12th of Never (Womens Murder Club 12) (23 page)

Yuki said, “Okay,” and trudged behind Brady and four cops up the weedy lawn and broken walkway to the front door.

Brady knocked and announced, repeated both actions, and then footfalls could be heard coming toward them. The door creaked open and a good-looking man of fifty said, “What do you want?”

“Alan Kohl, we have a warrant to search your premises. Is anyone else at home?” Brady asked.

“My wife, Marcia. She’s in the kitchen. What’s this about?”

“It’s about Lily Herman,” Brady said.

“Lily who? I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

Yuki handed the warrant to Kohl. Then she and the cops entered the house.

“Don’t touch anything. Don’t mess the place up,” Alan Kohl said. “You need something, just ask me.”

The old two-bedroom house smelled of mold and was almost pathologically neat. Boxes and cartons were stacked against the walls, counters were clean, and closets were filled with folded linens and properly hung clothing. Yuki stayed with Brady until he went upstairs, but then, following a hunch, she went down a flight of wooden steps to a half basement that ran under the back of the house.

THE DARK HALF BASEMENT had a low ceiling, a dirt floor, three walls lined with shelves, and a two-door metal utility cabinet backed up against the fourth wall.

Yuki opened the cabinet doors expecting to see neat shelves of tools, but the cabinet was empty. The back of the cabinet had been replaced with a rectangle of painted plywood fitted with a hook on one side and hinges on the other. Yuki unhooked the plywood board and swung it open.

There was nothing behind the board—truly nothing but air. Yuki reached into her jacket pocket and took out her keys. She had a flashlight on her key chain, a small one with a pretty bright LED beam. She flashed the light into the back of the closet and saw a tunnel, seemingly endless, that was cut into the hill.

Yuki took out her phone and called Brady.

“Come to the basement,” she said. “I think I found something.”

The opening was four feet high by three feet wide by too deep for the flashlight to find the end of it. Yuki stooped, pulled her elbows in tight to her sides, and stepped into the rabbit hole.

She followed her flashlight’s beam, and after about twelve feet the tunnel took a soft turn to the left and joined a concrete conduit—it looked like a drainage pipe. Yuki aimed her light and saw that down at the end of the conduit was a metal door.

Her phone rang. Jackson.

“I’m in the basement. Where are you?” he said, sounding both annoyed and worried.

“There’s a tunnel, Jackson. Open the utility cabinet.”

Yuki knew she should wait for him, but she had to keep going. The door at the end of the conduit had a latch with an open padlock dangling from it. She lifted the padlock, put it on the floor, and opened the metal portal.

There was an immediate rush of air from a vent overhead. Yuki put her hand on the wall and flipped a switch. Light flooded the tiny room from an overhead fixture, illuminating every square inch of it.

The cell was six feet by six feet, five feet high, with cement walls. There was a rough wool blanket and a thin uncovered pillow on a narrow cot up against the wall. Yuki saw a bucket in one corner with a toilet seat on it, a small flat-screen TV on a wooden crate, and a hook on the wall with a rag of a nightgown hanging from it. Her eyes went to a child’s crayon drawing of a kitten on the opposite wall, which bore the words POKEY BY LILY.

Yuki turned. Brady stood bent in the doorway. He peered into the cell.

“What the hell?” he said.

Yuki felt shock and disbelief. “Lily lived here. This was where she lived for a year.”

MARCIA KOHL WAS in her forties but seemed older. It looked to Yuki as though she was both beaten down and beaten up. She wouldn’t make eye contact. She had a fat lower lip and a fading yellow bruise under her left eye. She didn’t ask for a lawyer, but she refused to speak to the police without her husband present. She was being seen by a psychiatrist as Brady interviewed Alan Kohl.

Alan Kohl hadn’t asked for a lawyer, either.

Yuki stood behind the one-way glass and watched Brady conduct the interview with Kohl. It had been going on for an hour. Kohl was very sure of himself, overconfident, and appeared to think that if he continued to maintain that he was innocent he would leave the police station a free man.

Brady was patient and Yuki knew he didn’t care how long it took. Kohl wasn’t getting out of the interrogation room until he lawyered up or Brady had gotten what he wanted.

Brady’s tone was casual, even friendly. He was saying to Alan Kohl, “I just want to understand why you kidnapped Lily Herman. I know you must have cared for her, but why did you take her?”

“We didn’t kidnap anyone,” said Alan Kohl. “And you can’t prove otherwise.”

“But you admit you kept Lily Herman in your house. There in the room at the end of the tunnel.”

“Okay, yes, she was a guest in our home.”

“Guest? So your guest room is a six-foot-square underground box? It was okay to keep a little girl in there?”

“She was happy, didn’t she tell you? She had everything she wanted.”

“I don’t think a jury is going to go for that, Alan.”

“I have copies of checks from Keith Herman. Three hundred dollars a week.”

“What does that prove?” Brady said.

“Are you trying to trick me, Lieutenant? Or are you playing stupid? Keith Herman was paying us to keep his kid safe. She’s safe, right?”

“I’m wondering if those were payments for keeping Lily safe or if you kidnapped Lily and were extorting her father. As long as he paid you and he didn’t call the police, Lily was safe. You understand, there’s a big difference between minding the child and kidnapping her. Kidnapping is a felony. Comes with a death penalty.”

Kohl smiled at Brady.

“Is this what you think, or are you still fishing around? I told you. Keith Herman paid us to keep his daughter safe.”

“Okay, Alan. I don’t believe you. You’re under arrest for kidnapping Lily Herman.”

“Wait. I’ve got copies of the checks from Keith Herman.”

Brady said, “You want to get anywhere with me, I need evidence that Keith Herman killed his wife.”

“Why didn’t you just say so?” said Alan Kohl. “Sit down. Keep the cameras rolling. I’ll tell you where you might find your so-called evidence, but Marcia and I had nothing to do with any murder. I swear to God.”

Kohl talked to Brady for about fifteen minutes, told him a lot of stuff, and when he was done, Brady said, “Stand up, Alan. Put your hands behind your back.”

“What? Wait a minute. What the hell are you doing?”

Brady pulled Alan Kohl to his feet, spun him around, and snapped cuffs around his wrists.

“Alan Kohl, you’re under arrest for felony kidnapping and endangerment of a minor.”

“You said you only wanted evidence of what Herman did to his wife. That’s all I’ve got.”

“Get a lawyer, Alan. Go crazy and hire the best one you can afford.”

YUKI AND BRADY were back in Bolinas, a thirty-mile drive that took more than an hour because the roads were so twisting and narrow and difficult to navigate in the dark.

Yuki had a search warrant in her briefcase, the second one of the day. Some kind of record, she thought, but Judge Nussbaum had signed it quickly, no questions asked. He was as eager to right the disaster of Keith Herman’s trial as she was.

Yuki said, “I’m afraid to get my hopes up—”

“Don’t jinx it, darlin’.”

Yuki had one hand on Brady’s thigh, the other hand on the dash as Brady wrenched the wheel and turned the squad car up the Kohls’ driveway. Branches and brush slapped at the headlights as the car climbed the overgrown, rutted path. They passed the ramshackle house and kept climbing another three or four hundred yards until they reached the end of the drive.

Brady braked the car and looked up the hill. He could just make out a lean-to with a corrugated tin roof, camouflaged by weeds and overgrown with kudzu.

Brady said to Yuki, “You’re not going to be able to walk around here in those shoes.”

“Give me a second,” she said.

She opened the door, took off first one shoe and then the other, and beat them against the lower part of the door frame until the heels popped off.

She put on her newly flat shoes.

“Let’s go,” she said.

Brady reached over, pulled her toward him, kissed her. They looked at each other for a few moments, both of them smiling, then they set out, wading through the weeds.

The car was under the lean-to, covered with a tarp. Brady pulled on the cloth, let it drop to the ground.

Yuki said, “Oh, my God. Black is dark.”

It was the Lexus that Keith Herman’s neighbor Graham Durden had seen parked at the curb outside Herman’s house. Durden had witnessed Keith bringing Lily Herman’s lifeless body out of the house and putting her in the backseat.

Lily hadn’t been lifeless. She’d been drugged.

“It was Keith who brought Lily here,” Yuki said to Brady. “It’s going to be hard to call it kidnapping.”

“Hang on. I’ll be right back.”

Yuki walked around the car and was still peering into the windows when Brady came back. He had a Slim Jim in his gloved hand. He slid the tool down into the window of the driver’s-side door and unlocked it.

“Here we go,” he said to Yuki.

Brady opened the car door, reached down, tugged on the latch release, and the trunk popped open. Together, he and Yuki went around to the back of the car. Brady held the flashlight. They peered in.

“You see that?” Yuki said, pointing to the spare tire. She brought her light in close.

“Human hair,” he said. “Bloodstained carpeting. And right here?” He moved a section of plastic and felt from the side of the trunk. “This looks like a Beretta P×4 Storm.”

BRADY PARKED ON Sotelo, then walked up the street to the corner of Lopez Avenue. It was about eight in the morning and the nice upscale neighborhood of Forest Hill was just waking up.

Brady had called ahead, said he needed to clear up a few things, and Keith Herman had said, “Sure. Why don’t you meet me at my office?”

And Brady had said, “I’m on the way to work. I just need three minutes of your time. It would be a big help to me.”

Herman had just enough curiosity, or fear, to tip the balance from “no” to “yes.”

Brady looked at his watch. He was early, which was all to the good. He ascended the front steps of the white colonial house with the pediment and black shutters, rang the door-bell, waited a moment, and then Keith Herman opened the door. Brady introduced himself and followed Herman into a study facing the street.

Herman offered Brady an armchair and he took a matching chair beside it. Herman leaned back and clasped his hands together, elbows resting on the arms of the chair.

“What can I help you with, Lieutenant?”

Lily Herman came into the room. She was wearing jeans and a striped shirt, a blue cardigan. She asked her father if she could get some juice from the refrigerator. He said that she could. To be careful. And to hurry. That the nanny would be coming soon to take her to school. He followed her with his eyes as she left him.

Herman apologized for the interruption, told Brady to go ahead with his questions.

Brady knew that Herman had been a practicing down-and-dirty lawyer for twenty years and had a foundation of twenty years of street smarts before that. He opened his coat so that his shoulder holster was exposed and said, “Mr. Herman, I came here alone because I want to have a private chat with you, see if we can get somewhere, just the two of us.”

Herman’s eyes narrowed. Brady saw from the lawyer’s expression that he suddenly understood that this meeting wasn’t going to be quick or easy. Maybe he suspected a shakedown.

Brady continued, “You remember ADA Yuki Castellano? She and I went to Bolinas last night.”

“Is that right?” Herman shot a glance toward the kitchen. Lily was singing to herself.

“We went to Marcia and Alan Kohl’s house with a search warrant. We found the dungeon where they kept Lily, and they’ve explained that you hired them to take care of her. We have them both in custody now.”

“What are you charging them with?”

“Kidnapping. Endangering a minor. A few other charges as we work through their statements.”

“I see,” Herman said. He looked at Brady. Dropped his eyes to Brady’s gun. Raised them again to Brady’s steady blue eyes. Then he looked at Lily as she came back into the study.

“Daddy, I forgot to tell you. I used the electric toothbrush this morning. It was fun.”

“Good girl, Lily,” Herman said. “I need to talk to Mr. Brady in private, okay? Daddy will be right with you.”

THE CHILD TOUCHED her father’s cheek, then went back to the kitchen.

Herman said, “I’ll testify that the Kohls didn’t abduct Lily, if that’s what you want me to say.”

“So you brought the child to them?”

“Well, yes. I did that. It’s not a crime. It was only supposed to be an overnight stay. I was going back in the morning, but I got picked up—”

“I’m not arresting you for kidnapping.”

“
Arresting
me?”

“I am arresting you for the murder of Jennifer Herman. Anything you say can be used against you. You can call your lawyer, but as I said, I want to let you know where we stand so that you can make it easy on yourself and your daughter. I’m giving you a chance to come in with me and make a statement.”

“A statement about what? You have nothing on me for anything. Don’t buy anything Alan Kohl says about me. He’s a loser, a … a … desperado. He’ll say anything—”

“Let me stop you there. We’ve got your car at our forensics lab. Your wife’s blood and hair are in the trunk. The Beretta you bought last year was also in the trunk. It’s been tested against the bullet extracted from your deceased wife’s head. Alan Kohl will testify that he drove you back to this house the night you left Lily with him and Marcia.