The Silenced Women

by Frederick Weisel

  “My gun?” Thackrey feigned surprise. “What about it?”

  “You might not want to have it with you if they arrest you.”

  “You have yours?”

  “Yeah, but mine hasn’t been used.”

  Thackrey looked at Victor and wondered if his earlier thought about shooting him had somehow been telegraphed to the other man. “I think it’s best to keep the gun. Discourages the riffraff.”

  “Couple hours ago,” Russell said, “I figured out my scarf must have fallen off in the park when we were carrying the body. But I doubt it can be traced back to me.”

  Thackrey smirked. “Can’t be too many other men with your taste in Northern California.”

  “We’ve got Elise’s cell,” Victor said. “But we have to assume they’ll find her laptop and her office computer, maybe a tablet.”

  “Which tell them what?” Thackrey asked.

  “That’s just it. We don’t know.”

  Thackrey poured another glass of zinfandel. Holding the glass to the light, he slowly swirled the wine. “I think it’s time we invoke the spirit of the late Dr. Wheeler. Remember the computer science history I taught you boys?”

  “Wheeler?” Victor sat up. “The Princeton physicist? John Archibald Wheeler?”

  “You two were always such good pupils. Wheeler was the guy who talked about how all matter is based on information. What was that famous thing he said?”

  “It from bit.”

  “That’s right! It from bit. Give that boy highest marks. The bit is the fundamental particle, the irreducible kernel. Every particle derives its meaning from bits, binary choices, the answers to yes-or-no questions. At the root of all things is a one or a zero. We just need to turn off the bits, change them from a yes to a no, from a one to a zero.”

  Thackrey went back to the kitchen countertop and turned the laptop toward him. He scrolled through the screen and silently read. After a few minutes, he pointed to the screen. “This guy here. Martin Coyle. Associate’s degree in computer science. He’ll be the information guy. Get into his database. Attach a keystroke logger. See what they know and where they’re going.”

  “You really think we can erase evidence?” Russell asked.

  “Not all, but enough. Elise was a very busy girl. In a day or two, these cops are going to have so much useless crap on their hands, they’ll get tired.”

  “Tired?”

  “Yeah, tired. But not us.” Thackrey winked. “We’ll be up here in Empyrean Towers. As wide awake as the white-crowned sparrow.”

  Chapter Six

  (i)

  (TUESDAY, 1:33 P.M.)

  Mahler turned to Eden in the corridor outside the interview room. “Look—his lawyer’s Jordan Everest. He represented Partridge two years ago. Guy specializes in criminal defense and being an asshole. He’s trying to make a name for himself, get noticed by a firm down in the city. Don’t say anything you don’t want on the news tonight.”

  He waited for a sign of agreement, but Eden pushed her glasses tight and watched him silently. He realized he couldn’t read her. Did she not understand? Or was she so far ahead of him that she was waiting for something better?

  “But what about Partridge?” she asked. “He’s really the one, right? What do you want me to do? If you don’t want me to say anything, I won’t.”

  He resisted an impulse to sarcasm. “Yeah, Partridge’s the one. What I want is for you to meet him. Sit across from him, watch him, smell him, whatever. If you’re going to work this case, you need to know the guy. I don’t care if you say anything or not.”

  As they walked in, Jordan Everest stood. He was a tall man, dressed in a dark suit, white shirt, and silk tie. His thick hair was combed straight back and looked wet, like he had just stepped out of a shower. He nodded at Mahler and reached his right hand toward Eden.

  Eden hesitated and then shook his hand and introduced herself. She sat next to Mahler with a steno notepad in her lap.

  Beside the lawyer, Partridge had not moved. He stared vacantly ahead without acknowledging the others. He had an unshaven face and deep-set eyes and wore a short-sleeved sports shirt open at the collar.

  Mahler switched on the room’s recorder. Out loud, he noted the date and time and identified those in the room. Mahler spoke Partridge’s name last and glanced across the table at the man. He reminded Partridge of his voluntary presence in lieu of a reading of his Miranda rights. It was the first time in two years that the two men were in the same room. Seeing Partridge now, Mahler remembered the man’s ordinariness and the way he smiled triumphantly when answering a question. Mahler picked up a pencil and rolled it in his fingers.

  “At the outset, Detective,” Everest said, “I’d like to make the point that we’re here at your invitation and that my client is taking time off from his employment, at his own expense.”

  Ignoring the lawyer, Mahler addressed Partridge. “Where were you last night after 10:00 p.m.?”

  Partridge turned to face Mahler. “I had a few drinks at the Tap Room and went home around eleven.”

  Partridge’s mouth closed on the answer. It was a practiced reply, with just enough detail to be possible. Mahler had known other career criminals like Partridge who learned the art of interrogation. They fell into a groove of apparent cooperation. They learned to relinquish just enough information to force the questioner to verify meaningless facts. He wondered what Eden was making of Partridge.

  “Can someone confirm that?”

  “My girlfriend can tell you what time I got home. Name’s Lorin Albright. Call her and ask her.”

  “Meet any women last night?”

  “I just told you I have a girlfriend.”

  “Were you at Spring Lake Park?”

  Everest rested a hand on Partridge’s shoulder. “Don’t answer that.” He looked back and forth at Mahler and Eden. “I assume this interrogation has to do with the recent homicide? Is it your department’s policy to question my client for every death in the park?”

  Mahler kept his focus on Partridge. “Actually, we’re going to question your client every time anyone is injured in any way in the park.”

  “I’m going to interpret that remark as sarcasm.” Everest leaned forward. “Because, if any part of it were true, it would constitute harassment.”

  “This is like last time,” Partridge said. “You guys are so fucking lost. You don’t have a clue.”

  Mahler saw a smile form on Partridge’s lips. He felt his fingers tighten around the pencil. He imagined reaching out and jamming the pencil into Partridge’s forehead.

  “Where’s that old guy who questioned me?” Partridge’s voice rose. “What was his name? Woodhouse? Man, you guys are embarrassing.”

  Mahler remembered the hours he and Tommy Woodhouse had spent across the table from Partridge, the self-satisfied smile never leaving his face.

  “Irwin,” Everest said, “we’re here to answer their questions. It’s not necessary to make any statement.”

  “Except, of course, you, darlin’,” Partridge said to Eden. “You seem smarter than the others. And cute, too, in a steel-rod-up-your-ass kind of way.”

  Eden looked back at him.

  “You’re interested in this, aren’t you? Did you study it in college? Want to write a paper about me?”

  Eden’s face flushed.

  “Oh, my goodness. Did I hit a nerve? Yahoo! Something really did happen in college. Get too close to the fire?”

  Mahler watched a sudden shift in Partridge. In his attempt to provoke Eden, Partridge lost his cool detachment. He hunched forward.

  For the first time Eden spoke. “It’s not relevant to your…situation.”

  “You sure?” Partridge asked. “Maybe you should get to know my situation. When it comes to men, I’d guess you’re innocent.”

  Mahler heard the
edge in the words. What was going on? It was as if Partridge was so intent on his prey, he’d forgotten where he was.

  Eden straightened in her chair. “What you’re doing is called misdirection. Because you’re uncomfortable with these questions, you’re trying to shift the conversation away from you to me. But your subconscious is unable to separate the content, so you ended up asserting my innocence, not your own.”

  Partridge smiled and sat back. “I was wrong about that steel rod. It must be titanium.”

  The moment was over, but it was enough. Mahler turned to Everest and smiled. “We’re going to reopen the investigations into the Foss and Hart murders.”

  Mahler felt Eden looking at him but did not turn away from Everest.

  The lawyer shook his head. “I assumed this latest murder would be a high priority for your squad. I wouldn’t think you have time for two old cases.”

  “We have time to do whatever we want.”

  “Oh, good,” Partridge said. “Is it going to be dumb-and-dumber again, or college girl?”

  “Let’s just be clear,” Everest said. “Over the next few days, if you hinder my client in any way or violate his right to privacy, I’ll file for sanctions against this department.”

  Mahler switched off the recorder as he stood up. “Counselor, your problem is you’re playing too shallow. You’re in on the ball. In a day or two, we’re going to find evidence connecting your client to three murders, and then you’ll want to be deep, or this thing right here is going over your head.”

  (ii)

  (TUESDAY, 2:04 P.M.)

  Two uniformed officers sat in the plastic molded chairs beside Frames’s desk. They were large men, their duty belts jammed with the tools of their trade: handgun, spare magazines, OC, Taser, radio, handcuffs, and baton. The small chairs and limited space crowded the men. They sat uncomfortably, legs splayed, their feet shoved under the desk.

  Pruitt, the one closest to Frames, looked around the room. “Not exactly the CSI set, is it?”

  The other officer, Timsen, peered into his paper coffee cup and searched for a space on Frames’s desk to discard it. “It’s what we get for working in a time of tight money.”

  “A few more rounds of budget cuts, and they’ll move our offices to an abandoned middle school.”

  “No. They’ll put us in one of those empty big-box stores. Discounts on city services—that’s us.”

  Frames tried to bring the meeting to order. “Can we talk about what you got from the canvass?”

  The two officers seemed to notice Frames for the first time. “How’d you get in here anyway, Steve?” asked Pruitt. “You didn’t exactly distinguish yourself in Field Training.”

  Before joining VCI, Frames had worked four years as a uniformed officer. He was comfortable knowing, as Pruitt pointed out, he was not the best young officer in Field. But he believed he had something in his favor. Because he was confident in his abilities, he never acted blindly to prove them to himself.

  “Mahler as much of a hard-ass as everyone says?” Timsen asked.

  “He is when guys like you jerk him around,” Frames said.

  “Then you can tell him we caught kids with weed in their tent,” Pruitt said. “They’d just lit up a doobie when we showed. Scared the shit out of them. One started crying.”

  “We don’t care about that now. What we need to know is, did anyone see or hear anything connected to the murder of the young woman at Violetti Gate.”

  “That’s the trouble,” Pruitt said. “You get up here, and you forget what real police work is.”

  Frames did remember. Once part of a task force on neighborhood break-ins, he had spent three days knocking on doors on Coffey Lane. House after house with no one home or frightened faces looking out at his uniform. Then a young Hispanic woman opened her door and told him about driving home from a late shift and seeing in her headlights the face of the suspect. “I can say in my report you fucked me around.”

  Timsen sighed and pulled a notepad from his shirt pocket. He paged through it. “A couple of the campers said a homeless guy was walking around early in the morning, saying stuff.”

  “What stuff?”

  “I don’t know,” Pruitt said. “None of it made sense. But he said he saw a body.”

  “That’s what he said? He saw a body?”

  “Yeah.” Timsen read from his pad. “Some old fart in an RV, Arnold Lester, was outside before dawn, screwing around with his gray-water valve or some shit, and this homeless guy comes through the campground, talking to himself.”

  “Who was he?”

  “Probably a transient named Donald Lee. We found a supplemental report for someone fitting the description.” Timsen returned to his pad. “Mr. Lester described him as having hair in dreads, wearing an overcoat, and carrying a trash bag filled with clothes.”

  “I’m sure he’ll make an excellent witness,” Pruitt said.

  “Did anyone else see him?”

  “Yeah. The kids with the weed said he stood next to their tent, but they couldn’t hear what he was saying.”

  “The park guards had a Field Interview card for him on file,” said Timsen. “Guy’s a regular. No matter what they do, comes through three or four nights a week. He’s harmless, so they leave him alone.”

  “What else?”

  “We knocked on the doors of the houses across from the park gate on Violetti, Pepperwood, and Bader Roads,” Timsen said.

  “I think it’s pronounced ‘vee-o-letti,’ not ‘vi-o-letti,’” Pruitt said.

  “Do you say ‘vee-lence’ or ‘vi-lence’?” Timsen looked at Frames. “This is why I don’t get invited to join VCI.”

  “Maybe it’s because you pronounce it ‘Vi-CI’ instead of ‘Vee-CI,’” Pruitt said.

  Frames hated this kind of chatter. When he and Rivas talked, it was about important stuff, how the world worked. “Can you stop fucking around?”

  Timsen read again from his notes. “The owner at 2905 Pepperwood, Mrs. Dennis, said she heard a woman scream at two a.m. But then she thought it was a raccoon. According to Mrs. Dennis, an adult raccoon and a human female scream at the same pitch. She learned that on the Nature Channel. Anyway, that’s why she didn’t call the police. And she said the last time she called us, all the responding officer did was grunt.”

  “Probably Paul Johnson,” Pruitt said. “That guy grunts a lot.”

  “The resident at 3701 Bader said she heard a car door slam about five in the morning. I asked if there was anything else, and she said the door sounded like a large European car with darkened windows. I’ll bet if I talked to her for a few more minutes, she’d have told me it sounded like a blue car. We also had three other houses mention the car door sound—at three thirty, four, and nine thirty. That last one was probably our car.”

  Frames pushed his chair back. Having the two officers so close made him feel claustrophobic. “Did you talk to the woman with the dogs who found the body?”

  “That was a scene. Mrs. Edna Jarman at 3704 Bader. She’s got six mutts, all Corgis, all named after Italian-American pop singers from the 1960s. Dean Martin, Frankie Avalon, Bobby Rydell, Dion DiMucci…”

  “Strictly speaking, was Rydell Italian?” Pruitt asked.

  “You’re kidding me, right? The guy’s hit was ‘Volare.’ That sound like a German song to you?”

  Frames held up his hands. “Just tell me what this dog lady told you.”

  “She said she entered the park at about six. Gave us a whole song-and-dance about how she should be allowed to go in before the gates open, because she lives in the neighborhood and her late husband was a Pearl Harbor survivor, which apparently entitles her dogs to take a crap before everyone else. Anyway, one of the dogs, Frankie Valli, I think, led her to the bench. At first, she thought the victim was sleeping, which disgusted her and dishonored the family
who donated the bench. But then she realized the woman was dead, which, in Mrs. Jarman’s eyes, was a legitimate use of it.”

  “So all she did was tell you the same thing she already told Officer Hadley?”

  “Basically, but there was one other thing. When they were leaving the bench, the oldest dog, Paul Anka, pulled her toward that group of oaks next to the parking lot. After seeing the dead woman, Mrs. Jarman was afraid to go over there. Anyway, you guys might have one of the police dogs check it out.”

  “Probably a used condom,” Pruitt said. “Every time I’ve been out with those dogs, it’s the first thing they find. I’ll bet you twenty bucks.”

  “That’s it?”

  “We pulled up security camera footage from two residences. Nothing on them so far, but we’re still looking.”

  “Anything else?”

  The two men shook their heads, and Timsen stuffed his notebook back in his shirt pocket.

  Frames stood up behind his desk, encouraging the officers to leave. For a few seconds, they sat still, looking at him.

  “We get some kind of lunch voucher?” asked Timsen.

  “Are we on for that condom bet?” Pruitt asked.

  Chapter Seven

  (i)

  (TUESDAY, 2:10 P.M.)

  Mahler stood beside Rivas and Eden in the conference room. On the table in front of them lay a pile of homicide binders, the top one open to a close-up of a young woman’s face. Her eyes and lips were closed. A pool of white light, meant to locate bruises or marks, burned out the woman’s features. An irony of a homicide investigation, Mahler thought, is that it unmasks the victims, already exposed by murder, and lays them bare to strangers without the mercy of shadows.

  “She looks young.” Eden broke the silence.

  Mahler nodded. “She was young. Twenty-one. The other girl, Susan Hart, was twenty.” He waved at the binders. “Two years ago, Daniel and I worked these with a senior investigator, Tom Woodhouse. I’m hoping you’ll see something we didn’t.”

  Mahler replayed the words. Had it really been two years? He saw the victim’s face, eyes closed, lying still as the minutes ticked past.