Without a Doubt - [46]

Then, late on Tuesday, July 5, we began arguments on the defense’s search-and-seizure motion. A lot was riding on it. The main target, of course, was the Rockingham glove. Shapiro would have tried any kind of crazy stunt to keep that out of the record. At the heart of his argument to suppress was the allegation that all four officers went out to Rockingham that morning believing Simpson was a suspect. In that case, they might have needed a warrant to enter the grounds.

By now I’d looked thoroughly into these allegations. In follow-up interviews, all four detectives led me through their individual movements during the early-morning hours of June 13. I’d read all of their reports and made notes on my informal conversations with each of them.

What I heard was encouraging: the four were acting under official orders to make a humanitarian notification-and that in itself went a good distance toward discrediting the defense’s claim. In murder cases, you always try to notify the next of kin personally. Sometimes cops will drive two hours to make the contact. And when the case involves a celebrity, there’s even more urgency-you don’t want the first notification to come from the media.

The officers had just come from a scene where two victims had been savagely slain. Simpson’s two young children had been roused from their beds at Bundy and were at West L.A. Station waiting for their father or some other member of the family to pick them up. Where was he? Was he all right? The uncertainty mounted when they reached Rockingham and rang the buzzer at the Ashford gate. No answer. For nearly ten minutes, no reply.

Finally, Ron Phillips got Simpson’s phone number from the private security service. He called it on his cell phone, letting it ring over and over again. No response. The detectives fell back to try and figure out what kind of situation they had. It didn’t feel right that the place should be deserted at 5:30 in the morning. Especially considering that the lights were on and cars were in the driveway.

They were reviewing their options when Mark Fuhrman walked down to the white Ford Bronco parked just outside the Rockingham gate. The way it was parked, rear wheels jutting out from the curb, struck him as odd. He pulled out his penlight and began to examine the vehicle more closely. A package in the cargo area was addressed to Orenthal Productions. Fuhrman moved around the car with his penlight and when he came to the driver’s door he stopped. On the clean surface he noticed a tiny dark spot. He called Phil over. They both agreed: it looked like blood.

There was a real possibility that someone was in danger. Their choices: leave and get a search warrant, in which case precious minutes would be lost, or go in right away and hope they weren’t too late. Everything spelled urgency. Phil decided to go in. He asked Mark, who was the youngest and fittest of the four, to climb over the wall and open the gate. Fuhrman did so and opened the gate from inside. The detectives knocked on the front door and got no answer, so they went to the back of the house, fanning their flashlights around the pool area looking for signs of disturbance-or more victims. Nothing.

I asked all the cops whether they’d done a thorough search of the grounds-waded through shrubbery or gone inside the pool house. They all told me no. That wasn’t their goal. They were looking for bodies or for someone who could tell them how to reach O. J. Simpson.

When they found Kato Kaelin and Arnelle Simpson in their respective guest houses, they learned that Simpson wasn’t there. Mark told me how he and Ron Phillips had approached the first of the guest rooms at the back of the house. Ron looked through the glass door and saw someone on the bed. When they knocked, a white man in his thirties came to the door. He appeared dazed and confused.

I laughed to myself when I heard this. Kato always seemed that way. Mark had shone a penlight into his eyes to see if he appeared to be under the influence of drugs. Not visibly. Mark then checked his clothes and boots for blood. Clearly, Mark, at least, considered him a potential suspect. Kato told Mark Furhman about the thump on the wall. When Mark went outside to investigate, he saw a small lump, barely visible, on the ground. As he drew nearer, the lump began to take the shape of a glove. Earlier that morning, he’d seen a glove lying on the ground between the victims at Bundy. Was this its mate?

Until that point, no one inside the house had been searching for evidence. Only when Mark returned to tell them what he’d found did that change. Fuhrman escorted the others to the site, one by one. By the time it was Phil’s turn, the sky had lightened so that he was able to see without the aid of a flashlight. As he looked toward the Bronco parked just outside the Rockingham gate, he noticed spots on the cobblestoned driveway. He moved for a closer look. Again, blood. The drops stretched between the Bronco and the front door.

That was enough for Phil. He declared Rockingham a crime scene and called for a criminalist. Shortly after that, he left to prepare the warrant.