“In the beginning, he was calling me up to the workshop a couple times a week. After a while, it got less frequent. But over time, he got more businesslike about it. There was no more sweet talk, or calling me his sugar-pie, or telling me how beautiful I was. It was just, ‘Get up to the shop, I’ll be by in a few minutes.’ If I wasn’t naked by the time he showed up, he’d be angry and let me know it. By the end, I could tell he was disgusted with me—and with himself. But he kept doing it anyway. He said he couldn’t help himself. Once, he broke down and cried and told me his own parents were terrible people, that they’d been terrible to him, that they didn’t give him enough to eat or decent clothes to wear, and that they ignored him except when they beat up on him. He said everything we did was their fault. That I should hate them, not him.”
“Did you ever meet his parents, your grandparents?”
“No. I never even knew where he was from. And I don’t think my mother did, either. He just showed up one day and whisked her away from her own sorry situation. ‘I was your mother’s knight in shining armor,’ he liked to say when we were all together. My mother would just smile and look away.”
“Her letter suggests that she knew what was going on.”
Darlene looks hard at Piper. “She pretended like she didn’t. And I pretended like she didn’t, too. But there were only three of us living on that farm. He never hid the fact that he was calling me up to the workshop. And sometimes he left their bed and came for me in the middle of the night. It was so obvious I can’t believe my mother and I could look each other in the eye and act like nothing was wrong.”
Darlene stops and takes a couple of deep breaths.
“They taught us to breathe like this in a class I took here,” she explains. “It helps to calm you down.”
“Take as much time as you need,” Piper says. “There’s no rush.”
Darlene nods, but starts talking again. “She later admitted to me she’d known. Not at first, she said, but by the time I was thirteen. It wasn’t until after I was in here that she told me. I had some choice words for her, told her to get out, and we had no contact for a while. Eventually, she wrote me a letter begging forgiveness. I tore it up. Some time passed, and I decided to let it go, like my counselors suggested. So I called her collect and told her she could come back.”
Susan asks, “Did you ever think to tell anyone at school? A teacher? The nurse?”
A bitter smile forms on Darlene’s lips. “He pulled me out of school shortly after he started abusing me. Told my mother the other kids were a bad influence, and it was best if I was homeschooled.”
“What did your mother say about that?”
“That was the one time I ever saw her stand up to him. They fought about it for weeks. But in the end, she caved.”
They sit in silence for a few tense minutes, Darlene sipping the Pepsi, Susan and Piper glancing at each other, preparing themselves for the next step. Finally, Piper asks, “Are you ready to tell us about the day your father died?”
Darlene nods.
“It had been almost a month since the last time he’d come for me. I’d been spending a lot of nights away from home by then. I’d fashioned a sleeping bag out of some old quilts, and I would lay outside in the fields, or by the stream. It was a beautiful night, I remember. No clouds and no moon, and the stars were brilliant against the blackness. It was June, but the temperature was comfortably cool. And it wasn’t buggy. I slept well that night, and I woke up just after dawn. There was enough light for me to walk along the road, and it took me about twenty minutes to get home, a little after 6:00.”
Darlene pauses. “I think I have to use the ladies’ room again.”
Susan buys another Pepsi while she’s gone. When Darlene comes back, she thanks Susan, takes a sip, and sits down.
“I remember that I opened the back door. I only got one step in when I tripped over something big and fell to the floor. I thought, What did I trip over? The floor felt wet, and I thought, How can there be water on the floor? But I looked down and saw it wasn’t water. It was blood. All over the floor. And all over me. And my father lying there, dead. I raced to get up, but I slipped and fell again. I remember I started crying.”
Darlene takes a deep breath. “I ran up to the workshop and hid there. I don’t know what made me do that—choose that place as my hiding spot after all the horrors that had happened there. But I did. It wasn’t long before I heard my mother coming out of the house and shouting my name. She called for me over and over, but I didn’t answer. She walked up the driveway toward the shop, shouting my name the whole time. But she stopped outside the door. She wouldn’t come in. Wouldn’t even open the door.”
Bitterness hardens Darlene’s face. And anger. Piper gives her time to work through it.
“Not long after that, the police showed up. I could hear commotion through the screen window. I wanted to leave the shop, but I couldn’t move. Finally, one of the officers came into the shop. He found me and took me outside. My mother was screaming the whole time, telling the police to leave me alone, let her take me inside and shower me. At least let her hug me.
“But the chief wasn’t having none of that. I remember him clear as day. Chief Sonny Foster. As soon as he got me to where everyone was standing, he made himself into the judge and jury and convicted me right there—I could see it on his face.
“After a while, the township detective showed up. The chief ordered him to take pictures of me, standing there, covered in blood.”
“Let’s talk about your statement. The one you gave to the detective.”
“I remember that. He kept me in that little room all day and into the night.”
“Did he read you your rights? The Miranda warning?” asks Susan.
“He gave me the speech about the right to remain silent.”
“And to have an attorney?”
“That was part of it, but I was just too numb to really grasp what he was telling me. I don’t think I even understood that I was under arrest until after I signed the confession and they put me into a cell.”
“Can you remember when the detective gave you the Miranda warning?” Piper asks. She’s learned that when a law enforcement officer reads a suspect their rights much later and in a casual tone—instead of Mirandizing someone immediately upon arrest, when the person is on guard—the warning’s impact is often lost.
“Not exactly. We were in that room for a long time. He handed me a glass of water—it was the first time he was nice to me—then told me I had the right not to say anything.”
“In your own words, tell me why you signed the confession if you didn’t kill your father.”
“That’s something I asked myself a million times. I knew I didn’t do it. But the detective was so sure I had, and he kept saying over and over that I did it. So after a while I began to ask myself, ‘Is he right? Did I do it and I’m just not remembering?’ And when he said they found the murder weapon, and it had my fingerprints all over it—my fingerprints actually imprinted into the blood—that kind of sealed it for me. Fingerprints don’t lie. And I thought a policeman had to be truthful. So I thought, Well, I must have done it. Maybe I was in a trance, or sleepwalking. I don’t know, but I agreed to give them their statement. The detective got real nice again then, and he helped me with the wording. And then I signed it.”
“Of course he didn’t have the murder weapon,” Piper says.
“Which the public defender told me later on,” Darlene says. “Even after all these years, I feel like such a fool. It’s probably the oldest trick in the book, for a cop—tell the suspect there’s actual proof they did something when there’s no proof at all.”
Piper and Susan probe Darlene for more details about the confession and the morning of the killing, then excuse themselves to go the restroom. Once they are alone, Piper asks Susan what she thinks.
“I think it’s still painful for her. Reliving the abuse.”
“And her version of what happened
the morning of the killing?”
Susan looks down for a moment, then back up at Piper. “She doesn’t show nearly as much emotion when talking about finding her father’s body as when recounting the abuse.”
“I can understand that, for a whole lot of reasons,” Piper says. “She was physically present for the abuse. It took place again and again over a period of years, and it scarred her deeply. If she’s telling the truth about the murder, she wasn’t there when it happened. Finding her father’s body was a onetime event. And, to be honest, I wouldn’t expect her to be that broken up about his death, given what he’d done to her.”
Susan nods. “So what do you want to do?”
“I want to tell her we’re going to move forward. Are you on board with that?”
Susan nods without hesitation. “Let’s give her the benefit of the doubt.”
Piper smiles. They return to Darlene, who stands.
“So?” Darlene asks.
“We’re going to move forward with our investigation.”
Darlene’s eyes start to moisten, and Piper sees her fighting back the tears. Clearly the woman doesn’t want to risk hoping too much.
“So, you’ll get ahold of Lois?” Darlene asks. “She moved a while back, according to my mother.”
“She shouldn’t be hard to find,” Susan says.
“Do you have any idea why your mother thought Lois would know where the hammer is?” Piper asks.
Darlene shakes her head. “She never said anything to me about the hammer while she was still alive.”
Piper sees something flash across Darlene’s eyes, but she can’t tell what it is.
An hour after Gabby goes to bed, Mick is working in his home office. Piper walks in, carrying two glasses of wine. She hands one to Mick, then sits across the desk from him. He says, “Come on, let’s sit on the couch,” and they move to the sofa in the office.
He notices she’s been quiet since she came home. Preoccupied. She picked at her food, then went upstairs while he cleaned up. He could tell she was processing whatever happened that day with the potential innocence client. That she’s come into his office tells him she’s ready to talk about it.
“How’d it go?” he asks.
“Susan and I agreed to move forward with the case. We told Darlene, and she was so happy she almost cried.”
Piper looks away. They sit in silence for a while.
“You all right?” Mick asks.
“I reread the trial transcript when I got back to the office. Darlene’s testimony from the sentencing phase. Her lawyer had her describe the things her father did to her in even more detail than she gave to Susan and me. He sodomized her. He used things on her. His own daughter. How could he . . . ?” Her voice cracks and trails off.
He sees her searching him for an answer, and he opens his mouth. But nothing comes out. There is no explanation for what Lester Dowd did.
7
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17
It’s just before eleven o’clock, and Mick is walking down the hall toward the firm’s small kitchen to get some coffee when Angie comes up to him.
“Why the grimace?”
“That slimy detective is here,” she says. “The one who was such a pain in the Hanson case.”
“Tredesco.”
“I parked him in the small conference room. Should I tell him to come back later?”
Mick thinks for a minute, decides it’s better to get this over with.
Tredesco stands as Mick enters the room, steps forward. Mick sidesteps him, moves to the end of the table.
“Have a seat. Take a load off.”
The detective’s eyes narrow, and Mick can see he’s trying to figure out whether he’s just been insulted.
“I’m down five pounds,” Tredesco says.
Watching him, Mick decides the detective’s gut gets fatter every year while his greasy black hair gets thinner. Mick’s distaste for the man, though, has nothing to do with his appearance. Back when Mick was a prosecutor with the DA’s office, he had the misfortune of working with Tredesco a few times. He learned afterward that, in one of their cases, Tredesco manipulated him into winning a conviction against an innocent young man. Later, in the Hanson case, Tredesco persuaded a key prosecution witness to perjure himself in hopes of sending Mick’s client to prison for the rest of his life.
“Let’s cut to the chase. What do you want?”
“Can you think of a more hopeless case for the defense? I sure can’t.”
Mick stares.
“I mean, the dead guy still pumping blood on the floor? Your client standing there with the murder weapon in his hand? The girl boo-hooing?”
“I’ve come to view your gloating as a harbinger of your inevitable defeat. Is that how you intend it?”
Tredesco’s mouth remains fixed in a grin, but the smile disappears from his eyes. “This case will be different. You can count on it.”
“You sound like Pagano.”
“One thing I don’t get. How in the world did a guy as smart and careful as Tony Valiante end up in a warehouse without his bodyguards?”
Mick takes note of the term “careful.” It was one of the exact words Nunzio used to describe Valiante.
“Everyone knows he didn’t go anywhere without two soldiers and his driver.”
Mick reaches over to the center of the conference table, lifts a bottle of water from the serving tray. He twists off the lid and takes a swallow.
“I know what you’re going to say,” Tredesco continues. “Tony wanted some alone time with his squeeze, so he left his protection behind.”
Mick takes another swallow and sets the bottle down.
“Everyone on the street knew they’d been seeing each other, behind their fathers’ backs. Just like Romeo and—”
“Is there a point to all this? Or is this how you jack off now? By wagging your tongue?”
The detective smiles and waves a finger. “Ah, that famous wit of yours.”
Mick starts to stand, but Tredesco says, “Okay, look. There’s just some things I’m wondering about is all. You know this case is going to end up with a plea deal, so it can’t hurt anything for you to give me a little heads-up on some of the minor details.”
“Minor details?”
“Like, for instance, your client obviously went there to kill Valiante, but why use a knife? Why not just shoot him? He was carrying.”
“You want me to help you out? How about you show me yours first? Tell me who placed the call to Nunzio’s cell phone that night.”
Tredesco shrugs. “Burner phone. Untraceable.”
Mick nods. Nunzio was right about that.
“My turn,” Tredesco says. “Tell me who your client called after the murder.” Seeing Mick’s unease, the detective smiles. “Oh, he didn’t tell you? That he used his burner to place a call from the warehouse?”
Mick clenches his jaw but doesn’t answer.
“Not going to answer me? All right, how about telling me what happened to Johnny Giacobetti?”
“What do you mean, what happened to him?”
Johnny G. is Nunzio’s infamous enforcer. A sadistic giant once caught on videotape lifting two grown men off their feet and smashing their faces together.
“You know Nunzio’s office is right there on the naval base, right? So I went there and spoke to building security about who might have seen him. The guard on duty told me Nunzio left the building around 9:30, and he insisted Nunzio was alone. Which is kind of funny, because the security guard in the building across the way says he saw Nunzio and his ‘Hulk’ running out of Nunzio’s building toward the parking lot. But when the cops show up just after midnight, there’s no Johnny Giacobetti. And no one’s laid eyes on him since.”
“Maybe he’s on vacation. He probably gets three weeks a year, maybe even four, given how long he’s been with Nunzio.”
Tredesco shakes his head. “I’m disappointed. I give you the cell-phone thing, and you give me nothing back.”
Mick stands. “Here, let me help you find the lobby.”
Mick pokes his head into Jill’s office. He knows Piper asked the paralegal to locate Lois Beal. They had expected it would be easy to track down Darlene Dowd’s former neighbor. But when she moved ten years ago, she left no forwarding address. And she apparently didn’t tell anyone where she was going.
“How’s the search coming?”
“Not much luck. I found a couple of Lois Beals on Facebook, but one’s nineteen and the other one’s page shows her winning an award for working at the same company in Spokane, Washington, for the last thirty years, so it can’t be her. A handful of Lois Beals came up on Google, but they’re too young. A few on Twitter, but no pictures or information.”
“It seems like it would be a common name. Which means that if you check Peoplelooker.com or Peoplefinder.com, you’ll end up with too many candidates. I’d tell you to ask Tommy, but he’s busy on the Nunzio case.” He thinks for a moment. “Ask Angie for the contact information for Matt Crowley. He used to be with the United States Marshals Service, but now he has his own security firm. He’s good at tracking people down.”
Nunzio waits as the guard opens the door to the little room, where he can see that the attorney is already waiting for him. He likes the fact that McFarland doesn’t stand for him and waits for him to extend his hand to shake. The attorney is a cool customer. Smart, too. Clever. A planner, a plotter. He can see it in the man’s eyes, the way McFarland studies him the whole time they’re together. Trying to figure out how to outmaneuver his own client, get the upper hand. It’s what he does himself. All the time. What he’s done as long as he can remember, with everyone.
“I’m surprised to see you,” he tells McFarland. “My preliminary hearing isn’t for another week.”
“There are some things I want to ask you about. And a concern my staff has raised.”
“A concern?”
“Is there going to be a war? Between you and Frank Valiante?”
Absolutely, there’s going to be a war. We’re laying our plans now.
A Killer's Alibi (Philadelphia Legal) Page 5