Murder Season (19 page)

Tim Hight’s house. Lily Hight’s bedroom.

Lena crossed the street to the garage and got into her car. She hadn’t had a chance to load the CD player or deal with her cell phone so she flipped on the radio and toggled down to 88.1 FM, a jazz station out of Long Beach. After adjusting the volume, she realized that she had dialed in at just the right moment and that the audio system in the car was worth the price of admission. She could see the playlist on the video display—the FM station was dedicating the next hour to Coleman Hawkins. Even better, the first cut was something she hadn’t heard since her last case.

“Mighty Like a Rose.”

As she pulled out of the garage, she let her thoughts drift down the road with Hawkins’s sax and wished that Paladino’s office was more than a twelve-block ride.

30

The law offices of Buddy Paladino occupied
the twelfth floor of a high-rise building on the 400 block of South Hope Street in downtown Los Angeles. The view from Paladino’s desk encompassed the entire city, included Dodger Stadium in the hills to the north, and stretched out over the basin all the way to the beach. As Paladino offered Lena a seat and flashed that million-dollar smile that had become the defense attorney’s trademark, she noted the quality of his suit, his manicured fingernails and close-cropped hair, the simple but elegantly understated gold watch. The office itself followed the same basic floor plan as the oval office in the White House. As far as Lena could tell, the only difference was that Paladino had more money, didn’t have to justify what he spent, and had an interest in art rather than politics.

Lena sat down on the couch facing the windows and gazed at the sun hovering over the ocean. The fiery globe had turned red again as it burned through the clouds of carbon monoxide, washing out Paladino’s entire office in a bright crimson light.

“I can’t help but express my disappointment,” he said in a smooth and quiet voice. “Jacob’s death could have been prevented. The LAPD should have seen it coming. They lived next door to each other. Neither one could afford to sell their homes in this economy. It looks like the department dropped another ball, and it’s gonna cost them. And it looks like Mr. Tim Hight’s gonna get a big bill, too.”

“We haven’t made an arrest, and you’ve already started working on a civil case against Hight?”

Paladino settled into a chair, completely at ease. “You’ve been around long enough to know that the line between here and insanity is as thin as a thread, Lena. People cross it every day—back and forth like somehow it’s okay now. There’s something about that guy I find disturbing. The man’s out there looking in.”

“Then we can’t talk?”

He didn’t reply, but she could see him thinking it over.

“We need to talk, Buddy. As far as I’m concerned, this conversation isn’t taking place and I’m not here. You’ve probably already guessed that we may even be on the same side. But that can’t happen without your help.”

Paladino remained quiet for several moments. When he finally spoke, he was gazing at the bands of scarlet light rippling up and down the wall, but only seeing his past.

“I was thinking about something,” he whispered. “Something that happened a long time ago when I was in law school. My roommate had a good relationship with his father. His dad knew that we didn’t have much money, so once a month he’d stop by and take us out to dinner. He was a very wise man—more than most—and I was jealous that I didn’t have a dad just like him. One night he took us out for steaks and beer, and he said something I’ll never forget. He told us that we needed to keep our eyes open. That there are a lot of nice people in this world—lots of nice people—but that doesn’t mean they’re good. Good is special. Good is very rare. You might only meet one or two, three or four, in your whole life. That’s why you’ve got to keep your eyes open. You can’t afford to miss one.”

His eyes drifted away from the wall and lingered on her.

“Will you help me?” she asked. “Will you talk to me?”

He nodded slowly, and seemed ready and pleased to help. “What do you need to know?”

“Lily Hight’s image,” she said. “The way she was presented to the public versus the way she may have really been. They don’t seem to jibe.”

Paladino smiled at the memory. “They don’t, do they? It made things difficult for both sides during the trial. A very delicate situation.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Lily may have only been sixteen, but she had a voracious appetite for sex. She liked it, and she liked Jacob. She had something going on. I never met her, so I can’t really say. But you hear about women like her. The kind that can put a spell on a man. Jacob was infatuated with her.”

“Why did it make the trial difficult? Why didn’t you bring any of this out? You must have seen the nude shots of her that they pulled from your client’s computer. It would have gone a long way in proving that Gant wasn’t stalking her.”

Rays of deep red sunlight struck Paladino in the face. Shielding his eyes, he got up and crossed the room to a glass display case. After retrieving what appeared to be a commemorative mug, he sat down on the second couch with his back to the window—the outline of his body aglow in crimson light.

“You’ve got to remember that Gant’s trial had three parts, Lena. Everything that happened before the trial had just as much impact as everything that happened in the courtroom. Bennett and Watson set the table by introducing Lily to the public with family snapshots and home videos. And they did it well. Lily was seen as her father’s daughter—completely virginal and full of life. A child like everybody else’s child, the kind of child everybody wished they had—with one big difference. This child—this beautiful teenage girl—had been raped and murdered by a monster. Lily was presented as the ultimate victim—but always coupled with the terror that what happened to her could happen to your child, too.”

“Bennett and Watson rode the wave of public opinion.”

“They
planted
it. They cultivated it. And it worked. Lily’s image as an innocent was forever defined. I had seen what happened when that Hollywood gossip show—what’s it called?”

“
Blanket Hollywood,
” she said. “Dick Harvey.”

“That’s it. He’s got a Web site, too. I had seen what happened early on when Harvey put it out there that maybe Lily and Jacob were having an affair.”

“What happened? How did it play?”

“Her image as an innocent was already carved in stone. And she was dead. She couldn’t defend herself. That’s how martyrdom works. No one wanted to hear about what
might
be the real Lily Hight. What Bennett and Watson did worked like Teflon. Anything you might say that conflicted with that image bounced off and made Lily appear even more innocent … more vulnerable. Anyone pointing a finger at her—anyone who attempted to disturb that image—became a bad guy. Even Harvey understood that he had to switch directions and work the fallacy.”

“What you’re saying is that you couldn’t afford to lose the jury.”

Paladino shook his head. “I’d already lost them. We had always claimed that Lily and Jacob were seeing each other. That Jacob’s semen was there because they had made love that night. That Lily was a willing partner. No one on the jury wanted to hear that. Juries see a dead body, hear the words DNA, and something happens in their heads. It’s like they snap. It’s like they can hear God talking to them.”

“So, the jury never saw the nude photos.”

“Three months before the trial everyone thought Jacob had taken those pictures from his window. But SID proved that the camera had been in her bedroom. All of a sudden, Jacob’s claim that Lily had given him the photos could be substantiated, so no—the photos were kept away from the jury by both sides.”

Cobb had managed to leave this information out of his murder book. Nowhere in any report was it mentioned that SID had confirmed that the nude photos had been taken by Lily Hight, and that Jacob Gant had been telling the truth.

Lena let the thought go and gave Paladino a look. Until now he had been holding the mug with both hands wrapped around the base. As he passed it over, she could see images of Lily Hight’s face on the front and back, along with the words,
IS JUSTICE REALLY BLIND?
The mug had been part of the pretrial frenzy that engulfed the city, along with the T-shirts, posters, and wall paintings by street artists.

“You see what I’m saying, Lena? How do you beat what you’re holding in your hand? The answer is, you can’t beat it. No one can. The jury pool wasn’t poisoned. The jury pool had been turned into drones. The louder you bang, the less they hear.”

“You were losing this case,” she said.

He nodded and flashed that smile at her again. “Big time. We had no chance. You want something to drink? A cup of coffee, tea, anything?”

“If you have coffee, sure.”

While Paladino picked up the phone, she set down the mug and walked over to the window. The sun was just settling into the ocean. After a few moments, Paladino joined her and they watched as the city was transformed from a deep red to a dusky blue.

“Did Harry Gant tell you why your client was with Johnny Bosco?” she said.

Paladino nodded. “They thought they knew who really killed Lily. That’s all he told me. That’s why I called you.”

“Okay, so what about Hight and his daughter? You took a big risk with the jury and floated the idea that he molested her. Your spotters confirmed that they didn’t want to hear it. Were you fishing or did you have something real?”

Someone tapped on the door, then opened it. A middle-aged woman dressed in a chef’s smock pushed a cart into the room. As Lena walked over, Paladino thanked the woman and she made her exit with a slight bow. On the cart, beside a coffee urn and two cups and saucers, were small bowls of white and brown sugar, several varieties of chocolate chips and mints, and a small pitcher of cream.

Paladino poured a cup and passed it to her. As he poured another for himself and returned to the couch with her, he said, “I wasn’t fishing, Lena. At the same time, I can’t confirm it for you. Hight’s relationship with his daughter seemed unusual to me. Almost like it was too close for comfort. From what Jacob told me, Lily fought it and struggled with it like any other teenager would or should. What struck me was something Jacob told me he’d seen a week before the murder.”

“You’re shooting straight with me, right, Buddy? This isn’t some kind of play?”

Paladino met her eyes and held the gaze without a word as he sipped his coffee.

“Okay,” she said finally. “What did Gant see?”

“It was on a Friday night. Lily was struggling to get out of the car and ran into the house. Hight chased her inside.”

“So what?”

“Jacob thought it looked like Hight was touching her in a way no father should. It was during the struggle in the car. The door was open.”

“Touching her where?”

“He thought it looked like he was trying to kiss her—like he was grabbing her chest—but it was only an impression. He told me that he couldn’t be sure.”

“Those houses are right next to each other,” she said. “Why couldn’t he be sure?”

“Hight’s driveway is on the other side of their house. There’s that oak tree and it was dark. Jacob was sitting in a lighted room reading a book. Eyewitness testimony is shaky enough at noon from ten feet way. You know that as well as I do.”

“But they were friends. They were doing it. Why didn’t he make sure she was okay?”

“They were having problems—those voice and text messages he left over those two weeks were real. It took him a while to rise above all that. When he did, he went over but the car was gone. No one answered the door. The next day he saw her with her girlfriend and she looked fine. Things were still awkward. Nothing had changed between them, so he never had the opportunity to ask her what happened.”

“Her friend being Julia Hackford. She never appeared in court.”

“She didn’t have anything to say. I got the impression that she and Lily hung out together but didn’t share much. That’s another reason why I thought something might be going on with Hight. His daughter never really talked about her home life. Not with Hackford. Not even with Jacob. According to Jacob, she deliberately avoided it.”

“So, you floated the idea at trial and pulled back.”

Paladino moved over to the chair and picked up the commemorative mug. “My hands were tied. I couldn’t present an alternative theory without hurting my client. Our backs were up against the wall.”

“Until the DNA evidence went missing.”

“That’s right,” he said. “Then everything changed. That’s why I said that there were three parts to this trial.”

“How did you find out the evidence went missing?”

“An anonymous tip. It came in at the end of the first week. I didn’t really trust it, and we had already conceded that the semen belonged to Jacob. But I spent the weekend thinking it over. Not about how the lab might have misplaced the samples. I was more concerned about why. Why do you suppose that the only evidence that went missing was the evidence that pointed to my client? Everything else was still there. The blouse and T-shirt with Lily’s blood, the screwdriver that became the murder weapon, the blood samples that the SID tech mishandled and dropped in the driveway outside their van. Why did the crime lab only lose evidence that pointed to Jacob?”

“You know that you could look at it another way, right, Buddy?”

“How’s that?”

Lena shrugged. “You said it yourself. Your back was against the wall. The prosecution was killing you in one of your biggest cases. Your client’s life was at stake. But you were the one who benefitted most by what went wrong at the lab, not them. So maybe you’re responsible.”

Paladino laughed, then got up and opened a cabinet. Inside, Lena could see a small bar that included a wine rack. Paladino selected a bottle of scotch and offered her a glass. When she shook him off, he poured a drink for himself and took a small sip.

“I knew it could break our way,” he said. “But I wasn’t there yet. I still wanted to know why. And I was no longer willing to concede that the semen they found was Jacob’s. I wanted an independent lab to take another look.”