by Dianne Emley
“We both had tough childhoods. Cookie’s mother was a crack addict. Her father was in and out of prison for drug dealing and robbery. Cookie was bumped around foster homes her entire childhood. She was a real tough girl. Petite. Barely five foot-two, but strong. She was like a terrier. She would grab hold and hang on. Cookie and I bonded from the start. She’s buried in the Colina Vista cemetery. I still make sure there are fresh flowers on her grave. I’m the only real family she ever had.
“There’s another reason that Cookie’s murder can’t be grouped with your others, Detective Kissick. We got our man. His name is Axel Holcomb. It was a good trial with a smart jury, a fair and honorable judge, and solid evidence. Holcomb’s execution is coming up next year. He’s run out of appeals. Can’t come soon enough, if you ask me.”
THIRTY
AXEL HOLCOMB WAS THE LIVE-IN CARETAKER AT THE FOOTHILL Museum,” Kissick said. “I did some research. Cookie was murdered in an old barn on the museum property.”
“The Foothill Museum is at the edge of Angeles National Forest,” Gilroy explained. “It was once a diner called the Hiker’s Hideout. It was in operation for eighty years until it closed in the sixties and was turned into a museum. Also on the property was a barn that was one of the original pack stations. Are you familiar with that little piece of Mount Wilson history, Detective?”
When he indicated he wasn’t, she continued. “Starting in the eighteen sixties, pack trains of mules and burros began hauling supplies up to the residents who lived in the cabins in Colina Vista Canyon. People still live in those cabins. They’re on U.S. Forest Service land. Very charming, made of logs and stones, but they have no running water, indoor plumbing, or electricity. No motor vehicles are allowed on the trail, so any supplies that the residents can’t carry are hauled by the pack station. Sierra Madre also had a pack station. There’s one still in operation, but it was moved farther into the forest.”
Talking about the facts sobered Gilroy. Her unguarded moment had passed and the wall that separated and elevated the chief from everyone beneath her was again in place.
“At the time of Cookie’s murder, Axel Holcomb lived in a small room in the back of the museum. Are you familiar with the circumstances of the murder?”
“Just the broad details.” Kissick took out his spiral pad and pen. “I’d appreciate it if you could tell me everything.”
She again sat. She picked up the cup of coffee and stared at it, not raising it to her lips. “Gosh, it must be ten years ago now.” She set down the cup. “It happened early on a Tuesday morning in February. Cookie was taking her scheduled time off. She’d gone out with a couple of girlfriends to a bar in Arcadia. They left to go home around eleven that night. Cookie had parked her Nissan Sentra a block and a half away. She said good-bye to her friends, said she was going home, and that was the last they saw of her.
“When she didn’t report for duty at eight the next morning, we started looking. Didn’t find her until this older couple that runs the Foothill Museum went there around ten. They saw the Sentra in the parking lot. The log cabin was locked. Axel was supposed to open up the place. The old man went into the barn to get the spare key and found Cookie. She was nude, trussed like a deer, hanging by her ankles. Her throat was slit. Blood was everywhere.” She grimaced. “Sergeant Mike Iverson was with me. We found Axel asleep in bed, covered with blood.”
Her eyes took on a faraway gaze. “As soon as the trial was over, the city tore down the barn. The city council had wanted to get rid of it right away, but I told them it would be important for the jurors to see it, blood-soaked ground and all. The jurors did make a trip to see it. I think it helped make a compelling argument that Holcomb deserved the death penalty. Now it’s up to the state to get off its behind and fulfill the will of the people.”
“What’s Holcomb’s background?”
“He’s a local man. Twenty-two years old at the time. He’s a big man. Six-four. Two hundred fifty pounds. He was the town oddball. His family’s lived here for generations.”
“Were you surprised that he was responsible?”
“Everyone was stunned at first when it appeared that Axel had done it. But the evidence was irrefutable and he ultimately confessed. Later, people conceded that they weren’t completely surprised.”
“Did he have a history of violence?”
“Trouble seemed to follow Axel. Violence was often involved. For example, there was an incident when Axel was about sixteen. It was during summer and he was over at the public pool in the park. There were some local girls there, around his age. They were roughhousing in the pool and Axel held one of the girls’ head underwater until she nearly drowned. Axel’s brother happened to be working as a lifeguard that day. The girl was blue by the time Axel’s brother could get him to let go of her. She wasn’t unconscious, but was close to it.”
“Anyone press charges?”
“No. The families had known each other for years. You know how that goes in a small community. Our cops had picked up Axel a few times for fighting. They’d put him in the tank until he cooled off and his mother came and got him. He used to hang around with this group of about five guys who sort of adopted him as their pet. Because of his size, Axel really inflicted damage in a couple of the fights he was involved with. Folks around town knew to stay clear of Axel and to keep their kids away from him.
“Every community has a guy like Axel who just slips through the cracks until he does something really bad. Frankly, I had a hard time believing that Axel was capable of something so heinous. We questioned him, but the circumstantial evidence wasn’t sufficient for an arrest. A week after the murder, we brought him in again.” She arched a sculpted eyebrow. “That time, he confessed.”
Kissick raised his eyebrows.
“I asked one of our veteran sergeants, Ernie Bautista, to interview Axel with me. We put him through a long, tough interrogation. As you well know, you always hope your suspect will do the right thing, but how many times do we come away empty-handed?”
He nodded knowingly.
“Hours went by. Finally, Axel’s conscience got the better of him.”
“Well done.”
She smiled modestly, her lips closed. “Thank you.”
“Did Axel say why he murdered Cookie?”
“He had a crush on her. He was jealous of her and her boyfriend.” Gilroy smiled ruefully. “We found out that she sometimes met her boyfriend, Philip Wondries, in the old barn. He was an officer with the Glendale P.D. I think he’s still there. He lived in the San Fernando Valley. Cookie lived in La Verne, east of here. That barn was a convenient midway point for them to meet, especially when they both worked the graveyard shift. Phil said that they’d caught Axel watching them having sex in the barn. Cookie had told Phil that Axel had made comments to her about how good-looking she was and that she’d found Axel creepy.”
“Had Cookie planned to meet Wondries there that night?”
“Not that night.” Gilroy looked at him squarely. “We’ll never know why Cookie went up there. Near as we can figure, she planned to meet someone other than her boyfriend. Axel said he was awakened by noises, went outside, and saw her there. Cookie, gutsy little thing that she was, had choice words for Axel, igniting that short-fuse temper of his.”
Kissick nodded as he took notes. When he looked up, she seemed agonizingly sad. “Everyone must have breathed a sigh of relief to have the murderer behind bars.”
“Indeed, but no one in town was happy about any of it. Those were dark days in our little village. Looking back, I see how I made mistakes. I was in charge of the investigation. I was cocky to think that our little police department could handle it on our own. If it happened today, I would have been on the phone immediately to the Pasadena P.D. or the sheriff’s, agencies with more experience in homicides. Still, we got our man. Our investigation might not have been the most elegant, but it was thorough and it was sound.”
She scooted to the edge of her chair and reached to
put her hand on Kissick’s arm. “I’m sorry that Cookie’s murder doesn’t fit into your scheme. I wish you the best of luck in bringing to justice the man who attacked Detective Vining.”
Kissick closed his notebook and slipped it inside his jacket breast pocket. He began gathering his materials from the coffee table. When he picked up the drawing of Cookie, he held it up.
“In this drawing, Cookie’s wearing a necklace.” He pointed at it. “The artist went to great pains to draw all these little circles that look like pearls. Was she found wearing a necklace?”
“No, she was not. Besides, pearls were not her style.” Gilroy laughed bitterly.
“Did she mention someone having given her a pearl necklace? It would have been similar to this.” From his pocket, he took out Vining’s necklace and held it toward her.
Gilroy, still perched on the edge of the chair, was stock-still, her expression inscrutable.
When she didn’t move to take the necklace, Kissick laid it on the coffee table. “Does this look familiar?”
“I’ve never seen anything like that before, during, or after the investigation.” She pressed down the edges of her lips. “I’m sorry.”
He returned the necklace to his pocket.
Gilroy pointedly looked at her watch. It was a Rolex. “If I’ve answered all your questions, Detective, I have an appointment.”
He stood. “Thank you so much for your time, Chief Gilroy.”
She stood as well and smoothed the folds from her slacks.
He extended his hand and she gave him a firm handshake. “You’re more than welcome, Detective Kissick. I wish I could have been of more help. I know what it’s like when evil strikes so close to home.”
THIRTY-ONE
VINING WENT TO THE TERRA COSMETIKA BUILDING, ACROSS THE street from where Scrappy had worked as a human directional. Behind it was the alley where the “Vining 187” tag had been painted on the back of the tire store wall.
She was the only one at the locked front door of the highly secured building. The employees entered from an underground garage via elevators. She pressed the button to announce her presence. Almost immediately a buzzer sounded, and the lock disengaged. She entered a four-story atrium. Lush trees and plants were several stories tall, replicating a rain forest, complete with a waterfall and sounds of jungle wildlife. Peruvian folk music with Andean flutes played. Life-size toy monkeys, toucans, and a panther were tucked among the greenery. There was a bank of elevators and a small coffee and sandwich shop.
Vining walked to a semicircular reception desk where a pale woman on an Aeron chair wore a wireless headset. Her straight blond hair reached the middle of her ramrod straight back. On the wall behind her were banner ads touting the company’s skin care products and cosmetics. The models were young, scrubbed, and vibrant, the sort of people who would still look great after a three-day bender, little needing cosmetic enhancements.
The receptionist was in her twenties and plainly dressed in an offwhite shift in nubby raw cotton. She didn’t appear to be wearing a smidgen of makeup on her flawless skin. She regarded Vining through eyes that were as blue as an Amazon morning. A shadow of disdain crept into those eyes when Vining displayed her shield.
Vining introduced herself and handed her a business card. “Who’s in charge of your security?”
“Don Balch. Somebody else from the police already talked to him.” She opened a drawer and found a PPD business card which she handed Vining.
It was Caspers’s card. On the back, Vining saw that he had written his cell phone number. She reflected that the randy detective never let an opportunity slip by. When she put it in her pocket, the receptionist didn’t protest.
“Is Don Balch here?”
“Yes. Are you here about Scrappy?”
“Did you know Scrappy?”
“Not really. I mean, I used to let him in to use the bathroom. That was terrible, what happened. I never knew anyone who’d been murdered before.”
“Can you let Mr. Balch know I’m here, please?”
“Of course.” She briskly made the call, as if to get rid of Vining.
Vining turned to look through the glass front door. She could clearly see the corner diagonally across the street where Scrappy had last stood with his arrow. There was someone wearing a gorilla costume there now. The full-head mask kept Vining from seeing who among Marvin Li’s employees it was.
There was lots of traffic in and out of the coffee shop. While some of the people looked as if they worked for an organic cosmetics company, with free-flowing hair or shaved heads and just enough tattooed skin revealed beneath vegan clothing, most looked like office workers anywhere. It was a job and hopefully, a living.
When the receptionist had finished her call, she gave Vining a strained smile. “Don will be right down. Cute earrings. Is that abalone shell?”
“Yes, it is. Thank you. My, ahh … boyfriend gave them to me. He got them on a trip to Morro Bay.”
“Nice boyfriend.”
Vining smiled. “He is.” She took out a note pad. “Can I get your name?”
“Matilda Jernigan. Matty for short.”
“How long have you worked here?”
“About a year and a half.”
“See that guy in the gorilla suit on the corner? How long have there been guys in costumes standing over there?”
She pursed her lips and drew them to one side. “Couple of weeks. Maybe a month or so.”
“How many hours a day are they there?”
“From when I get to work to when I leave. Do you know who killed Scrappy?”
“We’re working on it. Do you let anybody in off the street to use the bathroom?”
“No.” She was indignant. “He was wearing a clown suit.” She shrugged as if that made him harmless. “Look, I already got crap from my boss about that, okay? This is supposed to be such a holistic environment, but they’re obsessed with people stealing stuff from them. Scrappy was nice. I was sad to hear what happened to him. You think about Pasadena and you don’t think that people get murdered here, you know?”
“Did you ever see him talking to anybody?”
“On his cell phone.”
“How much was he on his cell phone?”
“I don’t know. Just like anybody, I guess.” Matilda held up her index finger to interrupt the conversation and touched a button on her headset. “It’s a beautiful day at Terra Cosmetika. One moment.”
While she was on the phone, Vining picked up a product brochure from a display on the corner of the desk. A rainbow of wholesome-looking models of all ages hawked product.
After Matilda ended the call, she pulled open a drawer in her desk and handed a foil packet to Vining. “Would you like a sample of our new herbal revitalizing serum? It has jojoba, licorice extract, and Mediterranean brown seaweed and it’s scented with ylang-ylang essential oil. It’s wonderful. It’ll bleach those brown spots on your face.”
Vining accepted the small package. “Thank you.” She selfconsciously touched her cheek. She had noticed a couple of freckles that seemed to grow bigger each summer, but she hadn’t thought they were that noticeable.
“Did you ever see Scrappy talking to anyone in person?”
Matilda looked out the glass door in the direction of Scrappy’s former post. “People on the street would talk to him sometimes.”
“Ever see this guy?” Vining showed her a surveillance photo of Marvin Li in his wheelchair.
Matilda frowned. “No. I would have remembered somebody in a wheelchair.”
“He drives this van.” Vining showed her a photo of Li’s purple panel van with the ghost flames.
Matilda’s blue eyes widened. “I’ve seen that van. I’ve seen it go down Newcastle Street.” She broke to answer more phone calls.
“Do you know where the van went?”
“No, I’ve only seen it turn from Orange Grove onto Newcastle.”
“How often did you see it?”
Matilda
paused. “Sort of a lot, now that I think about it. At least a couple of times a day.”
Vining knew it was reasonable for Li to check up on his employees, but that level of oversight seemed hovering.
A fiftyish man who stood out in a red jacket, crisp white shirt, sedate blue-and-red striped tie, and dark slacks exited an elevator and approached them. His brown hair was receding. He’d gelled what was left so that it stood up, the strands carefully mussed. A wire from an earphone in his ear trailed beneath his jacket. A nametag clipped to his pocket said: TERRA COSMETIKA SECURITY, D. BALCH.
He walked toward Vining with assured steps. She pegged him as former law enforcement or military.
“Hello, Detective.” He gave her a firm handshake. “Don Balch. How can I help you?”
They exchanged business cards.
“Mr. Balch—”
“Don, please.”
“Is there a place we can talk?”
“Sure. I already spoke with one of your detectives earlier this week about clown man across the street who got himself murdered. Is this about that or something else?”
“I have a couple of things I hope you can help me with.”
“Let’s go to my office.”
Vining said, “Thank you, Matilda.”
When she responded with the flippant “No problem,” Vining mentally corrected her: You’re welcome.
Balch held open an elevator door until Vining got in. He punched the button for the fourth floor.
“Don, I’m interested in the two CCTV cameras off your loading dock. There’s fresh graffiti in the alley on the back of the tire store down the street. I’m hoping your cameras might have caught the guy.”
“Think it has to do with clown man’s murder?”
“Actually, it’s a threat against me.”