Guilt By Degrees

42

Bailey and I headed out early for our meeting with the investigating officer on Zack’s murder, Rick Meyer.

I hadn’t known there was such a thing as an upscale trailer park, let alone one that had gated security, until Bailey described where Rick lived. Rick had bided his time until his dream lot came up for sale: a sweet spot on a bluff overlooking the ocean in Point Dume, Malibu. His small but charming one-bedroom semipermanent trailer had a view of the Pacific unrivaled by the multimillion-dollar properties that crowded the coastline. Now retired at fifty-eight, he was one of the oldest surfers in the water, and probably the happiest. It was too cold in December to sit out on the deck and watch the dolphins, but we could see the ocean from his living room, and that view, plus the sea air, was so relaxing I wanted to ask if I could crash on his sofa for a few months.

Rick himself had gone native in a big way. In his Teva sandals, a torn T-shirt, and faded baggy jeans, no one would ever guess he’d been a homicide detective for the past twenty years-unless they looked closely at his eyes. They still had the sharp glint of skepticism, the result of hearing too many lies from too many people-only some of whom were in handcuffs.

We spent the first half hour reviewing the evidence in Zack’s case, just to make sure we hadn’t missed anything in our interview with Larry. I ended by asking about the communiqué between the inmates who were members of Public Enemy Number One.

“Do you have the kite that passed between those skinheads, by any chance?” I asked.

“Got a copy,” Rick replied. He leafed through the folder in his lap and handed us a page in a clear plastic sleeve.

We read the note. PEN1 Ruehls! We nailed that pig in his own pen. NLR suckasses, don’t even try to claim this one!

“Just two punks bullshitting,” I said.

Rick nodded. “Way we saw it.”

“You looked into Zack’s life-insurance policy, I assume?” I asked.

“SOP,” Rick confirmed. He looked away for a moment. When he turned back, his jaw was set, but his expression was pained. “Named his brother, Simon, as the beneficiary.”

“No shit?” Bailey remarked.

That was significant. Spouses and children are the named beneficiaries on life-insurance policies almost 100 percent of the time. The fact that Lilah wasn’t Zack’s beneficiary was more than odd. And problematic. Lilah’s motive to kill was getting more remote by the minute.

“And what about the house?” I asked. “Who’d it go to?”

“His parents,” Rick said. “But that seemed a little less strange-Zack’s parents gave it to them in the first place.”

“Did you ever look into any of the cases Lilah worked on, the clients she handled?” I asked.

“You mean, did Lilah have a hot prospect for the high life, so she killed Zack-?”

“Or maybe had a client who’d arrange it for her?”

Rick shook his head. “I went there too. But from what I could tell, since she was a junior associate, she didn’t have much contact with the clients.” Rick shifted in his chair. “’Course that didn’t mean the firm didn’t dangle her around to pretty up the landscape now and then.”

“And that’s all it would take to introduce her to a ‘hot prospect’ worth killing for.”

“Only three problems with that theory,” Rick said, holding up three fingers. “One,” he said, ticking off a finger, “the playing field was too wide. The partners brought her in on meetings for at least fifty clients. Two,” he said, ticking off the second finger, “none of them admitted to having seen her outside those meetings. And, three, I had no proof that any of them were lying.”

“But you must’ve been able to eliminate at least some of them, no?” I asked.

“Tried to,” Rick replied with a shrug. “But it was mostly based on supposition, not hard evidence. Like, for example, I started by ruling out the female clients-”

I started to argue, but he held up a hand to stop me.

“You’re right,” he said with a little smile, “that’s biased and maybe wrong. Lilah might’ve been willing to swing that way-or maybe that’s the way she really did swing. But I had to play the odds. Odds were, since we didn’t have any indication she had girlfriends, and she’d been married to a man, she’d go for a male client. And I ruled out the smaller fish, the ones making less than five million per.”

“That means you ruled out the possibility that Lilah might’ve actually had feelings for one of these guys,” I said, though without much conviction.

“Way I saw it,” Rick replied, “someone cold-blooded enough to kill like that probably wasn’t looking for love. But like I said, I was just playing the odds, because I had to narrow the field.”

“What were you left with?” I asked.

“About thirty-five big players. CEOs, entertainment types, a pharmaceutical company, a lobbying firm, an accounting firm-”

I held up a hand. “I get it. Any of them run or owned by a single guy?”

“A few,” Rick replied. “But there was no evidence-and I’m including office gossip here-that Lilah had an inside track with any of them.”

I frowned. Since she was that beautiful, and probably that interested in money-I was willing to buy, for now, Rick’s theory that Lilah wasn’t the type to give it all up for love. But with so much access to big rainmakers, how could she not have found a likely prospect?

Seeing my expression, Rick nodded. “All that big game grazing around her, you’d think she could’ve bagged one. But every single person I talked to at the firm said she kept ’em all at arm’s length. Not a whiff of personal interest. From what they all said, I got the impression Lilah had zero concern with becoming dependently wealthy.”

At a seeming dead end on this angle, I moved on to Rick’s personal observations of Lilah. Rick had the chance to observe her for the duration-from the moment the case first broke to the very bitter end. A sharp detective can tell you a lot about a suspect that you’ll never find in a murder book, and from what Bailey’d said, Rick had been one of the best in the business. I asked him to tell us what he knew about Lilah personally.

“Maiden name Rossmoyne,” Rick said, leaning back on the overstuffed, nubby cotton reclining chair, the case file open in his lap. “I think she may’ve been the smartest I’ve ever seen…they usually blow it at the crime scene: either act too smooth or act too crazy. Not her, though. Acted pretty much like you’d expect a young wife to act,” he replied thoughtfully. “Made only one mistake that I could catch-”

“The inconsistent statement,” I said. “At first, she said that she stopped for lunch before she went home.”

“Right,” Rick confirmed. “A few minutes later, she changed her story and said she’d gotten her days confused. She actually didn’t have time to stop for lunch.”

“So the defense said it was the natural confusion of someone who’d just seen her husband all hacked up,” I surmised.

“Yep,” Rick agreed. “I predicted the jury would buy that, and they did. But my opinion? She wanted to say she’d stopped for lunch because it’d put more time between the murder and her finding the body. But she threw up at the scene-”

“So she realized you’d have the emesis analyzed, and that’d show she hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast.”

“That’s my take,” Rick said.

“You said she wasn’t too smooth or too rough,” Bailey said. “Did she cry real tears?”

“Oh yeah,” Rick replied. “And out of the ten or fifteen cops around at the time, I was probably the only one who didn’t buy her act.”

That was definitely saying something, though not necessarily what he intended. I was getting the feeling that both Rick and Larry had been a little too quick to believe that Lilah was guilty. And if that had been the jury’s take, the verdict had just gotten a little easier to understand.

“She try to work you?” I asked.

Lilah wouldn’t be the first beautiful woman to think she could play up to a detective. And if she had, that would’ve made a shrewd customer like Rick doubly suspicious.

“Not even a little,” Rick replied.

“She have any support people in the audience at trial?” I asked.

“No friends or coworkers,” Rick replied. “Just her parents. You talk to them?”

“Not yet,” Bailey replied. “Getting ready to, though.”

The parents of a defendant are never going to be the most cooperative of witnesses. And with hostile witnesses, it’s best to gather information before talking to them. That way, if they try to lie, you have a shot at catching them at it. Hopefully that inspires them to tell the truth-at least some of it anyway.

“They didn’t testify for her at trial?” I asked.

“Didn’t have to,” Rick replied. “They couldn’t help with her alibi, and the lawyer was sharp enough to see he had a winning hand with the ‘skinheads did it’ defense.”

“But they were on her side?” Bailey asked.

“Daddy for sure,” he said. “He never for one second believed she was guilty. Mommy…I never knew what she really thought.” Rick shook his head. “Pam was a piece of work. I gotta admit, I never heard a mom talk about her daughter that way. Ice must run in the family.”

“What way is that?” I asked.

“Well”-Rick paused and stared out at the ocean for a long moment-“probably jealous,” he finally said. “You saw Lilah’s picture?”

I nodded.

“I got the feeling it was about more than looks, though,” Rick said, his tone thoughtful, subdued. “Pamela didn’t strike me as someone who chose motherhood. More like someone who got stuck with it. And here’s Lilah, an attorney with a big, fancy career ahead of her. She had the life Pam wanted and never had a shot at.”

Women got to break out of the housewife mold in the ’60s, but what they hadn’t anticipated was that the bright promise of that iconoclastic time would only lead to a new mold every bit as pernicious as the old one. Because instead of society accepting the fact that some women could do without the 2.3 children, the new groupthink was that a woman who wanted a career not only could but should do it all-raise a family, run a household, and have a career. That was one hell of a daunting to-do list, and if a woman had the baby first, the demands of a new family left very little time-or energy-for career ambitions. But now that women were “allowed” to have careers, there was no sympathy for those who didn’t go out and get one, regardless of the obstacles. And so someone like Pam would feel not only stymied in her ambitions but blamed for not achieving them. I found it very easy to see how that could make for one frustrated and jealous mother.

Rick suddenly looked toward the tiny kitchen. “Hey, I’m a hell of a lousy host, aren’t I? Can I get you something? Hot tea? Iced tea? Water?”

“No, I’m good,” I said. “Bailey?”

“I’m fine,” Bailey replied. “Was there anything specific you saw happen between Lilah and her mother?”

“It was little stuff, really,” Rick said slowly. “Her tone of voice when she talked about Lilah…kind of negative and…dismissive. Even when she’d say something complimentary, it came out backhanded.”

“The parents talked to you?” I asked.

“We hadn’t made the arrest yet, so the parents were still somewhat cooperative,” Rick replied. “I asked her how Lilah had gotten the interview with that law firm. She had good grades, made dean’s list and all that, but she went to a local law school, and I knew that firm only hired from the Ivy Leagues. She said, ‘Oh, Lilah always gets whatever she wants.’ Technically it was a compliment, but not the way she said it…”

I could hear the bitterness and envy lying just under the words. It said a lot that, even when she was talking to a cop who was trying to nail her daughter for murder, Pamela couldn’t keep the resentment at bay.

Seeing my expression, Rick nodded. “There was definitely something ‘off’ there,” he said. “And watching her in court every day…her daughter was maybe going to prison forever, and I don’t recall ever seeing her sad, worried, pissed off-nothing.”

“But if she felt that way about Lilah, why go to court?” I asked.

“I’m sure the lawyer told the parents it’d look much better if they came. Shows the jury her family’s in her corner. And if Daddy came every day and she didn’t, she’d look bad.”

“To whom?” Bailey asked.

“Didn’t matter. The jury, the press-there was some media attention,” Rick pointed out. “What people thought was real important to Pam.”

“And Lilah’s father?” I asked.

Rick pressed his lips together, then exhaled heavily. “Acted tough, and maybe he was tough-with anyone but Lilah. He had a real soft spot for his little girl.” Rick shrugged. “’Course that’s just my impression. Dad didn’t want much to do with me once he figured out I wasn’t going to back off.”

So Lilah was Daddy’s favorite. Yet another cause for Mommy to be jealous. I stared out at the ocean. Even on this gray, forbidding day, it was beautiful in a wild, austere way. A pelican plunged headlong into the water, then soared back up and flew to an outcropping packed with others. It opened its beak to the sky as though in victory. Its size and angularity made it look prehistoric. I remembered the question our interview with Larry had raised for me.

“Lilah took the stand at her trial,” I said. “How’d she do?”

Rick’s expression hardened. “Best I’ve ever seen. Usually when you have a cop for a victim, the jury’s a pretty hard sell. They don’t like cop killers. But Lilah? She had ’em eating out of her hand. Larry never laid a glove on her.” Rick paused and shook his head. “Between you and me, he kinda lost it with her during cross. Never a good thing to get mad like that-makes the DA seem desperate, out of control, you know? Especially with someone who looks like her.”

I did know. It was pretty rare to have a defendant testify. Rarer still for one to make a seasoned prosecutor lose his cool that way.

“If you had to guess, you think that’s when you lost the case?” I asked.

“Seeing the looks on those jurors’ faces when Larry got done, I’d have to say…probably so.”

“Any contacts who might know where to find Lilah now?” Bailey asked.

“I never had anyone who claimed to be her friend,” Rick said, frowning. “All I ever had were law-firm people and neighbors, and you’ve already got their statements in the murder book.”

Bailey nodded.

“Not much help, I know.” Rick shrugged apologetically. “So she dropped off the map, huh?”

“It’s like she vanished into thin air,” Bailey said, frustrated. “Didn’t even give one postverdict interview.”

“Not surprising,” Rick said, his expression sour. “She got away with killing a cop. She was smart enough to know better than to push her luck.”

We all fell silent, pondering where in the world Lilah Bayer might be. The pelican-I thought it was the same one-again took flight and began circling a patch in the water. Meanwhile, seagulls patrolled the coastline, searching for leftovers. One of them suddenly dived toward a bag that’d been left in the sand. When it soared back up, I saw that it had a french fry in its beak.

I had one last question for Rick.

“Did you know Zack?” I asked.

“No,” Rick said, shaking his head sadly. “You going to ask me how those two wound up together?”

I smiled. “Pretty common question?”

“Most definitely,” Rick confirmed. “But I never did get a good answer.”