“Please explain,” she says. “I’m not an expert on mitochondrial DNA. Or an expert on hair for that matter, especially the kind of hair he has.”
The subject of DNA is a difficult one. Explaining human life on a molecular level tells most people far more than they can understand or care to know. Cops and prosecutors love what DNA can do. They hate to talk about it scientifically. Few of them understand it. The old joke is, most people can’t even spell DNA. I explain that nuclear DNA is what we get when cells with nuclei are present, such as with blood, tissue, seminal fluid and hair roots. Nuclear DNA is inherited equally from both parents, so if we have someone’s nuclear DNA we have, in a sense, all of him, and can compare his DNA profile to any other biological sample this same person has left at, say, another crime scene.
“Can we just compare the hairs from the campground to the hairs he left at the murder scenes?” Berger asks.
“Not successfully,” I reply. “Examining microscopic characteristics in this instance won’t tell us much because the hairs are unpigmented. The most we will be able to say is their morphologies are similar or consistent with each other.”
“Not conclusive to a jury.” She thinks out loud.
“Not in the least.”
“If we don’t do a microscopic comparison anyway, the defense will bring that up,” Berger considers. “He’ll say, Why didn’t you?”
“Well, we can microscopically compare the hairs, if you want.”
“The ones from Susan Pless’s body and the ones from your cases.”
“If you want,” I repeat.
“Explain hair shafts. How does DNA work with those?”
I tell her that mitochondrial DNA is found in the walls of cells and not in their nuclei, meaning mitochondrial DNA is the anthropological DNA of hair, fingernail, tooth and bone. Mitochondrial DNA is the molecules that make up our mortar and stone, I say. The limited usefulness lies in that mitochondrial DNA is inherited only through the female lineage. I use the analogy of an egg. Think of mitochondrial DNA as the egg white, while nuclear DNA is the yolk. You can’t compare one to the other. But if you have DNA from blood, you have the whole egg and can compare mitochondrial to mitochondrial—egg white to egg white. We have blood because we have Chandonne. He had to give up a blood sample while in the hospital. We have his complete DNA profile and can compare the mitochondrial DNA of unknown hairs to the mitochondrial DNA from his blood sample.
Berger listens without interruption. She has taken in what I am saying and seems to understand. As usual, she takes no notes. She asks, “Did he leave hair at your house?”
“I’m not sure what the police found.”
“As much as he seems to shed, I would think he left hair at your house or certainly out in the snow in your yard when he was thrashing about.”
“You would think so,” I agree with her.
“I’ve been reading about werewolves.” Berger leaps to the next topic. “Apparently, there have been people who really thought they were werewolves or tried all sorts of bizarre things to turn themselves into werewolves. Witchcraft, black magic. Satan worship. Biting. Drinking blood. Do you think it’s possible Chandonne really believes he is a loup-garou? A werewolf? And maybe even wants to be one?”
“Thus not guilty by reason of insanity,” I reply, and I have assumed all along this would be his defense.
“There was a Hungarian countess in the early sixteen hundreds, Elizabeth Bathory-Nadasdy, also known as the Blood Countess,” Berger goes on. “She supposedly tortured and murdered some six hundred young women. Would bathe in their blood, believing it would keep her young and preserve her beauty. Familiar with the case?”
“Vaguely.”
“As the story goes, this countess kept young women in her dungeon, fattened them up, would bleed them and bathe in their blood and then force other imprisoned women to lick all the blood off her body. Supposedly because towels were harsh on her skin. Rubbing blood in her skin, all over her body,” she ponders. “Accounts of this have left out the obvious. I’d say there was a sexual component,” she adds dryly. “Lust murders. Even if the perpetrator truly believed in the magical powers of blood, it’s about power and sex. That’s what it’s about whether you’re a beautiful countess or some genetic anomaly who grew up on the Île Saint-Louis.”
We turn on Canterbury Road, entering the wooded, wealthy neighborhood of Windsor Farms, where Diane Bray lived on the outer edge, her property separated by a wall from the noisy downtown expressway.
“I would give my right arm to know what’s in the Chandonne library,” Berger is saying. “Or better put, what sorts of things Chandonne’s been reading over the years—aside from the histories and other erudite materials he says his father gave him, yada, yada, yada. For example, does he know about the Blood Countess? Was he rubbing blood all over his body in hopes it might magically heal him of his affliction?”
“We believe he was bathing in the Seine and then here in the James River,” I reply. “Possibly for that reason. To be magically healed.”
“Sort of a biblical thing.”
“Maybe.”
“He might read the Bible, too,” she offers. “Was he influenced by the French serial killer Gilles Garnier, who killed little boys and ate them and bayed at the moon? There were a lot of so-called werewolves in France during the Middle Ages. Some thirty thousand people charged with it, can you imagine?” Berger has been doing a lot of research. This is evident. “And there’s the other weird idea,” she goes on. “In werewolf folklore it was believed if you were bitten by a werewolf, you would turn into one. Possible Chandonne was trying to turn his victims into werewolves? Maybe so he could find a bride of Frankenstein, a mate just like him?”
These unusual considerations begin to form a composite that is far more matter-of-fact and pedestrian than it might seem. Berger is simply anticipating what the defense is going to do in her case, and an obvious ploy is to distract the jury from the heinous nature of the crimes by preoccupying them with Chandonne’s physical deformity and alleged mental illness and downright bizarreness. If the argument can be successfully made that he believes he is a paranormal creature, a werewolf, a monster, then it is highly unlikely the jury will find him guilty and sentence him to life in prison. It occurs to me that some people might even feel sorry for him.
“The silver-bullet defense.” Berger alludes to the superstition that only a silver bullet can kill a werewolf. “We have a mountain of evidence, but then so did the prosecution in the O.J. case. The silver bullet for the defense will be that Chandonne is deranged and pitiful.”
DIANE BRAY’S HOUSE is a white Cape Cod with a gambrel roof, and although the police havesecured and cleared the scene, the property has not returned to life. Not even Berger can enter without permission of the owner, or in this case, the person acting as custodian. We sit in the driveway and wait for Eric Bray, the brother, to appear with a key.
“You may have seen him at the memorial service.” Berger reminds me that Eric Bray was the man carrying the urn containing his sister’s cremains. “Tell me how you think Chandonne got an experienced policewoman to open the door.” Berger’s attention flows far away from monsters in medieval France to the very real slaughterhouse before our eyes.
“That’s a little wide of my boundaries, Ms. Berger. Maybe it’s better if you restrict your questions to the bodies and what my findings are.”
“There are no boundaries right now, only questions.”
“Is this because you assume I may never be in court, at least not in New York, because I’m tainted?” I go ahead and open that door. “In fact, they don’t get much more tainted than I am right this minute.”
I pause to see if she knows. When she says nothing, I confront her. “Has Righter given you a hint that I may not prove very helpful to you? That I’m being investigated by a grand jury because he has this cockeyed notion that I had something to do with Bray’s death?”
“I’ve been given more than a
hint,” she quietly replies as she stares out at Bray’s dark house. “Marino and I have talked about it, too.”
“So much for secret proceedings,” I sardonically say.
“Well, the rule is, nothing that goes on inside the grand jury room can be discussed. Nothing’s gone on yet. All that’s happening is Righter is using a special grand jury as a tool for gaining access to everything he can. About you. Your phone bills. Your bank statements. What people have to say. You know how it works. I’m sure you’ve testified in your share of grand jury hearings.”
She says all this as if it is routine. My indignation rises and spills over in words. “You know, I do have feelings,” I say. “Maybe murder indictments are everyday matters to you, but they aren’t to me. My integrity is the one thing I’ve got that I can’t afford to lose. It’s everything to me, and of all people to accuse of such a crime. Of all people! To even consider that I would do the very thing I fight against every waking minute of my life? Never. I don’t abuse power. Never. I don’t deliberately hurt people. Never. And I don’t take this bullshit in stride, Ms. Berger. Nothing worse could happen to me. Nothing.”
“Do you want my recommendation?” She looks at me.
“I’m always open for suggestions.”
“First, the media’s going to find out. You know that. I’d beat them to the draw and have a press conference. Right away. The good news is, you haven’t been fired. You haven’t lost the support of the people who have power over your professional life. A fucking miracle. Politicians are usually quick to run for cover, but the governor has a very high opinion of you. He doesn’t believe you killed Diane Bray. If he makes a statement to that effect, then you should be all right, providing the special grand jury doesn’t come back with a true bill, an indictment.”
“Have you discussed any of this with Governor Mitchell?” I ask her.
“We’ve had contact in the past. We’re acquainted. We worked a case together when he was AG.”
“Yes, I know that.” It also isn’t what I asked.
Silence. She stares out at Bray’s house. There are no lights on inside, and I point out that it was Chandonne’s MO to unscrew the lightbulb over the porch or pull out the wires, and when his victim opened the door, he was hidden by darkness.
“I would like your opinion,” she then says. “I’m confident you have one. You’re a very observant, seasoned investigator.” She says this firmly and with an edge. “You also know what Chandonne did to you—you are intimately familiar with his MO in a way no one else is.”
Her reference to Chandonne’s attack on me is jarring. Even though Berger is simply doing her job, I am offended by her blunt objectivity. I am also put off by her evasiveness. I resent that she decides what we will discuss and when and for how long. I can’t help it. I am human. I want her to show at least a hint of compassion toward me and what I have endured. “Someone called the morgue this morning and identified himself as Benton Wesley.” I drop that one on her. “You heard from Rocky Marino Caggiano yet? What’s he up to?” Anger and fear sharpen my voice.
“We won’t hear from him for a while,” she says as if she knows. “Not his style. But it sure wouldn’t surprise me if he’s up to his old tricks. Harassment. Hurting. Terrorizing. Going for the sensitive spots as a warning, if nothing else. My guess is you’ll have no direct contact with him or even catch a whiff of him until closer to the trial. If you ever see him at all. He’s like that, the son of a bitch. Behind the scenes all the way.”
Neither of us speaks for a moment. She is waiting for me to lower the gate. “My opinion or speculation, all right,” I finally say. “That’s what you want? Fine.”
“That’s what I want. You’d make a pretty good second seat.” A reference to a second D.A. who would be her co-counsel, her partner during a trial. Either she has just paid me a compliment or she is being ironical.
“Diane Bray had a friend who came over quite often.” I take my first step out of bounds. I begin deducing. “Detective Anderson. She was obsessed with Bray. Bray seriously teased her, so it appears. I think it’s possible Chandonne watched Bray and gathered intelligence. He observed Anderson come and go. On the night of the murder, he waited until Anderson left Bray’s house”—I stare out at it—“and immediately went up to it, unscrewed the porch light, then knocked on the door. Bray assumed it was Anderson returning to resume their argument or make up or whatever.”
“Because they’d been fighting. They fought a lot,” Berger carries along the narrative.
“By all appearances, it was a tempestuous relationship,” I keep heading deeper into restricted airspace. I am not supposed to enter this part of an investigation, but I keep going. “Anderson had stormed off and come back in the past,” I add.
“You sat in on the interview with Anderson after the body was found.” Berger knows this. Someone has told her. Marino, probably.
“Yes, I did.”
“And the story of what happened that night while Anderson was eating pizza and drinking beer at Bray’s house?”
“They got into an argument—this is according to Anderson. So Anderson left angry and soon after there is a knock on the door. The same pattern of knocking that Anderson always did. He imitated the way she knocked just as he imitated the police when he came to my house.”
“Show me.” Berger looks at me.
I knock on the console between the front seats. Three times, hard.
“This is how Anderson always knocked on the door? She didn’t use the doorbell?” Berger asks.
“You’ve been around cops enough to know that they hardly ever ring doorbells. They’re used to neighborhoods where doorbells don’t work, if they exist.”
“Interesting that Anderson didn’t come back,” she observes. “What if she had? Do you think Chandonne somehow knew she wasn’t going to come back that night?”
“I’ve wondered that, too.”
“Maybe just something he sensed about her demeanor when she left? Or maybe he was so out of control he couldn’t stop,” Berger ponders. “Or maybe his lust was stronger than his fear that he might be interrupted.”
“He may have observed one other important thing,” I say. “Anderson didn’t have a key to Bray’s house. Bray always let her in.”
“Yes, but the door wasn’t locked when Anderson came back the next morning and found the body, right?”
“Doesn’t mean it wasn’t locked when he was inside attacking Bray. He hung out a closed sign and locked the convenience store while he was killing Kim Luong.”
“But we don’t know for a fact that he locked the door behind him when he entered Bray’s house,” Berger reiterates.
“I certainly don’t know it for a fact.”
“And he might not have locked up.” Berger is into it. “He might have shoved his way in and the chase begins. The door is unlocked the entire time he is mutilating her body in the bedroom.”
“That would suggest he was out of control and taking big risks,” I point out.
“Hmmm. I don’t want to go down the road of out of control.” Berger seems to talk to herself.
“Out of control isn’t at all the same thing as insane,” I remind her. “All people who murder, except out of self-defense, are out of control.”
“Ah. Touché.” She nods. “So Bray opens the door, and the light is out and there he is in the dark.”
“This is also what he did to Dr. Stvan in Paris,” I tell Berger. “Women were being murdered over there, same MO, and in several cases Chandonne left notes at the crime scenes.”
“That’s where the name Loup-Garou comes from,” Berger interjects.
“He also wrote that name on a box inside the cargo container where the body was found—the body of his brother, Thomas. But yes,” I say, “he apparently began leaving notes, referring to himself as a werewolf when he began murdering over there, in Paris. One night, he showed up at Dr. Stvan’s door, not realizing that her husband was home sick. He works at night as a ch
ef, but on this particular occasion, he was home unexpectedly, thank God. Dr. Stvan opens the door and when Chandonne hears her husband call out from another room, he flees.”
“She get a good look at him?”
“I don’t think so.” I conjure up what Dr. Stvan told me. “It was dark. It was her impression that he was dressed neatly in a long, dark coat, a scarf, his hands in his pockets. He spoke well, was gentlemanly, using the ruse that his car had broken down and he needed a phone. Then he realized she wasn’t alone and ran like hell.”
“Anything else she remembered about him?”
“His smell. He had a musky smell, like a wet dog.”
Berger makes a strange sound at that comment. I am becoming familiar with her subtle mannerisms, and when a detail is especially weird or disgusting, she sucks the inside of her cheek and emits a quiet rasping squeak like a bird. “So he goes after the chief medical examiner there, and then goes after the one here. You,” she adds for emphasis. “Why?” She has turned halfway around in her seat and is resting an elbow on the steering wheel, facing me.
“Why?” I repeat, as if it is a question I can’t possibly answer—as if it is a question she shouldn’t ask me. “Maybe someone should tell me that.” Again, I feel the heat of anger rise.
“Premeditation,” she replies. “Insane people don’t plan their crimes with this sort of deliberation. Picking the chief medical examiner in Paris and then the one here. Both women. Both autopsied his victims and therefore in a perverse way are intimate with him. Perhaps more intimate with him than a lover, because you have, in a sense, watched. You see where he has touched and bitten. You put your hands on the same body he did. In a way, you have watched him make love with these women, for this is how Jean-Baptiste Chandonne makes love to a woman.”