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Yes, I suppose I could have called Lydia for a ride, but it seemed a better idea to drive separately. I needed to be able to leave if the deposition ran long. I didn’t expect it to, but it was always possible there could be some surprising answers that would need to be thoroughly explored.
I wasn’t clear on what Lydia’s strategy was exactly but had decided not to ask. It seemed to me that it would be wiser to depose the victims first, to expand on the questions I’d asked, and come at Detective Wellesley with all the information. I mean, I had figured out that impeaching Wellesley was key to our case. The only evidence they’d really had at trial had been witness identifications. If they went to trial, they’d have to preserve the identifications and discredit the DNA evidence.
At around eight forty-five, I pulled into the garage below a metallic skyscraper of about forty floors. The offices of Karpinski & Karpinski were on the 32nd floor. After handing the Lunchbox keys over to the valet, I took the elevator up to the lobby. It was disturbingly quiet. I wondered if the building was fully occupied.
I signed in with the security guard and then joined a woman in a blue suit and sneakers in the elevator. That was odd. It was a look from the eighties, and much more Chicago than L.A. In Chicago, women sometimes wore sneakers on the train and then put on dress shoes in the office. Most people in L.A. drove, so if you wore sneakers on the way, you changed in the car. I wondered if she was a transplant.
Getting off at thirty-two, the floor was silent. I remembered my way to Karpinski & Karpinski. When I opened the lobby door, I found an unfamiliar receptionist, though I’d expected that. There was no regular receptionist. The Karpinski brothers hired a temp one or two days a week when they had meetings. The receptionist was a pretty twenty-something with an understandably confused look on her face.
“Hi. I’m Dom Reilly, I’m here for the deposition at nine.”
“Oh, okay… um, you’re early. It’s been pushed back to nine-thirty. Can I get you coffee, tea, Perrier, Evian?”
“Evian would be great, thanks.”
“Have a seat,” she suggested.
She turned and walked away. A short way down the hallway, she opened a door, realized it wasn’t the breakroom, and shut the door. Then she continued looking. I wondered if I’d ever get my bottle of water.
Brenda Wellesley walked into the lobby a moment later. She had drab brown hair pulled tight into a knot at the back of her head. I knew it was her because she was wearing an LAPD uniform: long-sleeved navy shirt, matching navy tie, stars at the collar, stripes on the sleeves, badge over her heart. There was a hat on her head, and she wore a pair of white gloves. Even from across the room I could smell the dry-cleaning chemicals wafting off the uniform.
She wouldn’t have worn it much. Detectives worked in plainclothes. Dress uniforms were reserved for publicity shots and funerals. No, she was making a point. She was asserting her authority and attempting to intimidate anyone who challenged it. I doubted that would work on Lydia.
The receptionist came back with my water. She handed it to me, and before she could say anything to the detective, Wellesley said, “Let’s get this over with.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, the deposition has been pushed back to nine-thirty,” the girl said apologetically. “Can I get you something? Coffee, tea, Evian, Perrier?”
Glaring at the girl, Wellesley sat down. I studied her profile. There was a tiny bit of sag in her jowls, and she was wearing much more makeup than I’d thought at first. A tiny, healed scar ran along her hair line down to her jaw.
I tried to stop staring at her by looking at the magazines on the coffee-table in front of us. Two copies ofTimemagazine. One with the headline “The Truth About Whitewater” and another that offered “The Search for Jesus.” Both sounded more like fantasies than reality and neither interested me. There was also a copy ofGeorgewith Howard Stern on the cover—I couldn’t tell whether this was before or after the one Karen had been reading—McCall’s, featuring comedienne-turned-actress, Brett Butler; andVanity Fair, displaying a bunch of half-naked Olympians. I went withVanity Fair. I barely had time to get to the Olympians’ spread, when Lydia walked in. She wore a navy power suit with a pink blouse and a gold crucifix at her neck. I couldn’t remember her saying anything about religion. Maybe she was religious or maybe it was a ploy. She glanced at the receptionist and smiled, then she looked at Brenda Wellesley.
“Hi, I’m Lydia Gonzalez.”
Wellesley remained silent.
“Have you been offered something to drink?
More silence.
“Well, if you change your mind just ask… I’m sorry what is your name?”
The receptionist said, “Jeanine.”
“Jeanine will get it for you.”
The conference room was windowless and claustrophobic, with a table and eight chairs taking up most of the available floorspace. In one corner, was a rail-thin woman in her mid-thirties. She had badly dyed blonde hair and sunken eyes. When she saw us, she smiled, showing us a very expensive mouthful of bright white caps.
“Hi! I’m Elaine Joy from Eyes on Justice. I’ll be videotaping this morning’s deposition.”
“Excellent,” Lydia said. “The woman we’ll be deposing is Detective Brenda Wellesley. We just saw her in reception, she’s wearing her dress uniform.”
Lydia put her briefcase in a chair and opened it to take out a yellow legal pad with questions written in tiny block print.
“So I’ll be panning from the detective to you as you ask questions?” Elaine Joy asked, uncomfortably.
“No panning. Just choose an angle on the detective and stay there.”
Elaine seemed to pout. Her job seemed frightfully easy. “Will she be alone?”
