Jennifer’s eyelids fluttered at him.
‘What… what is happening?’
Russell rotated his head clockwise, then counterclockwise, trying to do away with the tension in his neck muscles. ‘You’re falling asleep.’
To Jennifer, his voice sounded different.
He pulled open the truck’s back cabin door.
‘I don’t und—’
Before she could finish her sentence, Jennifer lost consciousness.
Russell grabbed her to break her fall and very quickly placed her on the back seat.
‘I’ll be dipped in shit!’ he said to himself with a proud nod. ‘That was just the perfect dosage.’
Twenty-Seven
Garcia paused at Hunter’s words, frowned, then walked back to his desk to search for Terry Wilford’s LAPD suicide incident report.
‘It’s not in there,’ Hunter said.
‘What?’ Captain Blake’s attention went from Hunter to Garcia, her palms facing up. ‘How is it that an eyewitness’s testimony saying that he’d just seen someone beingthrown from a bridgeisn’t in the incident report?’
Garcia quickly skimmed through the file before handing it to his captain. There really was no mention of any of it.
‘Because Randy Douglas never told the officer who questioned him that night,’ Hunter replied, matter-of-factly, rounding his desk and taking a seat behind his computer. In his captain’s eyes, he saw doubt and concern collide with each other.
‘Luis Toledo convinced him not to,’ Hunter explained. ‘And it’s easy to see why.’
‘Oh, is it?’ the captain asked. ‘So please, help a blind woman here, because I can’t see why at all.’
Hunter sat back on his chair. ‘All you have to do is picture the scene – Luis Toledo and Randy Douglas are working away, mopping the concrete channel, chatting about last night’s game or whatever, when one of them spots something up on the 7th Street Bridge, just ahead of them. Now let me point out that they areabout seventy yards out, it’s dark, and what they’re witnessing is conveniently happening under the only lamppost up on the bridge that seems to be busted. It takes them a second to realize that what they are actually looking at is a jumper. Panic mode sort of kicks in and Mr. Toledo does what most of us would’ve done – he takes off toward the bridge to try to stop what’s about to happen. Mr. Douglas is just about to do the same when something else up on the bridge catches his eye, just as Terry Wilford is “allegedly” leaping off the edge. So he pauses.’
‘He sees someone else up on the bridge,’ Garcia deducts. ‘Just behind the jumper.’
Hunter points at his partner. ‘That’s what it looks like, but he can’t be sure. So he stands still for an extra couple of seconds or so, trying…’ Hunter lifted his index finger to highlight his point ‘…through the darkness, and somewhere in between shock and panic, to make out something that is seventy yards ahead of him. Meanwhile, Terry hits the ground… hard.’ He clapped to emphasize the sound of the impact. ‘Mr. Douglas hesitates for an extra second or two before he too does the inevitable and rushes toward the bridge. When he gets there, panic hits full-advance mode because they are both now staring at a total mess of broken bones and torn flesh, not to mention the blood.’
‘So one of them calls the cops,’ Garcia said, nodding at the report in the captain’s hands.
‘Luis Toledo,’ she said, reading from the file.
Hunter got back on his feet and re-approached the board. ‘While they’re waiting for the ambulance and the LAPD – both of them in a pretty freaked-out state because you don’t see something like that every day – Randy Douglas tries to tell Luis Toledo what hethinkshe saw up on the bridge. Not just someone else with Terry Wilford – someone else pushing or throwing him off the bridge.’
Captain Blake breathed out in frustration. The rest was pretty self-explanatory.
‘Even if Randy Douglas had told the attending officer what he saw that night,’ Hunter continued, ‘his partner, Luis Toledo, wouldn’t be able to confirm it because he didn’t see it. That would’ve immediately caused the officer to doubt Randy Douglas’s testimony. It was dark, he was about seventy yards away, and he would’ve had about three to four seconds, tops, before Terry Wilford’s body hit the concrete and desperation mode took hold. Even if he did see someone else up on the bridge with Mr. Wilford, the darkness, the distance, the panic… all of it would’ve contributed to a veryunclearpicture. Who could really say that that second person wasn’t trying to stop Terry Wilford from jumping? That person could’ve been moving toward Mr. Wilford to try to save him… grab hold of him or something… when Mr. Wilford stepped off the edge.’ Hunter shrugged. ‘From a distance and in the dark, it could’ve looked like that second person had pushed Terry Wilford, instead.’ He paused to allow all that to sink in for a second. ‘These are all facts that Luis Toledo pointed out when Randy Douglas told him what he saw.’
‘The attending officer would’ve done the same,’ Captain Blake agreed, now fully onboard with Hunter. ‘It was a clear suicide scenario. Escalating it to a homicide would’ve meant at least double the work for everyone and, apart from Mr. Douglas’s very skittish testimony, that officer would’ve had no real reason to suspect foul play and get homicide involved.’ She shook her head. ‘There’s reasonable doubt all over that story.’
‘And that’s why there’s no mention of any of it in the incident report,’ Hunter confirmed.
‘OK,’ Captain Blake agreed, once again pinning Hunter down with magnified eyes. ‘But if his partner dissuaded him from telling the attending officer that night his version of events, how comehe decided to tell you today? He surely knew that you could’ve discredited his story in twenty seconds flat.’
‘Repressed guilt,’ Hunter explained. ‘Randy Douglas told me that he just couldn’t get the images from that night out of his head.’
‘Understandable,’ Garcia commented.
