Outburst (30 page)

“Because the evidence is overwhelming.”

“What do you mean? Can you be specific?”

“Dave was at Kenney's apartment, there was no one else there. Kenney's fingerprints were on the handle of the gun that killed Dave. And when someone—a neighbor—came in after the shot, he found Kenney just sitting there, staring at my brother, the gun on the floor between them.”

“Yes, but what happened? Why did the Los Angeles authorities rule this a suicide, and why did the prosecuting attorney drop the charges against Christopher Kenney?”

“They ruled it a suicide because the Los Angeles police and the medical examiner screwed up right from the beginning. First the police failed to do some kind of test, and—”

“Wait a minute,” interrupted Todd, leaning forward, his eyes fixed on Ron's image. “I haven't heard about this. They failed to do what?”

“There's some kind of test that shows if a suspect has fired a gun. They should've done it, but they didn't.”

“You mean they didn't do a paraffin test?”

“Exactly.”

Incredulous, Todd sat there shaking his head. A paraffin test, which would have shown if there was gunpowder residue on Kenney's hands, should have been done right away, the moment he was brought in. Was Ron Ravell now saying it hadn't been done at all? If so, that would be ridiculous. And why the hell hadn't Todd seen mention of this screwup in any of the newspaper articles he'd read on Lexis-Nexis?

Todd said, “But that should have been routine.”

“I know, that's what I was told too. Somehow they messed up though. There were too many cops involved. One guy thought the other had the test done, the other guy thought a third guy was taking care of it. You know, it was just a total screwup, and no one realized the test hadn't been done until three or four days later.”

“And that's way too late,” said Todd, knowing that you had a few hours, not a few days, before the residue was washed away by something as simple as hand soap. “That wasn't in the papers at all, was it?”

“Of course not. You think the cops would let out something like that?”

“Frankly, I'm really shocked.”

“It's terrible. And then to top it off, the medical examiner who filed the initial report was arrested a day or two later for drunk driving. Everything he'd been working on was discredited, including the case he'd built against Kenney.”

“I did read about that.” Todd took a deep breath, gathered his thoughts, and, staring at the video image of Ravell on the monitor, said, “So the charges against Kenney were dropped because the prosecutor didn't believe he could prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt?”

“Exactly. And the reason he couldn't prove Kenney's guilt was because between the cops and the medical examiner all the evidence was either lost or ruined.”

“I see, but—”

“And an hour after that,” interrupted Kenney, “my mother … my mother …” He bowed his head slightly and pinched the bridge of his nose with his right hand as if to forestall any tears. “She was crushed by Dave's death. She'd been on medication ever since he was killed. But then an…an hour after she heard the news that Kenney was going free she had this horrible stroke.”

This was good. Excellent. All of it he could use.

Todd said, “I'm sorry.”

“It was horrible.” His eyes red with grief, Ravell stared back up at the camera. “I've been waiting for this to happen. I hate to say it, but I've been waiting for Kenney to kill again. I knew he would.”

Sometimes you got nothing, thought Todd. Sometimes you got an avalanche, almost more than you could use. And this was clearly the second.

Wondering what a more moderate statement might elicit, Todd said, “Well, the authorities here in Hennepin County certainly have a challenging case. Kenney's being held at City Hall jail, but he hasn't yet been formally charged with first-degree murder, which he would be since a police officer was killed. That, I'm sure, will only happen when and if the prosecutor's office determines they have sufficient evidence against Kenney.”

As if spent, Ravell quietly shook his head on-screen, his face drawn and achingly sad, and said, “Dear God, it would be a crime if they let him go again.”

Todd asked him several other questions, none of which elicited anything insightful, and then closed him out, saying, “Ron, we have only a few more moments of satellite time, but I want to thank you very much for joining me and sharing your opinions. And my condolences to you for the tragedies you have suffered.”

“Thank you.”

Okay, thought Todd, but was the door still open? “Can I give you a call if anything else comes up?”

“Of course. You might have to leave a message. I travel a lot—I'm a flight attendant out here—but I check my messages all the time.”

“Listen, you take care,” concluded Todd. “We'll all be curious to see how this thing ends.”

A sad expression on his face, Ron Ravell shrugged and said, “I just hope the legal system doesn't let us down again.”

The next instant the satellite connection was severed and the monitor in front of Todd snapped into a blizzard of snow. Todd then hung up the phone, flicked off the router switch, and popped out the Beta tape.

“That was kind of incredible,” said Bradley, turning off the camera focused on Todd.

“No kidding. I still can't believe they didn't do a paraffin test. That's just outrageous. The cops have done that on every murder I've ever covered.” He thought for a moment. “But I don't think I want to touch that yet. I have to check it out, get confirmation from the L.A. police, so maybe that's something for tomorrow night's story.”

Right. Keeping a story like this going was harder than hell, but a major mistake like that by the Los Angeles police—particularly if it had never been reported—was ample material for another story or two. Before touching that one, though, he really did need to do some research and conduct a few more interviews.

He could see it now, how he'd do his next piece on the murder of Mark Forrest. They'd start out with the image of Ron, his harsh words. Then they'd cut to a variety of other images, footage that a producer had already requested from their L.A. affiliate and was due to come to WLAK on tomorrow morning's feed. Todd already knew they were going to get shots of Dave Ravell's body being carted from Kenney's apartment and then of course shots of Dave Ravell's funeral. There'd be tons of that footage. Todd would also ask the producer to get images of Ravell in his police uniform and of his mother as well. Perhaps all three—Dave, Ron, and Mom. Maybe he'd get a sound byte from the L.A. investigator. And music. Yes, absolutely. There had to be music in tonight's package. From watching Spielberg movies Todd had learned the importance of music to stir the emotions. But what could he use? In these midwestern parts any cop funeral was accompanied by a bagpiper, and he presumed that was the case in California as well.

Right, to wrap the whole thing up he'd show Ravell's body being lowered into the ground as a lone, mournful bagpiper toiled away. And the final sound wouldn't be Ron Ravell's condemning words of Kenney, but Todd wondering how this mystery was yet to unfold.

It took him a
long time to go to sleep that night, not because he was nervous or upset, but because he finally knew what he was going to do next. What he had to do. After days of sitting in this room, he'd finally come to the realization that he had no other choice, that there was no other way to end this.

He'd been out of his room at the Redmont only a scant few times since the night Forrest had died. He'd ordered room service three times. He hadn't let the maids in to clean. No, mostly what he'd done was watch the news—the sunrise, early, midday, five o'clock, six, and late-night broadcasts to see what that fool Mills had to say. And he hadn't spoken to anyone but her, of course, and only then because she kept phoning, so worried was she about how things were going. Well, fuck her, the stupid bitch. Couldn't she tell? Couldn't she see that things were all fucked up?

He rolled onto his left shoulder. Just get some sleep. Tomorrow's going to be another big, big day. And you need your sleep, you most certainly do. Just gotta be sharp as a tack. Just gotta keep the ball rolling down that big, bad hill. Yes, it was time to act, no doubt about it. Hoping it would lull him to sleep, he chanted:
“GMF, GMF, GMF…”

He tossed the other way, squirming and now rolling onto his right shoulder. Was this a dream or was it a nightmare? At this point he had no idea. But, oh, shit. Why had he done it? And why the hell hadn't he met Mark Forrest before her, before she'd wormed her way into his life?

He still couldn't believe it. Believe that he'd gotten away. After all, everyone thought they knew what was going on, but no one knew what he did, now, did they?

By the next morning
Rawlins had everything he was going to get, at least in the time he had. They hadn't been able to get a match on the fingerprints they'd recovered from Mark Forrest's car, there were no more interviews left, and there were no more trails that could be followed before noon today when Kenney's thirty-six hours expired. Either they had him now or they didn't.

Tucked into his manila folder were formal statements from Todd, from Christopher Kenney's cousin, and from an L.A.P.D. homicide investigator who'd worked on the Dave Ravell case. Additionally there was the preliminary blood work that showed that the blood found on the yellow rain slicker was the same type, B-positive, as Mark Forrest's. For now it was the best Rawlins could do. The hoped-for ace in the hole—a direct DNA match to Forrest's blood—was going to take another fifteen days.

“This is good, but it sure isn't perfect,” said Denise Daylen as she rose from behind her desk and handed him the formal complaint against Christopher Louis Kenney. “What about Kenney's therapist? Anything there yet?”

“No, nothing. Not even a name. And at the U they won't even tell me if Kenney's part of their gender program.” Rawlins rubbed his face and said, “I was up a good part of the night working on all this.”

“I don't doubt it.”

He tugged at his dark gray sport coat, then fidgeted with his tie. “So you think he'll sign it?”

“Well, Judge Hawkins certainly isn't going to ignore the fact that Kenney has already been arrested in conjunction with a cop-killing.” Escorting him to her door, she kept her voice low as she whispered, “Frankly, I wouldn't have written this one up if it was anyone else but Hawkins. Stopping this one certainly wouldn't make him look good, that's for sure, what with all the get-tough-on-crime talk and everything.”

“Well, wish me luck.”

“Break a leg.”

Carrying the NCIC printout, various forms, his report, and now the formal complaint, Rawlins headed for the elevators. Riding the lift up a single floor, he got out and went around to the receptionist, who was squirreled away behind bulletproof glass. Eventually Hawkins's administrative clerk, Marge, an older woman with short, curled hair, came out to get him.

“Good morning,” said Marge. “This way, please. The judge is expecting you.”

Rawlins took a deep breath and followed her, hoping like hell that, at last, this was it, the end of the beginning.

Todd was slow getting
to the station that morning mostly because he'd slept like crap the night before. Jazzed by the satellite interview with Ron Ravell, worried about Rawlins, he hadn't been the least bit tired and had ended up reading until the early hours.

He pretty much knew how he was going to do the story, how he was going to edit down the interview for the five o'clock. He'd already spoken with both a producer and an assignment editor, telling them how great Ravell was, and Todd was pretty sure the piece would be one of the top leads tonight. That, however, wouldn't be fully decided until the editorial meeting later this morning.

Now driving out of the garage, he steered down the ramp, one hand on the wheel, the other holding his third cup of coffee. Coming around the building and reaching the road, he turned left on Dean Parkway, a tree-studded stretch of roadway with meandering bike and pedestrian paths. Two blocks later he turned left, heading up a small hill toward Cedar Lake.

And that's when he saw it, the Lakes Real Estate Agency sign hanging in front of a one-story house. Staring at the listing agent's name on the for-sale sign, he realized why, of course, her name had seemed familiar. He'd never met her, they probably didn't even have any friends in common, but he'd seen her name on a handful of signs just like this one. Of course, Maureen Shea was a real-estate agent.

He veered immediately to the right and slammed on the brakes. Reaching into his briefcase, which sat on the passenger seat, he pawed through his papers until he found it, her number. He glanced at it, then at the small number at the bottom of the sign. They were one and the same. Yes, a real-estate agent. No wonder she promised her very, very best to call back within the hour—that is, if you were a buyer and not a reporter.

Well, screw that. Todd flipped open his phone and dialed the main number at the top of the sign.

A woman answered. “Good morning, Lakes Real Estate. How may I help you?”