At First Sight

by Stephen J. Cannell

  “These first days are the toughest, the absolute worst,” I said. “Waking up to the loss each morning, it’s impossible. I know exactly what you’re going through, Chick.”

  “Nobody else understands. Nobody I know has been through this, except you.”

  He sounded devastated. Lost and broken. I took a breath and tried to come up with the best way to handle this.

  “Do you want to talk? Would it help if we spent some time right now and talked about your feelings?” I didn’t quite know what the best form of therapy might be. We shared an almost identical tragedy, but I didn’t know Chick and Evelyn that well so I wasn’t sure I should be spewing out a bunch of helpful hints with no intellectual perspective.

  “Evelyn really loved you, Paige,” he suddenly said unexpectedly.

  “That’s so sweet,” I answered. But what I was thinking was, how could that be? We barely knew one another. I’d always felt there was something strange and sort of selfabsorbed about Evelyn Best.

  “We had so much together,” Chick was saying. “Evelyn and I always knew what the other was feeling. She knew what I was thinking even before I would say it. I can’t believe she’s not here, not with me anymore.” A sob followed this, then he went on, “And the way she was with Melissa … such a wonderful mother.”

  “I don’t mean to start giving a lot of unsolicited advice, Chick, but if I were you, I’d make sure that Melissa talks to someone. Children deal with these things in different ways from adults. You don’t want her to bury it. Her emotions over this need to come out.”

  “You mean, like a psychiatrist?”

  “A psychiatrist or even a good friend who she trusts and will open up to. Somebody to help her get in touch with her feelings.”

  “I just … I just … ” and he stopped.

  “You just what?”

  “I just … I wanted …”

  “Whatever you want, I’m there, Chick.”

  “It’s not fair,” he said, his voice almost a whisper. “It’s too much to ask.”

  “If you don’t tell me, we’ll never know. What is it, Chick?”

  “I want … what I want is to talk to you.”

  “You can call me anytime. We could even have a set time, a phone schedule, and talk every day.”

  “I was hoping … What I wanted is … I wanted to see you.”

  “You mean you want me to come out there?” Thinking, My God, is he serious? Fly out to L.A.?

  “I shouldn’t ask you to do that, should I?” His voice seemed to recoil, as if I had just physically hurt him. Suddenly my response seemed horribly selfish. And then a strange thing happened. I got angry at myself. I had just spent seven months trying to muddle through Chandler’s death. I had relied heavily on my friends to get me through. Chick had even flown back here for Chan’s funeral. Why was I looking for a way to duck this?

  “If you want me there, I’ll come,” I finally offered.

  “That’s stupid, isn’t it?” he said. “It’s too much to ask.”

  “Nonsense.” This time I put a little more oomph into it.

  “I … the police are still investigating,” he said. “They found her car up in the mountains last night. They say the killer stripped it, took the radio—the air bags—stuff like that. I think they found the gun, too. At least, that’s what they said on the news. It’s strange … The police lab people did some tests here Friday night, but they haven’t talked to me since.”

  “Tests?”

  “They said it was a formality. A Gunshot Residue Test to see if I’d fired a gun recently.”

  “Oh my God, Chick, that’s horrible. You mean they’re treating you like a suspect?”

  “They told me it’s routine—that they always try and eliminate the immediate family first. But I passed and Melissa was with me during the time of the killing so I don’t think they really suspect me. It’s just hard to go through it, is all. I was hardly in a mood for any of that last night … Last night I just wanted to curl up and die.”

  “That’s absolutely unbelievable that they would treat you that way on the night she was killed,” I said. But then I remembered the meeting at the station the day after Chandler died, when Bob Butler had asked me about any possible trouble in our marriage—if Chandler had any girlfriends or affairs. I remembered how furious I’d become, asking him for a lie detector test after telling him to go fuck himself. So the fact is, Bob Butler had checked me out just like the L.A. cops were checking out Chick. Bob had said he owed it to Chandler. Speaking for the dead, he’d called it.

  “Anyway, I don’t know when the funeral is going to be,” Chick continued. “The police haven’t released her body. I’ll call you and let you know,” he said softly. “Maybe, if it’s not too much trouble, you could come for a day or so. It would really help to have somebody here who understands.”

  “I’ll come,” I said firmly. “I’ll be there, Chick.”

  Then we lapsed into a prolonged silence. I wondered what on earth I could tell him beyond what I’d already said. Maybe just having someone who had gone through it and was still standing would give him a reason to hang on.

  “Want to hear something really silly?” he finally asked.

  “If you want to tell me, yes, of course.”

  “Sometimes, when we were dressing to go out, we’d be getting ready in separate dressing rooms and we’d meet in the hallway and when we came out we’d be wearing the exact same colors. I’d have on a black suit and a purple tie—she’d come out of her bathroom in a purple dress with a black belt and scarf. Happened all the time. We used to laugh about it.”

  “You guys were on each other’s wavelength. Sharing moods. It’s the sign of a good marriage,” I said. But it was obviously the wrong thing to say because I heard him start to sob.

  “Oh Chick,” I said, “I’m so sorry.”

  “I’ve got to go,” he said, “I’m coming apart here.”

  “You’ll get through it, Chick. I’ll come out there and help you!”

  “Okay, bye.” And he was gone.

  I decided right then, if I was going to help him, I should go out to Los Angeles now. Now was when he needed me, not later. I decided to try and do for him what my friends had done for me.

  Then a very strange thing happened. I heard a voice in my subconscious.

  “Don’t go,” the voice said. It sounded like Chandler, and it startled me. “Don’t go to Los Angeles,” the voice repeated.

  But how could I not go? I’d just given Chick my word.

  CHAPTER 26

  SERGEANT APOLLO DEMETRIUS SHOWED UP AT Chick’s house again on the Monday following Evelyn’s murder. It was a day after the glorious phone call with Paige where she promised to come to L.A.

  “Do you know anybody named Delroy Washington?” Demetrius asked. He was sitting in Chick’s beautifully furnished living room, leaking his Aqua Velva scent and masculine vibe all over the place. The cold-eyed, ordinary-looking Charlie Watts wasn’t there.

  “Delroy Washington … ? No, I don’t think so,” Chick said, going for puzzled confusion.

  Then Sergeant Ain’t-I-Hot-Looking Demetrius took some photographs out of his briefcase and laid them out on the coffee table. Six mug shots of glowering, black teenage assholes. They all had Afro-hip haircuts—fades with Zs cut into the sides. One or two had cornrows or dreads. Ghetto styles that screamed “Fuck you, Whitey.” They all wore sullen expressions with angry eyes. Of course, Delroy Washington was right there in the mix, top row, far right side.

  “This is what we call a six-pack,” Demetrius said. “Not abs—pictures. We use them for eyewitness identifications. All these guys have been chosen because they are about the same age and build. One of them is a possible perp. Take your time and look them over, sir. See if one looks familiar.”

  Chick noted that he’d gone from “Chick” to “Sir”—a definite step in the right direction. He was no longer at the top of Demetrius’s suspect list.

  “He could be a
guy who came to the door, selling something, or maybe he worked at some garage where you or your wife park your cars, a valet service. You might not know his name. Could be a vendor you use. Guy at the corner market. Anyone there look familiar?”

  Of course, Chick wasn’t about to claim Delroy Washington. The last thing he needed was for that angry asshole to say, “Yeah, I know this guy, too. He had a .45 stashed under the seat of a gold Mercedes I detailed at the wash.”

  Chick needed to keep his distance from Delroy until the angry gangster lawyered up. With all the physical evidence Chick had planted, he was pretty sure the lawyer would go for a plea bargain and agree to a nice second-degree murder, rather than take a chance on murder one with special circumstance. A plea bargain would be neat and quick. It would clear the case without ever involving Chick.

  “Should I know him?” Chick said after pretending to study each picture carefully.

  “If it was a random jacking, then no, but sometimes these gangsters steal on demand. Somebody orders a gold Mercedes like your wife’s, and they target the vehicle in advance. That might have produced a contact.”

  “None of these guys look familiar,” Chick said, straightening back up.

  Apollo Demetrius gathered up the pictures and returned them to his worn leather briefcase. “Okay, good enough.” He got to his feet.

  “Do you think one of those guys did it?” Chick asked. “They look very young.”

  “In the ghetto, youth is not necessarily a condition of innocence,” Demetrius said, sounding for a minute more like a criminology professor than a cop. “I’ve got Pee-Wee G’s in my gang book who are barely out of puberty and they’ve already skagged two or three rival homeboys … We got adolescent killers standing ten deep at Juvenile Hall. The juvie-rancho up in Saugus is a cesspool of homicidal, preteen violence. You wouldn’t believe what’s being raised in the inner city and getting passed off as human.”

  The detective started toward the door and Chick hurried to follow.

  “So one of these guys did it?” he persisted, hoping to hear more.

  “Yep. Think so … got the murder weapon. It’s an old forty-five. It’s what we call a street gun. Serial number was filed. A cold piece. I can’t get an ownership trail. One thing it does have is Delroy Washington’s prints all over it. We also found his prints inside your wife’s car, on the back of the rearview mirror. Got a ten-point match—Delroy left more ridges and swirls on that crime scene than they got on the jewelry counter at Macy’s.”

  “Prints on the back of the mirror?” Chick asked, trying for naive confusion.

  “Asshole steals a vehicle, first thing he does is readjust the mirror so he can use it. On nine out of ten of these jacks we get a clean set of prints off the back of the rearview.” Apollo paused, then added, “I think this is pretty much a slam dunk. Washington has a yellow sheet full of violent crimes. He has two prior carjackings. Shot one of the drivers. A nonfatal wound, but he went down on an attempt to commit. He’s also been down on two previous felony assault car thefts, both class-A beefs because he likes using a gun.”

  “He shot somebody before Evelyn?” Chick asked, sounding appalled.

  Demetrius nodded, “I think we gotta great chance of setting him up for the needle. This is a lying-in-wait, special-circumstances murder. If the D.A. will file it that way, this kid could hit death row. If he won’t, we’re gonna lock Del up permanently on a third strike. But to do that, we’ve gotta take him all the way to trial, because his P.D.’s not going to plead him on a third strike. That means you’re gonna have to be ready to testify. You up for that, sir?”

  “Oh,” Chick said. “Well, of course … ” But he hadn’t counted on a trial. Even though he’d been wearing the baseball cap and glasses, there was a chance Delroy would remember the Mercedes, or worse still, recognize him in court. Of course, if that happened, it would be Chick’s word against the word of a three-time loser. Sure I went to the car wash on Adams. That’s undoubtedly where he must have seen Evelyn’s car … Gun under the seat? Is he kidding? I don’t even own a gun. I’m an Internet executive.

  Still, Chick wished it could just be bargained off like he’d planned. That way they’d all be done with it. Nothing, when it came to Evelyn, was ever easy. In death, she was still causing him problems.

  “The D.A. is ready to charge Delroy. We’ll know how he’s gonna file it in a couple a days. I guess we can forget all the other stuff, the lie detector test, the backup interview. We got our guy.”

  “Thanks,” Chick said, looking sad, despite the fact this was the best fucking news since People magazine called in ’98 to say they were doing a story on bestmarket.com.

  “When will you release my wife’s body? I’m trying to plan her funeral.” He hoped he’d packed enough grief into that sentence to get it past Demetrius’s smell detector. Of course, who could smell anything but Aqua Velva anyway?

  “I think the coroner’s done. We’ll let go of her remains today or tomorrow. You can go ahead and make your arrangements,” Demetrius said.

  “Thanks,” Chick said again, looking sadly down at the carpet, thinking murder wasn’t all that tough if you thought things out. Planned without emotion and followed through methodically, murder could actually be a viable option. You just had to do it carefully and make sure all the facts were served.

  And look at the high level of karmic improvement here. Delroy Washington, a mean, angry asshole who had achieved nothing in his short antisocial existence, other than fouling the L.A. Basin with violent crimes, was off to end his life behind bars. Evelyn, who had achieved no worthwhile skills beyond her bone-jarring dead lifts and rock-hard biceps, was also gone, removing a shitload of negative energy. Delroy was going to serve Chick’s murder sentence, so that Chick could go on and make further, worthwhile contributions to the gross revenue product of L.A.’s business and tax environment, completing a perfect circle of positive fiscal and psychic energy. How can you beat that?

  Chick walked Demetrius out of the house. They stood on the front porch and the detective shook Chick’s hand.

  “Must be hard,” the handsome cop commiserated, turning from a suspicious asshole to a sympathetic friend in less than two days.

  “I loved her very much,” Chick drooped sadly.

  “I hope it helps, knowing we got the doer.”

  “It helps, more than I can tell you,” Chick said.

  “Be sure your daughter doesn’t skip her court date on the twenty-eighth for her meth possession bust. She’s a firsttime offender and if she plays it smart, she should come out of that with a suspended sentence. She’s a minor, so after she turns eighteen, her record will be sealed. That bust won’t even show up. But if she gets cute, she’ll get hammered.”

  “Thank you,” Chick said, surprised he knew about Melissa’s pending legal problems.

  Demetrius turned and walked down to his car, taking the dimpled chin and Aqua Velva reek with him. Detective Watts wasn’t sitting out there in the front seat, making cell calls. Demetrius had come alone. The visit had been a wrap-up interview.

  Chick watched as the detective drove off, then turned and walked into his overpriced split-level house and shut the massive oak door.

  Case closed, he thought. Then a huge smile spread across his face. Evelyn was finally out of his life and Paige Ellis was coming all the way from North Carolina for the funeral.

  He poured himself a tumbler of scotch and sighed. Could it possibly get any better than this?

  CHAPTER 27

  IT WAS TWO IN THE AFTERNOON WHEN MY DELTA flight from North Carolina landed at LAX. My overnight case had been a few millimeters too large to pass through the post-9/ll airport screening apparatus in Charlotte. I could have probably blasted it through with a well-aimed hiji-ushirate, but the woman on the screening machine snatched the bag off the conveyor and had it checked before I could perform my bad-ass elbow strike.

  According to the e-mail I’d received from Chick, Evelyn’s funeral was on
Saturday at 10 A.M. at Forest Lawn in the Hollywood Hills. I e-mailed him back before leaving for the airport informing him that I would be staying at the Langham Huntington Hotel in Pasadena. I’d chosen Pasadena because Chandler’s parents lived there. I didn’t want to impose on my in-laws and just show up, bags in hand, but I certainly wanted to pay them a visit.

  I was at baggage claim waiting for my luggage, admiring a beautiful, ninety-degree, smog-free L.A. day, when I heard my name being called.

  “Paige! Paige Ellis. Over here.”

  I turned, and over by the door behind the ropes, saw Chick Best. He was dressed in a charcoal suit with a cinnamoncolored shirt and maroon tie. His sunglasses were pushed up on his head movie-star style. I certainly hadn’t expected him to come to the airport to meet me. In fact, I didn’t quite know what to make of it. I hadn’t even given him my travel arrangements, so how had he known what flight I’d be on? Spooky. But there he was, just the same, so I smiled and waved.

  I retrieved my bag, pulled out the handle, and wheeled it past the bored luggage-checker and out to the curb.

  Chick hugged me. I could feel his breath on my neck.

  “This is so sweet of you,” he said.

  I had a vivid memory flash of the uncomfortable encounter after Chandler’s funeral, when Chick had wrapped his arms around me and wouldn’t let go. But this time, he quickly turned me loose and held me at arm’s length. I was looking into sad brown eyes. He smiled weakly.

  “These past few days have been an absolute horror,” he said. He had what looked like a fresh haircut. I could see white around the ears where he’d just gotten it trimmed. He reeked of aftershave—Aqua Velva, I think.

  “Are you holding up okay?” I asked, feeling awkward in his presence. In Hawaii, I was pretty much only focused on Chandler. Other than two dinners on Maui and a few moments at my husband’s funeral, I hardly knew this man.

  “Come on, we’ll talk once we get out of here,” he said and led me across the crowded terminal and into the parking structure. A black Porsche Targa was parked with its top down near the exit turnstile. He popped the trunk, took my bag, and dropped it inside.