Evidence of Guilt (A Kali O'Brien legal mystery)

by Jonnie Jacobs

  Witness accounts of Wes’s activities Friday evening were fairly consistent. He’d spent the early part of the evening with some buddies at a local bar, drinking, dancing and carousing with the other Friday night regulars. He was apparently in a foul mood, however, and left about nine o’clock after a nasty exchange with one of the women on the dance floor. Wes claimed to have driven home and gone to bed, but a neighbor heard what he thought was a motorcycle sometime about midnight.

  I sipped my coffee, scribbled more notes, and with a growing sense of misgiving, wondered what I’d gotten myself into.

  The photos didn’t help.

  Because of my association with Tom, who is the publisher and editor-in-chief of The Mountain Journal, I’d seen photos of the crime scene, including those judged too gruesome to print. But they’d been journalist’s photos. The police photographs were far worse. Large, full-color glossies shot under the cold, harsh light of a strobe. Some were taken from a distance, showing the position of bodies relative to the barn’s layout, but most were close-ups. Swollen, greenish-red flesh, gaping wounds, exposed torsos. Human life violated.

  Sickened, I shoved them back into the folder. At this point they weren’t going to tell me anything useful. I switched from coffee to wine and pulled out Sam’s case notes. Other than copies of motions filed, some correspondence with the prosecutor and a few pages of what looked to be hieroglyphics, there wasn’t much. I’d just begun trying to make sense of Sam’s cryptic scrawlings when my efforts were cut short by the peal of the doorbell.

  Daryl Benson greeted me with his usual hesitant smile. “Got the message you called,” he said, jingling the spare change in his pocket. “You were gone by the time I tried your office, so I thought I’d stop by in person.”

  Daryl Benson had been a family friend when I was growing up. He’d been a uniformed officer then; he was chief of police now. And counting the months to retirement.

  Before my mother’s suicide when I was fourteen, Benson had been a regular fixture at our holiday meals and summer barbecues, a sort of honorary uncle whose visits were always eagerly anticipated. I’d seen very little of him after my mother died and my father started drinking heavily, and nothing at all of him in the years I was away at college and then attempting to make my mark on the legal world of San Francisco. But since my return to Silver Creek we’d forged a new bond of sorts. What we shared was not friendship exactly, but a camaraderie born of having once loved the same people and having shared a piece of the past. Sometimes I wasn’t even sure I liked Daryl Benson all that much, but he was my only link to parents I’d recently come closer to understanding.

  “You want a glass of wine?” I asked, leading the way to the kitchen.

  “You got any cold beer?”

  I opened the refrigerator, handed him a bottle of Anchor Steam, and poured myself more wine. “Let’s go into the other room where it’s comfortable.”

  Benson followed me to the living room, where he eased his bulky frame into the forest green armchair that had been my father’s favorite. “Looks like you’re making progress,” he said with an approving glance at the fresh coat of paint on the walls. “It’s a big job. You’re smart to tackle it a room at a time.”

  Smart had nothing to do with it. I was tackling it the only way I could. Renovation didn’t come cheaply.

  The house had suffered from neglect since my mother’s death. At first my father had wanted to leave everything just the way it was, although he had, begrudgingly, agreed to a new roof when the old one leaked so badly the upstairs rooms became unusable. Then, as he lost himself increasingly in his drinking, he’d ceased to care.

  I’d intended originally to sell the place, as is. Sabrina concurred, and our brother John, who’d been living in Italy for the past five years, didn’t care what we did so long as it didn’t involve him. But when my one-week trip home to settle the estate had grown to a month, and then two months, I had reconsidered.

  My coveted, on-the-brink-of-partnership position in San Francisco had turned to dust, as had my relationship with the firm’s star litigator. There wasn’t a lot to go back to but a mortgage I could no longer afford. I’d leased my house in Berkeley, furnished, and taken refuge in the family home I’d been so eager to leave fourteen years earlier.

  “The white was a good choice,” Benson observed. “It lightens the room considerably. Sticking to something basic like that probably makes things less complicated as well.”

  I smiled. The color was royal ivory, not white, and it had taken me ten tries to get it right.

  “I wanted to talk to you about Lisa Cornell’s death,” I said, getting back to the purpose of my earlier call.

  Benson raised his beer and took a swallow. His bald head shone like polished stone. “I thought it might be something like that.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “What’s your interest in this anyway?”

  “Co-counsel with Sam Morrison. That is, assuming it’s okay with our client.”

  “Hell, Wes won’t care. He seems to have taken the ostrich approach to this whole business, like it doesn’t really concern him. You’d think a man facing a possible death sentence would show a little interest in the outcome.”

  “How strong is the case against him?”

  Benson gave a hollow laugh. “That’s a question better put to the prosecutor. But you want my opinion, it’s strong enough that I wouldn’t want to be standing in your shoes.”

  Not a heartening appraisal, but then Daryl Benson wasn’t a neutral party.

  “I was looking through the case file before you arrived,” I said, trying to keep my tone friendly rather than lawyerlike. “From what I’ve been able to gather the evidence is all circumstantial. And there’s no motive, no murder weapon, no witnesses.”

  He brushed the air with his hand. “Don’t need them.”

  “Did your investigation turn up other possible suspects?”

  His eyes met mine, kindly. “The evidence may be circumstantial, Kali, but it all points to Wes Harding.”

  I opened my mouth to argue, but Benson held up his hand. “First off, we’ve got that rabbit’s foot. A guy at the auto shop where Wes works remembers seeing him with it Thursday afternoon. When we questioned Wes on Tuesday he couldn’t produce it. ‘Might have lost it,’ he says. You ask me, it’s mighty peculiar he happened to lose it right when he did.”

  “A rabbit’s foot is hardly a one-of-a-kind item.”

  “This one’s pretty close. It’s black rather than the standard white, and it’s attached to a braided leather strand. But that’s not the only thing that points to Wes. Tread marks in the dirt at the end of Lisa Cornell’s driveway match Harding’s motorcycle, at least as far as we can tell. It’s not a perfect print, but the soil was damp so it’s more than we might have gotten otherwise. And we found a long blond hair on clothing in Harding’s hamper.”

  “With enough root structure for DNA testing?”

  He shook his head. “But the color, length and texture are the same as Lisa’s. She used some kind of dye that also showed up on the strand we found with Harding’s clothes. May not be exact science, but I’m willing to bet a jury would find it pretty convincing.”

  I began mentally ticking off the points we’d raise on cross-examination. In a case like this, you try to cast doubt on the state’s contention that the evidence points conclusively to the defendant. It’s almost always possible to introduce a degree of uncertainty, but it wasn’t clear we’d be able to cast enough doubt to sway the jury.

  “There were also the blood spots on Wes’s jeans,” I said. “The police apparently seized them as evidence, but the lab results weren’t in the file.”

  Benson gave a half-shrug. “That’s in the DA’s hands now. Bottom line is, he thinks there’s enough evidence against Harding that he’s willing to take it to trial.”

  “That doesn’t mean he’ll get a conviction.”

  A sigh. “You defense lawyers are all alike. You try to muddy the wat
ers with a lot of ‘what ifs’ and far-fetched speculation. In theory, it’s possible to shoot holes in any case, even if you’ve got a goddamn video of the crime in progress. But I’m telling you, ninety-nine percent of the time, your most obvious suspect is the guilty party.”

  “In that case, maybe we should just streamline the whole process,” I observed dryly. “You know, have the cops powwow over coffee and donuts, and once they’ve come up with an obvious suspect, simply cart the guy off to prison. It’s bound to save time and money.”

  Benson laughed. “There are times I think that’s not such a bad idea.” He drained his beer.

  “You want another?”

  “I could be persuaded.”

  I got him a second bottle and refilled my own wineglass. “Tell me about Lisa Cornell,” I said.

  “There’s not a lot to tell. Twenty-two years old, worked as a waitress. Didn’t seem to have many close friends, but then, between her work, her daughter and her fiancé, she probably didn’t have a lot of time for socializing.”

  “Fiancé?” This was the first I'd heard about a fiancé.

  “Philip Stockman. Owns the Big Bob Hardware chain, or rather his family does. Phil’s kind of the chief honcho, though. I’m not even sure the old man is involved at all at this point.”

  “Had they been engaged long?”

  Benson gave a shrug.

  “Funny that she never mentioned him.” It was dawning on me that I hadn’t really known Lisa at all. “What about her family?” I asked.

  “Her parents live in southern California. I’ve talked to them by phone but never met them. They had the bodies flown down there when we’d finished with them. Stockman was kind of p.o’d about that, as I understand it. Wanted Lisa and Amy buried here in his family’s plot.”

  “Her parents didn’t come to Silver Creek themselves?”

  “Once, to go through her things and all. But I didn’t meet them while they were here.”

  “What about brothers and sisters?”

  “None.”

  “Was there a husband in her past?”

  Benson nodded. “Apparently they split up not too long ago. Lisa’s parents couldn’t tell us much about the guy.”

  “Close family.”

  “Yeah, that was my take on it too. You might try Ed Cole, over in Hadley. He’s handling the probate, so he’s probably followed up on some of this.”

  My inner antenna picked up. “Lisa had him draw up a will?”

  “No, but Cole handled her aunt’s estate. When the parents asked for a recommendation I gave them his name.” He looked at me, embarrassed. “I would have given them yours except that Cole knew the property and such.”

  “Not a problem,” I assured him. And I meant it. A little probate work goes a long way. It’s tedious and deadly dull stuff.

  Benson finished off his beer, stood and stretched. “Guess I’d best be going. I appreciate the beer.” He gave me an avuncular smile. “And the company.”

  “Any time.”

  The smile lingered. I could tell by his expression that he was seeing my mother’s face in my own. “You take care, Kali. I don’t like to see you involved in such nasty business.”

  I gave him the assurances he wanted, then walked him to the door. After he’d left I went back to sorting through Harding’s file, making notes to myself and trying to superimpose a sense of order on Sam’s chaos. When I finished, I drew up a list of people I wanted to talk to, then checked my watch. Too late to do any real business, but I called Caroline Anderson, Lisa’s friend from the Lazy Q Diner, to see if we couldn’t arrange a meeting for the next day.

  “I already talked to the police,” she said.

  “I know, but I’d like to talk with you too.”

  “Is that legal? I mean, my talking to both sides. There’s not a problem with that?”

  “It’s perfectly legal and not at all unusual. If it would make you feel better, you can check with the DA’s office first.”

  She still seemed hesitant.

  “It won’t take long,” I said.

  “Okay, I guess. Around one o’clock?”

  I took down her address, then fixed myself a quickie dinner of noodles and cheese, opened the novel I’d bought in anticipation of Tom’s absence and tried to shake my thoughts free of Lisa and Amy and Wes.

  It worked fine until I got into bed. Then I lay there in the dark, besieged by images that took on a life of their own. I found myself trying to imagine what it felt like to have your throat slashed.

  Chapter 5

  I awoke the next morning with a sore throat. Whether it was induced by the glinty, razor-like knife that had haunted my dreams, or was simply the precursor to a cold, I couldn’t tell. I swallowed a couple of vitamin C tablets just to be on the safe side, gargled with some heavy-duty antiseptic that smelled like tar paper and tasted worse, then drove into town for my appointment with Sam.

  He was just sitting down at his desk with a mug of coffee and something that looked like a large, sugar-encrusted donut with a glob of purple jelly where the hole should have been.

  “You want some coffee?” he offered by way of greeting. Sam’s coffee is pretty terrible unless you cut it heavily with cream and sugar the way he does.

  "Thanks, I think I’ll pass.” I took a chair across from him. “Your doctor know you eat that stuff?”

  He licked a finger. “Doctors don’t know everything.”

  “One thing they do know, though, is heart disease.”

  Ignoring me, Sam bit into the pastry.

  “I thought you were supposed to be watching your fat and cholesterol.”

  “I do. It’s chicken or fish and fresh vegetables for dinner almost every night.”

  “And anything you want during the day?”

  His eyes settled on mine for a moment. “You reach an age, Kali, where you start to see that longevity isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I’d rather enjoy the years I have than live forever on some damned bean sprout diet.” He broke off a sizable hunk of pastry, dunked it in his heavily creamed coffee, then plopped it into his mouth with a self-satisfied smile. “That reminds me, Jake Harding and his wife have invited us for dinner on Saturday.”

  “Us?”

  ‘Jake would like to meet you. It’ll be a good opportunity to bring everyone up to speed on the case. I hope you’re free, about seven?”

  “Don’t you think I should meet with Wes first? Make sure he wants me working in his defense?”

  “Sure. Why don’t you go there this afternoon? I’ll call over to the jail and have your name added to the list. I’d like your take on Wes anyway.”

  “You’ve told him that I’ll be working with you?”

  Sam nodded. “Not you specifically, but he knows I’m going to be calling in someone to help. I don’t expect there to be a problem.”

  Sam’s secretary popped in for a minute with some letters for him to sign. When she left, he brushed away the crumbs and cleared a spot on his desk, which he then used for a foot rest.

  “Now the way I see it,” he said, “we’ll need to take a two-pronged approach with this thing. We’ll chip away at every piece of state’s evidence we can — you know the game there — but we’d also be wise to come up with another suspect to toss to the jury. We’ve got to make our theory of what happened at least as plausible as theirs.”

  “From what I read in the reports, that’s not going to be easy.”

  “No, it isn’t. I have a feeling we haven’t seen the worst of it, either.”

  “Any chance of pleading to a lesser offense?”

  “I doubt Willis would go for it.”

  “Curt Willis is handling this for the prosecution?”

  Sam nodded.

  He was right; we’d never plead it out. Curt loved trials the way young boys love fresh dirt.

  “Not that it matters in any case,” Sam continued. “Wes won’t hear of it. Claims he’s been singled out on account of his reputation and previous brushes
with the law.”

  “How does he explain the evidence against him?”

  “He doesn’t. He told the police he didn’t know Lisa Cornell, and that’s what he tells me, too. Says he must have dropped the rabbit’s foot somewhere and stained his pant leg when he got a bloody nose.”

  “What about the blond hair?”

  Sam shrugged. “He says he’s partial to blondes.”

  “Does he realize he could be facing the death penalty?”

  California law allows the prosecutor to seek the death penalty when a homicide involves any of a number of special circumstances, one of which is multiple victims. Not only did we have two victims, we had real heartbreakers — a loving mother and her young child. Added to that, we had a defendant with a reputation for stirring up trouble and a crime that had apparently been committed in cold blood. I had to believe Willis would seek the maximum penalty.

  “I’ve tried getting through to him,” Sam said. “Maybe you’ll have better luck. In the meantime, we’re stuck with the story he gave the police.”

  “A story that’s so lame, it’s laughable.”

  Sam removed his feet from the desk and leaned forward. “A story that’s so lame, it just might be true. If he were guilty, don’t you think he’d have come up with something better?”

  It was a thought that had crossed my mind, too. But it wasn’t really an approach you could argue to the jury.

  ‘The trouble is,” I said, “the jurors’ sympathies are going to be with Lisa and Amy. That’s going to make it hard for them to find reasonable doubt.”

  “It’s all in how you package it. What we need to do is portray Lisa Cornell in a way the jury will find a little less sympathetic.” He sipped his coffee. “I’ll start working on the necessary motions. Why don’t you find out what you can about Lisa? Let’s see if we can’t come up with another way for this to have happened.”

  “It won’t be easy. Lisa was about as likable as a new kitten.”