Try Fear (23 page)

Zebker frowned and flipped to the list in his notebook. “Correct.”

“That’s because there was no computer in the apartment, isn’t that right?”

“That’s right.”

“In your experience, Detective, would it be difficult to send e-mail without a computer?”

“You could do it from a PDA.”

“Is there a PDA listed here?”

“No.”

“And none was recovered, correct?”

“Correct.”

I went back to the counsel table and handed the report to Sister Mary.

“Detective,” I said. “You testified on direct that you did not find a suicide note. Are you aware that, according to Di Maio’s
book on gunshot evidence, notes are left in only twenty-five percent of suicides?”

“I don’t know one way or the other.”

“Isn’t it a fact that from the very beginning your investigation focused only on Eric Richess?”

“We arrested him, yes.”

“Have you investigated any other leads?”

“Not after the arrest, no.”

“How about before the arrest?”

“We arrested the right person.”

I said, “I move to strike that answer as non-responsive, Your Honor.”

“Stricken,” Hughes said.

“I’ll ask the question again. Did you investigate any other suspect before you arrested Eric Richess?”

“No.”

“So this could be suicide, or the real killer could still be out there, right?”

Radavich objected, the judge sustained it, I paused for dramatic effect, and said, “No more questions.”

And we were done for the day.

S
ISTER
M
ARY AND
I took the Red Line from downtown back to North Hollywood, discussing the case. By the time we got on the Orange Line for
the ride back to Woodland Hills, I was starving. I suggested honest Mexican food at a place I knew on Sherman Way.

“Just don’t get any sauce on your habit,” I said.

“If you weren’t an officer of the court,” she said, “I’d elbow you in the gut.”

“That’s never stopped you before,” I said.

We were almost to my car, parked on the back side of the lot, farthest from the street.

It looked, somehow, smaller.

And then I saw why.

All four of my tires were dead flat.

Because they were slashed.

“Nice,” I said.

I looked around for the rarest of birds, the on-the-spot parking security guy. He (or she) was nowhere to be seen.

I circled the car, just looking, steaming. And saw on the hood a message.

A little scratchitti in the paint, probably done with a key.

It read,
Back off.

“P
ROBLEM?” THE PARKING
security guy in his cute little security car had finally seen my wave and driven over. He was about sixty and hadn’t missed
many meals.

“Slight,” I said, and pointed to my car.

“Flat?” Security said.

“Four.”

“Four? Oh yeah. Uh-huh. Four flat tires.”

Man, this guy was good. “How do you suppose that happened?” I said.

“Somebody must’ve done it on purpose.”

“You think?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You have security cameras, right?”

“We got ’em over at the pickup. But your car’s over here.”

I slapped my sides. “Surely you have security cameras pointed at the parking lot.”

He made a concerned face and whispered, “Budget.”

“Then how long have you been on duty today?” I said.

“Since two. When did you get here?”

“Seven-thirty.”

“Well let’s see, that would be Clarissa who would’ve been on then, but she didn’t say anything to me, so I don’t guess she
saw anything.”

“I don’t guess so,” I said.

“Um…”

“Yes?”

“You know,” he said, “you park here at your own risk. We got signs.”

“Of course,” I said. “And what risk is there when we’ve got a fleet of security vehicles keeping watch?”

“Sir, I’m very sorry. We can report this to the police.”

“Report it. I’ve got to get four new tires before everything closes.”

I
T TOOK TWO
and a half hours. There’s a tire store on Canoga not far from the lot, and a tow took me and Sister Mary there. The store
was closed.

So we left the car outside the razor-wired fence, near the shed marked
Friendly Fred’s Tires and Treads,
and called Father Bob. He said he’d come down in the Taurus to get us.

As we waited, Sister Mary said, “Any idea who might have done this?”

“Somebody who’s taken the trouble to follow me,” I said.

“Or us.”

“Sure, maybe it was an angry Protestant.”

“Not.”

“It’s some bad, theatrical way to throw a little fear into me.”

“Which leads again to the question, who?”

“Who is mad at me? The person who really killed Carl. Maybe somebody who works with the person who really killed Carl. Maybe
somebody who was a close friend or lover of the person who killed Carl.”

“Maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with Carl or the murder trial.”

“In which case, who is mad enough to follow me around till they had this opportunity?”

“You messed up that group called
Triunfo
,” Sister Mary said. “Maybe it’s a residue of one of your early cases. You also got that developer, Sam DeCosse, ticked off
at you. Everywhere you go you seem to do that.”

“Maybe it was Sister Hildegarde. Maybe she wants me to back out of the community.”

“Now you’re just being silly.”

“Don’t tell anyone, okay? If it gets out that I’m silly, that’s the end of my rep as a trial lawyer.”

“Your secret is safe.” She paused. “You don’t think…”

“What? The e-mailer?”

She nodded. Another e-mail had come in a couple of days earlier, more of the same. We had not heard back from Fronteratta
yet.

“It crossed my mind,” I said. “We have exactly nothing to go on. Aren’t you glad you got to know me?”

“It’s the highlight of my life,” she said. “If you don’t count the
Ice Capades.
”

I nodded.

“About the e-mails,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about one of them. The one that said I was ‘not OK.’ ”

“With hell to pay.”

“Right. What if the OK doesn’t mean
okay
, but instead means Oklahoma?”

“I’ll call Sid and see what he thinks.”

“Cool.”

I smiled. “And I want your permission to do something.”

She folded her arms and waited.

I said, “If we ever catch up with this guy, I want to do a law of club and fang on him. Give me your blessing.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Buchanan. That’s not my law.”

“I have time to convince you.”

“Don’t try,” she said.

I didn’t. We leaned against my car until Father Bob picked us up. I had him drive us to Casa Medina on Sherman Way. There
we feasted on chile rellenos and carnitas.

It was almost normal. Almost. Because normal is not a word that applies to you when you’re in trial.

As we were all about to find out.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, early, Fred was indeed friendly and tired me up. I had wheels in time to get downtown.

In court, Deputy Medical Examiner Lyle Schneuder took the stand.

He was in his late thirties, maybe older. Thin, gaunt in the face, with an oblong head and severely receding hairline. Would
have made a good Ichabod Crane.

Radavich walked him through his quals. He’d been with the office for four years after leaving a medical practice in the East
and a brief stint in a lab in Phoenix. He was therefore still on the “way up” as far as being an expert witness.

Which was going to be my opportunity. The key to being a good expert wit is being able to hang your ego on a hook outside
the courtroom door. And then be able to communicate in layman’s terms so the jury can understand.

Some experts try hard to show that they know more than anybody and speak a language only they can understand. And that they
have stepped down off of Mount Olympus to put us poor mortals straight.

Experts want to make a name for themselves, because they get paid to testify and can start showing up on TV when high-profile
cases hit the news.

It seemed to me that Schneuder was this kind of expert.

Radavich asked, “Now, Doctor, please summarize for the jury the condition of the victim at the time of death with regard to
alcohol.”

“The victim had a blood alcohol content between .08 and .09 at the time of the autopsy.”

“And what do you conclude about the victim’s condition at time of death?”

“Calculations relating to retrograde extrapolation lead me to conclude that his blood alcohol content at the time of death
was somewhere around .18.”

“And .18 in layman’s terms means very drunk, does it not?”

“Oh, yes. You would have been definitely out of it, to use layman’s terms.” Schneuder smiled at the jury, but none of them
smiled back.

“Would you say, in your opinion, that in his condition he was more or less likely to be able to struggle with an intruder?”

I objected, saying this was pure speculation, and there was no foundation for rendering an opinion, as the good doctor did
not know anything about Carl or his capacity to hold drink. The judge overruled me and the questioning went on.

“I would say,” Schneuder opined, “that he would have been susceptible to being manipulated. Especially if he trusted whoever
did the manipulation.”

“Turning now to the finding of gunshot residue on the back of the victim’s right hand, tell us what you found.”

“We found antimony, which is an element in the primer mix of gunpowder. But there was something very strange about this.”

“And what was that?”

“Rather than stippling, which is the normal pattern, this gunshot residue appeared to be wiped on the back of the hand.”

“What led you to that conclusion?”

“When I looked closely at the pattern, there were streaks rather than spots, in several of the areas of the hand that I examined.”

“And the victim, being dead, could not have done that to himself, correct?”

“In my experience, dead people cannot do much of anything for themselves.” He smiled again at the jury. The jury looked back
at him with stone faces. I was glad about this. They didn’t much like him.

No doubt sensing this, Radavich sat down.

I got up.

“G
OOD MORNING
, D
OCTOR,”
I said.

“Good morning, sir.”

“Is alcohol a stimulant or a depressant?”

“It’s a depressant, of course.”

“Meaning that people who are drunk get depressed, right?”

“Not all the time.”

“A good deal of the time, wouldn’t you say?”

“That all depends on what you mean by a good deal of the time.”

“More than half?”

“I suppose.”

“Suppose?” I said. “You mean you don’t have an opinion about that?”

Little flickers of annoyance skipped out of Schneuder’s eyes. “I would say yes. Most of the time. But sometimes people get
happy when they drink. It depends on the person.”

“You would have to know about that person, his history and so forth, correct?”

“Absolutely.”

“Do you know anything about the history of the victim, Carl Richess, in this case?”

“I was not provided that information.”

“So your answer is no?”

“I was not provided that information. That’s my answer.”

“So you don’t know what the effect of so much alcohol was on the victim, do you?”

“As I say, I couldn’t know that.”

“In fact, Carl Richess could have been severely depressed, could he not?”

“It’s possible.”

“Indeed, it’s likely, isn’t it? Based upon your agreement with me that in most cases alcohol operates as a depressant?”

“I can’t say one way or the other.”

Perfect. When an expert equivocates that way, he undercuts his credibility with the jury. So I shrugged at him, leaving a
little nonverbal jab in the air.

“Let’s talk about this
smear theory
of yours,” I said. I dragged out the words so it was moistened with disdain. Whenever the jurors thought of
smear theory,
I wanted them to hear my voice. “It is your theory, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“By the way, what texts are you relying upon for the
smear theory
?”

“This is a theory I have reached on my own.”

“You mean you haven’t done any experiments, and published your results in a peer-reviewed journal?”

“Not yet.”

“Then you have pulled the
smear theory
out of thin air?”

“Of course not. It is based on my training and experience.”

“But without reliance on any text or journal, or special training, correct?”

“Of course I am familiar with Friedman and Lyle. I believe that would back me up in this.”

“What edition would that be?”

“I think it’s the fourth edition.”

“You think or you know?”

“I would have to check. But it’s the latest edition. I get it every time it is updated. It’s the standard work in the field.”

“May I have a moment, Your Honor?”

“Yes,” Hughes said.

I went over to the counsel table and whispered to Sister Mary, “Take a walk to the County Law Library and see if they have
a copy of this Friedman and Lyle book.” I took out my wallet and gave her my Bar card.

It must have looked like I was giving her cash to go buy lunch.

Sister Mary got up and walked out of the courtroom. Whenever a nun walks out of a courtroom, or into one for that matter,
people stop and watch.

When the doors closed, I returned to the witness.

“Dr. Schneuder, when Mr. Radavich was going over your CV with you, he mentioned that you spent two years in a private crime
lab in Phoenix, is that right?”

“Correct.”

“And that you left to come work for Los Angeles County?”

“Yes.”

“How much did you make at the lab in Phoenix?”

“Objection,” Radavich said. “Relevance.”

“Give me a couple of questions, Your Honor. It goes to credibility.”