Duncan had the table taken out of the interrogation room before Towler was brought in.
“The table in an interrogation room is a barrier—you can’t see half of the guy’s body,” Duncan told Eve once. “The first, nonverbal signs of a suspect’s deception will be in the lower body, what he does with his legs and feet.”
Towler was escorted into the interrogation room by a deputy and placed in one of the two straight-back metal chairs, face-to-face with Duncan, who’d insisted on no handcuffs as well. He wanted to see Towler’s hands for tells.
Towler was calm and quiet, which was the first tell for Eve. An innocent person, Duncan told her, is anxious and angry and eager to talk because they feel wronged and are terrified of going to jail for something they didn’t do. They want out. But not Towler.
“Were you read your rights, Chuck?” Duncan asked.
“Yes, I was, which should tell you something right off.”
“What would that be?”
“I’m talking to you now without a lawyer. Why would I do that if I was guilty? I’d keep my mouth shut. But I want to help you clear this bullshit up because we all want the same thing.”
“What’s that?”
“To get the bad guys off the street. So let’s get on with it.”
“Okay. Do you know why you were arrested, Chuck?”
“Ronin says I raped and murdered someone, which is fucking crazy.”
“She can be a bit overzealous,” Duncan said.
“I don’t know how you can work with her.”
“I eat Tums by the handful, that’s how. And I tell myself I only have to endure her for a few more weeks and then I’m a free man.”
“She’s only interested in her career, everything else . . . you, me, the department . . . are collateral damage.”
Does everyone think that about me? Eve wondered. But she was sure they didn’t think that about male detectives who were laser focused on their cases. With a woman, it was different.
“That’s why I pulled rank and I’m here and not her,” Duncan said. “I want to get to the bottom of this. Who does she think you raped and murdered?”
“Sabrina Morton, I guess.”
Eve hadn’t mentioned a name when she arrested him.
“You guess?”
“That’s the case you two are working, isn’t it? Out in the canyon.”
“It’s one of them.” Duncan snapped his fingers, as if just remembering something. “That’s right, you were out there, securing the scene. What do you know about the Sabrina Morton case?”
Towler rubbed his chin, even though Duncan didn’t ask a question that required deep thinking. What he was thinking about, Eve knew, was what lie to tell next. The stall was another sign of deception.
“Only that she disappeared six years ago and now her bones have turned up.”
Duncan pulled his chair up close, invading Towler’s personal space, and casually slid his bent leg between Towler’s knees, forcing Towler to keep his legs spread, leaving his groin unprotected. It instinctively made Towler uncomfortable.
“Here’s the thing, Chuck. Before Sabrina disappeared, she reported that she was raped by three guys that she’d partied with on Topanga Beach. She says they slipped her a roofie, gang-raped her, and left her on the sand. She staggered to a gas station the next morning and called us.”
Towler bounced his right knee. Anxious. “News to me.”
“She didn’t remember the names or faces of the guys who raped her. All she could recall was that they all had the same tattoo. It’s the one you have. The Great White.”
Towler laughed, way too hard. Inappropriate, forced reactions were another sign of dishonesty and the body’s attempt to relieve anxiety. “That’s it? There are dozens of guys with the same ink. Maybe more.”
“You’re right, Chuck.” Duncan kept repeating his name, to reassure him and establish a false sense of concern and friendship. “There are a lot of guys with that tattoo. She had a drawing of it that she was showing to surfers around the beach, hoping somebody would recognize it and give her a name. You never heard about it?”
Another laugh over something not remotely funny, underlining the lie to come. “No.”
“Well, a deputy named Pruitt did, pulled her over, and told her to stop. Do you know him?”
“Yeah, sure, he worked here back then, but he never said anything about the traffic stop to me.”
“Here’s the thing, Chuck. The next day somebody broke her neck and tossed her body in a ravine.”
“So are you arresting every deputy with Great White ink or just me?”
“Only the ones who left DNA behind. Tell me, Chuck, is there any reason your DNA would be in her or on her?”
“What?” Towler scratched his arm. He was feeling the pressure.
“We got a hit on your DNA.”
“You got a hit on my DNA.” Another tell. Repeating what the interrogator says to buy time while you think of what to say next.
“She was swabbed at the hospital after she reported the rape. We also have DNA from Dave Harding and Jimmy Frankel.”
“How do you know it’s my DNA?”
“Remember the water bottle Detective Ronin gave you out at the crime scene? That’s how.”
Towler scratched his arm again. “That bitch.”
Duncan didn’t say Towler’s DNA came from Sabrina’s rape kit, but he’d heavily implied it. He could have come right out and said that they did. There was no law that he had to tell the truth in an interrogation.
Towler licked his lips, because his mouth had gone dry, an involuntary response to high anxiety. Another tell.
Duncan leaned closer. “Look, Chuck, I haven’t always been a fat old man. I sowed my wild oats, but there were some girls, after they got what they wanted, who were ashamed of what they did and wanted to forget that they couldn’t wait to get their hands on my plow. You know what I mean? They’d say some crazy things.”
Eve remembered another lesson Duncan taught her: You have to become the person the suspect needs you to be in order to get what you want. You need to be a chameleon in the interrogation room, changing your colors to match his.
Towler nodded. “I remember her now.”
“Who?”
“Sabrina Morton.”
“Describe her.”
Towler did, accurately, then said: “She watched us surf, said she liked the way we moved. We invited her to party with us. We had a few drinks, passed around some weed, and the higher she got, the wilder she became.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“She took off her top and started doing lap dances on us. Squeezing her tits and grinding against us. We’re only human, you know? She was all over us but she said she couldn’t choose which one she should fuck. So one of us, I don’t remember who, says why not fuck all three of us? And she did.”
“You didn’t force her in any way?”
“Hell, we were the ones who were attacked. She was in heat. Some women get drunk or high and all they want to do is fuck.”
“I know what you mean. Did you all have sex with her and then just leave her on the sand? I’ve gotta say, that’s cold.”
Towler bounced his knee again. “I’m not proud of that, but what else were we supposed to do? She was out cold, it was late, and we didn’t know who she was or where she lived or nothing like that. We couldn’t camp out with her all night and we couldn’t take her with us. So we made sure she was covered and all, figured she’d wake up in an hour or two and go home. I didn’t know until right now that she was the woman who disappeared. She was just some drunken party girl who got a good time from us. You know how it is.”
Duncan nodded. “Is that all? There’s nothing else you want to add? Nothing else you remember now that it’s all coming back?”
“That’s the whole story. There wasn’t any rape. She couldn’t control herself, you know? And since she’s dead, who’s to say different anyway?”
“Well,�
�� Duncan said. “There’s the other woman.”
“Towler looks like he just shit himself,” Moffett said, shaking his head at the monitor on the wall. “Duncan’s the best damn interrogator in the station.”
Burnside nodded. “He missed his calling. He should have been a prosecutor.”
Eve leaned close to the screen. “Duncan’s not done yet.”
Towler instinctively tried to close his knees, a defensive act to protect his groin, but Duncan’s leg was in the way. It was another show of guilt, especially in sex crimes cases. He swallowed hard. “What other woman?”
“Sabrina’s roommate was with her. She not only corroborates her story, but she also remembered the tattoo, identified the three of you from a photo array, and provided her bathing suit. She kept it all these years. Your DNA is all over it, too. Same goes for Dave Harding and Jimmy Frankel. How do you explain that?”
“She’s lying or confused. We must have had sex with her on another night.”
Duncan nodded. “Did you, Dave, and Jimmy often party on the beach and share the same woman?”
“Is that a crime?”
Duncan grinned. “Are you kidding? It’s an achievement. You were living the dream. Look, Chuck, I’m trying to help you. You understand that, right?”
Towler nodded, more than he had to, relieving more of his anxiety and revealing more of his deception. “Yeah, yeah, sure. It’s just that it was six years ago.”
“I get it. I can’t remember what I did this morning. But I vividly remember every time I ever had sex with multiple partners.”
“How many times was that?”
“Not enough, especially now that it’s never going to happen for me again. It sucks getting old and fat. Now I have to live vicariously through guys like you.”
“I could tell you some stories.”
“Just tell me this one so I can get you out of here.”
“Okay, what more do you need to know?”
“If these two girls had sex with you guys by choice, how do you explain Sabrina testing positive for Rohypnol?”
“She tested positive for a roofie?” Towler licked his lips.
No, she didn’t, Eve thought, but Duncan didn’t have to tell the truth.
“Yes, Chuck, she did.”
“I don’t know.” Towler rubbed his chin again. His eyes shifted to the left, then to the right, then back to Duncan. Left to think of a lie, right to decide on it, and straight to deliver it. “Maybe Jimmy gave it to her.”
“Jimmy Frankel? Why Jimmy?”
“Because a couple of years later, he was sent up to Soledad for raping a couple women he pulled over on traffic stops. We were shocked when we heard about it because that wasn’t the Jimmy we knew. But now, I’m seeing things in a different light. Maybe he was always into having sex with women against their will. He was drugging them and we didn’t know it.”
“You mean you and Dave were innocent victims?”
“Yeah, that’s right. Maybe that’s how come I don’t remember the other girl. Maybe I sipped the wrong drink, the one with the roofie in it, or got it from her roofied tongue in my mouth. If they were raped, it was only by Jimmy, not the two of us, because we didn’t know we were screwing drugged women.” Towler was smiling now, thinking he’d played Duncan and talked his way out of this nightmare.
“So who killed Sabrina?”
Towler shrugged. “Had to be Jimmy.”
The point of an interrogation is not to get a confession. A successful interrogation, Duncan once told Eve, is when you walk out of the room with any information, no matter how small, that advances the investigation.
In this case, when Duncan walked out of the interrogation room, they knew that the three deputies had sex with Sabrina Morton and Josie Wallace on Topanga Beach. They knew that Towler was a liar. And they knew that even Towler believed that a deputy murdered Sabrina, perhaps because he did it himself.
It was a successful interrogation, Eve concluded. She’d have to watch the video again some time and closely study Duncan’s technique.
“The ‘roofied tongue defense’ is a new one on me,” Burnside said. “I’d like him to plead that in court just to see the judge’s reaction.”
“It didn’t take him long to point the finger at Frankel,” Eve said.
“Because he’s already in prison and his criminality is a given,” Burnside said. “It’s a no-brainer to lay it all on him.”
Duncan came into the captain’s office without knocking and closed the door behind him as he faced Burnside.
“I don’t see how someone that dumb got into the department,” Duncan said. “Or how he’s lasted this long. Surely he’s had to testify in court before. How did any of his convictions stick after he was cross-examined by a defense attorney?”
“Because he never lied on the stand,” Burnside said. “He did some horrible things six years ago, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been completely honest and diligent in his job.”
“So, do we have a case, Counselor?”
“Hell yes,” Burnside said. “Great work in there, Detective.”
“It’s the one thing I’m gonna miss when I retire,” Duncan said.
Moffett frowned behind his desk. “I don’t see a problem getting a rape conviction against these men but the murder case is entirely circumstantial.”
“Two months ago, I convicted a husband of murdering his wife and I didn’t have a body or a murder weapon. But I had plenty of motive, a lot of damning behavior, and a pattern of deception,” Burnside said. “I’ve got so much more to work with here, her corpse for one thing.”
“You also have three suspects,” Moffett said, “any one of whom could have done it. Doesn’t that create enough reasonable doubt for each individual suspect to get them all off?”
Burnside shrugged. “We just have to get one of the three to flip.”
“We can’t count on that,” Duncan said. “Harding was smart enough to instantly lawyer up and part of wearing that tattoo on his calf is devotion to a brotherhood. They won’t rat on each other.”
So Harding had the tattoo, Eve thought. At least she wouldn’t lose her badge on that bet.
“You’d be surprised what facing life in prison without the possibility of parole will do to weaken someone’s personal convictions,” Burnside said.
Eve shook her head. “I think we have more work to do.”
“I certainly won’t argue against giving me more evidence to strengthen my case,” Burnside said. “So, where will you start?”
“With Deputy Brad Pruitt,” Eve said. “How did he hear about Sabrina showing surfers the drawing of the tattoo? Why did he warn her off? And who did Pruitt tell afterwards about what happened? If we can establish, for instance, that he told Harding about it, that reinforces motive and gives us a deputy to focus on.”
Duncan frowned. “Pruitt won’t turn against his brothers, either.”
“He’s got a pregnant wife and a young son,” Eve said. “I think under pressure he’ll crack and choose his family over his fellow deputies.”
Moffett snorted. “Not everyone places as little value on being liked, accepted, and respected by their colleagues as you do.”
Moffett’s phone rang. He answered it, listened for a moment, thanked the caller, and hung up before addressing his guest again. “Harding’s lawyer is here. They are requesting an audience.”
Duncan looked at Eve and Burnside. “Your turn.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Eve kept the table in the room for Dave Harding’s interrogation. It wasn’t practical to lose it since she and Burnside were sure that Kelsey Corso, Harding’s lawyer, would be doing most of the talking. She was a tall fiftysomething woman with a long sinewy neck that reminded Eve of the trunk of a banyan tree.
Burnside laid out the facts that they knew from DNA evidence, the statement from a surviving victim, and Towler’s admissions about the rapes committed by the three deputies. She didn’t bend the truth the way Duncan had
. Corso tapped her gold pen on her yellow legal pad as Burnside spoke. The only marks on the page were the dots left by her tapping.
“The only thing we don’t know is which deputies are going to prison for life, and which deputy might get out a bit earlier than that,” Burnside said. “I think it’s going to be Towler, since we can’t seem to shut him up.”
“What else has he said?” Harding asked.
“Be quiet, Dave,” Corso said, fixing her gaze on Burnside. “The way I see it, all you know is that my client may have engaged in an act of consensual group sex. Orgies aren’t illegal.”
“Rape and murder are,” Eve said.
“You haven’t proven that my client, or the other deputies, committed either crime.”
“Well, if that’s what you think, we’re done here.” Eve tapped Burnside on the shoulder and they stood up. “Come on, Counselor.”
“Wait,” Harding said. “Where are you going?”
Burnside looked down at Harding. “To make a deal with Towler or Frankel.” She shifted her gaze to Corso. “See you at the arraignment.”
Harding turned to his lawyer. “That’s it?”
“They’re bluffing,” Corso said. “Relax.”
Eve said, “We don’t need you, Dave. Let’s say Towler decides to stop running off at the mouth. Frankel is already in solitary confinement at Soledad. I’m sure he’d sell out his mother for an extra hour of sunlight in the yard each day.”
Corso smirked. “You can’t believe the word of a convicted rapist.”
“I’ll tell you what I believe,” Burnside said. “It wasn’t Dave or Towler or Frankel who killed Sabrina Morton. The three of them killed her together. All for one and one for all, just like the rape. That’s going to be an easy sell to the jury. But if one of the defendants confesses, I’m willing to show him a little mercy for his act of contrition, whether he’s a convicted rapist or a soon-to-be-convicted one.”
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