Killing Secrets

by Dianne Emley

  From a pocket in her jacket, Nan took out and unfolded two sheets of paper. Printed on one were Erica’s Coopersmith faculty portrait and the sun-drenched snapshot of her on a sailboat. The second sheet had two photos of Jared—his crazy-eyed class photo and the one from the Star-News when he’d accepted the first-place award for his essay. Nan had downloaded it from the newspaper’s site and had cropped Jared from the group photo. He was wearing a suit and tie and a genuine smile.

  Mrs. Cheng put on her reading glasses and reached for the papers. She and Winston frowned at the photos of Erica and shot comments to each other in Chinese, their voices low as if Nan could understand them.

  Nan said, “That’s Erica Keller, the high school teacher who was murdered in Pasadena earlier this week in Lower Arroyo Seco Park.”

  Mother and son simultaneously nodded. “Yes, we saw the news. Very sad,” Mrs. Cheng said as she set the sheet with Erica’s photos on the counter and gently smoothed the folds. She picked up Jared’s photos and she and her son both pressed their lips into tight lines as they looked at it.

  “This is the one who did it.” Mrs. Cheng quickly picked up the sheet with Erica’s photos and covered Jared’s with it. She returned them both to Nan and took off her reading glasses. “How can I help you, Detective?”

  The phone rang. Winston answered it and began taking information about a reservation as he sat on a chair behind the counter and typed on a computer keyboard.

  Nan said to Mrs. Cheng, “Mrs. Keller came to your motel on April twenty-eighth in the late afternoon. She met a man who’d already checked in. Could you please find this man’s registration information?”

  Mrs. Cheng didn’t hesitate in saying, “There is nothing bad going on at this business. This is a family motel. Many families stay here when they come to visit Los Angeles, Pasadena, or to go to Disneyland, Universal City. We’re less expensive than the big chains. We’re good value. Full cooked breakfast included. We’re Zagat rated. We have five-star ratings on Yelp and TripAdvisor. We don’t rent rooms like that, for an hour or two—”

  Nan made a face, banishing the idea. “It’s clear that you run a first-rate establishment. I’m just trying to establish a timeline for Mrs. Keller during the days leading up to her murder. Will you help me with that?”

  “Sure, of course,” Mrs. Cheng said. “Winston will look through the records. April twenty-eight, you say?” She opened a swinging door that led behind the counter. “Come back.”

  Winston finished helping the customer and ended the phone call.

  When Nan went behind the counter, Mrs. Cheng pulled out a desk chair beside her son. “Please, sit, sit.”

  Winston studied a computer monitor as he typed. “I’m here almost every day. I don’t remember taking a reservation from Erica Keller, but her companion might have made it. We also take reservations online. I can do a search.” He entered the date and a report came up on the screen.

  The phone again rang. Mrs. Cheng said, “I’ll answer it in my office.”

  A young couple with two small children entered the lobby and Winston got up to attend to them.

  Nan rolled her chair closer to the monitor, took the mouse, and continued scrolling through the names. She read a name that made her sit back in the chair. She again leaned close to the screen, making sure that her eyes weren’t playing tricks on her. She clicked the line entry and the detail of the record opened. She figured out how to print the record, swiveling her chair to watch as a page rolled out of a nearby printer. She heard Mrs. Cheng talking on the phone through the open door of the office.

  Nan read the registration information. It was a booking for one night, paid with an American Express card. The guest had checked into room 14. The name of the person who had reserved the room and the name on the credit card were the same: Nolan Wales. He was the deputy chief of the Pasadena Police Department.

  Winston finished his business with the family and returned his attention to Nan. “Is that who you’re looking for?”

  Nan quietly said, “Yes.” She held the paper between both hands, her eyes riveted to Wales’s name. She recalled the night at the murder scene when she’d seen Wales solemnly looking down at Erica’s body with, Nan had thought, deep emotion. When Ryan Keller had shown up, tightly controlled Wales had uncharacteristically unleashed his fury, dragging Ryan toward the ravine, scornfully telling him through clenched teeth, “You want to see your wife? Why don’t you take a look at Erica?”

  Mrs. Cheng returned and Winston told his mom, “She found what she was looking for.” Mrs. Cheng studied the record on the screen, saying to Nan, “Nolan Wales. You know him?”

  Mrs. Cheng and Winston both looked at Nan, who didn’t answer right away. She felt dazed. “Ah…yes. I know the name. Do you keep paper documentation of your guests?”

  “Yes, we do.” Winston went to a filing cabinet and pulled open a drawer.

  Nan asked, “Has anyone else from the Pasadena Police talked to you?”

  Mrs. Cheng said, “No. No one.”

  Nan took the document that Winston handed her. She recognized Wales’s signature. In the box asking for vehicle make, model, and license plate number, Wales had written information about a black Mercedes sedan. He had checked in at 4:05 P.M.

  Nan asked, “May I have a copy of this, please?”

  “Of course.” Winston took the document from her.

  As he made a copy, Nan pointed to a security camera in the lobby. “Do you have video of that day that would show room 14?”

  Winston looked at his mother. She said, “Yes. Get it for her, Winston.” She looked at Nan. “You saw that family that was just here. Those are our customers. A nice-looking man checks in, driving a nice car, pays with a credit card, we’re not going to tell him we’re full up.”

  Nan said, “No reason to, Mrs. Cheng.”

  “I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about our establishment. We don’t want any trouble.”

  “No worries, Mrs. Cheng. You’re running a first-rate business. I’ll take a look at that video and be on my way.”

  Chapter 37

  Nan parked in the lot of Shakers, a diner in South Pasadena that served good rib-sticking food. Through the restaurant’s large windows, she saw Sergeant Kendra Early and Commander Andrew Tovar sitting in a vinyl booth at the rear. Nan was looking forward to going home after this meeting. While still sitting in her car, she texted Emily to ask what she’d like from the restaurant. Shaker’s Reuben sandwich was one of the girl’s favorite meals. Nan would also order a dinner to go for herself. She hadn’t eaten since her breakfast that morning with her daughter.

  She entered the restaurant, carrying her messenger bag with her laptop and the reusable grocery bag with the items she’d taken from Erica’s classroom and Jared’s locker. She approached Early and Tovar’s table. They both had cups of coffee and Early was eating a piece of apple pie à la mode.

  Early saw her first. “Evening, Nan.” She took a bite of her pie. It looked good to Nan and made her realize how hungry she was. Early was dressed casually as if she’d come from home for the meeting.

  “Hi, Nan. Have a seat.” Tovar was dressed up, wearing dark gray slacks, a medium gray shirt with the cuffs rolled up, and a maroon tie with a small yellow pattern. Nan liked his tie and admired his choice in clothing that always complimented his coloring. She found him average looking but he was always well dressed and well groomed. The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes had deepened since he’d been her field training officer. He had a keen sense for departmental politics and was good at the game—something that Nan could not care less about. She remembered when she’d ridden in a patrol car with him, his observations about nuances in the behavior of others.

  Nan slid into the horseshoe-shaped booth beside Tovar, putting him in the middle.

  A waitress approached. Nan said, “Later I’m going to order something to go, but right now I’ll have coffee and…” She eyed Early’s pie. “I shouldn’t have dessert befor
e I eat dinner, but I love your chocolate layer cake.”

  After the waitress left, Tovar joked, “You know what they say: Life’s short. Eat dessert first.”

  Early raised a forkful of apple pie and ice cream. “You’ll get no argument from me.”

  Nan took a moment to organize her thoughts and then she began describing what she’d learned that day, starting with her visit to Coopersmith School. The depth of Jared’s obsession with Erica had been confirmed by his gifts and letters and the janitor’s comments. She showed them the wooden chess set with the marijuana in it, saying, “His mother insisted that Jared didn’t smoke pot and would have only heard about Stoner Glen from other kids at school.”

  “A mother’s love, often blind,” Tovar said as he looked over Jared’s letters.

  Early was also glancing through them. “Erica asked Jared to stop writing her after she met with Principal Rivers about Ryan bursting into her classroom.” She arranged the letters on the table in order by date. “Instead of stopping, Jared ramped it up, writing letters twice a day, every morning and night. The last one was written the morning of April thirtieth, the day Erica and Jared died. That letter is as lovesick as his others with musings about love and life and death, but if Jared was planning on killing Erica and committing suicide that day, you’d think he’d write something more ominous.”

  “His letters aren’t overtly threatening,” Tovar said, “but they’re disturbing.”

  The waitress brought Nan’s coffee and cake. Nan went for her favorite part of the cake slice first, running her fork down the back corner, getting more frosting than cake. “I also found out that on April twenty-sixth Erica made an overnight trip to Reno.”

  “Reno?” Early repeated.

  “She may have met with a woman named Yvonne Zuniga,” Nan said. “Yvonne was important in this Silver Spur investigation that John Hayword was involved in. I have no idea why Erica would have met with her other than to further investigate Jared Hayword’s theory that his dad was murdered.”

  “That sounds like a waste of time.” Tovar smoothed his tie.

  “Wasn’t Ryan Keller with the Reno PD?” Early asked.

  “Yes, he was,” Tovar said. “I wrote a letter of recommendation for him when he applied to the PPD. I think I mentioned to you that Ryan and I went to high school together and were on the football team.”

  “I remember you saying that,” Nan said. “Ryan’s in-laws, the Inmans, told me that Ryan had some trouble in Reno.”

  Tovar dipped his head, acknowledging her comment. “That’s true. Early on, Ryan got into a few scrapes, but by the time he applied to the PPD, he’d straightened himself out and joined us after a distinguished career in Reno.” He was unapologetic. “I felt confident recommending him to Chief Haglund. Ryan was a solid cop until these domestic issues. His recent behavior has been disturbing to me both professionally and personally.”

  “Maybe Erica went to Reno to try to get dirt on Ryan that would help her in the divorce,” Early said.

  “We can ask around the Reno PD.” Tovar took a sip of coffee. “See if that’s where she went and, if so, find out who she talked to.”

  Nan finished the last of her cake, which she’d nearly inhaled, and pushed the plate away. “There’s something else I found out about Erica’s secret activities and it shows how obsessed Jared was with her. On Sunday, April twenty-eighth, Jared followed Erica from her home to the Frontrunner Motor Inn in Altadena.”

  Early shook her head, not recognizing it.

  Nan explained. “It’s a family-run place near the racetrack. It’s disturbing that Jared was stalking Erica, but more disturbing is who she met in a motel room: Deputy Chief Nolan Wales.”

  Early widened her eyes. “Chief Wales?”

  Tovar’s expression was inscrutable. “How did you find that out?”

  “I have a source that I can’t reveal.” Nan opened her laptop and pressed a key to wake it up. “The owners of the motel made a copy of sections from their surveillance video for me.” She plugged in a flash drive. They watched as Wales, dressed casually in a golf shirt and light-colored pants, checked in at the front desk. Another camera in the driveway captured Wales entering room 14, taking inside a briefcase and what looked like a liter bottle of water.

  A half hour later, Erica parked her Prius and got out wearing a summery dress. She reached back inside and came out with her purse and a tote bag—the bag in which she carried her laptop and that had not been located after her death.

  Before Erica finished locking her car, Wales opened the door of the room and stood with his hand reaching up onto the doorframe. He had a glass in his other hand, which Nan surmised held plain water. He moved back to let Erica inside. They didn’t embrace or touch. Wales again appeared in the doorway. He stuck out his head and looked around, looking right at the security camera. He closed the door. Two hours later, Erica left the room with her purse and tote bag and drove off. An hour later, Wales left the room and didn’t return.

  Early sat back in the booth as if stunned. “You could knock me over with a feather. Chief Wales and Erica Keller?”

  “Wales checked in with his real name and home address and paid with his personal credit card,” Nan said. “Maybe he pays the bills and his wife doesn’t see them. Maybe Erica wasn’t the first affair he’d had and his wife turned a blind eye to it. Maybe they weren’t having an affair but were meeting about something else entirely.”

  “At a no-tell motel?” Early said.

  Tovar said nothing but only looked from Nan to Early. Nan felt he knew more than he was telling.

  Nan reversed the video. “In the background, you can see Jared. That’s him driving into the parking lot of the auto parts store next door. When Erica went into the room, there’s Jared getting out of his car. It’s too far away to see his face but that’s definitely him.”

  They watched as a lanky, dark-haired man paced in the parking lot and then leaned back against the hood of his car with his arms folded across his chest. When Erica left the motel room, Jared bolted into his car and drove off.

  “Great job, Nan.” Tovar gave her two sharp pats on her forearm. “I’m confident we’ve followed all the leads. We’ve come back around to the murder-suicide scenario as being the most likely.”

  Nan still wasn’t convinced, but over the course of her career, she’d come to believe that truth wanted to be revealed. It wanted to step from the shadows and stand in the light. Her job was to ease its way, sometimes with a bludgeon, sometimes with a stiletto, or sometimes by getting out of the way. Right now, she was tired. She needed a good night’s sleep. She wanted to see her daughter. And her stomach was telling her it had been a bad idea to eat a huge slice of chocolate cake on an empty stomach.

  Early pursed her lips, hesitating before saying, “Commander, if I can speak freely…”

  Tovar raised his hand toward her. “By all means. Please.”

  “I accept the murder-suicide scenario. I wasn’t sure at first, but based on what Nan has found out today about Jared and his letters and gifts and how he was stalking Erica and lying to his mom about not smoking pot and other things, the evidence supports murder-suicide. But why did Lieutenant Beltran close the case so fast?”

  Tovar asked, “How do you see it?”

  Early settled back in the booth. “Assume Wales was having an affair with Erica. That’s a motive for him to have the case wrapped up quickly. Wales’s wife is a Pasadena socialite. Assume she knew about the affair. She’d be embarrassed for her country club circle to know that her husband was sleeping with a pretty young schoolteacher. She could have told Wales to squash the investigation before the affair came out. Or let’s assume that Wales’s wife didn’t know about the affair. He still would have wanted the investigation squashed ASAP. His wife bankrolls his lifestyle. He can’t afford that mansion in Linda Vista and the private golf club memberships on his salary. Or it could be as simple as Beltran trying to protect his buddy Ryan Keller. They are close frie
nds.”

  Nan thought that if Wales’s affair with Erica were made public, it would also derail his chances of moving into the police chief’s office. She didn’t bring it up because of Tovar, who had been passed over for the deputy chief position.

  Tovar rolled down his shirtsleeves and buttoned the cuffs. “Closing the case that quickly was not a good call and embarrassed the PPD. It’s being investigated. That being said, I’m satisfied that the three of us have pursued all the leads and we’ve accused the right guy, Jared Hayword.”

  Nan pulled out the flash drive and closed her hand around it. “There are a couple of things that bother me. I saw Taser marks on Erica’s back. Alex said they were bugbites, but I don’t think so. I’d also like to know how Erica got that gash on the back of her head. I was at her house today. There’s a glass coffee table in the living room that has sharp corners. Under one of the table’s corners, the carpet looks recently scrubbed. The nap was lying in a different direction and stiff. I’d like to spray that area with luminal to see if blood turns up.”

  Early looked at Tovar. “Probable cause for a search warrant.”

  Tovar nodded. “I agree. Let’s do it. If Erica’s blood is on that carpet, we’ll reopen the case and investigate Ryan Keller.”

  Nan was encouraged about the search of Ryan Keller’s home. The murder-suicide scenario continued to make sense, but it still felt off somehow. Ryan Keller felt right. She could see him pushing Erica in a fit of anger or drunkenness or both and then hatching a plan to lure Jared to the Arroyo and murder both of them in a perfect crime.

  The waitress had brought the bill and Tovar had given her his credit card.

  Nan started putting away her laptop.

  The waitress returned with Tovar’s credit card, the charge slip, and a pen on a plastic tray. Tovar’s right hand went to his shirt pocket before he picked up the pen from the tray. Nan saw him enter a generous tip.