Secrets to the Grave

12

Kathryn Worth might have been a queen in a past life. She had that kind of bearing: straight, proud, regal, with a mane of golden hair swept back from her face. Disapproval was a statement made with an ice-blue stare down her patrician nose—a look that could make grown men cringe and cower.

In this life Kathryn Worth’s title was Assistant District Attorney. At forty-two, she had worked hard to achieve a position of prominence in what was still a male-dominated field—and she made no secret of her desire to go higher up the food chain. She was capable, clever, and ruthless, three traits that would take her far in her chosen profession.

All these qualities and her gender had landed her the plum role of lead prosecutor in the matter of State of California v. Peter Crane.

District Attorney Ed Benton, a man who had not prosecuted a case himself in twenty years, had quickly assigned the case to Kathryn Worth, who had an impressive résumé of wins in the courtroom. Appointing a woman to prosecute a heinous crime against a woman had won him praise in the press and in the minds of the broad base of liberal constituents of Oak Knoll.

Anne had no argument with Benton’s choice. She found Kathryn Worth to be smart and tough, and by no means intimidated by Peter Crane’s big-name defense attorneys.

She entered Worth’s office on the second floor of the county courts building and settled into the now-familiar ancient leather chair opposite the desk. As were many of Oak Knoll’s prominent buildings, the main county courts building had been constructed in the 1930s and was a gem of Spanish style with a twist of Art Nouveau thrown into the décor. The courtrooms and offices were full of heavy oak furniture in the Stickley mission style. The hallways boasted original Malibu-tile wainscoting and hand-painted borders. It was the kind of solid, substantial place that made a person believe Lady Justice was on his side.

Kathryn Worth smiled at her as she pulled off her oversize reading glasses. “Anne. How are you?”

“Fine, I hope,” Anne said. “I guess it depends on what you have to tell me.”

Worth made a little shrug, trying to minimize the significance of what she was about to say. “They’ve filed a motion to try to exclude some evidence. They’ll lose, of course.”

Anne sat up a little straighter. Her heart beat a little harder. “What evidence?”

“The tube of superglue.”

“On what grounds?” she demanded.

“They’re claiming it was planted.”

“He was going to put it in my eyes!” Anne said, the upset quickly building a head of steam inside her.

She flashed on the image as if it were a scene from a movie: Peter Crane looming over her, holding her down with a knee on her chest, his left hand pressing down on her throat, choking her. He fished for something with his right hand in his jacket pocket and came out with a small tube. The glue.

All of his victims had had their eyes and mouths glued shut.

“I saw it!” she exclaimed. “I knocked it out of his hand!”

“I know. And you’ll testify to that.”

“Not if they get it thrown out!”

“Anne, calm down,” the ADA said quietly. “There’s no way they’ll get it thrown out.”

“There must be some reason they think they can.”

“Michael Harrison thinks he could part the Red Sea if he needed to. It’s hubris. He’s full of shit. It’s just another tactic to delay the inevitable.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“You’re not telling me everything.”

Worth scowled. “You would have made a hell of a prosecutor yourself,” she muttered. “There are no useable fingerprints on the tube. I can’t explain why. Because the tube is small. Because one of the CSIs smudged it when they collected it. Who knows? It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me,” Anne said. She was beginning to feel sick to her stomach.

“Anne, you need to keep your eye on the big picture here. There is not a jury in Southern California that is going to acquit Peter Crane of kidnapping and trying to kill you. There’s no way. The glue isn’t even relevant. It’s not important.”

“It links him to the murders of Julie Paulson and Lisa Warwick. And to the attempted murder of Karly Vickers.”

“He’s not going on trial for those murders. He’s going on trial for what he did to you. And there is no way he’s getting out of it.”

“Then why am I so afraid he will?” Anne asked. Tears welled in her eyes. She pressed a hand across her mouth and felt assaulted by her own fear. Anger would follow—anger that she should be made to feel this way, then anger at her own inability to fight the feeling off.

Kathryn Worth leaned her arms on her desk and sighed. “Because that’s a part of it, Anne. Peter Crane made you a victim, and that doesn’t stop. It doesn’t go away.”

“Thanks,” Anne said. “That’s exactly what I wanted to hear.”

“I’m not trying to make you feel worse, Anne. I’m not. But I’ve sat across this desk—and other desks—from a lot of victims. I know how it works.”

“I hate it,” Anne whispered, her throat tight around a hard lump of despair.

“I know. I know you do. I’m so sorry,” Worth said. “Are you still seeing your therapist?”

“Twice a week.”

“It takes time. My mother always likes to say time heals all wounds.”

“Your mother is full of shit,” Anne said bluntly.

Worth nodded. “Yes, she is. The best we can hope for is that the wounds scar over well enough we don’t feel them all the time. And we move on. We have to. Otherwise, the bad guys win.”

“I know. That’s what Vince says too.”

“You’ve got your own in-house expert,” Worth pointed out. “You’re ahead of the game.”

“That’s true,” Anne said, mustering a little smile. “And I’ve been going to a victims’ group at the Thomas Center. It helps.”

“Watching Peter Crane being sentenced to life without parole will help more.”

“Absolutely.”

“Don’t worry about this motion, Anne. I’m not concerned. I just wanted you to hear about it from me instead of seeing it on the evening news.”

“I appreciate that, Kathryn.”

“How are things otherwise?”

“Good. Well ... I’m worried about Dennis Farman,” she admitted. “I don’t know that he’s in the right place. He’s isolated there. He has no one his own age to interact with.”

Worth spread her hands. “He’s there or he’s in a juvenile facility. Those are the choices. I’m sure I don’t have to remind you he knifed a boy his own age. That’s not exactly healthy interaction.”

Anne sighed. “I know. And I know there are no boys his own age in the juvenile facility. There simply isn’t a good answer for him. If Child Services could place him somewhere ... in a halfway house or something.”

“He’s a violent offender, Anne,” Worth said. “If he was eighteen, you wouldn’t be so concerned about finding him anything outside a penitentiary.”

“That’s the problem, though. He’s not eighteen. He’s a little boy.”

Worth nodded, thoughtful for a moment as she weighed the pros and cons of what she was about to say.

“Let me tell you about ‘a little boy’ I dealt with when I was prosecuting sex crimes in Riverside,” she said. “Brent Batson. When I was prosecuting Batson he was twenty-eight. He was a serial rapist. A vicious, brutal monster. I put him away for three consecutive life sentences. He had raped nineteen women that I knew of. He later told a reporter that he had committed at least twice that many crimes.

“At the time of his first violent offense—a rape—he was twelve years old. He spent all his juvenile life in one program or another with people trying to straighten him out. When he turned eighteen, he celebrated by going out and raping a fourteen-year-old at knifepoint. When he got out of prison for doing that, he celebrated by raping a homeless woman and her ten-year-old daughter.”

“You’re saying there’s no fixing Dennis Farman,” Anne said.

“I’m saying the social worker that lost sleep over him when he was twelve will never get that time back,” Worth said. “Justice is a tough business, Anne. You won’t do yourself any favors by caring too much.”

“I know all that,” Anne said. “Believe me, if Dennis had one person in his life to sit on his side of the courtroom, I’d be out of there.”

“You got him an attorney,” Worth pointed out.

“I’m his advocate. And I just can’t stand the idea of being twelve and having absolutely no one give a damn about me. Imagine having your whole life stretching out ahead of you, and it’s just a long empty road.”

“Anne, you need to learn the difference between sympathy and empathy,” Worth said. “One makes you a humanitarian. The other will make you miserable.”

“I’ll remember that,” Anne said, rising from her chair, giving the ADA a sheepish smile. “I don’t know how successful I’ll be adhering to it, but I’ll remember it.”