Vaughan turned to Lena. “You see today’s paper?”
She nodded, but kept quiet.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said.
26
They walked through the park beside City Hall and found a bench underneath the trees. Across the street on the corner, the safety barrier between the sidewalk and construction area was being removed from the new building that would soon become LAPD headquarters. A handful of landscapers were planting palm trees along the curb while another team of construction workers power-washed the steps.
On the way over, Lena had brought Vaughan up to speed on what she had learned at Hight’s house and the conclusions she was ready to make. She had given him a detailed picture of exactly where they stood, including Cobb’s visit to her house last night. Vaughan didn’t take it very well, but finally agreed that antagonizing Cobb any further wasn’t in their best interest, at least in the short term.
“His case against Jacob Gant was based on a lie,” she said. “Gant was not stalking Lily Hight. Cobb’s first move was in the wrong direction.”
“But I’m going through the trial, Lena. The transcripts, the video. What about Gant’s anger? What about the messages Cobb pulled off the girl’s service? Bennett and Watson read them in court.”
“Gant said that they had a fight. It lasted for two weeks and then they made up. What if it’s that simple? And Hight was never asked to provide an alibi, Greg. He was never a suspect. His story was never checked out. Never verified.”
“You think Cobb knows he screwed up and that’s why he’s acting this way?”
She turned to him. “Do you think Bennett thinks he screwed up the trial?”
“I get it,” he said. “Like that case on Long Island we talked about last night. They don’t make mistakes. Everybody else does.”
“You said they go way back.”
Vaughan removed his jacket and loosened his tie in the heat. “When Bennett first came to the DA’s office, he needed help, a detective with experience. Cobb gave it to him. They liked working together and became friends. I get the feeling Cobb was something of a mentor to him early on.”
“Barrera told me that Cobb used to work out of Robbery-Homicide. Something happened, but he didn’t want to talk about it.”
“I didn’t put it together until last night. When I got in this morning, I went online and started to remember things. Then I made a few calls.”
“Remember what?” she said.
“They worked a lot of cases together. They had a lot of success.”
“Okay, so what went wrong?”
“They worked together and then they stopped. Seven or eight years ago-around the time Higgins got into politics.”
Lena tried to make the leap, pressing her memory for a murder case that stood out, but nothing came to mind. Vaughan gave her a look.
“It was a drive-by shooting in Exposition Park,” he said. “A woman walking her grandson in a stroller by a vacant lot on Western Avenue. I think it was across the street from the library on thirty-ninth. Both were dead before the cops arrived.”
Lena thought it over. Eight years ago there were a lot of drive-by shootings in L.A. But that probably wasn’t the reason for her faulty memory. Her brother had been murdered eight years ago, and she had taken some time off.
Vaughan leaned closer, his voice becoming more gentle. “Elvira Wheaten,” he said. “The infant’s name was Shawn. They didn’t walk into the crossfire between two gangs, Lena. They were gunned down intentionally. Wheaten was trying to clean up the neighborhood and had a target on her back. Higgins was running for DA and needed headlines. By then, Bennett was his boy in the office. I’m surprised you don’t remember.”
“Me, too,” she said.
“There was an eyewitness. A kid in his early teens. Wes Brown. He helped Cobb and Bennett identify the shooters in the car, but refused to testify against them in court.”
Something about hearing Wes Brown’s name seemed familiar. After a moment, she realized what it was. The young teenager had made headlines, too.
“Wes Brown was murdered,” she said.
Vaughan nodded. “Three months after the trial and Higgins took office. Brown didn’t testify in court. His identity was kept secret. The shooters never knew who made the initial ID, but somehow they got to him just the same. Three months later Brown was dead.”
“But Higgins won the trial.”
“It would have been a slam dunk with Brown’s testimony, so he and Bennett had to work harder. I was in the office then. I remember them sweating it out-the trial and the campaign. But Higgins got his guilty verdict, milked it in front of the cameras, and ended up winning the election.”
“And Bennett and Cobb had a falling out because Cobb couldn’t get Brown to testify.”
Vaughan nodded again. “Makes sense when you think about it. Bennett’s not the kind of guy who would have cared about Brown’s fear. He probably blamed Cobb for putting their case at risk and jeopardizing Higgins’s campaign. Things happen when there’s a lot on the line. Higgins took some heat when Brown was murdered as well. That wouldn’t help mend any fences.”
“So, Cobb loses his friend,” she said. “His best connection in the DA’s office.”
“I think there’s a divorce somewhere after that. Money issues. Darkness.”
“Bennett didn’t need him anymore.”
“Until Lily Hight was murdered and Cobb got the case. Then it became the same thing all over again.”
“Higgins wanted a third term, knew he needed headlines and another big trial to win. And Bennett wanted to look like a hero so he could run four years from now. All of sudden, they needed Cobb again.”
Vaughan smiled at her. “When you asked Cobb for the murder book yesterday, who’s he gonna call?”
“Steven Bennett,” she said. “His on-again-off-again new best friend. The guy who can bring him back to the top.”
“It’s almost the same thing, only this time it didn’t work out. The trial blew everything down.”
“That and today’s newspaper,” she said. “Where’s your car?”
“In the garage. Why?”
“Want to take a drive with me out to the crime lab?”
“What is it?” he said. ‘What’s up?”
“I want to take what’s left of Lily Hight’s clothing out to Orth.”
Vaughan gave her a look and nodded. “Let’s do it.”
“Meet me at Parker in fifteen minutes,” she said. “Wait in the VIP lot and stay with your car.”
27
She could see it now.
The entire case against Jacob Gant hinged on the DNA evidence taken from Lily Hight’s body and underwear. For Cobb, Bennett, and Watson, the match to Gant convinced them that they had their killer. When the samples went missing in the lab, along with the victim’s panties, Paladino was able to convince the jury that the lab results presented at trial couldn’t be trusted because it was no longer possible to back them up.
You need verification, he would repeat over and over again. If you can’t verify, then you can’t vilify. And that means you can’t convict.
Lena had seen the lab reports in Cobb’s murder book. Although Paladino knew how to play a jury, she had no doubt that the semen samples the lab retrieved and analyzed were righteous-no doubt that the semen came from Gant and the results were reliable. But just like everything else, if Gant had been telling the truth, his semen should have been found with the victim. It didn’t necessarily prove innocence or guilt to the beating and murder, and had no meaning other than what it was. Had Lily been raped and murdered after Gant left, everything would have looked exactly the way it did.
But for Lena, the case hinged just as much on the estimated time of death.