Presumed Guilty (26 page)

Mike Freton was already in his office when Dallas got there with Tracy. He had his coat off and was putting a file folder away in a metal drawer. Tracy left and closed the door behind her.

Mr. Freton offered her a chair. “I know that must have been hard for you, Mrs. Hamilton.”
She didn’t sit. “I know that my husband did not kill Melinda Perry.”
The DA nodded wearily, as if he’d heard that particular line many times over the years, only with different names. “Can I offer you coffee or anything?”
“No, thanks. You ought to know that I was attacked recently by someone I knew over twenty-five years ago, a man named Chad McKenzie. And he’s out on the street right now. He was looking at me just before I came up here.”
Mr. Freton took a moment to process the information. “This guy is out there now?”
“Yes. Across the street.”
“Did you report the attack to the police?”
“I reported it, yes. What do you suggest I do?”
The DA went to his window, which looked out on the south side of downtown. “Tell you what. I’ll have courthouse security walk you to your car. If you can ID the man for the officer, he can call for LAPD. From that point on, it will be a police matter.”
“Thank you.”
He made a call. “It’ll be just a few minutes.”
“I appreciate your doing this.”
He nodded. “I’ve seen many women in your position. None has handled herself as well as you have, especially considering all the publicity. I also want you to know that if any credible evidence is produced that would compel another look at this case, I’ll take that look.”
A few minutes later, a young man in a county safety police uniform entered Mike Freton’s office. The DA gave the cardboard box containing Ron’s computer to the officer and asked him to escort Dallas to her car.
She and the county officer took a special elevator to the ground level. That was nice. It definitely paid to know the right people around here.

She called Detective Lacy from her car. After about a five-minute hold, he came on.
“Mrs. Hamilton, I was going to call — ”
“I saw him. Chad McKenzie. Just now, at the courthouse — ”
“Mrs. Hamilton — ”
“Staring at me.”
“I’m no longer on this matter.”
“What?”
“I’ve been reassigned. The Rafe Bryan killing has been given to another team. That happens. I’ll give you the contact information.”
His voice trailed off in a way that indicated to Dallas he wanted to say more.
“Is there anything else you can tell me?” she asked.
There was a long pause. “There are some odd things. I really can’t go into it all.”
“Why not?”
“I wish I could.”
Dallas pulled her car into Cara’s apartment complex and parked. “Detective, please.”
“I shouldn’t do this, but I figure you deserve a break. I know you’ve been through a lot.”
“What sort of break?”
“Gentri Land.”
“Yes?”
“It turns out this is a corporation with quite a few real estate holdings in California, Nevada, and Arizona.”
“What did Rafe Bryan have to do with any of that?”
“As far as I know, nothing. But Gentri Land owns certain commercial buildings in Chatsworth. And one of its tenants is LookyLu Productions.”
Dallas tried to figure out what that all meant, but nothing clicked.
“Lu is clearly a factor here, but my money’s on your guy McKenzie as the common denominator.”
She shivered involuntarily. How would Chad be connected to Vic Lu? Well, other than by their salacious tastes?
“What should I do?” she asked.
“Not much you can do. Listen, if I hear anything that you need to know, I’ll contact you. But for the time being . . .”
“Yes?”
“Be careful.”

Jared turned his truck out toward Highway 99. As he drove around the perimeter of Bakersfield with country music playing on the radio — not the hard-core beat he used to play when getting high, but the twangy tunes about good-old boys in trucks like his — he felt both free and lost.

Free in the good way, the best way, the way that he’d learned as a kid from his mom and dad and the church he grew up in. But lost in another way, because he’d been getting used to the aimlessness of his old torment.

He knew that was partly an excuse, a reason he used to run away. But where would he run to now?
Just before hitting the highway he saw a billboard with a woman on it, a woman with a face and figure posed to stir the blood of any able-bodied male this side of puberty, and letters a mile high about a casino just a few miles up the road. What a great world it had become.
He’d fought for this world, this freedom, and it was worth it. Despite the naysayers and hate mongers, he would fight for freedom again. But when it was used for stuff like this, his throat ached.
Couldn’t we do more with our most prized possession than this?
He got on 99 and pointed himself back toward L.A.

On Wednesday, Dallas went to the jail to see Ron for the last time before he would be remanded to the custody of the men’s penal colony at Los Rios. All things considered, Jeff told her, it was a good place, not one of the harder places like San Quentin or Corcoran. Though it wouldn’t be easy time, it wouldn’t be hell on earth, either.

“I wish I could tell you how much I love you,” he said. “I don’t deserve you, but there it is. I want you to get on with your life without me, Dallas.”

“Don’t talk about that now. I’ll be up to visit you.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I want to. We’re in this together. As strange as that may be.” “I also wish I could tell you what I’ve experienced in this place.

Being in here has stripped away everything I was holding onto. I’ve been scraped. But free. Do you remember when we read the Narnia stories to the kids?”

“Of course.”
“Remember that part where Eustace is being released from being a dragon? How painful yet freeing it was? Lewis had it right. That’s exactly what I’m going through. And I’m grateful. I’m sure in eternity I’ll look back and see this was the only way. And I’ll give glory to God.”
“He has worked in this, Ron. Jared has come back to the Lord.”
Ron’s eyes brightened. “How?”
She told him the story as Jared had given it to her, and of his prayer of repentance uttered in the car on their way back from his court appearance.
Ron broke down. Dallas couldn’t keep her own tears from falling. When he was finally able to talk again, he said, “The guy who did this, who was in Jared’s cell, you said he mentioned me to Jared?”
“That’s right.”
“Maybe he’s the one.”
“The one what?”
“Dallas, I kept getting messages delivered to me in here, Bible verses and the like. It was as if whoever wrote them knew me personally, knew exactly what to say.”
“Ron, there’s more to this. God’s not finished.”
He looked at her. “I have a long time to think about that.”

A long time to think . . .
That’s what both of them would have from now on. She thought
about it all day and into the night.
Naturally, she couldn’t sleep. She was starting to get very tired
of not sleeping, of the toll it was taking on her body. She recited the
twenty-third psalm in her mind, in the King James, but even that
did not help.
She reached over and flicked on the light. The clock said 1:47
a.m. This was nuts. Were sleepless nights going to be her own prison
sentence?
Something was bothering her. Connections needed to be made,
but they were elusive, like scattering rodents.
She swung her legs over the bed and saw, sitting on the floor, the
evidence box Mike Freton had given her.
She opened it.
More than Ron’s laptop was in there. The box also included a
sheaf of stapled papers with a series of numbers on it, and a few letters and receipts. But it was the laptop that held her attention. The laptop that contained the images Ron had downloaded. What to do with it? Destroy it? Take a hammer to it and reduce
it to bits?
She took up the letters. Nothing of particular relevance, as far as
she could see. One letter saddened her, though. It was from Karen
and included a copy of the publisher’s letter, outlining the terms of
the deal.
The deal that was pulled when Ron was arrested.
Her mind snapped back to the laptop.
Should she boot it up? In a way, it was like having a murder
weapon in the room. It was ominous and dangerous and a threat. The stapled papers. It didn’t look like something seized from
Ron’s office. It was a list of a series of numbers that looked like a
World War II encryption. But some of the numbers appeared to be
dates. Random dates, in no particular pattern. At least, not that she
could see.
What was it? She leafed through all five pages, her eyes crossing.
She was about to throw it back in the box when she got to the very
last page. The numbers filled only half a page.
Then, at the very bottom, was a notation:
Tomassi, L. 4903940/DASR45 – 4/13
Tomassi, L.
Obviously a name.
She knew she wasn’t going to sleep, so why not spend the morning hours trying to find out who this Tomassi was?
The answer could be in Ron’s contact list.
On his laptop.
But it wouldn’t turn on. No battery life. Now what would she
do? Wander Cara’s apartment like a somnambulant ghost? Instead,
she padded down to Cara’s study with the laptop. Cara had a similar
model, with a power cord. In two minutes Ron’s laptop glowed. Dallas shuddered at what secrets she might find there.
Turn it off and forget about it. This is the past now. Nothing good
can come from pursuing this.
But she kept looking.
She found his contacts list and opened it. Looked under the
T
tab.
No Tomassi
.
She went to the
search
window and searched for
Tomassi
as a file
name or part of the contents. She got the same message each time:
Search is complete. There are no results to display.
Now she was fully awake, her mind engaged. She was going to
look like a wreck in the morning. Wait, it
was
the morning.
Don’t go nutty.
She logged on to the Internet. When in doubt, Google. She tried
Googling
Tomassi
but came up with nearly 100,000 hits. Now
that
was a cure for insomnia. She tried to add the letter
L
to the search,
but that only narrowed things down to 44,800. Sure, only take half
the morning with those. She looked at the notation again. What if
she tried typing in the number?
She typed in
4903940/DASR45 – 4/13.
Nothing.
She kept staring at the code. Maybe the letters meant something.
Some sort of organization maybe. What did she have to lose? It was
getting on toward two thirty, and she was not going to sleep. She typed in
DASR
.
And got 19,300 results.
That seemed strange. But she scrolled through a few and found
it to be an abbreviation with several possible meanings, like Digital
Air Surveillance Radar and Direct Access Service Requests. Another dead end.
She almost logged off. But then she gave it one last try. She
typed in DASR45.
And got one result.
She clicked on the link.
It took her to the website of the Los Angeles County District
Attorney’s Office. On a page titled “Press Releases.”
An old release, from last year.
Now she wasn’t just awake, her body was humming. She scanned
the release, which was about a conviction being upheld on appeal.
Then she got to the final section.
The court found that the error was harmless, and that introduction
of internal reports from the District Attorney’s office, like the DASR45
that was admitted in this case, were not inherently prejudicial.

Internal report from the District Attorney’s office? That’s what the form was. It must be a mistake that she had it. But what did it mean?

Dallas presented herself at the DA’s office at ten the next morning and asked to see Mike Freton. The receptionist made a call and asked Dallas to wait. A few minutes later, Freton’s clerk, Tracy Harrington, came in.

I can do for you?”
“If we could find a place to talk.”
“Sure.”
Dallas followed Tracy down a narrow hallway lined with filing

cabinets to a little cubicle.
“My domain,” Tracy explained.
“Nice.”
“You’re being kind. Someday I hope to graduate into a real shoebox. Coffee?”

“Do you have any that’s really strong?”
“Always. We use it to reroof the buildings.”
Tracy got two Styrofoam cups of coffee. And she was right. Definitely heavy-duty caffeine.

Dallas put the DASR report on Tracy’s small desk. “I believe this was given to me by mistake.”
Tracy picked it up, flipped through it. “Oops. You’re right. This is ours.”
“What is it?”
“District Attorney Summary Report. Subject number 45.”
“I’m not in any trouble, right?”
“Oh, no.”
“Can you tell me what it was for? The only thing I could figure out was that it’s a report made out by someone named Tomassi for your office.”
Tracy’s face broke out into a huge smile. “Now that’s funny.” “What is?”
“It’s Lucas. Lucas Tomassi.”
“You know him then?”
“He’s my boyfriend.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. We’re just one big happy family around here.” “He prepared that?”
Tracy nodded. “He’s one of our IT guys. Computer whiz. Except when it’s my computer, then he seems to take his sweet — ”
“Could I talk to him?”
“You want to talk to Lucas?”
“Please.”
Tracy frowned. “About this?”
“May I?”
“I don’t know, I really don’t — ”
“Please. I’ve already looked this over. I just want to ask him about it. You can be here. If he’s not supposed to say something, you can stop him.”
Tracy smiled again. “I love doing that. Okay, Mrs. Hamilton.”
Ten minutes later, a man of about thirty with stylishly unkempt hair and black-rimmed glasses popped into the cubicle.
“You rang?” he said.
“Lucas, this is Mrs. Hamilton.”
He shook her hand. “I know. I recognize you from the news.”
“That’s my lot now, I guess,” Dallas said.
“Bites, doesn’t it?” Lucas said. “I mean, people who don’t want to go public are forced to, while a bunch of people we’d rather not see more of are still out there.”
“Mrs. Hamilton wanted to ask you some things about your DASR.”
“Which one? I only do about a hundred a week.”
“This one.”
Tracy handed the report to Lucas. He flipped through it quickly. “How did you get this?”
“It was in the box that Mr. Freton prepared for me.”
“This is internal. You shouldn’t have it.”
“It was a mistake, okay?” Tracy said. “But the case is officially over now. So don’t get bent.”
Lucas Tomassi issued an audible sigh, his response to Tracy. He looked at Dallas. “You sure you want to know?”
“Please.”
“It’s a log of all those images that we found on your husband’s computer, okay? Sorry.”
She had suspected it. “But what do the numbers mean?”
“They’re just a collection of the dates the images were made, if they were part of the original download. And a code number for each image that I put in. For indexing purposes.”
“Some job,” Tracy said.
“Hey, I just work here.” He looked down at his report. “And some other information like individual file size, a couple things I forgot about, yada yada — ”
Dallas rubbed her temples.
“ — files were downloaded, March 23, yada yada, April 11th I entered some of my own personal notations, in code of course, brilliantly conceived by me — ”
“You’re so brilliant,” Tracy said.
With her head starting to throb, Dallas said, “Anything else besides the pornography report?”
“Nope. That’s really all this is. My notations, sitting all day long and entering numbers. It’s what I do all day. That’s why Tracy, who makes about twice as much as I do, is taking me out to dinner tonight.”
“In your dreams,” Tracy said. She snatched the DASR from Lucas. “Now go back to your cage.”
He bobbed his eyebrows. “I’m thinking Italian.
Ciao.
”
And then he was gone.
“Thanks for bringing this back.” Tracy opened a drawer and put the report inside. “I know this whole thing hasn’t been easy.”
“You do know that somebody leaked this information to the press.”
She watched Tracy’s face carefully. The young clerk seemed stunned into silence.
“It had to come from this office, or from the police,” Dallas added.
“You’re not suggesting that Lucas . . .”
“Maybe I’m just asking you for help, if you know.”
“The case is over. I don’t see how it’s relevant anymore. If I did know.”
“I’m not sure the case
is
over. At least for me.”
Tracy took a long time before answering. “At this point, Mrs. Hamilton, I think it best that I not say anything further.”
A heavy curtain fell. This scene was over.
“Thanks for the coffee.” Dallas stood up. “I can find my way out.”