Rose McIntire closed the door and got her phone. Don was in San Diego on business, but he was probably back at his hotel by now.
“You’ll never guess what just happened,” she said excitedly when her husband answered, and she proceeded to tell him about the Netflix pilot and the possibility of a role in it. Don tried to calm down Rose by pointing out that the project seemed to be in the early stages of development.
“You were around the movie business long enough to know that there’s almost no chance the show will get made,” Don said.
“Boy, are you a doubting Thomas. Just for that, I’m not bringing you to the premiere.”
Don laughed. “If there is a premiere, I’ll take you in a limo.”
They talked some more, then kissed good night. Rose disconnected and was about to put down the phone when she got an idea. The investigator said he wanted to talk to Tony Clark, and she’d told him where Tony was living. She didn’t want Tony to be surprised, so she dialed his number in Mexico to give him a heads-up about being featured on Netflix.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
The morning after he flew to LA, Ken Breland called and told Robin about his conversation with Rose McIntire and his plans to fly to Mexico. When Ken hung up, Robin paged through her file in the Winters case until she found the name and phone number for the attorney who had represented Yousef Khan.
“Mr. Dowd, I’m an attorney in Portland, Oregon, and I’d like to pick your brain about an old case you handled about ten years ago,” Robin said when Dowd’s secretary connected Robin to her boss.
“What’s the case?” Peter Dowd asked.
“It was a murder case. The victim was the actress, Claire Winters. You represented Yousef Khan.”
Dowd laughed. “I’d remember that case, even if I had Alzheimer’s. What’s your interest in it?”
“My client has been investigating cases of prisoners who wereconvicted of murder, but who might be innocent, and my firm has been asked to look into Mr. Khan’s case.”
Dowd laughed again. “You’re wasting your time, Miss Lockwood. There’s no doubt, reasonable or otherwise, about Yousef’s guilt. The State’s case was airtight.”
“You’re probably right, but I’d appreciate it if you could tell me anything that might have made you think that your client might have been innocent.”
There was silence on the line for a few minutes. Then Dowd spoke.
“Okay. Now this is a stretch, but, playing devil’s advocate, Yousef never denied killing Winters, but he never confessed either. When I started representing him, Yousef was really messed up. He was homeless, using drugs and drinking anything he could get his hands on. He claimed that he’d been out cold during the time Winters was murdered. The cops thought that was bullshit, but I had him examined by a psychiatrist, and he said it was plausible, given his addiction to drugs and booze.
“Also, Yousef never struck me as the violent type. He went through detox in jail, and it wasn’t pretty. Once we weaned him off the booze and drugs, he was pretty passive.”
“What about the knife?” Robin asked.
“Yeah, that was the killer. Pardon the pun. It was terrifying; long, wide, and with a serrated blade. Right out of a horror movie. There was blood on the blade and the tests proved conclusively that it was Claire Winters’s.”
“What did Yousef say about that?”
“He said he’d never seen it and had no idea how it got in his tent.”
“So, it could have been planted while Yousef was passed out?”
“Yeah. That’s what I argued.”
“Can you think of anything else?”
“No.”
“If you do, can you call me?”
“Sure.”
“One more thing. I’d like to talk to Yousef. Can you ask him if he’ll meet with me?”
Dowd told Robin he’d talk to Khan, and Robin hung up. She started paging through a draft of a memo she’d been working on. She was halfway through when her secretary let her know that Jose Alvarez was in reception.