Foreign bureau reporters flocked to the Rio de Janeiro airport, and Teddy Martin's landing was covered live even though it was after midnight in Rio and you really couldn't see anything. The Citation taxied to a private flight service facility for corporate jets where it was met by Brazilian authorities and a small army of newspeople. A spokesman for the Brazilian authorities said that Mr Martin would be questioned as to his plans, but thereafter would be free to go. Teddy Martin pushed through the cameras with his face covered, ignoring the shouting reporters. He reached the flight service facility's door, then apparently changed his mind and paused to make a short statement. Teddy Martin said, 'Please don't interpret my flight from California as indicative of guilt. I promise you, I swear to you all, that I did not murder my wife. I loved her. I left because I am convinced that I could not and would not get a fair and just hearing. I do not know why they are doing this to me.' He disappeared into the building and must have slipped out by some prearranged and secret manner because he was not seen again.

I went to bed at twenty minutes after one that night, and still the networks were on the air, rehashing the landing, replaying the interviews, offering taped 'live' coverage of something that was no more alive than a nightmare.

CHAPTER 38

The phone rang several times throughout the night. I stopped answering and let the machine get the calls after I realized that they were reporters, looking for yet another comment. I finally unplugged the phone.

I slept late the next morning and woke to a quiet house. The cat was sleeping on the foot of my bed and the finches were waiting on the deck rail and no one was trying to shoot me, which was good, but for the first time in many days I felt the emptiness of Lucy's absence, which wasn't.

My involvement with Angela Rossi and Louise Earle and the events in their lives seemed to be at an end or, if not ended, then certainly diminished. Anna Sherman wanted to interview me in greater detail, but she would speak to Rossi first, then Gibbs and Tomsic. It might be days before we could get together.

I got out of bed, took a shower, then ate a bowl of granola and cottage cheese and sliced peaches. I drank a glass of nonfat milk. I phoned Martin Luther King Hospital, asked about Mr Lawrence, and was told that he was doing well even though he was listed in critical condition. The nurse remembered me, and told me that Mrs Earle was still there, asleep in the waiting room. She had been there throughout the night. I called a florist I know and sent flowers, addressing them to Mrs Earle as well as to Mr Lawrence. I hoped that they would brighten her day.

At twenty minutes after eleven my phone rang again, and this time I answered. Life in the fast lane. Joe Pike said, 'Are you looking at this?'

'What?'

'Turn on your television.'

I did.

Jonathan Green was surrounded by reporters on the steps of the Superior Court Building. The network legal analyst was saying that Green had been arraigned at ten A.M., had posted minimal bail, and was now about to make a statement. The two lesser attorneys were behind him, as was an older, gray-haired African-American attorney named Edwin Foss. Foss was a criminal defense attorney of Green's stature who had made his reputation defending a transient who had shot four people to death while robbing an AM-PM Minimart. The murders had been caught on videotape, but Foss had still managed to gain an acquittal. I guess he had convinced the jury that it was reasonable to doubt what they had seen.

Edwin Foss whispered in Jonathan's ear, then Jonathan stepped to the microphones and made his statement. His tone was somber and apologetic, and Foss kept a hand on Jonathan's shoulder as he spoke. Guidance. Green said, 'No one is more surprised by Theodore Martin's actions than me. I have believed in his innocence from the beginning, and I still believe him to be an innocent man. I believed then, and believe now, that the evidence against Theodore Martin was planted by unscrupulous officers involved in the investigation. Teddy, if you can hear these words, I urge you to return. Justice will prevail.'

Pike said, 'You think Teddy's tuned in, down there in Rio?'

'Shh.'

Green said, 'I pledge my full cooperation to those investigating the charges that have been made against me. I will aid in uncovering whatever wrongdoing has occurred, if any, and in the prosecution of anyone in my employ who has conspired to breech the canon of ethics by which I have lived my life. I state now, publicly and for the record, that I have behaved honorably and within the law. I have done no wrong.'

Green's attorney again whispered something in Green's ear and gently pulled him away from the microphones. The reporters shouted questions, but Green's attorney waved them off and said that there would be no questions.

I turned off the television and said, 'This guy is something. He's already doctoring the spin.'

Pike didn't respond.

'You don't think he can beat this, do you?'

There was a pause, then Pike hung up. Guess he didn't have an answer. Or maybe he didn't want to think that it was possible.

I made an early lunch for myself, then brought the phone out onto the deck and called Lucy Chenier at her office. She had heard about Jonathan's arrest and Teddy's flight on the national news, but she didn't seem particularly anxious to hear the inside dirt. When I described the events beneath the radio towers, she told me that she was late for a meeting. Great. Anna Sherman called later that afternoon and asked me to come to her office the following day to make a statement. I did, and spent three hours in the Criminal Courts Building being interviewed by Sherman, Bidwell, and three LAPD detectives whom I had not previously met. Pike came in as I was leaving. Sherman told me that Mrs Earle had been interviewed the day before.

Two days after my interview, Mr Walter Lawrence was taken off the critical list. His prognosis was excellent. I went to see him and brought more flowers. Mrs Earle was still there, and told me that she planned to visit LeCedrick. It would be the first time that she'd seen him in the six years that he had been at Terminal Island. I offered to drive her.

Teddy's flight and Green's arrest stayed in the headlines. 'Teddy Sightings' were a regular feature in the tabloids, which reported on various occasions that Teddy was now living in a palatial Brazilian mansion that had been built by a famous Nazi war criminal, that Teddy had been seen in the company of Princess Diana, and that Teddy was gone for good because he had been abducted by short gray aliens with large heads. The California State Bar Association announced that it was launching an investigation into Jonathan Green's conduct independent of that by the Los Angeles Police Department and the District Attorney's office. Green said that he welcomed the opportunity to clear his name and would cooperate fully.

Jonathan Green and his attorney appeared regularly on local television news, local radio talk shows, and in the L.A. Times. Reports from 'unnamed sources' began surfacing that Elliot Truly had made a secret deal with Teddy, unknown to Mr Green. Leaks 'close to the prosecution' were quoted as saying that computer files found at Elliot Truly's home confirmed such an agreement. Other sources leaked that Truly had had several meetings with Teddy while Teddy was in jail to which Mr Green was not privy. Carefully worded public opinion polls charted a swing in the belief of Jonathan Green's involvement from 'absolutely' to 'probably' to 'uncertain.'

Eleven days after the events beneath the radio tower, the LAPD Internal Affairs Division announced that it had completed its investigation of Detective Angela Rossi and had found there to be no evidence either in the LeCedrick Earle matter (LeCedrick Earle himself had recanted his claims against her) or that she had manufactured or planted evidence against Theodore Martin. The story was given two inches on page nineteen of the Times, and the same public opinion polls indicated that seventy-three percent of the public still believed that she was a corrupt cop who had framed LeCedrick Earle (even though he now denied it) and who had 'probably' mishandled evidence against Teddy Martin. She was returned to active duty with her partner, Dan Tonisic.