False Accusations

by Jacobson, Alan

  Chandler smiled and arose from the chair. “I know what others don’t. That underneath that gruff exterior is a caring man.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Don’t shatter my illusion,” Chandler said, stepping out of the room. “I’ll be with Nick,” he yelled over his shoulder as the door closed behind him.

  He expected to hear Hennessy scream after him—but it sounded like he flung a magazine or book at the door instead. And then it came: “Asshole!”

  The office of Dr. Jason Bloom was newly remodeled: sleek halogen spotlights were recessed into the taupe-colored ceiling, with new hardwood floors and lush upholstered chairs that matched the reception room wallpaper.

  Chandler let out a slight whistle. “Remind me to let Jason pick up the check next time we go out to dinner.”

  As they took a seat, a smile brightened her face. “Remember when I first started seeing Jason? All your friends thought it was weird for us to be friends with your gynecologist.”

  A slight smile spread Chandler’s lips. “Yeah, well, show me five guys who’re man enough to handle with that. One of my college buddies, who I drank beer with and went to Jets games with, was going to be sticking his fingers in your—”

  “Denise?” A nurse was standing at the doorway holding a chart. “Come on back.”

  The examination went well. Dr. Bloom kept the conversation light but professional while he poked and prodded her breast. He felt it methodically and carefully, and then had her lean forward and move her arms into various positions.

  “I think we’re fine. The lump is mobile, it’s small, there’s no discharge from the nipple, and the skin isn’t dimpled.” He reached for a prescription pad from City Radiological Imaging. “I’m convinced it’s nothing, honestly. You know I’d tell you guys if it wasn’t. But for peace of mind, I’m going to send you for a mammogram. It’ll be good to establish a baseline for the future anyway.” He signed the slip and handed it to Chandler. “And while we’re at it, we’ll get a blood draw and run a pregnancy test. Maybe we’ll have some more good news.”

  “Denise wants a girl.”

  Bloom smiled. “Girls and their daddies are a special thing, Chandler.”

  “That’s what everyone tells me. But I wouldn’t complain if we had another boy.”

  “Knowing you,” Bloom said, “you’d probably throw a party.” He leaned over and gave Denise a peck on the cheek. “Keep him in line. I’ll see you guys on Saturday.”

  After the nurse performed the blood draw, they left his office. “This is good, Denise,” Chandler said, taking her hand as they walked to the elevator.

  She nodded weakly. “I’ll feel better once I get the results back from the mammogram.”

  After visiting City Radiological Imaging and getting the x-rays squared away, Chandler hailed a taxi for each of them.

  As the cabs pulled over to the curb, he gave Denise a kiss on the cheek. “I’ve got to put in some time at the lab, and then I’ll be home. I’ve pushed Hennessy about as far as I can.” He took her in his arms and squeezed tightly. “I’m glad I was here to go through this with you.”

  Denise stroked his face with her fingertips. “Me too.”

  When Denise arrived home, there was a message from Jason Bloom on her machine. According to a preliminary reading from the radiologist, the lump appeared to be a benign fibroid mass—which jibed with his exam findings. “So don’t worry, Denise,” the message said. “We’ll follow up in six months and do a comparison. Meantime, I’ll call you with the assay from the lab on the pregnancy test as soon as I have it.”

  Later that evening, after she relayed the results of the mammogram to Chandler, he smirked.

  “I know that look,” she said.

  “What look?”

  “That look that says ‘see, I told you.’ You always think you know it all.”

  He held up a hand. “First of all, that’s not true. No one knows it all. I just know more than most people.” He grunted as the pillow from the couch flew across the room and struck him square in the face. Before Chandler knew it, he was flat on his back. Noah was bouncing on his stomach, Denise was tickling him, and the dog was licking his face.

  He finally rolled onto his side to catch his breath. “It’s good to be home.”

  After dinner, Chandler checked in with Johnny Donnelly again to see if Ronald Norling had been located. Johnny confessed that he’d had no luck with the hospitals, unemployment office, or junior colleges.

  “I checked the utility companies to see if he’d applied for electricity, water, or phone service. Again, nothing. I was beginning to think the PO Box was just a dead end, when sly old Ronald called me asking about his reward. I told him to hold his gombunies, that he’d get it as soon as we got to talk to him. The youngster’s a slimeball, Junior. Not sure how good a witness he’s gonna make.”

  “All we need to do is have him tell the truth as to what he saw and heard. You get a number on him?”

  “Is the pope Catholic? What kind of an investigator do you think I am?”

  Chandler took the number, thanked him, and promised to get together with him soon.

  “I assume we’ll invite your pop along too, right, Junior? Consider it my fee for finding this Ronald fella for you.”

  Chandler was too tired to argue. “Sure, Johnny.” As he hung up the phone, he thought that perhaps it was time to make amends with his father. But that was an issue he would have to deal with some other time.

  The five-dollar “witness fee” that Johnny thought would carry weight became a fifty-dollar advance, paid by Chandler. He had travel expenses to cover, he explained. Once Chandler peeled off the bills and placed them in his witness’s hand, Ronald Norling’s memory became instantly more acute. It was obviously not the first time he had played this game. Chandler wondered about Ronald’s background: where he came from, what trouble he’d been in, whether or not he had a record...things that would become credibility issues were he to testify. But that was all information he could glean from the computer at the precinct.

  Right now, he had to find out exactly what Ronald saw that night in the supermarket, and how well he remembered it. He had brought a picture of Harding along, as well as a picture of Denise and Denise’s sister, Shari Moore. Before committing Hellman to a witness, he wanted to be absolutely sure that this cocky twenty-year-old could at least identify the suspect from a photo.

  “As I explained to you on the phone, I need information regarding an incident that occurred while you were employed at Food & More.” Chandler pulled out his phone and poked and scrolled his way to the voice-recording app.

  “Whoa,” Ronald said. “What are you doing?”

  “Recording what we talk about. It’s for my boss, to prove that I was here and did what he’s paying me to do. This way, he can also listen to what you said so you don’t have to go through all of it again. You okay with this?”

  “Yeah,” Ronald said with a shrug. “But if I don’t like what we say, I want you to delete it.”

  Chandler nodded. “I can live with that.” He tapped the screen and started recording. “This is Ryan Chandler and I’m in Rhode Island at the rest stop along Interstate Ninety-five, near Hope Valley. I’m interviewing Ronald Norling, a former clerk for Food & More in Sacramento, California. This is being recorded on Saturday, January 9, at nine-fifteen in the morning.” He looked up at Ronald. “Ronald, you understand that we’re recording this, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And so far all we’ve discussed is the need to record this, and the fact that we’re going to talk about an incident you may have witnessed while employed at Food & More, is that correct?”

  “Right again.”

  “Do you remember a shouting match that occurred in the market between a man and a woman in late November?”

  “The market’s in a real nice neighborhood, so we didn’t get much problems. But late November...yeah, I remember some crazy lady. She was screaming at this guy. She was real n
asty, like out of her mind. Just screaming at him. I felt bad for him.”

  “I have pictures of three women here,” he said, handing him the photos. “Do you see the woman from the store in any of them?”

  “Yeah, that’s her,” Ronald said, popping gum between his teeth. “A real piece. I won’t forget that face. Or that body,” he said with a smile that rose slightly from the corners of his mouth.

  “Ronald, can you turn that picture over, the one of the lady you said was in the store? And read me the name that’s written on the back.”

  “Brittany Harding.”

  “Now turn the other pictures over and read me the names.”

  “Denise Chandler...and Shari Moore.”

  “Do you remember what the lady in the picture—Miss Harding—said when she was screaming in the market?”

  “Yeah, something about getting even. Like ‘You’ll pay for this. I’ll make you pay for this.’ She said he raped her or something. But you look at this guy, and you think he’s not the kind of guy who goes out and rapes someone.”

  “You remember anything about what she bought that night?” The second most important question...and Chandler needed a home run on this one.

  Ronald stood there and thought for a moment. “Not really. Just some food. There weren’t too many things. It was a cash-only fifteen-item limit line. Oh, she had beer. A six-pack. That black and gold label, what the hell’s the name of it?” he asked, gazing off at the freeway. “Not Miller, but—Millstone. That’s it. I thought like, what’s a lady like this drinking a dark beer like that? I even asked her about it. You know, just to calm her down, take the edge off. She was pretty wound up.” He laughed. “She nearly took my head off. Told me to mind my own fucking business. Said she has a right to drink anything she wants. She’s got a real mouth on her, for a lady, I mean.”

  “What did you say to that?”

  He laughed. “I didn’t argue with her. I just wanted her off my line. She gave me the creeps. She’s like the kind of person you worry about pulling a gun out of her purse and blowing your head off.”

  Chandler thanked him and ended the recording.

  He told Ronald that he might need to ask him some more questions, took down his address, and gave him his card. Ronald studied it, seemingly intrigued by the title of forensic investigator.

  “Maybe you can come by my lab one day when you’re in town. I’ll show you around, what we do.”

  “Hey, that’d be cool. You’d do that?”

  “Sure. Just call me so I know you’re coming. I’ll need to get clearance.” Chandler suspected that there weren’t too many people in Ronald’s life who took an interest in him simply for Ronald’s sake.

  They shook hands and Chandler left. He phoned Jeffrey Hellman once he got back in his car and gave him the good news. That night, he emailed Hellman the audio file.

  CHAPTER 51

  THE REMAINDER OF THE THREE weeks passed quickly for Chandler. He became engulfed in his cases again, working with Nick on the flood-tainted evidence to see if there was some way he could salvage the state’s case against Bobby Lee Walker. He went back to the crime scene, the victim’s apartment, and was able to secure an intact latent print from the underside of the coffee table near where the victim was found. With this sole piece of evidence, the prosecutor was going to go to the grand jury to try to secure an indictment. There was motive, and all they had to do was place the suspect at the murder scene.

  The indictment came down, and again Chandler’s back was patted for his fine work. Hennessy growled and grumbled at Chandler’s luck, at the same time marveling at his natural talent for finding a way to fix whatever went awry.

  Denise’s pregnancy test was positive, elating both of them as they began discussing the changes a new child would bring to their lives. But despite the numerous diversions, as the days passed, Madison’s case returned to the forefront of Chandler’s thoughts. Although he had marked the date on his calendar as a reminder to call about the DNA test results, his internal clock was ticking way, poised to notify him like an alarm chronograph to beep at a predetermined time.

  It had been nearly two weeks since the Madisons had seen Hellman when Leeza called to invite him over for dinner. He arrived early, with a bouquet of flowers in one hand and a medium-sized box in the other. “I know how much you love dark chocolate. I saw this tort in the market when I was picking out the flowers and couldn’t resist.”

  “A tort,” Leeza said. “Is that a little lawyer joke?”

  “Apparently, very little.”

  Leeza laughed, then took the flowers and planted a kiss on his cheek. “Maybe we’ll skip dinner and go right to the dessert.”

  “No word yet,” Hellman said. “But we should be hearing soon.” Hellman removed his suit coat and tossed it over the back of the couch. “My stomach has more knots than a roomful of men wearing ties.”

  “I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”

  Madison walked into the room and gave Hellman a pat on the back. “Any news?”

  “Nothing yet.”

  “So how is all this going to work, with the DNA?” Leeza asked.

  Hellman took a seat at the dining room table. “If they don’t match Phil’s DNA to the DNA on the beer cans, the prosecution would have no choice but to reopen its investigation and essentially look for another suspect—something they don’t want to do because it’d make them look inept. But if that’s the way it goes down, I’ll force them into it.” Hellman lifted a tray of chicken and placed a breast on his plate beside the yam and string beans. “If Harding’s DNA matches the DNA in the saliva on the beer cans, you’ll be able to rest even easier—because then I’d be able to accuse Harding with absolute certainty: I’d know the winner of the horse race before the starting gun was fired. The case would likely be dropped against Phil.”

  “If the beer can DNA doesn’t match mine, will they immediately dismiss the charges?”

  “Denton won’t dismiss against you until he’s reopened his investigation and charged a new suspect with the crime. He’ll probably try to dig up some more evidence on you while they investigate Harding. Once he sees that video and hears my theory as to what she’s done, I think he’ll listen. He’ll probably go before a judge and request a search warrant based on motive and all the corroborating evidence we’re going to give him. The warrant will enable the detectives to get a sample of hair and blood from Harding for DNA testing.”

  “Will the judge give him the warrant?” Leeza asked.

  “We’re getting a little ahead of ourselves, but I think there’s a good chance he would. But nothing’s guaranteed. It depends on how Denton presents it. Which I guess means it depends on how much Denton believes that she framed you. And then there’s the variable of the Judge. You don’t know who you’re getting, and if you’re catching him or her on a good or bad day.”

  “For a system that’s supposed to be objective,” Leeza said, “there’s sure a lot of subjectivity. I don’t like all those ‘ifs.’”

  “I know, but we’re real close,” Hellman said. “I have to think things are going to go our way.” He rubbed at the beard stubble on his face. “One thing we haven’t covered yet, though. Denton’s gonna ask me how Harding was able to steal your car without the alarm going off. Because if she set it off, for sure you would’ve heard it. Any thoughts?”

  Madison shrugged. “Obviously she did it, so there has to be a way.”

  “I can accept that, but Denton won’t.”

  “She must have had the key,” Leeza said. “That night when she was here, she must’ve taken it.”

  Hellman looked at Madison. “What key?”

  “Leeza couldn’t find the spare key to my Mercedes. We kept it by the phone in the kitchen.”

  “And it’s gone?”

  Leeza nodded. “I even checked with Ryan. He hadn’t seen it either.”

  “Okay,” Hellman said. “Denton should accept that.”

  Their attentio
n was suddenly diverted as Elliott and Jonah came downstairs with their Masters of the Galaxy swords and costumes on.

  “C’mon, Dad. Let’s play!”

  Madison looked over at Leeza.

  “Oh, go ahead. I’ll keep your dinner warm.”

  He wiped his mouth with a napkin and then took off after the boys, chasing them through the living room and dining room, around chairs and underneath the table before finally catching them.

  Leeza turned to Hellman. “It’s time to put this matter to rest, Jeffrey.”

  Hellman looked at Madison wrestling with the boys on the floor, and then nodded.

  CHAPTER 52

  IT WAS A Monday morning, two weeks and five days since Kurt Gray had begun testing the samples. Trying to keep focused, Chandler went to the lab and pretended to work; Nick sensed what was bothering him—Chandler had told him all about the case when he first returned to New York—and he tried to take his partner’s mind off it.

  A couple days shy of three weeks, Chandler couldn’t wait any longer. He glanced at his watch. Given the time difference, it would be a few hours before the Sacramento lab would be open.

  At eleven o’clock, Chandler walked over to his desk and dialed Palucci.

  “Lake Tahoe cabin, huh?”

  “I needed him to run the test, Lou, and Gray was being a total asshole.”

  “Why, because he wanted to go by the book? Things are different out here, remember? You used to work here. All that New York smog has clouded your judgment or something. This could really get me in deep shit if it ever got out—”

  “Lou, I’d love to shoot the breeze with you, but the wait is killing me. I haven’t slept in three nights.”

  “Your guy is clean. No match on the DNA. But that other sample is another story. Whoever’s DNA that was is a dead ringer. Good match with the saliva on the beer cans.”

  Chandler sighed relief. “Lou, you’ve just helped bring the wheels of injustice to a grinding halt.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s not for publication. Just keep it between you, me, and the bedpost, will you?”