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“Did you spot them because of their hot-pink color,” I say, “or did you go looking for them?”
“I noticed a tiny bit of them, I guess you could say. And the color was, is, quite noticeable.”
“But wedged in there pretty good.”
“I think I already testified to that.”
I go back to my table and sit on the end of it and cross my arms.
“Let me ask you something, Officer Murphy. Clearly the inference from both you and Mr. Ahearn, because of where Miss Gates’s panties were discovered and because her fingerprints were where you said they were, that an act of, shall we say, sexual congress must have occurred between Mr. Jacobson, it being his car and all, and Miss Gates.”
“I didn’t say that. Neither did Mr. Ahearn, as I recall.”
I ignore Murphy.
I smile.
“You ever do it in the back seat of a car, Officer?”
Ahearn bellows an objection and Prentice gavels me into silence and informs me once again that if I don’t watch my language, I am on the road to a contempt citation.
“Let me ask this another way,” I say to Murphy. “Is the jury supposed to believe that in a moment of unbridled passion”—I give a quick look at Jackson Prentice III and shrug helplessly—“this young woman took the time to hide her panties? For what, Officer? To recycle them later like a water bottle? Or just save them for a rainy day?”
“I’m not sure what you’re asking me,” Murphy says.
“Sure you do. Unless I’m alone in thinking they were planted.”
“Is there a question there, Your Honor?” Ahearn says.
“I think I’ve already got my answer.”
I’m not done with Officer Liam Murphy.
Before I am, we have taken a chain-of-custody trip together, and I’ve had him explain—reluctantly, I feel—just how many people could have had access to Laurel Gates’s body once it was discovered the night of the murders, all the way to the morgue in Riverhead.
Along the way, I establish how easy it is, using a methodology known as dusting, for someone who knows what they’re doing, to transfer fingerprints, or plant them, using powder that sticks to the oil on the tips of our fingers. I do it as quickly, and plainly, as possible, knowing how even the most thoughtful and dedicated jury members find their eyes glazing over when the subject is science.
But I am generally making the planting of prints sound as easy as taking a cookie out of a jar.
“As a forensics expert,” Murphy says, almost proudly, “I can tell you it’s not as easy as you’re trying to make it sound.”
I smile again, as if it’s suddenly Christmas morning.
“As someone with a bachelor’s degree in forensic science,” I say, “I can tell you with great certainty that itisin fact that easy.”
My degree is actually in criminal justice. Minor in forensics. But that’s for me to know and them to find out. I’m not the one under oath here.
“One last thing. As the first one on the scene the night of the murders, wereyouever alone with the body of Laurel Gates?”
“What are you implying?” he says.
I am so happy in the moment I want to kiss him. Just because of how defensive he sounds.
“Why, I’m not implying anything, Officer. I’m just asking a question.”
“Well, yes, I was,” he says. “But not long enough…”
He sounds defensive for a second time, like he’s trying to clean something up. He realizes how he sounds. And the jury knows what it just heard.
