To Die For (23 page)

“I don't know what I could tell ya, other than the fact that she has access to my truck,” he said.

“Well, we're gonna confront her again, so we'd kind of like to have you hanging around. I know, there's a nicer place you can sit,” Bentley said.

“Like without handcuffs and where I can have a cigarette?” Jim asked.

“Yeah, yeah, sure,” Bentley said. “Let me ask you this. There's a bunch of cigarettes inside your cabinet in your house. Who bought those?”

“Dana. Today.”

“So, that's how we'd like to do it,” Bentley said, explaining the tedious process of asking a reluctant suspect a question, waiting for a lie, and confronting them with a “gotcha!” response to make the suspect aware that the police know they're lying and encouraging a truthful response.

“Yeah, sometimes she doesn't offer information,” Jim agreed

“Does, does that seem OK to you guys?” Bentley asked.

“Sounds fine to me,” Greco said.

11:10 P.M.

It was time to call Jeri again. Greco didn't want to say too much on the phone. He told her that he'd been talking to Dana and that if they wanted to talk to her they could come to the station. Jeri said they'd be there in about half an hour.

James McElvain took Jim out so he could have a cigarette, then led him to the report-writing room. Jason was next. A female officer had been keeping him busy, feeding him a Happy Meal from McDonald's and letting him play with the toys they kept at the station to entertain children who were victims or witnesses. Out of courtesy, Greco and Bentley mentioned to Jim that they were going to speak briefly with Jason, and Jim agreed. The officer who had been entertaining Jason brought him into the interview room. She asked him to spit out his gum and then sat him in the same chair that Dana and Jim had been using. Greco's objective was to capture on tape the fact that Jason remembered the name of the woman who had cut his hair at Esthetiques Salon and could give a basic description of her. Greco got that out of the way fairly quickly using child-friendly descriptions such as hair “dark like mine” and eyes “the same color as yours.”

Pointing to a Band-Aid on Jason's leg, Greco asked whether he'd ever seen Dana with a boo-boo, or if he'd ever seen blood on her. Jason said Dana had had blood on her when Bossy, Dana's brown labrador retriever, bit her after getting “bumped” by a car.

Greco ran down the list of shopping sprees that Jason had been on with Dana—buying cowboy boots, eating cheesecake at Baily's Wine Country Café, getting a boogie board and new clothes.

“So, uh, those shoes, who bought those shoes?” Greco said, pointing to the new athletic shoes Jason was wearing.

“Dana,” Jason said.

“Dana bought you those shoes?”

“They're magic shoes.”

“They're magic shoes?” Greco asked.

“Yeah.”

“Oh, they make you jump high, huh? What about these jeans? Who bought you these jeans?”

“Dana.”

“Dana bought you the jeans, too, huh? Wow! Dana's very nice, huh? Buying you clothes, what else does Dana buy you?”

“A lot of stuff.”

“What else does she buy you? What other stuff?”

“Like toys and stuff.”

“Toys and stuff. What was the best thing she ever bought you?”

“She buys me candy, too.”

After the interview, Greco walked Jason back to the report-writing room where Jim was waiting and told them they were free to leave. An officer would drive them to a friend's house because the police were still going through the house. Jim nodded. Greco thanked Jim for his time and cooperation and escorted them to the door.

He didn't ask about Dana.

11:40 P.M.

Russell and Jeri were waiting for Greco in the lobby. They looked worried and anxious. Greco could see the sadness in Russell's face. Greco shook their hands and walked them back to the report-writing room.

“I'm sorry to have to break this to you,” Greco said.

“What's going to happen to her?” Russell asked.

“She'll be arrested and she'll be held overnight,” Greco said softly. “Then she'll be arraigned in court within forty-eight hours and it'll go to a preliminary hearing and then it'll go to trial.”

“What is she … what's the charge?” Russell asked.

“Well, it'll be murder,” Greco said quietly. There was no way to cushion the impact. “It's for the murder of June and there was another woman in Sun City who was killed. That happened today.”

Greco didn't mention Norma. He didn't have enough evidence at the moment to charge Dana with her murder. After a moment, he added that it she wouldn't be going home tonight because it was a no-bail, special circumstances murder case. Greco didn't explain that “special circumstance” was a legal eupheumism for a possible death penalty case. Multiple murders is one cause the legal system has to send a defendant to the gas chamber or to sentence him or her to life in prison without parole. But all of that would be explained later. He just didn't want to get Russell's hopes up that Dana would be going home anytime soon.

Russell cleared his throat, fighting for composure.

“How do you know for sure that it's my daughter?” he asked in a hoarse voice. “How do you know?”

Greco told them the evidence was pretty compelling: the information they'd picked up during serveillence, the description of her from storeclerks, the fact that the card was used within an hour of June's murder. He told them that Dana had been followed to the bank that day and that she'd already admitted using the bankbook of the woman who had been murdered hours before. As he spoke, looking at both Russell and Jeri, he could see the heartbreak and incredulity on Russell's face. But Jeri knew the truth.

“I can't believe this,” Russell said. “It must be, there must be someone else. This can't be my daughter.”

It had taken weeks for Jeri to come to the horrifying realization that it
was
Dana. It took a couple of days of silent denial and gradual realization before she decided to tell Greco. Now Russell would need time to do the same thing. It would take him a long time to comprehend the gravity of what was happening and to understand his wife's involvement. Even though Jeri had told him, Greco knew that she hadn't told him everything. Russell had a right to be in shock, and as a father, it would have been very unusual for him to turn his back on his daughter and agree with detectives that she was a killer.

Russell and Jeri were victims twice over. Through Norma's murder, they were victims. They were also the immediate relatives of a homicide suspect. It was unusual for Greco to be comforting the relatives of someone he had arrested and interrogated. The parents of his suspects never had a good relationship with him because he was trying to put their sons and daughters behind bars. And here he was trying to comfort the parents. It felt weird that they were being nice to him, particularly since June's son-in-law had not been very cordial.

“You'll have to trust me on this one,” Greco said. For the time being, he would preserve Russell's belief that Dana wasn't the only one involved in the murders. It would come in handy shortly.

“Can I see her now?” Russell asked.

“Yes, you can see her in a few minutes. I'm going to have you wait here and then I'll come and get you,” he said. Greco didn't want to tell them that Dana was sitting in a cell down the hallway. He and McElvain wanted a few more minutes with her before letting Russell in. He didn't want them to see one another unless it was on tape. There was no telling if Dana would admit anything to her father. But Greco thought Russell might be motivated to get some answers from Dana if he knew this would be his last chance to talk with her before she went to jail. He knew he was manipulating Russell when the man was at his most vulnerable. And recording it on tape. But Greco had seen Dana's handiwork. He had smelled the blood spilled from her victims and spent hours at the crime scenes where she'd slaughtered two innocent women. Notwithstanding his loyalty to Jeri, Greco had a higher calling to the victims of Dana's crimes.

“She's not going home tonight,” Greco said, watching Russell's face. “She's not going to be getting out. She'll spend the night here and then she'll be transported to the Riverside County Jail, so this is a chance to talk to her. You might want to ask her some of these things yourself.

“In a day or two, she'll be arraigned and a lawyer will be appointed for her, unless…” Greco paused.

“I can't afford a lawyer,” Russell said quickly.

Greco nodded and turned away, saying he'd come back in a few minutes. On his way back to the interview room, Russell's comment struck him as odd, given the healthy state of their finances. He wondered if he'd just heard the sound of Russell's wallet slamming shut.

CHAPTER TEN

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 1994, 11:49 P.M.

Greco brought Dana back to the interview room. He told her that she could talk to her dad in a few minutes. They also told her that they'd spoken with Jim, who'd said that she had come into some money earlier that day.

“Yeah. When I got the cash from the, from that savings book, uh, that's what I, that's what my story was,” Dana said. “I didn't want him to know.”

“What was your story?”

“That my aunt had sent me some money, that's all.”

“OK. There's a, there's a lot of stuff that still points in your direction. And it's, it's time for you to come clean,” McElvain said.

“I've given you all of the information I have,” Dana said, sounding annoyed.

“No, you, you haven't. And, and just like earlier, it's, it's time for you to clean the slate and start your life over again. You can't get past this point in your life until this is done.

“All we're asking you is complete honesty.”

Dana's expression hardened, like a businesswoman trying to negotiate a deal. She dug in her heels.

“Well, I want a lawyer to say anything more. I've given you everything I can give. You know, I was scared and it was stupid for me to try to spend a credit card, it was even stupider…”

Dana kept talking, so Greco picked up the questioning. He wanted a confession, even if it wasn't admissible in court. Let the lawyers fight it out later.

“It's just that we don't feel that you've given us everything … because of the circumstances…”

“It looks bad,” Dana said, finishing his sentence.

“Look at the circumstances, OK? Look at our position,” Greco said.

“I do look at your position. I know that's why you're hammering me so … But I'm tellin' you, it's…” she stammered, breaking down again. “All I wanted to do is get some cash and some things.”

In a way, Greco felt that they'd hit the real core. She was a long way from admitting the murders. But she probably
was
telling them everything about her motivations—as much as she wanted them to believe.

Greco pushed on. If she was about to break, it was now or never.

“There's a lot of unanswered questions about victims here. It's not just about cash. It's not about credit cards. It's about people's lives that were taken.”

“Well, I don't know,” Dana said, reaching for a tissue.

Greco saw that, for some reason, talking about her own desire to shop, to acquire material possessions, triggered Dana's tears. But talking about the loss of human life was like a cork for her tears. She stopped crying immediately.

“It's very important.”

“I don't know what to tell you,” Dana sounded annoyed. “I've told you everything I could tell you. Now that I know that it's your job to keep asking me over and over again, but I don't know what else to tell you. I really don't.

“I lied,” Dana said, breaking down again. “I was scared.”

“I understand, and you may still be scared about what else is, is behind that.”

“Today,” Dana said, now so fully engulfed in tears that she had trouble speaking, is the biggest fuck-up I think I've ever done in my life. I don't have any criminal history. I don't steal.

“And I've been under stress. I just wanted to
have
something,” she said, raising both fists and bringing them down hard, “have some cash, some clothes for Jason, you know. That's, that's really all I really wanted.

“I can't have kids … I tried like hell to get it to work and it's just…” she said, pausing to sniff. “You know, I saw that wallet and I went, ‘W-O-W!' And I lost my head … I lost my sense. You know, but you find something, you know, and you look and it's there and you just think, well, should I do it, can I get away with it?

“Obviously I didn't, I'm not a, I never did it, I fucked up. Don't you understand?”

Greco later realized that this may have been the closest she'd ever get to a confession. She was telling him that she did it—without saying she did it. She was basically explaining that she killed these ladies so she could shop.

Dana had already asked for her lawyer, but they wanted to see how far she would go.

“I don't know what to tell you … I'm lucky because it's, it's not, I just got lucky and it's bad. I wish I wasn't there to find the card … to find that purse.”

Dana was holding fast to her story. Now was the time to see if she would change her story if she thought someone saw her.

But the more they tried, the harder Dana clung to her version of events. Only after 20 minutes of painstaking questioning would Dana admit that she'd been in Sun City on the morning of the murder. But she insisted that she'd been lost and only got out of her car to smoke a cigarette.

THURSDAY, MARCH 17, 1994, 12:25 A.M.

Greco and McElvain got up to leave, saying they were going to let Russell into the room. Greco wanted to prep him for a few minutes before bringing him in. McElvain would keep an eye on Dana via the hidden camera. She shifted positions often, laid her head on the back of the seat, picked at her tissue, burped and blew her nose. Greco walked back to the report-writing room, the hours of interviews swirling around his brain. Her callousness disgusted him. He had no doubt that she'd killed Norma, June and Dora, and had attacked Dorinda in the antique store. But every time they tried to push her, she backed off. Chipping away at her lies was taking a long time. It was eerie the way she turned the tears on and off. And she seemed to cry at odd times. Greco had a feeling that her reluctant admission, that she had stopped in Sun City for a cigarette, would probably never see the inside of any court because she kept asking for a lawyer.