Free Diagnosis Murder 6 - The Dead Letter by Lee Goldberg Page A

embarrassment to Burnside's office and the LAPD. If a white-haired old doctor could solve more murders than professional homicide investigators, what did that make them?
    Inept.
    His opinion of Mark Sloan was unaffected by the fact that the homicides the doctor solved jacked up the DA's conviction rate. The glory went to Sloan, even if the doctor avoided the limelight and always gave credit for his accomplishments to the detectives and prosecutors. The damning, though unspoken, subtext was still there: The LAPD and the DA's office aren't as bright as some elderly, amateur sleuth.
    Dr. Sloan probably didn't intend to send that message, though Burnside couldn't be entirely sure, especially now, at the onset of what was certain to be a hotly contested mayoral campaign.
    Burnside wondered if perhaps the doctor's avuncular personality was actually a disarming ruse to disguise the cunning political gamesman he really was.
    He'd underestimated Dr. Sloan many times before. Doing so again now could have disastrous consequences.
    All of which made the box on Burnside's desk as dangerous as it was tantalizing.
    Burnside stared at it. So did his campaign manager, Rhea Dickens, and his most trusted prosecutor, Owen Penmore, the man he was grooming to take his place.
    Burnside spoke first. "A string of major arrests and convictions between now and election day would make me look like a confident, aggressive, and successful prosecutor."
    "Who owes it all to the work of a blackmailer. How's that going to look?" Penmore folded his arms across his broad chest. He came from a wealthy family and had a St. Bart tan and a double-breasted, tailored suit that were beyond the means of any other civil servant at his pay grade.
    "Stryker is dead and may never be found." Dickens paced in front of the desk, casting a glance at the box each time she passed it. "Forget about him."
    "He obtained this evidence questionably at best and illegally at worst, Penmore said. "He defrauded his clients and blackmailed the targets of his investigations. His character, or lack of it, taints every document, photograph, wiretap, and video in that box."
    Dickens rejected his concerns with a dismissive wave of her impeccably manicured hand. "He's not a factor anymore."
    "He will be when they find his corpse," Penmore said.
    "Who says they have to?" Dickens cast a conspiratorial glance at Burnside, who pretended, for Penmore's benefit, not to notice.
    "Either way, Stryker isn't going to be available to be impeached on the stand," Burnside said. "So who is to say exactly how he obtained this evidence or what he was doing with it?"
    "The high-powered lawyers all his victims are going to be hiring after we arrest them," Penmore said. "They will make him the story."
    "A tiny, two-paragraph news brief on the back page of Section B, while the coverage of their clients' crimes will be splashed all over the front page of the Los Angeles Times and will be the lead item on every local newscast, especially after we leak some of the wiretaps and video evidence to the press," Dickens said. "Nobody is going to care where it came from. They'll be too busy being shocked by the sound bites and the video clips. Whatever noise they have to make about Stryker can't possibly compete with that."
    She leaned across the desk to face Burnside. "Think of all the media attention these cases will bring you without costing the campaign a dime."
    Burnside had thought about it. He also liked the idea of ending his tenure as district attorney with a string of headline-grabbing convictions that would overshadow his past missteps.
    He motioned to the box. "We may only have to introduce a fraction of this stuff in court, Owen. What are these files, really? It's no different than someone phoning in a tip or reporting a crime. We can use what Stryker has gathered as a starting point and obtain the evidence we need for conviction on our own."
    "That's true," Penmore said. "We can cherry-pick the best stuff from