Snap Judgment (Samantha Brinkman Book 3)

by Marcia Clark

  Also because he’d hung up before I got the chance.

  The unis called for backup to preserve Davey’s apartment as a crime scene, and Alex and I took photos of the closet and the images on the computer monitor to show Rusty. I pointed out the notebook and advised the unis to have it bagged and tagged, then we left.

  As we walked to the car, Alex said, “Is all that stuff we found going to be admissible in court? We didn’t have a warrant or anything.”

  I gave him a little smile. “Only cops need warrants. We’re not an arm of the state. We’re private citizens. It’s all totally admissible.”

  He was skeptical. “But we broke in. I mean, that’s . . . invasion of privacy, isn’t it?”

  I nodded. “For sure. And Davey can sue us—if he can find a lawyer who’ll take the case. But he can’t keep the evidence out.”

  Alex was silent for a moment. “I’ve been thinking . . . I get that Davey was obsessed enough—and crazy enough—to go after Roan for killing Alicia. But don’t you think Graham’s motive was just as strong?”

  “It’s certainly similar.” They both wanted to avenge Alicia’s murder. “The thing is, Roan got killed just days after Alicia. For all anyone knew at that point, she might’ve been the victim of a home invasion. Granted, that was less likely. But a rational person probably wouldn’t leap to a conclusion and then act on it that way.”

  Alex pursed his lips, then nodded. “Yeah, rational doesn’t seem to be Davey’s strong suit.”

  Of course, that didn’t mean Graham couldn’t have killed Roan. But playing out all the odds, and given what we knew, it seemed less likely to me. At the very least, even if they didn’t find evidence to prove Davey had killed Roan, we had the mother of all red herrings. Good luck to the prosecutor who tried to convict the grieving father when there was a twisted, semi-incestuous stalker in the mix.

  When we got to the PAB, I expected a uni to take us straight up to Rusty’s floor. But we sat in the reception area for almost half an hour. And then it was Rusty himself who showed up. I walked over to him. “Just so you know, Davey admitted he’d posted the revenge porn, but he wouldn’t admit that he killed Roan.”

  His expression was dark. “Yeah, well, there might be a good reason for that. Your client just turned himself in. Graham Hutchins confessed to Roan’s murder.”

  What. The. Fuck.

  FIFTY-SIX

  I demanded to see Graham immediately. “Where is he?”

  Rusty jerked a thumb toward the ceiling. “In the interrogation room.”

  I put my hands on my hips. “You need to stop questioning him. Now.”

  Rusty glowered at me. “We don’t need to stop anything. He waived.”

  I glared back at him. “You have to tell him I’m here, and I want to see him. And believe me, if you don’t, I’ll get his statement thrown out.”

  He didn’t like the sound of that. His chin jutted out. “The hell you will. It was a solid waiver.”

  I looked straight into his eyes. “Made by a man who’s completely unhinged—and who’s been denied the right to see his lawyer. You willing to take the chance?” To be perfectly honest, I was overplaying my hand. Rusty was right; my client had waived. The statement probably wouldn’t get thrown out. But I knew he’d be afraid to take the chance. I held his gaze.

  Rusty’s eyes narrowed. I could see him calculating the risks. Finally, he made a curt gesture for us to follow him and headed for the elevators.

  We rode up in silence. When we reached our floor, Rusty pointed Alex to the observation room and led me to the interrogation room.

  I went over to Graham and sat down. His face was pale, his expression bruised and anxious. As I’d suspected, he was a complete mess.

  Across the table sat a black detective I’d never met. Rusty introduced him as his new partner, Detective Shane Brown, then introduced me.

  I said, “Nice to meet you. I need to talk to my client. Alone.”

  Detective Brown gave me a stubborn look. “Your client already decided against that.”

  Rusty’s tone was sullen. “We’d better let her.” He glowered at me. “You’ve got ten minutes.”

  Detective Brown gave me a cold look. He gave his chair an unnecessarily harsh shove as he pushed it back into the table, then followed Rusty out of the room. I waited for the red light on the camera to go off, then faced Graham. “What have you told them?”

  His eyes were bouncing around the room so fast they were practically spinning. When he spoke, his voice was shaky. “I t-told them I did it. That I killed Roan.”

  I stared at him. “All this time you’ve been insisting you had nothing to do with it. And only now, when Davey’s on the hook, you decide to confess? You and I both know that’s bullshit, Graham.” I waited for him to make eye contact. “Look, I get it; you want to take the fall for your son. The problem is, it won’t work. I’m sure they swabbed you by now, right?” Graham nodded. “I’m sure by now they’ve swabbed Davey, too. They’re going to run both your DNA samples against the crime-scene samples, and that’ll prove he did it.”

  Graham’s mouth opened, then closed. Finally, he said, “I—uh, maybe it won’t.”

  He must still be reeling. “You need to think about what you’re doing. Tell the cops you want to invoke for now. You can always change your mind. Just take a little time to clear your head before you decide to go to prison for a crime you didn’t commit. We’re talking the rest of your life, Graham. You owe it to yourself—and Sandy—to at least give this a little more thought.”

  He stared at me for a long moment, his expression numb. “No, I . . . I know what I’m doing, and I . . . I just want to . . .” His gaze drifted as his voice trailed off.

  I couldn’t let him do himself any further damage. He was barely coherent. Even if he really had killed Roan—which I’d always been willing to believe was possible—he needed to think about whether he wanted to make it this easy for the cops to nail him. “Just give it forty-eight hours, okay? That’s all I ask. If you won’t do it for yourself, do it for Sandy.”

  His shoulders drooped. Finally, he sighed and said, “Okay.”

  I glanced up at the cameras to make sure they were still off. “Graham, you need to come clean. If you’re holding out on me, you need to stop it right now. What else haven’t you told me?”

  He didn’t say a word; he just gazed at me with vacant eyes.

  I was so frustrated I wanted to shake him. I was sure there was a lot more to this story than he was telling me—regardless of whether he’d killed Roan. I considered showing him the photos of what I’d found in Davey’s apartment. That might persuade him to stop covering for that pervert. But it might also push him over the edge, and I couldn’t predict what he’d do if he completely fell apart. I needed him to calm down and get his feet under him before I threw another emotional grenade.

  I gave up for the moment and went out to the hallway where the detectives were waiting. I said, “He’s invoking.”

  Rusty looked disgusted. “If you don’t mind, we’ll just go confirm that for ourselves.”

  I gestured to the door behind me. “Be my guest.” I went back inside, and they followed.

  When Rusty asked Graham if he really wanted to stop talking to them, he paused. I stared at him, thinking, If you cave, I’ll strangle you with my bare hands.

  But he swallowed, then said with an audibly dry mouth, “Yes, I’m invoking.”

  Rusty called for a uni to come and take Graham to a holding cell. We waited for the uni to arrive before we left the room. Once outside in the hallway, I told Rusty, “I’d like to talk to Davey.”

  He gave me an unpleasant smile. “Join the club. He invoked and lawyered up.”

  I didn’t think he knew any criminal lawyers. Heather must’ve sent in some civil lawyer she kept on retainer. “Who’d he get?”

  Detective Brown, answered. “Public defender.” He looked at his phone. “Name of Frank Levy.”

  I knew Frank from
my days in the public defender’s office. He’d never been a star, but he wasn’t a dump truck, either. I got his number from Shane, then moved on to a more immediate concern. “Where’re you going to put Graham?” He was older, and he was a complete cherry. Not to mention fully capable of suing everyone involved if anything went wrong while he was in custody. They had to be careful with him.

  Rusty and Shane exchanged a look. Rusty said, “We’ve been talking about asking Beverly Hills to put him up for the short term.”

  The Beverly Hills jail was probably the safest place Graham could be. They didn’t get many hardened criminals in that part of town. “You have my number. Let me know where you take him.”

  I picked up Alex, who was still in the observation room, and we left. When we got into the car, he asked, “What’s happening with Davey?”

  I told him Davey had invoked. “I’m calling his lawyer now.” As Alex steered out of the parking lot, I pressed Frank’s number. I got his voice mail and left a message telling him to call me ASAP.

  And he did. Five minutes later, my phone rang. He said, “I had a feeling you’d call.”

  He didn’t sound particularly happy about that. “Then you heard that Graham tried to take the fall for your client?”

  There was a long pause. “Actually, I hadn’t. I only heard he’d gone in to the station.”

  “I’d guess Davey’s going to find out pretty quick, so you’d best tell him soon.” I had no doubt that news of Graham’s confession would leak within hours. Gossip travels fast in jail, because what else do they have to do? So Davey would certainly know—probably by tomorrow morning—that Graham had given a statement implicating himself.

  People charged with a crime like murder—especially first-timers—are scared and suspicious of everything. If they think their lawyer is holding out on them—or worse, that their lawyer isn’t on top of the case—that can put a serious kink in the relationship.

  Frank sounded annoyed. “I’ll try and get down to the jail tomorrow.” His voice was sarcastic. “So you called to give me your professional advice?”

  I sighed. No good deed, as they say. “No. I’m calling to let you know that it’s a crock of shit. Graham’s just covering for him.”

  There was another long pause. “How do you know?”

  I didn’t, of course. But if Frank had information I didn’t have, I wanted to hear it. “Are you trying to tell me something?”

  I heard a click on his end. He had another call. “No. I am telling you something.”

  He ended the call.

  When I told Alex what he’d said, Alex was alarmed. “Is he saying he’s got proof that Graham killed Roan?”

  That was one possibility. “Or he doesn’t really know, and he’s just messing with my head.”

  Alex was disbelieving. “Seriously? Why bother? Now that they’ve got everybody in custody, the DNA will sort it all out, won’t it?”

  I leaned back and closed my eyes, brain-tired. “You’d think.” But I’d learned long ago never to underestimate how many lawyers love to play stupid mind games.

  We lapsed into silence until Alex pulled into the garage. “Are you going to tell Graham what we found in Davey’s apartment?”

  I knew I’d have to eventually. This might not leak as fast as Graham’s confession—the crime-scene techs would do their best to keep it under wraps—but it’d come out soon enough, no matter what they did. Cop shops all leak like sieves. “Yeah, I just haven’t decided when.”

  Alex parked next to Beulah and cut off the engine. “I know she’s only his half sister, but still . . . that scene in the closet, posting the revenge porn, it’s so sick.”

  I’d been trying not to think about it. Seeing that notebook, the inside of that closet, was like looking directly into the abyss of a very twisted mind. I could feel the perverted, obsessive energy behind that shrine. It was part of the reason I was so sure Davey—not Graham—was the killer. “I keep wondering how he could be that bizarre with no hint of anything in his past. I hate to say this, Alex, but is it possible you missed something?”

  Alex gave me a mock glare. “No.” Then he shrugged. “Sure, it’s possible. Juvenile records can be a little more difficult to dox. But remember, even though Alicia kind of suspected she was being stalked, she never caught him. So maybe he’d stalked other girls in the past and just never got caught.”

  That was possible. Davey was in control of his instrument. He was disturbed—but he wasn’t psychotic. I supposed he could fly under the radar. “I didn’t see any evidence that he’d been stalking other girls, but I guess the police could come up with a whole treasure trove hidden in a storage locker somewhere.”

  Alex sighed. “Not that it’d make his insane obsession with Alicia any less grotesque.” He made a face. “The whole thing makes my skin crawl.”

  I had to agree. Given my own history and what I do for a living, I didn’t shock easily—but this was at the far end of sicko. His own sister. My God. “I’m going to need to put this out of my mind for now.” I got out and talked to him through the window. “You should do the same.”

  But as I followed him out of the garage, the images in that closet came rushing back. When I got home, I stood under a hot shower for as long as I could stand it and scrubbed my body till my skin burned. Then I put on my fuzzy pajamas, opened my bottle of Patrón Silver, and scrubbed my brain.

  I lay down on the couch in the living room, turned on the television, and found a rerun of Breaking Bad. It was one of my favorite shows, but all it did was make me worry about Tracy. I fell asleep with the television on and didn’t wake up until the morning light came pouring through the sliding-glass doors. I saw the empty glass on the coffee table—an unfortunate reminder of what I’d been drinking to forget.

  As I rubbed my eyes and sat up, I heard my landline ring. No one called me on that phone. In fact, I’d been thinking about getting rid of it. I listened for the mechanical voice that would identify the caller. It said, “Pearson, Dale.”

  Still bleary-eyed and more than a little hungover, I stumbled over to the kitchen counter and picked up. “What?”

  His voice was harsh. “They found a body near the LA River. I just caught it on the news.”

  All the blood left my head, and the room started to spin. I leaned back against the wall and sank down to the floor. “Is it . . . ?” I couldn’t bear to say her name. I hung my head between my knees.

  “They don’t know yet. It was burned beyond recognition. The news report said that the size of what few remains they have indicate the victim was probably a female. But right now, that’s it. The only things left that’re identifiable are the tires.”

  Microwave ovened. Team Cabazon style. My eyes filled with tears even as my brain reasoned that Tracy was far from their only enemy. “So there’s no way to know?”

  “They’re reporting that they found some hairs close by that had to have been left there recently. They don’t know yet whether the hairs belong to the victim.”

  I was sure Tracy had left a hairbrush behind at the safe house. “Are they going to try and see if they match Tracy?”

  “Yes. I called Liam, and he said they’re moving fast. We should know in a couple of days.”

  I lay my head on my knees. “If that’s her . . .”

  “Stop. Don’t go there. We don’t know anything yet.”

  We agreed to get together soon. We had a lot to catch up on. But right now, I was in no mood to talk—about anything.

  The next few days would bring answers to everything—and in the meantime, I’d be eating my stomach lining for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  To say it was one of the worst weekends of my life would be like saying waterboarding was uncomfortable. I put in a call to Liam’s cell phone to find out if he had any news on the DNA testing of the hair found at the scene—but got his voice mail. I left him a message asking him to call back, but I didn’t think he would. I’d been the one who’d
pushed for the trip to Costa Mesa to supposedly see Tammy. I was definitely not on his Christmas-card list. That thought only led to a fresh wave of anxiety over whether Dale and I had covered our tracks well enough to keep them from finding out that the story about Tammy was bogus. I didn’t know how I’d survive the guilt if, on top of Tracy’s death, Dale got caught for having set up Tracy’s kidnapping.

  And then there was Graham—and his DNA tests. I was a mass of nerves when I went in to the office on Monday. There was at least a possibility that we might get some results back, and I knew they might not be the answers I wanted to hear.

  Michy was anxious, too. “What if that public defender was right? What if the DNA does come back to Graham?”

  The more I’d thought about Frank’s remark, the more it’d pissed me off. “First of all, I don’t think Frank knows diddly-squat. Second of all, if it does come back to Graham . . .” I’d been suffering over that possibility all weekend, and I could think of only one recourse. “I’ll have to try and get him a deal for manslaughter.”

  But it’d be a tough sell. Even though he had an emotionally appealing reason for killing Roan, the evidence showed that the killer had tried to make it look like a suicide—not so emotionally appealing. And even if I managed to get him a manslaughter, I didn’t see any judge giving Graham probation. He’d get at least three years—and the stress of even one year in prison could kill a guy like him. Even if he survived, his life would be ruined.

  Michy saw my expression. “Okay, let’s live on the bright side for now. It might be good news.” She forced a tight smile. “I’m sure it’ll be good news.”

  I appreciated her effort to lift our spirits. “Right.”

  I went into my office, dropped my briefcase on the floor, and went to my computer. I checked for e-mails from Rusty. Nada. I put my cell phone on my desk so I’d be sure to see if Liam called. Then I tried to get some work done. But that was pretty much impossible because I kept checking my e-mail, staring at my cell phone, and pacing.