Snap Judgment (Samantha Brinkman Book 3)

by Marcia Clark

  “And I think to kind of . . . practice what she was going to say,” Davey added. “You know, hear how it sounded out loud, make sure it came out right.”

  Phil’s eyes were red. I couldn’t tell whether it was the pot or sadness for Alicia. He took another hit and let the smoke drift out as he spoke. “But he posted those photos the next night, so we think she was just too embarrassed to see anyone after that.”

  Diana nodded and dropped her gaze. “We should’ve realized something was wrong when we didn’t hear from her the next day.”

  Davey tried to absolve Diana—and the rest of them. “Okay, but in fairness, I remember she said she needed to get ready for a calculus exam. And the whole reason for backing Roan off was to get some space so she could focus on school.”

  Bottom line: they didn’t have any solid information about Alicia’s last two days on earth.

  I might go back to them later, but for now, it was time to move on. Alex got Nomie’s dorm address and asked Phil to call ahead and tell her we were coming. Now that we knew the kids were on our side, we didn’t need to go for a surprise attack. We thanked them and took off.

  The clouds had cleared while we’d been talking to Alicia’s friends, and the sun was poking through the fluffy cotton-ball clouds, clearing out sparkling patches of blue sky. I suggested we walk to the dorm. I wanted to enjoy the clean, fresh, and blissfully pot-free air.

  Alex eyed his car, a blue Honda Accord, and glanced up and down the street. “Depends on how long you think this interview’s going to go. I’m not thrilled about leaving it here after dark.”

  I glanced at my watch. It was after three. We had at least two hours of daylight left. “Assuming she’s willing to talk, I can’t imagine it’ll take that long. And if it does, we can always come back another day.”

  We made it to the campus in five minutes and found Nomie’s dorm building—one of several identical four-story brick buildings—at the far end. The students all seemed so mellow. They walked with no particular urgency, lounged on the grassy areas, and chatted in groups on benches and near vending machines. My memory of undergrad at UCLA held no such leisurely pace. I was constantly running, always out of breath, and always late because the powers that be always seemed to love to schedule my classes at opposite ends of the campus, which was the size of a small city.

  Nomie had alerted the security guard at her dorm that we were coming, but we still had to present ID and let them take our photos. I noticed that the students had to do a fingerprint scan to get into the building. It was depressing, but it was probably a good thing they were so safety-minded. If Alicia had lived in a place like this, she’d probably still be alive. I wondered why she’d missed the dorm deadline. Had she deliberately dropped the ball so she could live alone? Or had her parents blown the deadline in the hope of persuading her to live at home? It would’ve been a tough commute from her home in Beverly Hills, but it was certainly doable.

  Nomie’s room was on the fourth floor at the end of the hall. As we moved toward it, a couple of young males came pounding down the corridor, wide smiles on their faces. As they ran past us, one of them joked, “She’s gonna freak when she sees it, dude.” The other one laughed and said, “Right?” I knew they were probably just talking about a stupid, innocent, prank. But I didn’t like it. I wished I could find that girl and warn her.

  Nomie answered the door the moment I knocked. “They told me you guys were coming,” she said. She stood back and opened the door wider to let us in. “Just sit anywhere.”

  There were two twin-size beds, one on either side of the room, and a bookcase between them. Books, a backpack, binders, and spiral notebooks—along with sandals, boots, and fuzzy socks covered most of the available floor space and half the bed on the right. The only “anywhere” I could find that resembled a seat was a chair at a small desk against the wall. An open pizza box on the desk had the remnants of a small, half-eaten sausage and black olive pizza. It looked drier than the cardboard box. All the clutter and mess was making me sweat a little.

  Alex wasn’t loving it, either. He’d perched on the foot of the bed on the left side of the room, and I saw him wrinkle his nose as he took in the scene. I turned my focus to Nomie. She was biracial, more than average pretty, with big, dark eyes and an oval face that was set off beautifully by her short Afro. She went to the bed on the right side of the room and sat down. When she spoke, her voice was heavy with a sadness that seemed even deeper than that of Alicia’s other friends. “I feel like someone cut off my arm. I just don’t know how to . . . how to be. The phone will ring, and I’ll think, ‘Oh, it’s probably Alicia.’ And then . . .” Nomie wiped away tears with the back of her hand.

  I gave her a moment to collect herself. “I assume you knew Alicia was going to break up, or at least ask Roan to give her some breathing room?” Nomie nodded. “By any chance, did you happen to see her after that?”

  She picked at a thread on her bedspread and swallowed. “No. But I did see her the night before. Gave her my ‘atta girl’ pep talk so she wouldn’t chicken out. She actually seemed pretty steady on her feet. I was proud of her.” A tiny smile briefly lit up her face. “But then I had to go home and help with my grandma. She’s got Alzheimer’s, and she’s staying with my mom until we can find a place for her. So I wasn’t even on campus when . . . everything went down.”

  I could see the guilt written all over her face. “And Alicia never called you during that time?”

  Nomie suddenly choked up again. “That’s what was so bad. That she didn’t feel like she could come to me, tell me about those photos, about what that fucking asshole had done to her. She must’ve been so humiliated. And maybe she was worried that we’d judge or something.” Nomie looked up at me, tears streaming down her face. “I never would have! Why didn’t she know that?”

  Her pain was heartbreaking, but I had no real answer for her. “Maybe she intended to, Nomie. Maybe she would have if . . .”

  Nomie finished my thought. “If she’d had the chance.” She paused, a look of resignation settling on her face. “I want to believe that. I want to think she’d feel safe, that she’d know I’d never judge her.”

  I said I thought she must’ve known that, then I told her about Graham being a “person of interest” and that I was looking into other possible suspects with regard to Roan’s death. “Did you happen to know of any other guys Alicia was seeing?”

  Nomie paused. “I don’t know about anyone she was seeing. But I do know someone who was coming on to her. Her Italian cinema professor. Barth Foley. Alicia thought he was kind of hot.” She sighed. “Then again, from what I heard, most of the girls in his class did.” Nomie made a face. “Personally, I thought he was a creep. The kind of guy who uses his position as a pussy magnet. But I don’t think Alicia was sleeping with him . . . At least, not from what I could tell.”

  Nomie paused again, and I could see there was something else on her mind. She seemed to be trying to decide whether to tell me. I reassured her. “If you’re worried about violating anyone’s privacy, I can promise you I’ll never talk. This is strictly confidential, just between you and me.”

  Unless she had a lead on another suspect. In which case I’d haul her into the police station if I had to tie her to the roof of my car.

  Nomie shook her head. “It’s not like that. I just . . . This is going to sound a little weird, but about a month before she . . .” Nomie paused and swallowed. “A month before she died, Alicia kept saying she felt like someone was following her, watching her.”

  Alex took out his notepad. This was just a cover for the mini-recorder in his pocket that ran nonstop with every interview. “Did she ever get a look at the . . . I assume it’s a guy?”

  Nomie’s expression was intense. “Yeah. Around six feet, medium build, a short beard—maybe a soul patch—and a mustache. She said he always seemed to be wherever she was: at Starbucks, at Trader Joe’s, at Ralphs.”

  He scribbled convincingly, then
asked, “How about at school? Did she ever see him at the dining hall or the gym?”

  She shook her head. “Not that I can remember.” Nomie looked from Alex to me, her expression earnest. “I told her to report it to the police, but she didn’t feel right about it. What if it was just a coincidence? She didn’t want to get him in trouble for no reason. I said I’d stick with her so I could get a look at this guy, see if he seemed creepy.”

  “Did you spot him?” Alex asked.

  Nomie nodded. “And he did seem to pop up almost wherever we went. So I finally just went over and said something to him. I think I asked him what classes he was taking.” Nomie paused and furrowed her brow. “Or something like that. Anyway, the guy was perfectly nice. Didn’t act hinky or anything. Turned out he was managing a building down the block from Alicia. So we both thought, no big deal, just a coincidence. But now . . .”

  I could see she was second-guessing that decision. “He never made a move on Alicia, though.”

  Nomie shook her head, but she was agitated. “What if I was wrong? What if this guy was a nut, and he got pissed after I confronted him? Flipped out and blamed it on Alicia. Maybe he hacked Alicia’s phone, and he posted those photos. And . . .”

  “Killed her?” Nomie shrugged. It was my job to make the incredible seem perfectly logical, but even I had a hard time buying this one. Still, I gave it a go. “Did you see him around after that?” If he’d suddenly dropped off the radar after she’d confronted him, we might have something here. Nomie paused, her brow furrowed, and I felt a little spark of hope begin to kindle. Could we possibly get lucky so soon?

  Nomie sighed. “Actually, yeah. Now that I think about it, I saw him everywhere.”

  So much for that. Just to be on the safe side, I got the address of the building where he worked so Alex could check him out.

  But I should’ve known better than to hope we’d get a real lead this soon. That would’ve been too easy.

  SEVEN

  Alex and I were just about to leave when the last member of Alicia’s circle showed up. Gayle Mortenson was a short pixie of a girl, with freckles, green eyes made large by thick tortoise-frame glasses, and curly strawberry-blonde hair. Her biology class had just let out, and she’d come to check on Nomie.

  Gayle knew about the problems Alicia had been having with Roan, though Alicia hadn’t spoken to her about her plan to back him off. “But I never get to talk to anybody anymore.”

  Nomie shook her head with sympathy. “She’s majoring in cinematic arts—film and TV production—and she scored an internship with Universal.”

  Gayle held up her hands. “Which sounds great, I know. But it actually means that every waking moment I’m not in class, I’m at the studio, fetching coffee, lunches, snacks, Frisbees, diapers, hairspray—you name it, I’ve fetched it.” She gave a sarcastic smile and thumbs-up. “It’s all about learning the craft.”

  But she was smart enough to know that doing it all well—and with a smile—could be the first rung on her way up the ladder. And she might be small, but there was a toughness about her, a wiry resilience that I had a feeling would serve her well in the trenches of Hollywood. “Then it’d been a while since you had contact with Alicia?”

  “About a week.” Gayle pressed her lips together. “But the day before she d-died . . . I saw this guy coming out of her building.” Gayle frowned. “At the time, I didn’t connect it with Alicia, and maybe there is no connection. But it bugged me. He had a weird look on his face, angry, like he’d just been in a fight.”

  Alex glanced at me. I nodded to give him the go-ahead. “Do you remember what time it was approximately?”

  “I remember what time it was exactly. I was late getting to the studio, and I’d just looked at the clock. It was three eighteen.”

  “Can you describe him?” Alex asked.

  “Five foot ten, kind of thick—big chest, and he had a gut on him—blondish crew cut.” Gayle paused a moment. “I think I remember a burgundy T-shirt, maybe jeans. But the thing that caught my eye—other than his pisstivity—was he lifted his arm and looked at it, like he’d cut it or something.”

  Alex pretended to scribble. “Did you see a cut? Or any blood?”

  Gayle shook her head. “Whatever it was must’ve been pretty small. I was only about twenty feet away. Then again, I was driving, saw him for only a couple of seconds.”

  Alex flipped a page in his notebook. “Had you ever seen him before?”

  “No, and he didn’t look like a student to me. But I guess there’s no way to be sure of that.”

  “And I assume you haven’t seen him since?” he asked. Gayle shook her head again. “Have you told the cops about this guy?”

  “I did. I thought he might’ve been the killer. But they said people saw Alicia leave the building later that evening, so unless he came back . . .”

  I had to believe the cops had asked the neighbors about this and had come up empty-handed. If so, the burly guy might have nothing to do with the case. I’ll take any red herring I can find, but making this burly guy a person of interest in Alicia’s murder would help me only if I could gin up some story about how he’d also killed Roan. A tall order. And one I couldn’t begin to fill unless I could find him and check out his alibi—which, at this point, seemed pretty unlikely.

  So I moved on and asked Gayle whether she thought Alicia might’ve been seeing the Italian cinema professor but she knew even less about it than Nomie. Assuming anything had been going on between them, they’d either kept it quiet or it was of very short duration. The professor went on my to-do list.

  We asked a few more questions, but it was clear we’d gotten all Nomie and Gayle had to give. I exchanged a glance with Alex to let him know it was time to pull the plug, and I stood up. “Thank you, guys. You’ve been really helpful.”

  Nomie’s expression was earnest. “I hope you can help Mr. Hutchins. I mean, even if the police say it wasn’t a suicide, even if he did kill Roan—”

  Gayle cut in. “That asshole so deserved it.”

  I sighed. “I agree.”

  “But they said it’s likely a suicide, right?” Nomie asked. I nodded. “Why would they change their minds?”

  A fair question. “If they find other evidence that indicates it was homicide, they’d change the conclusion. They probably won’t. But it’s best to get out ahead of this as soon as possible.” Because I don’t trust cops as a general rule. And you just never know.

  It was only a little after five o’clock by the time we left, but darkness was already spreading through the sky. I’ve hated this time of year since I was twelve, when we moved in with Sebastian Cromer. Because the earlier night fell, the earlier Celeste could make me go to bed—which meant that much more time I was alone, isolated in my bedroom—where Sebastian could get to me.

  Alex hurried us along and heaved an audible sigh of relief when he saw that his car was still where he’d parked it—with tires and hubcaps intact. As we got in and buckled up, I thought about what we’d come up with so far. “A possible stalker and a bear with a crew cut. What do you think?”

  Alex pulled out and headed for the freeway. “I’ll check out the stalker, but we both know it’s a dead end.”

  I agreed. “But crew cut guy might give us something to go on.” And if I could find a way to tie him to Roan, a possible “other dude” to pin Roan’s murder on.

  Alex inched up the on-ramp. The freeway ahead was a river of red taillights. Driving during rush hour in LA is like wading through a tar pit. He slowly merged into the right lane. “Of course, we’re assuming he was there to see Alicia, which might not be the case. She’s not the only tenant in that building.”

  “True, but we won’t know unless we try.” I pulled out my phone. “Let’s see what our friends on the Thin Blue Line have on him.” Alex looked perplexed. “The Thin Blue Line? Refers to cops? Comes from an eighties documentary?” Alex shrugged. I shook my head. I’d only been a kid myself back then, but at times lik
e this, Alex really made me feel old. I hit Dale’s private cell number.

  Dale answered with an exasperated sigh. “I can’t give you anything, Sam.”

  “Really? Even if I’m representing your number-one person of interest?”

  Dale sighed again. “I’m not really on the case.”

  “Yet.” It’d taken Dale a while to climb back into the chief’s good graces after having been charged with the double homicide, but he’d finally found his way back into RHD, and I knew Dale was overdue for his next case. It’d be great for me if he got this one. And the fact that he’d hedged his answer with “really” told me the captain might already have talked to him about it.

  Now he read me the party line. “No case has been filed. You’re not entitled to—”

  I cut him off. “I see, then you don’t want Alex’s help? Because from what I hear, there’s a bunch of computer work in this case, and we both know you don’t have anyone on the job who can touch him.” I let that sink in, then added, “I’m giving you a chance to look like a genius.” There was a long pause. “So let’s share. Luckily, we’re in the neighborhood.”

  He finally capitulated. “Do me a favor and give it a half hour. The fewer people see you here, the better.”

  Since we weren’t really in the neighborhood—in fact at this point we were about forty minutes away from the downtown area where Dale worked—I didn’t mind doing him that favor. I looked at the clock. It was a quarter to six. “See you at a quarter after.”

  The detectives in RHD work long hours when they have an active case going. But when they don’t, they generally clear out by five. Alex pulled into the parking lot at ten after six, and we headed into the building. A police officer escorted us up to Dale’s floor, where I saw that the place was virtually empty except for the cleaning crew.