“Suit yourself.”
She handed me the stack of documents.
“Then, as your source,” she said, “I am officially giving these to you.”
I took the stack.
“Thank you, source,” I said.
“But that means they’re mine and I want them back,” she said.
27
After camouflaging the printouts in the paperwork debris that monopolized the back seat of my Jeep, I dialed 9-1-1 on my cell and reported finding the body to the Burbank Police. Ten minutes later a patrol car arrived followed by a rescue ambulance. I left Rachel in the Jeep and got out. After showing my driver’s license and press pass to an officer named Kenyon, I assured him that the RA and its EMTs were not necessary.
“They respond on all death calls,” Kenyon said. “Just in case. Did you go inside the house?”
“Yes, I told the dispatcher that,” I said. “The door was open and something seemed wrong. I called out, rang the doorbell, nobody answered. So I went in, looked around, continued to call out Hammond’s name, and eventually found the body.”
“Who is Hammond?”
“Marshall Hammond. He lives here. Or lived here. You have to ID the body, of course, but I’m pretty sure that’s him.”
“What about the woman in the Jeep? Did she go in?”
“Yes.”
“We’re going to have to talk to her.”
“I know. She knows.”
“We’ll let the detectives handle that.”
“What detectives?”
“They also roll on all death cases.”
“How long you think I’ll have to wait?”
“They’ll be here any minute. Let’s run down your story. Why were you here?”
I gave him the clean version: I was working on a story on the security of DNA samples submitted to genetic-analysis companies and it led me to want to talk to Marshall Hammond because he ran a private lab and also had a foot in law enforcement. This was not a lie. It just wasn’t a full explanation. Kenyon wrote down some notes while I spoke. I glanced back at the Jeep casually to see if Rachel could see me talking to him. Rachel had her eyes down like she was reading something.
An unmarked police car arrived on scene and two men in suits emerged. The detectives. They spoke briefly to each other and then one headed toward the front door of the house while the other came toward me. He was mid-forties, white, with a military bearing. He introduced himself as Detective Simpson, no first name. He told Kenyon that he would take it from here and to file his paperwork on the call before EOW — which I was pretty sure meant end of watch. He waited for Kenyon to walk away before addressing me.
“Jack McEvoy — why do I know that name?” he asked.
“Not sure,” I said. “I haven’t done much in Burbank before.”
“It’ll come to me. Why don’t we start with you telling me what brought you here today to discover this body inside the house.”
“I just told Officer Kenyon all of that.”
“I know, and now you have to tell me.”
I gave him the exact same story, but Simpson stopped the narrative often to ask detailed questions about what I did and what I saw. I believed I handled it well but there was a reason he was a detective and Kenyon was a patrol officer. Simpson knew what to ask and soon I found myself lying to the police. Not a good thing for a reporter — or anybody, for that matter.
“Did you take anything from the house?” he asked.
“No, why would I do that?” I said.
“You tell me. This story you say you’re working on, were you looking at any sort of impropriety involving Marshall Hammond?”
“I don’t think I have to reveal all the details of the story, but I want to cooperate. So I’ll tell you the answer is no. I knew very little about Hammond other than that he was a second-tier buyer of DNA samples and data and that made him of interest to me.”
I gestured toward the house.
“I mean, the guy ran a DNA lab out of his garage,” I said. “That was pretty curious to me.”
Simpson did what all good detectives do: he asked his questions in a nonlinear fashion so the conversation was disjointed and seemed to be all over the place. But in reality, he was trying to keep me from relaxing. He wanted to see if I might slip up or contradict myself in my answers.
“What about your sidepiece?” he asked.
“‘Sidepiece’?” I said.
“The woman in your car. What’s she doing here?”
“Well, she’s a private detective who helps me with my work sometimes. She’s also sort of my girlfriend.”
“Sort of?”
“Well, you know, I’m... not sure about things, but it doesn’t have anything—”
“What did you take from the house?”
“I told you, nothing. We found the body and then I called the police. That’s it.”
“‘We’ found the body? So your girlfriend went in with you from the start?”
“Yes, I said that.”
“No, you indicated you called her in after finding the body.”
“If I did that, I was wrong. We went in together.”
“Okay, why don’t you stay right here and I’ll go talk to her.”
“Fine. Go ahead.”
“Mind if I look around in your vehicle?”
“No, go ahead if you have to.”
“So, you are giving me permission to search your vehicle?”
“You said ‘look around.’ That’s fine. If searching means impounding it, then no. I need my car to get around.”
“Why would we want to impound it?”
“I don’t know. There’s nothing in there. You’re really making me regret calling you guys. You do the right thing and you get this.”
“What is ‘this’?”
“The third degree. I didn’t do anything wrong here. You haven’t even been in the house and you’re acting like I did something wrong.”
“Just stay here while I go talk to your ‘sort of’ girlfriend.”
“See, that’s what I mean. Your tone is bullshit.”
“Sir, when we are finished here, I’ll explain how you can make a complaint to the department about my tone.”
“I don’t want to make a complaint. I just want to finish here so I can go back to work.”
He left me there and I stood on the street watching him interview Rachel, who had stepped out of the Jeep. They were too far away for me to hear the exchange and confirm that she was telling him the same story I had. But my pulse kicked up a notch when I saw she was holding the stack of printouts from Hammond’s lab in her hand while talking to Simpson. At one point she even gestured toward the house with the stack and I had to wonder if she was telling the detective where she had found the paperwork.
But the conversation between Simpson and Rachel ended when the other detective came out the front door of the house and signaled his partner over for a huddle. Simpson broke away from Rachel and spoke to his partner in hushed tones. I nonchalantly walked over to Rachel.
“What the hell, Rachel? Are you going to just give that stuff to them?”
“No, but I could tell you were going to give him permission to search the car. I have certain protections for my clients, so I was prepared to say it was work material I had with me and not part of any search they might conduct. Luckily, he never asked.”
I was not convinced it was the best way to protect the cache of paperwork from the lab.
“We need to get out of here,” I said.
“Well, we’re going to find out right now if we can,” she said.
I turned and saw Simpson walking toward us. I was ready for him to say that the case was now a murder investigation, that my vehicle would be impounded, and that Rachel and I would be taken to the station for further questioning.