7th Heaven - James Patterson [54]
“I was.”
“And did it have the appearance of a crime scene?”
“No. The rooms were orderly. There was no evident disturbance, no blood or shell casings, et cetera.”
Davis said, “Now, were you told that a man may have been dismembered in the bathtub of the defendant’s house?”
“I was.”
“And you did all the normal tests for trace evidence, did you not?”
“Yes, we did.”
“Come up with anything evidentiary?”
“No.”
“Find any evidence that showed that the blood had been cleaned up?”
“Nope.”
“No bleach or anything like that?”
“No.”
“Lieutenant Clapper, let me just give you the whole laundry list at once and save a little time here. The walls hadn’t been repainted, the rugs hadn’t been cleaned? You didn’t find an implement that could have been used to dismember a body?”
“No.”
“So it’s fair to say that you and your team did everything you could do to ascertain the manner in which a crime was committed — or even if a crime was committed?”
“We did.”
“Based on your experience and your examination of the so-called crime scene, please tell the jury — did you find any evidence, direct or indirect, that links Junie Moon to the alleged murder of Michael Campion?”
“No.”
“Thank you. That’s all I have for this witness, Your Honor.”
Chapter 73
YUKI WAS STILL STEAMING from Red Dog’s rebuke. Or maybe she was hot under the collar because he’d been right.
Learn to love the beast.
Yuki slapped her pen down on her notepad, straightened her jacket as she stood, and approached Charlie Clapper at the stand.
“Lieutenant, I won’t keep you long.”
“No problem, Ms. Castellano.”
“You’re a member of law enforcement, right?”
“Yes.”
“And in the course of your twenty-five-year-long career in vice, homicide, and crime scene investigation, have you been involved in matters concerning prostitutes?”
“Certainly.”
“Are you familiar, generally speaking, with the lives of prostitutes and their customs?”
“I’d say so.”
“Would you agree that in exchange for a fee, a prostitute engages in sexual relations with any number of men?”
“I’d say that’s the job description.”
“Now, there are many subsets of that job description, wouldn’t you say? From streetwalker to call girl?”
“Sure.”
“And some prostitutes work mostly out of their homes?”
“Some do.”
“And is it your understanding that Ms. Moon falls into that last category?”
“That’s what I was told.”
“Okay. And would you also agree that as a matter of hygiene and practicality, a prostitute working at home would do her best to shower after her sexual encounters?”
“I would say that would be a common and hygienic practice.”
“Do you happen to know how much water is typically used by a person taking a shower?”
“Twenty gallons, depending.”
Yuki nodded, said to Charlie, “Now, based on your general knowledge of prostitutes, and given that Ms. Moon worked at home, would you agree that she probably showered after having sex with each of her tricks, maybe six to ten times a day, seven days a week —”
“Objection,” Davis called out. “Calls for speculation on the part of the witness, and furthermore, I strongly object to the way counsel is characterizing my client.”
“Your Honor,” Yuki protested. “We all know that Ms. Moon is a prostitute. I’m only asserting that she’s probably a clean one.”
“Go ahead, Ms. Castellano,” Judge Bendinger said, snapping the rubber band on his wrist. “But get to the point today, will you?”
“Thanks, Your Honor,” Yuki said, sweetly. “Lieutenant Clapper, could you tell us this?” Yuki drew a breath and launched into what was becoming her trademark — an uninterruptible run-on question.
“If a man was dismembered in a bathtub, and in the three months between the day the crime was committed and the time you examined the bathtub a large amount of soap and shampoo and water passed through that two-inch drain — by my calculations, 100 gallons of soapy water daily — and now let’s double that for the johns who took a shower before going back to their dorm or office or home to their wives — so even if Ms. Moon practices ‘Never on