“Not exactly. People were complaining to the city about Tiny. Wendy was forced to give her to me.”
That put a slightly different spin on the matter.
“Did she ever mention who was making the complaints?” I asked.
“No. I don’t think she ever knew who made them.”
Watch enough TV and you’ll think that murder motives must be dark and deep. Hang out with cops and you’ll discover that many murders are utterly stupid, with motives so lame officers are ashamed to write them into their reports. The man who killed his brother fighting over whether the angel or the star went on top of the Christmas tree is a classic example. The guy who shoots the neighbor whose dog won’t stop barking is commonplace. With that in mind, the following morning I went to the city’s code compliance department to see who had made the complaints against Tiny.
Reports filed with the animal control department are available to the public. Unfortunately, the names, addresses, and phone numbers of those who complain are confidential information. I got around that by asking to see the inspector in charge, Helen Drood. A grim-faced woman, Ms. Drood didn’t strike me as an animal lover, or a lover of much of anything. I explained that I was an investigator working with Detective Baxter on the Woskowicz case—it was almost the truth—and that I was looking into complaints made about the victim’s pet pig.
“Woskowicz. That’s the woman who drowned in La Jolla Cove, right?” She said it almost cheerfully.
“Yeah. Do you know if Ms. Woskowicz ever received copies of those complaints?”
“Yes, eventually she did. Ordinarily, we send a copy of the letter to the complainant and mail the original to the party being accused of a code violation. But in the Woskowicz case, we didn’t have a deliverable address.”
“Because she lived in her van.”
“That’s correct. A compliance officer had to go down to the beach and deliver the complaints to her there.”
“Would you have a record confirming that?” I asked.
“It should be in the computer. How do you spell that last name?”
I spelled out Wendy’s last name and Helen Drood punched the letters on her keyboard. The document popped up and I craned my neck to get a good look at the monitor. As she scrolled through the complaints, the same name and address kept appearing in the field for the complainant: Thomas Gunn, 1717 Coast Boulevard, Apt. 303.
“Yes, we got confirmed delivery on all those complaints. March 22, April 6, and May 15.”
I jotted down the dates, as well as the address I’d seen on her monitor. “Thanks. That’s all we needed to know.”
Seventeen-seventeen Coast Boulevard turned out to be one of the ocean-facing condos overlooking the cove where Wendy had died. I took the stairs to the third-floor landing and knocked on the door marked 303. A frail man with sparse gray hair and pouches under his eyes opened up. The hand he used to grip the door was a study in rampant liver spots. He stared at me harshly without bothering to utter a greeting.
“Hello.” I smiled, doing my best to appear upbeat and efficient. “I’m following up on some complaints you made to the animal control department.”
He looked at me like I was a pile of smoldering excrement and started to close the door.
“Excuse me, sir—”
“I didn’t make any complaints.” The door slammed in my face.
I knocked again. When he didn’t answer, I spoke through the closed door. “Sir, I’m just trying to clear up a few details. Were you living in this residence in March, April, and May of this year?”
There was no sound from the other side of the door. Maybe he was hard of hearing.
“Listen,” I shouted, “I just need to confirm that in March of this year you—”
The door flew open. He glared at me, his eyes like poison darts. “It’s none of your damn business, but I’ve lived here since 1969.”
“And you’re Mr. Gunn?”
“Who?” He glowered and waved me off as if to swat away the stench of me. “Go on, get out of here.”
I heard footsteps coming up the stairs and turned to see a bare-chested man step onto the landing. His longish sandy hair and baggy shorts gave him a youthful look but the face that eyed me warily had seen at least forty summers without sunscreen.
“Is there a problem up here?” he said.
“Not at all,” I said reassuringly. “I was just asking Mr. Gunn—”
“My name’s not Gunn!” the old man yelled. “And yes, there’s a problem. This woman won’t leave me alone.”
The aging beach boy looked at me suspiciously. He had the deeply tanned, muscled torso of a surfer and would have been model material but for the lines on his face and his over-large, beaklike nose.
I explained, “I was just following up on some complaints this gentleman made to the animal control depart—”
“I did not make any complaints!” Color was rising in the old man’s crepey face and the beach boy-man stepped protectively toward him.
“He says he didn’t make any complaints. Who’d you say you were?”
“Animal control,” I muttered, slipping past him and heading down the stairs. “Never mind. I must have the wrong address.”
So much for that theory. Even if the old man in 303 had been the one making complaints about Wendy’s pig, he was pushing ninety and as weak as papier-mâché. Thomas Gunn or whatever his name was could no sooner have chained Wendy underwater than he could have bench-pressed an SUV.
I walked across Coast Boulevard to my parked truck. All along I’d felt that Wendy had been murdered. Now doubts were creeping in. Maybe she had committed suicide. Hadn’t that down, down, down bit in her journal described her imminent death with chilling accuracy? Then again, she might have been talking about her mental state.
I looked back at the condominium. Shining with the reflected light of the midmorning sun, its windows now reminded me of mirrored sunglasses. The eyes behind the glass could see me, but I could not see them.
I had one last theory to test.
I got my beach towel out of my truck and walked down the stairs that led from the top of the cliff to the cove below. Dozens of sunbathers and swimmers lined the beach and bobbed in the water. Lots of swimming buddies today. I staked out a spot with my towel and stripped down to the bathing suit I wore underneath my clothes.
Three hundred yards from shore, the buoy floated in the water, marking the spot where Wendy had lost her life. How hard was it to swim from the beach to the buoy? Could an inebriated woman have pulled it off?
I waded into the surf, feeling at once free and handicapped without my mask, tank, and flippers. I fought through a strong set of waves, keeping my eye on the buoy. When I reached the deep water beyond the breakers, I knew I was swimming over the kelp forest. I felt no claustrophobia floating above the dense plants, but not being able to see what was teeming beneath my belly gave me a new kind of creeps.
There were no other swimmers this far out, but I wasn’t entirely alone. North of me, a couple of kayaks sliced through the water. A bit further in, a group of surfers straddled their boards, waiting for the next big wave. Peering back at shore, I had a postcard view. The lush La Jolla hills rose into a brilliant blue sky. Fat brown seals sunned themselves on a rocky cliff that jutted into the sea.
The swim to the buoy had looked daunting from shore but I’d been gliding along at an easy crawl and was already nearing my destination. I turned over and relaxed with a few backstrokes.
Something under the water skimmed my ankle. I winced and pulled away. A seal? I tried to see what it might be, but the surface of the water was a choppy expanse of reflected sunlight.
“Hey!” I called out, hoping to catch the ear of the nearest surfer. But when I looked for him, he was disappearing toward shore on a breaking wave.
Quit freaking out, I told myself. The buoy floated a dozen or so yards farther out to sea. I’d covered enough distance to convince myself that even a drunk woman could have made
the swim. I turned around and started back toward shore.
I heard a splash behind me. I turned to see a gloved hand come up from below and clamp around my ankle. I gasped and kicked hard with my free leg. A hand caught that ankle too, and started to pull me under.
I jerked my legs, trying desperately to kick free. The hands around my ankles wouldn’t let go. Splashing furiously with my arms, I tried to keep my head above the water. But I wasn’t strong enough to resist the downward pull. I took a last gulp of air before my head slipped beneath the surface.
The underwater world was murky, but even without a mask I could see by the oxygen tank strapped to his back that my assailant was a scuba diver. Firmly gripping my ankles, he pulled me toward the bottom. I fought hard, yet he had the advantages of flippers and superior strength. The sound of my pounding heart thudded in my ears.
I twisted toward the diver, grabbing at his face. My fingers caught his regulator and I pulled as hard as I could. I felt the breathing apparatus come loose and kept pulling. His mask came off with the mouthpiece, and I recognized the sandy-haired man with the oversized nose. He grabbed for his mouthpiece, letting go of my ankles.
Free at last, I shot upward. My lungs were on the verge of exploding as I broke through the surface. I had time to let out one hoarse cry for help before I felt his hands on my ankles again. I gulped for air. The last thing I saw before going back under was the bright blue California sky.
Down, down, down. I grabbed for his regulator again. He was ready for me and ducked out of reach. The exertion left me oxygen starved. The urge to inhale was overwhelming. I didn’t know how much longer I could fight the instinct to breathe. I saw stars and blotches of gray. It occurred to me that I was probably going to die.
But as suddenly as he’d attacked, my assailant let go and darted away. Willing myself upward, I saw why. A neon yellow kayak floated directly overhead. I broke the surface gasping and sputtering. The kayaker grabbed my arms and pulled me across the bow.
“You okay?”
The brown-faced boy who helped me up couldn’t have been a day over eighteen. I nodded my head, too breathless and dizzy to speak.
I spent much of that afternoon in the hospital, where I was treated for shock and kept under observation as police asked seemingly infinite questions. Finally, my father—who happens to be a doctor—insisted on my discharge and brought me home. Friends and family had gathered at my house to show their support. I finally convinced them all to go, telling everyone that what I really needed was sleep. Dad left reluctantly, reminding me that my assailant was still out there somewhere. I reminded him that I had a state-of-the-art security system—and a nine-millimeter Glock.
Still, I admit my heart jumped later that night when the motion light went on and the closed-circuit television showed a man coming up my walk.
It was Baxter.
“What’s up?” I asked when I opened the door.
“We arrested the guy who tried to drown you,” Baxter replied. “I thought you’d like to know.”
Feeling a rush of relief, I motioned him inside, eager to hear about it. “Where’d you find him?”
“Picked him up a couple miles north of the cove, at Torrey Pines State Beach. He’s being held downtown. The DA’s office will be getting in touch with you after he’s charged.”
“Attempted murder?” I asked.
Baxter nodded. “That too. We arrested him for the murder of Wendy Woskowicz.”
This came as a surprise. “On what evidence?”
“Plenty,” said Baxter. “The guy’s name is Gunner Thomas. We figure he’s the one who filed complaints under the alias Thomas Gunn.”
“As in tommy gun. Cute,” I said dryly.
“The old man you visited at the condo was his grandfather. We got a warrant and found scuba gear on the back porch. Get this: the straps were cut and we found long blond hair strands caught in the mask. From initial tests we’re pretty sure they came from Wendy Woskowicz.” Baxter’s eyes were shining. It was the first time I’d seen him genuinely happy.
“You think the evidence will hold up in court?” I asked.
“It should. Technically, Wendy’s hair DNA is the strongest thing we got. But we found something on Thomas that’s even more damning, from a jury’s point of view.”
“What’s that?”
“We found a key that opens those funky handcuffs he used on Wendy. It’s an exact match of the key we found in the pouch around her neck.”
“So both keys are accounted for now.”
“Yes,” Baxter replied.
I felt a little let down. This meant the key I’d picked up in my vacuum cleaner hadn’t been sent from Wendy after all.
His expression turned solemn. “You’re lucky that kayaker came along when he did and bailed you out.”
“I thanked him a hundred times, believe me,” I said.
“I thought you were psychic. Thomas had outstanding warrants, one for assault with a deadly weapon. Didn’t you sense he was trouble?”
I hadn’t. Thomas had done such a good job of making me feel like an asshole for harassing the old man that I’d failed to notice what an asshole he was. I thought about standing on the beach and the sense I’d had of being watched through the opaque windows of the condo.
“I missed my cues,” I said. “So let me get this straight. Thomas killed Wendy because of her pig?”
“He killed her because he’s a sick son of a bitch. Now that we’ve made an arrest, all kinds of beach people are coming forward and describing his angry rants about the way ‘immigrants’ and ‘indigents’ are bringing down the neighborhood.”
“Now they speak up.” I wasn’t surprised. People have all kinds of reasons for staying silent about the suspicious behavior they see. They don’t want to get involved. They worry they’ll be wrong. They worry they’ll pay for talking.
“You were right about one thing,” Baxter said to me.
“What’s that?”
“The missing handcuff key. I blew you off about it, but it’s going to be an important piece of evidence. How’d you know?”
To tell, or not to tell?
“My vacuum cleaner picked up a handcuff key the day after Wendy’s drowning. This sounds stupid, but I honestly thought it was a message from her.”
“I don’t know about a message,” Baxter said, “but it is a pretty weird coincidence. The important thing is, Gunner Thomas is going down, and it’s because of you.” He started for the door. “It’s late. I’ll let you get some rest.”
I thanked him and waved from the door as he pulled out of the driveway. Walking back to the family room, I imagined the suntanned boy-man sitting in a prison cell downtown.
Thomas, I thought, you are one sick son of a bitch.
With that, the tears came. Thomas had attacked me and nearly snuffed out my life. He’d forced a brutal death on Wendy. I wished I could rage at the ruthless bastard, but the best I could do was cry. Better than numbness, I thought. At least I was alive and feeling something. When my tears were exhausted, I turned off the lights and trudged upstairs, feeling the full weight of the day in every step.
Before collapsing into bed, I went to my altar to light some fragrance and a candle, small gestures of thanks for my deliverance. I found a book of matches by the incense burner and fired up a stick of sweet Nag Champa. I moved the flame slowly to the candle and froze. Something wasn’t right.
Wait a minute.
The handcuff key was missing. I searched every inch of the bureau top, but it wasn’t there. I got on my knees and scoured the floor. No key. I turned on the overhead light and searched again. Nada. I widened my search. Zip.
Standing in the center of the room, I asked out loud: “Did you take the key?”
There was no answer, of course. But I swear I could hear Wendy, in her silent way, telling me that I could stop looking now.
PART II
NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH
THE NEW GIRL
BY DEB
RA GINSBERG
Cortez Hill
I suppose most people have some trouble with their neighbors at some point or other. It isn’t possible to get along all the time, after all, especially not with strangers with whom you live cheek by jowl. People have such peculiar habits and inclinations—so evident when there are common alleys and kitchen windows without shades. Still, my policy has always been live and let live as long as nobody gets hurt. But sometimes the definition of “hurt” becomes a little murky. And sometimes people are just plain rude. There is no excuse for rudeness. It almost always leads to trouble.
Our particular trouble began last summer—in June, to be exact. The jacarandas were in fresh bloom and it was beginning to get warm. Not too warm, mind you. San Diego never really reaches a full boil until late August and into September. We’re always lulled into a false sense of security by then because the weather’s been so pleasant; warm enough to complain about all the tourists glutting the beaches but not hot enough to consider joining them there. And then, every year, there are two or three scorching weeks in the late summer and we all start falling apart like melting ice-cream sandwiches. By the time those bone-dry, fire-starting Santa Ana winds blow through here in October, we can’t even remember what it was like to grumble about the marine layer making things too gloomy. But last June was lovely—bright, sunny, and sparkling—the kind of climate that makes you happy to be alive. And we were, Sheila and I. Until the dogs were installed in the condo next door.
I have nothing against dogs. I have nothing against animals of any kind, except rats (for which I am sure I can be forgiven) and panda bears (for which I most assuredly cannot). And actually, it isn’t that I harbor any sort of deep-seated hatred toward panda bears—I merely think we spend too much of our animal-protection resources on these rather lame and maladaptive creatures simply because they are cute. The San Diego Zoo is so enamored with its “guest” panda bears, in fact, that it has installed a “panda cam” whose feed you can watch on the Internet twenty-four hours a day. Ridiculous.
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