I contemplated things for a few moments and then pulled out my phone and composed a text to the contact I had labeled Deep Throat.
I’m not sure who you are but if you have anything else that can help me, now is the time. I just got pulled from the story for lack of progress. Orton was a bust. He was waiting and ready. In fact, there is no story. I need your help. I know some bad shit is going down out there and Orton is the key. Please respond.
I read it twice and wondered if it sounded like I was whining. Finally, I cut the last two words and sent it. I then got up and went back to my cubicle, passing Emily’s on the way. I felt bad about what I’d said and the way things ended with her in the conference room.
At my desk I opened my laptop and went into a few folders labeled with stories I had been working on before Mattson and Sakai first showed up at my apartment. Top of the list was the “King of Con Artists” story, which had already been written and turned in but not yet posted because there had been no time for me to sit down with Myron and go over his edit. That would be the first priority. After that, I looked at my futures list, but nothing excited me after being on the recent adrenaline-charged story chase.
I next looked at my follow-up file. It contained stories that had already been posted but that I knew I should circle back on to see if anything had changed—whether the companies or government agencies had fixed the problems my stories had put the spotlight on. Though any reporter at FairWarning could pursue a story of their own interest in any industry, I had informally been given the auto-industry beat. For it, I had posted several pieces about sudden-acceleration issues, faulty electronic-control chips, dangerous gas tanks, and substandard parts, from outsourced integral assemblies to unregulated foreign manufacturers. The U.S. was an auto-based society and these stories hit hard and drew attention. They ran in several newspapers, and I had put on a jacket and tie to appear on the Today show as well as CNN, Fox, and several local news channels including L.A., Detroit, and Boston—with FairWarning getting credit all the way. It was a general rule that if you wrote a negative story about a Japanese car manufacturer, you would get on TV in Detroit.
I knew that I could now piggyback on any one of these stories and probably get a solid nothing-has-changed piece. That might please Myron and help ease me away from the DNA story.
I had a physical file in a desk drawer with all the documentation and contact information I had accumulated while originally reporting the auto-industry stories. I now pulled it and slid it into my backpack so I could refresh my thoughts while taking my morning coffee.
But I was done for the day. I couldn’t simply transition from the unfinished story of Christina Portrero and William Orton to something wholly different and uninspiring. I needed time and now I was going to take it.
But I was still bothered by how things had just gone with Emily. I zipped up the backpack and got up and moved down the aisle to her cubicle.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey what?” she replied curtly.
“I made the wrong move in there. I shouldn’t have thrown you under the bus, okay? If anything happens, we’re both on it together. I just sent a text to my Deep Throat source and told him the story is on fumes and he needs to come through. We’ll see. I probably sounded like a whiny asshole.”
“Probably.”
But she looked up and smiled at me after saying it. I smiled back.
“Well, thanks for being so agreeable about my deficiencies.”
“Anytime. So …”
She turned her screen so I could see it.
“Look what I just got.”
On her screen was what looked like a document with the Federal Trade Commission seal on it.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Well, I sent my FTC guy an email directly asking if he tipped off Orton,” she said. “I exaggerated and said that if he did he almost got me killed.”
“And?”
“And he denied it. He even called me to deny it. And then he sent me this as some kind of gesture of good faith. It’s the last list Orange Nano turned over to the FTC of labs it redistributed DNA to. It’s almost three years old but these might be worth checking out—I mean, if we were still on the story.”
Because it was a photo of a document, the writing was small and difficult to read from my angle.
“Well, anything jump out right away?” I asked.
“Not really,” Emily said. “There’s only five companies and all were registered with the FTC back then. I need to pull their profiles to get names, locations, things like that.”
“And you’re going to do that when?”
“Soon.”
She glanced over the top of her cubicle in the direction of Myron’s pod. We could only see the top of his head, but the arch of his headphone crossed over his hair. He was on the phone and the coast was clear. Emily corrected herself.
“Now,” she said.
“Can I help?” I asked. “I was about to leave but I can stay.”
“No, that will be too obvious. You go. I’ll do this from home.
I’ll call if anything pops.”
I hesitated before walking away. I didn’t like the ball being in her court. Emily read me.
“I promise to call you, okay?” she said. “And you call me if Deep Throat comes through.”
“That’s a deal,” I said.
23
I got to Mistral early and grabbed the same stool where I had sat the evening before. I put my backpack on the stool next to me to save it for Rachel and after an exchange of bonsoirs with Elle, I ordered a Stella, deciding to go with a lower octane this night. I put my phone on the bar and saw that I had just gotten a pair of texts from Deep Throat. I opened them up and found two attachments. One was marked “DNA” and the other “Transcript.”
I opened the first and saw that my secret source had sent photos of the pages of a document. I quickly determined that it was the four-year-old DNA analysis report from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department forensics lab that found no match between William Orton’s DNA sample and the DNA collected from Jessica Kelley. I scanned the report and realized that I would need a geneticist to translate what the bar chart, percentages, and abbreviations all meant. But the summary was clear: the saliva sample swabbed from the victim’s nipples after her assault did not belong to William Orton.
The attachment that came in the second text was a transcript of a very short interview with Orton conducted by Detective Digoberto Ruiz. It was five pages long and once again the attachment was composed of photos of the hard-copy pages.
I forwarded both attachments to myself on email, then pulled out my laptop so I could download them and see them on a bigger screen. Mistral didn’t offer its customers Wi-Fi service, so I had to use my cell as a hotspot connection. While I waited for everything to boot up and connect I thought about the sender of the texts. I had asked Ruiz for the DNA report, not the attorney Hervé Gaspar. I was shifting my suspicions about Deep Throat and now was thinking it was the police detective. Of course, Gaspar could have acquired the DNA report and interview transcript in the course of preparing a lawsuit against Orton, but the fact that the attachments were photographs of documents led me in the direction of Ruiz. Sending photographs instead of scans or real documents gave him an extra measure of protection against being identified as my source should there ever be an internal investigation. Office scanners and copiers kept digital memories.
My conclusion was further muddled when I was finally able to open the interview transcript on my laptop. I noticed that the document had several short redactions and was able to determine from context that the victim’s name had been removed. This was puzzling since Deep Throat had already provided me with the victim’s name. Had he forgotten?
Putting the question aside, I proceeded to read the entire interview. It was essentially five pages of denial from Orton. He did not assault the victim, he did not know the victim outside the one class he had with her, and he had n
ot been with the victim. When Ruiz started walking him through the night in question in detail, Orton shut it down and asked for a lawyer. The transcript ended there.
I closed my computer and put it away. I thought about the transcript. Aside from the redactions, there were also sections of Orton’s answers highlighted in yellow. Wanting to keep the digital conversation with Deep Throat going, I used this as a reason to text him again and ask what the highlights meant. His response came quickly but indicated that Deep Throat was not as interested in conversation as I was.
Checkable facts
That was all he said, but it was enough to further convince me that my source was Detective Ruiz. Checkable facts was a detective’s term. An interview with a suspect in a crime is choreographed to draw answers that can be confirmed or disputed through witnesses, video, digital trails, cell-phone triangulations, GPS navigation systems, and other means. This interview was no different, and someone—presumably Ruiz—had highlighted the things Orton had said that could be proved or disproved.
Of course, I had not gotten the follow-up reports on these checkable facts, so the interview transcript only served to intrigue me. I wanted more. Had Ruiz proved or disproved Orton’s claim to have been somewhere else entirely on the night Jessica Kelley was assaulted? Had he proved or disproved his claim that he was the victim of a smear campaign at UCI organized by another professor who was vindictive because of a dispute over tenure?
I was about to compose another text to Deep Throat saying I needed more information when Rachel slipped onto the stool next to me, not the one I’d been saving with my backpack.
“What’s that?” she asked by way of a greeting.
“I’ve been getting texts from somebody I think is the cop on the Orton case,” I said. “I talked to him today and he wouldn’t tell me anything. But then I started getting these tips. This is a transcript of a short interview he had with Orton before he lawyered up. He denied everything but put a few things on record that they could check. I was about to text and ask if he did.”
“A transcript? That sounds like a lawyer.”
“Well, it could be. I talked to the victim’s lawyer too. He said he and his client couldn’t talk because of an NDA. But I think it’s the cop. He also sent the DNA-analysis report that cleared Orton. I don’t know if anybody would have had that but Ruiz.”
“The prosecutor who dropped the case probably had it. And he or she could have given it to the victim’s lawyer.”
“True. Maybe I should just ask Deep Throat point-blank who he is.”
“Deep Throat. Cute.”
I looked away from my phone to Rachel.
“By the way, hello,” I said.
“Hello,” she replied.
Starting the meeting with a discussion about my source had eclipsed the fact that we had spent the night together—and would again this night if intentions didn’t change. I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. She accepted the kiss and gave no indication of any tremor in the Force.
“So, were you up here again or did you have to trek over the mountain?” I asked.
“I was here, just closing the deal from yesterday. I timed it to meet you.”
“Congratulations! Or not?”
“I know I was whining yesterday. I was getting drunk. And it wasn’t the only thing I said that was wrong.”
There was a tremor.
“Really?” I said. “Like what else?”
Rachel was saved from answering immediately by the approach of Elle, the faux-French bartender.
“Bonsoir,” she said. “Would you like a drink?”
“Ketel One martini straight up,” she said. “S’il vous plaît.”
“Bien sûr. Coming up.”
Elle moved down the bar to make the cocktail.
“That accent is terrible,” Rachel said.
“You said that yesterday,” I said. “Going with the hair of the dog, huh?”
“Why not? I signed a new client today. I can celebrate.”
“So, what else did you say wrong yesterday?”
“Oh, nothing. Never mind.”
“No, I want to know.”
“I didn’t mean to say that. Don’t read anything into it.”
The night before, this woman had whispered four words to me in the dark of the bedroom that rocked my world. I still love you. And I had returned them without hesitation. Now I had to wonder if she was trying to walk them back.
Elle approached and put Rachel’s drink down on a napkin. The martini glass was filled to the brim and she had placed it too far from Rachel on the bar top for her to lean in and sip the level down before trying to lift it. Anything but a rock-steady hand would spill it when it was moved. I knew then that Elle had heard what Rachel had said about her accent and this was bartender payback. Elle retreated, throwing a wink at me that Rachel didn’t see. A man took a stool in the middle of the bar and Elle approached him with her bad accent.
My cell’s screen lit as a call came in. I saw it was Emily Atwater.
“I’d better take this,” I said.
“Sure,” Rachel said. “Your girlfriend?”
“My colleague.”
“Take it.”
In one steady motion Rachel lifted her glass, brought it across the bar top to her lips, and sipped. I never saw a drop spill.
“I’m going outside so I can hear.”
“I’ll be here.”
I grabbed the phone off the bar and connected.
“Emily, hold on.”
I took a notebook out of my backpack, then walked through the bar and out the front door, where the music wouldn’t intrude on the call.
“Okay,” I said. “You get something?”
“Maybe,” she said.
“Tell me.”
“So, first, you remember that what the FTC has is all over two years old. From before the FDA takeover?”
“Right.”
“So, prior to the switch to the FDA, there is a record of Orange Nano selling DNA code and biological samples to five other labs. Three look like one-time transactions and the other two were repeat customers, so I think we can assume that business continues.”
“Okay. Who were the two repeat customers?”
“First, I think we should keep clear lines. Orange Nano conducted these transactions, not Orton in particular. Yes, it’s his lab, but he has employees and they made these transactions. His name is not on a single document I looked at.”
“Okay. So did you see anything suspicious?”
“Suspicious? Not really. More like curious. The two repeat customers are nearby—Los Angeles and Ventura. The others were a little farther-flung.”
“Which one are you curious about?”
“The L.A. lab.”
I heard papers rustling.
“There were three things that popped for me on this one,” Emily said. “First of all, I google-mapped it and it’s not a commercial address. It’s a residence. In Glendale, actually. I think this guy has a lab in his garage or something.”
“Okay, that’s a little weird,” I said. “What else?”
“The business is registered with the FTC as Dodger DNA Services and I think the owner is a DNA tech with the LAPD’s forensics lab. I googled him and his name came up in an L.A. Times story from last year about a murder trial where he testified about matching DNA taken from a gun to the defendant.”
“So what’s his side business?”
“The mission statement with the FTC says …”
More paper rustling. I waited.
“Here it is,” Emily said. “‘Testing applications of DNA in criminal forensics.’ That’s it.”
“Okay, that’s not that suspicious,” I said. “It’s his lifework. He’s probably trying to invent an instrument or something that will make his job easier and make him a million dollars.”
“Maybe. Until you get to my third point of curiosity.”
“Which is?”
“He only bought female DN
A from Orange Nano.”
“Okay, yeah. What’s this guy’s name?”
“Marshall Hammond.”
“Let me write that down.”
I spelled the name out loud as I wrote it down, the phone held in the crook of my neck. Emily confirmed.
“We need to background him,” I said.
“I tried but nothing came up,” Emily said. “I was thinking you might try some of your old LAPD sources, see if you can get a take on him.”
“Yeah, not a problem. I’ll make some calls. Are you still at the office?”
“No, I went home. I didn’t want Myron to see this stuff on my desk.”
“Right.”
“You get anything from Deep Throat?”
“Yes. He texted me the transcript of the interview with Orton and the DNA report that cleared him. I think Deep Throat is Detective Ruiz.”
“I’d like to read that interview.”
“I’ll send it when we get off.”
“Where are you?”
“Meeting a friend for a drink.”
“Okay, see you tomorrow.”
“Let’s take one more run at Myron with all of this stuff. See if we can get a couple more days.”
“I’m there.”
“Okay, see you then.”
I went back into the bar and saw that Rachel had finished her drink. I slipped back onto the stool.
“Ready for another?” I asked.
“No, I want to keep my wits about me tonight. Finish yours and let’s go to your place.”
“Yeah? What about dinner?”
“We can order in.”
THE SHRIKE
24
He waited until it was dark.
He loved the silence of the Tesla. The car was like him. It moved swiftly and stealthily. Nobody heard him coming. He pulled to the curb a block from the house on Capistrano and got out, silently closing the door behind him. He pulled the hood of the black nylon runner’s shell up over his head. He already wore a clear plastic mask that distorted his facial features to better guard against identification should there be a camera in the neighborhood that picked him up. Everybody had motion-activated cameras around their homes these days. It made his work difficult.
Fair Warning - Jack McEvoy Series 03 (2020) Page 16