by Anna Burke
“I told you most of this already.”
“Yes, Detective, when you came to ask Libby’s parents about their daughter. You gave us most of this information, but left out the technical details about the evidence you collected. I presume that’s how you connected Libby to Shannon and the car. You found her fingerprints and DNA in the car, correct?”
“Yes, that’s true. We also found a receipt and other items that belonged to Libby. According to a theater attendant, they had been to a movie Friday night. The two women were a ‘couple of hotties,’ in the words of the teenaged lothario I spoke to. Memorable later at the restaurant too, not just for their good looks, but because they polished off two bottles of expensive wine and tipped everybody well that night. The time stamp on that receipt says they left the restaurant after midnight when the place closed down. If they walked back to Donnelly's car, still parked near the theater, that wouldn’t have taken more than a few minutes. No one reported hearing or seeing anything of concern that night so it doesn’t sound like there was a big brawl or noisy confrontation. The last show at the theater was over a little before midnight so most theater goers would have left before our hotties got back to that Lexus. We know they got that far because that receipt was inside the car. After that our story ends and the trail goes cold.” Detective Hernandez paused, staring off into space, for a moment while he chomped on another cookie, wiping his hands on the napkin Bernadette had provided. “You know what I remember about that meeting with you and Libby’s parents?”
“No, Detective? What?” Jessica was savoring the crisp cookies laced with cinnamon and anise, countering the apprehension she felt as he asked that question. So far this was about the least painful episode of interrogation she had ever undergone.
“Besides my surprise at finding you tied to what might be another homicide in my jurisdiction—that would be 3 for 3 in 2013, I should add. What I remember most is a sinking look on all of your faces. Still, you all hardly flinched at the idea that Libby Van Der Woert was a person of interest, witness or suspect, to a possible kidnapping, murder or some other heinous crime.”
“Well, that’s presuming that Shannon Donnelly is dead, or a victim of foul play, rather than missing because she’s a flake like her friend, Libby. Let’s wait until you’re sure you have her body before you tell me I’m batting a thousand for murders in Cathedral City.”
“Fair enough. Maybe it’ll turn out that the body we found belongs to some other woman. Could be Donnelly got snatched in Cat City and isn’t dead yet, or she's dead and her body's dumped somewhere else. Not that you haven’t stumbled into homicides elsewhere in our fair valley. In any case, if Donnelly’s on the run, she’s keeping a low profile. There’s been no word from Shannon Donnelly since that night. No activity on her credit card, no ATM withdrawals, no phone calls, nothing. I don’t get her, or Libby Van Der Woert.”
“Neither do I, Detective. I can’t go into all the problems their daughter has presented for the Van Der Woerts, but there have been many. That’s besides the incidents on record that explain why you found her fingerprints and DNA already on file. I’m not a shrink, so I can’t put this in technical terms, but I think it’s safe to say that neither woman is too tightly-wrapped. That her friend, Shannon, has run off is not too far-fetched, given she may not be in much better psychological shape than Libby.
“That means alrededor de la curva, Detective,” Bernadette added, doing the little circular motions you might expect to go with the “round the bend” pronouncement she had made.
“Yes, Bernadette, I understand. That Libby's parents have been round the bend with her was clear from that meeting with them. The Donnelly woman’s parents reacted much the same way—upset, but almost too weary and worn out to get worked up about the fact that their daughter is missing; maybe injured or dead. What is it about these 90210 Beverly Hills rich girls? Why can’t they at least keep it in their own zip code?” Detective Hernandez stared out the window, unable to hide his dismay.
“I can understand your frustration. Their lives make no sense. You must know more about what was going on with Shannon Donnelly than I do. With Libby, it’s been one thing after another since she was a teenager. What did Libby tell you about that night when you caught up with her?”
“Friends told us the two roomies had left town together, for a vacation in the desert. So even if we hadn’t found those items from Libby’s purse in Donnelly’s car, we would have picked her up for questioning. We took a day to track Libby down. The credit card number on that receipt led us to one of your favorite haunts, Jessica—the La Quinta Resort. When we located Libby, poolside, she said she hadn’t seen Donnelly since their dinner ended Friday night. We asked her why she hadn’t reported her missing when she failed to return to the bungalow they shared and Libby said she figured Shannon had met someone. At first Libby claimed she and Donnelly had parted ways outside the restaurant. Libby wanted to go back to her hotel and call it a night, but Donnelly wanted to go clubbing downtown. When they couldn’t agree, Donnelly stomped off to her car and Libby Van Der Woert called a cab. We asked her what cab company she had called so we could confirm her story. Libby couldn’t remember, nor could she remember if she’d paid with cash or a credit card. She admitted they were tipsy that night as she started down the ‘I don’t recall’ road. The tipsy part I find easy to believe. Drunk enough to have memory loss, I doubt it. At that point, we decided it was time to move our discussion to a more formal setting.” The detective shook his head, draining his cup of coffee. Bernadette popped up, like she was on springs, and refilled the detective’s cup from the press pot.
“Thanks, Bernadette, fantastic coffee. You’re spoiling me.” Bernadette put more cookies on his plate even though he still had a couple left. She gave Jessica a little wink when she turned away from the detective. Jessica shoveled the last of her own cookies into her mouth, then held out her empty plate, using her best Oliver Twist begging waif look.
“More please,” Jessica said in a voice muffled by the cookies in her mouth. Bernadette, not taken in by the waif bit, shook her head. She distributed the last of the cookies on the tray, dividing them between Jessica and herself. Who needs Brien, Jessica thought as she grabbed for another cookie. The detective must have thought she had directed that “more please” at him. He put down the cookie he was about to shove into his mouth and picked up his story.
“At that point we made Libby go to her bungalow and get dressed. I thought a ride in the back of a police car, and hanging out with us for a while, might help jar her memory. Our clientele and accommodations are a far cry from those at the resort. But she was more than just nonchalant about it all. In fact, she vamped it up, cooing and flirting with the officers on duty. Like she was enjoying it! Loco sounds about right, Bernadette. She reminded me of the younger sister in that Big Sleep film, starring Bogey and Bacall. You know the blond with a demented smile who threw herself at Philip Marlowe?”
“I know who you mean, Detective,” said Jessica. “The Raymond Chandler story is a favorite. That is an apt comparison to Libby, who is mercurial and inappropriate much of the time.”
“That’s for sure. When we showed her that receipt, and the lipstick and other items we had retrieved from the floor of Donnelly’s car on the passenger side, she snapped out of it and lawyered up.” He ate another cookie as he pondered what he had seen.
“We put her in a holding tank while she waited. I could not have been more shocked when her L.A. lawyer showed up. The guy was unkempt, like he’d been on a weekend bender or was sleeping in his car. He wore a cheap wrinkled suit over a rumpled shirt. His tie crooked, he hadn’t shaved, and he had an old pair of Nikes on his feet. Not the wing-tip, Brooks Brothers, manicured attorney I expected. I remember wondering at the time: what is Miss Gucci two shoes doing with this guy?” He looked at Jessica, perhaps concerned that his next remarks might offend.
“He's the epitome of an ambulance chaser, in my mind anyway. Hell, I wasn’t even convin
ced he was a lawyer, so I ran a check. Ambulance chaser is right! He handles accident claims: fender-benders, slip and falls at grocery stores and mega-malls, claims about ugly things found in your soup, and other things like that. He’s not even good at that, from what I can tell. A lot of complaints are on file about the guy, and there’s a citation against him for letting his malpractice insurance lapse. You know, a scraping the bottom-of-the-barrel kind of lawyer, in my book, anyway?”
“That sounds about right. The woman has run through several like him during the past few months. They take their fee, have a look at the suit she keeps threatening to file against her parents, and then run for the hills. Did you get a name?”
“Harvey Burgess, or something like that. I’m not sure now.”
“That’s a familiar name, Detective. I’ve had a communique or two from him. Nothing to do with Donnelly, but I’ll tell you more when it’s my turn. So what happened when he showed up?”
“After conferring with Burgess, she gave us a formal statement. She and Donnelly were two girl friends on vacation. They had gone out to a movie and dinner that night. Outside the restaurant on the way back to the car they had a dispute about who would drive the car. Libby said she’s had enough trouble and would not risk a DUI. She suggested they call a cab, but Shannon didn’t want to leave her fancy car there overnight. So, Libby Van Der Woert claims she called a cab for herself. She spilled the contents of her purse when she dug out a credit card to pay for the ride back to La Quinta. We’ve verified that she did that about half an hour after they paid for dinner. The cab driver said the two women were in the middle of a dispute when he arrived a while later to pick Libby up. He confirmed that he dropped Libby back at her bungalow a little before two a.m. and that her companion was sitting in the driver’s seat, very much alive when he drove away from that parking lot.”
“Okay, so you’re wondering why she lied to you about exactly what they quarreled about that night, right?”
“Yeah, that’s one thing that bothers me. It seems odd, too, that she wasn’t more worried when her friend didn’t come home later. She didn’t want to ride in the same car with her because she’d had too much to drink. Don’t you think she might have worried Shannon had an accident when she didn’t show up the next day? Not that I should be surprised. When I spoke to Libby's parents I was trying to get a handle on what kind of person Libby Van Der Woert might be. You all said little. You didn't have to. Between the tension in the room, and the public information about Libby, it’s clear that the woman is capable of wrongdoing, maybe even murdering her friend.”
“I have no doubt she lied to you. Who knows why, since she lies even when she doesn’t even have to. I won’t disagree with your conclusion about her propensity for wrongdoing, but I’m not sure that includes murder. Besides the cab driver saw the woman alive so Donnelly couldn’t have been injured at that point, at least not too bad, right?”
“Yes, that’s true.”
“Did you ask Libby about the blood?”
“We did. She had a story for that, too. According to Libby, her friend Shannon took a spill on the way back to the car. Donnelly took a misstep and fell off of the curb in six inch gold snake heels whatever those are. She gave us some Italian designer name.”
“Ooh, yeah, Detective. Giuseppe Zanotti—they’re gorgeous, but I’m getting dizzy just thinking about wearing them. If she’d had a lot to drink, that could have happened.”
“Well I don’t know why you women like to walk around on stilts. That can’t be comfortable or safe under the best conditions, much less when you’re drinking. Not only that, but paying a couple hundred bucks for the privilege.”
“Don’t look at me, Detective. I’m short, and I’m fine with it. Who wants to spend that much money just to have farther to fall?” Bernadette asked.
“Sorry, you two, but it’s more like a couple grand, if you’re talking about the shoes I think you’re describing.”
“Whew, now I’m getting dizzy. It’s good to have a trust fund, I guess.”
“I suppose Shannon Donnelly’s parents told you she has a trust fund? Or did you find that out some other way, Detective?”
“We did both—asked the stressed out parents about how their daughter was making a go of it, and we ran a check. The woman was sitting pretty, that’s for sure. When she turned thirty, she came into a big chunk of change put away for her by her grandmother and held in trust by her parents. That wasn’t more than a few months ago. Kind of surprising that her parents hadn’t heard from her in weeks, given they had doled out a legacy like that. You’d think she’d feel some kind of obligation to stay in touch, wouldn’t you?”
“What did her parents say about that?”
“Not much. ‘You don’t know our daughter, Detective.’ I’ve never seen two more despondent parents, except maybe your clients, Jessica. Okay, so at this point I’m still inclined to believe that one Beverly Hills mean girl did something nasty to the other Beverly Hills mean girl.”
“You can tell from the encounters you’ve had with Libby that her thinking is disorganized. Given what you know about events that night, it doesn’t seem likely she went back to kill her friend. There’s nothing on Libby’s credit card about another cab ride that night, true?”
“True.”
“I take it Libby claims the blood at the scene was from an injury Shannon sustained when she fell.”
“Yeah, Donnelly banged up her knee, and cut her hand, Libby says.”
“So if that is what happened there should have been blood near the restaurant and drops leading back to the car.”
“Also true. All we found were those smears inside the car and drops leading away from the car, toward the IMAX theater. To another car, perhaps, since there were only a few drops before they stopped.”
“Okay, so it sounds like Libby was lying about the blood. I’m sure you checked the phone records by now. Did Shannon call a cab? Did she or Libby make any other phone calls that night?”
“As a matter of fact, they did. No more cabs. You’ll love this, though. Both women called the late Dr. Carr.”
“No way, Detective!” Bernadette gasped. “Why would they call him?”
“Here’s the deal, Bernadette, he was treating both women,” Detective Hernandez said, waiting for Jessica to respond.
“I found that out from Libby and Dr. Carr, Detective,” Jessica said. “Please go on.”
“When we interviewed Carr a few days ago, he was cool about it. He said it’s not unusual for his clients to call when they’re in crisis. Libby and Shannon had a fight that night. It got them riled up, and they both called him. I asked what the fight was about, but he said that was a privileged communication.”
“Dios mìo, Detective, it was after midnight, sì?”
“Sì, Bernadette. I thought that was fishy, too. Both women called him minutes apart, using his private cell phone number. He made light of it, claimed that kind of access is what the 90210 crowd expects. Don’t shrinks have a service to screen their calls, or an emergency number for clients to call after a certain time?”
“That is correct. I thought it was odd Libby direct-dialed the guy when she came to my office back in November, not long before her friend disappeared. She had the guy on speed dial and he picked up right away then, too. I think I know why.”
“Okay, it’s your turn, Jessica.”
16 A Tangled Web
More than an hour with Detective Hernandez had left Jessica wrung out. It could have been so much worse if Bernadette hadn’t put the guy into a cookie stupor. At least it was over, for the time being. He had listened as she described what went on that afternoon at the tramway. Not involved in that investigation, his main interest was in hearing what Jessica had learned from Libby about Shannon Donnelly.
“Okay, Detective, so I will try to put this latest episode with Libby in context, from my point of view. I’ll summarize my involvement and intentions as best I can. What I’m about to tell you may lea
d you to a very different conclusion about what’s happened to Shannon Donnelly.”
“Sure, Counselor, sounds like I’m about to hear your opening argument.”
“My bottom line, anyway. My team and I have been investigating Libby over the past several months because of recent problems with her parents. There is a tie-in between those troubles and Dr. Richard Carr. We ran a check on him, like you did on Libby’s lawyer, to make sure he was legit. Turns out he’s for real. Not a stellar background, a diploma mill grad, old school training from decades ago. He is credentialed, though, and his license and insurance were up-to-date. That private practice of his in Beverly Hills is at a pricey location and he charges a $300 hourly rate to make ends meet. He’s got a fancy car, almost new, and an expensive house he bought years ago in Pacific Palisades. Like a lot of psychiatrists, he has a hand in places all over So-Cal—hospitals, clinics, schools, even some private corporations where he provides training and consultation.”
“I get the hospital and clinics, schools even, but what’s the tie-in to corporations?”
“He has a certification in crisis intervention—like schools, corporations keep guys like him in the wings to step in if there’s an incident. Everybody’s on alert about workplace violence, so he's paid to consult. You know, how to identify and deal with disgruntled employees? He provides formal psychiatric screening through an Employee Assistance Program or as executive development, or something like that, for upper management.”
“Got it, the same supports are available for first responders. So, did you find anything that made you think he’s a crook?”
“Not a thing. Except that all of that work stopped not long ago,” Jessica said.
“Geez, then what was all that big wind up about?” The detective leaned forward, his eyes moving from Jessica to Bernadette and back to Jessica.
“Why give up a steady income unless he has a more lucrative source? I’m convinced Libby Van Der Woert is caught up in some scam involving Carr. Not all the features of the scam are clear yet, but Carr despised the spoiled, not-too-tightly-wrapped, rich girls in his practice, like Libby Van Der Woert and Shannon Donnelly. In his sermon on the mount, Carr claimed they were easy to manipulate.”