Buried Evidence (21 page)

Kingsley swallowed before speaking. “I hear you loud and clear.”

Lily clicked off the phone and placed it on the round redwood table, walking over and embracing her daughter. “How did you sleep, sweetheart?”

“I slept,” the girl said, glancing out over the yard. “I didn’t smell any roses. What did you do? Come out here last night and cut them all down?”

Her mother smiled, recalling how chilled she had been the night before as she’d pruned the garden with a flashlight. “Pretty astute observation, kiddo,” she said. “I think you might be sharper than the man I was just on the phone with, and he has a Harvard diploma. Maybe we’ll have to open our own law practice one of these days.”

Shana’s face fell. “Right,” she said bitterly. “As soon as I get out of prison for killing that poor guy. I can’t believe he went to
UCLA, Mom. What am I going to do when people find out?” Taking a seat in one of the chairs, she placed her head down on the table. “I guess you’ll get your wish now. I’ll have to change schools no matter how this turns out. I’m always running from one thing or the other. Sometimes I think it’s going to be this way the rest of my life, almost as if I’m doing something to attract these awful things. You know, like bad karma or something.”

Lily began massaging the tense muscles in her shoulders. “Why don’t I make you some breakfast? Problems are magnified when you don’t have any food in your stomach. I promise you’re not going to go to prison, Shana. Your father is responsible, and he’s the person who will have to pay the price. I’ll make certain ofthat, even if it’s the last thing I ever do.”

Shana slowly raised her head. “I don’t want to talk to Dad. I don’t care how many times he calls, understand? This is the end of the line for me, even if he is my father. I put up with his laziness, the disgusting way he kept the house, even his drinking. I never thought it would come to this, though, that he’d go out and kill someone.”

“You must stay strong,” her mother said, outraged that her daughter had to be placed in this position. In a way, it was ironic. She had just been discussing how another father had destroyed his daughter’s life. Due to the grace of God, Shana wasn’t near death and comatose, but the man who had fathered her had placed her in serious jeopardy. Did the problem rest in a man’s inability to accept failure? Both Henry Middleton and John had been experiencing financial problems, and from all appearances, they had skidded completely off track. “We’ll figure out a game plan as soon as I make you something to eat.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You’ll get sick if you don’t eat,” Lily said, her brows furrowed with concern.

“My stomach’s in knots,” Shana told her. “If I eat, I’ll throw up.”

Lily hovered over her. “Will you at least drink a glass of milk?”

“Sure,” she lashed out. “Put it in a baby bottle.”

“What’s that comment supposed to mean?” Lily said, crestfallen.

“I don’t want you to treat me like a baby,” Shana said. Seeing the hurt look on her mother’s face, she added, “I’m sorry, Mom. I’m being a bitch. I usually have coffee and a slice of toast for breakfast. Since it’s so late now, why don’t you get me a cup of coffee? Then later on, maybe we can go out for lunch.”

“Of course,” Lily said, opening the screen door. “And you don’t have to apologize, Shana. I understand how you feel right now. We’re going to get through this. All you have to do is hang tight and trust me.”

Lily left her sitting on the porch while she went inside to get her coffee. When she picked up the cup, however, her hands were trembling. It wasn’t fair that her daughter had to face another problem of such mammoth proportions, not when she’d struggled so hard to put the rape behind her. And only recently her sense of security had been shattered with the knowledge that her attacker was no longer behind bars. On top of all that, the questions posed at the police station had convinced Lily that Shana needed legal representation. Her thoughts turned to Richard Fowler. Shana knew him, even though they hadn’t seen each other for years. Back when Lily and Richard had been working together, Shana had even struck up a friendship with Richard’s son.

By the time she returned with the coffee, Shana was in tears. Lily sat down next to her, holding onto her free hand as she sipped the steaming brew. “Do you remember Richard Fowler?”

“Of course,” Shana said, releasing her mother’s hand so she could wipe her eyes with the edge of her sweatshirt. “I tried to find Greg about a year ago. Did he graduate from college?”

“Yes,” Lily said. “I saw his father recently. He’s representing a client here in Santa Barbara.”

“I thought he was a prosecutor like you.”

“He’s in private practice now in Ventura,” Lily said. “I was thinking we should call him, maybe see if he can come up this afternoon.”

Lily watched as her daughter’s frustrations turned once more
to fear. She locked her arms around her chest, almost as if she had to hold herself together. “Are you dating him?”

“We’re friends, Shana,” her mother told her. “We go back a long way together. He’s a brilliant attorney. Sometimes when you have a problem, calling in a big gun right away isn’t such a bad idea.”

“I thought you just said that the police were going to prosecute Dad. Why do I need an attorney?”

“Like I just said,” Lily answered, “it’s always wise to be prepared. I didn’t like the way the police treated you last night. But on the other hand, they have to do their job, which means they have to rule out any possibility that you were behind the wheel of your car. You haven’t been charged with a crime. In reality, your father has been arraigned, so they’ve already begun the criminal proceedings.”

“Why didn’t you just let him stay in jail?”

“I was concerned about you,” Lily lied, focusing on a spot over Shana’s head. Would the truth eventually surface? That she had posted John’s bail only after he’d threatened to expose her for the murder of Bobby Hernandez. She shuddered at the thought that Shana could have not only one but possibly both of her parents facing serious charges.

Shana pushed herself to her feet, pulling a strand of her tangled hair in front of her face. Even with the enormous stress she was under, her mother couldn’t help but marvel at her remarkable beauty. The paleness of her skin made her eyes sparkle like priceless sapphires. The sun picked up the gold highlights in her vibrant red hair. While her mother watched her, she gracefully lifted her chin, staring up at the sky as if she wished she could somehow take flight, leaving the problems of the world behind her. “Call your friend,” she said, her voice just above a whisper. “You know, Richard.”

“Why don’t you take a shower?” Lily suggested, choking up with emotion. “I put some fresh towels in the bathroom. I’m sure you can find something of mine to wear. Pick anything you want.”

“Seems like old times, huh? You know, when we lived in Camarillo and I was always raiding your closet.”

“Yes, it does,” Lily answered. “I only wish you were here under different circumstances.”

“It doesn’t really matter why I’m here,” Shana said, suddenly appearing older and wiser than her years. “The most important thing is that we’re together, Mom. Maybe it takes something awful like this to make a person realize what’s really important in life. We’ve always been strong when we’re together. Marco Curazon might have hurt us, but we survived. I’m sure we’ll survive this as well.”

F
red Jameson barged through the doors to the detective bureau feeling energized and ready to take on the world. He cupped his hands together, then blew into them. “Can’t anyone turn the frigging air down in this place?” he called out, his voice carrying throughout the partitioned offices. “I feel like I’m in a meat locker. It’s colder in here than it is outside. Doesn’t the city realize they’re wasting the taxpayers’ money?”

“Can it, Jameson,” a male voice answered. “Some of us have to work for a living.”

“Work, my ass,” the detective continued. “What are you doing, Keith? Downloading porno off the Internet? Why don’t you send the one with the girl and the dog to the captain? I’m sure he’d get a real bang out of it, even though I hear he favors sheep.”

Keith Marconi poked his head over the top of the partition. “What got you so wound up this morning? Did you get laid last night or something?”

Jameson removed his jacket, draping it over the back of his chair. “You’re close,” he told the other man, pulling out his comb and running it through his prematurely gray hair. “What I stumbled across might turn out to be better than sex.”

Settling in his chair, Jameson dialed the number for the personnel department. “Detective Jameson here,” he said. “I need a number for a former employee from about six years back, a homicide detective named Bruce Cunningham. The last thing I heard, he was living in Omaha, Nebraska.”

While he was on hold, Jameson leaned back in his chair and propped his feet up on the desk, picking up a yellow notepad as he stared at his computer screen. The call regarding Lily Forrester had come in the day before, but he’d been in the field working
another homicide and had not taken the time to check his messages until he had arrived home later that evening.

“I’m sorry,” Robbie Johnson said. “The only information I have on a Bruce Cunningham is that he transferred to the Omaha Police Department from Oxnard. Since he doesn’t receive a pension check from the city of Ventura, we don’t have a home address or phone number listed in his file. To be perfectly honest, we lost a great deal of data when the two departments merged. Oxnard has yet to put all their records into the computer system. You can’t imagine how many boxes of paperwork got shipped over here.”

“Thanks,” Jameson said, deciding he’d heard more than he wanted to know. Just his luck to dial up a woman who had worked for the department for twenty years.

Rather than continue his efforts to track down Cunningham, he called the central property room. “Hey, Wayne,” he said, recognizing the officer’s voice, “I need you guys to tell me what we have down there on an unsolved murder. Occurred about six years ago in Oxnard. The victim’s name was Bobby Hernandez.”

“What’s the case number?” a gruff voice replied. “You know how many evidence containers we have with the name Hernandez on them?”

“Damn,” the detective said, “do I really have to come up with the case number? Come on, Wayne, cut me some slack. Your people know how to find this stuff on the computer in about five seconds.”

“No can do,” the property sergeant told him. “My staff is up to their eyeballs in work.”

Once he was off the phone, the detective pushed his chair up to his desk and glared at the computer in front of him. He had as yet to jump on the technology bandwagon, even though he had finally admitted that he had no alternative. Regardless, he still wanted to take out his gun and shoot the thing just for the sheer satisfaction it would give him. First it was the Y2K problem, and everyone thought the world was going to end. Now people were so preoccupied playing on the Internet, no one got any work done.
Pretty soon a man would need a computer to tell him when it was time to take a leak.

The information he was looking for might not even be in the Hernandez file, as the case had been closed for some time. For all he knew, the file clerks might not have downloaded the particulars into the computer. Before he let his imagination run wild thinking he was going to make it payback time for Lily Forrester, he had to be certain there was sufficient evidence to talk the brass into reopening such an old case. The situation was complicated by the merger between the two departments, just as good old Robbie Johnson had brought to his attention. Several active and viable cases had gone down the drain due to the fact that crucial evidence had been lost or damaged while in transit from the Oxnard facility to Ventura. He typed in the name Bobby Hernandez for a record search, waiting until the computer returned with a message telling him there were 4,838 matches. Great, he thought facetiously. He had no choice now but to track down Cunningham. If nothing else, the former detective might recall enough of the particulars to allow him to at least narrow the parameters of his search.

“What’s the name of the company again?” he asked the operator at the Omaha Police Department.

“Jineco Equipment Corporation,” she said. “Their showroom is located on the corner of Eighty-fourth Street and L.”

“Hey, lady,” Jameson said, “I’m in California. I don’t want to go to the place. All I want is their phone number.”

The detective dialed the toll-free number she gave him, and within minutes he found himself speaking to Bruce Cunningham. Once he had explained that he had taken over Cunningham’s caseload, he knew he had to be polite and ask him what he was now doing for a living. As notorious as Cunningham was in local law enforcement circles, the two men had never met. “We sell and service power washers, along with various agricultural equipment, most of it manufactured by a company called Karcher. Are you in the market for a power washer?”

Jameson was doodling on his notepad. “Why didn’t you go
into private security? People pay big bucks for your type of experience. Don’t tell me you prefer sales over law enforcement?”

“You bet,” Cunningham answered. “I enjoy what I do, Fred. You did say your name was Fred, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” the other man said, thinking he could cut to the chase now. “I’m calling about an old murder case you handled. The victim’s name was Bobby Hernandez. We’ve come across some new information that’s pretty sensational. The problem is, I’m having trouble locating—”

Cunningham cut him off. “Exactly what information are you referring to?”

The line fell silent. Jameson needed his cooperation. He had to keep in mind that the other man was no longer a police officer, however. “Oh, you know how these kinds of things go,
Bruce,”
he said, deciding if Cunningham could call him by his first name after exchanging only a few words with him, he could do the same. He suspected the former detective’s reputation had not developed from myths and exaggerations, as was generally the case. Eliminating formalities was a clever way to instantly take a conversation to another level. “Most of the leads that come in this late in the game generally turn out to be a waste of time. I just thought I might be able to pick your brain, you know, see what you remembered.”