by Marcia Clark
Graham’s voice was agitated. “Reporters have been blowing up my phone for the past two hours. They fucking chased me all the way to my car when I left court.”
All his experience with high-profile cases, and this shocks him? “Look, I get it. You’ve been through hell this past week or so. But you can’t do this.” Ordinarily, I could trust Graham to figure out the likely consequences of what he’d done and know how to handle this fallout. But clearly, not now. “The reporters are probably parked on Audrey Sutton’s doorstep as we speak. You should expect a reaction from her, and it won’t be pretty. Whatever she says, do not respond in any way, shape, or form until you talk to me. Okay?”
He gave a heavy sigh. “Yeah, of course. I knew the minute I opened my mouth it was a mistake. What’s going on with the investigation on Alicia’s . . . case?”
I told him they were working on it, that even though it seemed obvious Roan was guilty, they still had to put together the evidence to prove it. Then I told him not to beat himself up about losing it with the reporter, that anyone with half a brain would understand he was in bad shape. “Just go home, pour yourself a drink, and let your partners handle your appearances for a few days. As long as you don’t respond, the whole thing will blow over.”
When I ended the call, Alex asked, “Is that true? Will it all blow over?”
“In theory.” But I could already tell this case was going to bring me a whole new kind of crazy. The family on my side of the case usually kept a low profile. They knew better than to expect any public sympathy for their son/daughter/grandchild/niece/nephew—who’d allegedly killed/beaten/threatened the victim. Publicly grieving parents were usually the prosecutor’s bailiwick. But if this case went to trial, I’d be walking about a hundred miles in their shoes.
Alex exited the freeway and headed south on Highland Avenue. “Are we going after Laurie tomorrow?” I nodded. “Then I might as well drop you home and pick you up in the morning. Her first class gets out at nine a.m. We’ll have to leave by seven thirty if we want to make sure we catch her.”
Which meant I had to be up by six thirty. Ugh. It’s not that I’m one of those people who have to get at least eight hours a night. It’s that I wake up screaming most nights by three or four a.m. and usually can’t get back to sleep. It’s the gift from my childhood—when I was tortured by the nightly visits of that ooze-sucking pond scum Sebastian Cromer—that keeps on giving. So just in case I do manage to nod off again, I try to keep early-morning business to a minimum. “Okay, but that little bitch had better not skip class tomorrow.”
Alex raised an eyebrow. “Too bad that lucky, lucky girl doesn’t realize how much she has to look forward to.”
It was after seven p.m. by the time I got home. I was tired, cranky, and stressed. I poured myself a triple shot of Patrón Silver on the rocks, took it into the living room, and gazed out at the city. The one perk of my tiny apartment was its view. The building was at the top of a hill above Sunset Boulevard, and at night, the city lights sparkled from Santa Monica to downtown LA. Even the inching crawl of traffic looked beautiful, like a slow-moving river of lights.
I stretched out on the sofa and turned on the TV. I didn’t want to see a replay of Graham’s star turn on TMZ, but I did want to see if the Suttons had fired back at him yet. I flipped through all the news programs I could find. Nothing. So far, so good.
I hadn’t spelled it out to Graham—I didn’t think I needed to—but if this feud continued, it was more likely to hurt Graham than the Suttons. The Suttons weren’t in danger of being charged with anything. But Graham was. And the safest move for the coroner’s office would be to call Roan’s death a “possible homicide.” That way, the cops would have to do an investigation. Even if they didn’t solve it, the coroner would be off the hook.
But if the conclusion was suicide, the cops would have no reason to investigate. In fact, if the cops did do an investigation, the police chief would probably take heat for wasting resources. He’d probably also get accused of pursuing a case that would ordinarily be dropped, just because it involved rich white kids. In that scenario, the coroner would be left holding the body bag with never-ending criticism—from Audrey Sutton and every parent who identified with her—that he’d let a murderer walk. The hotter the case got, the more likely it was that the coroner’s office would decide to call it a “possible homicide” and drop it on the cops’ doorstep.
So what we needed most was for the case to cool down and let people move on to the next tragedy. The last thing we needed was for Graham and Audrey Sutton to keep fighting.
But I couldn’t lock Graham in a cage—much as I wanted to. All I could do was hope he’d learned his lesson. I poured myself another drink and rewatched the season finale of Game of Thrones. At one a.m., I crawled into bed and prayed I’d be too tired to dream.
It almost worked. The nightmare—in which I’m repeatedly stabbing Sebastian, who not only doesn’t die but also grows into a twenty-foot monster that pins me to the wall, and ends as he opens a giant maw of a mouth to devour me—woke me up at five thirty. For me, that wasn’t half-bad. I wanted to lie in bed for a little longer, but my throat was scraped raw from screaming and I’d forgotten to bring a bottle of water to bed with me. I got up and headed for the bathroom.
Alex showed up at seven thirty sharp with coffee and bagels—the true way to my heart. We’re comfortable enough not to need to make small talk—not that either of us was the type to try—and we said little as Alex wove his way through the morning rush-hour traffic. It was heavier than usual, so much so that when we finally made it to the campus, we had to break into a run to get to Laurie’s class in time.
I was still panting—and trying not to show it—as the students began to trickle out. Laurie was among the last, bringing up the rear in a crowd that encircled the professor—a young Ryan Gosling look-alike. I’m sure that had nothing to do with the size—or the overwhelmingly female percentage—of the entourage that followed him out. Seeing Laurie’s shining eyes as she looked at him made me decide to deploy Alex. “Go get ’er, cowboy.”
Alex glared at me, but he moved toward her quickly. I lagged behind to give him time to work his magic. And even from ten feet away, I could see it in action. When he said, “Ms. Schoenberg?” Laurie at first turned toward him with an irritated look. But that irritation turned to sunshine as she registered Alex’s gorgeousness. It never fails.
I caught up with them as Alex was introducing himself. When I joined them, he included me in the introduction as well. She gave me a shrewd look. “This is about Roan, isn’t it?”
Thanks, TMZ. I admitted it was. “I hate to bother you at a time like this. I know you and Roan had a relationship and that he broke up with you—”
Laurie’s eyes widened. “What?”
The word had a few extra Ts the way she said it. “No? That’s wrong?”
She gave an angry head toss, her tone sarcastic. “Uh, yeah. Totally wrong. That friggin’ dickhead—” She paused. “Sorry, I know I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead and all that. But I didn’t exactly sit shivah when I heard Roan committed suicide. And where on earth did you get the idea that he’d broken up with me?”
I was glad she wasn’t mourning and even gladder she was pissed off at him. “His friend Miguel.”
Laurie’s expression turned cynical. “That figures.”
There must have been about twenty classes in the same building because students kept jostling us as they moved in and out. “Want to go sit somewhere a little more comfortable?”
Laurie pointed to a patio to the left of the building, where there were tables, chairs, and vending machines. “I’d take us to the dining hall, but I’ve got another class in fifteen minutes.”
I held up a hand. “Not a problem. I appreciate this.”
We sat down at a table in the far corner of the patio, and I bought myself a cup of coffee. I’d worked up a sweat when we ran across the campus, and now the cold air was turning that swe
at to ice. I offered to buy Laurie a cup of coffee or snack, but she declined and patted her stomach. “I’m still trying to get rid of the ‘freshman fifteen.’”
Alex smiled his sparkling smile. “You look great to me.”
Laurie blushed a little. “That’s really nice of you.”
I gave Alex a hard look, signaling him to knock it off. I had a lot of ground to cover, and we couldn’t waste any of it while he flexed his sexy-guy muscles. “Did you know Miguel?”
Laurie took a second to refocus, then shook her head. “No. I just meant it figured that’s what Roan would’ve told his friend.”
It did figure. “Then I take it the truth is that you broke up with him.” Laurie nodded. “When was that? And can you tell me why?”
Laurie raked a hand through her hair. “Last year. He was my first boyfriend in college. Lucky friggin’ me. Things were cool at first. He seemed super into me, great for the ego, you know?” I nodded. “But then he started to get more and more possessive. He wouldn’t let me do anything by myself. Got totally PO’d when I went to a movie with my roomies.”
There was an obvious pattern here. “Did he make you call him a lot?”
Laurie looked momentarily surprised, then nodded. “He did it to Alicia, too?”
I said, “He made her call him three times a day. Did he do the same with you?”
Laurie’s expression turned glum. “Yeah, and it drove me crazy. I let it go on for way too long, but I finally broke up with him.”
I wrapped my hands around the cup of coffee for warmth. “How did he take it?”
Laurie suddenly bit her lip, and I saw her eyes fill. “He . . .” She blinked back the tears. “You know what he did to Alicia?” I nodded. “He did that to me, too.”
I gritted my teeth and tried to control the anger in my voice. “You mean revenge porn?” Laurie nodded. “Did he post it on a website called XXXtraSpecial?”
Laurie shook her head. “No, it was a different one.” Her cheeks reddened, and she dipped her head for a moment, then said, “I heard he included her address and an invitation to rape her; is that true?” I told her it was. “He didn’t do that to me.” She swallowed hard. “Just posted my self—ah, my photos.”
“Just.” Welcome to college. I guess it could’ve been worse. She could’ve been roofied and gang-raped while a group of their friends watched and filmed it on their phones. But I kept my bitter thoughts to myself. “Can you tell me what website Roan posted them on?”
She gave a half glance at Alex, then dropped her head.
Alex, his expression grim, asked, “They’re still up, aren’t they?” She nodded, her expression miserable. “I won’t look, I promise.”
A tear, resisting her best efforts to stop it, rolled down her cheek. “I tried to get them taken down, but I couldn’t find the website owner.”
I put a hand on her shoulder. “If you give us the name of the website, Alex might be able to help you.”
Alex gave her a Kleenex. His look of sympathy even melted my heart. “I’ll try and get them taken down,” he said.
Laurie’s face cleared, and her voice had a thin ray of hope. “Do you think you can?” Alex said he’d give it his best. She pulled out her cell phone, typed, and then scrolled. She handed it to me.
The website was HOT GRLZ XXX. As she’d said, it wasn’t the same website where Alicia’s photos had been posted. But like Alicia’s selfies, Laurie’s poses were relatively tame, her makeup minimal and natural. And though she’d tried to put on a sexy smile, she, too, had that same vulnerable, semiscared look. I wrote down the website and gave the phone back to her. Alex asked her a few more questions about her efforts to get the photos taken down, and then I moved on to the final piece of business.
I didn’t expect—and didn’t want—to hit pay dirt with this one. “Do you remember where you were when you heard about Roan’s death?”
Laurie blinked a couple of times. “No, not really.”
I pushed a little harder. “It happened ten days ago. On November eighth. Can you tell me where you were that night?”
Laurie paused, then gave me an incredulous look. “You’re checking my alibi?”
I didn’t bother to deny it. “I have to ask.”
A little smile lifted the corners of her mouth. “I guess I can’t blame you; I did fantasize about killing the asshole. But I do have an alibi. I was in Dayton, Ohio, for my grandfather’s funeral. You can check airline records, class records, dorm records, whatever.”
I answered her smile with a conciliatory one of my own. “Sorry.”
Laurie waved off the apology. “It’s cool. If he didn’t kill himself, I’d like to hang a medal on whoever killed him.”
I suspected she was about to have a lot of company, and I needed to warn her about that. “This case has been in the news, and if it keeps heating up, you’ll probably hear from the press.”
I could see her blanch as she processed the fact that that would mean thousands more eyes on her photos. She gave Alex a pleading look. “Can you . . . ?”
His gaze was serious. “I’ll do everything I can.”
Hopefully he’d get her photos down by the time reporters found her. But her story would do Graham a lot of good.
The more people who thought Roan needed killing, the better.
TWELVE
Alex and I headed back to his car. As we buckled up, he asked, “Alicia’s building?”
“Yep.” It was time to talk to neighbors and find out what the cops had missed. According to their reports, no one had seen or heard anything amiss on the night of Alicia’s murder. One neighbor corroborated Gayle’s sighting of the crew-cut guy earlier that day, but that same neighbor—plus one other—had seen Alicia leave the building after he was gone. I was sure we could get more out of them than that. But even as I mentally prepared for our next interviews, I couldn’t stop thinking about Laurie’s predicament. “How’re you going to get those photos taken down?”
Alex pulled out and edged into traffic. “I’m going to try and track down the website owners and . . . figure out a way to persuade them.”
“Let me know when you get to the persuading part.” I could help him with that. But as to the former, he was on his own.
It took just five minutes to get to Alicia’s apartment. The small beige stucco building was sandwiched between houses clearly occupied by students—maroon-and-gold Trojan banners in windows, sheets dyed with peace symbols for curtains, multiple bicycles and mopeds, etc. And it had only eight units: four upstairs, four downstairs. I expected the manager’s apartment to be on the downstairs level. Upper-level floors are more coveted—mostly by women, for security reasons. But I didn’t see a manager’s sign on any of the doors. Then I remembered the police reports hadn’t mentioned any contact with a manager. Maybe he or she didn’t live on the premises.
We started with the downstairs level and knocked on the first door on the left. It was the apartment directly below Alicia’s. An elderly man with flyaway white hair that swirled around his head like a baby bird, dressed in worn-shiny slacks with suspenders, a T-shirt with yellowed stains on the armpits, and house slippers, answered the door. He peered at us through thick wire-frame glasses. “You back again?” He bored in on Alex. “I told you guys I’m not talking to any reporters. Go away.” He started to close the door.
Alex held up a hand and talked fast. “Wait! I’m not a reporter. We’ve never been here before.” He pointed to me. “She’s a lawyer; I’m her investigator. We’re working for Alicia’s father.”
The old man—listed on the police report as Oliver Chalmers—shot Alex a sideways glance, then gave me the once-over. “What do you want from me? I didn’t see anything.”
According to the police report, though, he had seen a man leaving the building who fit the description Gayle had given—whom I’d taken to calling Crew Cut. And Chalmers had seen Alicia leave the building after he’d gone. I asked him about Crew Cut. “Had you ever seen him here
before?”
He stuck out his lower lip. “No. Never seen him since, either. And I know Alicia was still alive when he left, so I don’t know what he has to do with anything.”
Whatever the condition of his eyesight, old Oliver’s mental faculties and hearing seemed to be just fine. “Did you hear any unusual sounds coming from Alicia’s apartment?”
He gave me an irritable frown. “I told all this to the police already.”
There was no mention of his hearing anything in the reports. Either the unis hadn’t written it down, or Dale had held out on me. I told Oliver that it wasn’t in the police reports. “Can you tell me what you heard?”
He gave a grunt. “Some bumping around, like maybe she was moving some furniture or something.”
I looked over his shoulder at the walls in his apartment. They didn’t look all that thick, and sound can really travel between floors. “Did you hear any voices?”
Oliver screwed up his face, making his features bunch together. “Thought I heard hers. Maybe that guy’s, too. Sounded like a higher voice and then a lower voice. Wasn’t much, maybe went on for a minute or so. That’s it.”
I glanced at Alex to make sure he was getting all this. He had his notepad out, but he wasn’t even pretending to be writing it down. That told me his recorder was definitely on. “By ‘that guy,’ do you mean the one with the crew cut?”
He nodded. “Kinda heavyset. Too old to be a student. Looked like a construction worker. Walked back and forth in front of the building a couple of times, like he wasn’t sure he was in the right place. That’s what caught my eye.”
This was more detail than I’d seen in the report. More reason to think there was a follow-up report I didn’t get. “Did you see him go up to Alicia’s apartment?”
He pointed to the stairs behind us. “Saw him go up, but I didn’t see what apartment he went to.”
“But you did hear voices,” I said.
Oliver paused and sucked in his lips. “About ten, fifteen minutes later.”