Notorious (25 page)

Carson sighed. “It wasn’t my case, but we all worked on it at some point, and we all were frustrated. But I was there initially with Harry Beck when Atherton finally called us. It was a mess. Her body was found in the pool at eight in the morning. Atherton trampled the entire scene, both at the school and at the Ames house. They didn’t call us until six that evening. The body had already been removed by the coroner, the+mePM Atherton police had already contacted her parents who were in New York on a business trip. By the time we’d been called in, the parents had just rushed home and we had no answers, but they didn’t know we had just gotten the case.”

“Did Beck initially suspect Kevin O’Neal?”

“We didn’t suspect anyone. We didn’t know what had happened. We couldn’t even say she’d been murdered—the Atherton police initially thought it was an accident. But after the autopsy, it was clear she was strangled. Then we interviewed her friends at the school trying to piece together what had happened on Saturday night.”

“I remember,” Max said. “We all knew she was dead.”

“Word spread quickly. We had some issues with Atherton PD sharing information. On the surface they appeared to be helpful, but every time we asked for information about disturbance calls to the Ames house or the school, we met with a delay. O’Neal became a suspect because we learned during our interviews that he and the victim had had a nasty breakup two weeks before, and her friends said she was seeing someone else but no one admitted to knowing who.”

Max tensed. She and Nick had talked briefly about William last night, but they hadn’t resolved anything. She remained silent for now, figuring Nick would bring it up if he thought it was important for Carson to know.

But Nick didn’t say anything.

Carson continued. “We interviewed O’Neal and he said he’d been home alone all night. Saturday night? Eighteen-year-old high school senior home alone? Beck didn’t buy it. But there was no forensic evidence to tie O’Neal to the crime, and the coroner’s report was very … vague.”

“Vague?” Nick asked. “How so?”

“The coroner determined that the victim had sex the night she was killed, but sexual assault was inconclusive. It was combined with the other evidence—of manual strangulation—to come up with the theory that she was raped and strangled, possibly accidentally. After the anonymous tip that O’Neal’s car had been spotted at the school the night of the murder, Beck went hard at him. He even posited the theory that O’Neal accidentally strangled her during sex games. Beck just wanted a confession. The DA even offered O’Neal a plea agreement of manslaughter, but O’Neal never waffled. He said he was home, and only that witness put him at the school. If that person had come forward and testified, the jury could have gone the other way, but O’Neal’s lawyer was good. He showed enough reasonable doubt. The case was all built on circumstantial evidence and theories. All the people who testified were young, they testified to O’Neal having a history of fighting, breaking up, getting back together with the victim. One of the victim’s close friends testified that the victim and the suspect had rough sex frequently. No one could confirm that he was, in fact, at home.”

“Did you believe that Kevin was guilty?” Max asked.

Carson didn’t say anything for a moment. “I didn’t believe he was innocent, but I was never convinced of his guilt. It all fit—do you know how many cases I’ve worked where an ex-boyfriend goes after his ex-girlfriend? How many domestic violence situations came across my desk? I’m just glad I found my wife forty-two years ago, before I became old and jaded.”

The waiter delivered their food and after he left, Nick asked, “Were there shook his head. “ aro> any other suspects you looked at?”

Carson shook his head. “Not seriously. We wanted to find the guy who she allegedly was seeing after she split with O’Neal, but no one came forward, and we had no forensic evidence. Her clubhouse, where she spent a lot of time, had prints from a dozen or more people. All her friends who admitted being in the clubhouse the week before she was killed consented to being printed—we did it primarily to match them up, and if a print ended up somewhere it shouldn’t have been, we’d have a suspect. There were no unaccounted for fingerprints in her clubhouse. We also printed her bedroom and all the doors of her house. One problem, though—”

“Atherton PD.”

“I swear, I wanted to fire them all. Half of them searched without gloves. Half of them trampled the area between the Ames house and the school. There’s a gate that passed through between the two properties. It was open, but we don’t know if the killer opened it or if one of the police opened it. We don’t know if the victim was killed in her clubhouse, the main house, and then brought to the pool, or if she was killed in the pool house. We had a theory, which we gave in court, but it was just a theory. A half-dozen other theories could have worked. The one we went with was that O’Neal found out that the victim was seeing someone else; he went to her clubhouse to confront her. She fled, through the gate to the pool house at the school, to hide from him. He tracked her down, attacked her, and when he realized he killed her, he pushed her into the pool and fled.”

“And I always said,” Max said, “that Kevin would never have done it.”

“So you did. You were the only one, other than his mother. But juries don’t listen to the parents of the accused.” Carson assessed her.

“Kevin knew Lindy was cheating on him when he broke up with her.”

“But,” Carson countered, “according to statements, he didn’t know who it was, and was obsessed with finding out.”

“He wanted to know.” She glanced at Nick. She saw in his expression that he was thinking about William—so was she.

Carson said, “You grew up the way I thought you would.”

“I don’t know if that’s a compliment.”

“It is. You were unusually self-confident when you were eighteen. Very self-aware. You didn’t let the prosecutor under your skin.”

“If I told you that Kevin lied about his alibi, and I could prove he was nowhere near Lindy’s house or the school the night she died, what would you say?”

“I’d say either you fabricated evidence, or the killer called in the anonymous tip.”

Max told him about Olivia Langstrom and what she’d said about the night Lindy died. “Kevin told me this the day the jury came back divided. I haven’t spoken to him since then. I told Detective Beck, and he didn’t believe me, but he questioned Olivia and she denied it.”

Carson frowned “I never knew that.”

“When I asked Olivia, she admitted to it. She lied because Beck questioned her in front of her abusive father.”

“Why didn’t she come forward?”

“She claimed she was scared of her father. Kevin said he was innocent and therefore didn’t need Olivia’s alibi. But the shook his head. “ aro> trial and the weight of the hung jury killed him. He left me a letter and confessed to his suicide. He also said he was dying. Proof should be in the autopsy report, which I don’t have.”

Nick said, “I’ll get it.”

Max continued. “Kevin contacted me four months ago saying he had information and thought I could use it to find out who killed Lindy. I had my assistant call him back and tell him I wasn’t interested. He killed himself ten days ago and his sister asked me to come.” She hesitated, then said, “I think he killed himself to force me to come here. He knew he was dying and he thought this was the only way to get me to look at Lindy’s murder.”

Carson shook his head. “That’s disturbing.”

Nick said, “He couldn’t have known you would return. You said you haven’t been home in two years.”

“But he set up enough to entice me. Jodi called me because he sent her a message to call me the night he killed himself. Then he sent her a copy of Lindy’s death certificate with a comment on the back—Lindy drowned.” She stared at Carson, assessing his reaction. “Did she?”

Carson was stunned. “I—I don’t know how he got that information.”

“You’re not denying it.”

“It was never in the coroner report.” Carson let out a long sigh then sipped his coffee as if gathering his thoughts. “There were two coroner’s reports, the preliminary and the official. In the preliminary report, which was never released and never part of the trial, it said there was water in her lungs. That was explained away in the final report as a reflex in a recently deceased victim. Meaning, as soon as the killer realized she was dead, he pushed her in the pool. Involuntary muscle contraction or something.

“But another theory is that she may have been unconscious when she was pushed into the pool, and that she did drown. It’s something the head medical examiner felt would confuse the jury. This was before O’Neal was a suspect, so it wasn’t a personal thing, but a judgment call based on experience.”

“You have doubts?” Nick said.

“I don’t know what happened that night. Usually, when it’s my case, I have to know in my head and my heart that my theory of events is accurate. Then I will fight with my last breath to put the killer in prison. This time—it was like a puzzle piece that didn’t quite fit.”

Carson looked at Max. “Do you have a theory?”

She told him about the diary and then showed him Kevin’s letter. He read it, taking his time, then said, “Well.”

“Someone attacked Max last night and stole the diary,” Nick said.

Carson slid over a file to Nick. “These were my notes on the case. As I said, I wasn’t part of the investigation other than helping with the interviews. But if Kevin O’Neal is truly innocent, I’d start looking into that anonymous caller. We searched for him, but nothing. He used a pay phone and there were no security cameras. It was—damn, it’s not there anymore. Over near where they built the new grocery on El Camino. There used to be a café.”

“Drake’s,” Max said.

“Yeah, that’s it.”#reou>

“We used to walk there from campus. It was an open campus, and Drake would get us in and out fast so we weren’t late. I remember when he shut down.” Max hadn’t been here. He’d been so good to them, and then development and business costs forced him out of business. When she was here for Genie’s funeral, he was open; a few years later, by the time of Thea’s wedding, he was closed.

“There was a pay phone in that strip mall. It’s gone, too.” Carson glanced at Nick. “Do you think Beck will give you the tape?”

“I don’t need Beck. The tape was part of evidence. It’s with the DA’s office.”

“He’s going to find out.”

“Let him.” Nick glanced at Max. “Are you ready for a battle?”

“Hell, yes.”

*   *   *

Two hours later, Max and Nick listened to the 911 tape. The voice, a male, was slightly distorted, almost a whisper, and it was very hard to understand exactly what the caller was saying.

WITNESS: I saw a car at the school where that girl was killed.

DISPATCHER: What is your name?

WITNESS: I’d rather not say.

DISPATCHER: You can remain anonymous, but if you can share your name and phone number it would help us verify your statement.

WITNESS: Well, um, I saw this car. See, I wasn’t supposed to be there, it was way past my curfew. And I saw this car, it was a black Honda Civic. Kinda older.

DISPATCHER: Where exactly did you see the car?

WITNESS: Parked in the lot. Right under the weeping willow tree.

DISPATCHER: Do you remember seeing a person?

WITNESS: No, just the car. I really have to go. Oh—um, one thing. There was a sticker on the back. I don’t know what it said.

DISPATCHER: Sir, if you can please give me your name so I can have a detective talk to you.

The call ended there.

Nick said, “And I assume Kevin had a black Honda Civic with a sticker on the back.”

Max nodded. But she was thinking. Something about that call was very familiar.

Nick’s phone rang. He answered, talked, then hung up. “The surveillance tapes came in. I’m going to go view them at the station. I think you should stay away from there. Beck knows I’m reviewing the Ames case.”

“Promise,” she said.

Nick eyed her as if he knew she was about to do something she shouldn’t, even though she didn’t even know, exactly, what she was planning on doing. “What are your plans?”

“I don’t know. There are all these files to go through. I want to go back to the storage locker and get the rest of Kevin’s things.”

Nick frowned.

“What?” she said. “The guy#reou>’s not going to come after me again.”

“Detective Beck seized everything this morning. I’ve been avoiding him.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I don’t want you to confront him.”

“He has no right to those files. They were Kevin’s, and Kevin gave me the key.”

“He claims they’re documents important to an unsolved homicide. He got a warrant.”

She looked at her desk where the files she’d already taken were spread out. “These are my files, he can’t touch them. I’ll get those back—I’ll petition the court. That bastard. You know he’s not looking for another killer. He never believed Kevin was innocent.”

“I’m not arguing with you, but right now it’s touchy. Just stay away, please.”

Max didn’t want to agree—she wanted to get in Beck’s face. But she had other things to do.

The weeping willow tree.

Only one person she knew would have called the large, old willow tree in the middle of the Atherton Prep parking lot the weeping willow tree.

“I’ll stay away from him. For now.”

*   *   *

Max convinced her grandmother to loan her the two-seater Jaguar Eleanor rarely drove. She took a taxi to the house and avoided a long conversation with her grandmother, before taking the Jag and driving to Andy Talbot’s office. His secretary gave her the runaround, but eventually Max realized he wasn’t there. She left and called him from the parking lot.