by Marcia Clark
“Nah. Can’t see how that would make her feel any better.”
“Is there any point in talking to Russell again?”
We’d spoken to him several times since Hayley’s death, and although our conversations were of the casual, updating variety, we’d already asked all the questions we could think of.
“The only thing we haven’t done is ask him about the fight with Tommy,” Bailey said.
“But what’s he going to say? ‘Yeah, I stole his screenplay’? And even if he did say that, what difference would it make? He never knew who kidnapped Hayley. We saw those ransom notes. They didn’t mention anything about Tommy or Brian—or anyone else for that matter.”
The picture of Russell’s grief-ravaged face flashed before my eyes.
“You’re right. There’s no point.”
We’d done a great job of eliminating everyone. Now we just had to find a way to include someone.
26
By the time we finished with the Antonovich entourage, the sun was well over the yardarm. I learned that saying from Judge J. D. Morgan, who uses it to signal to his court reporter that it’s time to knock off and go have a drink. It was still plenty warm outside, but I didn’t mind after shivering in the too-frosty air of that refrigerated mansion. Bailey got her car keys from the kid in the Princess Warrior T-shirt. He turned out to be Lee, the driver, so we took the opportunity to do a little more questioning.
“Hey, Lee, are you Russell’s only driver?” Bailey asked.
“Unless I’m sick or something.”
“Were you here last Monday evening?”
“You mean the day of the kidnapping?” I nodded. He sniffed and gazed off for a moment. “Yeah. I drove him and Uma home from the studio that day.”
“And how long did you stick around?” I asked.
“Guess about an hour or so. Just long enough to make sure the cars were all cleaned up and ready to go.”
“So you didn’t drive Russell anywhere after you drove him and Uma back here?” Bailey asked.
Lee sniffed again. A sign of a coke habit? Or just an air-conditioning cold? “Nope.”
We thanked him and headed out. I opened the window to enjoy the warm air. But it took just ten minutes for the blanket of heat to make me feel like I was suffocating. When Bailey cranked up the air, I closed the window and enjoyed the cool artificial breeze.
“Damn,” Bailey said. “I was hoping to get over to the coroner’s today.”
“Kinda soon to hope for anything on Brian.”
“No, I was hoping for info on Hayley. At least some preliminary findings.”
It’d be a few weeks before an official report could be ready, and at seven o’clock, it was too late to find the pathologist for an informal chat. But it was a perfect time for a friendly phone call. I dialed and let it ring, expecting to get voice mail.
“Rachel?”
The wary note in Scott’s voice told me he had a feeling what was coming.
“Scottsky! How you doin’, my man?” He loves when I call him “Scottsky.” He’s tried to tell me otherwise, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t mean it.
He exhaled sharply. “What do you want, Rachel?”
“Other than the pleasure of your company at Engine Co. No. 28?”
“I can’t help you with Brian. I didn’t do his case.”
“I’m looking for Hayley’s reports. I’ll take anything you’ve got.”
“Meet me at the Jack in the Box across the street tomorrow morning, eight o’clock.”
“On Saturday?” I pleaded, “Make it nine—”
“I’ve got things to do. Eight or nothing.”
I sighed. “Fine, eight it is.” I ended the call.
Bailey was smirking. “Too early for ya, little buddy?”
“What happened to ‘Thank you, Rachel’? ‘Nice score, Rachel’?”
Bailey offered none of the above. “Ready for dinner and a potato-based beverage?” she asked.
It’s one of the great mysteries of life how someone figured out you could make vodka from a potato. Or, for that matter, bread from growing stalks of wheat. If I’d been a pioneer, we would have been sober and starving.
Since we were on the Westside and too hungry to wait till we got back downtown, we opted for Craig’s—that great steak and martini place Graden had taken me to. We got a table against the wall and the waitress asked what we were drinking.
“Just water, thanks,” I said.
Bailey was driving and I didn’t want her to have to watch me drink.
“Give her a Ketel One martini,” Bailey said. “Very dry, very cold, straight up, olives on the side.”
When the waitress left, I said, “You didn’t have to do that. I don’t mind keeping you company.”
“But now you owe me.”
“Oh, no,” I said, raising my hand to flag down the waitress.
“You’re going to send back your drink without even knowing? What if it’s just a free drink at the Varnish?”
I looked at her suspiciously, but I lowered my hand. “Okay, what’s the payoff?”
“Remember our interview with Uma?” She looked me dead in the eye. “That stays our little secret.”
The interview in which Bailey showed her woeful ignorance of the ways of Hollywood heavyweights—thinking Russell would drive his own car, or talk to anyone on the phone without an assistant listening in. I’d never forget those priceless gems and I’d make sure she never did either. But few things are better matched than a hot day and a cold dry martini. Only Bailey would force me into a choice like this. But when I looked up at the waitress, I knew what I had to do.
“I’m so sorry, I’m going to have to exchange that for a glass of iced tea.”
The next morning bright and early Scott and I picked up alarmingly bad coffee and a darn good ham and egg croissant from the drive-thru across the street from the coroner’s office. I parked in the lot and he ate while I scanned the preliminary findings on Hayley. After I’d finished, we spent a few minutes chatting about our respective offices and inept management—a universal bonding issue—and Scott promised to get back to me with a date for his payoff at Engine Co. No. 28.
I’d arranged to meet Bailey at the station, where I found her scowling at her desk, doing her least favorite thing in the world: paperwork. I didn’t feel sorry for her. Unlike me, she got paid overtime. “Come on, turn that frown upside down, it’s not that bad—”
“Say that again and I’ll shoot you.”
I waved the report in front of her. “If you shoot me I’ll bleed all over Hayley’s report.”
She pushed back from the computer and held out her hand. “Let’s see.”
She scanned the few pages quickly. “Plant debris and soil on Hayley’s clothes, in her hair…”
“It could be from Fryman Canyon. She might’ve gone with Brian when he tagged the spot and then when he picked up the money—”
“Assuming he ever got his hands on the money.”
“Good point. I’d bet he didn’t, since it’s still missing.” Hayley might’ve gone with Brian to Fryman Canyon. But I had another theory about where Hayley’d been. I tried to remember our last conversation with Dorian. “Did Dorian say she was going to have the soil on both bodies analyzed? Or just Brian?”
“You can ask her in person if you want. I think she’s going back up to the mountain today and I wouldn’t mind going up there myself and taking a look around in daylight. Want to come?”
“This time I’m driving.”
“You’re not authorized to drive a county car. Besides, I got you there in one piece last time, didn’t I?”
That didn’t mean I had to keep pressing my luck, but there was no point arguing.
“Did Scott give you copies of his photos of Hayley?” Bailey asked.
“Yeah. But I don’t have the photos of Brian.” And I hadn’t had the chance to cultivate a mutually agreeable working relationship, meaning a bribery setup, with our new coroner
’s investigator, George Harrison.
“I think the officer who was first on scene took some pictures.” Bailey turned back to her computer and began to tap keys, then abruptly stopped. “I was going to ask him to e-mail the photos over, but I don’t want to risk anyone seeing them. I’ll give him a call and see if he can meet us up there.”
I’d been worrying about this. With no suspects and no new details, I’d hoped the press would lose interest. It hadn’t. Instead, there were endless articles filled with rank speculation about who’d killed Hayley, why, and what evidence would be needed to prove it by “experts” desperate for the spotlight. That meant reporters, tabloid and otherwise, were crawling all over the case, looking for a leak. With that kind of constant pressure, every passing minute meant we ran the risk that Janice would hear of Brian’s death on the news before I could get to her.
It hadn’t even been two days since we found Brian’s body. But all it took was one person to let the wrong word slip at the right time. “We’re going to have to release the info on Brian pretty soon.”
Bailey nodded grimly.
I went back to the Biltmore to change into hiking clothes. Twenty minutes later we were on the road, and I was bracing myself for Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride up Boney Mountain.
27
It was just shy of eleven a.m. when we reached the top of the mountain, but the sun was already blinding. And at that altitude, we had no cloud or even smog cover to filter the burning rays. I took off my cotton jacket and put on my shades before getting out of the car. The heat wrapped around me like cellophane and the hot air singed my nostrils and throat as I sweated my way up the dusty hill. Although it had been only a couple of days since the torrential downpour ripped open Brian’s grave, the area was already baked dry. The only remnants of that drenching rain were puddles and muddy patches that were shaded under trees and rocks.
Bailey had offered Dorian some unis to help with the search, but Dorian had declined. Graciously, of course: “Bad enough having to deal with you two clowns stomping all over the place.” Now that I had the chance to look around, I could see that there was a lot of ground to cover. Thankfully, she’d brought some of her own assistants, who were already sweating in their official coveralls. Of the several main trails on the ridge, only one led to Brian’s grave. But there were plenty of narrow, off-trail pathways that gave access to the spot where Brian had been found, and every inch of them had to be examined for evidence.
Dorian, who looked cool as the proverbial cucumber, had broken the area into grids and appointed her own people to lead the way through each one of them. She grudgingly allowed us to join the search but gave us strict orders: “Follow Herrera, and I mean exactly behind him.”
Bailey and I inched along behind Herrera, who must’ve been Dorian’s favorite, because he seemed to be examining every millimeter of every single leaf, stone, and branch as he moved through his part of the grid. The air was heavy with the smells of sage and scrub oak, and salty perspiration kept trickling into my eyes, blurring my vision. It would only take a few seconds to veer off course, and in that steep, rocky terrain, one wrong step could send you hurtling to your death. I swiped my damp hair off my forehead and tried not to think about it.
After about half an hour, Herrera stopped abruptly, which caused Bailey to halt in her tracks. I’d been looking at the reddish dirt and pondering the clay content at the time, so didn’t notice that our little procession had braked. I bumped headfirst into Bailey, who nearly fell into Herrera. He gave her a stern look and then pointed.
There, speared on a thin branch, was a small piece of pale pink fabric—I couldn’t be one hundred percent sure, but it seemed to be the same color as Hayley’s blouse. If I was right, that would put Hayley at the site of…Bailey and I exchanged a look. Finally, we might have a real break. We took photos, then Herrera carefully deposited it into a paper bag. He took out a pair of garden clippers and snipped off the last six inches of branch and bagged that too.
After a few moments we began to inch forward again. Now, energized by what I hoped was a find, I took closer note of every branch and leaf we passed. I saw that there were broken branches here and there—as good a sign as we were likely to find that someone had recently been here. I pointed them out to Herrera, who held up his camera to show that he’d caught it. I didn’t want to stop, but my mouth was dry and my skin felt gritty with dried sweat. I pulled out a bottle of water and let Bailey and Herrera continue to move forward. At the painstaking pace Herrera was moving, I’d still be able to catch up if I didn’t budge for another three hours.
My neck was aching from the strain of concentrating on every shrub, pebble, and grain of dirt. I straightened up and pulled back my shoulders as I glanced at the stretch of mountain ahead. It looked as though the route we were taking was winding back toward the road. A scenario began to form in my mind, and I started to study the ground carefully as I walked.
Ten minutes later we snaked around an outcropping, and I looked up to see that we were just fifty feet from the road. Herrera stopped to take more photographs and Bailey pulled out her water bottle. I pulled mine out of my backpack, but it slipped from my hand and rolled under a bush. As I bent down to get it, I noticed a bright spot in the branches of one of the bushes—an artificial color that didn’t belong there. Poking my head in for a closer look, I saw that it was pink, and possibly rectangular.
I stood up and called out to Herrera. “Here! I’ve got something!” Probably just Barbie’s Dream Car, but I wasn’t going to take any chances.
Herrera turned back and carefully retraced his steps. He bent down and looked at the object through one of the biggest magnifying glasses I’d ever seen. I was entranced by that giant magnifier. I decided that I wanted one of my own, and made a mental note to drop a hint to Bailey about it—my birthday was coming up soon. Then it occurred to me that after Toni and I got done ripping on her about the questions she’d asked Uma, she might not be in such a charitable mood. Preoccupied with important thoughts like these, I almost missed it when Herrera finally finished taking photographs and extracted the object from the bush.
It was a cell phone.
28
“Nice catch, Counselor,” Herrera said as he bagged the phone.
He insisted on re-covering every inch of ground from that spot, and it took us another hour to reach the end of the path, which did turn out to be the roadway. Feeling wrung out and filthy, I walked to the shadiest area I could find and sat down on a rock. Seconds later, Bailey joined me.
“How much you wanna bet that cell phone’s Hayley’s?” I said.
“No bet. It is, I agree. I just hope Dorian will finish with it fast.”
“All she can really do is check for prints and swab for DNA, which’ll probably be a bust. The thing’s been out here a couple of days now. I just wonder if it’ll still work.” I scanned the road and the pullout in front of us. “Think there’s any point in trying to get tire marks out here?”
Bailey looked at the area where we’d emerged from the brush. “After that biblical rain, I can’t see how anything would be left. But I’ll ask Dorian.”
We drank our water and waited as the rest of the crew headed for their cars, then Bailey asked Dorian about the tire tracks.
“Already took photos with a zoom lens. But I’m not hopeful.”
I started to ask her when she’d be done with the cell phone, then clamped my mouth shut.
Dorian raised an eyebrow. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s what I thought.” Dorian turned and headed for her pickup.
“See you later.”
Dorian said over her shoulder, “Not if I see you first.”
I pulled on my backpack and turned to Bailey. “I hope our ‘connection’ doesn’t make you feel left out,” I joked.
As we were about to get into Bailey’s car, Dorian called out to us from her truck. “You can have that cell phone the day after tomorrow.”
&nbs
p; When we reached Mulholland Highway, my phone played the default tune, “FM” by Steely Dan. I looked at the screen but didn’t recognize the number. A reporter? Unlikely. Sandi, the DA’s media relations chief, had been doing her job well and had managed to keep me out of the fray. A job that was made significantly easier by the fact that Vanderhorn had such big love for the fray. And so far there’d been no leaks of any real information. The press, and especially the tabloids, were trying to keep the story going by digging up background “color” about Hayley’s life, but surprisingly, they’d been kind. I had the feeling that might be due to the fact that the biggest of them, the National Inquisitor, had set the tone by printing sympathetic vignettes supposedly garnered from her “closest buds.” And since those stories were selling, the rest of the papers had fallen into step.
I decided if this was a reporter, I’d just hang up. It was my go-to strategy with the press, which explained my wild popularity. I answered warily, without giving my name. “Hello?”
A man cleared his throat, then spoke in a deep, rolling baritone. “Am I speaking to Rachel Knight? This is Sterling Numan. Dorian asked me to take a look at your soil and plant samples. Sorry to disrupt your weekend—”
“No problem.” It was already fully disrupted.
“—but I thought you’d want to hear from me as soon as I had something to tell you.”
It took me a moment to shift from surly to grateful. “Mr. Numan, thank you for calling.”
“Dr. Numan, and you’re entirely welcome. I’ll be preparing a formal report, of course, but I’ve made some notes and I have some preliminary findings that might be of help to you. Ordinarily I wouldn’t relay my preliminary findings. I prefer to wait until I’ve completed the analysis, but Dorian told me this is a matter of some urgency.” He cleared his throat again.
“Yes, that’s correct. Thank you for making an exception, Dr. Numan.”
“I only ask that you bear in mind that when I complete my analysis, I may alter my conclusions—”