by Marcia Clark
“Yeah. You want me to ask what they think of Ferrara?”
Again, I didn’t particularly care, but it’d blow my cover story if I told her not to bother. “That’d be great. Though I don’t think they dealt with him much. For some reason, they had to hand it off to the FBI. What I’d really like to find out is what those FBI agents think of him.”
A young male voice in the background asked what was in the fridge. Hank asked me to hold on. “I’ve got to deal with the idiot I call my son.” She asked him if he still knew how to open the refrigerator door, then said to me, “The boy’s twenty years old, and I still don’t know how he finds his way home at night.”
“But you’ve gotta admit, your house is like a museum.” Her son, Naille, was a talented artist and a great kid. His artwork filled the house. I’d represented him when he got busted for painting a mural on the side of a liquor store, which the cops ungenerously characterized as graffiti. When I presented all the declarations from the neighbors as well as the owner saying they loved the mural, the prosecutor—with a little pressure from the judge—caved in and dismissed. Naille was going to Cal Arts now, and he was tearing it up. Hank was right, though. His head pretty much stayed in the clouds.
She grumbled, but she couldn’t argue. “Back to the matter at hand. Do you want me to talk to the agents? Because I’d be glad to do it.”
“No, that’s cool. If you get me their names—and maybe put in a good word so they won’t shut me down—I can take it from there.” Actually, Dale was the one who was going to talk to them. But if all went as hoped, and the agents did let me meet with Tracy, I’d be dealing with them, too. It’d help in all kinds of ways if they thought they could trust me.
Hank said she’d take care of it first thing in the morning. “Or as soon as I can get a minute to talk to those cops.”
I didn’t like lying to Hank, but I had no doubt she’d approve if she knew the cause. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this. You’re the best.”
There was a smile in her voice as she said, “You don’t suck, either.”
We laughed and promised to have dinner soon. Not a bad note to end the weekend on—if you didn’t count the fact that it involved a plan that Tracy’s life—not to mention my life and Dale’s—depended on.
Monday morning, I headed into the office feeling optimistic. For no particular reason, I was sure that everything was going to work out.
Ordinarily, that kind of thinking immediately precedes disaster. Not this time. Or at least, not yet. I found Alex sitting with Michy when I got in, and they both looked excited. “Who won the lottery?”
Michy looked at Alex. “That would be better.”
Alex gave her a mock glare. “Don’t rain on my parade.” He stood up and headed for my office. “I’ve got news.”
I followed him in and sat down on the couch. “Okay, spill.”
He turned a chair around to face me. “That Audi bugged me all weekend. I kept trying to figure out how to find out more about it. But I was coming up with nothing. And then, Sunday night, we went out to dinner, and we passed by the sheriff’s station on Santa Monica.”
I put my feet up on the coffee table. “And? If this takes much longer, I’ll have to shave my legs again.”
Alex ignored me. “And that’s when it hit me. The police blotter. Check the police blotter.” He opened his iPad and hit a key. “And I think I’ve got something.” He read from the screen. “Just two days before Barth bought the Jetta, there was a hit-and-run. Killed an old homeless man. And the car was described as a—”
I dropped my feet to the floor. “Black Audi?”
Alex sighed. “Not quite that good. A black sedan.”
“And obviously, no license plate.” Alex shook his head. “Any description of the driver?”
Alex made a face. “If you can call it that. There were two witnesses: a homeless woman who lives—or rather lived, because who knows where she is now—in a nearby alley. And a bartender who happened to be emptying the garbage behind the bar at the time. The woman thought the driver was a male. The bartender didn’t know.”
“Any description of the homeless woman?” Alex shook his head. Not that we’d ever find her anyway. “Where did it happen?”
“You’ll like this.” He read from his iPad. “West Twenty-Ninth Street.”
I tried to picture the area. “That’s close to USC, isn’t it?”
Alex nodded. “Very.”
He was right. I did like it. I’d been thinking that whatever Roan had on Barth, it had to be a secret between the two of them. I remembered Diana telling us that Barth used to hang out with some of the kids in Alicia’s class—Roan included. And that totally fit the theory that was forming in my mind. I spun it out so we could hear how it sounded. “Barth and Roan go on a pizza-beer-wine run, and the professor runs over that old guy.” It sounded logical to me so far. “When Roan finds out about Barth and Alicia, he gets pissed and threatens to tell the cops.” I nodded to myself. “In some circles, they’d call that motive.”
Alex flipped his iPad closed. “And we know Barth has no alibi for the night of Roan’s murder.”
I’d been assuming that Alicia’s and Roan’s deaths were linked. But they didn’t have to be. The more I thought about our new theory, the more I liked it. “We need to go talk to those witnesses.” Probably not the woman, since we were unlikely to find her. But the bartender shouldn’t be a problem.
Alex stood up. “The only thing is, I’m not sure what else we can get from them.”
I wasn’t, either. But it was worth checking, because as of now, Professor Barth Foley was either the best red herring I’d ever seen—or he really had killed Roan.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Alex and I headed to the bar. Ernie’s was a small, dingy place on South Vermont. Alex parked on the street in front of the bar, and we walked around to the alley at the back of the building. I looked for streetlights. There weren’t many, but the lights from the traffic and the businesses on South Vermont Boulevard would’ve offered some illumination. “What time did you say this happened?”
Alex consulted his iPad. “A little after midnight. And it was a Tuesday.”
That late on a weeknight meant less traffic—and less light. Which probably explained why the descriptions were so vague. We were standing at the mouth of the alley. I looked toward the street where the accident had happened. “The homeless woman would’ve had a great view.”
We walked over to the dumpsters behind the bar to get the bartender’s point of view. Alex looked out at the street. “The bartender did, too.”
He really did—clear and unobstructed. But I was distracted by the stench that permeated the area. It was so bad it practically burned my nose. The dumpsters looked older than me, and they were banged up and graffitied. The ground around them was littered with dried-up lemon and lime wedges and rat feces. “Let’s get out of here.”
I fast-walked around to the front of the bar and hoped that the interior of Ernie’s would be an improvement. It was—but only marginally. The bar looked battered, and the pads on most of the bar stool seats were torn and scarred. A collection of wooden tables and chairs—every bit as battered-looking as the bar—filled the rest of the unadorned narrow space. The owner hadn’t even bothered to put up the usual string of little white Christmas lights that so many neighborhood bars used to warm up the ambience. Nope, none of that for Ernie’s. This was a no-frills watering hole for locals who wanted to get ripped on the cheap and be able to walk home—or fall down on a sidewalk close to home.
We found the bartender—a tall, hefty guy, who was bald on top and had a ring of black fringe. He wore jeans, a gold earring in his left ear, and a black Affliction T-shirt that strained around his considerable gut. He was standing behind the bar, arms folded, watching the television mounted on the wall. It was tuned to an episode of Real Housewives of Atlanta.
Alex ordered a club soda, but I decided to try and curry favor by ordering
a vodka on the rocks. He made the drinks and put them on the counter in front of us. “Here you go. Want me to run a tab?”
I wondered if he did have customers who ran a tab at ten thirty in the morning. Probably. “No, thanks. Been working here long?” The police blotter didn’t list any witness names, so I wanted to make sure we had the right guy.
He wiped his hands on an old towel. “Two years.”
I smiled. “Are you Ernie?”
“Nah. He’s the owner. I’m just the paid help. Name’s Steve.” He eyed my drink. “You want a slice of lime with that?”
Having seen what was strewn around the dumpsters, I decided not to. “No, thanks.” I introduced Alex and myself, then asked Steve what he thought of the so-called real housewives—he thought they were bizarre but couldn’t stop watching. We chatted about other reality shows, agreed they didn’t resemble any reality we knew of, and eventually I nudged us into the area of interest. “You hear about the hit-and-run on West Twenty-Ninth about a month ago?”
Steve grunted. “Hear about it? I saw it.” He shook his head. “It was terrible. Poor old guy was walking along, talking to himself, and bam! Car came out of nowhere, just mowed him down. I called in to find out whether they caught the guy, but as far as I know, the cops never did solve it.”
I widened my eyes. “Wow, that’s crazy. Did the driver stop and get out?”
I was surprised to see tears in his eyes. He blinked a few times. “I thought he was gonna. He backed up and idled there for a few seconds, but then”—Steve made a curving gesture with his hand—“he pulled around the old guy and peeled out.” Based on that description, it didn’t seem likely I’d get anything more out of him than what we’d seen in the police blotter, but I had to try. “You get the license plate?”
Steve frowned. “I was in shock, you know? I thought I saw the first three or four letters, but like I told the police, I really wasn’t sure, and I didn’t want to get the wrong person in trouble.”
Could we possibly be getting lucky here? I glanced at Alex. He opened his iPad, where I knew he’d written down the license plate of the Audi. I asked, “Do you remember what they were?” I nodded at Alex. “My friend’s a huge crime buff.”
He raised an eyebrow at Alex. I wanted to tell him, “Hey buddy, you watch Real Housewives,” but I kept quiet and waited. Steve turned to the cash register and opened a drawer at the bottom. He pulled out a cocktail napkin and faced Alex as he read from it. “It was 4HI . . . and then I thought it was either a K or a Y.”
Alex studied the screen of his iPad. “Are you sure it started with a four?”
Steve stared off to the right. “No. I’m not. Sorry.”
I pressed on. “But you seem pretty sure the driver was a man.”
“Oh yeah, I think so.” He paused, then shook his head. “Though I guess it could’ve been a woman with real short hair.”
I asked, “Did you happen to notice whether anyone else was in the car?”
Steve frowned for a long moment. “You know, as I picture it now, I think there was someone in the passenger seat.”
I hadn’t seen any mention of a passenger in the police report. That might pose a credibility problem, but he seemed pretty certain. And it was great news for me. It definitely fit my theory. “Could you tell whether the passenger was male or female?”
Steve shook his head. “No. I didn’t get a good-enough look to tell you that. But there definitely was someone in that right-hand seat. I’m sure of it.”
Alex closed his iPad and asked, “Do you remember what kind of car it was? A Volvo? A BMW? An Audi?”
Steve waved a hand at Alex. “Coulda been any of those.” He squinted at the iPad. “Probably not a Volvo, though, come to think of it. I’d rule that one out.”
I asked whether he knew of any other witnesses, and he said he saw a homeless woman who used to stay in the alley talking to the police that night. “So I assumed she saw it, too. I used to give her my leftover bar snacks, but I haven’t seen her around in the past few weeks.”
We talked a little bit longer about how sad and awful it was, and Alex said he’d keep working on it. “I’d like to make that jerk pay for what he did.”
Steve patted the bar in front of him. “I’m with you, my friend. And I’m hell on wheels about drunk drivers. Most of my customers live around here. Those who don’t either have to show me their designated driver or let me call ’em a cab—or a Lyft or whatever. My motto is, if you can afford to drink, you can afford to pay for a car.”
It always amazes me how many decent people there are in the world. Not necessarily in my world. But they were around. It was good to get a reminder. I tipped Steve with a ten spot and waved him off when he told me I didn’t need to do that.
Alex and I headed back to the car. The moment we got inside, I asked, “Was he close?”
He started the car. “Not really. The number four was wrong, and Steve said the first two letters were HI. They were actually AL. I can see how they’d look similar in the dark, and on the fly. But the last letter he got completely wrong. He said it was a K or a Y. It was actually a Z.”
I pulled on my seat belt. “I guess there’s a reason it’s an unsolved.” I’d been hoping we’d find sloppy police work and a pot of gold at Ernie’s. What a drag. “But that doesn’t rule out Barth’s car.”
“No,” Alex said. “Is it enough to make the cops take a look at him?”
I stared at the midday sun through the windshield. “I guess we’ll find out. Hang on.” I typed in the address for Ernie’s to find the nearest cop shop. “Olympic station is closest. We’re going to 1130 South Vermont.”
I had no connects there, but I hoped someone at the station had heard about Dale’s case. That win had earned me creds in some cop circles. We’d see if it did anything for me now.
The station was even closer than I’d thought. We got there in less than five minutes. I told the desk sergeant that we had information on the recent hit-and-run. He checked his computer for the officer in charge, took our names, and told us to have a seat.
A mere twenty-two minutes later, a short, squat man with a buzz cut, in a police uniform, came out and introduced himself in a voice so gravelly, it sounded like it came out through a meat grinder. “Officer Norton Grimes.” He put out his hand. “And you are?” I introduced Alex and myself. He smiled. “I thought that was you. Amazing job on that double homicide. Come on back.”
He took us to his cubicle, and we laid out our case. The phones rang nonstop the entire time. This was one busy station. I could see he was intrigued by the fact that Barth had bought an old Jetta and hadn’t sold his Audi, and that Steve had remembered there was a passenger in the car. But when I told him I thought Barth had probably killed Roan to keep him from going to the police, he raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you think you’re reaching just a tad?”
I backed off. “Maybe so.” Roan’s death wasn’t his business anyway. “But even if you don’t believe he’s got something to do with Roan’s death, you’ve got a good reason to look into Barth for the hit-and-run.”
Officer Grimes was interested but not convinced. “You’ve got a car that fits the general description, but the witnesses can’t make the license plate. And you’ve got a teacher who works in the general area, but no one IDs him as the driver. Do you know of anyone who can at least say the teacher was in the area of the hit-and-run that night?”
Not at the moment. “I could give you a list of people to talk to. From what I hear, the kids in his class used to hang out at his house. Some of them could probably tell you whether he was in the area.” Of course, one of them—Alicia—couldn’t. And the problem was, even if other students had been hanging out with Barth and Roan the night of the hit-and-run, what were the odds that they’d remember some random night around ten days before Alicia died?
Officer Grimes looked at me with sympathy. “Tell you what. I’ll get the list of students in Barth’s class—”
Alex interru
pted. “I can get it for you.”
The officer raised an eyebrow. “Okay, please do. And I’ll call around and see if anyone remembers being with them and what they did that night.”
The phones were still ringing. He’d be way too busy to make this a priority. “Okay. Thank you.” I stood up. “Shall I ask for you if I find anything else?”
He nodded and wrote down a number on a Post-it. “Here’s my cell. But do me a favor, don’t try and do my job for me, okay? It’ll only mess things up.”
I gave him a bright smile. “I certainly wouldn’t want to do that.”
We left the station and got back into the car. I said, “How much time do you need to put that list together?”
“About ten minutes.” Alex gave me a sidelong glance. “We’re calling them all, aren’t we?”
“Most definitely. But first get us close to the school, in case anyone can meet in person.”
Alex drove to Thirty-Fourth Street and McClintock Avenue, and we started calling. Every once in a while you get a lucky break, and we hit one of them. God knows we were due. Turned out it wasn’t a random night. Five of the students, including Roan, had gone to see a showing of La Dolce Vita at the Downtown Independent Theater on Main Street that night, and some of them had gone to Barth’s house afterward for beer and pizza. Within an hour and a half, we’d found two students who’d gone to Barth’s house. And yes, Roan and Barth had said they’d stopped on the way to Barth’s house to pick up beer and pizza. The students remembered because Barth and Roan had come back with beer but no pizza. They’d had to order from Domino’s, and it’d taken forever.
It was so easy, even Officer Grimes could’ve done it. We marched back into the station and dropped it all into his lap, along with my working theory: Barth and Roan bought the beer first, maybe even drank some, and were on their way to get the pizza when Barth hit the homeless man.