Notorious

by Allison Brennan

  Max bit back a sarcastic reply, considering she was the only person in the waiting room. “Yes, Officer Corbett?”

  “I have a few minutes.” She didn’t make any move to bring Max into the main station, but motioned for them to take two chairs in the waiting room.

  If Corbett thought the move would intimidate or demoralize her, the PIO hadn’t worked with enough reporters.

  Max sat. “Kevin O’Neal is a family friend. The preliminary report indicated he committed suicide, but his sister hasn’t had the closure she needs to accept that. I’d like a copy of the file so I can explain to her what happened.”

  “We don’t give out files.”

  “I’d like the report. If it’s not an ongoing criminal investigation, that shouldn’t be a problem?”

  She didn’t tell the PIO that she already had the initial police report from Jodi. Additional information may have been added—including the all-important coroner’s report. She’d really wanted to talk to the detective, but that could wait because Corbett wasn’t going to make it easy.

  “I can do that,” Corbett said. “It’s twenty-five cents a page.”

  “Today?”

  Corbett glanced at her watch. “It’s four thirty—I’ll see what I can do.”

  All she had to do was send the report to the printer. It was all computerized. But Max didn’t say anything because Corbett would make her wait until Monday just to spite her.

  “I appreciate it,” she said politely. “If I have further questions regarding the report, I should direct them to you?”

  Corbett handed Max her card. She said into her radio, “Jill, can you print a copy of the O’Neal report and bring it to the lobby? Thanks.”

  She turned back to Max. “You came a long way to help a family friend.”

  The only hint of curiosity. Max didn’t say anything, because she didn’t like open-ended questions. Instead, she switched gears. “I’d also like the initial report of the Jason Hoffman homicide investigation from November. I’m writing a follow-up article on the murder.” That was neither true nor untrue—if there was enough material, she certainly intended to write something about it, even if it was just a couple paragraphs for her show’s Web page. “I read in the initial media reports that MPPD handled the case?”

  “It’s an active investigation,” Corbett said.

  “Active? You have a suspect?”

  Corbett switched gears to full PIO mode. “Currently, the Menlo Park Police Department is in the process of reviewing all cases over three months old to determine if they will remain active or classified inactive pending new evidence. All homicide investigations will remain open until solved, regardless of the status.”

  “I’d just like information you’ve already shared with the media.”

  “And your interest?”

  “I’m a reporter.”

  “You’re not local.”

  “No, I’m not.” Max left it at that. Corbett had her card, and Max really hated when cops or anyone tried to weasel information out of her without simply asking her. If they were more forthcoming, she’d be more forthcoming. Let them think the national press corps was interested in their small-town homicide investigation.

  “I’ll have to get back to you on Monday. As I said, the case is under review and I need to pull together the public information.”

  “Can I pick it up at nine Monday morning?”

  “I’ll call you.”

  Max would be here first thing Monday morning if she couldn’t track down the detective on her own. She wasn’t going to rely on the PIO to make contact.

  A young plainclothes assistant came out and handed Corbett a file.

  “What do I owe you?” Max asked, pulling out her wallet.

  “Seventy-five cents.”

  Max fished out three quarters from her wallet and took the papers. As she was thanking Corbett for her time, the door leading from the squad room opened. A squat detective emerged and glared at Max with small, hate-filled eyes.

  “I didn’t believe you’d actually show up here.”

  Though Detective Harry Beck had more weight and less hair than when he’d taken the stand during Kevin’s trial, Max recognized him immediately. Then he’d intimidated her with his blunt hatred of Kevin and disdain for her—because she’d taken the stand as a character witness. Today, he didn’t have the same effect. She’d met cops like Harry Beck in virtually every jurisdiction she’d investigated a case. However, Beck could be a problem in her getting information from the department.

  “Nice to see you again, Detective.”

  He snorted. “What does she want?” he asked Corbett as if Max had already left.

  Corbett was slow on the uptake, watching the exchange. Max answered the question instead. “Kevin O’Neal’s death investigation report.”

  Beck’s face darkened. “The fucker killed himself. I wish he’d done it thirteen years ago and saved the state a ton of money, but he should never have walked free to begin with.”

  Max had many things she wanted to say to the bastard, but she fought her temper and said to the PIO, “Thank you for your time, Officer Corbett.”

  She wanted to leave before a confrontation, but Beck wouldn’t let it go.

  “You’re not here to dredge up shit? Of course you are,” he answered his own question. “That’s what you are. A shit disturber. I swear to you, Maxine, if you cause any grief for the Ames family, I’ll arrest you. Your privileged ass wouldn’t last a night in prison.”

  Max bit her tongue. She wanted to lash out at the brash detective, but she understood the consequences. In her early career, she hadn’t always been so controlled. She’d spent several nights in jail over the years for butting heads with the wrong cop. She survived the ordeals quite well—even wrote an award-winning article about the rights of reporters to protect their sources.

  Harry Beck was definitely the wrong cop.

  Using all her well-earned—and well-learned—self-control, Max walked out, catching only part of Corbett’s comment before the door shut.

  “Why are you giving her ammo—”

  Max could predict the conversation. Corbett was young; she hadn’t been with the Menlo Park Police Department thirteen years ago when they caught the murder investigation of Lindy Ames in neighboring Atherton. Corbett may know who the Revere family was; she may in fact know that Max was an investigative crime journalist. But she likely didn’t know that Max had been friends with both the victim and the number one suspect—the only suspect—in Lindy’s murder.

  Beck would be giving her an earful. And she would take it and either be so intimidated by Beck and his threats that she wouldn’t lift a finger to help Max, or she’d be ticked off that he yelled at her and go out of her way to help Max.

  Max, of course, hoped for the latter.

  She sat in her rental car, under a magnolia tree, and calmed down. She may have walked out without reacting to Beck, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t affected her.

  Harry Beck had been in his late thirties when he was the lead detective on Lindy’s murder. He’d interviewed all her peers, her family, and Kevin. He’d been the one who arrested Kevin and had been one hundred percent confident of his guilt.

  Years of experience and meeting hundreds of law enforcement officers in jurisdictions big and small taught Max that when a cop was absolutely confident in his assessment, one of two things happened: he either set out to prove that his theory was right by working evidence that would incriminate his key suspect or he set out to disprove his theory by looking at the case as if the lead suspect were innocent.

  Cops didn’t have to believe people were innocent until proven guilty, and rarely did they. Threatened, spit upon, shot at, and dealing with the worst end of the human spectrum, cops were usually jaded. But even the jaded cops, if they were good, focused on dispelling all other scenarios in order to nail their suspect. They didn’t dismiss evidence because it didn’t fit their theory.

  Max couldn’t say
what Beck did or didn’t do; all she’d seen were his actions toward Kevin. Then after the trial, when she’d told him about Kevin’s true alibi, he’d said unspeakable things. And he’d said ultimately that he didn’t care if there was any evidence that suggested Kevin might be innocent—in Beck’s pea-sized brain, he knew with certainty that Kevin was a killer.

  She should pull the transcripts of the trial and—

  No.

  She wasn’t here to investigate Lindy’s murder. She was here to satisfy Jodi that her brother had killed himself.

  She opened the envelope Officer Corbett had given her and read the incident report.

  The first two pages were identical to what Jodi had previously sent. Officers Blankenship and Lake were the first responders to the 911 call from Kevin’s apartment manager. His alarm clock was going off and disturbing a neighbor. When the manager, Anita Gonzales, couldn’t reach Kevin by phone or knocking, she’d let herself in and found his body in the bathroom.

  He was found in shorts, no shirt, in the bathtub. There was no sign of forced entry. Barbiturates and hard alcohol were found nearby. They interviewed neighbors and friends and learned Kevin had a history of drug use, though he also held down a part-time job at a local coffee shop, and worked part time in construction when there was work. Which wasn’t much lately.

  The third page, which Jodi hadn’t had earlier in the week, was the preliminary coroner’s report. Kevin had drowned with a contributing cause of overdose. Essentially, he took enough pills to kill himself, passed out, and drowned in the bathtub before the pills finished the job.

  Lindy drowned.

  Why had Kevin written that on the death certificate? Did it have anything to do with his suicide? Had he planned to drown himself, a difficult way to commit suicide unless there was a contributing cause like unconsciousness from an overdose of drugs. It could have been an accident. He could have been in the bathtub, high, and passed out.

  Why get into the bath with his shorts on?

  If it was suicide, he wouldn’t want to be found naked. It made sense. Or he was so stoned that he didn’t know he was wearing clothes.

  Max rubbed her forehead. She wished she could be surprised, but Kevin had been going down this path ever since his trial. She could only imagine the stress and humiliation of having a murder charge hanging over his head. She’d told him twelve years ago when the DA declined to retry Kevin until additional evidence surfaced that he should leave the Bay Area, go far away where no one knew who he was. Only then would he find peace.

  He opted to stay. He was desperate to clear his name. But thirteen years after Lindy was killed, he had a drug addiction, no college degree, a menial job, and few friends.

  The officers hadn’t made note of the missing laptop, and Max wondered if they’d interviewed Jodi before or after she’d gone into the apartment. Jodi’s grief had interfered with her logic, which was common in these types of interviews. Jodi wanted to believe Kevin hadn’t done it, so she looked for every possible proof that someone had killed him. There could be a logical explanation for the missing laptop. Someone could have stolen it before he died. He could have loaned it to a friend. Left it at work. Sold it. Drug addicts would sell anything of value to get their next fix.

  But that didn’t explain why Kevin sent Jodi Lindy’s death certificate. Why he thought she’d drowned. Or why he’d sent Jodi a text message to call Max.

  Call Max. I love you, J.

  It was his good-bye note. His suicide note to his sister. Of that, Max was certain. But would Jodi believe it?

  Maybe Kevin had reached a dead end in his own private investigation and in frustration and despair, killed himself.

  Then why tell Jodi to call Max? In an attempt to make Max feel guilty because she wouldn’t help him in his pursuit of Lindy’s killer?

  It was too late to go to the DA’s office and find out what, if anything, was going on with Kevin’s trial. If he thought he’d be facing another trial—that new evidence had been uncovered—that might have tipped him over the edge. Instead, she drove to his apartment. She needed answers—namely, Kevin’s state of mind when he OD’d.

  The apartment complex on Roble was tired but clean with trimmed hedges and blossoming rosebushes along the front walk. There were twelve units in Kevin’s white, L-shaped building, six on the top and six on the bottom, an open staircase leading to the long second-story balcony. The building next door mirrored Kevin’s, connected by a small courtyard with benches framing an old oak tree.

  Jodi had given her a key, but Max decided to first talk to the apartment manager, Anita Gonzales.

  Ms. Gonzales opened the door quickly, her smile warm and genuine. The older woman was short and plump with naturally gray hair in unnaturally tight curls. Her home smelled like cinnamon and vanilla. The muted television in the background showed a game show. Her dark eyes assessed Max quickly. “I saw you walking up. You must be Jodi’s friend.”

  “Maxine Revere,” she said. “I didn’t want to go up to Kevin’s apartment without talking to you first.”

  “Please, come in,” she said and opened the door. She straightened her apron and brushed a loose curl away from her face. “I’m sorry for the mess.”

  The apartment was cluttered and hot, but immaculate. Gonzales had hundreds of small glass animals in a cabinet along one wall, a light above illuminating the menagerie.

  “I love your figurines,” Max said, eyeing in particular the section of birds.

  She beamed. “My husband used to travel for business and would bring me back one every time. After he died, my son started buying them for me for my birthday and Christmas. Sit, please—I just made snickerdoodle cookies. Fresh out of the oven.”

  Max wasn’t hungry, but she accepted the offer. “Thank you.”

  “Coffee? Milk? Kevin always liked milk with my cookies.”

  “Water, if that’s not a problem.”

  Max understood people pleasers like Anita Gonzales. By the pictures on the wall, she had only the one son. She’d stayed home and raised her son, took care of the house, enjoyed doing for others. She’d have been the first person to bake a casserole for someone who lost a loved one, and would be the person organizing the prayer group when someone was sick. Max wasn’t surprised that after her husband died and her son moved out she found the apartment management job. It gave her the opportunity to take care of others. Max would bet she knew the personal business of everyone who lived here.

  Anita brought the water and plate of cookies to the table. Max took a bite. They were delicious. “I’ll bet Kevin ate a lot of your cookies.”

  “When I could get him to eat,” she said, shaking her head. “Poor boy. So lost.” Tears welled in her eyes. “It wasn’t like him.”

  “Taking his own life?”

  “Being selfish like that. He’d have to have known Jodi or I would be the one to find him. He didn’t have a lot of friends, but Jodi, dear girl, came by at least once a week, and he helped me around this place, fixing this and that.”

  Max didn’t know what kind of person Kevin was recently, but he’d always been considerate as a teenager. He was the type of guy who’d mow the lawn for his neighbors if they were sick, or the one who would stand up for a kid who was being picked on. He baby-sat Jodi all the time, as an infant and toddler, without complaint. He was also the type of guy who used his fists. He’d decked her cousin once, in eighth grade, because William had made a crude remark about Jenny Foster’s breasts. Max always suspected that’s why William never particularly liked Kevin. That, and Kevin was a scholarship kid at Atherton Prep, not really one of them.

  “You told the police that his alarm clock was ringing and a neighbor complained.”

  Ms. Gonzales nodded. “He was usually very thoughtful. Most of my tenants are retired folks. The walls are thin, and his alarm was beeping for over an hour. Mrs. Dempsey was very upset about it.”

  “What time did the alarm go off?”

  “It was set for six thirty.
He had to be at the coffee shop by seven thirty on Sundays. I went up at seven thirty thinking he’d made a mistake and reset it or something, and gone off to work.”

  “How long had he lived here?”

  “Three years.”

  “Do you know where he was before that?”

  “San Francisco. I don’t know much about it.”

  “Did he ever talk to you about his past?”

  “Do you mean did I know that he was accused of killing that poor girl thirteen years ago? Of course. I’ve lived in Menlo Park my entire life. Back then, my husband was still alive and we had a small house over off Santa Cruz. We followed the news. I knew who he was when he applied.”

  “Jodi gave me the apartment key—would you mind if I went up there?”

  “Go right ahead. It’s been cleaned because of…” her voice trailed off. “Rent is paid through the month, and I told Jodi she could have whatever time she needed to pack up Kevin’s things.” She sighed. “He didn’t have much.”

  Max thanked Mrs. Gonzales for the refreshments, then went upstairs to Kevin’s corner unit.

  The one-bedroom apartment had been sanitized. The cloying scent of bleach and Lysol irritated her nose. She opened all the windows in the living room and kitchen before she looked around.

  Kevin had set up the small dining nook to be his office, and in it there was a desk, printer, filing cabinet, but no computer. She went through his desk and found the usual—pay stubs, tax returns, receipts, mints, pens. The two-drawer filing cabinet had a lock, but it was easy to pick.

  Inside were several empty hanging files, stretched and worn as if they’d once held extensive paperwork.

  Each folder was labeled: Investigation, Atherton PD; Investigation, MPPD; DA; Autopsy; Ames; Revere; Talbot; Media; Transcripts.

  Jodi had said that Kevin was obsessed with Lindy Ames’s murder and this proved it. Except there were no documents in any of the folders.

  The Talbots were a large, extended family in Atherton, as established as the Reveres. Why was Kevin researching the Talbots? Which Talbot? All, or just those who’d been in high school with them, like Andy? When he listed Revere, did he mean her or William? Or any of the others in her family?