Sam had said that if the district attorney was wise, he would go straight to the screwup over Emil Gardener’s cause of death. “Someone being found naked in a snowbank, that is already a suspicious death,” he said.
Moira McDermott said, “Not necessarily.” She talked about the odd phenomenon of paradoxical undressing that can happen with people near death from hypothermia who actually feel they are too hot, which has sometimes led to complications, including the belief that the deceased was sexually assaulted. “There wasn’t necessarily any reason to think of foul play.”
“And so,” Israel Ronson went on, “it seemed to you that he died from the effects of exposure. And that the bruising... ”
“It could have happened as a result of a fall or hitting his head, many reasons.” The family had not requested an autopsy and the death seemed straightforward, despite the ghastly visual.
“And the conclusion was that Mr. Gardener died from cardiopulmonary arrest, correct?”
“Well, everybody dies of cardiopulmonary arrest,” Dr. McDermott said with a sigh. “Your heart stops, you stop breathing, you die. It’s what led to it.”
The prosecutor led the medical examiner through the process of the discovery of the second victim, Felicity’s involvement, the autopsy of the first victim, the discovery of the kind of tissue damage consistent with some kind of toxin. “Are you sure this damage was caused by some kind of poison?”
She said, “I’m reasonably sure. As to what kind, many poisons leave no chemical trace. The tissue analysis was inconclusive for that.”
“What could it have been?”
“Objection. Speculation,” Sam said.
“Overruled. I’ll allow it,” said Judge Martin. “Just please don’t go too far afield, Dr. McDermott.”
“Well, arsenic, for example, is used as an alloying agent in industrial procedures, in metallurgy, and in labs. It’s used in some pharmaceutical applications. You could find it easily in a factory or in an engineering or chemistry lab at a university if you knew where to look and you had access to it.”
“But you are not certain that it was arsenic.”
“No.”
“And what about Cary Church’s death?”
“The same thing is true. A death caused by some kind of toxin is even more strongly indicated because Cary Church didn’t present any apparent health risk factors. He was a healthy young man. And again, there was the way that the body was found, sitting in a bathtub, undressed.”
“He could have been taking a bath,” said Israel Ronson, “and let the water drain out.”
“He could have been taking a bath and someone else drained the tub after he died. He could have been placed in the tub after death but before the effects of rigor mortis set in, while his body was still pliable,” the medical examiner said.
Israel Ronson offered photographs of Cary Church’s body. I glanced at the juror who had previously become queasy; she looked frightened, shivery and still.
The doctor continued, “There could have been a toxin in the water that he inhaled, or swallowed, or absorbed through his skin, although there was no forensic evidence of that scenario at the crime scene.”
“Samples were taken, from the pipes, and so forth.”
“Yes. It’s impossible to know what happened specifically.”
Just at that point, the queasy juror succumbed to nausea, and, after a short recess, Judge Martin said the juror was indisposed and court would be adjourned until the next morning.
In the corridor, I waited for the district attorney and displayed my press badge. “Mr. Ronson, I just have one quick question.”
“That’s fine. I’m happy to help,” he said. He really was a genial guy who exuded easy confidence.
“What if that one poor juror keeps getting sick? How can you do this without showing the jury the evidence?”
“You can’t, but that part of the proceeding is over. We can assure the jury that there won’t be any more graphic images unless someone asks to see them again when they deliberate,” he told me. “You’re the girl from the fashion magazine, right? Who knows Miranda McClatchey?”
“Right. Who told you that?”
“Oh, you know Sally Zankow. She’s the font of all wisdom.”
“Yep,” I said.
