Buried Evidence

by Nancy Taylor Rosenberg

  As soon as she disconnected, Lily punched in the numbers to her voice mail. She heard Keith O’Malley’s message, followed by Kingsley advising her of the circumstances surrounding Betsy Middleton’s death. O’Malley’s call was a blow in itself. Coupled with the news about Betsy, it almost caused Lily to drive head-on into another vehicle. She steered the Lexus to the side of the road and turned off the engine.

  Lily started to call Richard, then stopped, wanting to hurl the stupid phone out the window. People shouldn’t hear this type of stuff while they were driving. No wonder Cunningham had climbed on his soapbox.

  As cars whizzed past her on the freeway, Lily recalled visiting a pet store several months back, thinking she might buy a dog. She’d seen a round plastic container about the size of a basketball being propelled across the floor by the efforts of a hamster. At the time she had laughed, but she now felt as if she were inside an identical plastic ball. It was as if God had played a trick, and human beings were no different than hamsters. The scenery changed, the clock ticked, but no matter how fast she pedaled, Lily kept returning to the same exact spot.

  34

  Lily, Shana, and Richard were seated at the round table in his kitchen by three o’clock Monday afternoon. The Ventura police were now in possession of a warrant for Lily’s arrest for the murder of Bobby Hernandez.

  She had wanted to keep the news from Shana as long as possible. Richard had not agreed. They had reached a point, he told her, where there could be no more secrets between any of them. Too many of the crimes overlapped one another. If they weren’t careful, they would ensnare themselves with their own lies.

  Three of the five individuals who knew the truth were seated at the table. John was now dead. Richard had told them that as of that moment, he would be officially representing Lily. Should Shana require legal representation, he would bring in his partner, Marty Schwartz. He proceeded to caution Shana about what she said, not only to the police but to everyone she came in contact with.

  “How can Richard represent you, Mom?” Shana asked, tapping her fingernails on the table. “Won’t that be a problem? You just admitted that you told him the truth right before you confessed to that detective who moved to Omaha.”

  “That doesn’t have anything to do with me representing her,” Richard told her. “No matter what I know, Shana, I’m going to do everything in my power to protect both you and your mother. No one will ever replace your father, but I want you to know that I’m here for you.”

  “Thanks,” the girl said, reaching over and touching his hand. “It’s nice to know someone cares.”

  “The good thing about having me as your mother’s attorney,” Richard continued, trying to keep his own emotions in check, “is she doesn’t have to worry about legal fees.”

  A weak smile appeared on Shana’s face. “That works for me.”

  “The only time the situation might become sticky is if the prosecution subpoenas me to testify as a witness,” Richard continued. “Right now, there’s no reason to believe they know I’m involved. Just because your mother and I were friends and worked in the same office doesn’t mean I can’t represent her.”

  Shana walked over to the sink to get a glass of water. “Most people don’t stay in their attorney’s house, though, right?”

  Richard was pleased to see the girl’s mind working. Grief was a devastating emotion. Sometimes even a distraction as disturbing as the one they were facing was better than sinking into a pit of despair. “I have a pullout sofa at the office,” he said. “You and your mother can stay here as long as you want. I’ll send someone to Santa Barbara to pick up your things, Lily. I don’t want either of you staying at the cottage. This house has a good security system, and I’ll never be more than a phone call away.”

  Shana asked, “What about my stuff?”

  “You’ll have to wait until the police clear the crime scene.”

  “I can’t deal with this,” Lily suddenly erupted, standing and shoving her chair back to the table. “I want to plead guilty. Even Cunningham said it was time I put this behind me.”

  “Why would you plead guilty?” Shana shouted angrily. “They’ll send you to prison. Then I won’t have anyone.”

  “Pleading guilty doesn’t make sense, Lily,” Richard told her. “Just because the police managed to get a warrant doesn’t mean they can bring in a conviction. They could show the jury a film of you committing the crime, and I’d still place my money on an acquittal. You and Shana were raped, for God’s sake. You’re a mother, an educated professional who has devoted her life to the community. Hernandez was a monster.”

  “Don’t you understand?” Lily said, slamming her fist down on the table. “I’ve lived a lie for over six years! I want to wipe the slate clean. I don’t want them to let me off just because I killed someone to avenge my daughter’s rape, or because I happened to kill a man who turned out to be a murderer. What if Hernandez had been an innocent person who just had the misfortune of resembling the man who raped us? Would that be okay? Should they let me go then as well? Every criminal has an excuse, some way to justify his behavior. I’m ready to pay my dues.”

  “No!” Shana shouted. “You don’t deserve to go to prison. The guy you killed was worse than Curazon. Richard just said a jury won’t convict you. Listen to him, Mother. Stop talking like an idiot. You shot that guy to protect me. Don’t you know how you make me feel when you say these things?”

  “Richard will negotiate a settlement with the D.A.’s office,” Lily explained, walking over and putting her arm around her daughter. “The case will be resolved in a meeting, not a courtroom. That means it won’t turn into a media circus, where you and I will both be hurt.”

  “I don’t care if they put us on television,” Shana said, wiping away a tear, her body shaking. “Please, Mother, promise me you won’t do this…go in there and tell them you killed him.”

  “Remember, sweetheart,” Lily said softly, “we were talking the other day about how criminals don’t spend enough time in prison?” A sense of peace had settled over Lily now that she’d made her decision. “Because of how long ago the crime occurred and the mitigating circumstances Richard just mentioned, the D.A.’s office will probably let me plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter. They might even give me a suspended sentence, structure a punishment where I wouldn’t have to go to prison at all. They even have work-release programs.”

  “When did you talk to Cunningham?” Richard asked, his eyes tracking Shana as she stormed out of the room.

  “I’m not really certain,” Lily answered. “I haven’t had enough sleep. That’s why I want to get this resolved. Shana may be upset now, but when it’s all said and done, I believe it will be a relief for everyone.”

  Richard and Lily’s ears pricked, hearing the sound of a car engine, then tires squealing on his asphalt driveway. “What in the—”

  They both raced over to the window, thinking it had to be the police, that someone had told them where Lily was staying and they had come to arrest her.

  One of Richard’s prized possessions was no longer parked in the driveway. Shana had found his keys on the hall table and had taken off in his 1965 black Corvette convertible.

  NOW THAT they had talked a judge into signing a warrant for the arrest of Lily Forrester, Fred Jameson and Keith O’Malley felt fairly certain that their suspect would surrender. When they returned from the D.A.’s office, they found Bruce Cunningham had moved all the evidence boxes into the conference room.

  “It’s great having you onboard,” Jameson said, cracking his knuckles. Cunningham had started to organize the various files and evidence in neat stacks on top of the conference table. “The D.A. wants us to get him everything he’ll need to prepare the pleading by Wednesday. That only gives us two days.”

  Keith O’Malley had brought along a stack of yellow notepads and tossed several onto the conference table so the three men could begin making notes. Then Jameson would be charged with the responsib
ility of dictating the litany of facts, evidence, witnesses, and chronological events which made up the body of the case. This document would be presented to the district attorney, who would perform an analysis of the overall crime and decide which laws should be presented to the court at the time charges were filed at Lily’s arraignment.

  “Here’s what I’d like to go over first,” Jameson said, pulling down one finger at a time. “The composite drawing of the suspect, the one that looks like Lily Forrester dressed up like a man. The interview Cunningham taped with Manny Hernandez before our guys killed him when he was attempting to dispose of the gun used in the McDonald-Lopez killings, along with a current name and address of the neighbor who saw the whole thing from her window.”

  “I didn’t find any tapes or recorded statements,” Cunningham said, bending down to pull some items out of another evidence box.

  “What do you mean?” Jameson asked, glancing through the notes he had made several days before when he’d searched through the boxes. “I put it back in the same box. Did you check the box marked number twenty-three?”

  “I checked all of them,” the former detective told him, a disappointed look on his face. “Gosh, don’t tell me something that important was lost in the merger.”

  “No, I saw it the other day,” Jameson said, searching his memory. “The original of the composite disappeared. All we have is a copy from the newspaper. That makes Manny’s statement crucial. He’s the person who provided the description of the killer that we used for the composite. In addition, Manny described the car, the stocking cap the killer was wearing, his facial features. I also taped a phone call to John Forrester.” He slapped his forehead. “That tape can’t possibly be gone.”

  “Maybe you left it on your desk,” Cunningham suggested, scrunching up his nose. “There aren’t any tapes in these boxes. Are you sure you brought everything up?”

  Jameson stood as he flipped through a list of the evidence, too wound up to sit down. “There should be thirty-two boxes.”

  Cunningham counted them to be certain. “All present and accounted for.”

  “This is insane,” Jameson continued, linking eyes with the former detective. “I know I put that tape of your interview with Manny in the box. The conversation with John Forrester is even more valuable than the tape of Manny Hernandez. At least Forrester wasn’t a gangster.”

  “Shit happens,” Cunningham said, taking a seat at the counsel table. “What kind of information did Forrester give you on this missing tape?”

  “He said he distinctly recalled that Lily owned a shotgun,” Fred Jameson told him. “And he said it was the same make and caliber as the one used to kill Hernandez. He also said Lily didn’t come home until around seven or eight the morning of the murder, when she had told him she was coming straight to his house after the rape.”

  “From what I can see here,” Cunningham said, scratching the side of his face, “you guys have sort of gotten ahead of yourself on this thing. John Forrester is dead now, as well as Manny Hernandez. Those tape-recorded statements might have value, but to get a conviction, you need a flesh-and-blood witness.” He paused before continuing. “You’ll never track down the neighbor you mentioned. Even if you managed to flush out new witnesses, they probably wouldn’t agree to testify. That was one of the problems I ran into when I was trying to put this case together years ago. People are scared. The three guys who were partners with the Hernandez brothers in the McDonald-Lopez killings might be in prison right now, but they’ll be released eventually. One of them turned state’s evidence. He could be back on the street already.”

  “I think Lily killed her husband,” O’Malley told them. “She killed him to keep him from testifying.”

  “That’s not our case, knucklehead,” Jameson snapped. “We’re trying to put the Hernandez case together.”

  “Some information came in on the Forrester killing while you guys were gone,” Cunningham told them, thinking any man who didn’t care about apprehending a murderer, regardless of jurisdiction, just wasn’t a cop. Of course, these types of game cops, as he called them, were one of the reasons he’d retired from law enforcement. “Seems the lab in L.A. matched the fingerprints of a man named Marco Curazon from those lifted from the crime scene in John Forrester’s garage.” He gave both men a scalding glance. “You do know who Curazon is, don’t you?”

  Jameson was pacing back and forth. “Curazon is the rapist, right? The one who raped Lily Forrester and her daughter. That attorney, Richard Fowler, mentioned that he’d recently been paroled from prison. He wanted us to track him down…thought he might be stalking the girl.”

  “There you go,” Cunningham said, standing and stretching his aching back. “My guess is, Curazon could have been waiting inside John Forrester’s garage. John went out there for some reason, and the guy went nuts and stabbed him. This Osborne fellow in Los Angeles said they found a Swiss Army knife on the floor of the garage. The wounds on the body could never have been made by a knife that small. That means Forrester may have tried to defend himself, which could have explained why Curazon got mad and stuck him five times.” He yawned, tired from the airplane ride. “What do I know, though? I just came down here to give you guys a hand.”

  “Damn,” Fred Jameson said. “This doesn’t mean we can’t move forward, though. The Hernandez killing has nothing to do with the death of John Forrester.”

  “You got a hard-on for Lily Forrester, Jameson?” Cunningham asked. “When you called me, I told you this Hernandez guy was scum.”

  “Captain Nelson insisted that we pursue it,” Jameson explained, defensive. “Forrester called the mayor’s office and raised a stink, saying we were letting a murderer go free. When we dived back into this, Bruce, we were counting on John Forrester’s testimony.”

  “That about does it for me,” Cunningham said, removing his jacket from the back of the chair.

  “You’re not going to stick around?” Jameson asked. “Are you leaving town?”

  “Not necessarily,” Bruce Cunningham said, his footsteps heavy as he strode toward the conference room door. “Since you guys are so busy trying to play pin the tail on the donkey, I thought I’d hang around a few more days and see if I can’t round up that Curazon fellow.” Just before he stepped through the doorway, he stopped and turned around. “Bad guys versus good guys, remember? The first thing a man’s got to do is figure out what team he’s playing on, and then he needs to decide what kind of prize he wants to find at the bottom of the Cracker Jack box. If a cop wants to become famous, all he has to do is get himself killed. Then they’ll put your name on a plaque out there in the lobby. Big deal, huh? The problem with police work is there aren’t any prizes at the bottom of the box.”

  “No one said we wanted to be famous,” Jameson said, tossing a rolled-up ball of paper into the trash can. “You know what? I think half of those stories people tell about you aren’t true, Cunningham. How are you going to track down Curazon in only a few days?”

  “He’s gone,” O’Malley said, his eyes glued on the spot where Cunningham had been standing only seconds before.

  SHANA STOPPED at a Subway shop and bought a sandwich and a Coke, carrying it back to eat in Richard’s Corvette. She wolfed down the sandwich, knowing she needed strength to follow through on her plan. Glancing at her watch, she panicked when she saw it was already four-fifteen. Sucking the soda from a straw, she tried to wash down a piece of bread that had become lodged in her throat. Opening the car door, she coughed several times, and the piece of bread popped out onto the ground.

  Now that she had eaten, Shana gunned the engine on the car, heading to the Target store a few blocks down from the government center. Before she went inside, she checked her wallet, afraid she didn’t have enough money. Then she saw the hundred-dollar bills her mother had given her. Locking the car, she got out and headed across the parking lot.

  A young man in his late teens walked up to her. “Flowers? I got a dozen roses for twenty bucks
.”

  Shana dropped her head and continued walking.

  “Come on,” he said, holding a paper-wrapped bouquet of white roses close to her face. “You can give them to your mother. Fifteen, okay? I’ll sell them to you for fifteen.”

  “Get away from me,” Shana snarled, the scent of the roses making her feel as if she were going to vomit again. Suddenly she stopped walking, locked inside a horrific vision. Curazon was shoving her legs apart. She heard the guttural sounds he had made as he plunged inside her body, heard her own high-pitched scream. She placed her hands over her eyes, wanting to block out the images.

  There was no way to stop them.

  Curazon was hovering over her, his teeth bared as he spat obscenities at her, his eyes wild with rage and power. Since the rape, she couldn’t go to the dentist unless he gave her a sedative. The moment the hygienist pushed the chair back and the dentist leaned down close to her face, Curazon’s hideous face would appear.

  But it was primarily the smell of the roses that brought back the full force of the terror. During the many years she’d spent in therapy, she had gone over that night again and again, finally arriving at a specific sequence of events. She must have first awakened when she heard noises on the other side of the house, then momentarily fallen back to sleep, the scent of roses floating in through the open window above her bed. The next time she awakened, she heard a loud banging sound and her mother’s muffled cries for help as Curazon dragged her down the hallway. Shana forced herself to continue walking, finally reaching the entrance to the store.

  “Ten bucks, okay?”

  Shana reached over and snatched the flowers out of the panhandler’s hand, then hurled them into the parking lot. “I don’t want any damn roses,” she said, the automatic door almost striking her in the face. “When a person says no, next time maybe you’ll listen.”