Pausing briefly, I glanced at the grotesque black and white glossies. Then I set the report relating to the strangled woman aside and picked up the Haskell autopsy file. Other than the deep gash on his forehead, there was nothing to indicate he had been in a struggle before he died. He had an ancient scar on his forearm and a few minor scratches on his wrist. The scratches, which could’ve been made by a cat or an animal with claws, had been there for a few days prior to his death. But that was all. Other than the wound on the forehead, there were no new bruises or other lacerations.
I found something interesting, but it wouldn’t help. The official cause of Haskell’s death was listed as a heart attack. But the DA’s addendum alleged that Roberts had beat Haskell on the head with a blunt object and then he had the coronary, and the latter was the direct result of the savage blow administered by Roberts. Could’ve happened that way, I thought, and if it did, then it was murder.
My eyes started to glaze over; detailed autopsy reports will do that. When I reached the page on serology, I set the papers down and walked around my desk and glanced out the window at the traffic jammed on Lakewood Boulevard. Cars were lined up trying to get into Stonewood Shopping Center. A street sweeper had stalled while making a U-turn, blocking the entrance to the parking lot. Horns honked in anger and frustration, the populace ready to riot. Women were frantic. There was a big sale going on at the Broadway.
Returning to my desk, I wiped my hands across my face and picked up the report again.
When I turned the page, a sentence caught my eye: “Creatine phosphokinase was present in blood traces located on the decedent’s left anterior fronto-occipital in near proximity to the laceration.” Wait a minute. I read the sentence again, slowly, focusing on each word. I knew from a forensics seminar I’d taken that creatine phosphokinase, an enzyme, is only in the blood after a heart attack had occurred. I rapidly flipped through more pages. Maybe I was on to something. I found another vital sentence buried on page sixteen. It said that when the body was discovered, there was no evidence of blood flow from the head injury.
Leaning back, I took another sip of coffee and let my mind mull over what I’d just read. Blood flow from the head wound should’ve been substantial. Digging deeper into the autopsy report, I found that there was no subdural bleeding either. The only blood found anywhere on the body were the few traces that had surrounded the wound, the blood with the enzyme in it, which had trickled out after he had died.
I sat there flabbergasted, staring at the words on the report. No blood flow meant Haskell’s heart had stopped before he was struck. The guy had died before the beating took place.
I wondered why Roberts would whack a guy who was already dead. He wouldn’t. Nobody would. In a robbery, what would be the point of beating up a guy after he died?
But what if Haskell had the fatal heart attack and then fell out of the car, banging his head when he did? Yeah, that would explain the wound and the blood traces with the enzyme. That would mean Roberts hadn’t struck him. It would mean he wasn’t lying. It would mean, in spite of everything else, Roberts hadn’t murdered Haskell.
The addendum had been signed by the District Attorney holding office at the time, Frank Byron. That’s odd. The DA himself handled the case. But anyway, he’d stated that Roberts had beat Haskell with a blunt instrument, which resulted in his death. Then, according to Byron, Roberts killed the woman to keep her from squealing about Haskell’s murder. How could that be? The DA had to know that Haskell was dead before he received the gash on his head. I looked up, stared at the wall, thinking.
Quickly, I turned back to the interrogation report. There was no mention of a heart attack in his plea negotiations with Roberts.
The District Attorney had lied. He lied to the courts, lied to Roberts, and with this document, the deceit was still very much alive. To put it pure and simple, it was all bullshit. With his lies and threats, Frank Byron had bluffed Roberts into confessing to a murder.
I knew now that the authorities in Yuma County, Arizona could not have issued a murder warrant charging Roberts. The only thing they could’ve charged him with back in 1945 would’ve been grand theft auto, hardly a capital crime, which by now would’ve been dismissed. The statute of limitations wouldn’t apply, he left the jurisdiction, but who in their right mind would try a class D felony, thirty years old?
I stared at Byron’s signature, a hasty scrawl. Why would he, the head honcho, put his name on a report that on its surface was a lie? Could it have been a cover-up? If so, what was he concealing? Maybe he didn’t want his office to take the case to trial for some reason. And by coercing Roberts to confess to Vera’s murder, there would be no trial, no witnesses, no evidence, and nothing in the public record. The documents and other ugly details-such as the autopsy report-would be buried away in the tombs of the City Hall basement, where they wouldn’t see the light of day for almost thirty years-until now.
But then why would Byron want to sweep Vera’s death under the rug? Big shots like Byron wouldn’t have messed with a small-time murder rap. And Vera was definitely small-time, just a wayward girl, like a million others who flocked to the City of Fallen Angels. Unlike a movie studio mogul, politician, or a powerful mob boss, Vera’s death would’ve been an inconspicuous pinpoint on anyone’s radar.
Byron left the DA’s office in 1946, less than a year after Roberts’s conviction and, after an unsuccessful run for governor, went into private practice somewhere in California, but that’s all I knew. I didn’t even know if he was still alive, but I knew if he were, I’d want to have a little chat with him.
I set the file down and propped my feet on the desk. What kind of shyster handled Roberts’s case back in 1945? He could not have studied the reports, or he would have seen the same things I did. The guy wasn’t much of a lawyer. He sounded more like a movie agent, selling the rights to his story, and vanishing with the cash. It would’ve been obvious to a decent attorney, or for that matter, anyone who looked, or cared: If Roberts hadn’t killed Haskell, then he had no motive to murder the girl. Reasonable doubt; if the case had gone to trial back then, a first-year law student could have handled it. Might have even gotten Al Roberts acquitted.
CHAPTER 4
The next morning, I skipped breakfast and headed out, driving directly to the prison.
“You’re late,” the guard, Marsh, said. “The prisoner is already in the hearing room.”
“Yeah, the traffic, bumper to bumper.”
“Forget it. I get enough jive from the inmates. C’mon, follow me, O’Brien.”
I followed Marsh into the parole hearing room connected to the main dormitory. He moved to the back of the windowless room, where he stood again with his feet spread and his hands clasped behind his back. A rectangular conference table sat at the front of the room. Three unoccupied high-back leather chairs rested behind the table. Rows of hard steel folding chairs faced the table, filling the remainder of the room.
Roberts sat slumped in the front row. I deposited myself next to him and set my briefcase on the floor.
“We haven’t much time,” I said, “so I’ll be brief, Al.”
He didn’t acknowledge me, just kept staring at the floor.
“Listen up. I’ve found out something. May help.”
“I didn’t do it. I didn’t kill either of them. I got railroaded. My fuckin’ lawyer split. I was on my own.”
Yeah, they’re all innocent, and it’s always about the lawyers who screw up. Maybe Shakespeare was right. Maybe they should kill all the lawyers. But in this case he was innocent, at least of Haskell’s murder.