Loomis does the honors. Now that Joe has showcased his excellent interrogating credentials, Loomis has to match him or risk having his thunder stolen. Juries lock in quickly on whose side has the upper hand; you don’t want to be playing catch-up with their affection. That’s the real reason O.J. won—Johnnie Cochran kicked the prosecution’s ass each and every day of that trial.
Walker, who joined the coroner’s office after putting in twenty-five years in the army (he lost a leg in the first Gulf War), knows his stuff. I’ve been in trials with him before; he’s a straight shooter who plays by the rules.
“You determined the victim had been murdered, is that correct?” Loomis asks.
“Yes,” Walker answers. He has his notes with him in a binder to make sure he gets his facts straight. They are in his lap, ready to be referred to if necessary.
“Please explain how you arrived at that conclusion.”
Walker doesn’t need his notes for this answer. “She was strangled. There were visible marks on her throat that clearly showed she had been choked. Her neck was black from ruptured blood vessels. Later, when our office did an autopsy, they found out her windpipe had been crushed.”
“Were there any indications she fought her assailant, such as skin scrapings under her fingernails, or something similar?”
“No. I would assume she tried to stop him, but we didn’t find that.”
“You said
him.
Why did you come to the conclusion the killing was done by a man?”
“Experience. Most strangulations are done by men. It takes strength to overpower someone and then choke them to death. Most women don’t have that strength. Although a woman who worked out, lifted weights, could have,” he modifies. “There was another reason I thought it was a man,” he adds.
“What was that?”
“The choke marks on her neck indicated her killer had fairly large hands. Again, you can find women who have big hands, but not many. You put the different things together, you come to a reasonable conclusion.”
“And were you able to determine the time of death?”
Walker checks his notes. “Between two o’clock and four o’clock in the morning.”
“Explain to the court, if you will, how an experienced criminologist such as yourself arrives at these findings.”
Walker shifts in his chair and looks at the jurors, who are listening carefully. Some are taking notes. “The body temperature of the victim is a good indicator,” he says. “The manner in which the blood has settled in the body is another one. In the lab we have more sophisticated tests we run, but an experienced field inspector usually gets the time of death pretty close, particularly if the body is found within a short time after the killing takes place.”
“Besides deciding that the cause of death was strangulation, and that the victim had been killed a few hours before she was found, was there anything unusual about her, or the circumstances, that you noticed?”
“She was fully dressed,” Walker answers, “except for her underpants. They were missing.”
“All her clothes were accounted for, except her underpants,” Loomis restates the answer.
“Yes.”
“What did you make of that?”
“Well, she might not have worn any. That seems to be the fashion among young women these days,” he deadpans.
The courtroom breaks into laughter. Even Judge Suzuki covers a smile. Humor—the best medicine, and often the best persuader.
“But seriously,” Walker continues, “my initial reaction was that there was sexual activity, and that her killer took the panties because he was afraid there would be evidence on them that could be traced back to him.”
“Do you mean rape?” Loomis prompts.
I’m tempted to object, but I let it slide, because I want to get Walker over and done with, and Joe doesn’t do it either, which tells me we’re on the same page. The information will get in, regardless, so why bring more attention to it?
“Rape is always a possibility, yes, but regular sexual activity is also considered. Particularly in this case, since there weren’t any clear signs that the victim had put up a struggle.” He looks apologetic, almost embarrassed. “This is not a pleasant thing to say, but the most likely scenario is that the victim and her assailant had consensual sex, and that she was killed afterward. Maybe immediately afterward.”
The air in the courtroom has suddenly become heavier, like the dank atmosphere of a sarcophagus that is opened after centuries of being shut. That the Full Moon Killer might also have been the victims’ lover, and killed them during or right after having sex, adds enormous psychological weight to this trial.
I look at Salazar, who is listening carefully. If he and these women were sexually involved, you would think his body would involuntarily reveal it. But there is no show of any reaction. If he is innocent, as he swears, I can buy it. Otherwise, the blood in his veins is colder than ice.
“Did you check the victim for rape, or other sexual activity?” Loomis asks.
“Yes.” Another reference to his notes. I’m sure he knows the answers—he’s been prepped well—but he wants to be extra sure. One slipup can destroy an entire lifetime of credibility. “Dr. Ramos, the pathologist from our office who was assigned to this case, did that when he did the autopsy.”
“What were the results?”
“The conditions of her genitals indicated that she had had sex within a day or two before she was killed. Maybe hours, or less. There was some bruising, but nothing to a level that we could definitely confirm as rape.”
“Was semen present?”
“No.”
“What conclusion do you take from that?”
“That whoever had sex with her pulled out before ejaculation, or wore a condom.”
“Which would be another indication that the victim and her killer knew each other.”
I struggle to my feet, which are killing me. I’m going to have to break down and get shoes a size larger. For a woman whose feet are already banana boats, that’s hard to swallow. “Objection, Your Honor. Calls for speculation.”
“Overruled,” Suzuki decides without hesitation.
“That would be a reasonable assumption to make,” Walker answers.
The prosecution has a tight blueprint. Next up, the cops who found the second body and the criminologist who presided over the crime scene. Another death by strangulation, another pair of missing underpants. No semen left behind. The date, thirty days from the previous murder, in which the MO and other circumstances were identical. A second killing that took place during the full moon.
Arthur Wong is running the witness. Wong is like me, a promising up-and-comer, though without the night sweats and cravings for anything pistachio. His people want him to get meaningful public face time. Loomis will do the heavy lifting: Cordova, the DNA experts, their key eyewitnesses.
Wong’s witness is Richard Cavanaugh, the Hawaiian-shirt-wearing undercover detective who was a member of Cordova’s task force. No casual getup today—the detective is dressed in a snappy blazer-and-slacks outfit. His hair is shorter than when I saw him out on the street, and his beard is trimmed. He still wears an earring, however. Let the jurors know they have a real live undercover cop in the house.
After he took the oath and mounted the witness chair, he glanced over at the defense table, and our eyes met. We had not seen each other since the night before Salazar was arrested, and he obviously didn’t know about my condition. His reaction was a double take right out of Laurel and Hardy.
Wong leads him through the standard recitation of his bona fides, and he describes the crime scene—the murdered victim, cause of death by strangulation, the missing undies.
“Were you the lead detective at the crime scene?” Wong asks Cavanaugh.
“Yes.”
“Did you notice the similarities between that victim’s murder and the one that took place during the previous full moon?”
“No,” Cavanaugh answers. “I wasn’t on that case, so I didn’t know about it.”
“Did the fact that the victim’s underpants were missing raise a red flag?”
Smart fellow, Arthur Wong. That’s a question our side would legitimately ask. By doing it themselves, they take the sting out of any possible benefit we might have.
“Not particularly,” Cavanaugh says. “Articles of clothing are often taken from crime scenes, along with other stuff, like purses and car keys, so it didn’t register with me. It wasn’t until later, when the two cases were compared, that the connections began to fall into place. The third one confirmed it.”
“Do you know who made those connections?”
“Lieutenant Luis Cordova of the LAPD, Robbery-Homicide Division.”
“Is he your superior?”
Cavanaugh nods. “He’s second in command at Robbery-Homicide. He was in charge of the Full Moon Task Force.”
“Did he coin that term? The Full Moon Killer?”
Cavanaugh guffaws. “That was a media invention. Anything to sell tickets.”
I stand at the podium. Cavanaugh can’t take his eyes off me. I have that effect on men.
“How are you today, Detective?” I ask him.
“Fine,” he answers brightly. “And you?”
“Getting along, thank you. How many homicide cases have you investigated in your career?”
He blinks. “I don’t know. Probably about fifty.”
“In those investigations, how many arrests were made? Percentagewise.”
“Over ninety percent,” he answers, managing not to sound boastful. “There are cases we never solve, but we do a good job. I’m speaking for the entire division, not just myself.”
“And of those arrests, how many resulted in convictions?”
“Only one murder I have solved did not result in a conviction. When we arrest someone, we generally have good proof. We work with the District Attorney closely. Unless we have strong reasons to arrest someone, we don’t move forward. We bend over backward not to arrest innocent people,” he says piously. “The public thinks differently sometimes, but their perceptions are based on emotional reactions, not proof.”
“In other words, you have no ax to grind,” I say.
“None.”
“And in all those arrests and convictions, isn’t there always a motive? Jealousy, anger, retribution, money, drugs. Even if it’s spontaneous, or random, like a gang-style drive-by shooting, there’s usually some reason, isn’t there? Some motive?”
Cavanaugh thinks about that for a moment. “I would say that’s true.”
“So you, and the other detectives on the task force who were trying to find the so-called Full Moon Killer, focused on motive? On why someone would want to kill these women?”
Reluctantly, he admits, “We tried to.”
“Tried to? Meaning, tried to but failed?”
“Yes,” he admits. “We couldn’t find one.”
“So as far as you know, there was no connection between these women, besides their living in the same area of Los Angeles and the fact that they were all murdered.”
“All murdered during the full moon, all strangled, all without their underpants,” he corrects me.
“Personal connection,” I say, putting an impatient edge to my voice. He knows what I’m talking about, and he’s playing a little game with me. Cops and defense lawyers, natural enemies, like mongooses and cobras.
“Were there any
personal
connections?” I come around the side of the podium, so my profile is in full view of him and the jury. “Did any of these women know any of the others?”
He shakes his head dolefully. “Not that we found. It was all happening fast, and preventing another murder was our main objective. And catching the killer, of course.”
“Yes, catching the killer. That was your mandate. Catch the killer.”
“That was our job,” he corrects me again.
“So just to make doubly sure,” I say. “The police never came up with a motive for why these particular women were killed.”
“No,” he answers. “The best we could figure out was they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Thank you.” I turn to the judge. “No further questions.” I turn my back on him and walk to our table.
He’s not going to leave without taking a parting shot. “Ted Bundy didn’t have a motive,” he says to my retreating back. “For some killers, especially serial killers, true psychopaths, the pleasure they get from killing is motive enough.”
That’s it for the day. Joe and I go up to his office to hash over the day’s proceedings. I fall into a chair in a heap and kick my shoes off. Immediately, I feel better. If I can’t get them back on I’ll walk out barefoot.
“I screwed up at the end with Cavanaugh, didn’t I?” I lament. “I gave him an opening and he nailed me.”
“Don’t be hard on yourself,” Joe soothes me. He takes a couple of Diet Cokes from his minifridge, pops the tops, and hands me one.
“Roberto Salazar is not Ted Bundy, and by the end of the trial the jury will understand that,” Joe says. “You made your point—the police didn’t make a personal connection between any of the victims, and they never established a motive. That’s going to be important down the line.”
“Thanks,” I tell him. “I needed that.”
“You’re doing fine.”
He hefts his briefcase, which is stuffed with nighttime reading, and offers me a hand up. I stuff my shoes into my purse. Low-heeled, backless slides, that’s what I need. I’ll buy a couple pairs tonight. Nordstrom’s is open until nine. I hope they carry women’s size 12.
T
HE SALESMAN HAS TO
dig deep in the back shelves to find shoes that fit me, but he manages to come up with two pairs of low-heeled slides in size 12, which are snug but will do the trick. They are not as stylish as I would like, but I doubt anyone is checking out my feet these days. My belly, that’s all anyone can see.
I luxuriate in a long, hot bath, then dry off and dig into my organic, skinless, takeout chicken breast. It tastes like a roofing shingle. Tomorrow night, no matter what, I’m going to hotfoot it over to Pete’s Café & Bar after work and have a Hellman burger with garlic-fries, two of the many goodies I denied myself while I was in training. I still am, in a different kind of way, but I can eat things I didn’t eat then. A burger and fries once in a blue moon, the baby can tolerate that. The baby wants Mommy to be happy. Mommy is happy when she satisfies her cravings.