Guilt by Association (32 page)

“Then you’ll just have to work a little harder, won’t you?” Densmore sniped.

The only response that sprang to mind would’ve landed me in deep shit with Vanderhorn, so I opened the door and we all filed
out.

“So much for that,” Bailey said as we buckled our seat belts.

“I suppose after two strikeouts it’d be too much to hope that old Frankie might show us a little love,” I said.

“That guy wouldn’t have shown us any love if we’d made an arrest on day one,” Bailey groused.

She was right, of course. But the mention of the two strikeouts had given me an idea.

“We still have Pickelman in custody?” I asked.

“Most likely,” Bailey replied. “Want to go see him?”

“Yeah. Can you get us in now? It’d be on the way home.” Pickelman had been booked into the county jail downtown.

“Done,” Bailey said as she pulled out her cell phone.

“Make sure he’s not lawyered up,” I reminded her.

Bailey nodded. While she tracked down Pickelman, I got to wondering whether I’d see the same guard who’d been on duty when
I met with baby gangbanger Hector Amaya. It seemed unlikely she’d be able to recognize me now that I wasn’t in drag, but still.
It was not a pleasant thing to wonder.

We made relatively good time,
considering it was 5:15, the height of rush hour. We entered the jail and I tried to hide my face behind Bailey’s shoulder
as we approached the sheriff’s deputy seated behind the bulletproof glass. I sneaked a look but couldn’t see well enough to
make out who it was, so I listened for the voice as the guard spoke into the microphone to the people ahead of us in line—the
sound was too muffled. I knew that logically I had next to nothing to fear, but there was that off chance…. I could feel my
scalp start to sweat.

The gate buzzed, and the people ahead of us moved inside. Bailey strode over to the guard, and I feigned interest in something
on the floor as I followed.

“ID, please,” the guard said.

It sounded like a man. Encouraged, I lifted my head just enough to look inside. My heart gave a heavy thump. It wasn’t a man.
It was she. The same guard who’d been on duty when I’d come in with Luis Revelo. Jeez, what kind of crappy luck was that?
Different time of day, but nevertheless there she was. Didn’t she ever take vacations? But it was too late to bug out now.
I moved forward and dropped in my ID. This time, I decided to brazen it out, and I deliberately looked straight at her, daring
her to recognize me.

The guard scanned my ID. “You with her?” she asked, gesturing toward Bailey, who’d just stepped through the gate.

“Yeah,” I said.

The guard buzzed me in, looking bored.

I enjoyed the irony of feeling relief at walking
into
a jail and followed Bailey, who’d found an officer to take us to an attorney room.

Bailey chatted amiably with the officer, who never asked to search a thing on us.

When we got to the room, he opened the door. “Here you go. He’ll be out in a sec. You need anything, just holler.”

In other words, nothing like my last visit. And he wasn’t kidding—it really was “a sec.”

The county-issued orange wasn’t a good color for Duane Pickelman, but he looked a hell of a lot better than he had the last
time we’d seen him.

“Hey, Duane. How’s County treating you?” I asked.

“Sucks,” he answered.

“I heard you cut a deal. Got six months and a drug-rehab program,” Bailey said.

“Yeah,” Duane replied glumly.

That Pickelman was quite the wordsmith.

“We’ve got some questions for you, Duane. But before we get to it, I’ve got to read you your rights. You know the drill,”
Bailey said. She went through the routine, then asked if he wanted to waive his rights and talk to us.

“Depends,” Duane said cagily. “What’s in it for me if I talk?”

“Get you a better rehab program, maybe let you do work furlough,” I said.

Duane nodded sagely. “What you wanna ax me?”

“ ‘Ask,’ Duane. The word is
‘ask,’ ”
I said, annoyed. I thought we’d already been over this.

“Ask.” Duane again complied.

“Tell us if you recognize this guy,” I said. Bailey held the photo up for him to see.

Duane’s eyes became saucers, and his jaw dropped. “Is that—?” he asked, his voice squeaking with fear as he put it together.
“I d-din’t know, you g-gotta believe m-me!”

I nodded, guessing what had happened. “He paid you off to let him into the neighborhood, right?”

Pickelman was gulping air, but he managed to nod.

“But you didn’t know why he wanted in?” I continued.

“N-no. N-never.” He stared at the floor, shaking his head as he put two and two together—without even using his fingers. “I
n-never woulda done it if I knew he was gonna hurt that little girl.” Duane looked up at us. “Please, you gotta believe me!”
he said anxiously.

I did, actually. He was a pathetic addict, and what few brains he’d been born with had been fried, but he didn’t strike me
as cold enough to knowingly facilitate the rape of a fifteen-year-old girl. But I needed to nail down more details.

“So, the night of the rape, did he pay you off to miss your checkpoints?”

Duane shook his head. “No. He never said nuthin’ about missing my checkpoints.” He sighed and paused a moment before continuing.
“He gave me some real good glass.” It made sense. The man didn’t need to tell Duane to screw up his job. He just gave the
security guard a nice load of crystal meth and let nature take its course. Duane looked down at his hands. I could swear he
actually seemed ashamed.

“I got really revved. I mean, I was flying.” Duane paused, carried away by the memory of his high, his shame already forgotten.
He looked positively misty.

“You know his name, Duane?” I asked, holding my breath.

He thought for a moment. “Uh, Carl… something.”

“Think harder, Duane. We need a last name,” I said tensely.

He thought again. The visible strain of the effort was painful to watch.

Finally Duane shook his head. “You know, I don’t think I ever knew,” he said.

I looked at Bailey, and she nodded. That was all we’d get out of Pickelman.

We stood, and Bailey signaled for the officer to come fetch him.

“Thanks, Duane,” I said.

“You gonna hook me up with somethin’? Work furlough, maybe?” he suggested.

“We’ll do what we can,” Bailey said.

The officer came and took Pickelman, and Bailey and I got out of there.

“So close,” I said. I got into the passenger seat and slumped down. We’d learned some, but it wasn’t enough.

“Don’t worry,” Bailey said, seeing my agitation. “I’ll find the guy. We know he didn’t get those AB tatts hanging out in church.
It’s just a matter of time before I get a name.”

Eventually she pulled into the driveway of the Biltmore. “You want to come in for a drink? Or dinner?” I asked. It was after
7:00 p.m., and the rumbling in my stomach reminded me we hadn’t stopped to eat all day.

“Thanks, but I’ve got to go back to the office to check up on some other cases.”

I nodded. “Call me the minute you hear anything,” I said. Bailey saluted, and I got out and headed for the elevator.

Back in the room, I dropped my coat and purse and perused the room-service menu. The seared ahi tuna and grilled zucchini
looked good. I opened a cool bottle of pinot grigio to complement the experience and enjoyed a glass until the food arrived.
One long shower later, I was in bed, too tired to even pretend to read a book. I snapped off the nightstand light and dropped
into a deep sleep.

I woke up to the ringing
of my room phone at 8:00 a.m. The phone continued to ring jarringly. I picked up the receiver, thinking it had to be Bailey.
Only my closest friends called me on that phone, and only when they wanted to wake me up. I was right.

“Got good news and bad news,” Bailey said.

“Good news.”

“Got a name for our boy: Carl Stayner. He has a bust for burglary in Florida.”

“Perfect! Did Fukai run his DNA against the rape kit?” I asked, excited.

“And that’s the bad news,” Bailey said, sighing. “Stayner’s not there.”

“What do you mean, ‘not there’? How could he not be in the database?” I asked, exasperated. How did this asshole keep slipping
through our fingers?

“No clue,” Bailey said, sounding every bit as irritated as I felt.

“Okay, give me all you got on him. I’ll find out,” I said.

She gave me all of Stayner’s identifying numbers, and I called the district attorney’s office in Miami-Dade County, where
he’d been convicted. After getting passed around a few times, I managed to get the deputy district attorney who’d handled
the case, a man named
Fred Goins. I introduced myself and explained the situation, then asked if he’d mind looking at my photo to see if it was
the same guy.

“Sure, hang on while I boot up here. And while I’m at it, I’ll send you my photo of the miscreant.”

He pronounced “miscreant” with three long, slow syllables.

Within seconds, we were both looking at the photos.

“Yep. We got the same guy, all right,” Fred remarked as he slurped his drink.

I agreed. The photo Fred sent showed a man who was slightly heavier, his hair a little shorter, but there was no doubt he
was our guy.

“So what happened, Fred? Why isn’t he in the database?”

Fred exhaled loudly and said with disgust, “You can thank Judge LetEmGo for that one. True name Lettingail, but you get the
picture.”

I did.

“Stayner’s attorney argued that since his client was only a thief and hadn’t been charged with a crime of violence, he shouldn’t
have to get entered in the database. Judge LetEmGo agreed, said there was no reason to make him endure the ignominy of a buccal
swab.”

Like “miscreant,” the word “ignominy” rolled off his tongue with an unusual mixture of languorous cynicism.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said.

“Welcome to my world,” Fred replied. “I threw myself a kegger when I got transferred out of his court.”

“I’ll bet. Congratulations on getting out of there, and thanks for your help, Fred. You’re a gem.”

“Go get ’em, Rachel. I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help to ya.”

I was too. We hung up, and I pondered what to do next. I figured I should probably start by getting dressed. The day had dawned
cloudy, cool, and a little breezy. I wasn’t sure whether I’d be outside
or inside, and I didn’t want to wear that damn bulletproof beast if I didn’t have to.

I considered what my next step should be. I didn’t have DNA, but I did have photos of Stayner, and we hadn’t finished hitting
Densmore’s clinics yet. That meant I’d definitely be outside. I started to burrow through my drawers for comfortable walking-around
clothes. I opened my phone to dial Bailey’s number when it rang in my hand. Making a mental note to switch it to vibrate when
I left for the day, I pressed the button. “Knight.”

“News flash,” Bailey said, uncharacteristically excited.

“Listening.”

“We’ve got Stayner.”

I gripped the phone as though it might fly away. “Where? How?”

“I’ll tell you when I pick you up. Be downstairs in ten.”

“Make it three,” I said, but I was talking to dead air. Bailey had hung up.

I’d been waiting
a full five minutes when Bailey roared into the driveway and jerked to a stop in front of me. I jumped in and yanked on my
seat belt as she zoomed around the circle, barely stopping to check for oncoming traffic, then pulled out onto Figueroa and
floored it onto 101, heading north.

Bailey was in the zone, weaving between cars, flying down the road the way only cops and immortal teenagers dared. It seemed
unwise—perhaps suicidal—to distract her with questions, so I hunkered down in silence and consoled myself that I’d have the
answers soon enough.

When we passed through the San Fernando Valley and got off at Las Virgenes, I started to ask where we were headed, but when
Bailey turned left, I realized it could only be Malibu Canyon. The narrow road climbed up through the untamed Santa Monica
Mountains with hairpin turns, and Bailey was still doing at least sixty-five miles per hour. I held my breath and the dashboard
as she careened through the curves. Since I was now fully focused on surviving this ride, I didn’t even
want
to ask questions. We flew up the mountain in silence.

We passed through the tunnel at the top of the canyon and had begun our descent down the other side of the mountain pass into
Malibu
when I saw the flashing lights of police cars, fire engines, and an ambulance. Bailey badged our way through the police perimeter
and pulled over on the right shoulder. We got out, walked across the road, and went to the edge of the shoulder, where everyone
had congregated.

I looked down into the ravine. There, nearly one hundred feet below, among the rocks and shrubs, was an old black Escalade,
its grille smashed into the trunk of a thick, squat tree. The entire front end of the car had accordioned on impact, and at
least one of the branches had broken through the windshield. The driver’s door had been pried off by the Jaws of Life, and
a gurney was set up next to the opening. As I watched, two paramedics lifted out a body that had a long, thin branch protruding
from its neck.

“It won’t be too hard to get a DNA sample out of him now,” I remarked to Bailey.

“Questioning him is going to be kind of tough, though,” she replied.

We headed down the ravine to see what we could see.

On the way, we passed the paramedics, who were huffing and puffing as they carried the gurney up the hill. I didn’t envy them
their task, but then again, I never did.

I took in the grisly sight of the branch that jutted from Carl Stayner’s neck. “Possible DUI?” I asked the paramedic. Stayner
wouldn’t be the first or even the hundredth who’d gotten drunk, miscalculated a curve, and wound up airborne in this canyon.