by Marcia Clark
I hadn’t seen her since. I knew she’d forgive me eventually, but the last four times I’d visited, she’d refused to come out.
In light of all that, I’d been very glad to keep the story about Cassie and Tiegan quiet for as long as possible.
Unfortunately, that didn’t turn out to be very long at all. The following Monday, just six days after Tiegan’s arrest, a former student at Mission Viejo High School came forward to say that she knew Tiegan had seduced Cassie because she, too, had been Tiegan’s victim.
Michelle played the girl’s media moment for me on the computer. Natalie Borowitz was a less pretty, more butch version of Cassie, with short blonde hair and blue eyes but a heavier brow, a thicker build, and a tougher demeanor. She stood at the podium next to her fawning, press-hungry lawyer and read from a prepared speech in a bitter, angry voice. “Like Cassie Sonnenberg, I, too, am Tiegan Donner’s victim. I, too, was an inexperienced young girl who was flattered that this pretty, popular teacher took an interest in me. And I, too, was pressured into a relationship I was afraid to reject, because Tiegan occupied a position of power and trust, and I was just a student.”
Obviously, the lawyer had written that clunky speech. And her outrage somehow didn’t ring true. “Let me guess: she’s suing the school.”
Michelle nodded. “Figures, doesn’t it? But if Tiegan really did come on to her, the girl has a right to be compensated. Doesn’t she?”
“Sure. I’m just not a hundred percent this one’s going to be able to collect.”
I told Michelle that the principal at Mission Viejo had said Tiegan left the school because a student had been stalking her. If that was true and Natalie was that stalker, it’d be a messy lawsuit with lots of finger pointing about who the real victim was.
It took just one day to find out I was right; Natalie was the stalker. The kids who’d known about her “affair” with Tiegan came forward to say that when Tiegan tried to break it off, Natalie went off the deep end. She’d left messages on Tiegan’s phone threatening to kill herself, put angry letters in Tiegan’s mailbox, followed Tiegan home, and parked in front of her house for hours at a time. And just in case anyone thought it was Tiegan’s fault that she’d tipped over into stalker land, one of Natalie’s former girlfriends said that when she and Natalie had broken up, Natalie had done the same thing to her.
And now, predictably, reporters and commentators were speculating that Tiegan and Cassie had been “romantically involved.”
We’d all been watching the news in my office. Alex leaned back on the couch, his arms folded behind his head. “How do you think this plays for us?”
Michelle picked up the remote and turned down the volume on the television. “I think it makes Tiegan look even guiltier. I don’t care if Natalie’s a stalker. Tiegan still got involved with a student. Correction: another student. To me, she looks like a garden-variety pedophile.”
Alex considered that. “If that’s the kind of reaction we can expect, then it might be a good thing to let it come out.”
I shook my head. “Right now, Fred probably figures he’s better off laying low and keeping the story about Cassie and Tiegan quiet. But if I jump on this bandwagon, Fred might decide he’s got nothing to lose and blast Tiegan’s story out there. We don’t want that. Not until I can find a way to shred it. So I don’t think I’ll hold any press conferences just yet.”
And frankly, I had the best of both worlds right now. Speculation that Tiegan had preyed on Cassie would earn her some sympathy whether I confirmed it or not. Whatever additional support we might get by saying it was true wasn’t worth the downside.
My cell phone quacked. It was Emmons. “What’s up?”
“Can you get down here? I’ve got something you should see.”
His voice sounded fairly ominous. I looked at my watch. “I can be there in an hour.”
I ended the call and grabbed my coat as I told Alex and Michelle what Emmons had said.
Michelle looked worried. “What do you think it is?”
I shook my head. “No clue.” I picked up my briefcase. “Wish me luck.”
Emmons met me in the PAB reception area and took me to a room set up with seats facing a large, pull-down screen. “We had the jail deputies put your client and Tiegan in adjoining cells.”
I felt the blood drain from my face as I sank down on one of the chairs. “And you recorded them.”
“Right.” Emmons took a seat next to me.
It was such an old trick. Why hadn’t I thought to warn Cassie about this? I felt sick to my stomach. “Have you shown this to Fred yet?” Emmons nodded. “Who comes out worse, Cassie or Tiegan?”
He paused and stared at the screen. “I’ll let you be the judge. Ready?”
I braced myself. “I guess.”
Emmons lowered the lights with a remote control, then started the video. Cassie was sitting on the bed, her back to the corner. Her knees were drawn up to her chin, and her face was turned to the wall.
Tiegan appeared on the right side of the screen, being escorted by a jail deputy. She shuffled along, head down, but when she passed by Cassie’s cell, she did a double take. She started to say something to the deputy, but he ignored her. The door to her cell opened, and she stepped inside.
When the door closed, Tiegan turned back to the deputy. “What about my attorney visit?”
“You’ll have to reschedule.” The deputy walked off.
Cassie lifted her head and studied Tiegan. After a moment, she moved off her bed and went to the bars separating their cells. Tiegan turned to face her but stayed where she was, near the door.
Cassie gripped the bars. “I’m sorry, Tiegan! I told my lawyer not to tell! You’ve got to believe me!”
Tiegan seemed dazed as she peered at Cassie. “Why are you doing this to me?”
Cassie was wide-eyed, her voice a little hysterical. “Doing what? I told you—my lawyer did it! She totally screwed me!”
Tiegan put a hand to her forehead. “I can’t believe this.” She let her hand fall back down as though it were a lead weight. Her head tilted to one side as she peered at Cassie through the bars. “You fed Sam a bunch of lies, and she bought them all.” She stopped. “Wait. Did she put you up to this? That’s it! This was all her idea, wasn’t it?”
Cassie looked bewildered. “What are you talking about? Sam didn’t put me up to anything.” She leaned her head against the bars. “But she promised she wouldn’t tell. I’m so sorry, Tiegan.”
Tiegan looked incredulous as she took a step toward Cassie. “How could you? I was always there for you. I risked everything for you! And this is how you repay me?” Her chin trembled as tears welled up.
Cassie stared at her, then bit her lip and started to cry. “I’m sorry, Tiegan! I shouldn’t have told her; I didn’t mean to! But I was so upset when you said we couldn’t be together.” Cassie wrapped her arms around her waist. “It was the only thing that kept me going—knowing that you’d be waiting for me. When you said we were through, I just didn’t want to live anymore.” Cassie hunched over and shook her head. “I . . . I couldn’t take it.” After a moment, she looked up at Tiegan. “I’m sorry! I wish I never told her!”
Tiegan backed up, her expression confused. “What are you talking about? I never said we couldn’t be together, Cassie. I just said we had to wait until everything cooled down.”
Cassie glared at Tiegan, her expression cold. “Yes, you did. And you made me so depressed I tried to kill myself. Don’t lie about it!”
Tiegan rushed toward Cassie, her eyes wide and furious. She reached through the bars. If Cassie hadn’t jumped back, those hands would’ve done some serious damage. Tiegan screamed, “Don’t lie? I’m not the one who’s lying, you little bitch! The only thing I ever did was cover for you!” She clutched the bars. “I should’ve called the police and let you rot in prison, you fucking murderer!”
Cassie stood a few feet back, well out of reach. When she spoke, she sounded puzzled. “I’m the murderer
? But that’s crazy. Why would I kill them? I’d have no place to go! No one would adopt me. I’m too old!”
Tiegan’s voice was sad, broken. “But you’ve been telling everyone that you did it because they molested you—your father, your brother. Was any of that true?” Tears rolled down her cheeks.
I couldn’t see Cassie’s expression, but after a brief pause, she covered her face with her hands and began to cry. “Of course it’s true! You know it’s true! But I never meant for you to kill them!”
Tiegan’s tears stopped. Her eyes now glittered, icy and hard, as she spoke in a voice that was low, menacing. “You played me and you used me. But you’re not going to get away with it.” Tiegan squeezed the bars as though she were wringing Cassie’s neck. “You hear me, you little bitch? I’m going to make sure you go down for this!” Then Tiegan began to scream, but the words were indecipherable. Cassie backed up to the farthest corner of her cell, crouched down, and put her arms over her head. Her body shook with deep, choking sobs. Deputies came running, and then the screen went dark.
FIFTY-TWO
Emmons brought up the lights. “So there you have it. We’ll have a transcript prepared in the next month or so.”
I wasn’t sure what to make of it. “Can I get a copy of the DVD?”
“Sure. I’ll e-mail it to you.”
It arrived shortly after I got back to the office. I played it for Alex and Michelle. Now that I knew what was coming, I could study it more carefully. It was only a few minutes long, but it was searing. When it ended, I asked, “What do you think?”
Michelle’s chin rested on her hand, her eyes narrowed. “Cassie accused Tiegan of saying she was breaking up with her. She said that was the reason she tried to commit suicide, right?” I nodded. “But Tiegan denied it. She said she’d just told Cassie they had to be cool. Why would Tiegan lie about that?”
I’d noticed that, too. “I don’t think she did. I think Tiegan said one thing and Cassie heard another. Cassie’s in a wigged-out state of mind to begin with, probably already worried that Tiegan might fade away. And”—I sighed—“I didn’t help matters.” I told them how, early on, back when we thought Cassie had a secret boyfriend, I’d warned her that he wouldn’t hang around and wait for her even if I got her the best verdict possible.
Alex looked concerned. “They both come off pretty bad. I’m no fan of Tiegan’s, but she does kind of make me wonder about Cassie.”
Michelle folded her arms. “Well, I’m still Team Cassie. I think Tiegan’s fury is all about the fact that she finally got busted—and outed as a pedophile.”
I circled a finger around Alex and Michelle. “And if I’m lucky, I’ll get a jury to split up like that.”
But that’s the best I thought I could hope for. Because I agreed with Alex; they both looked bad.
Alex got off Michelle’s desk. “I’m not exactly saying I’d vote to convict Cassie. I’m just saying . . . I don’t know what I’m saying. This case is such a nutcracker.” He looked at me. “What’s your vote?”
“I just don’t know. I can’t call this one.”
A ping sounded on Michelle’s computer in the reception area. She stood up. “E-mail. Be right back.”
I sat back and replayed the footage in my head. Cassie’s face, her reactions, Tiegan’s face, her reactions . . . A few seconds later, Michelle came back in. “More discovery on the case. Just photos from the search of Tiegan’s apartment. I forwarded it to you.”
I opened the e-mail and downloaded the photos. There were two separate batches. I started with the smaller one. It seemed to consist of the photos they’d seized from her apartment. The first one was of a picture in a frame. It showed Tiegan and a friend standing in front of a bookcase, holding wineglasses. I scrolled through the rest of them, hoping to find a picture of Cassie, but no such luck. The only photograph close to being of interest was a picture of Tiegan with three other girls who looked like they were high school age, but then I saw that it was taken at a school open house. No issue there.
Alex saw me pause over that photo. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re not gonna find it. The cops sent over a report yesterday saying they’d checked her computer and her cell phone and found ‘nothing relevant to this investigation.’”
“I didn’t expect to find kiddie porn.” Tiegan didn’t seem to roll that way. “But wouldn’t you think there’d be something? I mean, at least photos of her with an arm around a girl?”
Alex shrugged. “She might just be the careful type. But the cops hardly found any photos in her apartment. So maybe she just wasn’t into taking pics.”
True, they’d seized only six photographs. Come to think of it, I wasn’t such a big shutterbug myself. “Moving on.” I opened the second, larger batch of photographs. These had been taken by the cops when they served the search warrant. Tiegan’s apartment was a small one-bedroom. The initial photographs, taken before the search began, showed that it was spare but tidy. The photographs taken after the search showed the police had been very thorough in their search—and not so thorough when it came to putting the place back together. They’d taken the residence apart; cupboards were open, drawers were emptied, cushions were thrown off the couch, and the bedroom was completely torn apart.
I heard Alex typing on his iPad behind me. “Anything else come in?”
“No, I’m just putting these on our discovery list.”
I clicked through the photographs taken just before the search again. The color scheme in the bedroom—a duvet of pink and red roses, a matching dusty-rose curtain—showed the room clearly belonged to a woman, but there were no knickknacks on the dresser, no photographs on the nightstand, and no mirrors. The living room was just as bare-bones. The only decorative touch beyond the standard couch, chairs, and coffee table was a floor-to-ceiling bookcase, where I noticed some unimaginative mementos from trips abroad—a photograph of the Eye of London, a spoon from Paris, a Celtic cross from Ireland. That was the bookcase Tiegan and her friend had been standing in front of, holding wineglasses.
But something about the bookcase looked different now. I clicked over to the photo of Tiegan and her friend and studied the background. Then I clicked back to the photo taken by the cops, just before they started the search. “Alex, check this out.” I pointed to the bookcase. “See that?” I pointed to the area between the Parisian spoon and the Celtic cross. It was packed with books.
Alex leaned down to get a closer look. Then stood up, his expression confused. “Yeah, so?”
I pulled up the photo of Tiegan and her friend again and pointed to the bookcase behind them. “Now look.” I pointed to that same spot—where a knife with a vicious-looking blade was on display in an open box.
“Holy crap.”
“You have the autopsy report handy?” Alex nodded and opened his iPad. “Tell me if it could be the murder weapon.”
Alex peered at the photograph. “It has a straight edge. Looks like it’s about twelve inches long.” He read the autopsy report. “Damn. Yeah, it definitely could be.”
At last, I had my smoking gun.
I put in a call to Emmons. “You have any leads on the murder weapon?”
Emmons sounded annoyed. “What are you, my captain? Our deal’s over with. I only said I’d give you the heads up on our search at Tiegan’s place.”
“And the answer is . . . ?”
He sighed. “No. We don’t. Why?”
“Because I have a very hot lead for you. But first, you’ve got to promise me that if you talk to Tiegan again, I get to be there.”
Emmons gave an even deeper sigh. “Rusty’ll put my head on a spike.”
“Tell him he needs to show a little gratitude.”
He gave a sarcastic snort. “Yeah, I’m sure that’ll work.” Emmons swore softly. “Okay, fine. We talk to her again, you’re in. Now tell me.”
I told him about the knife I’d seen—and then not seen—in the photographs.
“Seriously? Damn. We only
just got her photos put on a disc. I haven’t had the chance to see them yet. Hang on.” I heard keys being tapped, then a few seconds of silence. “You’re right. I’ve got to get the search team back out there. Okay, I’ll be in touch.”
The line went dead. I looked at my phone. “You’re welcome.”
Alex smiled. “Nice catch, boss.”
“I get lucky every once in a while.”
He gave a little chuckle. “If that’s what you want to call it. Think this’ll do it for Cassie?”
I turned to look out the window. When had it gotten dark? I’d lost all track of time. “Unless Tiegan has some kind of amazing explanation for that disappearing knife.”
After Alex and Michelle left, I pulled up all the photos that showed Tiegan’s bookcase and enlarged them so I could examine every inch. Something else had caught my eye. An hour later, I headed home.
FIFTY-THREE
It didn’t take long for the cops to confirm that the knife was missing. It was a small apartment, and they’d already given it an intensive going-over when they’d served the first search warrant. I had a feeling I’d be hearing from Emmons soon, so I went downtown to visit Cassie. This time, she agreed to the visit.
Cassie seemed to have gotten some rest since her meltdown with me. The dark circles under her eyes were lighter, and she sat up straighter in her chair. As we picked up the phones, I said, “Thanks for seeing me.”
She sighed and dropped her eyes. “I didn’t want Tiegan to get busted, and I felt like you betrayed me. But after a while, I realized you were just doing your job.” Cassie’s expression was soft. “You were doing what was best for me. I just wasn’t . . . used to that.”
I looked into her eyes and nodded. “I’m glad you understand. Now I want to warn you about something that happened here, so you’ll be ready if it happens again.” I told her about the fight between her and Tiegan that’d been captured on camera.
Cassie gaped at me, her eyes wide. “No! Can they do that? What did I say? Did I say anything bad?”