If You Really Loved Me (44 page)

Steinhart agreed to cooperate and wear a wire. Borris told him that it had to be David who initiated the subject of contract murders and escape. Only then could a criminal case be filed for "solicitation to commit murder," and only then would Steinhart's testimony be accepted.

Things were getting heavier, Steinhart told the group. "Dave's now willing to pay one hundred thousand dollars up front to have Patti Bailey killed—while she's in custody. At the very least, he wants her to know that he can get to her anytime he wants." If Patti wasn't physically vulnerable, David wanted her mother and her brothers hurt—just to let her know he was out there.

Things, indeed, were getting heavy. It was time to move.

The wire for Steinhart had to be approved by either the Orange County Sheriff's Office, which supervised the jail, or the Orange County Marshal's Office, which is in charge of all prisoners while they are in the courthouse. The Sheriff's Office declined to become involved. Fortunately, the Marshal's Office agreed to help. Orange County Marshal Michael Carona assigned Capt. Don Spears to place Steinhart and David together, and to wire Steinhart.

With a lot of help from others, Newell and Borris arranged for Steinhart to be released from the Orange County Jail. But he wouldn't really be free; he would simply be transferred to another jail. Chief Grover Payne of Huntington Beach agreed to house Steinhart for a week or two. Judge David Carter, in Department 47, signed the order of transfer.

* * *

David Brown considered Richard Steinhart the closest friend he had ever had. No other man of such intelligence and strength had given him the time of day, but Steinhart was going all out for him. When David learned that Steinhart was being released on February 2, 1989, he knew he would miss the hell out of the guy. All the war stories, all the bullshitting.

But they would be together again, roaring around Australia, soon enough. Two adventurers . . .

David thought it was only benign coincidence when he found himself locked in the "Birdcage" holding cell in the basement of the Orange County Courthouse at noon on the very Thursday Steinhart was getting out. David actually had a hearing that day and was in the tiny lockup over the noon hour. Steinhart, of course, had been deliberately placed where he could talk to David—on tape.

The Birdcage was a bisected cell constructed of steel mesh. It had been painted so many times over the years that the layers of color could probably stand alone. Presently, it was a chipped, dull yellow. Each half of the Birdcage had its own bolted-down bench. Prisoners could not pass anything through the mesh, but there, was a narrow space at the bottom of the divider, where they sometimes exchanged cigarettes, matches, notes. Men brought over from the jail waited in the Birdcage to go up to court, or to be transported back to jail. Outside, a ramp led to the glassed-in guards' station eight feet away, and in the other direction, stairs rose to the barred door to the sally port.

It was a noisy place, and the taped conversation between David and Steinhart was counterpointed with jail sounds— men shouting, doors clanging, laughter, profanity. Steinhart explained that he was getting out, but that David could call him at "Jackie's" house. Jackie was "Animal's" mother. Richard planned to use "Animal" for "the job." But for now David needed to know that their plans were set. They spoke in a kind of code, as men do who are locked up. Steinhart knew Newell and Borris would be listening to the wire tape, but he spoke obscurely because that was what David expected. ("The girl upstairs" was Patti Bailey; Jeoff Robinson and Jay Newell were referred to as "state attorneys," "the two cops," "my buddies," and "the local district guys.")

David was positive. He was ready. He wanted everything done as he had outlined. The only one he had not made up his mind about was the "one on Juno."

". . . Brenda?"

"Yeah . . . that's the only one there's any doubt about."

"So Bailey ... ?"

"Yes, everyone else."

"Okay," Steinhart said. ". . . The two cops."

"Yeah."

"If upstairs [Patti Bailey] is done . . . how am I going to get the monies and stuff?"

"I'm working on it. I already have a check for seventeen [seventeen hundred dollars] with my attorney."

David explained that Joel Baruch was to get the money to either Arthur, Manuela, or to Tom Brown. "That's all I told. him."

Steinhart said, "... I think we'll go with the dentist's office . . . we'll go with yours first."

David smiled. Steinhart would help him escape first, when the deputies who transported him to his dentist were caught unawares.

"The two cops . . . ," Steinhart continued.

"The girl?" David suggested. Patti's death was vital.

"The gir, yeah," Steinhart agreed. ". . . Anything else you want me to do for you?"

No, that would do for the moment. David wanted a telephone number for Jackie's house, and an idea of when he might be there.

"You know I won't be there," Steinhart said with a laugh. "Leave a message." He said he would pick his messages up at Jackie's until he got a phone. David seemed to savor every stupid little detail of this intrigue. Richard played along. "Okay, so you have seventeen hundred dollars for me. . . . You're working on that ten grand?" he said.

"I'm working on that."

"Now, do you still want me to go out and torch the motor home and your guesthouse? Doesn't that take thirty to ninety days for the insurance?"

"Not if it's totaled, no."

"All right so . . . you want Bailey first?" Steinhart switched the order of the plans.

"I would think so." David deferred to Steinhart always; he was, after all, the professional.

"Okay, but then I have to run my homework on some people to find out where I can get a sleeper in there to off her," Steinhart pointed out. "That's going to cost some bread. What about the maps? You going to give it to me right now for all the monies?"

The "monies" were, according to David, buried under a boulder in the desert. David's wariness seeped into his voice. If Steinhart had the maps and found "the monies," he could dig them up and be long gone.

David had never truly trusted anyone ail the way.

Steinhart changed the subject. He wanted to know whom
he
could trust. David assured him he could trust Tom, Tom believed that Steinhart was only a bodyguard being paid to protect David and Krystal—from the dreaded Patti Bailey. Arthur and Manuela had been told the same story.

Steinhart could stay in the plush home on Summitridge— no problem. His cover story would be that he was there to protect the property. Not for long though. David was anxious to get going on the murders and the escape, but Steinhart cautioned him again that there was "homework" to do. He assured David he was trying to keep costs down. Calling in favors, he said, from old friends.

David wanted to speak again about the hits on "his buddies." Where would be a good place for Steinhart and his men to ambush them? The word was that Robinson and Newell were always coming and going from the courthouse, walking, jogging. There were lonely, shrubbery-shrouded passages where a hit would not be seen. "There's no problem, right?" David asked eagerly.

"There's no problem with me taking them out. . . . I'll kill them."

"Leave me out," David warned, suddenly nervous.

The payoff would come from the insurance after the fire. David figured $300,000 right away. (He didn't tell Steinhart it would really be $700,000—that he had upped his insurance by $400,000.)

"That's number one," David said, ticking off on his stubby fingers. The fire. ". . . Ah, I would say that the two cops and the girl should either coincide or be very close to each other."

Okay, say they saved the escape until after the murders. With Robinson and Newell dead, David would face a green team from the Orange County District Attorney's Office —a new prosecutor and a new investigator who would have to play catch-up in a hurry. That would put them at a great disadvantage in trial.

Unless they got to Patti before she was killed. .
. .
So Patti must not outlive Jeoff Robinson and Jay Newell by more than a few hours.
"Whoever replaces them may want to go to talk to her," David reasoned hurriedly. "Yeah, it's got to be pretty close because if it happens to the girl first, it might make them aware."

David relished the thought that his tormentors would all be dead, and that he, the man still totally in charge, had a force such as Richard Steinhart to do his bidding. He dragged out the conversation, discussing victim combinations and times and who would die first.

And then the escape. It did not seem to occur to David that he might not be allowed a dental visit in the wake of the sudden violent deaths of the prime witness against him, the arresting investigator, and the prosecutor who had charged him with murder.

He had blind spots. He wasn't stupid. But he had blind spots.

He suggested that Steinhart use gas to set the fires on Chantilly Street, the reasoning of a rank amateur. Fires started by accelerants are the easiest for arson investigators to spot. Gasoline leaves behind a distinct tracing where it has been splashed.

While Steinhart expressed concern about who might be in the big house, David was not at all worried. The pool would keep the flames from leaping across. His parents and Krystal would have plenty of time to get out.

"See, I don't want to kill anybody I don't have to."

"No," David reassured him. "I'm getting them out of there as soon as I can. It doesn't have to be a total wipeout." But he warned Steinhart, "I do have various sophisticated alarm systems, so as soon as the smoke can be detected, it's reported directly to the fire department."

"Okay . . . I'll gas the whole house. I'll gas a good part of it." Steinhart knew better, but he was playing along.

David explained the way out for Steinhart. There was a wall in back, but he thought Steinhart could jump. No, maybe he should take a short wooden ladder with him. No, maybe a collapsible ladder.

"Well, how tall is this fence—six feet?" Steinhart asked.

"Ah . . . yeah."

"Ah, that's a piece of cake," Steinhart said. "Easy for me. I can still get over."

Inside, Richard Steinhart was laughing, but he repeated dutifully David's ponderous instructions. "Number one, the motor home and the house. . . . Number two, ah, depending on the order. It doesn't matter—the girl in G-4?"

"That's something you'll have to judge," David said.

". ... Brenda I can put on the back burner for now?"

"Yeah."

Steinhart needed money for throwaway pistols.

"And pizza," David put in, laughing.

"And pan pizza." Steinhart chortled in agreement. "Yeah, definitely put money in for pizza. Well, and I need that money for personal use."

A jailer approached the Birdcage, offering the two men a bathroom visit. As David was led out of his side of the Birdcage, the jailer whispered to Steinhart, "We need to know about the dentist's office and whether he wants them hurt or he wants them killed."

David returned. The man was a pigeon, Steinhart thought. It was fitting he was sitting in the Birdcage. David was locked up now because he had been trapped by the wire on Cinnamon, but Steinhart saw no suspicion at all in his eyes. Hell, David thought Steinhart was Superman, Bruce Lee, and the Hessians all rolled up together. Good old Thurston loved this too much to suspect his loyal bodyguard/hit man. His Goldie.

David hadn't missed a trick on his first visit to his dentist. He had memorized the whole damn place. He described the exact layout of the "miniplaza" where his dentist's office was. The front entrance on Tustin, the computer store, the doctor's office, the emergency treatment center, the walkways, the parking area. The walkway was hidden from the street; no one could see when the shooting started.

David had it all figured out. The deputies usually radioed the dispatcher when they turned into the driveway of the miniplaza to let him know they were arriving. "You know— whatever their language is—'Everything's okay and we're here.' . . . Both deputies sat in front and I sat in the back of the patrol car. . . . They walked me to the office . . . but first the driver got out. He walked up to the front parking lot, walked around, came back, and told him okay."

"So he does use a lookout first?"

"Correct."

David had noted that the deputies had checked all the areas around the dentist's entrance on his last visit. Then one walked ahead of him and one behind. "They both walked me in through the lobby. The dentist and her husband take me back without the deputies watching."

"What's that tell you?" Steinhart breathed with just the right touch of triumph.

"Man," David said, grinning, "that's why I'm telling you."

The deputies had locked David in the lobby and checked all the rooms. "When the dentist called me back to the chair, the deputy said they could just watch the door."

"Okay. So you don't have no problems," Steinhart said grimly. "I may have to kill a cop or two, and I just wanted to let you know."

"I realize that ... I realized it all along. Better them than me."

They worried over the plan, the lookout points, the layout of the dentist's office. David gloated over each detail.

"All right, good deal," Steinhart said. "Well that makes it okay. I'm going to ask you something—professionally— and you got to—I just have to ask you this. See where your head's at. The two cops—the DA's—you want them dead ... or hurt?" .

David smiled at the ridiculous question.

"Dead. "

David was concerned about other, more important, questions. For instance, he had not gotten his lunch. And he wanted to be sure that Steinhart understood that the real reason he had to escape from jail was for "my little girl, and I didn't see any hope."

"Right on," Steinhart said. "I'll get you out."

"Promise?"

"I promise. I will get you out of this."

"Guaranteed?"

"Guaranteed ... as long as you can live with yourself after I kill the cops. As long as you can live with yourself—"