If You Really Loved Me Page 11

  Despite gossip and assumptions made by people who knew the family, there was no way to make a case against Patti Bailey.

  While Cinnamon was surrounded by strangers, she was essentially alone. She talked to the medical personnel and to Al Forgette and to her police guards—but she spoke less and less. Her world had become very small. Everything she had counted on before had vanished. She had become more of a number than a human: "Garden Grove Police Department case 85-11342, Penal Code 187."

  David Brown could not bear to be alone. He seemed to need a crowd around him twenty-four hours a day, or to be doing something all the time. He resented the police and district attorney's investigators poking into his life, and so he continued to contact anyone he could think of that the probers might seek out. He apparently needed to assess what his family, friends, and associates might say to detectives; if their recall seemed unfortunate to him, he either suggested, cajoled, or downright ordered a new version. Since most of the people in his world either admired or feared him, David was able to plug a number of worrisome leaks.

  It was not as if he had anything to hide, really; it was just that he had always detested any invasion of his privacy. He hadn't even allowed Linda to talk to her family about their personal business, he had mightily resented school officials who wanted to draw him into discussions about Cinny and Patti, and he most certainly did not want Garden Grove and Orange County snoops asking so many questions. He had suffered a tragedy, he was not a well man, and they wouldn't even let him grieve in private.

  There had been enough publicity right after the shooting to make privacy almost impossible. While David had always enjoyed being the center of attention in certain circles and reveled in his position of a much sought-after data-retrieval expert, he did not relish being recognized on the streets of Orange County.

  David didn't mind, however, being greeted at his bank— Home Savings of America, Branch #86, in Garden Grove. He was a welcome customer, keeping checking, savings, and a limited checking/savings accounts there. His checking account was always at least $100,000, far more than the bank's average depositors.

  Ellen Gilbert*, eighteen, had come to know the Browns through their many transactions at her teller's window. Ellen found David Brown's manner "charming," but privately, she thought he seemed too old to be married to Linda. Linda always came in with her husband when they banked, and Ellen grew to enjoy talking to the pregnant blond woman. She felt a little sorry for Linda though, because she seemed to have no friends or social life outside her immediate family. Linda talked with Ellen as if she were starved for friendship.

  Linda's world seemed narrow to the young bank teller. All she did was follow her husband around.

  Although the Browns maintained three accounts at the bank, almost all their transactions were done with cash. Once, when Ellen asked David what his business was, he explained that he recovered data from damaged computers for large firms and for the United States government, confiding, "I'm the only one in America who can provide this service."

  In fact, David said his business was doing so well that he needed more help. "You should quit Home Savings and come to work for me," he offered.

  She demurred.

  From time to time, other family members came in with the Browns in the almost daily banking: Alan Bailey and Patti Bailey and sometimes an older couple that Ellen thought were David's parents.

  After Krystal was born in July 1984, Ellen left her post at the bank for a moment to see the new arrival in her car bed in David's van. Linda seemed very happy, and the marriage stronger than ever.

  When the bank manager announced the tragedy to all employees on March 19, Ellen Gilbert was shocked speechless. She cried for her friend who had seemed to live such a dull, subservient life, who only came alive with her delight at her new baby. She had been so happy to have Krystal, and so proud. Now, she would never have a chance to break free and be young. Never have a chance to see her baby grow up.

  Ellen was surprised to see David himself come into the bank that very day. He explained that the automatic teller machine wasn't working and that he needed cash to pay for Linda's funeral services. He returned later to make another withdrawal. "He looked like he was carved of stone," Ellen remembered. "There were tears in his eyes though."

  Ellen offered to take care of Krystal during the funeral services, but then her own grandmother died suddenly that same day, and she had to renege. She sent a sympathy card to the Brown family.

  As spring gave way to summer, David was in the Home Savings bank often. He always asked for Ellen and waited until she was free to handle his banking.

  Despite his personal tragedy, his financial picture grew brighter than ever. David Brown deposited several insurance checks, and one was for a large amount, somewhere well over $200,000—closer to $350,000.

  Curious that Linda Brown, a housewife, had been insured for so much, Ellen asked David why that should be. David answered that Linda had known all about his data recovery business, and she had been essential to it. The insurance was to help him rebuild his staff. He would have to find several people to replace Linda. Even so, he would never be able to find anyone as brilliant.

  Ellen had always found Linda sweet—and friendly. But she would never have called her "brilliant" or pictured her as the indispensable person in a sophisticated computer firm.

  David was seldom alone when he came into the bank. Patti Bailey was usually with him—just as Linda had once followed quietly behind him. Patti cashed checks each week, checks signed by David in amounts ranging from $300 to $500.

  Her younger sister resembled the dead woman so much it was spooky. Moreover, Ellen noticed that Patti was wearing clothes and jewelry that she had once seen on Linda. Patti carried Linda's baby as if it were her baby.

  It was almost as if Linda had never existed at all.

  Despite Patti's omnipresence, the bank teller was startled to realize that David Brown's attitude toward her was changing. He began to speak to Ellen in a more familiar— somehow intimate—manner. Incredulous, Ellen realized that the tubby little man who looked old enough to be her father was "coming on" to her. He even asked her to come to his home at night and visit—and she quickly refused.

  She was vastly relieved when Brown moved from Garden Grove and seldom visited her bank branch anymore. Nevertheless, she ducked out of sight every time he did come in, and she asked other tellers to handle his cash transactions.

  Much of the private speculation about David Brown would not reach the ears of either the Garden Grove police or the Orange County District Attorney's Office for a long time. David Brown frightened some people, and he convinced others that they were only imagining demons where there were none. All in all, there was a reluctance to become involved in his life.

  David and Patti and the baby packed up and left Ocean Breeze Drive. David's pattern of living only a short time in one spot continued. The first move was to a rental house at 2041 Breckenridge in Orange. It sat on a one-block street, a hundred yards from the freeway, a nice little house, shrouded by shrubs and trees just as David's last house had been. They would not live there long.

  10

  Even though the very detectives who were gathering evidence and witnesses against Cinnamon Brown all felt "hinky" about the case—nagged by a chill presentiment that they were hunting down a rabbit when a coyote lurked nearby—they knew their jobs were never meant to be ruled by feelings.

  They had virtually nothing tangible that might lead them anywhere but to Cinnamon Brown as the killer of Linda Marie Brown.

  There was one element, however, that seemed curious. Antimony is the primer used in the cartridge of a bullet. When a gun is fired, the nitrocellulose that creates the accompanying gases also releases the component of the primer; 90 to 100 percent of it exits the muzzle. Linda Brown, for instance, had significant deposits of antimony on her hands. That was to be expected; she took the full blasts from the muzzle of the gun. A small percentage of antimony may escape
through the mechanical openings of the gun. If it does, it is deposited on the shooter's hands.

  There are two tests criminalists use to determine the presence of antimony, barium, and lead, both with names so esoteric that they boggle the layman's mind: "atomic absorption test" and the "scanning electron microscopy examination" (SCMEDX). To do a proper test for antimony, two tests must be done in sequence—tape lifts first, and then swabbing. Sgt. John Woods and Crime Scene Investigator Bill Morrissey had correctly performed the tests on the living subjects—David Brown, Patti Bailey, and Cinnamon Brown. GSR tests had proved positive for the presence of antimony (albeit at low levels) on both David Brown and Patti Bailey, and negative on Cinnamon.

  But any criminalist who knew his stuff could explain that away in a courtroom. Cinnamon had lain all night in vomit and urine; any gunshot residue on her hands would have been obliterated. Patti didn't remember handling the gun that Cinnamon held out to her for instructions, but she might have forgotten touching it in the shock of the aftermath. Beyond that, other activities—even smoking a cigarette—can leave traces of antimony.

  It was not enough to outweigh a detailed confession. And Cinnamon had confessed to Fred McLean and Pam French. Indeed, there was even a written confession, her suicide note, quite literally tied up with a ribbon bow.

  Orange County deputy district attorney Mike Maguire took over the prosecution of Cinnamon Brown—with Jay Newell assisting as his investigator. For Newell, this would be only one case among many; he would do his usual thorough job of investigation, then move on to the next homicide.

  Cinnamon's trial was to be in Central Court—Orange County's courthouse in Santa Ana. Building 30 in the new complex on Flower and Civic Center Drive is a mini-skyscraper of a courthouse. Palm trees and a cascade of Pfitzer's juniper crowd close to the circular driveway off Civic Center Drive. Beyond that, those who have business in the courthouse approach the building along the shaded walkway leading to the main entrance. The shallow reflecting pool to the left of the walk, only inches deep, affords the illusion of coolness—even when the baking Santa Ana winds blow in.

  Only those who know the Orange County Courthouse intimately are aware of the hidden little jungle that flourishes there. Outside the ground floor of the DA's office, wild rabbits skitter through the underbrush. Feral cats and their kittens exist there too. Although the former sometimes fall victim to the latter, most of the creatures do very nicely with handouts from soft-hearted courthouse employees and food tossed aside by litterers.

  Cinnamon would be tried in Judge Robert Fitzgerald's Superior Courtroom—not as an adult, but as a juvenile. The State of California v. Cinnamon Dartene Brown, Case Number J-123914. She had no true sense of what was happening; she still expected to go home.

  And perhaps she would. The prosecution's case against Cinnamon Brown received a seemingly fatal blow when Al Forgette's motion to have Cinnamon's confessions to police officers thrown out received a favorable ruling. Forgette argued that Cinnamon had been under the influence of painkillers and other medications when she talked so freely to Fred McLean in the Garden Grove Police Department, and later, to Officer Pam French in the ambulance. Since Cinnamon, lapsed into near-unconsciousness before McLean's interrogation could be completed and had to be rushed to the hospital, Forgette thought her condition spoke for itself.

  So there it was. The only real suspect in Linda Brown's murder had, in the eyes of the law, made no confession. There was no physical evidence linking Cinnamon irrevocably to the shooting, and no eyewitness. Cinnamon was very close to walking away free.

  Jay Newell went over and over the case file, looking for some crack in the defense's armor. And yet even as he worked, he felt ambivalent. He suspected that their investigation had only scraped away the patina of the real case that existed beneath—impenetrable from every angle they had tried so far. Until he could find the key to the case within the case, he knew he had to move ahead with his support of the prosecution of the visible case. And that meant convicting Cinnamon. If Cinnamon Brown should be acquitted, she would undoubtedly go back into her father's home.

  Jay Newell did not want that to happen. Something was wrong—but he could not put into words just what it was.

  Newell hunched over the medical records from the Garden Grove Medical Center and then from the University of California Medical Center-Irvine: the classic doctors' scribbles, so consistently illegible that he figured it had to be a black art taught in med school—symbols, medications, times, dates, temperatures, fluids in and fluids out. His eyes blurred as he tried to make sense of it.

  He could see that Cinnamon Brown had been one sick kid, and that she had been given more stuff to swallow and inhale that made her—at least initially—sicker. As he turned the pages of medical gobbledygook, he saw that she had improved steadily.

  Newell set aside the Garden Grove Medical Center records and turned to those from UCI. As he read down the shiny copier paper, he suddenly came across sections that he could easily read. Precise notes in a careful hand. The notes reproduced almost word for word the confession Cinnamon Brown had given to Fred McLean. Odd. Newell wondered how part of a confidential police file could end up in medical records.

  He turned the page curiously and saw the initials "K.H." at the bottom of the first entry detailing Cinnamon's statements. And Jay Newell realized to his growing fascination that this was not the actual confession Cinnamon had given to McLean—this was original with the writer. He looked further into the records, found more revelations from Cinnamon to "K.H.," and finally, the name Kimberly Hicks.

  Kimberly Hicks, whoever she was, might just have pulled the State's case out of oblivion.

  Newell went to the University of California Medical Center and asked to talk to Kimberly "Kim" Hicks. He found that she was a third-year medical student who had spent a good deal of time with Cinnamon Brown in the custodial ward of the facility. Kim Hicks was on call during the night shift when Cinnamon Brown was transferred in. Cinnamon Brown had needed to talk—and Kim had been there to listen.

  When Newell talked to the med student, she explained that she tried to be careful in keeping up the medical history on her patients. If it was her turn to "present" to the attending physician, she wanted to be as accurate and thorough as she could. And part of her evaluation would be based on how well she kept up her charts. Then again, Cinnamon Brown's case was fascinating both as a medical management problem and as a psychological study.

  Kim Hicks had listened as Cinnamon talked, but she had been cautious not to inject her own opinions. And then, along with notes on Cinnamon's medical progress, Kim had written down Cinnamon's confession to murder.

  The prosecution had its case back.

  Cinnamon had her fifteenth birthday in Juvenile Hall on July 3, 1985. Her trial for first-degree murder began on August 7.

  Cinnamon had not been home for a long time, not since Fred McLean led her out of the doghouse in that March dawn five months before. She wasn't sure where her father and the baby were living now. She figured probably Patti had gone home to the Bailey family in Riverside.

  Cinnamon knew nothing of all the changes that had taken place. She missed Krystal, and she was disappointed that she hadn't gotten to see the baby take her first steps. She missed going to the beach and watching the surfers. She missed listening to New Wave music. Only last July, the worst trouble she had gotten into was ditching summer school to run away to the beach.

  She missed her mom and Krista Taber. She missed Linda, and then remembered they kept telling her that Linda was dead. That didn't seem real. She missed her dad, and she didn't understand why he couldn't come to see her more often.

  Cinnamon didn't know that Patti was still with David and the baby, and that Linda's memory was steadily being erased—no, not erased, supplanted. Cinnamon didn't know that Patti had carefully taken all of Linda's pictures out of their frames . . . and replaced them with her own likeness.

  Jay Newell hurried to Deputy DA M
ike Maguire to let him know that they might have something up their legal sleeves. Even though Cinnamon's original confessions were now excluded, he had a witness for Maguire: Kim Hicks.

  All California juvenile trials are held before a judge, without a jury. Judge Fitzgerald would decide if Cinnamon was guilty or innocent. If she should be deemed responsible for her stepmother's death, Al Forgette was prepared to argue that Cinnamon had not been mentally competent at the time of the "incident." Forgette, aware that Kim Hicks was waiting in the wings to repeat Cinnamon's confession, had little choice. Cinnamon faced Judge Fitzgerald with a plea of not guilty to a charge of murder by reason of insanity. She still insisted she had a complete loss of memory for that period in March when Linda had died.

  Forgette requested a closed courtroom. Motion denied.

  Neither Forgette nor Mike Maguire made an opening statement.

  Maguire called his first witness against Cinnamon—Patti Bailey. Cinnamon seemed stunned, confused. This was the girl who had been her "sister."

  Patti described Cinnamon as her niece—which, technically, she was. She identified Cinnamon as "the girl in the light blue shirt" sitting at the defense table and recounted the "misunderstandings" Cinny had had with Linda over chores. These, Patti testified, had progressed to "arguments. When there were arguments, I usually left the room because I didn't feel I had a right to be there."

  Patti was soft-spoken, almost demure. She had difficulty understanding big words and often asked Maguire to rephrase his questions, saying, "I don't understand what that means."

  So far, Patti wasn't a damning witness. She identified Cinnamon's printing, and her own, from letters and poems in evidence.

  Maguiare moved on to March 19, 1985. Patti Bailey said she remembered that day dimly. But as Maguire questioned her, she seemed to have most precise recall. Her recital of the events of the murder night was the same as she had told detectives. She spoke in a soft voice and trembled noticeably.