Slice of Greed: A Kevin Rhinehardt Mystery (BOL Mysteries Book 1)

by K. C. Reinstadler

  Jolene Richardson suffered a mental breakdown following his arrest and was being consoled by Reverend Tommy Stiller. The good pastor had put his personal legal staff at her disposal, and she was in the midst of divorcing Richardson’s fat ass. Stiller Ministries was named as her death benefit beneficiary.

  To add insult to his injury, Mariella Cruz had contacted Jolene when her condo went into foreclosure. Robert had put the mortgage under Mariella’s name, but now he wasn’t making the payments due to his “circumstance.” Mariella got pissed and made the mistake of filing a paternity suit against the philandering attorney. This brought to light the fraudulent birth certificate filing, perpetrated on the State of Florida. The Sunshine State was now going after poor Robert as well for conspiracy and child support.

  Oh yeah, I almost forgot that INS got wind of it all, and sweet Mariella had her GPS bracelet slapped back on. If the department got its way, she was Cuba-bound. Word was, she was looking for another gringo to get frisky with. Throw out that anchor again, amiga.

  The Mariella Bonita was currently being sailed out of the Gulf of Mexico on its way to California. Jolene Richardson already had a buyer for it. It had been renamed the Liar Liar.

  Almost one year to the day after Cheryl Howard crept into Marvin Redbone’s town house, Robert Richardson was alone and penniless. He brought his lawsuit against us to court. The fork master was representing himself, of course.

  The county had negotiated to excise all of us deputies from the lawsuit (thank you, Jesus!). It was just the crook against the county now. We were all sweating it, nonetheless, and were surprised when after he presented his short case facts to the judge—fork in throat equals bad, bad county—the magistrate issued a summary judgment.

  “Mr. Richardson, there are many mitigating facts in this case. You are currently disbarred from practicing law in the State of California due to your alleged participation in a capital punishment case. Your injuries, although substantial, were not life-threatening, and you have made a complete recovery as a result of the excellent medical treatment afforded you by the very entity you are now wishing to bring suit against. Your injury was not caused by any person employed by the county of Santa Barbara but solely by your psychopathic, murderous coconspirator while you engaged with her in conversation aimed at concealing your heinous crimes. I find that your injury was caused by your own poor judgments, your own criminal actions in this matter. I further find that the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office went to extraordinary lengths to protect the public in this case. Therefore, the case against the sheriff’s office and Santa Barbara County is hereby dismissed. Mr. Richardson, if I may give you some advice, don’t piss off your killer friends next time.”

  This parting, final comment by the civil court judge was the lead-in for most of the national news organizations that night. Geraldo Rivera played it three times.

  Robert Richardson’s criminal trial commenced fifteen months after the murders. The rotund lawyer did his very best to continue the trial indefinitely.

  “Your Honor, I need more time. This is a complicated case, and it requires further research. I’m just not ready.”

  Judge Staples would have none of it.

  “Mr. Richardson, you were offered a public defender, and you have chosen to represent yourself, pro per. That is your right, and you are qualified to do so. However, you have been in custody for some fourteen months at this point, and you have had nothing but time to research and prepare your defense. What have you been doing with your time in county jail, sir? Could it be you spent most of your time working on your failed civil suit against the county? I suggest you file your motions, gather your case law and evidence, and issue your subpoenas. Be ready for trial in three weeks. No further continuances.”

  The stage was set.

  The media was ready, and so were we. I was very pleased to see Rachael Storm among the ranks of veteran news reporters gathered around the courthouse during the days that followed. We had gambled on her integrity, and it had paid off for all of us. I was happy to call her a friend.

  The trial, or should I say the three-ring circus, took two months. For the first month, it was constant parade of prosecutorial evidence showing how the horrific murders were carried out by Howard at Richardson’s behest. Although it covered the methodology of the murders, the real evidence came with the testimony of the killer herself.

  Janet Swan was masterful in her presentation of the case. Even though Cheryl had been hard to control during the investigation (she tried to fork us after all), she was succinct and articulate in her initial testimony. She laid it all out for the jury. Then came ten days of cross-examination by Richardson, and her demeanor began to change.

  Richardson hammered her daily, trying to get her to change her testimony. Howard obviously hated him, but was firm in her resolve.

  “Ten years after you represented me in Miami, you contacted me, not the other way around. You blackmailed me with the threat of exposing facts about our attorney-client privileged conversations regarding the incident in the islands. I felt I had no choice but to kill Dr. Redbone, as you, Mr. Richardson, had demanded. You convinced me that if I didn’t do what you wanted, you would ruin my life. But you did it anyway.”

  She testified that she had murdered the doctor and the unfortunate Raul Diaz with reluctance and only committed the murders at the insistence of the blackmailing attorney. She expressed regret at stabbing the unwitting Raul Diaz but said she had to silence the only witness to her crime or risk exposure. She wept real tears and said she regretted his murder the most.

  Richardson kept hammering at Cheryl to admit that the cops forced her to lie and that their taped conversations were not a true representation of what really was said. She started screaming at Richardson and began being nonresponsive. This can be a death blow to a prosecution case—a rogue witness. I started to sweat as I sat next to Janet Swan at the prosecution table. I wanted to strangle Cheryl myself.

  Judge Staples stopped her ranting and said, “Ms. Howard, it would be useless for me to find you in contempt, since the threat of jail time means nothing to someone serving two consecutive life sentences, without the possibility of parole, in prison. However, if you do not cease interrupting Mr. Richardson, and begin answering questions, I will remove you from the courtroom, and I believe you want to be heard here.”

  Cheryl Howard wanted Richardson to pay for what he did to her even more than I did. She calmed herself enough to finish his cross-examination that day. After this witness, Janet Swan rested the prosecution’s case.

  I always try to imagine what the defense strategy will be as a trial progresses. I do my best to try and figure out what fabric of lies the defense will weave, and I strive to help the DA stay ahead of them. Richardson’s strategy took us all by surprise.

  He took the witness stand to testify in his own defense. He asked himself leading questions from the stand and would then testify (rather, testi-lie) to answer them. Here was his gripping fairy tale.

  He was afraid of Cheryl Howard. She was a psychopath who browbeat him into representing her after she murdered Troy Williams in the Cayman Islands eleven years ago. He left Miami to get away from her. Cheryl Oswald (now Howard) then suddenly found him in Camarillo and threatened him into representing her in a high-dollar divorce case against Daniel Howard free of charge. He tried desperately to resist her demands, but he feared she would kill him as she had Troy Williams. Cheryl Howard then killed his associate, poor Dr. Marvin Redbone and his unfortunate bedmate, because she learned that Redbone had been telling Richardson to call the police about her threats to him. Redbone had urged his attorney friend to expose her prior murder of Troy Williams to protect himself. Cheryl found out about this encouragement by Marvin because the doctor told her personally. (Too bad he couldn’t testify on Robert’s behalf.) That sealed the unfortunate doctor’s fate at the hands of the Phantom.

  Richardson wasn’t done. After she was arrested, and to prevent him from exposi
ng her, Cheryl Howard tried to silence him at Sally’s Place with a fork to the throat. Richardson testified under oath that all the video and audio evidence of that ill-fated morning had been doctored by the corrupt Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office and that unscrupulous detective, Kevin Rhinehardt.

  Richardson told the jury:

  “After all, Detective Rhinehardt and the others were under great pressure by their higher-ups to make an arrest as attested to by the KCMP commentator, William Baxter, in his televised exposés. Arresting an attorney would make brilliant press for the sheriff’s office.”

  It was simple: poor Robert Richardson was just an unfortunate victim, manipulated by a psychopathic killer, Cheryl Howard, and framed by an embarrassed law-enforcement agency.

  Richardson marched in a couple of character witnesses and a defense “expert” (commonly referred to in criminal trials as a paid whore), who testified that our video- and audiotapes could be manipulated using sophisticated methods.

  Janet Swan asked his expert on cross, “So, are you telling us that in your expert opinion, these particular tapes have been altered?”

  “Well, not exactly, Ms. Swan. I am saying that manipulation is possible using methods commonly available. The technology is in place. It is possible.”

  My mind raced from the counsel table. Yeah, dickhead, and the Easter Bunny actually shits chocolate eggs.

  I was summoned to the stand for rebuttal by Janet Swan, along with Ted and several others, to impeach the testimony that the physical evidence may have been tampered with. I endured hours of playing tapes and walking the jury through how it all went down. Then, more condescending questioning from Richardson, aimed at making the twelve men and women question my integrity in the investigation. He prefaced his questions with, “Isn’t it a fact, Detective…”

  I hate it when defense attorneys begin questioning cops with that tag line. The answer is always “No,” but they must teach them to say that in law school. It’s meant to give the jury the impression that the attorney is about to prove you are lying. Most times, it just grinds on the jurists, the triers of facts. I hoped these twelve folks saw through his fabric of lies.

  On the afternoon I was finishing my testimony, and before Janet Swan rested the entire case, I got a 9-1-1 page while testifying on the stand. During the break, I learned that a new witness had surfaced after calling the detective bureau. Janet asked for a two-hour recess while I checked this lead out.

  I rushed to the main Santa Barbara office and met a neatly dressed, fresh-faced Latrice Tyson in the sheriff’s lobby. Over coffee, she gave me a recounting of her dealings with Robert Richardson prior to the murders. She even gave me the original Solvang Valley News article about the Howard domestic squabble back then, which she had copied and provided Richardson with that day she spoke to him. The capper was a copy of the dated and signed ten-thousand-dollar check he provided her with the memo “For services rendered.”

  Latrice frankly told me about how the heroin dragon and her poor decisions had landed her in a position to want to deal with scum like Richardson. She was proud that more than six months ago, she had finally gone to Narcotics Anonymous and was now four months clean and sober. It took all of her courage to come to us, but she knew it was the right thing to do after hearing in the news what Richardson was telling the jury.

  Holy crap. This was the smoking gun we needed to shoot Richardson with! I raced back to court with Tyson in tow. Janet asked for a sidebar with the judge and Richardson and asked to reopen her case to put on this new, critical witness.

  Everyone in court heard Robert Richardson when he blasted out, “I object most vigorously, Your Honor!”

  Seated at the counsel table, I clearly heard Judge Staples almost as loudly point directly at him and say, “You, Mr. Richardson, are out of line!”

  There was some more banter in camera (in the judge’s chambers), and Janet came out after twenty minutes with a big smile on her face. We could reopen.

  Latrice Tyson was the most compelling witness I ever had on one of my cases. Janet Swan with Tyson as the witness completely destroyed Richardson’s fictitious defense. Latrice made it very clear that Richardson was the one who obviously sought out Cheryl Howard, before the murders, based on her discovery of the Howard family squabble. Although Richardson brought out the facts of her past addiction and fall from grace to impeach her credibility, the jury hung on her every word. She came across as a truthful person with a troubled pass. Many of us identified with her situation.

  Then, suddenly, it was over. Richardson rested his defense case. One more afternoon of jury instructions, and then the case was handed to the twelve members of the jury. As they headed off to the deliberation room, Ted and I headed to Harry’s bar for a stiff one (OK, maybe two or three). We weren’t celebrating; we were sweating. You never know what a jury will do. It takes only one person to hang a verdict out to dry after all.

  It took just two days. I have always felt that jurists take their jobs very seriously, more so in capital murder cases. Normally, a relatively quick return from a jury means a conviction. It was no surprise to anyone that the verdict was guilty on all counts.

  I was surprised, though, when the jury delivered a death sentence upon deliberating the penalty phase two weeks later. After all, Cheryl Howard, the actual killer, was serving life. Interviewed later, they all felt that Robert Richardson’s manipulation of the psychotic Howard made him deserve to die. They were unanimous in their contempt for the man. They were not a jury of his peers; they were superior in every way.

  Richardson pled straight up on the remaining fraud and theft charges. After all, what else could the state do to him? A few months later, I heard Robert was handing out free legal advice to Black Guerilla Family gang members on death row at San Quentin. Seems the nice fellows offered to protect Bob from the frequent requests by some other inmates that he bend over and retrieve the soap dropped on the floor.

  Epilogue

  The trial was finally over, and things had calmed down a bit at the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office. Biff and Ted worked a couple of mundane murders (yes, some are less flamboyant than others). One Mexican fellow shot his buddy after a night of heavy drinking. The killer found out that his amigo mejor had impregnated his sister years earlier and then insisted she abort the fetus. Her guilt over ending the pregnancy forced her to commit suicide. The suspect put a bullet in the victim’s brain. Deputies found the killer weeping over his friend’s bloody body, asking God for forgiveness. They wrapped up that case in two weeks.

  Louie and I shagged an unfortunate murder-suicide. Seventy-four-year-old John Stodden killed his wife, Sandra, of forty-two years, and then turned the revolver on himself. He left a written confession. Sandra had stage-four pancreatic cancer, and she’d been in tremendous pain for months. Witnesses recalled that she begged him to end her pain.

  John explained in his written note that he couldn’t stand by as she died slowly.

  I cannot withstand Sandra’s cries any longer. With each tear, I die. Her pain is unbearable, and I cannot let her suffer like this.

  John addressed their children as he finished his confession: Kids, forgive me. My love for your mom will unite us together, forever, without pain. We both love you very much. Good-bye.

  Regardless of your religious beliefs, it was heartwrenching and a real tragedy for all of them. It was not an easy case to work. I was glad no one had to face society’s justice here. No one else had walked in his or his wife’s shoes. Luis and I hoped that somehow they had both found peace together.

  I got the usual theft cases, too. Working burglaries is a never-ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way. Bust one thief, and ten take his/her place. I hated burglary cases. Then one day, I got three commercial burglaries dropped on my desk. Two McDonalds and a Burger King, all located in the county, were burgled within a twenty-day period.

  The culprit cut off locks to vents on the roof of each burger business to make ent
ry. The crook would then twist the inside door handset open to gain access to the main office. All the business safes were then emptied of the prior week’s proceeds. It was a familiar story except these safes weren’t torched, pried, or unbolted and stolen (as was the common MO). Each safe’s hardened Sargent and Greenleaf combination locking mechanisms had been carefully drilled through, disabling the lock and allowing the thief to simply open the doors to scoop out his/her loot.

  Now, that’s a real thief—a safecracker. I could really get into catching this guy. I quickly put aside most of my other mundane crime reports and began a working file on these three. I had no idea this case would later lead me to one of the most cunning crime families in California history and to my own near-death experience.

  Sitting in the dick bureau soon thereafter, Louie yelled from across the room, “Hey, Kev, time for that end-of-case party, baby.” Everyone within earshot voiced their enthusiastic agreement.

  They all knew I loved throwing a party. The Rhinehardts were known for their Halloween parties, squad parties, spring parties, and summer parties. Any excuse for a party would do, and nailing the Phantom was one of the best excuses for a barbecue in a long while.

  We had earned a lot of overtime pay this past year, and I was ready to let my hair down (what little I had left) and spend a little of that dough. I made sure that everyone who played any part in the murder case was there, along with their significant others. I counted sixty-four that Saturday afternoon at Casa de Rhino. I barbecued tri-tip and cooked a pot of my famous Santa Maria–style beans. The guys and their wives provided the salads and desserts. Will Phillips was getting pretty good at brewing craft beer, too. He provided four cases of his most-recent batch. The bottles all bore his custom label with this emblazoned on each:

  PHANTOM ALE

  Below it, in small print:

  Fork ’em!

  Just after our food had settled, the doorbell rang. I heard Julie say, “Well, hello, Chief Walters.”