by John Bateson
On one occasion, Holmes knocked on the front door of a couple whose son was killed in a traffic accident. It was 2:30 A.M. and the man who answered the door was in his pajamas and half asleep. When he saw Holmes standing there with a policeman, his eyes widened.
“I work for the county,” Holmes said. “Can we come in for a minute?”
The man opened the door for them, fully awake now. “Is something wrong?”
There was a noise in the hallway behind him, then a woman rushed into the room. “What’s wrong?” she practically shouted.
Holmes invited them to sit down, but they ignored him.
“Is it David?” one of them asked. “Is he hurt?”
Holmes said, “David has been in an accident. His car—”
The man interrupted and said in a choked-up voice, “How bad is it?”
Holmes said, “His car was hit by a drunk driver who was going the wrong way on the freeway near Mill Valley. David was taken to the hospital, but the doctors couldn’t do anything. He died.”
“Oh my God,” the woman exclaimed, and started sobbing.
Her husband’s face lost all of its color and he looked as if he had aged fifty years. He reached for his wife and they clung to each other as the police officer and Holmes stood by awkwardly.
“It happens sometimes,” Holmes says. “They just close you out of their lives for a few minutes. That’s when it was uncomfortable for me because they didn’t need some stranger there at the moment.”
Sometimes when Holmes notified families of a death, people ran screaming from the room. Other times they went into shock and didn’t say a word. They couldn’t cry or talk. One mother, whose twenty-year-old son was killed in a traffic accident, was divorced and he was her only child. Among his personal effects was his high school class ring. After notification and being given his effects, she put the ring on her finger and stared at it. She didn’t say a word, but silent tears streamed down her cheeks.
In many instances, the coroner is the only constant for a family member. When paramedics leave the scene, their work is done. The same is true for police officers, unless a crime has been committed, in which case other police officers become involved. Even friends tend to be less available or less willing to talk about a death after a while. Coroners are the exception.
“I have no problem listening to people talk at length about a dead person,” Holmes says, “and I’ll say something like, ‘You’re so lucky you had Fred in your life for all of those years. Look at the things you did, the places you went.’ Talking about someone is a way of keeping that person’s memory alive.”
In his first meeting with families after the notification, whether it was in their home or in his office—but typically in their home—Holmes gave them the same advice for the future. When he became coroner, he instructed his investigators to give it, too, and later on, when he taught classes at the police academy in death notifications, Holmes told officers-in-training to give it as well.
“In the next few days,” Holmes said to the family, “everybody is going to gather around you and ask if there’s anything they can do. You’re not going to know of anything, but try to think of something anyway because they’re feeling helpless and don’t know what to say or how to act. If you need Kleenex at the grocery store, and someone asks you if there’s anything they can do, tell them, ‘Would you mind getting me some Kleenex?’ Let them help because you’re helping them help you. In about three weeks that’s going to stop, and you’re going to feel like you’re on an island. The phone will stop ringing, except maybe your kids. People are uncomfortable talking about Fred’s death. There’s no easy way to say, ‘How are you doing since Fred died?’ ”
Even so, Holmes would tell them, “Don’t let them erase your loved one. Don’t let them erase Fred. When you bump into someone at the grocery store or wherever, talk about Fred. Say, ‘God, I really miss him.’ Remember a time that was fun when you and Fred and the person you’re talking to did something together or saw something together. Say, ‘Remember when the three of us . . .’ ”
Another thing Holmes told people, particularly women, was that sometime in the future they would run into a person they hadn’t seen in a long time who would ask, “How’s Fred?”
“You’re going to want to cry,” Holmes would say, “and that’s okay. Go ahead and cry. It’s sad; you’ve lost Fred, and he’s not coming back. Say, ‘I know you didn’t know, but Fred died.’ Don’t make it their fault that they didn’t know. Don’t say, ‘You didn’t hear?’ Instead, use it as an opportunity to talk about and remember Fred.”
Many family members told him later that these exact scenarios played out after their loved one died. They were grateful to him for preparing them for it.
“Much of it is just letting people know what to expect,” Holmes says. “If you aren’t expecting something and it happens, it’ll knock you off your feet. With a little guidance, though, you can deal with it. That was my philosophy.”
CANDACE
When Manfred Pohl shot himself in front of a beauty salon in Larkspur in 1985, it was the beginning of a case that would consume Holmes for years. The setting wasn’t an accident. Pohl, a German national, age forty-six, worked in the salon and, for a while, dated the salon’s owner, a pretty woman named Candace. Candace worked in the first chair; a woman named Doris, who was old enough to be Candace’s mother but wasn’t, worked in the second chair; and Pohl had the third chair.
Candace ended her personal relationship with Pohl because of his instability. He had a volatile personality that got to be too much for her to deal with. Pohl continued to work at the salon after they broke up, but the situation became increasingly uncomfortable for everyone. When Pohl didn’t show up to work for several days, there were sighs of relief that maybe he had moved on.
The salon had big glass windows and a glass door facing the street. Near noon on a workday, Doris noticed Pohl drive by, look in the windows, and park down the street. He sat in his car a while, then came walking up to the shop with one hand in a jacket pocket. Doris had a bad feeling, so she went over and locked the front door without saying anything to Candace, who hadn’t noticed him. It was only when Pohl reached the salon’s front steps that Candace saw him. She discreetly turned her customer’s chair in order to avoid looking in his direction.
Pohl started banging on the door, shouting through the glass that he wanted to talk to Candace. She kept her back to him while Doris turned her chair sideways and mouthed an apology. Neither of the women saw Pohl pull a gun out of his jacket pocket, but they heard the explosion. Pohl shot himself in the head on their doorstep.
When Holmes arrived at the shop, the customers had left and Candace and Doris were beside themselves. Blood was splattered all over the glass and brick steps in front.
Holmes talked with Candace for a while and she told him about her relationship with Pohl. Holmes asked if there was anyone he could call on her behalf, and she said that she would call her teenage daughter, but Doris was the best person for her to talk to right now. Holmes told her—as he did all next of kin—that if she needed to talk and there was no one else she could turn to, she could call him.
“I can’t make it any different,” he said, “but I can help you get through the moment.”
Several days later, Candace called. She said she appreciated his offer, and while she didn’t need any help, she had some questions. She didn’t actually see Pohl shoot himself, but she saw the aftereffects on the front of her building and wanted to understand better what had happened. Holmes talked with her for about twenty minutes.
A few more days passed, then she called again. She said Holmes had a soothing voice and it was easy to talk to him about Pohl’s suicide when no one else wanted to discuss it. It wasn’t the first time that Holmes had been complimented on his voice—it is melodic—but he thanked her.
“Can I come in and see the photos?” she asked.
The question startled him. “I won’t show
you photos of the body,” Holmes said, “but I can show you photos of your walls and steps if you want.”
“I don’t need to see those,” Candace said. “Why can’t I see photos of Manfred?”
“I’m sorry,” Holmes said, “but you’re not a relation.”
Candace came in anyway, and Holmes talked with her in his office. In the following months, she came in half a dozen more times. She said her mother and father didn’t like Pohl and didn’t want to talk about his death. Neither did her current boyfriend.
Each meeting lasted twenty to thirty minutes, and it started to get to the point where they were interfering with Holmes’s work. He enjoyed talking with her—she was attractive, intelligent, and came from a prominent family. For many years her father had been a principal in Halsted & Company, one of the largest mortuaries in San Francisco. Her mother was an accomplished artist whose work had been displayed in museums and galleries. Still, there were only so many hours in the day.
It was obvious that Candace liked Holmes. He was a man of experience and a good listener.
One day Candace invited Holmes to her house for lunch. He accepted and met the older of her two daughters, who was a senior in high school. He also saw firsthand that Candace was a hoarder. So much stuff was piled everywhere that it was nearly impossible to walk around. Holmes had been in the houses of hoarders before, people whose refuse was so deep that there wasn’t room to get a gurney through to pick up a body. Sometimes, in order to exit, the gurney had to be turned on its side with the decedent strapped down and Holmes hoping the person didn’t slide off. Candace wasn’t quite that bad; still, it was a jolt to see that she lived this way. When she invited Holmes to lunch again, he suggested that they meet somewhere close to his office instead.
Four years after Manfred Pohl’s suicide, Candace invited Holmes to dinner one night at her parents’ house. It was a far cry from Candace’s residence.
Hugh and Ann owned ten acres on a ridge in San Anselmo. Theirs was the only house on the ridge, and the views were the best that Holmes had ever seen from a private residence, comparable to the views from the top of Mount Tamalpais. The house was spectacular, too, nearly five thousand square feet and tastefully furnished, with many paintings by Candace’s mother hanging on the walls.
Hugh was an old-time duck hunter, and he and Holmes hit it off immediately. He showed Holmes his gun room, then pressed a button and a wall opened up, revealing a walk-in safe. Inside the safe were antique firearms, the likes of which Holmes hadn’t seen in a private collection before.
In the ensuing months, Holmes saw Candace’s parents frequently. They were interesting people and he enjoyed their company. Then Candace called him one day and said that her mother had liver cancer even though she hadn’t consumed a single alcoholic drink in her life. Candace told Holmes that if he wanted to see Ann again he should do it soon because she wouldn’t be alive much longer.
Holmes went to the house and sat with Ann, who was now in her early seventies. She was a practical woman who appreciated honesty.
“I want you to tell me,” she said. “Is it going to be as painful as I think, because it’s painful now.” Her liver was enlarged, and she had lost weight.
Holmes knew that a liver death was slow and painful. “I’m afraid it is,” he said. “It might be best if you get medications from your doctor.”
Holmes isn’t an advocate of suicide, but in cases like this he feels that people have a right to make their own end-of-life decisions. If the pain becomes too much to bear, overmedicating is an option.
Candace’s mother thanked Holmes profusely. She said she felt at peace now that she knew what her choices were.
The next time Candace called Holmes, it was to tell him that her father wanted to talk with him. Holmes went back to the house.
“Ann told me what the two of you talked about,” Hugh said. “I know it’s going to be awful for her. She told me about the medicines, but I could just leave a loaded gun in the room.”
Holmes was quick to speak. “Don’t do that. She’s not going to use it, and it wouldn’t serve any good purpose. Just leave her be.”
Hugh looked Holmes in the eye and said, “You know, when she dies, I’m going to die, too. I don’t want to live without her. I’ll use the gun.”
Holmes was at a loss for words. Hugh was in good health, not struck with an agonizing and fatal illness like his wife. At the same time, Holmes sympathized. To have your spouse die after decades of blissful marriage is one of the hardest losses to endure.
“I can’t say that I blame you,” Holmes said, “but it wouldn’t be my choice. You need to think about Candace, as well as about your two granddaughters. You’ve got a lot of time left in front of you, and you could be a mentor to each of them.”
“I don’t want to live without Ann,” Hugh said. “I just don’t. I’m telling you, as the coroner, that I’m going to kill myself.”
Holmes knew it wouldn’t do any good to talk about local resources such as suicide counseling or grief counseling. Hugh’s mind was made up; he wouldn’t reach out for any kind of help.
All Holmes could say was, “Thank you for letting me know.”
In the final throes of her mother’s life, Candace called Holmes. He raced to the house, which was twenty-five minutes from his office. When he arrived, Candace told him that her mother had died right after she got off the phone with him.
Holmes looked around. “Where’s your dad?”
“He’s in their room,” Candace said. “He ushered everyone out and said he wanted to be alone with her. Then he locked the door and we heard a loud pop, but we couldn’t get in.”
Holmes swore under his breath. Hugh did what he said he was going to do. “Did he ever talk to you about his plans?” he said.
Candace looked at him. “He said he was going to kill himself. Why? Did he tell you, too?”
Holmes nodded.
“I didn’t know that,” Candace said.
Holmes jimmied a window from the outside and opened the door to the master bedroom. Hugh was dressed and lying shoulder to shoulder with his wife. She had been in a coma the past forty-eight hours and died in her sleep. The autopsy showed that she hadn’t overdosed, because there weren’t any medications in her system.
Hugh had shot himself in the head using a small pistol so that it wouldn’t make a mess. Holmes pronounced both husband and wife dead and called the county Communications Center. He said that he had come to the house because a woman had passed away in her sleep, after which her husband had killed himself. He said that the family wanted to keep it quiet so just send a patrol unit without sirens.
The house was at the end of a long, gated driveway. Two minutes later, Holmes heard a siren, then saw a fire truck, an ambulance, a patrol car, and a sergeant’s car. He walked to the gate and told the firemen that he didn’t know why they were there, the wife died of cancer and the husband shot himself after telling him that that was what he was going to do. The gun was still in Hugh’s hand.
“If you want to go in and check it out, though, you can,” Holmes said.
They said they didn’t need to, and left. The ambulance followed.
When Holmes got to the patrol car, he said, “What’s with the lights and sirens?”
The officer motioned to the car behind him. “Sergeant ordered it.”
The sergeant got out of his car. It was someone Holmes didn’t care for, and who didn’t care for him.
“Tim,” Holmes said, “I specifically told Comm Center no sirens or lights.”
Tim said, “I know. I heard dispatch. I told them to roll Code Three.” In other words, he sent lights and sirens because Holmes requested them not to.
The deputy went into the house, took a couple of photos, and wrote a brief report. Then he and the sergeant left.
In time, Candace sold her home and moved into her parents’ ridgetop house. She closed the salon and began creating artwork of her own. Sadly, she brought all of her clutter wit
h her, and the art projects made it worse. Within three months her parents’ large house was filled with half-painted canvases, dried clay, heaping piles of clothing and rags, scattered papers, and much more. The kitchen sink overflowed with dirty dishes, and there were empty containers of food strewn about the pantry. When new bills became buried and weren’t paid, assorted services—utilities, water, garbage, and the phone—were cut off.
Candace’s two daughters were so upset that they wouldn’t have anything to do with her. They didn’t know that her hoarding was tied to the growing dementia that was wrecking her mind. When she sold her parents’ house, it fetched over $3 million but was worth much more than that. The tract house she moved into was half the size, not nearly big enough to accommodate all of her detritus in addition to the many antiques that her parents had collected, so she rented two enormous storage units and filled them to the brim. When Holmes visited her, he expected to walk in on a mess, but it was far worse than that. There were open bags of rice in the kitchen that had mice nesting at the bottom. There also were mouse nests in the pantry, underneath the refrigerator, and even in the stove and oven.
Holmes was shocked. “Candace,” he said, “you can’t live like this. You have to get rid of them.”
“Why?” Candace asked. “They’re not hurting anything.”
“Mice bring all kinds of diseases.”
“I think they’re cute,” Candace said. “Besides, I’m healthy.”
Holmes shook his head sadly at the depths to which she had fallen. The only salve was that Candace was too far gone to be aware of it.
In her final years, Candace lived in a nursing home. Holmes stopped by every few months to check in on her. Each time she was delighted to see him, and knew that she knew him, but she didn’t know his name or how she knew him. She died in 2016 with her two daughters, four grandchildren, and one son-in-law at her bedside. Holmes had left her two hours earlier.
SUICIDE NOTES
In any death that might be a suicide, Holmes looked for a note. The main reason was to shed light on the decedent’s intent, but a secondary reason was to help determine whoever should be notified. If there was a note, and it was addressed to a specific individual, Holmes shared the contents with that person only or with someone the person authorized. If it was a general note, along the lines of “Good-bye, world,” then he shared it with next of kin.