First Offense (35 page)

Then another thought crossed her mind, so mind-boggling that she stopped and took a seat on one of the benches outside a courtroom. Why hadn’t she made the connection before? The person who had broken into her house had worn gloves. He’d also worn a mask, maybe not a stocking mask but nonetheless a mask. And Ann had formed the distinct impression that the man in the hallway was about to rape her. In addition, she was getting strange phone calls, and a phone call had been used to point the finger at Delvecchio. Could this person be one and the same?

She sprang to her feet, wanting to tell Glen at once. Then she stopped herself. How could she tell him he might have convicted an innocent man? And on the same day he had brought in the conviction. He was probably whooping it up in his office right now, celebrating his victory. The man would be devastated. Before she brought him down, she decided, she’d better make damn sure she knew what she was saying.

Ann took a seat across from Randy Delvecchio in an interview room at the jail. “Randy,” she said, “I’ve decided to help you, but there’s something you have to do for me or I’ll just walk away and let you go to prison.”

“What?” he said, his eyes expanding. “I’ll do anything. Please….”

“You have to be completely honest with me,” Ann said, looking him in the eye. “No matter what I ask you, you have to tell the truth. Do you understand? Are we perfectly clear on this?”

He nodded, licking his dry lips before he answered. “I promise on my mother’s life.”

What an odd comment, Ann thought, for someone accused of raping women around his mother’s age. If he was guilty, he sure didn’t know how to choose his words. “Did you rape any of these women?”

Fear shot from his eyes. “No, I—I swear.”

“Did you break into their homes and take some of their possessions? Don’t lie, Randy. Burglary is a crime, but not like the crime you’ve been convicted of.”

“I never broke into no one’s home.”

Ann opened her file and took out his rap sheet, sliding it across the table to him. “What does that say, Randy?”

“It’s just a bunch of numbers.”

“It says 459. That’s the penal code section for burglary. You’re on probation in that case right now. You’re lying to me, Randy, and I told you—”

“Wait,” he exclaimed. “I didn’t break into no one’s home that time. That was a grocery store. My mother lost her job. We was hungry, so I got us some food.”

Ann stared at him intently. She couldn’t confirm what he was saying without the original crime report. “Let’s set that aside for now. I’ll verify if what you’re telling me is the truth. Now, tell me why you had Estelle Summer’s husband’s overcoat and Madeline Alderson’s ring if you’d never been in their houses.”

“I didn’t have no ring. I swear. They said it was in my room at my house, but I don’t know how it got there. I never saw that lady’s ring. Please believe me.”

“The overcoat?” Ann sat back in her chair, eager to see how he was going to explain this one.

Delvecchio dropped his chin to his chest, mumbling under his breath, “I had the coat, but I didn’t steal it. Someone gave it to me.”

Ann shook the table with her hands, causing him to bolt upright. “When? Where? Who? I have to know everything.”

Delvecchio cowered, pushing his chair back from the table. “I don’t remember. Maybe a few days before they came to my house to get me.”

Ann frowned. “You’ve got to do better than that.”

“A man gave me that coat,” he said, searching his memory. “I was standing down on Alvarado. That’s where we stand sometimes when we want day work. The people come by in their cars and pick us up. This man stopped and I asked if he wanted me to work for him. He says no. He wanted me to have a warm coat ‘cause it was getting cold.”

Surely, she thought, if it was Chen, Delvecchio would remember him. “What did this man look like?”

Delvecchio scratched his arm, a dull look on his face. “I dunno. He was just a man. My memory ain’t so good. I forget things a lot.”

And this was a clever man, Ann thought. Not hardly. “Randy, this is extremely important. Can’t you remember anything?”

“He had a really big car. I don’t know what kind it was, but it was big and black. I’d never seen a car like that. It was like a box. Kinda like one of those old cars.”

“What about his face?”

“I don’t remember. He was wearing sunglasses, and he just handed me the coat out the window and drove off. Oh, he had dark hair.”

“Did you tell your public defender that you were working when Estelle Summer was raped?”

“Yeah, I told him,” Delvecchio said angrily. “He didn’t believe me, though. Says I ain’t got no proof. Wouldn’t even let me testify. Said it would just make things worse.”

“Why didn’t you have him verify your alibi?” Ann shot back.

Delvecchio was back to scratching his arm nervously. “See, I told you I tried to call that video place and their phone was cut off. My mother thought of the letter, but they just answered us the other day.”

Ann closed the file and weighed what she had just heard. The details he had given her seemed too odd to have been made up. The man’s memory was so poor that he couldn’t even tell her the make of the black car.

“Randy,” she finally said, “I believe you.”

His face brightened. Hope sprang into his eyes.

The world was not a nice place, Ann thought. The jail was full of men like Randy, men who weren’t that smart, who had ended up involved in criminal activity as a result of their lack of skills, their backgrounds of poverty and hardship. Ann felt compassion for some of these men. How did she know what she would be today if she’d been in their shoes? Maybe she would have turned to gangs and crime as well.

If her suspicions were right in this case, however. Randy Delvecchio wasn’t a criminal at all. He was an innocent man a step away from the gas chamber.

“I’ll come back as soon as I know something,” Ann told him. “Until then, just keep your mouth shut and stay to yourself.”

Just one last thing, Ann thought as she returned to her office. She rang up Melanie Chase.

“I’ve been swamped, Ann,” she said rapid-fire. “If you’re calling about the evidence from your house, I simply haven’t had time to process it yet. It’s slated for tomorrow.”

“No, Melanie,” Ann said. “I mean, I want to know what you found, but I also need to ask you about the Delvecchio case. You responded on the rapes, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” she said shortly. “What’s this about? Delvecchio’s been convicted, Ann. Didn’t you hear?”

“Did you find any prints?”

Melanie sighed, eager to move on to more pressing matters. “None that didn’t belong to the victim or her friends. We checked it out completely.”

“But surely you collected other evidence.”

“Well, of course, we collected all kinds of shit. We vacuumed the house, went over everything. Most of the actual physical evidence came from the victims themselves in the rape exams. Do you want me to get the file?” she asked wearily, sensing the determination in Ann’s voice.

“Please,” Ann said. “It’s really urgent, Mel. I wouldn’t bother you if it wasn’t.”

A few minutes later, Melanie came back on the line. “Okay, they found some hairs that we were certain had to belong to the suspect…some other cloth fibers, a few other things. As far as the hairs were concerned, they didn’t match up with Delvecchio’s hair. They weren’t even human hairs. They were from a synthetic wig.”

“I thought the rapist wore a stocking over his head.”

“That’s what they say.”

“Why would he wear a wig?”

“Look, I don’t know, Ann. Maybe the wig belonged to the old lady. When it didn’t match the suspect and the rest of the case came together, we just dropped it. There didn’t seem to be a reason to pursue it. Hopkins himself told me to drop it. He said he didn’t need it, and it would only confuse the jury.”

“I see,” Ann said, dark thoughts of Glen passing through her mind. “If you had the wig, could you match the hair?”

“I don’t think so, Ann. We could determine it was synthetic hair like we found on the victim and even possibly determine the wig manufacturer, but I doubt if we could get any closer than that. It’s all the same stuff, you know. It’s not like natural hair.”

Ann was silent, thinking. If there was anyone she’d ever wanted to nail in her life, it was the person behind this. Right now she’d do anything to learn the truth. “No other evidence?”

Melanie flicked her lighter. “Let me look again.” Puffing out the smoke with the words, she said, “Well, yes, there was, but it didn’t pan out either. We found some pubic hairs on Florence Green.”

“Did you try to match them to Delvecchio?”

“They didn’t match.”

“What?”

“I said they didn’t match. What else do you want me to say?”

Ann was so agitated that she stood up and started to pace. “If the pubic hair didn’t match, how did Randy Delvecchio get convicted? Jesus Christ, this old lady wasn’t exactly a hot ticket. Any pubic hair that you found had to be from the rapist.”

“Look,” Melanie snapped back, “I don’t try the cases. Talk to the frigging D.A. All I do is just work up the evidence. How would I know what this woman did or didn’t do? Maybe she did have lovers, Ann. Shit, it’s not impossible. She was only sixty or so.”

“Sixty-eight,” Ann said.

Melanie laughed. “Well, bless her heart, maybe she still liked a good roll in the hay now and then.”

“I don’t think so,” Ann said sarcastically, “but thanks anyway.”

Chapter
19

A
s soon as Ann hung up the phone with Melanie Chase, Reed called her. “You’d better come home right away,” he said without preamble. “I’m at your house with David.”

“David?” she said, instantly terrified. “He’s supposed to be in school. Oh, my God—”

“He’s fine, Ann,” Reed said quickly, not wanting to alarm her. “When we got here to install the wiretap, he was already here. He said he got out of school early for some reason. Just come to the house and I’ll tell you what’s going on.”

When Ann pulled up to the curb ten minutes later, she spotted a surveillance van a few doors down. The minute she walked in, David rushed to meet her, his face flushed with excitement. “I talked to Dad,” he said, grabbing Ann’s arm, digging in his fingernails. “He’s alive. He called me on the phone. I swear, he’s alive. He’s alive. Mom.”

“No,” Ann said, shaking her head. As Tommy Reed appeared from the kitchen, she asked, “Were you here?”

“No,” he said, “but I heard the tape.”

“It’s true. Mom,” David cried. “It’s true. I always told you he’d come back. He’s alive. Dad is alive.”

“David,” Ann said, all the blood draining from her face, “please, honey, don’t get all worked up. It sounds like him, I know, but that doesn’t mean it’s him.” She looked at Reed for help, her voice shaking. “Were they able to trace the call?”

“Not enough time, Ann. They have to get the DAV number first.”

“What’s that?” David asked eagerly.

“Digital Analog Viatrace. Next time he calls, you have to keep him on the phone longer.”

“He’ll be here tomorrow,” David said. “You don’t need to trace the call. He’s coming home tomorrow. He told me he was.”

“Come here and sit down, big guy,” Reed said to David, patting a spot on the sofa.

“No. You’re just going to tell me it isn’t true, and it is. He called. Mom. He’s alive.”

Ann exchanged glances with Tommy. At least she wasn’t the only one who thought the voice sounded like Hank’s. That gave her some measure of relief. “What exactly did the person say, David?”

“He said, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, kid.’” David tried to mimic his father’s deep voice. “Just like that. Mom. Just like he always used to say at night when he left for work.”

“That’s all?” Ann said.

“No,” David said. “First he called and said, ‘What’s up, David?’”

Something was floating around in Ann’s mind, but she couldn’t nail it down. She rubbed her forehead, trying to get a fix on what was bothering her, but it flitted away again. “Did you try to talk to him? You know, ask him where he’s been, ask him what happened?”

“Yeah,” David said, frowning. “I said all kinds of things, but he just hung up. I guess he can’t talk now or he got cut off. Hey, maybe he just wants to talk to you first. Yeah, that’s it, he looks really weird and skinny or something. He’s been locked up somewhere all this time.” The boy was puzzled, trying to figure it out, but then his face brightened. “But he did say he’d see me tomorrow. That’s what he said, you know?” He had turned around and was speaking to Tommy.

“Why couldn’t he see us right now?” Ann said, stepping in front of her son.

David’s face flushed with anger. “I don’t know. How would I know? I told you he was coming back. You just wouldn’t believe me. It’s because of Glen,” he shouted, a vein protruding in his neck. “You don’t want Dad anymore. You want that awful man. I hate you.”

Ann stepped back and cupped her hand over her face, reeling at her son’s words.

“Ann,” Reed said calmly, “why don’t you go into the other room and let David and me talk.”

As soon as Ann had left. Reed pulled the boy down beside him on the sofa. For a few minutes they sat side by side in silence, David’s chest still heaving with emotion. “I didn’t mean it,” he said softly, choking back tears. “I hurt my mom.”

“She understands,” Reed answered, draping his arm over David’s shoulder. “Moms always understand.”

“I’ve waited so long for Dad to come back. Why isn’t she happy too?”

Well, kid,” Reed said, meeting his pleading look, she doesn’t want you to be disappointed. It may not be your father. That’s what we’ve been trying to tell you.”

“It is my dad, Tommy. I know what my dad sounds like, and it was my dad.”

“This is what we’re going to do,” Reed said. “We’re going to take that tape of the person who called down to the lab and compare it to your father’s voice. That’s called a voice analysis. Then we’ll know if it’s your father or not.”

“Okay,” David said. “That’s a great idea. How long will it take?”

“It shouldn’t take long. I’ll have to see if your mother has a tape of your father’s voice, though. Without that, we can’t make a comparison.”