Buried Evidence (31 page)

Lily shook her head, knowing there was nothing she could say to console her. Even though her heart was being wrenched,
what her daughter needed was to vent. The only thing she could do was listen and love her. She felt guilty for spending the night with Richard, for experiencing pleasure when her child was suffering such emotional pain. She watched as Shana shoved a pair of sunglasses on her nose, seeing how badly her hands were shaking. The girl was desperately trying to hold herself together, find the necessary strength to continue functioning.

“It’s bad enough knowing that my mother killed someone,” Shana said, glancing back at Lily as she headed to the passenger side of the car. “At least I know you had a reason.”

Lily’s mouth fell open. Black spots danced in front of her eyes. The blood drained from her face, and she felt as if she were about to pass out. She knew! There was no doubt now that her daughter knew the truth.

Tossing her backpack into the backseat, Shana said, “Did you think I didn’t know? I even know who you killed, that it wasn’t the man who raped us. I figured it out a long time ago. You killed the guy whose picture was in the newspaper clipping, the one who murdered the prostitute and butchered those two teenagers.”

Lily spun around, starting to rush back into the house.

Shana chased after her, grabbing her by the arm. “Wait,” she said. “I might hate Dad, but I don’t hate you. I understand what you did. You were protecting me, making certain no one ever hurt me again. You risked everything for me… your career, your freedom, even your life.”

“I—I was wrong,” Lily stammered, choking up with tears. “No one should take the law into their own hands. When I told you I had lived with hatred all these years, I wasn’t talking about Marco Curazon. I hated myself, Shana. That’s the worst punishment of all. That’s why I told you not to hate your father. No matter how many years he serves in prison, he’ll spend the rest of his life regretting what he did, reliving the horror of that moment, pleading to God for forgiveness.”

“I hope he does,” Shana said, kissing her tenderly on the cheek.

The two women seemed frozen in time, locked inside the moment, merged together like the picture on the wall in Lily’s
bedroom. Daughter became mother and mother became daughter, divinely entwined, yet each with her unique brand of wisdom.

“I just want you to know one thing,” Shana continued. “I would have done the same thing you did. Maybe you’re right about me not hating Dad, but sometimes people do things that are so awful, they don’t deserve to live.”

T
hanks,” John said, picking up an envelope with a check from the receptionist at the real estate firm where he was employed. It was five-thirty on Friday evening, and everyone had already left for the day. The only person remaining in the office was the receptionist, and he had caught her just as she was preparing to leave. “Tell Martha I’ll call her next week. My mother’s sick. I didn’t realize it was so serious when I called in and spoke to her yesterday.”

“The flu?” the girl asked, using a tissue to blow her nose.

“No,” John lied, “she has cancer. She’s not expected to live.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Thanks,” he answered, rushing out the door to cash the check at the bank down the street before it closed.

Exiting the bank, he shoved the money into his brown leather jacket and used his cell phone to call a cab, instructing the driver to take him to an area off Pico Boulevard where there were a number of used-car lots. What he wished he could do was lease a car. That way he wouldn’t have to spend what little cash he had. But since his credit was lousy, he assumed it would be a waste of time to even try to get a company to lease him a car. He had approximately twenty-five hundred dollars, and after the phone call he’d made that morning to the mayor’s office, extorting additional money from Lily was out of the question.

“Turn around,” he suddenly told the cab driver, placing his hand on the back of the front seat. “Take me back to the same place you picked me up.”

“Hey, buddy,” said the driver, a long-haired man in his early forties. “You want to go back where you came from, that’s fine with me. You still got to pay me.” He stepped on the brake,
turning around and sizing up his passenger. “Let me see the money. I got kids to feed.”

“Here,” John said, flashing a wad of bills. “I left something in my office, okay? I’m going to pay you to wait while I run in and get what I need.”

As they traveled back down the same street, John sat with his hands folded in his lap, gazing out the window at Mother Nature’s exquisite display of colors—the deep pinks and vibrant blues, the muted greens, the intriguing shapes of the clouds. He’d never been much of a nature buff, but with the thought of a prison sentence looming over his head, he wondered how many more sunsets he would see.

Using his key to enter the building, he headed toward the back office, where the desk of a highly successful agent named Bryant Montgomery was located. Taking a seat in his chair, he booted up his computer. John hadn’t kept up with all the recent advancements in computer technology, but Shana had taught him a great deal since he had entered real estate. He knew Bryant was addicted to buying things over the Internet, particularly stuff at auctions. In addition, he knew the code words he used to access all his files and personal data. One day while Bryant was bidding on an antique mirror for his wife, he had called John over to watch. He couldn’t help noticing the man’s code, as it was so easy to remember. Bryant used his name, plus the numbers on the outside of the building: 1276. He assumed, like everyone else, he’d picked a code he was certain he wouldn’t forget.

Not only did people shop on-line, they paid their bills, shifted information from one computer to another. In less than five minutes, John had a piece of paper with Bryant’s Social Security number, his driver’s license number, listings of his various bank account numbers, even his passport number. Just as he was about to leave the office, he realized the car dealership would require some type of photo ID. “Damn it,” he said, feeling as if he might as well toss this plan in the trash can. He went to the water cooler and snatched a paper cup out of the holder, filling it with water and guzzling it down.

Through the front windows John saw the taxi waiting at the
curb. He’d probably wasted his money having the cab driver sit there with the meter running. Most dealerships stayed open until eight or nine o’clock, yet even if he talked them into letting him take the car without showing them his driver’s license, they wouldn’t be able to process a lease this late in the day. He wanted the car tonight. The only solution was to take off, possibly hide out in Las Vegas, see how long he could survive before the police caught up to him. Why should he care if Lily forfeited the bail money when he failed to appear in court? And leaving town might even benefit Shana. In most instances the police considered it evidence of guilt when a person fled. Even if he never saw his daughter again, at least he could feel he’d done something
worthwhile
in her behalf.

L
ILY AND
Richard were seated on the enclosed patio to the rear of his bungalow at San Ysidro Ranch at seven-thirty Friday evening. He had tracked down his son, Greg, at his apartment in San Diego. Wanting the two young people to feel as if they could speak freely, he had insisted that Shana use the phone in the bedroom, closing the glass-paneled French doors.

Lily said, “I can’t come back later, you know.”

“I understand,” he said, swirling his brandy in the glass. “We were up late last night, anyway. You and Shana had a difficult day. We could all benefit from a good night’s sleep.”

Richard had arranged for them to dine in the room, as he’d suggested the night before. She had called to cancel, but he had persisted, reminding her that she and Shana would have to eat somewhere and he was persuasive enough to get them to drive over. Since Lily lived alone and the kitchen in the guest house wasn’t that well equipped, she seldom cooked, outside of making herself a bowl of soup or heating up something in the microwave.

Shana had been withdrawn, saying only a few words during the time they were eating. Richard had tried his best to salvage the evening. He’d told jokes, stories, then finally come up with the idea of attempting to get Greg on the phone. Regardless of his efforts, the evening had not been enjoyable. The three of them seemed to
share the same ominous feeling—that they were in some type of holding pattern.

Richard was concerned about Lily, but his concern for her daughter was even more pronounced, particularly since her mother had told him the details of their conversation that morning. How tragic, he thought, that a decent, bright girl such as Shana had to carry such a tremendous burden—the knowledge that both of her parents had caused another person to lose his life.

“We made some progress this afternoon,” Lily told him, setting her coffee cup down on the table beside her. “Shana found several ads on the Internet. You know, girls looking for roommates near the campus in Los Angeles.”

“Tell her to be careful,” he said, scowling. “Some of those girls might turn out to be dirty old men. Besides, didn’t you tell me you wanted her to transfer to the university here so you could spend more time with her?”

“My primary goal at the moment is to get these problems off her back.” She paused, trying to recall the details of their afternoon. “At least one good thing happened today.”

“What’s that?”

“When we stopped by my office,” Lily told him, managing a weak smile, “Matt Kingsley, the young attorney serving as my co-counsel on the Middleton case, took Shana for a ride in his Ferrari while I was downloading files to my laptop. She thought he was better-looking than Brad Pitt.”

“How old is this guy? Is he married?”

“Twenty-eight and single,” Lily said, shifting her eyes to him. “I don’t know if he has a steady girlfriend or not. We’ve never talked about his personal life. To be honest, I prefer it that way. He seemed enthralled with Shana, though.”

“I don’t know if I would encourage that situation,” Richard said, leaning forward over his knees. “Just because the guy works with you doesn’t mean you can trust him with your daughter. The way you’ve described him, he sounds like trouble.”

“Matt’s a good guy,” she said, laughing at his fatherly demeanor.
“Anyway, I wasn’t suggesting that she should date him. Seeing her smile was nice, that’s all.”

“Hey,” Richard said, shrugging, “you’re her mother.”

He looked up at the night sky. The moon was out, the temperature brisk; the smell of burning firewood filled the air. The evening took him back to the Christmas he had spent with his family only a few weeks after his father had passed away. Everything had been perfect—the food, the tree, the brightly wrapped presents. Under the shadow of his father’s death, however, it had been impossible to feel festive. “Speaking of Middleton, how much time have you spent with Betsy?”

“I dropped by the hospital this afternoon,” Richard said, taking a sip of his brandy. “It’s a tragic situation. I understand what you meant the other day. Keeping her alive at this stage seems almost cruel.”

“But you still believe Henry is innocent?”

“Yes, I do,” Richard said. “You should know me well enough to know I would never agree to represent a man I believed had poisoned his own child.”

“If Henry didn’t poison her,” Lily asked, “who did?”

“I wish I knew,” Richard answered pensively. “It was either a maniac, her mother, or another family member. How can we be certain someone didn’t put strychnine in that candy at the plant?”

“Don’t you think we pursued that angle? We almost demanded a recall, but after testing hundreds of batches of the stuff, we couldn’t get the government to support us.”

“There’re too many possibilities,” Richard said. “We may never find out who committed this crime. Just because Henry isn’t the most ethical businessman doesn’t mean he was ruthless enough to poison his child to save his business.”

“We have a witness who saw him buying the candy.”

“She must have mistaken him for someone else.”

“She identified Middleton,” Lily shot out. “Not only that, she remembered the car—a red Ford Explorer. She even stated that a woman resembling Carolyn Middleton and several other children
remained outside in the car while Henry went inside to purchase the candy.”

“Greg bought a car recently.”

Lily did a double take, thinking Richard was purposely changing the subject because he didn’t want to admit that Middleton was guilty. She then reminded herself that this was not a man who wasted his energy on small talk. “Now you’re going to tell me he bought a Ford Explorer, right?”

“Yeah,” he said, smirking. “It’s not red, though, and it’s an older model than the one the Middletons and God knows how many other families own.” Before she could respond, he held up a finger. “The key word in that sentence was
families
, Lily. Your witness identified a popular family car and a common everyday occurrence with people with children. How many times a day, in some part of the county, do a man, woman, and a couple of children drive up to a convenience store in a red Ford Explorer? And in many instances either the husband or the wife enters the market, leaving the rest of the family outside in the car.”

“I can buy that,” Lily said, thinking they were holding their pretrial conference under fairly strange conditions. Since they were both occupied with other things, talking about the case seemed practical, as long as neither one of them crossed the line. “There are other factors, Richard. Our entire case doesn’t rest on this one witness. Don’t come to court with that in mind, or you’re going to lose.”

“Just hear me out,” Richard said, his commanding courtroom demeanor taking hold. “The woman didn’t write down the license plate. Unless she left the register, there’s no way she could have gotten a good enough look at the people inside the car to make a positive ID of either Carolyn Middleton or the children. Regarding Henry, how many cases of mistaken identity do you think have occurred in the criminal justice system over the past twenty years? A hundred, a thousand, maybe ten thousand. We don’t really know, do we? Why? Because a large number of people are serving time in prison for crimes they didn’t commit. As sad as it is for people in our profession, innocent people are also put to
death. You, of all people, should understand the point I’m attempting to make.”