"I'm not sure. I think about two years ago."
"Has Mr. Garcia ever filed a complaint that Ms. Collins attacked him? Tried to kill him?"
"No."
"So she carried this terrible grudge for two years, yet never cut off his head? Never set him on fire?"
"No."
I press on. "Was Oscar Garcia protected during those two years? Any police unit assigned to make sure Ms. Collins couldn't get to him?"
"He wasn't under police protection."
"Do you know if Ms. Collins is licensed to carry a gun?"
He nods. "She is."
A quick change in attack. "How did you happen to be there when Ms. Collins showed up in the area behind Hinchcliffe Stadium?"
"We received some information linking her to the Dorsey murder. We initiated surveillance, and she led us to the stadium," he says.
I react as if surprised by his response, though of course I'm not. "Information from who?"
"It was a phone call from an anonymous informant."
I nod. "You testified earlier that you received information from an anonymous informant initially linking Oscar Garcia to the murder. Is there an 'anonymous informant fairy' looking down on this case?"
Dylan objects and Hatchet sustains; it's getting to be a pattern.
I rephrase. "Was the extent of your investigative efforts in this case to sit by the phone and wait for someone to anonymously call you?"
"It is not uncommon to get such information. People often know things, but don't want their identities to be known."
"And sometimes the information is right, and sometimes it's wrong?"
"Yes."
"Lieutenant Sabonis, did I ask you to go over Ms. Collins's internal police records before you testified today?"
"Yes. I did so."
"Thank you. Would you please tell the jury how many times the then-Detective Collins was found to have committed any form of police brutality?"
"None that I could see."
"Any times that she was accused but not found guilty?"
"No."
"Is there anything in her record that could in any way have predicted she could be capable of a brutal act like this murder?"
Sabonis looks at me evenly. He's pissed and he could waffle, but he doesn't. "No, there isn't."
I end the cross there, and Dylan tries to patch up the holes I punched. Afterward, we break for lunch, and Laurie, Kevin, and I are all feeling pretty good about the Sabonis testimony. We cast some significant doubt in an area where there should automatically already be doubt: the question of whether someone like Laurie could have committed such a horrendous act.
Kevin and I do some quick preparation for Dylan's next witness. It's the head of the police lab, Phyllis Daniels, who will be testifying to the DNA typing. She is our key to establishing doubt that the DNA evidence is reliable, and I think we've got a shot to do just that. Marcus, with some off-the-record help from Pete Stanton, has come up with some good information on lab practices to help me in that effort.
Twenty years ago, Phyllis Daniels was a police lab technician, not particularly accomplished, who had the foresight to recognize the incredible implications the infant science of DNA would have in forensics. She successfully set out to make herself an expert, thereby putting herself on the fast track, or at least the fastest track a scientist in the Paterson Police Department can be on.
I have come up against Phyllis on cases before. She can be long-winded and proud to show off her expertise, but her basic knowledge and honesty come through. In Dylan's hands she is an outstanding witness, leaving no doubt in anyone's mind that the DNA from the body absolutely matched the blood labeled as Dorsey's in the police lab. This testimony comes as no surprise, nor do I have any intention of challenging it.
"Ms. Daniels, you testified that Lieutenant Dorsey's blood sample was in room 21 of the police lab. How is that room guarded?"
"There is always a person sitting at a reception desk at the entrance to the room. Twenty-four hours a day."
"Is that person armed?"
"No, it is a civilian job. But everyone entering must sign in."
"If you know, is the evidence room entrance handled the same way?"
"No," she says. "The evidence room has an armed officer assigned to it."
"So an armed officer is considered more effective than a civilian sign-in monitor?"
"I would say so, yes."
"Who is allowed to enter room 21, after signing in?"
"Police officers who need to access material in the room."
"Thank you," I say. "Now, you testified that the DNA in the blood listed as Lieutenant Dorsey's matched that of the body in this case. Correct?"
"Yes."
"Allow me to present a hypothetical. If the blood in the lab had been changed or incorrectly marked--and in fact wasn't Lieutenant Dorsey's?--then the body also could not be his. Correct?"
"That's certainly correct. But I saw the vial myself when I ran the test."
I introduce a sign-in list from the lab into evidence and ask her to read a specific part of it. It shows that Alex Dorsey had entered the lab twice in the three weeks before his disappearance.
"It is not unusual for him to have been there," she says. "Officers enter all the time."
"If he entered for the purpose of substituting a different vial of blood for the one in his file, could he have done so?"
"I guess it's possible" is her grudging response.