Deception

CHAPTER

39

Battalion One: high-priced lawyers.

Battalion Two: high-priced publicists.

An attempt to curry favor at the Times because Myron Wydette played golf with the publisher backfired and the resulting self-righteous indignation was borderline slapstick. Wags insisted the real problem was Wydette cheated at the game and his greens buddy finally had enough.

The palm print found on Sal Fidella’s garage matched Quinn Glover’s hand. Faced with that addition to the mountain of eyewitness and forensic evidence, Quinn’s legal commandos tried selling out Tristram Wydette in return for a lighter sentence, pushing the notion that Quinn was a weak-willed follower caught in the spell of Tristram Wydette’s evil charisma.

Tristram, his former best friend claimed, had masterminded the whole thing because getting into Stanford was the most important thing in the world to him, he felt like the stupid kid in the family, Aidan was the brainiac.

When told that Aidan had also used Trey Franck as an SAT surrogate, the boy was genuinely surprised. “No shit. What was his problem?”

“You tell me, Quinn,” said Milo.

“He always seemed smart to me.”

“Maybe he just wasn’t smart enough.”

“Yeah. Sir. You’re right.” Laughter.

“Something funny, Quinn?”

“I guess he just fucked up. Sir. I guess we all did.”

“That’s a fair assessment.”

“Assessment,” said Quinn. “That’s an SAT vocab word. ‘The act or instance of evaluating.’”

“How do you assess your situation, Quinn?”

“It was T’s idea, sir. I didn’t like it, what could I do?”

“No choice at all.”

“Exactly, sir. T thought of the dee-ice, T put her—Ms. Freeman—in it. He also bashed in that loser’s head—we were gonna shoot him—T was gonna shoot him but we forgot the gun at T’s house and we already drove all the way there so T said let’s just do it.”

“How’d it go down?”

“Loser came to the door, we—T pushed him in, saw the pool cue and bashed him.”

Milo said, “There was no sign of a serious struggle, Quinn. That means Mr. Fidella was restrained.”

“If you say so, sir.”

“Be a lot easier for two big guys to restrain one middle-aged loser.”

The boy’s lawyer, silent and working his iPhone till now, said, “I’d prefer he doesn’t answer that.”

Milo didn’t protest. “So T bashed in the loser’s head. Then what?”

“Then T got into the Jag.”

“And you drove away in the loser’s Corvette.”

The lawyer said, “I’d prefer if—”

“And I’d prefer not to waste my time, Mr. Neal. Grand Theft Auto is not your client’s problem.”

“It’s not a matter of that, it’s a matter of—”

Milo stood. Motioned to me to do the same.

“That’s it?” said Quinn.

“According to Mr. Neal it is, son.” To the attorney: “So far, I haven’t heard anything of a ‘forthcoming nature’ and John Nguyen won’t take kindly to that. Particularly in light of multiple victims, murder for gain, extreme depravity, lying in wait—”

“Fine,” said Neal. “He drove the car.”

We sat back down.

Milo said, “You drove off in Mr. Fidella’s Corvette.”

“Piece-of-shit wheels,” said Quinn. “Made all sorts of noises.” Smiling and hoping it caught on.

“Then what happened?”

Client glanced at counsel. Counsel nodded.

“We went to Tristram’s house and stored it in the garage. His dad’s got a huge garage, twenty cars in there.”

“Then what?”

“Nothing until the next day, then Tristram took the Jag and I took the piece of shit, I almost thought it wouldn’t make it.”

“Make it where?”

“Pasadena.”

“What’s in Pasadena?”

“His place.”

“Whose place?”

“Him. The nerd who took the test.”

“Trey Franck.”

“Yeah—yes, sir.”

“Why’d you go there?”

“T said it was like his mom, she’s crazy about being neat, doesn’t matter if you leave a speck of cookie on the couch or you take a dump on it, she’s going to freak out. So we had to go all the way.”

“No sense leaving a speck of mess,” said Milo.

“Exactly, sir. We had to be thorough.”

“How’d it go down with Trey Franck?”

“The plan was we were going to knock on the door, say it was a friend or something, but right after we got there, he came out of the building and started walking. We drove up to him, it was dark, no one was around, so we jumped out and held him and cold-cocked him. He wimped out totally, like out.”

“We?”

“T did the shooting.”

“Who did the cold-cocking?”

Pause. “I guess that was me. But T held him and kicked him in the balls, by the time I hit him he was pretty much out of it. I didn’t hit him that hard.”

“What happened next?”

“T drove him and I followed in the Corvette.”

“Where was Mr. Franck?”

“In the trunk of the Jag. T had him tied up with these plastic thingies.”

A fact verified by traces of Trey Franck’s saliva and blood in the rear compartment of the freshly vacuumed and detailed car.

“You were following in Sal Fidella’s Corvette.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where’d you go?”

“We drove to this place, T knew it ’cause his cousin has a ranch near there and his dad took him hiking and shooting up in the mountains there when he was little.”

“Not recently?”

“No way,” said Quinn Glover. “He doesn’t talk to his dad, hates his dad, thinks his dad hates him.”

“So you’re at a spot T knew,” said Milo.

“T pulls him out of the trunk.”

“Was Franck conscious?”

“Guess so,” said Quinn Glover. “He was making these whimpery sounds, all curled up. T rolls him on his back, says, ‘Guess you’re not so smart, motherfucker,’ and shoots him right here.”

Touching the center of a tan, unlined brow. “We tried to push the Vette down into the hole but it doesn’t go, so T set it on fire and we booked.”

“After putting a baseball cap on the seat.”

“T’s idea. Sir.”

“What was the reason?”

“Blame it on someone else.”

“Who?”

“Mexican dude, everyone knew he hated her.”

“Hated who?”

“The bi—Ms. Freeman.”

“How’d everyone know?”

“Dude told anyone who’d listen. She didn’t like him, either.”

“Elise Freeman complained about Martin Mendoza?”

“Yeah.”

“To you, specifically?”

“When we came for tutoring, yeah,” said Quinn Glover.

“How’d the topic of Martin Mendoza come up?”

“He was leaving and we were coming in, we said, ‘You tutor him?’ ’Cause she was expensive, you know, and the dude didn’t have money. She said, ‘Unfortunately. Apparently my job description includes those people.’ Or something like that. Sir.”

“Which you took to mean?”

“She didn’t like Mexicans.”

“What’d you say to that?”

“Nothing,” said the boy.

“But you thought of it later, when you and T decided to blame the murders on Martin.”

“T’s idea.”

“What’d you do with Franck’s body?”

“Wiped it off with some rags from the Jag, then put him back in the Jag.”

“Then what?”

“You know.”

“I know what?”

“You saw him, sir. What T did.”

“T cut him up.”

“Yes, sir.”

“But the place you did it was your father’s workshop, Quinn. All those tools he keeps back of your property for his woodworking.”

“He makes birdhouses.” Muttering.

“What’s that, Quinn?”

“Nothing.”

“What’d you just say, son?”

“Lame. Making those stupid birdcages.”

“What use would a chain saw be for making birdcages?”

“That’s for the trees,” said Quinn Glover. “We have some land in Washington, lots of trees, he likes to run around with the chain saw and saw them down. Says it’s his release. Then he turns them into birdcages.”

“Guess your dad will need a new chain saw.”

“Guess so.”

Neal looked up. “Is this going to take a whole lot longer?”

Milo ignored him. “Back to something you just said, Quinn. When you saw Martin Mendoza. ‘We were coming in for tutoring.’ Are you telling me you and T had joint tutoring sessions with Ms. Freeman? ’Cause the records recovered from the laptop we found in T’s bedroom at home don’t back that up. Same for Mr. Fidella’s computer recovered from your room—he had copies of all Ms. Freeman’s files.”

Quinn Glover licked his lips.

Milo said, “You had individual sessions.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So maybe it was you who had that conversation with Ms. Freeman about Martin, not both of you.”

The lawyer said, “Don’t answer that.”

We stood again.

“Oh, c’mon, Lieutenant. You need to balance what he’s given you with what he hasn’t.”

“I need to?” said Milo.

“You know what I mean, Lieutenant.”

“You’re a lawyer, Mr. Neal. That means no one—including yourself—knows what you mean. Bye.”

“This is inappropriate and… impetuous!”

“There you go,” said Milo. “Two SAT words for the price of one.”

As details of the cheating scandal hit the national news, the Educational Testing Service announced a comprehensive review of all exams administered to Windsor Prep students over the past five years.

Sal Fidella’s computer files showed he’d contemplated finding additional blackmail victims after Elise’s death. The files Tristram and Quinn had added concentrated on porn, tunes, photos from exotic car and motorcycle sites. Email correspondence between the boys indicated they viewed their murder spree with hilarity, wondered what it would feel like to do a girl.

like bri and selma?

yeah they’d be softer but you’d probably need a new blade anyway

John Nguyen said, “No deal, no way. I’ve got a bisected corpse, if anything’s a death penalty case this is it.”

No one gets executed in California, but prosecutors collect lethal-injection sentences like baseball cards.

In the end, a deal was cut. Guilty pleas to first-degree murder and life sentences, but with the possibility of parole because both killers were young, had no prior criminal record, and were potentially “redeemable.”

Milo said, “Coupons are redeemable.”

One file that didn’t show up on either Elise’s computer or Fidella’s was an indication of where four years of SAT scam money had gone. With fees of fifteen thousand a pop and the possibility that Trey Franck, wearing a variety of wigs, had gamed the system over two dozen times during a three-year period, the total was significant.

One day after the plea bargain hit the news, Dr. Will Kham called Milo from Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara and asked for an appointment. We met him at Café Moghul, where Milo was making up for lost time with a mountain of lamb.

Kham wore a dark blue suit and a matching shirt and tie, entered the restaurant furtively.

A physician, but his black bag today was a wheeled carry-on.

Out of it came a sheaf of papers. Eighteen months of investment records from a Citibank subsidiary in Santa Barbara.

Nine hundred and eighteen thousand dollars joint-accounted to Kham and Elise Freeman’s sister, Sandra Stuehr.

Milo kept eating as he read. When he turned the last page, he said, “Value stocks and corporate bonds, you guys haven’t done too badly, considering.”

“I want out,” said Kham. “I can tell you exactly what’s mine and what’s hers.”

“Tell me about it, Doc.”

“The figures will speak for themselves.”

“Tell me anyway.”

Not a talkative man, but after some struggle, Kham got the story out.

He and Sandra had planned to be married, though the scandal had changed everything, no way would his family tolerate that kind of thing. And he’d been having doubts, himself.

“Too rushed. The fact that she was so eager was starting to concern me.”

A year ago, Sandra had insisted on a joint account to “prove the strength of their relationship.”

Kham had contributed five hundred and twenty thousand, Sandra a bit over three hundred thousand. Investments purchased at the bottom of the meltdown by Kham had added nearly a hundred in profit.

“Looking back,” said Kham, “I know she used me to launder the money. Because prior to that, she’d been claiming financial hardship, her ex was withholding all sorts of assets from her. All of a sudden, she presented me with a cashier’s check for three oh nine. When I asked her where it came from, she said savings and changed the subject. Back then, I was love-stupid so I let it go. But I held on to the receipt—it’s in here. Drawn on a bank in Studio City. When I heard about what her sister had done, I figured you should know.”

“We should, Doc. Thanks very much.”

“Thank me,” said Kham, “by helping me get my five twenty back. She can keep the interest, it’s dirty money, I don’t want any part of it.”

“Sounds like your parents raised you right.”

“So they’d say, Lieutenant.”