Guilt by Association: A Novel

by Marcia Clark

  The receptionist buzzed us in, and a nurse escorted us back to an office at the end of the examination rooms. Densmore was standing next to the desk. Through the window behind him, the late-afternoon light was beginning to fade.

  “I’ve got another meeting to get to, and based on your track record, this is going to be yet another dead end. So make it fast,” Densmore said irritably.

  “I don’t know if your office administrator, Evelyn Durrell, told you, but—,” I began.

  Densmore cut me off abruptly. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been in meetings all day. No one’s had a chance to tell me anything. What is it?”

  “We have reason to believe that this man may be involved in the assault. We’d like to know if you recognize him,” I said. Bailey held out the photograph of the AB guy.

  Densmore took it and looked at it. His jaw twitched, then he shook his head. “No. Are you saying he’s the rapist? Or that he’s some kind of accomplice?” Densmore’s voice was tense, angry. But I couldn’t blame him. I’d sound pretty pissed off too if I thought I was looking at the picture of the man who’d raped my daughter.

  Bailey took back the photograph.

  “We don’t know yet,” I replied. “Once we get him identified, we can find out whether his DNA is in the database.”

  Frank Densmore nodded curtly, then looked at his watch and cleared his throat. “Call me when you know something. I’m late for my next meeting.” He picked up his jacket and keys and herded us toward the door, but I stopped with my hand on the knob.

  “Dr. Densmore, we’re concerned as to why this man may have targeted Susan—,” I said.

  “How the hell would I know that?” he interjected angrily. “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to figure out?”

  “We’re not magicians, Doctor,” I pointed out, my voice steely. “You’ve told us that you have no known enemies, and you couldn’t remember having had any problems with patients’ families. We can only work with what we have.”

  “Then you’ll just have to work a little harder, won’t you?” Densmore sniped.

  The only response that sprang to mind would’ve landed me in deep shit with Vanderhorn, so I opened the door and we all filed out.

  “So much for that,” Bailey said as we buckled our seat belts.

  “I suppose after two strikeouts it’d be too much to hope that old Frankie might show us a little love,” I said.

  “That guy wouldn’t have shown us any love if we’d made an arrest on day one,” Bailey groused.

  She was right, of course. But the mention of the two strikeouts had given me an idea.

  “We still have Pickelman in custody?” I asked.

  “Most likely,” Bailey replied. “Want to go see him?”

  “Yeah. Can you get us in now? It’d be on the way home.” Pickelman had been booked into the county jail downtown.

  “Done,” Bailey said as she pulled out her cell phone.

  “Make sure he’s not lawyered up,” I reminded her.

  Bailey nodded. While she tracked down Pickelman, I got to wondering whether I’d see the same guard who’d been on duty when I met with baby gangbanger Hector Amaya. It seemed unlikely she’d be able to recognize me now that I wasn’t in drag, but still. It was not a pleasant thing to wonder.

  43

  We made relatively good time, considering it was 5:15, the height of rush hour. We entered the jail and I tried to hide my face behind Bailey’s shoulder as we approached the sheriff’s deputy seated behind the bulletproof glass. I sneaked a look but couldn’t see well enough to make out who it was, so I listened for the voice as the guard spoke into the microphone to the people ahead of us in line—the sound was too muffled. I knew that logically I had next to nothing to fear, but there was that off chance…. I could feel my scalp start to sweat.

  The gate buzzed, and the people ahead of us moved inside. Bailey strode over to the guard, and I feigned interest in something on the floor as I followed.

  “ID, please,” the guard said.

  It sounded like a man. Encouraged, I lifted my head just enough to look inside. My heart gave a heavy thump. It wasn’t a man. It was she. The same guard who’d been on duty when I’d come in with Luis Revelo. Jeez, what kind of crappy luck was that? Different time of day, but nevertheless there she was. Didn’t she ever take vacations? But it was too late to bug out now. I moved forward and dropped in my ID. This time, I decided to brazen it out, and I deliberately looked straight at her, daring her to recognize me.

  The guard scanned my ID. “You with her?” she asked, gesturing toward Bailey, who’d just stepped through the gate.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  The guard buzzed me in, looking bored.

  I enjoyed the irony of feeling relief at walking into a jail and followed Bailey, who’d found an officer to take us to an attorney room.

  Bailey chatted amiably with the officer, who never asked to search a thing on us.

  When we got to the room, he opened the door. “Here you go. He’ll be out in a sec. You need anything, just holler.”

  In other words, nothing like my last visit. And he wasn’t kidding—it really was “a sec.”

  The county-issued orange wasn’t a good color for Duane Pickelman, but he looked a hell of a lot better than he had the last time we’d seen him.

  “Hey, Duane. How’s County treating you?” I asked.

  “Sucks,” he answered.

  “I heard you cut a deal. Got six months and a drug-rehab program,” Bailey said.

  “Yeah,” Duane replied glumly.

  That Pickelman was quite the wordsmith.

  “We’ve got some questions for you, Duane. But before we get to it, I’ve got to read you your rights. You know the drill,” Bailey said. She went through the routine, then asked if he wanted to waive his rights and talk to us.

  “Depends,” Duane said cagily. “What’s in it for me if I talk?”

  “Get you a better rehab program, maybe let you do work furlough,” I said.

  Duane nodded sagely. “What you wanna ax me?”

  “ ‘Ask,’ Duane. The word is ‘ask,’ ” I said, annoyed. I thought we’d already been over this.

  “Ask.” Duane again complied.

  “Tell us if you recognize this guy,” I said. Bailey held the photo up for him to see.

  Duane’s eyes became saucers, and his jaw dropped. “Is that—?” he asked, his voice squeaking with fear as he put it together. “I d-din’t know, you g-gotta believe m-me!”

  I nodded, guessing what had happened. “He paid you off to let him into the neighborhood, right?”

  Pickelman was gulping air, but he managed to nod.

  “But you didn’t know why he wanted in?” I continued.

  “N-no. N-never.” He stared at the floor, shaking his head as he put two and two together—without even using his fingers. “I n-never woulda done it if I knew he was gonna hurt that little girl.” Duane looked up at us. “Please, you gotta believe me!” he said anxiously.

  I did, actually. He was a pathetic addict, and what few brains he’d been born with had been fried, but he didn’t strike me as cold enough to knowingly facilitate the rape of a fifteen-year-old girl. But I needed to nail down more details.

  “So, the night of the rape, did he pay you off to miss your checkpoints?”

  Duane shook his head. “No. He never said nuthin’ about missing my checkpoints.” He sighed and paused a moment before continuing. “He gave me some real good glass.” It made sense. The man didn’t need to tell Duane to screw up his job. He just gave the security guard a nice load of crystal meth and let nature take its course. Duane looked down at his hands. I could swear he actually seemed ashamed.

  “I got really revved. I mean, I was flying.” Duane paused, carried away by the memory of his high, his shame already forgotten. He looked positively misty.

  “You know his name, Duane?” I asked, holding my breath.

  He thought for a moment. “Uh, Carl
… something.”

  “Think harder, Duane. We need a last name,” I said tensely.

  He thought again. The visible strain of the effort was painful to watch.

  Finally Duane shook his head. “You know, I don’t think I ever knew,” he said.

  I looked at Bailey, and she nodded. That was all we’d get out of Pickelman.

  We stood, and Bailey signaled for the officer to come fetch him.

  “Thanks, Duane,” I said.

  “You gonna hook me up with somethin’? Work furlough, maybe?” he suggested.

  “We’ll do what we can,” Bailey said.

  The officer came and took Pickelman, and Bailey and I got out of there.

  “So close,” I said. I got into the passenger seat and slumped down. We’d learned some, but it wasn’t enough.

  “Don’t worry,” Bailey said, seeing my agitation. “I’ll find the guy. We know he didn’t get those AB tatts hanging out in church. It’s just a matter of time before I get a name.”

  Eventually she pulled into the driveway of the Biltmore. “You want to come in for a drink? Or dinner?” I asked. It was after 7:00 p.m., and the rumbling in my stomach reminded me we hadn’t stopped to eat all day.

  “Thanks, but I’ve got to go back to the office to check up on some other cases.”

  I nodded. “Call me the minute you hear anything,” I said. Bailey saluted, and I got out and headed for the elevator.

  Back in the room, I dropped my coat and purse and perused the room-service menu. The seared ahi tuna and grilled zucchini looked good. I opened a cool bottle of pinot grigio to complement the experience and enjoyed a glass until the food arrived. One long shower later, I was in bed, too tired to even pretend to read a book. I snapped off the nightstand light and dropped into a deep sleep.

  44

  I woke up to the ringing of my room phone at 8:00 a.m. The phone continued to ring jarringly. I picked up the receiver, thinking it had to be Bailey. Only my closest friends called me on that phone, and only when they wanted to wake me up. I was right.

  “Got good news and bad news,” Bailey said.

  “Good news.”

  “Got a name for our boy: Carl Stayner. He has a bust for burglary in Florida.”

  “Perfect! Did Fukai run his DNA against the rape kit?” I asked, excited.

  “And that’s the bad news,” Bailey said, sighing. “Stayner’s not there.”

  “What do you mean, ‘not there’? How could he not be in the database?” I asked, exasperated. How did this asshole keep slipping through our fingers?

  “No clue,” Bailey said, sounding every bit as irritated as I felt.

  “Okay, give me all you got on him. I’ll find out,” I said.

  She gave me all of Stayner’s identifying numbers, and I called the district attorney’s office in Miami-Dade County, where he’d been convicted. After getting passed around a few times, I managed to get the deputy district attorney who’d handled the case, a man named Fred Goins. I introduced myself and explained the situation, then asked if he’d mind looking at my photo to see if it was the same guy.

  “Sure, hang on while I boot up here. And while I’m at it, I’ll send you my photo of the miscreant.”

  He pronounced “miscreant” with three long, slow syllables.

  Within seconds, we were both looking at the photos.

  “Yep. We got the same guy, all right,” Fred remarked as he slurped his drink.

  I agreed. The photo Fred sent showed a man who was slightly heavier, his hair a little shorter, but there was no doubt he was our guy.

  “So what happened, Fred? Why isn’t he in the database?”

  Fred exhaled loudly and said with disgust, “You can thank Judge LetEmGo for that one. True name Lettingail, but you get the picture.”

  I did.

  “Stayner’s attorney argued that since his client was only a thief and hadn’t been charged with a crime of violence, he shouldn’t have to get entered in the database. Judge LetEmGo agreed, said there was no reason to make him endure the ignominy of a buccal swab.”

  Like “miscreant,” the word “ignominy” rolled off his tongue with an unusual mixture of languorous cynicism.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said.

  “Welcome to my world,” Fred replied. “I threw myself a kegger when I got transferred out of his court.”

  “I’ll bet. Congratulations on getting out of there, and thanks for your help, Fred. You’re a gem.”

  “Go get ’em, Rachel. I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help to ya.”

  I was too. We hung up, and I pondered what to do next. I figured I should probably start by getting dressed. The day had dawned cloudy, cool, and a little breezy. I wasn’t sure whether I’d be outside or inside, and I didn’t want to wear that damn bulletproof beast if I didn’t have to.

  I considered what my next step should be. I didn’t have DNA, but I did have photos of Stayner, and we hadn’t finished hitting Densmore’s clinics yet. That meant I’d definitely be outside. I started to burrow through my drawers for comfortable walking-around clothes. I opened my phone to dial Bailey’s number when it rang in my hand. Making a mental note to switch it to vibrate when I left for the day, I pressed the button. “Knight.”

  “News flash,” Bailey said, uncharacteristically excited.

  “Listening.”

  “We’ve got Stayner.”

  I gripped the phone as though it might fly away. “Where? How?”

  “I’ll tell you when I pick you up. Be downstairs in ten.”

  “Make it three,” I said, but I was talking to dead air. Bailey had hung up.

  45

  I’d been waiting a full five minutes when Bailey roared into the driveway and jerked to a stop in front of me. I jumped in and yanked on my seat belt as she zoomed around the circle, barely stopping to check for oncoming traffic, then pulled out onto Figueroa and floored it onto 101, heading north.

  Bailey was in the zone, weaving between cars, flying down the road the way only cops and immortal teenagers dared. It seemed unwise—perhaps suicidal—to distract her with questions, so I hunkered down in silence and consoled myself that I’d have the answers soon enough.

  When we passed through the San Fernando Valley and got off at Las Virgenes, I started to ask where we were headed, but when Bailey turned left, I realized it could only be Malibu Canyon. The narrow road climbed up through the untamed Santa Monica Mountains with hairpin turns, and Bailey was still doing at least sixty-five miles per hour. I held my breath and the dashboard as she careened through the curves. Since I was now fully focused on surviving this ride, I didn’t even want to ask questions. We flew up the mountain in silence.

  We passed through the tunnel at the top of the canyon and had begun our descent down the other side of the mountain pass into Malibu when I saw the flashing lights of police cars, fire engines, and an ambulance. Bailey badged our way through the police perimeter and pulled over on the right shoulder. We got out, walked across the road, and went to the edge of the shoulder, where everyone had congregated.

  I looked down into the ravine. There, nearly one hundred feet below, among the rocks and shrubs, was an old black Escalade, its grille smashed into the trunk of a thick, squat tree. The entire front end of the car had accordioned on impact, and at least one of the branches had broken through the windshield. The driver’s door had been pried off by the Jaws of Life, and a gurney was set up next to the opening. As I watched, two paramedics lifted out a body that had a long, thin branch protruding from its neck.

  “It won’t be too hard to get a DNA sample out of him now,” I remarked to Bailey.

  “Questioning him is going to be kind of tough, though,” she replied.

  We headed down the ravine to see what we could see.

  On the way, we passed the paramedics, who were huffing and puffing as they carried the gurney up the hill. I didn’t envy them their task, but then again, I never did.

  I took in the
grisly sight of the branch that jutted from Carl Stayner’s neck. “Possible DUI?” I asked the paramedic. Stayner wouldn’t be the first or even the hundredth who’d gotten drunk, miscalculated a curve, and wound up airborne in this canyon.

  “Don’t think so. At least, I don’t smell any booze,” he replied.

  I nodded and ran to catch up with Bailey, who was closing in on the wreckage. A group of detectives who’d been huddled around the car made way for her deferentially. It was Bailey’s case; they were just there to look on and help. When I reached the opening where the driver’s door had been, I could see that there was surprisingly little blood, likely courtesy of the branch that had stopped his heart and all bodily functions before his wounds could bleed out.

  Bailey was snapping on latex gloves. “Got any extras?” I asked.

  She patted her pockets as she looked into the car. “Nope. But I can’t move anything until the crime scene tech gets here anyway.”

  I nodded and peered in over Bailey’s shoulder.

  “See that?” I said, pointing to what looked like an old-fashioned motel key on the passenger floorboard.

  Bailey leaned in closer and read off the name. “Surf Motel,” she said.

  The Surf Motel. I knew the place. The unoriginal name was its best feature. It was a ramshackle series of ten connected units that hugged the bluff on Pacific Coast Highway and afforded a commanding view of the Pacific Ocean. It had seen the days that would qualify as its better ones about forty years ago. Now it was an eyesore that inexplicably occupied prime real estate in one of the priciest neighborhoods in the country. I’d wondered whether it was still in operation. I had my answer.

  We resumed our examination of the car. The backseats had been unhooked and latched to the sides to create a large cargo space. I peered in for a closer look and saw a few cans of Red Bull and other smaller items, but the tinted windows were too dark to let me see what they were.

  I was craning my neck when a photographer and three crime scene techs wearing elbow-length gloves and hairnets approached.