Dark Fissures

by Coyle, Matt;

  She sat alone at a table in a white lab coat with name tag.

  “Doctor Lin?” I stuck my hand out for a shake. She put down the turkey club she’d just taken a bite of, wiped her hand on her napkin, and shook my hand. “Rick Cahill.”

  “Please.” She put a delicate hand over her mouth as she chewed. “Sit down.”

  Dr. Lin looked to be late twenties or early thirties. Hard to tell. She had dark brown bangs that framed a round face with prominent cheekbones and a square chin. Separately her features wouldn’t figure to go together, but they did. Attractively.

  “I appreciate you taking the time to see me on a Saturday.”

  “I had to be in today anyway. What would you like to know about James Colton’s death, Mr. Cahill?” Matter of fact. Not aggressive or defensive. Not what I expected from someone affiliated with LJPD, no matter how loosely.

  “You can call me Rick.”

  “You can call me Bev.” A smile.

  “Okay, Bev.” I gave her an “it’s nice to be friends” smile. “How long have you worked for the ME’s office?”

  “Four years.”

  “Have you ever dealt with a hanging victim before?”

  “I believe Mr. Colton was my third.” She lowered her eyes and raised her chin.

  “Were the others suicides?”

  “Yes. Suspension hanging is not that unusual a way to end one’s life. And not as painful as people think. The pressure from the rope on the carotid arteries cuts off blood flow to the brain and causes unconsciousness in as few as ten to twenty seconds. The continued lack of blood to the brain will cause death in less than two minutes. It’s the loss of blood flow to the brain that kills you, not loss of oxygen to the lungs like people think. Aside from the first few seconds, it’s a very peaceful way to die. You just go to sleep.”

  “Did you check under Jim Colton’s fingernails for fibers from the rope used to hang him?”

  “Yes.” No smile this time and a slight lean toward me. “There weren’t any.”

  “Do people who hang themselves ever grasp, possibly involuntarily, at the ligature around their neck in those first few seconds after they step off a pedestal and begin to hang?”

  “Sometimes, but not in most cases.”

  “Did it happen in either of the hanging cases you investigated?”

  She stared at me a couple beats before she spoke. I’d gotten under her skin. Not what I’d planned. Finally, she said, “There were a few rope fibers underneath the fingernails of one of the victims I investigated.”

  “Did you find anything else under Colton’s nails? Skin? Other fibers?” Jim Colton had been a fit former SEAL and sergeant of a police CIT team. If someone had put a rope around his neck, it wouldn’t have been easy.

  “No.”

  “Any scratches or bruises on his body?”

  “No, Mr. Cahill.” Rick was a distant memory.

  “Any punctures, possibly from a hypodermic needle?”

  “Not that I found.”

  “You ran a tox scan, correct?”

  “Yes. It’s in the report. It doesn’t sound as if you read it. If you had, you could have saved yourself the trip over here and left me to enjoy my lunch uninterrupted.” I’d now made it to LJPD level. Another place I didn’t want to be.

  “Dr. Lin, I’m not trying to insult you. I read the report with layman’s eyes. You are obviously good at what you do. But I’m working for Jim Colton’s family and I’m trying to do a good job for them. I’m just asking the questions that need to be asked so the Coltons can get the answers they need.” I figured I had a couple more questions before she stormed away or called security. “Did you check for any fast-acting sedation drugs that could incapacitate someone and then leave little trace?”

  If putting a rope around Jim Colton’s neck hadn’t been his idea and there were no bruises or scratches on his body or skin under his fingernails, he’d have to have been sedated or restrained.

  “You do understand how ill-informed that question sounds, don’t you, Mr. Cahill?”

  “I do, but I’m just doing my job.”

  “I have work to do.” She grabbed her half-eaten sandwich and stood up. I’d been off by one question.

  “You seem like someone who tries to get things right, Bev.” I stayed seated. “There’s something that’s just not right about Jim Colton’s death.”

  “I did my job and got it right, Mr. Cahill.” Still standing but hadn’t yet taken a step.

  “I’m sure you did, under the circumstances.”

  “What circumstances?”

  “It looks to me that LJPD wanted Colton’s death to be ruled a suicide and not a murder. For whatever reason. Maybe that’s what the facts on the surface told them. But they didn’t dig very deep. They took everything at face value.”

  “I look at the evidence surrounding each death independently, Mr. Cahill.”

  “That’s good to know.” I pushed an open hand to her former seat, but she remained standing. “But there’s evidence that you probably don’t know about.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The rope used to hang Jim Colton was the kind used by rock climbers.”

  “I gathered that information on my own. So you are wrong about what I know and don’t know.” The sneer. Finally.

  “Did you know that Colton didn’t rock climb? That he was afraid of heights?”

  She didn’t say anything, but I could almost see her brain whirring behind her eyes.

  “And the rope around his neck had been cut from a longer piece of rope that wasn’t found at the scene.” A guess by me, but an educated one. I doubted any manufacturer made climbing ropes as short as the one used to hang Jim Colton.

  “That’s interesting information, but hardly definitive.” But her eyes told me I now had her attention.

  “There’s also the fact that Colton’s cell phone was missing. Not on his body. Not in the house. Not in his car. The cell phone he’d used, at the most, two hours before his death. Did the police make you aware of that fact?”

  “No. Have you talked to Detective Denton or anyone else at the La Jolla Police Department about this?” She sat back down.

  “No. I wanted to talk to you first.” I left out that everybody at LJPD hated me and Chief Moretti wanted to see me in jail. “If you’d had that information, would it have made a difference in your determination?”

  She pursed her lips and looked past me for a moment before she spoke. “Possibly. If the detectives investigating the case presented me with that evidence and were pursuing other leads, I might have ruled the death undetermined and given them a little time to come up with new evidence that would give me direction.”

  “I thought you said you investigated deaths independently.”

  “I do, but not in a vacuum.” She scooted her chair in. Engaged. “I don’t have the financial freedom to run any test I like on a whim. If I get a body with ligature markings around the neck that was found hanging in a garage above a knocked-over chair and whose death was caused by anoxia, lack of blood flow to the brain, I’m going to rule suicide unless presented with refuting evidence. If the detectives push for homicide, I may run further tests and ask for a panel review.”

  “A panel review?”

  “Yes. A panel of other pathologists and detectives go over the evidence, talk, sometimes argue, and then we vote on manner of death. Majority rules.”

  I wondered if Moretti could stack the panel so his majority ruled.

  “What would it take for you to call for a panel review?”

  “A lot more than just your conjecture.” A smile not a sneer. “The detectives would have to present me with new evidence they believed could lead to a homicide determination. And it would have to be more than the choice of rope used in the hanging or a missing cell phone.”

  “Thank you, Bev.” I stood up and put out my hand. “Or is it now Dr. Lin?”

  “You can stick with Bev . . . for now.” She shook my hand. “I s
uggest you talk with Detectives Denton and Sizemore. Maybe they’ll take your observations into consideration and reopen their investigation.”

  She was right. I needed to talk to the detectives, but I wasn’t ready to face anyone from LJPD yet. Just the thought shot a frozen finger down my spine.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THE HOUSE THAT Jim Colton died in and the one that Brianne Colton had since moved back into was on Soledad Road in La Jolla. An offshoot from Soledad Mountain Road, it sported mostly medium-sized ranch houses that had views of either the mountains in East County, the Pacific Ocean, San Diego Bay and downtown, or combinations of up to all three. About average for La Jolla homes.

  The Colton house had the East County view. It sat back from the street shrouded by Torrey pines and an ivy-covered fenced-in front patio. I’d called ahead and Brianne was even less happy to see me than she had been to talk to me on the phone. I stood in the doorway admiring the view of the distant mountains through the windows of the living room.

  “Well, come in.” Brianne, barefoot in jeans and a blue t-shirt that made her blue eyes pop against her fair skin and auburn hair, shot her hand into the foyer.

  Another onetime advocate crossed over to the other side. I had a knack. She led me to the living room and sat down crossed-legged in an overstuffed chair that had an acoustic guitar leaning against it.

  “I’m sorry about your son and I’m sorry about being indelicate regarding your relationship with your bandmate.” I sat down across from her on a brown leather sofa. “But you hired me to find the truth. That’s what I’m going to do until you tell me to stop. Do you want me to stop, Brianne?”

  “No.” She picked up the guitar and held it in her lap. “Just try not to be such an asshole about it all the time.”

  “You’ve heard about the leopard and his spots, right?” I smiled.

  “I think there’s a decent guy in there underneath all the acid and sarcasm.” She strummed a chord. “You just won’t let anybody see him because you’re afraid you’ll get hurt. Again.”

  “If I become the subject of your next song, make sure I get a writing credit.”

  “I’ve written enough sad songs.” She didn’t smile. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

  “I want to see the garage and Jim’s office.”

  “Follow me.”

  She led me down the hall, through the laundry room into the garage. A three- or four-year-old Ford F-150 pickup sat parked in the middle of the garage floor. Its cab rested under the beam that Jim Colton’s body had been found hanging from by his son.

  “I need to sell the truck, but I haven’t been able to get myself to list it yet.” Brianne stared at the truck and let out a long sigh. “Jim loved it.”

  “Did he usually park it in here or in the driveway?”

  “The driveway, where my car is now.”

  Where the truck must have been the night Colton died. I walked over to a wooden workbench on the left side of the garage. All manner of tools hung from a pegboard on the back of the workbench. The tools were clean and the bench was immaculate. I grabbed a hand-saw off its peg and examined the sawtooth blade. Clean. No fibers that could have matched the sawed rope used to hang Jim Colton. A large combination lock gun safe sat next to the workbench.

  “Jim’s guns still in there?”

  “Some of them. There are more in the house. I need to sell them, too.”

  A gun safe full of guns and Colton supposedly chose to hang himself with a strand of climbing rope cut from a larger coil that nobody could find. LJPD either ignored the circumstantial evidence or hid it and pushed for suicide. Why?

  I climbed into the cab of the truck and searched the console and the glove compartment. Brianne watched me through the open driver door.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “Jim’s cell phone. Anything.” I didn’t find anything interesting. Just the truck’s registration and service records.

  “I already looked for it there.”

  I got out of the cab and went around to the back of the truck. The truck bed had a built-in toolbox up against the cab. I jumped up on the bed and went over to the toolbox. It was locked with a padlock.

  “You check in here, too?”

  “No. I never thought to.”

  “You have the key?”

  “Be right back.”

  Brianne went into the house and thirty seconds later came out with a key chain full of keys. She tossed it up to me, and I tried a couple keys that looked like they’d fit a padlock. The second one worked. I opened the toolbox and found a well-organized shelf of tools one would use for general fix-it jobs. I pulled the shelf out and underneath found a Sig Sauer P229 pistol in a holster. The regulation firearm for La Jolla cops. Three boxes of ammunition sat next to it. Another chance for Colton to end his life the quick and easy, albeit, messy way.

  A large blue backpack was next to the gun and the ammo. I picked it up and opened it. Inside, a rock climbing rope matching the color of the strand used to hang Jim Colton stared up at me. I pulled out the rope and looked at one end. Rough edges of a cut.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  BRIANNE STARED WIDE-EYED at the rope. “That’s the same rope, isn’t it?”

  “Yep.” I held up the slightly frayed end. “Looks like the strand used in the hanging was cut from here.”

  “I’ve never seen that rope before. I’ve never seen Jim with any kind of rope.”

  “How about the backpack? Ever seen it?”

  “Yes. Jim took it with him when he went to the shooting range.”

  “You ever look inside this toolbox before?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I left Jim alone with his toys.”

  I searched the pockets of the backpack, hoping to get lucky and find Colton’s cell phone. Nothing. I put the rope back into the backpack and jumped down from the truck.

  “Did Jim ever tell you he was afraid of heights?”

  “No.” More wide eyes. “He jumped out of airplanes as a SEAL.”

  “But he was afraid of heights. Your son told me. Jim told him on a trip to San Francisco.”

  “He never told me. We were married for nineteen years.” Gravity and hurt pulled at her eyes and mouth.

  “I know.”

  “Are you trying to make a point, Rick?” She put her hands on her hips.

  “Just that there were some things you didn’t know about your husband.” I held up the backpack. “The rope. His fear of heights. You hadn’t seen him for two weeks before he died. Your son and Oak Rollins both said Jim had been depressed.”

  “So, you’re buying LJPD’s official story now?” She spread her elbows off her hips like angry wings.

  “I’m just saying it looks more probable than just possible now.”

  “What about the phone call to the FBI?”

  “Jim could have called the FBI for any number of work-related things. CIT planning, a joint task force, anything.” I echoed Oak Rollins’s words and silently cursed myself for not thinking of them on my own.

  My distrust of LJPD had tainted my perceptions of this case. I’d let it influence my read on Oak Rollins. I’d seen secrets and deceit when there’d only been anger that I wouldn’t let a comrade in arms rest in peace.

  “I can refund half your money, Brianne. And you can get on with your new life.”

  “Go to hell, Cahill. You’re full of crap.” She wagged a finger in my face. “I bought into your bullshit about pursuing the truth and nothing else. It was all an act.”

  “The truth is your husband probably committed suicide.”

  Fear slipped out from behind the anger in Brianne’s eyes. Maybe her crusade to prove her husband didn’t kill himself hadn’t been about money, after all. Maybe it was to assuage the guilt she felt about his suicide. If Jim hadn’t killed himself, it couldn’t be her fault that he died.

  “I don’t want a refund. I paid you for a week of work and you still owe me three and a half days.” Her hands we
nt back to her hips and she gave me an attitude head roll that would have made a diva R & B singer proud. “You think you can give me my money’s worth for the rest of the week, Rick?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Or are you just going to go through the motions like the first private dick I hired.” She hit “dick” hard and I got the message.

  “I’m going to give you all I have.” In truth, there still were a couple angles I could measure. “But if the facts don’t change, you’d be smart to start looking at things differently.”

  “Save the pop psychology. I’ve already tried that.”

  “Show me Jim’s office.”

  Brianne led me back into the house and across the hall into an office that was even cleaner than the workbench in the garage. A large hardwood desk against the near wall took up almost a third of the room. The desk had an iMac computer, printer/fax machine, and a landline phone with voice messaging. Pens in a SEAL mug, a yellow legal pad perfectly lined up with the desk blotter. A large brass paperweight topped with a Navy SEAL coin sat in the upper middle of the blotter. No clutter. The desk had a polished sheen.

  The back wall of the office was a sliding glass door and mirrored the view from the living room of East County. Another large standing gun safe anchored the corner of the wall. Military and private contractor commendations hung from the other walls. A smattering of SEAL training and in-country photographs broke up the sea of honors.

  Honors. Jim Colton had enough for a whole platoon. Would a man like that do the dishonorable thing and take his own life? Not unless it was the only honorable thing he could do.

  I sat down in a leather executive chair and searched each desk drawer. No cell phone. No suicide note. No smoking gun. I turned on the computer. The screen came on asking for a password. Brianne stood next to me with her arms folded across her chest.

  “Use SEAL TEAM, all caps, and the number 5.”

  I did as told and the computer unlocked to a desktop.

  “The police go through his folders and emails looking for a suicide note or a reason?” I asked Brianne.