“I’ll call you.”
Max would be here first thing Monday morning if she couldn’t track down the detective on her own. She wasn’t going to rely on the PIO to make contact.
A young plainclothes assistant came out and handed Corbett a file.
“What do I owe you?” Max asked, pulling out her wallet.
“Seventy-five cents.”
Max fished out three quarters from her wallet and took the papers. As she was thanking Corbett for her time, the door leading from the squad room opened. A squat detective emerged and glared at Max with small, hate-filled eyes.
“I didn’t believe you’d actually show up here.”
Though Detective Harry Beck had more weight and less hair than when he’d taken the stand during Kevin’s trial, Max recognized him immediately. Then he’d intimidated her with his blunt hatred of Kevin and disdain for her—because she’d taken the stand as a character witness. Today, he didn’t have the same effect. She’d met cops like Harry Beck in virtually every jurisdiction she’d investigated a case. However, Beck could be a problem in her getting information from the department.
“Nice to see you again, Detective.”
He snorted. “What does she want?” he asked Corbett as if Max had already left.
Corbett was slow on the uptake, watching the exchange. Max answered the question instead. “Kevin O’Neal’s death investigation report.”
Beck’s face darkened. “The fucker killed himself. I wish he’d done it thirteen years ago and saved the state a ton of money, but he should never have walked free to begin with.”
Max had many things she wanted to say to the bastard, but she fought her temper and said to the PIO, “Thank you for your time, Officer Corbett.”
She wanted to leave before a confrontation, but Beck wouldn’t let it go.
“You’re not here to dredge up shit? Of course you are,” he answered his own question. “That’s what you are. A shit disturber. I swear to you, Maxine, if you cause any grief for the Ames family, I’ll arrest you. Your privileged ass wouldn’t last a night in prison.”
Max bit her tongue. She wanted to lash out at the brash detective, but she understood the consequences. In her early career, she hadn’t always been so controlled. She’d spent several nights in jail over the years for butting heads with the wrong cop. She survived the ordeals quite well—even wrote an award-winning article about the rights of reporters to protect their sources.
Harry Beck was definitely the wrong cop.
Using all her well-earned—and well-learned—self-control, Max walked out, catching only part of Corbett’s comment before the door shut.
“Why are you giving her ammo—”
Max could predict the conversation. Corbett was young; she hadn’t been with the Menlo Park Police Department thirteen years ago when they caught the murder investigation of Lindy Ames in neighboring Atherton. Corbett may know who the Revere family was; she may in fact know that Max was an investigative crime journalist. But she likely didn’t know that Max had been friends with both the victim and the number one suspect—the only suspect—in Lindy’s murder.
Beck would be giving her an earful. And she would take it and either be so intimidated by Beck and his threats that she wouldn’t lift a finger to help Max, or she’d be ticked off that he yelled at her and go out of her way to help Max.
Max, of course, hoped for the latter.
She sat in her rental car, under a magnolia tree, and calmed down. She may have walked out without reacting to Beck, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t affected her.
Harry Beck had been in his late thirties when he was the lead detective on Lindy’s murder. He’d interviewed all her peers, her family, and Kevin. He’d been the one who arrested Kevin and had been one hundred percent confident of his guilt.
Years of experience and meeting hundreds of law enforcement officers in jurisdictions big and small taught Max that when a cop was absolutely confident in his assessment, one of two things happened: he either set out to prove that his theory was right by working evidence that would incriminate his key suspect or he set out to disprove his theory by looking at the case as if the lead suspect were innocent.
Cops didn’t have to believe people were innocent until proven guilty, and rarely did they. Threatened, spit upon, shot at, and dealing with the worst end of the human spectrum, cops were usually jaded. But even the jaded cops, if they were good, focused on dispelling all other scenarios in order to nail their suspect. They didn’t dismiss evidence because it didn’t fit their theory.
Max couldn’t say what Beck did or didn’t do; all she’d seen were his actions toward Kevin. Then after the trial, when she’d told him about Kevin’s true alibi, he’d said unspeakable things. And he’d said ultimately that he didn’t care if there was any evidence that suggested Kevin might be innocent—in Beck’s pea-sized brain, he knew with certainty that Kevin was a killer.
She should pull the transcripts of the trial and—
No.
She wasn’t here to investigate Lindy’s murder. She was here to satisfy Jodi that her brother had killed himself.
She opened the envelope Officer Corbett had given her and read the incident report.
The first two pages were identical to what Jodi had previously sent. Officers Blankenship and Lake were the first responders to the 911 call from Kevin’s apartment manager. His alarm clock was going off and disturbing a neighbor. When the manager, Anita Gonzales, couldn’t reach Kevin by phone or knocking, she’d let herself in and found his body in the bathroom.