The Run of His Life: The People v. O. J. Simpson - страница 18

A couple of lights were on in the house, and there were two cars in the driveway. Vannatter rang the buzzer by the gate. No answer. He rang some more, and then Phillips and Lange rang for a while. Still no response. A medallion posted near the house announced that it was protected by Westec, a prominent security firm in Los Angeles. By coincidence, a marked Westec car happened to drive by, and the detectives flagged it down. They persuaded the security guard to give them Simpson’s home telephone number. (The guard also said that according to Westec records, a full-time housekeeper was usually on the premises.) At 5:36 A.M., Phillips began calling Simpson’s number on his cellular phone, but Simpson’s answering machine-“This is O.J.,” the message began-took the call each time.

Fuhrman hung back while the other three detectives tried to raise someone in the house. Though he had been a police officer for nineteen years, he was a level-two detective while the others were at level three; in the hierarchical world of the LAPD, it was therefore his place to defer. So, with nothing to do, Fuhrman wandered around the corner, back to Rockingham, and over to the Bronco. He shined his small pocket flashlight into the back and saw papers addressed to O.J. Simpson. Fuhrman then studied the driver’s door and noticed a small red stain just above the handle. Near the bottom of the door, on the exposed portion of the doorsill, he saw several more thin red stripes.

“I think I saw something on the Bronco,” Fuhrman called to Vannatter.

The senior detective came by to study the vehicle more closely, and the two men agreed that the stains looked like blood. Vannatter directed Fuhrman to run the license plates and see who owned the car. The plates came back to the Hertz Corporation, whose products Simpson had long endorsed.

Vannatter and Lange conferred. They decided that Vannatter would radio a request for a police criminalist to come and test the stain and see if it really was blood on the Bronco door. More generally, as they testified later, Vannatter and Lange were growing concerned about what might have happened inside Simpson’s property. They had just come from the scene of a brutal murder. Someone was supposed to be living at the Simpson home-at least a housekeeper-and there was no answer, even though lights were on. There appeared to be blood on the car outside. As Lange said later in court, “I felt that someone inside that house may be the victim of a crime, maybe bleeding or worse.” Vannatter testified, “After leaving a very violent bloody murder scene, I believed something was wrong there. I made a determination that we needed to go over-to go into the property.” Fuhrman-by far the youngest and fittest of the four detectives on the scene-volunteered. “I can go over the wall,” he said. “Okay, go,” said Lange. Fuhrman hoisted himself over the six-foot-high brick wall, then stepped to his right and manually opened the hydraulic gate. The four detectives entered O.J. Simpson’s property.

Simpson’s dog-a black chow-did not stir as the detectives passed it on their way to the front door. Vannatter knocked. No answer. They waited two or three minutes, knocked again, and still heard no stirring inside. The four detectives decided to take a look around, and so, still using flashlights in the moments before dawn, they walked together toward the rear of the house. There they saw a row of three guest houses, though they were really more like connected rooms, each with its own entrance. Phillips peered into one.

“There’s-I see someone inside,” he said.

Phillips knocked, and almost immediately a disheveled man who obviously had just awoken answered the door. Shaking his mane of blond hair out of his eyes, Kato Kaelin stared at Phillips, who identified himself and asked, “Is O.J. Simpson home?”

The groggy Kaelin said he didn’t know, but suggested the officers knock at the adjacent guest house, where Simpson’s daughter Arnelle lived. Phillips, accompanied by Vannatter and Lange, then knocked on Arnelle’s door. Fuhrman stayed behind and asked Kaelin if he could come in. Fuhrman noticed that Kaelin seemed disoriented, even for someone who had just awakened. Fuhrman gave Kaelin a standard police test for intoxication: Holding a pen about fifteen inches in front of Kaelin’s face, he watched to see if Kaelin could follow it with his eyes. Kaelin passed-he just