Allison (A Kane Novel) (48 page)

“It had to have been an accident,” Kane continued, offering her the “out”—the point during any well-planned interrogation at which a suspect could confess while rationalizing his or her actions.  “And it wasn’t you who caused it.  You gave birth to Jordan.  What mother would hurt her own child?  It was your husband, Jordan’s stepfather, and even then it must have been an accident.  It’s the only explanation that fits.”

Mrs. French’s hand rose to her mouth, stifling a sob.

“Come on, Beth.  Say it.  Get it over with.”

Mrs. French lowered her head, tears now running her mascara.  “My baby’s the only one I ever really loved,” she whispered, her words barely audible.  “She’s the only one who ever really mattered.  She’ll forgive me when I see her again.  I believe that with all my heart.  She’ll forgive me.”

“Forgive you for what, Beth?  Tell me.”

“I think this flight of fancy has gone on long enough, Detective,” Mr. Artz interrupted.  “Unless you have any further direct questions, this interview is over.”

Kane ignored him.  “Killing a child is a terrible burden, Beth,” he said gently.  “You can’t carry it alone.  It has to come out.  You can’t go through the rest of your life with this secret.  It will destroy you.  It will destroy you, and your husband, and anything you ever hope to make of the rest of your days.  Jordan is gone and things will never be right unless you tell what happened.  This is a chance for you to do the right thing.  It’ll just take a second, and then it’ll be over and you can start making amends.  Tell me what happened.”

Mrs. French raised her head, indecision written on her face.  But as she began to speak, Mr. Artz pushed away from the table.  “My client has nothing more to say,” he snapped.  “This meeting is over.”

Mrs. French hesitated . . . and the moment passed.  Struggling to compose herself, she opened her purse and withdrew a mirror, making an attempt to repair her ruined makeup.  Then, still clearly shaken, she stood, stubbing out her final cigarette in the ashtray.

Kane reached into his pocket and withdrew a plastic evidence bag and a pair of latex gloves.  “I’m sorry that’s the way you want it, Mrs. French,” he said, pulling on the gloves.  “For the record, though, what brand of cigarette have you been smoking?”

“Parliament,” Mrs. French answered wearily.

Kane lifted the ashtray and dumped its contents into the evidence bag.  “I intend to submit this for DNA analysis,” he explained, sealing the bag.  “I’m establishing that you were the only one in the room smoking, and that all butts in this ashtray are yours.”

“DNA evidence?  To be compared with what?” scoffed Mr. Artz.  “As I recall, no trace evidence of any kind was found on Jordan’s body
or
at the crime scene.  This is simply another feeble attempt to intimidate my client.  You’re fishing here, Detective.  As I said, this interview is over.  Good day.”

“Good day to you, Jason,” Kane replied.  “Oh, one thing I neglected to tell your client.  You’re right about no trace evidence being found on the body, as it was submerged in water for so long.  None showed up in Jordan’s bedroom, either.  Nor did we find saliva on the ransom-note envelope or the stamp.  We
did
, however, find cells on the adhesive side of the self-stick stamp, something we didn’t tell the media.  Whoever sent the note was careful not to leave fingerprints or saliva, but they touched the sticky side of the stamp and left some cells there.  We’ve done DNA testing.  Now we’re simply waiting to come up with a match.  Unless I miss my guess, we just did.”

Mrs. French stared.  “You can get DNA from someone just touching a stamp . . . ?”

Kane nodded.  “Just like we can from a cigarette butt.”

“In the unlikely event that you
do
come up with a match, we’ll contest it in court,” said Mr. Artz calmly.  “My client handled the envelope when she received it in the mail.  Her DNA got on it at that time.  In any case, juries are notorious for dismissing this type of evidence, what with cross-contamination, false positives, and sloppy handling techniques.  As you know, the latter is something for which the LAPD has become famous.  Or should I say infamous.”

Kane scowled, aware that the issues raised by Mr. Artz were a weak link in the chain of evidence, assuming the case ever got to trial.  Kane also knew what Mr. Artz was referring to with his snide remark about the department—recalling a high-profile celebrity murder trial years back that had been lost, at least in part, by LAPD investigators’ questionable procurement and handling of DNA samples.  It was a debacle that had given the department a lasting black eye, and a situation no one wanted repeated.

“That won’t happen this time,” Kane promised quietly.  “Everything is being done by the book.  If nothing else, you can bank on that.”

33

Early the next morning, a radio call from a patrol car in the Palisades came in to the West L.A. station.  The call was transferred to the homicide unit.  Ten minutes later Kane was driving west, thinking that an already troublesome case had taken yet another turn for the worse.  As he proceeded up Mandeville Canyon, he berated himself for not having seen it earlier.  The clues had all been there . . . not that he could have done anything to change things.

She’ll forgive me when I see her again.

Following the interrogations on the preceding afternoon, Kane had received word that the Frenches were opening negotiations with the DA’s office to explore the possibility of a plea bargain.  So far, as with their formal police interrogations, Jordan’s parents had admitted nothing.  Nevertheless, it appeared that rather than risk going to trial on first- or second-degree murder charges, they were considering pleading to a lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter.  And despite the DNA comparison that could link Mrs. French to the ransom note, Kane realized there was a strong possibility that the district attorney would take the deal.

As the DA had repeatedly pointed out, the bulk of the case against Mr. and Mrs. French was circumstantial, and nothing had changed.  The one potentially solid piece of evidence, a comparison of Mrs. French’s DNA to the DNA traces on the ransom-note stamp, might not even pan out.  If it didn’t, there was still the possibility that Mr. French wrote the note, but Kane didn’t think so.  After his interview with Mrs. French, he was certain that she wrote the note.  But even if a positive DNA match did come back on her, as Kane was sure it would, convincing a jury that the loving parents of Jordan French had murdered their daughter would still be problematic, as was so aptly pointed out by Mr. Artz.

On the positive side, a DNA match would give Kane probable cause for an expanded search, and the next time he entered the Frenches’ estate with a warrant in hand, he would have the right to go over everything with a fine-toothed comb.  As he had surmised earlier, it was likely that all evidence tying the parents to the murder had already been destroyed, but you never knew what might turn up.

Approaching the Frenches’ estate, Kane noticed a fair-sized media contingent already assembled across the street.  More were undoubtedly on the way.  The entry’s iron gate stood open at the head of the driveway.  A private security guard was stationed there, barring the way.  Kane flashed his badge, and the guard waved him through.

The house and grounds appeared to have changed little since Kane’s last visit—landscaping well tended, hedges precisely pruned, flower beds immaculate.  Water from a morning hosing was puddled near the tennis courts.  Beyond the courts, two black-and-white patrol cars sat in the driveway.

Kane parked behind one of the cruisers.  After identifying himself and conferring with a uniformed officer outside, Kane started up the steps to the house.  The front door stood ajar.  Halfway up the stairs he saw the body.

Mrs. French’s lifeless form hung from a banister pole on the second floor, her bare feet suspended above the staircase’s lower landing.  Upended on the entry tiles below lay a chair that she had apparently used to position herself—kicking it away as her final act.

Nodding briefly to a pair of officers inside, Kane stepped inside.  He peered up at the body, noting that Mrs. French had chosen a black, knee-length dress in which to die.  Moving closer, he also noted that she had removed her wedding ring before using what appeared to be a dog leash and an attached metal choke collar to end her life.  Crude, but effective.  Near the top of the leash’s thick nylon webbing, a childish hand had written the name “Greta.”

“The husband says he found her like that when he woke up,” offered one of the officers.

Tearing his eyes from the corpse, Kane turned.  The patrol officer who had spoken, a young Asian whose nameplate read “Lowe,” tipped his head to the left.  “He’s in there.”

Kane glanced into the living room.  Sitting straight and unmoving on the couch where Kane had first interviewed Jordan’s parents, was Mr. French.

“He gave us this,” said the other officer, a florid, thick-necked man whose plate read “Flinn.”  He handed Kane an irregularly shaped piece of paper that looked as if it had been scissored from a larger sheet.

Kane took the paper.  In elaborate, flowing script, someone had written the words “May God forgive me for what I did,” followed by the signature “Elizabeth French.”  Kane looked at the officer who had handed him the note.  “Where’s the rest?”

Flinn shrugged.  “The husband didn’t say.”

“We already called the coroner,” said Lowe.  “Want us to help get her down?”

“Let the coroner’s assistants handle it,” Kane replied.  Then, studying the body a moment longer, he noticed that several of Mrs. French’s long, painted fingernails were broken off at the quick.  In her final moments, it appeared that Mrs. French had changed her mind about dying.

Kane walked into the living room.  Mr. French gazed at him briefly, then resumed staring out the window.  “You won,” he said.  “Satisfied?”

“Nobody won,” Kane replied.  “Where’s the rest of the note?”

“Gone.  That part was meant for me.  Nobody else.”

Upon receiving the scissored paper from the officers in the hall, Kane had suspected that in unburdening her soul, Mrs. French had implicated her husband in Jordan’s death as well.  Now he was sure of it.

“Tell me something, Mr. French,” said Kane, his hands unconsciously balling into fists.  “It’s just you and me here.  I haven’t read you your Miranda rights, so anything you say will stay just between us.  I have most of it figured anyway.  I only need your help on one point.  I know you had been abusing Jordan for years.  I also know that her death was probably an accident, and I know that you and your wife concocted a phony abduction story to cover it up.”

Kane paused, unwillingly revisiting the crippling horror of losing his own son, momentarily gripped by the sense of bottomless, crushing loss that had accompanied Tommy’s death.  Shaking his head in disbelief, Kane finally continued.  “What I can’t understand is how you could truss up your child, a daughter you say you loved, and then stuff her into trash bags and dump her in a reservoir . . . as if she were garbage you needed to get rid of.  How could you do that?”

“I didn’t intend for any of this to happen,” Mr. French said quietly.  “I loved Jordan.”

“What you did wasn’t an act of love,” said Kane, his voice as hard as granite.  “Not even close.”

“Regardless of what you think, Detective, I’m not evil,” Mr. French replied, regarding Kane levelly.  “I made mistakes, I admit it.  But I’m not evil.  And neither was Beth.”

“You think you’re going to cut a deal with the DA, don’t you?” Kane demanded, fighting hard to control his anger.  “Isn’t that right, Crawford?  You have it all figured out.  You’ll blame the killing on your wife, saying you just helped dispose of the body.  As for the sexual abuse, you’ll deny it.  You’re the only one still alive, so no one can prove otherwise.  Well, I’ve got news for you, pal.  That’s not the way it’s going to go down.”

Mr. French looked away.  “And why is that?”

“Because I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure it doesn’t,” said Kane, recalling the vow he had made at the reservoir.  “You can count on it.”

Thirty minutes later Kane stood on the Frenches’ front landing, watching as the coroner’s van pulled up behind the squad cars in the driveway.  With a despondent sigh, he shoved his hands into his pockets, again remembering the promise he had made to a dead child months earlier.  Somehow, fulfilling that pledge had brought him little satisfaction.  Now that it was over, he just felt tired and soiled and sad.

*        *        *

“Good Evening.  This is Peter Samson for the CBS News Evening News.  In Pacific Palisades this morning, the Jordan French murder case took another tragic turn with the discovery of . . .”

Heart racing, I watched the monitor to the left of the camera, seeing the CBS anchor’s face but not really hearing his words.  In the wake of Mrs. French’s suicide, the location for my live shot—a segment that I knew, once again, was being done to cash in on my relationship with my father—had been switched to the newsroom, with a camera feed linked directly to New York.  I was positioned in front of the lighted CBS “eye” outside Lauren’s office.  The illuminated “CBS News Los Angeles” logo on the wall behind me was similarly lit.  A “key” light glared at me from behind the camera, with several other spotlights shining down from above.  To my right, I sensed Brent and Lauren and Liz and other members of the news team standing in the shadows.  An expectant tension sizzled in the air.

A clock on the wall read 3:31 PM, making it 6:31 PM in New York.  Mrs. French’s suicide was the lead story that night.  I would be on in seconds, my words going out live and uncensored to millions on the East Coast.  Rebroadcasts to other parts of the country could be edited later, but not this one.  For those few moments, I would
be
CBS News.

“. . . shocking developments.  Here with the latest from Los Angeles is CBS’s Allison Kane.”

A man beside the TelePrompTer who had been doing a silent countdown on his fingers pointed at me.  A red light on the camera flicked on.  Taking a breath, I gazed directly into the lens.  “According to LAPD sources, Mrs. Elizabeth French, mother of murdered actress Jordan French, was found dead this morning in her Pacific Palisades home,” I began, my apprehension abruptly forgotten.  “Apparently she had taken her own life.  Mrs. French left a note asking God to forgive her—a request authorities reportedly consider an admission of guilt in her daughter’s death.  In a related development, sources close to the Los Angeles district attorney’s office revealed today that a plea bargain proposed earlier by the Frenches’ attorney has been rejected.”