False Accusations

  FALSE ACCUSATIONS

  Copyright © 1999, 2011 by Alan Jacobson

  ISBN: 978-0-9832929-5-1 (eBook)

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  POCKET BOOKS

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  Vernon Geberth quote used by permission of the publisher, CRC Press. Vernon J. Geberth, Practical Homicide Investigation, Second Edition, Copyright 1994 by CRC Press, Inc., Boca Raton, Florida. Reproduced by permission of publisher.

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owners and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  THE NOVELS OF ALAN JACOBSON

  Alan Jacobson has established a reputation as one of the most insightful suspense and thriller writers of our time. His exhaustive research, coupled with years of unprecedented access to law enforcement agencies, including the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit, bring realism and unique characters to his pages. Following are his current, and coming, releases.

  False Accusations

  Dr. Phillip Madison has everything: wealth, power, and an impeccable reputation. But in the pre-dawn hours of a quiet California suburb, the revered orthopedic surgeon is charged with double homicide—a cold blooded hit-and-run that has left an innocent young couple dead. Blood evidence has brought the police to his door. An eyewitness has placed him at the crime scene...and Madison has no alibi. With his family torn apart, his career forever damaged, no way to prove his innocence and facing life in prison, Madison hires an investigator to find the person who has engineered the case against him. False Accusations is a psychological thriller that instantly became a National Bestseller and launched Alan Jacobson’s career, a novel that spurred CNN to call him, “One of the brightest stars in the publishing industry.” Learn more about False Accusations.

  The Hunted

  How well do you know the one you love? Lauren Chambers’ husband Michael disappears while on a ski trip—but as she searches for him, she discovers Michael’s hidden past involving the FBI, international assassins—and government secrets that some will go to great lengths to keep hidden. As The Hunted hurtles toward a conclusion mined with turn-on-a-dime twists, no one is who he appears to be and nothing is as it seems. The Hunted introduces the dynamic Department of Defense covert operative Hector DeSantos and FBI Director Douglas Knox, characters who return in Velocity, Hard Target, and future Alan Jacobson novels. Learn more about The Hunted.

  The 7th Victim

  What reader wouldn’t like a character who is tough, smart, funny, very believable, and compelling? That’s how literary giants Nelson DeMille and James Patterson describe Karen Vail, the first female FBI profiler. Vail, with a dry sense of humor and a closet full of skeletons, heads up a task force to find the Dead Eyes Killer, who is murdering young women in the Virginia/Washington, D.C. region—the backyard of the famed FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit. Named one of the Top 5 Best Books of the Year (Library Journal), The 7th Victim is a psychological suspense thriller that packs a powerful ending no reader will see coming. Learn more about The 7th Victim.

  Crush

  FBI Profiler Karen Vail travels to the Napa Valley for a vacation—but the Crush Killer has other plans. Vail and Inspector Roxxann Dixon lead a task force to find the architect of death who leaves his victims in exclusive wine caves and vineyards. Crush is not only a twisting and compelling read, but it brings the wine country to life in a story that Publishers Weekly describes as “addicting” and New York Times bestselling author Steve Martini calls a thriller that’s “Crisply written and meticulously researched,” and which “rocks from the opening page to the jarring conclusion.” Learn more about Crush.

  Velocity

  A missing detective. A bold serial killer. And evidence that makes FBI Profiler Karen Vail question the loyalty of those she has entrusted her life to. Squaring off against foes more dangerous than any she has yet encountered, shocking personal and professional truths emerge—truths that may just be more than Vail can handle. Velocity was named to The Strand magazine’s Top 10 Best Books for 2010, Suspense Magazine’s Top 4 Best Thrillers of 2010, Library Journal’s Top 5 Best Books of the Year, and the Los Angeles Times’ top picks of the year. Michael Connelly said Velocity is “As relentless as a bullet. Karen Vail is my kind of hero and Alan Jacobson is my kind of writer!” Learn more about Velocity.

  Inmate 1577

  When an elderly woman is found raped and brutally murdered, Karen Vail heads west to team up with Inspector Lance Burden and Detective Roxxann Dixon. As they follow the killer’s trail in and around San Francisco, the offender leaves behind clues that ultimately lead them to the most unlikely of places, a mysterious island ripped from city lore whose long-buried, decades-old secrets hold the key to their case: Alcatraz. The Rock. It’s a case that has more twists and turns than the famed Lombard Street. The legendary Clive Cussler called Inmate 1577 “a powerful thriller, brilliantly conceived and written.” Learn more about Inmate 1577.

  Hard Target

  (late 2011)

  An explosion pulverizes the president-elect's helicopter on Election Night. It soon becomes clear that the group behind the assassination possesses far greater reach than anything the FBI has yet encountered—and a plot so deeply interwoven in the country’s fabric that it threatens to upend America's political system. But as covert operative Hector DeSantos and FBI Agent Aaron “Uzi” Uziel sort out who is behind the bombings, Uzi’s personal demons not only jeopardize the investigation but may sit at the heart of a tangle of lies that threaten to trigger an international terrorist attack. Hailed by political thriller master Vince Flynn as “a smart, complex novel that explodes from the page," and by Lee Child as “a great thriller” that’s “fast, hard, and intelligent,” Hard Target is a ticking time bomb that makes you think while keeping you clinging to the edge of your seat. Learn more about Hard Target.

  For a peek at recently released and new, soon-to-be released Alan Jacobson novels, go to www.alanjacobson.com/books.html.

   

  For my parents, Florence and David, who provided me with the persistence and fortitude necessary in undertaking anything worth accomplishing in life.

  CONTENTS

  1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69 | 70 | 71

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  Special Series Preview

  Acknowledgments

  The homicide crime scene is, without a doubt, the most important crime scene a police officer or investigator will be called upon to respond to. Because of the nature of the crime (death by violence or unnatural causes), the answer to “What has occurred?” can only be dete
rmined after a careful and intelligent examination of the crime scene and after the professional and medical evaluation of the various bits and pieces of evidence gathered by the criminal investigator. The crime scene...provides an abundance of physical evidence that may connect a suspect or suspects to the crime.

  —From Vernon Geberth

  Practical Homicide Investigation

  CHAPTER 1

  December 1

  11:26 P.M.

  Del Morro Heights

  Sacramento, California

  THE DARK BLUE car snaked around the curve, its headlights slicing like razors through the dead air. It slithered through the neighborhood, hunting for food, sniffing out its prey. With one punch, the large engine muscled up from thirty-five to sixty in less than three seconds, its hunger for speed ravenous.

  The man crossing the street caught a glimpse of the looming vehicle and twisted backward, shoving his companion toward the sidewalk—

  But there wasn’t time.

  The car’s bone-crushing impact threw the woman onto its hood, then tossed her aside...while the engine yanked the man underneath its front end, swallowing him whole.

  The dark vehicle lurched slightly as its tire ran over the fallen prey. It then sped off down the street, hung a sharp left, and slipped into the pitch of night.

  11:59 P.M.

  The man’s torso was twisted, his head a bloody mess, with bits of brain tissue scattered around his crushed skull. The woman’s body was much more intact, having slid off the side of the car’s hood after being thrown up into the air by the initial impact. Her legs appeared to be broken and were bent into an unnatural position, the way a rag doll sometimes lands when a child tosses it aside after she has finished playing with it.

  Most of the available officers in the City of Sacramento that night had been diverted to the minority neighborhood of Del Morro Heights to contain an escalating battle sparked by a broad crackdown on gang-related activities. When the call came in to investigate the discovery of a possible hit-and-run several blocks away, the two officers who responded anticipated more of the same, an offshoot of the hostilities.

  But they were wrong.

  Officer Larry Sanford slammed his car door and ran over to the woman, who was lying face up in the street; the other victim was obviously deceased. Both were black. Sanford pulled a hand out of his leather glove and felt her neck for a pulse. “Shit,” he said, the vapor that emanated from his mouth tailing off into the cold night air. He looked up and down the street, but saw no one. He glanced over to his partner and shook his head.

  “Dispatch, this is Unit Nine,” the other officer said.

  “We’ve got a Code Twenty on San Domingo Street. Notify homicide. Securing crime scene.”

  “Roger, Unit Nine.”

  “She’s still warm,” Sanford said. “Let’s get this area roped off.” Using a roll of yellow tape, he established the boundaries of the crime scene while his partner blocked off the street and its adjoining arteries with traffic cones. Although out of the academy only six months, they both knew the routine: quick response, safeguard and preserve. That is, secure the crime scene to protect all materials in the vicinity because everything was considered evidence until proven otherwise. No one—not even another police officer—was to enter the area until the detectives arrived. One of the most significant threats to a homicide investigation was the disruption of physical evidence: nothing was to be disturbed, moved, stepped on, or contaminated in any manner.

  With the thermometer at 33 degrees, Sanford rolled up the fur collar on his standard-issue blue nylon jacket and shoved both hands into his pockets. He sucked a mouthful of damp air into his lungs: rain was on the way. He sent his partner back to the gang-related conflict while he stood watch over the crime scene.

  In his boxing days, Detective Bill Jennings had a flat, rock hard gut. Some thirty years later, the musculature was stretched thin by the ravages of abuse, resulting in a bulging beer belly. Nevertheless, he carried his weight well and never hesitated to throw it around, both literally and figuratively...sometimes for the better, and sometimes for the worse.

  By the time Jennings arrived at San Domingo Street, his partner, Angela Moreno, was already there surveying the scene. Moreno, thirty-five with short-clipped brown hair, nodded at Jennings as he approached.

  “Long time no see,” he said.

  “Yeah, what, three hours?”

  “What’ve we got here?” he asked as they walked over to the two bodies.

  “Looks like a hit-and-run. Got two of ‘em,” she said, kneeling down in front of one of the victims. “And we’ve got some broken glass. A headlight,” she said, turning over a large fragment and looking through it.

  “Don’t touch it,” Jennings said, grasping her arm. “Saperstein should be here in a few minutes.”

  “You called Saperstein again?”

  “He was the one on call.”

  “You haven’t even looked over the scene. It’s just a hit-and-run. We don’t need a criminalist poking his nose all over the damn street to tell us what we already know.”

  “The man single-handedly saved my career, Angela.”

  Moreno waved a hand. “I read the reports, Bill. It was a clean shoot.”

  “Of course it was. But a white cop had just shot and killed a black kid. The media had a juicy story and took it for a ride. And with the election and all, I was a fucking political hot potato...people kicked me to the curb like I had the plague or something.” Jennings shook his head. “I was guilty before the body was cold. Everyone bailed on me except Saperstein.”

  “I heard all about it. Don’t you think I checked you out before I took this assignment?”

  “You checked me out?”

  “I vaguely remembered reading something in the paper about it. Then my Vice partner started getting on my case, telling me I should look into it.” She placed the glass fragment back where she had found it. “The comments you’d made back in eighty-seven with Stockton PD didn’t help any.”

  “Yeah, well those were taken out of context—”

  “You don’t have to explain,” Moreno said. “I checked into it.”

  Jennings stood up, his five-nine frame putting him eye-to-eye with his partner. “When Saperstein took the stand and started explaining that the shoot happened the way I said it did, I felt vindicated. He had all these formulas that showed I was standing where I said I was, and that the perp had turned to fire on me.” He pulled a pair of crumpled leather gloves from his pocket and struggled to insert his pudgy fingers. “Without Saperstein’s analysis of the physical evidence, those accusations would still be hanging over my head. So don’t give me shit about using a criminalist. I’m gonna use one anytime I can. And if you’re smart, you will, too.”

  “But this just looks like a simple hit-and-run,” Moreno said.

  “I don’t care. What it looks like and what it turns out to be may be two different things. I’m not taking any chances.”

  With the assistance of several other officers who had just arrived on scene, they quickly canvassed the surrounding blocks to ascertain if anyone had seen or heard anything relative to the murders.

  Thirty minutes had passed when a car drove up to the yellow crime scene tape half a block away. Out stepped a man in his mid-forties, his hair an uncombed mess, his suit coat creased and covering a severely wrinkled shirt.

  Stuart Saperstein exchanged pleasantries with Jennings and received a cold reception from Moreno, who was apparently silently protesting his need to be there. No doubt sensing the tension, the criminalist excused himself and began the task of documenting the scene by arranging a handful of halogen floodlights a short distance from the bodies.

  He opened his field kit and within a couple of minutes was on his hands and knees, examining each of the bodies. He measured distances and calculated angles, dictating his findings into a digital recorder. Steam was rising off the hot floodlights against the cold, damp December air.

 
Squinting at the ruler through his reading glasses, he motioned for the identification technician who had just arrived to photograph and document the scene. “As soon as I mark this, let’s get a series of shots. When you take the midrange shot, I want to be in it.”

  “You’re so vain,” Jennings said, leaning over his shoulder.

  “It helps for the jury to see me at the crime scene examining the physical evidence. It gives me an advantage over the defense’s expert—”

  “I know. Just giving you shit.”

  Moreno shook her head and walked off down the block in the direction of an officer who was approaching with a man at his side.

  Saperstein stood up and faced Jennings. He tilted his head back and looked at the detective through his glasses, which were resting on the tip of his bulbous nose. “You look like shit.”

  “Thanks. So do you.”

  Saperstein smiled. “Yeah, but I always do.” He motioned to Moreno, who was nearing the officer down the block. “She doesn’t like me.”

  “Nothing personal. She just didn’t think a criminalist was needed here.”

  “New to Homicide?”

  “Transferred in from Vice three months ago.”

  “Guess I’ll have to prove her wrong. Teach her a lesson.” Saperstein bent down to measure again. He was a perfectionist, and with good cause: when there were no obvious suspects, homicide detectives often relied heavily on the criminalist’s interpretation of the scene. If he could accurately ascertain what had happened, he could then surmise why it happened—which could help determine the sequence and mode of death, the victim’s position at the time of the deadly blow, or how many shots were fired in a gun-related homicide. Often, the physical evidence the criminalist gathered at the crime scene was enough to narrow the field of suspects, help locate the perpetrator, or obtain a confession from him.