by Dianne Emley
“Nacy Dena’s not going to be engaging in criminal activities ever again.” Jim told her the circumstances of Nacy’s murder and that Tovar was the main suspect but there was no evidence linking him to it.
“Let me tell you what Deputy Chief Wales had to say about Erica Keller.” Jim leaned back from her and sat straight in the chair. “A few days before Erica was murdered, she called Wales out of the blue and asked to meet with him. Said it had to be confidential. She told him she’d reached out to him because she knew his wife slightly and also because Ryan didn’t like him. Thought he was a snob and an outsider. Erica liked that Wales wasn’t part of the PPD old boys club and felt she could trust him. Wales suggested meeting at the Frontrunner. It was a place he knew because he’d met an informant there before.
“They met the day after Erica got back from Reno. She told him she’d gone to Reno to confirm a story that Ryan had told her about him and Tovar being involved in the vehicular manslaughter of David Zuniga. She’d tried to talk to David’s mom on the phone. Told Yvonne she was Ryan Keller’s wife and she had information that could help her, but Yvonne wouldn’t talk to her, which made Erica suspicious. Made Erica think there was a big secret Yvonne was afraid to reveal. So Erica went to talk to her in person. Yvonne shut the door in her face.
“Erica thought she’d wasted a trip to Reno. She wanted to talk to the Reno PD but was leery because Ryan still had a lot of friends there. She took a chance and met with the investigator in charge of Zuniga’s cold case, Brad Borquitz. He stopped into the briefing this morning. Good guy. He knew Ryan but they weren’t buddies. Erica told him that she just wanted to confirm some facts about the David Zuniga case, but he could tell she was fishing to see how much information the police had about the culprits and the vehicle. Erica was adamant about Borquitz not letting Ryan know that she was there. He could tell from Ryan’s case files that Ryan had done a half-assed investigation. After Erica left, Borquitz asked a few questions around the Pasadena PD and found out about Erica and Ryan’s marital issues, the restraining order, and so on. He thought, disgruntled wife trying to get her husband into trouble.”
“After Erica’s murder, Borquitz didn’t notify the PPD that Erica had paid him a visit?” Nan turned and started to plump her pillows, a little too vigorously, and she winced in pain and gingerly touched the bump on her head.
“Let me do that.” Jim stood and rearranged her pillows. “Borquitz did call the PPD and got the spokesman for the case—”
“Teflon George.”
“Right. Beltran. Wales hasn’t had a chance to talk to Beltran about that, but no one involved in Erica’s murder investigation was told about her Reno visit.”
“Except maybe Keller and Tovar,” Nan said. “What’s the big secret Ryan told Erica that got her killed?”
A nurse came in. She was Asian and looked like a college student except for the fine lines around her eyes. “Good morning, Mrs. Vining. My name is Elena. You’re awake. How do you feel?”
“Great. Ready to get out of here.”
Elena laughed. “I can appreciate that. Hospitals are no fun. We’ll get you out of here as soon as possible. How about some breakfast?”
“Yes, please. I’m starving.”
“Let me take your vitals and then we’ll get you a breakfast tray. The doctor will be by soon to release you.”
Before long, Nan was eagerly digging into a mound of scrambled eggs. She told Jim, “Take whatever you want.”
“Thanks.” Jim reached for a butter knife on her tray and cut a bran muffin in half.
“So, back to Ryan and Erica,” Nan said.
After swallowing a bite, Jim said, “At the motel, Erica told Wales about Ryan’s secret. After she and Ryan had been married about a year, he started drinking again and had bouts of depression. One night, she and Ryan were having dinner. Both of them had drunk too much wine and out of the blue, Ryan started crying. Erica said, ‘Honey, what’s wrong?’ He told her about being involved in killing a guy in a hit-and-run in Reno several years ago. He spilled all the details, as if he were getting it off his chest for the first time. His high school championship football team had come to Reno for a bachelor party for one of them. Ryan had been living there, working as a Traffic Division detective with the Reno PD. Tovar was a sergeant with the Pasadena PD.
“The guys had gone clubbing. Around two in the morning, some of them went back to their hotel, and the rest, including Ryan and Tovar, went to a legal brothel in Reno. Tovar didn’t like the girls there. Ryan said he knew a great illegal whorehouse on the outskirts of town. Tovar and Ryan left the other guys and headed out in Tovar’s midnight-blue 1966 GTO convertible, which he’d driven up from Southern California. They were both drunk and Ryan said that Tovar was driving crazy, going well over a hundred on a remote highway. He went to pass this guy on a motorcycle, cut it too short, and clipped the bike. The bike and the driver went flying off the side of the road. That was David Zuniga.”
Nan listened in stunned silence, holding a forkful of cold eggs. “Erica did nothing about Ryan’s confession?”
“The next day, after they’d both sobered up, Erica thought about what Ryan had told her and wasn’t sure she’d even heard it right. She asked him, ‘What about that story you told me last night about the hit-and-run? Is it true? What should we do about it?’ He got mad and told her, ‘We were both drunk. I didn’t tell you any story like that and you’d better not say anything about it to anybody.’ She searched the Net and found old news reports about a David Zuniga being killed in a hit-and-run in Reno and how he’d left behind an eighteen-month-old daughter, Isabella, whom David had been raising while working and going to school. Now David’s mom was raising the girl on her own. Erica was horrified, but she didn’t know where to go with it.”
“Did Wales have a plan?” Nan asked.
“He did. He told Erica to sit tight. Her confidences were safe with him. He’d keep her in the loop. At the briefing, Wales told us he was going to talk to the Reno PD investigator, Borquitz, and tell him about the new leads. They’d find out if Tovar had owned a 1966 GTO. Would track down the guys who’d been at the bachelor party to corroborate the time and events. After they got their ducks in a row, they’d try to break the weakest link: Ryan Keller. That’s still the plan.”
“Yvonne Zuniga told me about a witness John Hayword had turned up, a guy called Shorty, who’d seen a vintage muscle car racing by that night. Hayword told Keller about it. Keller was still the investigator on the Zuniga case, but I bet the information never made it into the file.” Nan drank the last of a tepid cup of coffee. “So much for Erica keeping her Reno trip under wraps. Wonder who ratted her out?”
“I’m guessing one of Keller’s Reno PD buddies,” Jim said. “Saw her and asked Ryan, ‘What’s your wife doing here?’ Or maybe Ryan got suspicious of Erica and put out the word to his Reno friends: ‘Let me know if you see Erica.’ ”
“Where is Keller?”
“Home, I guess. He’s still on administrative leave.” Jim pointed at the other half of the muffin. “Do you want this?” He took it after she shook her head.
“Now I know why Ryan is angry with Erica,” Nan said. “Even getting rid of their wedding photos. Still, I believe him when he says he didn’t have anything to do with her murder. The scene he pitched in the Arroyo that night, the crying and the drama, didn’t feel fake to me. He’d told Erica his secret a year ago, but she’d waited until they were getting a divorce to look into it. To smear Ryan, I guess.”
“Wales said it wasn’t like that. Erica told him that when she started working with Jared, she became really moved and inspired by his quest for justice on behalf of his father. Maybe her troubles with Ryan helped set a fire under her, but it was all about trying to make wrongs right.”
After taking a moment to mull over that new information, looking into Jim’s eyes, she said, “I have a terrible feeling that Tovar will get away with all those murders.”
Chapter 5
7
After waiting until all the other passengers had disembarked, Commander Andrew Tovar was led by his police escorts from the plane and down the rollaway steps onto the tarmac at the small Burbank Bob Hope Airport. Tovar was wearing a suit and tie but was without his Montblanc pen, which had been confiscated as evidence. Handcuffs bound his wrists in front and were disguised by a black sweater wrapped around them. The Kevlar vest he was wearing made his well tailored shirt and jacket look snug. With him were Deputy Chief Nolan Wales, Lieutenant Matt Cordova, Detective Alex Caspers, and several uniformed members of the PPD’s Special Enforcement Section.
The PPD group went through glass doors into the gate waiting area with Cordova holding one of Tovar’s arms and Caspers grasping the other. Airport police cleared a path through the crowd of travelers who turned to stare at the accused multiple murderer. Tovar’s arrest had made national news. Many people were wide-eyed as they looked at the police commander, as if trying to reconcile the crimes he was accused of with this dapper and confident-looking man. They still seized the chance to take photos and videos.
At the end of the terminal, Tovar and his escorts reached a set of security doors. They exited through them straight into the baggage claim area, which was enclosed on three sides with the fourth open to the sidewalk. There were just two baggage carousels, which were set between boxy concrete pillars that made navigating the area difficult even when it wasn’t jammed like it was now. Swarms of media personnel jockeyed for position and struggled against a heightened and edgy police presence. The scene was confounded by the typical component of passengers and their family and friends. Several PPD cruisers were lined along the curb.
When Tovar appeared, the waiting media rushed in with their cameras and microphones, nearly overpowering the airport security and local law. The citizens who were there by accident scrambled to avoid the stampede in walkways that weren’t designed to handle a mob of this size. Reporters shouted questions to Tovar and held microphones in his direction. He held his head high, eyes forward, and didn’t speak.
Officers cleared the way to the cruiser that would transport Tovar to jail with Cordova and Caspers still guiding him along. Just as Tovar walked past the last pillar before reaching the sidewalk, Ryan Keller stepped from where he’d been standing in a crowd of media people, a baseball cap pulled low on his head, wearing sunglasses, and holding up a camera with his left hand. The long sleeve of his windbreaker covered the gun he held in his other hand.
He raised the gun. Officers shouted, “Gun!” and one of them forced Keller’s hand down, but not before he shot a bullet between Tovar’s eyes.
Tovar walked a foot, a cocky smile frozen on his face, before he dropped to the pavement.
As officers pushed Ryan onto the ground, kicked his gun away, and handcuffed him, he said, “He murdered my wife. Bastard murdered my wife…”
Chapter 58
Jim Kissick sat with Ryan Keller at a table in an interview room on the second floor of the PPD. Behind a wall of two-way glass, Nolan Wales, Kendra Early, and Nan Vining were observing. Nan was feeling fine and had returned to Pasadena with Jim. She was still owed time off, but nothing could stop her from missing this interview.
Jim had removed Ryan’s handcuffs. The two sergeants were sitting at a corner of the table, like friends, which they were. Jim reported the date, time, and interview participants into the video camera in a corner of the room.
Ryan sipped from a can of Coke. “How’s Nan?”
“She’s fine. Just a little bump on her head.” Jim touched his forehead where Nan’s injury was. “You sure you don’t want an attorney here?”
Ryan made a gesture showing that he couldn’t care less.
“Ryan, why’d you do the Jack Ruby on Andrew Tovar?”
“Because he murdered my wife.”
“Did you have anything to do with Erica’s murder?”
“No way, man. I already told you that. Erica was the love of my life.”
Jim sat back and gave him a dubious look. “Really, Ryan? People murder the loves of their lives every day. You were pissed at her. Weren’t you giving away your wedding photos?”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t mad at her. I said that I didn’t kill her. Sure, I was pissed. She was digging into that David Zuniga thing just to get back at me. So she could make sure she got the house in the divorce or something.”
“That’s not accurate, buddy. According to what Erica told Deputy Chief Wales, she just wanted to do the right thing.”
Ryan looked at Jim as if trying to discern whether he was lying. His eyes softened. “That makes sense. She was all about helping the bird with the broken wing, like that dopey Jared kid. She was a sweet girl. I didn’t deserve her.” He dropped his head and pressed his thumb and index finger against his eyes. “It’s true that I told her that night about what happened to David Zuniga. I wanted to tell her. The next day, I told her I didn’t remember any of it, but I did. I should have stepped up, been a man, and she’d still be here with me.” He dropped his hand onto the table and shook his head.
“Why didn’t you report the Zuniga accident?”
“I wanted to. Andy’s car tapped that motorcycle and I saw the rider go flying. I told him, ‘You hit that guy. Stop. Go back.’ He said, ‘No way. You want this to be the end of your law enforcement career? You want to go to jail?’ I said, ‘I wasn’t driving.’ Andy said, ‘Yeah, you were. I’ll say I was too drunk to drive. You’ve already been in trouble on the job. Just forget it happened.’ He drove me home and later he told me he drove all the way to Pasadena.
“Zuniga’s body wasn’t found until the next morning. I was called in to work that scene. I could barely stand it, but I didn’t tell anybody what happened and I whitewashed the investigation. I believed Andy when he said he’d pin it on me. We recovered paint from Andy’s car that was transferred to Zuniga’s bike. I made the paint samples disappear. I didn’t do anything to move the case forward. It went cold and I tried to forget about it, which didn’t go real well, obviously.”
Jim scooted forward in his chair until his knees were almost touching Ryan’s. “What do you know about John Hayword’s death?”
Ryan blew out a stream of air and raised his eyes toward the ceiling. “Back then, I was still with the Reno PD. The call went out about a guy dead in a Mercedes. Gunshot. I drove to the railroad trestle. Saw Jack’s car blocking traffic. Saw Jack with a bullet hole in his head and I knew Andy Tovar had done it.”
“Why?”
“ ’Cause Andy knew Jack Hayword was working the David Zuniga case and Jack would have broken it if it was the last thing he did. I met with Jack about Zuniga, more than once. He told me about the promise he’d made David’s mom to find out who killed her son. I think he probably told me to put me on notice, to shake me up because he felt that, as the lead investigator, I was holding back.”
“And you told Andy this?”
“Not at first. After Zuniga’s death, we kept our distance. But a few days before Jack’s suicide, he came into the station with a statement from this guy Shorty, who’d allegedly seen the murder car that night. Shorty wouldn’t go near a police station. So that’s when I told Andy there was a lead on his GTO.”
“What happened to Shorty?”
Ryan raised both hands, signaling that he hadn’t a clue. “Those desert rats sometimes just fade away. Whatever happened, I had nothing to do with it, okay? But I did make Shorty’s statement disappear.”
Jim was still sitting almost touching Ryan. “How did John Hayword die?”
Ryan took a deep breath and sucked in the sides of his cheeks. “That was bad news. Hayword was a stand-up guy. Family man.” He looked down and shook his head. He took another deep breath and looked up at Jim. “Not long after Hayword’s death, I got a call from Andy, telling me to call him back from a phone booth. When I did, he told me our problems were over. ‘This Zuniga thing is buried for good,’ he said, so now I had to do whatever I could to make sure it
went down as a suicide.
“I said, ‘What’d you do, Andy?’ He told me how he’d been in Reno for a few days, following Jack and staking out his house. Learning his routines. The night of Jack’s murder, Andy waited till Jack’s family was asleep. He saw Jack working in his pajamas and robe in his downstairs office—his usual routine, I guess. Andy knocked on the door. At first, Jack wouldn’t open it. Andy told him, ‘I’ve got information about the vehicle in David Zuniga’s death. It was a GTO. I know all about it but I can’t talk to you through a door, man.’ Jack opened the door. Andy pulled a gun on him and forced him into his car. Andy was going to get Jack to drive to this big park nearby, but when they were beneath the railway trestle, Jack lunged for the gun. Andy shot him and fled on foot.”
The two men sat silently for a few moments.
Finally, Jim said, “Cold.”
“Stone cold.”
“Still, despite this, you reached out to Andy to write you a letter of recommendation when you applied to the PPD. He was a lieutenant. He stuck out his neck to vouch for you to the chief.”
Ryan shrugged. “He didn’t have much choice. We had a mutual destruction agreement.”
“What happened to Andy’s GTO?”
“After Zuniga’s death, he sold it to somebody in Mexico. That’s the thing about Andy. He’s smooth as hell. I could just see him in a courtroom, on trial for Erica’s murder. He and a crack defense attorney working a jury and him walking out of there, free as a bird.” Ryan scratched his chin. “I asked the bastard if he murdered Erica. Looked me straight in the eye and said he didn’t have anything to do with it. When I heard about all the evidence against him, I thought no, no one does that to my woman and walks away.”