Final Analysis - Catherine Crier [58]
Susan complied.
“On your left hand there’s some scratches right in here and some redness right here,” Hebel noted, pointing a finger at Susan’s hand. “And on your right hand near your right index knuckle, there’s…it almost looks like bruising or redness. It’s light bruising.”
“Uh-huh,” Susan acknowledged.
“Can you roll them over,” Hebel directed. “You have some cuts on your left hand near the pad under your small finger.”
“Under the left thumb,” Moule added. “And then right here. Has that redness been there for a while?”
“There’s also, it looks like a scratch right there under her left arm, a little red mark,” Detective Hebel added.
“I was gardening barehanded and I played rough with the dog,” Susan persisted.
“Okay. Will you look at me and close your eyes, please,” Detective Moule commanded. “That’s quite a mark,” he said, referring to the scratch on her eyelid.
“He hit you,” Hebel announced, referring to Felix. “That’s why you got into this altercation with him.”
Moule jumped in, lunging forward at Susan’s face. “He was violent with you. He abused you and he had been doing it for a long time. Detective Hebel and I have been involved for years in domestic violence.”
“You know what…it didn’t happen,” Susan declared.
Later, looking back on the transcripts, it was hard to believe that a smart woman, who was so blatantly associated with a crime, would profess her innocence with so much passion. Most suspects, when faced with such insurmountable evidence would, at the very least, have come clean that they played a role in the crime. However, this was not the case with Susan, who continued to steadfastly maintain her innocence for more than a year after Felix’s body was discovered.
Back at headquarters, Detective Costa was juggling calls. Adam Polk phoned that morning. The eldest of the Polk boys wanted Costa to contact a man named Barry Morris, an attorney who represented the family in the past.
It was midafternoon when Costa got the lawyer on the line. During the call, Morris said he had known Felix and the Polk family for twelve years. Felix counseled his son in the past, and Barry, in turn, represented Adam, Eli, and Gabriel in different criminal cases. Morris was aware of the ongoing tension between Susan and Felix. After Susan’s March 2001 arrest ended her entreaties to get a restraining order, Morris had encouraged Felix to file charges against Susan. Despite Morris’s efforts, Felix declined.
Morris told Detective Costa there had been other instances in which Felix declined to involve the authorities. Just over a week earlier on Sunday, October 6, he received a call from Felix, alerting him that Susan had just phoned from Montana. During the conversation with Morris, Felix claimed that Susan had purchased a gun and intended to kill him with it. The information got Morris’s attention and he encouraged his friend to call police immediately to report the threat. But Felix didn’t want to, afraid that the move would further infuriate Susan.
A few days later, Felix called Morris back, informing his friend that he spoke to an Orinda police officer about Susan. Costa learned it was Chief Dan Lawrence who took the call. Lawrence confirmed that Felix phoned headquarters on October 10—just three days before his murder—seeking advice concerning Susan’s impending return from Montana. Felix was concerned because she told their son “she was going to blow his head off” with a gun she’d purchased in Montana, while threatening Felix that she would kill him if he went to the police.
Despite Felix’s terrified voice on the other end of the line, the call was nothing that Lawrence hadn’t heard before. He advised Felix to obtain a temporary restraining order, leave the house immediately, and avoid any contact with his wife. Costa noted that Felix did not heed the chief ’s advice. It was as if he wanted people to know that he was in danger but was unwilling to protect himself.
It was almost noon when Costa received a call from Gabe Polk, who said he had just remembered something about the night he discovered