including figuring out that the family didn’t always bother with the alarm system.”

  “Because they’d had a number of false alarms.”

  “Kids,” he says. “A big problem with alarm systems is kids accidentally setting them off.”

  “What seems to be nothing more than conjecture,” I point out. “It’s also conjectured that burglary wasn’t the motive.”

  “No evidence of it, but who knows? An entire family dead. If something was missing, who’s going to say?”

  “Was the house ransacked?”

  “It wasn’t. But again, if everyone is dead, who’s to say if something was looked through or moved?”

  “So the DNA results didn’t concern you at the time. I don’t mean to keep pushing you on this. But the results bother me.”

  “Push all you want. Just doing my job. I’ve got no dog in the fight,” he says. “The DNA was commingled. As you well know, it’s not always simple to decide what sample the result is from. Was the unknown DNA from blood or skin cells or from something else, and when was it left? It could have been from a source that has nothing to do with the case. A recent guest in the house. Someone Brenda had been in contact with earlier in the day. You know what they say. Don’t put your case in a lab-coat pocket. DNA doesn’t mean crap if you don’t know how it got there and when. In fact, it’s my theory that the more sensitive the testing gets, the less it’s going to mean. Just because someone breathed in a room doesn’t mean that person killed anyone. Well, don’t get me started. You didn’t come all this way to hear my philosophizing and sounding like a Luddite.”

  “But no DNA profile at the crime scene or associated with the bodies was Lola Daggette’s.”

  “That’s right. And it’s not up to me to decide who’s guilty and who’s not, or even to care. I just report my findings, and the rest is up to the judge and jury,” he says. “Why don’t you take a look at what I’ve left for you, and then we’ll chat.”

  “I understand Jaime discussed Barrie Lou Rivers with you, too. I’m wondering if I might take a look at her case while I’m at it.”

  “Jaime Berger’s got copies. She put in her requests for records, I don’t know, at least two months ago.”

  “If it’s not too much trouble, I always prefer originals when I can get them.”

  “That record’s not paper because it’s more recent. You know, GBI’s gone all paperless. I can have it printed, or you can look on a computer.”

  “Electronic is fine. Whatever’s easiest.”

  “A strange one, I’ll give you that,” he says. “But don’t ask me to be going down the road of cruel and unusual. I know what Berger’s spin on that one is, too, and how it’s all a nice neat puzzle she’s piecing together. Not nice,what am I saying? Meant to shock and repulse. It’s like she’s already rehearsing for the press conference, thinking of the inflammatory points she might make about how the condemned are tortured to death in Georgia.”

  “It’s unc
ommon for someone awaiting execution to die suddenly in the holding cell outside the death chamber,” I remind him. “Especially since the person is supposed to be under surveillance every second.”

  “And let’s be honest, Kay, she probably wasn’t watched every second,” he says. “I’m guessing she started feeling bad after eating. Maybe it was assumed to be indigestion at first, when in fact she was suffering the classic symptoms of a heart attack. And by the time the guards were sufficiently alarmed to call for medical assistance, it was too late.”

  “This occurred very close to the time when she was supposed to be brought into the death chamber and prepped,” I reply. “Seems there would have been medical personnel on hand, including the physician who was to assist in the execution. One might expect that a doctor or at least someone from the death squad trained in CPR would have been nearby and able to respond quickly.”

  “That might very well have been the irony of the century. A member of the death squad or the executioner himself resuscitates her long enough to kill her.” Colin gets up from his desk and hands me the box of lozenges. “In case you want more. I buy them by the truckload.”

  “I assume it’s all right if Marino looks.”

  “He works with you and you trust him, I got no problem. You’ll have one of my path techs with you at all times.”

  Colin has to have someone in the room with me, not only for his protection but also for mine. He must be able to swear under oath that I couldn’t have planted a document in a file or taken something away with me.

  “I’m also interested in clothing that you and the GBI might still have,” I add, as he walks me back down the hall, past offices of other forensic pathologists, the forensic anthropology and histology labs, past the break room, restrooms, and then the conference room is to our right.

  “I assume you’re referring to the clothing Lola Daggette was washing in her bathroom at her halfway house? Or what the victims had on when they were murdered?”

  “All of it,” I answer.

  “Including what was submitted as evidence in the trial.”

  “Everything.”

  “I suppose I could take you to the house if you wanted.”

  “I’ve seen it from the outside.”

  “Possibly it could be arranged for you to go through it. I don’t know who lives there, and I doubt they’d be thrilled.”

  “Not necessary at the moment, but I’ll let you know after I go through the cases.”

  “I can set up a scope if you want to look at the original slides. Actually, Mandy can take care of that, Mandy O’Toole, who will be in there with you. Or we can do recuts, create a second set of slides, because, of course, I still have the tissue sections. If we do recuts, however, we’re creating new evidence. But whatever answers any questions you have.”

  “Let me see what they are first.”

  “The clothing is stored in various places. But most is in our labs. I don’t let anything get very far from my sight.”

  “I’m sure you don’t.”

  “Don’t know if the two of you have met,” he says, as I notice a woman in blue scrubs and a lab coat just inside the conference-room doorway.

  Mandy O’Toole steps out and shakes my hand. Around forty, I estimate, she’s tall and all legs like a colt and has long black hair tied back. She is attractive in an unusual way, her features asymmetrical, her eyes cobalt blue, giving her an appearance that is off-putting but compelling. Colin salutes me with his index finger and leaves me alone with her inside a modest-size room with a cherry-finish table surrounded by eight black leather chairs with tufted cushions. Abnormally thick windows set in sturdy aluminum frames overlook a parking lot enclosed by a tall chain-link fence, and beyond, a dark green pine forest stretches endlessly into the pale sky.

  17

  Jaime Berger’s not with you?” Mandy O’Toole moves to the far end of the table and takes a chair where there are a Vitaminwater and a BlackBerry with earphones.

  “I believe she may be coming in later,” I reply.

  “Now, that’s somebody with no off switch, and I guess that’s good if you do what she does. You know, everybody’s fair game.” Colin’s pathology technician begins talking about Jaime, as if I asked. “I ran into her in the ladies’ room when she came here a couple weeks ago and I’m washing my hands and she starts in about Barrie Lou Rivers’s adrenaline level. Did I notice anything histologically that might hint at a surge of adrenaline indicating stress and panic, like if she was being abused the night of her execution. And I said histology wouldn’t show something like that, because you can’t see adrenaline microscopically. That would require a special biochemical study.”

  “Which was probably ordered, knowing Colin,” I comment.

  “That’s him all right. No stone unturned. Blood, vitreous, cerebrospinal fluid, and I think that was the lab result Ms. Berger might have come across. Barrie Lou Rivers did have a moderately elevated level of adrenaline. But people are way too quick to read something into findings like that, don’t you agree?”

  “People often are quick to read all sorts of things into findings that don’t necessarily mean what they assume they do,” I reply.

  “Well, if someone’s suffering a catastrophic event like a heart attack or they’re choking on food, they certainly might panic and dump a lot of adrenaline antemortem,” she says, her blue stare unwavering. “I mean, if I was choking to death, I’m sure I’d have a lot of adrenaline pumping. Nothing to make a person more panic-stricken than not being able to breathe. Gee, it’s an awful thought.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  I wonder again what Jaime Berger has been circulating about me. She told Colin I visited Kathleen Lawler at the GPFW yesterday. What else has Jaime been saying? Why is Mandy O’Toole looking so intently at me?

  “I used to watch you when you had that show on CNN,” she then says, and I realize the possible explanation for her interest. “I’m sorry you quit, because I thought it was really good. At least you offered some common sense about forensics and not all this screaming and sensationalism like some of the other shows. It must be cool to have your own show. If you ever have another one and need someone to talk about histology …”

  “That’s very kind, but what I’m doing these days isn’t necessarily compatible with having a TV show.”

  “Well, I’d jump at it if I was asked. But nobody wants to watch tissue processing. I guess the coolest part is removing the specimens from the body, you know what you get to do. Although finding the perfect fixative and knowing which one to use with what is kind of exciting.”

  “How long have you worked with Colin?”

  “Since 2003. The same year the GBI started becoming paperless. So you’re lucky or not with the Jordan cases, depending on how you look at it. Everything now is electronic, but it wasn’t back then in January 2002. I don’t know about you, but I still like paper. There’s always that one thing someone decided not to scan, except when it’s Colin. He’s crazy obsessive-compulsive. He doesn’t care if it’s a paper napkin that got mixed in with the paperwork, it goes into the file. He’s always saying the devil’s in the details.”

  “And he’s right,” I reply.

  “I should have been an investigator. I keep asking him to send me to a death-investigation school like the one at the New York City OCME, where you used to be, but it’s all about money. And there’s not any.” She reaches for the BlackBerry and earphones on the table. “I should let you get to work. Let me know if you need anything.”

  I remove the top case file from the stack of four on the end of the table closest to the door, and a quick look affirms what I might have hoped for but certainly didn’t expect. Colin has offered me collegial respect and professional courtesy, and quite a lot more than that. By law he’s required to disclose only those records he directly generated, such as the medical examiner’s report of initial investigation, preliminary and final autopsy reports, autopsy photographs, and lab and special studie
s requests.

  He could be stingy with his personal notes and call sheets if he’s of a mind to be, and conveniently overlook almost any documents he chooses, forcing me to ask for them and possibly to butt heads with him. Worse, he could treat me like a member of the public or the media, compelling me to write an official letter of request that will have to be approved and responded to with an invoice for the services and costs involved. Payment would have to be received before the documents can be mailed, and by the time all is said and done, I would be back in Cambridge and it would be the middle of July or later.

  “Suze did the tox on Barrie Lou Rivers.” Marino’s big voice precedes him as he enters the conference room and stares at Mandy O’Toole sitting at the far end of the table. “Didn’t know anybody else was in here,” he adds, and I can always tell when he likes what he’s looking at.

  She takes off her earphones and says to him, “Hi. I’m Mandy.”

  “Yeah? What do you do?”

  “Path tech and more.”

  “I’m Marino.” He takes a chair next to me. “You can call me Pete. I’m an investigator and more. I guess you’re the watchdog.”

  “Don’t mind me. I’m listening to music and catching up on e-mail.” She puts her earphones back on. “You can say anything you want. I’m just the wallpaper.”

  “Yeah, I know all about wallpaper,” Marino says. “Can’t tell you how many cases get blown because of wallpaper leaking information.”

  I barely listen to them as I take a survey of what Colin Dengate has made available, and I’m appreciative and relieved. I almost want to find him to thank him, and in part it might be a reaction to my being deceived and mishandled by Jaime Berger, and how demeaning and upsetting that feels. Colin easily could have resorted to any number of maneuvers and ploys to make reviewing anything inconvenient if not impossible. But he didn’t.