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"Did you request a lawyer?"
"Yeah, a fat lot of good it did me." Steve was agitated, and it was noticeable that his desperation was climbing now that there was a slim chance he could get out of this hellhole. Patience at a time like this was hard to come by, but it wasn't as if he had a choice. "Nick Dorn didn't hesitate when he sat down with me. He said that I should take a deal. The evidence against me was airtight, and there wasn't a chance that I could win in court."
"You still had a trial," Theo pointed out, jotting another note down in order to compare it to the others. They, too, had mentioned that their lawyers had suggested a plea deal due to the damning amount of evidence found at the crime scenes. Nick Dorn had represented three of the seven men, which was due to the way the Staff Judge Advocate assigned lawyers without their jurisdiction in the military. It was doubtful that Dorn had any connection to the other cases, but Theo wrote a reminder to himself in the small margin to have a background check initiated on the man anyway. One couldn't make assumptions in this type of investigation. "I take you wouldn't plea out."
"Hell, no."
Theo asked more questions regarding the trial, and soon Steve was relaxing little by little. It was almost as if he hadn't trusted the events of the past two days. First, Agent Tonkel showing up and injecting a bit of hope into situation. Now, Theo was sitting in front of him, offering him the same story. Steve Laurey hadn't been given into such an emotion in a very long time.
"I will tell you this," Steve shared as he finally leaned back in his seat. It seemed he had finally accepted that there might be light at the end of the tunnel. "I know who my true friends are. They are few and far between. If there was a gun pressed to my head, I don't know that I could tell you what Derek gets out of this. He avoided me like the plague, never once offering his help. Did you know that we went to Officer Candidates School (OCS) together? He knew me. He was in a position to help, and he did absolutely nothing."
"I'm not defending anyone's actions, but there wasn't a lot that Agent Tonkel could have done for you without getting himself into hot water." The desperation that Theo had experienced during his own situation was nothing like what Steve Laurey had been through, yet there was also a reality that couldn't be ignored. "If the circumstances had been reversed, you would have trusted the system, too. Your fingerprints were all over the crime scene, your DNA was found on the victim, and there was a witness who put you in the vicinity of the murder. You can't fight hard science."
"As I testified in court, I bumped into Tanya at a bar near the base. It was in some strip mall. She was with her friends, and I was with mine. As I was leaving, I noticed that she was still in the parking lot," Steve explained, though his tone was rather monotone. The details were ingrained into him from having gone through it time and time again. Still, it never hurt to have someone else combing through the facts. "Her car wouldn't start. The battery was dead, so I hooked it up to my truck."
"Your fingerprints were foundinsideher vehicle."
Theo made a note to check the surveillance footage from the parking lot of the bar. Granted, it had already been logged into evidence, but that didn't mean there hadn't been other security cameras aimed in that direction that had never been reviewed due to the lead investigator believing his case was rock solid.
"Tanya had gone back inside to tell some of her friends who were still partying that she might need a ride. I managed to get her car started before she even returned to the parking lot," Steve responded, his gaze drifting away as he was taken back to a time that Theo was sure he'd rather forget. "I got behind the wheel, turned over the engine, and got back out. Never in a fucking million years did I ever think helping someone like that would give the prosecution enough evidence to convict me of murder."
Theo did his best to envision the scene just as Steve had described it, coming to a conclusion that might not have been looked at by his defense lawyer.
"When you got into the seat of her car, how did you touch the steering wheel?"
"What do you mean?" Steve asked, having already decided that Theo's question was ludicrous. "Are there different ways to hold a steering wheel that I don't know about? Fuck. Normal, I guess."
Theo shook his head, clarifying what he wanted to know about the fingerprints.
"Think back," Theo urged, setting down his pen to help reenact the scene. "Was Tanya's car door already opened or closed?"
"Closed."
"So, you used your left hand to lift up on the handle," Theo described, attempting to keep Steve's attention in the past. "You slide behind the steering wheel, using your left to..."
"I held the steering wheel with my left hand while I reached for the keys with my right," Steve finished describing his actions, still not seeing the significance of what Theo was suggesting. "The engine turned over, I left it idling as I got out of the car, and then I started to unhook the cables. Tanya came out shortly thereafter, and then I drove off. I was arrested the following day."
"Did you ever touch the steering wheel with your right hand?" Theo asked, wondering if that alone could speed up the process with Steve's case. Even though S&E Investigations was taking on the broader investigation, each case would have to have a valid reason for NCIS to reopen them. New evidence was the quickest way to make that happen. Thankfully, Agents Tonkel and Clemmons had already agreed on their previous investigations. "The report on the vehicle mentioned that Tanya drove a stick shift. Did you ever put your right hand on the stick?"
"No," Steve replied, his eyes widening as he straightened in his chair. "The prosecution told the jury that I followed her out of the parking lot. They claimed that I had done something to the engine for it to break down before she ever reached base, driving it to a back country road where I supposedly killed her for spurning my advances...not that I ever made a move on her. How would I have been able to drive her car without touching the stick shift?"
When cases were supposedly slam dunks, it was rare that they were torn apart in detail, especially when the defense attorney believed his client was guilty. It didn't help that Steve had stopped to help two stranded motorists that had been out of the purview of any security camera. The couple had not been able to be located by the defense team during the trial, which had only ended up being another nail in his coffin.
"I'm sure that Agent Tonkel already walked you through the theory that someone purposefully framed you and six other men for crimes that none of you committed—Bobby Anderson, Rhett Nelson, Gary Jefferson, Austin Ridley, Kyle Henry, and Tyson Jones. You, Austin Ridley, and Bobby Anderson were the only three service members, while the others were civilians. Four of the men had their apartments or vehicles broken into a few months before they had been accused of murder. Nothing seemed to be taken in all four incidents, which was why they never reported them to the police. By the time that they were on trial for murder, that was the last thing on their minds. I'm asking you, Steve. Do you recall having your truck broken into or having anything stolen from your quarters in the months before your arrest?"
Steve furrowed his brow to the point that there was barely any space between them. He'd started to shake his head long before Theo's question, but a lot had happened to the man back then. Memories could be spotty after such emotional trauma, and the weeks and months leading up to his arrest might always contain some holes in them that he would never get back.
"Too much time has passed to have any vehicles or apartments reprocessed by forensics." Theo wasn't going to let that stop him, because the evidence was technically already in the file. It just needed to have a little bit of light shined on it for the investigating officers to have reasons to reopen the cases. "Look, we're gathering evidence that the unsub invested his time in you and the others in order to take the fall for his crimes."
"I don't remember," Steven said, his previous desperation taking ahold of him once more. "I can't—"
"Don't force it." Theo closed the small notebook and clicked his pen before tucking both back into the interior pocket of his leather jacket. "I have enough to talk through with the NCIS agent who handled your case, although I'm sure that Agent Tonkel has already made contact with him. I'll follow up, and one of us will be in touch soon."
Steve nodded, tightening his grip on the black phone.
"I never thought in a million years that something like this would happen," he said, his voice practically cracking as he reined in his emotions. He then ran a hand over the stubble on top of his head. "I don't know what to say. I can't thank you enough for helping me."
"Don't thank us yet," Theo replied, having no doubt that Steve had expressed the same sentiment to Agent Tonkel. "We still have a lot of groundwork to cover, and we'll need your help. Call your lawyer, tell Dorn to reach out to the NCIS agent assigned to your case, and explain that new information has been brought to light. Let him know if you recall anything unusual that happened in the months leading up to your arrest. I'm talking about confrontations or unusual circumstances of any kind. Try to recall what you were doing prior to the case. Weeks and possibly several months prior."
