Fair Warning (Jack McEvoy #3)(52)
“That’s a deal,” I said.
23
I got to Mistral early and grabbed the same stool where I had sat the evening before. I put my backpack on the stool next to me to save it for Rachel and after an exchange of bonsoirs with Elle, I ordered a Stella, deciding to go with a lower octane this night. I put my phone on the bar and saw that I had just gotten a pair of texts from Deep Throat. I opened them up and found two attachments. One was marked “DNA” and the other “Transcript.”
I opened the first and saw that my secret source had sent photos of the pages of a document. I quickly determined that it was the four-year-old DNA analysis report from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department forensics lab that found no match between William Orton’s DNA sample and the DNA collected from Jessica Kelley. I scanned the report and realized that I would need a geneticist to translate what the bar chart, percentages, and abbreviations all meant. But the summary was clear: the saliva sample swabbed from the victim’s nipples after her assault did not belong to William Orton.
The attachment that came in the second text was a transcript of a very short interview with Orton conducted by Detective Digoberto Ruiz. It was five pages long and once again the attachment was composed of photos of the hard-copy pages.
I forwarded both attachments to myself on email, then pulled out my laptop so I could download them and see them on a bigger screen. Mistral didn’t offer its customers Wi-Fi service, so I had to use my cell as a hotspot connection. While I waited for everything to boot up and connect I thought about the sender of the texts. I had asked Ruiz for the DNA report, not the attorney Hervé Gaspar. I was shifting my suspicions about Deep Throat and now was thinking it was the police detective. Of course, Gaspar could have acquired the DNA report and interview transcript in the course of preparing a lawsuit against Orton, but the fact that the attachments were photographs of documents led me in the direction of Ruiz. Sending photographs instead of scans or real documents gave him an extra measure of protection against being identified as my source should there ever be an internal investigation. Office scanners and copiers kept digital memories.
My conclusion was further muddled when I was finally able to open the interview transcript on my laptop. I noticed that the document had several short redactions and was able to determine from context that the victim’s name had been removed. This was puzzling since Deep Throat had already provided me with the victim’s name. Had he forgotten?
Putting the question aside, I proceeded to read the entire interview. It was essentially five pages of denial from Orton. He did not assault the victim, he did not know the victim outside the one class he had with her, and he had not been with the victim. When Ruiz started walking him through the night in question in detail, Orton shut it down and asked for a lawyer. The transcript ended there.
I closed my computer and put it away. I thought about the transcript. Aside from the redactions, there were also sections of Orton’s answers highlighted in yellow. Wanting to keep the digital conversation with Deep Throat going, I used this as a reason to text him again and ask what the highlights meant. His response came quickly but indicated that Deep Throat was not as interested in conversation as I was.
Checkable facts
That was all he said, but it was enough to further convince me that my source was Detective Ruiz. Checkable facts was a detective’s term. An interview with a suspect in a crime is choreographed to draw answers that can be confirmed or disputed through witnesses, video, digital trails, cell-phone triangulations, GPS navigation systems, and other means. This interview was no different, and someone—presumably Ruiz—had highlighted the things Orton had said that could be proved or disproved.
Of course, I had not gotten the follow-up reports on these checkable facts, so the interview transcript only served to intrigue me. I wanted more. Had Ruiz proved or disproved Orton’s claim to have been somewhere else entirely on the night Jessica Kelley was assaulted? Had he proved or disproved his claim that he was the victim of a smear campaign at UCI organized by another professor who was vindictive because of a dispute over tenure?
I was about to compose another text to Deep Throat saying I needed more information when Rachel slipped onto the stool next to me, not the one I’d been saving with my backpack.
“What’s that?” she asked by way of a greeting.
“I’ve been getting texts from somebody I think is the cop on the Orton case,” I said. “I talked to him today and he wouldn’t tell me anything. But then I started getting these tips. This is a transcript of a short interview he had with Orton before he lawyered up. He denied everything but put a few things on record that they could check. I was about to text and ask if he did.”
“A transcript? That sounds like a lawyer.”
“Well, it could be. I talked to the victim’s lawyer too. He said he and his client couldn’t talk because of an NDA. But I think it’s the cop. He also sent the DNA-analysis report that cleared Orton. I don’t know if anybody would have had that but Ruiz.”
“The prosecutor who dropped the case probably had it. And he or she could have given it to the victim’s lawyer.”
“True. Maybe I should just ask Deep Throat point-blank who he is.”
“Deep Throat. Cute.”
I looked away from my phone to Rachel.
“By the way, hello,” I said.