“Guess what I’m doing?” she asked, her voice slurred.
“Don’t know, darling. Tell me.” He was opening files and looking inside, trying to figure out which ones he was going to put in inactive and which ones he thought he still had a slim chance of solving.
“I’m getting stoned.” She giggled.
Cunningham grabbed the phone and took it off the speaker. “What the fuck are you talking about? My God, woman, this is a police station. Don’t even tease about something like that.”
“Well, there was a day when I wasn’t married to a cop, remember? When I was in college, I was a tiny bit wild. Kinda know what I mean?”
“Sharon,” he barked, “what in the hell is wrong with you?”
“Just found this little cigarette in your oldest son’s drawer and thought I’d smoke it and see what it was. It’s pot, all right, and pretty good too.”
“You’re rucking joking. This isn’t funny, Sharon. You found marijuana in Tommy’s drawer?” The last part of the sentence he whispered, looking around the room to see if anyone was listening. Only one detective was at his desk, and he was on the phone and out of earshot.
“Sure looks that way. One puff and I’m totally stoned. Maybe you better come home and we’ll finish what we started this morning.”
Suddenly he was angry. He loosened his tie. “That’s it,” he said, “we’re moving back to Omaha. I knew this was going to happen. This whole city is nothing but a fucking garbage can.”
“Calm down, Daddy. It’s not that terrible. I mean, just because he smoked a little pot doesn’t mean he’s going to be sticking needles in his arm next week. He’s a senior this year, and he’s simply feeling his oats.”
“When he gets home today, don’t let him leave the house. Soon as I get there, I’ll handle this. And Sharon…”
She was still silly and giggling. “Yes?”
“Go drink some coffee or something. This isn’t funny. It’s definitely not funny.” He slammed the receiver down.
So, he thought, this is what it was going to be. His own children couldn’t survive in this stinking hellhole without resorting to drugs. The next thing he knew they’d be smoking crack and stealing. He started shoving all the files on his desk into a big stack and instead of putting them back in the file, he was so disgusted that he just dropped them on the floor by his desk. Then he stepped over them and headed for the door.
“Cunningham, you asshole,” the other detective said. “Look at the fucking mess you made, man. What’s wrong with you? You losing your fucking mind?”
“Lost it, Snyder. You got it. I’ve completely lost it. Anyone wants to know where I am, tell them to go fuck themselves, okay?” He punched his way through the double doors and marched to his car to go home and deal with his son. No kid of his was going to use drugs. Not as long as he was around to stop it. And he’d damn sure stop it, he thought, gunning the engine on the Chrysler and roaring out of the parking lot.
CHAPTER 30
On the way to her office, Lily stopped at records and asked the clerk to give her the file on Bobby Hernandez. All the current data regarding his commission of the homicide of Patricia Barnes would have to be compiled and a hearing held before the case could be closed. In the attempted rape and kidnapping, they had dismissed the charges due to the victim’s failure to appear, and certified copies of both their respective death certificates had to be obtained and placed on file. She held her briefcase in one hand and the file in the other, unsure if the autopsy photos of Hernandez had been forwarded from the medical examiner yet and horrified of actually having to look at them. Even more horrifying was the thought that she would soon be looking at the composite drawing.
That night she and Shana were going to the Ventura Police Department for the lineup. She had to look at the mug shot of Hernandez one more time. If Shana identified the same suspect, or another suspect, she wanted the strength of conviction to carry her through what was surely going to be a scene. Coming from records, she headed to her office down the back corridor at a brisk pace until she saw something that stopped her cold. Richard was talking to one of the new A.D.A.‘s, a young, good-looking blonde. His back was turned, his arm against the wall over the woman’s head, and the woman was laughing. Lily’s skin felt like it was on fire. She turned and headed back the way she had come. She was ducking into another hall when she collided with Marshall Duffy. Her file and all its contents spilled onto the floor.
“We’ve got to quit meeting like this,” he said, chuckling as he bent down to help her pick up the scattered papers.
“I’ll pick them up,” she said, “it was my fault. I wasn’t looking.” Her fingers were trembling as she reached for the papers, trying to scoop them all up in one sweep. Marshall had a stack in his hands, and Lily saw her own likeness on the front sheet. He was holding the composite drawing!
“So, what’s been happening, lady? I never see your face around here anymore. They must have you buried back there.”
Lily watched as he dropped the hand holding the papers to his side. She wanted to reach out and grab it, but she stood quietly, in a daze.
When she didn’t answer, Marshall moved closer, scanning her face. “Are you feeling okay?” he asked.
“Yes…no…I mean, I have a lot on my mind.” Her eyes were still fixed on the composite, and finally she couldn’t hold back any longer. She snatched the papers from his hand and stuffed them back into the file. “Sorry,” she said. “Thanks.” She took off, feeling everyone’s eyes on her, the incriminating file burning in her hand.
As she passed her secretary’s desk, the girl held out a stack of pink slips, messages, but Lily ignored her, left her sitting there with her mouth open, about to speak. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Richard back in his office pinning up crime-scene photos on a large bulletin board. She hit the door to the ladies’ room with her shoulder like a quarterback and slipped into a stall, pulling the latch. Setting her briefcase on the floor, she sat down on the commode and opened the file. “Oh, my God,” she said, one hand over her chest. She was looking at her eyes, her mouth, her nose, her long neck. “No,” she whispered, shaking her head, trying to swallow and finding her mouth too dry. All the same, no one would ever see her likeness on this piece of paper. The eyes were too menacing, the mouth too compressed, the face too rigid.
Several mug shots were clipped together, and she saw a small triangle of Hernandez’s face sticking out the side of the file. She reached for it but couldn’t force herself to do more than shove the composite inside and open the door to the stall. Standing in the mirror was a person she didn’t know, a stranger, the face in the drawing. She had traveled a thousand miles through Hell to come face to face with her worst nightmare—her own image.
After swallowing two Valiums, Lily tore the clip from her hair and brushed it down around her face. She put on fresh lipstick, blush, and eyeshadow and again looked at the reflection. Of course, the composite drawing resembled her, but no one would attach her name to it. If she was actually a suspect, she’d have been arrested by now. Cunningham wouldn’t talk to her all the time, work with her, and then just waltz in one day and place her under arrest. In her mind, he was a shadowy hero, an old-fashioned cowboy. He didn’t know, she reassured her mirror image before leaving. No one knew.
Pouring herself a cup of coffee from the pot they kept on a little table in the unit, near the secretarial pool, she stuffed the file under her arm, picked up her messages, and hurried to deposit it on her desk before checking in with Richard. When the file left her hands, she noticed her hands were still shaking. Valium and coffee, she thought, breakfast of champions. She took two sips and left the styrofoam cup on her desk.
Richard’s office was cluttered with a bulletin board and a blackboard, and he was busy pinning up crime-scene photos from the McDonald-Lopez case with little punch pins, using the medical examiner’s report as a guideline to place them in the order the injuries were possibly inflicted. Her eyes found
the eight-by-ten glossies of the mutilated body of seventeen-year-old Carmen Lopez; the thought that Shana’s little body might have ended up on a board made chills run up her spine.
“God, what time did you get here this morning?” she asked, looking at all the work he had already done.
He turned and smiled. “Have the words good morning ever come to your mind? It’s a nice way to start the day.” He waited until she walked over close to the board he was working on and then added in a lower voice, “Especially after last night…”
“Good morning,” she said, trying to sound cheerful, seeing the blond D.A. in his arms, in his bed. She had left him frustrated, failed to perform. It was just a matter of time.
“I’ve been thinking of the issue of the gun,” he said, “and the fact that they were stopped only a few miles from the crime scene without it. The area has been combed and combed, as our first thoughts were that they tossed it right after the murder. If the Hernandez brothers were involved in this, it could explain the absence of that weapon. “He picked up his coffee cup from the desk and took a swallow. Having discarded his jacket and loosened his tie, he was prepared to get to work while Lily was just sitting there with a blank look on her face.
Flashbacks of that early morning and her father’s shotgun tumbling down the hill behind the church were playing in her mind. Had someone found it? Had they kept it or turned it in to the authorities? Hernandez had used a knife on her and Shana. If he still had the gun, he surely…Seeing Richard looking at her, waiting for her to say something, she said, “I’m thinking. Give me a minute. Remember, I’m not used to working with a partner, so this may be a little awkward.”
“We’ll get the hang of it,” he said cheerfully, returning to the board and pinning up more photos.
Hernandez had strangled Patricia Barnes, which blew her belief that it was her blood on the knife that had been forced into her mouth, along with the statement he had made about it being the “blood of a whore.”
“Rich, are we absolutely certain that none of the wounds on either victim were inflicted by a knife?” she asked. “The tree limb forced into her vagina caused tremendous lacerations, I know, but possibly some of those were caused by a knife prior.”
He walked to the desk and picked up the fifteen-page autopsy report, handing it to Lily. “You’re welcome to read it again or even call them if you think there could be another weapon. I only recall that the lacerations were listed as tears—jagged—not consistent with a knife.”
“If Manny Hernandez kept the gun while his brother was in custody, which is feasible, particularly since arrests had already been made in the case, it wasn’t in the house or in Bobby’s van,” she said. “But did they search Manny’s car?”
He turned from the board excitedly, swiping his dark hair off his forehead. “Good question, Lily. Damn good question. My bet is they didn’t, since Manny was in no way a suspect in the homicide of his brother.”
“Guess we should call Cunningham and ask,” she said, picking up the phone and dialing the number from memory. The receptionist advised her that the detective’s shift began at three o’clock and it was only nine o’clock. “Go ahead and ring the homicide bureau, then.” One of the other investigators put her on hold and came back on the line with the file, retrieved from Cunningham’s desk.
“Hold on…I’m reading.”
“Take your time,” Lily said, hitting the hands-free button. Returning to her chair, she removed a yellow pad and a pen from her briefcase.
The man finally responded. “Just the van. We impounded the van and searched the house. Nothing more.”
“Thanks,” Lily said, turning to Richard. “Want me to start preparing a search warrant for that car? I can have someone walk it through. We should have it by this afternoon.”
“Go,” he said. “Once Manny hears the news about his brother going down for Patricia Barnes’s death, you can bet that weapon is going to disappear.”
“They’re tailing him, though, and if we catch him actually disposing of it, it makes a far better case than just finding it in his car. He could merely claim his brother placed it there without his knowledge. All we have on him is that one association with Carmen and his visit to Navarro in jail.”
They decided that Lily would prepare the request for a search warrant, and once it was in their hands, they could decide when to execute it.
The request for warrant dictated, Lily kept picking up the Hernandez file and then setting it aside to work on other cases stacked in her bin. Richard had not taken her cases this morning, and she talked herself out of opening the file until her other work was completed.
She skipped lunch and worked straight through, against Richards protests. One of the new cases they had was a multiple-count child molestation in which the victims involved were now all adults, all sisters. The reports stated that they had been talking one night, and one confessed that their father, now divorced from their mother, had molested her. This led to the other sisters admitting that they too had been victims and deciding to report the crimes, all three insisting that they wanted to prosecute their father. The man had been a school bus driver for over fifteen years, and Lily knew there were probably other victims out there who had never come forward. Cases like this one were unusual, yet cropped up here and there now that the statute of limitations had been extended to ten years on some crimes involving the sexual abuse of a child, and indefinitely in regards to specific offenses. This might be an important case, since the long-term psychological damage caused by such crimes would not be mere future projections and speculations, but could be documented and testified to in trial.
She had told Shana she would pick her up at school at three-thirty, and it was now almost three o’clock. After John informed her of what her friend had said about the child not eating, and the scene at the softball practice, Lily had decided to take her to lunch before they went to the lineup. She reached with tentative hands for the file that had haunted her all day, no longer able to avoid it.
There were no autopsy photos, only the original mug shots, and there were duplicate copies in the file. Lily removed one and touched her glasses with one finger, pushing them tightly on her nose. She stared at the picture and instantly brought forth the image in her mind of him looking down on her only inches from her face. Then she tried to visualize him standing there in the light from the bathroom those few panicky seconds before he fled. Swallowing and trying to remain calm, she removed her glasses and stared again at his face. There was a definite difference as she looked at the less distinct features. There was no way she could lie to herself.
Before she left, she placed the extra mug shot in her purse, removed the bottle of Valium, and swallowed two of the pills with a mouthful of cold coffee. When she walked out of the office, she was wearing her glasses, her stomach in knots.
Shana was standing on the curb in front of the school, arms full of books, glancing up and down the row of cars, searching for Lily. Other kids were hurrying down the steps, passing her and dispersing in all different directions; some were congregating in small groups, talking and laughing. Everywhere around her were the sights and sounds of pent-up youthful energy being released into the sunny California afternoon. Shana stood ramrod straight like a cardboard figure.
The scene reminded Lily of a double exposure in which the shadowy and distorted image from one photograph appears in another, out of place, like a ghost. Would the magic ever come back? she wondered, recalling Shana’s melodious laugh and how making her laugh had been like winning a prize on a game show. Shana was wearing the new jeans purchased only last month, but now they were baggy in the seat, and she had used a belt to hold them on her waist. She spotted Lily and walked over to the car, ignoring several kids who passed her and started to say something to her.
“Boy, I’m starving,” Lily said. “I skipped lunch today. So, let’s you and I go somewhere and have something nice. What sounds good?”
“Not much,” Shana said
, sighing deeply.
“Did you eat lunch?”
She didn’t answer and tossed her books in the backseat, where they tumbled and rolled to the floorboard. “I got an F on my math test today.”
“You can make it up. Naturally, with all that’s been going on…well, you just can’t expect…” Lily paused, thinking, trying to find the right words. “To tell you the truth, I haven’t been doing so great at work either. What about a tutor? Maybe we should get you a tutor for the remainder of the year.”
“I want to change schools,” she said, her voice strained. “I told you that already.”
“But, Shana, its going to be extremely hard on you to come into a brand-new school so late in the year. You wouldn’t have any friends, and I don’t know if it’s in your best interest to do something like that right now. Why is it so important?”
The girl brushed her hair back behind her ears and turned to her mother. “Because I think everyone is talking about me behind my back all the time. That they know. Everyone hates me anyway.”
Lily pulled into the parking lot of a Sizzler restaurant and turned off the ignition. “I’m sure they don’t know, but I appreciate how you feel. I felt the same way at first at my office, but I forced myself to stop thinking that way.”
“You know what you sound like, Mom? You sound just like that psychologist, and I can’t stand her.”
Mitigating Circumstances Page 24