Chasing Justice: A Matt Royal Mystery (31 page)

“Call your first witness, Mr. Royal,” the judge said.

“The defense calls Dr. William Sawyer,” I said.

The first witness of the day was on the stand. I was standing at the podium at the far end of the jury box from the witness, the jurors between us. This arrangement required the witness to look at me and speak loud enough for me to hear and thus loud enough that the jury didn’t miss anything he said while answering my questions. I wanted the jurors to get a direct, head-on look at my witnesses. “State your name, please.”

“William Sawyer,” the witness said.

“What is your occupation, sir?”

“I’m director of the DNA lab for Biogenesis Laboratories in Tampa.”

I took him through his educational background, including his Ph.D degree, his knowledge of his field, and the years he’d worked in it. I wanted to demonstrate his expertise to the jury and the judge. When I finished, Judge Thomas accepted Sawyer as an expert in his field, thus qualifying him to give opinion testimony relating to his work.

“Have you had occasion to review DNA samples provided to you for purposes of this case?”

“I have.”

“Who provided you those samples?”

“Dr. Bert Hawkins, the chief medical examiner of this circuit.”

“Describe the samples for me.”

“One was a blood sample, a vial of blood, obtained from a murder victim, Nate Bannister. The other was part of a bed sheet found on the bed in Mr. Bannister’s bedroom.”

“What was the purpose of sending you the blood sample?”

“I was not told that at the time. That’s not unusual. I really don’t need that information.”

“Did you run the sample?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you provide a report to Dr. Hawkins?”

“I did.”

I handed the witness a copy of the report with his signature at the bottom. “Is this a copy of the report you sent Dr. Hawkins?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You also received a bed sheet from which you were asked to extract DNA material.”

“I did.”

I handed him another report, and he verified that it was the report from the bed sheet.

“Were you able to identify DNA from that bed sheet?”

“Partially. There was DNA from two different people. One of them was Nate Bannister. The other was unknown. We could find no match in any of the databases.”

“Did you also receive another blood sample from Dr. Hawkins taken from another homicide victim a few days later?”

“I did.”

“What was the victim’s name?”

“Linda Favereaux.”

“And did you provide Dr. Hawkins with a report on this sample?”

“Objection,” Swann said, rising to his feet. “Relevance.”

“I’ll tie it up with the next witness, Your Honor,” I said.

“Overruled,” the judge said. “You may answer the question, Dr. Sawyer.”

“I sent the report to Dr. Hawkins,” Sawyer said.

“Thank you, Dr. Sawyer. I have nothing further.” I returned to my seat.

“You may inquire, Mr. Swann,” the judge said.

Swann stood. “No questions, Your Honor.”

“Call your next witness, Mr. Royal,” the judge said.

“We’ll call Detective J.D. Duncan,” I said.

J.D. walked into the courtroom wearing a dark suit, white blouse, and navy-blue pumps. She looked very professional. She took the witness stand and was sworn by the deputy clerk.

“State your name, please,” I said.

“Jennifer Diane Duncan.”

“Your occupation?”

“I’m a Longboat Key police detective.”

“And how long have you been so employed?”

“Almost two years.”

“And before that?”

“I was a police officer and detective on the Miami-Dade County Police Department.”

“What was your job there?”

“For most of the time, I was a homicide detective. By the time I left there to come to Longboat Key I was the assistant homicide commander.”

“How many murders have you investigated in your career?”

“At least two hundred.”

“So, it’d be fair to say that you know your way around a murder case.”

“I think so.”

“Objection,” said Swann, rising from his seat. “Is Mr. Royal trying to qualify this witness as an expert?”

“I’m not, Your Honor. I’ve called Detective Duncan as a fact witness.”

“How can her testimony be relevant to this case?” Swann asked. “It did not occur in her jurisdiction, and to my knowledge, Detective Duncan played no part in the investigation of Mr. Bannister’s murder.”

“Mr. Royal?” the judge asked.

“Your Honor, if I may have a little leeway here, I think the court will see that Detective Duncan’s testimony will have a lot of bearing on this case.”

“Okay,” Judge Thomas said, “but I expect you to tie this up quickly.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, and turned back to the witness stand. “Detective Duncan, I want to get some personal stuff out of the way before we proceed. You and I know each other, correct?” I had to bring our relationship out in the open because Swann certainly would. I didn’t want the jury to think we were hiding anything. J.D. and I had talked about how to present this.

“Yes. We’re in a relationship.”

I thought that would suffice. Everybody on the panel would know what she meant, and if Swann tried to make too big of a deal out of it, the jury wouldn’t like it. I glanced at the jury box. They were all stone faced, except for Judith Whitacre. She looked straight at me and smiled quickly, as if saying, “good for you.”

“Would the fact of that relationship in any way color your testimony in this case?”

“No.”

“When did you first become aware that Nate Bannister had been killed?”

“On the morning of April 1 of this year.”

“And how were you notified?”

“Detective Harry Robson of the Sarasota Police Department called me.”

“What was the gist of that call?”

“Detective Robson told me that Mr. Bannister’s body had been found in his condo in Sarasota and asked me to notify Mrs. Bannister, who lives on Longboat, of his death.”

“Did you do so?”

“I went to her house, but she wasn’t home. I returned to the station and mentioned the request to Chief Lester, and he told me he would take care of the notification.”

“Were you investigating another case on the morning of April 1?”

“Yes.”

“Tell us about that.”

“A woman named Linda Favereaux had been murdered in her home on Longboat Key earlier that morning. I was just starting my investigation.”

“Was there a connection between the deaths of Mrs. Favereaux and Mr. Bannister?”

“None that was apparent.”

Swann stood. “Your Honor, this has gone far enough.”

Judge Thomas interrupted him. “Do you have an objection, Mr. Swann? If so, state your grounds without any commentary.”

“Relevance.”

The judge frowned. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” he said, “on occasion the lawyers and I have to discuss legal matters that are outside your responsibility for determining the facts of this case. This is one of those times, and I will have to excuse you for a few minutes. I appreciate your patience. Deputy, please escort the jury to the jury room.”

When the jury was gone, the judge said, “Where are you going with this, Mr. Royal?”

“Your Honor, I will tie this up with a few more questions. I think we’ll see that the two cases are connected.”

“Mr. Swann?” the judge asked.

“I can’t see how the Favereaux case is possibly connected to this case. I think Mr. Royal is just trying to throw mud on the wall and see if anything sticks.”

“Your Honor,” I said, “just a few more questions and this will all fall into place.”

“Okay, Mr. Royal, but let’s get to the point. Objection overruled. Deputy, bring in the jury.”

When the jury was seated, I said, “Detective Duncan, did you identify Mrs. Favereaux at the scene of the crime?”

“Yes, her maid identified her and one of our officers knew her.”

“But you ordered a DNA analysis. Why did you do that if you had positively identified the victim?”

“The medical examiner routinely runs fingerprints of murder victims. It’s part of a backup system that ensures we have made a proper identification. When Dr. Hawkins’ office ran Mrs. Favereaux’s prints, they came back as those of a woman named Darlene Pelletier who had been arrested in New Orleans twenty years ago on a minor shoplifting charge. That, of course, meant that either the fingerprints were somehow wrong, or Linda Favereaux was not the person she seemed to be.”

“So you ordered the DNA analysis?”

“Yes. I went to New Orleans to follow up on Darlene Pelletier. It was important to my investigation to find out who my victim really was. It might lead to the killer.”

“Why the DNA?”

“I came across a woman in New Orleans named Connie Pelletier, whom I thought may have been related to the woman we knew as Linda Favereaux. The day after I talked to Connie Pelletier, she was murdered. I asked Dr. Hawkins to run a DNA analysis on Mrs. Favereaux so that we could compare it with that of Connie Pelletier.”

“Was there a connection between the two women?”

“Yes. Connie was Linda’s mother.”

“Did anyone accompany you to New Orleans?” This was a question that I didn’t want to ask. I doubted that Swann would have known anything about J.D.’s trip to New Orleans, but any competent lawyer would ask if anybody had gone with her. My name would come out, and it would look as if we were hiding something. Which we would have been doing.

J.D. smiled. “Yes. You went with me.”

“Did I take part in the investigation?”

“You were there, but you weren’t part of the investigation.”

“Did I have anything to do with your asking for the DNA samples?”

“No. At that time there was no reason to think there was any connection between the Bannister and Favereaux cases. If I thought there had been, you would not have been with me.”

“Thank you, Detective. I have no further questions.”

Swann stood, his face a mask of derision. “Let me see if I’ve got this straight, Ms. Duncan.”

“That’s Detective Duncan, Mr. Swann,” J.D. said, interrupting. “I worked hard for that title. Please do me the courtesy of using it.”

I chuckled to myself. That’s my girl, I thought. Swann had better be careful or she’d chew him up and spit him out.

“Okay, Detective Duncan,” Swann said, putting an emphasis on the title. “Let me get this straight. Mr. Royal, the defense lawyer, is your boyfriend?”

“I guess you could call him that.”

“Well, what would you call him?”

“I’ve never thought much about that.”

“Lover, paramour, sweetheart? Any of those?”

J.D. smiled. “All of those, and so much more.”

I debated with myself about trying to stop this line of questioning, but one glance at the jury told me that they didn’t like this kind of intrusion into a witness’s private life. I decided to see how far Swann would take it.

“Are you sleeping with Mr. Royal?” Swann asked.

That did it. What a creep. I was on my feet. “Objection, Your Honor. I will stipulate that Detective Duncan and I are two single, consenting adults who are in love with each other and in a relationship. I think any further questions along this line would only serve to titillate Mr. Swann’s prurient interest.” That brought a few smiles from the jurors. They hadn’t liked this line of questioning.

Swann was livid. “Your Honor, I don’t have any prurient interests. I’m just trying to show the jury that Detective Duncan is biased.” Again, he emphasized the title. Not a good move. He seemed to be mocking J.D.’s position. I saw Judith Whitacre wince slightly. If she didn’t like Swann’s approach to J.D., the other members of the jury wouldn’t either.

“Proceed, Mr. Swann,” the judge said, “but we’ll have no more questions about the relationship between Mr. Royal and Detective Duncan. It’s a fact in this case, and if you can show that it impacted Detective Duncan’s investigation or her testimony, so be it. But you will not ask any more questions about the nature of the relationship. I think it has been adequately explained.”

Swann let out a long breath of exasperation. “Detective Duncan, what is your interest in this case?” Again, the emphasis on the word “Detective.”

“None.”

“Then why are you here testifying?”

“I’m here in response to a subpoena to answer all questions put to me, including any that you may have.”

“And you want this jury to believe that your answers are not colored by your relationship with Mr. Royal?”

“Mr. Swann, I’ve been a law enforcement officer for more than fifteen years—”

Swann interrupted. “Just answer the question.”

“I’m trying to do that.”

“I think it calls for a yes or no answer, Detective.”

I stood. “Objection, Your Honor. The witness has a right to explain her answer.”

“Sustained,” the judge said. “Let her answer, Mr. Swann.”

J.D. said, “As I was saying, I’ve been a law enforcement officer for more than fifteen years, and I take my job very seriously. I would never lie or shade the truth or testify to anything that wasn’t absolutely the truth. I value my reputation too much to do that.”

“What if your testimony would hurt Mr. Royal or his case?”

“Then I would try not to testify, but if I were required to do so, I would tell the truth and know that Mr. Royal would support me in that because he is a man of absolute integrity.”

My girl was hitting them out of the park.

“Move to strike that last part of the answer concerning her opinion of Mr. Royal’s integrity,” Swann said.

I stood. “He asked the question, Your Honor.”

“That he did. Overruled.”

“Nothing further,” said Swann.

“No further questions,” I said. “May the witness be excused?”

“You’re excused, Detective Duncan.”

“Your Honor,” Swann said, “may we be we heard outside the presence of the jury?”

When the jury had left the courtroom, Swann said, “Your Honor, I move to strike Detective Duncan’s entire testimony. It is irrelevant and has no probative value to this case.”

“To the contrary, Your Honor,” I said. “My next witness will bring this all together.”

The judge leaned back in his big executive chair, hands folded beneath his chin, and seemed to ponder his answer. Then, “I’m going to deny the motion without prejudice. Mr. Swann, if Mr. Royal doesn’t bring this to a head with his next witness, I’ll grant your motion to strike the detective’s testimony. Mr. Royal, you keep promising to tie all this together. This is your last chance. Am I clear?”