by A. W. Gray
“I’m Miss Cowan’s attorney, sir,” she said. “I can accept service of the warrant.” The spinning rootlights cast flashes of red across the ground. She showed the agent her best timid, help-me smile. “Look, is there some way we could put off taking her into custody until morning? I’ll take the warrant and have Darla at whatever location you designate by ten a.m. She’s not going anywhere, sir. Can’t you give her this one little break?”
The agent looked confused for just an instant, then shook his head. “We’re not taking anyone into custody, miss. We will need unrestricted access, though.” He unfolded a stapled sheath of papers and handed them over.
Sharon frowned and tilted the papers to her right, squinting to read in the flashing glow of the rootlights. Christ, it was a search warrant. Of all the freaking … The warrant stated that Darla Cowan’s presence at a murder scene in Dallas, Texas, coupled with the fact that she’d fled Texas for California, gave the FBI probable cause to search her residence in Malibu, and bore the signature of a California federal magistrate named Roland T. Mistlebrand. Criminal discovery statutes were broad, Sharon knew, but this was really stretching things. She immediately thought trial, and motions to exclude evidence based on the validity of the search warrant. The magistrate had signed the warrant at 8:47 p.m., California time. The ink was barely dry.
Sharon let the papers dangle beside her hip and expelled a long sigh. “Just have at it, fellas,” she said. “My daughter will be asleep upstairs, and don’t you dare wake her.” She stepped toward the limo, then stopped and turned back to the agent with her eyes flashing fire. “I’m taking inventory, too,” she said. “If you break anything, you’ll save yourself a lot of trouble by writing a personal check for the damages before you leave, okay?”
Mrs. Welton, the security employee who’d escorted Melanie for the day, waited in the downstairs den watching television. She looked up as Sharon entered with the FBI close on her heels, and watched the proceedings with steady gray eyes. Sharon walked quickly over to the sofa and said, “Has Melanie gone to bed?” Mrs. Welton kept her gaze on the FBI agents, who waited menacingly just inside the entry. “The child was quite bushed,” she said.
“These guys,” Sharon said, “are FBI. They have a search warrant for the grounds and premises. I’d like you to take the upstairs, monitoring their activities, while Mr. Yadaka and Mr. Gray cover the ground floor and outside perimeter. Any drawers these people open, make sure they close them when they’re through. Any doors they open, same thing. They’ll trash the place if you don’t watch them.” Sharon glared at the four agents, who watched the floor.
“Under no circumstances are they to wake my daughter. If they try to go in the room where she’s sleeping, bring them to me.”
Mrs. Welton stood. Her expression was calm; she’d been through scenes like this one before. “Be glad to, mum,” she said, then strode purposefully past the agents and down the hall, passing Gray and Yadaka on the way. The Englishman and the Oriental had taken charge of Darla the second she’d alighted from the limo, and now escorted her in past the federal men. Gray gently led Darla over and sat her down on the sofa.
Darla’s expression was numb, and her hands were trembling. She looked up at Sharon and said, “What are these people…?”
“Get a hold of yourself,” Sharon said. “They’re going to search the house. They have a warrant, and if you refuse to let them, they can have you jailed for contempt.”
Darla’s features twisted in frustration. “What are they looking for?”
One comer of Sharon’s mouth bunched. “I don’t know, and I doubt if they do, either. It’s a form of legal harassment, but for now there’s nothing we can do except let them.” She turned to Yadaka and Gray. “Would you guys please escort these gentlemen around? We wouldn’t want them to miss anything.”
Yadaka showed a wide grin as he and Gray went over and stood with the federal guys. The lead agent looked nettled, but issued instructions. Two agents took off down the hall with Gray on their heels. The head man and the fourth fibbie entered the kitchen and began to open cabinets. Yadaka leaned on the doorjamb and watched them.
Sharon told Darla to stay put, then picked up the phone and punched in Russ Black’s number in Dallas. She listened to a series of rings as, visible through the opening into the kitchen, the lead FBI agent took some glasses from the cabinet and set them on the counter. He then peered around inside the cabinet, shrugged, and opened a drawer. Yadaka strolled over and touched the agent on the arm. The two locked gazes. The FBI man gave in, carefully replaced the glasses in the cabinet and gently closed the door. There was a click on the line, and Russ Black said sleepily, “H’lo?”
“Wake up, boss. They’re about to come down hard.” She tried to sound calm and collected, but there was a catch in her voice.
Black caught Sharon’s mood; ordinarily he would have grumped around about the time of night, but his tone was brisk and businesslike. “Have they arrested the actress?”
Sharon looked to the sofa where Darla sat, head down. Sharon turned her back and lowered her voice.
“No, but that’s next. As we speak, the FBI’s tossing Darla’s place.”
“A federal warrant?”
“To go along with the feds who met with me the other night. They’re continuing to stick their noses in.”
“At Milton Breyer’s request. Anything they find under their warrant they’ll turn over to Dallas County.”
“That’s my thinking,” Sharon said. “Their alleging interstate flight to avoid prosecution, but that’s weak. Darla wasn’t charged with anything when she left Texas.”
“Saves them time. An interstate warrant would take weeks, shufflin’ around from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but the feds can serve their warrant anyplace in the country. Any idea what they’re lookin’ for?”
“None.”
“Did you ask the actress?”
“Her name is Darla, boss. You should learn that if you’re going to be her lawyer. I think she’s as much in the dark as I am. Her story is, David Spencer beat her up in that hotel, she walked out and left him alive.” Sharon eyed the bookcase, the row containing the David Spencer movie tapes. She said, “I’m dreading the meeting with Milton Breyer tomorrow. That’s where he’ll probably pull his arrest warrant. God, poor Darla.”
There was a rustling noise over the phone. Black said, “Nothing we can do about it until she waives extradition and we get back on our home turf. Then we can ask for bail. You going to prepare Miss Cowan for the worst?”
“She’s too much in shock. I doubt it would register. Darla would be easier to defend if she confessed to doing it, boss. That way we could argue abuse. But with her insisting she didn’t do it … Well, we can hardly argue that she’s innocent, then start yelling abuse during the penalty phase of the trial.”
“Should I call Anthony Gear an’ tell him to clear his calendar?”
Sharon paused. Anthony Gear was a former FBI agent, a crack private investigator who’d assisted on the Midge Rathermore case and in Raymond Burnside’s release from death row. He was a hardcore racist and Sharon personally couldn’t stand the guy, but his work was second to none. She watched through the opening as Yadaka made the federal man close another drawer after he’d finished his search. She said to Black, “Not yet, boss. We’ll need some local investigation in Texas at some point, but I’m pretty sure the nuts and bolts of this case are right here in California. I think we have all the investigators we need for now. Couple of Darla’s security guards who come across like spies.”
“They dependable?”
“You can bet on it. One was British Secret Service.”
“We got to think, Sharon. Keep your eyes and ears open, and keep in mind where we’re goin’ with this. We have a dead man alone in a hotel room. Milton Breyer’s got to have a theory of the crime other than that Miss Cowan was on the premises. She didn’ stab Da
vid Spencer, then haul him over, put him in bed and shoot him all by her lonesome. So whatever theory Breyer has got, how she committed it, we’ve got to have an alternative theory.”
“At the moment I haven’t the foggiest idea what ours could be.”
“An’ won’t have until you hear Breyer’s story. I think once the actress is under arrest, Milt will outline his case in the papers. Give us one-up on him at any rate.”
“That’s what I…” Sharon trailed off, her lips parting in surprise as the lead FBI man came out of the kitchen. Yadaka followed closely, his face impassive. The federal man carried a pistol suspended from a ballpoint pen stuck through the trigger guard. Darla stared mutely at the gun. Sharon had been around enough cops to recognize a .38 police special when she saw one. She tucked her chin and said into the phone, “I have to go now, boss. I think our federal friends may have found something.”
Darla was close to hysterics. “I’ve never seen that pistol before in my life.”
Sharon cradled Darla’s head against her shoulder, gently patted the actress’s back, and said nothing.
Mrs. Welton watched the FBI’s retreat, the unmarked sedans moving leisurely away from the gate with the L.A. police cars following and the mobile news units bringing up the rear. “Well choreographed, Lyndon,” Mrs. Welton said. “Wouldn’t you agree?”
Gray hulked against one of the snow white pillars. “Would seem so. How much of a search upstairs did they conduct?”
“Very little.” Mrs. Welton shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “Went through the motions in one of the bedrooms. Disturbed nothing. The moment they learned of the pistol’s discovery, they beat a fast retreat.”
Benny Yadaka was seated on the top step with his forearms resting on his thighs. “Carbon copy in the kitchen. They poked around in a couple of cabinets for show, but then the guy goes under the sink and come up with the gun like he’s got radar. They knew exactly where it was all along. Once they get their hands on the piece, the whole search is over in something like ten seconds.”
The fivesome was gathered on the porch with the front door open. Cool night air blew on Sharon’s cheek. She hugged Darla closer as the actress continued to sob. Sharon said, “Are we talking a plant here?”
Yadaka looked back over his shoulder. “That or a leak.”
Mrs. Welton tugged a .45 automatic from her purse, checked the clip, and dropped the gun back into her handbag. “An anonymous tip?”
Gray stood away from the pillar and folded his arms. “Would behoove us to locate the tipster, wot?”
Sharon steered Darla toward the interior of the house. “It would appear so,” Sharon said.
14
Sharon sat up with Darla until two in the morning, playing the Calming Influence role, acting as Sympathetic Ear and Cheering Section until the actress dropped off to sleep. The session wasn’t easy. When Darla finally dozed in mid-sentence, her words dissolving into a series of gentle snores, Sharon covered her friend with a blanket and trudged away down the hall. Her heart felt as if it weighed a thousand pounds.
She tossed and turned until four a.m. before she finally slept a dreamless slumber. She’d set the alarm for eight, and came to in a stupor with an angry buzzing in her ears. After she’d pressed the button to shut off the noise, she staggered out onto the balcony and looked bleary-eyed out to sea. The air was crystal clear, and white caps rolled in the distance like something she’d seen in a travel agency ad. I hate it, Sharon thought, then stumbled back inside. She somehow managed to slog through her bath without drowning, dried her hair, then stomped in a terry-cloth robe down to the room where Melanie was sleeping. She paused long enough to plaster a smile on her face, then opened the door without knocking.
Melanie was playing Sonic the Hedgehog on the Nintendo 64, a 3D video game where a little blue rascal danced and spun in a setting so real it blew Sharon’s mind. She didn’t know beans about computers, but Melanie recited the particulars of the sixtyfour-bit illusion as if she’d personally programmed the freaking thing. The hedgehog skittered to and fro, spinning, dodging hazards in his path. Sharon said brightly, “How was the Hollywood tour?”
“Oh, it was cool.” Melanie turned. She was in panties and tee and hadn’t bathed. The hedgehog slammed into a barrier and tumbled down to earth. “Mah-um,” Melanie wailed. “You made me foul up.”
Sharon leaned against the doorjamb. “Far be it from me to interrupt. I’ll just say you’re too tied up to go.” Melanie looked dubious.
“Go where?”
“Well, your father was going to come by for you at ten o’clock. But if you’d rather finish your game…” She trailed off, grinning, as Melanie disappeared in a flash into the bathroom.
Sharon said to Sheila Winston over the phone, “Rob’s due in half an hour.”
“Which puts you on pins and needles.”
“I must be obvious.” Sharon sipped coffee. She was seated in the breakfast nook behind the den. Gray stuck his head around the corner, bacon sizzling in the background, and looked a question. She held up two fingers, then rotated her hand to show that she wanted ‘em over easy. Gray nodded cheerfully and went back to his cooking. Sharon said to Sheila, “What’s your telltale clue?”
Sheila’s voice over long-distance was clear as a bell. “I don’t need a clue, I’ve been through it for too many years. Every time Dean comes for Trish I get butterflies. It’s called the single-mom blues, sung once a month throughout the land along with the Tampax jingle. Half of your nifty free weekends, you’re worried if your ex is going to take the kid out of state and then shoot you the finger from afar. Then when your child returns, you’re panicked that he’s somehow alienated her affections from you. Most women spoil their children silly when they get home. A few mothers overreact too far in the opposite direction and begin screaming at the kid. I like to think I’m so well adjusted that I take the middle road, but I probably foul up as much as anyone.” She paused, then said, “How’s it going out there?”
Sharon peered over her shoulder at the giant TV, debating whether to click on the set. She decided against it; she’d seen enough media coverage of herself over the past couple of days to last a lifetime. The light glowed on the VCR, indicating that Gray was recording more murder reports.
“For Darla?” Sharon said. “Not good, though she’s not as aware of it as she probably should be.”
There was the faintest hint of sympathy in Sheila’s voice, like the flick of an eyelash. “They’re laying it on thick with the slasher scenes from Fatal Instinct. Be a pretty good trick for jurors to separate the reality from the illusion.”
“Which is the reason they’re showing that stuff. I wouldn’t be shocked to learn that Milton Breyer loaned his tape of the movie to the media people.”
“It’s effective,” Sheila said. “Mass perception. I saw an interview with Kevin Spacey the other night. Says he’s played so many psychos in the movies that people shy away from him on the street. The guy was only half joking, Sharon.”
“And Fatal Instinct is the only role Darla’s played that people overall relate to. Easy for a jury to picture her butchering the guy. The gun they found here last night kills us as well. It’s the murder weapon, that you can count on. Planted…”
There were five seconds of silence. Sheila said, “How do you know it’s planted?”
“Because Darla told me she’d never seen it before. Look, Sheila, I know this woman. It’s not impossible she could lose it if he was beating her up, but if she’d killed the guy, Darla never would have left the scene.” Sharon switched ears with the phone. “Good to hear your voice, Sheil.”
Sheila laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Sharon said. “You’re in your favor-asking mode.”
Sharon’s tone softened. “How can you tell?”
Static crackled. Sheila didn’t say anything.
&nb
sp; “If Darla’s arrested out here, I’m going to have to stay in L.A. longer than I thought,” Sharon said.
“Say no more. Put Melanie on a flight and give me the flight number. Time of arrival would help.”
It was Sharon’s turn to fall silent. Wind beneath my wings, old Sheila, she thought. Pillow beneath my head.
Sheila said, “If she’s charged and maintains her innocence, how do you go about defending her?” Her tone was tinged with curiosity.
Sharon expelled air, switching to attorney mode. “You have to create reasonable doubt, of course. The best way to do that is develop an alternate theory of the crime which at least makes as much sense as the prosecution’s case.”
“Oh? What alternate theory is that?”
Sharon hesitated. Gray set a plate in front of her and retreated to the kitchen. She used her fork to poke a hole in one of the egg yolks, and watched the runny yellow stuff spread across her plate. “Good question, Sheil,” she finally said. “If you want my opinion, that’s going to be the question of the year.”
Sharon’s watch read one minute until ten when Rob pulled up to the gate, driving a blue Land Rover. Sharon stood inside the house, looking out. She had already dressed for her meeting, in a gray courtroom suit with a tight skirt and black patent spikes. She thumbed the switch inside the entry hall. The gate swinging open, and the Land Rover rolled into the drive. Sharon turned around to give Melanie one final inspection. Her heart came up in her mouth.
Melanie wore a nice gray beltless dress with shoes to match. Sharon had done her hair; it shone with the gleam of an extra hundred brush strokes, and Sharon had added a touch of rouge to Melanie’s cheeks. She looked almost grown. What really got to her, however, was Melanie’s expression, the nervous twitch in her lower lip and the anxiety in her eyes.
Sharon gave Malanie a hug. “Don’t sweat a thing, princess. You look wonderful, and you’re going to do fine.”
Sharon hung back on the porch as Melanie moved forward and Rob emerged from the Land Rover. Rob looked every bit the star; he wore pressed khaki chinos and an orange oversize polo knit. His Piaget watch gleamed on his wrist, and he had dark sunglasses perched on top of his head. His expression was that of a man headed for the gallows, little bunches at the corners of his mouth and his gaze on his feet. Sharon folded her arms and crossed her ankles. Rob raised his eyes to frown at her. Sharon drummed her fingers on her upper arms, tilted her head, and arched an eyebrow.