Muller, Marcia - [10] The Shape of Dread (v1.0) (html) (3 page)

The police moved cautiously, questioning Foster again but not
holding him.

In late July a dark blue Volvo with bloodstained upholstery turned
up in a ravine in the Santa Cruz Mountains, some seventy miles south of
San Francisco. Its owner had reported it
stolen from Café Comedie's valet parking lot the night of Tracy's
disappearance. The employee who had parked it was Bobby Foster; his
fingerprints appeared inside it—as did those of Tracy Kostakos. The
bloodstains on the front seat matched Tracy's type and subtype.

The police questioned Foster again. At first he claimed he had not
parked the Volvo. Then he said he didn't remember that particular car
or its driver; he parked so many in the course of an evening. But
finally he confessed to kidnapping and murdering Tracy Kostakos.

"You say the confession's grim?" I asked Jack.

He nodded. "I have a video of it. If you're going to help on this,
I'd like you to look at it, as well as read the public defender's files
and the trial transcript."

"What exactly is it you want me to do? What basis are you appealing
on?"

"The usual technicalities. But that part of it doesn't concern you.
I want you to work on the murder."

"On a two-year-old case, where there's already been a confession and
a conviction? Come on, Jack!"

He ran both hands through his thick gray hair. "I know it sounds
insane, Shar, but I don't think the kid's guilty."

"What about this confession?"

"He retracted it before the case went to trial."

"On the advice of his attorney."

"Before he had one. The kid was stupid, refused counsel because he
thought having a lawyer would make him look guilty. And you know about
false confessions."

I was silent.

Jack asked, "Did you follow the trial?"

"No. Last summer, wasn't it?"

"August. Case took a long time getting to court."

"I was away on vacation then. I never manage to catch up on the
newspapers afterwards."

"Well, one of the things that kept coming out at the trial was that
some people don't think Tracy Kostakos is dead— including her own
mother."

"They think she faked her own kidnapping?"

"Yes. Disappeared voluntarily, using the ransom note as a ploy to
throw people off her trail."

"Why would she do such a thing? Did she have reason to disappear?"

"That's one of the things I want you to find out."

"What about the bloodstained car?"

"Another ploy."

"Sounds far fetched."

"Maybe. But Laura Kostakos firmly believes her daughter is still
alive—so much so that she pays Tracy's share of the rent for her
apartment and keeps her room the way it was, waiting for her return."

"Maybe the woman's gone around the bend."

"Maybe. The Kostakoses separated before the trial."

"You said some people. Who else believes this scenario?"

"Jay Larkey, owner of the club she worked at."

Larkey, a man in his fifties, had risen to national television
stardom out of the comedy clubs of San Francisco. When his popularity
waned, he'd returned to the city and established a club of his own, to
give other straggling comedians the same chance he'd had. "Anyone else?"

"Her boyfriend, Marc Emmons."

"That's probably just wishful thinking."

"There's something else, though. The roommate, Amy Barbour. She
testified for the prosecution at the trial, but the PD had the
impression she wasn't telling all she knew."

I leaned my head back against the tree stump. The eucalyptus leaves
shimmered in the pale sunlight. The jay in the top branches had been
joined by several others; they screeched harshly—a fitting background
chorus for the tragedy we were discussing.

I asked,"What does Bobby Foster think happened to Kostakos?"

"If he has any opinion he's keeping it to himself. All he wants to
do is argue that they shouldn't have convicted him without a body. I'm
hoping you can get beyond that subject with him."

It struck me as an incredible long shot, to pick up on a
two-year-old trail that, even when fresh, had led investigators
nowhere. And I feared it would be a futile effort; in order to convict
in the absence of a body, the case against Foster would have been
strong. In spite of the prevailing romantic belief, only a very small
number of felons are convicted unjustly. I'd once heard a well-known
criminal lawyer claim that 96 percent of his clients were guilty as
charged; the other 4 percent, he said, were probably guilty of
something.

Still, if Foster was among that 4 percent, he didn't deserve to die…

I sighed. "My week off is almost over. I was getting bored, anyway."

Jack sighed, too—in relief. "Thanks. I appreciate it. After we
finish eating, we'll go back to All Souls and I'll turn over the files
and that video I mentioned." He paused. I glanced at him, saw his eyes
had clouded. "I've got to warn you," he added, "you're not going to
like what you hear."

"I got her out the car, and I drop her
there on the edge of that
hollow. Then I give her a push, and she roll away down the hill."

"Did you go down there with her? Try to
hide the body?"

The first voice belonged to the young black man with the weary,
strained face. The other was Inspector Ben Gallagher's, but I couldn't
see him or his partner; the video camera was fixed on Bobby Foster as
he made his confession.

"No, man, I didn't want no part of her
no more. She just dead meat
to me. Just dead white meat, something to throw away."

"Go on."

"That's it, man. I told you all of it."

"What about the blood? There was a lot
of blood in the car. Was
there any on you?"

Foster looked blank momentarily. Confused, I thought.

"Blood. Yeah. On me, all over me."

I got up and switched the VCR off. Foster's face turned into that of
a commentator reading the midnight news on the cable channel. It was
the second time I'd viewed the tape—more than enough. I shut off the TV
too and went to the kitchen for a glass of milk. Comfort food, I
thought wryly.

The tape had been grim—stomach-turning in parts. Foster had admitted
to kidnapping Kostakos with the intention of holding her in an
apartment in the Western Addition until he could collect the ransom
from her wealthy parents. He'd offered her a ride to her improv session
in a car he'd earlier stolen off the Café Comedie lot, knocked her
unconscious, and driven there. But once inside, she'd come to and tried
to escape. In the struggle that ensued, he'd stabbed her repeatedly;
then he'd raped her lifeless body. Finally he'd loaded it back in the
car, driven south to the mountains, and dumped it in a ravine. The
details were particularly grisly because of the flat, unemotional
manner in which he related them. Still, there was something that didn't
quite ring true. Many things…

I went back to the living room, curled up on the couch, and studied
the legal pad that I'd filled with notes. There were inconsistencies in
Foster's confession: he claimed the car he'd stolen was green, rather
than blue; that he'd been absent from the club all night, rather than
returning shortly before the two-o'clock closing, as his fellow valets
had testified; that he'd abandoned the car by the side of the road,
rather than in
another ravine. From the trial transcript I'd learned that he'd been
unable to lead investigators to the place where he'd disposed of the
body. The location of the apartment where he'd killed Tracy had never
been pinpointed, nor had the "dude who hangs out at the club" who had
sublet it to him ever been identified. And there was the question of
the quarrel he and Kostakos reportedly had on the sidewalk in front of
the club: if he'd merely offered her a ride, why had they fought?
Altogether I had several pages of notes on the holes in the case
against Foster.

The fingerprints in the car, for instance: if it was one Foster had
parked earlier, it would seem natural for his prints to be there. And
the fact that he'd never followed up on the ransom demand: he had
nothing to lose by doing so. True, there were damning facts in the
confession, but he could have gleaned those during the hours of
interrogation before the videotaping began. The others—the grim but
unverifiable details of what he had done to Kostakos—could have been
the product of an overactive imagination. And it bothered me that the
chief investigating officer, Ben Gallagher, had seemed to prompt
Foster's responses. The suspect had repeatedly employed the phrase
"like you say," which led me to believe Gallagher had put quite a few
ideas into his head.

Too bad I couldn't ask Ben about that. He'd been shot to death the
previous month by a speed freak resisting arrest after murdering his
wife and small son.

I yawned and realized my comfort drink had done its magic work. But
I couldn't go to bed, not yet. I had to call Jack, who—fortunately—was
a night person and would be up for hours yet.

Still, I hesitated, running my eyes over the list that Jack had
provided of precedents in no-body cases: People v. Alviso, People v.
Clark, People v. Ward and Fontenot… Cases tried from 1880 to 1985, in
which proof of the corpus delicti had been "legally inferred from such
strong and unequivocal circumstances as produce conviction to a moral
certainty."

Strong and unequivocal circumstances?

Maybe. Maybe not.

I reached for the phone and punched out All Souls' number. Jack
answered; in the background I could hear the mutter of the TV, probably
tuned to an old movie.

I said, "Did you get my name added to Foster's list of authorized
visitors?"

"Yes, when I went up there this afternoon. I talked to him about
you, so he'll know who you are and why you're there."

"Good. I'll go in the morning."

"What did you think of the material I gave you?"

"You were right—the confession's damned brutal. And I didn't like it
one bit. But…"

"But?"

"There's something about it that makes me want to reserve judgment
until after I talk with him."

By the time I arrived at All Souls' shabby Bernal Heights Victorian
that Thursday after returning from San Quentin, I had put aside the
remainder of my reservations about the Foster case and was eager to get
to work on it. I seemed to be the only person around there in a working
mood, however: no clients waited in the front parlor, and the doors to
the offices and law library stood open, the rooms' interiors dark. Ted
Smalley, our secretary, sat at his desk, but his computer keyboard was
covered, and he was idly perusing one of those tabloids that are trying
to outdo the National Enquirer.

As I came in, he murmured, "What will that madcap Sean Penn do next?"

"Pardon me for interrupting your studies," I said.

Ted raised the paper so I could see the headline: CRAZED KILLER
CANNIBAL PLANNED TO COOK NIXON. He knows his passion for
sleaze irritates me, so he takes every opportunity to flaunt it. "What
can I do for you?" he asked.

"Is either Rae or Jack around?"

"Jack, no. Rae's in the attic."

It was an unlikely place to find my assistant, Rae Kelleher. "What
on earth is she doing up there?"

"You'll see." He smiled mysteriously. "You coming to the New Year's
Eve party?"

"Yes. I even have a new dress for it."

"So do I."

I looked more closely at him, to see if he was serious.

"Not really," he added. "This is a pretty off-the-wall outfit, but I
think most people would frown upon me showing too much decolletage."

"You never know. I for one would find it amusing." I headed for the
stairs, and Ted went back to his sleaze.

I dropped my coat, bag, and briefcase in my office at the front of
the second floor, then followed a series of banging noises,
interspersed with curses, to the attic. The noises came from the rear
of the cavernous, drafty space; the cursing voice belonged to Rae
Kelleher. I stopped and smiled, listening. Rae's typical expletives
were along the lines of "Oh, rats!" I'd never realized she possessed
such a colorful vocabulary. As I made my way back to her, I weaved
through assorted cartons, trunks, suitcases, and mismatched
furniture—things that staff members who lived in the small second-story
rooms couldn't squeeze in, plus the castoffs of others no longer in
residence.

Rae stood by the rear dormer window, holding a hammer and sucking
her thumb. She is a tiny woman with curly auburn hair, who dresses with
a ratty artlessness that never ceases to amaze me. Today she had
outdone herself: candy-striped, paint-stained pants with the widest
bell-bottoms I'd seen since 1970; a baggy purple sweater covered with
those balls of fuzz I call sweater mice; a yellow polka-dot bandanna
holding back her hair. There was a big streak of dirt on her forehead,
and a bigger scowl on her round, freckled face. When she saw me, she
took her thumb from her mouth and said, "Dammit, why did my mother
teach me to sew instead of how to
hit nails right?"

I looked around. There was a stack of Sheetrock leaning against one
wall; insulation had been stapled between the exposed studs. "What in
God's name are you doing?"

She stuck the thumb back in her mouth and said around it, "Making a
room for myself. I'm sick of living in my office."

In September, Rae had separated from her perpetual-student husband
and moved into All Souls. All the rooms were occupied, so she set up
housekeeping in her office—my former one—which is really nothing more
than a converted closet under the stairs. Being crowded was okay with
her, she'd said. It was only a temporary arrangement—until a room
opened up, or the couples counseling worked and she and Doug got back
together.

I sat down on a rolled-up rug and said, "I take it your Christmas
trip to see Doug's parents didn't go too well."