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His face went blank. “I appreciate that. I feel the same way.”
“I haven’t pushed you on this because that’s not what we do. Lord knows you’ve shown me infinite patience when I’ve needed it, and always had my back without me having to ask for it.”
A muscle in his jaw twitched. “True.”
“But you’ve also always called me out on my BS when I neededthat. So now it’s my turn.” She locked her hands firmly onto her hips. “I need to know what the hell is going on.”
He studied her face. “And if I tell you I don’t know anything, you’ll believe me?”
“You’ve been strange and cryptic since this all began, back even to Sandra’s crime scene. So if you say you don’tknowanything, sure, I believe you. But then I want to know what it is yoususpect.”
He gave a wry smile and shook his head. “We’ve spent way too much time together.”
“Probably true.” She mirrored his smile. “Out with it.”
His face tightened again. “I don’tknowa damned thing. But the way it all went down was strange.”
She pointed to one of the conference table chairs. “Start at the beginning.”
He dropped into the chair. “As far as I can guess, the beginning was the clash between Sandra Ashville and Grace Bandara, the ADA who was prosecuting the two prior Ossokov rape victims, Tasha Quintana and Jennifer Woods. Bandara’s evidence had holes. One of the women could describe Ossokov and recognized his voice, but couldn’t pick him out of the lineup before he spoke. The other picked him out just fine and provided a DNA match to Ossokov with her rape kit, but he claimed the sex in that case was consensual. Ashville was worried the jury wouldn’t believe her, and it would taint the Richards case.”
Jo nodded. Juries, especially predominantly male juries, were still too willing to claim reasonable doubt in accord with a man’s testimony over a woman’s when it came to sexual assault. “Right. That’s why everybody decided to let Ashville move forward with the Zara Richards’ case, and set the other two aside.”
“Not everybody. Bandara fought tooth and nail to keep moving forward with all the prosecutions, and things got ugly.”
“Ugly how?”
Arnett leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, one hand rubbing his temple. “That’s where it gets difficult, because I never fully knew. I only know that Ashville kept at the DA until he agreed to let her try the Richards case without the others.”
“And you don’t know what moved the needle?” Jo asked.
“Not for certain. But I think what finally put it over the top was when the DNA results came back that put Zara Richards’ blood in Ossokov’s car,” Arnett said.
“The DNA results we now know are, at best, contaminated,” Jo said.
“Yes.”
Jo whistled. “Very convenient timing for Ashville. So you think either she or Murphy planted that evidence?”
“I’ve been trying very hardnotto think that,” Arnett said. “At the time it all felt strange, and like you say, convenient. But it wasn’t until Ossokov’s conviction was overturned that I really questioned it all.”
“Who collected that sample? Was it a tech or Murphy?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. I assumed a tech at the time.”
Jo took in a slow breath, screwing up her courage. “Here’s the issue I have with all of that. Sure, we all get fuzzy on the details of what happened fifteen years ago. But I know you, and I know your detecting style. Nothing happens on a case you’re associated with that you don’t know about.”
He nodded, eyes fixated somewhere on the wall behind her. “It takes time to build up trust between partners, you know that. Murphy and I only worked together for a couple of months while you were on desk duty. Our communication was very different.”
Jo watched him carefully. “So you had no idea anything strange was going on?”
He turned to her, gaze steely. “I still don’t. Accusations of misconduct are nothing to screw around with—you can’t put ’em back in the bottle. If a cop does something dirty, I damn well want them held to account because bad cops put us all at risk. But I also need to be damned sure what really happened before I condemn someone. Steve Murphy and I weren’t hanging out watching football, but I didn’t have any reason to believe he wasn’t a good cop. To this very moment, I have no evidence that either he or Ashville did anything wrong, and I’m holding out hope that there’s some explanation for all this.” His eyes swung over to meet hers. “Just like I hopeyou’redoing forme.”
She held his gaze for a long moment, then nodded. “If we want to know what Ossokov’s motives really are and who he’s going after next, we need to find out the truth about what happened with that DNA evidence.”
Arnett slowly nodded back, then pulled his phone out of his pocket. He tapped, then waited.
The voice that answered was grizzled and bombastic. “Well, well, well, Bob Arnett. Had a feeling I’d get a call from you today.”
