October 1, 2016
5:56pm
"Mrs. Echolls, do you—"
"Mrs. Echolls—"
"Veronica, why—"
Veronica Echolls nosed her Infiniti QX64 through the frenzied crowd of reporters, crawling toward the gate that led to her driveway. She toyed briefly with the idea of gunning the engine and rolling right over the crowd of microphone-wielding pit vipers that stood between her and the sanctuary of her mansion.
"No," she thought to herself, "as satisfying as it would be for a few minutes, I can't do Logan any good if I get arrested too."
Finally she passed through the gate into the circular driveway and turned the engine off. She climbed down out of the SUV's cabin, and headed toward the doorway, passing her father's car where it was parked.
"Mommy, Mommy," yelled Stephen from the den, "come look at what Grandpa helped us make!"
"Yeah Mom, come see," echoed Jason.
As Veronica crossed from the foyer, through the main hall, past the drawing room, her heels clicking on the mottled white Carrara marble floor, she heard a whirring noise coming from inside the den. As she entered the room, she could see that the sound came from the model-train set that Keith had helped his grandsons set up all along the floor. Jason, Stephen, and Benjamin were watching, rapt, as the electric train circled the track, Benjamin clapping his hands and gurgling happily whenever the train passed next to where was sitting, Indian-style, on the floor. Veronica's stepmother was seated on the sofa, watching over the top of a software magazine as her husband played with his grandsons.
"It looks amazing," turning toward her father and stepmother, she added "thank you again for coming. Alicia, I—would you watch the boys for me for a little bit? I need to talk to my father."
"Of course. Are you hungry? I didn't know what time you'd be back, and I wasn't sure what you wanted to do about dinner, but I found a defrosted chicken in the fridge, so I put it in the oven to roast about ten minutes ago. It should be ready in about an hour. I mean, I know you have people to cook for you and everything…."
"I gave all the help the weekend off; I just didn't want too many people around right now. But that chicken sounds excellent. Thank you."
Veronica had called her father that morning, right after she had gotten off the phone with Charlie. Keith and Alicia had rushed up to Los Angeles to watch the children while Veronica went to see her husband and his lawyers. Now, as Veronica led her father back through the hall and into her study, the day's events began to catch up with her. As soon as Keith shut the door to the study behind them, his daughter all but collapsed in his arms, crying.
"Oh Dad, w-why is this happening to us? W-what are we going to do?"
"Shh," answered Keith softly as he held his daughter, "it'll be alright. You saw Logan? How is he?"
"I think he's like me; you know, trying to put a brave face on things. I think he was mostly scared that I wouldn't believe him, and that he might lose the kids. Oh, Dad, what am I going to tell Jason and Steve? I mean, they're old enough, on Monday, the other kids at school…."
"We'll think of some way to tell them. We don't have to worry about that right this instant though."
"And did you hear what they're saying on the radio: 'like father, like son,' 'guess the apple didn't fall too far from the tree, huh?'"
Keith shook his head as he responded, "I know he's tried so hard all these years to not be like his father; heck of a thing to fail now."
"He did not fail. And I am not going to fail him, and Dad, if, if you're not—"
"Then we don't fail. Do you have the case files?"
"I have copies right here. Our lawyers got their discovery motions in right away, so…."
6:18pm
"Okay," began Keith as he put down the last of the files, "their case is not the aff—the alleged affair. Their case is that their witness has him going into the apartment with the victim at 11:00, coming out at 11:30, and the CSU puts the time of death between 10:30 and 11:30. So, either their witness is lying or mistaken—"
"We'll have to talk to her, but right now we've got no reason to believe that."
"Or, the time of death is wrong. Now, I know the rigor matches up with the algor, but even so, estimating time of death from body temp is never an exact science. Now, it says the victim was out at dinner with this other woman, Lurmann, before she got home. Once the full autopsy report comes back on stomach contents, level of digestion, we might have a better idea of the time of death."
"Dad, that's all well and good, but we can't count on that. Right now, we have to work with the information that we have in front of us."
"Fair enough. What do you have in mind?"
"A great detective once gave me a book to read in which another great detective said that once you rule out the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."
"So where are you going with this?"
"Logan left the apartment right around 11:30. Now it is not possible that she was anything but alive when he left, but she died no more than a few minutes later. So the killer was already in the apartment when Logan and Bennett went in together."
"The neighbor didn't see anyone else leave—"
"But remember, she only watched until Logan left, then she ran to call her mother. The killer could have left any time later."
"There were no signs of forced entry," Keith noted.
Veronica narrowed her eyes and tilted her head. "That proves what? There's more than one way into an apartment. In any case, I want to check out the crime scene, and I want to talk to the two detectives on the case, and to the officers who were first on the scene. And I want to interview these two witnesses, Rodriguez and Lurmann, for myself."
"Is your P.I.'s license still current?"
"I thought I might need it someday."
"Well, that day is tomorrow. It's already getting late, and you've had a rough day as it is. We'll get started first thing in the morning. Now why don't we go see about that chicken?"
9:23pm
"Mommy, why isn't Daddy home?" Stephen Echolls asked his mother as she tucked him into bed.
"Well," began Veronica, swallowing hard, "Daddy had to go away for a little while, but don't worry, he'll be home soon."
"Is it something about Grandpa?"
"No sweetie, I just thought it would be nice for Grandma and Grandpa to visit, that's all."
"No, not Grandpa Keith, I mean Grandpa Aaron."
Veronica turned away from her son for a moment and squeezed her eyes as tightly shut as she could. After only a moment, though, she opened them and turned back to face Stephen. "No sweetie," she answered, pausing to kiss Stephen's forehead, "Grandpa Aaron is safely in jail, where he belongs. Your Daddy just has to finish his film, that's all. Now go to sleep, okay?"
October 2, 2016
9:24am
"Good morning, Detective Yarbrough, Detective Granger, thank you for meeting with us. As you know, we're investigators with Preuss and Ridley, the firm that's representing Logan Echolls in—"
"Um, we know who you are, Mrs. Echolls," interjected Granger. "Your father too."
"I actually read your book, Mr. Mars, you know, Big Murder, Small Town," added Yarbrough. "I thought, well…."
"I think what we're both trying to say," continued Granger as he offered Veronica the comfiest chair that was available at the West Los Angeles Community Police Station, "is that while we know this all must have come as a terrible shock to you, we want you to know that we didn't just jump to conclusions because of what happened with your husband's father…."
"And we didn't just decide to go after your husband just because he's a celebrity or something," Yarbrough added nervously.
"Detectives, please," said Keith, reassuringly, "we know that you two are both professionals who have a duty to follow the evidence wherever it leads. You said you read my book, so you know I was a cop once too, and that I know a thing or two about going where the case takes you."
"And while obviously this case is very personal to us," added Veronica, "I think it would be for the best if you just thought of us as two licensed private investigators who have been hired by Mr. Echolls' attorneys to review the evidence to try to develop an alternate theory of the crime. Everyone's entitled to a defense, after all."
"Of course," replied the two policemen in unison. "Ask away," added Yarbrough.
"Why don't we start with your witness, the next-door neighbor, Sarah Rodriguez," began Keith. "It seems to me that your case depends pretty heavily on her…."
"We thought about that," answered Granger, "so we checked her out. Twenty-seven, got married four years ago, divorved two years ago, no kids, been working as a nurse at Cedars-Sinai the past five years. Divorce was amicable, some credit-card debt, but no major financial troubles, no priors or other legal problems other than a few parking tickets that got paid on time, more or less. No known history of substance abuse."
"Apparently something of a fan of Mr. Echolls' work, actually," added Yarbrough, "although," he concluded hastily, "not so much that she seems obsessed or anything like that. I mean, she had copies of the DVDs of Faust and Twelve Angry Men, but she seems to be something of a movie buff in general. I mean, she owns a lot of movies on DVD."
"Oh, and her LUDs showed a call to her mother at 11:31, lasted until 11:47, just like she said," finished Granger.
"Well, let me ask you something else then," Keith said after taking a moment to digest everything he had just heard. "Your reports said that the likely murder weapon was a stainless steel pepper grinder that the victim owned…."
"That's right," replied Granger. "It was lying on the floor right next to her body, and there was blood on one end of it—even though it wasn't lying in the pool of blood from the wound or anything—and the M.E. said the wound was consistent with the shape of the end that had the blood on it."
"But you didn't find Mr. Echolls' fingerprints on it?"
"Well, no, but we figured he might have wiped off the end he held, or pulled his sleeve down over his hand before he picked it up," answered Granger again.
"But you did find his prints elsewhere in the kitchen?" asked Keith.
"Well sure, on the kitchen table, on one of the chairs, on a glass of water that was on the table, but he couldn't have wiped off everything he touched," replied Yarbrough.
"Did you find his prints anywhere else in the apartment?" asked Veronica, "say, in the bedroom?"
"Um, no," said Yarbrough, "but the best friend, Lurmann, said that Bennett told her they always went to hotels."
"We know it must be terrible for you to find out about that, especially to find out about it this way, and, well, what with, that is, under these circumstances…" added Granger, gesturing vaguely at Veronica's midsection.
"I appreciate your saying so, but let me ask you this," began Veronica with slightly exaggerated thoughtfulness, "your case-files said you first learned about this supposed affair my husband was having from a message that this Lurmann woman left on the victim's answering machine. Before you played the message back, was the light on the machine blinking?"
"I'm not sure," said Granger.
"I don't think so," added Yarbrough.
"Well, when you played the message, did the machine say something like 'new message' or 'no new messages, old message—"
"Yes, I mean, I remember distinctly that it said 'no new messages,' etc.," cut in Granger.
"Yeah, that's right, I remember that," added his partner.
"Is it possible that any of the officers who arrived on the scene before you might have played the message before you got there?" Veronica went on.
"No, they'd know better than to do anything that might disturb a crime scene," answered Granger.
"I think that's all we need to know then," answered Veronica brightly as she rose ponderously from her chair, "but if you'd just give us the name of the first officer on the scene so we could confirm that last point, we'll let you get back to work."
10:01am
As soon as they were out of earshot of Patrolman Michaels, who had confirmed that no one had touched the answering machine from the time he broke open the door to the time Granger and Yarbrough had arrived on the scene, Keith took his daughter's arm and stopped her. "Veronica, I still had more questions for those two. And do you want to tell me what's so important about this answering machine? I told you, the affair's not their case, the timing is their case."
"No," answered Veronica with a grin, "the proposition that no one else was in Bennett's apartment at 11:30 is their case. The answering machine proves there was."
"What do you mean?"
"Lurmann left her message at 10:46, after Logan arrived at Bennett's door, but before Bennett got home at 11:00 to let him in, and yet Logan didn't see anyone leave the apartment before then. And yet someone played that message back before the police arrived Saturday morning."
"But it could easily have been Bennett or Logan who did that."
"But either way, Logan would have heard the message, right? And why would he bother to wipe his prints off the murder weapon, but not to erase an incriminating voice-mail message?"
"Ah-hah," said Keith with a grin. "So someone must have gotten that message before 11:00, which means the person must have been in the apartment before 10:30, and then left after 11:30."
"And since, based on the fingerprints, Logan never left the kitchen, it stands to reason that the two of them just sat talking in the kitchen for the entire time he was there. It would have been easy for this other person to wait in another room of the house when he heard people coming, sneak up behind Bennett right after Logan left, pick up the grinder off the kitchen table, hit her with it, and then be on his way."
"Veronica, you know I am so proud of you right now, but you know we need more evidence than that."
"I know. Why don't we go have a chat with Miss Jodie Lurmann?"
To be continued….