by Dianne Emley
Nan put faces on Erica’s assailant, trying out Jared’s, Ryan Keller’s, and a shadowy, unknown bad man. All of them were fierce and determined, focused on stabbing the life from her, venting their rage, and positioning her clothes and body to humiliate her.
Nan worked through Melissa Hayword’s scenario. Erica and Jared could have been marched here at gunpoint. Jared could have been forced to drag semiconscious Erica. Maybe he’d been tased as well.
The leaves on the trees rustled as a breeze blew through, bringing a whiff of cigarette smoke. Nan peered into the dark ravine. Against the rise on the opposite side, she saw the ember of a cigarette grow bright and then dim before tracing an arc in the darkness. She clicked on the Maglite and held it up beside her head, cop style. The flashlight beam barely caught a man sitting near where the bodies had lain. His legs were stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankles. He was supporting himself with one hand on the ground. A cigarette was in his other hand.
“Who’s there?” Nan asked harshly.
The cigarette again burned brightly and the ember made a zigzag in the air as he lumbered to his feet. He took a staggering step before he found his footing, standing with his chunky legs spread on the steep hillside. His girth made his head, with its receding dark hair and unkempt beard, look small. “Luther Prevett. I do the Pasadena Per Se blog.”
Nan walked across the ravine, sweeping the flashlight beam and navigating around boulders and vegetation. “Are you alone?”
“Yes. Damn.” Prevett raised his arm, the cigarette between his fingers, to shield his eyes when the light hit them. “Do you have to do that? You a cop or something?”
“I’m Detective Nanette Vining with the Pasadena Police Department.” Nan turned the flashlight toward the ground as she approached him, climbing the side of the ravine to stand a few feet away. “What are you doing here?”
“Holding my own candlelit memorial for Jared.” He raised the cigarette between his fingers before lowering his hand, dropping the butt, and mashing it out with the toe of his athletic shoe. “Because he sure as hell wasn’t memorialized at that other event at Coopersmith School tonight.” He looked at her. “Detective Vining.” He weighed her name. “Is your daughter one of the kids who found the bodies?”
“Yes.”
“What desk do you work?”
“Homicide.”
“Homicide. But you didn’t work this case.”
“I participated.”
“Why are you here? “
“Same reason you are, I guess.”
“What’s up with the Pasadena Police, pinning this thing on the oddball kid?”
“I can’t comment on that.”
“Talk about a rush to judgment. The cops didn’t even investigate this case twenty-four hours before closing it. Jared didn’t kill himself or murder Erica Keller. It’s ridiculous. Jared wouldn’t hurt anybody. He did try to kill himself that time, but he was good lately. Moody sometimes, but who isn’t? He was hopeful. Happy about heading to Yale this fall.”
“How did you know Jared?”
“I was sort of a mentor to him. He wanted to be an investigative journalist. I was a judge on that young journalist competition. That’s where I met him. He was a talented kid, or young man.”
“Were you helping him with his new project?”
Prevett took a pack of cigarettes and a plastic lighter from a front pocket of his rumpled tweed jacket. He tapped out a cigarette, lit it, and took a deep pull, turning his head to blow the smoke away from her. “You mean finding his dad’s killer or stalking his hot teacher?”
Chapter 23
Nan couldn’t hide her surprise.
Prevett’s crooked smile showed that he was pleased to have shocked her. “Jared had it bad for Erica Keller.”
“Did they have a sexual relationship?”
He raised both hands and shrugged, the cigarette squeezed between two fingers. “I asked Jared. He turned bright red but he wouldn’t tell me. All he said was that he was concerned about Erica because of her crazy husband. Personally, I was worried about Jared getting too involved with Erica’s domestic situation. Jared told me how he’d stopped Ryan Keller from attacking Erica one day in her classroom. Were you at the memorial at the high school?”
“Yes.”
He dragged on his cigarette. “How about that tribute Ryan gave? Doing the whole tearful ‘robbed of my best friend and the love of my life’ thing at the podium while two minutes earlier he was flirting with some chick.” He started laughing and it denigrated into a ragged cough. “I’m gonna ride that jackass until he breaks. And I’m gonna do an exposé on how the Pasadena Police is protecting Ryan.”
He again dragged on the cigarette, pointing it at Nan as he blew out smoke. “Do you know anything about that?”
“I can’t comment.”
“I take that as a yes.”
“Take it however you like.”
The whites of his eyes shone brightly in the darkness. “What if we trade information?”
“Your information would have to be significant.”
“How about this for significant: Erica had a secret boyfriend.” Prevett looked smug. He kept smoking as he waited for her to respond.
Nan said, “Anything I say has to be off the record.”
“Absolutely.”
“Seriously. I have to be confident about that. I don’t know you.”
“You can trust me. I don’t reveal my sources. I haven’t blabbed about my relationship with Jared and what we were working on.”
“What were you working on?”
“He was convinced his dad was murdered and he wanted to find out who did it. He was excited because he said that Erica was going to help him. I thought he was on to something that had the potential of being a great story. A New York Times Magazine type of feature. We were in the research stage, gathering information.” He stopped talking and gave her a quizzical look.
“And then what happened?”
“Are we exchanging information about the Pasadena PD’s investigation into Ryan Keller?”
Nan gave him a steady look. “Okay. Yes. But first you tell me about Erica’s boyfriend.”
“Sure. So, last Sunday evening I met Jared at our usual spot at this coffeehouse in Pasadena. He was all downcast. I asked him what was wrong and he said that the project was off. His mom and his shrink didn’t want him investigating what happened to his dad. I told him the project would keep until the time was right. No reason to get upset over it. Then the true confession came out. He didn’t care what his mom or his shrink said. Erica was the one who’d pulled the plug. Said she didn’t have time. She was suddenly too busy and couldn’t spare the time to let students hang around her classroom at lunch or after school anymore. That included him.”
“Did this happen after Ryan assaulted Erica in her classroom?”
“Matter of fact, it was. Jared said he’d found out that Erica was so busy because she had a boyfriend. He’d followed her that afternoon from her house. He said he was bored and was driving around and somehow ended up in her neighborhood, right? He saw her take off in her car and he followed her. She drove to some no-tell motel in Arcadia, out by the racetrack. One of those old-time, single-story jobs where you park right in front of the room door.”
“Did he tell you the name?”
“Yeah. It had a racetrack theme. The Frontrunner or something. Erica parked in the lot and primped in the car. Fixing her lipstick and whatnot. She went to a room. Some older guy answered the door.”
“Did they embrace or kiss?”
“No. I asked Jared that and he said they didn’t.”
“Did he say what the guy looked like?”
“Just some older guy.”
“Older how? Sixty years old or thirty-five years old?”
“Jared said he had light brown hair and was tall. Wearing a dress shirt and a tie. From a teenager’s perspective, I’ll guess he was middle-aged. Jared said that after Er
ica went into the room, the guy leaned out and looked around. Jared was parked in the lot of an auto parts store beside the motel and the guy didn’t see him.”
“So this would have been Sunday, April 28?”
“Right.”
Nan ran the details through her head, making sure she remembered everything. “What specifically had you and Jared done to investigate his dad’s death?”
“I drove him out to see Eli DePaul at the federal pen in Victorville. DePaul was the chief of the Silver Spur Police Department.”
Nan nodded. “I’m familiar with the players in the case.”
“Jared told his mom he was at an academic decathlon workshop. I had to get Jared on DePaul’s visitor list. DePaul was only allowed one visitor at a time and Jared really wanted to talk to him. He and I worked out our questions in advance. Took a couple of hours to drive to Victorville. DePaul talked with Jared over a phone through Plexiglas. Jared told me that DePaul looked him straight in the eyes and said, ‘Look, kid, I did bad things. I threatened people. I took bribes. A jury said I’m responsible for two murders, but I’ve never murdered anybody or hired a hit man. Your dad was just doing his job. What was the point of killing a family man for revenge? I’m a crook, but I ain’t evil.’
“Jared didn’t like hearing that. He said to DePaul that maybe his dad wasn’t murdered for revenge. Maybe it was to keep him from digging deeper into the Silver Spur Police and charging DePaul and others with bigger crimes.
“From what Jared told me, I could tell that DePaul felt sorry for him. DePaul said Jared had to face facts: His dad killed himself, just like the Reno Police said. It looks suspicious, but sometimes the most illogical things actually happen. DePaul said he would tell Jared anything if he knew it. He said his case was up for appeal. If he had information to trade, he’d be using it to get out.
“When Jared got back to the car, he was red in the face and quiet. Upset.” Prevett scratched his beard. “It was pitiful. On the drive home, Jared insisted that DePaul was lying. I told him I didn’t think so. I said I agree that his dad might have been murdered, but it might not have anything to do with the Silver Spur case. Then Jared wanted to meet with Barney Sax. I knew that Saxena was out of prison. I found out that he was living on some mountaintop near Lake Tahoe. I told Jared let’s just call Saxena on the phone. Lake Tahoe is an overnight trip. We’d be really pressing our luck about his mom finding out. Frankly, I was worried about the emotional toll this was taking on Jared. The kid was a wreck.”
“Did you and Jared have a phone call with Barney Sax?”
“We did. He said the same thing as Eli DePaul.”
“Did you believe him?”
Prevett shrugged. “Maybe. You’re not going to get these people to talk unless you can offer them something. It was heartbreaking, Jared trying to talk to these criminals, trying to find out what happened to his dad. Maybe Jack Hayword had a little something on the side, and she had a husband who showed up at Hayword’s house drunk one night. Hayword went to drive him home and the husband shot him. Could be as simple as that. Or maybe he did kill himself. It happens every day with people you least expect.”
“Not so much,” said Nan. “Did you have plans to see Jared the night he died?”
“No.”
“I’d like to see your notes about the John Hayword case.”
Prevett dropped his spent cigarette and mashed it out. “You promised me information about the Pasadena PD protecting Ryan Keller.”
“Okay.” Nan set the Maglite on the ground beside her feet. “Keller was questioned by investigators about the killings in an unconventional way. I’ve seen this method used before. It’s the lead investigator’s discretion as to the best method for interviewing a suspect or a witness.”
“Now that you’ve quoted from your tactics and procedures manual, what was this unconventional method?”
“Keller was interviewed in the back of a Pasadena Police vehicle at the crime scene.”
“Was he?” Prevett cracked a smile. “Who interviewed him?”
She thought about her next step. Her loyalty was first and always with the PPD but giving the reporter a name could be a good strategic move. Her first mentor at the PPD had told her years ago that working with people was like playing a game of tiddlywinks. When you press on someone, you want to know which way he or she will jump. Maybe the pressure would force whoever was pulling the strings behind the scenes to make a false move.
“You realize I could lose my job for this.”
Prevett said, “I’ve never revealed a source in fifteen years as an investigative blogger. I’m respected in the community. Pasadena Per Se has thirty-three thousand followers.”
Nan reflected that there were people out there who might make it worth his while. “Lieutenant George Beltran was one of the people who interviewed Ryan Keller.” She felt sadistic pleasure as she imagined Beltran’s reaction when Prevett’s blog came out.
Prevett grinned. “Rudolph Valentino.” He knew the inside joke at the station about Beltran sharing a physical resemblance with the silent-movie heartthrob.
Nan took out her phone and looked at the time. It was 10:15. She’d forgotten about Emily. There was no text from Em but there were also no bars of cell phone reception where she was standing. “Nice chatting with you, Luther. Please pick up those cigarette butts or I’ll have to ticket you for littering.” She started back across the ravine.
Behind her, she heard Prevett say, “Absolutely, Detective Vining. I’ll get right on it,” followed by that throaty laugh that again deteriorated into black coughing.
Chapter 24
Nan hurried to her car, keeping her eye on her cell phone reception. When she’d finally reached an area where the reception was decent, she was angry but more worried not to see a text from Emily. She called Em’s cell. No answer. Back inside her car, she called their house phone, hoping that Emily had gone home as she’d promised and had neglected to report in. No answer. Nan called the house phone of Em’s friend Aubrey. It was ten-thirty P.M.
Aubrey’s mom, Julie, answered and said that Aubrey had gotten home about an hour ago and was in bed asleep.
“Did she say anything about Emily? I can’t reach her.”
“No. Aubrey was still upset from the memorial and went straight to bed when she came home. I’ll wake her up if you want me to.”
“If you wouldn’t mind, Julie. I’m sorry to trouble you.”
“No trouble at all.”
Nan felt an annoying tug at her right ankle and realized she was still wearing her ankle holster with her Walther over her jeans. She ripped open the Velcro fastener and tossed the gun in its holster into the glove compartment, vowing to retire all her pants with legs that were too tight to conceal a gun.
She put on her phone headset and drove out of the park, her mind racing as she waited for Aubrey to come to the phone. She heard the phone receiver being picked up and her heart jumped into her throat.
“Mrs. Vining?” Aubrey sleepily said.
“Hi, Aubrey. I’m sorry to wake you up. Do you know where Em is?”
“I left her at Lucky Boy with our friends. I was tired and wanted to go home. Em didn’t want to leave because it was still early. She was with Ashton and said she’d get a ride. I’m sorry, Mrs. Vining. I just assumed that Em would have called you.”
“Thank you, Aubrey. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Julie came back on the phone and asked Nan to call or text her as soon as she heard anything about Em.
Nan again drove to Lucky Boy, slowing as she cruised past. Cars swerved around her. A driver leaned on his horn, refusing to pass, choosing this fight. Nan ignored him, steering with her left hand as she leaned to look out the passenger window. The angry driver finally passed her, nearly nicking her bumper.
Nan scanned the customers on the front patio where Emily had been sitting. Different people were there now. She made a slow right onto Pico Street and peered into the small enclosed dini
ng room. There were teenagers and young adults inside but not Em or her friends. On a hunch, Nan took Pico to Marengo, hung a left, and drove a block to California, where she turned right and headed to Ashton’s house in the Madison Heights neighborhood.
She could have taken any number of streets to get there, but she instinctively turned down El Alisal Road, where, in a house that had since burned to the ground, she’d confronted the man who’d turned her life inside out. As she passed the address, she stared at the grander home that had been built on the lot. The new house meant nothing to her. The address was simply a number. Still, as she slowed to go past, she felt a wave of foreboding, as if the spirit of those past tragedies had placed its cold hand on her shoulder and had leaned close to whisper in her ear to never get too comfortable. She sped up, now panicked to find her daughter.
She sped as fast as she dared along the street beneath its canopy of camphor trees, passing mansions in a cross-section of styles with spacious, landscaped yards. It was beautiful in a remote way, but Nan had long ago lost her fascination with what went on inside those manicured homes. She made another turn. From two blocks away, she saw Leo Balsam’s hulking craftsman house atop a knoll on a corner lot. It was painted in traditional craftsman earth tones: sage green with dark brown, burnt orange, and black trim.
Nan’s car windows were down and she heard music and party noises. The street’s curbs were lined with parked cars. Teenagers and young adults loitered in the street and on the sidewalks. Most looked like they belonged to Pasadena’s privileged private school clan but others didn’t fit at all. Nan fumed that a memorial service in the wake of two violent deaths had prompted this after-party. It had probably mushroomed thanks to social media, drawing people who had no business being there. She was surprised none of the neighbors had called the cops. That was about to change, she thought, as soon as she found Em.