The Competition

by Marcia Clark

  “Ready to go?” she asked. “We’ve got another warrant to get to.”

  Otis Barney’s house. I didn’t think we had enough yet, but I didn’t want to get into it with Bailey here, in front of everyone. I followed her down the hall and into the living room. The Jarvis’s sat side by side on the sofa, looking shell-shocked. The uni we’d left there had relaxed enough to move his hand away from the butt of his gun.

  “I probably don’t need to tell you that if you hear from Logan, you should tell him to turn himself in,” Bailey said. “And call us immediately.”

  Bonnie Jarvis nodded vacantly. Brad stared at the floor.

  “Did either of you know a girl named Amanda?” I asked.

  It took a few moments for my words to break through. Bonnie Jarvis shook her head. Brad said nothing.

  “Brad?” I said. I repeated the question.

  He didn’t look up, but he finally answered. “No. I-I don’t recall hearing Logan mention that name.”

  We told them we’d be in touch and said good-bye. We’d have to talk to them again, probably many more times. But there was nothing to be gained by it now. They clearly knew nothing about his involvement in the shooting. The only information they might have for us would be coincidental, and only useful at trial: a stray remark, an unusual behavior—something fairly subtle that wouldn’t have meant much to them at the time. But their minds were too frozen to be able to access those memories.

  Bailey and I headed for her car. Just as we reached the sidewalk, a young woman in heels came clattering toward us. “Detective Keller! Ms. Knight! What can you tell me about this latest development? Did Logan Jarvis have something to do with the shootings?” A cameraman behind her pointed his black lens at us as the woman pushed a microphone into our faces.

  “No comment,” I said. Bailey and I kept walking. I barely restrained the impulse to swat the microphone out of the woman’s hand.

  Another news van roared up the street and disgorged yet another reporter, who tried to head us off before we reached the car, but we jumped in before he could get to us. He was still running behind our car as we pulled away.

  “And that’ll be our lives until we put this one to bed,” I said. I pulled down the visor so I could use the mirror to check out the street behind us. We hadn’t even reached the corner before another news van arrived.

  Bailey looked grim. “I’m going to ask for a detail on Logan’s house. Once the chief pegs him as a person of interest, those parents won’t be able to burp without someone getting it on tape.”

  “Someone better warn them. This might be a good time for them to get out of Dodge.”

  “I’ll call the search team,” Bailey said. She turned right on Ventura, heading toward the Barney house. “So, you ready to work up a warrant for Otis’s place?”

  “It’s still a pretty close call.” We had a connection between Otis and Logan now, thanks to Carson James’s statement, and we had more confirmation that the shorter suspect’s weird laugh sounded like his. But the fact that he was of the same general height and weight as the smaller shooter was a wash. There were probably a thousand boys in the school who fit that description. The neo-Nazi-looking posters on his bedroom wall were ugly, but there was no indication the shootings were racially motivated. Bottom line: getting a judge to approve a warrant was far from a slam dunk. “Did any of the unis get statements about him being into guns? Or making threats of any kind in the past couple of years?”

  Bailey shook her head.

  “Can we get someone to dig into Logan’s computer right now? If Otis is our guy, he should be in there somewhere.”

  Bailey nodded but didn’t look happy about the prospect. “I wanted Dorian to get a shot at lifting prints before we did anything.”

  “Why not ask her to take a look and see if there’s even anything liftable?” If not, then there was no reason why we couldn’t get into the laptop right away.

  “Yeah, good idea.” Bailey gave me a small grin. “And since it was your idea…”

  Dorian hated to be rushed. But I couldn’t back down now. “Fine.” I pulled out my phone and made the call.

  “Struck here,” she answered. From the sounds in the background, Dorian was out in the field. Probably still at the school.

  I told her what we wanted her to do.

  “So you want me to rush my work.”

  “I…ah, well.” There was no getting around it. “Just a little.”

  “Is Herrera at the Jarvis house?”

  “Let me find out.” I asked Bailey whether criminalist Marco Herrera was there. She nodded. I got back on the phone. “Yeah, he’s there.”

  “Then he can do it. But have him call me first.”

  “Thanks Dor—” But I was talking to air. She’d already hung up.

  We headed back to the Jarvis residence.

  20

  The uniformed officers had already set up a barricade to keep the press away from the property. Bailey parked in the driveway this time, so we wouldn’t have to outrun the media when we left.

  We found Herrera setting up at a folding table in the garage, where he’d examine the laptop for prints, hair, and DNA. Bailey called the Computer Crimes Unit and asked them to send someone out to look at Logan’s laptop when Herrera had finished with it. We’d worked with Herrera on our last case, so I knew the CCU guy would have plenty of time to get here. Herrera was, impossibly, even more painstaking than Dorian. I watched him work for fifteen minutes, then had to walk away to keep from pulling my own hair out. Bailey couldn’t stand it either. She went back into the house to check on the search team.

  I went out to the backyard and scrolled through my email. Nothing of any urgency there, which was a relief. Bailey brought our computer expert out to meet me. I’d never have guessed he worked the Computer Crimes Unit. In a beige cowboy hat, jeans, and Western boots, Nick Parsons looked more like an undercover cop—if LAPD was surveilling rodeos. He said howdy—yes, he really did—and when I told him we had to wait for Herrera to finish with the laptop, he said he’d take a stroll around the neighborhood. I was about to warn him that he’d get hounded by the press, but there was something in his eyes that said it was the press that needed the warning.

  Twenty minutes later, Herrera sent a uni to tell me he’d finished and I called out to Nick, who was leaning against Bailey’s car and talking on the phone. Bailey was already in the garage when we got there. Herrera was stripping off his gloves.

  “Find anything?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” Herrera said. “In fact, it looks to me as though it’s been wiped clean very recently. And thoroughly.”

  Bailey and I exchanged a look. Nick’s expression said he was thinking the same thing. If Logan cleaned the keyboard, he probably….

  Nick sat down and began to punch keys. It didn’t take him long. “He wiped it,” Nick said. “There’s nothing here. If you want, I can get into the hard drive, but I’ll need to take it downtown for that. And it’ll take some time.”

  “What are your chances of finding anything?” I asked.

  “To be perfectly honest, ma’am, I wouldn’t bet on it,” Nick said.

  Ordinarily, “ma’am” sets my teeth on edge, but it was stylistically consistent for Nick, so I let it go. I wondered if Graden could bring back our master hacker M. Parkova. She’d come to the rescue when I’d had a computer issue on my last case. But how many times could I get away with hiring a convicted felon? I might already have exceeded my quota.

  The problem was, I’d hoped to find something on Logan’s computer to pump up our probable cause for the search warrant for Otis’s house. “We can still try to get a warrant, but…”

  “But you don’t think we’ve got enough,” Bailey said.

  “It’s pretty dicey.” Some think the more heinous the case, the more likely judges are to hand out search warrants. In fact, it can be just the opposite. A heinous case usually means a high-profile case, and a high-profile case means lots of scrutiny.
No one wants to screw up with the whole world watching.

  “Then I guess we’re stuck with guilt.”

  As in, we try to guilt Otis’s parents into letting us search his room. Banking on getting consent for a search is always my least favorite option, but it was our best—well, really, our only—shot this time.

  “Hey, do we have an ID on either of those boys found in the library?” I asked.

  “One. Lionel Franks. We got him through the DMV database. We’re confirming with DNA.”

  “Any known connection between him and our shooters?”

  Bailey shook her head. “Right now it just looks like a poor kid in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  The thought twisted my gut. I had to take a minute to refocus. “I was thinking, since we’ve got Herrera here, we probably ought to get the Jarvis’s DNA,” I said. “I know Logan’s ruled out as one of the bodies in the library, but you never know when we might need it.”

  “Good idea.” Bailey headed back to the garage to tell Herrera to swab the parents.

  By the time we left the house, the entire block was packed with news vans, making the street barely wide enough for one-way traffic. Bailey navigated carefully as I sank down in my seat to stay out of camera range. It was eight o’clock, and the night air was cold and damp. I looked up at the sky and saw clouds scudding across the moon. I’d worried that the parents might still be at the rec center, but when we got to the house, I saw a car in the driveway and a light on in the living room window. There was a heavy knot in my stomach. I didn’t want to face another set of devastated parents. “You lead off on this one.”

  Bailey parked at the curb in a legal spot—and there was a spot next to a fire hydrant just one house up. That’s how upset she was. “Why me?”

  “Because you’re the investigating officer.”

  “Since when has that mattered?”

  “It has always mattered, Detective Keller.”

  “Then you’ll have to live with the way I handle it. No interference.”

  “Fine.”

  Bailey raised an eyebrow. The truth? I have been known to jump in on interviews on occasion. Okay, on most occasions.

  As we headed toward the front door, I admired the red and white begonias that were planted in a circle in the middle of the lawn. It was a nice, unexpected touch of color. I wanted to study them for a while. Then maybe check out the backyard, see what fun surprises they’d planted there. Basically, I would have washed their windows to avoid the meeting we were about to have.

  21

  Sonny Barney answered the door this time. She looked even worse than before, hollow-cheeked, deathly pale, her hair like straw, she’d aged ten years in just one day. And her eyes were filled with so much pain it sent a stab of guilt through my heart. Bailey asked if we could take a few minutes of her time. Given the way our last meeting had ended, I wasn’t sure how Sonny would react, but she wordlessly stepped back from the door to let us in. We gathered in the living room again. I was glad to see that Tom didn’t appear to be home.

  “Tom’s at the rec center,” Sonny said. “I just came home to get us a change of clothes. She drew in a long breath through her nose and let it out. Then, looking from Bailey to me, she asked, “Do you have any…information about Otis?” Her eyes filled with tears as his name left her lips.

  “We haven’t found him,” Bailey said. “But we have come across some information about a friend of his, Logan Jarvis.”

  Sonny pulled a tissue from a box on the side table, swiped at her eyes and frowned. “Logan Jarvis?”

  “Yes. You don’t know the name?” Bailey asked.

  “No.”

  Bailey looked Sonny in the eye, and I saw the effort it took to maintain that eye contact as she spoke the next words. “We have reason to believe they may have been fairly close. It’s very important that you try to remember any contact your son may have had with Logan, anything he might have said about him.”

  Sonny’s mouth worked silently for a few seconds, like a television that had been left on mute. “Wh-why would that be import—?” Her eyes widened. “You think Logan is one of the…and that he and Otis…” Sonny grabbed her throat. “No! Please, you’ve got to believe me! Otis is a good boy, he’s never been in trouble! We’d have known if he was…having…problems like that!”

  I pitied Sonny. I knew what she was in for, this seemingly decent, loving mother. The world would judge her and Tom, and the Jarvises as well. Maybe, eventually, I would too. But right now, all I felt was profound sympathy. Sonny put a hand over her mouth. “Oh, my God. Listen to me. That’s what those parents said, isn’t it? The ones at Columbine.” She looked from my face to Bailey’s.” Our silence was answer enough. She bent forward, her arms wrapped around her torso.

  Bailey stepped in gently. “We may be wrong, Sonny. Otis may not be involved. But we can’t rule him out unless we get more information.” Bailey waited. When Sonny looked up, Bailey continued. “If he was close to Logan, there should be some communication between them—and it would probably show up on his computer.”

  Sonny slowly straightened up, a defiant look on her swollen face. “Yes, that’s right. There should be. Go ahead, check his computer. That’ll prove you’re wrong! Check his whole room again if you want. We’ve got nothing to hide.” She led us to Otis’s room, opened the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out a laptop with a red skull sticker on the back. “I can give you the password for his email.”

  That was significant. And surprising. But if Otis was sure she’d never snoop on him, he might not worry about what was on his computer. There was no time to call in Dorian or even Herrera to check for prints. If there was information that might lead us to Otis and Logan, we had to get it now. I pulled a pair of latex gloves out of my purse and went over to the laptop. Touching only the edges, I opened it and waited while it booted up. Sonny directed me to Otis’s account and dictated the password. The most recent emails were from commercial websites selling computer gadgets, jeans, and logo T-shirts. About halfway down the list, I found a message from a sender named LJ314. I opened it. There was no text, but there was an attachment.

  It was a photo. And it had been sent the night before the shooting. A smiling Logan Jarvis posed with an assault rifle. One that looked a lot like the gun he’d dropped just outside the gym.

  22

  Behind me, Sonny screamed. “No! How…? It can’t be!”

  “I’m sorry, Sonny,” I said.

  She sat down on Otis’s bed and hung her head. “I don’t believe it. No…it’s not right. It can’t be right. I know it.”

  I put my hand on her shoulder and spoke to her softly. “We’re going to get a search warrant, Sonny. I’m sorry.”

  Sonny grabbed my arm. “You don’t understand. I know my son! I know Otis! That isn’t him! Please, you’ve got to believe me!” She dissolved into tears.

  I didn’t have any honest words of comfort. “We’re going to finish checking out Otis’s computer before we bring in a search team. You can stay and watch…”

  Sonny struggled to her feet and shook her head. “No, I-I need to go lie down.”

  I put my arm around her and led her down the hall to her bedroom. I gave her a glass of water, covered her with a blanket, and asked her for her husband’s cell phone number.

  “No, don’t call him. Please don’t. Let him not know for a little while longer.”

  I nodded and went to Otis’s room. I sat down in front of the laptop and typed “LJ314” in the search bar. There were six other emails from that address, but none with photos. And none mentioned any murderous plans. They were all just routine boy stuff about school, girls, and video games. But Otis might have deleted the incriminating messages up until that last night. By then he was probably too busy putting the final touches on their big plans to remember to get rid of the photo of Logan and his AK. I’d have our cowboy Nick look into it. In any case, the photo, and the timing of its receipt, was damning.

 
Bailey had been looking around the room and now she held up a binder.

  “Don’t tell me we’ve got more musings about Amanda.”

  “No, it’s poetry,” she said. “Or song lyrics. They all look like they’re about world peace and racial harmony.”

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

  “Nope.”

  “Is it dated?” If he wrote it back in junior high it wouldn’t mean much.

  “No. We’ll be able to take it with the warrant, see if there are any references that can show us when he wrote this. But I’d bet we’ll find more of the ugly stuff like that photo of Logan on the laptop once Nick gets into it.” Bailey sighed. “Let’s do another telephonic. You get the judge. I’ll get the search team.”

  I should have felt some sense of satisfaction, of accomplishment. After all, we were pretty sure we’d finally identified both shooters. But all I felt was hollow. None of these parents were monsters. Hard as it was to believe, none of them seemed to have had a clue what was coming. They were shattered by what their children had done. When Tom finally showed up, I could barely bring myself to tell him what we’d found—or that a search team was on its way.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said.

  Tom stood white-lipped and silent for several moments. “No.” He shook his head slowly. “I know my son. Drinking? Smoking dope? Probably. Maybe even vandalism. But this? No way. I know he had some issues, but he could never hurt anyone.” He glared into my eyes. “You’re wrong.” And he walked out of the room.

  I turned back to the task at hand. The sooner we got the work done, the sooner we could get out of their hair and let them grieve. “We got a criminalist coming?” I asked Bailey. She nodded. “Make sure to have him get DNA swabs from the parents.”