Glitsky was clearly torn. It was ingrained that cops didn’t work with the defense, even if there was a personal connection, such as he and Hardy. It got to be too much. He shrugged at Hardy, as much to say he tried. Then, to Chomorro and Pullios, ‘With counsel?’
The judge motioned them all forward and they clustered in front of the raised bench. Glitsky still looked pale. ‘This is unofficial, Your Honor, and I apologize for interrupting, but I’ve just come down from homicide.’
‘Yes?’
Glitsky took a breath. ‘It seems May Shinn is dead.’
‘Jesus Christ!’ from Hardy. Pullios hung as if poleaxed. ‘What?’
‘And we got two neighbors – independently – who read the papers, watched some TV.’ Glitsky turned to Hardy. ‘Both of them say they saw your man there this morning.’
‘Fowler?’ Pullios nearly yelled.
Glitsky turned back to her and nodded. The same.‘
At that moment Peter Struler pushed open the outer doors and started up the aisle, almost running. ‘I think this might make it official,’ Glitsky said.
NASH MISTRESS FOUND DEAD
Homicide Not Ruled Out
In Apparent Suicide
by Jeffrey Elliot
Chronicle Staff Writer
May Shinn, who for a short time last summer was the prime suspect in the murder of Owen Nash, was found dead in her apartment this afternoon, apparently a suicide victim. The body was discovered by Special Investigator Sergeant Peter Struler, who had had an earlier appointment with Ms Shinn following a statement she had given yesterday in the murder trial of former Superior Court Judge Andrew Fowler.
In spite of the appearance of suicide, spokespersons for both the police department and the district attorney’s office refuse to rule out homicide as the cause of death. Following the discovery that Mr Fowler had visited Ms Shinn in her apartment this morning, jurors in his trial have been sequestered and Mr Fowler himself has been placed into custody. Mr Fowler had been late to court this morning and had initially told the court he’d had car trouble.
As this paper goes to press the exact time of Ms Shinn’s death has not been determined. Her body was discovered slumped over a makeshift altar in her apartment, dressed in the ceremonial white robes of the Japanese ritual suicide known as seppuku, or more commonly, hara-kiri. Most other essential forms of that ritual were carried out as well, according to police sources (see box on back page). The altar had been strewn with papers from litigation Ms Shinn had been involved in related to charges brought against her by the grand jury and the district attorney’s office last summer.
Ms Shinn’s attorney, David Freeman, said he was ‘terribly shocked and saddened’ by the death of his client. ‘May Shinn has become another victim of the lack of due process in our courts,’ Freeman said. ‘Her illegal, premature arrest following the death of the man she loved put her into a downward spiral of depression from which there was no escape. One can only hope she has now found some peace…’
As Jeff Elliot was typing the last words into his computer, Dismas Hardy was drinking what must have been his twentieth cup of coffee. He sat, no place to go, on a yellow bench in the windowless visitor’s room at the morgue.
Strout was still inside, personally doing the autopsy on May Shinn. Locke himself had put in an appearance, as had Drysdale, Pullios and, of course, Struler. Glitsky had come in around eight-thirty and stayed to keep him company for a while. Hardy was not responsive.
He was still reliving the scene in Chomorro’s chambers after Struler had come in with the official word.
They were in Andy Fowler’s old office but all vestiges of Andy’s old WASP effects had been decorated away. The gray Berber wall-to-wall had been lifted and hardwood shined up beneath it. Inca or Aztec rugs lay under stuffed furniture in bold Latin designs. Photographs of Reagan, Bush, Quayle, George Deukmejian and Pete Wilson shaking hands with Leo Chomorro covered the back wall. The desk was heavy and black and, unlike Andy’s, nearly bare on its surface. Chomorro sat behind it, elbows on it, hands together.
Pullios leaned, arms crossed, against the bookshelves. Struler straddled a fold-up chair, and Glitsky stood by the doorway. Drysdale sat in one of the chairs next to Hardy, who tried to appear calm.
Chomorro addressed himself to Hardy.
‘Do you mean to tell me that you knew Fowler had been to Shinn’s this morning when you told me he had car trouble?
‘No, judge, not then. He told me at lunch -’
‘And how long were you planning to withhold this information?’
‘I don’t know.’ It was the truth.
‘You don’t know. Your client is suborning, threatening, possibly killing a prosecution witness -’
‘We don’t know that, Your Honor. There’s no hint of that -’
‘Not yet,’ Pullios said.
‘In any event, you thought you could keep this to yourself? At the very least, Mr Hardy, I’m going to have to report this to the State Bar.’
‘He did not threaten her,’ Hardy said, ‘and Struler here says she killed herself-’
‘It appeared she killed herself,’ Struler said quickly.
‘Fowler didn’t kill her.’
Pullios looked at him. ‘Like he didn’t kill Nash, right?’
Hardy kept his voice flat. ‘That’s right, Bets. How about, as a change of pace, we wait for the coroner’s report? Get a fact or two and find out what we’re dealing with before the accusations start.’
Chomorro broke it up. ‘Regardless of what Mr Fowler did or didn’t do, you’ve got a defendant going to visit a prosecution witness. At the very least, her testimony’s going to be no good.’
‘She’s not giving any testimony,’ Pullios said. ‘She’s dead.’
Chomorro shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I’m inclined to think we’ve got a mistrial here. Maybe we ought to start over fresh.’
‘I’d agree to that,’ Hardy said quickly. He could barely admit it to himself, but the thought still wouldn’t go away… had Andy killed May?
But a mistrial wasn’t to Pullios’s liking – she thought she had the thing won now. Hardy couldn’t say he blamed her.
‘I’m sorry, Judge, I don’t agree.’ She went on to argue that May Shinn was only one witness and that her testimony hadn’t, in the event, been suborned. ‘If Mr Hardy will stipulate to the fact that the defendant had known the gun was on board -’
‘Not a chance,’ he said.
‘I’m sure you discussed it in his daughter’s presence,’ Pullios said. ‘I’ll call her.’
‘She’d never testify against her father.’
Chomorro’s black eyes glared. ‘She’d better or I’ll hold her in contempt and put her in jail until she does…“
And so it had gone. Hardy couldn’t have Jane get on the stand for any reason – by some incredible stretch she might mention having known – biblically – Owen Nash. What was worse? The jury knowing about Andy’s pre-awareness that May’s gun was on board, or another reason he might have had to want Nash dead?
In the end, Chomorro had decided on his strategy to keep Fowler in custody at least until it had been determined that May Shinn had or had not killed herself. The jury, which up to now had been allowed to return to their homes under the stricture that they not discuss the case with anyone, were to be sequestered in a hotel until that question was settled so that this development would not prejudice them against the defendant.
Glitsky finally saw fit to interject a thought – Fowler’s clothes should be tested for fibers, hairs, semen and blood. He was a homicide cop – if there had been a killing he didn’t want the evidence to get thrown away this time. Pullios told him that was a good idea and he told her he knew it was. Investigating murders was what he did when people let him.