by Coyle, Matt;
“Grimes told me she’d just started reinvestigating my wife’s murder.”
“Oh my God.” Leah sat down. The hand. Warm. Again. “Did she learn anything new?”
Leah was still grieving the loss of her big sister. She probably would the rest of her life. The woman she’d put on a pedestal in life who would grow to more saintly heights in death. The truth about our night together would make Krista a mere mortal. The truth, my holy grail. Less than twenty-four hours on the case and already pain waiting to be inflicted.
“Not that I know of.” Leah had been hurt enough by the death of her sister. I wasn’t about to let the legend die, too. “Did she ever tell you why she thought I was innocent?”
“She said she knew in her heart that you weren’t capable of murder.”
I wasn’t. Back then.
“Did she keep any files at home? Has anyone gone through her belongings?”
“There’s a file cabinet in her office, but I haven’t gone through it yet. Krista and Tom didn’t have any children so she left everything to me and my brother. I tried to go through her house last week to get things in order, but I couldn’t bear to look at pieces of Krista’s life knowing I’d never see her again. Stephen wants to sell her house before we have to make too many mortgage payments, but I’m in no hurry to clean it out.”
I’d moved out of our apartment after Colleen’s murder. Like Leah, I couldn’t bear to live in a home that Colleen would never be in again. I took everything left of her with me to my tiny new apartment. I hung her clothes in my closet and kept mine in boxes on the floor. I wanted to be able to smell her if I couldn’t hold her. But her essence started to fade from her clothes so I sealed them up in plastic garment bags and allowed myself a whiff once a day.
Soon, even the plastic couldn’t hold in her memory and I gave her clothes to her sister. Christy Kerrigan had once loved me like a big brother. When she came down from Mill Valley to pick up the clothes, she demanded that I not be in the apartment while she was there.
I still have photos of Colleen, a wedding album, a videotape, the first pair of shorts I bought her, and a Lake Tahoe t-shirt from our honeymoon. And her hairbrush. With a few long strands of her hair in it.
Some of my memories of Colleen have faded. Too many of the good ones, not enough of the bad. When I feel memories start to blur, I take out the remnants of Colleen, of our life together, and look at them and hold them in my hands and try to convince myself I can still smell her essence, feel her presence in my arms.
My quest in life since Colleen’s death had been pursuit of the truth, but sometimes I could live with lying to myself.
“How would you feel about going over to Krista’s house today?” I asked.
Leah stiffened and her blue eyes went big for an instant. Her eyelids slid back down and she let out a breath. “I can do that. If we’re going to try to find something that will help catch Krista’s killer, I can do that.”
“We are.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
KRISTA HADN’T GOTTEN the house I remembered from the cop barbecues in her divorce settlement with Weaver. Her new house was a mid-century modern ranch up Stagecoach Road, twelve miles northwest of Leah’s home and much higher in the hills. No ocean view but a spectacular one of the Santa Ynez Mountains out the back. The street had a canopy of old-growth trees that gave each home a feeling of privacy. Seclusion.
Leah grabbed the mail from the mailbox on the curb and we went inside.
Krista had added finishes of old farmhouse rustic inside the house—in juxtaposition to the sharp-angled exterior. The soft edges and warm feel soon enveloped me in a cocoon. A beer on the backyard deck each evening watching the quiet of the mountains would be habit forming.
But I wasn’t there to move in. I was there to find something. I didn’t know what it was, or if it was. Just that something didn’t seem right about the accident that killed Krista. It could have been as simple as Dustin Peck guessing which direction Krista was walking and then sticking to the story because he didn’t think it mattered. Whatever Peck’s motivation or his truth didn’t answer the question of what Krista was doing down on State Street at two in the morning. Until I discovered that, her death would remain more than just a drunk driver hit and run.
I could smell Krista in her bedroom. Still wore the same perfume. More herbs than flowers, more cinnamon that sweet. I remember it from sharing a squad car with her and, later, a bed. Her scent brought her back to life. After thirteen and a half years of not seeing her or thinking of her very often, she was suddenly tangible and real to me again. But she was dead. I missed her more now than I did yesterday in a room full of mourners gasping their sorrow.
There were no clues to Krista’s death in her bedroom. Just memories of her life.
Krista’s office was a converted bedroom in the back with a spectacular view of the mountains. The office and desk, just like the rest of the house, were immaculate. However messy Krista’s personal life may have been when we made our mistake, her work habits and organization had remained impeccable. But, something was missing. No computer. No desktop, no laptop. A printer sat on the right corner of the desk, so Krista used a computer there.
I didn’t remember seeing a laptop listed in the effects found in Krista’s car that Leah showed me.
“Did Krista have a computer?” I asked Leah
Leah had spoken the least amount of words it took in the car to direct me on the drive over from her house. The same inside the house, just pointing out rooms that I could have figured out myself. No small talk. Being in her dead sister’s house was too big for small talk. She’d hugged herself into a tight statue, unresponsive.
“Leah, did Krista own a laptop or any kind of computer?” I asked again.
“Oh.” She blinked a couple times. “Yes, she had a laptop. We did a girls’ weekend trip to Palm Springs last year and she brought it with her.”
“Was that the last time you saw it?”
“The last time I can remember.”
“And it wasn’t in any of the personal effects received from SBPD?”
“No. Just an extra set of clothes, coffee mug, and pictures of my niece and nephew.”
“Did she ever send you emails?” I asked.
“Rarely.”
“Do you know the password to her email account?” A long shot, but I wanted to see who Krista emailed the last week of her life.
“No. She had a Gmail account, but I don’t know the password.”
There was a tall four-drawer metal file cabinet next to the desk. It had a key lock in the top drawer that would unlock the whole cabinet. I tried the handle to the top drawer and pulled it open.
I sat at the desk and examined the files from the top drawer. Krista’s financial history was neatly cataloged in multiple file folders in the drawer. Mortgage papers, investment records, bank statements, credit card statements, divorce papers. She had it all going back a decade. I skimmed through them looking for anything out of the ordinary. Nothing. Squeaky clean.
The next drawer held personal papers. Correspondence from her ex-husband, ex-boyfriends, friends and family. I’d remembered Krista as a pen and paper letter writer even as email took hold.
“We need to go through these and look for something recent that seems out of place or raises a red flag in your mind.” I held four manila folders in front of Leah.
Leash hesitated a second, then nodded her head. “Okay. I can do this.”
She took half the folders, sat down on the hardwood floor.
“You can have the desk.” I stood up.
“This is fine.” She smiled up at me, blue eyes suddenly dazzling.
I sat back down and started going through the correspondence, reading the most recent first. Most of the letters were at least five years old from friends and family, particularly her aunt back in Pittsburgh. The most recent I found was three years ago. Nothing with flashing lights that read, “Open me, I’m a clue.”
“Di
d you find anything?” I asked Leah.
“No.” She pushed the folders aside, then stood up. “But I think there was a letter among the bills I grabbed from the mailbox. Be right back.”
She left the office. I waited. A minute. Then two. Nothing. Finally, I heard hurried footsteps down the hall and Leah emerged holding a letter envelope.
“I’m not sure this means anything, but it was mailed Wednesday.”
She handed me the envelope. Handwritten address and return in black ink. The handwriting was blocky and looked male. I pulled out the letter and read it.
Dear Sergeant Landingham,
Thank you for coming all the way down to Oceanside to interview me. It gives me great comfort to know that you are following up on something that has bothered me all these years. Of course, if I had been able to report what I saw that night in Santa Barbara immediately, the whole situation might be resolved by now.
I don’t want to be a pest, but I am hoping you will update me with whatever information you can. I know you are quite busy and it has only been a few days, but ironically after finally getting this off my chest, I am even more anxious about a resolution than before. You don’t have to worry about me emailing or calling you. I am old, but I do know how to use such devices. However, I chose a letter so that you might read it at your leisure and not be interrupted while you’re doing God’s work.
If you’re ever in Oceanside again on work or for any reason, this old sailor would love to take you out on the Lily Marie and show you the city from a different perspective. Maybe even sail down to San Diego for an afternoon. Your choice.
Yours,
Mike Richert
I reread the letter: “something that has bothered me all these years”; “what I saw that night in Santa Barbara.”
My face suddenly flashed hot.
“What do you think this is about?” Krista was now standing, leaning over my shoulder.
“I don’t know, but I’m going to track down Mr. Richert and find out.” I couldn’t say what I really thought. Not out loud. Not yet.
Krista started investigating Colleen’s murder a week before she died. She went down to interview a man in Oceanside who’d seen something in Santa Barbara all those years ago and a couple days later someone ran her down in a van without braking. Before or after impact.
Colleen’s death and Krista’s death were linked. I felt it in my bones. And one person was responsible for both.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
WE PUT ALL the old correspondence we’d looked at back in the manila folders and in the file cabinet. Except for two letters I’d read and set aside. I handed them to Leah. They were addressed to Krista from Leah and were mailed in the fall of 1999.
“You might want to keep those,” I said.
She looked at the envelopes and her eyes started to tear up. She sat down at the desk and read each one.
“These letters are twenty years old and she kept them.” She took a deep breath and wiped her eyes. “Whiny letters from her kid sister in college who was homesick during her first year away from her family and she kept them. God, I wish I would have kept the letters she sent me. They were so hopeful and encouraging. They really helped me through a tough time. I can remember the sentiment, but not the words. Why didn’t I keep them?”
She stood up and looked at me. Her blue eyes shimmering in liquid.
“You’ll always have the memories and now you have the letters that she kept all these years because they meant something to her.”
Leah gasped a sob. I hugged her and we locked together for a solid minute. Her tears dampened my shoulder. Finally, she pulled away.
“I’m good.” She wiped the last tears away. “What’s next?”
“Let’s see.” I pulled open the third drawer and thought I’d found the jackpot. Copies of police reports. Cold cases. Murders. Not the complete files because they would take up the entire office and more. No three-ring binder murder books either. But what looked like copies of the original police reports and pages and pages of summaries of the progress made in the cases. It looked as if Krista had brought home information on all of SBPD’s cold cases since she’d joined the Major Investigative Unit to work on in her free time. She’d always been passionate about the job, but this was next level.
Colleen’s murder should be in one of the files. I pulled them out.
The first case went back over fifty years to the 1963 murder of a high school couple found on Gaviota Beach. The pair had wandered off from a high school senior ditch day. Notes in the file noted similarities to murders in the Bay Area claimed by The Zodiac Killer during the 1960s and ’70s. The Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Department, who had jurisdiction, even issued a press release in 1972 stating that there was a high degree of probability that the murders were committed by The Zodiac. SBPD had a file on the murders because there’d been a joint task force with the Sheriff’s Department.
The next case was the 1993 rape and murder of a woman whose body was left on Hendry’s Beach, about two miles from East Beach. DNA found at the scene had since been linked to that of the California Coast Killer, a serial killer who operated from 1988–2007 then suddenly stopped but remained at large. CCK was known to have murdered women in the Bay Area and as far south as Santa Cruz.
It wasn’t until 2010 that law enforcement linked the Northern California murders with those that took place in Santa Barbara and other cities in Southern California in the 2000s. Once the connection became public, I hired a lawyer to try to demand that SBPD check all the DNA found in Colleen’s case against that of CCK’s. The department maintained that the only testable DNA found was my semen inside Colleen. We made love, in between arguments, the night before she was murdered. Her body had been washed in bleach, unlike CCK’s victims, but maybe he changed his MO. I petitioned SBPD to search for more DNA using the additional advanced science available now. The department ignored my letters and calls.
Krista hadn’t made any notes connecting Colleen’s murder to the body found on Hendry’s Beach.
The most recent case in drawer number three was a double murder in the Eastside area of Santa Barbara thought to have been a drug deal gone wrong in 2004. Colleen was murdered in 2005.
I opened drawer number four.
Empty.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I STARED AT the empty drawer. Metal rods lined both sides where the hooked green file folders would rest, but nothing else. Had Krista not gotten around to copying the police report or writing a summary of Colleen’s murder? That didn’t make sense if it was the first cold case she’d chosen to investigate. Maybe she kept it with her at the police station. But that didn’t really make sense either since she’d have access to the entire file on Colleen there and not just her own summary.
“Shouldn’t there be other cold cases in this drawer?” Leah asked, hunched over my shoulder.
“Yes.”
I pulled out my phone, opened up a web browser, and searched “Cold cases Santa Barbara Police Department.” Numerous search listings came up that had the cases I found in Krista’s file cabinet, plus Colleen’s and three other murders. A rape and murder of a UC Santa Barbara student in 2008, the murder of an elderly couple in 2011, and the murder of a bank executive in 2013. If Krista had made copies of all the cold case police reports, these, along with Colleen’s, should have been in the file cabinet.
Why weren’t they? She’d chosen Colleen’s case to work first. Krista was a cop twenty-four hours a day. Was she down on State Street investigating Collen’s death when she was killed? I stared at the file cabinet lock in the top drawer. There were a couple of slight scratches on the bottom edge of the keyhole to the lock on the file cabinet. It could have come from anything. One of those anythings could be a tension wrench used, along with a rake, to pick a lock.
“What do you think happened to the files?” Leah’s voice woke me from my thoughts.
“Hand me Krista’s key ring.”
Leah handed me the keys. I
found a short one and tried it in the lock of the top drawer of the file cabinet. It locked and unlocked the drawer.
“Maybe someone broke into the house and picked the lock on the file cabinet and stole the files along with Krista’s laptop.” I handed the key ring back to Leah. The file cabinet was unlocked when we found it. Made sense, since Leah lived alone. But she kept a key to the lock on her key ring, which meant she probably used it.
“Did you see any evidence of a break-in? I didn’t, but you’re more familiar with that sort of thing.”
Leah didn’t know how right she was about my familiarity with breaking into places where I wasn’t invited. I couldn’t be the only person in Santa Barbara who knew how to pick locks and had the tools to do it in the trunk of my car.
“See these scratches?” I pointed at the lock. “They could have come from someone picking the lock.”
“Oh my God.” Leah wrapped her arms around her chest.
“I think they found the cold case file on my wife’s murder and took the rest of the files in that drawer so it wouldn’t be obvious that any had been stolen. Merely an empty drawer that has always been empty.”
I said it. I’d shown Leah my hole card.
“What does any of this have to do with your wife’s murder?”
“I don’t know, but Krista was the most dedicated cop I knew.” I rubbed my fingers over the scratches on the lock. “Wouldn’t it make sense that she was down on State Street at two a.m. following a lead? All the bars were closed. There’s no residential housing there, so she wasn’t visiting a boyfriend she might not have told you about.”
“But why Colleen’s murder?”
“Because Jim Grimes told me it was the case Krista starting investigating a week before she was killed. Whoever broke in found the cold case files and grabbed them along with Colleen’s file and Krista’s laptop. Maybe because of something she’d learned from Mike Richert when she visited him in Oceanside.”
“Why do you think there’s a connection between what Mr. Richert saw and your wife’s murder?”