“Nothing.” One of the jurors lets out the smallest of gasps, unnoticed by all but myself and perhaps Tully. I force myself not to smile. “The trunk was empty, but signs on the ground indicated the suspect then entered the driver’s seat of the vehicle.”
“Was this the defendant Jonathan Quillan’s car?” My eyes follow his gesture to where Quillan sits smugly in a suit, his head shaved bald and his shirt buttoned to the top, concealing the white supremacist tattoo around the front of his neck. Even if the shirt had been laid open and the tie removed, the jury would see little more than unintelligible lines of no significance. The tattoo, which reads White Power, is written in Elder Futhark, a Norse runic alphabet used by the Vikings between the second and eighth centuries. Viking symbols and motifs are all the rage with neo-Nazis, skinheads, and white power punks these days, punks like Jonathan Quillan.
“No,” I say. “The car is registered to the defendant’s neighbor, Bakri Saaed, and was parked in front of his apartment.”
Tully holds up his finger; whether to stop me there or to get the jury’s attention, the result is the same. “And Mr. Saaed has already testified that he does not know Jonathan Quillan,” he says to the jury, “nor did he give him permission to use his vehicle.” Nodding to me, he says, “Continue, please.”
“The track would have ended there,” I say, “if it wasn’t for Mr. Saaed’s GPS. When we contacted him, he advised that the unit keeps a log of the vehicle’s movements, speeds, and times.”
Tully stops in front of me, his stone face unreadable. “And you reviewed this log and discovered … what?”
“The log indicated that the car left its parking spot at one-seventeen A.M. and drove a couple miles to I-5, then south to Highway 90, where it headed east for about thirty minutes before turning off near North Bend. The GPS led us to a spot on Rattlesnake Mountain just west of North Bend, where the vehicle parked.
“The suspect exited the vehicle and removed Ms. Moongood from the trunk—”
“How do you know that?” Tully interrupts, cutting off an objection from the defense.
“There were heel marks where he dragged her off the road, as documented in photos number thirty-two and thirty-three,” I say, indicating the pictures on display to my right. “He likely held her under the arms, faceup. If he held her facedown, her knees likely would have dragged, leaving additional marks. Plus, her toes would have left a wider drag than her heels.”
Drag marks lined in lavender.
“And where did those drag marks lead?”
“To a spot less than thirty feet off the road, where both Ms. Moongood and her baby were found under a blanket covered in leaves and dead brush. That ended my involvement with the case.”
Except for a single picture I snapped.…
“Thank you, Steps.” Tully’s voice is monotone, still giving nothing away. Turning to the defense, he says, “Your witness.”
Defense Attorney Robert Baumgartner glides silently across the floor and hovers in front of me, his used-car-salesman smile firmly in place and his slicked-back politician’s hair glistening. I can tell right away that he and I are not going to see eye to eye.
“You must be an impressive tracker, Mr. Craig—”
“Steps,” I say.
“Right,” he replies with the smile-that-isn’t. “To track a man across concrete and gravel and a dozen other difficult surfaces, why, I’d imagine there can’t be too many trackers in the world capable of such a feat, am I right?”
“You are.”
“And most of these supposed signs you followed that day don’t even show up in the evidence photos. Why, I’ve had several professional man-trackers look at the photos, and none of them can see your signs.”
“Objection,” Tully cries. “Lack of foundation.”
“Sustained,” the judge replies, giving Baumgartner a withering look.
“So how is it you can track across surfaces that others can’t?” he shoots at me.
I shrug slowly—I can’t tell them everything, but I won’t be false. “There are always signs,” I say, “you just have to see them. If I touch the rail here next to my chair”—I place my hand upon the wood to demonstrate—“my fingers disturb any dust present; they leave minute traces of body oil and perspiration behind; they may even leave transfer, if, for example, I have mud or paint or blood on my hands.”
“Come on, Mr. Craig! On concrete? On gravel? You’re stretching the limits of my very active imagination.”
“Shoes leave scuff marks,” I say. “They displace gravel. They leave dirt and mud behind. Perhaps…” I leave the word hanging and can almost feel the jury leaning forward in their seats. “Perhaps, with the court’s permission, a demonstration is in order.”
“We’re not taking the jury to the woods so you can point out boot prints in mud,” Baumgartner spits.
“I didn’t say we have to go to the woods,” I snap back. “I can demonstrate right here, in this courtroom.”
Baumgartner studies me silently for a moment, eyes searching for a trick, a trap, a hidden clause, and finding only my exaggerated smile hanging below bright, taunting eyes. It’s too much for him. Slowly, a smile seeps out from his tight mouth, spilling to the left cheek, then the right—a genuine smile this time. Like a circling shark, he smells blood in the water; what better way to discredit me than to have me fail in front of the jury?
“I have no objection, if it pleases the court,” he says in a controlled voice.
Neither does Tully.
I take a moment to explain the parameters of the demonstration, and then the bailiff escorts me to the hall and the doors close behind us with a solid thud that echoes through the tiled passageway. Beyond, Baumgartner is laying a trail for me to follow, no doubt trying to be clever and using what little he knows of man-tracking against me, poor fool.
I’m thinking about sushi.