Killer Ambition

by Marcia Clark

  “Is that where you last saw her?”

  “No. The…last time…I saw her was at home…our home.”

  “When was that?”

  Raynie teared up again and fought for composure. I swiped a look at the jury. There were some sympathetic looks, but a few, incredibly, looked bored. Of all the possible bad signs a jury can give, boredom during such emotional testimony was the worst.

  “Thursday. She said she was going to her father’s house and that she’d be there through the weekend. Russell was supposed to check on her.” Raynie shot a look in Russell’s direction through swollen eyes.

  “Did you ever see the messages Brian sent to Russell?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m putting the first text on the monitor right now.” The message, with Hayley’s photo below, flashed up on the screen. “Is that what you remember?”

  I’ve got your daughter. She’ll be safe if you do as I tell you. If you call the police she’ll be killed. I’ll be in touch with my demand.

  “Yes, that’s it.” She pointed to the photo with a trembling finger. “And that’s…Hayley.” A fresh wave of tears overtook her.

  “You saw it on Russell’s cell phone, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Could you tell where it was sent from?”

  Terry could object to this, but we both knew I could get it in through other witnesses. She let it go.

  “Yes.” Raynie bit her lip and a slight tremor shook her body. “It came from Hayley’s phone.”

  “I’m sorry, Raynie. Do you need a break?”

  “No, no. Go ahead.”

  “What was the next communication about Hayley?”

  “A few hours after that, Russell got an e-mail with a video.”

  “I’m going to show you that e-mail and video now. Okay?”

  Raynie nodded. I put the e-mail on the monitor first.

  One million dollars in cash in a duffel bag. Go to Fryman Canyon. Take the small path on the left for fifty yards, then turn right. Walk until you see two trees with white string tied around the trunks. Leave the bag between them. Go home and wait for the call. If you bring in the police, Hayley’s dead.

  “Yes, that’s the second communication.”

  “Now I’m going to play the video that came with it. Ready?”

  She nodded again, more slowly this time. It hurt to look at her. The only thing I could do to help her was to get it over with.

  Again, Hayley’s sweet, almost unbearably young face looked steadily into the camera. For the first time, I noticed a look of sadness in her eyes as she spoke. “Dad, just do what they say and everything will be okay. Please.”

  With that, Raynie completely dissolved. And for the second time in this trial, racking sobs echoed through the courtroom. Even I had to swallow hard to keep my emotions in check.

  “I have nothing further, Your Honor.”

  “Defense?” the judge asked. “Any cross?” His tone suggested what the answer should be.

  Terry took the cue. “No. No questions, Your Honor.”

  “People?” the judge asked. I certainly couldn’t find a stronger ending. I stood and forced a look of confidence.

  “The People rest.”

  71

  By the time I rested my case, it was a quarter to five. Not enough time to start the defense. Having the jury go out for the evening with a mother’s sobs ringing in their ears was always helpful. I knew some jurors were unmoved, but there were at least two or three who’d clearly been affected by Raynie’s testimony.

  Terry was well aware of this. When the judge turned to dismiss the jury, she asked for a sidebar. “Judge, I know you want to take advantage of every minute of court time. I could do my opening now,” she said, her voice low and tight with tension.

  “We have less than ten minutes, Ms. Fisk. I can’t imagine you’ll be finished that quickly and I’m not inclined to make the jurors stay late. I can see they’re getting tired. Besides, it’ll be no favor to you if they’re just sitting there wishing they could go home while you do your opening.”

  Terry had reluctantly agreed and the judge let the jurors go for the evening. I was taught early on to stand whenever the jurors enter and leave the courtroom as a sign of respect. But it has the added bonus of giving me a chance to exchange friendly nods and smiles—in other words, to get a feel for how they’re responding to me.

  The librarian looked coolly neutral as she gave me a short head bob. The Pac Bell worker ignored me. The single black mom gave me a little smile with sad eyes. Was that sympathy for Raynie? Or for me, because my case was history? Maybe both. The rest swept by us without a glance. General reading: not good. An alternate dropped his reading glasses as he passed by and I started to reach out and retrieve them for him, but he beat me to it and scooped them up without so much as a nod in my direction.

  I watched him leave: a talent agent whose agency represented some of the actors and writers who worked for Antonovich and Powers. But he was smart, which was more than I could say for the remaining jury pool, so I’d tossed the dice. Maybe I’d made a mistake. But he was just an alternate, and none of the jurors was likely to let go of a front-row seat at the biggest show in town.

  When the jurors were gone, Terry made the standard motion to dismiss the case for insufficient evidence, leaning heavily on the blood evidence that was supposed to be the linchpin of my case and was now its most likely demise. Though it was a routine motion that had no hope of succeeding, I knew her every word would be the top news story of the day. Ordinarily, this wouldn’t bother me. The press changed screaming sides about who was winning or losing at least once a day. By now, even the least avid trial follower knew better than to buy into the stories. But this time it was different.

  Because now they had real-time footage that showed the bona fide disaster that was Gelfer’s testimony—a bellyflop of graphic, epic proportions. If a picture is worth a thousand words, video footage is worth a thousand photos.

  I walked out of the courtroom with head held high, but inside, I was leaden. The brief shot of hope-filled adrenaline I’d gotten from the unexpected appearance by Raynie had ebbed and was now a distant memory. I punched in the security code on the door to our wing on the eighteenth floor and dragged toward my office, feeling as though I were slogging through quicksand.

  “Rachel! Wait up!”

  I turned to find Sandi Runyon, director of media relations for the DA’s office, trotting toward me.

  “We need you in the conference room for a presser in five minutes,” she said.

  Talk about the last thing I wanted to do right now. “Sandi, I can’t do it. I’m dead.” And in a really shitty mood. I didn’t need to add that because she could see it for herself.

  “I know, but if you don’t show up, it’ll look bad.”

  “You mean worse than it already does? How would that even be possible?”

  Sandi squeezed my arm. “I know, kiddo. I saw Gelfer. It sucks. But otherwise you’ll be leaving Vanderhorn out there alone.” She gave me a meaningful look. We both knew what that meant: brain farts and bluster. If anything could make matters worse right now, it’d be Vanderhorn fielding the hardballs alone.

  I sighed and let Sandi lead me into the conference room. The press had already piled in and filled every available seat and square inch of standing room. Except for the space where the podium stood—that was wide open. Feeling as though I were heading for a firing squad, I moved to that end of the room and stood next to the flags of the county and state. Seconds later, Vanderhorn entered the room from his private side door and walked to the podium.

  His statement was brief but cheesy. “Every trial is a long and winding road, and just like that road, it has its bumps. But I have every faith that ultimately, justice will prevail.”

  The press began to shout questions before the period could even be heard at the end of that line.

  “Do you still believe justice means Ian Powers gets convicted?”

&n
bsp; “How do you expect to get a conviction now that your most important evidence has been discredited?”

  “Wasn’t the blood the only thing that really showed Ian Powers was involved in the murders?”

  Vanderhorn held up his hands. “I’m going to let my lead prosecutor speak to the specifics.” He stepped aside and gestured for me to take his place on the hot seat. “Ms. Knight?”

  I tried to salvage what I could from the wreckage that was our case. “While the blood is important, it’s far from the only critical piece of evidence that proves Ian Powers murdered these two young victims.” I listed the rest of the evidence we’d presented and tried to show that we still had a strong case. The truth was, we didn’t.

  With no solid proof of motive, we were completely dependent on the physical evidence. And the blood was the strongest. No other piece of evidence tied Ian as surely to the murders.

  Even the fingerprints on Brian’s trunk weren’t a slam dunk. We couldn’t prove they were left there at the time of the murder, and besides, after the drubbing Gelfer had taken, everything that came out of the LAPD crime lab would be suspect. All it would take now to blow down the house of cards was a couple of decent defense experts. There were thousands who’d jump at the chance for the free publicity this case would give them.

  After I’d been grilled, baked, and fried for ten minutes, Sandi put me out of my misery.

  “That’s all for now, folks. Thanks for listening.”

  She escorted me out, and Declan, who’d been standing near the door, followed. Sandi gave me a pat on the back. “Ya done good, kid. I’ll spare you the usual platitudes.”

  “Thanks, Sandi.” I took out my key to open the door to my office.

  “But you know, it ain’t over till it’s over.”

  “Couldn’t help yourself, could you?” I said. Bailey opened the door from inside.

  Sandi shrugged, gave Bailey a nod, and left.

  “Have fun?” Bailey asked.

  “Not as much as when a defendant tried to stab me with his pencil, but close.”

  “I don’t know how you did it,” Declan said. “I’d have lost it for sure. Especially with that Times reporter. What a dick.”

  “Yeah, they’ve been hating this office for a long time,” I said.

  “They’re no fans of LAPD either,” Bailey said. “Anyway, I have news…sort of.”

  I looked at her, puzzled.

  “Cliff Meisner called, so I took it for you. He said to tell you he found an ‘open port’ on Ian’s computer, whatever that is.”

  I didn’t know either, so I called him back. Bailey’s cell phone rang, and she got up and signaled she’d be right back.

  Cliff had the unenviable task of trying to explain it to me, one of the computer illiterati. “It’s…let me just put it this way. Most computers have only a few ports and they’re all identified. Having an open port is a big red flag. So something’s up with Ian’s computer. I just don’t know what, and I don’t know how long it’ll take me to figure it out. Could be a month or so.”

  I’d be out in Antelope Valley handling illegal fireworks cases by then. I thanked Cliff and hung up. The odds were that this “open port” business had nothing to do with our case, but long odds were all I had left. The only question was, how could I get some answers before the case ended? I folded my arms and hunched over. There had to be something. And then I sat up. There was.

  72

  “I’d ask what got me the pleasure and honor of this call, but I can probably guess,” Graden said, a smile in his voice. “What do you need, Rachel?”

  “Advice from a nerd.”

  “Fire away.”

  I told him what Cliff said about Ian Powers’s laptop. “But he needs at least a month to figure it out. Said going through every possibility takes time, and I guess it’s not his only case—”

  “That sounds about right. And you’ve got, what? A couple of weeks?”

  “I wish. Now that my case is in shreds, Terry’ll want to get it to the jury as fast as possible.” I told him about the DNA debacle. “My guess is we don’t even have a week before I start rebuttal.”

  “Less than a week? That’s…” Graden fell silent for so long I started to wonder if he’d hung up. “I was about to say that’s impossible, and it might be. But the idea I just had…well, the problem is, you won’t want to put this person on the stand. So if something does come of this, I don’t know how you’ll get it into evidence.”

  “I’ll drive off that bridge when I come to it. I really can’t be picky about anything at this point.”

  “Okay. I’ll get right back to you. Hang tight.”

  “I have a choice?”

  I sent Declan home. No reason why we all had to sit in Doomsville.

  “But you’ll let me know if you need anything, right? I’ll just be sitting around—” Declan said.

  “Hopefully getting drunk—”

  “But first I’ll be working on getting bios for these mystery defense witnesses.”

  Terry had finally given us her witness list just before we left court. As predicted, it was mostly defense experts who’d grind our DNA into even finer dust and trash most of the other physical evidence too. I recognized one of their names: Owen Poplar, a print “expert”—aka whore for hire—who surfaced whenever the price was right to show why prints didn’t match and how they could be planted.

  But there were a few names that had no title or description. Naturally, Terry hadn’t taken any written statements, so we had no idea who they were or what they’d have to say. I planned to demand that the judge impose sanctions for this typical defense shell game first thing in the morning.

  “Thanks, Declan. Let me know if you come up with anything. But don’t feel obligated to stay sober on my account.”

  After Declan left, I went to work on my cross-examination for the experts. But regardless of the problems or issues they raised, the bottom line for my cross would be the same: You can’t say it isn’t Ian’s hair, Ian’s blood, or Ian’s fingerprints, can you? The only weak spot was that the defense didn’t have to prove it wasn’t Ian’s hair, blood, or prints. They only had to raise a reasonable doubt. And I’d already done that for them.

  Bailey came back, which provided a welcome distraction from my morbid ruminations. I told her what Cliff had said, and that I’d put Graden on it.

  “Great idea.” She sat down and put her feet up on one of the storage boxes under the table where I kept old cases. “I checked out the mystery witnesses on the database. Nothing on them in California. I’ve got someone checking the national sources.”

  My cell phone played the first bars of “I Shot the Sheriff”—the new ringtone I’d given to Graden just for giggles. Who says I don’t spend my time wisely?

  “Can you and Bailey get over here with that laptop in the next half hour?”

  “Gee, I don’t know, we were going to go get mani-pedis.” I rolled my eyes. “We’ll be there in ten.”

  I called Cliff, and twenty minutes later we were in Graden’s office, laptop in hand.

  Graden was looking particularly sharp today, and I found myself momentarily distracted as I enjoyed the view.

  “I assume you meant it when you said you were desperate,” he said with a questioning look.

  “Trust me,” Bailey said. “She meant it.”

  I nodded.

  “Okay, don’t say I didn’t warn you. I had a huge white-collar case a few years ago that involved a highly sophisticated computer hacking scheme. This group came from the Russian Business Network—ever hear of them?”

  Bailey and I shook our heads.

  “It started as an Internet provider that promised absolute security for any—and I mean any—business that paid their hosting fees: arms dealers, kiddie porn, didn’t matter, they’d never give up client information unless there was a court order. Since they shielded the location of the IP addresses—I could explain how—”

  “No, please don’t bother—”<
br />
  “They made it impossible to figure out what court had jurisdiction, which meant that their security really was impenetrable. The case I had involved a cybergang made up of former members of RBN. They were all Russians—most of the serious hackers are—and they hacked into Citicorp and stole millions—”

  “How’d you break the case?” Bailey asked.

  “Got lucky. I found and bit off the head of the hydra—a super-hacker named M. Parkova. They don’t come any smarter or more conscience-free. The feds decided they’d rather cut a deal and find out how those hackers did it than go for the max, so Parkova got a sweet deal—”

  The sound of raised voices just outside his office made him stop and go to his door. He looked out and I heard another voice ask if he wanted to be interrupted. “Yeah, thanks, Scottie.” Graden stood aside. “Ms. Knight, Detective Keller…M. Parkova.”

  And in walked the master hacker. She was five feet tall if she stood up straight, and effortlessly pretty, though the “dare me” glitter in the eyes behind those dark-framed glasses and the severely pulled-back hair made “pretty” seem too frivolous a word for her. I held out my hand and she gave it one firm, quick shake, then sat down, pushed her glasses up her nose with one finger, and said in a thick Russian accent, “Who’s going to pay me for this?”

  “The DA’s office,” I said firmly, though I had no authorization. I’d just have to make it true. Hell, I’d pay her out of my own pocket if I had to. Assuming I could. I had no idea what evil-genius hackers were charging these days.

  She gave me a short nod, the most important item now checked off. “I’m best in world, but your lieutenant says you have few days. No one else would try. So I make no promises. And you pay whether I’m successful or not. You understand?”

  “Yes.”

  She pointed to the laptop. “This is it, yes?”

  I nodded and handed it to her.

  Graden said, “You’re going to have to work here in the station. We can’t let this laptop out of our custody—”