none of your DNA is on that crime scene.'
'I wasn't there,' he said. 'How could my DNA be there if I wasn t?
'You say you weren't there but you haven't been too honest with us up 'til now,' I reminded him. 'Like we know you met with Yolanda Dublin up on Skyline Drive to get her money, but you said you never go there. That was a lie. We lose trust when people lie. When trust is lost it's almost impossible to earn it back again.'
'I just said that to you so my dad wouldn't find out I was renting that backyard to people. And I didn't exactly go up there. Sten showed her the property. I met her on Skyline Drive a day later and she paid me. We were out front standing in the street. I never even went up the drive.'
Hitch thought about it, then pretended to have an idea. 'Hey, if that's true, what if we go back there with a spit kit and check the house and the backyard for Brooks's DNA. If all he did was stand in the street and get her money, then his DNA won't be on the crime scene and we can cut him loose.'
''Cept we don't have a search warrant,' I replied, furrowing my brow. Of course, all of this was patently ridiculous, but it was working because Brooks had a panicked look on his face.
'We'd need the owner's permission to go in there looking for the DNA,' I continued. 'Sheedy won't give it, so that's just gonna end up being a huge unproductive hassle.'
'I have complete ownership of that property, not Sheedy,' Brooks said, lunging at the idea. 'I sign papers all the time on that place. Por taxes and all kinds of shit. I can give the permission.'
'I don't know,' Hitch said, looking at me. 'It's pretty late in the case now for that. Maybe we should just keep him here and sort it out later.'
'No! Please. No! I'll sign it. I will.' He was almost shrieking at us.
'We gotta think about it,' I said. 'Don't go anywhere.'
We walked out of the room, leaving him chained to the table. Hitch notified the jail guard that our wit was to be detained in the I-room, and not put back in 2-15. We wanted to scare him, but we didn't want him killed.
Then we went to the lobby of the jail to wait for Frieda Wilson from the ADA's office.
She arrived twenty minutes later with our warrant and turned out to be another fox with great legs, wearing a very short skirt. The warrant she brought us was extensive. This one included both the house and the yard. There was a place for Brooks Dunbar to sign, granting us permission to search the premises.
'You're the best,' Hitch told Frieda, who smiled longingly at him before she left.
The two of us went back upstairs to the jail. Brooks was crying softly when we walked back into the I- room.
Hopefully, this had been an eye-opening, life-changing experience for him.
'You left me. I was so scared you weren't coming back,' he cried.
Hitch and I sat down facing him. 'Here's the deal,' I said. 'You sign this and maybe… maybe we let you go home tonight.'
'I'll sign. I'll sign.'
'Since this is a sensitive case with a lot of media overtones, you better damn well keep this to yourself,' I added. 'You tell anyone and we slam you back in here.'
'I promise,' he said. 'I won't tell anyone. Where do I sign?'
'Right here.' I handed him my ballpoint. 'Two copies. You keep the bottom one.'
He signed without even reading.
Chapter 31
By the time we stepped outside the Men's Central Jail with Brooks it was after one A. M. The temperature was hovering in the low seventies and the Santa Ana wind condition had fully developed. Santa Anas clear the L. A. basin of pollutants, but they also drive up the pollen count and Claritin sales throughout the city.
As it turned out, Brooks had allergies, so as soon as we got outside he started sneezing. 'You just gonna leave me here?' he whined, wiping his nose with his forearm after a big wet one. 'Aren't you even gonna take me home?'
'We don't run a taxi service,' Hitch said.
'Then how'm I s'posed to get there?' Another sneeze.
Hitch pointed at Brooks's four-hundred-dollar Gucci sneakers, which, miraculously, he'd not lost to his murderous cellmates. 'The left one goes in front of the right one,' Sumner said patiently. 'If you keep repeating the process, you'll be doing something we call walking. Should get you home.'
'Here's your copy of our permission to search Skyline Drive,' I said, handing him the paper. 'Do not talk about this to anyone.'
He nodded, then sneezed again.
'You're just gonna leave me here?'
'That's the plan,' I answered.
We got into the slick-back and left him standing there, wobbly and confused as a day-old changeling.
Hitch and I headed back to the crime scene. On the way, we stopped at the CSI equipment warehouse at the new forsensic lab at Cal State L. A. where we checked out a fire extinguisher-sized canister of Luminol spray with a nozzle.
As I signed for the stuff, I couldn't help but think about the paper trail I was leaving for Dahlia Wilkes. I pushed that troubling thought aside and in minutes we were again in the slick-back, heading to the Hollywood Hills.
When we arrived at the mansion, it was almost two A. M. We parked our black-and-white in the bushes off the road, then grabbed our equipment and briefcases and snuck up the driveway, through the main gate, and around to the far side of the house, where we wouldn't be visible from the Prentiss's second-floor windows.
The twenty-foot cypress trees in the yard swayed in the brisk Santa Anas over our heads, shaking their leaves like giant pom-poms. We paused at the back door and looked down at the big, commercial-sized Yale padlock.
'Shoulda brought some bolt cutters,' Hitch said, studying the padlock. 'We'll have to break a window.'
'I'm not breaking a window,' I answered. 'If we don't find anything, I want to back out of here without leaving a trail. I'm still hoping this doesn't draw too much negative official interest.'
'Including your wife's,' Hitch said.
I hate keeping stuff from Alexa. Even when I was skating the edges of the rule book, I always eventually told her what 1 was doing because she's the smartest cop I know and one of my best crime-solving resources. But there was no way Hitch could appreciate that, and since we were taking some career chances, I decided for the time being to continue to honor my promise.
'Okay, okay. I won't tell her without at least talking it over with you first.'
'Some vow of silence,' he muttered. 'How you planning to get inside if we don't break a window?'
I reached into my pocket and removed my little leather lock pick case. It's no bigger than a small manicure kit. I'd learned to pick locks from one of my training partners almost twenty years ago. It's actually not too difficult once you get the hang of it.
I unwrapped the leather case and pulled out the main pick. It was longer and thicker than the other ones and had a small right angle at the very end. Then I removed half a dozen shorter, thinner picks, each with a variety of different shaped bends at the end.
The idea was to slip the main pick into the guide slot, then jiggle it until it found the main tumbler. The smaller ones then slid in under it, fitting into the secondary tumblers, until you had enough traction to turn the lock. There are easier, more high-tech ways to open locks, such as master tap keys or electric magnets. This was admittedly a little old school, but I liked the fact it took some skill and that I had mastered it.
'Shine your Mini Mag on this,' I said, and Hitch aimed the small LED at the lock while I worked.
It took me about two and a half minutes before I had the padlock open.
'When we do the movie, I think the Hitchens character should work the lock pick and the Scully character should hold the light,' he said. 'Those picks are way cool. Its exactly the kind of thing Jamie digs in a film.'
I was still fighting the idea there was going to be a film, so I just let that go and pushed the door open. We
