Moral Defense (Samantha Brinkman Book 2)

by Marcia Clark

  I’d heard about those deportations in lieu of prosecutions. But I saw where he was coming from. The timing of his inquiry about his sister and the potentially bogus drug bust was suspicious. If it was a coincidence, it was an ugly one. “Have you heard from your sister?”

  Abruptly the anger ebbed, and tears welled up in his eyes. “No. I talk to her one month before. No one in Guatemala see her. We think . . .”

  That she’s dead. She might very well be. Clearly, something had happened to her after her bus left Sierra Vista. Whether it was connected to Kevin Hausch was a different story.

  But now I wanted to find out.

  SIXTEEN

  “What do you think?” Alex asked as he turned left onto Hollywood Boulevard.

  Julio had agreed to keep our conversation to himself until we got back to him. I believed he would—for a little while. We were the only ones who’d taken the story about his sister seriously, and it helped that Alex was Latino. But just before we left, Julio said that his public defender was pushing him to plead guilty to the misdemeanor possession, and though he didn’t want to do it, he couldn’t afford to spend a year in county jail if he went to trial and lost.

  That meant there wasn’t much time. Once Julio pled guilty, his complaint against Kevin Hausch and the story about his sister would likely get dismissed as just a bullshit excuse to get out from under a dope charge.

  I watched a skateboarder weave through the crowded sidewalk, his hips rolling under his body like ball bearings. “I just don’t know. I believe something happened to his sister. But for all we know, she jumped off the bus, and she’s hiding somewhere. In which case, what does any cop have to do with it, let alone Hausch?”

  Alex hit the brakes and cursed under his breath as a young woman in headphones crossed in the middle of the boulevard, oblivious to the screeching tires all around her. “Yeah, that’s the thing: if Hausch has nothing to do with it, I’m not sure I buy Julio’s story. There’d be no reason to roust Julio and plant dope on him.” He glanced at me as he waited for the girl to reach the sidewalk. “But we were supposed to get him to drop the complaint and walk away.”

  And we sure hadn’t done that. Damn it. More work on a freebie. Exactly what we didn’t need. I thought about how we could make this case go away. “The key is the sister. If we can show Julio that Hausch has nothing to do with her disappearance, maybe he’ll realize no one’s going to buy his story about getting jacked up, and he’ll let it go.”

  “He might. But that’s going to take some digging. I’m happy to do it, but I think there’s someone who won’t exactly be thrilled with that.”

  “Are you out of your friggin’ minds?” Michelle stood with her hands on her hips, looking—as Alex had predicted—extremely unthrilled. “We can’t afford this.”

  I couldn’t argue, but I could explain. “Yeah, but—”

  Michelle shook her head. “There’s no ‘but’ unless it’s ‘but I don’t mind getting evicted.’”

  She was right, of course. I didn’t mind the long hours. Too busy was just busy enough for me; it kept me from thinking—and feeling. But it wasn’t right to do that to Michy and Alex. They deserved to have lives. “Okay, I surrender. I’m officially done with Hausch.”

  Michelle leaned back and gave me a suspicious look. “What’re you up to? That was way too easy.”

  I raised my hands. “When you’re right, you’re right. That’s all. We said we were going to catch up on the billing, right? I’ll just go over my calendar, make sure it’s up to date. Back in a sec.” Michelle stared at me, still trying to figure out what my game was.

  I headed into my office, closed the door, and fished my cell phone out of my purse. I called Dale and told him what Julio had said. “I can’t spare the time to go to Arizona and dig around. But if you can get me proof there’s no connection between Hausch and Julio’s sister, I’m pretty sure I can get Julio to back off on the complaint.”

  “It’ll have to go on the back burner for now.” Dale sounded amped up. “I was just about to call you. I’ve been squeezing my CIs for intel on the Nazi Low Riders, and one of them just came through. Says he heard someone in the gang bragging about getting even with the ‘city council bitch’ a few days before the murders.”

  Confidential informants were the bane of my existence. Sleazy, unreliable, but sometimes hard to impeach, they’ve screwed more than a few of my clients over the years. “How credible is this guy?”

  “Very. Relatively speaking. But he didn’t have a name, only a description. We’re going to hit up all the probation houses.”

  When a house is associated with gang activity, it gets put on probation. Meaning the cops don’t need a warrant to search it. There had to be at least twenty-five to thirty addresses on that list for the skinhead gangs. That could keep them busy for days. “I sure hope this pans out.”

  “Me, too.”

  I ended the call and got down to work. When I’d finished, I tucked my calendar book under my arm and walked out to Michelle’s desk.

  We worked through each client, and an hour later, the billing for February was done.

  Michelle heaved a sigh of relief. “There, was that so bad?”

  I stood up and stretched. “Yes.”

  I went back to my office and focused on my paying cases, writing motions, making phone calls, and preparing witness lists for the ones I thought might go to trial. By five thirty I felt like I’d done enough penance for one day. I picked up my purse and walked out to the reception area. “I’m pretty much caught up, so I’m taking the night off.” I stopped at Michelle’s desk. “I strongly recommend you do the same.”

  Michelle sat back. “I haven’t seen you leave this early in months. Please tell me you finally have a date.” Her expression said she had very little hope for that possibility.

  I gave her what I hoped was a mysterious smile. “Maybe.”

  Michelle studied me for a moment, then shook her head. “You’re the worst liar ever.” She waved me off. “Let me know what you get on Cassie.”

  I huffed and threw my jacket over my shoulder. “Okay, fine.” I’m actually a pretty good liar, but not when it comes to Michelle. I haven’t been able to put one over on her since seventh grade.

  I had set up a meeting with Cassie’s besties, Tawny and Rain. Tawny had volunteered her house. Her parents would be leaving for a party at the country club no later than six, so we’d have the place to ourselves.

  It was a tough drive. The days were lengthening, and at five thirty, the sun was just high enough to drill through my windshield at eye level. It was like looking into a laser beam. As I got off the freeway, I remembered that I’d been meaning to get back to Heather, the teenage beauty who lived across the street from Cassie. I’d gotten the feeling she had something to say about Stephen Sonnenberg when her mother interrupted. It might be nothing, but I was already in the neighborhood, and I had a few extra minutes.

  I parked in front of her house and had one foot out of the door when a car pulled up and parked in the driveway. Heather got out of the driver’s side. Her mother got out of the passenger side looking frazzled. “Heather, you have to yield when you’re making a left. That means you wait for everybody! It’s not worth a few extra seconds if you kill someone.”

  This probably wasn’t my best timing, but oh well. I stood up and waved to them. Heather waved back and began to approach me. Her mother hesitated for a moment, then followed. We met on the sidewalk, and I reintroduced myself. The mother said her name was Laura.

  I shook her hand and gave her a—hopefully—disarming smile. “I just realized the other day that I heard from practically everyone on the block about what they thought of the Sonnenbergs, but I never had the chance to ask you guys.” I’d decided to try the open-ended approach. If Heather clammed up, I’d have to find a way to get her alone.

  Heather darted a look at her mother. There it was again. That little hiccup. Laura’s expression hardened. She spoke first. “I didn�
�t really care for Stephen. Paula was—I mean is—she’s still hanging in, right?” I nodded. Laura looked relieved. “I always thought she was basically a good person. A little on the ambitious side for my taste, but her heart was in the right place. Stephen just rubbed me the wrong way.”

  Heather put a hand on her mother’s arm. “But you didn’t feel that way until I told you . . .”

  Laura shrugged, then nodded. “I suppose that’s true. But I saw it, too.”

  I looked from Laura to Heather. “Saw what?”

  Laura covered Heather’s hand with her own. “The way he looked at Heather.” She paused for a moment, and her eyes tightened. “A little too much interest, a little too much energy. It wasn’t a big deal. I didn’t think he’d ever do anything, but it felt . . . wrong, you know?”

  Oh boy, did I. “Did he ever say anything to you, Heather?”

  She looked away, uncomfortable. “Nothing bad, really. It’s just, whenever he saw me, he’d come up to me and want to talk.”

  “About?”

  Heather shrugged, but the way she rolled her shoulders looked as though she were trying to get something off her back. “Just, how was school, what was I going to do on the weekend, what were we reading in English class. Dumb stuff like that.” Her face reddened. “But he always got too close to me. He’d stand, like, right here.” She put a hand in front of her nose and made a face. “It gave me the creeps.”

  I could well imagine. “But you never said anything to Paula about it?”

  Laura shook her head. “Heather didn’t want to. She thought Paula would dust us off as paranoid.” She sighed. “Which was probably true. And I didn’t want to cause friction. So I told Heather to walk away whenever she saw him and not to worry about being rude.”

  Wow. A mother who believed her daughter, who cared about her daughter. Imagine that. I tried to picture Celeste saying something like that to me. It almost made me laugh out loud. “Did you ever hear any of the other neighbors complain about Stephen?”

  “Not that I know of,” Heather said. “You, Mom?”

  Laura shook her head. “And I know that if you ask other people on the block, they’ll say he was a good guy. Maybe he was—with them. But they don’t have pretty teenage girls. Heather’s the only one on this block. The other kids are either much younger or much older.”

  Laura chatted for a moment about the influx of young professionals and how it had changed the neighborhood, then excused herself. “I’ve got laundry to fold.” She turned to Heather. “And you have homework to do.” We said good-bye, and Heather followed her mother up the front walk.

  I got back into my car, thinking about what Heather and Laura had said. It fit with what Stephen’s coworkers had said, that he liked younger women. But a woman in her twenties felt a lot different to me than a seventeen-year-old girl who still lived at home.

  I had not one doubt that Heather was telling the truth. I just wasn’t sure how far to take it, what exactly it meant about Stephen. It wasn’t a crime to give off a lech-y vibe, smile a little too widely at a pretty young girl, or watch young interns with a little too much interest.

  I’d just pulled away from the curb when a baseball rolled out into the street. A little boy in a baseball uniform ran after it. I waited for him to get it, and he waved a thank-you to me. I smiled and waved back.

  I drove off thinking how very different life in suburbia was from anything I’d ever known. I’d never even lived in a house until Celeste moved us in with that piece of shit, Sebastian Cromer. Until then—and again after we’d moved out—we’d always lived in apartments. And as close to Beverly Hills as she could manage. Not because Celeste cared about good schools or safe neighborhoods, but because she wanted megabucks and a fancy life filled with luxury in an enviable zip code. None of those things was on offer in a middle-class suburban neighborhood like this one.

  SEVENTEEN

  I headed east on Mountain Street, toward the old-money part of Glendale. The trees on Tawny’s block were so broad and leafy they formed an almost complete canopy over the entire road, and the houses were only barely visible above high, thick hedges or walls. Some of the homes had been newly rebuilt in a Mediterranean or modern style, but many were the original two-story brick and Tudor styles. Tawny’s house, a two-story brick mansion with wings on either side, was set back a good fifty yards from the street. It was on a rise that I’d bet gave the upper floors a view of the city. Green, rolling hills stretched out behind the mansion. I pulled up to the tall iron gates at the bottom of the long driveway and rolled down the window to press the call button. The smell of grass and dirt, along with a skunky odor that I recognized as wild onion, floated in on damp air. I pulled my jacket closed. It was a lot chillier here. A young girl’s voice asked for my name. I gave it, and the gates opened.

  I parked off to the side of the circular driveway—which sported the obligatory three-tiered fountain in the center—in case Mom and Dad decided to come home early. The heavy wooden door opened before I could ring the bell. I was kind of disappointed. I wanted to hear whether it played “Hail to the Chief” or something. A very sexy-pretty, slender young girl with long, dirty-blonde hair and pink streaks that reminded me of Cassie’s ’do stood in the doorway. In fashionably torn jeans and Uggs, she clung to the door as though it were a favorite teddy bear. “Tawny?” She nodded and stepped back. I walked inside. “Thanks for seeing me.”

  “Sure. Rain’s in the family room. Esmé made us a fire.”

  As she turned to lead me there, I mentally thanked Esmé, who I assumed was one of their housekeepers. It was icy cold in the house. We crossed a marble foyer and entered a high-ceilinged, richly furnished room with complementing leather couches, wingback chairs, and ottomans, where a fire roared in an oversize fireplace. In front of it, on a large, fluffy burgundy pillow, sat a young Goth-looking girl, her skin so white it seemed translucent against her inky-black hair. When she turned to face us full-on, the gemstone piercings in her nose and upper lip flashed in the firelight.

  I smiled and held out my hand. “Hi, Rain. Thanks for seeing me.”

  She stared at my hand for a moment, then reached up and briefly folded her hand around my fingers. Hers were cold and clammy. “Sure, no problem.”

  It struck me that neither girl had even cracked the tiniest smile yet. Tawny grabbed two more plushy pillows from a stack to the left of the fireplace and put them on the floor near Rain. I noticed they were color-coordinated in floral patterns of burgundy, hunter green, and dark blue, to match the furniture. We sat down.

  Tawny spoke first. “We’re happy to talk to you. But like I said when you called, we already told the police everything we could think of.”

  Or rather, everything the police could think to ask. The cops were still working on the skinhead theory. I’d decided to leave them to it and dig into the Abel-as-target theory. “I might have some different questions, though. I heard you guys saw Cassie recently.”

  Rain looked at the fire. “She’s totally wrecked. I feel so bad for her.”

  “Yeah,” Tawny said. “It’s, like, really hard to even imagine what she’s dealing with.”

  I told them I felt sorry for her, too. Then I asked whether they minded sharing what they knew about Cassie and Abel. They didn’t. I started with Cassie. “Does Cassie have a boyfriend?”

  Tawny frowned. “Now? No, I don’t think so.”

  “She was kind of hanging with this junior at the beginning of the year,” Rain said. “Waylon Stubing.” She looked at Tawny. “Remember?”

  Tawny looked puzzled for a moment, then the clouds cleared. “Oh, yeah. He’s in drama, really cute. I thought he was gay until Cassie started hanging out with him.”

  “But they’re not together anymore?”

  Tawny leaned back on her hands and stretched her feet toward the fire. “They broke up around Christmas.”

  Just a few months before the murders. Maybe she’d gone back to him now. I could see her needing all the
moral support she could get. “Did you guys know Cassie’s parents at all?”

  Tawny’s expression showed she didn’t get the relevance, but she answered anyway. “Not really. We mainly knew what Cassie said about them—”

  Rain rolled her eyes at Tawny and cut in. “They were total assholes, and they made her feel like shit every single day, like she constantly had to bow down to them because they did her the big favor of adopting her. Mutts from the pound get treated better than those jerks treated Cassie.”

  Tawny very obviously didn’t agree. “Come on, Rain. They weren’t that bad.” She gave Rain a pointed look. “At least they weren’t drunks.”

  Rain looked away, and we all fell silent for a moment. One mystery solved: why Tiegan hadn’t wanted to let Cassie stay at Rain’s house. I exchanged a look with Tawny to let her know I got it. “What did you think of them, Tawny?”

  Tawny moved closer to the fire and hugged her knees. “They could be clueless sometimes. And her mom did get kind of bent when Cassie said she wanted to find her birth mother. I think that’s when she told Cassie she should be grateful and all that. I don’t know that it was a constant thing.”

  I leaned toward Rain. “But you think it was?”

  Rain shrugged and looked chastened. “I don’t know. Maybe not.”

  I studied her. Did she want to talk about it? I gave it a sideways shot. “Did any of your parents get to know Cassie’s mom and dad?”

  Rain’s expression turned bitter. “My dad left when I was seven, and my mom wouldn’t remember who she met yesterday.”

  Tawny gave me a sardonic smile. “My parents? They don’t even know Cassie, and they barely even know Rain.”

  Rain gave a short bark of a laugh. “And Tawny and I have been friends since fifth grade.” She gave Tawny a sarcastic smile. “But at least you have Esmé.”

  Tawny gave a humorless little laugh and explained. “Esmé’s our tenth housekeeper. She barely speaks a word of English.”

  I gave her a sympathetic look. Second mystery solved: why Tiegan wasn’t crazy about Tawny’s family.