"Now she hates what happened."
"No—she's hated it since it happened. She knows I wouldn't stay here a week. I would find some way to kill myself. She knows that you've got to be feeling something like that."
"I feel stupid, "Cinnamon said with feeling. " 'Cause I was so young. And I loved you so much. And I was gullible enough to do it."
Newell sat up straight. What did that mean? Do what? They couldn't tell. The words coming over the wire tumbled out in a non sequitur fashion. The only solid theme that never varied was that David had to be left in the clear. No one must ever, ever implicate David Brown.
"Grandpa was going to do it if you didn't," David was saying forcefully.
Cinnamon was shaking her head. "Grandpa loved Linda. Grandpa wouldn't do something like that."
"You don't know Grandpa as well as you think you do."
"I don't know anybody as well as I thought I did."
"Patti is willing to prove it to you by taking your place."
"She won't be able to take my place."
"If she confessed to it. There have been no confessions— the only confession was when you were under drugs in the hospital."
David's mind was clearly racing; the DA's men watching could see him lean toward Cinnamon, gesturing. He was explaining to her that there was nothing solid against her, that it would be easy to get her out and put Patti in. It was Cinnamon he really loved, the baby girl he had been proud of "since the day you were born." Patti didn't matter. Patti was moving out anyway.
"I thought you said she already moved out," Cinnamon shot back.
"She's here today to help," David repeated easily. He already had two housekeepers to look after Krystal.
"What about the baby?" Cinnamon asked suddenly.
"What baby?"
"Heather."
"What about her?"
"What's happening with the baby? I never hear you talk about Patti's baby."
Newell and Robinson knew this was the sticking point, the final betrayal that had brought Cinnamon to them. They smiled grimly as they heard David squirm trying to avoid the subject of Heather.
"Who's the father of the baby?" Cinnamon asked point-blank.
"Honestly?" David took a long pull on his cigarette, his whistling breath loud over the transmitter wire. "Patti went through a spell there when she didn't know. She thinks it's a guy named Doug. He's the one claiming responsibility for it. And Patti says he's a creep. He's Greek. He's mean—he's hit her. She wants nothing to do with him and she's not giving him any visitation rights."
"You're not the father?"
"Hell no! I'm not the father. Are you kidding? I haven't been with a woman in so long I don't even know if I prefer men now. Sometimes I think about it. You think I'm joking? I'm serious. I don't think I could ever trust a woman again."
Newell and Robinson frowned. There was something offbeat, something grotesque, about the way David Brown spoke to Cinnamon, a vulgar intimacy about matters most fathers did not discuss with their daughters.
Cinnamon seemed used to such conversation. She ignored it. She would not be sidetracked. She had an agenda to meet, and she homed in on another question that had tormented her for years. The insurance payoff. She had never heard of it until they told her at Board. "They said there's a million-dollar life insurance involved. . . . They asked me, 'Did your father get it?' I don't know what to tell these people."
David's voice betrayed just a veneer of fear. He went into a long, convoluted explanation. He himself was uninsurable —ever since they found his "car had been shot up. . . . When Linda died, they canceled all our policies. I'm totally uninsurable," he said almost proudly.
"I am too." Cinnamon shrugged.
The girl had a wry sense of humor. She was quicker than her father, far wittier than any of the family Newell had yet spoken to. It wasn't mean comedy; she simply picked up instantly on plays on words. Three and a half years in this place hadn't knocked it out of her. Sometimes she was so quick that her humor went right over David's head.
Cinnamon wanted to talk about the truth. David clearly did not. He grew impatient with his daughter. Why wouldn't she just accept his offer of Patti as the guilty party and stop asking for the damn truth? David believed in Patti. She would sacrifice herself.
Or, if Cinny didn't like that scenario, he had a detective out there right now, trying to tie Larry into the murder. "Somebody broke into the house while we were all gone— the one in Garden Grove. The police were out there; they shut up the house . . . okay. What I've told everyone is that there is no way that you—any more than me—were capable of shooting somebody. Okay? So I am still paying a detective to investigate it."
Or wait—he had another option for her. "They say the only way you would ever get a reduced sentence is if you told them something convincing that did not indicate it was preplanned. That it was an act on the spur of the moment. Like a fight."
Suddenly, a shadow fell over David and Cinnamon, and Lieutenant Favila motioned Cinnamon over, saying gruffly, "Have you got your pass?" Under his breath, he whispered, "Make sure you say, 'Dad, I have to tell them the truth.' Got that?"
She nodded and showed the security chief her pass.
"What did he want?" David asked suspiciously.
"Something about I didn't check out in Unit, and they didn't know where I was."
He nodded, unconcerned. "Anyways, if you could think of something to tell them that would satisfy them—"
"How about the truth?"
"Okay. Do me a favor. Okay? Tell me the truth. Okay?"
"I didn't do it," Cinnamon answered flatly.
"That's the truth? . . . The honest-to-God truth? Did Patti do it or did you do it? . . . You remember clearly?"
"I remember."
"Well, you said you forgot a lot of things."
"You asked me to say that, remember?" Cinnamon almost sobbed. "I want to make sure you remember what you asked me to say. Because you said, if I loved you . . . Don't make me feel like I'm crazy!"
He backed off. He was a master at this. However repugnant Brown was, Newell had to give the guy points for controlling a conversation. "I'm not trying to make you feel like you're crazy. ... I honestly do not know to this day if Patti did it."
"Well, I didn't do it. I didn't see her do it."
"Okay. Now, I understand your conclusion. I wish you had told me a long time ago."
"You do!" Cinnamon exploded.
"I told you, 'Don't do it.' You said you had to because 'I love you, and I'm not going to let Linda and Alan hurt you.' "
Cinnamon burst out. "You said if I loved you . . . and I would get less time for it. That they wouldn't even send me to jail. ... I just want to make sure you remember what you told me because I am about to lose it in here."
Now, it was David's term to be alarmed. Obviously, the last thing in the world he wanted was for Cinnamon to flip out.
"Don't! Don't lose it. Patti did it," David said. "No wonder I've been afraid. Every night she stayed in that house ... I never thought Patti was so capable of being so kind as to say that she would take your place for it. I couldn't understand. You didn't even see it then. ... If I had known she had done it, I would have made her confess to it a long time ago. You didn't tell me. . . ."
"You told me what to say. You didn't ask me."
". . . Let Patti take the blame for it. You don't know anything. Okay?"
"They're not going to let me go. I've already been convicted."
David Brown, age eight. The sixth of eight children, David was on the road and on his own when most kids were in junior high school.
David with Brenda Kurges, teenagers in love at sixteen; July 1969. Exactly one year later, Brenda gave birth to their daughter, Cinnamon.
A proud father, David Brown holds Cinnamon, five months old; November 26, 1970.
David and Cinnamon, about three, on an outing. His marriage to Brenda was in trouble, but his little girl adored him.
Cinn
amon Brown, seven and a half, minus a tooth. As a young girl, she was a frequent guest at her father's home, with both his second wife, Lori, and his third wife, Linda.
David Brown, age twenty-nine. "The Process," his invention to clean computer disks, had earned him a small fortune and fame in computer circles.
Linda Brown, age twenty. She adored her husband, David, and happily played "Mom" to both her younger sister, Patti, and David's daughter, Cinnamon.
Patti Bailey, age thirteen or fourteen. Unhappy at home, she was thrilled to be invited to live with her big sister, Linda, and brother-in-law, David.
Cinnamon Brown, age fourteen, a bubbly, quickwitted teenager, often shuttled back and forth between her mother, Brenda, and her father, David.
The green stucco house on Ocean Breeze Drive where Linda Brown was shot to death on March 19, 1985. When investigators arrived at the scene, Cinnamon was missing.
Linda died in the ornate iron bed she shared with David. The murder weapon was dropped on the floor of their bedroom.
David's dresser in the early morning after Linda we shot. He owned expensive jewelry, took many prescription drugs for his myriad ailments, and prided himself on being a wonderful father.
In David's dresser drawer, the holster that had held the murder weapon was laid on top of a picture of Patti Bailey.
Patti's room on Ocean Breeze Drive. She had everything a teenager could want, thanks to David's generosity.
Cinnamon slept in this small travel trailer parked in back of the house.
On the morning after the murder, Garden Grove Detective Fred McLean finally found Cinnamon shivering and sick in a doghouse in the backyard of the Ocean Breeze Drive home.
Cinnamon was taken to Garden Grove police headquarters to answer questions that might identify Linda's killer. Suffering from a massive drug overdose, she collapsed shortly after this picture was taken and was rushed to a hospital. Later a confession was extracted from her, hut that was not the end of the story.
David spared no expense in finding the perfect spot for Linda's ashes. Her remains were placed in the base of a perpetual fountain, marked by this plaque composed by David.
David Brown paid cash for this lavish mansion in the Anaheim Hills, and moved in six months after Linda's murder.
The backyard of David Brown's home on Chantilly Street, where he lived in luxury with his daughter Krystal, Patti Bailey, and her newborn child.
A police surveillance picture of a visit David Brown made to the California Youth Authority school in Ventura. As Cinnamon, back to camera, talked with her father, their conversation was taped surreptitiously.
Another police surveillance photograph taken two weeks later when David and Patti (left) visited Cinnamon. This conversation was also taped.
David Brown, age thirty-five, at the time of his questioning about the murder of his wife Linda.
Patti Bailey, age twenty, was also taken into custody and interrogated. Police suspected that both she and David were somehow implicated in the crime.
Left to right: Detective Fred McLean of the Garden Grove police, Orange County Deputy District Attorney Jeoffrey Robinson, and Orange County District Attorney's Senior Investigator Jay Newell. These three men worked overtime to unravel the baffling mystery of Linda Brown's murder. [Leslie Rule]
Cinnamon Brown, now twenty, on the witness stand. [Leslie Rule]
At a tense moment in her testimony, Cinnamon broke down as she answered questions about Linda Brown's murder. Sandra Wingerd, court reporter, is in the foreground. [Leslie Rule]
Patti Bailey, now twenty-two, gave nervous and at times almost inaudible testimony on the witness stand. [Leslie Rule]
David Brown, escorted into the courtroom by Bailiff "Mitch" Miller, May 1990. [Leslie Rule]
David conferred constantly with defense attorney Gary Pohlson, and offered his own legal strategies. [Leslie Rule]
When Patti's memory faltered, both Gary Pohlson (left) and Jeoffrey Robinson (center) pointed out inconsistencies in a transcript of her earlier testimony. [Leslie Rule]
As she testified about her sister's murder, Patti wiped away sudden tears. [Leslie Rule]
David Brown, in the courtroom, turned to look at media cameras. He did not testify. [Leslie Rule]
During a dramatic moment in the spring 1990 trial, Gary Pohlson (foreground), the defense attorney, questioned Cinnamon Brown (on the witness stand), while Judge Donald McCartin listened. Sandra Wingerd, court reporter, is in front of Cinnamon. [Leslie Rule]
Richard Steinhart, aka "Liberty," former Hessian motorcycle gang member and one-time hired hit man, was a surprising witness at the trial. [Don Lasseter]
In a police surveillance photo, Huntington Beach police detective Bob Moran, as "Animal, the hit man" (left) and Richard Steinhart (right) collected a $10,000 check from a go-between. The person who orchestrated Linda Brown's murder intended the money to pay for the murders of Jay Newell, Jeoff Robinson, and Patti Bailey.
Cinnamon Brown, twenty, as she waited for an end to her long ordeal.
David explained that he could arrange to have Patti convicted. Patti was the one with the gunpowder on her. "All this time I thought you did it because you love me," he breathed. "This is not what I wanted. I would have much rather had you home all the time."
"I would have liked to have been at home."
". . . Don't be angry at me for something I didn't know, Cinny. ... All the books and stuff I read. I thought I knew a lot about everything."
And with it all, David Brown was still tap-dancing in, out, and around his interchangeable plots. He never once suggested that he had any guilty knowledge. Newell saw another zinger telegraphed every time he heard David say "honestly" and "honest to God."
David appeared to be thinking hard. The best thing, still, was for Cinnamon to pretend she remembered nothing— just as she always had. Yes, that was still the safest plan. He instructed her carefully. "Then your truth is that you don't know anything. You don't remember anything. 'Cause if they come to me, that's what I'm going to tell them. I don't know anything. And I don't remember anything. Because if I go to jail, I can't survive jail. Especially with my heart and my liver and my kidney problem. I can't. ... I would kill myself before I would let myself die a slow and painful death in a cell. It's a lot worse, you know, for grown-up men in prison."
Lieutenant Favila checked Cinnamon's pass again as she and her father moved inside to join Manuela and Krystal and Arthur. He whispered to her, "They want you to tell them to bring Patti in so you can bury the hatchet. You want to hear from Patti that everything is done and over. You want to kind of make peace with Patti. See if you can get a confession."
But visiting hours were almost over, and Cinnamon was exhausted, her shirt soaked with sweat. There was no time. She knew Patti, and she knew Patti wouldn't tell the truth in fifteen minutes. It would have to be next time.
Cinnamon hugged her father good-bye, and Grandma and Grandpa, and Krystal. And then she hurried into the hidden room to have the wires and transmitter taken off.
"How do you feel?" a male voice asked on the tape.
"Nauseous."
"You can go in there and untape that stuff and get that off of you."
Drained, Cinnamon peeled the apparatus from her breasts. She had done it; she had defied her own father. She was still afraid of him, and suddenly, her legs began to tremble. She wanted very much to believe that Jay Newell and Jeoff Robinson could really keep her safe. Her father was going to be enraged when he found out what she had done to him.
28
Somehow, in some combination, or separately, there had clearly been three main "players" in the sudden death of Linda Marie Brown.
Cinnamon.
David.
Patti.
Jay Newell and Jeoff Robinson had heard David— alternately stuttering, blustering, ordering, and cajoling— on their hidden transmitter, but it had been a long time since anyone had heard from Patti Bailey. With David blithely offerin
g to exchange Patti's freedom for Cinnamon's, as much as admitting Patti's culpability, the dead woman's sister was next on the list for the investigators.
Cinnamon had urged David to bring Patti up for a visit, and he was apparently nervous enough about his daughter's unexpected assertiveness and sticky questions that he, indeed, brought Patti along on the next possible visit.
It was two o'clock in the afternoon on August 27, 1988, when Cinnamon whispered, "Jay . . . can you hear me? I hope so 'cause I don't really want to go and mess up the tape. . . . Hello. Thank you."
Newell could hear her well, but he could not see her. He was in the same room where he had set up his equipment before, and Cinnamon, Patti, and David would be across the quad, behind the guard tower, out of his sight completely. Walt Robbins, deputy security chief at the CYA, was in the guard tower, less than twenty feet away from where Cinnamon and her visitors would be. He would be taking pictures.
Cinnamon was not quite as nervous this time. She had managed to get through the worst part, the first time taping her father. Now she would face Patti Bailey, the girl—now woman—who had been a childhood friend, a teenage irritant, perhaps a co-conspirator in murder—and who she suspected was probably her father's mistress and the mother of his latest baby.
Cinnamon hadn't seen Patti for a long, long time.
Now she saw Patti and David headed toward her, holding Krystal by the hand. Patti looked older, a little heavier. She wore blue jeans and a pink blouse, and her thick blond hair was pulled back into a curly ponytail. Her father wore a pink T-shirt, stretched tight across his massive midsection, and gray slacks.