Snap Judgment (Samantha Brinkman Book 3)

by Marcia Clark

  Alex squeezed the steering wheel. “Then I guess we’d better hope Barth gives us something to work with.” He glanced at me. “You think there’s any possibility he killed Roan?”

  I wished I did. “I hate to say it, but I agree with Rusty. I’m just not feeling it.”

  We made it to Twin Towers just after nine thirty. It had occurred to me that Barth might not want to see me, so I’d asked Alex to make sure his uncle, Tomas, contacted him first thing in the morning to start arranging his bail. And, of course, to make sure Tomas told Barth that we were the ones who’d sent him.

  It took an hour for us to get in to see him. Alex and I took the cubicle at the end of the row. The Plexiglas that separated the lawyers from the inmates looked like it hadn’t been cleaned since George Bush was in office. The first George Bush. A few minutes later, a guard led Barth to his seat. Those orange jumpsuits don’t do anyone any favors, and Barth was no exception. His face looked like a deflated basketball, and his eyes were so bloodshot and swollen I wasn’t sure whether he could even see us.

  I picked up the phone, and he did the same. “You get any sleep at all?”

  His voice was a hoarse croak. “No. But thanks for sending that bail bondsman. He said he’d have me out by the end of the day.”

  On the way over, I’d wondered whether anyone had told him about our part in his arrest. It didn’t seem so. I supposed he figured the police stumbled on his hit-and-run while they were poking around on Roan’s case. As if they’d ever be that smart. “Good. Now I need a little help from you. I know they cleared you on Roan, but do you have a theory on who might’ve killed him?”

  He glowered at me. “You mean, other than your client? No offense, but if he’s so innocent, why’d he get a lawyer before anyone even started to question whether Roan’s death was a suicide?”

  I gave him a flat look. “’Cause they were questioning it. They always do. And because he knows that getting a lawyer doesn’t mean you’re guilty.” I looked at him pointedly. “Just like not having a lawyer doesn’t mean you’re innocent—now does it?”

  Barth dropped his gaze, and his shoulders slumped. “I guess not.” After a moment, he looked up. “You know, there is one thing . . . I was afraid to tell you about it before. It involves Roan.”

  Just as I’d thought. He’d been holding out. Most likely because, given that hit-and-run, he wanted to stay as far away from any association with Roan as he could. “Did he find out about you and Alicia?”

  He frowned. “I . . . I don’t really know. He might have. The last time I saw Roan was the day Alicia broke up with him.”

  “He told you she’d broken up with him?”

  Barth nodded. “And then he said he’d found out something gnarly about her, something she didn’t know. Something that’d really . . .” He made air quotes. “Mess her up.”

  “And he was planning to tell her . . . why? To get revenge?”

  Barth nodded. “She hurt him. He wanted to hurt her back.”

  Alex pointed to the phone, and I handed it to him. “Did you tell Alicia about it?”

  Barth rubbed his forehead. “I never got the chance.”

  We tried to get him to guess what Roan was referring to, but he said he had no idea. I probed a little further, tried to get him to think, even threw out a few suggestions—like maybe something to do with her father or mother—but Barth really didn’t know.

  He shook his head. “I have no clue. I certainly didn’t know anything quote, unquote, gnarly about Alicia.”

  He was obviously telling the truth. I had to let it go. I thanked him and was about to say good-bye when he said, “Just one more thing. Would you consider representing me?”

  Since Alex and I were the reason he was in jail, one might say that created a bit of a conflict of interest—to put it mildly. And he was bound to find out about that sooner or later. “I really can’t do that, but I can recommend someone for you.”

  I gave him the names of a couple of really good lawyers who wouldn’t gouge him. Then I wished him luck, and we left.

  Alex and I tried to imagine what the “gnarly” thing was that Roan had found out about Alicia. I remembered that the people who knew him had all said he knew his way around a computer. “He must’ve found something on the Interweb, don’t you think?”

  Alex was annoyed. “If he could find it, then so could I, and I haven’t found anything even close to ‘gnarly’ on Alicia. I think he was full of crap. He just wanted Barth to tell her what he’d said so she’d freak out.”

  I detected a note of professional pique in his voice, but he had a point. “Gaslighting her does sound like something that would be up Roan’s alley. But you weren’t trying to find any blackmail material on Alicia. Let’s give it a shot. We’ve got nothing to lose.”

  Alex didn’t look enthused. “Okay. But Roan made it sound like it was a pretty big deal. If it were for real, then why would he bother to do the revenge porn?”

  “Roan hardly seems like a model of restraint. From what I can tell, he’s a scorched-earth kind of guy. Why wouldn’t he do both?”

  Alex sighed. “I guess when you put it that way . . .”

  My cell buzzed with a text. It was Dale. It read, Call me from a landline. I’m at home.

  I could feel the sweat break out on my chest and neck. He’d said he was going to take the day off and go see Tiffany this morning. If she wasn’t willing to cooperate, we were in big—as in huge—trouble. I didn’t have a backup plan, and we were running out of time.

  As Alex pulled into the garage, my temples were throbbing. I tried to act calm as we headed up to the office, but the moment I walked in the door, I sped past Michy with a quick hello and raced into my office as I told her I had to make a call.

  I punched in Dale’s number with a shaking hand. When he picked up, I didn’t even say hello. “Did you see her?”

  His voice sounded heavy. “Yes.”

  Was he really making me ask? “And?”

  He hesitated a moment, then said, “She’ll do it. But now that she knows who we really are, she wants someone to find out whether Tammy actually has been getting abused. Guess your cover story hit a little too close to home.”

  Relief spread through me. “That’s what makes it a good cover story. Hank came through for me. I got the names of the feds. Liam Fonsecker and Noah Lavergne. I got their numbers, too.” I gave them to him. “When are you going to call?”

  He blew out a breath. “Now, I guess. No reason to wait.”

  The other part of what Dale had said sank in. “How’re we going to get an investigation going on Tammy?”

  Unless he had some personal friends in Riverside PD, we were screwed. Dale had no jurisdiction in Riverside, and I’d already lied my way into Shelly’s house. If I went to the Riverside cops, I’d have to tell them I’d lied to her—and then I’d have to explain why. The truth—that Cabazon was extorting me—obviously wouldn’t fly, unless I didn’t mind being dead. And at this point, I still did.

  I heard Dale’s vacuum cleaner start up. He said, “I don’t have any connections in Riverside PD. So I guess I’ll have to dig around and see if I can find someone who does. But that’s going to have to wait. Right now, I need to sell our story to my new best friends, Liam and Noah.”

  When we ended the call, I started to pace. As I walked in circles around my office, I kept imagining Liam and Noah telling Dale to go screw himself. My office was small, so the circles were tight. After half an hour, I was dizzy. My mind turned back to Barth’s new information, the “gnarly” thing Roan thought he had on Alicia. I didn’t know how it would help us find another suspect for Roan’s murder, but it was the only thread we had to pull—so we may as well pull it.

  I went to Alex’s office. He was deep in concentration on his computer. As I’d expected, he was already mired in the problem of figuring out what Roan might’ve had on Alicia. I had a more pedestrian way of doing that. “Why don’t we just try talking to the friends and family
?”

  Alex looked perplexed. “If it was so secret that Alicia didn’t even know, why would they?”

  I’d thought of that. “Because maybe Roan told them.”

  He seemed skeptical. “Why would he do that? If he wanted to freak her out, wouldn’t he want to be the first to tell her—and enjoy seeing her suffer?”

  I shrugged. “In theory. But he might’ve let it slip by accident. And we should ask her parents. Maybe they knew.”

  Alex still didn’t love the idea. “Graham and Sandy are a good idea. The others . . .”

  The others were a long shot. “But it’s just a few phone calls.” I told him I’d take Miguel and Roan’s brother, Scott. And, of course, Graham and Sandy. They needed some extra hand-holding now that the coroner had ruled the manner of Roan’s death inconclusive and backed off his preliminary finding that it was a suicide. Alex said he’d take the rest.

  The calls kept me busy for the rest of the afternoon—which was a good thing. But it turned out Alex was right. Neither Graham nor Sandy, nor anyone else, had heard about the so-called gnarly secret. Roan hadn’t mentioned anything to anyone—other than Barth.

  That made me wonder if maybe there was no secret. Roan was a control freak and a manipulator. As we’d theorized before, Roan might’ve been using Barth to gaslight Alicia. I could see Roan thinking that the mention of a “gnarly” secret would seem more credible if it came from Barth rather than directly from Roan. Or maybe Roan thought hearing about an ugly secret would turn Barth off.

  I supposed it might’ve been both.

  But the way Barth had described the conversation with Roan made it seem like the secret was real.

  And I had no clue how to figure out what it was.

  FORTY-ONE

  I’d arranged to meet Hank for dinner downtown that night, and I’d planned to leave early so I could swing by the PAB and ask Dale how it’d gone with Liam and Noah.

  When I’d called him in the afternoon, he’d cut me off and said, “Why don’t you come by the office?” His way of telling me he was too paranoid to even talk on a landline. Jeez. This was getting so crazy.

  But by the time I’d finished my phone calls, it was almost six o’clock—too late to catch Dale. I’d be lucky if I even made it to dinner on time. I put on my coat and scarf and went out to Michy’s desk.

  She looked at her watch, then at me. “Kind of pushing it, aren’t you?”

  I sighed. Time management was not my strength. “I’ll call Hank from the car.”

  Michy rolled her eyes. “Did you get anything on that so-called gnarly secret?”

  I shook my head. I was frustrated and feeling down. “Nothing. I’m starting to think it’s all bullshit.”

  “Or maybe it’s for real, but you just haven’t hit the right person yet.” Michy pointed to the door. “Think positive for a change.” She gave me a look of exasperation. “Go. You’re gonna be late.”

  I was, but only by about five minutes. Hank had suggested we splurge and go to Drago Centro, an elegant Italian place with great art and classic jazz playing in the background. It was nice to be able to just hang out and catch up on life.

  We touched only briefly on work when she asked if the feds, Liam and Noah, were any help with Diego Ferrara. I told her that I hadn’t talked to them yet. At least that much was true.

  It was a pleasant evening, but when we parted company, I felt restless. Maybe it was because I hadn’t been able to reach Dale—or maybe it was just that there were so many questions still unanswered. Whatever the reason, I wasn’t ready to go home. I wanted to do something.

  I drove through downtown thinking about what Roan’s secret might be and found myself on Jefferson Boulevard, heading toward USC. I drove past Diana’s place and had just turned onto Denker Avenue when I noticed an older man hurrying down the street. You don’t see many people walking in LA at any time of day, let alone at night, so it caught my attention. As I drove past him, I looked in my rearview mirror—and almost ran a stop sign. It was Graham.

  I crossed the intersection and pulled over. As I continued to watch in my rearview mirror, I saw him go to the apartment building on the corner and press the buzzer. That was Davey’s place. Why on earth was he visiting Davey? And why was he walking to the building when there were parking spaces right in front? I saw him press a button near the door. I rolled down my window to try and hear who answered. But I never heard a voice. All I heard was the buzzer that unlocked the door. Graham quickly opened the door and went inside. I drove around the block to see where he’d parked. I spotted his silver Mercedes around the corner, on West Thirty-Eighth Street. Every bit of this seemed weird to me.

  I drove home trying to figure out what was going on. I could well understand that Graham and Sandy might want to talk to Alicia’s friends, hold on to any part of her that they could. And her time in college had been the only part of her life they hadn’t been involved in.

  Still . . . it was strange, this visit. I thought about it all the way home, and as I got into bed, I made a mental note to talk to the rest of Alicia’s friends and find out if Graham had paid them a visit, too.

  It might be no big deal. But I’d learned from hard experience that what I didn’t know could—and usually did—come back to bite me. I never let a question go unanswered if I can help it.

  Sheer exhaustion won out over my usual nightly horrors, and I slept until the alarm woke me at seven thirty. I wanted to stay in bed and luxuriate in the feeling of having slept like a normal person, but I had to be in court by nine thirty for a status conference on an attempted murder case.

  My client, Julia Schneider, had pulled a gun on her asshole ex—who happened to be a girl. I’d been threatening the prosecutor, Sherman Flynn, that if he made me take this to trial, he ran the risk of a straight-up acquittal. The ex was a real piece of work. When Julia broke up with her, she’d tried to run Julia down in her car, then slashed Julia’s bicycle tires. The gun-pulling incident happened during a fight over the split-up of property, when the ex tried to take Julia’s signed Mark Ryden print.

  Since this was my only court appearance for the day, I brought a pair of jeans and boots to change into later. I planned to head out to USC to talk to Alicia’s friends after I got done. I made it to court with time to spare and used every minute of it to plant fear in Sherman’s heart. I showed him a photo of Julia and the ex—who was twice her size. “You think the jury’s going to blame her for pulling a gun? And just so’s you know, I’ve got witnesses who’ll say your star ‘victim’ was a bully who’d knocked her last girlfriend around.”

  He stared at the photo. “Who are these witnesses?”

  I shook my head. “Uh-uh. No sneak previews. You’ll find out when we get to trial.” It was a bluff. I had no witnesses.

  His knee began to bounce. “I’ll give you an ADW.”

  I folded my arms. “Nope. Simple assault and probation. Or get ready to put twelve in the box.”

  Sherman swallowed hard. “I can’t deal it that low. I’ll get killed.”

  But I knew he wanted to. I said I’d give him time to sell his boss on the deal, and we put the case over for a month. Julia wasn’t in custody, so she was fine with the delay.

  I headed to Nomie’s dorm and caught her on her way to work. I told her I’d only need a couple of minutes. She told me to meet her at Lemonade.

  By the time I got there, she was already behind the counter. Fortunately, it wasn’t busy. I had only one question. “Did Graham or Sandy contact you recently?” Nomie nodded. So maybe the visit to Davey wasn’t so strange after all. “Do you mind telling me when, and what they wanted?”

  She stirred the vat of soup. “Not at all. It was just Graham. He called last night. He said Roan had claimed to know something about Alicia, some secret. He asked me whether I knew anything about it.” Some customers came in, and she lowered her voice. “I told him I’d never heard anything like that. It’s so bizarre.”

  Amen to that. So he’d ca
lled Nomie after I’d asked him about Roan’s supposed “gnarly” discovery.

  I didn’t like the fact that he’d done that, but I couldn’t say it was suspicious. Moving on. I knew Alex had already asked Nomie if she’d heard about the secret, but I couldn’t resist taking another run at it. “Do you think Roan really did have something on Alicia? Or was he just screwing around?”

  She lifted her hands, palms up. “Who knows with Roan? I don’t put much past him.”

  No argument there. “Do you know whether Graham talked to anyone else about that?”

  Nomie tapped a finger to her lips. “I think Diana said he’d called her, too.”

  Some more customers came in, and I saw the manager dart a look our way. I had to wrap this up. I asked her whether she’d spoken to Graham at any other time. She said she hadn’t.

  “Do you know if he spoke to Diana last night?”

  Nomie noticed the manager, too. “Yeah, he did. I’m guessing he talked to all of us.”

  I thanked her and stepped away to let the paying customers through. Then I went back to my car and called Graham. I caught him as he was on his way to meet one of the partners of his firm for lunch.

  He said, “We’re going to BOA Steakhouse, not too far from your neck of the woods. You want to join us?”

  About as much as I’d like to go skinny-dipping in a swamp. Civil lawyer shoptalk is nowhere near as exciting as watching grass grow. “Thank you, but no. I just have a quick question. I hear you’ve been talking to Alicia’s friends?”

  I heard an elevator ding in the background. “Yes, I wanted to know what they thought about Roan’s secret, whether he’d said anything to them about it.”

  It was never good to have a client play detective, but Graham was clearly not the kind of client who took direction well, so there was no point in telling him to knock it off. In any case, it was too late to do anything about it now. “Did they have any ideas?”