But she’d agreed to meet with Rick now, in part so we’d have a chance to get a little more ammunition before bracing up Lilah’s parents. My thoughts turned to Lilah, as they seemed to do a lot lately. She’d known Graden would tell me about their encounter-her parting shots made sure of it. Where or how she’d turn up next, I had no idea. But I had no doubt that she would. I wanted to make sure I got out in front of her with a couple of my own moves.
The clouds had largely dissipated, with just a few thin streaks lingering near the horizon, and the sky stretched blue and luminous above the gently rolling ocean. But it was December, so although the sun shone overhead, its pale light provided little warmth, and the air was damp and chilly. A few die-hard surfers, who’d braved frigid waters that didn’t even have the decency to provide them with rideable waves, shivered in wet suits as they packed their surfboards into their cars by the side of the highway.
The security guard let us through the gate at Rick’s trailer park, and we wove around the concentric circles that led to his home. Rick was standing outside when we drove up, a can of beer in his hand. He pointed to the parking space he’d saved for us. We followed him inside, and this time he began by offering us something to drink.
“I’m good,” I declined. Bailey did the same.
I purposefully took the lead and dove right into our reason for being here.
“We had a chat with Conrad Bagram,” I said. “The guy who-”
“-claimed he had Lilah’s car on consignment and it was stolen off his lot,” Rick interjected. A defensive note crept into his voice. “Yeah, we looked into that.”
“And?” I asked.
“It was a dead end,” Rick said firmly. “He called it in two weeks before they even found the body. We checked the consignment paperwork, and it all looked legit.”
“Did you keep a copy of it somewhere?” I asked. I’d gone back and forth over the murder book and hadn’t found any trace of it.
“Nah,” Rick replied, his tone dismissive. “Didn’t have much on it. Just showed that Lilah’s car was delivered to him, and gave the date of delivery and the terms of the deal.”
“Did it say who delivered the car?” I asked. “Whether it was Lilah or someone else?”
Rick shook his head. “I would’ve kept it if there’d been anything to run with.”
Now came the really unpleasant part.
“You check into any possible connection between Conrad and Zack?” I asked.
Rick’s eyes went flat, and I heard the beer can crushing under his hand.
“I ran all things Conrad through the system, then I checked out Zack’s busts. Nothing.”
“You check out the auto-theft report Zack filed two weeks before they found the car with the dead body?” I asked.
Rick frowned. “Probably,” he replied.
“Then you found out that the report was bogus?” I asked.
He pulled himself straighter in the chair and cleared his throat. “What are you talking about?”
I told him about the fictitious Alicia Morris and the likelihood that she was a stand-in for Lilah.
Rick took it all in, breathing heavily. “Wait, how do you know this…Alicia, whatever…didn’t give Zack the false information to begin with?”
“Why would she?” I asked. “Why make a stolen report at all if you’re going to misidentify the car? And you know it wasn’t Lilah who gave him the wrong license and VINs. She needed to explain how her car wound up in Griffith Park with a dead body in it.”
“What you’re saying makes no sense,” Rick said. “Zack covered up a homicide no one even knew had happened until two weeks later?” He shook his head slowly, like a buffalo that’d taken a blow to the head.
It was a lot to take in even if Rick had wanted to believe it-which he didn’t. But I needed him to know where we were headed. I owed him that much. Then he’d have the chance to either step up or slink away.
“He’s the only one who responded to the call, which meant he was first-and maybe the only one-at the scene,” I explained. “The first thing he would’ve done that night was ask Lilah to show him where she’d parked. And she would’ve shown him. She wouldn’t have thought there was anything left there to incriminate her. All he had to do was ask her to wait at the bar while he looked around. SOP,” I said.
Rick’s expression grew darker, but he made no effort to stop or argue with me, so I continued.
“Zack had plenty of time to search the area. Even if he wasn’t sure what’d happened, there was no downside to collecting what he saw and waiting to find out,” I said. “A cell phone, a shoe, a pair of glasses. Maybe they proved a hit-and-run, maybe they were just street trash. But he could afford to hold on to it and see what developed. And he could’ve written a legitimate report at first-in fact, I’m sure he did. He just didn’t file it. He held on to it, along with any evidence he’d found, and he waited to see if anything came of it. Then, when Tran Lee turned up dead in Lilah’s car, he held back the original report and filed a bogus one that would correspond to the auto-theft call he’d gotten that night.”
“And if we’ve got it right,” Bailey said, “that may be the reason Lilah killed Zack.”
Assuming, of course, that she did kill Zack. But neither of us needed to add insult to injury by airing our doubts on that front. We had enough trouble on our hands as it was. “And it may also explain why Simon was killed,” I added.
Rick threw the crushed beer can at the trash container and leaned forward in his chair, shoulders hunched, eyes down. “So you want me to buy that Zack hid evidence of a possible homicide…for what?” he said, his voice a low rumble. “To get a woman?”
I waited for Rick to look up, then gazed at him steadily. “Maybe.”
He stared out the window for several moments before answering. “And you think the evidence is still out there somewhere?”
“It makes the most sense,” I said.
Rick shook his head. “That dog won’t hunt. Why would Lilah kill Zack without knowing where the evidence was?”
“Because it didn’t matter whether she knew where the evidence was. As long as Zack couldn’t get to it, the odds were good that no one else could either-at least not before she did. Don’t forget, that evidence also nailed Zack for some serious felonies. He wasn’t about to leave it with anyone else, not even Simon. Which means Zack stashed it somewhere. And with Zack dead, Lilah figured she’d have time to look for it.”
“No one wants this to be true, Rick,” Bailey said. “But everything fits our theory. Including, maybe especially, Simon’s murder. I’ve had people scouring the city and county records looking for any trace of Lilah. Nothing. But somehow Simon-who’s so messed up he can barely find his way home-manages to get close enough to put his hands on her. You going to tell me that’s a coincidence?”
Rick’s expression hardened and his eyes narrowed, but he didn’t answer.
Bailey continued, “Simon found a way to flush her out. And evidence of the hit-and-run is the only thing big enough to make her jump. He didn’t have the mental capacity to bluff, or he would’ve done that long ago. That evidence has to exist, and somehow he got to it first.”
Rick still said nothing. Simon’s murder wasn’t his case, and he was in no mood to shoot the breeze with us. I shifted gears back to Zack and hoped Rick would calm down enough to remember something useful.
“Do you know of anyone who was really close to Zack?” I asked. “Someone he might’ve confided in…at least to some degree? Because we’ve gotten limited snapshots but not a complete picture. I don’t think anyone knew him well enough to know what he was really capable of.”
Rick drew himself up and glared at me. “From everything I saw, Zack was a hell of a good cop and a decent guy. It’s no snapshot, Ms. Prosecutor. My witnesses all knew him for years and I can tell you that there’s no reason-none-to believe he was someone who’d bury evidence of a homicide just to score some tail.”