Hit and Run (22 page)

Krista tried to get her head around it. She liked to think public prosecutors had better ethics than that, but maybe she was being naïve.

She looked at R.J. “Any chance of finding her?”

“I spent two weeks on it, came up empty.” He shot into a gap between cars. “They’re in the wind.”

Krista shook her head.

“So, that’s when Holland started getting panicked—two weeks ago when his alibi unraveled. Since then, Walker’s been worried about client flight. If things get really bad, he knows Holland’s out of here.”

“But you think that’s probable?” Krista didn’t buy it. “I mean, life on the run... It has a cool sound to it, but really it’s got to be miserable.”

“Not so miserable if you’ve got money socked away somewhere.”

“What about a continuance?” Krista asked. “Maybe the judge will take the missing witness into consideration and give you guys more time.”

“Walker tried that, but the judge didn’t go for it. He’s already taking heat for letting Holland post bail, so now he’s trying hard to look impartial.”

They inched along the freeway. Krista rested her elbow on the door and gazed out at all the trucks and SUVs, which looked strangely tall from her luxury vantage point. Krista thought through everything she’d learned so far.

“Okay, so walk me through the timeline, then,” Krista said. “The ME’s time of death window is five to nine. And from what I read, there were no reports of screams or noises coming from Brittany’s house on the night of the murder. Not even a dog barking, nothing that would help narrow down that window or nail down the actual time of her attack.”

“Right,” R.J. said. “But we do have a phone call. One of Brittany’s friends spoke with her at six-oh-three. It was a brief call—just confirming plans to go to yoga the next morning. This friend was going to pick her up.”

“I assume this is Cheryl Majors, the woman who discovered the body?”

“That’s right. Sunday morning she went to pick up Brittany for a yoga class at the White Lotus. Brittany’s front door was unlocked and she found her inside on the kitchen floor.”

“Okay, so given the ME’s window and the phone call, we’re now dealing with a window of six to nine P.M. That’s plenty of time for Holland get over there from Laguna Beach. Without Inez, he’s totally screwed.”

“Not totally.” R.J. cut around a truck. “Holland also had a phone call that night. Came in at six thirty, lasted twenty-eight minutes. This was on his home phone line, too. It establishes his location. Plus, the caller called Holland, which looks more convincing from an alibi perspective.”

“That shrinks the time window down to two hours,” Krista said. “That’s still plenty of time. We’d be better off with Inez. Her testimony could whittle it down.”

“I’m telling you, she’s gone. We need to work with what we have.”

“Fine. So, who called him?”

“A law school buddy. Eric Newman. They go way back. When they were first starting out, they founded a firm together up in Cupertino.”

“What’d they talk about that night?”

“According to this guy’s statement, they talked mostly about the Capstone trial. It had been in the news. And also Holland mentioned his separation. He seemed depressed about it.”

“Newman said that?”

“Yeah.”

Krista thought about the description. No wonder R.J. seemed less than thrilled about this witness. If Holland seemed “depressed,” that meant he was emotional about his wife, which wasn’t a big leap from being angry. The prosecutor would pound away at this law school friend until it sounded like Holland was on the brink of a meltdown or a homicidal rage on the night of his wife’s murder.

“The prosecution’s going to say the phone call stirred up a lot of issues and prompted Holland to go over to Brittany’s house and confront her.”

“Believe me, I know.” R.J. glanced at her. “We’d much rather have Inez tell the jury she saw Holland
after
the phone call ended, calmly sitting at his dining room table surrounded by case files. He’s watching the ballgame while diligently doing his work. He’s not fixated on his wife and he’s definitely not on the warpath. That was the plan, but with Inez gone, we’re with stuck with Newman, which leaves Walker’s state of mind a lot more open to interpretation.”

“So two hours unaccounted for,” Krista stated. “It’s not ideal.”

“Not even close.”

R.J. calmly navigated the traffic as Krista stared out the window.

“You never told me who we’re going to see.” She looked at him.

“Doctor James Levine. He’s good. You’re going to want to add his name to your contacts so you can look him up next time you land a murder case.”

One of the primary reasons defense attorneys hired PIs was to dig up eyewitnesses the police might have missed. Another reason was to find experts who could contradict testimony put on by the prosecution. It was the sort of PI work that most closely resembled actual police work, the sort of PI work Scarlet and Krista had been dreaming about in the three years since they’d founded Moreno & Hart. Unfortunately, they’d spent much of that time chasing down wayward husbands and insurance cheats.

So why was R.J. suddenly helping her?

Krista was suspicious. She didn’t trust him. R.J. was a lot of things—smart, charming, persistent. But he was also cut-throat competitive, and there was nothing he wouldn’t do for the sake of a job.

Krista looked at him, so relaxed and confident behind the wheel.

“Why are you helping me?” she asked.

He didn’t answer, and she couldn’t read his eyes behind the shades.

“Why are you suddenly throwing me business, brining me in, building up my network? I’m your competition, in case you forgot. Scarlet and I—you shouldn’t be so quick to write us off.”

“I’m not writing you off.”

“Then why all the help?”

He smiled slightly. “I’ve got my reasons.”

Her nerves fluttered, and she looked away.

“So you
still
haven’t told me who this is,” she said. “What does James Levine do, exactly?”

R.J. smiled. “He dissects people.”

~ ~ ~

They made their way down a corridor filled with med students clad in scrubs and lab coats. R.J. halted beside a long glass window and peered into a laboratory.

“I don’t see him.”

Krista checked the placard by the door. “Two-twenty-two?”

“Twenty-four.” R.J. walked to the next long window and stopped. “Here we go.” He signaled someone as Krista looked through the glass.

Big mistake.

Stainless steel tables filled the room and on each was a cadaver. Her gaze landed on a bloated corpse with the skin peeled back. A woman in surgical scrubs reached inside and lifted out an organ. She placed it on a scale and—

“Whoa.” R.J. grabbed Krista’s elbow as she swayed backward. “You okay?”

“Fine.” She shook him off and turned around.

“You’re not going to hurl, are you?”

“No. Where is this guy? I thought you had an appointment.”

“Right there.”

A man wearing in a lab coat stepped through a pair of double doors. He smiled at R.J. “You’re early. I’m just finishing up.” He cast a curious glance at Krista. “I see you brought a friend. You care to observe?”

“We’re actually on a clock,” R.J. said. “You think—”

“Give me one minute.” He held up a gloved finger. “You can wait in the conference room. Down the hall to the left.”

Krista found it and took a chair with her back to the door.

“You okay?” R.J. asked.

“Fine.”

Levine appeared a moment later wearing the same lab coat but sans face mask and bloody gloves. The doctor had thinning white hair, thick black eyebrows, and friendly brown eyes.

“Gross Anatomy.” He closed the door behind him and dropped a clipboard on the table. “Or as the students call it, First Year Slice and Dice.”

He dug a can of Sprite from his pocket and plunked it on the table in front of Krista.

“So, you’re working for Magnum here, eh?” He smiled at R.J. and sank into a chair.

R.J. introduced her, ignoring the Magnum comment, and Krista passed Levine a business card.

“Your name rings a bell,” she told him. “Did you ever—”

“—work for the L.A. County coroner’s office? Yes, I did. And you used to be a cop.”

Krista drew back, startled.

Levine smiled. “The Ladera Park murders, back in oh-five.”

Krista remembered it, but she couldn’t believe he did. It had been her very first homicide call, but he would have been a veteran by that point.

“I have a knack for faces.” He shrugged. “Comes in handy.”

She wasn’t sure she wanted to know how, exactly, given the nature of his work.

“So, I read your report.” Levine’s voice suddenly turned somber as he slid his clipboard toward him and pulled out a thick stack of papers. “Brittany Lowe Holland. Twenty-nine.” He glanced at R.J. “You’re working for the defense now.”

His tone was slightly accusatory, and Krista decided she liked him.

“Trial’s in three weeks,” R.J. said. “A key witness disappeared, and we’re having to re-work the case strategy. We’re taking a second pass at everything.”

“Including time of death, I take it.”

This guy didn’t miss much. Krista watched him flip through the pages, and she recognized the format of the Orange County coroner’s report.

“Anything you can tell us?” R.J. asked.

Levine’s brow furrowed as he flipped through the pages.

“Thomas was thorough, as usual.” He glanced up. “I don’t have much to add—just a few things to point out, because I’m sure they’ll come up at trial—” More page-flipping. “Here we go. Cause of death.” He turned to some pages that included autopsy photos.

Krista braced herself.

“Blunt force trauma.”

Krista frowned. “I thought—”

“The icepick came later.” Levine glanced at her. “Of course, that’s what made the news, because it was more sensational. But she was already dead.” He flipped to a photo of the victim’s skull with the skin retracted. He tugged the photo from the stack and slid it across the table.

“Here you see the depressed fracture of the left parietal bone, consistent with a heavy instrument, most likely a hammer.”

“Which was never found,” R.J. said. “Neither was the icepick.”

Levine took out another picture. “Now, in this picture you see the stab wounds to the torso. By studying the wound track, you can infer how the weapon—in this case, an icepick—entered and exited in a fairly straight line. This is consistent with the victim being flat on the floor and the attacker sitting on her, straddling her as the wounds are made, eight wounds in all.”

“So, you’re saying the attacker killed her and
then
stabbed her,” Krista said. “Why?”

“Now, that’s above my pay grade. A question for a criminal profiler.”

Krista’s gaze drifted to the sleeve of Levine’s lab coat. There was a smear of blood on his cuff, which unnerved her for some reason. She popped open the Sprite and took a sip to settle her stomach.

“Another point I should make is what the M.E.
didn’t
find,” Levine said.

“Defensive wounds,” R.J. stated.

“Precisely. No stab wounds to the arms or hands that would indicate an attempt at self-defense. No hair or skin found under the nails. Even the crime scene pictures—” He pulled one from his stack of papers. “No signs of struggle, such as overturned chairs or broken dishes, shoes kicked off.”

For a moment Krista simply stared at the picture of Brittany Holland, dead and mutilated on the floor of her own kitchen.

“What about time of death?” R.J. asked.

“I’m just getting to that.” He glanced at Krista and tucked the photos back into the stack. “Based on the livor and rigor mortis, the temperature of the body, I’m going to say Thomas’s estimate is on target. If I were to shift it at all, I might say it could have been six to ten instead of five to nine, but that’s speculation based on notes about insect activity. I’m not an entomologist.”

R.J. glanced at Krista, but she couldn’t read his look.

“One final point.” Levine glanced at his watch. “The lethal blow to the head—the location of the wound and direction of the force are important. The prosecutor will definitely focus on this.”

“Height of the killer?” Krista asked.

He nodded. “I would estimate someone as tall or taller than the victim, who is five-eleven. And remember, the blow came from behind.”

“She turned her back on her killer,” Krista said.

“Exactly.”

Traffic had dissipated by the time they left and R.J. cut down Santa Monica Boulevard to the coast. Krista looked out at the beach, where surfers were suiting up for some evening waves. For a while they didn’t talk, and Krista gazed out at the water, trying to get the gruesome photographs out of her head.

“Levine seems to know what he’s doing.” She looked at R.J. “Personable, too. I bet he’s good on the stand.”

“He is.”

“His analysis, though—I think it makes things worse, not better.”

R.J. didn’t say anything, and Krista couldn’t tell if he was disappointed. He was a difficult man to read.

She looked at the ocean and tried to spot the Channel Islands, but it was hazy. She thought of her ill-fated marriage that had been even briefer than Brittany’s. Krista had been so in love—it still amazed her how quickly things had gone downhill. It was the cheating that killed it. Anything else, she would have stuck around and tried to work it out. But cheating was a deal-breaker. She still vividly remembered finding the texts on Adam’s phone. Her first reaction had been disbelief, then hurt, then humiliation. Finally she’d reached the blinding fury stage, and she could have strangled him with her bare hands. But that was fleeting. By the time she actually confronted him, she was pissed as hell, but she had a handle on it.

The person who’d bludgeoned Brittany and stabbed her with an ice pick eight times while she lay limp on the floor didn’t have a handle on anything.

What would drive someone into such a rage?

Jealousy.

Krista had seen it at more crime scenes than she could count.