by JF Freedman
“Yes,” he confirmed. “The one with California Pizza Kitchen.”
“I know where it is,” she said. “I want to make sure that was the location.” The last place Maria Estrada was seen alive.
“Yes, we were at the mall,” Steven repeated. “Isn’t that where everybody winds up sooner or later? There or the beach?”
“I don’t know,” she answered. “I’m buried here most of the time. Or out solving crimes,” she added, forcing a tight smile.
“Which I’ll bet you’re good at,” he said, smiling back.
Is he flirting with me, she thought, partly astonished and partly unnerved. She looked over at her partner, who raised a bemused eyebrow.
Turning away from Watson, Rebeck put the thought out of her head and redirected her focus. This was all a lark to Steven, she thought with a rush of anger. A girl was dead, her decomposed body found close to where the boys had slept, and he thinks it’s a joke.
Then she cautioned herself: back off. You’re reading too much into this. Their attitude wasn’t that unusual or callous. They’re young, she reminded herself. They don’t get it yet, that life can be a bitch and there’s too much ugliness in the world.
“So now you’re at Paseo Nuevo,” Watson said, moving the questioning back on track. He took Maria’s picture out of a folder and laid it in front of them. “Did you see her? Any chance at all?” He slid it closer to them. “Look closely. This is important.”
The boys studied the photo carefully. Tyler was the first to look up. “I didn’t see this girl,” he said, almost apologetically. “I’m sorry, but I don’t recognize her at all.”
Steven was intent on the photo. “What about you?” Watson asked him.
Steven turned his face to the detectives. “No.” He slid the picture back across the table. “I never saw her.”
It was a shot, Watson thought. You have to take them, no matter how long they might be. “Okay. So how long were you there, what did you do, where did you go after that?” he continued.
“Which one of us?” Tyler asked.
Watson looked at him in confusion. “What do you mean, which one of you?”
“We split up.”
They took a break, ostensibly so everyone could stretch their legs, go to the bathroom, get some fresh air. Rebeck and Watson huddled in their cubicle. “How do you want to play this?” she asked him. Every instinct in her, tuned by twelve years on the job, was humming.
Watson, too, was off-balance from this new disclosure. “We’ve got to question them separately, see if there’s a hole in either one’s story big enough to drive the case through.” He shook his head. “Man, I did not expect anything like this.”
Rebeck pulled at a piece of dry skin on her lip. Rummaging in her purse for her ChapStick, she said, “Do we need to Mirandize them?” Finding the tube, she ran it over her mouth.
Watson considered the implications. “I think we can go a little longer without technically crossing the line,” he decided. “I don’t want to scare them so they clam up, and I don’t want them crying for a lawyer. Definitely not Luke Garrison.”
Rebeck pressed a tissue to her lips to blot the salve. “Just thinking of implicating Juanita McCoy’s grandson in this murder scares the shit out of me. We’d better be super careful. Careers have been blown over less.”
“He had access,” Watson reminded her. “No small thing.”
“If the gate was locked, which they said it wasn’t,” she rebutted.
“Woodruff claimed it was, until McCoy changed his mind for him,” Watson countered doggedly. “Maybe his memory was better than McCoy’s.” He sat down heavily on the edge of his desk. “Or maybe the McCoy kid is lying.”
“Please, let’s not go there, not yet, anyway,” she implored.
“You’re right,” he agreed. “Not yet.”
They flipped a coin. Rebeck got Steven. “Keep your legs crossed,” Watson teased her. She turned away from him and went to fetch Steven.
Interview with Tyler Woodruff. Conducted by Detective Louis Watson, Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department. Audio-and videotaped (bidden camera and recorder).
Q. (Watson): You drove straight to the Paseo Nuevo mall from the ranch, is that correct?
A. (Woodruff): That’s right.
Q.: Once you were there, what did you do? Try to remember as many specifics as possible.
A.: We went into a couple of stores. Brookstone, the Discovery Store. Didn’t buy anything. What else? Nothing, really, until I met my friend Serena.
Q.: Who is Serena? What is her last name?
A.: Hopkins. A girl I went to high school with in L.A. She goes to UCSB.
Q.: Was this a planned meeting? How did you get in touch with each other?
A.: It was accidental. She was in the mall and she spotted me.
Q.: Okay. What happened?
A.: We talked for a little bit. I introduced her to Steven. Then she and I took off.
Q.: Without Steven McCoy.
A.: Right. She offered to hook him up with a friend of hers, but he didn’t go for it. We’d been together for almost two weeks, we needed a couple hours’ break from each other.
Q.: What time was this? Try to remember as accurately as you can.
A.: (after a pause) I’d say two. Between two, two-thirty.
Q.: What did you and this Serena do? Where did you go?
A.: We drove down to the beach. Near the harbor. We rented bikes…
Q.: (interrupting) Whose car did you take? Hers or yours?
A.: Hers.
Q.: And whose car were you and Steven using, his or yours?
A.: His.
Q.: What make?
A.: A Nissan Pathfinder.
Q.: Color?
A.: It’s blue. Dark blue, like navy.
Q.: Okay. So you and Serena Hopkins did what again?
A.: We rented bikes and rode along the bike path. From the Bird Refuge to a parking lot near City College, I don’t know what that area’s called.
Q.: (answering for him) West Beach. For how long?
A.: About an hour. We stopped a couple of times.
Q.: Then what?
A.: We drove to her apartment. It’s in Goleta. She shares it with three other girls.
Q.: What did you do there?
A.: Not much. Hung out. Had a few beers. Watched some TV.
Q.: Just you and her? Was anyone else there?
A.: Mostly it was just us. One of her roommates stopped in for a little while, but she didn’t hang around.
Q.: She was giving the two of you privacy?
A.: (subject hesitates before answering) You could put it that way.
Q.: How long were you in Goleta with Serena Hopkins?
A.: Till about six-thirty.
Q.: Then what did you do?
A.: She drove me back to the mall and dropped me off.
Q.: What time did you and she part company?
A.: About seven. A few minutes before. Me and Steven had said we’d meet back there at seven.
Q.: And at that point you and he got together again.
A.: Yeah. (There is a moment’s hesitation) Not right away.
Q.: Not right away?
A.: Steven wasn’t there when I got there.
Q.: When did he show up?
A.: About an hour later.
Q.: So that would be eight o’clock?
A.: Right.
Q.: Did Steven say where he was?
A.: At a movie. He lost track of time.
Q.: (There is a pause on the tape. Sound of papers being shuffled.) So between two or two-thirty in the afternoon, and eight o’clock at night, you and Steven McCoy had no contact with each other. Is that correct?
A.: Yes.
Q.: What happened once the two of you got together?
A.: We had dinner at Brophy’s Restaurant, down by the wharf. Then we drove back to the ranch.
Q.: (Another pause, more shuffling of papers) Now when you got there, the
security gate at the entrance to the property was unlocked. You’re positive about that?
A.: Yes. Unlocked.
Q.: And you were surprised, because you thought it had been locked. That was what you remembered.
A.: (after a lengthy pause) At first, yeah, but then Steven reminded me that he’d forgotten to lock it when we left earlier.
Q.: But your initial reaction was that he had locked it when you left earlier. Is that correct?
A.: (another pause) Yes.
Q.: All right. Go ahead. What then?
A.: We parked near the old house. We went inside, but it was dark, so we couldn’t see much. There’s no electricity in the house.
Q.: Remind me again. Did you sleep inside the house?
A.: No, outside. We only spent a few minutes inside, since it was too dark to see much inside.
Q.: (Pause) Very important now: did you see anything, hear anything, any unusual noises, any vehicles coming or going, any voices? Footsteps? Anything at all, during the time you were on the property.
A.: (firmly) Not a thing. If anybody came or went while we were there, I don’t know anything about it. We were sleeping, but if someone did come by, I’m sure we would have heard it.
Leaving the boys to cool their heels in their respective interview rooms, Watson and Rebeck huddled together in their cramped office. He filled her in on his interrogation of Tyler, then she told him about hers, with Steven.
After Steven and Tyler split up, he had hung around the mall—he couldn’t specify exactly how long—then he had driven to Butterfly Beach, where he parked on Channel Road near the Biltmore Hotel. He sunbathed, swam, jogged as far as Miramar Beach and back, then laid down and worked on his tan again. He was alone the entire time.
“He didn’t talk to anyone?” Watson asked. “That seems odd.”
“According to him, not a soul,” Rebeck answered. “Which felt strange to me, too, because this boy—man—is definitely tuned into women.” She hesitated. “There were times during my questioning when I felt like he was mentally undressing me,” she confessed, feeling embarrassed. She didn’t want to give her partner any ammunition for teasing, but Steven’s attitude had been too obvious to ignore. His sexual magnetism, and his awareness of it, had been apparent to her almost from the beginning of their conversation. She had actually been concerned that he was going to hit on her. To her relief, he hadn’t.
“I could see he was doing that earlier,” Watson said. “You didn’t seem all that put off by it,” he added, maintaining a poker face.
“No comment,” Rebeck told him. She felt her cheeks redden.
“Just an observation,” Watson teased her dryly. “The point being, there are plenty of women who would go for that. Especially young ones.”
Like Maria Estrada. He didn’t have to spell it out—they both understood that clearly.
Rebeck continued her recitation. After Steven left the beach he came back into town, where he popped into Kris & Jerry’s Bar off State Street and drank a couple of draft Anchor Steams. He hadn’t talked to anyone in the bar. He thought the bartender was a woman, but again, he couldn’t remember for sure.
“That should be easy enough to check out,” Watson said. “If the bartender was a woman, she’d remember him.”
“For his sake, let’s hope so,” Rebeck said.
Watson nodded slowly. “I hear you.”
After he left the bar, Steven went back to the mall and took in a movie: Collateral, with. Tom Cruise.
“That’s definitely checkable,” Watson said.
“But he had to think a minute to remember it,” Rebeck retorted. “The marquee’s right there, front and center, anybody passing by would notice it. I asked him about it, trying to get some information you wouldn’t know if you hadn’t seen it.”
“Clever. And?”
“He was fuzzy with most of the details. Hit man comes to L.A. Jamie Foxx was in it. He remembered it was directed by the same director who did The Insider, all of which he could have read about in a review.”
“Or he could have seen it some other time,” Watson said.
“That’s true,” Rebeck agreed. “At any rate, when he got out of the movie it was eight o’clock, and he met up with Woodruff,” she concluded, folding up her notebook.
The rest of his story matched Woodruff’s. The gate had been left unlocked. They hadn’t seen or heard anything back at the ranch.
“What now?” Watson asked.
“Let’s call the girl the Woodruff kid was with,” Rebeck decided. “If she corroborates, Woodruff’s clear.”
“What about McCoy?”
Rebeck’s forehead wrinkled. “Five, six hours alone? Plenty of time to meet Maria Estrada, drive up to the ranch, kill her, drive back. In his dark-blue Pathfinder.” She grimaced. “You never have a good alibi when you need one.”
“You think he needs one?”
She pondered the question. “Let’s eliminate whatever elements we can, then see what’s left.”
Tyler had programmed Serena’s number into his cell phone, so Watson was able to reach her easily. He explained that the police were questioning everyone who had been at the location where the recently murdered girl was found.
Serena substantiated Tyler’s account of their afternoon together, then asked nervously, “Is Tyler in trouble?”
“No,” Watson answered. Now that you’ve cleared him. “This is purely routine.”
“Good,” the girl’s tinny voice replied. “Tyler wouldn’t hurt anyone.”
We’re all capable of violence under the right conditions, even the Pope, Watson thought, but didn’t express. This girl didn’t need to share in his acquired cynicism about human nature. “That’s nice to know,” he said. “Thanks for your time.”
He hung up. “Woodruff checks out,” he told Rebeck. “The girl alibied him, airtight.”
“Which still leaves McCoy.” She ticked the incriminating points off on her fingers. “Five or six hours unaccounted for by any corroborating witnesses, knowledge of a remote location where the body was discovered, color and make of his car, the combination to the lock…”
Watson nodded. “A lot of coincidences. But let’s get real. We don’t have anything substantial enough to hold him on. His stonewalling is annoying, but it isn’t criminal.” He picked at a cuticle. “We’re going to have to cut them loose. If this was some lame off the street I’d hang onto him for another day, sweat him a little, because there certainly are holes in his story. But the grandson of Juanita McCoy? Not in this man’s lifetime. Unless the order comes down from above.”
Marlon Perdue, the forensic investigator who worked with the coroner, pulled up to a stop in front of the old ranch house. Keith Morton was already there, waiting for him. Perdue got out of his car and stretched his legs. It was a good forty-five-minute drive out here from his office in Santa Barbara, and his back had been acting up. He needed to see a chiropractor, and start working out on a regular basis. If he could ever make the time.
“Hello again,” he called out in greeting. Morton had been here when they had taken the body away. They hadn’t spoken again until yesterday, when Perdue called and asked that he be allowed to look inside the house.
“Thanks for doing this,” he said to Morton.
The foreman nodded curtly.
Perdue grabbed his equipment case from the backseat of the car. It was hot out here, at least fifteen or twenty degrees warmer than in town, where the ocean breeze served as a natural coolant. He took off his sports coat, folded it neatly, and laid it across the driver’s seat. He had stashed his automatic in the trunk of the car before coming out; if he didn’t need to show his weapon, he preferred not to. “Is the door open?” he asked.
“I unlocked it after you called,” Keith confirmed. He leaned against his pickup. “What are you looking for in there?”
“Evidence.”
Morton frowned. “I thought the girl was killed somewhere else. That’s what the news reporte
d the sheriff said.”
“She wasn’t killed where you found her,” Perdue replied, correcting him. “We don’t know where she was killed.” He looked around. “Has anyone been inside this place since the body was discovered?”
Morton shook his head. “I’ve been keeping an eye out since the body was found. If someone has been here since then, I’d know it.”
That was helpful. If there was any evidence in the house, the chances it hadn’t been contaminated would be better. He walked across the gravel to the front door. “Do you want me to come in with you?” Morton called after him.
“No. The fewer people inside, the better. I’ll call you if I need you.”
“I’ll be here,” Morton said laconically. He leaned back against his truck and pulled his hat over his eyes.
Perdue took a set of sterile latex gloves from his briefcase, snapped them over his hands, and turned the front doorknob. With a faint groan of hinges, the heavy door creaked open.
The house was cool and dark. Carefully walking across the room, Perdue pulled back the heavy curtains. Shafts of sunlight filtered in through the high, dirty windows. What a fascinating old place, he thought, as he looked around. This is living history, better than a museum. He would love to come back on a non-official basis, when he could browse the library, look at the paintings with unhurried appreciation, and enjoy the essence of the place.
The living room was still. Dust mites hovered in the somnolent air. Talk to me, Perdue said to himself. Do you have a tale to tell?
On the far wall next to the walk-in fireplace he noticed the gun cases. He walked over and casually tried one of the handles.
The door swung open. Surprised that it wasn’t locked, he looked inside at the rows of rifles, shotguns, and handguns. These are ancient, he thought, going back as far as the Civil War, from the looks of some of the rifles. Beautiful pieces, as pretty as sculpture.
He bent over to get a closer look. Then he straightened up, walked to the front door, and flung it open. “Could you come in here a minute?” he called out to Morton.
Keith pushed off from the side of his truck, where he’d been half-dozing. As he reached the front door, Perdue tore open another package of sterile gloves. “Put these on, please,” he said, as he handed them to Keith.