No Witnesses

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And now for the good part.

This was where Lou Boldt threw out all convention, where the textbooks took a backseat to experience, and where he found out who in the lecture hall was listening and who was asleep.

He raised his voice. Boldt was a big man and his words bellowed clear back to the make-out seats without the need of the mike clipped to his tie. “Everything I’ve told you in the past few weeks concerning evidence, investigative procedure, chain of custody, and chain of command is worthless.” A few heads snapped up-more than he had expected. “Worthless unless you learn to read the crime scene, to know the victim, to listen to and trust your own instincts. To feel with your heart as much as think with your head. To find a balance between the two. If it was all in the head, then we would not need detectives; the lab technicians could do it all. Conversely, if it was all in the heart-if we could simply empathize with the suspect and say, ‘Yup, you did it’-then who would need the lab nerds?” A few of the studious types busily flipped pages. Boldt informed them, “You won’t find any of this in your textbooks. That’s just the point. All the textbooks in the world are not going to clear a case-only the investigator can. Evidence and information is nothing without a human being to analyze, organize, and interpret it. That’s you. That’s me. There comes a time when all the information must be set aside; there comes a time when passion and instinct take over. It’s the stuff that can’t be taught; but it can be learned.

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