A few minutes pass. I’m getting anxious. Rosie’s eyes are fixed on the picture. I’m inching closer to the TV when Ward suddenly points at the screen and says, “There!”
I look at the fog-shrouded bridge. “What?”
O’Brien stops the tape and rewinds it. Ward moves closer to the screen. So do I. I can smell her cologne as we’re both sitting within a couple feet of the nineteen inch Zenith.
I glance at Rosie, whose eyes are still on the screen. “What is it?” I say.
Ward points toward the walkway on the east side of the bridge and says, “Right there.”
O’Brien reruns the tape in super slow motion. The headlights of a few cars coming southbound reflect off the fog. Ward moves her right index finger along the footpath leading to the locking gate at the south end of the bridge. “There he is,” she says.
“It’s a shadow,” I say.
“It’s Martin Kent.”
I’m not sure. “Run it again.”
She does. This time Ward uses her pen as a pointer. I can make out the silhouette of a man walking on the paved path toward the entrance to the bridge. “No doubt about it,” Ward insists. “Look at him stop at the gate. He’s trying to decide what to do.”
Rosie gives me a troubled look. We watch the shadow staring at the locked gate. He ponders for a moment and glances at the roadway. Then he turns around and faces the camera for an instant. He’s wearing a suit and a tie. His hands are empty.
Ward starts doing play-by-play. “He’s climbing over the guard rail onto the roadway.” She gestures emphatically at the screen. “That’s how he got around the locked gate and the barbed wire.” She taps her pen on the screen. The shadow hustles up the roadway and into the fog. Not even Ward’s eagle eyes can tell what happened next.
“What time was that?” Rosie asks.
“Three-fifty a.m. It’s right after they found your client and about twenty minutes after they found her husband’s body.”
“You don’t know for sure it was Kent,” I say. “And even if it was, there was still plenty of time for him to have driven Angelina to the bridge.”
“Or walked,” Ward says. She tells us about her interview with Kaela Joy. “She said she saw Kent walking toward the bridge early Saturday morning.”
“She told us she said she couldn’t identify him.”
Ward hesitates. Then she says, “She told me it was Kent.”
She’s bluffing. I asked Kaela Joy specifically about this issue. She wasn’t sure. We debate our recollections of our respective conversations with Kaela Joy. It ends up a draw.
We sit in silence. It’s becoming clear that Marty Kent jumped off the bridge a few minutes before four on Saturday morning. It is decidedly unclear what happened in the minutes leading up to his death.
Rosie tries to smoke out as much information as she can when she asks, “Assuming for the moment that you’re right, why did Kent kill himself?”
Ward says, “His son said he was despondent about his wife’s death. He had lost a lot of money in the market and spent a fortune on his wife’s treatment.” She gives us a knowing look and adds, “We talked to Dennis Alvarez at Mission Station. Kent was involved in a scheme to make illegal payments to obtain the approvals for the studio project. Dennis says he would have been indicted. His reputation would have been ruined.”
Rosie and I exchange glances, but we don’t say anything.
“There’s more,” Ward says. She takes a thin document out of a file folder and slides it across the desk to me. “This is an amendment of MacArthur’s will,” she says.
I place the brief document between Rosie and me and we start to read. Ward directs us to Article Third, which says, “I give to my son, Richard Andrew MacArthur, Jr., if he survives me, all my interest in any and all cash, securities, individual retirement accounts, pension plans, profit sharing plans, stock bonus plans, other qualified retirement plans, real and personal property of any nature, furniture, fixtures, automobiles and all other tangible articles of a household or personal nature, together with all insurance policies thereon.” I look for Angel’s name, but I can’t find it.
Rosie says, “Angel’s been written out of the will. Everything goes to MacArthur’s son.”
Ward nods and says, “Exactly.”
“Where did you get this?”
“MacArthur’s probate attorney.”
I ask, “Have you talked to his son about it?”
“Yes. He doesn’t plan to contest the will.”
No kidding. “Did he know about it?”
“Not until the probate attorney called him. It turns out his father also canceled the life insurance policy. Your client is no longer entitled to the million dollar proceeds.”
What? “When?”
“About two weeks ago.”
“Obviously he didn’t tell Angel.”
“He was under no obligation to do so.”
Rosie tries to keep her tone measured when she says, “I appreciate the fact that you’ve brought this information to our attention.”
“You’re entitled to it under the rules of discovery.”
Rosie thinks about it and says, “You realize this creates a huge hole in your case.”
Ward tries to keep her tone nonchalant. “How do you figure?”
“Our client had no motive to kill her husband. If he had canceled the life insurance and amended his will, she wasn’t going to get a cent.”
Ward corrects her. “Your client may have had no financialmotive to have killed him,” she says, “but she didn’t know he had canceled the life insurance and amended the will. As far as she knew, she was still entitled to the insurance proceeds and half of his assets. She knew the will trumped the prenup. She figured she could get her hands on his fortune by killing him before he divorced her.”
Rosie’s eyes light up. “Their marriage was imploding,” she says. “She must have known he was going to file for divorce.”
Ward takes it in without visible reaction. Then she says, “She had other motives.”
Rosie decides to play cat-and-mouse with her. “Such as?”
“She was furious at her husband because he humiliated her at the screening. Then there’s the entire situation with her pregnancy. Your client believed her husband killed her baby.”
“You’ll never be able to prove it,” Rosie says.
“You’ll have to put her on the stand to tell her side of the story,” Ward replies.
“No, we won’t. And you won’t want us to put a vulnerable-looking young woman whose husband beat her in front of a jury.”
Ward strokes her delicate chin. She glances at O’Brien and then turns back to us. “Juries are smarter than you think,” she says. “I’m not out for your client’s blood. She almost killed herself last night. It looks to me like financial concerns may not have been her most important motivating factor. Based on her relationship with Crown, I think she may have acted in a rage. I think she may have killed her husband on an angry impulse.”
“That argues against a charge of first-degree murder,” Rosie says.
Ward nods. “Perhaps.”
“Are you prepared to suggest something?”
“I may be willing to go down to second degree. I’ll take a lot of heat for it, but it will take the death penalty off the table.”
Rosie seizes the offensive. “You want her to plead to second degree in a case that shouldn’t even have been charged as manslaughter?”
Ward leans across the table and says, “I’ll catch hell for it. Your client could be out within fifteen years. She’s young. It’s a good deal.”
It’s bogus. “I’ll take it to my client,” Rosie says.
“Will you recommend it?”
“I’ll think about it.”
# # #
“What do you make of Nicole’s offer to plead to second degree?” I ask Rosie. We’re in the car heading back to the office.
“She knows she has a problem. The cancellation of the
life insurance and the change in the will leave Angel without a financial motive.”
“There’s still the miscarriage and the Daniel Crown situation,” I argue. “Ward might be able to show premeditation.”
“True,” Rosie says, “but Angel will appear more sympathetic. Juries don’t like to convict people they perceive as victims. Ward is running for office. It won’t play well to her female voters if she tears apart a vulnerable young woman who just had a miscarriage. I think she may go down to manslaughter.”
I don’t share her confidence. We don’t know whether Angel is telling the truth about Crown.
Rosie asks, “What are you going to do now?”
“I have to go to a Little League game.”
She gives me a puzzled look. “Grace doesn’t play until Thursday.”
“I know, but Daniel Crown’s son has a game at five o’clock.”
*****
Chapter 37
“It Starts with the First Lie”
“Heartthrob Daniel Crown has issued a vehement denial of accusations that he was the father of Angelina Chavez’s unborn baby.”
— Entertainment Tonight. Tuesday, June 8.
Daniel Crown’s face rearranges itself into an emphatic frown as soon as he sees me. “What makes you think I have anything to say to you?” he mutters to me. He’s standing next to the backstop in the bucolic Ross Common, a tree-lined park in a community of multi-million-dollar homes nestled in a grove of oaks on the north side of Mount Tam. Crown throws a baseball to his son, who is standing on the pitcher’s mound.
I take a deep breath of the forest-scented cool air and say in my best priest-voice, “I really need your help, Danny.”
“Talk to my lawyer.”
“Please, Danny.”
He catches a toss from his son and holds the ball. He turns to me and says in a voice that is too low for his son to hear, “Let’s cut the crap, okay? The first time we met was at Willie’s yesterday. I asked Jason about you. He doesn’t know your daughter. She never played on his soccer team. You were just yanking my chain to get information.”
“I’m sorry, Danny.”
“Go to hell.”
“Look—”
He gives me the tough guy look he almost perfected in his soap opera days. “No, you look. You guys are spreading lies. You’re trying to ruin my marriage. And my career.” He glances at his son and says, “How do you think Jason feels when the kids ask him if his dad is sleeping with Angelina Chavez? You aren’t going to destroy my family to get your client off.”
I feel badly for his son. The kids always seem to get hurt the most. “I’m sorry, Danny.”
He gives me a melodramatic look and tosses the ball back to his son. “You should have thought of that before you started talking to the press.”
I try again. “I was hoping I could prevail upon you to help my client.”
He gives me a sarcastic grin. “There was never anything between us. You’ll be hearing from my lawyer.”
I try for a measured tone. “I’d rather talk to you.”
“I wasn’t sleeping with her. She’s lying.”
“Help us find out what really happened.”
“I tried to help you yesterday. Today my wife and I have had to endure phone calls from idiots who think I was sleeping with Angelina. Send me a subpoena if you want to talk to me. My lawyers will tie you up in litigation for years.”
“Danny,” I say, “they’re going to be able to confirm that you were the father of the baby. We’ve agreed with the prosecutors to do DNA testing.”
This stops him for an instant. He faces me and says, “Come back with a subpoena.”
I decide to up the stakes. “They kept samples of the tissue of the fetus at the hospital to run some tests.” I have no idea if this is true or not. I’m turning on the smoke machine full blast. “It’s a standard procedure.”
He searches my face to try to determine if I’m bluffing. I stare him down. His eyes never leave mine.
Jason’s coach summons the players to home plate. His father and I watch the team take a lap around the bases. Crown stands with his arms folded as he encourages his son. Finally, he turns to me and says, “I have nothing else to say to you.”
“It’s going to look worse if you lie.”
“How much worse can it possibly look? You’ve already accused me of being an adulterer. Why don’t you accuse me of murdering Dick MacArthur while you’re at it?”
Maybe we will. “I didn’t say that, Danny.”
He jabs a finger into my face and says, “You’re full of shit. Dick MacArthur was a tremendous director and my friend. His son invited me to his funeral because we’re friends and he knew how much I respected his father.”
Except, of course, for the times when you were doing the hokey pokey with his wife.
He isn’t finished. “Do you really think I would have gone to his memorial service if I was sleeping with Angelina? Give me a little credit.”
I try once more. “You’ll be better off if you come clean.”
He juts his perfect chin forward and says, “I’ll take my chances.”
“You aren’t a suspect. If they catch you in a lie, they’ll come after you.”
“I have nothing to hide.”
It’s the answer I expect. “Let me give you some free advice.”
“Is there any way I can stop you?”
“No.” I reach down and pick up a baseball and toss it to him. “I’ve been a lawyer for a long time.” I say. “In my experience, once you start lying, it gets harder to keep track of your story. Eventually, the cops will catch a minor inconsistency. Then another. Pretty soon, you’ll start trying to improve your story. That’s a mistake. You won’t remember the details. That’s when they’ll nail you, Danny. It starts with the first lie. Then it mushrooms.” I smile and add, “My old secretary used to say that when a house of cards falls down, it’s a problem. But when a house of bullshit falls down, it’s a mess.”
Crown is unmoved. He throws the ball to his son. Then he turns to me and says in an even tone, “Let me give you some free advice, Mike. Your client is lying. Eventually, the cops will catch a minor inconsistency. Then another. She told her first lie when she said she didn’t kill her husband. She told her second when she said I was the father. That means she’s already two lies ahead of me. You may be a good lawyer, but she’s going to get nailed.”
“They’re going to come looking for you,” I say. “They know you and Angelina were doing coke the other night. Your parole officer will be very interested in that discussion.”
He hesitates. Then he says, “I’ve already talked to the cops about it.”
“They found your fingerprints on the baggie.”
“Angelina handed it to me and I gave it back to her. She’s the one with the drug problem.”
“How did the baggie find its way into the front seat of her husband’s car?”
“She must have put it there.”
It’s a glib explanation. It’s also a standoff. I look him in the eye and say, “What really happened?”
He doesn’t hesitate. “Cheryl and I had dinner and watched the movie. We drank some champagne. We drove home around two. Dick was still very much alive when we left.”
It’s his story and he’s sticking to it. If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear he’s telling me the truth.
# # #
“Where are you?” Rosie asks. She’s in the office.
“The Golden Gate Bridge.” I’m stuck in traffic at the south tower as I try to drive back into the city at six-thirty the same evening. I look out at the walkway on the east side where we saw Marty Kent in the videotape. I glance at the east view lot as I crawl toward the toll booth.
“How did things go with Crown?”
“Not well.” I describe our conversation.
“You mean he didn’t break down and confess right there at his son’s Little League game? That’s the way it always happened in Perry Mason
.”
“Sometimes it doesn’t work that way in real life.”
“Did he admit that he’s the father of Angel’s baby?”
“Absolutely not.”
“So you struck out completely.”
“Looks that way.”
“Maybe I should talk to him next time.”
MD03 - Criminal Intent Page 35