Try Fear (18 page)

I stood and said, “Your Honor, to this point, the prosecution has not made any blood sample available, so that I can have
my own expert analyze it. I would ask the court to direct Mr. Radavich to turn over all samples to us before we proceed any
further.”

Radavich said, “Unfortunately, Your Honor, the sample we submitted for DNA analysis was too small to preserve.”

“Then I move that evidence not be admitted,” I said.

“On what grounds?” the judge said.

“On the grounds of reciprocity. How can I possibly challenge the validity of the sample?”

“Do you have any law you can cite me?”

I didn’t, because there wasn’t any. “It’s plain fairness,” I said. “And moral law transcends opinion.”

The judge blinked a couple of times. “What was that?”

“I was just talking about the overall spirit of the law,” I said.

Prakash said, “Be that as it may, and it seldom is, the law is that the prosecution may test and if it’s used up, that’s just
the breaks.”

“Hardly seems sporting,” I said.

“Sporting is not a proper objection,” the judge said. “Which means, overruled.”

Eric’s blood on the gun. Terrific. Wonderful. A jury would love it. They think blood is the be-all and end-all of evidence.

It’s called the “CSI effect.” With all the TV shows that have a case wrapped up in an hour, because of advanced—and sometimes
fictional—forensics, juries are primed to respond to things like blood and DNA evidence.

Prosecutors don’t like it, because juries are starting to think that without a slam-dunk match, there’s too much reasonable
doubt.

But when you have do have a match, the defense has to find a way to limit the relevance.

I had to think of a way to limit this. Not much I could do, but when it was my turn to cross-examine, I asked the good doctor,
“There is no way of telling how the sample got there, is there?”

“I believe it was when the gun was fired,” Jenks said.

“You don’t know that.”

“It seems most likely.”

“Seems. Believes. You do not
know
,do you?”

“There could be alternate explanations, but I would find them highly unlikely.”

I said, “No further questions,” and sat down.

R
ADAVICH’S FINAL WITNESS
was Detective Lonnie Zebker. In clipped, professional style, Zebker summarized his investigation, questioning of witnesses
and, finally, Eric himself.

Establishing, most importantly, that Eric could not prove that he was anywhere else at the time of the shooting.

I asked a few questions, to commit Zebker to a few facts, but made no dents in his story.

Radavich announced he was through, and submitted the matter to the judge.

I made the typical defense argument that there was not enough evidence to bind Eric over for trial. Judge Prakash made the
typical ruling—yes there was.

I asked for a reduction in bail, and Prakash denied it.

Another turn of the wheel in the system. When next we met, it would be to pick a jury to decide the fate of Eric Richess.

I
MET WITH
Eric in the lockup, before they shipped him back to Twin Towers.

“You want to tell me about the blood now?” I said. “Or do you want to start by telling me why you didn’t tell me about the
blood.”

“I didn’t think anything about it.”

“That’s quite a detail you didn’t think anything about. What happened?”

“It’s not like you think,” he said.

“Enlighten me, Eric. I really like to be enlightened.”

“It’s like this, honest. I got nicked on the webbing of my hand.” He held up his right hand to show me.

“Nicked by what?”

“The slide. On the gun.”

“So you did fire the gun. This is getting better by the second.”

“Yeah I did,” he said. “Only it was earlier that week. I went to a shooting range with Carl.”

I sat there trying to decide if Eric was telling the truth or being like a little boy who just keeps digging himself deeper
and deeper into a hole.

“Can you prove this?” I said.

“Like with what?”

“A receipt or anything?”

“No way.”

“Where is this place?”

“La Cañada Flintridge.”

“Maybe somebody up there remembers you being there. What was the exact date?”

He thought about it. “Friday, I think.”

“Think harder.”

“Yeah. Friday.”

“What date?”

“Right before Carl died.”

“Carl died on Friday the thirtieth. You telling me it was Friday the twenty-third? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yeah. That’s right. That would have been it.”

“So it wasn’t earlier in the week. It was a whole week.”

“Yeah. Right.”

“Did you guys check in or anything? Can somebody there identify you?”

“I don’t know. It was Carl’s thing. He asked me to go with him.”

“Look, you two are big guys. There might be somebody who’ll remember that. Can you give me any details about what the guy
who checked you in looked like?”

“It wasn’t a guy. It was a chick.”

“A woman checked you in?”

“Yeah. She had long, straight brown hair and tats on her arm, her right arm.”

“Could she have seen you?”

“I don’t know. I was wandering around looking at the shelves when Carl paid up.”

This was good. This was promising. This was a fact that could be checked, and go in the credibility column for Eric.

S
ISTER
M
ARY WAS
with Kate outside the courthouse. I explained about the bindover for trial, and Kate leaned against Sister Mary for support.
I suggested that Sister Mary drive home with Kate, and that seemed good to both of them. I walked down to the county law library
on First Street to do a little research.

I was heading up the steps when my cell went off.

“Buchanan,” I said.

“Zebker.”

“I didn’t do it.”

“Hilarious. Can you come down to the station?”

“What for?”

“Some questions.”

“Last time I was there you threw me in jail.”

“Not this time. I want your help.”

“On what?”

“A homicide.”

“Whose?”

“That guy, Morgan Barstler.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I don’t kid. They found his body next to a Dumpster behind the Egyptian Theatre. He had your card in his coat.”

Z
EBKER MET ME
in an interview room at Wilcox. He brought me coffee and gave me a few details about Barstler’s death, then said, “You talked
to Barstler when everybody thought Carl Richess committed suicide. I’d like to get a few more details from you.”

“Does this mean you might have another suspect?”

“Not at all. It means I’m following up on something that needs following up on. If any exculpatory evidence comes up, it’ll
be filtered through Radavich.”

“Some filter.”

“What else can you tell me about Morgan Barstler?”

“Not much,” I said. “But he did tell me Carl was involved for a while with an actor named Tim Larchmont. Who I talked to.”

Zebker raised his eyebrow.

“I’m investigating this thing, too,” I said.

“Go on.”

“I think you should follow up with Larchmont and this Sonny Moon guy. Find out where they all were before and after the killing.”

“In other words, you want me to help get your client off, after I’ve testified against him.”

“I want the truth, just like you do,” I said. “Can we agree on that?”

“With that I’ll agree.”

“Then what can you tell me about Barstler and how he bought it?”

“Close-range gunshot to the face.”

“You have a theory?”

Zebker shrugged. “Working on it.”

“You want me to work on it with you?”

He smiled, shook his head. I knew he wouldn’t bite. I was, after all, rep-ping the guy Zebker thought did it. He wasn’t going
to give me any more information.

“Someday, Detective, I’m going to toss you a very important piece of evidence, and I hope you’ll remember how you treated
me.”

“I’ll remember,” he said.

I
T WAS GETTING
late and I was out this way, so I decided to drop in on Nick Molina. The printout B-2 had handed me gave an address in South
Los Angeles, a section of the city not too far from downtown.

His house was on a tree-lined street that would have been fashionable about a hundred and five years ago. Now the sidewalks
were cracked and chain-link fences guarded spare lawns.

Molina’s place was one without a fence. The house was a faded blue clapboard. A Ford pickup was in the driveway. I walked
to the screen door and knocked.

Movement inside the house, then someone peeped out the small square window in the door.

I thought I saw one eye narrow in the glass.

“Nick?” I said.

The door whipped open, keeping a mesh of screen between us. “What are you doing here? How’d you…?”

“Can we talk?”

“You can’t just come here!”

“Nick…”

“You don’t got a right to call me Nick. What’d you do, follow me around? What gives you—”

“I just want to talk. Ten minutes.” I looked over his shoulder and saw a clock on a wall next to a crucifix. Onion smell drifted
out and TV light flashed.

“I told you, I got nothing,” Molina said.

“You mean you won’t tell me, right?”

“So what? I don’t got to talk to you. They…” He shut his lips like a trap.

“They what?” I said. “Who’s they?”

“Listen, this is it. I’m sorry what happened to Carl.”

“So you don’t think he killed himself.”

“I didn’t say nothin’ about nothin’. Now don’t you come here no more.”

He slammed the door.

I waited a couple of seconds, then knocked again. “Nick, you’ve got a duty here. Anything you say to me is confidential, okay?
I just want to know what happened. Nick? I know you know more. You can tell me—”

The door swung open. What peeped out this time was a revolver in the hand of Nick Molina.

“You’re trespassing,” he said.

“So are you,” I said.

He looked confused, then mad.

I said, “You’re trespassing on the sacred ground of Jesus. You have him on your wall. You have Jesus on your wall and right
here in front of him you’re refusing to help one of the least of these, a man in jail who should not be there. How can you
do that?”

“Shut up and get off my property. I’ll shoot you.”

“What would Jesus say about
that?
”

He slammed the door again. Maybe he’d talk it over with his Savior. And I hoped he’d get an answer, because I needed a witness.

W
HICH IS WHY
, the next day, I drove out to La Cañada Flintridge with Sister Mary. It’s a quiet little burg between the San Gabriel Mountain
Range and the Angeles National Forest, about a Frisbee toss from Pasadena.

The shooting range was in the foothills, up a mountain road. We drove up a winding drive and parked in front of the office.
As we did, the radio was just starting “I Will” by the Beatles. Sister Mary surprised me by saying she wanted to hear it,
it was her favorite song, and would I leave the keys?

I got the distinct impression she wanted to listen to the song alone. Odd choice, I thought, for a nun. A song about romantic
love. About loving someone forever, in fact. But I didn’t analyze the moment. I also didn’t want to listen, because the only
woman that song applied to, for me, was dead. The only woman I had ever been prepared to say
I will
to. The song would be a hot stake in my gut. I didn’t know if I even had another
I will
in me.

Or ever even wanted one, for all it gave you. I left the radio on for her and went into the office alone.

Inside the wood-paneled mobile was a little store full of shooting accessories. Holsters, gun cases, ammo. And a desk for
check-in. Behind the desk was a man with an ample paunch and a scarlet USC Trojans T-shirt.

“Help you?” he said.

“Name’s Buchanan. I’m a lawyer and—”

“That’s all right, sir, we take all kinds here. No discrimination, that’s my motto.”

“Good motto,” I said. “I’m not here to do any shooting. I’m here to ask a couple of questions.”

USC Boy frowned. “If these are questions that have legal ramifications, then you should talk to our attorney.”

“I just want to talk to somebody who was working here when my client came up and did some shooting with his brother. He could
only remember that it was a woman, and she has tattoos on her right arm.”

He paused, then shook his head. “Nobody here like that.”

“You wouldn’t just be playing around now, would you? I look like I went to UCLA or something?”

“Did you?”

“Yeah, but I love all mankind.”

“Excuse me?”

“Yes, I belong to them, and they to me, and we can never be alien to each other, even if you like USC. So let me talk to the
woman, huh?”

“What woman?”

“Friend, listen, it’s only facts I’m after. Crucial facts. They affect a man’s life.”

“You know, I once talked to a lawyer and got my can shot off. In a manner of speaking. It was during my divorce. I tried to
be honest and I got killed for it, so why don’t you just pack up and—”

The door opened and Sister Mary walked in. I thought of this as just a distraction, but then the guy behind the counter said,
“Welcome, Sister. This is a first.”

“How do you do?” she said. “I’m Sister Mary Veritas of St. Monica’s.”

“Cool!” He said. “I’ve been up there for a retreat with some men from our church.”

Church?

“Oh?” Sister Mary said. “Which one is that?”

“St. Sebastian.”

“Monsignor Murphy, is he still there?”

“Yeah! You know him?”

“We’ve met a couple of times.”

“Well, I am so happy to have you here,” the guy said. “Are you here to do some shooting?”

I looked back and forth between them.

“Not today,” Sister Mary said, “though I’d really like to learn sometime.”