“But he’s a dead man, Mitch. His date with the executioner is only weeks away. Maybe he wanted to do something noble to go out in a blaze of glory or whatever.” Steve shook his head in disbelief and drank some beer.
“Put that aside for now and look at the facts of his case. O’Brien was convicted solely on circumstantial evidence.”
“He had motive and opportunity,” Steve countered. “That isn’t circumstantial.”
“Bullshit. A lot of people have the motive and opportunity to kill and they don’t do it. Why use his personal weapon?”
“Crimes of passion aren’t well thought out.”
“Did you look at the crime scene photos?”
“No. Why would I have? I’m not obsessed with this case.” Steve motioned for the waitress to bring two more pints. Mitch stole a glance at his watch. 8:10. He needed to wrap this up within thirty minutes and get Steve out of here before Claire walked in and saw them talking like they were best friends. Mitch didn’t want to confirm Steve’s suspicions that his feelings for Claire went beyond his need to prove O’Brien innocent.
“The bodies were in bed. Taverton on top of Mrs. O’Brien. The killer walked in and shot them without hesitation. Without Taverton even having a chance to move or defend himself. That, to me, says cold-blooded premeditation.”
“And a betrayed husband could have planned it just like that. What if he knew about the affair for a while? Fumed over it? Then his daughter calls and she’s upset because she walked in and heard her mom in bed with a stranger. It set him off. He might have been thinking about it, maybe planning it, and now he just goes and does it.”
“No rage? No yelling and fighting?”
Steve shrugged, sipped the new pint the waitress brought. Mitch tossed a twenty and a five on the tray and thanked her.
“What I’m saying,” Mitch continued, “is that the police never investigated Chase Taverton’s life, not in any depth. He was a prosecutor. He must have racked up a long list of enemies, and to not even walk down that road-if only to check it off the damn list-seems not only irresponsible, but flat-out wrong. It’s like they saw what they wanted to see-crime of passion-arrested the husband, and tossed away the key.”
“Usually the most obvious suspect is the killer,” Steve said.
“And sometimes the obvious suspect is innocent.”
“He was convicted by a jury.”
“You know as well as I do that jury instructions and what is admissible and inadmissible in court holds a lot of sway over what the jury hears and thinks about a case.”
“I didn’t realize you were such a bleeding heart.”
“It has nothing to do with that, it has to do with due process. So yes, I think O’Brien is innocent.” It was the first time Mitch had admitted it aloud.
“Well.”
Mitch said nothing for a long moment. “We know that Oliver Maddox was digging around in the events of fifteen years ago. And he disappeared at the same time O’Brien was moved from the safer North Seg to Section B. That tells me that someone wanted O’Brien dead, and it was only a matter of time before word that he had been a cop leaked out. A couple other facts: There were three separate attacks on O’Brien at Folsom Prison the first year he was there, even when he was in a secure section of the prison. I’ve asked for the records on those attacks, but so far I’ve been stonewalled by bureaucrats who say they don’t know where they are.”
“Could be the truth.”
“O’Brien has never wavered from his version of the events. And one more thing: The court records are a mess. There’re missing documents, missing witness statements, missing evidence.”
“O’Brien had several appeals. The documents could have been misfiled or lost.”
“True. But there’s one thing that’s very interesting.”
“Shoot. You’ve piqued my interest.”
“The call to the police about shots fired wasn’t made to 911.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Someone called the Sacramento PD phone number, not 911. There’s no trace or tape on the main number. It goes to the receptionist. All 911 calls are automatically taped and located.”
Steve thought on that. “Unusual.”
“The police canvassed the neighborhood and found no one who had made the call.”
“Was any of that brought up at trial?”
“No. But the defense had to have known it. I’d think a cop like O’Brien would question it. His counsel sucked.”
“By that, do you mean corrupt or incompetent?”
“I have no idea, but there were other minor problems. The call to the station is the biggie, though, in my mind. Steve, it’s not just
The voice of Mitch’s father came back and Mitch swallowed the anger and disgust that arose every time he thought back to the files he’d found in his father’s office after he died.
Steve stared at Mitch, his dark eyes unreadable. “Okay. You’ve convinced me, not of his innocence, but that maybe there’s something here worth looking into. But I want your assurance that you’re going to be a cop first. You see Tom O’Brien, you don’t let him go.”
“Of course. In fact, I want to find him first. I’m worried when he’s in police custody he’ll end up dead. If we have him, we can protect him until we find out what Maddox had uncovered.”
“And if it doesn’t have anything to do with O’Brien?”
“I’ll live with it.”
“Good.” Steve leaned back, crossed his legs. “You know, before you came to Sac two years ago you had a reputation for being a hard-ass, but you’re a softie at heart, Mitch. Hell, you and I both know that guys like O’Brien can crack and take the whole family with them.”
“But it wasn’t a murder-suicide. It was a double homicide with the daughter just down the street.”
“O’Brien had a history,” Steve reminded Mitch. “Written up several times, probation twice.”
“For roughing up suspects.”
“And that justifies it?”
“No, but the first suspect was a child molester, and the second suspect had beaten his wife to a pulp. Kicked her with steel-toed boots. She had a miscarriage and nearly died.”
“So he’s known to snap. What’s the difference when he sees his wife in bed with another man? He snaps, has his service pistol on, shoots them.”
“Without a fight or confrontation? And he didn’t use his service weapon. It was his personal firearm. And it was left on the nightstand. And according to his report, the gun was found on his
“There were no footprints or fingerprints on or near the window,” Steve said. “He could have opened the window and made it look like an intruder. Put the gun down because he heard his daughter come in.”
Mitch was off and running now. “C’mon, Steve, don’t you think that it’s odd there were
“O’Brien could have easily wiped it to set up his story, or maybe his wife was one hell of a housekeeper.”
“How could O’Brien get to his gun in his night-stand-where both he and his daughter testified he kept it- without the lovers seeing him?”
“He moved it beforehand.”
“That was the prosecution’s argument.”
“It makes sense.”
“What if the killer was in the house when the wife brought in her lover? Retrieved the firearm and waited for
