Page 111 of Two Kinds of Stranger

The formality of a court appearance in the biggest murder case of his career didn’t extend far enough for Sacks to wear formal shoes. When he had passed me by on the way to the stand, I clocked his red socks beneath his black Crocs.

As Bernice asked her first question, I noticed a sheen of sweat on the detective’s top lip, and his cheeks were flushed. He was feeling the pressure of this case. Bernice, always looking to move the case on as quickly as possible, ran through the circumstances of Sacks getting to Elly’s apartment after the patrolman and the late James Parker’s father had found the bodies. Sacks had given fast, direct answers. The speed of his delivery and the fact that he was looking squarely at Bernice as he answered confirmed his anxiety.

Cops are trained to take their time and to look at the jury as they give their answers, not at the counsel.

‘Would you please describe, for the jury, what you saw in that bedroom?’ asked Bernice cleverly. She had included a reference to the jury in her question in the hope it would remind Sacks of his training–that he should be addressing them, not the lawyers.

Before he answered, he cleared his throat, then took Bernice’s subtle clue and turned to look at the jury as he delivered his response.

‘I saw two people in the bedroom. One, the female, whom I later identified as Harriet Rothschild, was lying face down on the floor on the right side of the bed. The other individual was male, and later identified as James Parker. The upper half of his body was on the bed. He was lying on his back, but his feet were hanging off the bed, one of them on the floor. There was a distinct odor in the room. I stepped inside and—’

‘Detective, let me stop you there for just a moment. You had mentioned to the jury that you smelled something. Could you elaborate on the odor you detected?’

Sacks took a breath, closed his eyes and nodded, then exhaled. It was only natural to be nervous in a case like this, with the world watching.

‘My apologies, yes,’ he said, then looked at the jury. ‘There was a strong smell of vomit in the room.’

‘Were you able to determine the source of that odor?’

‘Yes, I saw a large pool of what appeared to be vomit beside the female victim’s head. There was another smaller pool on the bed beside the male victim.’

‘I see, thank you. What did you do next, Detective?’

‘I gave the bodies of the victims a visual inspection, of course careful not to touch them or move the bodies before forensics or the medical examiner arrived. I could see no signs of blood on the floor or in the room at all. No pooling of blood and no blood spatter anywhere. I could see no signs of violence anywhere on the bodies of the victims. No cuts, no bruising. In addition, there were no signs of asphyxiation.’

‘And what were you thinking at that moment?’

‘I hadn’t completed a full inspection of the victim’s bodies, so I could not rule out physical violence pending the medical examiner’s autopsy conclusions, but at this moment I thought that either they had overdosed on drugs or, alternatively, death may have been due to poisoning.’

‘Is poisoning an unusual cause of death?’

‘It’s quite rare, but not unheard of. I thought about it in this case because there was no evidence of drug use in the apartment. No drug paraphernalia, no burnt spoons, no needles, no burnt foil, no drugs, nothing that I would expect to find in the apartment if this was a case of death by drug overdose.’

‘So what did you do next?’

‘While I was waiting for the forensic team, I made notes and took pictures of the water bottles in the bedroom. There were two of them. I guessed they each belonged to thevictims. And I made a note and took pictures of all the items in the refrigerator and the cupboards, the cleaning products, the bathroom products, everything in the garbage bag in the kitchen – basically, anything that may have carried or contained a potential source of poison. I wanted the forensics team to examine and test all of it.’

There’s always a lot of information to take in during a murder trial. Some testimony is more important than others. Juries usually don’t miss the key stuff. You underestimate the intelligence and understanding of a jury at your peril. Even so, they’d had a lot to take in, so far. And Bernice was about to get into important details.

‘Your Honor,’ said Bernice, ‘might we take a short comfort break?’

‘Twenty minutes,’ said Judge Quaid.

The break was for the jury, so that when they came back with their bellies filled with coffee and stale donuts, they’d have a better chance of remembering the key testimony that was about to come out.

I checked my phone to see if Harry had replied. I wanted to know if things were okay in Christine’s case.

I had one message.

From Harry.

He could have lied to me. Told me everything was going just fine.

But that’s not Harry Ford.

Amy had to grow up with me as a father. She needed her mom. And, in truth, she needed Kevin.

The text read –