Blood Defense (29 page)

FIFTY-THREE

I
asked Rick Saunders
to
meet me at Mel’s since I was already there and it was close to his station. I was glad I’d saved myself a trip. He didn’t know Ignacio. He offered to ask around about him, but generating talk about my alibi witness was the last thing I needed.

By three o’clock, I was ready to go see Chas Gorman. I wasn’t supposed to get to his place until five o’clock, but I had a feeling he’d be around. Chas seemed like the kind of guy who was always around. And I was right.

As an added plus, he was almost sober. Either he was getting a late start or his stash was running low.

Chas smiled when he opened the door. “Hey, thanks for coming over.”

“Hey, thanks for having me.” He’d offered to bring the phone to me, but I wasn’t about to take any more chances with the damn thing.

He led me to the living room and gestured for me to take a seat on the lumpy brown couch. “I’ll be right back.”

He was as good as his word. In less than a minute he was back, an old flip-style cell phone in his hand. It looked like the one Scott’s siblings had shown us.

“Just so you know, I had no idea Scott did that burglary. I was really pissed when I found out.”

I opened the phone and checked out the photos, just to make sure it was the right one. It was. “How long have you guys known each other?”

“A few years. And I’ve never known him to do shit like that. But I think he got himself in debt to some heavy dudes, and it’s making him act crazy.”

I could well believe it, but I didn’t care. His “crazy” had landed Alex in the hospital. Screw him. “Thanks, Chas.” I headed for the door.

He followed me. “The press was all over this place a few days ago.”

That would’ve been the first day of trial. I paused at the door. “Anyone try to talk to you?”

“Not that day, no.”

“But another day?”

“Yeah. Not sure if it was a reporter, but it was right after Alex came by.”

I’d sent Alex to the building to find out if Chas and Scott were friends. “Who was it?”

“Dunno. But whoever it was banged on my door for, like, a half hour. It was really weird.”

“Male or female?”

Chas shrugged. “Female? No, male.” He sighed. “I’m not sure.”

“He didn’t give you a name?”

“No. I didn’t answer the door, just played dead.”

As always, talking to Chas was an exercise in frustration. His fried brain coughed up tantalizing fragments, but they never coalesced into a solid piece of information.

I thanked him again and left. When I got to my car, I opened Paige’s phone and checked her voice mails.
Nada
. There were a few texts between Paige and Chloe sent a couple of days before they died. But they were just mundane messages about picking up the dry cleaning and Taco Bell for dinner. I went through the photos.

Again, nothing intriguing. Just Paige and Chloe horsing around and joke-posing. I felt a pang of sadness looking at their young faces. I scrolled more quickly. I didn’t need any more reminders of what a tragedy this was. And then I found a photograph that got my attention. It’d been taken two months before the murders.

I looked at my watch. It was three thirty. The perfect time to go see Alex. I’d been planning to check in on him, and I knew he’d want to see this photo.

Alex’s uncle, Tomas, lived in Arcadia—about fifteen minutes northeast of downtown. In rush hour, that fifteen minutes could easily turn into an hour. But I thought if I got on the road right now, I’d beat the worst of it.

I didn’t. It took me more than an hour to get there.

Alex’s uncle lived in a modest fifties-style ranch on Bella Vista Drive, a quiet suburban street that hadn’t changed much since the homes were built. An older woman who said she was Maria, the housekeeper, ushered me into the living room where Alex was set up on the couch. She told me Tomas was at work but he’d left instructions that Alex was not allowed to move. I took that as the warning it definitely was and promised her I wouldn’t even let him leave the couch. She nodded. “
Bueno
. Can I get you something to drink? Or eat? Are you hungry?”

“No, thank you. I’m good.”

Alex looked 200 percent better than when I’d last seen him. Which wasn’t saying all that much, since the last time I’d seen him, he’d looked like roadkill. His dark skin hid some of the bruises, but his lips and right eye were still badly swollen.

I sat down in a chair next to the couch. “I hope you feel better than you look.”

He deadpanned, “Let me say on behalf of the world that it’s probably a good thing you chose the law instead of medicine. Your bedside manner sucks.”

“Seriously, how are you feeling?”

Alex blew out an exasperated breath. “Bored. Nobody lets me do anything, and really, I’m fine. I’m just sore. I can move around. I can drive—”

Maria called out, “No you can’t!”

Alex gave me a pleading look. “If I don’t go back to work, I’ll lose my mind.” He put his hands together prayer-style. “Please tell her you need me.”

“I do. But I’m with Maria and your uncle on this one. You shouldn’t push it. Besides, I’ve got something you can do lying on your back.” I pulled Paige’s cell phone out of my purse.

“Hey! How did you—” Alex sat up too fast. He winced and held his side.

I raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, you’re obviously good to go.” I gave him the whole story and ended by saying, “Our boy Scotty’s going to be in Men’s Central for a good long time.”

“I’d like to be the bigger man and say he shouldn’t have to pay for this, but—”

“But if you did, I’d knock you out myself.”

Alex smiled. He flipped the phone open and examined it. “Just your basic burner. You check for texts and voice mails?”

“Yeah, nothing of interest. But I found a photo.” I held out my hand. He gave the phone back to me, and I pulled it up again and showed him. “It’s a little distorted, but this looks like Marc to me.” It was a selfie taken at a bad angle that made his forehead look huge.

Alex took the phone and studied the photo. “Yeah, it does. That’s the ocean right behind him. Malibu?”

I nodded. “What I was thinking.” I told him about my meeting with Storm that afternoon. “But if he took that photo in Malibu, he wasn’t in the Colony.” Malibu Colony is the most built-up area in Malibu, where all the stores and most of the restaurants are. The area behind Marc in the photo looked less inhabited. And the house behind him looked too modest—and isolated—to be in the Colony.

Alex pointed to his laptop that was on the coffee table. “Could you hand me that, please?” I gave it to him, and he Google-mapped street views of Malibu Colony. I watched as he moved from one block to the next. “You can see he’s standing on a street, but none of these streets look right. Must be farther up the coast.” He studied the photo again. “But this was taken in late January. Almost two months before the murders.”

“True, but Storm said they were heading toward Malibu. So maybe they were going back to that same place the day she died.”

Alex set the phone down on the coffee table. “Maybe. But Paige wound up in Laurel Canyon.”

“So? We’re the defense, Alex. We don’t have to prove anything. All we need to do is connect enough dots to scare the jury out of convicting.”

Alex nodded. “Well, it’s definitely worth checking out. Let me get into this phone and see if I can find anything else. And I’ll do a closer check of Malibu neighborhoods. How much time do we have?”

I sighed. “Zack’s going to wrap up by Wednesday at the latest. So we’ve got to be ready to start calling witnesses on Thursday.”

Alex blew out a breath. “Can you stall?”

“With this judge? Are you kidding? If I ask for more time, I’ll be sharing a cell with Scott.”

“Hold on.” Alex pointed to the television. It’d been playing on mute. “Isn’t that your boy Storm?”

I turned and saw Storm holding forth to a circle of reporters. “Oh shit . . .”

Alex raised the remote and turned up the volume. A woman I didn’t recognize asked, “Why didn’t you come forward sooner?” She held the microphone up to Storm.

“I did. I called the police right away. I guess they didn’t think it was that important. But the defense attorney sure did.”

The reporter asked Storm what he’d told me, but he shook his head and smiled. “I can’t tell you that. The attorney asked me to save it for the courtroom, and I promised I would. But I can say that my testimony is going to prove for sure that Paige was the real target.”

The reporter turned to the camera and threw it back to the anchor. “This might be a real bombshell, Terry. If you recall, Samantha Brinkman did say in her opening statement that she intended to prove Paige Avner—not Chloe Monahan—was the one the killer was after. If Storm Cooper’s testimony establishes that critical fact, it’s a lot less likely that Dale Pearson committed these murders. And that’s the latest, most up-to-the-minute development in the Dale Pearson case. Back to you, Terry.”

Alex muted the television and threw the remote down on the couch. “Son of a bitch.”

When we’d talked, Storm hadn’t been all that excited about being my witness. I guessed it didn’t dawn on him until after our meeting that being a witness in this case meant free advertising.

“At least he didn’t give up what he told you about seeing Paige and Marc together.”

“Not on camera. But we don’t know what he might’ve told them off the record.”

Reporters could make big promises when a hot story was at stake. Storm wouldn’t be the first to get sucked into telling secrets.

I stood up. “I’d better get back to the office—”

Alex turned off the television. “Can you give me a few more minutes? I need to talk to you about something.”

Alex had an anxious look on his face. Whatever it was, I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like it. I sat back down.

FIFTY-FOUR

T
he phones were ringing nonstop
when I got back to the office, and Michelle was looking frazzled. She punched a button, said, “Brinkman and Associates, please hold.” Then another line rang and she did it again. After the third time, with all lines blinking, she finally looked up. “The minute Storm gave that stupid interview, the phones started going crazy.”

“Press looking for comment?” Michelle nodded. “I’ll take them.”

She readjusted her scrunchie and blew out a breath. “I can split them with you if you tell me what to say.”

“Just say that as of this afternoon, Storm Cooper is on our witness list. Period.”

I stomped into my office, pissed off and frustrated. Now I’d have to turn over Storm’s statement to the prosecution. I wasn’t worried that Zack would be able to shake Storm’s ID. Alex had Googled that intersection. Storm could easily have seen inside a car stopped at that light.

The problem was, once Zack found out about Marc Palmer, Zack would try to prove there was no connection between Marc’s
death and Paige’s. And if he succeeded—and with this much lead time, I strongly suspected he might—that’d end my best shot at winning this case. Or at least getting the jury to hang.

I’d have to move fast to keep that from happening. I had to get out to Malibu, find the place where Marc had taken the photo, and see if I could lock down some witnesses who could help me. But I couldn’t go out there alone, and if I took Michelle, we’d have to shut down the office. Not a great idea with all that was going on. But screw it. This was more important. We’d get through the bulk of the press calls and then head out there.

But by the time the phones slowed down, it was dark. No way I could hope to find the location in that photo at night. Michelle came in and flopped down on one of the chairs in front of my desk. “Well, that was insane. And Zack called. I had a feeling you wouldn’t want to talk to him yet, so I took it. Says he wants the discovery on Storm. Want to clue me in?”

“Damn skippy I didn’t want that call. Thanks, Michy.” I gave her updates—on Storm and on Alex and my fear that Zack would take a wrecking ball to the whole story.

Michelle shrugged. “I don’t mean to be a buzzkill, but he probably will anyway. Don’t you think it’s possible that Paige just gave Marc a ride out to Malibu that night? That she dropped him off at someone’s house and then went out to do her own thing?”

The fact that Paige ended up in Laurel Canyon did tend to make it look that way. “That’s a possibility. But if I can come up with just one weird detail—like a witness who thinks he saw them together in Malibu later that night—I’ll have a shot at making at least one juror get stuck on the coincidence of their deaths. And if I can find out where Marc took that photo, I have a shot at finding that goofball—uh, I mean witness. The problem now is, I’ve got to do it before Zack has a chance to send in the cops.”

If something
had
happened to both Paige and Marc out there, the kind of witnesses who could help me probably weren’t the type who liked to talk to police—or we’d have heard about them already. And if they saw cops around, they’d scatter. Or lie.

“Then you should get out there tomorrow.”

“I plan to, first thing in the morning—”

“And you’ll need backup in case you get lucky and find your dream witness. I’ll go with you.”

“Right. Thanks, Michy. And maybe Alex has managed to narrow down our search area. I’ll check in with him now and find out.”

She gave me a warning look as she stood up and stretched. “He’ll want to come.”

“No doubt.” I smiled, remembering how he’d begged me to get him out of the house. “But he’ll have to climb over his uncle to do it.”

Michelle smiled. “I don’t see that happening anytime soon.” She went back to her desk.

I called Alex. “Any luck finding where Marc took that photo?”

“Not exactly. I can rule out the Colony. And it definitely wasn’t farther south, so we should hit the northern parts of Malibu.”

“No, Alex. Not ‘we.’ Me. Now that Storm opened his big yapper, the DA’s demanding discovery. I’ve got to get out there ASAP, and you’re in no shape to be out running around.”

“I’m in fine shape to do it. Really. I look a lot worse than I feel. Besides, we’re not scaling mountains; we’re walking around neighborhoods. And I’m moving back to my place tonight, so we can meet at your apartment in the morning—as early as you want.”

Alex lived in West Hollywood, just a few miles away from me. I didn’t love the idea of him getting out of bed—especially if his uncle found out he’d done it because of me. But I didn’t think it was going to be a major undertaking, either, and I could use his help. “If you’re sure you’re up to it, I was planning to get on the road by eight o’clock.”

“I’ll be at your place at seven forty-five.”

After we ended the call, I went out and told Michelle she was off the hook. But she shook her head. “He can’t be well enough. What if he fades on you? We’re out of time, Samantha. We won’t get a second crack at this. I’m coming.”

I smiled, relieved. I’d need her if I had to toss an exhausted Alex in the trunk. “Maybe we’ll hit Neptune’s Net for lunch.”

“Sounds perfect.” The phone rang and Michelle answered it.

I went back to my office and put in a call to Storm. I wanted to find out what he’d told the reporters when he was off camera. But the call went to voice mail. I had a feeling he was dodging me. It probably didn’t matter. I doubted he’d tell me the truth anyway.

I got busy preparing for the next witnesses. The rest of Zack’s case was all physical evidence. I’d be doing back-to-back cross-examinations of experts. There wouldn’t be any time to regroup between them, so I had to be on top of all of their reports. But it was tedious work, and I was already tired. My eyes kept closing. I shoved my window all the way open. The night air was cold, but it kept me awake.

I didn’t look up again until Michelle came in. The digital clock on my desk said it was almost eleven. “Damn. I didn’t realize how late it was. How come you’re still here?”

“Same reason you are. But . . .” Michelle looked behind her. “Can you smell that?”

“Smell what?”

Michelle’s brows were furrowed. “Smoke, I think.”

I followed her out to the anteroom and sniffed the air. “Maybe.” Even as I said it, the smell got stronger. I went to the front door and put my hands on it. The smell of smoke was stronger there. And the door was hot . . . and getting hotter. I turned to Michelle. “I think it’s a fire.”

Michelle stared at me, her face white. “Shit!”

The front door was our only exit. And our only way out of the building was the stairway down the hall. I had to see if we could get to it. I opened the door a crack. A wave of heat and smoke rolled in. I shielded my face as best I could and looked into the hallway. Flames were shooting out through the open door of the stairway and reaching across the hall. We were cut off. I slammed the door shut. “The fire’s in the stairway!”

But Michelle was already screaming into the phone. “There’s a fire! We can’t get out! You’ve got to get someone here right now!” She gave our address, then listened. “No! There’s no way out!”

I thought for a second. Actually, there was. I grabbed Michelle’s hand and yanked her toward my office. Our only way out was the window. We’d probably break a few bones, but we’d survive. “We have to jump—”

But just as we stumbled into my office, something flew in through the window and smashed into my desk. A ball of flame exploded in front of us. I staggered back. We ran out and I slammed the door shut. We were trapped in the anteroom.

Smoke was flowing in through the cracks around the front door. I took off my jacket, rolled it up, and stuffed it into the opening at the bottom. But that wouldn’t work for long. I could hear the fire roaring just outside. In minutes, we’d be engulfed. Panicked, I looked around the room. There had to be some way to get out of here. I pictured the hallway outside the office. Did it have any windows? No. There had to be a fire escape somewhere on this floor, didn’t there? But I couldn’t remember ever having seen one. And there was no way to get through that wall of fire in the hallway to find out.

The smoke was clouding my eyes and searing my lungs. It was getting harder and harder to breathe. I’d heard people actually died of smoke inhalation before the fire got to them. Now I knew why. It was like drowning on dry land.

We got down on the floor and huddled at Michelle’s desk, coughing and hacking. I listened for the sound of sirens. I thought I heard one, but it was faint, probably too far away to get here in time—assuming it was even coming for us.

I felt weak, light-headed. I tried to think of something to do. But there was nowhere to go, nothing I could do. All our exits were blocked. And now smoke filled the room. Michelle, just three feet away, was only an outline. She pointed to the copy room—Alex’s office. “In there!”

The fire might not reach it as fast. And maybe it still had some clean air. We crawled on all fours, trying to stay below the worst of the smoke. But when we got there, I saw that the tiny space was already filled with smoke. I shook my head and backed away. “Better out there!”

But not much. As we crawled back out, I could hear the fire in my office snapping through the cheap furniture. In minutes, it would eat through the thin wall. I was dizzy and sick to my stomach. Gasping for air, I sagged against the wall. Michelle sank down next to me and crumpled to the floor. I tried to shake her awake, but I had no strength. I tried to call out to her. “Michelle!” But the roar of fire drowned out my hoarse croak.

My lungs burned as they strained for oxygen. Every breath felt like I was inhaling fire. I could feel my body sliding down to the floor. I covered my head and curled up in a ball. Then everything went black.