Killer Ambition

by Marcia Clark

  It was indeed closer, and it cost a fortune. “Okay, thanks.”

  He drove a fairly new-looking silver BMW, of course. And though it wasn’t custom and it wasn’t a luxury model, I’d venture to say no other Grade Two deputy could afford the payments on this puppy. Declan backed out very slowly and carefully maneuvered around the island leading up to the pay window.

  “This a new acquisition?” I asked.

  “Yeah. I got a great deal on it because it was what they call ‘slightly used.’ But I’ll be paying it off for the next four years, and if I don’t get my Grade Three promotion, I’ll need to unload it. So I’ve got to keep it sharp for the resale. Make sure I can get what I paid for it.”

  The kid wearing the five-thousand-dollar suit worried about this? I couldn’t help myself, I had to ask. “Wouldn’t your dad help you out if you got behind?”

  Declan’s expression hardened. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t ask.”

  Interesting. A rift? Or just an admirable assertion of independence? Maybe time would tell. Right now, I needed to get ready for what was coming, and it seemed Declan was the man who could help me do it. “Russell lives in Bel Air, but his wife told Melia that he’d be at the studio. It’s on—”

  “I know where the studio is.” Declan turned right and headed for the on-ramp to the 101 freeway. “I was going to tell you about Russell and Ian. They’ve been super-tight for a lot of years.”

  “How close?”

  “Close enough to travel together, party together. They always do the awards scene together.”

  Awards, as in Oscars, Directors Guild, and Golden Globes.

  “Were the families close too?”

  “Well, the wives have changed. Ian’s been through two divorces—”

  “And the current girlfriend, how long’s she been around?”

  “A year? Maybe two. Ian’s girlfriend, Sacha…she’s your typical Hollywood trophy, actress-wannabe material. You know the type.”

  “Not personally, but I get the drift.” I smiled inwardly, finding Declan much more fun and interesting than I’d expected. “What about the early days, before their divorces? Did Ian and either of his wives socialize with Russell and Raynie?”

  “Yeah. Definitely. And when Russell was shooting on location, Ian would always take Raynie and Hayley out to dinner, do stuff with them to keep them company. I’d see them at my dad’s house sometimes when he threw parties.”

  “Is it possible that Ian and Raynie…?”

  Declan shook his head firmly. “Uh-uh. Raynie was true blue. And she was never out alone with Ian. It was always Ian and his wife number one…I forget her name at the moment, and Raynie and Hayley. No, it was all on the up-and-up.”

  Not so much anymore. But who’d want to believe that Ian, the substitute daddy, would kill little Hayley? Yet another obstacle in a case that already had more than its fair share. I braced myself as Declan pulled up to the studio guardhouse.

  46

  I’ve been yelled at by judges, serial killers, and defense attorneys, but there was no possible way I could’ve been prepared for the fury of the storm that was Russell Antonovich.

  He’d been sitting behind his desk when I gave him the news. Now he jumped to his feet. “Have you absolutely lost your mind? Ian is like a second father to Hayley! How could you…how dare you charge him with her murder!”

  “Russell, I know this is a shock, but if you’d let me explain—”

  Declan had been standing just behind me. Now he stepped up next to me, and I saw he was about to speak, but then Russell pounded a fist on his desk. “I know why! It’s because you want to make a big name for yourself. You’re going to climb up on Ian’s back with this bullshit case so you can get famous! You probably think you’re going to be a big deal, don’t you? Well, it won’t work, I’ll tell you that right now—”

  Not only the vehemence but the substance of the accusation took my breath away. “Russell, you can’t really believe that. You can’t honestly believe I’d file a case with no evidence, just to get my name in the papers.”

  Russell jabbed his finger dangerously close to my chest, his eyes spitting fire. “You wouldn’t be the first! There’s no way Ian could’ve done this. No fucking way!”

  Declan moved forward to put himself between us, and shot out a hand to stop Russell. “Hey—” he began.

  But I stepped to the side and confronted Russell face-to-face. “And you have no interest at all in hearing what kind of evidence we’ve got? Evidence that proves he murdered your own daughter?”

  Russell’s breath was coming in ragged gasps, and his arms shook with the effort to keep his clenched fists down at his sides. But my last salvo finally got his attention. He stopped his tirade with a visible effort and narrowed his eyes. “Let’s hear it.”

  I described it all, right down to the texts we’d found on Hayley’s phone and Averly’s purchase of the ticket to Paris using Hayley’s iPad, and concluded with his phone call to Ian. “And he was the one you called when you got the text from Hayley’s phone about the kidnapping. You told him about it in plenty of time for him to—”

  “I told him nothing! And you’ll never prove I did!” The fury radiated from his every pore, a palpable heat that made me draw back, momentarily speechless. For long seconds, we stood staring at each other in silence, the air between us thick and dangerous. Finally, Russell turned away, breaking the spell. The light must be dawning for him, I thought, awful as that must be. Words of consolation formed in my mind as Russell walked slowly to the window. But he spoke first.

  Turning back to me, in a voice now filled with contempt as well as fury, he snarled, “How stupid are you? It’s that asshole punk Averly! Jesus! Isn’t it perfectly obvious?”

  I blinked at the unexpected turn, but recovered quickly to fire back, “What about Ian’s blood on the trunk of Brian’s car? His fingerprint on the bumper? His phone calls to Averly in New York? His hair and fingerprints in Averly’s car? Don’t you see how—”

  “What I see is a frame job that’s working! This Averly character—”

  “What? Planted Ian’s blood? His fingerprints? His hair?”

  “Averly works on the lot and Ian knows him. So he sat in Averly’s car. Big deal. And Ian’s blood and…and prints…” Russell sputtered for a moment as his gears spun. Finally, the gears caught. “How do we know Brian didn’t try to shake Ian down before the kidnapping? How do we know he and Brian didn’t get into a fight when Ian refused to be blackmailed? That kid was just as psycho as his father!”

  “But if that’s what happened—and Ian got into a fight with Brian that left him bloody—why not tell you about it?”

  “Because he didn’t want to upset me! Because he didn’t think I needed to be distracted by a stupid, crazy boy who believed his delusional father’s stories!”

  “Okay, then why was Ian calling Averly in New York?”

  “How should I know? He probably didn’t even know Averly was in New York. And so what if he called Averly? That doesn’t mean it had anything to do with Hayley’s…” Russell stopped short, unable to say it. “This is insane! There’s no friggin’ way!” Russell pulled at his hair. “I swear to God, I’ll have your job for this!”

  I wanted to tell him that right now I’d gladly let him have my job, but while I searched for something more productive to say, Declan stepped in.

  “Russell, I understand why this would be very upsetting news,” he said quietly. “But Rachel isn’t looking for anything but the truth. And if she finds out that Ian wasn’t involved, she’ll be glad to drop the case.”

  I was a little annoyed at hearing, for the second time today, how happy I’d be to drop charges against Ian Powers. But Declan’s words seemed to stem the tide of Russell’s umbrage. When Declan finished speaking, Russell gave him a long stare, then fired a look of utter contempt and disbelief at me and turned toward the window that opened out onto the lot. He was still breathing hard, and his hands clutched the sill. Wh
en, finally, Russell faced me again, some of the beet-red color had drained from his face, but his eyes still shot angry sparks. “Your boss knows about this?”

  “Of course.”

  “Fucking civil service lawyers.” With a look of disgust, he picked up his phone and growled, “Have someone escort these two off the lot!”

  I finally got to ride in one of the golf carts.

  “Whew!” Declan said after he’d pulled out of the studio lot.

  “Yeah.” Russell’s alternative scenario that made Averly the bad guy had its flaws, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the defense landed on some version of that. “I hate to do this to you, but I’m going to need you to write up a report of what you heard Russell say. I’ll do one too.”

  “Especially that Ian never told Russell about any confrontation with Brian?”

  “Yes, especially that part. It’s not impossible that Ian would keep something like that from Russell, but it’s highly unlikely. If nothing else, he’d want to prepare Russell for any problems Brian might cause. It makes no sense that Ian would feel he needed to shelter Russell.”

  In fact, if Ian’s defense did try to claim he was just protecting Russell, the weakness in our evidence of motive wasn’t such a problem. If Brian had some proof that Russell stole his father’s script, he would’ve gotten a lawyer. He hadn’t. That meant Brian wasn’t a real threat. So why not tell Russell that Brian had come around talking a lot of unprovable nonsense? And if Brian didn’t pose a real threat, then why kill him? I admit, it was a bit circular, but it did give us something to work with. After what I’d just been through, any little bit of good news was a welcome relief.

  “And while you’re at it, put it in your report that Russell denied telling Ian about getting the kidnapping text from Hayley’s phone,” I said.

  Declan looked at me. “You don’t believe him?”

  “Not for a minute. I think he was on his phone to Ian within seconds.”

  Declan nodded. “I agree. I thought he protested a lot too much.” He paused. “Can we tell when that blood drop was left on the trunk?” Declan asked.

  “Blood smear, and no. So the defense could argue that Hayley’s blood got on the trunk at a different time than Ian’s. But it’s a loser. What are the odds they’d both swipe the same exact spot on the trunk of someone else’s car—on two different occasions?”

  Declan nodded. “But you can’t say for sure which guy killed them.”

  “Not yet.”

  I sure hoped that would change…soon.

  “I think Russell’s in denial,” Declan said. “He doesn’t want to believe someone he thought was, like, his closest friend would do something this heinous.”

  “I’m sure. It’s horrible enough to suffer through the death of a child. But it’s a whole new form of hell to know that the murder was committed by someone close to you. He’s probably dealing with a fair amount of guilt right now.”

  But an awful suspicion had leaped into my mind during the fight with Russell. One I didn’t want to be right about. One I couldn’t share with Declan. So we rode on in silence until he pulled off the freeway at Broadway.

  We talked about what we’d need to do to get ready for trial as we walked back to the courthouse, and when we got up to the office, I told him that if he had any work left on his other cases, now was the time to wrap it up.

  “I’m going to finish up my ‘to do’ list. When it’s done, I’ll call you and we can divvy up the work.”

  “Got it.” Declan turned to go, then stopped and held out his hand. “I just want to thank you for letting me be your second chair. I know it’s an honor I probably don’t deserve, but that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate it. So…uh, thank you.”

  We shook, and I found my attitude toward him softening. He really wasn’t what I’d expected. “No, thank you, Declan. I was glad to have you there. That got a lot uglier than I thought it would.”

  I started to work on my list, but our discussion about Russell and his feelings of guilt had struck a familiar chord. It brought back memories of my father. He’d felt guilty too. At the time, I was so young, and so consumed with my own shame and feelings of responsibility for my sister’s abduction, I hadn’t been able to see that his anger, his emotional distance, and his drinking were all ways of coping with his own guilt.

  But now, with the benefit of hindsight, a few more pieces of my childhood puzzle fell into place. After Romy was abducted, my father started taking me with him to go target shooting. At the time, I’d thought that was just something he’d always liked to do, and that he’d started bringing me along to make me feel better, to distract me from my loneliness.

  But that wasn’t quite right. My father hadn’t done any target shooting before Romy’s disappearance. It was only after her abduction that he bought a gun and taught me how to shoot. I was only seven years old, but day after day, when I came home from school, he’d take me out to the fields near the woods and drill me on how to aim, shoot, and take apart a gun. And that wasn’t all. He’d “play games” that I only now realized were survival training. “I’m the bad guy and you’re the cop, Rachel.” He’d reach out as if to grab my arm. “Now what do you do?” I had to show him how I’d move out of range and pull my gun. “Now let’s pretend you’re walking along and I sneak up behind you. What do you do, Rachel?” I learned all the moves.

  Though he insisted on perfection, and the “games” quickly got to be repetitive, I’d loved every minute. It was the only time I got to see him smile. Whenever I hit the can during target practice, or gave the right answer, or made the right move, I’d look to see his reaction. Was he smiling? Rarely. But when he was, my heart would soar. More often, his face had a sad, faraway look, or an expression that was fierce, intense…and scary. Still, I turned back to him time after time, because those rare smiles were the only source of joy in my dark, gray world. They showed me the father I used to know, the one who’d swing me by my arms as I screamed with sheer joy, who’d put me on his shoulders and gallop to play horsy, who could make me laugh with just a word or a funny face. Dad was always there for me. Until he wasn’t.

  In my limited child’s-eye view, I couldn’t see that those “games” were really my father’s effort to keep me safe. Romy’s abduction had taught him that the only way to fight back against a world that bred the kind of predators who would snatch a little girl off the road was to teach me to fight for myself. No one else could be relied on. Not even himself. And ultimately, I think his broken vision of himself as caretaker and protector was too much for him to bear. Which was why, over time, our “playdates” dwindled—and so did his sober moments. For the last full month before he skidded off that icy bridge, there were no more games.

  47

  The following morning I was up early and pushing through my closet. I had to find a suit that would look good enough for the arraignment but not make me sweat through it on my way to the courthouse. I pulled out a few possibilities and turned on the television to catch what they were saying about the case. News of Ian Powers’s arrest had gone nationwide, and from the looks of things, the tsunami had hit. A spray-tanned, hair-gelled anchor announced with unrestrained zeal:

  A shocking development in the murder case of Hayley Antonovich and Brian Maher! Two suspects were taken into custody last night and the identity of one of them has rocked the film industry! Ian Powers, manager for superstar director Russell Antonovich and co-owner of RussPow Studios, was arrested last night, along with studio production assistant Jack Averly, and charged with the murders of Hayley Antonovich and Brian Maher. Their arraignments will take place this morning. We’ll have live coverage inside the courtroom, so stay tuned…

  I flipped between channels. All of them made the same breathless announcement and all promised “live coverage of this dramatic moment.” A pretty funny thing to promise considering the fact that there wasn’t much to cover. An arraignment was a limited affair: I would read the charges, Powers and Averly would plead no
t guilty, and then we’d set a date for the preliminary hearing. At most, it should take about five minutes. But it was a chance to watch all the players in action, and that alone guaranteed they’d get viewers.

  I’m a big believer in the public’s right to know, so if anyone wants to sit in and watch a trial, I’m all for it. What I’m not in favor of is spin. And spin is all you get when the media jumps in. Lawyers who are third-rate on their best day and have never tried a lawsuit get “face time” to pontificate endlessly—and worse, misleadingly—about every facet of the case. As a result, the public’s right to know becomes the talking heads’ right to misinform. And then there are the stealth commentators: the lawyers and experts who are working for the defense but don’t admit it. They get on camera and present themselves as neutral observers, when all along they’re just stumping for their side of the lawsuit.

  Knowing those publicity junkies would soon pollute the airwaves with garbage about my case put me in a foul mood. I turned off the television and dawdled over coffee while I read the paper. The Times carried the story on the front page, above the fold—proof that the case had gone big-time. So far, it was just an unbiased recitation of the charges. The paper’s favorite expert, a law professor of limited brainpower but limitless desire for exposure, merely observed that the charges carried a sentence of life without the possibility of parole. Pretty much straight-down-the-middle reportage. I knew it wouldn’t last. The moment the trial got under way, rumor and innuendo would fill in for the facts whenever they were juicy enough. Any source would do, corroborated or not.

  When I first stepped outside, I was surprised to find that it was a little cooler than I’d expected, and I thought about heading back to change. But by the time I got to the courthouse, the temperature had begun to rise. If I’d left any later, I would’ve been a mess. I looked through the glass doors into the lobby and saw a few cameras but not a big crowd. Feeling cheered, I hopped onto an elevator and rode up to my floor, thinking it might not be so bad after all.