Buried Evidence (6 page)

“I agree we have to be cautious,” he said, cupping the side of her face with his hand, “but the Middleton trial isn’t going to last forever. Don’t tell me you’re never going to sleep with me again.”

She smiled. “That’s not what I said.”

“Oh,” he said, “I thought you were issuing some kind of ultimatum.”

Lily rested her head against his chest, but her sense of well-being was short-lived. The frightened little girl surfaced, and she was surrounded by an avalanche of terrifying images. “Why did it happen?” she said, tears pooling in her eyes. “Maybe I wouldn’t have reacted the way I did if he had only raped me. But my daughter—”

“Don’t think about it,” he whispered. “Are you still in therapy?”

Angry, Lily pushed him away. “Just because I refuse to sleep with you, you have the gall to bring up my therapist. Are you implying that I’m sexually dysfunctional? I might have had a problem right after the rape. That’s not abnormal, you know.” Her words came in short bursts. “I’m fine now. Just fine. I’ve had a number of lovers. No one has complained.”

“Stop it,” he said, seizing her shoulders. “You don’t have to prove yourself to me. I care about you, that’s all. You’re getting upset over nothing.”

“It’s been six years, Richard,” Lily shouted. “Where the hell have you been?”

“I tried to get in touch with you,” he protested. “You never returned my phone calls.”

“How many times did you call me?” she said, flinging her arms around. “Once, twice? My ex-husband calls me. My stockbroker calls me. After everything we went through, couldn’t you manage more than a few lousy phone calls?”

“Good grief, woman,” Richard exclaimed, his brows furrowing. “Haven’t you figured it out by now? You confessed to a police detective. They could have subpoenaed me as a material witness. I was terrified I might end up responsible for sending you to prison.”

“Bruce Cunningham moved back to Omaha,” Lily said, her anger subsiding at the thought of the big homicide detective with the scuffed shoes and worn suits. “No one else knows the truth.”

“Have you talked to him?”

“I called the Omaha Police Department,” she answered, tearing a leaf off a tree. “Cunningham retired three years ago. He’s working for a company called Jineco Equipment Corporation. I pulled up their Web site the other day, thinking I’d e-mail him and say hello, then decided I’m probably the last person he wants to come crawling out of the woodwork.”

Richard looked up at the sky, thinking she was probably right.

“Since you’ve made it a point to remind me that I’m a murderer,” Lily went on, “maintaining our ethics regarding the Middleton case seems almost hypocritical. What do you think?”

“I think I love you,” Richard said, a wild look in his eyes. “No matter what, I’ll probably always love you. You know that, though, don’t you?”

Lily held up a palm, warning him to back off. Unleashing their feelings for one another at this point was premature, particularly under the circumstances. “Was it Middleton’s idea to keep Betsy on life support, or did you explain what kind of charges he would be facing if she died?”

Richard started to answer, then stopped himself. First she didn’t want to see him because he was Middleton’s attorney. Now she seemed to be heading in exactly the opposite direction, hinting that he should conspire against his own client.

“She has terrible seizures,” Lily told him. “Her limbs have atrophied. How do we know she isn’t experiencing pain during
these convulsive episodes? It’s almost as if they’re keeping a corpse alive.”

“Read my lips,” he said, pointing at his face. “Betsy Middleton is not your daughter!”

“I’m going to petition the court in her behalf.”

Richard stared at her in a renewed state of awe. When she became excited or angry, her eyes shifted from blue to green. This was the woman who haunted him, scared him, ignited his passion to the point where he felt totally alive. Not the rape victim but the storm trooper, the avenger, someone with enough courage to place her neck on the line for the benefit of others. “Do whatever you feel is right.”

Lily remained standing in the driveway as he got in his car and sped off.

D
ad,” Shana called out from her bedroom, “where’s my ice cream?” John Forrester was asleep in a brown leather recliner in the two-bedroom duplex he shared with his eighteen-year-old daughter. Located on a tree-lined street in North Hollywood, the exterior was constructed out of stucco, the pale pink paint cracked and faded. The yard consisted of a small patch of grass. Even though the living room was sparsely furnished, it appeared cramped and cluttered. A green velvet sofa was backed up to a large picture window overlooking the street. Shana had insisted that her father rent a place with a fireplace, therefore, their wall space was limited. If they hadn’t placed the sofa in front of the window, they wouldn’t have been able to see the television set. The only other furniture was an oak coffee table, the surface littered with glasses, newspapers, and stacks of unopened mail.

Dressed in jeans and a black tank top, Shana left her desk to see why her father had not answered. “Wake up,” she said, standing over him. “You promised you’d go out for ice cream. That chicken you made tonight was awful. It tasted like an armadillo.”

“What time is it?” John asked, looking at his watch. “Why didn’t you wake me before now?”

“Because I was busy writing a paper,” she said, shoving her glasses back on her nose. “Can’t you get rid of all this trash? You know I can’t concentrate when the house is a mess. A cluttered house is symbolic of a cluttered mind.”

John stared up at her, his eyes groggy from sleep. Up until her first day in college Shana’s room had been a pigsty. Now the pendulum had swung in the opposite direction. The duplex had to be kept in perfect order. Standing, he tucked his shirt in and stepped into his loafers. At five-nine, he wasn’t a big man. His
daughter stood five-ten, only an inch shorter than her mother. If she hadn’t possessed Lily’s intelligence and drive, she would have no difficulty earning her living as a fashion model. Her eyes were sapphire blue, her skin unblemished, her cheekbones beautifully sculptured. Her auburn hair fell to the center of her back, but tonight she had it tied up in a ponytail on the top of her head.

“Baskin-Robbins might be closed,” he told her, brushing his hand over the top of his head. The only hair he had left was basically a fringe around the base of his skull. To make matters worse, his hair had turned gray during the past year, and he now had to have it colored twice a month. “Don’t worry,” he added, picking up his car keys off the coffee table. “Ralph’s is open all night. Peanut butter and chocolate, right?”

“I don’t want ice cream from the grocery store,” Shana protested. “I missed so many classes last week, I had to stay up until three o’clock last night. Please, Dad, don’t go back on your word.” She grabbed one of the glasses off the coffee table and brought it to her nose. “Were you drinking this afternoon? Is that why you burned our dinner?”

“Of course not,” he said, snatching the empty glass out of her hand. “One of my deals fell through. I was trying to see if I could salvage it. I got busy on the phone and forgot to check the oven.”

“Maybe you should get a regular job,” Shana told him, picking up the remote to lower the volume. Her father watched television incessantly. She was beginning to suspect that he was losing his hearing. He kept the volume at such deafening levels, it made it almost impossible for her to study. “Mom says you’re not cut out for sales. She thinks you’d be better off getting a job that pays you an hourly wage. You know, something you could count on every month.”

John bristled. “When did you talk to your mother?”

“Yesterday.” She scooped up the old newspapers and dumped them in the trash can in the kitchen, then walked the short distance back to the living room. “Mom’s already paying my tuition. It isn’t right for you to expect her to pay for everything. It’s not
like she’s rich or anything. She’s a district attorney, Dad. She works for the county.”

“She has more money than I do,” he said bitterly. “Why didn’t she go into private practice? When she went to law school, that was her intention. I’ll never understand why she wanted to become a district attorney.”

Shana hated being trapped between two individuals who were continually arguing. People thought divorce affected only young children, but they were wrong. As much as she loved her parents, the situation was sometimes maddening. She felt like a lawyer forced to defend both the criminal as well as the victim. “Mom’s worked hard all her life. I’m proud that she’s a district attorney again. She didn’t belong in some boring desk job. She’s too good in the courtroom.”

“She could have done the same thing in Los Angeles,” John said, his jaw protruding like a petulant child. “You could have seen her more often. Then I wouldn’t have to listen to her complaints that I monopolize all your time.”

“Can you please stop it?” Shana shouted. “After the years she spent in L.A., Mom wanted to be near the beach. Not only that, she had to take whatever position was available. You’re talking stupid, Dad. I’m too tired tonight to deal with this crap.” She headed back to her room, then turned around. “Hurry and you can make it to Baskin-Robbins before they close. I went out and did the grocery shopping yesterday.”

“Why didn’t you buy ice cream?”

Shana flashed her dynamite smile, displaying a perfect row of white teeth. “Come on, Dad. You don’t like ice cream from the supermarket any more than I do. Most of the time it’s burned from the freezer.” She licked her lips. “I know what you want …a great big sundae with nuts and whipped cream. Doesn’t that sound yummy?”

John lumbered out the front door, climbed into his daughter’s Mustang, and backed out of the driveway. Making her happy was the focal point of his life, even if she did have a tendency to treat him like an errand boy. He’d given up on women years ago. Now that he was in his fifties, certain things weren’t as important. After
college Shana would be entering law school. He had no doubt that she would become a successful attorney. She certainly wouldn’t follow in her mother’s footsteps if he had anything to do with it, working for peanuts as a county prosecutor. He envisioned her in one of those skyscrapers down on Wilshire, where all the high-powered lawyers kept their offices. Those were the people who raked in the big bucks, made a real name for themselves. People were fascinated with the legal system. All Shana had to do was play her cards right, and she might even have her own television show someday.

Pulling up at a stop sign, John glanced over at one of his listings, a three-bedroom fixer-upper with a swimming pool. When he’d decided to get his real estate license, he’d anticipated earning a large income with a minimal amount of effort. Instead, he spent every day jabbering on the phone or chauffeuring people around. Resigning his job with the government might have been a mistake, but there was nothing else he could have done. He’d run into some financial problems a few years back, and cashing out his retirement had been his only option.

Outside of his relationship with Shana, his future didn’t hold a great deal of promise. He had to get his career as a real estate agent off the ground and manage to sock away some money, or he would end up living the remainder of his life on Social Security. His retirement money was gone. The day before, he’d suffered the embarrassment of having to call Lily and tell her the truth—that he couldn’t afford to continue paying the rent on the duplex. The fact that she had immediately ratted him out to Shana made him furious. No man wanted to look like a failure in the eyes of his daughter.

A black Mercedes came from out of nowhere, causing John to swerve to avoid a collision. “Idiot,” he yelled out the window. Behind the wheel of the Mercedes, a pretty blonde had a cell phone to her ear. “Try looking where you’re going next time.”

Before the divorce, John and Lily had owned their own home. Maybe it wasn’t a palace, but it was certainly better than where he lived now. He missed his old yard, the backyard barbecues, chatting with his neighbors. While Lily had devoted herself to
prosecuting criminals, he’d coached Shana’s softball team, prepared their meals, dropped whatever he was doing to rush to her school whenever she was sick. Lily was responsible for what had happened to his daughter. She’d refused to listen to him. If she’d quit the county and opened her own law practice, she would have never lured a maniac home and thrown all of their lives into chaos.

Shana’s face flashed in front of him, the disgusted manner in which she’d looked at him. So what if he’d suffered a financial setback, needed a little help making ends meet? Why hadn’t Lily kept her mouth shut? He’d begged her not to tell Shana. But no, the woman had jumped on the opportunity to degrade him. And his ex-wife was far from perfect. He knew things about her that would make a person’s hair stand on end. Unlike Lily, though, he didn’t run around telling people. “Bitch,” he mumbled, a trickle of saliva running down the side of his face.

When he reached the corner of Melrose and Santa Monica Boulevard, John spotted the pink neon sign for Baskin-Robbins. The clock on his dashboard read eight fifty-five. He punched the accelerator and careened into the parking lot, missing the driveway and running up over the curb. He couldn’t continue driving forward as there was a large metal container in front of him, a receptacle for people to place items they wanted to donate to the Goodwill. Throwing the car into reverse, he revved the engine, wanting to make certain the Mustang cleared the curb.

“Shit,” he said, hearing a loud thud.

Slamming on the brakes, he looked in the rearview mirror, certain he must have struck a tree. The area was so dark, though, all he could see were the lights in the office building across the street. He rubbed his neck, wondering if he could put in a claim for whiplash, then reminded himself that he was no longer insured. After his DWI arrest his premiums had skyrocketed, and he had been forced to sell his car.

He got out to survey the damage when he saw the body on the ground, the legs twisted at an unnatural angle.