The Pain Scale

by Tyler Dilts

  “Professor Catanio?” I asked.

  “You must be Detective Beckett,” she said.

  I told her who I was and introduced Jen. The office was small and filled with furniture even older than what we had downtown. The carpeting was rust colored and worn smooth in spots by years of use. The paint was fresh, though, and the art on the walls livened up the atmosphere. I assumed it was good, but there weren’t any starry nights or water lilies or little angsty guys with their hands on their ears, so I wasn’t able to tell for sure.

  She gestured to two steel-and-vinyl chairs across from her desk. “Please,” she said. Either force of habit or simple politeness compelled her to say, “It’s nice to meet you.” Of course it wasn’t. It’s a very rare thing when it’s actually a nice thing to meet two homicide detectives. At least she’d heard about the deaths from the Benton family, so we were spared the difficulty of the notification.

  I said it for both of us. “We’re very sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you.” She didn’t look like an art professor. At least not what I’d expected an art professor to look like—no nose ring, or black turtleneck, or indoor sunglasses. Maybe art history was different. She was wearing khaki pants and a pale-yellow sweater, and she had her brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. I made her for midthirties, but sadness and the circles under her eyes might have been adding some years. Sara Benton had been thirty-three.

  “Professor Catanio,” Jen began, “you knew Sara well?”

  “Please, call me Catherine,” she said, as if she found the formality embarrassing.

  “Catherine,” I said, softening my voice. “You and Sara were very close?”

  She nodded. “Since college. We both majored in art history at UCI. Took a year off after graduation and went to Europe to see the great art. We couldn’t believe we were both accepted into the graduate program at Irvine.” It was clear she was relishing the memories, but her voice dropped as she continued. “But she met Brad and quit school. I went straight through the PhD, and here we are.” She tried a smile, but it didn’t quite take.

  “She was coming back to school, though,” I said.

  “Yes.” Catherine paused a moment. “She thought I got her into the grad program here. I’m not even on the committee.” She shook her head. “She never really believed in herself like she should have. There was never a doubt she’d get in here. I encouraged her to go to UCI or UCLA and go for her doctorate. She insisted on starting smaller.”

  Jen said, “Why did she decide to go back now?”

  “A few reasons, I think. The kids were getting older. Jacob started preschool. Mostly, though, I think she really needed something that was just hers.”

  “How do you mean?” I asked.

  “Well, you know how Brad is.”

  Neither Jen nor I really did know how Brad was, but we let her go on.

  “Everything in their lives has been about him for so long I think she felt like she was getting lost. I don’t know how she managed as long as she did. He was the star, the congressman’s son, the up-and-comer. She needed something that wasn’t part of the Bradley Benton the Third show.”

  I said, “You don’t sound like you’re a fan.”

  She looked from me to Jen and back to me again, and for the first time since we’d sat down, I saw the teacher in her. In three seconds, she evaluated us and made a decision that transformed her expression. The pain and sadness that had seemed permanently imprinted there vanished and were replaced with something new and raw. Anger.

  “Brad wanted a trophy wife. Sara was too good for that. But he never saw it. He never respected her. I’m not even sure he ever loved her.”

  Whoa.

  “Why do you say that?” Jen asked.

  She didn’t answer right away. We waited.

  “Well, aside from his attitude,” she said, weighing her words carefully as she spoke, “he cheated on her. More than once.”

  Ding, ding, ding.

  “You say cheated,” Jen said. “Past tense?”

  “As far as Sara knew. He swore he’d stopped. But there had been at least three affairs. Probably more.” There was a kind of satisfaction in her voice. She was grieving her friend, but she was also glad to be nailing Brad to the wall.

  “Do you know with whom?” I asked.

  “Two were women he worked with. I don’t know their names. But the third time was with one of their former nannies. The first one they’d hired after Bailey was born. She worked for them for two years. And she worked him for almost that long.”

  I said, “Do you remember her name?”

  “Michelle something. I don’t think I ever knew the last name.”

  Jen and I both made notes, and I knew she was wondering the same thing I was—had Bradley ever tried to put the moves on Joely?

  “But he stopped cheating?” I asked.

  “He said he did,” Catherine said. “And Sara believed him.”

  “Did you?” Jen asked.

  “No. But I never believed much of anything that Brad had to say. I made him for a politician the first time I met him, and he hasn’t ever done anything to change that opinion.”

  Jen asked, “What did Sara see in him?”

  “He can be charming when he cares to. It took her a long time to see through that.”

  “But she did,” I said, “see through it.”

  “Not until after Bailey was born.”

  “She stayed with him for the kids,” Jen said.

  “Yes. She thought it would be better for them. That she and Brad could work things out. As romantic as she was, she had a pragmatic side, too. She saw a better future for the kids with him than without him. She was willing to sacrifice.”

  “Sounds noble,” I said. “Did she ever cheat on him?”

  I thought I noticed a slight hesitation before she spoke, but I might have been mistaken. If it was there, it was subtle.

  “No. And she was noble. That’s not a word I use very often, but she’s probably the noblest person I know.”

  “That’s high praise.” Jen made a quick note in her book.

  “Then again,” Catherine said, “I suppose it didn’t hurt that he’s good-looking and rich.” She finally managed that smile, but it was so sardonic and bitter it almost made me wince.

  “See,” I said on our way back to the car, “told you he was a douchebag.”

  “It’s a long way from douchebag to murderer.” She thought about that for a dozen or so steps. “You really like him for this?”

  “I don’t know. We might get an idea if they ever let us talk to him. Maybe we should front Campos again.”

  “Couldn’t hurt.”

  In the passenger seat of the Crown Vic, I hit REDIAL on my cell. “Detective Danny Beckett for Julian Campos.” His assistant told me he was in a meeting, and I asked her to have him call me. “At least his secretary’s getting sick of me.”

  “Well,” Jen said, “we take what we can get.”

  We took Seventh Street back toward downtown. As we got close to the public golf course at Recreation Park, I saw a few FOR SALE signs on the residential side streets.

  “Got some houses for sale. Want to take a look?”

  “Alamitos Heights is a bit out of my price range,” she said.

  “Let’s just drive around the block and check it out.”

  She turned left on Terraine Avenue, and the first sign we saw was in front of a huge colonial-style house that seemed both too big and too grandiose for the neighborhood. The real estate agent’s sign in the front lawn had flyers in a plastic flip-top box mounted on the post.

  I told Jen to pull over.

  “No way.”

  “Come on.”

  “There’s no way I’m even looking at that.”

  “I know. I just want to see.”

  She gave up and pulled over to the curb. I hopped out of the car and grabbed a flyer.

  “Five bedrooms. Four and a half baths. Open kitchen and great room. Swim
ming pool and large landscaped—”

  I hadn’t come close to finishing reading the glossy flyer when she interrupted me. “How much?”

  “You’re missing the point. You can’t put a price tag on”—I looked down at the brochure to make sure I got the phrasing just right—“‘luxury living at its finest.’”

  “How much?”

  “Two million, four hundred fifty thousand.”

  “I knew I shouldn’t have told you until I actually found something.”

  “No, come on. I can help. I’ll be good at this.”

  She gave me one more wary glance at the stop sign on Sixth and Havana before looping back up to Seventh and our route back downtown.

  Seven

  “NO BIG SURPRISES,” Paula said to Jen and me, looking down at her clipboard over the top edge of her glasses. Carter had called it correctly at the crime scene. Sara had died of blood loss, although she had a subdural hematoma that would have done the job itself if she hadn’t bled out first. Bailey and Jacob had died of gunshot wounds. “There is some good news,” she continued. “Sara fought back. We found skin under her nails—enough for a DNA match of at least one of the suspects. We’ll run it.” Theoretically, at least, if a match were found, it could break the case and give us one or both of our murderers. With even the highest priority, though, the lab’s backlog would mean waiting weeks or even months for the results. I’d worked on a dozen cases in which the suspect was already convicted by the time the DNA came back. Still, the results could help us to confirm or eliminate suspects we came up with through other leads. The latter was the most likely. Even on a high-profile case like the Bentons’, we knew we’d have a long wait on our hands.

  But still, things were moving.

  It was a simple and straightforward autopsy report. It had seemed that way as we watched. Often, Paula would explain things we’d had no hint of during the procedure. Not this time. The bodies still lay covered on three parallel tables, Sara on the far left, then Bailey, then Jacob. Their shapes under the clean white sheets troubled me more than most of the victims that I had seen. The smallness of the children’s outlines on the large tables left a knot in my stomach. “Thanks, Paula,” Jen said. She watched me stare at the bodies. “Ready?”

  “Not quite.” I stepped in next to Sara and turned down the sheet to expose her face. Then I did the same for each of the children. They were purple white in the fluorescent glare. Sara’s face was bruised and swollen, but Bailey and Jacob looked surprisingly peaceful. Troublingly so, in fact. A sharp pain ran up my arm, and the air-conditioning felt suddenly too cold.

  During one of my sessions with the pain psychologist, I had said, “Sometimes it seems like I just can’t get out of my own head.” She’d nodded in understanding.

  Jen drove as we left the morgue and headed back down the 110 to the squad. I looked out the window. The bright sun reflected off of an Infiniti in the next lane, and I squinted behind my sunglasses.

  “What’s up?” Jen asked.

  I thought again of telling her about my previous night’s epiphany, about my temporary escape from the pain, but I was still afraid to speak of it out loud, as if giving voice to the experience might break the spell. Undo the magic. I needed to see if I could find that place again. Something in me resisted, but I forced my mind back to the autopsy room and to the faces of Sara Benton and her children. The more I focused on them, the less I focused on myself.

  “I’m trying to get out of my head,” I said.

  She looked like she understood what I meant, but she didn’t say anything more.

  “This is Special Agent Young,” the feeb said, “and I’m Special Agent Goodman.” We were all in the lieutenant’s office: Ruiz, the two feds, Jen, and me. There weren’t enough chairs, so we stood in a loose circle around the desk. We exchanged handshakes.

  “The bureau’s here at the request of the congressman,” Ruiz said.

  “That’s right,” Goodman said. He was the older of the two—mid-forties, maybe—with a bit of gray at the temples. But aside from the age difference, the two agents might have been brothers—both had solid frames, an inch or so over six feet, strong jaws, medium-brown hair, brown eyes, and a general all-around white-breadiness. But then again, all feds look alike to me. “Congressman Benton’s asking that you keep us in the loop in terms of your investigation.”

  “Must be nice to have connections,” I said. Ruiz and Jen both shot me disapproving looks, but Goodman’s demeanor was all warmth and reassurance.

  “I know how it must sound, Detective,” he said. “But I want you to know we have no intention of interfering here or stepping on any toes. We just want you to provide as much information as is prudent. You can understand the congressman’s position, can’t you? He’s not used to feeling powerless, and this situation has him tied in knots. He needs to feel like he’s involved in some way, and that’s why we’re reaching out and asking for your help.”

  I wasn’t used to that kind of candor from representatives of federal law enforcement agencies, and I almost regretted my snide comment.

  Goodman was slick. I didn’t know what to say, but Ruiz didn’t wait. “Of course we’ll be happy to give you anything we can,” he said, matching Goodman in feigned sincerity. “Danny, Jen, why don’t you take the agents to the conference room and fill them in on the details?”

  “Sure thing,” Jen said.

  I seemed to be the only one lacking the requisite cordiality. One more thing to work on.

  Half an hour later, we’d run down every significant detail of the case. Since we were also handing over copies of all of our reports, we didn’t give them anything they couldn’t have read for themselves. The satisfaction of holding out on sharing our own hunches and suspicions was limited by the fact that we didn’t really have any to keep to ourselves. Well, none aside from my virtual certainty that Bradley Benton III was a colossal dick. And I wasn’t ready to share that with one of Daddy’s lapdogs. Not yet, anyway.

  “That’s everything we have with any apparent aesthetic value.”

  “Aesthetic value?” Special Agent Goodman asked.

  “Long story,” Jen said.

  “Thank you.” He extended his hand. “We appreciate your help.”

  “You’re welcome,” Jen said, shaking his hand.

  “Special Agent Young,” I said. He gave me a quizzical nod, which I returned.

  After they left, I asked Jen, “Why do you suppose they call all FBI agents ‘special’?”

  “Julian Campos, please.”

  “Just a moment, Detective.”

  “Detective Beckett?”

  “That’s me, Julian.”

  “How many times is this today?”

  “More than a few, less than a lot.”

  “I think we might define our terms differently.”

  “Maybe so.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  “I assume Mr. Benton the younger is still incapable of speech?”

  “Just as he was an hour and a half ago.”

  “Figured as much. But I have a question for him.”

  “I can attempt to pass it on. Of course, I can’t guarantee anything.”

  “Of course.”

  “What’s your question?”

  “We need to know what was in the safe.”

  “Ah.”

  “Yeah. ‘Ah.’ Can you run that by your client between the sedatives?”

  “Detective, I’m not certain I appreciate your tone.”

  “I’m fairly sure you don’t. I’ll see what I can do about that.”

  “Do. And I’ll ask Bradley your question and get back to you.”

  “Or you can just tell me when I call back in an hour.”

  It was after five when Jen and I sat at our desks and reviewed the case. We talked through the few concrete facts we had so far, attempting to reinterpret the details in such a way that something might break free and emerge as a relevant piece of information.

  N
othing did.

  “So I guess we’re waiting,” Jen said. She was right. We were. Waiting for ballistics, for the interview with Benton, for the GMC van, for anything.

  In my left hand, I squeezed the racquetball I keep next to my phone. My physical therapist told me it was beneficial for my injury, but I also find it a good way to pass the time while I am thinking. I just have to remind myself to switch hands every now and again so I don’t wind up looking like a left-handed professional bowler.

  “What do you think?” she asked.

  “I think you should hang it up for today.”

  “Just me?”

  “You’ve got your thing, don’t you?”

  Jen has a third-degree black belt in aikido and volunteers as a teacher in a city program for at-risk youth. I once saw her give a demonstration to a group of teenage gangbangers and wannabes from some of the poorest areas of Long Beach. She held up a PR 24 side-handle baton in one hand and a hundred-dollar bill in the other, promising the money to anyone who could hit her with the nightstick. Half a dozen of them lined up to take their shot. Each and every one wound up pinned facedown on the mat, hoping she’d stop before breaking bones. The only thing she did break was the C-note, buying me fish and chips for lunch at E. J. Malloy’s.

  She’s studied enough Shotokan to break bricks, too. I know she could kick my ass without raising her heart rate.

  “Isn’t this a big one?” I asked.

  “It is. Hector’s testing for his brown belt tonight.”

  He’d been one of her first students, and one of her proudest achievements. He was the first of his three brothers to stay out of the East Side Longos.

  “How long has it been?”

  “Almost since the beginning. Four years.”

  “Think he’ll make it?”

  “I hope so.” She shut down her computer, turned off her desk lamp, and picked up her bag. “Don’t work too late,” she said.