by Tyler Dilts
SIX
Angela Markowitz lived in a quiet Huntington Beach neighborhood just off Brookhurst. She and her husband owned a white-on-beige three-bedroom ranch house at the end of a short cul-de-sac. The front yard looked professionally landscaped and maintained, like the yards of the neighboring houses, with a deep green lawn bordered by planters that were filled with wildflowers and small succulents. I drank the last of my smoothie just as Jen parked the Caprice at the curb.
Angela had been waiting for us. Just as we stepped up onto the porch, the door opened.
“Ms. Markowitz?” Jen asked.
“Yes,” she said, her voice weak.
“I’m Detective Tanaka. We spoke on the phone earlier? This is Detective Beckett.”
“Come in.” She stood back from the door to let us pass. Her dark hair was pulled back loosely into a ponytail, and a few individual strands fell down her cheeks. She was dressed in old sweatpants and an oversized T-shirt with a UCI Anteater logo across the chest. Her eyes were bloodshot and puffy, and her nose was red. The lines on her face were deep and pronounced, but they didn’t look like they belonged there. She led us into the living room and gestured for us to sit on the sofa. She took a seat on a chair, the sunlight from the sliding glass door behind silhouetting her and leaving her face in shadows. A box of Kleenex sat on the corner of the coffee table in front of her.
“May I?” I asked, taking my notepad from my pocket and pointing to a floor lamp next to the couch. She nodded, and I turned on the lamp.
“I know this is a difficult time for you,” I said, “but we’re hoping you might be able to answer a few questions about Beth.”
She shook her head slowly. “Who could do something like this?”
“We don’t know,” Jen said, “yet.”
“The two of you were close?” I asked her.
Angela nodded and pulled a tissue out of the box. She wrapped it loosely around her fingers and dropped her hands into her lap.
“How long have you known her?” Jen asked.
“Since high school. She was going to be a writer, and I was going to be an actress. We had bigger plans in those days.” A warm glow lit her face and then disappeared just as quickly. Her lower lip began to quiver. She closed her mouth tightly for a moment. “We drifted apart for a while, then reconnected when she came to Warren.” She was quiet a moment. “We both wound up as teachers,” she said.
“How did you meet her?” Jen asked.
Angela closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, a slight, sad smile played across her face. She told us how, in their sophomore year at Marina High, she and Beth had both tried out for the cheerleading squad. They bonded through whispered sarcasm directed at the airheaded blond bimbettes whose entire being seemed to revolve around the auditions. Neither of them made the cut, but they became friends. Jen nodded at the story and gently prodded Angela into talking more about the women’s shared history.
Jen was taking the long road with the interview, letting Angela open up gradually and tell us her story on her own terms. She was trying to get beneath the simple facts of their lives and find the genuine core of their friendship. Most detectives have neither the patience nor the empathy to work that approach. My partner did.
We listened to Angela speak for almost an hour. She told us how she and Beth had decided to go to the same college, how they’d taken different paths but both finally settled on English education majors, how they’d experimented, rebelled, and matured. She told us what she knew of Beth’s strained relationship with her former fighter-pilot father, her doting relationship with her housewife mother, and her overprotective tenderness toward her little sister. She told us that Beth had introduced her to her husband and been her maid of honor. What she didn’t tell us was anything about Beth’s own love life.
“Had Beth ever been seriously involved with anyone?” I asked.
“Not that I know of. There might have been someone while we were out of touch.” She told us how they’d drifted apart after their graduation from college and how, when they’d run into each other again at Warren, it was like no time had passed at all.
“Beth always had trouble trusting men,” Angela said. She pulled a fresh Kleenex from the box and dabbed at the corner of her eye. “Because of her father. He wasn’t—” she caught herself, as if she were about to say something she might later regret. There was a quiet anger in her eyes. “She never really would talk about him, but I know he wasn’t the best father while Beth and Rachel were growing up.”
“Had she been involved with anyone recently?” I asked.
“Not seriously.”
“Anyone at all?”
“A few months ago. She went out with a guy she met on the Internet. But she only saw him a few times.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“She broke it off. His wife died a year or two ago. She said he still had too many unresolved issues.”
Jen and I exchanged a glance.
“How many times did she see him?”
“Oh, maybe four or five times.”
“Did you ever meet him?” Jen asked.
“No.”
Jen leaned forward. “Had they been intimate?”
“No.”
“And she would have told you about that?” I asked. Jen shot me a stern look.
“Yes,” Angela answered, “she would have.”
I shut my mouth and let Jen handle the next few questions. “How did he take it?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Angela said. “She didn’t say anything about that. I assumed he was all right with it.”
“What was his name?”
“Daryl. She never told me his last name.”
I scribbled the name in my notepad.
“Had she mentioned anything unusual lately?” Jen asked. “Maybe something at work, a student or a teacher?”
“No.”
“Maybe she mentioned seeing someone odd, phone calls, someone approaching her or following her?” Jen looked into Angela’s eyes. “Anything like that at all?”
“No. Nothing at all. I’ve been thinking about that all night.” Angela’s voice trailed off, and she raised the tissue to her nose.
Jen gave her a moment. “Is there anyone who might have wanted to hurt her?”
Angela shook her head and reached for a fresh Kleenex, but the box was empty.
An hour later, Jen, Marty, and I stood in a cold room with tiled walls, staring down at Beth’s naked body on a stainless-steel table. She’d been cleaned up, and we could clearly see the extent of her wounds. Most of her body was a pale white blue, but the back of her torso and the underside of her legs were a purplish hue, as the blood that had remained in her body pooled there while she was lying on her classroom floor. A single gash bisected her left breast and penetrated deep into the chest cavity. Below the rib cage, most of the skin was gone. It looked as if some large animal had chewed through her abdomen, leaving behind only a tangled mass of organ tissue, muscle, and flesh. The sight was similar, on a smaller scale, between her legs. I swallowed hard, glad that I had nothing more substantial in my stomach than blended strawberries and bananas, and looked at her face. The bright overhead lights shone dully in her open green eyes.
The door at the end of the room swung open, and Paula came in. She was wearing blue surgical scrubs under her white coat, and her bifocals hung on a librarian’s chain around her neck. Her short, white hair was mussed, as if she’d been running her hands through it.
“Well, the gang’s all here,” she said. We said our hellos as she approached the side of the table opposite us.
“The good news,” Paula said, pulling a pen out of her pocket, “is that she died quickly.” She pointed to the gash in Beth’s chest. “This was wound number one, while she was still standing. Cut through her aorta and deep into the right lung. She couldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds after she fell.” She moved the pen down. “Next came the groin. Full penetration, ten to twelve t
imes.”
Jen shifted her weight and exhaled through her nose.
“Finally,” Paula went on, “he went to work on the abdomen.” She looked at us. “What do you see?”
The three of us looked at the wounds. Marty saw it first. “No stray cuts.”
“That’s right,” she said. “Except for the first cut, everything stayed between the rib cage and pelvis. He took his time and aimed each slash.”
“Why?” Jen asked.
“I don’t know,” Paula said. “I just do the how. The why is your job.”
“The hand?” I asked. “Postmortem?”
Paula came around the table, and we stepped back to give her room. She raised Beth’s left arm and bent it at the elbow. The rigor was beginning to let go, and Paula held the arm in place. She made a few slight adjustments in the positioning and said, “Danny, stand up on your toes and look down at this.”
I did as she said, and I saw it at once. The angle of the wound to the wrist matched almost exactly the angle of the gash in her chest.
“What?” Jen asked.
“It was a defensive wound,” I said. “She raised her arm like this.” I held my left hand up as if I were trying to shield myself from a blow. “And the blade came down through her wrist,”
I said, demonstrating the arc of the attack with my right, “and went straight into her chest.”
“Jesus,” Marty said. “What was the bastard using? A broadsword?”
“No,” Paula said, “not a sword.”
“What then?” he asked.
“I can’t tell you that,” Paula said, “but it was a heavy blade, a quarter-inch thick, twelve to thirteen inches long, with a downward curve to the cutting edge.”
“Like a sickle or scythe?” I asked.
“Like that,” Paula said, “but I doubt that you’d find one of those with a blade that thick and heavy. Or one made of 440C stainless steel.” She smiled. “I found a flake on her pelvis.”
“Holy shit,” Marty said. “A bona fide clue.”
When Jen and I entered the squad room, we saw a man and a woman in Ruiz’s office, staring at him across his desk while he spoke. The man sat flagpole straight in the chair, his lean face expressionless, his white buzz-cut hair tinged a slight yellow by the fluorescent overhead light. Under the navy blue golf shirt and khakis, he looked as if he might have been carved from blond oak. Every now and again, he’d incline his head slightly, just enough to make you wonder if he was nodding. Otherwise, he sat completely motionless.
The woman, I thought at first, seemed his opposite. She sat in a loose pile, her wool sweater hanging from her slumping shoulders, with a handkerchief, with which she’d frequently rub her eyes or nose, twined in her fingers. If everything about him was hard, then everything about her was soft. Even the lines etched around her eyes and mouth seemed as if they’d been formed with the edge of a dull spoon. But to suggest that the two were opposites would be to suggest that there was something complementary about them, that they fit together in some yin-and-yang kind of way. They didn’t. They might just as well have come from different worlds.
When the lieutenant saw us, he motioned us into his office with a wave. “Detectives Tanaka and Beckett,” Ruiz said, raising his hand toward us, “this is Colonel and Mrs. Williams.” The colonel stood a shade under six feet, but if he hadn’t been less than a yard away, I would have guessed his height a solid two inches taller due to his bearing and posture. There was a hard-set arrogance in his eyes, the dull glint of superiority I’ve often seen in the faces of those who’ve held the power of life and death over others and enjoyed it too much. He extended his hand, and I shook it. When he let go, I tried not to be too obvious about checking my hand for broken bones or swelling.
“Detectives,” the colonel said, “it’s a shame we have to meet under these circumstances. The lieutenant here says you’re two of the best. I’m sure we can expect solid results.” His hands found each other behind his back, and his feet drifted into a wider stance. If he was aware he was standing in parade rest, he didn’t show it.
“I’m sorry for your loss, sir.”
“You’re going to catch the man who did this,” he said. It wasn’t a question. It couldn’t have been further from one, actually. He spoke directly to me, completely ignoring Jen. He must have assumed that she handled the typing and filing and such.
“Detective Tanaka and I will do everything we can, sir.” That was two “sirs” in a row. I wasn’t sure where they came from. Something about that military bearing. Maybe it was his unwavering confidence. Or maybe just the way he left no tone unsterned.
“You’re talking to the other one,” he said. Another statement.
“The other one?” I caught myself before I said “sir” again.
“Her sister,” he answered.
“Rachel,” Mrs. Williams said, a brief spark firing and extinguishing in her eyes.
“Why should we be talking to her?” I asked the colonel.
“That one,” he paused, as if trying to find a euphemism strong enough to convey his disgust without offending anyone, “that woman she’s involved with.” He looked as if the words tasted sour as they passed through his mouth.
“Which one is that?” I asked. As a homicide detective, you see a wide variety of reactions to loss. As I listened to him, I had to make a concerted effort to keep my voice friendly and remind myself that I was talking to a grieving father. At least that’s what he should have been. Maybe he was grieving on the inside.
“Just pay attention,” Colonel Williams said, “and I’m sure you’ll do fine.”
“Pay attention,” Jen said, as if the thought had never before occurred to her. “We’ll be sure to do that.”
The colonel looked at Jen, for the first time since we had entered the room, and gave her a slight nod. I began to wonder if his neck were capable of a full range of motion—or if the stick in his ass extended all the way up into his skull.
“Especially,” I added, “to the other one.”
Ruiz cut us off before it went any farther. “Danny, Jen. Why don’t you two check in with Dave. See what he came up with.”
“We already—”
Jen interrupted me. “Will do, Lieutenant.”
“You two catch the man who did this,” the colonel said.
“We’ll do our best, Mr. Williams,” I said. His lip twitched at the “mister.”
Jen reached in front of the colonel and placed her hand on Mrs. Williams’s arm. “I am sorry,” she said. The woman looked up into Jen’s eyes, seemingly surprised that someone had acknowledged her presence. She tried to smile, but it was a halfhearted attempt, and the expression didn’t rise above her cheeks.
For just an instant, the contrast between the woman’s smiling lips and her devastated eyes gave her the pained and confused look of someone who is just realizing that everything they had ever believed is a lie. In a sense, that was exactly the case—no one wants to believe that those they love, particularly their children, are actually mortal, that their deaths can come as swiftly and as easily as a phone call in the middle of the night. I wondered, in that moment, how much I really was learning about Mrs. Williams and if anyone else would ever see what I had just seen. I certainly didn’t have much faith in the colonel’s chances of understanding the depth of his wife’s pain.
“Asshole,” Jen said as I closed Ruiz’s door behind us. The couple spent another ten minutes in Ruiz’s office. When they left, Jen and I were sitting at our desks. Colonel Ronald P. Williams, USAF, Retired, gave us another semi-nod as he passed. His wife paused at the edge of Jen’s desk.
“He’s—” she caught herself in midsentence and looked down at her hands for a moment. When she looked up again, she simply said, “Thank you,” and walked out the door with her husband.
“Semper Fi,” I said.
“That’s the Marines,” Jen said.
“Same difference.”
After we finished our reports and squar
ed away our plans for the next day, I loaded my notes and copies of the day’s paperwork in the leather postal-carrier bag I use for a briefcase.
“Want to grab some dinner?” I asked Jen.
“I’ve got plans.”
“Plans?” I asked. “Family thing?” Jen was one of the few people I knew who actually came from a functional family. It was an unusual week if she didn’t see her parents and brother at least once.
“No. Bob Kincaid and I are going to grab something.”
“You’ve got a date with Dimple Boy?”
“It’s not a date,” she said. “He’s looking for some martial arts classes for his son. I told him I’d help him out. And don’t call him Dimple Boy. He’s a nice guy.”
“He’s a lawyer.”
“You want to come? I’m sure he wouldn’t mind. We can go over the case.”
“Thanks. I’ll take a rain check,” I said.
“Okay. See you tomorrow.”
“Night,” I said, looking at her clothes and wondering if she’d be wearing the same outfit in the morning.
At home I unloaded three supreme steak chalupas and a side of pintos ’n cheese from my Taco Bell drive-through bag, grabbed a Sam Adams from the refrigerator, and parked myself on the couch. I ate while I watched a rerun of Jeopardy!
“What is the Magna Carta?” I said, wiping sour cream from my chin. Slurping down the last of the refried beans, I finished just in time to turn off Pat Sajak before he and Vanna began their nightly repartee.
I threw my dinner trash in the can under the sink in the kitchen. On the counter were the week’s dishes—six coffee cups, six teaspoons, and the one tall glass that usually only needed a rinse. I thought about washing them but decided against it. There were still two more of each in the cupboard. I opened the freezer and took out my Grey Goose and the shot glass I kept in there with the bottle.
Two drinks later, I was at the dining table, The Chieftains’ Long Black Veil playing softly in the background, reading through my case notes, looking for anything that might stand out. I went through everything we’d done, everyone we’d talked to, every place we’d been, looking for a pattern that we hadn’t seen yet, some connection we hadn’t made. If there was anything there, it was beyond me, but still, I read through the notes two more times. You never know when something will click into place and the tumblers will begin to fall. I looked through the copy of the case file again too. Nothing new there, either. I went through everything again—and again, and again.