Ted groaned.
There was a knock at the door. Clete Johansson, wireless still at his ear, reached over and opened it disinterestedly.
“We’re looking for Ted Braden,” a deep voice said. Ted looked up and saw two uniformed sheriff’s deputies standing shoulder-to-shoulder in the doorway. “I’m Ted Braden,” he said, rising from the table. “What’s the trouble?”
One of the deputies crossed the room to where Ted stood and placed a folded document on the table in front of him. “You’ve been subpoenaed to testify in the trial of Mr. Robert Rand, sir,” he said with solemn politeness. “We’ve been sent by the court to bring you to the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office immediately.”
“Immediately?” Ted asked, startled. “Yes, sir,” the deputy said. “We’ll wait, if you need to make any phone calls or anything.”
“Hello?”
“Royce, it’s Ted.”
“Don’t tell me you’re canceling lunch.”
“I’m canceling lunch.”
“I asked you not to tell me that.”
Ted didn’t even smile. “There are two sheriff’s deputies here waiting to take me to the district attorney’s office,” he said.
“Sheriff’s deputies! What happened? Is Flynn all right?”
“She’s fine, she’s fine,” Ted said. “I’m a witness in the Maria Sanders murder trial.”
“What?!”
“It’s a long story,” he said. “But I need you to take Flynn to her game tonight because I’m going to have to work when I get back here.”
“Okay, hon, no problem. What time?”
Ted sighed in relief. If he and Royce had gotten along this well when they were together, they might have gotten married. Well, not married, but they might have stayed together. “The game’s at 6:30,” he said. “At Beachwood Park.”
“Okay. Maybe I’ll see you later at your place. I want to hear all about this.”
“I’m just glad you’re in town this week,” Ted said. “I don’t know how long this is going to take.” He said good-bye, grabbed his jacket and headed to the elevator where the deputies were standing, watching him.
The district attorney’s office was located in a brand new 17-story building adjacent to the downtown Criminal Courts building. The lobby was two stories by itself, paneled in what looked like rich cherrywood but, of course, wasn’t. Decorative wood hadn’t been permitted in new public buildings in California for thirty years.
Ted and the deputies walked briskly over the flat gray carpet to a bank of three stainless steel elevators along the back wall. “Hold the elevator, please!” one of the deputies called as the doors of the middle elevator began to close.
A sleekly manicured hand slipped around one door and held it.
“Thanks,” Ted said, as he and the deputies stepped inside.
“You’re welcome.” The hand belonged to a stunningly beautiful woman, tall and slender with long dark brown hair and blue eyes the color of a diamond-bright July sky. She wore a soft white cashmere suit fitted so close to her body that she appeared to be sculpted from Carrera marble. Ted was motionless, standing sideways in the elevator, looking at her.
“Excuse me,” one of the deputies said, stepping around Ted as the elevator doors closed behind him. “Would you press eight, please?” he said to the woman.
“That’s where I’m going, too,” she said, pressing the button. The elevator made a whisper sound and reached the eighth floor without interruption. The doors opened.
Ted didn’t notice the rows of gray cubicles that extended from one end of the floor to the other. He didn’t see the side walls of sliding steel doors leading to private offices. He was watching the brunette walk away.
The deputies watched with him.
“This way,” one of the deputies said finally. He led Ted to the last steel door along the right side wall. A tiny green light glowed on the doorjamb. Without knocking, the deputy grasped a bracket on the door and slid it open.
A weathered Hispanic man of about fifty-five was seated at a glass desk. “Come in, Mr. Braden,” he said in a deep voice. Ted looked apprehensively through the doorway at the small office, just a desk, three unoccupied armchairs and some computer equipment pushed up against a glass corner of floor-to-ceiling windows. He stepped inside.
“Thanks, fellas.” The man dismissed the deputies with a wave. The door slid closed, silencing the hum of voices from the cubicles.
“Mr. Braden, I’m Carl Gonzales, Deputy District Attorney for Los Angeles County. Please, sit down.”
Ted sat in the armchair closest to the door.
“I’m sorry about the escort,” Gonzales said. “We’re operating under expedited procedures in this case and sometimes people aren’t as cooperative as we need them to be.”
A tapping knock rattled the door. Gonzales flipped a toggle switch on a flat metal box on top of his desk. The door slid open and a slender man in a dark suit walked in.
“Hi, Merritt,” Gonzales said. “This is Mr. Braden. Mr. Braden, Assistant District Attorney Merritt Logan. He’s the lead prosecutor in this case.” Logan shook Ted’s hand. “I’ll bet this is the last place you wanted to be today,” Logan said with an excessively understanding smile. Ted stood up to let the lawyer squeeze past him to a chair. “Don’t worry,” Logan continued, “This won’t take long.”
Gonzales moved a stack of papers to one side and looked through the surface of his glass desk at a blue video screen underneath it. He clicked another toggle switch on the metal box. “Testing, testing, Mary had a little lamb,” he said in a clear voice. He watched his words scroll in bold white text on the screen. “Good news,” he said. “The transcriber is working. Let’s get started.”
Before he could reach for his legal pad, the phone rang. Gonzales picked up the privacy handset. “Yes,” he said brusquely. “What? Where did she pop up? That’s outstanding. Absolutely. Of course we will. Bring her over right now. Absolutely. Thanks, Cal.” Without hanging up the phone, he pressed a series of buttons. “Gracie,” he said, “Would you call Jordan and ask her to come to my office, please?”
Ted saw Merritt Logan tense up.
“Detective Whitfield is bringing someone over,” Gonzales told Logan. “I think you ought to go talk to them and I’ll get Rainsborough in here to chat with Mr. Braden.”
“That’s not necessary,” Logan said quickly. “If Detective Whitfield can wait a little bit, I’ll be able to do both.”
“No, no,” Gonzales said casually. “It’s no problem. You go and meet with Detective Whitfield. That’s our first priority here.”
“Perhaps Mr. Braden could wait...” Logan began.
“No,” Gonzales said. “I don’t have time for this. You talk to Detective Whitfield and Rainsborough will be responsible for Mr. Braden.”
Merritt Logan appeared to swallow a sentence. He stood up, squeezed past Ted and slid open the office door. Standing there, framed like a portrait by the stainless steel doorway, was the stunning woman from the elevator.
“Merritt,” she said with a bright smile, “What a nice surprise.”
“Yes,” he said tersely. “For me, too.” He stepped briskly past her and disappeared between two rows of cubicles.
“Come in, Jordan,” Gonzales said. “This is Mr. Ted Braden. Mr. Braden, Assistant District Attorney Jordan Rainsborough. She’ll be one of the prosecutors in this case.”
“Hello,” Jordan said, extending her hand. “Thank you for coming in on such short notice.”
Ted’s tongue felt frozen in his mouth. He shook her hand, as soft as the white cashmere she was wearing, and nodded silently.
Jordan’s blue eyes twinkled with amusement.
“Mr. Braden’s name is on the witness list Rand’s lawyer sent over this morning,” Gonzales said as Jordan slipped past Ted’s chair and took a seat next to him.
“Yes, I know,” Jordan said. “I read the file.”
“That was quick,” Gonzales said. Jordan smiled sweetly. Ted was beginning to understand what had made Merritt Logan so tense.
“All right, then.” Gonzales leafed through a few pages on his legal pad. “Mr. Braden, we’ll be asking you some questions to help us understand the facts of this case. It’s the policy of this office to conduct interviews of this type under oath. Would you raise your right hand, please.”
Ted did.
“Do you swear that the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”
“I do,” Ted said quickly.
“All right, then. Jordan, why don’t you begin the questioning.”
“Thank you,” Jordan said with another sweet smile. “Mr. Braden, would you state your name and address for the record, please?”
Ted cleared his throat. “Theodore David Braden, B-R-A-D-E-N, 6505 Whitley Avenue, Hollywood, California.”
“Oh, it’s beautiful up there,” Gonzales interrupted. “I used to live in the Hollywood Hills. Gorgeous at night, all the lights. You must love it.”
Ted nodded.
“Yeah, my ex-wife has the house now. Are you married?”
Ted shook his head.
“Smart. NEVER get married in California. That’s my legal advice to you, no charge. I’m sorry, Jordan, go ahead.”
Jordan shifted in her chair and crossed her legs. The white cashmere skirt rode up her thigh just slightly. “Mr. Braden,” she said, “Where were you on the night of February 21st?”
C
HAPTER
3
T
he questioning entered its third hour. Ted shifted uncomfortably in the stiff armchair.
“Do you need a break?” Gonzales asked.
“No, no,” Ted lied. “I’m fine.”
Ted was tired of thinking about the Lakers game on February 21st. The prosecutors had asked him what time he arrived, what time he left, if he had looked at a wristwatch or the scoreboard clock. They had asked him if he ever drank alcohol at the games, and if he remembered drinking that night. They asked him how many times he had left his seat.
“It was months ago,” Ted told them. “I don’t remember how many times I left my seat.”
“It’s very important that you try to remember, Mr. Braden,” Jordan Rainsborough said. “Robert Rand claims he was there at the start of that game the night the murder was committed. Do you recall if he was in his seat when you arrived at the game?”
Ted tried to think. “I know he was at every game,” he said, “because I noticed that he wasn’t there for the game last night. He’s always there.”
Jordan wrote something down on her legal pad. “Are you at every game?” she asked.
“Well, no, not every game,” Ted said. “Sometimes I give my tickets away to clients.”
“Who was with you at the game on February 21st?” Jordan asked.
“I don’t recall,” Ted said, feeling a little silly. I’m headed for a career in politics, he thought.
Jordan looked directly at Ted. He caught her studying his eyes an instant before the sweet smile returned to her face. “I know it’s a while ago,” she said. “Maybe if you gave us the names of some of the people you might typically bring to the games, it would refresh your memory.”
Ted’s mind jumped at the thought of the agency’s top clients receiving an unannounced visit from the sheriff’s deputies. “I bring friends,” he said. For the first time, he wondered if he needed a lawyer himself.
“Now, when you’ve brought friends to the games, did any of them ever have any conversations with Robert Rand?”
“Not that I recall.”
“Have you personally ever had any contact or conversations with Robert Rand other than at the Lakers games?”
“No.”
“Have you ever had any conversations about Robert Rand with anyone?”
Ted thought about his conversation with his daughter. “Just with my girlfriend,” he answered. “Last night I took her to the game and, like I said, I noticed that Rob wasn’t there. So, you know, we talked about it.”
Jordan was watching him, still smiling pleasantly, her eyes locked on him like lasers. “And what’s her name?” she asked.
“You’re not going to send the deputies for her, are you?”
“Mr. Braden,” Carl Gonzales rumbled, “This is a serious matter. We have charged Robert Rand with the murders of Maria Sanders and LAPD officer William Szafara. However, we have both an obligation and a responsibility to seek and consider all evidence that might tend to exonerate him. You may not be aware that we have the power to compel the testimony of witnesses, even to the point of locking them up in county jail if they don’t cooperate.”
“It’s because of the Public Safety Act,” Jordan explained apologetically. “Violent crimes in California are tried under what are called ‘expedited procedures.’ That means we have to move things along.”
“If you have to talk to her, I’ll bring her in,” Ted said. He could imagine the deputies coming to RCN Data Systems and asking the horrified human resources director to take them to Julia. He could see Julia losing her security rating, then her job, then her house, and demanding to move in with him.
“Well, for now,” Jordan said, “All I need is her name and a few facts.”
“Julia Thomsen.”
“And where does she work?”
“Can I just give you her home address?”
“All right.”
Ted gave Jordan the address on Hobart Place.