Buried Evidence Read online

  Opening the trunk of the car, he removed a flashlight. At least by striking a pedestrian, he had eliminated any possibility of a paint transfer from the other person’s vehicle. He had to make certain, however, that there were no other incriminating marks or evidence. After checking the body of the car, all he spotted was a small dent on the left side above the wheel. He was certain he could knock it out with a rubber hammer. The last thing he wanted was to have to take the car to a garage for repairs. Tossing the flashlight into the front seat, he plodded up the walkway.

  Seated on the edge of the couch, John turned on the television, flicking through the channels until he found the local news. Afraid he would fall asleep, he made a cup of instant coffee in the microwave, then rushed back to the living room, anxious to see if there was any report of the accident. After listening to a report of a fire in the downtown area near Grand Avenue, a private plane crash near the Burbank airport, and a baby rescued from a trash bin, a pretty blonde reporter smiled into the camera as the words Breaking News flashed across the bottom of the screen.

  “Police are on the scene of a fatal hit-and-run accident which occurred a short time ago at the intersection of Lankershim and Victory Boulevard,” the woman said. “The victim was found…” The boy was dead!

  John splashed the boiling coffee onto his pants, scalding his inner thigh and missing his groin by only a few inches. By the time he turned his attention back to the television, the weather report was on and the banner at the bottom of the screen was gone. He was a contemptible, worthless excuse for a human being. Had he thought of someone other than himself and notified the authorities, they might have rushed the boy to the hospital and saved him. “Too late,” he mumbled, covering his face with his hands.

  A horrifying thought passed through his mind. Like a man possessed, he started sorting through the clutter on the coffee table. When he didn’t find his wallet, he checked his bedroom, the bathroom, the kitchen, even rifled through the trash. Then he returned to the living room and yanked all the pillows off the sofa, shoving his hand in the cracks on the chance that his wallet had become lodged inside. He was certain he’d had his wallet when he left the house that evening. Snatching the car keys off the coffee table, he flung open the door and headed for the car.

  “What’s going on?” Shana appeared in the front doorway in her pajamas. “I finally fell asleep, then I heard you banging around. The living room looks like a disaster.”

  “Please, please,” John said, “go back to sleep.”

  “Why did you take the pillows off the sofa?”

  “I was going to sleep on the floor tonight,” he lied. “Keep a lookout in case the man you saw came back.”

  “You need help, Dad,” she said. “You’re going out to another bar, aren’t you? Were you looking for money to buy booze?”

  “No!” he shouted, spit flying from his mouth. “Leave me alone! You don’t care what happens to me. No one cares what happens to me.”

  “I love you,” she said, coming down the sidewalk toward him. “I can’t let you drive my car, that’s all. You don’t want to go out now.”

  “Here,” he said, pressing the keys into her hand. His heart swelled with heaviness, longing for the days when she’d looked up at him in childlike delight, back when he’d still been her hero. Tears welled up in her eyes. “Don’t cry,” he said, gently wiping her cheek with his finger. “I would have done anything to stop that man from hurting you. You’re a woman now, though. I have to solve my own problems, and you have to go on with your own life.”

  Shana sniffed. “What are you saying, Dad?”

  “Call your mother in the morning,” he told her. “Tell her to make arrangements for you to move into the dorm.”

  “Why? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong, sweetheart,” John said. “Nothing for you to worry about… “

  “Where will you go?”

  “I’ll probably move to a place where the cost of living is less,” John said. “You know, a small town or something.”

  Shana started to protest, but he stopped her. “Everything will work out, angel. Now, go inside and try to get some rest. I just need some time to myself right now.”

  Thirty minutes had passed.

  John had searched the Mustang, but his wallet was nowhere to be found. How long did he have before the police came to arrest him? Would they come during the night, or would the incriminating evidence remain hidden until daybreak? His daughter was aware he’d been drinking. The police would have no trouble piecing the crime together. Nothing much was left to hide.

  He removed a plank on the front porch, pulling out his stash of cigarettes and a paper-wrapped bottle of Jack Daniel’s. Shana thought he had quit smoking years ago, but he still indulged in a cigarette when things became stressful. For a few moments he simply held the bottle against his chest, caressing it like a priceless statue. After his DWI conviction he had attended the mandatory number of A.A. meetings. He knew he was in the throes of addiction, that he possessed what people referred to as an addictive personality. If it wasn’t cigarettes, it was booze. If it wasn’t booze, it would probably be something worse. Shit, he thought, opening the bottle and taking a long swig, he was even addicted to television. Slice about six hours of TV out of his day, and he would have probably sold enough houses to cover his expenses.

  Once the burning sensation passed, the alcohol began to warm his body. He pulled out a Camel and fired it up, the match creating an amber flash in the darkness. The smoke filled his lungs, the nicotine enabling him to comprehend the magnitude of his actions. Standing under a large sycamore tree, he reached up and grabbed onto a branch, puffing out a stream of cigarette smoke. For every problem there was a solution. In the garage was a heavy rope he’d used to strap last year’s Christmas tree to the top of the car. He wouldn’t do it here, of course. He wouldn’t kill himself where Shana would be the one to find him. About two blocks away was a park with trees strong enough to support the weight of a man his size. When your child no longer respected you, your role as a father was over. Burying him would set her free. First, though, he’d finish off the bottle, allow himself this one last indulgence.

  8

  After the harried phone call from Shana, Lily tossed and turned all night, unable to sleep. Waking at five Wednesday morning, she dressed and headed downtown, hoping to get a head start on the day.

  The district attorney’s office was located in a newer building directly across the street from the old courthouse. In addition to the district attorneys and investigators, the building also housed what had formerly been the municipal court. Now that the county of Santa Barbara had its own court system, private attorneys found it difficult to tell if a case was a misdemeanor or a felony simply by the court where the hearing was scheduled.

  Lily classified the architecture of the building where she worked as fifties tacky. It resembled her old elementary school with the blue aluminum trim around the windows, the center courtyard, the cheapness of the construction materials. The building was certainly a contrast to the beauty and history attached to the original courthouse. She’d heard rumors that the city council members were considering taking people on guided tours, and that weekend they were having an art show on the front lawn.

  Located at the end of a long corridor, her office was far from plush. Most janitors’ closets were more spacious. Although the temperature was only in the high sixties, she cranked open the casement window behind her desk in anticipation of the midday heat. Once she began working, her surroundings disappeared.

  Flopping down in a worn black vinyl chair, she placed both of her palms on top of her mahogany desk. In the past Lily could work in the midst of chaos. These days she relied on rituals and organization. She drank out of the same coffee cup bearing an FBI insignia, always placing it on a coaster next to her computer when she left at the end of the day. Every month or so she would carry the cup home and sterilize it in the dishwasher. The rest of the time she si
mply wiped the inside out with a damp paper towel. Since she hadn’t been in the mood to put up a pot of coffee in the employee kitchen on the first floor, as she generally did when she arrived this early in the morning, she’d stopped at Starbucks on the way in and treated herself to an overpriced cup of mocha latte. Dumping the liquid into her FBI mug, she took a sip, deciding the brew smelled better than it tasted.

  The walls of her office were painted institutional white. Due to the age of the underlying plaster and the building’s close proximity to the ocean, several spots were already chipped and the office had only recently been repainted. Other than her certificates and diplomas, the available wall space would accommodate no more than two pictures. One was a Monet print she’d purchased at the Museum Store on State Street. The other depicted a forest, dense with trees, a graceful deer standing next to a stream of shimmering water. This was the image she gazed at when pondering a complex issue. The fact that she had painted the picture herself made it even more meaningful. In the first year after the rape, her therapist had suggested she use art as a means of relaxation.

  Positioned in the front of the painting were two of the ugliest chairs Lily had ever seen, even if her coworkers swore they were genuine antiques. The wood was so hard, she was certain it must have petrified. Of course, everything in Santa Barbara was classified as an antique, including at least fifty percent of the residents. Ancient surfers staggered down the street with parched skin and stringy white hair. Scores of hippies and homeless people had migrated from San Francisco like birds flying south for the winter. The area was also home to hundreds of artists and craftsmen, many of them hawking their wares from concessions they were allowed to set up every Sunday on the sidewalk next to the beach. Then there were the retirees, dressed in their white linen suits, their bow ties, their straw hats, and carrying their walking canes. Mix in the college students with their tattoos, pierced body parts, and outlandishly colored hair, and a person might think they were on a lot inside a Hollywood film studio.

  Lily glanced at her watch, wanting to catch Shana before she left for the day. It wasn’t even seven o’clock yet, so she decided to dive into her work instead. After her daughter had hung up on her, she had attempted to reach her again, wanting to verify that she was okay. The answering machine had picked up, so she had to assume the girl had gone to bed. Lily had then called the police and learned that they had found nothing even slightly suspicious.

  Her thoughts turned to her ex-husband. Perhaps she had been wrong to tell Shana that her father could no longer afford to pay the rent on the duplex. She had told her, however, as a form of payback. When Marco Curazon had been paroled, she’d informed John merely as a precaution. She had never intended for Shana to learn that the rapist had been released from prison. John had terrified his own daughter for no other reason than to serve his own selfish needs. The only way he could keep Shana under his thumb was to make certain she remained dependent. The more fearful she was, the easier it was to accomplish his goal.

  Lily opened her purse and removed her checkbook. Staring at the meager balance, she knew she would have to transfer more money over from her savings account right away. As she had told Shana the day before, she would do whatever was necessary to take care of her needs, but it was insane for her ex-husband to demand that she support him as well. She’d been feeding him for the past year out of the allowance she sent to Shana. The girl denied it, but she knew it was true. In a way, she couldn’t blame her. No matter what he was, the man was her father.

  Now that it appeared that John was drinking again, Lily was determined to find a way to extricate him from their lives. He was clinging to Shana, turning her into a substitute wife, preventing her from forming bonds with people her own age. No decent man would purposely suck the life out of his daughter. Her own father would have jumped off a bridge before he dropped to such a disgusting level.

  Lily shook her head as if to clear it, finishing off what was left of her coffee. It was cold now, but when she forked over three dollars and change for a cup of flavored coffee, she made certain she drank every drop.

  Placing the cup next to her computer screen, she glanced at a white plastic laundry basket located to the left of her desk. When the clerk made her daily rounds with new case assignments, Lily would read through the particulars, make the appropriate notations on her computer, then toss the file into the basket on the floor. The way the Santa Barbara D.A.’s office operated differed greatly from Ventura. As their staff was limited, prosecutors were not assigned to specific divisions such as homicide, sex, crimes against property, or charged with prosecuting only career criminals. In Santa Barbara they handled every type of offense. If she were a doctor, it would be similar to being a general practitioner rather than specializing in a particular form of medicine. Attorneys like Matt Kingsley and Clinton Silverstein might refer to her as their supervisor, but in actuality she was only a senior prosecutor.

  Her new case assignments included a fraud, a shooting, and an auto theft. In the Ventura office, any prosecutor experienced enough to handle a crime as serious as a shooting would not be assigned something as insignificant as an auto theft. Some of the attorneys in Santa Barbara considered Lily a prima donna since she’d formerly run an entire unit, certain she would balk at the thought of handling such minor cases. They were mistaken, however, as she enjoyed the variety. Prosecutors who dealt strictly with violent crimes were more likely to suffer from burnout. Lightweight offenses could sometimes be fun. Due to her years of experience, she occasionally found a really big fish dangling at the end of a very small line. Individuals outside the profession didn’t realize that the most sophisticated criminals were seldom apprehended. For every arrest listed on their rap sheet, they’d probably committed a hundred crimes that went undetected.

  The last defendant Lily had prosecuted for auto theft had turned out to be wanted in the state of Washington for seven counts of armed robbery. The FBI agent who had driven down from Los Angeles to transport the prisoner had given Lily the coffee mug bearing the insignia of his agency. She’d teased him, telling him the FBI was turning into a commercial franchise. They sold T-shirts, caps, coffee cups, jackets, all kinds of merchandise. The agent had tossed back that at least most FBI agents didn’t bring their laundry to the office. Lily had laughed. The item he was referring to might have been designed for the purpose he had mentioned, but it was now filled with files. It wasn’t as if they didn’t provide her with sufficient file space.

  The laundry basket was symbolic. Everyone had to do their laundry, yet it was always a chore that could wait. Lily couldn’t allow herself to dwell on the dozens of cases she had pending, knowing she would make herself a nervous wreck. Each morning she checked her computer to see if she needed to appear for an arraignment, file a discovery motion, schedule a witness interview, or request something from the crime lab related to her most recent assignments. As soon as she was certain she had covered all the bases, the cases in the plastic basket were temporarily forgotten. If someone asked her a question regarding them outside of the courtroom, all they would receive was a blank stare.

  The five files Lily had to focus all her energy on were neatly stacked on the right side of her desk. These were the crimes she contemplated night and day. When she went to the bathroom, the details and images went with her. Even when she’d seen Richard for the first time in six years, her mind had not been completely free. Picking up the heavy Middleton file, she placed it in the center of her desk, then glanced at the names on the remaining four. The child-molest case would more than likely go to trial, she decided, reminding herself to speak to Lenora regarding the Bentley investigation later that day.

  Lily’s method of analyzing a crime was to place herself inside the mind of the offender. As she saw it, Arnold Bentley had no choice but to throw the dice. He had a beautiful wife, two adorable kids, a house, along with a fairly successful business. He owned a small store that specialized in children’s clothing and unique toys, many
items made by local craftsmen. Although the victim, a twelve-year-old female, was an articulate and convincing witness, the case was nonetheless circumstantial. Without penetration and ejaculation, it boiled down to whom the jurors opted to believe—the victim or the defendant.

  The victim, Deborah Saginaw, had baby-sat for Bentley’s children on numerous occasions and never experienced a problem. On the night in question, Bentley had driven her home after attending a party with his wife. He turned down a dark street and forcefully groped her in the area of her breasts and genitals. As the girl was neither bruised nor injured during the assault, no physical evidence of a crime existed. According to the victim, she was certain Bentley had intended to rape her, and had stopped only when a car resembling her father’s had driven by and spooked him. If the driver of the vehicle came forward, they might have a stronger chance of winning a conviction. With the trial date rapidly approaching, it was doubtful that such would occur.

  What concerned Lily was the possibility that the defendant might be a pedophile who used his store to connect with children. Deborah fit the profile, as she was a prepubescent female. The girl was also too young to be looking after people’s children, but that point appeared moot in light of the circumstances. There was also concern that Bentley could be sexually abusing his own daughters; however, interviews with the girls had produced nothing to confirm such activity. Placing the Bentley file at the bottom of the stack, she feared the case might end in acquittal.

  The third active case involved an assault with a deadly weapon. State Street, the main drag in Santa Barbara, had recently experienced a rash of violent crime, most of it related to the various nightclubs that had sprung up in recent years to cater to the large number of local college students. The problem was, the majority of the crime was not committed by students. The students were at the heart of the problem, however, as they were the consumers. Most of the perpetrators were gang members or drug peddlers from nearby cities. They shot and stabbed each other in an attempt to weed out their competition and establish their turf in the highly lucrative drug trade. Friday and Saturday nights had turned into a carnival atmosphere, with young people hanging out until the wee hours of the morning on either State Street or congregating in the even more dangerous alleys and side streets.