“Not really, but it played that way to the jury,” Larry responded. “There was a partial bloody print on the kitchen wall, but we couldn’t pin it to her. Insufficient ridge detail to rule anyone in or out-including Lilah. Basically, that print could belong to anyone. The defense went crazy with that.”
“Ouch,” I said.
Larry nodded his agreement. “Yeah. It hurt us. I remember thinking we were in trouble when the jury asked about that print during deliberations.”
A fingerprint in blood had the look of evidence that had to be connected to the crime. The failure to tie it to Lilah was a tough blow. That, plus the “blame the skinhead” defense, spelled big trouble for the prosecution. Then there was the neighbor who’d gone belly-up on the stand. No question about it, this was a tough case.
“Who represented Lilah?” I asked.
“Mike Howell. Know him?”
“Oh yeah.”
Mike and I had been hired at the same time, did Planning and Training together. But after packing in about a hundred trials, he’d decamped for the greater financial rewards and flexibility of private practice. Mike and I were still friendly, and it would’ve been nice to get his personal take on the case. But the attorney-client privilege lasts a lifetime-sometimes longer-so I knew there wasn’t much point in talking to him.
“The case had its problems, but even so, that defense probably never would’ve flown with another lawyer…” Larry trailed off.
We shared a look of understanding. Mike was one of the good guys who played it straight and fair, but he was unquestionably one of the best in the business. He knew how to zero in on every weak spot in the prosecution’s case, and how to play the jury. To call him a formidable opponent was like calling Bill Gates “comfortable.”
“And that’s not all,” Larry said. He reached out and flipped through the pages of the murder book in front of me to a single photograph.
Lilah’s face stared up at me. Fair-skinned, with a shining cap of black hair and large, azure eyes, she wasn’t just a looker; she was a stunner. I compared that photo to the woman shown in the surveillance video. The differences were subtle and, I had a hunch, deliberate: the woman in the footage had much longer hair, and she seemed to be a little thinner. But if you looked closely, you could see that the shape of the face and head was unquestionably the same. A jury had spent weeks looking at that face and trying to match it up with a decapitation ax murder. The skinheads gave the jury just the excuse they needed to resolve the contradiction.
“She take the stand?” I asked.
“Oh, you bet,” Larry said bitterly.
“And she did well.”
“Well enough.” He looked out the window, and I saw his jaw muscles clench.
His grudging tone told me I should look elsewhere if I wanted to get an accurate read on her performance.
“Any idea where we might find her now?” Bailey asked.
Larry shook his head and stood, signaling the end of our conversation. “None. After she got acquitted, she pulled up stakes and took off. Hasn’t even been a sighting.” He laughed, a mirthless bark. “Until now anyway.”
He escorted us out of the office and through the reception area, then stopped at the door to shake hands. “Hey, you want to hear the kicker?” Larry asked.
I stopped and met his gaze.
“Lilah clerked for about six months when she was in law school,” he said.
“Why’s that a kicker?” I asked.
“Because it was in the DA’s office.”
29
Bailey and I walked out to her car in silence. When we’d first arrived, I’d found the stark landscape soothing. Now it just felt desolate. We drove past the open fields of Joshua trees, heading for the freeway.
“A former intern. This is a proud moment for the DA’s office,” I said sarcastically. “So she actually had some experience in criminal law.”
“Enough to know when to shut her mouth,” Bailey agreed.
“I’ll see what we’ve got on her,” I said. “But interns don’t do anything heavy or sensitive, so we don’t spend a lot of time on their background checks.”
Bailey nodded, but neither of us was in a talkative mood.
I could well understand Larry’s reaction to the news of Simon’s murder. Though no victim is ever just a chalk outline to me, the colors unique to each one fill in slowly, over time, painted layer by layer with the memories and feelings of their loved ones, until ultimately a picture with depth and nuance emerges. More than his words, the emotion in Larry’s voice had shown me that Simon was a kind and gentle soul who’d been mortally wounded-long before his physical death-by his brother’s brutal demise and the injustice of the verdict. The image of the vase he’d left with Johnnie, its simple beauty and innocence of vision, made my eyes burn.
The freeway again wound through the low mountain passes, but now that the sun had sunk below the horizon, the valleys were shrouded in darkness and had taken on an ominous, forbidding look. When Bailey finally spoke, I could tell her thoughts had been running in a similar vein.
“We’re going to have to talk to the Bayers soon, you know.”
I sighed my agreement. “Do you know if they had any other kids?”
“They didn’t,” she replied tersely.
So they’d lost their only children to murder within the last two years. I had some idea of what they’d gone through.
It was twenty-seven years ago. I’d been just seven years old when my older sister, Romy, who was eleven, had vanished. It felt as though my soul had been wrenched from my body. Not only had I lost my best friend, but I believed it’d been my fault. I’ve heard some families grow closer after such a tragedy, but mine didn’t. We orbited farther and farther away from one another as we disappeared into our individual universes of agony. My father spiraled down into a bottle, and ultimately the oblivion he likely craved, when his car skidded off an icy bridge. My mother remained, but at first only in the most basic physical sense. For years after my father’s death, her mind wandered off as the world fell out of focus for her. I can still feel the panic at seeing her vague gaze and constant state of confusion. Those were dark years. I felt so isolated that I used to dream I was treading water, exhausted and alone in the middle of the ocean and about to go under.
Losing both children, and to murder, had to be an unendurable and unimaginable agony. I wished we didn’t have to ask the questions that would make the parents relive painful memories. But the story of Simon’s downward spiral could provide information critical to solving the case, and his parents were likely to be the best source.
As we rode on in silence through the darkening hills, I mentally replayed the meeting with Larry.
“Larry never said anything about motive,” I remarked.
“I noticed that too,” Bailey agreed. “Any possibility it involved money?”
“I wouldn’t think so,” I said, frowning. “She was the moneymaker. She probably wasn’t making a ton as a new associate, but if she hung in there, she stood to make a hell of a lot more than he did.”
“In which case, she would’ve had to pay alimony,” Bailey pointed out. “With Zack dead, she wouldn’t have to worry about that. Plus, if there was an insurance policy, she’d get it all.”
“I suppose,” I said, unconvinced. “But if that’s the way Larry went, you can see why it didn’t work. If the criminal doesn’t fit the crime, you’ve got to stick the landing when it comes to motive. He had a defendant who looked like a porcelain doll and a crime that looked like it was committed by Beelzebub on crack. So Larry had some serious explaining to do, and from the looks of things, he didn’t get there. I’m starting to understand why the jury acquitted.”
“That doesn’t mean she didn’t do it,” Bailey replied.