by Marcia Clark
“Nothing. She was just standing there, staring at them, with the knife in her hand. She seemed sort of out of it, like she couldn’t believe what she’d done.”
She wasn’t that out of it. “But she took off. And left you in one terrible situation.”
Cassie started to speak, then stopped. She nodded. “That was my idea. If they found out she did it, she’d be in prison forever. But I’m a juvenile. I thought they couldn’t lock me up for that long.”
I remembered her shock when I’d told her how wrong she’d been. “So what happened when Tiegan left?”
“She said to give her ten minutes and call her just before I called the cops.”
I remembered the call made to the burner phone that night. “What phone did you use to call her?”
She frowned, then shook her head. “I don’t remember. I just know I did it. I called her and then the cops right after. She told me what to say.”
“That an Aryan Brotherhood guy did it?”
“Yeah.” Cassie slumped back in her chair, depleted.
I had to push away the shocker of her relationship with Tiegan for a moment to let her version of the murders sink in. First of all, Tiegan’s motive. Did it make sense that she’d lose it like that and decide to take out the whole family? Well, actually, she hadn’t targeted the whole family. She’d gone after Abel. The father and mother were collateral damage—wrong place, wrong time. I supposed targeting Abel made sense. Cassie had always downplayed the father’s role. I didn’t find it hard to believe she’d done the same when she told Tiegan what’d been going on. And if Tiegan was messed up enough to seduce a teenage girl, I supposed it was possible she’d go over the edge when she heard what that girl had been going through.
At any rate, I thought I might be able to sell it to a jury.
Otherwise, at first blush, I thought her story hung together pretty well—with one exception. “Why did you bury your pajamas in the backyard?”
Cassie stared at me numbly for a moment. “I don’t really know. I just thought it’d look bad to have blood on me, that the cops would never believe I was just trying to help them.”
Maybe, maybe not. I’d let it go for now. “And Abel’s wallet—you wanted to make it look like a burglary?” Cassie nodded. “What happened to the knife?”
“Tiegan took it. She said she’d get rid of it.” Cassie leaned her head against the wall again. She looked like she’d just run through nine miles of quicksand.
I’d go over this story with her a thousand more times to get it all straight, but for now, I could see she’d had enough. There was just one other, non-murder-related question, though. “Do you know if Tiegan had been with other girls?”
Cassie’s body was limp, her free hand laying palm up in her lap. “No. But she did tell me about a girl who’d been stalking her. A junior. It wasn’t around here, though.”
“Was it at Mission Viejo High?”
Cassie frowned. “Yeah, I think so.” A curious expression flitted across her face. I could see she’d wondered how I knew, but she just didn’t have the bandwidth to get into it at the moment. Her features sagged, and she leaned her head against the wall. “I’m sorry I lied to you.” But a second later, she sat up, a worried look on her face. “You can’t tell anyone, right? You said everything I told you was confidential.”
Her devotion to Tiegan, given what her life had been, was understandable. But if this story was true—or, more to the point, sellable—there was no way I was going to let her misplaced loyalty doom her to a life of wasted martyrdom. “It is. But you can’t take the fall for this, Cassie—”
She sat forward with effort, her expression tortured. “It’s all my fault, don’t you get that? If I hadn’t told her—”
The guard announced that visiting hours were over.
Cassie gave me a wary look. “What are you going to do?”
I had an idea, but I wasn’t about to share it. “I’m going to give you some time to think about this. I get that Tiegan was good to you, that she was there for you when it felt like no one else was. And I get that you feel like covering for her is the right thing to do—now. But I promise you, six months, a year from now, after you’re convicted, you’ll realize it wasn’t. And you’ll spend the rest of your life regretting it in a six-by-eight-foot cage. So when you go back to your cell, I want you to look around at those walls and think: ‘I’m going to get old and die here.’ And think about all the things you’ll never get to do. No hanging out with Tawny and Rain, no shopping, no college, no acting school, no boyfriends.” I didn’t say “no girlfriends.” I knew she’d be able to find plenty of those in prison. I looked directly into her eyes. “No life.”
As the guard took her away, I wondered whether anything I’d said had landed. Not that it mattered.
I was going to make this come out right, regardless.
FORTY-SIX
Alex stared at me for a long moment. “I’m glad you told me not to start the car.” His mouth had fallen open as I told him about my conversation with Cassie. Now he shook his head and stared at Twin Towers through the windshield. “An affair with a female teacher? I never would’ve guessed.”
But he didn’t look terribly rocked by it. “She took advantage of a messed-up kid, Alex.”
He held up his hands. “I’m not saying she didn’t.”
I drew a circle around him in the air. “Not really feeling the outrage.”
Alex was puzzled at first, but then he nodded, looking chastened. “You’re right. It’s a double standard, I guess. It does feel a little less . . . horrible. Tiegan’s a woman. And she’s really pretty.” He sighed to himself. “And small.”
I nodded. “I know. It feels different because the physical threat isn’t there. But the emotional damage is the same.”
The corners of his mouth twitched. “Are we already practicing for closing arguments?”
I glared at him. “No.” He widened his eyes and mock glared back. I folded my arms. “Okay, maybe. But that doesn’t mean it’s not true.”
“Hey, I’m cool. Practice all you want.” Alex stared at the jail building again, a searching look on his face. “Do you really think Tiegan was planning to have Cassie move in with her? That’s just crazy. What were they going to do? Say they were sisters?”
“I don’t know.” It seemed crazy to me, too. “But that doesn’t mean it can’t be true. Mary Kay Letourneau moved in with her eighth grader.”
Alex rolled his eyes. “That one was just a bridge too far for me. Thirteen years old. That woman was loca. And they had babies? Please. I get that some teenagers can look pretty grown up—especially when they get to be sixteen or seventeen. But I just don’t know how you get past the fact that you can’t talk to them.” He gave me a frank look. “Speaking strictly for teenage boys, they’re all idiots.”
That pretty much fit my memory of them. Then again, I’d never dated anyone less than twenty years old—even when I was fourteen. “Well, in the name of full disclosure, teenage girls aren’t exactly material for the Algonquin Round Table, either.” I was ready to shift gears and talk about the murders. I’d had enough pedophile talk for one day. “You have the crime-scene photos?”
“Yeah.” Alex pulled up the photos on his iPad and put it between us so I could see. “Looks to me like her story fits.”
I’d known it would fit. I’d just wanted to look for places where Tiegan’s prints might show up. I pulled out my cell and tapped the phone number for Emmons, hoping I’d be able to deal with him instead of Rusty Templeton. The call went to his voice mail. I couldn’t leave a message. Technically, what I was about to do was a little unethical. I wasn’t allowed to divulge what Cassie had told me. But if I just “helped” the investigation along with a little—okay, a big—tip, without saying where I got the information, I wouldn’t exactly be violating the privilege. Just bending the corners a little. “Let’s head over to PAB.” Maybe Emmons was around and just hadn’t heard his phone.
&nb
sp; Alex pulled out of the parking lot. “Do you buy Cassie’s story?”
“I don’t know.” I don’t buy much of anything my clients say until I see some corroborating evidence. Especially clients who’d already lied to me once before. And it didn’t matter. It wasn’t my job to believe. It was my job to make the jury believe. “Let me put it this way: I think it’s buyable.”
But a lot depended on whether there was any physical evidence to back it up. Without that, it’d just be a “she said, she said,” a credibility contest—which really translates to a popularity contest. If it came down to that, I liked Cassie’s chances. Who’s the jury going to believe? The poor orphan kid? Or the predatory pedophile? But juries are strange, unpredictable beasts. You can never be sure whose ox they’ll gore.
What I did know was that now, I stood a real chance of winning this case. Not just getting a lesser conviction for manslaughter, but an actual acquittal.
When we got to the PAB, I asked the officer at the reception desk for Detectives Emmons and Templeton. I chanted to myself, “Let it be Emmons, let it be Emmons, let it be . . .”
So of course, Detective Rusty Templeton stepped out of the elevator.
“Detective Templeton, it’s a pleasure.” Alex wisely took the lead.
I nodded to him. “Hey, Rusty.”
He gave us a look that managed to be both weary and suspicious. “Don’t tell me, let me guess: you’ve got more leads for me. Pardon me if I don’t break out the bubbly. Your last lead’s still threatening to sue me.”
I’d heard that Danny was pretty worked up about getting arrested “just for standing on a goddamn sidewalk.” I shrugged. “He looked good for it at the time. And you should thank me. Hauling in suspects helps the image. Makes you look like you’re actually doing your job.”
Rusty looked like he wanted to take a swing at me. I kind of hoped he would. I could use the money. But Alex, the killjoy, stepped in close and distracted him. “We just wanted to suggest you run someone’s prints. I assume you have some unidentified strays?”
Rusty stared at Alex and spoke with a mouthful of sarcasm. “Nope, not a one.”
I couldn’t stand it; I had to take a shot. “Come on, Rusty. This one’s so easy, even you can do it. Run Tiegan Donner. She’s a teacher; her prints are on file.”
Rusty gave me an incredulous look. “Are you friggin’ kidding me? That hot little English teacher?” He gave a loud bark of a laugh. “And so what if we do find her prints? She’s probably been there to meet with the mother. That girl had to be one helluva problem child.” Rusty snickered. “I’ve heard of some desperate moves, but this one beats all. I’m gonna post it on our idiot page.”
“Otherwise known as your Facebook page?” He drilled me with an ugly glare. “Let me just warn you: if you don’t run her prints, I’ll dance you all over the courtroom with it. I’ll wrap it around your neck so tight, the jury will have you swinging from it. So by all means, don’t run her prints. Then get ready to hear ‘Not guilty’ on the biggest no-brainer you ever mangled.”
Rusty’s face got so red I thought his head was going to blast off his shoulders. He leaned in and spoke in a low voice. “Better drive carefully, Counselor.” He turned and clomped over to the elevators.
I called out, “They say it’s better for your heart if you take the stairs.” He ignored me.
Alex gave me an exasperated look. When we got to the parking lot, he asked, “Why do you have to get into it with him?”
“Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly. I’ve gotta call a lazy-ass cop a lazy-ass cop.” We got into the car. “And if he were smart, he’d have played nice to find out why I was asking him to run Tiegan’s prints.”
“Would you have told him?”
“Of course not.” But I did need to tell him where to look for her prints. I’d text Dale a list of the places I’d noted during Cassie’s story and tell him to take credit for the ideas. If Rusty Templeton knew that list had come from me, he’d wipe his ass with it.
Alex gave me a look out of the corner of his eye. “Where am I going?”
“Atwater.”
Alex made a U-turn and steered us toward the freeway. “Who’re we going to see?”
“Not who. What.” I gave him Tiegan’s address.
Luckily, Tiegan’s apartment building had open carports that were visible from the alley. I told Alex to drive slow. I’d noticed the car Tiegan drove when we’d met for drinks at Firefly. The memory reminded me of how she’d played me—and it pissed me off all over again.
I pointed to the blue Toyota Corolla. “Pull up next to that one.” I got out, looked around to make sure no one was watching, then took photos from every angle. When I got back in, I told him to drive to the crime scene. “If we’re lucky, someone around the neighborhood will remember seeing the car that night.”
Alex gave me a weary look. “But we already canvassed that ’hood. Everyone we talked to said they didn’t see a thing.”
“No. They said they didn’t see a person.” I did a mental review of the people we’d spoken to. I wasn’t crazy about more hours of door knocking, either. “Let’s start with that retired Loomis guard. He’ll come through . . .”
Phillip Bryer shook his head. “’Fraid I can’t help you there. I’m never up past ten o’clock anymore.” He sighed. “Used to really tear it up, going to clubs, parties, and whatnot. Now I’m lucky if I can make it to one bowling night a week.”
So much for Phil.
We moved on. Over the next hour and a half, we hit twelve houses. We got no answer at four of them, and the folks at the other eight houses either hadn’t been awake or hadn’t seen anything.
When we got to the thirteenth house, we could hear the music from the sidewalk. Fast, heavy bass, head-banging metal. I couldn’t place the band. When a young male answered the door, the music washed over us like a tidal wave and flowed down the street.
And he was a sight to behold. I’d never seen so many piercings on one person. Earrings ran up and around the perimeter of both ears, he had a ring in his nose as well as studs in both nostrils, his eyebrows were lined with tiny rings from one end to the other, and when he spoke, I saw that his tongue was pierced with a giant stud. Under his thin black T-shirt, which featured—what else?—a skull with piercings, I saw that he also had nipple rings. The man scored an A for consistency, I’d give him that.
He glanced at Alex, then at me. “Whaddaya need?”
His tongue slithered over the giant stud and made his speech sound like he was licking a melting Popsicle. I doubted he could hear much over the cacophony coming from his stereo, but I gamely introduced us and said we wanted to ask him a couple of question about the murders.
He said, “What?” I repeated it all again. He said, “You want me to do what?”
I couldn’t take it anymore. I gestured for him to step outside or turn down the music. He thought about his choices for a few seconds. As he mulled it over, I thought that maybe I should let this one go. But finally, he told us to wait and left us standing on the doorstep. A few seconds later, the music got lower. Now it was just deafening. He motioned for us to come in, and we entered a very tame, standard-looking living room with the usual sofa, coffee table, and twin chairs. This was clearly his parents’ place. He sat on one of the chairs, so Alex and I opted for the sofa. I ran through my spiel again, then said, “We just want to show you some photos of a car to see if you recognize it. Okay?”
He shrugged. “Yeah, sure.”
I held out three photos showing different angles of Tiegan’s car. He tilted his head from one side to another, pondered each one for longer than I’ve taken to decide who to sleep with, then gave a solemn nod. I didn’t know what it meant. “Does this car look familiar to you?”
“Most definitely.” A little bit of drool leaked out of the side of his mouth.
I tried not to look at the drool. “When did you see it?”
“That night. When the murders happened. I was playing Wo
rld of Warcraft with a friend, and I went out to the garage to get a beer.”
“Do you remember what time it was?”
He slurped back the nascent drool and tried to furrow his brow—as much as his pierced eyebrows would allow. “Around one? Something like that. I remember because it was parked almost directly across the street, and I’d never seen it around here before.”
Which put the car half a block down from the Sonnenbergs’ house, on the opposite side of the street. Perfect. Tiegan wouldn’t have wanted to leave her car any closer.
I didn’t know whether to cheer or bang my head on the wall. We’d finally found a witness who could ID the car. And he was . . . this.
“Thank you so much. You’ve been extremely helpful. Can I get your name?” I knew it was going to be something exotic, like Eoghan or Zayn.
“Stewart. Stewart Smith.”
The name sloshed all over his mouth before it managed to come out. No. Just, no. I bit down on my lower lip to keep from laughing and got his phone number as well.
Alex thanked him again, and we let him get back to his music. Which started to blast the moment we left the doorstep. When we got far enough away, we couldn’t take it anymore and had to stop. I laughed so hard I got a stitch in my side, and Alex had tears rolling down his cheeks. It was probably as much from stress as it was from the comic relief of Stewart, the human pincushion.
When we recovered and caught our breath, I sighed. “Well, we finally got us a witness. Such as he is.”
Alex looked back at Stewart’s house. “I do believe him, though.”
I nodded. “Me, too. I think he’s solid. I just don’t know what a jury will make of him.”
Alex looked glum. “Then I guess we move on?”
I nodded. “Sorry, but yes. We move on.”
FORTY-SEVEN
I pointed across the street to the area where Stewart had said he’d seen the car. “Let’s hit that side.”
We started at the house closest to the spot Stewart had identified. The older woman who answered the door said she’d been out of town visiting her son and his family in Colorado Springs the night of the murders. She looked at us with a puzzled expression. “Isn’t the case solved? The daughter confessed, I thought.” I said there were still some outstanding questions. She looked skeptical. But I wasn’t about to take the time to explain. We had a lot of ground to cover before it got too late to knock on doors. I thanked her, and we moved on.