Evidence of Guilt (6 page)

"What about brothers and sisters?"

"None."

"Was there a husband in her past?"

Benson nodded. "Apparently they split up not too long ago. Lisa's parents couldn't tell us much about the guy."

"Close family."

"Yeah, that was my take on it too. You might try Ed Cole, over in Hadley. He's handling the probate, so he's probably followed up on some of this."

My inner antenna picked up. "Lisa had him draw up a will?"

"No, but Cole handled her aunt's estate. When the parents asked for a recommendation I gave them his name." He looked at me, embarrassed. "I would have given them yours except that Cole knew the property and such."

"Not a problem," I assured him. And I meant it. A little probate work goes a long way. It's tedious and deadly dull stuff.

Benson finished off his beer, stood and stretched. "Guess I'd best be going. I appreciate the beer." He gave me an avuncular smile. "And the company."

"Any time."

The smile lingered. I could tell by his expression that he was seeing my mother's face in my own. "You take care, Kali. I don't like to see you involved in such nasty business."

I gave him the assurances he wanted, then walked him to the door. After he'd left I went back to sorting through Harding's file, making notes to myself and trying to superimpose a sense of order on Sam's chaos. When I finished, I drew up a list of people I wanted to talk to, then checked my watch. Too late to do any real business, but I

called Caroline Anderson, Lisa's friend from the Lazy Q Diner, to see if we couldn't arrange a meeting for the next day.

"I already talked to the police," she said.

"I know, but I'd like to talk with you too."

"Is that legal? I mean, my talking to both sides. There's not a problem with that?"

"It's perfectly legal and not at all unusual. If it would make you feel better, you can check with the DA's office first."

She still seemed hesitant.

"It won't take long," I said.

"Okay, I guess. Around one o'clock?"

I took down her address, then fixed myself a quickie dinner of noodles and cheese, opened the novel I'd bought in anticipation of Tom's absence and tried to shake my thoughts free of Lisa and Amy and Wes.

It worked fine until I got into bed. Then I lay there in the dark, besieged by images that took on a life of their own. I found myself trying to imagine what it felt like to have your throat slashed.

I awoke the next morning with a sore throat. Whether it was induced by the glinty, razorlike knife that had haunted my dreams, or was simply the precursor to a cold, I couldn't tell. I swallowed a couple of vitamin C tablets just to be on the safe side, gargled with some heavy-duty antiseptic that smelled like tar paper and tasted worse, then drove into town for my appointment with Sam.

He was just sitting down at his desk with a mug of coffee and something that looked like a large, sugar-encrusted donut with a glob of purple jelly where the hole should have been.

"You want some coffee?" he offered by way of greeting.

Sam's coffee is pretty terrible unless you cut it heavily with cream and sugar the way he does. "Thanks, I think I'll pass." I took a chair across from him. "Your doctor know you eat that stuff?"

He licked a finger. "Doctors don't know everything."

"One thing they do know, though, is heart disease."

Ignoring me, Sam bit into the pastry.

"I thought you were supposed to be watching your fat and cholesterol."

"I do. It's chicken or fish and fresh vegetables for dinner almost every night."

"And anything you want during the day?"

His eyes settled on mine for a moment. "You reach an age, Kali, where you start to see that longevity isn't all it's cracked up to be. I'd rather enjoy the years I have than live forever on some damned bean sprout diet." He broke off a sizable hunk of pastry, dunked it in his heavily creamed coffee, then plopped it into his mouth with a self-satisfied smile. "That reminds me, Jake Harding and his wife have invited us for dinner on Saturday."

"Us?"

"Jake would like to meet you. It'll be a good opportunity to bring everyone up to speed on the case. I hope you're free, about seven?"

"Don't you think I should meet with Wes first? Make sure
he
wants me working in his defense?"

"Sure. Why don't you go there this afternoon? I'll call over to the jail and have your name added to the list. I'd like your take on Wes anyway."

"You've told him that I'll be working with you?"

Sam nodded. "Not you specifically, but he knows I'm going to be calling in someone to help, I don't expect there to be a problem."

Sam's secretary popped in for a minute with some letters for him to sign. When she left, he brushed away the crumbs and cleared a spot on his desk, which he then used for a foot rest.

"Now the way I see it," he said, "we'll need to take a two-pronged approach with this thing. We'll chip away at every piece of state's evidence we can--you know the game

there--but we'd also be wise to come up with another suspect to toss to the jury. We've got to make our theory of what happened at least as plausible as theirs."

"From what I read in the reports, that's not going to be easy."

"No, it isn't. I have a feeling we haven't seen the worst of it either."

"Any chance of pleading to a lesser offense?"

"I doubt Willis would go for it."

"Curt Willis is handling this for the prosecution?"

Sam nodded.

He was right; we'd never plead it out. Curt loved trials the way young boys love fresh dirt.

"Not that it matters in any case," Sam continued. "Wes won't hear of it. Claims he's been singled out on account of his reputation and previous brushes with the law."

"How does he explain the evidence against him?"

"He doesn't. He told the police he didn't know lisa Cornell, and that's what he tells me too. Says he must have dropped the rabbit's foot somewhere and stained his pant leg when he got a bloody nose."

"What about the blond hair?"

Sam shrugged. "He says he's partial to blondes."

"Does he realize he could be facing the death penalty?"

California law allows the prosecutor to seek the death penalty when a homicide involves any of a number of special circumstances, one of which is multiple victims. Not only did we have two victims, we had real heartbreakers-- a loving mother and her young child. Added to that, we had a defendant with a reputation for stirring up trouble and a crime that had apparently been committed in cold blood. I had to believe Willis would seek the maximum penalty.

"I've tried getting through to him," Sam said. "Maybe you'll have better luck. In the meantime, we're stuck with the story he gave the police."

"A story that's so lame, it's laughable."

Sam removed his feet from the desk and leaned forward. "A story that's so lame, it just might be the truth. If he were guilty, don't you think he'd have come up with something better?"

It was a thought that had crossed my mind too. But it wasn't really an approach you could argue to the jury.

'The trouble is," I said, "the jurors' sympathies are going to be with Lisa and Amy. That's going to make it hard for them to find reasonable doubt."

"It's all in how you package it. What we need to do is portray Lisa Cornell in a way the jury will find a little less sympathetic." He sipped his coffee. "I'll start working on the necessary motions. Why don't you find out what you can about Lisa? Let's see if we can't come up with another way for this to have happened."

"It won't be easy. Lisa was about as likable as a new kitten."

Sam looked at me over the rim of his cup. "Nobody's life is spotless, Kali, and nobody is without enemies. If you look hard enough, you'll find dirt."

Trash the victim: It was a common enough defense strategy, but it left an unpleasant taste in my mouth. I thought about arguing the point but knew I'd lose. Instead, I told Sam about my appointment with Lisa's friend from work, Caroline Anderson, and about my meeting with Kevin in the barn.

"Do you know anything about a man called Granger?" Tasked after a moment. "He supposedly lives in the woods and sometimes slept in Lisa Cornell's barn."

Sam shook his head. "Never heard of him. You think he knows something?"

I shrugged. "Probably not, but I think it's worth following up. I'm willing to bet he wasn't interviewed by the police."

"Do what you need to, money's not a problem. Jake has given us a green light on this."

"It's a good thing, since we're starting with nothing."

"Worse than .that, I'm afraid. We're starting with a client who's painted himself into a corner and doesn't seem to care."

After leaving Sam's I stopped by my office to make a few phone calls on other cases and to down a cup of honest-to-goodness coffee. Then I drove over to talk with Caroline Anderson.

Silver Creek has more than doubled in size since the time I was growing up. The open pastures I remember from my youth have given way to strip malls and seemingly endless stretches of tract housing.

The Andersons lived in one of the newer developments near the highway, where the houses were packed in so tight you could practically hold hands with your neighbor by leaning out your bedroom window. The houses were small and pretty much identical, except that some had the garage on the left and some on the right. Most of the yards were landscaped, though barely, and without inspiration.

The Andersons' was not. Instead of the rectangular patch of green and lone, staked sapling, their yard was fashioned from raw earth and weeds. A child's tricycle was parked near the front door.

I rang the bell and waited. Inside a baby cried and a tele-

vision audience found something uproariously funny. I was just about to ring a second time when the door opened.

"Caroline?" I asked.

She nodded wordlessly, a baby on her hip, a toddler at her feet. She was about Lisa's age, but without Lisa's sparkle. Thin, almost bony, with pale lashes, washed-out coloring and hair that went several directions at once. The only distinctive thing about her was a bruised and swollen lip.

"I'm Kali O'Brien. We talked yesterday. I wanted to ask you about Lisa Cornell."

Caroline pulled the baby closer, as though I might have designs on snatching it away. "I've been thinking about that," she said. "There's really not much I can tell you."

"Whatever you know, it's more than I do at this point."

"I don't see why you want to know about Lisa anyway. She's not the one who did anything wrong."

"Look, I know you probably think I'm the enemy here, but I'm not. I knew Lisa too, and I'm sickened by what hap pened to her."

Caroline's expression remained skeptical.

'The thing is," I continued, "if Wes Harding is convicted and he didn't do it, then the real killer gets off scot-free."

Of course if Wes Harding
did do
it and
wasn't
convicted, the outcome was the same. And as much as I professed to believe in the American judicial system, I knew it was far from perfect. I pushed that thought aside for the moment.

"I could use your help," I said.

"It's just that. .."

"I won't take up much of your time," I assured her.

Caroline's eyes flickered to the street, then back to me.

The baby drooled onto the front of Caroline's blouse. She wiped its chin with her hand. "Oh, all right. But only for a few minutes. I've got to put this guy down for his nap."

With the toddler clinging to her leg, Caroline ushered me inside. The place was tight and boxlike. A kitchen to the right, living room straight ahead, stairs to the left. I'd seen mobile homes more spacious. We moved into the living room, which was furnished with a green and brown plaid couch, an orange recliner, a large-screen television, and an assortment of toys.

"Watch your step," she said, kicking aside a plastic fire engine. "Kids' toys can be lethal."