Beyond Reasonable Doubt (Keera Duggan), page 7
“Why did you have a gun?”
“Sirus purchased it for me for protection.”
“From whom?” Keera tried to keep skepticism out of her tone. She’d read about the extreme security measures PDRT employed in magazine articles profiling the company and Jenna, and then in the investigative pieces written after Wei’s murder and Jenna’s arrest. Private security accompanied both Jenna and Kohl wherever they went.
Jenna said, “I was on the cover of every business journal and touted as being worth billions of dollars.”
An image Jenna likely wanted portrayed. Having private security lent credibility to that image. “Let’s talk about last night and this morning,” Keera said. “Can you account for your time?”
“Some of it.”
“Start from the time you got up.”
“I spent most of the day on a friend’s boat on Lake Washington. It’s one of the few places I can go and not be harassed since the US Attorney filed the federal court action.”
Keera obtained the friend’s name. “What time did you get home?”
“I was back in the condominium around four or five.”
“Do you have to sign in or out?”
“Not as a resident; no.”
“Did you stay home?”
“No.”
When Jenna didn’t continue, Keera looked up from taking notes, as did Patsy. “Where did you go?” Keera asked.
“I went out for a walk.”
“When and for how long?”
“A few hours. Between seven and sometime after ten.”
Jenna did not provide any details of where she had gone. “Did you go alone?”
“Yes.”
Keera felt like she was pulling teeth. “Where did you go?”
Jenna paused. “I walked to Volunteer Park and back.”
Keera and Patsy exchanged a look. Volunteer Park was on Capitol Hill, where Kohl had been living, according to the news reports. Keera said, “Why did you go there?”
“I was hungry, and I wanted to get some exercise after being on a boat all day. Wednesday evenings Volunteer Park has food trucks. As I said, I can’t go into restaurants any longer. I walked to the park, bought a burrito from a food truck, and walked around eating it before returning to the condominium.”
“Which food truck?”
“Bitchin Burritos.”
“Did you get a receipt?”
“No.”
“Did you use your phone or a credit card to pay?”
Jenna shook her head. “I paid cash.”
Which was no longer the norm. Not paying with her phone or a credit card could be used to infer that Jenna acted surreptitiously; at least that’s what any good prosecutor would argue. “Would they remember you? Do you go there regularly?”
She shook her head. “Probably not. And no.”
“Did anyone see you? Did you speak to anyone?”
“You should know that I disguise my appearance when I go out, Keera.”
“A disguise?” This was going from bad to worse.
“I’m a marked person since the trial, and especially after the federal indictment.” Her statement was a decent rebuttal to any argument that Bernstein had deliberately tried to hide her identity to kill Kohl. “I can’t sit at the condo every night by myself doing nothing. I like to walk this time of year when it stays light so late.”
“Does your condominium complex have security cameras?”
“In the hallways on each floor, in the elevators, and in the lobby.”
“They would have video of you coming and going.”
“I assume.”
Billy Ford would have the same thought as Keera, and he would get the security footage. In fact, having already been to the condominium complex, he was likely already in the process of doing so. When he did, he’d find Jenna had attempted to disguise herself before heading out on a walk to a park very close to the murder. Keera turned to Patsy. “We need to get JP on it ASAP,” she said, meaning JP Harrison, a former SPD detective and now the firm’s private investigator on big cases.
“I’ll make the call when we’re done.”
“What kind of disguise?” Keera asked Jenna.
“Nothing elaborate; I just put my hair in a ponytail and tuck it up under a baseball cap. And I wear large sunglasses to hide much of my face.”
“You’ve done this before?”
“Whenever I go out walking.”
Keera made a note to also have Harrison determine if the security guards at the condominium complex could confirm Jenna’s statement that she wore a disguise whenever she left the building. She’d also have him talk to the employees at Bitchin Burritos to determine if anyone saw and remembered Jenna.
“Look, I can tell by your tone that you’re frustrated, but what do you want me to do?” Jenna said. “Had I known Sirus was going to be killed, I never would have left the condominium. I know the building has security cameras. And I certainly would not have walked to the park in a disguise; why would I do something so blatantly obvious it focuses any investigation on me?”
Keera had the same thought but for a different reason. She wondered if Jenna had thought through her actions as a way to justify her leaving the condo in disguise, but to also argue she’d never be so stupid, or blatant. A good prosecutor would counter that the disguise was clearly not intended to fool the security guard or the cameras inside the building. It was intended to conceal Jenna’s identity from anyone she might encounter outside the building.
“It’s fine,” Patsy said, mollifying her.
“It isn’t fine,” Keera said, glancing at her father before reengaging Jenna. “You have to realize that going out alone—to an area close to the murder, wearing a disguise—does not look good.”
“Of course I know it doesn’t look good, but I told you I can’t go out to a restaurant.”
“Why not order in?” Keera said.
“I don’t want to become a captive in that condominium,” Jenna said, voice rising. “The footage is what it is. I can’t change it. Besides, Patsy was able to get a not guilty verdict despite the restaurant having a video of my meeting with Erik Wei the night of his death.”
“You had a very good reason for meeting Wei. You don’t have a good reason for going out last night to Capitol Hill. Or do you? If you do, I need to know what it is.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning did you have any other reason to go out?”
“You act like you don’t believe me.”
“Whether I believe you or not is irrelevant. What’s relevant is what the jurors will believe, and they’re going to have a hard time believing what you’ve told us. ‘I was hungry, so I put on a disguise and walked very close to the site of the murder to get something to eat.’ The prosecutor will list the number of restaurants you passed on your walk.”
Jenna sat back, clearly uncomfortable being pushed. “I told you the reasons I went out.”
“Did you take your cell phone when you went out for the walk?”
“Why is that important?”
“Cell phones provide geolocation records and reveal where the phone, and presumably the owner, has been over the course of a day. The police know this. They’ll get a search warrant for those records and others for your phone and determine exactly where you went.”
“I didn’t bring my cell phone.”
Jenna’s story was becoming less and less credible. Who went anywhere this day and age without their cell phone? “Why not?”
Jenna sighed. “I walk for peace and quiet. I didn’t want the distraction of a phone.”
“But you said you feared for your safety. Your cell phone would have provided you a means to call for help, if you needed it.”
“I guess I didn’t think of that,” Jenna said.
“It is what it is, Keera,” Patsy said. “We’ll deal with it if we have to.”
Keera bit her tongue. While her father was correct, she didn’t like him coddling Jenna. Jenna needed to know Patsy could not be counted on to pull a rabbit out of his hat every trial. Neither of them was a magician.
They spoke well into the afternoon before Keera sent Jenna home, telling her she’d be in touch, not to talk to anyone, and to direct any inquiries from the press, or the police, to her or Patsy.
Later, in Patsy’s office filled with trinkets from appreciative clients during forty years of legal practice, Patsy read from a checklist he’d taken during their meeting. “I’ll get ahold of JP—”
“Dad?”
“Ask him to find out from his contacts at the police department what they know and suspect. We’ll want to—”
“Dad!”
He looked up. “What?”
“Don’t you think this is all just a bit too coincidental? Jenna and Kohl are indicted, her gun is missing, and she just happens to take a walk, in disguise, to the very neighborhood where Kohl was shot and killed?”
“The two of them being indicted isn’t evidence of a motive for murder. Her gun went missing years ago, and she has a legitimate reason for walking in disguise.”
“To Capitol Hill?”
“Jenna isn’t an idiot. She knew her building possessed security cameras and would detect her in a disguise and record when she left and returned. As she said, why would she have been so obvious?”
“Maybe that’s exactly why she was so obvious, Dad. So we could argue she never would have been so obvious had she intended on killing Kohl. She’s very smart, always has been, and she clearly could have thought this through.”
“We can’t change the facts. Better we know them now.”
They couldn’t. They could only make inferences and arguments. “As soon as Rossi and Ford get that security footage, and if it matches the ME’s estimated time frame for Kohl’s murder, she becomes suspect number one.”
“She’s already suspect number one. If they bring charges on evidence that flimsy, I’ll beat them again.”
“You’ll beat them?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Don’t you think you’re being a tad blind here because you’ve known Jenna since she was a schoolgirl? She’s not a little girl anymore, Dad, and she wasn’t so innocent back then either.”
“I know that, kiddo, all too well. But Jenna needs defense counsel, and it’s what we do. Let’s gather evidence and wait and see what the prosecution does.”
“People in the prosecutor’s office remain convinced she killed Wei, Dad, and but for your brilliance she’d already be in prison.”
Ella popped her head in Patsy’s office door. “Thought I heard you two arguing.”
“Just two attorneys debating the evidence,” Patsy said.
“Okay, then maybe you can agree on what we’re going to charge Jenna for the consultation today.”
“Nothing,” Patsy said.
“Nothing?” Keera and Ella said at the same time, their voices rising in question.
“If this matter goes further, we’ll all invest plenty of hours to bill. Until then, we’re not going to charge a family friend.”
“She’s not my friend,” Keera said. “And you haven’t seen the Bernsteins since the trial.”
“You know what I mean.”
“No. I don’t.”
“Okay, enough,” Ella said, always the mediator. “The last time you billed them the family rate for the entire defense. Please tell me we’re not doing that again.”
“We’ll deal with that if and when the time comes,” Patsy said.
“We’ll deal with it now,” Keera said. “We will bill them what we billed Vince LaRussa.”
“The case came in to me, Keera,” Patsy said.
“Then you try it. I am not working for free.”
Patsy glared at her, but it was not the glare he’d once possessed, the one that withered opposing attorneys or witnesses. He was not what he once had been, and it pained him because he knew it. He couldn’t try this case, were it to come to that, and Keera believed it would.
“Let’s table this discussion and talk about it more in the morning,” Ella said. “Keera, go home. I’m sorry about your vacation, but—”
“Yeah, I know,” she said. “Everyone’s sorry, but here I am.” She left Patsy’s office wondering if she was stewing over what they’d charge Jenna, or the fact that Jenna was, once again, back in Keera’s life.
Chapter 8
Rossi watched as Ford disconnected the call and slid his cell phone back into his jacket. He flipped his laptop open and put it on the hood of one of the pool cars, speaking to Rossi, Thompson, and Pan.
“Upson just got the security footage from the condominium complex and says we’re going to want to see it ASAP.” Ford angled his laptop computer screen for everyone to see. “First file is the security footage from the camera in the hallway outside Bernstein’s condominium. The second is from the camera in the elevator, and the third from the camera in the lobby.”
He hit play, and the men watched the black-and-white video. A running clock in the upper right-hand corner indicated the time in hours, minutes, and seconds. After a few moments, a door opened and someone stepped into a carpeted hallway. A woman. She walked toward the camera.
“Is that Bernstein?” Pan asked.
“That’s her unit,” Ford said.
Rossi had been paying attention to the time in the computer screen corner: 7:23:48 p.m. Ford paused the video, and they all looked more closely at the image of the person on the screen. It looked like Bernstein, but it was hard to be certain. The person in the video wore a ball cap, her blonde hair tucked beneath it, large sunglasses that obscured much of her face, and baggy clothes—what looked like a dark-colored sweat suit and tennis shoes.
“She’s got her hair pulled up,” Ford said. “Sunglasses.”
Ford hit play again, and they watched the woman walk to an elevator bank. When the elevator arrived, she stepped inside. Ford opened the second file and cued it to the time Bernstein, if it was Bernstein, had stepped into the elevator. She was alone. The second tape had better lighting.
“Is that her?” Rossi asked Thompson.
“Definitely looks like her,” Thompson said.
When the elevator stopped descending, Bernstein stepped out.
The third file was the security tape from the building lobby. Again, Ford cued it, and they watched as Bernstein exited the elevator. This camera was farther away, but the video showed her crossing a marbled lobby past the security desk, which was unstaffed at that moment. The front door opened, and she exited onto the street.
“She could have left to work out,” Pan said, “given the way she’s dressed.”
“Or she went for a walk or a run,” Rossi said. “Maybe a guard recalls seeing her on other occasions go out similarly dressed to work out.”
“It’s been warm out, and she isn’t going for a run in those glasses,” Thompson said. “It looks to me like she’s trying to hide her identity; doesn’t it?”
It did, but nobody, except Thompson, was willing to say that just yet. Detectives were trained to consider more than one alternative so they didn’t rush to a judgment and get bitten in the ass. Rossi had been paying attention to the time in the corner of the video. Bernstein left the building at 7:27:52 p.m. “Regardless, that’s within the window Litchfield estimated for the time of death,” he said.
Ford said, “Upson’s email says there’s more. Let me fast-forward to the time mark he gave me.”
Ford did so, stopping the security tape that again showed the lobby, this time at 10:17:32 p.m. After a beat, they watched Bernstein, still dressed in the same clothing, but no longer wearing the hat or the glasses, enter the lobby and cross to the elevator bank. The footage showed her getting into the elevator and returning to her condominium unit.
Ford stepped back.
“Let’s be certain it’s her,” Thompson said. “Talk to the security guards at her building. Show them the tape. As you said, maybe she’s gone out dressed like that before.”
Rossi said, “I’ll have Upson also call Wash-DOT and the City of Seattle to determine what traffic cameras exist in that area, and get him and the next-up team to search for business cameras in that neighborhood. Maybe we can pick her up outside the building, determine where she went.”
“Could she have parked close by?” Pan asked.
“Building is high-end. It has underground parking, accessed from the elevator in the lobby,” Ford said.
Rossi said, “We should also find out how far it is from her condominium to Kohl’s home on Capitol Hill.”
“My wife and I used to live over there. It’s no more than a couple of miles.”
“So, walkable,” Thompson said.
“Let’s be specific,” Pan said. He directed his attention to Rossi. “Get Upson started searching for cameras. Make sure she didn’t get into a parked car, or have somebody pick her up—a cab, Uber, something.”
“On it,” Rossi said, making a note. “And the next-up team is canvassing the houses along Federal Avenue and talking with the owners to determine if they heard or saw anything, or if any of their homes have cameras that might have picked someone up.”
Pan turned and looked at the house. “Daughter said there’s a Ring camera on the front door.”
“We’ll ask TESU if we can pull up the footage from her father’s phone or computer,” Rossi said, referencing the Technical and Electronic Support Unit. He addressed Ford. “And let’s get a subpoena to Jenna Bernstein’s cell phone provider, determine if her phone was anywhere near the park or in the vicinity of Capitol Hill last night.”
Detectives had the ability to track cell phones in different ways, depending on the type of phone. Network-based tracking, Wi-Fi-based tracking, and GPS all could pinpoint the phone’s location at specific times to various degrees of accuracy, but only if the phone was turned on and had GPS and location services enabled.
“What about the home across the street?” Thompson asked. “The one with the two lookie-loos?”
“Bressler and Kennison talked to them,” Ford said, referencing the next-up detectives. “They have a Ring camera on the front door. But those two trees”—he motioned to the trees planted in the sidewalk—“block the camera. The coverage doesn’t extend beyond the front walk.”
“Sirus purchased it for me for protection.”
“From whom?” Keera tried to keep skepticism out of her tone. She’d read about the extreme security measures PDRT employed in magazine articles profiling the company and Jenna, and then in the investigative pieces written after Wei’s murder and Jenna’s arrest. Private security accompanied both Jenna and Kohl wherever they went.
Jenna said, “I was on the cover of every business journal and touted as being worth billions of dollars.”
An image Jenna likely wanted portrayed. Having private security lent credibility to that image. “Let’s talk about last night and this morning,” Keera said. “Can you account for your time?”
“Some of it.”
“Start from the time you got up.”
“I spent most of the day on a friend’s boat on Lake Washington. It’s one of the few places I can go and not be harassed since the US Attorney filed the federal court action.”
Keera obtained the friend’s name. “What time did you get home?”
“I was back in the condominium around four or five.”
“Do you have to sign in or out?”
“Not as a resident; no.”
“Did you stay home?”
“No.”
When Jenna didn’t continue, Keera looked up from taking notes, as did Patsy. “Where did you go?” Keera asked.
“I went out for a walk.”
“When and for how long?”
“A few hours. Between seven and sometime after ten.”
Jenna did not provide any details of where she had gone. “Did you go alone?”
“Yes.”
Keera felt like she was pulling teeth. “Where did you go?”
Jenna paused. “I walked to Volunteer Park and back.”
Keera and Patsy exchanged a look. Volunteer Park was on Capitol Hill, where Kohl had been living, according to the news reports. Keera said, “Why did you go there?”
“I was hungry, and I wanted to get some exercise after being on a boat all day. Wednesday evenings Volunteer Park has food trucks. As I said, I can’t go into restaurants any longer. I walked to the park, bought a burrito from a food truck, and walked around eating it before returning to the condominium.”
“Which food truck?”
“Bitchin Burritos.”
“Did you get a receipt?”
“No.”
“Did you use your phone or a credit card to pay?”
Jenna shook her head. “I paid cash.”
Which was no longer the norm. Not paying with her phone or a credit card could be used to infer that Jenna acted surreptitiously; at least that’s what any good prosecutor would argue. “Would they remember you? Do you go there regularly?”
She shook her head. “Probably not. And no.”
“Did anyone see you? Did you speak to anyone?”
“You should know that I disguise my appearance when I go out, Keera.”
“A disguise?” This was going from bad to worse.
“I’m a marked person since the trial, and especially after the federal indictment.” Her statement was a decent rebuttal to any argument that Bernstein had deliberately tried to hide her identity to kill Kohl. “I can’t sit at the condo every night by myself doing nothing. I like to walk this time of year when it stays light so late.”
“Does your condominium complex have security cameras?”
“In the hallways on each floor, in the elevators, and in the lobby.”
“They would have video of you coming and going.”
“I assume.”
Billy Ford would have the same thought as Keera, and he would get the security footage. In fact, having already been to the condominium complex, he was likely already in the process of doing so. When he did, he’d find Jenna had attempted to disguise herself before heading out on a walk to a park very close to the murder. Keera turned to Patsy. “We need to get JP on it ASAP,” she said, meaning JP Harrison, a former SPD detective and now the firm’s private investigator on big cases.
“I’ll make the call when we’re done.”
“What kind of disguise?” Keera asked Jenna.
“Nothing elaborate; I just put my hair in a ponytail and tuck it up under a baseball cap. And I wear large sunglasses to hide much of my face.”
“You’ve done this before?”
“Whenever I go out walking.”
Keera made a note to also have Harrison determine if the security guards at the condominium complex could confirm Jenna’s statement that she wore a disguise whenever she left the building. She’d also have him talk to the employees at Bitchin Burritos to determine if anyone saw and remembered Jenna.
“Look, I can tell by your tone that you’re frustrated, but what do you want me to do?” Jenna said. “Had I known Sirus was going to be killed, I never would have left the condominium. I know the building has security cameras. And I certainly would not have walked to the park in a disguise; why would I do something so blatantly obvious it focuses any investigation on me?”
Keera had the same thought but for a different reason. She wondered if Jenna had thought through her actions as a way to justify her leaving the condo in disguise, but to also argue she’d never be so stupid, or blatant. A good prosecutor would counter that the disguise was clearly not intended to fool the security guard or the cameras inside the building. It was intended to conceal Jenna’s identity from anyone she might encounter outside the building.
“It’s fine,” Patsy said, mollifying her.
“It isn’t fine,” Keera said, glancing at her father before reengaging Jenna. “You have to realize that going out alone—to an area close to the murder, wearing a disguise—does not look good.”
“Of course I know it doesn’t look good, but I told you I can’t go out to a restaurant.”
“Why not order in?” Keera said.
“I don’t want to become a captive in that condominium,” Jenna said, voice rising. “The footage is what it is. I can’t change it. Besides, Patsy was able to get a not guilty verdict despite the restaurant having a video of my meeting with Erik Wei the night of his death.”
“You had a very good reason for meeting Wei. You don’t have a good reason for going out last night to Capitol Hill. Or do you? If you do, I need to know what it is.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning did you have any other reason to go out?”
“You act like you don’t believe me.”
“Whether I believe you or not is irrelevant. What’s relevant is what the jurors will believe, and they’re going to have a hard time believing what you’ve told us. ‘I was hungry, so I put on a disguise and walked very close to the site of the murder to get something to eat.’ The prosecutor will list the number of restaurants you passed on your walk.”
Jenna sat back, clearly uncomfortable being pushed. “I told you the reasons I went out.”
“Did you take your cell phone when you went out for the walk?”
“Why is that important?”
“Cell phones provide geolocation records and reveal where the phone, and presumably the owner, has been over the course of a day. The police know this. They’ll get a search warrant for those records and others for your phone and determine exactly where you went.”
“I didn’t bring my cell phone.”
Jenna’s story was becoming less and less credible. Who went anywhere this day and age without their cell phone? “Why not?”
Jenna sighed. “I walk for peace and quiet. I didn’t want the distraction of a phone.”
“But you said you feared for your safety. Your cell phone would have provided you a means to call for help, if you needed it.”
“I guess I didn’t think of that,” Jenna said.
“It is what it is, Keera,” Patsy said. “We’ll deal with it if we have to.”
Keera bit her tongue. While her father was correct, she didn’t like him coddling Jenna. Jenna needed to know Patsy could not be counted on to pull a rabbit out of his hat every trial. Neither of them was a magician.
They spoke well into the afternoon before Keera sent Jenna home, telling her she’d be in touch, not to talk to anyone, and to direct any inquiries from the press, or the police, to her or Patsy.
Later, in Patsy’s office filled with trinkets from appreciative clients during forty years of legal practice, Patsy read from a checklist he’d taken during their meeting. “I’ll get ahold of JP—”
“Dad?”
“Ask him to find out from his contacts at the police department what they know and suspect. We’ll want to—”
“Dad!”
He looked up. “What?”
“Don’t you think this is all just a bit too coincidental? Jenna and Kohl are indicted, her gun is missing, and she just happens to take a walk, in disguise, to the very neighborhood where Kohl was shot and killed?”
“The two of them being indicted isn’t evidence of a motive for murder. Her gun went missing years ago, and she has a legitimate reason for walking in disguise.”
“To Capitol Hill?”
“Jenna isn’t an idiot. She knew her building possessed security cameras and would detect her in a disguise and record when she left and returned. As she said, why would she have been so obvious?”
“Maybe that’s exactly why she was so obvious, Dad. So we could argue she never would have been so obvious had she intended on killing Kohl. She’s very smart, always has been, and she clearly could have thought this through.”
“We can’t change the facts. Better we know them now.”
They couldn’t. They could only make inferences and arguments. “As soon as Rossi and Ford get that security footage, and if it matches the ME’s estimated time frame for Kohl’s murder, she becomes suspect number one.”
“She’s already suspect number one. If they bring charges on evidence that flimsy, I’ll beat them again.”
“You’ll beat them?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Don’t you think you’re being a tad blind here because you’ve known Jenna since she was a schoolgirl? She’s not a little girl anymore, Dad, and she wasn’t so innocent back then either.”
“I know that, kiddo, all too well. But Jenna needs defense counsel, and it’s what we do. Let’s gather evidence and wait and see what the prosecution does.”
“People in the prosecutor’s office remain convinced she killed Wei, Dad, and but for your brilliance she’d already be in prison.”
Ella popped her head in Patsy’s office door. “Thought I heard you two arguing.”
“Just two attorneys debating the evidence,” Patsy said.
“Okay, then maybe you can agree on what we’re going to charge Jenna for the consultation today.”
“Nothing,” Patsy said.
“Nothing?” Keera and Ella said at the same time, their voices rising in question.
“If this matter goes further, we’ll all invest plenty of hours to bill. Until then, we’re not going to charge a family friend.”
“She’s not my friend,” Keera said. “And you haven’t seen the Bernsteins since the trial.”
“You know what I mean.”
“No. I don’t.”
“Okay, enough,” Ella said, always the mediator. “The last time you billed them the family rate for the entire defense. Please tell me we’re not doing that again.”
“We’ll deal with that if and when the time comes,” Patsy said.
“We’ll deal with it now,” Keera said. “We will bill them what we billed Vince LaRussa.”
“The case came in to me, Keera,” Patsy said.
“Then you try it. I am not working for free.”
Patsy glared at her, but it was not the glare he’d once possessed, the one that withered opposing attorneys or witnesses. He was not what he once had been, and it pained him because he knew it. He couldn’t try this case, were it to come to that, and Keera believed it would.
“Let’s table this discussion and talk about it more in the morning,” Ella said. “Keera, go home. I’m sorry about your vacation, but—”
“Yeah, I know,” she said. “Everyone’s sorry, but here I am.” She left Patsy’s office wondering if she was stewing over what they’d charge Jenna, or the fact that Jenna was, once again, back in Keera’s life.
Chapter 8
Rossi watched as Ford disconnected the call and slid his cell phone back into his jacket. He flipped his laptop open and put it on the hood of one of the pool cars, speaking to Rossi, Thompson, and Pan.
“Upson just got the security footage from the condominium complex and says we’re going to want to see it ASAP.” Ford angled his laptop computer screen for everyone to see. “First file is the security footage from the camera in the hallway outside Bernstein’s condominium. The second is from the camera in the elevator, and the third from the camera in the lobby.”
He hit play, and the men watched the black-and-white video. A running clock in the upper right-hand corner indicated the time in hours, minutes, and seconds. After a few moments, a door opened and someone stepped into a carpeted hallway. A woman. She walked toward the camera.
“Is that Bernstein?” Pan asked.
“That’s her unit,” Ford said.
Rossi had been paying attention to the time in the computer screen corner: 7:23:48 p.m. Ford paused the video, and they all looked more closely at the image of the person on the screen. It looked like Bernstein, but it was hard to be certain. The person in the video wore a ball cap, her blonde hair tucked beneath it, large sunglasses that obscured much of her face, and baggy clothes—what looked like a dark-colored sweat suit and tennis shoes.
“She’s got her hair pulled up,” Ford said. “Sunglasses.”
Ford hit play again, and they watched the woman walk to an elevator bank. When the elevator arrived, she stepped inside. Ford opened the second file and cued it to the time Bernstein, if it was Bernstein, had stepped into the elevator. She was alone. The second tape had better lighting.
“Is that her?” Rossi asked Thompson.
“Definitely looks like her,” Thompson said.
When the elevator stopped descending, Bernstein stepped out.
The third file was the security tape from the building lobby. Again, Ford cued it, and they watched as Bernstein exited the elevator. This camera was farther away, but the video showed her crossing a marbled lobby past the security desk, which was unstaffed at that moment. The front door opened, and she exited onto the street.
“She could have left to work out,” Pan said, “given the way she’s dressed.”
“Or she went for a walk or a run,” Rossi said. “Maybe a guard recalls seeing her on other occasions go out similarly dressed to work out.”
“It’s been warm out, and she isn’t going for a run in those glasses,” Thompson said. “It looks to me like she’s trying to hide her identity; doesn’t it?”
It did, but nobody, except Thompson, was willing to say that just yet. Detectives were trained to consider more than one alternative so they didn’t rush to a judgment and get bitten in the ass. Rossi had been paying attention to the time in the corner of the video. Bernstein left the building at 7:27:52 p.m. “Regardless, that’s within the window Litchfield estimated for the time of death,” he said.
Ford said, “Upson’s email says there’s more. Let me fast-forward to the time mark he gave me.”
Ford did so, stopping the security tape that again showed the lobby, this time at 10:17:32 p.m. After a beat, they watched Bernstein, still dressed in the same clothing, but no longer wearing the hat or the glasses, enter the lobby and cross to the elevator bank. The footage showed her getting into the elevator and returning to her condominium unit.
Ford stepped back.
“Let’s be certain it’s her,” Thompson said. “Talk to the security guards at her building. Show them the tape. As you said, maybe she’s gone out dressed like that before.”
Rossi said, “I’ll have Upson also call Wash-DOT and the City of Seattle to determine what traffic cameras exist in that area, and get him and the next-up team to search for business cameras in that neighborhood. Maybe we can pick her up outside the building, determine where she went.”
“Could she have parked close by?” Pan asked.
“Building is high-end. It has underground parking, accessed from the elevator in the lobby,” Ford said.
Rossi said, “We should also find out how far it is from her condominium to Kohl’s home on Capitol Hill.”
“My wife and I used to live over there. It’s no more than a couple of miles.”
“So, walkable,” Thompson said.
“Let’s be specific,” Pan said. He directed his attention to Rossi. “Get Upson started searching for cameras. Make sure she didn’t get into a parked car, or have somebody pick her up—a cab, Uber, something.”
“On it,” Rossi said, making a note. “And the next-up team is canvassing the houses along Federal Avenue and talking with the owners to determine if they heard or saw anything, or if any of their homes have cameras that might have picked someone up.”
Pan turned and looked at the house. “Daughter said there’s a Ring camera on the front door.”
“We’ll ask TESU if we can pull up the footage from her father’s phone or computer,” Rossi said, referencing the Technical and Electronic Support Unit. He addressed Ford. “And let’s get a subpoena to Jenna Bernstein’s cell phone provider, determine if her phone was anywhere near the park or in the vicinity of Capitol Hill last night.”
Detectives had the ability to track cell phones in different ways, depending on the type of phone. Network-based tracking, Wi-Fi-based tracking, and GPS all could pinpoint the phone’s location at specific times to various degrees of accuracy, but only if the phone was turned on and had GPS and location services enabled.
“What about the home across the street?” Thompson asked. “The one with the two lookie-loos?”
“Bressler and Kennison talked to them,” Ford said, referencing the next-up detectives. “They have a Ring camera on the front door. But those two trees”—he motioned to the trees planted in the sidewalk—“block the camera. The coverage doesn’t extend beyond the front walk.”
