If You Really Loved Me

  "What was to be done?"

  "Ways to kill her . . ."

  Yes, she remembered some of the ways. They could shoot Linda or electrocute her in the bathtub. Cinnamon thought that was her idea.

  "Were you serious?"

  "Yes."

  "Why did you seriously suggest a way to kill Linda?"

  "Because I wanted her dead. I didn't want to lose my father."

  ". . . Did your dad suggest who, if anybody, should do it?"

  "Yes ... he said one of us girls would have to do it. He didn't have the stomach to do it."

  ". . . Did he ever complain about a weak stomach before?"

  "He was always sick."

  Robinson pelted his witness with questions. He knew Pohlson would do the same tomorrow or the next day on cross-examination. He had to get all the truth out of Cinnamon now. Yes, David told them repeatedly that she should do it, that one of the girls had to. Cinnamon began to sob again. "I was willing to do it because I loved him, and I didn't want to lose him."

  Listening intently, Pohlson was poised. He objected to what he construed to be leading questions from Robinson. Robinson was trying to show that there was no benefit at all for Cinnamon in Linda's death, but he could not phrase a question that pleased either Pohlson or Judge McCartin.

  After three objections, McCartin bristled and growled at Robinson, "You want to be sworn—take the stand? No more argument. No more leading questions!"

  Finally, Robinson got a full question out. "On your own, did you ever plan to do something to Linda?"

  "No."

  The death plan had evolved from a constant drumming in of the principles of family and staying together and most of all, love. Unless Linda died, all of those things would be lost.

  "He said, 'If you loved me, you would do this for me.' "

  With all the scheming and talking and plotting and persuasion, it always came down to love. Always. Once the murder script was in motion, someone would have to perform. And it was Cinnamon who was selected.

  "Did your dad ever say, 'Cinnamon, don't do it?' "

  She shook her head slightly. "He said, 'If you love me, you'll do it. If you don't, I'll have to go away.' I felt guilty."

  "Did you ever feel he said things to make you feel guilty?"

  "Yes."

  "Were you jealous of Linda?"

  "No."

  "Her jewelry?"

  "I wasn't interested in her jewelry. I wanted to go to the beach. He gave me the things I wanted—my radio and my Walkman."

  Some of the jurors watched Jeoff Robinson. Others looked down at their laps. Only a very few looked at Cinnamon. It was as if they found her so delicate and so sad that it would be cruel to stare at her. She kept her eyes fastened on the prosecutor. Clearly, she had come to trust him.

  Cinnamon had a solid memory of all the crucial events five or six years before. She had become a little more relaxed on the witness stand. Now, ever so gradually, Robinson led her into disturbing details, as if she were slowly stepping into icy water.

  "Did you think killing someone was all right?"

  "Objection!"

  "Sustained."

  "What did you think about what you did?"

  "I was doing the right thing . . . because my dad told me to." Cinnamon was crying again. "Why would he tell me to do something that wasn't right?" Clearly, she had asked herself this question many times before and had not come to terms with her father's depravity; emotionally, she was still in danger.

  Robinson moved inexorably closer to the murder night.

  They were on one of their many car trips when David turned to Cinnamon. "He said—since I'm the youngest—I was too young to get in trouble for it. They'd send me to a psychiatrist and send me home. He didn't mention going to jail. I said, yes, I would do it."

  Cinnamon could not remember how long her father said she would be away. She thought only a few days.

  "After the murder, he said I should try to kill myself— shoot myself in the head. I could just nick myself. I got scared. I said I didn't want to. I said I'd rather take the medicine. I believed it would just look like I tried to kill myself."

  Pohlson asked for a sidebar conference. Robinson seemed tense. The presence of the platoon of teenagers in the courtroom had upset his witness and thrown off his rhythm.

  For the first time, Cinnamon darted a quick sideways look at her father.

  Robinson asked Cinnamon about the suicide note. There had been many of them.

  "He told me to write a note to say I was sorry for what I did. I wrote them and showed them to my dad. ... He picked one; I was to get rid of the others."

  Robinson had drawn Cinnamon along with him—to the night of March 18. Each of her responses came as if she had been holding her breath; Robinson had to ask her the next detail in sequence before she could say it aloud.

  "Before that night, were there discussions on who would do what?"

  "He said he would be gone so he wouldn't have anything to do with it. I knew I was going to go to the doghouse, after I shot Linda."

  The jury had never heard about the Uno game, the argument over putting the baby to sleep. Cinnamon relived the last day for them. "We were asleep already—I don't know how long. I heard a door opening. He walked in and said, 'Girls, get up. It has to be done tonight.' My dad told me to follow him. I followed him to his room and stood at the door. He told me to wait and be quiet. . . ."

  Cinnamon's voice was thick with tears.

  "I got a glass from the kitchen, and he took the pill bottles to the pantry. He told me to take more, and I said. 'I can't swallow any more.' But he kept telling me to take more. We left the bottles and the glass there."

  "Did you ever feel that you would die as a result of these suggestions?"

  "No."

  But suddenly she did. A look of stunning shock and then ineffable sadness washed over Cinnamon's face. It was obvious that she had at long last acknowledged the truth in this one frozen moment. Her father had made her take the pills—not to give her an alibi or only to make her sick—but because he wanted her dead. This was the worst, the last thing Cinnamon had not faced, and she wept as it sunk in. And then, quickly, she darted a look at her father that seemed to say, "I know it all now. I know. "

  "Cinnamon," Robinson drew her back. "What happened then?"

  "We went to the living room by his recliner. He grabbed a brown pillow from the recliner and told me to hold the pillow over the gun. I didn't know why. He said Patti would show me. There wasn't a gun, but I knew I'd see one soon. Patti was standing with us. My father was getting ready to leave 'cause he had his keys and everything with him and he was right by the door. Then he said, 'We can do this another time if you want, but if you love me, let's do it now.'

  "I went to our room. Patti was wiping off the gun that she had sitting on the bed with a towel. She handed it to me. She told me, 'You know what you have to go do.' ... I asked how to work it. ... I was very scared, very nervous. I took the gun to my dad's room—it was very dark. I fired the gun toward where Linda would be 'cause I knew she slept on that side of the bed. . . ."

  Tears streamed down Cinnamon's face.

  "Linda was sleeping. I knew I was pointing the gun right at her. I knew it was going to hit her. I pulled the trigger. There was a loud noise and a jolt. I got scared, and the pillow got caught in the gun, and I ran to Patti's room and told her, I broke the gun!' I took the baby and gave Patti the gun. The gun went off. . . . And we could hear Linda crying. . . . Patti said I had to go finish, so I took the gun. . . ."

  The courtroom was very quiet, suspended in this moment. The jurors were finally all looking at Cinnamon, their faces empty, listening.

  "I went back because Linda was still alive and I'd been told to go back and finish. I wanted her dead too. I went back to make sure she was dead. I walked in and fired the gun again. I just walked in and pointed it toward her. I knew she was there. I was going to shoot her."

  "And then what did you
do?"

  "I dropped the gun. I was dizzy. I ran outside through the kitchen and I got the note I was supposed to get from the trailer. I ran to the doghouse 'cause that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I was supposed to do."

  "Did you know what you had done?"

  "Yes."

  "How did you feel?"

  "Cold and scared. The dogs came in. I remember getting sick in the doghouse. The police found me and took me out and took me to the police station."

  Cinnamon remembered the detectives' questions, and she remembered vomiting into the trash can. She remembered telling the police things that weren't true. She kept in her mind that she had to say she didn't like Linda, and that she had done it all by herself.

  "Hadn't you just taken a human life? Didn't you know that was wrong?" Robinson asked softly, incredulously.

  "Yes—-but my dad told me it was all right."

  "All right?"

  "Under these circumstances, it was all right."

  Cinnamon remembered talking to the psychologists and the psychiatrists, but her father had come to see her and told her that she must tell everyone that she had no memory of the murder at all. She had lied for him for more than three years.

  "My dad said I wouldn't be there very long. I'd be let out. He'd hire an attorney—that it would take a little time."

  "Did your father continue to say that?"

  "For a long time."

  Every time she went before the parole board, she lied.

  "I told them, 'I don't remember,' and they said I wasn't telling them the truth, and I'd stay there until I did remember."

  "Why did you keep telling that lie?" Robinson asked.

  Pohlson objected. "He's arguing with his own witness, Your Honor."

  "Overruled."

  "I thought my father was going to get me out."

  "At some point, did you feel your dad wasn't truthful with you?"

  "Yes. He kept telling me he'd get me out. I'd call home and he'd say he was sick, but my grandma said he was out shopping."

  Cinnamon described the time she caught her father kissing Patti. The seed of doubt planted then had never really gone away. "When my dad came to CYA, I questioned him about Patti, and he said there was nothing going on—that she was just there to take care of Krystal. . . ."

  Did your dad ever say anything about insurance?"

  "No."

  "When is the first time you heard about insurance?"

  "When the board brought it up."

  "Why didn't you come forward? Why didn't you get mad?"

  "I thought I was being loyal to my dad, but I found out he was lying."

  Robinson asked the questions he knew Gary Pohlson would. "Does it help your chance of parole to tell the truth ... ?"

  "Yes."

  "Do you think because you testified that you'll get out?"

  ". . . No. I still have to go to Board, and they can hold me to 1992 or 1995 if they want to."

  "Have you said anything that's untrue?"

  "No. I've lied before, but never on the stand."

  "You lied to Jay Newell?"

  "Yes. I told the truth except that I shot Linda. I was ashamed to admit that I was the one who actually pulled the trigger."

  "Why?"

  "Because I loved Linda."

  "Did you ever actually hate Linda?"

  "No."

  "Why did you tell the truth?"

  "Because I felt more ashamed not telling the truth."

  "Do you know what perjury is?"

  "Yes—not telling the truth on the stand."

  "Does it bother you to tell your story with your dad here?".

  Cinnamon glanced at her father, whose body was silently poised for her response. The look on her face obviated an answer.

  Without realizing it, Cinnamon Brown shuddered, ever so slightly.

  43

  It was late in the second day of trial, but Cinnamon's ordeal was far from over. She now had to face cross-examination by her father's attorneys. Richard Schwartzberg, co-counsel for the defense, asked for written notice if the Orange County District Attorney's Office intended to help Cinnamon gain a parole.

  Robinson was annoyed. He was a mercurial man whose emotions showed in his face and posture, much as a landscape changes when clouds sweep over. "I won't dignify that," he said shortly, angered that Schwartzberg would try to bootstrap this motion into the case.

  McCartin looked at Schwartzberg and snapped, "It ain't close—let's go to work."

  Gary Pohlson had an unenviable job before him. Cross-examining children, the elderly, the pitiable, and the victims was often a necessary part of defense law. There was a fine line to be walked. If he went easy on Cinnamon, he would elicit no telling outbursts. If he came down too hard, the jury would turn away his arguments and want to save her.

  But Cinnamon and Patti were the two accusing witnesses. Pohlson had to knock the foundation out of their credibility.

  He asked Cinnamon first about her feelings on finding herself in prison, about her hopes for freedom. Cinnamon looked straight into Pohlson's eyes, her gaze steady. She held her body very still, like a little animal caught in the open. Of course she longed to get out. She had pinned her early hopes on her father. She realized, finally, that he would not help her.

  David Brown stared at his daughter fixedly, almost bemused that she would say these things about him. He expected his attorney to turn her around.

  Pohlson could not shake Cinnamon about her hopes for an early release. She had none.

  "I was surprised—not upset—when I got up to CYA. The board told me I'd be out by the time I was twenty-five. Each time you go up—and you're good—you get a time cut, but you have to deal with your offense to get a time cut. . . . Dealing with my offense is accepting what I've done to Linda."

  "Did you accept what you've done to Linda?"

  "Yes—in the past year and a half."

  "Was that before or after you first spoke to Jay Newell?"

  "After."

  Pohlson chipped away at Cinnamon's lies. Yes, she lied to Jay Newell about who did the shooting. No, she wasn't trying to implicate Patti; she just could not say out loud that she was the shooter.

  Pohlson's tone was only a shade mocking. He would lead Cinnamon again through her life with her father and Linda. She thought of Linda, she said, as a mother. She was not jealous of Linda. Linda was her father's wife.

  The day wound down to an end. Tomorrow, Cinnamon would face three more hours of cross-examination. . . .

  On the second day, Cinnamon seemed a bit more at ease. She wore a royal-blue dress with a tiny peplum, the skirt shorter than Robinson would have liked. Pohlson wanted to unmask a wicked stepdaughter, and such creatures traditionally wear too much makeup and dress too seductively. Cinnamon's voice was so tiny that it made up for her dress.

  "Did you prepare to testify . . . read your transcript from the preliminary hearing . . . listen to any videotapes?"

  She answered yes. Of course she prepared. Anyone would. It was a favorite ploy of defense attorneys to make preparation by witnesses appear suspect.

  Pohlson's aggression built as the morning progressed. "Were you ashamed in 1985 of having killed Linda?"

  "When I first did it, no—but it was a couple of years ago when I realized I'd taken somebody's life—"

  "You thought you'd get off?"

  Pohlson got rough, but Cinnamon dug in. She admitted every lie. If she didn't remember, she said so.

  "You loved Linda Brown?"

  "Yes."

  "But you wanted to kill her?" Pohlson was full of disbelief.

  "I was more loyal to my dad than I was to her."

  ". . . The night of the murder—how many different versions have you given? Let's go through the different versions, Cinnamon. We can count them, or we can do a summation."

  Cinnamon counted. "One, I did it myself; two, I don't remember; three, I lied when I said I was outside. I guess that's three."

&nbsp
; Pohlson came up with seven—Cinnamon's stories to Fred McLean, Pam French, Dr. Seawright Anderson, Kim Hicks, different versions to Jay Newell. She did not argue with him.

  The defense attorney's intent was obvious. He wanted to solidify the murder plans and discussions in the jurors' minds. The most damning testimony for the prosecution came when Pohlson asked Cinnamon to be specific about times and methods of murder.

  It began gradually, Cinnamon recalled. The first time in the living room, the second on the way to the chiropractor. "I wasn't quite sure it was a serious plan. . . . Another time, we were in the van. I think Patti said that Linda was going to kill my father and what were we going to do about it... it was sometime in the seven months before the murder. . . . Most of the time, we said 'get rid of'—that means kill."

  Yes, Cinnamon admitted suggesting ways to kill Linda.

  "What?" Pohlson pounced. "What ways?"

  "Electrocuting her ... in the bathtub, throwing an appliance in. We were laughing and joking around, and we said, 'No, she only takes showers—' "

  "You laughed? About killing her?"

  "No—we laughed about getting Linda into the bathtub."

  "I mean," Pohlson breathed, "it's kind of a big deal, isn't it—killing someone?"

  The words hung in the courtroom; they were headline words. "Daughter Jokes About Murder Plot."

  There was no sound in the courtroom. Pohlson whirled suddenly and asked, "Who's Maynard? Who's Oscar?" He spat out the names as if he expected them to trigger some intense reaction from Cinnamon. The gallery perked up, fascinated. But Cinnamon visibly relaxed.

  For the first—and only—time, Cinnamon smiled, remembering better days. "Me and my dad joked about it. If I was clumsy, or if I dropped something, we'd say, 'Maynard did it.' It was just teasing."

  Robinson questioned Cinnamon once more, briefly.

  "Do you have imaginary friends?" he asked.

  "No. We were just joking about Maynard and Oscar."

  When it was finally over, despite all the ugliness that Cinnamon spoke of in her soft childlike voice, one thing shone through: she had told the unflinching, unvarnished truth. "I didn't want to lose my dad," she cried, sobbing. "Killing my stepmother showed that I loved him."