RK02 - Guilt By Degrees

by Marcia Clark

  “I thought we should all get fat together,” I joked.

  “You have nothing to worry about, Rachel,” Gary said, taking the plate from me.

  If someone else had said it, the line might’ve sounded a little bit lecherous. But Gary just made it sound reassuring.

  “Your wife is probably the luckiest woman on earth,” I said.

  “So I’ve been telling her for the past ten years,” he replied. “But feel free to call and back me up. A little corroboration never hurts.” He held up the plate. “And thank you for these. Mario’ll love it.”

  “My pleasure.”

  I went back into the room, picked up the remaining Danish, and took a big bite. It was fresh and delicious. “It’s time to hit up Lilah’s parents.” We’d been hoping to have enough information on her to keep them honest before we had the meeting, but it looked like we had all we were going to get.

  Bailey nodded. “I know we’ve talked about it for a while,” she said. “But I’m not sure what we expect to get from them. They’re on her side. Even if they don’t know we’re looking at her possible involvement in Simon’s murder, they’ve got to know she’s flying under the radar and using an alias. I don’t see them helping us.”

  Bailey sat back and folded her arms over her chest. Her thinking posture. I got up and paced. My thinking posture. One of us had a more annoying thinking posture than the other.

  I thought out loud. “You couldn’t find any trace of her under any of her known names—”

  “I’ve checked every database in every city, county, and state in this country. I’ve checked banks, jails, prisons, hospitals, even the morgue, I’ve checked—”

  I held up my hand. “Enough. I get it. But she can’t just be No-Name. She must’ve gotten a new ID, right?”

  “Right,” Bailey said. “Though that may not necessarily mean she’s up to no good. She’s got every reason to want to change her name and erase her past.”

  True enough. “But even if she is into something shady, she can’t get by with no ID.”

  And Lilah’s new name was the least of the unknowns that’d been plaguing me. Was she a cold-blooded murderer? Or was she the victim of a misguided investigation—someone whose life had been ruined by being falsely accused? If the latter, then what was she doing now? Why was she seemingly in hiding? I had a hard time believing she was cowering in a corner somewhere. I’d studied her on that surveillance footage too many times to count, and one thing was clear to me: that strong, confident stride didn’t fit with someone who’d disappeared out of fear or shame. But that single conclusion, based only on my intuition, left a world of questions unanswered. Every time I thought about Lilah, I wound up on this same circular path.

  “No one gets by in this world without ID,” Bailey agreed. “And I didn’t see anything in her past that was helpful. Though I did think it was weird that she got a GED instead of finishing high school.”

  “Especially since she’d just come back home after years of getting stellar grades in a boarding school.”

  Bailey sat up. “When’d you come up with that?”

  “A little while ago.” I shrugged. “Checked out her school records, talked to a few people. Seems she got into enough trouble to make the counselor recommend a boarding school for ‘problem children.’”

  “She have a juvenile record?”

  “No. And it seems the boarding school did straighten her out. By the time she left, she had a four-oh.”

  Bailey looked at me intently. “You pulling all-nighters working on this woman, or what? And elementary school? How on earth’s that supposed to help us find her now?”

  Until that moment, I hadn’t thought to question it. But now I wondered: What did I hope to gain by delving into Lilah’s personal history—especially that far back?

  “I just wanted to fill in some blanks,” I said. “I needed to get some answers for a change, instead of questions that only led to more questions. It’s been frustrating, you know?”

  Bailey nodded. Her puzzled look told me she wasn’t entirely convinced, but I didn’t have any better explanation.

  I paused to look out the window at Pershing Square. The small park in the middle of downtown always sets up an ice rink in winter. A young girl wearing lighted reindeer antlers stumbled blindly around the oval rink. She couldn’t have been more than fourteen. Her wet jeans told me her efforts to stay upright hadn’t been a total success. Suddenly she slip-slided her way off the ice and into a roped-off area, where she dropped heavily onto one of the folding chairs. A rink official glided over and appeared to order her out of the area. When she unsteadily followed his directions, he sat her down at one of the public tables. Was she stoned? Or just new on skates?

  I brought my thoughts back to the matter at hand and gave voice to an issue that’d been dancing around in my mind.

  “How did Lilah and Zack meet anyway?” I asked.

  “No one knows,” Bailey replied. “Even Zack’s parents were vague. At some party or something.”

  I nodded, frowning, and turned back to the window.

  The girl with the antlers duckwalked her way back onto the rink and began to bounce off the low wood barriers. This time, a tall, strong-looking rink official quickly skated up behind her, grabbed her under the arms, and steered her off the ice, then motioned for a nearby patrol officer. Stoned. Definitely not the skates.

  I began to pace again. “If they did meet at a party, then how come no one has any details? Like when or where it was, or who threw the party?”

  Bailey shrugged.

  “It bugs me that they have no logical point of intersection,” I said. “Work? School? Church?” I turned another circle, thinking.

  “Your pacing is making me nuts,” Bailey warned. “And dizzy.”

  She had a point. The room was pretty small, so my circles were tight and fast. “Sorry,” I said. I resumed pacing but tried to make it look like a casual stroll. “Zack didn’t go to law school—”

  “—so they didn’t meet there,” Bailey said. “And they didn’t meet at work. When she interned for the DA’s office, she was down in Orange County.”

  “And no one ever said they were churchgoers—”

  “She’d immolate on the threshold.” Toni emerged from the bathroom looking like a magazine cover.

  Makeup, flawless. Hair, perfect. Clothes, chic. And if circumstances required, she could even do it fast. I was no slouch, but I was a mere grasshopper next to Master Toni.

  I resumed pacing. “She went to law school, interned at the DA’s office, and got hired at a fancy law firm. None of that explains how she and Zack crossed paths.”

  Bailey refolded her arms and stared down at the table. After a moment, she looked up. “If she did kill Zack, it wouldn’t be a big strain to believe Lilah had a shady past.”

  I stopped pacing and looked at Bailey. “A hotshot corporate lawyer with a shady past? Impossible,” I said with a sarcastic smile. “So maybe they met at Zack’s workplace.”

  “As in, Zack busted her for something?”

  I shrugged.

  But Bailey was frowning. “I don’t know. Men think with the little head and all that, but hooking up with a suspect…” She shook her head. “It’s a career wrecker if anyone finds out. And from everything we’ve heard about him, Zack was an ambitious guy. Cops who want to be captain—or more—don’t take those kinds of chances.”

  “I agree,” I replied. “And if he did bust her for something, he must’ve hidden it, because she’s got no rap sheet, right?”

  “None,” Bailey said. “But then again…we’re pretty sure she’s got an alias now, right? Maybe she had an alias back then…”

  No cover-up would’ve been required.

  “Or maybe he didn’t bust her,” Toni chimed in. “Maybe she was a witness.”

  I nodded. “That might’ve given her a legit reason to have an alias…”

  “Such as?” Bailey asked.

  “She was hiding from an
abusive boyfriend,” Toni said.

  “If she did have an alias back then—for whatever reason—it’d be a lot easier to go back to it now than to get a whole new set of fake IDs,” I said.

  Bailey sighed. “This means we’ve got to go through Zack’s arrest reports and see if we can find a witness or suspect who fits her description. Needle in a haystack.”

  I nodded glumly. This time, I had no magnet.

  63

  “Records show they were married for two years, and according to witness interviews, they dated for about six months before that,” Bailey said.

  “Then let’s go back a year before the marriage to be on the safe side,” I said. “Where was Zack working back then?”

  “I’ll check,” Bailey replied, pulling out her cell.

  “Well, I’ll leave y’all to it,” Toni said, giving her makeup a final check in the mirror next to the entry. When I’d first moved into this suite, I’d thought that was a weird place for a mirror. Toni showed me the error of my ways.

  She looked outside and set aside her coat. “Got an extra scarf?” she asked. “Preferably gray,” she said, gesturing to her pale blush-colored blouse.

  “Oh yes, ma’am,” I replied jokingly. My neck is my weak spot when it comes to cold, so I’ve got a pretty impressive array of scarves, pashminas, and mufflers. Toni, of course, knows this. I went to my closet and dug out a charcoal-gray wool-fringed number for her approval.

  “Perfect,” Toni said. With one deft movement, she had it wound around her neck and looking better than I’d ever managed.

  “You going to be around this weekend?” I asked.

  “I am,” Toni said. “J.D.’s got a conference to go to. Want to do something?”

  “Definitely,” I replied. I looked at Bailey.

  “Drew and I are going up to Ojai on Sunday.”

  “You’re dead to me,” I said.

  It was actually for the best. I’d been looking for a chance to tell Toni about Romy anyway.

  “Call me,” Toni said, and glided out the door.

  Bailey had already pulled out her phone to find out where Zack had been assigned before his marriage to Lilah.

  I went to finish my makeup and hair, and finally admitted that I was preparing myself in case I ran into Graden. Telling Bailey everything had had a calming effect. Seething done in private can keep anger burning, but like a pot of boiling water, once you take the lid off, the heat dissipates and the boil turns to a simmer. I was still angry with Graden, but there was a small part of me that was beginning to consider the possibility that I’d overreacted. Just possibly.

  “Hollywood,” Bailey said, snapping her cell phone shut.

  It was Bailey’s old stomping ground before she’d been assigned to Robbery-Homicide, so she got a hero’s welcome.

  “Look what the cat dragged in,” said the Hollywood station desk sergeant, a rotund, apple-cheeked man with thinning brown hair and big, dark eyes.

  “Gomez, how come they haven’t fired you yet?” Bailey asked, grinning.

  He shrugged. “Guess they keep forgetting,” he replied. “Come on back, we’ll get you set up.”

  Five minutes later, we were parked in front of a computer and scrolling through all the crime reports signed by Zack Bayer.

  “Could be any kind of crime,” Bailey said.

  “As long as there’s a female involved somehow,” I said. “Either as a suspect, witness, or victim. Anyone who might be Lilah, using an alias.”

  “That narrows it right down,” she said sarcastically. But it wasn’t a completely useless filter. We weeded out a bunch of drug busts that involved no females right off the bat.

  “Hmmm, domestic-violence call,” Bailey said, pointing to the screen.

  She read aloud, “Victim: Latasha McKenzie, five feet one, one hundred ten pounds, African-American—”

  “Okay, probably not the victim,” I said. “Suspect?”

  “Boyfriend, Lamar Washington, six feet, two hundred pounds—”

  “Any witnesses?”

  “None,” Bailey said. “We move on.”

  I watched as she scrolled. “Hey, what about that one?” I said, pointing to a robbery.

  Bailey clicked and read. “Victim: Oren Abnarian, male…whatever. Suspect: Abner Clarence, male…whatever. Witnesses: Starla Moreno, no description, but she’s female for sure, and two males. Checking on Starla.”

  “Interesting name,” I replied.

  Bailey clicked for the full report. “Yeah,” she said, continuing to read. “Even more interesting than you thought. Starla’s aka is Stanley. Description is six feet one and two hundred pounds with a skull-necklace tattoo.”

  “She sounds lovely.”

  Bailey sighed. “This is going to be a long night. And I’m spending it with you.”

  By ten p.m., the morning-watch crew—who worked ten p.m. to six a.m.—was heading out for duty. I stood up and stretched. “I hate to have caffeine after breakfast, but if I don’t, I’ll do a face-plant. Want some?”

  “Yeah. And make it black,” Bailey said.

  As I walked out to the vending machine, I saw that our investigators had already tanked up. The table was littered with paper cups and sugar packets. I came back bearing our doses of caffeine, and we rolled on.

  “Prostitution bust, suspect name, Brandy.”

  “Isn’t it time to retire that name?” I asked.

  “It’s a classic,” Bailey said. “Seems the right age.” She continued to read. “Hispanic—”

  “Could be faked.”

  “She’s five feet ten,” Bailey said.

  “Next.”

  We sorted through a dozen more without finding anything worth exploring further.

  I was leaning on the desk, head propped up on one hand, rubbing my temple with the other to keep myself awake. I was trying to think of a faster way to do this when Bailey elbowed me, pointed to the screen, and read aloud.

  “Res burg—owner/victim’s a white female, no witnesses, no suspects.”

  Residential burglary and a promising-looking victim. “Apartment building or house?” I asked.

  It was unlikely that someone as young as Lilah was at that time could’ve afforded a house. The residence needed to be an apartment to make the case a real possibility.

  “Apartment,” Bailey replied. “Victim: Nina Klavens, no DOB.”

  “That’s a keeper.”

  By four a.m., we’d gone through the entire year of crime reports and come up with two other distinct possibilities: a car theft in Los Feliz, and a purse snatch on Sunset Boulevard.

  We called it a night and dragged ourselves back to the Biltmore. I fell into bed. My last thought before I dropped off was that Phil Hemet didn’t put in this many hours in a month. How come there was no reporter tailing me now?

  64

  I woke up energized and hopeful about the leads we’d found last night. We were finishing breakfast and I was looking through my to-do list. I poured another cup of coffee for myself, but Bailey waved me off.

  “I’m good,” she said. “I’m going to see if I can find out where our burglary victim is now.”

  “If she’s still at the same location, she’s probably not our girl,” I replied.

  Bailey nodded and opened her cell. She gave the victim’s name and address, and while she waited for a response, I slinked my fork over to her plate of hash browns and speared a mouthful. Bailey shot me a look.

  “What?” I whispered. “You were done.”

  She pulled her plate closer and returned to her call. “Yes,” she said, taking out her notebook and pen. She scribbled the information. “Thanks. Can I run a couple of other reports by you?”

  Bailey gave the information we had on the purse snatch and car theft. While she waited for an answer, I went back to my bedroom to finish getting dressed. When I returned, Bailey was standing and finishing her coffee.

  “And?” I asked.

  “Our burglary victim has moved.”
<
br />   “So far, so good,” I said.

  She nodded. “The purse snatch is a bust. Victim was a tourist who got groped and robbed on Sunset Boulevard by R2-D2—”

  “Funny, you ask me, I would’ve picked C-3PO to be that guy,” I said.

  Costumed impersonators of famous figures, both fictional and real, had become a thriving business on Sunset Boulevard. On any given day, Darth Vader, Spider-Man, or the Hulk could be found strolling back and forth in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. Unfortunately some of them were tweakers—speed freaks—who targeted unsuspecting out-of-towners.

  “Our victim was an Aussie, and she went back to the Land Down Under,” Bailey said. “She declined to return to prosecute, and we’ve got no information on her current whereabouts. Suspect was a male.”

  “Doesn’t sound like Lilah anyway, so no loss.”

  “No,” Bailey replied. She checked the magazine on her .44 Glock and slipped it back into her shoulder holster, then put on her coat. “Let’s go see if Nina Klavens is our girl.”

  Nina was now living in Studio City. According to her DMV record, she had a small house on Valley Vista Boulevard.

  “That’s a pretty nice neighborhood, isn’t it?” I asked.

  “Nice enough,” Bailey replied. “But remember, Lilah used to be a corporate lawyer, so she’s got skills. She could make enough money for a nice little place.”

  Bailey assured our security detail of DA investigators that we could go it alone today. We’d be in her car and in decent places when we were out in public. A tail wouldn’t make us any safer. They checked in with their lieutenant, who’d agreed. I felt their despair at having to miss out on more time with us, but I was confident they’d console themselves with a second choice—say, for instance, clogging.

  By the time we left, it was almost noon. That should’ve meant smooth sailing down the 101 Freeway, especially since we were heading northbound. But for some reason the traffic was even worse than usual. Getting stuck in traffic on a Saturday afternoon never ceases to confound and irritate me. What the hell is everyone doing out on the freeway on a Saturday? For the next half hour, in typical L.A. fashion, we crawled northbound, inch by inch.