Buried Evidence (12 page)

Again, Kingsley reached into his briefcase. “On October 29, two days before Halloween, Henry Middleton made a trip to his Van Nuys warehouse. Because he had an audit pending, he decided to do a little housecleaning.”

Lily leaned back in her chair, her hands behind her neck. “Elaborate, please.”

“He fired three of his top people.”

“How did you determine this?”

“Well,” Kingsley said, fingering the paper, “since you think I’m such a lousy prosecutor, maybe I won’t tell you. Besides, my toe hurts like a bitch. I don’t think the board of supervisors would think very highly of you if they found out you were physically abusing your coworkers.”

Lily blinked several times. Henry Middleton was the embodiment of evil. She was determined to see him behind bars. But kissing Kingsley’s ass was a big price to pay for a few morsels of information. For all she knew, the young attorney had nothing more than he had already shown her. Betsy’s face appeared in her mind, however, and she knew she couldn’t take a chance. “Do you think you can get me in trouble just because I accidentally stepped on your toe?” she told him. “If you want people to treat you like a professional, acting like a crybaby isn’t going to earn you any respect. Run to the board of supervisors with something as trivial as this, and I guarantee you’ll become the laughingstock of the agency.”

“Touché,” he said, knowing they were wasting valuable time sparring with one another. Besides, if he went head to head with her, he had no doubt who would come out the victor. “Okay,
here’s how I put it together. My father is pretty successful.” He paused, his cheeks turning a bright pink. “Of course, I’m not telling you something you don’t know, since you ridiculed me only five minutes ago for precisely the same reason.”

“Go on,” Lily said, sitting at rapt attention.

“I don’t intend to reveal any family secrets, but when my dad was audited a few years back, his tax attorney suggested that he might be better off without a few of his employees. Get the picture?”

“I’m following you,” she said, snapping her chair back into an upright position. “You decided Middleton might have received the same kind of advice. Correct?”

“Exactly,” he told her. “I contacted the state employment office and discovered that five of Middleton’s employees were terminated two days before the crime. One of these men was the person in charge of the Van Nuys warehouse. We have verification because this individual filed for unemployment benefits.” He pushed himself to his feet. “Mind if I use your phone?”

Lily picked it up and turned it around to make it more convenient. “Be my guest.”

Kingsley glanced at the paper in his hands, then punched in a phone number. A gruff male voice came out over the speaker phone. “Is this Mr. Nash?”

“Maybe,” the man said. “Who wants to know?”

“This is Matthew Kingsley with the Santa Barbara District Attorney’s Office,” he said, his tone crisp. “I spoke with you a few days ago about your termination from Middleton Furnishings. Do you remember?”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“You were fired on October 29 of last year, is that correct?”

“That’s the date,” Jake Nash told him. “I’ve been unemployed ever since.”

“Was Mr. Middleton on the premises on that date, the day you were dismissed?”

“He was there,” the man said. “In addition to my regular severance pay, he gave me an envelope containing five one-hundred-dollar
bills. He said he was sorry, but business was bad and he had to cut back on his employees.”

“What else did he tell you?”

“Not to talk to nobody,” Nash told him. “He said someone might come snooping around, asking lots of questions. Seems one of his competitors had put the Internal Revenue on his back. Guess they were trying to force him out of business, know what I mean?”

“I certainly do, Mr. Nash.”

“If I stayed loyal and didn’t talk to the tax people, Mr. Middleton promised he would hire me back once the dust settled. Then I read about the problem with his kid.”

“Did Middleton ever attempt to rehire you?”

“Nah,” Nash said. “I even had trouble collecting my unemployment.”

“Why was that?”

“Well,” he continued, “like I told you the other day, I had to resubmit my application three times. The unemployment people said there was no record that I had ever been employed at Middleton Furnishings. Since I kept my pay stubs, I was finally able to get things cleared up, but it was pretty strange. I worked there for over five years. You would have thought someone would have remembered me.”

“On the day you were fired,” Kingsley asked, “did Middleton go next door to the exterminating company?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you certain?” the attorney continued. “When I ask you to testify in court, you’ll have to swear that what you’re telling me is the truth.”

“I realize that,” Nash said. “I don’t lie, mister. If someone had come around asking me about Mr. Middleton’s business, I would have told them the truth too. Just ‘cause the boss gave me five hundred bucks don’t mean nothing. Jake Nash can’t be bought.”

“When did Mr. Middleton go next door?”

“As soon as he got there,” he said. “That would have been around lunchtime, because I saw him talking to one of the guys
who worked at SOS when I ducked out to pick up some sandwiches for my crew.”

“Who was he talking to?”

“Now that,” Nash said, “I can’t be entirely certain about. If my memory serves me correct, he was either talking to Danny Metz or Bob Sanders. Basically, he was just walking around. You know, looking things over, shooting the breeze.”

Lily made the time-out sign with her hands. After Kingsley placed the call on hold, she said, “I’m impressed. You’ve established that Middleton had access to strychnine. This will help our case. Surely you realize by now that anyone can purchase strychnine. It still isn’t enough, don’t you see? We need someone who can testify that they saw Middleton take the poison from the exterminating company. What’s the story on the two men he just mentioned?”

“Can I finish?” Kingsley asked, popping his knuckles.

Lily swept her hand toward the phone.

“Mr. Nash,” he said, after tapping back into the line, “when Henry Middleton gave you the envelope with the five hundred dollars in it, did something else occur that you considered peculiar?”

“He had a bottle inside his jacket,” he said. “It fell out, and I bent over to pick it up. Before I could get my hands on it, Mr. Middleton kicked it away. Then he snatched it up and ran out to his car, all worked up, as if he was about to have a stroke or something.”

Lily leapt to her feet, too excited to remain seated. Kingsley beamed in satisfaction. “Can you describe this bottle?”

“It was nothing but a plastic Coke bottle,” Nash explained. “That’s why I thought the whole thing was screwy. Why would Mr. Middleton get so bent out of shape? All I did was pick up his soda after it fell out of his jacket. Thing is, I didn’t think the liquid inside looked dark enough to be Coca-Cola. The boss also wore pretty expensive clothes to be stretching them out by carrying around his soft drinks inside his jacket pocket, know what I mean?”

“Did this bottle have a top that could be taken off, then replaced?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Don’t you know what kind of bottle I’m talking about? It was a Coke bottle, man. There’s a zillion of them things out there. Surely you’ve seen one. That is, unless you live on Mars or something.”

“I’ve seen a Coke bottle, Mr. Nash,” Kingsley told him, giving Lily a look that said this was a strong witness, a man who wouldn’t crack under cross-examination. “I’d like to ask you a few more questions. Is that okay?”

“Shoot.”

“Can you tell me how I might get in touch with Danny Metz or Bob Sanders? I understand neither one of them are still employed at SOS.”

“I can’t help you there, pal,” Nash told him. “Both Metz and Sanders were ex-cons. We used to hire those kind of guys at the furniture place now and then. Once they earn a few dollars, they tend to split. Killing bugs isn’t much fun, not that I don’t respect any man who puts in an honest day’s work. I turned sixty this year, see, so I know how tough it can be to find a decent job. Some places would rather hire a jailbird than an old fart like me.”

“Have you ever served time in prison?”

“Never,” Nash barked, his deep voice booming out over the speaker phone. “And I’ve never been convicted of anything outside of a few parking tickets. You’re talking to a stand-up guy. Didn’t I already tell you that?”

“You certainly did,” Kingsley answered, tossing another piece of paper on Lily’s desk.

“Perfect,” she whispered, using her finger to press her glasses back in place on her nose. Kingsley had checked Jack Winston Nash, a.k.a. Jake Nash, through every criminal record system in existence, even Interpol. Not even the parking tickets showed up. The man was so clean, he could have run for president.

“One more question,” Kingsley said, pacing back and forth in front of Lily’s desk. “After you heard that Mr. Middleton’s daughter had been poisoned, why didn’t you call the police and tell them what you just told me?”

“Several reasons,” he explained. “First, I would have never dreamed a rich guy like Middleton could do something so terrible to his own kid. I also didn’t realize that he canned me only three days before his little girl was poisoned. When you called and started asking questions, I looked back over my paperwork and decided it might be worth mentioning. That’s when everything began to click in my head. I usually make it a rule to mind my own business, but when someone hurts an innocent kid, then I guess you could say it’s everyone’s business.”

“You’re a good man,” Kingsley told him. “We’ll be in touch. If you can think of anything else that occurred that day, please jot it down and call us immediately.”

Lily circled around to the front of her desk. “This is great news, Matt,” she said, grabbing him by the shoulders. “Our entire case might turn on the testimony of this one witness, a man you flushed out on your own.”

“Thanks,” he said, his chest swelling with pride. “Does this mean you want me to remain on the case?”

“Without a doubt,” she told him, glancing down at his feet. “How’s your toe?”

“I’ll live,” he said, shrugging. “My dad used to beat the living daylights out of me. I’m here, so I guess I survived.” He took a few steps toward the door, then paused and glanced back at her. “I’m sorry I acted like such a creep earlier. People prejudge me. Just because my family has money doesn’t mean I’m a fool. I want to make my own way in life.”

“Well,” Lily said, already typing the details of their phone conversation with Jake Nash into her computer, “it looks as if you’re going to get that chance.”

I
’m in jail.” Lily picked up the phone in her office, expecting to hear her daughter’s voice. She had left several messages on Shana’s voice mail that morning, but she had as yet to return her call. “John?” she asked. Her ex-husband’s voice was so strained it took her a few moments to recognize him.

“You have to help me,” he pleaded. “They just arraigned me.” Lily’s heart began pounding. “Where’s Shana?”

“I guess she’s in school.”

“Good Lord,” she said, concerned she might be responsible, “why didn’t you speak to her? She called me last night in a panic. She was certain Marco Curazon was stalking her. That’s why I called the police.”

“You don’t understand,” he said, knowing she thought the police had mistaken him for Shana’s prowler. “I went out to get ice cream. When I got back to the duplex around ten o’clock, the police were already leaving. The man Shana saw must have been a neighbor. Please, Lily, she’s okay. I was arrested later…I don’t know… shortly before midnight.”

“But Shana doesn’t know you’re in jail?”

“She was asleep,” John continued. “I decided it would be better if I didn’t upset her. She’s been under enough stress lately. I thought the police would release me last night after they booked me. I had no idea they were going to lock me up and haul me into court this morning.”

Lily was appalled that the man she had once been married to was confined in a correctional facility like a common criminal. When she’d learned he was drinking again, though, she had feared another drunk-driving arrest. A DWI conviction wasn’t such a
lightweight offense these days, and John already had a prior conviction. “How high was your blood alcohol?”

“They didn’t arrest me for drunk driving.”

“Oh,” she said, dismayed. “Then what—”

“Vehicular manslaughter.”

Lily almost choked on her own saliva. “You killed someone?”

“Maybe I didn’t do anything,” he shot back. “Maybe I was just standing outside having a nightcap. You should talk. What happened to that guy? You know…what was his name? Hernandez, right?”

The receiver tumbled out of Lily’s hands. The past six years disappeared and she was back in Ventura. Bobby Hernandez had first entered her life as a suspect in the rape and kidnaping of a prostitute. Lily was the supervisor over the sex crimes division at the time, and had assigned the case to Clinton Silverstein to prosecute. When the victim, Patricia Barnes, had failed to show up on three separate occasions, Silverstein asked Lily for permission to withdraw charges. Silverstein felt the case was what they called a “failure to pay,” meaning due to her occupation, she agreed to have sex with Hernandez and cried rape only when he fled without paying her. Instances such as this were not unusual. Generally, the prostitute’s pimp was behind the false accusation; the intent was to send a message to other tricks that they couldn’t get away without paying. Therefore, it was Lily’s signature on the release forms that became Bobby Hernandez’s ticket to freedom.

She remembered having placed Hernandez’s file in her briefcase, telling Silverstein she would make the proper notations regarding the dismissal at her home later that evening. John and Lily had separated the previous month, and twelve-year-old Shana had elected to live with her father, a decision that hurt her mother enormously.

Lily remembered leaving the office, eager to see Shana and show her the house she had rented and all the pretty things she had purchased for her new room. The evening had gone beautifully. Shana had loved her room. Lily had cooked her favorite
meal—fried chicken and mashed potatoes. After dinner they had lounged on the sofa like sisters, thumbing through family albums and reminiscing. Not used to living alone, Lily had forgotten to lock the sliding glass door in the kitchen. Although she knew enough about criminals to realize the rapist would have still managed to find a way to break into the house, John had insisted the crime would have never occurred if not for her carelessness.