Before Jamison opened the last image, Ernie pointed to the date next to the gallery of photographs of Garrett. It was the day that St. Claire testified she had called him at the hospital, the first day Elizabeth testified that she had seen Alex St. Claire in ten years, the day that she testified filled her with dread and led to St. Claire’s pulling her from her car on the dark road that bordered the cemetery.
Each man stared at the final photograph in silence, recoiling at the flickering image. Elizabeth’s arms stretched away from her body as the bindings pulled her hands above her head, the long brown hair no longer concealing her face. Her eyes were open as she looked straight into the camera. She was smiling.
The women’s names on St. Claire’s memory stick did not take long to identify. A search put each woman on the list in places where St. Claire had been in the past. Some dated back to the years he spent in England. All the affected agencies had been notified, including Interpol. All except one on the list had been murdered. Elizabeth Garrett was the final name.
Where the photographs of Garrett were taken was made clear after Jamison directed another search of St. Claire’s home in the city. St. Claire had testified they went there the day he saw her at the mall. She had denied it under oath. The photograph placed her in his bedroom. It was clear from her smile that was a place she wanted to be.
St. Claire’s shuttered house in the hills also didn’t give up its secrets easily. Searching it on the day they found the hidden computer, the dust shrouded rooms revealed nothing. But after the second search of St. Claire’s home in the city, investigators went back and began tearing it apart board by board. While Jamison watched, Ernie and Pooch pulled musty clothing from long untouched drawers and bureaus. Pooch found an antique wardrobe with an almost invisible notch on the bottom. A hiding place crafted by an artisan from long past held a secret from the present, a meticulously maintained scrapbook. It was filled with memories of Elizabeth Garrett, photographs of when she and St. Claire were young, graduation announcements, the brittle paper evidences of life.
And at the end of the scrapbook there was a single page of a letter, only the first page. When Jamison looked at it, he knew where the rest of the letter was. It was still in evidence. This was the first page of the letter that Elizabeth Garrett had said was written to Bobby Allison. The letter she had under oath so convincingly denied she had sent to Alex St. Claire, as he had testified.
After the search, Jamison sat quietly in his office, the smiling face of Elizabeth Garrett frozen on St. Claire’s computer all too vivid in his mind. He held the single page of the letter loosely in his hands. The words “Dear Alex” were written in Garrett’s now familiar handwriting. The letter, the photograph, the lies—all pieces of the shattered case that had consumed him as he tried to prove St. Claire’s guilt—coalesced like the colored glass of a kaleidoscope into an image of fractured lives.
The relationship between Alex St. Claire and Elizabeth was a web of deceit. But to what end?
He stared out the window as the lights of the city began to flicker on. St. Claire had never given his lawyer the front page of the letter or the photograph of Elizabeth in his bed. If McGuiness had been given them, he would have used them like a razor to cut Elizabeth to ribbons. Jamison’s case would have irreparably fallen apart. The only reason it hadn’t was because Alex St. Claire kept them to himself. Over and over Jamison asked himself, Why?
And then the reality of it struck him. As Elizabeth held St. Claire the night he was shot, she had said that Alex would never hurt her because he loved her. Maybe that was the only true thing she said. Maybe that was the only explanation that made any sense in a case that made no sense.
Jamison’s reflection in the window confronted him with the eyes of a man who had subtly changed in the last months. In that moment, he finally came to terms with a reality of life, with the realities of the lives of all the faceless people hiding behind those lit windows flickering in the distance. Each human being wants to be loved for what they are but very few people actually reveal it and expect or get acceptance. They are afraid to reveal their true selves because they are afraid of rejection.
They present an image from which their hidden self rarely emerges. We reveal our true selves only to the most trusted, and the greatest gift we can receive in return is acceptance of what we are. Alex St. Claire knew what he was. Perhaps Elizabeth Garrett was the only other person in the world who knew what he was, and accepted it and him.
Maybe in his own way St. Claire really loved her, and sparing her that courtroom humiliation at the hands of McGuiness was his recognition that she was the only person who really knew him, and still loved him anyway. Jamison recognized the irony. Perhaps St. Claire was the only person who really knew what Elizabeth Garrett was, and in turn accepted her. In the swirl of emotion and contradiction that was this case, perhaps St. Claire not giving McGuiness the weapons to destroy Elizabeth Garrett was an act of love.
Jamison slipped on his suit coat and thought to himself that everyone in this case had made choices that carried consequences. St. Claire was dead. Elizabeth would be alone, left, as Dr. Levy would have said, to wander the dark recesses of her mind. He had made choices too, about Bill O’Hara. He didn’t know if others would make the same decisions but he could live with the consequences of his. He understood now that justice was neither black nor white. He would have to learn to live part of his life in the grays.
He gave one last glance at the view of the city from his window, lights glowing from offices and homes that Jamison knew contained people concealing dark thoughts that should never see the light of day. People who looked just like everyone else.
Chapter 48
Almost a week had passed since they had looked at the final image of the Elizabeth Garrett photographs. Ernie and Pooch knew it was now time for them to close their personal file. Puccinelli pulled his coat tighter around him. The early morning air carried a chill enhanced by the water slapping against the side of his fishing boat. He hadn’t been out on the lake for a long time, too long. The fishing boat, the lake water, the time away from what he did every day was something he savored. San Luis Reservoir, at the edge of the Central Valley, held back its choppy waters tightly against almost barren hills. The wind blew relentlessly.
Puccinelli looked at the other three men who sat in the boat. Bill O’Hara’s dark complexion was looking a little greenish. O’Hara had told them he didn’t like boats, but he understood he had to come. So had Ernie and T. J. Longworthy. Pooch, Ernie, and T. J. kept their eyes on O’Hara as he reached into his pocket. The dull blue glint of a Walther PPK flashed in the morning light.
O’Hara dropped the magazine out of the butt of the Walther and thumbed the bullets out one by one into the cold water, watching the slight splash as each brass casing twisted down out of sight. Puccinelli did a silent count as the bullets flipped out of the magazine. Two short of a full magazine, but Pooch knew O’Hara always carried one more in the pipe. O’Hara then racked the slide on the Walther and the last bullet flipped out into the lake. Three short of a full load. O’Hara stripped the weapon, separating the Walther into its parts. The barrel made a splash as he threw it out into the lake. Ernie snorted with derision. “You throw like a girl.”
O’Hara extended his middle finger of his left hand and then tossed the rest of the Walther out into the lake. They watched the spreading ripples where the last of the gun entered the water. No further words were exchanged.
Puccinelli moved the throttle forward enough to get the boat underway. “I think that’s enough fishing for today.” The rest of the trip to shore was in silence. Each man seemed lost in his own thoughts. However Pooch suspected they all shared one thought. They were now all in.
The next day, Jamison walked into O’Hara’s office. He had talked to him on the phone, but this was the first time they had seen each other since St. Claire had been shot. He sat down heavily on a chair in front of O’Hara’s desk. O’Hara asked, “You got s
omething for me?” He smiled. O’Hara didn’t bring up why he had been away, and Jamison didn’t ask.
Jamison held a sheaf of papers in his hand. “I need some investigation done and I don’t want it to go to the bottom of the pile.”
O’Hara’s lips parted slightly as his mouth curled into a smile. “You aren’t ever going to go to the bottom of the pile, Boss.”
O’Hara leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. The glint of a chrome-plated Walther PPK showed in the ankle holster wrapped around his leg. When Jamison caught a glimpse of it, he knew the display was intentional. He got it. O’Hara in his own cryptic way was giving him permission to ask and Jamison played along. “That a new Walther? You lose the other one? It looks like a pimp gun.”
“Yeah, the other one got lost. I was doing some fishing and it fell overboard. Damndest thing. That gun was never registered anyway. I picked it up off the street a long time ago.” He watched Jamison’s expression to see if there was any reaction. There wasn’t. As Jamison stood and started for the door, O’Hara made a parting comment. “They wouldn’t call it a throwaway gun if you were worried about losing it.”
Jamison got up and stood in the doorway for a moment before heading back to his office. “Good to have you back, Bill.”
O’Hara’s face betrayed a flicker of emotion. “Good to be back.” Both men waited a moment for the other one to fill the gap of silence. But neither of them said another word.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
James A. Ardaiz is a former prosecutor, judge, and Presiding Justice of the California Fifth District Court of Appeal. From 1974 to 1980, Ardaiz was a prosecutor for the Fresno County District Attorney’s office. In 1980 Ardaiz was elected to the Fresno Municipal Court, where he served as assistant presiding judge and presiding judge. Ardaiz was appointed to the California Fifth District Court of Appeal in 1988 and was named the court’s Presiding Justice in 1994. Ardaiz retired from the bench in 2011 and remains active in the legal profession.
Ardaiz’s first book was Hands Through Stone, a first-hand nonfiction account of his work on the investigation and prosecution of murderer Clarence Ray Allen, the last man executed by the State of California.
Also by James A. Ardaiz
The true story of the hunt
for a cold-blooded killer
“A frightening story with all the tension and color of a first-class mystery novel.” —Crime Magazine
$24.95 Hardcover
Hands Through Stone
How Clarence Ray Allen Masterminded Murder from Behind Folsom’s Prison Walls
by James A. Ardaiz
Even hardened detectives were shaken by what they found at Fran’s Market in rural Fresno that night in 1980. Three young people lay in their own blood on the market’s concrete floor, executed by a merciless killer, while a fourth victim barely held on to life. Then a grim investigation became even grimmer when the evidence led to the man who ordered the killings — a convicted murderer already behind the walls of Folsom Prison.
Hands Through Stone reveals the true story behind the Fran’s Market murders and their psychopathic mastermind, Clarence Ray Allen, the last man executed in California.
Written by James Ardaiz, one of the first investigators on the scene and the prosecutor who built the case against Allen, Hands Through Stone gives the reader an insider’s view of the tortuous, multi-year investigation that brought Allen to justice. Ardaiz takes the reader step-by-step through every gritty, down-and-dirty piece of police work that painstakingly built the case against Allen, giving readers an unparalleled feel for what it’s really like to work a professional murder investigation.
A true crime story that reads like an intricate mystery novel, Hands Through Stone dramatizes chilling scenes of murder, dogged investigation, and a gallery of quirky real-life characters no novelist could invent: cops, witnesses, victims, villains, and, above all, the enigmatic evil that was Clarence Ray Allen.
“Goes inside the room at Fran’s Market and gives not only the events on the infamous night but the feelings of the horror of the seasoned investigators. A must-read for readers and writers of mystery books.” —The Poison Pen
Available from bookstores, online bookstores, and QuillDriverBooks.com, or by calling toll-free 1-800-345-4447.
Glamour, Mystery, and Murder
(plus low pay and appalling working conditions)
on the High Seas!
“An Agatha Christie cast of characters seen with a modern eye, and with startling moments of both insight and compassion.” —Anne Perry
$12.95 Paperback
Sunny Side Up
by Daniel Stallings
An engaging mixture of Agatha Christie–style intrigue and Millennial snark, Sunny Side Up takes a fresh approach to the traditional murder mystery with a modern sensibility and a working class amateur sleuth.
For twenty-year-old Liam “Li” Johnson, a job as a cruise ship waiter was supposed to be a way to get over his father’s death and earn enough money to go back to college. Instead, Li is struggling to maintain his sanity while coping with the demands of a sadistic maître d’ and a boatload of entitled rich jerk passengers.
Li just wants to keep his head down and survive his job from hell, but when he finds a passenger sunburned to a crisp on the Sunbathing Deck, something about the scene just doesn’t add up. Before he knows it, Li is on the track of a murderer and if Li doesn’t find the real killer soon, he might just get framed for the crime—or worse, lose his crappy job.
A brand-new classic in the amateur detective genre, Sunny Side Up is a traditional murder mystery for the twenty-first century, with a glamorous setting, a gallery of suspects, clues that will keep readers guessing to the last page, and a delightful new hero in Li Johnson, the millennial minimum wage manhunter who brings sleuthing to the service economy.
“An appealing protagonist and a fresh viewpoint. Root for the underdog! —Carolyn Hart, author of the Death on Demand mysteries
Available from bookstores, online bookstores, and QuillDriverBooks.com, or by calling toll-free 1-800-345-4447.
True Crime Cops and Murderers
$14.95 Paperback
400 Things Cops Know
Street-Smart Lessons from a Veteran Patrolman
by Adam Plantinga
Written by a veteran police sergeant, 400 Things Cops Know takes you into a cop’s life of danger, frustration, occasional triumph, and plenty of grindingly hard work. In a laconic, no-nonsense, dryly humorous style, Plantinga tells what he’s learned from 13 years as a patrolman, from the everyday to the exotic. Sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes hilarious, this is an eye-opening revelation of life on the beat.
$18.95 Hardcover
Apprehensions & Convictions
Adventures of a 50-Year-Old Rookie Cop
by Mark Johnson
At age 50, Mark Johnson wanted a career change. What he got as a new life of danger, violence, and stark moral choices. Apprehensions & Convictions is Johnson’s explosive memoir of how he became the oldest rookie in the Mobile, Alabama, Police Department. In a crisp first-person narrative that is by turns action-packed and contemplative, Johnson writes frankly of the experiences, challenges, disillusionments and dangers that transformed him from an executive to a cop.
$14.95 Paperback
California’s Deadliest Women
Dangerous Dames and Murderous Moms
by David Kulczyk
A masterpiece of pure trashy tabloid fun, California’s Deadliest Women is the definitive guide to the murderesses of the Golden State, a horrifying compendium of women driven to kill by jealousy, greed, desperation, or their own inner demons. From Brynn Hartman, who killed her husband, comedian Phil Hartman, to chemist Larissa Schuster, who dissolved her husband in acid, these 28 killers show the fairer sex can be as deadly as any man.
Available from bookstores, online bookstores, and QuillDriverBooks.com, or by calling toll-free 1-800-345-4447.
James A. Ardaiz, Fractured Justice
Fractured Justice Page 41