by Marcia Clark
I drove to the station, thinking about why a skinhead would target an average middle-class family like this. True, the mom, Paula Sonnenberg, was a city councilwoman, but that was hardly a high-profile gig. And I couldn’t imagine how an administrator at IBM or a high school kid could run that far afoul of a skinhead gang.
The building that housed the Glendale Police Department was small compared with the huge, impersonal Police Administration Building downtown, where my father, Dale Pearson, worked. I hadn’t grown up with him; all I’d had was Celeste, a narcissist who’d resented me from the moment she’d learned she was pregnant. She’d told me I was the result of a one-night stand with someone who—like her—had wanted nothing to do with a kid. I’d learned that was a total lie in the most bizarre way possible. Dale, a veteran homicide detective with LAPD, got charged with the double homicide of a beloved actress and her roommate, and I wound up as his lawyer. Let me just say for the record: meeting a parent for the first time after he’s been charged with two murders is not the most fun way to explore your family tree. In any case, he and my mother had actually dated for a while, until she found out he didn’t have money—which was right about the time she realized she was pregnant. She hit Dale up for abortion money and dumped him. Ultimately she found out it was too late to get rid of me, but she never told him about me. And that’s why Dale and I got to find out about each other when he was Suspect Number One for a notorious double homicide.
That I—who’d always been as virulently anticop as they come—could wind up having a father who was an LAPD homicide detective was one of those obnoxious life ironies; funny to those who know me, very unfunny to me. I suppose it isn’t exactly his idea of perfection to have a daughter who defends the criminals he busts, either.
But now, for a change, having a homicide detective for a dad might come in handy. Dale was back on the job, thanks to my getting his case thrown out. He was assigned to Cold Cases, but he had friends in the Robbery Homicide Division—the elite unit that picked up the high-profile murders—and the Sonnenberg murders fit that bill. The case belonged to Glendale PD at the moment, but I had no doubt it’d land in RHD within hours—if it hadn’t already.
As I pulled up in front of the Glendale police station, I braced myself for a nasty reception. The local cops hated it when RHD took away their hottest and biggest cases. If RHD had already bounced them out, I was going to get a face full of misdirected bitterness.
On the drive over, I’d thought about the possibility that Cassie was the murderer. I knew the cops had to keep her in the mix, if only because she hadn’t been attacked. But it was hard to picture her doing all that. A knife attack, three people, and it looked like the killer had broken in through Abel’s window. None of that made Cassie a likely suspect. But I couldn’t dismiss the possibility. In any case, I didn’t intend to talk about that. First of all, the cops wouldn’t tell me anything. Second of all, she was my client. It was my job to steer them away from her. So I wanted to see how seriously they were taking the skinhead theory.
I parked at the curb and stared up at the gray-toned slabs of stone and brick. See, the problem starts right there. Why all that gray? Why all those skinny windows? The place looked like a modern-day gulag. You want people to feel comfortable with the police, think of them as protectors instead of bullies and thugs. So why not make the cop shop at least look like a friendly place? Paint a mural on it. Or show you’re really cool and hire one of those gang kids with mad artistic skills. And maybe have rap music playing in the lobby. Something classic, like Tupac. I replayed the lyrics to “Changes” in my head. Rap probably wouldn’t sell. But the rest was doable. I walked up to the front desk and asked who was in charge of the Sonnenberg murder case. The desk sergeant gave me a suspicious look. “You a reporter?”
I shook my head and slid my card across the counter. “Samantha Brinkman. I’m representing your key eyewitness, Cassie Sonnenberg.”
He made a stink face when he looked at my card. A defense lawyer is the only thing they hate more than reporters, but I watched him do the math. I could either help the detectives set up meetings with her, or I could make her real hard to find. Not impossible, but hard.
“Have a seat. I’ll see what they say.”
I took a seat on one of the minimalist aluminum and plastic chairs and scrolled through my e-mail, answered a few, then checked out my Twitter feed. It’s always edifying to see audience reactions after an appearance on Crime Time.
@sambrinkman: drug dealer whore #sleazeballlawyer
I hope the FBI shoots you in the back #fuckalllawyers
Nice tits.
Very insightful stuff. But I made a mental note to remember which bra I’d been wearing.
It was a good fifteen minutes before a slender man in slacks, a plaid sport jacket, and a navy tie came out. He wore his thinning brown hair slicked back and had a surprisingly warm smile. “Samantha Brinkman?”
I stood up. “You’re the lead detective?”
“Until RHD takes it away.” He looked at his watch. “Which should be any second now.” He held out a hand. “Westin Emmons.” We shook. “I’m a big—well, big is probably taking it too far, but I’m definitely a fan of your work.”
“Thanks.” Dale’s case had gotten lots of coverage. And getting a cop acquitted of all charges had improved my image with the police. Though to be honest, it couldn’t have gotten much worse. And the animosity was mutual. “I’m about to get appointed to represent Cassie. Just kind of a standby thing, until you get the guy. She told me about the man in the blue bandanna. He sounds like a skinhead, and her counselor’s worried he might come after Cassie. I assume you guys are taking care of that.”
“We are, though I think it’s pretty unlikely he’ll go after her. Come on back; I’ll fill you in on what we’ve got so far.”
Never in my life had I been treated this cordially in a police station. I guessed this was what it was like to be a prosecutor. Emmons led me to the modern version of a bullpen, a rabbit warren of gray cubicles, and pulled a chair to the side of his desk for me. “The mom and dad had booked a hotel room for the night. According to the hotel manager—who comped them a bottle of champagne—they were celebrating their anniversary. But the mom got food poisoning—bad fish—so they canceled and came home.”
He hit a key on his computer and scanned the reports on the monitor. “Broken window in the son’s room looks like the point of entry. That was the only room ransacked, probably because the mom and dad walked in on the killer. We know Abel’s wallet was stolen, but we don’t believe burglary was the real motive. A burglar wouldn’t have taken the time to kill that way—or hung around to kill the parents. No murder weapon. Preliminary exam by the coroner says it was a large, dagger-type knife. None of the kitchen knives are missing that we can tell, so we think the killer brought the knife with him.”
“And I take it you found the back door unlocked.” He nodded. “You said you don’t think burglary was the motive, then I guess you think it’s personal. Who hates the family enough to do something like this? From what I’ve heard about them, it makes no sense.”
Emmons pushed back from the computer and faced me with a grim expression. “That’s one question we probably can answer. You already know that Cassie’s description seems to fit a skinhead.” I nodded. “Paula, the mother, is a city councilwoman. The white supremacist gangs in the area have been growing. Even had an arson at a black church a few months ago. We couldn’t pin it on any specific gang, but someone painted a swastika on the sidewalk, so . . .” Emmons lifted his hands.
Pretty easy to connect those dots. “Did Paula take action?”
Emmons had a look of admiration. “She got a stiff gang injunction passed about a month ago. Nice work, but ever since then, she’s been getting death threats at her office. And last week, someone called in a bomb threat.”
That brought things into focus. “I heard skinheads were moving in, but I didn’t realize it was that bad.”
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br /> Emmons nodded with a look of disgust. “PEN1’s big here. Some Nazi Low Riders have been spotted lately, too. We’re hoping that in a day or so, when Cassie’s feeling a little better, she can give us more details on the guy.”
They’d need it. Public Enemy Number 1 and the Nazi Low Riders were two of the bigger gangs under the umbrella of the Aryan Brotherhood. Cassie’s general description could probably fit a couple hundred of them. But one thing about the skinhead theory didn’t make sense. “You think the mom was the target, then?” Emmons nodded. “But they weren’t even home when he broke in. And other than Cassie, the mom’s the only one who survived . . . sort of.”
Emmons’s expression said he’d already thought of that. “They took Uber that night; their car was in the driveway, so it looked like they were home. And the mom . . .” Emmons shook his head. “From what the paramedics said, she looked as close to dead as you can get and still have a heartbeat. I have to imagine he was in a hurry or he’d have stopped to make sure.”
“But why break into the son’s room?”
“You haven’t seen the place, have you?” I shook my head. “He probably didn’t know whose room he’d broken into. We found a brick on the floor just inside the window. Looks like that’s what he used. My guess is, he picked the son’s room because that window faced the backyard, so it was less exposed.”
I supposed that made sense—for a boneheaded killer who’d go after a city councilwoman just because she got a gang injunction. “What’re you doing about security?”
“We’ve got a guard posted outside the mom’s hospital room, and I’ve got all units patrolling the house where Cassie’s staying, plus one permanently posted outside the house.”
I hadn’t noticed a black-and-white unit when I’d been there. “Plain car?” Emmons nodded. “How’s the mom doing?”
“Not well. She lost a lot of blood, and it seems the stab wound to the back of her neck might’ve done some damage to her spinal cord. We don’t expect her to make it.” He shook his head, his expression bleak. “Helluva thing for this little town.”
I tried to imagine that crime scene, the fury of the attack that would’ve left a violent energy lingering in the air, the bodies splayed around the room, the coppery smell of all that blood.
It was a helluva thing. For any town.
THREE
When I got back to my car, I called Dale. Emmons had been pretty forthcoming, but he hadn’t said much about how they planned to track down that skinhead. Not that I expected him to. He couldn’t know for sure whether I’d leak something to the press and tip the guy off. But Dale might have some inside info, and if he did, he’d tell me. Maybe.
Lucky for me, he was on his way home. Unlucky for me, he was on his way home from his anger management class. Those classes always left him in a foul—angry—mood. I asked him whether he had time to talk—but in person, not on the cell phone.
“Yeah, you can come by the house. I’ve got a couple of hours before I have to start getting ready.”
“For what?”
“For a date.”
“Another crime victim?”
Dale sighed. “You’re not funny.”
“Who’s joking?” Dale had met Chloe Monahan, the actress he’d been accused of killing, when her apartment was burglarized two months before her death. They’d started dating, but the relationship had already been going sour by the time she was murdered. None of that had helped his case any. It’s not illegal for a cop to date a crime victim, but given Dale’s track record, why tempt fate?
Dale gave an irritable sigh. “Not that it’s any of your business, but no. Sarah’s a crime-scene tech. I’ll leave the front door open.” He ended the call.
See what I mean? Crabby as hell.
I made it to Dale’s house in Porter Ranch in just half an hour. I hadn’t seen the place since I’d dropped him off the day his case got dismissed. He’d really fixed it up. It was a three-bedroom Spanish style with an enclosed courtyard in front. Dale had painted the exterior wall ochre and framed the stucco around the outer door with Spanish-style colored tiles. It wasn’t a big change, but somehow, it gave the house a much warmer, more inviting look. I had to hand it to him, he had an artistic eye.
And he knew how to dress, too. He was wearing a tailored Jared Lang dress shirt, gray with darker gray paisley cuffs, and black slacks with black Italian loafers. You’d never know he was a cop. Except for the regulation haircut.
Dale was in the living room running the vacuum cleaner. I had to yell to be heard over the noise. “Getting the crime scene ready for her?”
Dale gave me a flat look. “It’s good you went to law school.” He bent down and ran the vacuum cleaner under the coffee table. “No, I’m trying to work through a case.” He gestured to the vacuum cleaner. “It helps me think.”
“Yeah, me, too.” It was weird, finding out that we had little things like that in common. “You want to talk about it, I can listen.”
He turned off the vacuum cleaner, pulled the plug, and pushed it into the hall closet. “No, thanks.” He gestured for me to have a seat. “Want something to drink?” I shook my head. “You sure? I’m getting a water.”
“I’m good.” I sat in the wingback chair. Dale came back in with a bottle of water and plopped down on the couch. I knew I probably shouldn’t poke the bear, but I had to ask. “How’re the anger management classes going?”
Dale’s expression turned dark and irritable. Yep, shouldn’t have poked the bear. “Yuppie-time, crystal-twirling, pyramid-wearing bullshit.” He took a long pull from his bottle of water and set it down a little too hard, a few drops splashing onto the coffee table. “It’s ridiculous that they’re making me do this. We were both drunk, she hit me, then I shoved her. This makes me a wife beater? Since fucking when?” He swiped away the drops of water on the coffee table with the side of his hand, his expression disgusted. “Goddamn waste of time.”
Clearly, the classes were working well. The night Chloe Monahan got killed, she and Dale had had a fight. And it was true, he hadn’t really roughed her up. But not everyone in the department was a fan of Dale’s. Even though he’d been cleared of the murders, there were some who didn’t like the idea that a homicide detective had even been charged—guilty or not. So, to appease Dale’s detractors, the brass had decided he should do penance. His fight with Chloe was the only thing he could truly be blamed for. Anger management classes were the answer/punishment.
Dale sighed. “But you didn’t come here to listen to me bitch about those stupid classes. What’s up?”
I told him I thought I’d probably be appointed to represent Cassie Sonnenberg and what I’d learned about the murders. “You have any inside intel on the skinhead guy? Whether they’ve got anyone specific they think is good for it?”
“Not so far. But I heard the Robbery Homicide Division is looking at the case. I’m guessing they’ll take over today. If they do, I’ve got sources I can work there. How’s the kid doing?”
I remembered her white, pinched face, her racking sobs. “Cassie’s a wreck. That was the only family she really knew.”
“Yeah, I heard she was adopted.” Dale shook his head. “Poor kid. What a tough break.”
“Definitely. And I guess they can’t really rule her out yet, but . . .”
Dale had a pained expression. “They will eventually. What about friends? Is there somebody she’s close to who can take her in?”
That was even sadder. “Not that I can tell.”
“How’d you wind up with the case?”
I told him about Tiegan’s call. “Right now, the only adult supervision Cassie’s got is people from school . . . and me.” The thought made me stop. I’d had a rough childhood myself, but that was the one thing I’d been spared. “You know, it just occurred to me. Why didn’t Celeste put me up for adoption?”
Dale frowned, then shook his head. “I don’t know. But you can bet it had nothing to do with what was good for you.”
But I found out that life could get worse—a lot worse—when Celeste landed the man of her dreams: a billionaire real-estate mogul who lived in a mansion, a virtual castle, in Bel Air. The day we moved in with Sebastian Cromer, she was ecstatic. She’d achieved her life’s goal of climbing into bed with all the money she could ever want. My life, however, became a living hell, because Sebastian the Magnificent was a raging pedophile.
I spent my thirteenth year on this planet in an escalating spiral of abuse that started with lascivious looks and ended with nightly rapes. I’d been afraid to tell my mother. I knew she wouldn’t want to hear that her Daddy Warbucks was really a Sandusky. But I finally couldn’t take it anymore, so I told her. She called me a liar, a jealous little bitch who couldn’t stand to see her happy. And it wasn’t until I actually managed to get a photo of him attacking me and threatened to take it to the police that she finally moved us out of there.
Dale and I talked a little longer about Cassie and the possibility that the murderer was a skinhead out for revenge. I told Dale that Glendale PD was giving Cassie and her mother protection. “But Emmons doesn’t think they’re really in danger.”
Dale polished off his water and screwed the cap back on. “Me, either. I don’t see the perp coming back for Cassie, and the mom’s probably not going to make it.” He glanced at the clock on the side table. “I’d better get going. If RHD takes the case, I’ll let you know what I find out.”
Dale walked me out to the car. When he saw Beulah, he shook his head. “When are you going to let go of this thing? You need money? I can help you out.”
I glared at him, then patted the hood. “Don’t listen to him, honey. He can’t help it. You know how superficial men can be.”