by Paul Bishop
“About what?” Horner asked eventually. He was stalling. He knew the answer. Guilt builds inside a guilty suspect like a geyser ready to explode. The more a suspect tries not to think about the truth, the more the truth forces its way to the forefront of his consciousness, and the harder it becomes not to talk about it.
Pagan waited. Horner waited.
A minute passed before Pagan said, “About Alexis,” as if there had been no pause.
“She was nice,” Horner said.
“Tell me about her.”
Horner’s face turned toward Pagan again. “She came here from Houston. She worked in a Starbucks there. Her dad lives here with her stepmom. He promised her a job in his insurance firm, but it didn’t work out.”
He was tapering his story down, but Pagan kept him talking. “Why didn’t it work out?”
Horner shrugged. “She said her dad moved offices. The new office came with a secretary a bunch of the people shared. Her salary came out of the rent. He didn’t need Alexis anymore.”
“Tough break.”
Horner only nodded. Pagan needed him verbal. “What did she do?” he asked.
Horner gave another shrug. “She came to work at the bookstore making coffee.”
“Heck of a career – barista for hire,” Pagan said. “Was she mad at her dad?”
“What do you think?”
Oh, oh. Hostility.
“I think she had every right to be mad,” Pagan said. “And I think you took out her trash to try and make her feel better.” Pagan paused. “Right?”
“Yeah. She said she was going to fix her dad for screwing her over.”
“Bet you wanted to help her?”
“No. I’m not good at stuff like helping.”
I saw the truth of the statement as bright as the dawning sun.
Pagan waited. A minute passed. Another minute passed.
A tear rolled down Horner’s cheek.
“You know Alexis is dead, don’t you, Michael?” Pagan’s voice was quiet, soothing. He had formed the questions to only require a one-word answer.
“Yes,” Horner said, providing the word Pagan was waiting for.
“You killed her, didn’t you, Michael?”
Horner’s eyes widened. “No. I found her when I took out the trash. I was scared. I didn’t know what to do. I just left her there.”
I believed him. I could see he was telling the truth. But I could also see Pagan believed he’d just heard a lie.
“Michael, it upsets me when you lie. I’d rather you not tell me anything than lie to me. Do you understand?”
Horner’s tears were flowing faster now. “Yes.”
There was the soft bong of a bell outside the interrogation room. I knew it was a signal to Pagan. Horner didn’t even hear it. Nobody would interrupt an interrogation, but if they had important information for the interrogator they sounded the bell. The interrogator responded only if it felt appropriate.
Pagan stood. “You sit here and think about the truth, Michael. When I come back, we’ll talk about the truth. I know you want to tell me, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
Pagan opened the door and slid out.
I later learned from the file Nick Baxter, one of the homicide dicks on the case was waiting for Pagan. He’d just returned from serving the search warrant at Horner’s house. They had found the victim’s bra in Horner’s closet along with a stack of photos of Alexis, clearly taken without her knowing.
There were even some photos of Alexis that Horner had managed to take in the bookstore’s woman’s’ restroom. And there were some taken through the window of Alexis’ residence bedroom. Horner had drawn the usual juvenile sexual crudities across the photos.
On the video, Pagan returned to the interrogation room, bringing the photos with him. He moved over to stand next to Michael, his body close to touching him.
When Horner looked up, Pagan dribbled the photos to spill down over Horner’s lap and onto the floor. Each one fell like a guillotine blade chopping the head off a lie.
“Tell. Me. The. Truth. Michael.”
“You won’t believe me.”
“I will believe you, Michael. I know the truth already. I just want you to tell me. You killed Alexis, didn’t you?”
“No.”
It was not the answer Pagan wanted.
But I could see it was the truth. Watching what was happening in the room was like watching a train wreck in slow motion and being helpless to stop it. My stomach kept clenching over and over, the yogurt I’d ingested souring and regurgitating bile into my throat.
Pagan continued speeding down the railroad tracks. “What happened, Michael? Did you try to kiss her? Did she catch you taking photos? Did she make you mad like those customers?”
“No, no.”
“You took her bra, Michael. I know you did. It was in your closet. Please don’t lie to me.”
“Yes, I took her bra, but she was already dead.”
“I know she was dead before you took the bra, Michael. You took it after you killed her. You needed something to remember her by, she was your friend.”
“She was nice to me.”
Pagan sat down, reaching out to put his hand on Michael’s shoulder. “Michael, don’t do this to yourself. Don’t disappoint me. I know you know the truth. I know the truth. Truth is even better if it’s shared.”
“She said she was going to get back at her dad. She said she had files. He was taking people’s money, but not paying their insurance stuff.”
Pagan was silent. His fingers now stroking the back of Michael’s neck.
“She was going to tell,” Michael said.
“I know she was, Michael. She was going to tell about you.” With his other hand, Pagan tapped the photos remaining in Michael’s lap. “She was going to tell about the photos, wasn’t she Michael. I know you were ashamed. I would have been as well. It wasn’t nice was it, Michael?”
“No.” Michael was blubbering slightly.
“You killed her didn’t you, Michael?”
Pagan’s hand was now on Michael’s shoulder, rocking him softly back and forth, making Michael’s head begin to nod in the affirmative. “Tell me the truth, Michael. It’s easy once it’s out. Don’t cut us with lies.”
Pagan leant forward placing one hand on Michael’s thigh, the other hand rubbing Michael’s back. “Tell me the truth, Michael,” Pagan said in a whisper. “You killed Alexis didn’t you?”
There was a pause as silent tears fell – then, “Yes.”
I saw the bottomless purple of a dense lie. Bile rose in my throat.
On the DVD, the interrogation room door opened. Pagan looked up, angry. Baxter saw Pagan comforting Michael and smirked as if he’d caught two kids making love in the back of a car.
“Captain wants you,” Baxter said.
“Get out,” Pagan said flatly.
“Now,” Baxter said, but he closed the door.
Pagan rubbed Michael’s back again.
“It’s okay. Thank you for telling me the truth.”
“What will happen? Will I go to jail?”
“Yes,” Pagan said.
“I don’t want to go to jail.”
“I’m sorry,” Pagan said. His words were the light blue of truth.
Pagan got to his feet. “I’ll be back,” he said, and left the room, closing the door behind him.
The DVD kept playing showing Horner crying softly. I pressed the pause button and scrambled for the reports I’d left in the kitchen, desperate to know what was going on while Horner sat in the room. Why had Pagan been abruptly summoned? I found a follow-up report and scanned it.
The official statement was brief and to the point. The victim’s stepmother had called in. Her husband, the victim’s dad, had committed suicide. Stepmom found him in his car in the garage with the engine still running – carbon monoxide poisoning.
My heart began to thump around in my chest like a bat trying to escape a cage.
Alexis’ dad had left a note confessing to getting furious with his daughter because she had some files of his showing he wasn’t paying his customers’ insurance premiums. He’d gone to confront her at the bookstore. She had led him to where the dumpsters were to avoid a scene inside. Their verbal arguing had turned physical. They fought, he strangled her, didn’t know he was killing her until too late. He left the body behind the dumpster, then went home and killed himself.
I fumbled my way back to my computer screen. I could barely bring myself to watch what I knew was about to happen. I pushed the fast forward button in a silly effort to make the reality less real.
Horner eventually stood, removing his belt. He next took the chair Pagan had been sitting in and wedged it under the door knob. Then he stood on his chair and pushed up the soft acoustic tile in the ceiling. Above the tile, he must have found a pipe.
Getting down from the chair, he dragged over the small table from the corner of the room. He put his chair on top of it and climbed back up. He slipped his belt through the buckle and then reached up into the ceiling to secure one end of the belt.
On the screen, Horner’s movements were as inevitable as they were quick and jerky, made even more so by the video being on fast forward. Horner went up on his tip toes to place his head in the loop formed by his belt and the buckle. Without hesitation, he kicked the chair out from beneath him.
His bodyweight fell, tightening the loop impossibly around his scrawny neck.
He hung and kicked.
Then he didn’t kick anymore.
His body spun slowly, turning his mottled purple face away from the camera.
I released the fast forward button and stared in horror.
On the screen there was a commotion as the door banged back and forth until the chair dislodged. Finally the door was thrown open and Pagan bolted into the room, moving immediately to Horner’s hanging form.
He was too late. I knew he was too late.
I couldn’t watch anymore. I hit the stop button, sending the screen blank.
I didn’t know when I had started crying.
My stomach clenched again.
I stood up and stumbled awkwardly toward the bathroom, my hand an inadequate dam against the spewing vomit.
Chapter 8
“The truth is like a lion. You don’t have to defend it. Let it loose. It will defend itself.”
- St. Augustine
I’d pulled myself together by the next morning, but it had been a rough night. I’d eventually read all the reports Pagan had put in the envelope, including the transcript of the internal hearing, in which the department cleared him of any wrongdoing. Clearly, Pagan hadn’t been as easy on himself, exiling himself to the hidden realms in the furthest corners of the cold case squad. However, judging by the Arthur Howell trial from the day before, even thirty year-old cases couldn’t stop Pagan’s talents from rising to the surface.
I also spent some time on the Internet checking up on The Hacienda. It appeared Pagan’s benefactor was an actual Italian countess – Valentina Brunetti. She’d been exiled by her family from her native Venice when she married a drylander – a Tuscan whose landed family was said to have started their vineyard with Rossignola grape vines stolen from the Province of Vicenza centuries earlier. She was quite the character, immigrating to America with her husband where, after settling in California, he founded a new winery, presumably using cuttings from those anciently stolen grapevines. The California soil and the Italian grapevines fell in love and turned the new winery’s output into the hottest vintage on the worldwide market.
Four years ago – fifteen years after alighting on sunny west coast shores and with time and money on her hands – the countess had turned philanthropic, building The Hacienda collective in the original style of her adopted home, blending it with her European roots, and opening its doors to entrepreneurs and restaurateurs with big dreams, but little capital.
She then sought out artists, writers, and musicians and added them into the eclectic mix in studios located on the collection’s second story. Her efforts had met with as much success as her husband’s wines.
None of the coverage on the Internet spoke about Pagan’s involvement with The Hacienda, but I had the feeling he had been there from the beginning – working behind the scenes during his self-imposed exile. It was there in the mix of businesses and restaurants. I had no way of knowing for sure, but I could sense Pagan’s presence in the mix as much as the countess.
The hands of the clock in the tower above the main building registered ten to eight when I pulled into the parking lot of The Hacienda. The area was already busy, with Tiki Joe’s doing a brisk morning business both inside and via its drive-thru window. Next door, Sophia’s Italian Trattoria was not open, but several employees were busy cleaning and setting up the outside eating area for the lunch business.
The glass of the next door office was covered with a laminate declaring it the entrance to the studio of Martini in the Morning – an Internet radio station featuring lounge music. Then followed what appeared to be an office full of cubicles called Writers’ Haven – whatever it was.
Fleet Feet, a running and biking store, led on to The Bookaneer – a used bookstore – then several other businesses I couldn’t identify at first glance led down to The Raven pub, the El Cid Spanish restaurant, and the Sunzu dojo.
Everything was clean and cared for and, despite the eclectic mix, it all seemed to blend into the happy Bohemian mix of cultures I’d felt the night before. Even in the early morning there seemed to be a positive electricity in the air.
I realized I had no idea where I was supposed to meet Pagan. I had half-expected him to be waiting outside, but as I was about to park, I saw a woman step out of the pub and wave. She pointed, and I realized she wanted me to park in the reserved area next to Pagan’s Escalade.
I pulled into the same spot my car had been parked in the night before and saw, with a start, Randall had been painted on the concrete parking bumper. When had that been done, and why did I feel vaguely pissed off by it?
I opened my car door to find the woman who had waved at me standing near.
“Hello, dear,” she said. She was pushing sixty, but holding it at bay with brassy blonde hair and an indiscrete display of plump cleavage. She was unassumingly dressed in too tight black jeans and a plunging red silk blouse with a single string of pearls. Her accent would have done the queen proud.
“I’m Rose Parker,” she said, extending a hand for me to shake. “His nibs is inside having his breakfast. Asked me to guide you in.”
Rose’s eyes took in my lack of makeup, my hair hastily pulled back into a ponytail, and the black shell I’d thrown on over grey slacks and low-heeled shoes. She didn’t comment on the gun strapped to my hip, but I still grabbed a lightweight windbreaker off the backseat of my Honda, pulling it on to cover the armament.
“You look like you’ve been put through the ringer, dearie,” Rose said, smiling to take the insult out of the words. “And I’ve a feeling it won’t be the last time if you’re going to be working with Mr. Pagan.”
There it was again…Mr. Pagan.
It had taken me longer than normal to stretch out my leg after getting up because I hadn’t stretched it before falling into an emotionally exhausted sleep on my couch the night before. I was frustrated because the leg seemed to get shorter every day. In reality, the tendons and ligaments were still traumatized by the injury. Rehab was a painful hell, but I’d be damned if I was going to give in and add a half inch thick sole to every left shoe in my closet.
As we crossed the parking lot, I realized I was leaning hard on my cane and forced myself to straighten up. There was soft music coming out of speakers hidden in the planters…something from the Great American Songbook – Summer Wind.
“Sinatra?” I asked.
Rose looked confused for a second then twigged I was talking about the music. “Yes,” she said, looking at her watch. “Always a double dose o
f Sinatra at eight – AM and PM.” She pointed toward the end of the collection of shops anchored by Tiki Joe’s. “Martini in the Morning, all lounge music, all the time. Standards and modern standards. Always swinging.” She sounded slightly rapturous – a convert to the music style.
“Do you own the pub?” I asked, trying to bring Rose back to point.
Rose laughed. “The Raven? Goodness no. My husband Trevor is The Hacienda’s caretaker and I am the collection’s concierge. We make sure everything is shipshape and runs smoothly.”
“Do you like it here?’
“Everybody likes it here, dearie. We have a nice apartment above Tiki Joe’s. Helps to be here when needed.”
She said no more, opening the door to The Raven and pointing me toward where Pagan was sitting at a table by a window.
“Thank you, Mrs. Parker,” he said with a quick raise of his palm. A young waitress was gathering his finished plate.
He was drinking tea from a large mug. A pot with a funny looking knitted hat sat on the table to his right.
A second large mug, this one filled with steaming black coffee, had been placed on the table near the chair opposite Pagan’s. “Good morning, Randall.” He pointed to the mug of coffee. “Tiki Joe’s special blend. Full strength. I think you’ll like it.”
“How do you know how I drink my coffee?” I sat and took a sip, leaning my cane against the table. I was grateful for the coffee, but was not about to let on. “And what’s with my name painted on the parking bumper?”
Pagan simply smiled. “I sent you home with an emotional time bomb and all you want to talk about is how I know stuff about you?”
“And parking bumpers,” I said.
When Pagan was silent, I looked down and started again.
“Look…Ray…can we stop jousting. What’s going on? What is this all about?” I put the envelope he’d given me down on the table between us.
Pagan put his tea mug down and wiped his mouth with a black linen napkin. I realized there were no other customers in the pub because it wasn’t open for business yet, but Pagan was as comfortable as if he were in his own kitchen. The waitress who’d taken his plate appeared to be oblivious to us as she went about setting up shop for the day.