Sullivan’s Evidence

by Nancy Taylor Rosenberg

  Hank cut her off, “Just because he’s legit doesn’t mean anything. Guys who have everything get bored. So instead of playing the stock market, he starts killing people.”

  “Where’s the note you said you found?”

  Mary cleared her throat. “The actual note is already booked into evidence, Carolyn. It was typed, so there’s no way to compare handwriting. Here’s what it said, ‘You picked the wrong woman this time.’”

  “I assume you’re the woman, Carolyn,” Hank said, convinced she knew the answers to his questions and was holding out on him. “Is there something you want to tell us? We know you wanted Holden dead. Where were you last night?”

  Carolyn flew off the handle. “Now you think I killed him? First Marcus, and now me! You’re insane, Hank, totally whacked out of your skull.” Her eyes darted to Mary. “Do you think I killed him, too?”

  “No,” Mary said. “You have a point about Troy Anderson. The note may have been an attempt to throw us off-track. We’ll find Anderson and bring him in for questioning.”

  Charley waited a few moments before he interrupted. “If you kids are through fighting, one of my guys found something that might be interesting.” They took a few steps, and he pointed at the sharp edges of the fence. “There’s a small quantity of blood here, and I don’t believe it came from the victim. The killer may have originally intended to bury the body in the lagoon, possibly in the same spot where we exhumed the Sheppard remains. Then he decided it was too much trouble, or, since he left a note, he wanted to make sure someone would find it. I’ve already checked Holden’s body for puncture wounds on the upper torso and didn’t see anything that matches the diameter of the fence wire. The sample looks good. I’ll be able to tell you something in the morning. Who knows? This may be your man from San Diego.”

  Hank turned around and addressed Carolyn, “Were you able to get what we asked for from Marcus?”

  “Yes,” Carolyn said, removing the evidence bags from her purse.

  “Good.” Hank was wondering, How could Carolyn get this involved with a stranger? She knew too much about what was out there to use such poor judgment. “It’s time to hunker down and solve these crimes instead of standing around and talking about them. Where’s Belinda Connors?”

  “She’s already cleared,” Charley advised, referring to the county’s new chief forensic scientist. “Everything’s pretty much done, Hank, and Belinda’s swamped back at the lab.”

  “We need her to run DNA on the samples Carolyn has. It’s vital that we get the results before our suspect skips town.”

  “Which suspect?” the pathologist said. “Carolyn, where did these samples come from? And what procedure did you use to collect them?”

  Mary stepped in. “Its okay, Charley. I went over everything with Carolyn. I’ll log this in right now, so we won’t have a problem with chain of evidence. Carolyn’s accustomed to collecting samples.” She took the blood and the hair from Carolyn, labeled them with the case number and other particulars, and handed them to the pathologist. “There’s a possibility—a slim possibility—that what she collected may contain the DNA of Matthew Sheppard. Just compare it to the DNA you found on the clothes from San Diego.”

  “Leon,” Charley said to a young man standing beside him, “take these to the lab and have Sanders start running the DNA on them as well as the blood from the fence. I’ll give him more particulars when I get in.”

  “Right on it,” Leon said, heading toward one of the coroner’s vans.

  “Sanders works fast,” Charley said, removing his gloves. “I’m going to give permission to transport the body now. Call me tomorrow morning for a status report.”

  Hank had a long night ahead of him. Charley had done his job, but Hank’s was only beginning. Once again, he would see the sun come up over Alessandro Lagoon. He turned his collar up, rubbing his hands and blowing on them. The difference was it was October now and a lot cooler than it had been before.

  Mary went to talk to one of the officers, leaving Hank standing alone next to Carolyn. He took a chance and draped his arm around her shoulder, hoping she wouldn’t pull away. “Let’s look on the bright side,” he told her. “In a few hours, we should be closer to knowing the truth. If it turns out your guy isn’t involved in this mess, I’ll eat crow for the next year.”

  “Your odds may be better than you think,” Carolyn said, turning and walking off.

  When she got to the office Wednesday morning, Carolyn checked her voice mail, finding a message from Marcus. She wondered why she hadn’t heard the call when it came in, and then noticed that the time coincided with her arrival at the lagoon. With all the noise, she must not have heard her phone ringing. Playing it back, she was stunned by what she heard.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t call you earlier,” Marcus’s voice said on the recoding. “We ran into another problem with that new program we’re developing. I’m going to crash here at the office. I miss you, darling. I’ll catch up to you in the morning.”

  Carolyn rechecked the time, then compared it to her watch to make certain there wasn’t something wrong with the clock on the phone. If he’d called her earlier in the day, maybe around three or so, it might make sense. She was with Marcus when the call came in.

  She placed her head in her hands. Did he have another girlfriend, and had dialed her number by mistake? Maybe when he’d told her that he had to work late, he’d been planning to be with this other woman. Then, at the last moment, he decided to see her instead. For security reasons, she had programmed her new cell phone to answer with the number instead of a greeting in her own voice. Even if Marcus wasn’t a murderer, he was an asshole. She should have expected as much. All along, she’d thought he was too good to be true.

  Mary called her. “We got the lab reports back,” she said, panting as if she’d been running. “I’m sorry, Carolyn, but we should have listened to Hank. The blood you obtained from Marcus matches the samples from San Diego. It also matches the DNA from the blood found on the fence at the lagoon. Hank wants you to come down here right away.”

  Carolyn felt as if she’d been struck by a bolt of lightning. Thinking Marcus had another woman was bad enough. That he’d been linked to two homicides was horrifying. A scream tried to funnel its way up from the pit of her stomach. She refused to break down. “Hank’s got what he wants,” she said, still reeling from what she’d heard. “What does he need me for?”

  “We picked up Marcus this morning at his business,” the detective told her. “Hank wants you to be present during the interview. Because of your involvement, he thinks we may get more out of him if you’re here.”

  “I don’t want to be there,” Carolyn cried. What would she tell her children? Her mother? Neil? For the sake of her family, she had to do everything in her power to remain on the sidelines. “Tell Hank I’m not coming. I got you what you needed. The rest is up to you.”

  “I know how you must feel,” Mary told her. “But think of the victims, Carolyn. You’re one of the best interrogators in the county. Not only that, you know this man well enough to trip him up. Merely seeing you will rattle him. His house of cards has finally collapsed. If we work this right, we might get a confession.”

  Carolyn didn’t believe a man as devious as Marcus would confess, not unless someone attached electrodes to his scrotum. He’d spun such an interlocking web of lies, she doubted if they’d ever know the whole truth. The worst was that she was involved by virtue of her romantic entanglement, as well as the information she had provided him regarding the Anderson murder. She was an unknowing accomplice to a homicide. Marcus wouldn’t have disposed of Lisa Sheppard’s body in the lagoon if she hadn’t told him where Holden had buried Tracy Anderson. She must have even told him about the glove. And there was Lisa’s grandmother, Eleanor Beckworth. Holden’s death had been such a relief, and now the worst thing she could ever imagine had happened. The kind of criminal she’d devoted her life to bringing to justice had ended up in her bed. She picke
d up a stack of file folders from her desk and hurled them at the wall, watching as the papers fluttered through the air.

  “Carolyn,” Mary said. “Are you all right?”

  “No, I’m not all right,” she said, pushing her chair back and listening to the file folders crunch and tear beneath her feet.

  “Are you coming?”

  “I’m leaving now,” Carolyn said, knowing she had to see this through to the end.

  Carolyn stood next to Mary, staring at Marcus through the one-way glass in Ventura PD’s interrogation room. This wasn’t the confident, well-dressed man she had known. Marcus’s shoulders were slumped, his face etched with fear. He hadn’t shaved, his hair was disheveled, and his white shirt was wrinkled. Mary had told her that they’d picked him up at five o’clock that morning, so she assumed he’d slept in his clothes.

  She watched as Hank exited the room. When he walked through the door of the observation booth, he thanked Carolyn for coming. “Did he say he was with me last night?” she asked, her eyes shifting between the detective and the glass.

  “No,” Hank said. “He said he was at his office from eleven yesterday until we arrested him this morning. We spoke to some of his employees. Three programmers said they were with him until nine last evening. When they left, he was still working. They claim he’s the only one who can figure certain things out. Makes sense since he owns the business.”

  “That’s a lie,” Carolyn said. “He told me he was going to work late. Then he called and said he would meet me at Neil’s around seven. Everyone saw him…John, Rebecca, Neil. When I refused to have sex with him at my brother’s place, he insisted we go to the Ramada Inn. That’s where I got the blood and hair samples. I left him at the hotel when you called and said you’d found Holden’s body.” Seeing the expression on Hank’s face, she added, “No, I didn’t sleep with him. He went to the hotel with that intent, but all I wanted was to get his DNA. He said he was going home, but maybe he changed his mind and went to the office.” She stopped to think. “Christ, why would he kill Holden? Isn’t the premise that Holden was his fall guy on the Sheppard murder, that once I told Marcus where he’d buried Tracy Anderson’s body, he dumped Lisa Sheppard’s remains there so we would assume Holden killed her?”

  “Marcus may have felt certain that we’d catch Holden,” Mary told her, “and the case would be closed. Things didn’t work out as he planned. You found Holden hiding out at his mother’s house. Then he stirred everything up over the safety deposit key. Not many businessmen would take off after an armed suspect, Carolyn. That’s when I think Marcus decided he had to get rid of Holden.”

  “He could have paid Holden to bury Lisa Sheppard in the same place he buried Anderson,” Hank added. “Maybe Marcus gave him some money up front and told him the rest was in a safety deposit box in his name. I saw Marcus at the bank yesterday. Guess where he’d been?”

  “Safety deposit box?” Mary asked.

  “Exactly,” Hank said. “Holden became a liability, so Marcus killed him. Even the manner of death fits. He wasn’t killed at close range. This wasn’t a strangling, stabbing, or shooting. He just ran the guy over with his car. Marcus didn’t have to worry about blood on his clothes, or any of those nasty little details that go hand and hand with murder. As to the safety deposit box, we’ll have to get a court order.”

  “He still had to move the body,” Carolyn reminded him, not as yet convinced. “If Marcus’s credentials checked out, how could he be Matthew Sheppard? Sheppard had a wife and lived in San Diego. I saw the house where the Sheppards lived and it was a shack. Why would a successful man like Marcus want to live like that? And who was running his business while he was playing cowboy?”

  “Are you implying he was set up?” Hank asked, pulling out a toothpick. “We have DNA, Carolyn. His attorney’s going to be here within the hour. You slept with the guy, so we might as well get some mileage out if it.”

  “Don’t tell me we’re going to start this again,” Carolyn said, her lips compressing.

  “The way things have turned out,” Hank said, “I’m thrilled that you slept with the bastard. Mary and I can’t interrogate him outside the presence of his attorney. You, however, have a valid reason to talk to him. When you go in there, don’t confront him with the things we’ve told you. Act confused and outraged. Pretend you’re on his side. Whatever you do, don’t mention the DNA.”

  “Shit,” Carolyn said, arriving at a sudden understanding. “The DNA evidence is inadmissible. This whole case could fall apart.” She turned to Mary. “If you knew it was going to be illegally obtained evidence, why did you make such a fuss about how I collected it?”

  “Because I didn’t want it contaminated,” Mary explained. “We wanted the test to be valid.”

  “We filed a request for a search warrant this morning,” Hank explained. “I used the photograph of Matthew Sheppard and a photo we shot when we brought Marcus in for questioning. Once the judge signs it, we’ll search his home and collect new DNA samples. Then we can arrest him and start building our case.” He tilted his head toward the interrogation room. “Marcus Wright, or whoever he is, may have killed an untold number of people. This man used you, Carolyn, which I know is a terrible thing. I’m sorry that you have to go through this, and Mary feels the same. There’s not an investigator in the country, though, who wouldn’t jump through hoops of fire to have a confidante with your skills that might be able to crack their subject and make certain a violent predator gets what he deserves.”

  Carolyn was standing as still as a statue, her chest rising and falling with emotion.

  “There’s a murderer in that room,” Hank said, his voice laced with conviction. “He used you as a source of information. He had human remains he needed to dispose of, and he needed someone to take the fall for him. I don’t know if he staged that accident when you first met, or if he just seized the opportunity. All I know is you can either run home and cry about this, or turn this into your finest hour.”

  CHAPTER 37

  Friday, October 20—11:00 A.M.

  Carolyn sat in a chair across the table from Marcus. She was upset enough to look the part of the distraught lover. All that was history now—DNA didn’t lie. “I don’t understand why you’re here,” she said, forcing herself to relax and appear sympathetic. She had to use the tactics she used with violent offenders. Her task was far more difficult, as she’d never been personally involved with a killer. “How could they possibly think you killed these people?”

  “I have no idea,” Marcus said wearily.

  “When you stopped by Neil’s last night, I—”

  “I wasn’t with you last night,” Marcus said, snapping to attention. “I was working at my office in Los Angeles.”

  “We were together,” Carolyn said adamantly. “That’s why I don’t understand the message I got on my voice mail after I left you at the hotel.”

  “Did you sleep with this man?” he asked, his face turning unnaturally pale. “Please, don’t tell me you had sex with him.”

  “Him?” Carolyn asked, genuinely confused now. Was he truly psychotic? If so, how could she have not noticed? “What are you talking about? Since I was with you, you should know if we had sex or not.”

  “Answer me!” Marcus demanded, slamming his fist down on the table. “Did you sleep with this man you thought was me?”

  “No,” she said. “You’re talking crazy. If it wasn’t you, who was it?”

  “I should have told you,” he said, lowering his voice. “I have a brother, an identical twin. I knew he was in the area because of the accident. You crashed into his car, not mine.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Carolyn said, placing a hand over her chest.

  “When I met you at the Holiday Inn,” Marcus continued, “it was primarily out of curiosity. You mentioned a murder when you called me, and I was frightened Thomas might have had something to do with it. Then after I spent time with you, I was certain you’d never see me again if I
told you the truth. I wouldn’t have lied to you about my ex-wife and children. I guess I should have walked away, but there was something between us…you felt it. I’d never experienced anything like that before with a woman, especially one I’d just met.”

  Carolyn’s jaw dropped. “You’re trying to tell me you’re a twin, that the man I was with last night was your brother. Jesus Christ, Marcus, if you thought your brother was involved in a murder, why didn’t you go to the police?”

  “After we talked, I decided Thomas was just fooling around with me again. You were certain Holden was the killer, so I didn’t think there was anything to be concerned about. I’ve always been shy. Thomas is an extrovert. He used to set me up with girls all the time when we were younger.”

  Carolyn stood and began pacing. She shot a wide-eyed glance toward the two-way mirror, wanting Hank and Mary to bail her out before she lost it. Marcus could be a sociopath. Since people like that believed their own lies, they could even pass lie detector tests.

  She reclaimed her composure, determined not to let her emotions sabotage her. “Why would you even suspect your brother might be involved with a murder? Did he have a history of violence?”

  “Thomas was a narcissist,” Marcus explained. “He was used to getting what he wanted. Something terrible happened when we were kids. We grew up in Tarrytown, New York. Our house was on a cliff overlooking the Hudson River. I’m sure it was an accident, but all I know is what my father told me. He said Thomas pushed my six-month-old sister, Iris, off the cliff and killed her.”

  “How old was he?”

  “Five,” he said, moving his head from side to side. “Our mother felt responsible because she’d left Iris in the stroller alone. She moved out, and we never saw her again. I got over it somehow, but Thomas never did. He developed a rejection complex with women. If a girl broke up with him, he smeared her reputation at school.” He stopped, taking a sip out of the glass of water on the table. “Later, when his fiancée dumped him, she said he’d threatened to kill her and boasted that he could get away with it.”