Incriminating Evidence (49 page)

He glances at Judge Kelly and says, “I’m not allowed to make any official determinations on cause of death.”

“I know. Was it a suicide?”

He shrugs and says, “It seems to be. It looks like she swallowed an entire bottle of sleeping pills.”

Turner is visibly distraught. “Did she feel any pain?” he asks.

Roosevelt shakes his head and says, “Probably not.”

We’re all silent for a moment, then I say, “I understand she left a note.”

Roosevelt nods. “Yes.” He asks us to wait in the hallway. He returns a moment later with two clear plastic bags. There’s a sheet of paper in each. I read it through the plastic. Turner and the judge are reading over my shoulder. The handwriting is steady and very clear.

My very dear Prentice
,

By the time you read this, I will be gone. I am completely spent. I have no energy left to protect you. I can no longer lie for you and I cannot bear to watch you suffer. Nor can I stand my own pain. I cannot continue the charade that our marriage became more than twenty years ago. I cannot live with the daily humiliation of watching my husband parade all over town with female and now male prostitutes. You need help, my love. You have for a long time. I am too weary to keep telling you this anymore
.

I have never stopped loving you, Prentice, but I cannot live with the emptiness any longer. I went to Turner for comfort. Be kind to him. He has helped me through some very difficult times
.

You took away my dignity, Prentice, and you would not seek help, so I decided to take away your political dreams. The only way I could think of doing this was to show you that I had the power to expose you
.

But it went terribly wrong, my dear, and I cannot live with the consequences. I knew you had set up the assignation when the champagne was delivered to the room. I had been waiting for such an opportunity, because it was the last resort I could think of to compel you to seek help. I wanted you to wake up and find your self with an unconscious prostitute in your room. I planned ahead. I obtained GHB over the Internet. I have become quite proficient at obtaining medication for my depression over the Internet and it was not difficult to obtain the GHB. I kept the vial with me always, waiting for the right time. It seemed so simple: to put a drop or two in the flutes when no one was looking, so that when you poured the champagne, you would both be sedated and sleep through the night. When you woke up, you would have found him there with you, and you would have faced a difficult if not impossible situation—not unlike my own. My plan was to confront you when you came home—to show you that I knew everything that had happened and demonstrate to you once and for all that I had the power to humiliate you and end your political career if you did not get help immediately. If you refused or argued with me, I was going to show you the materials I had planted in your storage locker. I knew you kept the photos of those prostitutes at your desk. I had them copied. This would have been a final confirmation that I could—and would—bring you down
.

But instead of your waking up with the prostitute still in your bed, the waiter found you and the Garcia boy was dead. I was appalled when I learned this and that you had been arrested for his murder. The weeks since then have been unendurable, and when I heard in court that the GHB might have been the cause of death, I could no longer face myself. I never intended to kill anyone, Prentice. I cannot live with the possibility that I am responsible for it. I hope somehow you will understand
.

I will miss you very much, my beloved. I hope you will be able to remember and cherish the good times. And please look in on Ann. She loves you
.

Natalie

I swallow hard. Judge Kelly bites her lip. Turner looks away. Payne and McNulty read the letter after us and hand it back to Roosevelt. I say to him, “I’d like to show this to Skipper.”

He looks at Judge Kelly, who nods. I take it to Skipper. I am with him and Ann as he reads it. Tears stream down their faces.

Then Skipper turns to me and says, “We’d like to see Natalie.”

“Let me see what I can do.” I go back to the foyer. “Your Honor,” I say, “under the circumstances, I would ask you to permit Mr. Gates and his daughter to have a few moments alone with Mrs. Gates. You have my word that they won’t touch anything or otherwise disturb the evidence.”

Judge Kelly reflects for a moment. She casts a glance at McBride, who says, “Given the circumstances, it’s okay with me.” Payne nods. Roosevelt says he’ll ask the people from the coroner’s office to step out of the room for a moment.

I return to Skipper and tell him they’ve agreed. “I’ll come with you if you’d like,” I say.

“I’d appreciate that.” He looks at Ann and says, “Come on, honey. Let’s go say good-bye.”

48
“I NEVER MEANT TO HURT HER”

“My charitable work brings me great joy and satisfaction. If you touch just one life, it’s worth it.”

—N
ATALIE
G
ATES
.

“She looks so peaceful,” Ann says.

She’s holding Skipper’s hand as they gaze at Natalie, her head resting against the pillow, her eyes closed, the blanket smooth over her body. Death has erased the lines of tension that were so palpable these last weeks; peaceful is indeed the word for what we see before us. The sunlight cascades across her face. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect the team from the coroner’s office tidied up the scene before Roosevelt escorted them out to the hallway. It was a kind gesture.

“She could be asleep,” Skipper says at last, his voice breaking. “She’s as—as lovely as the first time I saw her. All those years … I don’t know why everything went so wrong.” He sighs and Ann turns to him.

“Don’t, Daddy. We can’t change it,” she says gently. “She’s left us. Now it’s time for us to leave her.”

As she eases him away from the bed, he looks at Natalie one last time, and as we leave the room, I hear him say under his breath, “I never meant to hurt her.”

—————

Later that afternoon, we’re all in the living room—Skipper, Ann, Turner and I. Judge Kelly and the prosecutors have returned to the Hall of Justice, but the judge agreed to let Skipper remain at the house for the day so that he and Ann could take care of the funeral arrangements. They’re done at last, and as we sit quietly in that gracious room, I realize we’re all aware of the empty armchair that was Natalie’s. It’s a melancholy time.

And then, abruptly, I see Skipper sit erect and take charge of himself, as if he’s had enough of regrets. It’s a different Skipper all of a sudden; even his stance looks focused determined. Turner sees it, too, though I’m not sure from his expression that he’s happy about it.

“I need to tell you what happened that night,” Skipper says to Ann. “I should have told you long ago. I can’t explain it all—I only know what I did, and saw, but you need to know I didn’t kill the Garcia boy. I can’t tell you when he died. I can only tell you that up to the time he passed out, he was alive. He was breathing. He’d passed out right after we”—he struggles to find the right words; Ann may be an adult, but still she’s his daughter and this is hard for him—“we had sex, but he was okay. And when I came to in the morning, when the waiter woke me up, he wasn’t—he was dead.” It’s almost as if he’s seeing Garcia’s body all over again, he looks so anguished, but I can also sense he’s glad to get this off his chest.

Ann is silent, but she reaches for his hand and strokes it. I ask Skipper whether Johnny had been his usual self when he came to the room.

“Not really,” he says. “There was nothing different about the arrangements—I set it up with Andy Holton the way I always did; Garcia was to come to my room at one o’clock. But he was really high when he got there, frantic to the point of panic. I guess heroin can have that effect sometimes. I
tried to talk him down, and when that didn’t work, I poured him a glass of champagne—I figured the alcohol would calm him. He must still have been panicky, though, because there were those calls to Anderson. I never even knew he made them—I guess it was when I was in the bathroom.”

Still, they went through the usual routine, he tells us; and it was only after Garcia passed out that he realized there was trouble. “I couldn’t wake him. He was out cold, and I couldn’t get the cuffs off. I was scared. I tried to reach Holton, but I couldn’t, so I called Turner for help. And I drank a glass of champagne to calm myself while I was waiting for you,” he says to Turner, “and that’s the last I remember. I must have passed out, too.”

“Before that, when you were trying to get the cuffs off,” I ask, “was his face still covered with tape?”

“Yes. But only his eyes and mouth—not his nose. I didn’t tape his nose. I could hear him breathing. In fact, I listened for it because I was worried about his passing out like that. But it sounded perfectly normal. And that must mean,” he says to us, “that somebody else did it. Came into the room when I was out and …
suffocated
him. And I keep trying to figure out who—and why.”

It’s interesting. For the first time in ages, I perceive signs of lawyer-thinking in Skipper. It’s been impossible to discern amid all the bombast of the politician in action. In fact, it wasn’t easy to find back in the old law firm where we were uneasy partners. Even then, he was too busy working all the angles, promoting himself.

I pick up on what he’s just said. “Let’s look at the possibilities,” I say. “First, of course, is why? Who’d have had it in for you to the point of setting you up for murder? You’ve got plenty of enemies—politicians do, and as the DA you made still more of them. But
murder
—that’s a stretch.”

Ann’s been following all this quietly, but now she speaks up. “Why are you so sure Daddy was the object of the plot—
if it was a plot?” she asks. “Look, we can forget about the GHB. We know Mother did that, but even if it’s what knocked them both out, it isn’t what killed Garcia. He didn’t die accidentally, he was suffocated. Somebody deliberately covered his nose with tape. Maybe killing
him
was the point. Let’s concentrate on him for a moment. Let’s assume your being there was a coincidence—convenient, to take advantage of, but that’s all. In that case, who could have wanted Garcia dead?”

Well. This is a different Ann. She’s dropped all that attitude, the abrasiveness and vitriol, as if the death of her mother has stripped away a veneer. There’s a tenderness in her voice as she talks to her father, and something else as well. She’s thinking like a lawyer, too, and maybe she’s right. Maybe Johnny Garcia was the point all along.

I take myself back to the crime scene and consider the hours between his arrival and Wong’s waking Skipper at seven o’clock. If he died between one and four A.M., as Beckert estimated he did, who were the people we’ve identified around the Fairmont? In fact, we can move ahead an hour or so, because from what Skipper’s said, Garcia passed out after they had sex. That lets out guys like Parnelli and Morris, because they left too early. So I turn to the guy who’s at hand and say, “Fill us in, Turner. You knew Garcia was coming—you arranged for the champagne setup. You got those calls from Skipper and Kevin Anderson. And you came back to the hotel. There’s more to it than your just knocking on Skipper’s door, isn’t there?”

Ann and Skipper listen with me as Turner speaks up at last. I wish we’d known what he had to say before now—it would have saved all of us a lot of pain. I think about Natalie and imagine they’re doing this, too. Would it have made a difference? We’ll never know.

“I went to the hotel because Anderson said I had to,” he tells us. “The first time he called was after he got Garcia’s
messages on his answering machine—he told me there was a problem at the Fairmont and that he was warning Holton. The second call was really urgent. He said Holton had gone to the hotel and gotten no answer when he knocked on your door, and that there was big trouble and I was the one who’d have to deal with it. This was around three o’clock, and I got over there fast. I got no answer to my knock, either, but I still had a key to the hospitality room next door, so I went in and found the connecting door was open.”

He stops. I register the fact that Kevin had lied when he told the police and me he didn’t get the messages until the next morning, but that’s not news. What really gets me is Turner. It’s as if he doesn’t know how to continue—or doesn’t want to. When he finally goes on, I realize why. He’s feeling guilty. Turner, the cold fish, the guy who never gives an inch, is feeling guilty. That’s a switch. It takes a lot to have cracked that facade.

“I found you passed out in the chair,” he says to Skipper, “and Garcia handcuffed to the bed. I fiddled with the handcuffs, but I couldn’t release them and I couldn’t wake you up, so I… I left. I just got the hell out of there.” He feels our eyes upon him and adds in protest, “What else could I have done?”

I see Ann wince at this, but Skipper lets it pass. “What about Garcia?” he asks. “Was he still alive when you left?”

“Yes.”

“If you didn’t put the tape over his nose and I was dead to the world, who did? It means someone must have come in after that.”

We watch Turner’s face as he says, “I can’t tell you for sure. But I do know that other than me, there was only one person besides Holton who knew about you and Garcia, and Holton had already come and gone before I got there. Kevin Anderson knew.”

Is he fingering Anderson? That doesn’t make sense and I
tell him so. “What possible motive could Kevin have for killing Garcia?” I ask. “He was a big earner for the porn operation. He was bringing in a load of cash. Why wipe out a moneymaker?”

“I didn’t say he did,” Turner answers. “I don’t know that he did. But Garcia was big-time trouble—that I do know. Anderson told me this when I was setting up sessions with Garcia for Skipper. He was very worried about it. He said that some of his ‘service providers’—his term—were unreliable, and Johnny most of all—a real troublemaker. He was pressing for a bigger cut of the action and he was a major threat. He knew a lot about the whole operation—that Kevin had set up the Web site and that Martinez had funded it. I gathered he was becoming unmanageable.”