Swift Horses Racing

by Victoria Kazarian

  She led him through a kitchen that looked as fastidious and unlived in as a model home. Aluminum appliances polished to a sheen. Labeled drawers. Knives lined up in order of size on a magnetic rack over the oven. Flores liked to keep things tidy, but the feel of this house was too much for even him.

  As he sat down at the kitchen table, Flores heard a children’s song coming from a TV in the next room, then the delighted belly laugh of a child. It was what this too-perfect house needed. He smiled.

  “Sounds like you have a visitor.”

  “My daughter and her husband are in Puerto Vallarta on a New Year’s cruise.” Rose took a seat across from him and rested her hands on the table. “I’m watching my granddaughter Chloe.”

  “I’m sure she keeps you busy.” Flores didn’t know, just assumed this was the case. He had no experience with young children. Any information he had was secondhand—his older sister, Dawn, was now stepparent to her partner’s child and usually in stress mode whenever he called.

  Tears filled Rose’s eyes and she blinked. “Today, Chloe is a good distraction.” Deep lines in her cheeks and brow led him to guess she stored her grief in some labeled drawer in her mind and let out as little as possible.

  “I need to ask you some questions about your father, Mrs. Mulvaney. Did you father live alone? Any roommates? Family members?”

  “He lived by himself. My son, Randall, lived with him for a few months last year. It was too much house for my father. He didn’t throw anything away. There’s decades of books, papers, mementos we’ll have to clean out.” This was a new one for Flores: the woman had received the news of her father’s death eight hours ago, and her first concern was to head over and clean out his house.

  “Your father worked in aeronautics?”

  “For more than seventy years.” Rose’s voice deepened with pride. “First in Florida, with the fighter pilots who worked in the first astronaut program, then he moved out here to California and worked on high-altitude planes. You’ve heard of Richard Feynman, the physicist?”

  Flores nodded. He’d read about the physicist from Caltech, famous for his entertaining lectures.

  “My father was like the Feynman of aeronautics.” Rose’s expression softened. “He had a way of explaining flight. He made aviation and the sciences interesting and easy to understand—he told his stories, he liked to say. He was a natural teacher. When he retired, it made sense that he began working with high school students.”

  “He did this at a school?”

  “At a tutoring center that helps underprivileged teens on the East side. He worked with students interested in science. Engineering and physics—aerospace, if the kids were interested. He said he wanted to help students who didn’t get the same opportunities as other kids in the valley. He had been doing it for about twenty years.” Rose Schuler shook her head and seemed to shudder. “It’s such a dangerous part of town. I worried about him.”

  Gang activity was common in East San Jose. Flores wondered if Schuler could have gotten mixed up with kids who had gang connections. Or crossed somebody he shouldn’t have. With the drive-by shooting, Flores couldn’t rule it out. He’d be talking to Gang Investigations later today.

  “Did your father ever mention being threatened by his students?”

  Rose looked through the door behind her at Chloe, who was swaying to the song of a singing cartoon shark on TV. “He didn’t. But he wasn’t afraid of much. If it happened, he may not have taken it seriously.”

  Then the big question. Where had Karl Schuler been going on New Year’s?

  “Do you know why your father would be out driving at that hour? Was he attending a party?”

  Rose’s mouth twitched, and she looked down into a mug of tea that smelled like cinnamon. She shook her head.

  “My father is—was—very independent. He made it clear that he lived on his own and we were not to interfere with him. We tried our best to keep an eye on him. He was ninety-two, after all. He often gave us the slip.” She clutched her mug tightly, and he noticed her knuckles turned white. “When I called, he’d told me he was planning to stay in last night.”

  “Unusual to see someone at that age still driving. No problems?”

  It had been one of the things he’d thought about this morning on his drive home. Maybe Karl Schuler had cut the wrong person off, triggering an episode of road rage.

  “Not that I know about,” Rose snapped, her bloodshot eyes turned on him. He wasn’t sure if she was irritated at his question or at her own father. “He passed his tests each time. He was determined to keep driving. If it wasn’t the students he mentored, it was the senior meals program. I don’t know what he’d do if he lost his license.”

  “What about his cognitive abilities? Any dementia?”

  “Not my father.” She cut him off in tight, clipped syllables. “I had a few long talks with his doctor. I wanted to be sure. My father’s cognitive abilities were just fine.”

  Flores heard a tapping sound coming from somewhere. The lines around Rose’s mouth tightened, and she let out a low sigh.

  “Excuse me.” She disappeared down the hallway.

  Flores used the opportunity to check his phone and messages. There was an Explorer owner registered to a home in North San Jose, fifteen minutes away. After leaving here, he could head up 87, which wouldn’t be busy today, then downtown to the station.

  Now a ghostly moan echoed from the hallway. The desperate rattling of a doorknob. Rose was pleading.

  “Chloe, turn the doorknob.”

  Another mournful cry. More rattling on the knob. Then faint, disconsolate knocking.

  “Hold the doorknob, Chloe. Hold it tight. Then turn it.”

  Rose came back into the kitchen, her lips pressed together tightly. She opened a drawer, then took out a key. When she came back, she had the two-year-old under her arm. The little girl with wispy white blonde hair looked at Flores solemnly.

  “I went pee pee.”

  The response came out of Flores as if he were commending a rookie after a session of Field Training.

  “Nice job.”

  The little girl smiled at him. She had big blue eyes, pink cheeks and fat hands with stubby fingers. A Cabbage Patch doll.

  An unexpected thought ran through his head. He wondered how Oksana felt about having children. They’d never talked about it.

  “Chloe, this is Detective Flores,” Rose addressed the child in a stern voice. “Tell him how old you are.”

  Chloe held up two stubby fingers and tilted her head.

  At a loss for what else to do, Flores gave her a thumbs up.

  “Hochstuhl, Chloe.” Rose called in what Flores recognized as German.

  The toddler lifted her arms. Rose picked her up and settled her into the highchair. She set a plastic container of Cheerios on the tray, which Chloe promptly dumped out.

  “She’ll be fine for a while.” Rose turned back to Flores.

  Chloe pulled a wet hand out of her mouth and smacked it down on her cereal-covered tray. She held up a hand bedecked with Cheerios, then smiled and shoved it back in her mouth.

  It was becoming clear to Flores that Rose Schuler Mulvaney had as much control over her granddaughter as she’d had over her father.

  Karl Schuler had been a man with many connections. Right now, the mentoring Schuler had done in East San Jose interested him most.

  “Mrs. Mulvaney, I need the name of the tutoring center in East San Jose.”

  “East Point Youth Center. It’s in south San Jose. Near Monterey Road.”

  Flores tapped notes on his tablet keyboard. “What other activities was your father involved in? You mentioned a meals for seniors program.”

  Interesting that Karl Schuler gave so much of his time away, when most men his age would have been trying to enjoy the time they had left. The cynical side of Flores wondered why he was so driven to do it.

  “He delivered meals to low-income seniors in the valley. Most of them were younger than
he was.” Rose threw up a hand in exasperation. “Oh, and a few weeks ago, there was the women’s shelter. He’d helped a parent of one of his students get set up at the shelter, and he heard they needed some repairs, so he found volunteers. My father helped everybody.”

  Schuler, it seemed, was a genuinely good man. As Flores knew, not everyone’s father was.

  “Your father sounded like a good human being,” he said. “I am sorry for your loss, Mrs. Mulvaney.”

  At his words, Rose Mulvaney broke down completely. She covered her face with her hands and leaned back in her chair, rocking, her body heaving with sobs.

  Flores got up and scanned the kitchen. He found a tissue box on the counter near the sink and brought it to Rose. He waited while she calmed down. She pulled out a tissue and wiped her eyes.

  “Mrs. Mulvaney, is there anyone else close with your father? Anyone who might have seen him earlier that day?”

  Rose nodded and blotted her reddened nose with the tissue. “That would be Duke. Duke Sorenson. He’s his closest friend. They knew each other for years. He had a group of guys he met with each week. They got together to tell their stories. I’ll get you my brother Christoph’s number, too. He’s in Florida. He and my father talked every week.”

  “Did your father have any disagreements with family or neighbors? Can you think of anyone who might have a grudge against him?” He heard the sound of Cheerios skittering across the floor.

  Rose shook her head, the creases around her mouth tightening. “That is the hard part. I can’t think of anyone.”

  Rose looked behind her to see the mess on the floor and groaned. She left the room and came back with a broom and a dustpan and bent down to sweep up the Cheerios.

  Flores watched Chloe look down at her grandmother and slowly brush more Cheerios off the tray with the back of her hand.

  Then the toddler turned to look him straight in the eye. The glint in her eye reminded him of an interrogation he’d had a couple of years ago. An eighteen-year-old who’d killed his mother in cold blood.

  Flores had gone soft watching the cherubic toddler. He now firmed up.

  He would not bring it up with Oksana.

  There was no reason to rush these things.

  6

  In his car outside of Rose Mulvaney’s house, Flores checked the address of the registration for the Explorer in North San Jose. He sent the link to his phone and reached down for his jacket.

  This winter in the Bay Area was cold and wet, not something he had ever gotten accustomed to. He had enough friends from other parts of the country who made fun of him for complaining about temps in the 40s. He’d come up to NorCal from Orange County to go to college, and he’d never moved back. His parents in Anaheim mourned the fact and their phone conversations were filled with lots of passive aggressive comments.

  Truth is, he’d had a string of Northern Californian girlfriends and the only times he returned to his hometown was when they wanted to go to a decent beach. Southern California had it all over NorCal in that area.

  He entered the ramp for the 87 north and began the slow, ambling curve through downtown San Jose, past the barren white and grey buildings and the purple stucco Children’s Museum, with its giant rubber ducky perched on top. San Jose wasn’t a pretty city. It was San Francisco’s left-brained, technology-obsessed brother. Flat and literal, little art, little grace. Buildings that looked like they were created by computer-assisted design programs in the 1970s. But you knew what to expect. No surprises. San Jose was a city you could take at face value.

  He took the exit for First Street, heading for the area of condos and apartments that had sprung up amid the wake of high-tech companies on the northeast side of the valley. Land was cheaper here than on the west side, and developers had maximized their profits, stacking boxes upon each other. The tightly packed streets were punctuated by square plots of grass intended to check the box for green space on some planner’s map.

  The GPS led him to a row of condos that looked like old-fashioned row houses, or more appropriately, row houses as they would look on Main Street USA in Disneyland. Bright pastel tones with white trim. He parked in front of a townhouse painted in light green and white. The garage door, framed in neat, white trim was closed. A squirrel darted across the damp driveway, then shot up the trunk of a tree on the side of the house.

  Flores walked up the short path to the gray, paneled front door with tiny square windows at the top. He rang the doorbell. His heart pounded louder as he looked at his surroundings and waited for the home’s occupant, who might well be armed and guarding an SUV in the garage.

  Light appeared in the door’s tiny windows. He held up his badge at the peephole. He heard the click and whir of a digital lock.

  A young Asian woman opened the door. From the name on the registration, this wasn’t who he’d expected to open the door. In sweatpants and a faded red Stanford t-shirt, it looked as if she was working remotely today. The brown eyes behind her wire-rimmed glasses looked faintly bloodshot as if she’d slept poorly or spent too much time in front of a computer. She looked embarrassed to have been caught in her home-alone clothes.

  “Detective Mario Flores, San Jose PD. I’m looking for a Jacob Hollander. Does he live at this address?”

  She hesitated, swallowing nervously. “I’m Teresa—Teresa Cho. Jake’s my husband. He’s on a work trip in Minneapolis and he won’t get back till Friday night. Can you come back then?” She smiled politely as she put her hand on the edge of the door to close it, but Flores moved further in on the door mat and her hand dropped.

  “Ms. Cho, we’re trying to track down a vehicle. A black SUV involved in a shooting on New Year’s. The registration shows your husband as the owner of a 2003 Ford Explorer. Is that car at your residence now?”

  A sheen of sweat appeared on her forehead. “No, he sold it before Christmas. It took up too much of our garage.”

  “Ms. Cho, he needs to transfer ownership with the DMV within five days of a sale. Do you remember the date he turned it over to the owner?”

  She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “My grandparents were visiting from South Korea, so I was busy over the holiday. I think he sold it the week before Christmas. Jake’s company had a long shutdown, and he gets a little crazy when he’s not working. He tries to organize everything and get his life in order. He said he sold it to someone who contacted him. He might have put it on Craig’s List, but I’m not sure.”

  “Would it be possible for you to open your garage door for me, so I can see where the vehicle was parked?” He watched her eyes. No sign of panic. No defensiveness.

  He couldn’t search the garage without getting a warrant, but if she agreed to open the door, he could at least see where the vehicle had been. If Jake Hollander had been involved in Schuler’s murder and the car had come back here in a hurry, there might some signs in the garage.

  She thought for a moment. “I can do that. I’ll meet you outside.”

  He walked around to the garage door and waited. Soon the automatic door opened up with a creak, revealing a small garage packed tightly. A Prius was parked neatly on one side, and shelves on the other side were loaded with Costco-sized packages of toilet paper and paper towels. A small workbench stood near the door into the house—on it, an old Xbox game console and what looked like a computer hard drive and a box of cables.

  Teresa Cho came out to meet him from the entrance to the house. The floor was swept clean, and there were faded oil stains on the ground where a vehicle had been. He stood and looked around and saw no shell casings, no skid marks from a sudden entry. Though it could all have been cleaned up since last night.

  Flores nodded. “This is a very small garage.”

  Teresa’s phone beeped and she glanced at it before looking up at him.

  “When we parked the SUV in here, it was hard to move around. It’s not convenient to have only one car, but the Prius is a lot easier to park.”

  “I’ll need your full name and p
hone number, Ms. Cho.” He pulled out his tablet and started a note. “And your husband’s cell number.”

  She gave him Jake Hollander’s number. He took out his card and wrote his number on it.

  “It’s important that you get back to me if you find out anything that might help us locate the new owner or the car. The victim’s family is looking for answers. Call me or email me if you remember anything else.”

  “Oh, my God. Is that the old scientist who was killed?” The woman was visibly shaken. “Of course. Jake gets busy when he’s on site. I’ll get him your number, too. If he calls tonight, I’ll remind him to call you.”

  Teresa Cho’s garage door slowly closed, as Flores slid back into his car.

  He wondered about Jake Hollander and his sudden desire to sell his SUV.

  And if Jake Hollander was in OCD mode and trying to get his life in order, why hadn’t he taken the time to transfer ownership of his vehicle?

  7

  A thick layer of fog was drifting down over the hills, filling the air with a damp chill that sunk into your bones. Detectives Dani Grasso and James Ruiz made their way carefully through a muddy front yard as they headed back to their car on the street.

  A burglary. A married couple, both software engineers, had a big screen TV, laptops and game consoles stolen. It was a small, 1960s duplex off Foothill Expressway, nothing to look at from the outside, filled with expensive electronics. State of the art, all the accessories and most of them new. The things a two-income couple employed in tech buys when they don’t have kids. Ruiz thought of the careful budgeting he and Reyna had to do to afford Jacky’s soccer uniforms and school materials.

  “A family downstairs in my complex was hit last week,” Grasso said. “Three computers and a couple of iPads. While they were out to dinner.”

  “These guys were skiing in Tahoe.” Ruiz said as they got into the car. “Nobody thinks people are watching. Tracking habits and patterns, the days and times. Especially in this part of town.”