Presumed Guilty (15 page)

Late Monday morning Dallas met Harry Stegman at Jerry’s Famous Deli. Jerry’s was an overpriced hangout for young movie turks and the old-money crowd who lived in the hills south of Ventura Boulevard. These people had bought homes in the fifties and sixties, and were now sitting atop the mushroom cloud of the real-estate boom.

Harry was sitting in the waiting area and got up when he saw her. He was about sixty, with a laurel wreath of white hair surrounding a bald pate. His suit was beige and rumpled. Every time Dallas saw Harry, in fact, whatever suit he happened to be wearing seemed to be the final resting place of all the wrinkles in the Western world.

His lack of spit and polish was oddly comforting, though. A bit round in the middle, Harry Stegman seemed more like somebody’s competent accountant brother than a criminal investigator.

“Thanks for seeing me,” Dallas said as Harry pumped her hand.
“Nothing of it, we’re all part of the team.”
They were shown to a booth, and Harry ordered coffee for them. Then he folded his hands in front of him on the table. “You holding up okay?”
Holding up? She was just thankful she could walk around. “Every day is its own adventure, it seems.”
“You have got that exactly right.” Harry smiled. It was an easy smile, smooth and calming. Dallas realized he must have comforted countless people over the years in his professional capacity.
“I been doing this a long time,” Harry said, “and every time I think I’ve seen it all, something throws me for a new loop. At least it keeps me young. You wouldn’t think to look at me that I’m only twenty-five.”
“Never would have guessed. You don’t look a day over twenty.”
“Bless you, my child.”
The server brought coffee and asked if they’d like to order any food. Dallas declined. Harry ordered a “sky high” corned-beef sandwich.
“Stuff’ll stop my heart,” Harry said. “But I figure we ought to enjoy our stay, you know?”
“You have family, Mr. Stegman?”
“Harry. Please. I have a daughter. In Oklahoma. She works with horses. She’s got a gift.” He smiled and his eyes seemed to be looking at a memory. “Wish I could see her more.” He came back to the present. “Now, let’s see what we can do here.” He put on some reading glasses and took a pad and pen from his coat pocket. “Jeff says you think somebody else killed the girl?”
“I think Ron was set up somehow. Do you think that’s possible?”
“Like I said, there’s always something new. But there are some things that always stay the same. Like in murder. There has to be a reason, a motive. A strong one too, if it involved a plan to frame Ron. Let’s think that one through a bit. Who might possibly entertain such a motive?”
“Ron was outspoken about pornography. He was working with Bernie Halstrom on trying to crack down on the porn industry here in the Valley. The girl was a porn star.” Dallas was struck with a new thought. “What if she was part of this plan to ruin Ron?”
Harry tapped his lower lip with the pen. “Why would she have to be murdered? If they were trying to ruin Ron with an affair, she could have just come out with that story and played it to the end.”
“What if she got some other ideas along the way? Maybe she was playing both sides against the middle. Maybe she was trying to get more money out of whoever hired her.”
“You’re pretty good at this,” Harry said. “I like the way you think. Still, we have a lot of maybes. Let’s see if we can link them up. We’d be talking a conspiracy here.”
“Does it have to be a conspiracy?”
“It only takes two people in agreement on a criminal scheme, and that’s what we’re supposing here. We have the girl, Melinda Perry, and a somebody else. Maybe a few somebody elses. But as for linkage, right now we only have an untested CI.”
“CI?”
“Citizen informant. The other problem is he also happens to be a gang member.”
“I don’t think he’s a member, really, he’s sort of . . .”
“Mentally challenged?”
Dallas nodded, feeling her hopes starting to drain away.
Harry scribbled some notes on his pad. The server came back with one of the largest sandwiches Dallas had ever seen. Harry’s face lit up. “You sure you don’t want part of this?”
“I’m sure,” Dallas said.
“Because I’ll just have to eat the whole thing.”
“You could take half of it home.”
Harry shook his head. “Good corned beef never tastes the same half an hour later. I don’t know why that is, but it’s one of the most important things to know in this life.”
Life. Would it ever be normal again? Would she ever again be able to take pleasure in simple things, like a good sandwich?
She sensed that Harry, seasoned pro that he was, immediately picked up her vibe.
“Try not to worry,” he said softly. “It’s Jeff’s job to look at the evidence and tell you the score. It’s my job to dig and dig and find everything I can that’ll help. That’s what I get paid the big bucks for. That’s why I can afford to buy sandwiches the size of Nebraska.”
A single tear coursed down Dallas’s left cheek. She grabbed her napkin and dabbed her eye.
“Let me have one bite here,” Harry said, “and then you give me all the names you can think of, all the people Ron may have had connections with, places he used to go, anything at all. How’s that sound?”
“Thanks, Mr. Stegman.”
“Harry.”
She watched him savor a bite. It almost made her want to order one for herself. They spent an hour together, and Dallas gave out all the information she could think of. Just before she rose to leave, Harry extended his hand.
“Try not to worry,” he said again.
She nodded. He was looking at her closely.
“You remind me a little of my daughter.” He seemed sad when he said it. “You’ve got the same eyes. A little vulnerable, but tough.”
Dallas smiled. “I think I’d like to meet her sometime.”
“That,” he said wistfully, “would be nice.”

On her way back from Jerry’s Deli, Dallas stopped off at Ralph’s for some groceries. Life had to go on. No matter what she was feeling about Ron and the whole mess, she had Jared and Cara to think of.
She suddenly remembered a scene from her San Francisco days.

She’d gone over to see Alcatraz and was walking up a steep ramp at the old abandoned prison. At the top, perched on a wall, she saw a large seagull. The gull had its wings spread out, resisting a stiff wind.

Dallas approached, fascinated. The gull didn’t move, but watched her closely. She smiled at it and cooed a little to settle it down. But when she was about five feet away, the gull squawked threateningly, eyes riveted on her. Dallas stopped. And then she saw the reason for the bird’s defiance — two small, fuzzy chicks stuck their heads out from under each of the mother gull’s wings.

She was protecting her young against the elements, approaching strangers, and anything else that might do them harm.
Though she had no children of her own then, Dallas knew that’s what it would be like to be a mother. Instinct would kick in, and nothing dangerous would get close to her children without a fight to the finish.
She knew this even more now as she thought of Jared and Cara and all the events swirling around them. She would keep her wings over them, defying the dread winds, and nothing would move her from her maternal duty.
In the market she selected a man-sized rib eye to cook for Jared. She hadn’t fired up a steak in a long time. It would be good to do it again. A reminder of better times.
It would be a way to break through the fence he seemed to be erecting.
As she got to her Pathfinder with her cart, she heard a man’s voice behind her say, “Can I help you with that?”
“No, I’ve got it.” She didn’t want to look at him. She wanted to get in the car as quickly as possible and lock the doors.
She saw him out of the corner of her eye, just standing there. That’s when she knew he was trouble.
Don’t panic. There are plenty of people around.
She unlocked her door, put the first bag in. Turning for the next, she noticed the man was closer.

Security guard. There’s one at the store entrance. Should I call out?
“You really look like you could use some help.”
No way to avoid it. Heart kicking, she looked the man in the face.
And her heart nearly stopped.
Chad McKenzie hadn’t changed much in, what was it, nearly thirty years? That was scary. Age had only added to his malice. His charcoal hair was shaved down close. He wore a black knee-length coat.
“Hi, Dallas.”
His voice sliced her. How easily and eerily it all came back to her, flooding her with dark memories. Her legs started shaking. She wondered if she could even move.
“You look great. Better than on TV.” He made no move toward her, but she felt cornered just the same.
“I have to go,” she managed to say.
“Whoa, wait. That’s all you can say to me after all these years?”
This was too surreal. How did he find her? This wasn’t a coincidence.
“How come you didn’t return my phone call? A guy could get a real feeling of rejection from that.”
Thoughts tumbled into place. The note. The smashed headlight. The strange message on her cell phone.
Chad.
Go. Now.
She looked down, as if doing so would make him disappear, and reached for her last bag. Chad snatched it out of the cart.
That was it. The breach, the physical act. He’d gone too far, but he always had. Trembling, she could sit there and take it. Or do
something.
But what?
The one advantage she had was being in a public place. “I will scream my head off if you don’t give me that now.”
“No need, no need. I’m not out to hurt you.”
“Like I believe that.”
“Why would I pick a public parking lot, huh? I just want to talk to you.”
She sensed the smallest hesitation in his tone of voice and told herself not to back down. “Give me the bag.”
“Just talk.”
“We have nothing to say to each other.”
“Now I’m hurt. After all we were together?”
“Give me the bag.”
“I saw your face on the tube. Isn’t that a wonderful thing? You see somebody who shared her body and soul with you, right up there on the TV, and she’s in trouble. How could I not come?”
“Bag.”
He didn’t move. “You know, I thought about you in prison. Maybe the same way good old Ron is thinking about you right now, missing your warmth, your — ”
“Stop it.”
“How’d you end up with a guy like that? A preacher man? You weren’t exactly into being religious when we were doing our thing.”
“I will scream, I swear, if you don’t give me the bag right now.”
He smiled. “I was just helping.” He held the bag out to her. “I’m a helpful guy.”
She took the bag.
“And I want to help you,” he said.
Just turn and drive away. Don’t listen.
“I want to keep your sad family story from getting worse.”
“What are you talking about?”
“That’s better. That’s nicer. How
are
you, Dallas? I really missed you.”
Master manipulator. All abusers were. But he knew something, had some leverage. All right, she would manipulate him right back.
“You were in prison, huh?”
“Hey, what can I say? You make a mistake, they catch you, they make you pay. Kind of like Ron.”
“You don’t know anything about Ron, so just drop it.”
“You ever tell him about us?”
“Of course I did. I told him everything.”
“Everything?”
“I told him what mattered. About the way you beat up women.”
He winked at her. “I’m what they call
rehabilitated
.”
“If you have something to say to me, say it now. And say it once.”
“Sure, Dallas, sure. I don’t want to see you hurt any more than you have been. That guy, Ron, he ought to be taught a lesson. But your whole family doesn’t have to suffer.”
Her hands tightened on the shopping bag.
Chad patted the pockets of his coat. “You happen to have a smoke? I’m out.”
“What about my family?”
“Hey, for old times’ sake, maybe you could spot me a twenty. What do you say?”
“Good-bye.”
She made a half turn as Chad snapped his fingers and said, “That’s right, we were talking about your family. That daughter of yours. What did the paper say the cutie’s name was? Cara?”
Dallas went cold.
“And a son who served in Iraq? Jared? Must be a fine boy.”
He paused, his face congealing into smugness. “Do I have your attention again?”
“Say it!”
“The way the papers have it, you’re a fine, honorable wife, holding a family together in the face of this very embarrassing turn of events. Must be hard on you and the kids. I wouldn’t want to see it get any worse for them.”
She knew he was leading up to something, so she waited.
“The way these reporters are hanging on every shred of story, what if they got the whole story of our passion from way back? I have pictures too. You remember the pictures, don’t you?”
The pictures. She’d nearly forgotten he once hid a camera and took pictures of . . . them. Awful, disgusting. If her children ever saw them . . .
“They wouldn’t run those,” she said weakly.
“You kidding me? You know how much some of those tabloids pay? Which brings me back to my little problem. Twenty bucks ought to cover it. Call it a first installment.”
The scheme was now clear. “How much do you want?”
“Like I said, a twenty.”
“I mean altogether. To make you go away.”
“Two zero.” He put his hand out. Kept it there.
She knew he had her. Well planned and played by a con without conscience.
She fished out a twenty-dollar bill from her purse and practically threw it at him. “Now will you leave us alone?”
“We’ll talk again, Dallas.” He put the bill in his coat pocket. “Just make sure you answer my calls, huh? I get kind of impatient with the phone-tag deal, you know? And let’s just keep this between us, because if the cops come sniffing around, that would be bad.” He smiled one more time. “Hey! Great to see you again, Dallas. You look prime.”

Dallas drove in the grip of anger to a quiet residential area, pulled over, and called Jeff Waite. She left a voice message for him to call
immediately.

She waited.
And as she did something was illuminated in her head, like when the high beams of a car hit a road sign at night. The sign told her there were two directions she could go.
One was to continue in the way she was already headed, dragged on by a limp but real faith to which she would occasionally respond. She needed something basic right now. Something her tenuous hope could easily grip. Not changing the status quo was easy. On the other hand, one more blow might permanently cripple her trust in God. She might never respond again.
Or she could cast off everything she could — every fear, every betrayal, every unknown — and dive into God. She could go to God with her whole self, heart and hands and head uncovered, and scream,
Is this what you want?
and then wait for the tearing away of anything that wasn’t truly his.
Do it, God, tear it all away and take me and show me and do whatever you want, because it’s all over if you don’t.
She had her eyes closed and her hands clamped on the steering wheel when Jeff returned her call.
“Are you okay?” he said. “You sounded desperate.”
“I am.”
“What’s the matter?”
She told him about Chad. When she finished there was a long pause.
“At this point,” Jeff said, “you’ve got the first step toward a criminal complaint. Write down exactly what happened — date, time, location. Keep a record. At some point he’s going to cross the line. Do you have any protection?”
“You mean like a gun or something?”
“That’s what I mean.”
“No.”
“Get a stun gun. You can carry it in your purse. The guy ever comes at you physically, you can give him a jolt.”
She sighed. “I don’t want to have to carry a weapon around.”
“Who does? But it’s an evil world we live in, Dallas.”
With that she couldn’t argue.
Evil world.
That was it, really it. The thing she’d not fully faced.
When she clicked off with Jeff she called Danielle at Haven House, to make sure all was well there. It was. Then she called the Hillside church office and had them look up the current number for Hillside’s retired pastor, Roger Vernon.