Sleight of Hand

CHAPTER Thirty-Three

Three days in jail had done the damage Charles Benedict had anticipated. Blair’s complexion was pasty and he looked every day of his seventy-four years. With Carrie dead and Blair in jail, there was only a skeleton staff at Blair’s estate. Blair had given Benedict the security code for the front gate and the house so he could pick out clothing for Horace to wear at court appearances. Benedict had brought a beautifully tailored suit to the jail but Horace had lost so much weight that the suit looked like it was draped on a wire hanger.

“How are you holding up?” Benedict asked. He sounded deeply concerned but he was really delighted.

“Am I going to get out today?”

“I hope so. Gardner is tough but Jack Pratt has lined up several prominent witnesses who will vouch for you.”

Before Benedict could say anything else, the Honorable Preston L. Gardner III emerged from his chambers.

“We’re here for a bail hearing in Commonwealth v. Blair,” Gardner said as he took his seat on the dais. “Are the parties ready to proceed?”

“Rick Hamada for the commonwealth. We’re ready, Your Honor.”

“Charles Benedict for Mr. Blair. The defense is ready.”

“I don’t need any opening statements,” the judge said, “so let’s get this show on the road. You’ve got the burden, Mr. Hamada.”

Rick Hamada began his presentation by calling Frank Santoro. He used the first few minutes to establish the detective’s credentials before asking questions that would allow him to argue that the defendant should be held without bail.

“Detective Santoro,” Hamada asked, “can you please summarize the evidence that led you to the conclusion that there was probable cause to arrest the defendant for murder?”

“Yes, sir. First off, there was the motive. There were newspaper reports about a prenuptial agreement—”

“Objection! Irrelevant,” Charles Benedict said as he sprang to his feet. “This court shouldn’t be using unfounded rumors to decide an issue as serious as bail.”

“The rumor is just one piece of the decision to arrest,” Hamada replied. “It’s background and was just part of the big picture.”

“There’s no jury here, Mr. Benedict,” Judge Gardner said. “I’ll allow the testimony and take it for what I deem it’s worth.”

“Go ahead, Detective,” Hamada said.

“The newspaper reported that the defendant and his wife had signed a prenuptial agreement before their wedding. According to the story, Mr. Blair was going to have to give Mrs. Blair twenty million dollars the week she disappeared.”

“Please tell the judge if any physical evidence caused you to suspect that Mr. Blair may have killed his wife,” Rick Hamada said.

“There was the evidence we found in the trunk of Mr. Blair’s Bentley,” Santoro answered.

Hamada turned to Judge Gardner. “For purposes of this hearing only, Mr. Benedict has agreed that we can present the following testimony without calling experts from the crime lab or the medical examiner.”

“Is Mr. Hamada correct?” the judge asked.

“He is,” Benedict agreed.

“Proceed, Mr. Hamada,” Judge Gardner said.

“Detective Santoro, please tell the court about this evidence and its significance?”

“Okay, well, we found blond hairs in the trunk. The crime lab performed a DNA test on the hairs and concluded that they belonged to the victim, Mrs. Blair. So that was evidence that suggested she may have been in the trunk.

“Next, we found a blood smear in the trunk. The lab concluded that the blood was from Mrs. Blair by doing DNA testing. That suggested that Mrs. Blair may have been wounded or deceased when she was in the trunk.”

“Did you find a gun in the trunk?” Hamada asked.

“We did, a .38 pistol.”

“Was there anything unusual about the gun?” the prosecutor asked.

“The serial numbers had been filed off.”

“Why was that significant?”

“We see this commonly in guns that are sold illegally on the street and used to commit crimes.”

“Objection,” Benedict said. “Irrelevant, and the prejudice outweighs any possible relevance.”

“Sustained.”

“After you discovered this physical evidence in a car belonging to the defendant did you discover the body of the victim in this case, Carrie Blair?”

“We did.”

“Where did you find it?”

“It had been buried in a shallow grave in the woods at an abandoned resort.”

“Did the medical examiner determine the cause of death?”

“Yes, sir. Mrs. Blair was shot and the bullet caused massive internal injuries.”

“What type of bullet caused the damage?”

“A semi-jacketed hollow-point.”

“Where was this bullet discovered?”

“The medical examiner found it in Mrs. Blair’s body while he was performing the autopsy.”

“Why didn’t the bullet exit the body?”

“A semi-jacketed hollow-point has a soft point. It’s designed to mushroom inside the body when it hits bone. That’s why there was so much damage to the internal organs.”

“Was the bullet sent to the crime lab?”

“It was.”

“Did the ballistics expert at the crime lab draw a conclusion concerning the gun that fired the bullet?”

“Yes, sir. He concluded that the gun that was found in the trunk of Mr. Blair’s Bentley fired the bullet that killed Mrs. Blair.”

“One more thing, Detective Santoro. Did you find some keys in Mrs. Blair’s grave?”

“We did.”

“Where did you find the keys?”

“Mrs. Blair’s purse was found in the grave, and there was a key ring in the purse. Then there was a single key that was unearthed when we began digging.”

“The key was just lying there?” Hamada asked.

“Yes, sir. It looked like it may have fallen in the grave by accident.”

“Objection! That’s pure speculation,” Benedict said.

“Sustained.”

“Was the crime lab able to connect the single key to the defendant?”

“A forensic expert found a fingerprint on the key and matched it to the defendant.”

“Did you conduct an experiment with the keys?”

“My partner, Detective Stephanie Robb, did. I was also present at the defendant’s estate, and so was Wilda Parks, the forensic expert who raised the print. We had in our possession the single key, the keys from Mrs. Blair’s purse, and the keys that were in the defendant’s possession when he was arrested.”

“What did Detective Robb do when you arrived at the estate?” the prosecutor asked.

“She tried the single key in the front door of the defendant’s mansion, and it opened the door,” Santoro replied.

“So the key turned out to be the defendant’s front door key?” Hamada asked.

“Objection,” Benedict said. “There is no evidence that the key belonged to Mr. Blair. That’s speculation. It could have been Mrs. Blair’s key and Mr. Blair may have touched it at some point. You can’t date fingerprints.”

“I’ll sustain the objection,” Judge Gardner ruled.

“I’ll rephrase the question, Detective. Did the key that you found in the grave that bore the defendant’s fingerprint open the front door to the defendant’s mansion?”

“Yes, it did.”

“Did any key on the key ring you found in the victim’s purse open the front door?”

“Yes, one of the keys on the key ring found in the purse did open the front door.”

“What about the defendant’s keys? Did any of them open the front door?”

“No. We tried them all and none of them worked.”

Horace Blair leaned into Benedict. “That’s impossible,” he whispered furiously.

“We’ll talk about this at the break,” Benedict said. “Let me listen to the testimony. I don’t want to miss anything.”

“What conclusion did you draw from this experiment?” Hamada asked.

“We thought it was unlikely that Mrs. Blair had two keys to her front door, though that is certainly possible. We thought that it was more likely that the key on her chain, which bore her fingerprints, was Mrs. Blair’s house key and the single key belonged to someone else, who had accidently dropped it in the grave while he was digging.

“The most likely owner of the single key was the person whose prints were found on it, the defendant. That conclusion was strengthened by the discovery that none of the defendant’s keys opened the front door of his house.”

“Thank you, Detective. I have no further questions.”

Charles Benedict was certain that Hamada did not plan to put Barry Lester on the stand. Hamada would have no idea how Lester would stand up under cross, and he wouldn’t want Benedict to get his hands on a transcript of sworn testimony that could be used to contradict Lester at trial. Benedict was also certain that Hamada was laying a trap for him, and he looked forward to falling into it.

“Detective Santoro,” Benedict said, “what prompted you to go to Mr. Blair’s place of business and ask him if he would let you look in the trunk of his Bentley?”

“We received a tip from someone who claimed to have seen the defendant put Mrs. Blair’s body in the trunk of his car.”

“What is the name of the good citizen who came forward with this information?”

“It was an anonymous tip.”

“I see. Now there was no way that you could have gotten a judge to issue a search warrant for the trunk based solely on an anonymous tip, was there?”

“No, sir.”

“Then how did you get to see the inside of the trunk?”

“Mr. Blair opened it for us.”

“He could have refused, couldn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“And there was nothing you could have done about that if he had said that he was not going to let you search the trunk, was there?”

“No.”

“Mr. Blair is the head of a multinational business empire, is he not?”

“Yes.”

“He has degrees from two Ivy League universities?”

“I believe so.”

“All of which point to Mr. Blair being highly intelligent?”

“I guess so.”

Benedict pointed at his client. “So, Detective, you’re telling Judge Gardner that this highly intelligent executive who deals with problems on a global scale killed his wife, went to great lengths to hide her body, then willingly let you look in the trunk of his car, knowing that the murder weapon was in it and that there might be other evidence that would incriminate him?”

“The defendant let us look in the trunk,” Santoro responded.

“Let’s talk about these keys. It was pretty convenient finding the key with Mr. Blair’s print in that grave, wasn’t it?”

“I don’t know about convenient. It was there.”

“Dropped accidentally by the murderer?”

“That was a possibility.”

“Mr. Blair had a key chain with his keys on it when he was arrested, did he not?”

“Yes.”

“The keys on the chain were for his cars, the side door to his house, and his office, right?”

“Yes.”

“Isn’t it normal to keep your house key on the ring with the rest of your keys?”

“I don’t know what’s normal.”

“Do you keep the key to your front door on your key chain with the rest of your important keys?”

“Yes.”

“How did the key you found in the grave get off Mr. Blair’s key ring and into the grave? Do you think it just hopped off?”

“I don’t know how it got in the grave.”

“What possible reason would Mr. Blair have to take his front door key off of his key chain while digging that grave?”

“I have no idea.”

“Now, Detective, if I have this right, Mr. Blair’s motive is based on a rumor spread by an unknown source; you asked to search the car based on a tip from someone who refused to identify himself; then you conveniently found Mr. Blair’s key in the grave where the killer buried his wife. Isn’t one explanation for what is going on here that the real killer spread the rumor about the prenuptial agreement, then called you with the tip about the Bentley and planted that key to frame Mr. Blair?”

“That’s a possibility, but it’s been my experience that murderers—even those with above-average IQs—often make stupid mistakes, and we often receive anonymous tips from good citizens who want to help solve a crime but don’t tell us their name because they are afraid the criminal will seek revenge, or for some other reason.”

“Tell me, Detective Santoro, did another anonymous tipster tell you where to find the place where Mrs. Blair was buried?”

“No, sir,” Santoro responded.

“Then how did you know where to look?”

Rick Hamada fought hard to restrain himself from leaping up, pounding his chest, and howling like a wolf that has just vanquished his prey. Frank Santoro’s face showed none of the joy Hamada felt.

“An inmate was housed in the cell next to the defendant during the period when Mr. Blair was incarcerated,” Santoro said. “Mr. Blair confessed to him that he had killed his wife so he wouldn’t have to pay her twenty million dollars when their prenuptial agreement terminated. Then he told him where the body was buried.”



“Lester lied!” Blair shouted as soon as Benedict closed the door to the jury room where they were conferring during a recess. “I hardly spoke to him. He’s a lying son of a bitch.”

“And we’ll prove that,” Benedict said. “I’ll have my investigators digging into his background immediately. The cops put snitches in isolation to protect them. I’m betting that Lester has a history of getting out of trouble by testifying for the police.

“The good news is that if we unmask him in front of the jury, we’ll blow apart the state’s entire case.”

“Is this going to prevent me from getting bail?” Blair asked anxiously.

“I don’t know,” Benedict said.

“The whole case makes no sense,” Horace said. “I would never have let those detectives look in the trunk if I’d killed Carrie.”

“I agree, and Gardner is smart enough to get that,” Benedict said.

“What I can’t understand is how my house key ended up in Carrie’s grave. After you used the key on my key ring to open the door I put it back on the key ring.”

“I can think of an explanation, but I hope I’m wrong.”

“What is it?”

“Your wife was a longtime prosecutor, Horace. She had many opportunities to make enemies in the law-enforcement community. And she also had friends who are cops. The killer would plant the key to frame you, and a friend of Carrie’s who thought you killed her would plant the key to make sure you were convicted.”

“You think I was set up by the police?”

“It’s possible.”

“But the key would have to have been put in the grave when Carrie was buried. I still had it when she disappeared.”

“The police took your keys when you were booked into the jail on the gun charge. If the person who killed Carrie planted the key, he could have gotten it from the property room and put the key in the grave. Or the key could have been dropped in the grave while the grave was being uncovered. The key is small. It would fit in a palm. You could let it fall in one section and cover it with dirt while the diggers were working on another section. ”

“But that means Detective Robb or Santoro might have killed Carrie.”

“Or anyone else who was at the grave site.”

“Robb and Santoro put me in isolation. Either one could have made sure I was put in a cell next to Lester.”

“Good thinking,” Benedict said. “I hope we’re wrong, but I’m going to have my investigators look into Robb’s and Santoro’s backgrounds to see if either one had a grudge against Carrie or was particularly close to her.”