Knight 02.5 - If I'm Dead (2 page)

“Look, I'm a detective, not a magician. What do you want me to do? Go to the morgue and get you a body?”

“Gee, I didn't think you'd want to. But if you're up for it, I'm in.”

Bailey glared at me, then continued, “And I talked to Kwan. You're right, he can't say exactly when the blood got there, but he
will
say it had to have been left there fairly recently for it to yield so much DNA, given the conditions.”

“Yeah, that's cool, but—”

“But what? What innocent explanation is there for her blood to be on the back of the passenger seat?” Bailey demanded. “It's not like she would accidentally cut herself and then drip blood near the bottom like that.”

I held up my hand. “You're preaching to
the choir, Keller.
I'll
be preaching to the twelve-headed monster. And that monster will be looking at Mr. Wonderful, never-had-a-parking-ticket, former Eagle Scout, now welfare-reform activist, and thinking,
This
guy killed his wife?”

“His
rich
wife, who
se prenup cut him out if they divorced—”

“And whose family, even if we lose this case, will have lawyers who'll know how to tie up all that money in litigation until the guy's in assisted living.” I had no doubt the defense would find a way to get that little nugget in front of the jury so they could argue that the defendant had no motive to kill Melissa. Of course, I planned to take every opportunity I could to point out that he didn't have the legal sophistication to anticipate any of that. But all the defense had to do was raise a reasonable doubt; they didn't have to prove what Saul knew. It was yet another stumbling block in this obstacle course of a case. Dwelling on it wasn't making me feel any better, so I did a quick mental review of my to-do list, searching for a reason to get optimistic. I remembered we hadn't heard back from our criminalist. “Did Dorian turn in her report yet?”

Bailey pulled out her cell and tapped the screen, then scrolled for a moment. “She said it'd be done today. Why don't we head over there? We've got to get out and see the family anyway.”

Melissa had a large and loving family who wanted minute-by-minute updates on the case. We'd been checking in whenever we could, but Saul had hired Ronnie O'Bryan, a street fighter of an attorney who believed in jamming the prosecution into trial as fast as possible. I'd told him we wouldn't have all the evidence reports in until the first day of trial, and that some might even come in after that. He didn't care. If I didn't have the reports, that meant I couldn't prepare either. I had to admit, it was a pretty effective strategy. If I'd had the stomach to be a defense attorney, I'd sure as hell have used it. And just as he'd intended, I was running at double speed, flogging my experts in an effort to get the most critical work done in time. But with the trial just two days away, the Gibbons family's anxiety was mounting by the second. They needed some TLC.

I looked out the window of my office on the eighteenth floor of the Criminal Courts Build
ing, trying to gauge whether I'd need to bring my sweater. It was a beautiful day: the sky was piercingly blue and the downtown air had been whipped clean by the hot, gusty Santa Ana winds that'd blown through last night. My walk from my room in the Biltmore Hotel to the courthouse this morning was pleasant enough, but that'd been hours ago. By now, the July sun had been radiating for more than five hours. I figured it was easily ninety degrees out there. Still, Bailey liked to crank the AC in the car, and
I knew Dorian kept her office at meat-locker temperature. I grabbed the sweater.

The sprawling brick-colored building that houses the Scientific Investigation Division of the LAPD is just south and east of downtown Los Angeles, about a ten-minute ride from
the courthouse. Bailey made the trip in less than five minutes. L.A. is a lot easier to navigate when you don't have to worry about speeding tickets.

As we rode the elevator up to Dorian's office, I braced myself for the encounter. Dorian Struck was one of the few veteran female criminalists, and she'd processed more crime scenes in her twenty-three years on the job than even the most seasoned detectives had ever seen. No one was better at the gig, and I was always glad to have her on a case. But she was a prickly pear who didn't like to be rushed, and I'd rushed her. More accurately, I'd pestered Bailey into rushing her. The moment we stepped out of the elevator, I spotted Dorian's short, square frame standing next to a young male criminalist whose head wa
s bent over a microscope.

When we got to within five feet of her, she looked up. “Didn't I tell you I'd call when the report was done?” She glared at Bailey.

Happy to be out of the line of fire, and to see Bailey in the center of it, I stepped back to watc
h the show. Bailey shot me a narrow-eyed glance before responding. “Yeah, but you also said the report would be done today. So I thought I'd save you the trouble.”

Dorian turned on her heel and headed toward her office, grumbling. “You want to save me some trouble, stay in your cop shop and wait for the report like everyone else.”

Her small, Spartan office was the picture of anal-retentive obsession. No paper out of place, no pens or paper clips lying around, no open books. Most of us have family photos or
fun prints on our office walls. Dorian's were covered—neatly, to a T-squared perfection—with crime scene photos that centered on a gloved hand (Dorian's, of course) pointing to evidence: bloodstains, spent bullets, spent casings, paint chips, you name it. There was even one of a disembodied head. Dorian's only nod to sentimentality was a photograph of Indiana Bones—a cadaver dog shown in the act of alerting to a mound of loose dirt. Dorian tapped her computer into life and hit some keys, and the printer whi
rred, then spit out two pages. Bailey took them and I leaned over her shoulder to see, ignoring her irritated glance.

I read aloud from the report: “ ‘… found evidence of wipe marks throughout the interior of the car… a cleanser was used.' ” This was good stuff, but as always I wanted more. “If the wipe marks were still detectable, then that must mean he'd cleaned the car shortly before we found it, right?”

“First of all, I'm not saying it's a ‘he' or a ‘she' or an ‘it' who did the wiping. That's your problem. Second of all, I'm not saying anyone ‘cleaned' the car. I'm saying exactly what you read in my report: there were wipe marks that appeared to be associated with a cleanser.”

It was the heaven and the hell of Dorian. She never stretched her findings. Sh
e reported literally what she saw and not one thing more. It was a great credibility booster but a minefield for the unwary prosecutor. So far, I'd managed to avoid that pitfall by making it a point to feel around for the parameters of Dorian's opinion bef
ore we walked into court.

“Can you say anything about what kind of cleanser was used?” I asked.

“I can say there was bleach in it, but that's about it.”

“Can you say that bleach is a particularly effective way to get rid of blood?”

“As opposed to what? Armor All? Your spit? No.”

“Okay, thanks, Dorian.” I'd been warned. But then I remembered the blood drop. I looked at Bailey, who picked up on my thought.

“If the car was wiped down, then how come there was still a visible drop of blood on the back of the passenger seat?” Bailey asked.

Dorian's expression told me it was good that Bailey'd been the one to ask. “What do you do with my reports? Line the cat box?” I pressed my lips together to keep from laughing. “The blood drop wasn't on the back of the seat. It was on the undercarriage of the passenger seat.”

Would anyone else have found that little drop of blood in such a hidden location? I doubted it. And what a find it was. A blood drop in an accessible area is one thing. But a blood drop underneath the seat?
That one was hard to explain. Especially with the evidence of cleanup. This new evidence would decimate any lingering hope the defense might've had at selling the BS story that Melissa had been killed in a robbery. It'd be a pretty rare thief who'd kill someone, dump the body, then take the time to wipe down the car out on the highway. Feeling cheered—maybe more than was justified—we thanked Dorian and headed out to see the Gibbons family one last time before the trial began.

Bailey steered us onto the freeway, and I braced myself for an inch-by-inch, hour-long crawl. It was almost four p.m., a time when the freeways routinely turned into parking lots. But for some reason the goddess of travel smiled upon us, and today the road was stunningly wide open. We f
lew up the 101 Freeway north and made it to Hancock Park in just fifteen minutes. It's an older neighborhood, with homes that date back to the '30s—ancient, by Los Angeles standards—and its pricey midtown location makes it particularly desirable to high-en
d professionals in the entertainment and law business. The nearby Wilshire Country Club provides a picturesque stream that runs through the area, and even the smallest homes are worth at least a million; the larger estates will set you back more than ten t
imes that much. So the lawyers who live there? Yeah, none of 'em work in the L.A. County District Attorney's Office.

The Gibbons manse was on South Las Palmas Avenue and occupied a double lot that sported an elegant French Tudor home on one side and a pool
pavilion with a ski lodge–type fireplace on the other. The newly retiled pool and tennis court robbed the family of any excuse not to stay fit, and the guesthouse and home theater ensured company would be entertained and well cared for. This was where Mel
issa had grown up.

Her mother, Nancy, was a warmer version of the kind of woman who always seemed to be the “lady of the house” in a place like this: perfect, understated makeup, expertly styled pageboy hair, neatly manicured nails, and tasteful, conservat
ive threads that genteelly whispered
money
—lots of it. That same muted luxury was a theme repeated throughout the rolling grounds and spacious rooms of the house.

The maid, an older woman with Slavic features, ushered us into the living room. My heels sank
into the plush beige carpet and the sunlight that streamed through the expansive picture window filled the room with a warm glow. I felt as though I'd walked into a painting. Nancy, her handsome features sagging with fatigue and sorrow, moved toward us an
d gripped my hand in both of hers.

“Thank you for coming. Bennie couldn't get out of his meeting in time, but of course he'll be in court… the day after tomorrow, isn't it? I find it hard to believe it's finally happening.”

I gave her what I hoped was a supportive smile. But to me, it felt more like “already” than “finally.” We all sat down and I asked how she was doing. As well as could be expected, she told us, then asked, “More importantly, how are you feeling? How does the case look?”

I told her about the latest findings by Dorian and Kwan. I tried to soft-pedal the subject of blood, to give her the importance of the results without invoking the images it conjured. But how the hell do you do that? Anyway, I tried. Nancy blanched and closed her eyes briefly.

“I know, it's a terrible thing to have to hear,” I replied. “I'm so sorry.”

“No, no. I meant it when I said I wanted to know everything. And I appreciate how you've accommodated my wishes.” She took a deep breath, then continued, “So with this… evidence, and the diary, do you think the case is strong enough?”

“With all that plus the evidence in the garage, yes, I do.”

But, of course, I wouldn't be on the jury. The truth was, given all the circumstances, I was less confide
nt than I let on. Fortunately, Bailey took over.

“Did Melissa keep a diary when she was younger? Or was this something she started when she got older?”

“If she kept a diary as a child, I didn't know about it. You'd have to ask her college roommates to be sure, but I believe the diary-keeping was something she started after she and… Saul”—Nancy nearly choked on the name—“began having trouble. I think her diary gave her a way to vent because she wasn't ready to admit out loud that she'd made a mistake.”

I waited for her to continue, but she stopped suddenly and looked down at her hands. Only when the sun sparkled on the teardrops falling into her lap did I realize Nancy was crying. I squeezed her shoulder, and she patted my hand as though she were trying to console us both. Once again, I found myself admiring her strength and unstudied dignity. After taking a few deep breaths, she blinked and looked out the window. Though her body was unbowed, it seemed cloaked in an aura of despair.

“It's just hard to accept,” she said. “We were always so close. Yet Melissa didn't feel she could confide in me about what she was going through. I keep asking myself, why? Why didn't she tell me? Where did I go wrong?”

Nancy pressed her lips together and again closed her eyes and bent her head. I gave her space to recover, and the room filled with a heavy silence.