Errors made at the crime scene were where many investigations failed, ultimately leaving a prosecutor without the necessary evidence to convict the killer. Both Osborne and Hope were determined that mistakes wouldn’t be made. They assigned a team of officers to rope off the area, then charged them with checking the credentials of every law enforcement officer who was allowed entrance.
Some people mistakenly thought the medical examiner was in charge of everything related to the crime scene. In reality, their responsibility was to study and analyze the body of the victim, then correlate their findings with the evidence technicians. When members of the press questioned why an M.E. was not allowed access to the scene as soon as the police determined that a homicide had been committed, the reason was simple. The victim’s body was merely an object to be protected for later examination and dissection, and outside of photographs and outlines related to its position when discovered, it was to be left undisturbed until the M.E. and police official in charge agreed it was time to transport it to the morgue. Once the body was identified and stored, the chief pathologist would schedule the autopsy.
In less than an hour, John Forrester, for whatever his strengths and weaknesses, had now became no more than a name, a number, a memory, a mystery—just another corpse at the morgue.
Hope massaged her forehead, surrounded by the odors and images of death, kneeling as she stared at the multiple stab wounds in Forrester’s back and lower torso. “What happened here, Mark?”
“Did you hear about Shana Forrester?”
“No,” she said, looking up. “Don’t tell me you think she did this? The accident, yeah, I can see how something like that might have occurred, even though I personally think her father got drunk and ran over the boy. This—” She motioned toward the body, shaking her head back and forth. “Not this, Mark. You’ll never convince me that the girl butchered her father this way. Look at the size and number of wounds the killer inflicted. We’re looking at the work of a psychopath. Whoever did this was either completely out of control or they enjoyed it.”
“Anything’s possible,” Osborne said, sipping a cup of coffee one of the other officers had brought to him. “Just thought you should know that the girl passed out in the backseat of the patrol car on the way to the station.”
“Is she okay?”
“They took her to the hospital to be checked,” he told her. “She only fainted.”
Hope stepped aside to let another officer pass. “I’d faint too if someone told me my father had been murdered. God, Mark, she was only inches away from finding the body.”
Osborne compressed his lips, looking up at the night sky before he turned back to his partner. “Shana Forrester fainted only a few minutes after the patrol officer drove off,” he said. “At first the officer thought she had been knocked unconscious when he hit the brakes and she smacked her head against the back of his seat. The doctor who examined her said she got that bump on her forehead after she’d already fainted.”
Hope grimaced at the growing influx of officers and equipment. They needed to keep their attention focused on what was going on around them. “Why are we talking about a bump on Shana Forrester’s forehead?”
“She didn’t know her father was dead.”
“I’m lost,” she said, stopping to point out the area they had decided to rope off to two officers. “You still haven’t told me what you’re getting at, Mark.”
“Why would she faint?” Osborne said, pausing for emphasis. “It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been brought in for questioning before, or she’s some five-year-old kid that was scared out of her wits because she had to ride in the back of a police car. Of course, if she had just killed her father and you happened to come along, that would make her little fainting episode a lot more significant. What do you think?”
Hope sighed, wishing she’d never transferred into homicide. “I guess you better send a unit over to pickup her girlfriend,” she told him. “We could be looking at more than one killer, isn’t that what you’re saying? That could explain why there are so many stab wounds.”
“Exactly.”
RICHARD AND Lily were staring at each other across the kitchen table. Both of them were exhausted—Lily from the grueling interview at the police department that afternoon, Richard from disposing of the Honda. He had hobbled in the door about an hour after she’d returned from Ventura, his legs cramping from walking the seven miles down the mountain to San Ysidro Ranch. He had been smart enough to have the cab driver drop him off several blocks from Lily’s guest cottage in case anyone became suspicious.
“I have to be in court in Ventura by ten tomorrow morning,” he told her. “If you’re not awake, I’ll just slip out and lock the door behind me. What are you going to do about a car now?”
“I’ll have Kingsley pick me up,” Lily said, wanting to block out the events of the day. “Until Ventura officially files charges against me in Hernandez’s death, I’m going to do everything I can to get my cases cleared up. Brennan may decide to put another prosecutor on the Middleton case. Kingsley’s come a long way, but I still don’t think he has enough trial experience to handle it alone.”
Hearing the phone ringing in the other room, she said, “That’s probably Shana. I gave her my cell phone and told her to stay in touch.”
When Lily returned a few moments later, her face was ashen. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it, bracing herself against the counter. Richard pushed himself to his feet, knowing by the look on her face that something was wrong.
“John’s dead!” she told him. “He was murdered… stabbed … the police found him in the garage of the duplex.”
“No,” he exclaimed. “Don’t tell me Shana found him.”
“They didn’t say,” Lily answered, rushing into the other room to get dressed. Richard followed her, leaning in the doorway as she dropped her robe to the floor and started throwing on the same clothes she had worn to the police department that afternoon. “I’m assuming they found his body only a few hours ago. The detective who interviewed Shana about the hit-and-run called. I should have asked him for more details. When he said they were holding Shana at the police station, I hung up. I have to get to her, Richard. The only person who could have done this is Curazon. John must have walked in and surprised him while he was inside the duplex waiting for Shana.”
Richard seized her by the shoulders. “Slow down,” he said forcefully. “Did Osborne specifically say they were holding Shana? That means she’s under arrest, Lily, that they think there’s a possibility that she killed John.”
“Let go of me,” Lily said, wrenching away. “How could you even say such a thing? Shana would never kill her father. Curazon is the maniac who keeps destroying our lives. Why couldn’t I have shot him instead of Hernandez? Give me the keys to your car.”
“I’m going with you,” he told her. “You can’t drive when you’re this upset. And I refuse to let either you or Shana talk to the police again without an attorney.”
Lily grabbed her purse and rushed out the door. She was in such a panic, Richard had to chase after her, or she would have driven off and left him in a swirling cloud of dust.
LILY AND Richard were huddled in a corridor outside an interview room at the Burbank precinct of the Los Angeles Police Department. Mark Osborne and Hope Carruthers had kept them waiting in the reception area for twenty-five minutes. “I demand to see my daughter now,” Lily shouted almost the moment the two detectives appeared. “How could you make me wait all this time?”
“We understand how upset you must be,” Hope said, lightly touching Lily’s arm. “Try to see things from our perspective. We’re investigating what appears to be a homicide. Until a few moments ago we were tied up at the crime scene. Your daughter is fine. She doesn’t know about her father yet. We thought it would be better to wait until you arrived.”
Mark Osborne was quietly monitoring Lily’s reaction. He had caught a glimpse of her temper the first day he’d interviewe
d Shana regarding the hit-and-run accident. What he saw now, however, made him believe Lily might be capable of committing the crime her husband had told them about. The more immediate question was—had she killed her former husband as well? While en route to the station from the crime scene, Hope had contacted the Ventura P.D. and reached Fred Jameson at his home. According to the detective, they anticipated having an arrest warrant issued for Lily Forrester by the following week. Osborne pulled Richard aside, wanting to figure out how he fit into the picture before they broke the news to the girl.
“Are you a relative?”
“No,” Richard said, introducing himself, “I’m an attorney. Unless Shana Forrester is under arrest, just consider me a friend of the family.”
Osborne’s shoulder twitched with nervous energy. Jameson had warned him about Fowler. He could understand that Lily was upset at the news of her ex-husband and the father of her child’s murder. She couldn’t be that distraught, however, not if she’d taken the time to bring along a well-known criminal defense attorney.
When Mark Osborne removed a toothpick from his pocket, slowly unwrapped it and placed it in his mouth, Richard realized the gruff-looking detective was toying with him. “Let’s not beat around the bush,” he said. “Why are you stalling, refusing to let Lily speak to her daughter after a tragedy like this? Is the girl a suspect?”
Osborne’s face was as unreadable as stone. “In which case?”
Hope cleared her throat, hoping she could get Osborne’s attention. Shana had been sitting in a glass-enclosed interview room for almost three hours. She didn’t consider the fact that the girl had fainted in the back of the police car that significant, any more than the coincidence that she had shared a class with Antonio Vasquez. The only person she considered a possible suspect was Lily Forrester.
“Let me ask you something,” Richard said. “Have you ever heard the expression that there’s a time and a place for everything?”
“Yeah,” Osborne said, shifting the toothpick to the other side of his mouth. “I also have another dead body on my hands, Fowler. This causes a bit of a problem, since this latest victim had already been arraigned on charges of vehicular manslaughter. Ventura P.D. advised us only a short time ago that your lady friend over there is about to be arrested for a man she killed six years ago. John Forrester, the guy on the way to the county morgue, happens to be the same person who brought this Hernandez case back to light. Are you following me?”
Richard took his own advice, knowing it was his turn to listen.
Osborne continued, “What I need to know, Fowler, is if I’m talking to Lily and Shana Forrester’s family friend, as you described yourself, or their attorney. Then we can get down to business.”
Richard didn’t take well to being bullied. “Lily’s a good woman, Osborne,” he said, feeling as if he wanted to slug the man. “I don’t give a shit how many dead bodies you have on your hands. Let the woman see her daughter, for God’s sake. Otherwise, you’re going to have to throw me in jail.”
32
By the time they left the Burbank precinct and got back on the 101 Freeway, it was twelve-fifteen Sunday morning. Richard had fortified himself with several cups of coffee, and Shana and Lily were riding in the backseat of his Lexus.
“I didn’t want Dad to die,” Shana sobbed, a wad of tissues resting in her lap. “I should have called him sooner. I said I hated him… that I never wanted to see him again.”
“Please, darling,” Lily told her, “you didn’t cause this to happen.”
“I loved him,” Shana said. “He didn’t mean to hit that boy with his car.”
Both women fell silent.
As Richard approached the exit leading to his house, he glanced into the backseat and saw that Lily had fallen asleep, her head resting on Shana’s shoulder. Between the interview Lily had endured earlier that day at the Ventura Police Department, the hours she’d spent on the road, and the energy she had expended trying to comfort her daughter, her need for sleep had finally taken over. He thought of renting a hotel room, not certain it was safe for him to continue driving. They still had another hour on the road before they reached Santa Barbara. Deciding the best solution was for them to spend the night at his house, he was relieved when he turned onto his street and saw that Joyce’s car wasn’t in the driveway.
Shana became alarmed. “Where are we? Why are you stopping here?”
“This is my house,” Richard whispered. “You and your mother are going to stay with me. Wait until I unlock the door and turn on some lights, then I’ll come back for you.”
A few moments later, Richard returned to the car and swept Lily up in his arms, depositing her in what was considered the maid’s room downstairs rather than try to carry her to the guest room upstairs without waking her.
He found Shana standing in the kitchen. “I can’t sleep,” she told him, trailing her fingers across the granite countertop. “Marco Curazon had to be the one who killed my dad. What if he went over there intending to kill me?”
“How about a cup of hot chocolate?” Richard said. “Warm milk is supposed to relax you, help you to sleep.”
“I guess,” Shana said, lifting her shoulders, then dropping them.
Once Richard had heated up the hot chocolate in the microwave and poured himself a Diet Coke, he suggested they would be more comfortable talking in his library. The room had high ceilings and floor-to-ceiling bookcases. Two brown leather chairs were arranged in a small grouping in one corner of the spacious room. A beautiful cherry desk stood in front of a leaded-glass window shaped in the form of an arch. “This looks like the Oval Office or something,” Shana said, sitting in one of the leather chairs.
“I’m a long way from being the president,” Richard said, taking a seat in the chair across from her. “Before I show you where you’ll be sleeping tonight,” he continued, “I’d like to tell you a story that might make you feel better. Just tell me to shut up when you’re ready to go to bed.”
“No,” Shana said, sipping her cocoa, “I told you I can’t sleep.”
“I overheard what you said to your mother in the car,” he continued. “Whether you know it or not, for almost two years Greg and I didn’t speak to each other.”
“When was this?” she asked. “He didn’t say anything about you guys having a problem when I talked to him the other night.”
“Well,” Richard explained, “I guess both of us would rather forget it. The only reason I’m bringing this up is because I believe it might help you cope with some of the feelings you expressed in the car about your father. Something could have happened to me during that time period. I don’t know who would have felt worse, myself or Greg.”
“Was it because Greg didn’t want to be an attorney?”
“No,” he said, resting his head against the back of the chair. “The summer after he graduated from high school, he got involved with the wrong crowd. He stopped surfing and started hanging out at these nightclubs in Los Angeles, staying out all hours of the night. He was working for me at the time, and I admit that’s not always the best situation.”
“What happened?”
“He got arrested for possession of marijuana,” Richard said. “He later told me the drugs had belonged to his friend. Whether that’s true or not, I don’t know, and at this point I don’t care. Rather than come to me and admit he had a problem, he got some low-life bail bondsman to spring him from jail. One of his other friends used Greg’s key, came into my house while I was at work, and filled out all the paperwork right here in my library, listing this house as a guarantee, then forging my name on the document. When Greg failed to show up for court several weeks later, I ended up with a lien on my property.” He stopped and made a gesture with his hands. “I came this close to losing my home over a few thousand dollars. I threw Greg out of the house, then told him I never wanted to see him again. I was angry and hurt. I obviously didn’t mean the things I said. That’s why Greg is behind on completing his mast
er’s program. He lived on the beach in Hawaii for two years.”
“I’m ready to go to bed,” Shana said, tears streaming down her face again. “My dad is dead. Greg is still alive.”
Richard walked over and embraced her. “Instead of the bad times, try to remember all the good times. Your father knew you loved him. How many girls your age would live with their dad? According to your mother, you seldom even dated.”
“I needed him,” Shana said, her voice cracking. “Mom was too busy. I got scared being alone.”
“You could have lived in the dorm.” Richard showed her to the guest room, started to leave, then turned back around. “What happened to your father shouldn’t have happened to anyone, Shana. He did use you, though. He clung to you, turned you into a substitute wife, forced you to put up with his drinking, failures, and weaknesses. You’re not the weak one. He transferred his weakness to you. He sucked you dry, manipulated you in a subtle but effective way.”
“I’m scared,” Shana said, resting her back against the door frame. “I know it was Curazon. He didn’t have a reason to kill my dad, don’t you see? He was looking for me. What if they don’t catch him? I won’t be safe no matter where I go.”
“Let’s hope it was him,” Richard told her. “If the police find out he’s responsible, they’ll make an all-out effort to apprehend him.”
“They better.”
“They will, Shana,” Richard said, his eyes filled with conviction. “And when they do, this time he’ll go away forever.”
BY ELEVEN o’clock Monday morning, Bruce Cunningham was standing in the detective bureau at the Ventura Police Departaient with Fred Jameson and Keith O’Malley. Both men had been flabbergasted that an individual considered a legend in local law enforcement circles had, for all practical purposes, fallen out of the sky and landed right on their doorstep. Cunningham told the detectives that he’d been sent to Los Angeles to attend a Karcher convention by his company, Jineco Equipment Corporation. Since he’d arrived several days early to meet with an important customer in their area, he had decided to drop by and see what he could do to help the two investigators put together the Hernandez homicide—one of the few cases in his career he had not resolved.
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