If You Really Loved Me

by Ann Rule

  Cinnamon asked Patti and David to go over the night of March 18, three years earlier, for her.

  Patti quickly recalled everything to the point when she had gone to her room to sleep. David interrupted as she started to drift into the dangerous time just afterward. "I want to ask you a question," he said. "Do you guys wear state shoes right now? Do you have to wear state shoes during visiting?"

  It was off the wall. It reminded Newell of the time he watched David pull Brenda's hair during Cinnamon's sentencing. Was it that he didn't care at all—or was he distracting Patti?

  From murder to shoes in an instant.

  But Cinnamon dragged him back to murder.

  David was sure now that Larry Bailey had probably killed Linda, thinking he was killing David. "Linda was laying on my side of the bed. The cops told me. They got pictures of it and everything. . . She was on my side of the bed, on the left. They said the room was dark, and I think whoever did it thought they were getting me."

  In truth, Linda Brown was found exactly where she always slept, on the right side of the bed.

  "You think whoever did it thought they were shooting you?" Cinnamon asked incredulously.

  "Yes." David warmed to the story. "Too many weird things have happened since this all happened. I know somebody is out to get me. There's a good possibility that my liver was poisoned. Somebody's tried to poison me since this happened."

  Patti nodded. "It happened [David's alleged liver failure] less than two months afterwards and they say that it takes a while for it to get there [to the liver]."

  "But anyway, yeah—Linda may have poisoned me," David said almost cheerfully. "That's one of the other things they told me. She might have poisoned me. Alan might have poisoned me. But you ask about why she's still there. [He gestured toward Patti.] I am scared shitless. Every day, I'm scared somebody or something is going to kill me—every day because of Alan . . . Alan has maintained his threats. Larry is still—now he came back from Missouri and I've been trembling like a leaf and I wish Betsy was on your visiting list. She'd come in here and she'd tell you that sometimes I even sit there and cry."

  David explained that he had seen three psychiatrists since the murder. The only reason he dated women was because he was terrified all the time. He was depressed. "Because I'm worried about you in here. I want you home."

  The stories rattled on for another half an hour. Solutions came to David's mind and spun off like drops of water from a Frisbee. But "honest to God," David had no idea who had killed Linda. His memory was gone. He was not strong enough for prison, but he would be glad to let Patti confess.

  When Patti and Krystal headed off for the rest rooms, David's tone with his daughter became confidential. "I know what it's like for you," he told Cinnamon.

  "No . . . ," she said slowly. "You can probably imagine what it's like for me, but you don't know what it's really like."

  "Cinnamon, you know what I mean. I've always loved you so much. I never wanted anything bad to happen to you. . . . Cinny, if you did do it, you did it because you love me just as much as I love you."

  "But I didn't do it."

  "I believe you. . . . You were always too lovable, you know. You were always too funny and cute . . . like me."

  "Don't push it."

  "You were. You were always funny. You like cracking jokes and doing things like I do. You didn't have a bone in your body that would allow you to hurt anyone. That's why I've always been convinced that it had to have been somebody thinking it was me.

  "I want your honest opinion. From talking to her [Patti] just now, could she have done it?

  "You've had me sitting on hot charcoals since you told me that over there on the grass," David said. "You've had me scared to death. I told Mother and Dad what you and I talked about and they've been scared to death. They've been trying to stay over at the new house as much as they can because they're afraid she's going to try to do me now. They think she's capable of it. Both of them do."

  It made her dizzy. Her father going round and round with the same old lines. The same old suspects. The same old alibis. But then he always contradicted himself.

  He trusted Patti. No, he was "scared to death" that Patti was trying to kill him.

  It was Larry—or Alan. No, he wasn't sure.

  He remembered nothing. He remembered exactly what he had told them.

  His father was capable of killing. No, his father and mother were scared to death of Patti.

  All Cinnamon wanted from him was the truth. If he told the truth, and if Patti told the truth, then she could tell the truth. But her father made jokes when the truth came too close, and he wasn't going to change. He thought he could just keep giving her things and never really think about her; he didn't care if she was locked up forever.

  Cinnamon walked with him and Patti and Krystal out to see Grandma Brown. She smiled faintly at Manuela's gift of a teddy bear. And when they said good-bye, she winced as her father hugged her tightly—so tightly that she wondered if he felt the wire. Cinnamon had seen a camera pointed at them, just a flicker, just once. She knew Walt Robbins was in there in the guard tower. Had her father seen him? If he had, he said nothing. But he was so full of bullshit anyway, who could tell?

  She hoped that Jay Newell had gotten enough information. There had been so many words. Maybe too many. Would it all come out like garbage?

  Patti had said she would come in here. She said she felt like the song said: "I'll do anything for you, anything for you ..."

  But she wouldn't. It was all part of her father's game playing, and Patti would say whatever he wanted her to say. Just like always, Patti would do whatever he wanted her to do.

  And her father was ready to betray Patti in the blink of an eye.

  When she went back to the room where Jay Newell was monitoring the tapes, she saw him smiling at her. "Did you hear me trying to get him over here? Did you?"

  "Yeah. You did a good job. They tried to get their story together pretty good."

  He wouldn't know if he had enough until he got back to Santa Ana and listened to the tapes with Robinson.

  But he had a good feeling.

  29

  To build—or in this instance, to rebuild—a murder case, prosecutors and detectives seek to prove motive, means, and MO (modus operandi), the three vital Ms of murder. And then they need both circumstantial and direct evidence to substantiate their case. Cinnamon had been convicted principally upon her own confession to the medical student Kim Hicks.

  Now Jeoff Robinson and Jay Newell would have to come back double strength to open a long-dead case. Their chief witness would be a co-conspirator, not the witness of choice. It was legally tricky to use the testimony of a co-conspirator in a court of law. In order to allow Cinnamon's testimony— which would be essential to convict David Brown and/or Patti Bailey—there had to be independent corroboration of what she said. It could be physical evidence—a fingerprint, a DNA match—but not in this case. Since the three people allegedly involved had all lived in the same house, the usual physical evidence was worthless.

  However, statements from the two suspects still walking free could be corroborative too. If the long, long tapes recorded surreptitiously during visitors' hours at Ventura School had enough in them to match what Cinnamon had told Jay Newell, Jeoff Robinson could hope to reopen the case and ask for arrest warrants.

  Over and over, Robinson and Newell listened to the tapes. Each playing brought forth another nuance. Robinson's grin grew broader. There was no going back now. All unaware, Patti and David had corroborated Cinnamon's story—even as they struggled to cover up their involvement.

  But Robinson would not rush this case. He and Newell brainstormed until they were sick of the sound of each other's voice.

  "How could we make it better?" Newell recalled. "We kept asking each other that. What could we add to our case to make it stronger? There was no point in doing any more tapes at Ventura. We felt we had as much as we were going to get from David
and Patti.

  "It finally came down to the only thing that could happen to improve it would be to have either David or Patti point a finger at the other, and that wasn't likely to happen until we could arrest them and separate them."

  Motive for David and Patti was much stronger than it had been for Cinnamon. Lust. David had wanted Patti's youth, and her taped statements certainly showed she had coveted him for a long time. There was little doubt they had had a baby together.

  Since David was by far the more pragmatic of the two suspects, and to put it bluntly, the greediest, a second and more pressing motive attached to him. Financial gain. He had always said that insurance was meant to be used, and he had used it. Payoffs on cars, on all-terrain vehicles, on computers, on medical and emotional damage, had all enhanced his fortune. No one would ever really know just how many claims he had collected on, given the peculiar glitches that appeared in his files in insurance company computers.

  Lust and greed.

  Two motives are always better than one.

  Fred McLean worked the insurance angle, tracking down the agents who had sold David and Linda the life insurance that had paid off so handsomely after Linda's murder.

  He found that there had been no less than four policies insuring Linda Brown's life at the time of her death! Why four? McLean learned that Linda Marie Brown, in her early twenties, a housewife without even a high school education, would not have been accepted by any one company for say, a million dollars' worth of insurance. Underwriters check policy applications carefully and advise acceptance and refusal of applications based on many factors and statistical averaging. To insure an applicant such as Linda Brown for a million dollars would be ridiculous. She would be considered "overinsured."

  Excess insurance sends up a red flag to insurance companies. One way to circumvent that would be to obtain smaller insurance policies from a number of companies. The insurance industry had a safeguard here too. Applications have questions like "Is this to replace another similar policy?" and "Do you have life insurance with another company?" Moreover, there are central clearinghouses where underwriters can check to see if applicants are currently insured elsewhere. Even so, nothing is foolproof.

  McLean's investigation turned up numerous applications for life insurance by both Linda and David Brown. Linda had been in perfect health; David had been meticulous about listing all of his many ailments. Not surprisingly, Linda had been accepted for coverage (all her applications said that she had no other coverage), and David was accepted only if he was "rated." If an applicant is in poor health or older, he may obtain insurance—but at a higher cost. Many customers decline policies that are offered only at "rated" higher premiums.

  Which was exactly what David Brown had done. At first glance, he and Linda would have appeared to be a young couple seeking security. Looking closer, a suspicious detective might deduce that David wanted Linda's life to be heavily insured, but never intended to have policies on himself. Why else would he practically guarantee he would be turned down or "rated" by playing up his health problems? However, dual applications would have eased a wary wife's mind.

  McLean found that David Brown had worn a path into insurance offices, applying many, many times. And yet, he himself was not currently insured. He was the chief wage-earner, the avowed head of the household. Wouldn't he have been the one to be insured? Apparently he was not as concerned about coverage as he appeared.

  However at the time of her murder Linda Marie Brown had been insured with:

  American General Life and Accident:

  $100,000 and $100,000

  Issued 2/24/84

  (accidental death)

  New York Life:

  $100,000 and $100,000

  Issued 3/12/84

  (accidental death)

  Capital Life:

  $200,000 and $150,000

  Issued 1/21/85

  (accidental death)

  Liberty Life:

  $200,000 and $200,000

  Application 2/21/85

  (accidental death)

  The last policy was never actually approved, but an application and a first premium were received on February 21, 1985, twenty-six days before Linda was murdered.

  Within the thirteen months preceding her death, Linda Marie Brown's life had been insured four times, all double indemnity, all listing David Brown as sole beneficiary. Brown, McLean found, had collected rapidly. Shortly after the funeral, American General received a handwritten letter from Brown demanding payment, and he received a check for $208,043.60.

  Capital Life paid Brown $361,833.08 on August 8.

  New York Life paid him $200,000 on September 9.

  The last policy had been in the underwriting process when Linda died. Liberty Life had not issued its policy, but had accepted the first premium that accompanied the application.

  McLean contacted Dillard Veal of Rainbow, South Carolina, an agent with Liberty Life for thirty-three years, always in the home office, and a virtual walking encyclopedia of knowledge about the business.

  Dillard Veal remembered David Arnold Brown well. His application had been turned down for health reasons. Linda's was pending when she died. "Because the premium was paid, we made a compromise settlement. Mr. Brown made a claim in April of 1985, and we negotiated with him that June in Orange County."

  Veal said he and Brown had tentatively agreed on a $50,000 settlement, but the next time Veal returned to Orange County, that was not enough. "Mr. Brown referred me to his attorney. I negotiated with his attorney, and we settled for a payment of $73,750."

  Actually, David Brown had done rather well. His first, and only, premium on Linda's policy had been $133.34.

  Veal mentioned that Brown had made application for five members of his family—not only for himself and Linda, but for $100,000 double-indemnity policies on Patti, Cinnamon, and Krystal. Cinnamon's had been postponed for a year, Patti's withdrawn, and Krystal's lapsed in November 1985.

  In all, although he had denied it to Cinnamon on tape, David Brown had collected $843,626.68 within six months of Linda's death. If a few more months had elapsed before Linda's murder, if Cinnamon had died of an overdose, and if Dillard Veal had not found out that Linda was overinsured, David Brown's total payoff would have been $1,239,876.86.

  McLean studied the signatures on Linda's applications; they looked dissimilar to him, but he was, admittedly, no handwriting expert. He contacted the agent who had sold the New York Life policy, Stanley Gudmundsen. McLean explained the case that had been reopened and asked him if he remembered his contact with the Browns.

  He did. He had had no prior contact with either of them when they walked into his office to obtain life insurance for Linda on March 12, 1984.

  "Can you describe them?" McLean asked.

  "Let's see," Gudmundsen said. "I was working in the Bank of America Building at the City Mall in Orange when they came in. The woman—Linda Brown—was a slight, small person, with light hair, maybe long, worn down. David Brown was larger, and he had a—a 'chunky' face. I saw them just that once. After that, I had contact only by phone and letter with David Brown and his attorney."

  McLean glanced over the application form with the insurance agent, and Gudmundsen pointed out two questions that were noteworthy. Those questions asked if there were any other policies extant on Linda Marie Brown, or if this policy was meant to replace any other policy. Both questions were answered no.

  McLean asked if David Brown had applied for life insurance on himself. Gudmundsen checked his records and phoned the detective. He had found a similar policy issued on the life of David Brown, but it was marked "Declined." "It was declined because of poor health," Gudmundsen said, "and adequate insurance already in effect. It possibly was a rated policy."

  McLean wondered if Linda Brown had ever applied for insurance at all. Since she and Patti looked more like twins than sisters, it would have been a fairly easy thing to substitute Patti during the application interview. He made up a "lay-do
wn" of photographs of young blond women, including pictures of both Linda and Patti, and asked Gudmundsen to point to the woman who had accompanied David Brown to his office.

  Gudmundsen eliminated all but #4 and #5 and finally settled on #4. "This is closest."

  It was Linda.

  But McLean still wondered. Gudmundsen had not mentioned that "Mrs. Brown" was pregnant when she came to his office. On March 12, 1984, Linda had been five months pregnant. She was a small woman and her condition would have been apparent, especially apparent to an insurance agent who was insuring her life.

  Newell checked with Linda's obstetrician on the off chance that she might have been in his office on March 12. No luck.

  McLean took the signatures on Linda's applications to an expert. The word that came back was a little disappointing. "They're all signed by Linda Brown—they all match the exemplar of her handwriting. The changes only indicate different moods, whether she was in a hurry, tired—that sort of thing."

  So there it was. Linda Brown had accompanied her husband to apply for insurance at least four times in the year before she was murdered. She had grown up so desperately poor; she wanted her baby to be taken care of. Did she ever know that David refused his insurance or made sure he was turned down? Perhaps not.

  With McLean's persistence, Robinson and Newell had made the case against David Arnold Brown very much better. Over $800,000 sweetened the pot. But Robinson asked for more, more, and still more.

  Enough. The usually laid-back Newell looked at the prosecutor and said, "Damn, Jeoff. I'm giving you this on a silver platter. Now you want David Brown's name engraved on it!"

  Robinson held up his hands in defeat. "Okay. Let's go!"

  The charge would be murder. California P.C.-187.

  And beyond that, the complaint would list "overt acts." Robinson and Newell discussed which overt acts they could include, and indeed, how many. It had been a long time coming, this moment when charges were filed. They worked over the document.