by Paul Bishop
“An EP?” Pagan asked.
“Short for extended play,” Arlo said. “Think of it as a musical download with more music than a single, but too short to qualify as a full studio release.”
“And this EP is selling enough downloads to pull Smack Records out of a hole?” Pagan asked.
“Big time. If handled correctly, an artist like Changeling could make everybody involved rich and famous.”
“It’s still a longshot,” I said. “Most of this stuff plays to a fickle audience.”
“Agreed,” Arlo said. “But from what I can gather on the music blogs and boards, Changeling has hit a chord and people are hungry for product. Smack Daddy has to play it right, but he could be onto the real deal.”
“Can you keep digging?” Pagan asked.
“Will do.”
“Thanks, Arlo. Stay available.” Pagan hit the disconnect switch.
I felt energized. I couldn’t wait to get a crack at Smack Daddy. “Decisions determine destiny,” I said.
“Save it for a bumper sticker,” Pagan said, not unkindly. “First, we’ve got to handle this new situation.”
There was big money in the San Fernando Valley suburb of Sherman Oaks, but it was a different sort of money than in the Hollywood Hills. There were no jewelry-hung drug dealers or new wave movie directors clamoring to drive the real estate prices up. With its proximity to the businesses and restaurants along Ventura Boulevard and its quick access to several busy freeways, Sherman Oaks was a bastion of established family affluence. This was ancient money, dirty land deal money, dirty water rights money, money with secrets as old as the city itself.
Along with two city parks and a senior center, the neighborhood included eight public schools, seven private schools, and seven synagogues. In the heart of the ethnically diverse San Fernando Valley, over eighty percent of Sherman Oaks’ residents were politically incorrect by being non-Hispanic whites.
The house on Sutton Street near Firmament was a solid two-story piece of 1950’s Americana, a later arrival to the area. At first glance, the house wasn’t overly large, but it had been painted recently. The roof was in good condition and the windows sparkled. A weeping willow dominated the landscaped and manicured front yard.
Castano and Dodd’s unmarked brown Crown Vic was parked at the curb behind two black-and-whites with the new low profile light bars. In the driveway was a ten year-old Mercedes parked next to a spotless black hearse.
I glanced at Pagan, who’d stopped the Escalade smoothly next to the curb. “A hearse?” I asked.
Pagan tilted his head in a gesture I took to mean, your guess is as good as mine.
“How do you want to play this?” I asked.
“How do you?”
I looked at Pagan. He had turned off the ignition and had turned in his seat to face me.
“You’ve always done your own heavy lifting,” Pagan said. “We’re partners. You’re up.”
I felt something akin to electricity run up my spine, both hot and cold at the same time. I’d been on this job for twelve years – a lifetime – and I’d rarely had a male partner who didn’t try to run roughshod over me. Those who didn’t were lazy backstabbers who always found a way to grab the credit for your hard work. It was a constant battle.
I looked hard into Pagan’s face. His dark eyes were each the center of a storm. I started to duck my head, but suddenly Pagan laid a gentle finger under my chin.
“I know all of this is sudden,” he said. “But trust me, you’ve got this and I’ve got you. I’m your partner. I won’t let you down.” He slowly drew his hand back, still holding my eyes with his.
I took a deep breath. “Let’s see what Castano has and go from there?”
Pagan nodded and the moment passed.
Police work relies on routine. Asking questions, sorting out the truth from the lies, asking more questions. We use inductive reasoning, conclusions drawn from observations of facts, to arrive at a solution fitting all of the evidence. It’s the complete opposite of detectives on television and in novels, who use Sherlock Holmes style deductive reasoning – arriving at a specific conclusion from a general assumption.
In real world law enforcement, inductive reasoning involves relying on facts – and only facts – until only one conclusion is possible.
Now was the time to gather facts.
Chapter 16
“Man is least himself when he talks in
his own person. Give him a mask, and he
will tell you the truth.”
- Oscar Wilde
Pagan stayed a step behind me as we approached the residence’s open front door. Seeing us coming, the uniformed officer at the door turned and spoke to someone inside. A moment later Castano appeared and walked toward us.
“It’s bizarre in there,” Castano said, without qualification. “This family has a majorly screwed up gene pool.”
Pagan and I stood waiting, but he didn’t expand.
Castano looked at his notebook. “The missing boy, Gerrard Martin, is a six year-old with special needs. Moderate to severe autism.”
“Capable of wandering off by himself?” I asked.
Castano shook his head. “Not according to his mother. He would have to have been taken. Most probably while he was asleep or he would have screamed, which seems to be the only form of communicating he has.”
“Who is in the house?”
“Single mother, Sophie Martin – apparently never married to the father, who split when Gerrard was born.”
“The world is full of butt hairs,” Pagan said.
I glanced at him, but he was focused on the exterior of the house.
“Agreed,” Castano said, and then continued his briefing. “The house belongs to Harvey Martin, Sophie’s uncle. He and another uncle own the Martin Mortuaries. Harvey operates the closest facility here on Ventura Boulevard. The other uncle, David Martin, operates their facility in Hollywood.”
“That explains the hearse,” I said. “Anyone else?”
Castano looked at his notebook again. “Sophie’s older brother, Chadwick, but there’s something wrong with him too.”
“Autism?” Pagan asked.
“Nah, something else. Chad works with his uncle at the mortuary, but you can look at him and know he’s not all there.”
“Are your sensitivity classes up to date?” I had to ask.
“What?” Castano looked confused. Maybe there was something wrong with him too and I was the one being insensitive.
I felt Pagan’s hand on the small of my back, gently pushing me forward. “Be kind, Randall. Be kind,” he whispered close to my ear.
The inside of the house was much like the outside – solidly respectable, well-cared for, and completely unimaginative. Heavy dark wood covered in dark colored fabrics sat where it had sat for years. An open, leather bound, family Bible held pride of place on its own podium, while Rockwell knockoffs and collectors’ plates out of TV Guide advertisements clustered or hung in small groupings, all looking terrified of dust.
Claw-footed chairs around a living room table were never moved. Slightly less substantial oak chairs – naturally matching the oak kitchen table – ventured far enough out for somebody to sit down before being pushed precisely back into place.
The trio waiting for us in the living room seemed blended into the surroundings. Standing next to an overstuffed couch covered by a burgundy tapestry, Harvey Martin would have dominated under most circumstances. He was a crow of a man in an old fashioned black suit, which he wore like a second skin. His tan face was filled with fine sun lines cracking like a dried mud flat.
The man/boy next to Harvey was clearly Chad. Somewhere in his early twenties, his facial features laid claim to the Down syndrome Castano had callously described as not all there. Dressed in a suit similar to his uncle’s, it hung on him in bags and pokes, as if nobody had felt he was worth the cost of a tailor. He looked agitated and on the verge of tears.
I tipped my head al
most imperceptibly, letting Pagan off the leash. He practically bounded forward like a greyhound after a rabbit.
“Chadwick?” Pagan said, holding out a hand, but not moving in to touch the target of his attention.
“Yes.” The inflection on the word was like that of a startled bird.
“I’m Ray. It’s nice to meet you.”
The non-threatening warmth in Pagan’s words and manner emanated from his whole body. The transformation of Chad’s emotions was clear on his face, moving from agitation to happiness like the flipping of a channel. He took Pagan’s proffered hand and shook it vigorously.
I was startled to catch a glimpse of Pagan’s facial expression, which had taken on a mirror-like quality – reflecting Chad back at Chad. Gently, Pagan guided him away from the grouping, best friends off to share an adventure.
Harvey Martin watched with distain, dismissing Pagan as being of the same lack of worth in his mind as Chad. He then turned his judgmental eyes on me, but I refused to be captured by them, turning my attention instead to Sophie Martin.
Sitting at the opposite end of the couch from where Harvey Martin was standing, Sophie was a woman worn to a nub. She wore skinny jeans and a yellow-checked blouse, which emphasized the frailty of her limbs. Unlike the sculpted and injected visage of Judith Davis, this woman was worn down like a riverbank, eroded by the relentless flow of painful emotions and difficult life circumstances.
Her eyes were red, but more from anger than tears. Before I could even introduce myself, she exploded.
“I hate autism! I hate it! I hate it!” Rage flowed out of her like lava. She put a boney hand like a tilted salute against her head at eyebrow level. She flung herself against the back of the couch, rocked forward, and then threw herself back again.
“Get hold of yourself, Sophie.” Harvey Martin’s voice was crisp, filled with an undertaker’s complete lack of emotion. I wondered if it was so practiced as to now be his natural tone. Did it ever waver? Did it ever display excitement or pain, or was it permanently stuck in neutral?
“It’s quite all right, Mr. Martin,” I started.
“No. It’s not,” he said, correcting and dismissing me at the same time. “Sophie has one job to do – take care of Gerrard – but she is incapable of even handling that responsibility. The boy has simply wandered off. All this fuss is for nothing.”
Sophie dropped her hand and shot to her feet. “He didn’t wander off! He is incapable of wandering off. He’s got fuc…”
“Language!” Harvey Martin roared. “This is a house of God. There will be no blasphemy. Do you hear me?”
Sophie looked as if she’d been drenched by a bucket of cold water.
I rapped my cane on the hardwood floor, making my own exclamation. “Mr. Martin, would you please show Detective Castano Chad’s room and allow him to look around?”
“A waste of more time,” Martin said, looking intractable. However, he moved away without further argument.
Castano knew his role and obediently followed Martin’s retreating back.
I turned back to Sophie, who had collapsed into a sitting position again on the couch and put her hand back up to cover her eyes.
“I knew there was something wrong,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“Somebody has been watching the house.”
“How do you know?”
“I heard him in the backyard one night last week.”
“Did you call the police?”
“Yes, but they found nothing. Uncle Martin told them it was all in my imagination.”
“Was it only the one time?”
“No. There were two prior times, and the next day, I came back from taking Gerrard for his checkup, and I found the backdoor open.”
“A burglary?”
“No. Nothing was gone, but I knew I closed and locked the backdoor before we left. It had been pushed in.”
“Did you call the police again?”
“Yes. They took a vandalism report because nothing had been taken.”
“And you think it might have something to do with Gerrard going missing?”
Sophie sighed. “I don’t know,” she said. She was silent for a moment then asked, “What happened to your leg?”
If the tension of the situation hadn’t been so high, I might have laughed at the non-sequitur transition. Instead, I sat down on the couch myself, placed my cane across my knees, and answered.
“I foolishly stood in front of a bullet. A real one,” I said. “But I doubt its effects are much different than the metaphorical bullet you’ve been hit with.”
Sophie began to cry. Sobs racking her body. I sighed inwardly. My days, like those of most detectives, are filled with tears and pain. Sometimes, it’s hard to absorb it all. I didn’t want to comfort Sophie. Every fiber in my body didn’t want to open up to receive her pain, but I knew what Pagan would expect.
I pushed reluctance aside, and pulled Sophie into an awkward, yet genuine embrace, which caused my cane to fall to the floor with a clatter.
Against my chest, I heard Sophie say, “It is happening all over again, isn’t it?”
“What’s happening again?” I asked.
“Maybe tomorrow, he’ll be run over also and die. I want him to die!”
“Sophie, what are you talking about? Why would Gerrard get run over?”
Almost violently pushed herself away from me. “Not Gerrard!”
I was confused. “Then who?”
“That bastard who calls himself my uncle.”
Sophie started crying again. I didn’t want to hug her, so I simply took her hands in mine.
“Tell me what you mean by it is happening again. Has Gerrard gone missing before?”
Sophie gulped, got control of herself. “Not Gerrard. Connor.”
“Conner?”
Sophie took her hands back and pulled a tissue out of the pocket of her jeans. “Connor was our oldest brother. My parents had trouble conceiving, so they adopted Connor when he was an infant. Then suddenly my mother found herself pregnant with me and, a year later, Chad.” Sophie twisted the tissue through her fingers.
“One night, ten years ago, Connor disappeared from our house. The next day, our father, Jack, was killed in a hit and run accident outside the first of the family mortuaries.”
“What happened to Connor?”
Sophie shook her head. “He was never found. He was ten years old and he was just gone. I think in some ways my mother was glad.”
“What do you mean?”
“Even as young as I was, I knew he wasn’t the child my parents wanted when they adopted him. Today, we would realize his birth mother probably had a drug or alcohol addiction when she gave birth.”
“What make you think so?”
“Connor always took care of Chad and I, but otherwise he was a wild child…constantly in a battle of wills with my father, who frankly made Uncle Harvey seem like a liberal saint.”
“And your mother?”
“Always sick and too weak willed to stand up to my father. A lot like me.”
I paused as the portent of Sophie’s statement settled in the atmosphere like a blanket landing on a bed of nails.
When the moment passed, I asked, “Did they find out who ran over your father?”
“It was all so long ago,” Sophie said, seeming to pull herself together. “They found the car that hit him. It was still there in the mortuary parking lot pinning my father between it and his own car. It had been reported stolen. They said it must have been some kid on a joy ride, high on drugs.”
“That was it?”
Sophie shrugged.
“Why do you think Gerrard going missing means whatever it was is happening again?”
“Connor wouldn’t have left us. Chad shared a room with him. He slept through whatever happened. He’s always said the wee folk took Connor.”
“Wee folk?”
“Irish fairies. It’s the only explanation Chad can wrap his h
ead around. Connor always read to him from Tales of the Wee Folk before they went to bed. The fairies fascinated Chad and the stories would help him sleep. Like Connor wouldn’t leave us, Gerrard didn’t go missing. He would have to be taken. I sleep in the room right next door with the doors open. Gerrard wears a weighted vest at night, which comforts him. There’s a movement monitor right next to his bed. It alerts if Gerrard has a night seizure or if the bed is empty. Gerrard can’t get up by himself. He can’t go to the bathroom by himself. He can’t eat by himself. You have to understand, Gerrard’s autism is completely debilitating. He needs constant care. He didn’t just wander off. He won’t survive twenty-four hours if somebody doesn’t know how to take care of him.”
“What about his other caretakers?” I asked.
“There are no other caretakers. Only me. In case you hadn’t noticed, Uncle Harvey has made it abundantly clear – Gerrard is my responsibility. It’s my fault for having sex outside of marriage. I sinned and Gerrard is my punishment.”
“That isn’t true,” I said. I regretted the words the second they slipped over my lips.
“Maybe not in your world,” Sophie said, crossing her arms. “But in my world it is.”
“What about your mother or your aunt – Mr. Martin’s wife?”
“Ha!” Sophie sort of exploded. “My mother died of cancer the year after Connor disappeared. My uncle had two wives and both ran screaming from the marriage quicker than a one term senator.”
“So there’s nobody else to help you take care of Gerrard?”
“Chad does what he can, but he has his own challenges with DS. It takes almost everything he has to keep up with his Bible lessons and Uncle Martin’s odd jobs.”
“Your other uncle?”
“Uncle David keeps clear. The mortuaries are connected in name only. On paper, they are separate businesses.”
“Did your father have a separate mortuary facility?”