A: All right. At about nine forty-five, I got home from hitting a couple
of buckets of golf balls at the San Francisco Driving Range, (pause)
As you know, I've had some bad luck with driving ranges lately.
Q: You got home at quarter to ten…
A: Right. I came inside…
Q: What car were you driving and where did you park?
A: I was driving my Lexus. It's light brown with personalized plates
reading ESKW. I drove up the driveway and parked in the garage
behind the house. I closed the garage door behind me – it's automatic
– and walked out the side door of the garage on the path next to my
back lawn, to the driveway, and in the side door.
Q: Was the door locked?
A: I don't remember, to tell you the truth. I wouldn 't have noticed
anyway. I always just put my key in first, give it a turn, it opens. I
don't remember specifically.
Q: Do you remember if the overhead light was on?
A: No. I don't believe it was. It must have burned out.
Q: Okay. What did you do then?
A: I went to turn off the alarm system – we have a box next to the
doors – and I noticed it hadn 't been set.
Q: Was that unusual?
A: Unfortunately, no. Sheila… that was one of the things she wasn't…
A: (Farrell) Give him a minute, here, would you? You all right, Mark?
A: (Dooher) Yeah, okay. Sorry. Sheila often forgot to set the alarm
system. She would go in and out a lot and thought it was silly -
unnecessary – while we were home. She thought it was more for when
we went on vacation, times like that. She thought I was paranoid.
Q: All right. Then what?
A: Then I went into the kitchen, did the dinner dishes which were still
there. Then I had a beer and read the mail.
Q: You thought your wife had gone up to bed?
A: I knew she had gone up to bed, Sergeant. We'd split a bottle of
wine for dinner. She hit the wall around seven-thirty and said she
wanted to turn in. So I thought I'd go to the range. Anyway, I finished
my beer and went upstairs…
Q: Did you touch your wife?
A: No. I turned on the lights and it was obvious she was dead. I
suppose I froze a minute or two. I don't remember. Then I guess I
called nine one one.
Q: And then what?
A: Then I sat on the stairs and waited. No, I checked the other upstairs
rooms, too.
Q: You didn't try to resuscitate her, anything like that?
A: (Farrell) Sergeant, he's answered that. She was obviously dead.
Q: Did you touch the body at all?
A: (Dooher) There was blood all over the place! There wasn't any
doubt – you can tell when somebody's dead. I didn 't know what to do,
to tell you the truth. I don't even know exactly what I did. I was afraid.
I suddenly thought the guy might still be in the house. I don't know. I
just don't know.
Q: I'm sorry, Mr Dooher, but I need a specific answer to the question.
Did you at any time up to right now touch Mrs Dooher's body?
A: No.
Q: All right, let's go back. Earlier in the day, before…
A: (Farrell) What's that got to do with anything, Sergeant?
A: (Dooher) It's okay, Wes. My attorney here wants to make sure I
don't say anything to incriminate myself. But I can't incriminate myself
since I didn't do anything. How far back do you want to go, Sergeant?
Last week?
Q: Let's start when you got off work.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
Christina stood by the French doors and watched Dooher move about his backyard, greeting the other mourners.
She was fighting the feeling that she really didn't belong here, guilt that in her heart she didn't mourn Sheila Dooher's passing. It freed Mark – there was no sense denying it. She sighed heavily.
'I'm glad you're here. I don't know anybody.'
She turned to see Sam Duncan, her arm still in a cast. 'You know me now. But why are you here?'
Sam gestured behind her. 'Wes. He's taking over details for Mark for a while. Even without the police stuff, this whole thing is just so horrible.'
Christina laid a hand on Sam's arm. 'What police stuff?'
'Damn.' Sam's face clouded. 'I'm not supposed to talk about it. Wes doesn't want any rumors going around.' She lowered her voice. 'He's worried that they're going to say Mark did it, killed his wife.'
Christina mouth dropped. The idea was absurd. 'What? He wasn't even here, was he? How could he have-'
'I know, but Wes is afraid they might. I mean, so soon after the Trang thing and all.'
'But they didn't find anything there either.'
'No, but apparently our friend Sergeant Glitsky didn't like being proven wrong. And he's the Inspector on this case.'
'But Mark wasn't even here!'
'Evidently the police can make a case that he was.' Sam held up a hand. 'Wes says if they really want to get you, they can make your life pretty miserable.'
'I guess they didn't really want to get Levon Copes.'
Sam made a face. 'Still a sore subject. But that was Glitsky, too.'
'But what does Glitsky have against Mark?'
'No one knows. Wes isn't sure if there's any reason. And nothing's happened yet. He's just worried. He thinks Glitsky might be overworked and guessing wrong. He did screw up on Levon Copes. And you know about his search warrant on Mark. There's two strikes.'
'You don't think he'd plant evidence, do you? The police don't really do that, do they?'
Sam shrugged. 'I don't know what they'd do.'
Farrell was sitting in a corner of the kitchen with a beer, listening to Mark's two youngest children, Jason and Susan, talking to their friends. He'd known the two kids their whole lives, and they looked very much alike, both very thin with slack blondish hair, waif-like features, and piercing green eyes – Mark's eyes. Susan wore black silk – tunic and pants – and Jason had the baggy pants, an outsized brand-new dress shirt buttoned to the collar, a camouflage jacket.
None of Farrells own kids had made it home for the funeral, which very much disappointed him, especially since Sheila and Mark had been godparents to Michelle, his youngest. But he consoled himself with the fact that neither had Mark's eldest, Mark Jr, the wildcatter sculptor.
Wes had tried to help Dooher out with breaking the brutal news, making the call to Mark Jr, and had been unprepared for the venom he'd heard. His dad never needed him for anything before – he didn't need to see him now. Besides, it was too much of a hassle to come down from Alaska, he said. His mom was already dead anyway. What good was it going to do? And he didn't have the money to spare.
Oh, Dad was offering to pay, to fly him down? No, thanks – one way or another, he'd wind up owing him. He'd have to pay. Even for something like this.