by Matt Coyle
I hung up. The La Valencia front desk got the last laugh, and I was left with no new information on Keenan Powell.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I LISTENED TO the local news at 5:00 p.m. for the first time since I’d been back from Santa Barbara. Shay Sommers’ murder was the lead story. The reporter went into more detail than I expected. Beaten and strangled to death. No sign of sexual assault. Sounded like someone at LJPD had leaked information to her. The reporter went on to say that LJPD hadn’t named any suspects, but had spoken to an unnamed person of interest.
I knew the name of the unnamed. Turk. I hoped he didn’t turn on his television. For months.
Next came comments on a grieving friend they must be showing on the screen. Probably Kris. The press hadn’t yet arrived while Moira and I were at Shay’s house. My guess was that someone had filmed the scene from their smartphone and sold it to the TV station. Or maybe even the network.
It used to be that you only had to worry about the press intruding on your private grief while you suffered the worst moments of your life. Now you had to add your neighbors to the list. And strangers. Every private moment was now in the public domain. Whether you liked it or not. No matter the damage it caused.
I couldn’t remember if I still had Kris’ phone number but told my phone to call Kris Collins. A couple seconds later I heard ringing.
“Rick?” Kris’ voice still weighed down with grief.
“How are you holding up?” A stupid question. I could tell by her voice. Not well at all. Maybe shared grief would help. Could it make things worse? “Have you spoken with Turk since this morning?”
“Yes. About an hour ago. I’m worried about him.” So was I, but kept that to myself.
“Do you think you could go over and sit with him for a while? I think he’s all alone.” I figured she’d be a much better choice than me.
“I can’t. I’m at the restaurant.”
“What?”
“Someone has to be here. No one else can open and close. Pat is on vacation in Europe.” The bar manager. I’d hired him, too.
“Shit.” Even all these years later, I still knew Muldoon’s like the back of my hand. I still remembered how to close the restaurant. But I’d never done it blind.
“There’s something else I have to tell you.” An ache in her voice.
“Okay.” Could the day get worse?
“I think I messed up when I talked to a detective today.”
“What did you say?”
“He asked me if I ever knew Turk to be violent and I said no.”
“That’s good.” However, I knew there was a “but” yet to come.
“Then he asked if I was sure, not even with an unruly customer, like he thought I was lying and trying to cover something up.”
I could have told her that I knew what she was going to say, but that would give it greater significance and make her feel worse. I let her go on.
“So I told him about the time you and Turk got into a fight over the restaurant when you quit.” She rushed her words like she was trying to spit them out of her mouth as fast as she could and be done with them. “I told the detective that no one got hurt and that you two remained friends.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong. That has nothing to do with what happened to Shay. “
“I hope you’re right.”
Me, too. The police and the DA would use whatever a judge would allow, if Turk was ever arrested.
“How did you know about that?” Two things Kris said about the fight weren’t true. That I quit Muldoon’s and that no one got hurt. Turk fired me, and the fight, and everything surrounding it, caused a tear in our relationship that still hadn’t healed.
“He told me one night when I was feeling down about an argument I had with a friend.” These words came slower, almost wistful. “He told me it was his fault and that he wished he would have apologized at the time, but his pride wouldn’t let him.”
“My pride didn’t help either.” I could have made the first move. But all of that was moot now. Life had moved on. Turk needed me now and I wouldn’t let him down.
My phone interrupted my end with the beep of an incoming call.
“I have to get back in the dining room, but please call Turk. Make sure he’s okay.” Kris, exhausted.
“I will.” I hung up and answered the incoming call.
“Up to your old tricks again, Cahill?” A woman’s voice, but not Moira’s. Unfortunately, I recognized it. “Poking your white cane in where it doesn’t belong?”
“Detective Denton,” I said and waited for the worst.
“Or should I call you Officer Gardner? Or Detective Gardner. Apparently, you were promoted between calls to Luxurious Limousines and La Valencia.”
Shit. But at least I knew LJPD was following all leads on Shay’s murder. Even the annoying tangential ones after the fact.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Lying to the police was easy again.
“Well, let me enlighten you.” A loud nostril exhale. “Oops, my mistake. I know you’re not familiar with that term. You are the most unenlightened human being I’ve ever met. I’ll educate you, then. Someone impersonating a police officer called Luxurious Limousines and La Valencia today in an effort to get information on a murder investigation.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
“Good question. At first, I didn’t even consider you after I talked to Jamal at the car rental company and he told me someone had gotten information from him by lying about being a cop. Or even after the desk clerk at La Valencia told me that someone had pretended to be a detective on the phone. I thought an overzealous reporter made the calls to get a scoop on what’s turning into a big story. I mean, even the desk clerk knew the person was a phony.”
She paused. I guess to let the insult sink in. If I was the kind of person to do what she’d alleged, I wouldn’t be so easily offended. I waited for Detective Denton to go on. She hadn’t gotten to the part where she threatens me with arrest yet.
“Then I remembered who I saw at the crime scene today and thought about what kind of an interfering idiot with a hero complex you were. And that you are a friend of Thomas Muldoon’s and knew about the rented Mercedes and La Valencia because you were with Moira MacFarlane when she followed Shay Sommers last night. So, go ahead and play dumb, Cahill. It’s not much of a stretch for you. But, take this as a warning, if you further interfere in my murder investigation, I will put you behind bars, right next to your friend.”
“You arrested Turk?”
“Who?”
“Thomas Muldoon.”
“I didn’t say that. Not yet, anyway.”
“Sounds like you’re zeroed in on him, Detective. I hope you follow up on all the other leads. It wasn’t Turk. He loved Shay.”
“Maybe that love turned to hate after you made him think Shay Sommers was cheating on him.”
“We didn’t make him think anything. And he was fine when we left him.” Not fine, but more sad than angry. “Why don’t you look into who Shay met at La Valencia? If she was having an affair, maybe the man she met wanted to end it and Shay didn’t. Expand your horizons. It wasn’t Turk.”
“If your friend was fine, why did he go over to Shay’s apartment last night and get into an argument with her that her neighbors could hear?” A patronizing one-up in her voice.
“What?” My stomach clenched. Turk hadn’t mentioned going to Shay’s after we left him at Muldoon’s.
“Guess your friend didn’t tell you that.” Acid. “Stay away from my investigation or I’ll make your life even more difficult than it already is.” Detective Denton hung up.
I called Turk. No answer. I contacted Uber next and put in Turk’s address for my destination. If Turk wanted me to investigate Shay’s murder, he needed to answer my calls.
And tell me everything.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
TURK LIVED ON East Roseland Drive in La Jolla. Hidden behind
Torrey Pines Road before Torrey wishboned with La Jolla Parkway. He lived in a rambling ranch-style house with a lot of red brick and ash wood on a half-acre set back from the street. At least that’s what it looked like the last time I was there. Whether it looked the same or not, there was more than enough room for Shay to have lived there instead of alone in an apartment in La Jolla that Turk helped pay for. And if she wasn’t ready to share the master with Turk, she could have had her choice of three other bedrooms.
None of my business. Although, now it was.
The Uber driver dropped me off around 6:15 p. m. Winter dark. If there was a moon, none of its light penetrated my sunglasses into my eyes.
I tapped my way along the cement driveway until I found the opening to the brick courtyard that led to the front door off to the left. The brick was uneven, but I made it to the front door without tripping and rang the bell.
Nothing. After a minute, another double ring. Finally, an orb of light shined above me. Porch light. Then the creak of a door and a dark mass appeared.
Turk.
“What are you doing here?” No slur, but the slight hesitation between words that I used to hear in my father’s voice when he was at the beginning of a bender.
I caught the scent of whiskey breath mixed with the stink of embedded sweat. Turk had crawled inside a bottle to battle his grief. I couldn’t blame him. He’d started the day finding the woman he wanted to marry strangled to death on her bed. That kind of day could last forever unless you sedated it and somehow found sleep. And then it started all over again when you woke up.
“I know your sister is out of town and Kris is stuck at the restaurant so you got me. How are you holding up?” A stupid question but the way friends tried to help the unhelpable.
“I’m okay. Fucking reporters somehow got my phone number and started calling as soon as I got home from Police Headquarters.” A cloud of stale whiskey on an empty stomach came out with the words. “It’s been a hard day. I really just want to be left alone. But thanks for checking on me. The police still have my car so I can’t give you a ride. You want me to call you a cab?”
“I just got out of an Uber. You mind if I wait a few minutes before I start the process again?” If he didn’t want my company, he still had to answer my questions.
“Sure. Sure.” His voice, less enthusiastic than his words. He moved to the side. “You have to step up a couple inches entering the house.”
I went inside and felt the whoosh of the door swing behind me and thump into the frame. Maybe with a little more force than he meant. Or he was mad that I’d insinuated my way into his house. His time. His grief.
One smudge of light in the middle of the living room ceiling. The rest of the house was dark.
“Which way to a chair?” I asked. I could only make out a few fuzzy shapes, but my lack of depth perception made it difficult to tell how close they were to me.
“Oh.” He said it like maybe he expected me to stand the entire time of my short stay.
“Don’t worry. I won’t be here long. Just a quick recharge then back out into the dark.”
“Yeah. Yeah. No problem.” Movement, like maybe he was waving his hand. “There’s a couch straight ahead about fifteen feet. You can sit there.”
I tapped across the hardwood floor toward a horizontal shape and sat down on a cloth couch.
I heard Turk’s three-legged gait along the wood floor before he came back into view. As out of focus as that view was. He lowered himself into a chair across from me. I had a feeling he was checking the time on his phone or counting off the minutes I stayed in his head.
My clock was ticking. Best to use the time as a friend would and try to console the inconsolable or do the job he’d hired me to do?
“I found out a few things since we talked this afternoon.” I told him about Keenan Powell and Blank Slate Capital. “Have you ever heard that name before?”
“No.”
I voice commanded my iPhone to my photos. The last one I’d taken was a screen shot of Keenan Powell’s bio page on the Blank Slate Capital website.
“Have you ever seen this guy before?” I stuck my phone out toward Turk and he took it.
“No. Is that the guy Shay met at La Valencia?” An edge cut through the alcohol like a spinning chainsaw. No nuance. No attempt to hide his anger.
“I don’t know. I didn’t see him.” I put out my hand.
“I know you didn’t see him.” Turk put the phone back in my hand. “But what about Moira? She’s the one who saw him. What did she say?”
“Nothing. I sent her the photo, but haven’t heard back yet.”
“What do you mean you sent her the photo?” Rising agitation. “She’s the one who should be searching the internet for this guy. I hired her, not you. No offense, but she can see and you can’t. I don’t care if you help out, that’s her choice, but she’s the one who should be working the case.”
“Moira’s done. She doesn’t think there’s anything for her to investigate anymore. It’s in police hands now. Like I told you before, she’s sending you a check for the unused time.”
“I don’t care about the fucking money!” Turk moved forward in the chair. “I want to know who Shay was seeing.”
My stomach flipped over. Turk said, “I want to know who Shay was seeing” not “I want to know who killed Shay.” Had I misjudged everything? I thought I could pick right up and measure the Turk I used to know. Maybe the Turk I used to know didn’t exist anymore. Images whirled through my mind until they stopped on the roof of Muldoon’s the day our friendship ended. A moment of sudden violence. Maybe that was the real Turk and the one I thought I knew never existed.
“You can take the check from Moira and use it to hire a new private investigator or you can live with me for now. But if you want my help, you have to tell me everything.”
“I told you everything.” Desperate.
“When was the last time you saw Shay?”
“What?” Hackles lifted off the word. “Why are you asking me that?”
“Why aren’t you answering it?”
“Fuck off, Rick.” More disappointed than anger. “You sound just like the police.”
“Someone saw you at Shay’s late last night and heard you two arguing.”
Silence.
I probed again.
“Why didn’t you tell me you went to Shay’s when we talked this afternoon?” I waited. I was either sitting in front of a man who was flailing through the grief of losing his girlfriend to murder or the man who murdered her. A thought that would have never occurred to me seven years ago. Or even last night.
“I went over to Shay’s after you and Moira came by the restaurant.” Defeated. The same way he sounded last night in his office.
“What happened?” I braced myself for the answer.
“We got into an argument.” He left it there like that said it all. It didn’t say enough. I didn’t want to hear more, but knew I had to.
“Give me all of it, Turk.” My irritation slipped out. At Turk for holding out and at myself for asking the question of my grieving friend.
“I didn’t kill her, Rick.” A wounded bellow. “You know that, right?”
“I’ll tell you what I know. Detective Denton thinks you killed Shay and she never changes her mind. I don’t know what Detective Sheets thinks, but at least he looks at all the facts before he decides. They both know more than I do. If you want me to help you, I need to know everything.”
Another gap of silence filled only by the stench of whiskey breath and body odor. Turk’s grief added layer upon layer of stink, filling up the large living room.
The one thing I truly believed at that moment was Turk was not a bad man and he was grieving Shay’s death. Dark, desperate grief. But good people sometimes snap and do things in a moment of rage they never thought they were capable of. Things that can’t be fixed. Things they’ll regret after it’s too late.
“I got to Shay’s around one. All the l
ights were off. I knocked, but she didn’t come to the door, so I used my key to get inside.”
I braced for the worst.
“What happened while you were there?”
“I went into her bedroom.” Oh, God. “But she looked like she was asleep so I decided to leave and talk to her in the morning. She called my name as I was leaving the bedroom. There was something about the way she said my name. It went straight to my heart. Right from the first time I met her. I wished I’d never followed her to La Valencia.”
He stopped talking but I could hear jagged breaths, like he was crying or fighting hard not to.
“What happened after she called your name? Did you argue in her bedroom or somewhere else?”
“We didn’t argue at all. At first.” His breathing settled. “She got out of bed and asked me if everything was all right. I think we went into the living room then and—”
“You don’t remember where you were?” Didn’t remember, didn’t want to remember, or didn’t want to tell me? Or knew he had to remove himself from the bedroom where the body was found?
“I remember.” Snapped off. “We talked in the living room. I just don’t remember exactly when we went out there. Anyway, I asked her what she did after she got off work. She lied. Right to my face. Told me she went straight home. She lied so easily. Looking in my eyes, in that sweet voice …”
That would make anyone angry. How angry?
“Did she ever admit that she went to La Valencia last night?”
“No.”
“Did you tell her that you hired a private detective who followed her there?”
“No.”
“Why not?” Now I was frustrated. “She might have told you what she was doing if you confronted her with the truth.”
“Because I didn’t want her to know someone was following her. If she wouldn’t tell me the truth, I wanted definitive proof one way or the other, before I decided what to do.”
“How animated did the conversation get?”
“What do you mean?” A slight upturn of his voice at the end. He knew what I meant, but didn’t want to tell me.