Crimson Blood: Or Murder at the Law School

By Fnu Lnu

Crimson Blood or Murder at the Law School is a mystery set at Harvard Law School. Harvard law professor Alex Hershkowitz gets hit. In front of witnesses. First-year law student Julie Amoroso, a former New York cop with enough troubles already, pursues the hitman or is it a hitwoman? And the chase is on.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Apr 8, 2014
• ISBN: 9781491721469

Fnu Lnu

Fnu Lnu (First name unknown Last name unknown) is a graduate of Harvard Law School. His interview appears at CrimsonBlood.info.

Book preview

1

Julie Amoroso had two recurring nightmares. In one, she was chasing a suspect. She slapped her hip – and she had no holster. She had no gun, no baton, no radio, no flashlight, nothing to subdue a suspect with or protect herself with. In the other nightmare, she was late for an exam.

"WE’RE IN THE JUSTICE BUSINESS, OR WILL BE WHEN WE GRADUATE. We’re learning how to bring more justice into the world. What’s a major source of injustice?"

The professor scanned the amphitheater-like classroom. The indifferent faces of scores of students stared back.

It’s in today’s reading, he said, more accusation than suggestion.

A few students looked down upon their textbooks and flipped pages. But most studied the law professor. They didn’t need mirrored sunglasses to make their eyes unreadable.

"Or rather, I should say, the reading that was assigned for today. Did anyone actually do it?"

The professor expected to discomfit members of the class. That was the usual effect of this question to his law students. But no one even shifted weight in his or her seat.

What’s the matter? Too much else going on? Too busy to do the reading?

Apprehension and comprehension struck the professor at the same time. They are stupid, he realized. They have bovine eyes. These future guardians of the law, the law that I love so much, the law that is my life’s work, these would-be stewards of the ancient trust that safeguards our personal rights and safety – they are as dumb as cows.

You will always have too much to do and yet you will always have to do it. All of it, everything you are assigned. That will be your sworn duty. If you do not understand that, you can drop out now. You are not under a court order to be here. No statute requires you to be here. Drop out now.

The students had already learned command presence. The professor held the classroom’s dominant ground and he was the only one talking, the only one interrogating, the only one hectoring. Yet he was not in charge. The students were in charge and each one’s face and torso conveyed that.

It’s as if the professor were a motorist, protesting that he hadn’t really sped through a red light. Each student played the traffic cop, who waited until the sputtering was over and then handed back the motorist’s license along with a ticket for a $50 fine.

The professor walked to the first arc of desks. They were wooden, battered, and enduring. Who had sat there in long-ago decades? What had they gone on to achieve? This calling had propelled men and women to mayors’ and governors’ offices, the United States Capitol, the White House.

Others went to the jailhouse.

And now, the professor thought, sluggards and dullards are taking up space and displacing air here. Each place at the desks was numbered with a small brass oval nailed on the writing surface, on the part farthest away from the seat. The professor strode to number 11, occupied by a student with expansive shoulders and a crew cut, and stood so close to the desk that the front of his tan corduroy jacket brushed it. The corduroy was worn out.

You. The professor aimed his finger between the student’s thick eyebrows. Are you planning on dropping out?

The student balked. He knew his answer, but he also knew how to wrest away dominance. He waited out the professor.

Two rows back, Julie Amoroso, a fellow student, could hear the fluorescent lights buzzing high overhead in the lecture room.

No, the crew-cut student said at last.

"Well, Mr. Eleven, let’s examine U.S. v. Wade. The professor pulled the course book out from under the student’s elbow and leafed through the pages, which from the professor’s side of the desk, were upside down. This case here, the one without highlighting, underlining, notes in the margin, or any other indication that you’ve read it.

"Let me pose my question again: What is a major source of injustice according to the Wade case?"

To himself, the professor slowly counted to 10.

Then 20.

Mr. Eleven, read these two words.

The student started counting to himself before he answered. One Mississippi, two Mississippi –

Mr. Eleven! The professor leaned over, slapped the open book, and straightened up again. It was the way an athlete might swear on a bible. These. Two. Words.

The professor seized a pen out of the student’s hand, exhibited it to the class, and made a show of removing the cap, as if he were demonstrating how to use it. He leaned over again and drew an oval around two words.

A student muttered, somewhere behind Julie and to her left. Maybe it was in the backbench, the last row of unassigned seats. Why doesn’t someone shoot this asshole?

The professor shot a glare to the rear of the classroom and then glowered at Mr. Eleven.

The student read the circled words. Mistaken identification.

Louder. So your colleagues hiding in the backbench can hear you.

Mistaken identification.

Now, allow me to continue spoon-feeding you. You don’t happen to have a spoon, do you? The professor rummaged through his jacket pockets. I can’t seem to find mine.

Reading upside-down from the case, the professor said, ‘The vagaries of eyewitness identification are well-known.’ Mr. Eleven, right here. Keep reading.

‘The annals of criminal law are rife with instances of mistaken identification,’ Mr. Eleven read.

That will do for now.

The professor pointed to the top tier of the classroom.

You. Backbench Benjie. State the facts of the case.

Me?

Exactly, the professor fired back.

The facts of which case?

"U.S. v. Wade, a 1967 decision by the Supreme Court, written by Justice William Brennan, a personal hero of mine. Not the same Wade as in Roe v. Wade. The case we’ve been discussing. If you would be so kind."

Um. I’m not the best person to do that.

The professor raised his eyebrows, but didn’t respond, at least not immediately. The clock buzzed, as it always did at three minutes before the hour. Someone, somewhere in the room, coughed.

Is there a better person outside this class? Someone more deserving of your seat? Someone who understands that it is an honor to be here?

The professor counted to 10. He considered demanding an answer, but thought better of it. Backbench Benjie might be packing heat.

The professor returned to the table with his notes on it. He studied the backbench, then the rest of the classroom.

"You are not allowed to opt out of this class, just as you will not be able to opt out of your duties when you graduate.

You, Orange. He looked straight at Julie. That was a new one.

Auburn, she said.

What?

Auburn. My hair is auburn.

Just the facts, ma’am, the professor said.

Julie knew the facts, but delayed answering in solidarity with her classmates.

This will be good training, the professor interjected. Confine your account to the most vital details. ‘Account’ and ‘details.’ That caught your attention, Benjie and your buddies in the backbench, didn’t it? Police details – overtime work that private companies, such as utilities and bars, paid for – went into officers’ individual bank accounts.

Julie paused again while her mind raced to cull the trivia. De minimis non curat lex. The law does not take account of trifles.

A bank robber went into a bank, she said, with a strip of tape on both sides of his face.

What a great disguise, the professor said.

He pointed a gun at the teller and vice president, the only witnesses. Half a year later, the defendant was arrested. A lawyer was appointed for him.

‘Half a year later,’ why does that matter?

It’s an identification case. The passage of time affects memory. Two weeks after the arrest, the FBI put the defendant in a lineup, without telling his lawyer. Each person in the lineup wore strips of tape on his face and said, ‘Put the money in the bag,’ which is what the perpetrator said. The teller and vice president identified the defendant.

We’re on a roll, said the professor. Let’s stay with you a moment. What’s the issue? Summarize it in one sentence, a one-sentence question.

Does a defendant have a right to a lawyer at a lineup?

What’s the answer to that question?

Yes.

What’s the reason for the answer?

A police officer can suggest to witnesses which person in the lineup is the defendant.

Does the suggestiveness have to be intentional?

No. Intentional or otherwise.

What’s the lawyer’s role?

To spot any suggestiveness.

"The Wade case goes on to give examples of suggestive lineups. The professor resumed lecturing. In one lineup of six men, the defendant was the only Asian. In another case in which the perp was a youth, the lineup consisted of one person under 20 and five people who were 40 or older."

Chuckling and snorting erupted among the students, relieved to have a reason to laugh. Julie leaned back and untensed her calf muscles when she realized that the professor was done with her.

"You laugh, but the police were not being stupid. They thought they were being clever. How about this one? Putting six people in a lineup: five people who the witness knows, and the sixth person is the suspect.

Your job will be to avoid being so clever. Your job will be to prevent similar causes of mirth. Keep the cute out of prosecuting. Take out your pens and write this down. I mean it. Take out your pens. Class is not over until you do what I say and write down what I say.

The students slowly relented. Most of them resigned themselves to taking dictation. Much of their training so far had been bullying; what was a little more? Some planned to pretend to write. Others picked up their pens, but intended to hold them motionless and immovable.

The professor strolled alongside the first row toward a wooden door on the side of the classroom. Memory is fallible, he said.

Most of the students looked at their notebooks, even the ones who weren’t writing. The professor pivoted and strolled in the opposite direction toward a fire exit on the other side of the classroom.

Memory is manipulable.

The wooden door behind the professor flew open. A man dashed in, and before the professor realized he was there, caught the professor by the collar of his jacket. The man lifted a small gun with a silver barrel and jabbed it at the base of the professor’s skull.

Enough of your legal bullshit! the man screamed.

Fftt! Fftt! The silencer made the gunshots sound like darts leaving a blowgun. Blood and brains blew out of the professor’s head. The gunman shoved him face down on the lecture table. Blood spattered the yellow legal pad filled with lecture notes. The gunman turned, faced the students, fired a shot over their heads – fftt! – and ran back out the door. The professor slid off the lecture table and dropped on the floor in a dead jumble.

There was a beat of silence, the world in suspension, everything and everyone within the four walls of the classroom plunged out of time. Then time resumed and the bellowing broke out.

Call the police! Anyone have a phone?

Someone get an ambulance!

Mother of God!

Follow him!

Students were sprawling or crouching on the floor, having jumped or fallen off their chairs, ducking the gunfire. Mr. Eleven and a couple of classmates scrambled to their feet, vaulted over desks, and ran to the door that the gunman had fled through.

A student, with pimples on his face, and as scrawny as a scarecrow, bounded down the tier of desktops, as if he were an athlete running stadiums. He skidded on textbooks and notebooks, catching and righting himself, and stepping over the heads of classmates who were picking themselves up after ducking.

Is there a medic?

Is he dead?

Is there a nurse? Is anyone a nurse?

Of course, he’s dead!

"I’m an EMT," announced the scarecrow in mid-jump between desks. He hopped off the bottom desk and knelt next to the professor. Julie and another student reached the professor at the same time. Above them in the classroom, students were untangling themselves from tipped-over chairs and still crying out.

Mother of God, mother of God!

They blew his head off, did you see that, did you see? How could that happen here? How did it happen?

Mr. Eleven and the pursuers reached the door but it was locked. Each one of them wrenched and rattled the tarnished brass doorknob in quick succession. The last one butted the heavy wooden door with his shoulder and bounced off it.

The students laid out the professor’s body on his back. His shoulders smeared blood in a curve on the linoleum floor. Julie realized that she knew only two medical techniques, taking a pulse and swallowing an aspirin, and she was sure that the professor had no pulse. His eyes rolled back and went white. Julie leapt up and ran to the locked door.

Boom. Mr. Eleven tried to kick in the door. It sounded like a thunderclap.

Boom. The soles of his black boots slammed against the paneled wood and reverberated in the hall on the other side of the door. Boom.

This won’t work, this door is going nowhere, shouted a confederate of Mr. Eleven. Let’s go out the back. Who’s coming with me?

It comes out on a different floor, one floor up, someone countered.

It’s worth a try. Maybe he’s still inside the building. Three students ran up a side aisle to the exit behind the backbench.

The next student took a turn at the door. Boom. Shit! he screamed in anger and frustration.

Boom. Shit!

Boom. Shit!

Julie wasn’t going to even try booting the door. She was 80 to 100 pounds lighter than these goons.

Fuck it, let’s go out the fire exit, someone said. Opposite the locked wooden door was a beige metal door with a lever sticking out from it, and red letters: Emergency exit only Alarm will sound.

He didn’t go that way, Julie said. If we have any chance of getting the shooter, it’s through this door.

Fuck it. The student dashed to the fire door and stiff-armed the lever. The door opened and the alarm began, as if a thick and persistent buzz had been waiting outside, ready to blow in.

The scarecrow held his fingers under the professor’s nostrils, trying to detect any seeping of warm moist air. He’s not breathing, he shouted over the fire alarm.

Another student gripped a floppy wrist. He shouted into the scarecrow’s ear: He still has a pulse.

Red emergency lights on the walls pulsed in sync with the professor’s heart. Strobes filliped at the students’ eyes.

That’s unusual. Cardiac and pulmonary failure usually happen at the same time, he shouted.

What?

That’s unusual.

Julie dragged the lecture table around the prone professor and his kneeling attendants. You, she shouted to a classmate, help me with this. With arms pulled taut by the weight of the table, they waddled it over to the door. On its side, on its side, Julie said. They tipped it.

The table legs stuck straight out, as if they were stiff limbs on an animal carcass. Julie stepped inside the legs and reached down for the thick leg in front of her. It’s battering ram time! Mr. Eleven and another student got behind the back legs and picked up the table. Everyone else, stand back, Julie shouted. On three, we run. One. Two. Three….

They ran the table into the door. Heavy wood against heavy wood, it sounded like a cannon shot. But the door didn’t succumb.

Again. They backed up. One. Two. Three…. Crash. Crack. The crash of table against door, and a crack from what? The door, maybe the doorframe; it was hard to tell through the insistent buzz.

"One more time!

One. Two. Threeee – Julie and her crew growled and grunted on the run, crescendoing as they neared the door. She held the table leg with bent arms, chest high. At the instant before impact, Julie thrust her arms out straight for a final slam of power.

After the sound of tearing wood and a small spray of splinters, the door swung open hesitantly. The crew backed up and dropped the table. Before anyone could run out the door, a uniformed police officer marched in through it. He held a bullhorn up to his mouth.

Red, the door comes out of your pocket. The table, too, if it’s broken. The officer strode to the front of the classroom.

"This is a demonstration. This was only a demonstration. Your instructor is not dead. This is an exercise. Word up.

"In all the years we’ve been doing this exercise, this is the first time that anyone has busted down the door or set off the fire alarm. What a class. You’re going to go far. We use this bullhorn to get people’s attention and drown out the screaming, not to speak over a fire alarm. Someone shut that thing off.

Your professor is not dead. This is only an exercise.

The scarecrow studied the professor. A smile flickered on the professor’s lips. His eyes stayed closed. The scarecrow clambered to his feet, in fear or ire, he wasn’t sure which. Maybe both.

Prof, get up, so that the class can see that you still walk and breathe among us.

The professor picked himself up and took a gulp of air. He had been breathing very shallowly for many minutes now. The buzzing of the fire alarm fell silent. The red lights pulsed one last time and died; the strobes clicked off and stayed off. The students laughed nervously, not fully comprehending. Their ears rang.

Blanks and theater blood, the officer said through the bullhorn. Fake gunshots, fake blood. The officer put down the bullhorn. Prof, do I owe you dry cleaning again?

No, I wore an old jacket this time.

You are getting better and better at this. The officer chuckled.

The professor gathered his scattered and spattered notes.

Thank you, Prof.

The professor smiled, waved at the class, stepped around the table on its edge, and walked out. The back of his jacket was smeared with blood; his hair was matted and clotted.

This is probably my favorite exercise at the New York Police Department Academy and we’re only halfway through with the course.

Go back to your seats, the officer said. Write a police report. What did you see? Describe the attacker: Race, sex, age, height, weight, clothes. Describe the weapon. Did the attacker say anything? How long did it last? Don’t talk to each other. This is not a group exercise.

Backbench Benjie was disappointed. Shoot, I liked it better when he was dead.

The attacker was Caucasian….

The gunman was white….

Perpetrator appeared to be Hispanic….

…middle-aged….

…undeterminable age….

…late 20’s to mid 40’s….

…30ish….

…5’ 10 to 6’ 2….

…6 ft. 0 inches to 6 ft. 4 inches….

Height: Medium.

…over 6’….

…black hair….

…dark hair….

…dark blond hair….

…brown hair….

…medium length.

…longish….

…crew cut….

…medium build….

…muscular….

…paunch….

…175 to 200….

…over 200 lbs….

…leather jacket….

…blue denim jacket….

…dark windbreaker….

…corduroy jacket, tan….

Shut up with your legal bullshit.

No more of your bullshit.

This is what you get for your bullshit.

I’m Sergeant Kelly, the next speaker said. The students, dressed in the sky-blue shirts and gray trousers of police recruits, stared.

I’ve been with the New York Police Department for 12 years. I did the shooting. I’m white, 34, six feet two. You can see that I have dark brown hair, thinning in the front – he turned his head " – long in the back.

"Let’s talk about what we call ‘weapons focus.’ If a skell is waving around a gun, most civilian witnesses will focus on the gun, not the face. That makes our jobs harder. Guns can be disposed of. Faces are not so easy. But unfortunately, we get better descriptions of guns than gunmen.

"If you are the first officer, the first cop to get to a homicide scene, you will interview civilians and you will encounter first-hand the phenomenon of weapons focus. Witnesses will remember the gun better, in more detail, and more accurately than they will remember the perp.

"Here’s the gun I used. Let’s see how you did on your police reports. ‘Silver barrel with silencer.’ ‘Long barrel.’ ‘Stubby.’ ‘Black grip.’ ‘Silver handle.’

"Not bad. But if you ever see a crime-with-gun in progress, if anyone takes a shot at you, remember: The gun can be ID’d from bullets and cases. Don’t ignore the weapon, but don’t fixate on it either. Study the face. Weapons focus is only one quirk of memory that you will deal with on the street. Another quirk: Observing violence undermines the ability to notice details.

"If you are taking a statement from a civilian who saw a smash-and-grab – a skell takes a sledge hammer to a jewelry store window, say, and grabs a diamond necklace – chances are that the narrative will be more complete and accurate than if that same skell steals the same necklace after shooting the store guard in the head.

"Makes sense, right? If people are horrified by the violence they see, like a crew stomping a homeless man to death, or if they themselves are in actual danger, like getting a revolver barrel shoved into their mouths, they can’t be cool-headed and can’t pay attention to particulars.

This is not really a quirk of memory. We’re not talking about retrieving information from the storehouse of the mind so much as logging the information into the storehouse in the first place. People who witness non-violent and low-violence crimes will be able to remember more because they were able to observe more.

The sergeant held up a videotape.

"This is a tape of the shooting. You didn’t know we have a videocamera at the back of the classroom, did you? Technology is wonderful. Cameras are getting smaller and smaller. So when you’re lifting a thousand bucks from a car that you think is abandoned, think twice. Ask yourself: Is there a camera in this car and is this an Internal Affairs sting?

But back to my point: This tape is not like your memory. It’s better. Put it in an evidence locker and it can’t be tampered with. He pushed the tape into the VCR at the front of the classroom. Let’s go to the movies.

The professor strolled to the right.

In the bottom right corner of the video screen, a digital clock was running, counting minutes and seconds, 4:36, 4:37.

Memory is fallible, he said.

The professor turned and strolled to the left.

Memory is manipulable, he said.

The wooden door opened and a man ran in.

I’m going to stop it right there. The video image froze on the screen.

"What was I wearing? A dark green pullover jacket. Not a leather jacket or jean jacket. Not a tan corduroy jacket. The professor was wearing the tan corduroy jacket. That’s a phenomenon of memory called transference; you transfer details from one person at the crime scene to another. A psychiatrist at Harvard, guy by the name of Larson, has studied that a lot.

"Look at my hair on the tape. It’s not a crew cut. That’s plain to see and obvious to say. How did some of you come up with a crew cut on your police reports? Transference. Your classmates, some of them, have crew cuts, so you wrote that the perp had one.

"What kind of shoes was I wearing? You can see them here, but I don’t