If You Really Loved Me Part 43

"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.

"Yesa"but my dad told me it was all right."

"All right?"

"Under these circ.u.mstances, 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 attorneya"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, "Sid 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 ona"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?"

"Yesa"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.

I.

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 closea"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 surpriseda"not upseta"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 upa"and you're gooda"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?"

"Yesa"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, noa"but it was a couple of years ago when ^realized I'd taken somebody's lifea""

"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 murdera"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."

Pohlson came up with sevena"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 d.a.m.ning 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'a"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 showersa"'"

"You laughed? About killing her?"

"Noa"we laughed about getting Linda into the bathtub."

"I mean," Pohlson breathed, "it's kind of a big deal, isn't ita"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 firsta"and onlya"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."