The 17th Suspect Page 17

Giftos took her through the events of October 11, and she responded with her version of the conversation in the bar in which Marc introduced the idea of the rape sex game and beyond.

  “What were your thoughts the day after?” he asked.

  “I felt … disgusted with myself. I hadn’t enjoyed the role-playing. And Marc still reported to me. We had work to do. I asked him to meet with the creative team about a Chronos commercial that had been approved. He said, ‘You bet. Right away.’ He had worked on other Chronos commercials. It’s a plum account. But this time he didn’t follow up. I asked him a second time, and again he said, ‘Okay,’ and blew it off. I had to assign another producer.”

  “How did Marc react to your executive decision?”

  “He didn’t respond at all to losing the Chronos spot, but he called me on my cell three days after what happened in his apartment. He asked me out again. I told him no, that we were through. I told him that if he didn’t snap out of it and do his job, I was going to have to report him to management.”

  “What did he say to that?”

  “He laughed at me. He told me I didn’t know what trouble was.”

  “Did you ask him to explain what he meant by that?”

  “Yes. I remember. Marc came to my office after work. He was sitting on the couch, talking to me from across the room. He said, ‘You’re a star, you know.’ I said, ‘What are you talking about, Marc?’ I was waiting for a client to call. Marc said, ‘I watched that video of you raping me, and wow, you are something else.’ He grabbed his … crotch.”

  Her last words came out cracked into pieces.

  Giftos said, “Do you need a moment, Briana?”

  “No.” She cleared her throat and said, “So he told me that he had recorded our sex and that he wanted me to deposit $250,000 into his brokerage account. Otherwise he would post the video to YouTube, Facebook, and internet porn sites.”

  Briana pulled back, showing indignation, and at the same time her eyes were screwed up and her face was crumpled. She reached for a tissue from the judge’s box and covered her eyes.

  When James Giftos spoke again, his client looked startled and dazed.

  “And how did you respond, Briana? To this extortion attempt?”

  “I dismissed the demand for money at first. How could he be serious about that? But it was easy for Marc to set up a hidden camera. He’s a professional film producer. I was scared to death. I told him that he was crazy. And I mean, I saw for the first time that he was actually crazy, for real.”

  “Did you call the police?”

  “No. I still hadn’t wrapped my mind around the extortion. I was furious about the video—I didn’t know if he was even telling the truth.

  “Then the call from my client came in. I asked him to hold on. I put my hand over the receiver and said something like, ‘No more threats, Marc. Let me know if you still want to work in production.’

  “Marc left, and I thought of how much crap would rain down on me if I fired him for insubordination. I mean, that was true. He just stopped doing his job, but he could call it sexual harassment. How could I prove otherwise?”

  “Did you tell anyone about Marc’s extortion threat?”

  “Finally. I told my sister Angela. She’s a lawyer. Estates and trusts. She said, ‘He’ll never do it. Extortion is a felony.’”

  Giftos said, “What happened after that?”

  “Stories started circulating around the agency that I had threatened Marc with a loaded gun, that I had raped him and that he could prove it. I denied it, of course, and set up a meeting with our CEO, Mr. Keely, to report Marc. But before I saw Mr. Keely, Marc took the video to the police, and they arrested me for something he dreamed up in the depths of his very sick mind.”

  CHAPTER 80

  YUKI FOUND BRIANA’S testimony credible and very compelling. She tried to shut down her sympathy for the young woman and thought about how to get the jury to do the same.

  She approached the witness.

  “Ms. Hill, have you ever heard the expression buyer’s remorse?”

  “Yes.”

  “It means after a purchase the buyer has regrets. Would you go along with me on that definition?”

  “Okay.”

  “Is that what happened to you? You decided to rape Marc and afterward realized you’d made a bad mistake?”

  “I regretted going along with him. That’s all.”

  Yuki had an idea for a line of questioning that she might get away with up to a point. It was worth a try, even if Judge Rathburn smacked her down.

  She said, “Ms. Hill, after the police arrested you for raping Mr. Christopher, you were released on bond, weren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you were arrested again, weren’t you? Why?”

  Giftos was on his feet, yelling, “Objection! Relevance.”

  Yuki knew that Briana’s return to jail had nothing to do with the rape, but it would raise questions in the jurors’ minds. Why was she back in jail? Did she shoot Marc Christopher?

  Yuki said, “Withdrawn, Your Honor.”

  Rathburn said, “You know, you’re walking a fine line, Ms. Castellano.”

  She said, “Sorry, Your Honor,” thinking she’d made a good decision. Desperate times called for desperate measures. She turned back to the witness.

  “Ms. Hill, would you say that it’s risky to date someone who reports to you?”

  “I do now.”

  Yuki asked, “Are you telling us that you’ve had other interoffice relationships?”

  “Objection,” Giftos shouted.

  “Sustained.”

  “I want to answer,” said the witness.

  The judge said to her, “You understand that the question does not apply to the action against you. As your attorney was about to say at the top of his lungs, anything that does not pertain to this case is irrelevant.”

  “I understand. I want to set the record straight.”

  “Then, go ahead.”

  Briana said, “Interoffice dating is no big deal in advertising. I have dated people I’ve worked with, but I’ve never done anything like what I did with Marc that night. I should never have done it. He sold me on it, saying it would be fun. It wasn’t fun. And it wasn’t a crime. It was regrettable.”

  And with that, Briana started to cry and couldn’t seem to stop. The judge spoke her name. Her lawyer stood up and said, “Your Honor, can you give the witness a few moments?”

  Yuki found Hill’s sobs heartrending—but would the jury find her convincing? If Yuki pushed her any further, she risked coming off as a bully.

  “Thank you, Ms. Hill. I have no further questions,” she said.

  Rathburn told the defendant that she could step down, and called the court into recess.

  Out in the hallway Yuki told Arthur, “I didn’t have a hook to hang my hat on.”

  He said, “Didn’t hurt, could’ve helped. She doesn’t seem stable.”

  Yuki checked her phone and saw that she had a dozen missed calls. One of them was from Red Dog.

  She called him back.

  “Talk to me,” he said.

  “Giftos has got three character witnesses on deck,” she said. “Briana’s sister, her boss at the agency, and her ex-boyfriend of about a year prior to her relationship with Marc. They’re all going to say she’s a fantastic person.”

  “You still like our chances?”

  “What I think is that she’s naïve. He’s calculating. Whether this rape was her idea or his, she was never an even match for him. As things stand right now, there’s enough reasonable doubt to fill a freight train.

  “My gut,” Yuki said, “tells me that this jury is going to hang.”

  Parisi said, “My gut says make time to go over your closing argument with me.”

  “Will do,” said Yuki. She welcomed input from Parisi. Because she believed Briana’s story, and that worried her.

  CHAPTER 81

  CONKLIN AND I were at our desks Monday
morning when he said to me, “Want to go for a ride?”

  I said, “When I say that to Martha, she goes nuts.”

  Conklin cracked up, then held up some keys.

  “Get your leash. We’re going on a mystery road trip. I’ve checked out a squad car.”

  I’d just returned after a weekend of bed rest that I had truly needed. A hundred e-mails were waiting in my inbox, and I had a million questions for Conklin about our ongoing homicide case. My first cup of java sat untouched and chilling on my desk.

  I really needed to work.

  I tried to get my partner to tell me what he wanted me to see, but I couldn’t budge him. He wouldn’t even give me a hint. I finally gave up.

  “How long is this going to take?” I asked.

  “Trust me. You’ll like this. Get up, Boxer.”

  I threw a big sigh, gulped down half my coffee, pulled on my jacket, and said, “What’re we waiting for?”

  We took the stairs down to the lobby, left by the rear door, and speed-walked along the breezeway to Harriet Street, where a standard gray Chevy squad car was parked under the overpass. Conklin took the wheel, and we headed out toward the Mission District.

  Over the crackle of the police radio, my partner started to fill me in.

  “I spent Friday afternoon at Millie’s favorite homeless shelter.”

  “I take it you learned something useful?” I turned up the heat, turned down the radio.

  “I did,” Conklin said. “Millie’s maiden name was Renee Millicent Cushing. Thirty years ago she married an accountant by the name of Ronald Dunn.”

  “She’s married?” I said. “Jeez. Did anyone notify her husband?”

  “He died fifteen years ago of a heart attack. She told us that she has two adult kids—we didn’t ask their names. But I have an address.”

  “For?”

  “You shall see,” he told me.

  We cruised through the gritty commercial section of the Mission, which broke out into the residential community of Eureka Valley. This is an upscale area, lined with the lovely Victorian homes our town is known for.

  I was sightseeing as we drove up hilly Collingwood Street—when Conklin pulled the car up to a gray wood-frame house. It was nice, plain, well kept, and it looked like it had been built in the midsixties. There was a green Kia in the driveway with a Berkeley sticker in the rear window.

  I said, “Who lives here?”

  “Used to be Millie Cushing Dunn’s house. Yeah. I know what you’re going to say. ‘She owned a house?’”

  “And it’s a nice house, too.”

  “Her husband left it to her with a bunch of money, amount unspecified, but enough that she had plenty to spare,” said Conklin.

  I was impressed. “Nice work, partner.”

  “Here’s the rest of it. According to the administrator at the shelter, Millie was a social worker. She often posed as a homeless person to gain trust, lived on the street three or four days a week, then stepped it up to 24/7.”

  “Odd way to go about gaining trust, huh?”

  “I’d say. Ready, Boxer?”

  We got out of the car and walked up to the front door. Conklin rang the bell.

  CHAPTER 82

  A WOMAN IN her midtwenties opened the door about a foot, enough for us to see that she was barefoot, wearing yoga pants and a loose top. I thought that she looked a little like Millie.

  “May I help you?” she asked.

  Conklin badged her, introduced us, and asked, “Do you know Millie Cushing?”

  The woman said, “I’m her daughter. Sophie Dunn. What’s wrong? What happened to my mother?”

  Conklin said, “I’m sorry to tell you, but she was shot last week on Mission Street, and unfortunately, she died. It took us this long to find her address. We’re very sorry.”

  “She’s dead?”

  Sophie Dunn spun away from the doorway and cried out, “No, no, no. That can’t be right. She can’t be dead. She can’t be.”

  The door swung open, and we walked Millie’s distraught daughter through the entranceway to a sitting room with a brick fireplace, wall-to-wall bookshelves, and a large window onto a high city view.

  She circled the room, still crying out denials.

  “This isn’t right. I don’t believe this. How did this happen?” Then she stopped circling and, with tears streaming down her cheeks, said directly to me, “I always hoped that one day I would have my mother back. Do you understand?”

  And then, wiping her face with her sleeve, Sophie Dunn collapsed into a chair.

  When we were seated across from her, I told her again how sorry we were, that we had known Millie and why.

  I said, “Ms. Dunn, I’m confused as to why your mother was living as though she was homeless.”

  Sophie got up, paced some more, and eventually got her thoughts and words together enough to confirm what Conklin had learned at the shelter. Millie’s street life had begun after her husband’s death. By the time Sophie was in her teens, Millie was on the street more than she was home.

  “I haven’t seen her in over a year,” Millie’s daughter told us, “but when we last spoke, she seemed happy. She liked the people. She would give anyone her last nickel. I can’t even imagine who could have anything against her. But as I’m sure you know, a lot of street people have mental illnesses. My mother included.”

  She got up, went to the bookshelf, and came back to her chair with a framed photo taken in front of this fireplace.

  I got a glimpse of a family of four: mom, dad, two kids. Normal as could be.

  Conklin asked, “Sophie, did your brother stay in touch with your mom?”

  “Michael? He hardly stays in touch with me. After he moved out, he got married, got divorced, and kind of lives a small, quiet life. Mom wasn’t at the wedding. He never mentions her.”

  “We’ll need to speak to him,” Rich said.

  Sophie began crying again. She apologized, left the room, and returned a minute later with tissues and a Post-it note.

  She said, “Here’s his number. Good luck getting anywhere with him, though. Michael is a professional introvert.”

  Sophie asked when she could see her mother. I gave her the information as well as my card, and we said our good-byes.

  Conklin called Michael Dunn from the car and got him on the first try.

  He agreed to meet us at the Hall.

  CHAPTER 83

  THREE HOURS AFTER leaving Sophie Dunn, Conklin and I were sitting at a small table in Interview 1 with her older brother, Michael.

  Conklin took the lead, and I used the opportunity to look Michael over.

  Dunn was about thirty, of medium height and build, with dark hair, a five-o’clock shadow, and his mother’s kind hazel eyes. He was wearing office-job attire: a dark-gray sports coat, blue button-down shirt, standard striped tie, gray slacks, and, notably, a wedding band. I wondered about that. Sophie Dunn had said her brother was divorced.

  Conklin was telling Dunn where the shooting had taken place and the results of the autopsy. I looked at Millie’s son for signs of grief or shock, but Michael was showing very little emotion.

  “She put herself in danger,” he said, “but why would someone kill her? She was harmless and not confrontational.”

  “When was the last time you spoke with your mother?” I asked.

  “Three years ago maybe? I don’t exactly remember. She doesn’t carry a phone—or maybe she didn’t give me the number. I stopped by the house a few times, but I never caught her at home.”

  He shook his head.

  “She wasn’t right in the head after my dad died. She left school, moved back home, but she detached from me, Sophie, the house. For her it was all about being with the homeless.”

  I said, “That must’ve felt pretty bad.”

  He shrugged and then said, “I don’t see how I can help you.”

  I changed my tack. I said, “Your wedding band. Sophie said you were divorced?”

  The
re it was, at last, a flickering, barely there hint of sadness on his face.

  He said, “My ex called her ‘thoroughly nutty Millie.’ Anyway, there’s no reason to take the ring off. I like it. I don’t like change.”

  And yet his life had been disrupted by his father’s death, his mother’s absence, and then a divorce that Michael apparently hadn’t accepted as final.

  I felt a flash of pity for Michael, and I bought Sophie’s view that he was an introvert. But it was odd that he had no curiosity about his mother’s death. And the few times he made eye contact, I thought he was trying to get a fix on me.

  I said, “Mr. Dunn, we’re totally in the dark here. Anything you can add, even a guess, would be appreciated. I liked your mother, and I really want to catch her killer.”

  Dunn twisted the band on his ring finger, calling my attention to it again. It was pretty nice, white gold with rims of yellow gold.

  He said to me, “As I’ve told you, I don’t know her friends, her habits, or anything about what happened to her. I can’t even guess.” Then he looked away.

  I said, “I have to ask, Mr. Dunn, where were you the night your mother was shot?”

  “Me? What night was that again? No, it doesn’t matter,” said Michael Dunn wearily. “I have the same routine every day and every night. I get to work at nine. I do research for the three lawyers at Peavey and Smith Financial Management. I eat lunch at my desk. I leave work at six, come home, nuke dinner, watch TV for a few hours, and then I go to bed after the news. That’s my Groundhog Day life. It’s what I want. No stress. Quiet. Predictable.”

  And he had a predictable alibi, too. I didn’t like that. Something was going on with Michael Dunn that he hadn’t told us. Never mind what he said; what did he know?

  He looked at his watch and said, “Look. I’ve got a stack of documents and a needy boss waiting for them. I hope you catch Mom’s killer. She was batty, but she didn’t deserve to be shot.”

  He got up from his chair and put on his windbreaker jacket.

  “If you catch the guy, let me know, okay?”

  Conklin said, “Of course,” and walked Michael Dunn out to the elevator. I sat for a moment and stared at the wall.