To Die For (16 page)

“Is there anyone you can eliminate from this investigation as a suspect?”

“Well, I don't know who would be a possible suspect,” Dana said, quickly recovering from her tears and beginning to gesture, a wadded tissue in one hand. “I mean, you know, Jason and Jim didn't know June, and so they would be eliminated. My parents would be eliminated.”

Greco and James immediately knew that Dana had a guilty conscience. Greco had just asked one of those trick interrogation questions. When an innocent person is asked who can be eliminated as a suspect, they shout out, “Me!” A guilty person, unless they're extremely sophisticated, will hem and haw.

“Um, June was kinda, after her husband died, she went a little strange, you know. She just got more, like, secluded to herself and stuff, and you know, when we all golfed together, she was more gregarious when Duane was alive, and she just seemed a little snippier later. But we still talked and stuff, you know.

“But it wasn't as … like it was when he was alive. It's like when you lose someone. They just get a little cooler. I can't say who to eliminate 'cause I don't know. I don't know her circle of friends, 'cause her circle of friends are my father's circle of friends.”

Greco was appalled. She was sitting here trying to minimize June as a person, like it was some perverted way of justifying why she killed her. To Greco, she was making an admission just short of a confession.

“Tell me why you didn't do it,” Greco said.

“I didn't do what?”

“With the credit cards.”

“'Cause I wouldn't do that.”

“Do you think you're capable of doing something like this?”

“No,” Dana answered.

“No? OK. Did you ever seriously think about doing something like this?”

“Well, I, I seriously thought about, well not, not with a credit card, because we didn't have any before we went through bankruptcy right before my divorce, foreclosure, miscarriage, bankruptcy, all in one year. But I thought, that I was angry with my husband, you know, and I wanted to make him pay for things that financially, that I haven't paid for. But I couldn't do it. I got stuck with it. But we didn't have any credit cards…”

Bentley thought that if he was a defense attorney, he'd go for the insanity defense. Not that Bentley thought she was insane. Once a defense attorney heard that she'd weathered all of these hardships leading up to the crimes, that was the most logical defense. It might work with a juror or two, but all a defense attorney needs is one vote to hang up a jury.

“OK,” Greco said.

“I paid [the bills]. Well, actually, my parents paid … and I paid them back for our divorce and our bankruptcy and I left him with, um, some utility bills that still aren't paid.

“I'd like to wring his neck, you know, and grab him by his long hair and make him pay that stuff, you know?”

As she spoke, Dana placed her fingertips and thumbs in a circle as if she were strangling someone. It made Greco feel sick inside, but he tried not to show it.

“Is there any reason why somebody would say that they saw you using the credit card?”

Dana's face went blank.

“Well…”

“Is there any reason why someone would say that?” Greco asked.

“Well, I think I've been told that I look like a lot of other people,” Dana said.

Greco tried hard not to roll his eyes or show any reaction. He had expected her to be evasive. She was also throwing out a lot of baloney, but the more she talked, the more she was likely to say something incriminating.

“I have a lot of people come up and say, hey, you look just like so-and-so, or, or, do you have a sister, or do you have a brother, so-and-so,” she said, gesturing again. “I think I have a pretty common face.”

“OK,” Greco said.

Dana wasn't done.

“I've been in the valley a long time, too, you know, maybe they've seen me around and you know, with a familiar face. I've been out here for a long, long time.”

It was obvious that Dana thought she could talk herself out of it and be home in time to put Jason to bed. Greco decided to change tracks. He learned during the interrogation seminar that you can measure a suspect's veracity by asking whether he or she would be open to taking a polygraph test. If the suspect is eager to take a polygraph, then barring a con artist's overconfidence, he or she is probably telling the truth. If they throw out a lot of excuses, they're probably lying.

Greco asked what she knew about “the incident” at Canyon Lake with June.

“I heard about it, but I don't really know any of the details,” she said. “Um, my dad said that they were keeping a lot of stuff quiet because they didn't want to wreck the case … He said that she was murdered and um, he said that she was, um, strangled just like, um, Nana was, and I said, I didn't know Nana was strangled. I thought she was just stabbed. I didn't even know.”

“OK. Did you, uh, tell anybody jokingly that you did it?” Greco asked.

“Why would I say that? I didn't do it,” Dana said. “No, no, I wouldn't joke about anything like that. That's sick. This is my family.”

“OK. Are you willing to take a polygraph? You know what a polygraph is?”

“I want to say yes, but I don't really believe in 'em, you know, and I don't think that they're 100 percent,” Dana said.

“So is that a yes, no or maybe so?”

“I don't really believe in them,” Dana said.

“Then you would not want to take a polygraph to verify your truthfulness? If you took the polygraph, what do you think the results would be?” Greco asked.

“I have no idea,” Dana said. “I just don't know, but I know there's been a lot of cases where, however they read them, they're like wrong and sometimes they're right and sometimes they're in the middle. I just don't think it's a very accurate measurement. I just don't.”

She was lying. Her answer to his question was exactly what he'd expected. Now he was going to lay a little trap.

“Um, is, is there any reason why you would be on a videotape using June's card?” Greco asked. “At Mervyn's, let's say.”

“No,” she said. Dana's face was blank, expressionless.

There was no videotape of Dana at Mervyn's. But the law allows investigators to mislead a suspect into thinking that evidence like fingerprints or an eyewitness links them to a crime scene.

“There's no reason that you would be on a videotape using June's card at Mervyn's? No?” Greco said as Dana shook her head, watching him.

“OK, let's all break,” he said, getting out of his chair.

As Dana sat immobile in her chair, eyes straight ahead, McElvain and Bentley also got out of their seats. On his way out, Greco said it would be a minute or two while they went to the men's room. McElvain asked Dana if she wanted more water and she said yes. The three men left the room, but instead of going to the men's room, Greco, McElvain and Bentley hovered around the video monitor by Greco's desk to watch Dana.

It was a ploy. Greco wanted to give her a reason to think they had information and then look at her reaction when she thought she was alone. Sometimes suspects will shake their heads, wring their hands, or talk to themselves. Greco recalled one suspect who shouted, “Oh, crap!” as soon as he left the room. When something like this happens, it gives him an edge when he returns to continue the interview because he knows the suspect is under stress, and he can use that to persuade him to discuss the crimes. It's also interesting to show it to jurors.

But Dana was a cool customer. She wiped her nose, shifted into different positions in the chair and wiped tears from her eyes. Other than heavy sighing and sniffling, she said nothing.

She was very, very smart and cagey. Confronting her about being followed that day to Provident Bank was the last thing they were going to do. Instead, they would keep her talking by feeding her tidbit after tidbit, some of it not true. Once she either denied her involvement or got locked into a story, then they would give her another tidbit and see if she changed her story. The more she became tethered by her different stories, the harder it would be for her to deny her participation in the crimes. But first they wanted to apply a little pressure.

After watching her for a few minutes, James went into the room with the fingerprint kit and a handwriting exemplar package. His specialty was paper crimes and he had administered the handwriting samples to suspects on many occasions. He rolled each of Dana's fingers, reassuring her that her prints and a sample of her handwriting could be used to clear her as a suspect. He took the handwriting forms out of a folder and spread them out on the table. The first one was a generic form in which the suspect writes numbers and letters of the alphabet in various combinations, using both upper- and lower-case letters. The second sheet was specifically geared toward Dana and had the name “June Roberts,” “Hemet Savings and Loan” and the words “dollars” and “cents,” a dollar sign, and the words “bank,” “savings,” “federal” and “loan.” Dana even complied with signing June Roberts name as if it were a signature.

“OK, in this box and in this box, sign the name ‘June Roberts,'” James said. “Like you were signing a check.”

“OK,” Dana said.

“Now, instead of printing, put it in signing, like, uh … you'll cursive-write,” James said. “You know what I mean by cursive?”

“Yeah,” Dana said, “but that's how I cursive-write. See, this is what I do. You know, that's what I was trying to do.”

“Do you know how to, how they make J's, like this?” James said, demonstrating a handwritten “J” with a loop at the top.

“Yeah, but I never do,” Dana said.

“OK, well go ahead and try and write your J's that way also,” he said.

“OK. But I never do that,” Dana said. “And, um, I usually just, N-E, see, I don't connect all the time on the letters.”

“OK. Do the same thing with the cursive ‘J,' right here. ‘Roberts,'” James said.

“I'm just not used to writing like that,” Dana said.

“OK.”

“I'm a printer.”

While McElvain worked with Dana and Greco watched them on the monitor, Bentley picked up a phone in the detective bureau and called one of the best forensic psychologists he knew, leaving an urgent message asking him to call as soon as possible. If Dana was going to plead insanity or a mental defense, he wanted to be ready with an experienced psychiatrist to administer a full battery of tests and a full examination as soon as possible.

It took a few more minutes, but Dana finished up with the handwriting exemplars. She then announced that she had to go to the bathroom. Before she went, she asked what was next.

James told her that Greco was going to come back in and they'd talk some more.

Greco had been watching on the monitor. He had expected her to try disguising her handwriting—shaping her J's differently, balking at cursive instead of print writing. By now, Dana had to know they had information on her about June's credit cards. Greco knew it might take a while to convince her to tell the truth. He had already been getting resistance from her—answering his questions with questions. Right now, it seemed as if she was testing them, as well. She wanted to know how much they knew.

8:31 P.M.

Greco, McElvain and Bentley walked in with solemn faces and took their seats without saying a word. Dana looked up at them and sat forward in her chair.

“Dana, what I have here clearly indicates that you're involved in this,” Greco said, raising his voice a little. “So I'm asking you to start telling me the truth about what's going on here. You understand me? What's going on? What happened?”

“What do you have that clearly indicates that I'm involved?” Dana asked steadily.

“You tell me what's going on!” Greco said, raising his voice.

“Please don't raise your voice at me,” she said in a low, calm voice.

“OK. Well let me, let me explain to you that we understand a lot of things that have occurred, OK? And I'm sure you've probably figured this out in your mind. And right now, you are playing games with me. I want you to tell the truth—about what's going on here. Why were the purchases made? How were the purchases made? How did you get the card?”

At this point, Dana paused and looked at all three men sitting in front of her.

“I don't think…” she began. “I'm actually being questioned like this without my lawyer here. I feel like you're trying to badger me. I don't, I mean, I've been very cooperative. I feel very badgered.”

Greco's heart sank. He'd pushed her too hard. Once she invoked her rights and asked for a lawyer, they couldn't use anything she said after that in court. He looked over at Bentley, who picked up the ball and continued questioning her. Obviously, he felt it wasn't a complete invocation. They were good to go.

“Why don't you show her the receipts?” Bentley said.

Greco rummaged though his folder and pulled out copies of the receipts that were stapled together, and held them at an angle so Dana, leaning forward in her chair, could look at them as he slowly turned the pages.

“We got sales receipts that were signed ‘June Roberts' from every store, OK?” Greco said.

“Uh hum,” Dana said, looking at the receipts.

“The only problem is … June Roberts was dead. Did you know?” Greco asked.

“Yes, I know,” Dana said, starting to cry again. “She was family. She was at our wedding.”

“OK. The people from where these purchases were made said that you made those purchases,” he said.

“Me?”

“Yes. With the credit card,” Greco said.

Dana's tears disappeared.

“Did they describe
me?
” Dana asked in a nasty, nasal tone of voice.