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I found an In-and-Out Burger in the Moreno Valley and stopped for lunch. I had a double-double with fries and a chocolate shake. I sat in my Jeep and ate my lunch looking out at some mountains in the distance. I was all turned around so I couldn’t tell you which mountain range it was.
After I finished the burger, I picked up Larry Wilkes’s file and poked through it while I finished my French fries and the shake. He wasn’t a client yet, so we hadn’t much. I’d imposed on Karen to find me what she could on Lexus Nexus. That gave me a few short newspaper articles to read.
A couple were from small-time local newspapers, the kind that burn out after a year or two. Larry Wilkes had been an honor student. Pete Michaels had been on a high school tennis team that placed second in the state. There was an initial account of the murder from the Downey Daily News:
On Saturday,police were called to a home at 7815 Via Amorita where Larry Wilkes (18) was found next to the dead body of Pete Michaels (19), the murder weapon, a Colt handgun, less than six feet away. Despite having made no attempt to hide his crime, Wilkes became uncooperative and refused to speak with the police. He was taken into custody and is now being held at the Los Angeles County Jail.
Nothingin the article conflicted with what Larry had said in his letter. At first, I didn’t think the story told me much at all. But then I wondered, maybe it did. The police thought Larry did it right from the start. They’d conveyed that to the reporter. It was bad journalism to say, ‘no attempt to hide his crime’ but probably not something the reporter made up on his own. Important because it means the police did little in the way of looking for another suspect. There could easily be evidence they rejected because it didn’t fit with the solution they’d already decided upon.
The article included a final sentence: “No motive has been given for the murder, though a source mentions that the victim had recently become engaged.”
That was interesting. Larry hadn’t mentioned it in his letter. Was I wrong to pursue this? The letter said his boyfriend hadn’t been returning his calls. If he’d gotten engaged that would explain why. It was also a motive. For Larry.
There were only three articles concerning the trial, none of which came from the bigger papers. It turned out to be a very uninteresting case. At least to the press. There were articles stating that a jury had been chosen, that the trial had begun, and that Larry had been convicted of first-degree murder and was to be imprisoned for twenty-five years to life.
First-degree meant that the prosecution had proven premeditation. That must have to do with the gun. But how did they link the gun to Larry? Obviously, the killer—if he wasn’t Larry—could have brought gun, killed Pete, wiped it off and left. But why hadn’t it been traced back to them? And why leave it?
The fries where gone and I’d slurped down the last of the shake. I started the Jeep, stopped at a garbage can to get rid of the wrappings, and got back on the highway.
I reached Elysian Heights around two-thirty. Joanne Yardley lived on Avon Court, a tiny slip of a street that wound up a hill. On the other side of the hill was Dodger Stadium.
Her house was a tiny Craftsman built into a steep rise. At the curb, there was a five-and-a-half-foot tall retaining wall running across the front of the property. Beyond that a sloping front yard covered in tiny succulent plants that were putting out pink blooms.
A heavy, iron gate crossed the driveway. An intercom with a keypad was attached to one side. Beyond the gate, sitting in the driveway was a very dusty bronze Camry from the eighties. The tires looked soft, and if you looked closely at the windows you could see streaks made by the last rain we had. And maybe the one before that.
I went ahead and pressed the button on the intercom. As soon as I did, I could hear at least two dogs begin barking in the house. Nothing happened. I found myself staring at glass shards that had been embedded in the top of the retaining wall. If you tried to climb passed the gate, you’d end up sliced and diced. You needed to be about six foot tall to see that the glass was even there.
The barking continued.
And then, suddenly, the gate began to creep to one side. When there was enough room, I slipped through. As I walked up the driveway, I noted that there were bars on the windows. Through the heavy metal screen door, I could see a small woman looking out at me. At her feet, a couple of small dogs bounced up and down, jockeying for position.
“Hello,” I said.
“Are you Dom?”
“I am, yes.”
I climbed onto the front porch as she held the heavy metal door open. It turned out to be three dogs, chihuahuas, or mixture of chihuahua and something else. Two were black-and-brown, the third was tan. The tan one looked old and grizzled and I suspected he might have been with Joanne when she was raped. The way he was barking, he seemed determined it wouldn’t happen again.
I maneuvered into the house, trying very hard not to step on a dog. Joanne herself was a small, round woman with short spikey hair she’d dyed flat black. She wore a black cotton sweater and black jeans. Closing and locking the door, she offered me a seat on a sage green sofa with beige piping and went to make tea.
Maybewentis too strong a word. She stepped over to the kitchen area, which was basically part of the living room. The rooms had originally been tiny. At some point, the kitchen and living room had been combined into one small room with barely enough space for the sofa, a table and the kitchen cupboards. To my left was another small room, which clearly served as an office. Somewhere toward the back of the house I guessed there was a bedroom and bathroom.
I sat on the sofa. The tan dog jumped up next to me and curled his lip to keep me in my place. None of the dogs had stopped barking since I walked in.
“They’ll calm down in a minute,” Joanne said. I can’t say I believed her. She was getting out a couple of mugs, when she said, “You’re here about Stu Whatley, aren’t you?”
“I am. You’ve probably heard that DNA testing has made it impossible for him to have raped you?”
“Yes, Brenda was here. She explained it all.”
“She may have made it sound less conclusive. I have some information—”
“Don’t worry. I looked up DNA on the world wide web. I found a lot of information. I also called a friend who’s a scientist.”
I’d started to take the information out of her file but slipped it back in. Then I asked a question I probably should have asked the other victims. “How do you feel about Stu Whatley getting out of prison?”
“It appears he’s innocent so he should be released as quickly as possible.”
