Wild justice 2000, p.9
Wild Justice (2000), page 9
Cross got no argument out of Amanda. She had never interviewed a witness before and was relieved that Herb would be doing the questioning.
The windowless conference room was narrow and stuffy, and the air was permeated by the faint smell of sweat. A flickering fluorescent light fixture hung above shelves of medical books and journals. Justine Castle was sitting on one side of a conference table sipping a cup of black coffee. She had been in surgery for a good part of the afternoon, and Amanda thought that she looked worn out. Her hair was swept back in a ponytail, and she was not wearing makeup.
"I'm Herb Cross, Frank Jaffe's investigator. We spoke on the phone. This is Amanda Jaffe. She's an attorney with the firm."
"We met at the Y," Amanda reminded Castle, who showed no sign of recognition. "You were with Tony Fiori."
"Oh, yes," Castle answered dismissively. "Tony's high school friend."
The cold response surprised Amanda, but she did not show it.
"I want to thank you for seeing us, Dr. Castle," Herb said.
"I only agreed to see you to be polite, Mr. Cross. Nothing I say will help your client. Our divorce is not amicable, and I find Vincent repulsive."
"Yet you married him," Cross said. "You must have seen something good in him."
Justine smiled ruefully. "Vincent can be charming when he's not coked up."
Amanda and Cross sat opposite Dr. Castle. Amanda took out a pad and prepared to take notes.
"You've read the newspaper account of the murders in Milton County," Herb began. "Had Dr. Cardoni ever said or done anything that made you suspect that he was killing these people?"
"Mr. Cross, if I had any idea that my husband had done something like that, I would have called the police immediately."
"Do you think he's capable of this type of violence?"
"Vincent is a violent man," she answered without hesitation. "I assume you know about my testimony in court."
"You testified that he beat you and raped you."
"It's not a far stretch from rape and assault to murder."
"The murders in Milton County were not acts of passion," Cross said. "They were well-thought-out acts of sadism."
"Vincent is a sadist, Mr. Cross. The rape was very methodical. The beating was not administered in some sort of insane rage. Vincent looked very satisfied with himself when he was through."
"Dr. Cardoni denies raping or beating you."
"Of course he does. You don't expect him to admit it, do you?"
"Did you report the rape to the police or seek medical assistance?"
Justine looked disgusted. "You mean, can I prove Vincent raped me?"
"It's my job to check the facts in a case."
"Let's not kid each other, Mr. Cross. It's your job to trick me into saying something that will help Vincent escape the punishment he deserves. But to answer your question, no, I did not report the rape or seek medical assistance. So it's Vincent's word against mine. That possibility does not intimidate me in the least."
"Dr. Castle, did you know that your husband owned a home in Milton County?"
"The police asked me about that. If he does own that place, he never told me."
"Your divorce lawyer never ran across a reference to it or property owned by Northwest Realty when you were trying to discover Dr. Cardoni's assets?"
"No."
"Did you know Dr. Clifford Grant?"
Justine's anger faded away and was replaced by a weary sadness.
"Poor Clifford," she said. "He was my attending until the administration started taking his responsibilities away from him. Not that I can blame them. He couldn't stop drinking. That's why his wife left, and that made him drink even more. Then there was that incident in surgery. He almost killed a four-year-old boy."
"And yet I get the impression that you liked Dr. Grant."
Justine shrugged. "He was going through his divorce while he was supervising me. We went out for dinner every now and then. He trusted me and unburdened himself on occasion."
She stopped talking, and her eyes grew distant. "I can't help wondering if I'm responsible for his death."
"Why would you say that?"
"Vincent and Clifford didn't become friendly until we were engaged. The papers say that they were harvesting organs for the black market. I wonder if Clifford would have trusted Vincent if I hadn't brought them together."
"What can you tell us about the incident with Mary Sandowski?" Cross asked.
"I was there when he attacked her. The poor woman was speechless with fright. He had her by the arm and he was screaming at her."
"Do you know why he was so angry?"
"Mary told me that Vincent screwed up during an operation and became furious with her when she tried to warn him. I'm certain she was right."
"Why is that?"
"I saw Vincent's eyes. He was coked to the gills."
"What's your husband's reputation among the other doctors at St. Francis?"
"I can't speak for them. If you want gossip, you might want to talk to Carleton Swindell, the hospital administrator. I do know that the Board of Medical Examiners is looking into several complaints of malpractice that are probably legitimate. If it was up to me I would never let him in an operating room. I think he's a drug addict and an incompetent."
"He's also rich, isn't he?"
Justine raised an eyebrow suspiciously. "What if he is?"
"I don't want to offend you, Dr. Castle, but isn't it true that you'd come away from the divorce with a lot of property and money if your husband is convicted of murder?"
Justine pushed away from the table and stood up.
"Anything I take out of this marriage I've earned, believe me. And now I'm afraid that I have to end this interview. I've been working since early this morning and I need to get some rest."
* * *
"What do you think?" Amanda asked as they headed toward the elevator.
"I think that Dr. Justine Castle is one pissed-off lady."
"Wouldn't you be if you were the victim of rape and assault?"
"Then you believe her?"
Amanda was going to answer when she noticed Tony Fiori walking toward them. He was wearing green surgical scrubs under a white coat that looked as though it had never been washed. Scraps of paper poked out of the jacket's bulging pockets.
"Tony!"
Fiori looked puzzled for a moment. Then he smiled.
"Hey, Amanda. What are you doing up here?"
"We just finished interviewing a witness in a case. This is Herb Cross, our investigator. Herb, this is Dr. Tony Fiori, an old friend from high school."
Herb shook Tony's hand.
"Do you have time for a cup of coffee?" Tony asked Amanda. "I got bumped out of the OR by an emergency and I've still got half an hour before I have to be back."
"I don't know," Amanda said hesitantly, looking at Cross.
"That's fine," the investigator replied.
"You're sure you don't need me?"
"I'm just going back to the office to write my report. We'll catch up later."
"Okay, then. I'll see you at the office."
She turned to Tony. "I can use a caffeine fix. Let's go."
It was raining when Amanda and Tony walked outside. They sprinted across the street to Starbucks, and Amanda found a table while Tony ordered for them.
"One grande skinny caramel latte," he said, placing the drink in front of Amanda.
"That looks like regular coffee," Amanda said, pointing to Tony's cup.
"Hey, I'm a barbarian. What can I say?"
Amanda laughed. "It's strange--we don't see each other for years, and now we bump into each other twice in less than a month."
"It's fate," Tony answered with an easy smile.
"You look like you're working hard."
"Like the proverbial dog. Fortunately, my senior resident is a good guy, so it's not as bad as it could be."
"What are you doing?"
"I've been on the surgical intensive care rotation for two months, but I've been doing elective surgeries for the past two days--hernias, appendectomies. It's two-for-one day today. Let me take out your appendix and I'll remove your spleen for free."
"No, thanks," Amanda answered with a laugh. "I gave at the office."
Tony took a long drink of coffee. "Man, I needed that. I've been at it since six this morning without a break."
"I'm glad I came along."
Tony leaned back and studied Amanda.
"You know what I remember about you?" he asked with a smile. "The swimming. You were so great at the state meet my senior year, and you were only a freshman. Did you keep it up in college?"
"All four years."
"How'd you do?"
"Pretty well. I won the two hundred free in the PAC-Ten my junior and senior years and placed at nationals."
"Impressive. Did you try for the Olympics?"
"Yeah, but I never really had a chance to make the team. There were three or four girls who could kick my butt on my best day. To tell you the truth, I was burnt out by my senior year. I didn't swim at all when I was at law school. I'm just getting back to it now."
"Where did you go to law school?"
"NYU. The last two years I had a clerkship at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. You went to Colgate, right?"
"Only for a year. My dad died and it hit me hard." Tony's eyes grew moist, and he looked down at the table.
Now Amanda remembered. Dominic Fiori had been Frank's law partner. He was raising Tony after a bitter divorce. During winter break of Amanda's sophomore year in high school, Dominic had died in a fire. The sudden death of a parent was bound to be traumatic.
"Anyway, I dropped out for a while and bummed around Europe and South America for a year after that," he continued in a subdued tone. "Then I was a ski instructor in Colorado for a while before I got my act together and went back to school at Boulder. My grades weren't good enough for an American medical school, so I ended up in Peru. I took some tests when I graduated and was accepted at St. Francis for my residency."
"That's a tough road."
Tony shrugged. "I guess," he answered, looking a little embarrassed. "So you were interviewing Justine for your case?" he asked, changing the subject.
"How did you know?"
"I have amazing psychic powers. Also, I read the papers. Your father and Cardoni have been all over the news since they found those heads." Tony was suddenly serious. "You know, I was there when Cardoni had his run-in with Sandowski."
"No, I didn't."
"Did he really decapitate her?"
Amanda's legal training reared its head. "I can't really talk about that."
"Sorry, I didn't mean to be nosy. It's just . . . I knew 'em both." He shook himself, as if trying to clear away an unpleasant image.
Amanda hesitated, then made a decision. "I guess I can tell you. It'll come out at the trial anyway. There's a videotape of Mary Sandowski being killed. Whoever did it operated on her while she was conscious." She shivered. "You're probably used to seeing people in pain, but I've never seen anything like that."
"I haven't seen anything like that either, Amanda. A doctor tries to ease suffering. I'd have been just as upset as you."
Tony glanced up at the clock on the wall. "I'm going to have to get back." He hesitated. "Uh, look," he asked nervously, "do you want to get together sometime? You know, dinner, a movie?"
Amanda flashed a reassuring smile. "Sure. I'd like that."
Tony grinned. "Great. Give me your number."
Amanda took out a business card and wrote her home number on the back. Tony stood up.
"Don't rush off," he told her. "Finish your latte. I'll call soon."
Amanda watched Tony duck into the rain and jog back toward the hospital. She wondered if he'd really call. It would be tough giving up an evening in the library to go to dinner with a drop-dead gorgeous doctor, but Amanda believed she was woman enough to make the sacrifice.
"And she sent us on our way," Herb Cross told Frank Jaffe as he concluded his account of the Justine Castle interview.
"What was your opinion of her?" Frank asked. Cross slouched in the client chair in Frank's office and stared at the West Hills through the window at Frank's back while he gathered his thoughts.
"She's very bright and very dangerous. She hates our client and will do everything she can to put him on death row if she's called as a witness."
"Cardoni thinks she set him up."
Cross looked surprised. "He thinks Castle is a serial killer?"
"That's what he says. She's a surgeon, she knew Grant."
Cross looked skeptical.
"I don't buy it either," Frank said, "but we have to worry about Castle. I need to know if there's some way to get to her if she testifies. Go to the jail. Talk to our client. Get as much background on her as you can, then go after her."
18
Bobby Vasquez found Sean McCarthy neck deep in paperwork when he walked into the squad room and pulled up a chair to the detective's desk.
"Hey, Bobby," McCarthy said. "What have you got?"
"A lot," he answered, opening a file he was carrying. "Cardoni grew up outside of Seattle. His parents were divorced and Cardoni started getting in trouble soon after the split. He was a star wrestler in high school, excellent grades, but he was also arrested for assault. The case never came to trial. I don't know why it was dismissed.
"After high school Cardoni went to Penn State on a wrestling scholarship, but he lost it in his sophomore year when he was arrested for assault."
"Any specifics?"
"I got the police report on that one. It was a bar fight. He really fucked up the other guy. Cardoni went into the army as part of a plea bargain. Charges were dismissed."
"How'd he do in the army?"
"No trouble I could find. He qualified for the wrestling team and trained during his hitch. He also excelled at unarmed combat. After the army, Cardoni went to Hearst College, in Idaho. Good grades, NCAA Division Two nationals as a junior and a senior, then medical school in Wisconsin and a residency at New Hope Hospital in Denver."
"Any trouble in Idaho, Wisconsin or Colorado?"
"Cardoni was the defendant in a malpractice suit in Colorado. The insurance company settled it. I've got rumors of cocaine use, and there were a couple of sexual harassment complaints that went nowhere. After Cardoni finished his residency, he moved to Portland."
"Where does Cardoni's money come from?" McCarthy asked.
"Some of it comes from an inheritance. His folks are dead. I also hear that he's invested wisely."
McCarthy leaned back in his chair and tapped his fingers together thoughtfully.
"If Cardoni is a serial killer, he may have cut his teeth before moving to Portland. Find out if a killing field like the one near the cabin was ever found in Washington, Pennsylvania, Idaho, Wisconsin, Colorado or any other place Cardoni lived."
"Okay."
"And while we're on the subject, did you have any luck tracing the ownership of the Milton County property?"
"None. I went to the banks that cut the cashier's checks, but there was no record of the purchases because they were under ten thousand dollars. Is there anything new on your end?"
"A little. I'm certain that the Milton County cabin is the place where the illegal organs were harvested. Remember those jars in the refrigerator?"
"The ones with Viaspan written on them?"
"Right. Viaspan is a cardiac preservation fluid. Before you cut the heart out of a donor's body, you inject Viaspan into it. It replaces the blood, fills up the vessels and preserves the heart so the metabolic processes don't continue when the heart stops beating. After you remove the heart, you place it in a plastic bag filled with Viaspan. Viaspan would also be used when transplanting other organs."
"Like a kidney?"
"Exactly. We've also identified several of the victims. The decapitated woman without the heart is Jane Scott, a runaway. One of the victims is Kim Bowers, a prostitute who disappeared a year and a half ago, and another is Louise Pierre."
"The Lewis and Clark student who went missing in June?"
McCarthy nodded "One of the males is Rick Elam, a shipping clerk who was reported missing in September. Elam and Pierre were missing kidneys. Now, here is the interesting part. Scott, Elam and Pierre were patients at St. Francis within months of their disappearances."
"No shit! Were any of them a patient of Cardoni?"
"No, but they didn't have to be. All you need to do to find a donor for a heart is to find a person whose blood type is compatible with the recipient's and who is within twenty percent of the recipient's body weight. The heart of a person with type O blood can be given to anyone. All Cardoni or Grant had to do was look at their files."
"Were any of the other victims missing organs?"
McCarthy shook his head sadly. "It looks like Cardoni was just having fun with some of those poor bastards and mixing business with pleasure with the others."
19
Amanda was half an hour late for her date with Tony Fiori when she finally arrived at the YMCA. On the ride over she had worried that he would think she'd stood him up, but he smiled when he saw her.
"I'm sorry," Amanda apologized. "I had a jury out and they came back just before five."
"Did you win?"
Amanda let her grin answer the question.
"It was so great, Tony. Dad put me on the court appointment list so I could get more trial experience, and they appointed me to help this poor woman, Maria Lopez. She's a single mother and she's got these three maniac kids. So she's at Kmart and Jose, her two-year-old, streaks down the aisle toward these toys, so she stuffs a roll of Scotch tape and a bottle of aspirin in her coat pocket and goes after him. Jose knows how to run, but he hasn't figured out stopping yet. Bam, he goes headfirst into this display counter. Maria is holding Jose, who is screaming his head off, and trying to comfort Teresa, who's three and is screaming to keep Jose company, and trying to keep an eye on Miguel, who's four. Naturally she forgets about the tape and the aspirin, and some idiot security officer arrests her for shoplifting."
"How did you get her off?"
