I’d been wondering about it since seeing the Acura in the garage.
Cory and Dr. Tanaka left without explaining the doctor’s odd errand, and I didn’t inquire. I took it as a matter of pride not to ask questions that weren’t going to be answered. There was no point in pretending that I was in control.
31
The next day, a little after lunch, Cory asked me if I was up for another ride into the city. It wasn’t a question, though—another interview awaited. What more can these guys need to ask me? I’d been interviewed by everyone but Parks and Recreation.
All my previous interviews had taken place at the FBI field office on Wilshire, the FBI apparently having taken point on the Eastman-Stepakoff murders. This time the travelogue was different. Cory drove us across the mostly dry L.A. River and across Alameda Street, and then I saw the buildings of the Civic Center rising before us: the County Courthouse, the Hall of Justice, and all its satellite buildings.
Cory’s Crown Vic descended into a deep subterranean parking garage, and then we rode the elevators up into a warren of hallways and plate glass. I was still following my policy of not asking questions that wouldn’t be answered. The last clock that I passed on the way into yet another interrogation room read 2:35 P.M. I’d learned to catch a glimpse of the time whenever possible, then try to gauge how long I was left waiting in the interrogation room. It was never a short time.
Cory apologized for handcuffing me to the D-ring of the table; he felt sheepish about it because I’d never offered him any resistance. Then the door closed behind him and the wait began. Bored and resentful, I distracted myself by trying to remember some of the Latin passages I’d memorized years ago as a student, Virgil and Terence and others.
I was on the creation story as translated by Jerome—“In principio creavit Deus caelum et terram”—when the door opened and someone came in. Don’t ask me how I knew: I just knew, even before he gave me a voice to recognize. If you passed him on the street, he wouldn’t really stand out, Joel had said. I wasn’t sure I agreed.
Magnus Ford was quite big, well over six feet, with ash-blond hair cropped almost to his scalp, maybe two days’ growth of beard, eyes of an indeterminate color. He was strong-looking in a stocky way but moved lightly, with an air of stillness, even in motion.
“Mr. Ford,” I said.
“Hailey.” He pulled out the interviewer’s chair from its place up against the table and sat down.
He wore mostly standard detective wear: shirt and tie, creased trousers, loafers. Instead of a blazer, he wore a dark leather coat that came to midthigh. It was the only touch of flash in his wardrobe, and made it hard to tell what of his bulky upper body was muscle and what was fat. And even the coat was standard department-store stuff, nothing custom that suggested a cop on the take.
He said, “The first thing is, you’ve been exonerated, whether or not the charges stick to Brittany Mercier.”
“How?” I said.
“There’s bank video of her cashing one of the checks she forged on Eastman’s account. She’s wearing a cap and keeping her face away from the camera, but you can see that she has all ten fingers. She didn’t know enough about you to hide that.”
“That’s why they sent the doc yesterday, to gauge how old my injury was.”
“Yes.”
“And Brittany’s been charged with the murders.”
“Yes. You should know, there’s an outside chance that she won’t be convicted. A good defense lawyer is going to exploit all the maybes, and the psychologist who’s been in the observation room during several of the interrogations is saying that he thinks Brittany might never recant her story of being set up. She’s a pathological liar, and the strength of those people is that on some level they convince themselves of what they’re saying. She’s young, very convincing in her own defense, very hurt and confused that nobody believes her. A hung jury is a possibility here. I’m telling you this because I know that having someone else found guilty was important to you, that you saw it as necessary to clearing your name.”
“I did what I could.”
“You did. And it’s possible that the jury won’t hang. We’ll wait and see.”
“But I’m free to go.”
“Not exactly,” he said. “There’s still the matter of a couple of truck hijackings out in the desert,