“Notice?” Berger prods.
“Yes, notice” I talk on. “Notice the hair on his hands catching light like monofilament, like fishing line, almost translucent. Notice that he looks almost happy.”
“Happy? What do you mean?” Berger quietly asks me. “Was he smiling?”
“I would describe it differently. Not a smile so much as the primitive joy, lust, raging hunger you see in the eyes of an animal about to be fed fresh raw meat.” I take a deep breath, focusing on the wall inside my conference room, on a calendar with a Christmas snow scene. Berger sits rigidly, her hands motionless on top of the table. “The problem is not what you observe, it’s what you remember,” I go on more lucidly. “I think the shock of it all causes a disk error and you can’t remember with the same degree of intense attention to detail. Maybe that’s survival, too. Maybe we need to forget some things so we don’t keep reliving them. Forgetting is part of healing. Like the Central Park jogger dragged off by a gang, raped, beaten, left for dead. Why would she want to remem- her? And I know you are well acquainted with that case,” I add with irony. It was Berger’s case, of course.
Assistant District Attorney Berger shifts in her chair. “But you do remember,” she quietly points out. “And you had seen what Chandonne does to his victims. ‘Severe lacerations to the face.’ ” She begins skimming Luong’s autopsy report out loud. ” ‘Massive comminuted fractures of right parietal bone… fracture of right frontal bone… extending down the midline… bilateral subdural hematoma… disruption of cerebral tissue beneath with accompanying subarachnoid hemorrhaging… depressed fractures that drove the inner table of the skull into the underlying brain… eggshell-like fractures… clotting…”
“Clotting suggests a survival time of at least six minutes from the time the injury was inflicted.” I return to my role of interpreter for the dead.
“A hell of a long time,” Berger observes, and I can imagine her making a jury sit in silence for six minutes to show them just how long.
“The crushed facial bones, and here”I touch areas of a photograph”the splits and tears to skin made by some sort of tool that left a pattern of round and linear wounds.”
“Pistol whipping.”
“In this case, the Luong case, yes. In Bray’s case, he used an unusual type of hammer.”
“A chipping hammer.”
“I can see you’ve done your homework.”
“A funny habit of mine,” she says.
“Premeditation,” I go on. “He brought his weapons to the scenes versus using something he found when he got there. And this photo here”I pick out another horror”shows knuckle bruises from punching. So he also used his fists to beat her, and from this angle we can see her sweater and bra over there on the floor. It appears he tore them off with his bare hands.”
“Based on what?”
“Under the scope you can see that the fibers are torn instead of cut,” I reply.
15S
Berger is staring at a body diagram. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen so many bite marks inflicted by a human. Frenzied. Any reason to suspect he might have been under the influence of drugs when he committed these murders?”
“I wouldn’t have a way to know.”
“What about when you encountered him?” she asks. “When he attacked you on Saturday, shortly after midnight. And by the way, he had the same odd type of hammer, as I understand? A chipping hammer?”
” ‘Frenzied’ is a good word for it. But I would have no reason to know whether he was on drugs.” I pause. “Yes, he had a chipping hammer with him when he tried to attack me.”
“Tried? Let’s state the facts.” She gives me her eyes. “He attacked you. Not tried. He attacked you and you escaped. You got a good look at the hammer?”
“Good point, if we’re stating facts. It was a tool of some sort. I know what a chipping hammer looks like.”
“What do you remember? The flutter,” she refers back to rny strange rendition. “Those endless minutes, the hair on his hands catching light like monofilament.”
I envision a black coil handle. “I saw the coil,” I tell her as best I can. “I remember that. It’s so unusual. A chipping hammer has a handle that looks like a thick, black spring.”