Allison (A Kane Novel)

by Steve Gannon

  Kane nodded. “Radio one of the cruisers and have them send the SID guys down when they’re done with the gate. And contact the divers who searched the reservoir before. We need them out here for a second look.”

  “You want ’em out here now?”

  Kane nodded again. “Right now.”

  *

  I hadn’t slept much the night before, worrying about Mom. I heard my father rise early, but I remained in bed at the beach house until after he had left. Then, dressing quickly, I left as well, not talking with anyone on my way out. Pushing the speed limit, I drove to Westwood, attempting to contact Mike on his cell phone several times on the way. No answer. Upon returning to my dorm room, I located Mike’s home number in the Palisades telephone directory. Feeling a growing sense of urgency, I called him there. The phone at the other end rang a half-dozen times before someone finally picked up.

  “Hello?” a sleepy male voice answered.

  “Mike?”

  “I think so.”

  “It’s Allison.”

  “Ali?” Mike yawned. “What time is it?”

  “Early. Listen, I need a favor. I’m at UCLA. I know it’s Sunday, but can you meet me here ASAP with your video camera? And bring your biggest telephoto lens—one that can pull in an image from a long way off.”

  “Hold on,” Mike said, starting to wake up. “What’s this all about?”

  “I’ll tell you when you get here.”

  “Tell me now.”

  I hesitated.

  “What’s the matter?” said Mike. “Don’t trust me?”

  “That’s not it.”

  “Of course it is. C’mon, Ali. What’s up?”

  “I told my father about what we found on our bike ride,” I replied. “He’s searching the reservoir site again this morning.”

  “And if you call CBS, Lauren will probably send Brent.”

  “Not probably. Definitely. As you once pointed out, it is his story. All I’d get would be a pat on the back.”

  “And you want all the credit.”

  “I was the one who came up with this, not Brent,” I said.

  A long pause. “Somehow I find it difficult to believe that your dad’s revisiting the reservoir simply because you discovered that Mr. French knew it was there.”

  “There’s more to it.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as things I can’t talk about. But believe me, my dad has good reason to suspect the Frenches.”

  “He does, huh? Then it has to be the autopsy.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because according to leaks, nothing useful was found in the way of evidence at Jordan’s house,” Mike reasoned. “Nothing much turned up at the reservoir when her body was discovered, either. The autopsy is the only thing left.”

  “Are you going to help me or not?” I demanded, amazed that Mike had caught on so quickly, and angry with myself for having said anything to him at all.

  “Not.”

  “Please, Mike. I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important.”

  Another pause. “Look, if anyone at Channel 2 ever finds out that I shot footage on the Jordan French story and then simply handed it over to network instead of giving it to them …”

  “It’ll be our secret. Please, Mike?”

  Silence.

  “Please?”

  “I’ll see you shortly.” Mike hung up without saying good-bye.

  The trip to the reservoir took less time than I had expected. After picking me up in front of the dorm, Mike backtracked through Westwood and took the 405 Freeway north, exiting near Sepulveda Pass and then driving west on Mulholland. As he had said on our bike ride, the dirt section of Mulholland was easily accessible, and within an hour from the time I called Mike, we spotted LAPD cruisers and a strip of yellow POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS ribbon barring the graded dirt road ahead.

  I had originally hoped to get a shot of the locked gate above the reservoir. As that was now out of the question, I asked Mike to shoot several seconds of the police blockade, then had him drive back down the road to another overlook with a good view of the reservoir.

  Over the next hour I had Mike record various shots of police officers stomping through the brush, investigators conversing by the water’s edge, and a trio of divers combing the south end of the reservoir. All three men in the water were working at least a half mile from where Jordan’s body had first been discovered. It was good video, but nothing definitive, nothing earthshaking. Simply another futile police search.

  As I was beginning to think the whole thing had been a waste of time, Mike looked up from his camera, which he had positioned on a tripod near the side of the road. “Ali. I think they found something.”

  I raised a small pair of binoculars I had brought from my room. It took me a moment to locate the divers. One was in an inflatable boat, leaning over the bow. Another bobbed in the water nearby. The diver in the water passed a line to the man in the boat. The rubber-suited man in the inflatable craft pulled, straining to raise something from the bottom. Seconds later a yellow dive basket broke the water’s surface. As the basket was hauled onboard, I could make out some kind of dark material glistening through the basket’s knit holes. More of the black substance trailed over the basket’s edge, muddy streams of water running from its folds.

  “Looks like a trash bag,” Mike observed.

  I squinted through my binoculars. “Uh-huh. And whatever’s in it is heavy. Are you getting this?”

  “Every second.”

  “Good.”

  Shortly afterward another diver surfaced, passing a second line to the man in the boat. Another dive basket was raised, this one seeming even heavier. It too contained what appeared to be a plastic trash bag. This one had a length of cord trailing from it. Once the second basket was aboard, both divers squirmed into the boat. As one crawled forward to raise the anchor, the boat operator fired up an outboard motor on the stern, belching out a cloud of bluish smoke.

  Lowering my binoculars, I checked my watch. If I wanted to make the New York deadline, I would have to hurry. Stuffing the binoculars into my purse, I reviewed a page of hastily scribbled notes I had written earlier that morning. Then, leaving my purse on the seat of Mike’s pickup, I made my way several yards down the brush-covered slope.

  “What are you doing?” asked Mike.

  “Winding this up,” I answered. “Can you get a shot of the boat, then pull back and get me with the reservoir in the background?”

  “You’re going to do a standup out here?”

  “You have a problem with that?”

  “Nope.” Mike made an adjustment to the hooded lens of his camera. “Step to the left. Now down. Perfect.”

  “Will the camera mike pick up my voice?” I asked, wishing I’d had the time to get sound-recording equipment from the newsroom.

  “It’ll be fine,” Mike assured me. “I’ll cue you after the pullback. Ready?”

  Over the past weeks I had analyzed Brent Preston’s on-camera technique, studying other reporters’ styles and approaches as well. I knew I could do it. This was my chance. “Ready,” I said.

  It had started drizzling several minutes earlier. After adjusting a plastic sheet covering his camera, Mike began shooting, framing the rubber boat heading to shore across the windswept reservoir. Then, twisting his long lens, he pulled back to reveal me standing in the brush. He raised a finger and pointed.

  I gazed into the camera. Imagining I was talking to someone on the other side of the lens, I began. “Early this morning, acting on newly uncovered information, police investigators revisited Encino Reservoir, returning to the site where the body of actress Jordan French was found last month. Minutes ago, while searching an area far from where the body was originally discovered, police divers raised what appeared to be two large trash bags. Although the bags each appear to contain something heavy, at present the contents are unknown, but these new developments raise questions that are certain to shed new light
on the case. This is Allison Kane, CBS News, Los Angeles.”

  Twenty minutes later, after shooting several more takes in which I added supplementary information suggested by Mike, I called the CBS newsroom. Explaining that it was an emergency, I obtained Lauren Van Owen’s home and cell numbers from the news desk. After punching Lauren’s home number into my cell phone, I waited impatiently for someone to answer.

  By then the police search was winding down. The divers had exited the water and were loading their rubber craft onto a trailer, and a number of police cruisers had already departed. “C’mon, c’mon,” I said aloud, absently watching Mike stowing his camera and tripod in the back seat of the Toyota. When no one picked up, I decided to try Lauren’s cell phone. But as I started to disconnect, someone finally answered. “Van Owen residence. Candice speaking,” a young girl’s voice announced.

  “Candice, this is Allison Kane,” I said, remembering that Lauren had mentioned having a daughter. “I work with your mother. May I speak with her, please?”

  “She’s outside. I’ll get her.”

  A thirty-second pause, then, “Allison?”

  “Hi, Lauren. Sorry to call you at home, but I have something on the French case. Something big.” I had mentally rehearsed what I planned to say next, but suddenly it seemed too brazen a move, even for me.

  “What is it?” asked Lauren.

  Despite my doubts, I pushed ahead. “As I said, it’s big. And I have exclusive footage on it. But there’s a condition to my turning it over.”

  “And that is?”

  “It’s my piece.”

  “Of course you’ll get credit,” said Lauren, her tone frosting. “We still have time to get Brent down to the studio and edit whatever footage you have.”

  “Brent’s not going to be part of this. It’s my piece.”

  “Allison, you’re way out of line,” Lauren snapped. “Brent is covering the Jordan French story. Period.”

  “Why can’t I share?”

  “I sympathize, but New York isn’t going to let you waltz in and take over. Not to mention what Brent would say. I made an exception for you once when he wasn’t available—”

  “And it paid off,” I interrupted stubbornly. “Look, I’m not out to steal Brent’s story, but I got this on my own.”

  “Damn it, Allison …”

  “It’s mine. I want it.”

  A long silence. “You say you have footage? Who was the cameraman? Max Riemann? Let me talk to him.”

  “Max isn’t here. I told you, I did this on my own.”

  Another deadly silence. “And this exclusive footage you got—on your own—it’s good?”

  “Better than good. It’s gold. Not to mention that it’s the only real development in the story for weeks. C’mon, Lauren. I want this. Do we have a deal?”

  “What if I say no?” Lauren demanded.

  “I’ll either bury the piece or take it someplace else.”

  “You’re not kidding, are you?”

  “No.”

  Lauren hesitated. “Brent won’t like this,” she said angrily, her voice turning as hard as iron. “But if the coverage you have is as good as you say—and it had better be—it’s your spot. How soon can you meet me in the newsroom?”

  “Thirty minutes. Maybe sooner.”

  “Fine. And Allison? One question. How did you get to be so stubborn?”

  I gazed out over the reservoir, remembering that not long ago my father had asked me the same thing. “It runs in the family,” I said.

  25

  The following Friday Kane sat at his desk in the West Los Angeles station house, having arrived well before the start of his shift. It had been an overcast and soggy week, doing nothing to improve his mood. With an exhausted sigh, he reviewed a list of articles he had hoped to have included on a new search warrant—a warrant that the district attorney had once again refused to authorize.

  Based on the new discoveries at the reservoir, Kane’s abortive request for another court order allowing him to reenter the Frenches’ estate had enumerated a long list of items to be taken, including all plastic garbage bags, nylon cord, and duct tape present in the housematerials similar to those recovered at the reservoir on Sunday. He had also petitioned for the authority to seize any metal-shearing tools that could have been used to cut the reservoir fence, pry bars or other instruments that might have made the forced-entry marks on Jordan’s bedroom window, and any blunt objects like a baseball bat or golf club that could have served as the murder weapon. In addition, he had wanted to recover bolt cutters, padlocks, and associated keys; phone books and magazines; typing paper, envelopes, fireplace ash, and stamps that might be linked to the ransom note; and any personal computers, gloves, or pornography—especially child pornography. He had also asked to be permitted to examine the parents’ clothes, shoes, and cars for blood, hair, fibers, and dirt from the reservoir road. Last, and most important, he had again requested that DNA samples be collected from the Frenches to be compared with the ransom note Touch DNA profile that had just come in—one bit of positive news in an otherwise bleak situation.

  As before, the district attorney had maintained that there was no legal justification to authorize another search, including the procurement of DNA samples from the Frenches.

  And reluctantly, Kane had to admit that the DA was probably right. The rock-filled garbage bags used to weigh down the body could have been purchased anywhere. The duct tape, nylon cord, and unauthorized padlock on the gate could have been purchased at a thousand different places, too. No footprints or tire tracks had been found at the scene, and no fingerprints had turned up on the newly discovered evidence. There was nothing to link any of it to the Frenches.

  Frustrated, Kane had subsequently asked the Frenches to submit voluntarily to another examination of their home and to submit hair and blood for analysis. Responding through their attorney, they had refused. They did, however, publicly offer to work directly with district attorney investigators, provided no LAPD personnel were involved. This impossible stipulation tainted a proposal that to Kane was simply another play for sympathy in the press.

  At any rate, Kane told himself, whatever he had hoped to obtain at the Frenches’ estate had probably long since ceased to exist—and that was assuming the parents were guilty in the first place, something he still hadn’t resolved. As he had told Allison, his brain was telling him one thing; his gut was saying something else. Although he kept chewing on details of the case that didn’t fit, no matter how he went at it, he was having difficulty accepting that Mr. and Mrs. French could have murdered their daughter, trussed her up like unwanted garbage, and dumped her into a reservoir.

  Nonetheless, despite its best efforts, the homicide unit had thus far failed to produce any new leads to the contrary. An investigation of the sex-offender parolee who’d worked for the Frenches had dead-ended, and another suspect caught stealing a stuffed animal left as bait at Jordan’s grave had a solid alibi for the entire weekend of Jordan’s disappearance. Questioning those with keys to the locked reservoir gates, talking with friends and employees of the Frenches’ who had access to their estate, canvasses of the Encino Reservoir neighborhoods, and a general roundup of all known sex offenders in the area had all turned up negative.

  Lacking other avenues, investigators were progressively being forced to revisit old territory—ground long since grown stale. As Kane had feared, without sufficient cause for additional search warrants and stymied by Mr. and Mrs. Frenches’ refusal to cooperate, the investigation had stagnated.

  Making matters worse, the Frenches had recently gone on the offensive by hiring their own investigators, declaring their intention of finding their daughter’s killer themselves. Acting through their attorney, they had subsequently proceeded to inundate the homicide unit with an endless flood of “leads”tips that invariably proved a waste of time, but leads that Kane and his team had to examine nevertheless. Capping off the whole sorry mess, the Frenches were now thr
eatening a lawsuit, naming the LAPD and Detective Daniel Kane as defendants.

  On the positive side of current developments, Allison’s report on the last reservoir search had produced a surprisingly favorable effect on the public’s perception of the LAPD. Airing Sunday night, her report had stressed that police were still working tirelessly to find Jordan’s killer. Kane, of course, took heat on the story from every other news network, as well as from LAPD brass—the former contending that his connection with Allison gave CBS unfair access; the latter accusing him of leaking to the press. To each, Kane’s reply had been the same: That’s not how it happened. And if they didn’t like ittough.

  Kane drained the dregs of his coffee, crumpled the paper cup, and tossed it into a waste can. As he did, he noticed Lt. Long entering the nearly deserted squad room.

  Instead of proceeding to his office, Long perched his bulky frame on the edge of a desk across from Kane’s. “You’re here early,” he noted.

  “Couldn’t sleep,” said Kane. “It still raining?”

  “Pouring. Damn, have you checked the mirror lately?”

  “No.”

  “Well, don’t,” advised Long.

  Kane ran a hand across the stubble covering his chin. “Thanks, Lieutenant. It’s good to know there’s at least one person in the department less tactful than I am.”

  “Dan, why don’t you take some time off? With Kate’s illness”

  “I want to work,” said Kane, cutting him off. “There’s nothing I can do for her at the hospital. If I don’t keep busy, I’ll go nuts. Besides, if I left, where would you find anyone fool enough to take over the French investigation?”

  “Good point,” Long conceded.

  “You know, I’ve worked my share of high-profile cases over the years,” Kane continued, deliberately steering the conversation from thoughts of Catheryn, “but this one takes the cake. I can’t even turn around without tripping over some dirtbag reporter taking pictures and second-guessing everything I do. And assuming we somehow make an arrest and convince our nervous-Nelly DA to take the case to trial, it’s going to get worse.”