Buried Evidence

by Nancy Taylor Rosenberg

  35

  Paul Butler, the chief deputy district attorney of Ventura County, was seated behind his desk in his large corner office on the third floor of the government center complex in Ventura, his eyes bloodshot from staring at columns of figures. Julia Benson, his assistant, called him over the intercom, advising him that he had a visitor waiting in the reception area. “I’m working on the budget, Julia,” he said. “I asked you not to interrupt me.”

  “It’s Lily Forrester’s daughter.”

  At sixty-one, Butler was a small, balding man. Scheduled to retire in three months, he was counting the days. His plan had been to talk his wife into selling the house they’d lived in during their twenty-seven years of marriage in exchange for a condominium in a community with a golf course. The previous year he’d undergone hip-replacement surgery. This year he had developed a problem with his right knee, making it painful for him to walk an eighteen-hole course. What he wanted was to be able to scoot around in his own golf cart, jump on the greens anytime he wanted, and make a last-ditch attempt to improve his golf game. He didn’t feel he was asking too much. During his marriage his wife had never worked, and he’d always been an excellent provider. At the moment he wasn’t a happy camper. His oldest daughter had thrown a wrench in his retirement plans.

  “Paul,” Julia said again, “didn’t you hear me?”

  “I heard you,” Butler snapped, turning the volume up on the intercom. “Why would Lily Forrester’s daughter want to see me?”

  “She won’t say.”

  “Let someone else handle it.” Butler spun his chair around, gazing out the window as the sun began to set over the Ventura foothills. He had heard that Lily’s husband had been murdered, but only after he’d given prosecutor Frank Pearlman permission to file charges against her on the Hernandez matter. He’d only made such a decision due to pressure from the mayor’s office. In his opinion, trying a case that old wasn’t worth the effort. He didn’t really give a hoot. Since the problem would fall into the hands of his successor, why should he become embroiled in a confrontation with the woman’s daughter?

  “The girl’s insistent,” Julia told him. “She claims it’s a life-or-death situation.”

  “Jesus,” Butler exclaimed, “did someone make certain she didn’t slip through with a gun or some other kind of weapon?” While he was up to his eyeballs in work, trying to tie up loose ends for his impending retirement, his oldest daughter had suddenly shown up on his doorstep with her three kids. He loved his grandchildren, but his daughter had spoiled them rotten. She thought she could buy her way out of the fact that she’d walked out on their father. The last thing Butler wanted this late in the day was to have to deal with another hysterical female.

  “Everyone goes through the metal detector downstairs,” Julia said in her clipped New England accent. “The girl is carrying a Target sack, and one of those bags designed for portable computers. Security looked through them both. I don’t think there’s any reason for anyone to do a body search.” Her next statement held a ring of sarcasm. “You may be important, Paul, but you’re not the president.”

  Butler had nothing against women, but lately they seemed to think they could walk all over him. “I’m tired,” he said, placing the palm of his hand on his forehead. “Don’t I still have a right to make my own decisions?”

  “I spoke to her in the lobby,” Julia Bender told him. “Lily and I were friends, Paul. This young woman was raped, and now some maniac has murdered her father. It’s over my head, so I don’t even want to mention these so-called murder charges. Just give the girl a few minutes of your time, and I promise I’ll keep everyone out of your hair until you finish the budget.”

  “Fine,” Butler said grudgingly. “Send her in.”

  At five-fifteen, Shana was buzzed through the security doors. At forty-three, Julia had short brown hair and pale green eyes. She was dressed in a white silk blouse and a black skirt. “I’m sorry about your father,” she said, escorting the girl down the carpeted corridor. “This must be a terrible time for you. Please express my sympathies to your mother. Tell her I said to call me if there’s anything I can do.”

  “Thanks,” Shana told her, accepting the card she pressed into her hand.

  Julia opened the door to the deputy district attorney’s office, then quietly retreated.

  “So you’re the big boss around here,” Shana said, taking a seat in one of the chairs in front of his desk. Her face was void of makeup, and she was wearing a pair of Levi’s and a sweatshirt. She crossed her legs, swinging one foot back and forth, purposely wanting to draw Butler’s attention to the bulky hiking boots she’d purchased during her shopping trip to Target, the type of boots she recalled seeing her mother wearing the morning after the rape.

  “What can I do for you?” Butler asked, placing his hands behind his neck as he leaned back in his chair. “Shana, right?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Do you know my mother?”

  “Yes, I do,” Butler answered. “I know your mother quite well.”

  “Not that well,” Shana told him, reaching into her computer case and pulling out a copy of the composite drawing she’d found in the newspaper archives. “Not if you’re going to put her in prison for something she didn’t do.”

  Butler straightened up in his chair. His glasses slid down on his nose as he peered up at her. “We’re only doing our job,” he said. “I realize this—”

  Shana threw up her hands. “If you say what I think you’re going to say, I’m going to scream. Everyone keeps saying they know what a terrible time this is for me. That’s a crock of shit, okay? My father was murdered. The man who raped me has already been released from prison. He’s probably trying to find me right now so he can kill me or rape me again.”

  Butler reached for the button on the speaker phone, deciding he would have to call security and have the girl removed. She looked fairly young, but she was at least five-ten, if not taller, and she appeared to be in excellent physical condition. He was older and smaller; therefore, there was a chance she could overpower him. He cursed Julia for talking him into seeing her. Although he didn’t feel the situation called for such a drastic measure as hitting the panic button under his desk, the atmosphere inside the room had become heavy and oppressive. Lily’s daughter seemed to be emitting some type of tremendous energy, and the look in her eyes was menacing.

  Just then Shana leaped to her feet, reaching into the sack and pulling out a blue knit cap. While Butler watched, having no idea what she was going to do next, she stuffed her long red hair inside the cap, then rushed toward his desk.

  “Call security!” Butler hit the intercom with one hand and the panic button with the other, then shoved his chair back from the desk in order to put as much space as possible between himself and the girl.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” Shana said, slapping the paper down on his desk. “This is the drawing of the person they said killed Bobby Hernandez. Look at it. Tell me what you see.”

  Two uniformed officers burst through the door. Julia Bender stood in the outer office, her arms locked around her chest. A blond-haired officer grabbed Shana’s right arm, yanked it behind her back, then reached for her left arm. A taller African American officer handed him a pair of handcuffs.

  “You can’t do this to me,” Shana yelled, struggling until she felt the handcuffs cutting into her wrists. “I don’t have a gun. I wasn’t going to shoot him or attack him.”

  “Your actions were threatening,” Butler told her, trying to catch his breath. Removing a handkerchief from his pocket, he mopped the perspiration off his brow, wondering if he was going to survive the next three months until his retirement party.

  “Aren’t you even going to look at the drawing?”

  “Get her computer out of my office,” Butler instructed the officers. “Have someone check and make certain there isn’t a bomb in there…some type of explosives.”

  “No problem,” the dark-skinned officer sai
d, picking up Shana’s case and leaving the room.

  Now that the situation appeared to be under control, Butler finally picked up the composite drawing Shana had placed on his desk, bringing it close to his face. It didn’t take him long to detect the resemblance—the long neck, the nose, the almond shape of the eyes, the pronounced cheekbones.

  The officer holding Shana asked, “What do you want us to do with her, sir?”

  “Give me a minute,” Butler barked, using his index finger to adjust his glasses. He continued to study the image, shifting his eyes back and forth from the paper to the girl. “Are you trying to claim this is you?”

  “Yes,” Shana said, her wrists smarting from the handcuffs. “Why do you think I came here? My mother didn’t kill that man. I killed him.”

  “Calm down,” the district attorney told her. “You don’t have to try to get my attention. Trust me, you have everyone’s attention in this room.”

  “Can’t you take these things off my wrists?” Shana asked, her teeth clenched. “They’re too tight.”

  The officer waited until Butler nodded, then removed a key from his belt and unlocked the handcuffs. Julia Bender tiptoed in and stood in the back of the room. Attorneys and other office personnel had heard the ruckus and gathered in the outer office, watching the drama unfold through the open doorway.

  “My mother had Hernandez’s picture,” Shana said, rubbing her wrists. “She’d just signed his release from jail the night we were raped. My father lied when he said my mother didn’t come home until the next morning. I took her car and drove over to the address on the man’s booking sheet. He looked exactly like the man who raped us. I found my granddaddy’s shotgun in the garage. I waited until he came out of his house the next morning, then I shot him.”

  “Where’s the shotgun?”

  “In the ocean,” Shana lied, fixing her eyes on a spot over the district attorney’s head. “I was thirteen. He held a knife to my throat while he made my mother suck him.”

  Butler sat at rapt attention. The threatening demeanor Shana had displayed earlier had disappeared, replaced by a childlike vulnerability. The transformation was mesmerizing. Although Shana’s back was turned to the people huddled around the open doorway, a cloak of silence fell over the room.

  Her voice became low and small, yet she spoke slowly and distinctly, making her recitation even more chilling. The sound of phones ringing in the background was the only distraction, and after a few moments it became obvious that no one was going to answer them. Julia darted out of the room, called the switchboard, then returned.

  “Mom tried to protect me,” Shana said. “She said she’d do anything if he wouldn’t hurt me. He said he didn’t want her because she was old. He smelled putrid…his breath, his underarms, his clothes. I was praying, certain he was going to kill us.” She paused, the bitter young woman reappearing. “He’s not even locked up anymore,” she shouted. “For all I know, he’s the person who stabbed my father. I don’t care if you send me to jail. At least I’d be safer than I would be out there.” She gestured toward the window, to the parking lot where she knew Curazon had first began concocting his vile fantasies, watching her mother from the windows of the jail.

  In all his years as a district attorney, Paul Butler had never found himself in such an emotionally charged situation. Even though he had sat in scores of courtrooms and listened to hundreds of victims, Shana Forrester had managed to draw him inside her soul. Butler’s hands trembled on the composite drawing as Shana slowly removed the knit cap from her head, her red hair spilling out onto her shoulders.

  “Leave us alone,” the district attorney said. “Close the door, Julia. Tell the people out there to go back to work.”

  As soon as the room had cleared and they were alone, Butler asked her to sit down. Shana did what he said, folding her hands in her lap. “You’re going to put me in jail, aren’t you?”

  Butler’s life’s work had been devoted to making certain the criminals who victimized innocent people were safely locked behind bars. Experiencing the pain of this young woman made him question what he had really accomplished. “How old are you?”

  “Nineteen.”

  “Your mother was an extraordinary prosecutor,” he told her, “as well as an exceptional supervisor.” Around the time Lily and her daughter were raped, the governor had offered her a superior court judgeship. Lily had decided to relocate to Los Angeles, and Butler had given her a recommendation for the job she had later accepted with the appellate court. The McDonald-Lopez case came to mind. The gruesome images of the two slain teenagers would always haunt him. Bobby Hernandez had been the ringleader, if his memory served him correct; then the man had gone on to kill another woman.

  “Do you work?” he asked. “Go to college?”

  “Before my father was killed, I was in my sophomore year at UCLA. I planned on going to law school like my mother.” Shana felt her dream drifting away, but she had gone too far to turn back. “I guess girls my age have silly dreams. I wanted to be like Sandra Day O’Connor, maybe work my way up to the Supreme Court.”

  “There’s nothing silly about wanting to reach high in life,” Butler said, remembering how he had aspired to the same goal. “I’m not certain the Supreme Court is all it’s cracked up to be. I’ve spoken to a few of the justices, and they say it’s pretty tedious work, similar to what your mother did with the appellate court, even though she wasn’t a judge. You know, lots of paperwork and no action.”

  From the explosiveness of only a short time ago, a long silence ensued, neither of them feeling the need to speak.

  “What are we going to do?” Shana asked, shattering the silence. “I won’t make a scene if you have to call the police officers again. I know what I did was wrong.”

  “I’m sure you do,” Butler said, pondering the moral and ethical complexity she had brought to his doorstep. “The problem is, Shana, I’m not convinced you killed this man. I’m sure your mother told you some of the things you said today, or you read about them in the paper.”

  “So you think I’m lying?”

  “I don’t really know,” Butler said honestly. “You may have imagined that you killed this man, and no doubt you wanted him to suffer for what you went through. Those type of feelings are normal. What we’re dealing with is a lack of credibility.”

  “Why?” Shana asked, compressing in her seat.

  “Because you were only thirteen,” Butler said, glancing at the composite drawing again. “You do resemble the person in this drawing. Today, though, not six years ago. Even with the knit cap, this is simply not the face of a thirteen-year-old girl.” He read some of the text attached to the newspaper article. “This individual was described as a male, and his height was listed as approximately six feet.”

  “I was five-eight when I was thirteen,” she cried. “I can show you pictures. I can’t let my mom go to prison.” Most of what she had told him had been true. Lily had pulled the trigger, yet in her mind Shana had been standing right behind her. She started to beg, then stopped herself. She had pleaded with Marco Curazon. She wanted to be strong, fight reason with reason. “You may not believe me. That still doesn’t mean you’re not going to have a problem. I know how things work. I’ve watched all those trials on TV, listened to my mom talk about her cases. I’m going to confess, then my mother will confess to protect me. The jury will be so confused, they won’t know what to think.” She paused, then another thought came to mind. “The jurors will sympathize with my mother and me. They won’t care what happens to Hernandez. He killed three people.”

  “You might be wrong, Shana,” Butler told her, sorry he had to be the bearer of bad news. “Mr. Hernandez, no matter how evil he might have been, will not be on trial. What he did doesn’t matter. The only way it would be pertinent to your case is if he had been the man who raped you and your mother. You just admitted to me that he wasn’t the rapist, that he only looked like this Marco Curazon. Isn’t that correct?”

 
; Shana felt as if her head were about to explode. Her chest expanded and contracted. She felt dizzy and light-headed, afraid she was going to faint again as she had in the back of the police car. She chewed on a fingernail, thinking of her father, the hateful things she’d said prior to his death. Her mother had made an irreversible mistake when she had shot Hernandez; then her father had driven while intoxicated, causing a young man to lose his life. Was it possible that she had made a serious mistake herself, revealed information that would later be used to put her mother in prison?

  She remembered her uncle’s funeral several years before, the only funeral she had ever attended. An elderly lady from the church had told her that dying was nothing to be afraid of, that a grave was similar to trading your old house in for a new one. The woman had quoted a statement from the Bible: “In my father’s house, there are many mansions.”

  “I want the police to let me bury my dad,” Shana blurted out. “With everything that’s going on, I need to plan my father’s funeral.”

  “Julia,” Paul Butler said over the intercom, “see if you can get Chief Easterly with the LAPD on the line. I need an update on the Forrester homicide ASAP. Start at the top and work your way down.” Once he stopped speaking, he told Shana, “We’re going to try to solve at least one of your problems. You and your mother can begin making the necessary arrangements for your father’s burial right away. I’ll do whatever I can to expedite the release of his body. Will that make you feel better?”

  “Yes,” she said, “but—”

  “You did a lot of talking earlier,” Butler interrupted, arching an eyebrow. “I think it’s time you listen to what I have to say. I’m certain the police in L.A. are doing everything they can to find the person who killed your father. I’ll also make sure our local police department does everything possible to track down the man who raped you. Regarding the Hernandez homicide, from this point on, I would suggest that you only discuss this situation with an attorney.”