Blood Defense Read online

  Dale shook his head, his expression dark. “Sebastian bought you out of it?”

  “Sure did. And I got sent home almost every other day for wearing ‘inappropriate attire.’ That went on through all of eighth and most of ninth grade.”

  They were all the classic signs. Being a cop, Dale knew them well. He was squeezing the phone so hard I heard the plastic crack. “And she said nothing?”

  “Nope.”

  The knuckles on his hand holding the phone were white. He didn’t look at me. “Did you say anything to her?”

  “No. I was afraid she’d dump me. Put me in foster care or something. His life, his money—that’s what she wanted. Not me. And I knew for sure that she’d blame me.”

  Dale rubbed his temple. “So no one else knew?”

  “Lettie, the housekeeper, did. I think she suspected for a while. But she found out for sure when she caught Sebastian ‘tucking me into bed’—with his tongue down my throat and his hand up my blouse. She called the police, God bless her.”

  His voice was raw. “So he got arrested.”

  I could hear the bitterness in my voice as I answered, “No, of course he didn’t get arrested. The Sebastian Cromers of the world never get arrested. Mommie Dearest told the police it was a misunderstanding, that Lettie had been mistaken. And she made Lettie back down and lie to the cop. I felt like a piece of shit for not telling that cop that Lettie had been right. But I could tell he was a big fan of Sebastian’s. He was all, ‘Of course, Mr. Cromer. So sorry to disturb you, Mr. Cromer.’ Lettie left that night and never came back.”

  “So Celeste didn’t do anything about it?”

  The look of horror and disgust on Dale’s face was like salve on an open wound. Finally, someone believed me. And cared.

  “She refused to believe Lettie—or me. But one month later, she saw it with her own eyes. He came after me while I was in the shower—”

  “How? Didn’t you—”

  “Lock the door?” Dale nodded. “I couldn’t. He disabled all the locks on my doors.”

  Dale’s face and neck had turned bright red. “Then did she believe you?”

  “No. She accused me of trying to seduce him, of setting him up. I told her I couldn’t take it anymore, and that if she didn’t get me out of there, I’d report him to the school police. And I’d tell them that she’d known about it all along and wouldn’t stop him.”

  Dale’s eyes bored into mine, his gaze burning hot. “What did she do?”

  “She knew the school police probably wouldn’t bow down to King Sebastian. And I think some part of her lizard brain knew he’d do it again—and that eventually, he’d get caught by someone who wouldn’t let it go. Then she’d be on the hook, too. So she finally moved us out.”

  Dale stared at the counter as he slowly shook his head, his chest heaving. Suddenly, he pushed back, his face flushed a dangerous red. He screamed as tears gathered in his eyes. “That sick fucking bitch! Goddamn her to hell!” He banged the phone down on the counter—and kept banging it again and again. Plastic shards flew as the phone disintegrated. Spittle flew from his mouth, and his eyes were wild as he shouted over and over, “That goddamned whore! That filthy piece of shit! I’ll kill them both!” By the time the guards came running, the receiver was nothing but a mouthpiece and wires.

  They yanked him up by his waist chain and threw him down on the floor. I jumped up and pounded on the glass. “Stop! Let him go! It’s not his fault!”

  But they never even looked at me. They trussed him up and dragged him out. I stood there staring after him, my hands still on the glass. Dale’s fury was a wild, terrifying thing. I didn’t want to think about what it meant.

  But I couldn’t deny that when I saw his rage unleashed—for me, for what they’d done to me—a part of me had rejoiced.

  FORTY-THREE

  When I got back to my car, I sat there for a few minutes. I needed time to recover. I couldn’t stop seeing the image of him pounding that phone receiver on the counter with wild-eyed fury. As much as I feared what it meant, I loved that fury. It was my fury, and I’d carried it by myself for so many years. And now, finally, there was someone else who felt it, too, someone who knew I told the truth, who believed me. I felt vindicated. I felt strong.

  But I knew that was the face of a man who could stab two innocent women to death. As much as I wanted to believe he was innocent, the evidence kept stacking up against him.

  After a few minutes, my head cleared enough to drive. Ordinarily, I hate the drive from downtown. It’s long and monotonous. But now, the boring normality of it brought me back down to earth. Freeway therapy. By the time I passed the Hollywood exits a half hour later, I was feeling pretty steady. But I knew I couldn’t talk about what’d just happened. I’d regained my balance, but only just. If I had to relive any part of it now, it’d totally derail me. So I did what I’d always done since childhood: I shut it all out. I spent the rest of the ride back thinking about what else I had to get done before the trial started.

  When I got back to the office, Michelle smiled and held up a hand for a high five.

  “You know I hate high fives, Michy.” Because when I miss, it feels so lame.

  “Oh, cope.” We slapped hands and I managed to hit hers pretty squarely.

  “What are we celebrating?” Other than the fact that I’d nailed the high five.

  “Russell Kitson will talk to you if you get out there right now. He’s in the Valley.” Michelle handed me a Post-it with the address.

  “Hey, Alex,” I called.

  He came out of his little room. “You don’t have to shout. I’m only nine feet away.”

  “Let’s go hit up the photographer.” He went back to his office to pack up. “Did anyone come by with that phone?”

  “Not yet. But it’s only three thirty.”

  I decided I’d asked enough of Beulah for one day and let Alex do the driving. As he headed up the onramp to the freeway, the sky was a dull gray. But as we moved north and east, the sun broke through, and by the time we made it to the San Fernando Valley, the sky was almost completely blue. Just a few wispy clouds floated above us.

  Alex got off the freeway at Winnetka and headed north for another five miles. He made a series of turns into a bland, suburban neighborhood and finally pulled up in front of a two-story Tudor-style house set at the top of a steep driveway. As we hiked up to the front door, I noticed that the large picture window was covered with a heavy blackout drape.

  When a young woman in heavy makeup, a kimono short enough to wear to the gynecologist, and stiletto heels answered Alex’s knock, I knew what kind of photographer—or, rather, videographer—Russell was. The girl ushered us in and pointed to a man sprawled on the couch near the front door. He stood up when we walked in. Russell was at least six foot four and thin as a Flexi straw, with long, greasy black hair. A nose ring with a real-looking diamond rested on his left nostril, and several chains with a variety of medallions hung around his neck, which was covered in multicolored tats. When we shook hands, I noticed he wore leather bracelets and heavy silver rings on every finger. The word overkill probably never came out of his mouth.

  We followed him past the set—a dungeon that featured a rack suspended from the ceiling, a chair equipped with leather straps, the requisite four-poster bed—with handcuffs, of course—and I even spotted a red rubber ball on the pillow. A man in an executioner’s costume—leather head covering and all—sat in a rocking chair next to the bed, scrolling on his cell phone. Two women in G-strings and nothing else watched a cooking show on the television a few feet away. Just another day in a sleepy bedroom town.

  As we took seats in the dining room, I saw Russell check me out. There was nothing lascivious about it. He was just scoping out the inventory. He offered us a drink, but I declined. I didn’t even want to risk bottled water here. Russell looked more than a little stoned, with eyes at half-mast and a voice that sounded like a tired lawn mower.

  I thanked him f
or meeting with us and jumped right in. “How’d you meet Paige? I assume you knew her before you met Marc.”

  “Yeah. I’ve known Paige for about five years. Back then I only did print ads, online ads, that sort of thing.”

  “She never did porn?”

  “No. I tried to bring her over. It’s good money. But she wasn’t into it.” He pulled a pack of Marlboros out of his vest pocket and held it out to us. We shook our heads. He lit up and took a deep drag. I could practically hear his lungs screaming.

  I was hoping he could give us a line on who Mr. Perfect was, so I asked if he knew of any boyfriends who were married—and generous.

  He shook his head. “Uh-uh, Paige didn’t do the married-man thing. At least not that I ever knew. Only guy I ever saw her with was a guy in the industry. Used to pick her up at the shoots sometimes. Drove a motorcycle.”

  “You happen to know his name?” I asked the question with zero hope.

  Russell tipped his head back and stared through the smoke that circled up toward the ceiling from his cigarette. “It was weird . . . like, Cloud . . . Rain . . . no. Storm. Yeah, that’s it. Storm . . . Cooper.”

  At last. I couldn’t believe I’d finally gotten a name. But . . . “Seriously? Storm Cooper?” He nodded. I looked at Alex and we did a mental fist bump. “Did you know him at all?”

  He pulled on his cigarette like it was a joint, holding in the smoke till the very last second. “Not really. We didn’t talk. Maybe like ‘Hey’ and ‘See ya.’ I just remember because I dug the name.”

  I asked a few more questions about Paige, and a couple about Marc, but we’d gotten all there was to get from Russell. I thanked him for his time. He took another drag and stood up. “Not a problem. Well, gotta get back to the salt mines.” Russell gave us a salute. “The porn must go on.”

  I tried not to make a face. As he walked us to the door, one of the girls was getting hoisted onto the rack. Another girl in thigh-high black-vinyl boots picked up a whip.

  Russell opened the door. “Such a bummer what happened to her. Never would’ve thought someone that sweet could end up that way.” He shook his head. “Fuckin’ world we live in.”

  A whip cracked behind him. “Yeah, what a world.”

  FORTY-FOUR

  Our trip back to the office was slow going. We’d hit the freeway at the heart of rush hour. I dragged my eyes from the mesmerizing river of lights and searched on my cell phone for Storm Cooper.

  Alex glanced at me. “You looking up—”

  “Storm Cooper. Yeah.” But the Internet connection was slow. I made myself look away from the little spinning blue wheel of death. I read a study that said watching those things increases your risk of heart attack. Of all the ways to go, that had to be a top-five contender for the stupidest. Right behind a roller coaster accident and autoerotic . . . anything. When I looked down at the screen, I found a bunch of results. Storm Cooper was on Facebook, LinkedIn, Snapchat . . . everywhere. “He’s a stuntman—”

  “The name sure fits.”

  “And he’s definitely single. He’s not bad looking. I get what Paige saw in him.” I read his description on IMDb, an entertainment-industry website. “Five foot nine, brown hair, and he looks buffed out. Kind of reminds me of one of those gladiators in a Spartacus flick.” I pushed the link for his phone number and listened to the line ring. It went to voice mail. I left a message saying I needed to talk to him about Paige and gave him my number.

  “Kind of weird that we haven’t heard anything about him,” Alex said. “It seems like he’s known Paige for a while, but he’s not on the DA’s witness list, and he didn’t give a statement to the police. At least not that I saw.”

  I shook my head. “He definitely didn’t.” I called Michelle and told her to put Storm Cooper’s call through to my cell the minute it came in.

  She’d sounded fine when I’d talked to her on the phone, but when we walked into the office, Michelle gave us an ominous look.

  Oh hell no. Another dead woman in Dale’s past? I didn’t want to ask. I stared at her.

  “You’re not going to like this. I know I sure don’t. I just got a call from your burglar boyfriend, Scott Henderson. He’s not going to give you the phone until you substitute in on his case.”

  Relief that it wasn’t another dead body mixed with irritation. “Wait a minute, let me get this straight: That little douche nozzle doesn’t trust me?”

  Michelle had a sour look. “I’d tell him to go piss up a rope, but I assume you still want to find out what’s on that phone?”

  “I do.” I didn’t like getting played like this. But it was just a low-level dope case. I should be able to get rid of it in one appearance. “Tell him I want proof—”

  “He said he’d send by a ‘compatriot’ to show it to us. But we’d better not ‘try anything’ because his buddy wouldn’t be alone.”

  Now I was good and pissed. “You have got to be kidding me. That putz . . . tell him if his ‘compatriot’ tries to pull anything, I’ll tell the cops he did the burglary.”

  Alex had a worried look. “What about the privilege?”

  “There’s no privilege if he threatens me.”

  Alex frowned. “It didn’t exactly sound like he—”

  “It will when I talk to the police. Michelle, I assume he’s going to call back?”

  “Any minute. I spoke to him right after you called from the road, so he knows you’re due back around now.”

  “I’m not talking to him until I see that phone. But get his case number and all the info. If someone shows up with the phone, try and get me on calendar tomorrow so I can substitute in and get rid of the case.”

  “Got it. Oh, and your cop buddy Hank said she’d be coming by.”

  “Great.” I’d added Scott Henderson’s rap sheet to the other information I’d asked her to get. Now was the perfect time to find out whether all this hassle over the phone was even remotely worth it.

  Michelle gestured to the stack of juror questionnaires on her desk. “And I’m about done with those.” She blew out a breath. “I don’t know how it happened, but more than half your panel is under the age of thirty-five. A solid third are in their twenties.”

  “How bad are they?”

  Michelle shook her head. “They don’t trust cops, they think the system is ‘rigged,’ and they’re not big fans of lawyers. The only good news is that they don’t seem to like prosecutors, either.”

  “So we’d probably get along great at a party, but they’ll tank me in trial.”

  Michelle nodded. “Exactly.”

  Perfect. “Alex, let me know what you think when you get done.”

  “I’ve only got about twenty more to go. I’ll be done by tonight.” Alex turned to go back to his office, then paused. “Hey, do you want me to call my uncle and get us backup for when Scott’s guys show up?”

  “Your uncle?”

  “He’s a bail bondsman. He’s got muscle that helps him out when he needs it.”

  “I have a feeling Scott’s pretty lightweight, and he needs us right now. So I think we’re good. But thanks. I’ll remember that.”

  And I meant it. Ever since Lane Ockman had managed to penetrate our airtight security system—AKA, the intercom—I’d been thinking that moving into better digs might be more necessity than luxury. And I’d hoped this damn case would generate the income to let us do that. But so far, all it’d generated were death threats, hate mail, and pissed-off drug dealers.

  Alex hovered in my doorway. “Uh, Sam?” I looked up. “That cell phone. Aren’t we supposed to turn that over to the judge . . . or the cops? It’s physical evidence. The book says—”

  “That we’re not allowed to hang on to physical evidence. Yeah. So what? How’re they going to find out? You think Scott’s going to fink on us?”

  “No, but if we get caught—”

  I waved him off. “We won’t. Chill out.”

  Alex gave me a worried look, but he went back to his offic
e.

  I might have to burn that damn book of his. Turn over that cell phone. As if. I went back to work and plowed through the rest of the questionnaires. Michelle was right. Our jury pool was young, skeptical, and unsympathetic. The only question was who they’d hate more: Zack’s cops—or mine.

  I’d just finished the last depressing questionnaire when Hank showed up.

  We sat down in my office. “How’s Naille doing? Has he started school?”

  “Started it and already kicking ass. One of his teachers asked him to do a special project.”

  “I’m not surprised. He’s an amazing talent.”

  “How about you?” She eyed the stack of questionnaires on my desk. “How’s it look?”

  “Like they’ll be ready to vote before Zack calls his first witness.”

  “Well, that sucks.” Hank pulled a file out of her purse. “I checked out Ignacio Silva.” Her expression said I wasn’t going to like this. “When he was on patrol, he had a rep for being baton happy. He’s got some use-of-force complaints in his file—”

  “You didn’t pull his file, did you?” That might get back to Zack and tip him off to check out Ignacio.

  “Give me some credit.”

  “Sorry. Are any of the complaints recent?”

  “The latest one was two years ago, and there were a couple more before that. I talked to Jay Gerber about him. Jay was my firearms trainer in the academy, and I know he’s a straight-up guy. He worked in West LA with Ignacio for about a year. Said he didn’t care for Ignacio’s style, but he didn’t give me any specifics.”

  “Damn. Ignacio’s my alibi witness—”

  “For the double?”

  “No, for the murder of the hooker. You’re sure this is solid information?”

  “As solid as rumors and opinions can be. Though Jay’s usually pretty reliable.”

  It didn’t mean Ignacio was lying. But it might mean there were more problems in his past than Hank could find just by snooping around. I’d have to think long and hard about whether I wanted to use him. “Were you able to get any reports on Marc Palmer?”