An officer did follow up on the van’s owner, John Roberts, but misread his address. Was it too much of an inconvenience to call in the address again?
And the second dispatcher? Sent the call out just once as a for information only radio broadcast. But the first officer was on the phone with Pauline Mahoney, so he never heard it.
There was no follow-up with the second witness either, as the second dispatcher didn’t connect the two calls with each other.
* * *
Susan had bought Nick a pager as an early birthday present. With a pager, someone could call and leave a voice mail, but the recipient would have to use a pay phone, landline, or cell to call the pager to hear it. You could also page a number for the recipient to call you back at. (Skidmore and his friends sometimes just messaged using numbers as code words.) There were no smartphones.
This gift to her son came with one ultimatum. Nick always had to return her pages within ten minutes. If he didn’t, she would take the pager away—one week for every minute he was late. She tested him twice, even paging him while he was in the house.
Now she was paging him on that Sunday morning. She waited. One minute turned into eleven. Susan didn’t know that Nick was no longer in possession of his pager. Pagers didn’t come with a built-in GPS locator that pinged off cell phone towers.
Could Nick hear his mother’s warning while his pager went off? I’m taking it away for a week for every minute that you’re late calling me back.
Back in the van, Nick was scared at first. At some point previously, he had briefly met Jesse Hollywood. Nick tried to act laid back, almost relieved. That didn’t stop Hollywood from barking out how Ben owed him money. “Where’s your brother? I’m trying to find him.”
Nick answered Hollywood that he didn’t know Ben’s location. He did insist, “My brother will pay you, don’t worry about it.”
As they were driving, Skidmore could see Nick’s confidence wane. Skidmore knew Ben wasn’t going to pay anyone anything. He also knew Ben owed more than twelve hundred dollars. Skidmore put the figure closer to twenty-four thousand. Other rumors had it at thirty-six thousand.
Hollywood would press Nick again, and Nick would grow hesitant and nervous. And then, with zero belief, he’d say that Ben would pay.
Skidmore didn’t comprehend the magnitude of the moment. No one in the van ever said, Holy shit! This is a kidnapping!
Skidmore had taken Nick’s pager and handed it to Hollywood, who was checking it while it was beeping. Hollywood asked Nick, “Is that your brother?”
Nick knew it was his mom. Hollywood panicked. “She’s already looking for the kid!”
Jesse Rugge spoke up, asking Hollywood about their next move. Hollywood didn’t know. He simply tossed the pager onto the dash and asked Nick to turn over any other things he had in his possession—a small bag of weed, a glass pipe, a wallet with a little phone book, and that Baggie of Valium.
Hollywood also removed Nick’s red ruby ring. The ring had been passed down from his grandparents to his father when his father was sixteen years old. Jeff then passed it down to Ben on his birthday. It was Jeff’s hope that Ben would one day pass it down to his son. Maybe Ben didn’t feel worthy, so he passed it on to Nick on his bar mitzvah.
Nick resisted, yet Hollywood yanked it off. “That’s my dad’s ring!”
Rugge finally convinced Hollywood to return it.
After his parents divorced when he was eleven, Rugge had split time between his father’s house in the Hidden Valley area of Santa Barbara and his mother’s in West Hills.
His natural athleticism, lean torso, and height would have had most Division I baseball coaches salivating. But those Saturday mornings of running down fly balls with ease during Little League seemed a century ago. Rugge had done a short stint in jail for DUI instead of paying a fine. At twenty, he was still bouncing between parents. His father taught him to harbor his own hate, which led Rugge to despise him.
Rugge had started selling pot at thirteen years old. He fell in love with the lifestyle of making quick money. It took him down a different path, one that now included smoking weed, taking LSD, and eating mushrooms.
As much as his parents’ split informed his unnamed rage, his warm smile put strangers at ease. His charm was infectious, brotherly, healing.
Instead of taking cuts at bat, he was taking cuts from whatever he sold from marijuana sales. He was Hollywood’s northern connection. Now, he was his driver.
Chapter 7
Panic at Home
NICK WAS QUIET IN THE van and did what he was told. Back home, Susan was going through his drawers, looking for clues that could give her any answers to his disappearance.
It seemed as if it was yesterday that Nick was gathering bugs and placing them inside a plasma ball as a practical joke. Susan wouldn’t know what the awful smell was permeating the house. It was Nick, burning bugs. Other times he would place trash cans out in the street or stack chairs so his mother couldn’t reach them. Harmless jokes? Could Nick disappearing like this be another one? Susan could only hope. But she knew she wasn’t fooling herself either. She said she had always told him, whatever the cause, whatever obstacles he would face, to seek the positive, and to live with happiness no matter the trials or tribulations. Susan couldn’t have imagined that being kidnapped fit into an entirely different category of obstacle.
This philosophy had been passed down to her from her father, who was a sign maker. She, in turn, had tried to imprint this same advice in her hazel-eyed son, Nick. Yes, he was young, but his mentality, compassion, and insight exceeded his age. He had an innate ability to find a commonality with anyone. He was so “intuitive,” from the very beginning.
Susan had also impressed upon her son never to take the low road and gossip about people. This was another reason Nick was so likable. He would go out of his way to engage others. He could meet someone and connect “instantly.” So adaptable, “he made you smile.”
Susan felt fortunate that she was blessed with Nick. Jeff was her third husband. After her first marriage dissolved, she married an older man with three children. “I was a full-time stepmom.” She still secretly hoped. “All I wanted was a baby. He decided after four years [together] he didn’t want any more.” But with Jeff, she no longer had to wish. She would give birth at twenty-five years old.
Nicholas Samuel Markowitz was named after Susan’s late “favorite sister-in-law’s grandfather.” He was Italian. “A ninety-six-year-old man who cooked me spaghetti” just prior to her pregnancy. “Such an awesome man with a beautiful name!” It stuck.
Nick was raised Jewish. It was against the religion to be named after someone who was still living, but that didn’t stop Susan and Jeff from choosing Nick’s middle name after his living grandfather—Jeff’s father. His grandfather made an exception.
Fond moments for Susan Markowitz were not just Nick’s first concert seeing the Beach Boys or summer camping trips along the Kern River, but seemingly ordinary car rides. It was “our ritual, our private time” where she would take him to school, pick him up, then drive him to his Hebrew classes. She cherished those forty minutes between mother and son that occurred three times a week.
As it was getting later in the day on that August 6, Susan was still trying to page Nick. She waited for his call. She would not receive one.
She would go through his coat pockets and pants for a second and third and fourth time. There had to be a clue. She kept hoping her Little Boy Blue would come home safely. But she knew her son was far removed from that home video of him at nineteen months old. In it, he was dressed in white OshKosh B’gosh overalls pinned over a striped polo, his right hand fastened around a toy horse, a farmer figurine in a yellow hat clasped in the other. He rocked back and forth in a child’s chaise lounge, reciting “Little Boy Blue” while his father encouraged him behind the lens of a camcorder:
Little boy blue,
Come blow your horn.
The sheep’s in the meadow.
&nb
sp; The cow’s in the corn.
But where is the boy
Who looks after the sheep?
He’s under a haystack,
Fast asleep.
Susan wouldn’t find any clues. The closest thing she had was the journal that they shared. Susan had started a writing log with Nick a month after his eighth birthday. It was a sanctuary for self-expression where neither mother nor son would judge or be judged.
As easygoing, likable, and convivial as Nick was in the presence of others, he had a private side, sharing his most personal views and emotions within that journal. As a ten-year-old fourth grader, Nick didn’t shy away from offering lessons about showing gratitude:
Giving thanks means appreciate [sic] something and telling people you care about them. It also means to thank someone for something they’ve given or done for you.
He would later conclude:
Because if we’re not than [sic] that’s what usually . . . starts gangs, and people get killed like that.
By thirteen, he was signing his entries: Love, Rabbi Nick Markowitz.
Out of all the shared writing, one entry would haunt Susan. It was the journal entry Nick didn’t write about where he was going on that Sunday morning.
Chapter 8
Onward to Fiesta (for All but One)
VIDEO FROM AUGUST 4, 2000—TWO days before Nick’s abduction—highlighted charros in tight-cut trousers and heavily embroidered shirts with sequined outlined roses. They marched down State Street atop Camarillo White Horses. These traditional horsemen from Mexico proudly held the American flag with black gloves that extended along the forearm and matched their bow ties. Behind them, flower girls wore vibrant blooms in their hair that contrasted with their white china poblana dresses.
They were taking part in one of the nation’s largest equestrian parades, spanning eight decades.
Fiesta, from its inception in August of 1924, prided itself on the city’s heritage from the Mexican and Spanish pioneers who first settled here. Events such as Casa Cantina and La Fiesta Pequeña featured songs and dances from flamenco to folklorico. Tours of the Spanish Colonial Revival courthouse were offered over the course of the five-day celebration.
Fiesta was where Hollywood, Jesse Rugge, and William Skidmore were supposed to be headed. They couldn’t attend now. Not with Nick in the van. His kidnapping ran counter to the spirit of a festival promoting “friendliness, hospitality, and tolerance.”
Skidmore never engaged in conversation with Nick while driving. Rugge and Hollywood were talking about where they could go to just sit and talk. Then Rugge said he knew someone in Santa Barbara.
The van would make a stop to pick up Skidmore’s friend Brian Affronti. When twenty-year-old Affronti entered the van, he was in the dark about Nick being kidnapped. No one even introduced him. The only communication would be a glance from Skidmore that told Affronti, Don’t worry about this, it’ll be all right.
Skidmore had known Affronti since the second grade. Affronti used to live down the street from him in Simi Valley. He was the little blue-eyed kid with the eyelashes, who never got in a fight.
Affronti had known Hollywood for six months, introduced through Skidmore. He would buy marijuana off Hollywood to sell on consignment while trying to raise money for a nightclub. The way the dope game worked when being fronted marijuana was simple. You would sell what Hollywood supplied at a higher price, then pay him back the original cost, keeping the profit for yourself.
Skidmore’s friendship was so strong with Affronti because Affronti’s parents enjoyed his company. Skidmore used to go to his house all the time in fourth and fifth grade. It was like a second home, where Skidmore was the big brother. That meant loyalty. That meant never backing down from defending Affronti.
At school, if someone messed with Affronti, Skidmore was going to go talk to him. After Affronti had been beaten up during a fight, Skidmore told his friend, “Watch this,” and proceeded to start a fight with the kid who had pestered Affronti. Everyone knew that Skidmore was quicker with his hands and hit a lot harder. Everybody was afraid to fight him.
However, there was no one to fight right now. Hollywood couldn’t find Ben, so he had settled on abducting his fifteen-year-old brother.
They made one more stop, at Skidmore’s house. He was diabetic and needed his insulin shot, which he didn’t have on him.
Twenty-year-old Ryan Hoyt wasn’t in the van. Hoyt had been relegated to cleaning up the broken glass at Hollywood’s and to finish packing his belongings for the move out. Though over six feet tall and athletic, Hoyt was Hollywood’s indentured servant. It appears demeaning himself was the only way Hoyt could stay in Hollywood’s good graces. Hoyt would smoke up a twelve-hundred-dollar debt for inhaling more product than he pushed. And that made him an easy mark. Constantly berated, Hoyt never stuck up for himself.
One of Hollywood’s pets, a pit bull named Chump, might have been treated better. Hoyt would know. He was tasked with cleaning up after the dog, along with other menial chores—landscaping, painting, washing cars, even picking up Hollywood’s younger brother from school. Sometimes even babysitting. Whatever he could do to work off the debt. He cultivated a new identity by being stripped of one.
He would have also been riding in the van during Nick’s kidnapping if he didn’t have to stay behind and sweep up those busted windows. Hoyt did everything for Hollywood except shade him with an umbrella.
Self-sabotaging garnered Hoyt the attention he wouldn’t find from his fractured family. At an early age, Hollywood’s was his surrogate one. He was even invited on vacations.
Hoyt’s parents divorced when he was five years old. He would always complain to Skidmore about his stepmom and how she was always yelling at him. His dad was cool to his friends. But in the privacy of their home, Hoyt caught the brunt of his father’s anger.
Hoyt found validation in all the wrong places. Even if it was the wrong kind. He owed Hollywood money, and Hollywood would rub it in his face and embarrass him in front of his friends.
Burning bridges was less talent than innate quality. Hollywood purchased a car for Hoyt as a birthday gift and threw in tires and registration. Hoyt ended up collecting a grand in parking tickets. However, he had never taken the time to transfer over the registration. Hollywood was on the hook.
Hoyt accrued more weekly interest from his debt than what he made working at a local market. But it was only twelve hundred dollars. It’s not like Hollywood would have someone murdered for that amount, right?
The taunting grew. In that same video where Hollywood fronted as a Crip, he demonstrated the requisite stoner art of a slowly exhaled bong rip before turning the camera on Hoyt.
Hollywood pushed him to name the dollar amount he better see the next day.
Like Hollywood’s understudy, Hoyt wore his ball cap backward, pulled so low it obscured his eyebrows. “Five hundred,” he said, leaning in. Emphatic, but not the least bit convincing.
Hollywood would throw parties and humiliate Hoyt in front of everybody. He was forced to crush empty beer cans, clean out ashtrays, and scrub the counters. Hollywood didn’t want Hoyt to wait until after the party ended. He wanted Hoyt to do it while it was still raging. Hollywood would take off fifty dollars here and there. But if Hoyt had to buy cleaning supplies, that money was added on to the debt because again, Hollywood was fronting it.
Hollywood was smart in choosing his battles. He’d prey on the weak-minded and leave his other crew members alone, knowing they wouldn’t take his insults. No, that would end up in a fistfight Hollywood and his five-foot-four-inch frame didn’t stand a chance of winning.
But for all of Hollywood’s provocation, Hoyt would continue to swallow it. And instead of heading to Fiesta with the guys, he was once again relegated to maid duty.
That day’s occasion would be the first time Affronti attended Fiesta. It was also the first time he had ever seen Nick Markowitz. He didn’t realize this was Ben Markowitz’s brother. He and Ben had
mutual friends and would see each other at parties. To Affronti, Nick didn’t look like he had been beaten up. In fact, Nick was just sitting quietly.
However, Affronti did have an uneasy feeling. Even though Nick wasn’t talking, Affronti knew he was there involuntarily. From the front seat, Hollywood kept launching threatening remarks. “If your brother thinks he’s going to kill my family, you know, he has another think coming. Your brother is going to pay me my money right now.” Affronti quickly put the pieces together. This is Ben’s younger brother!
Nick would speak only when spoken to. When he was pressed about Ben’s whereabouts, he responded that he wasn’t sure he knew what Ben did and that Ben didn’t live at home. He even asked Hollywood why he was doing this.
There was sporadic joking, but it was always shrouded in tension. Hollywood split up Nick’s Valium and weed. Something to cut the mood when the joking wouldn’t. Hollywood made it clear to Nick: “If you run, I’ll break your teeth.” That comment would give Skidmore pause, seeing as he couldn’t recall Hollywood settling his own battles. Hollywood paid everyone else to take care of his problems.
Hollywood was still constantly checking Nick’s pager. And Nick’s mother? Susan couldn’t exactly hashtag findnickmarkowitz. There was no social media in terms of Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. The 24/7 news crawl didn’t exist.
Fed up, Hollywood tossed the pager and Nick’s black phone book onto the side of the road.
Even though the van was headed to Santa Barbara, they would hold their own Fiesta—away from those charros and sequined roses on Cabrillo Boulevard and State Street—three miles away on Modoc Road.
Chapter 9
More Confusion
THE PROPERTY ON MODOC HAD sharp blooms of yucca out front. It was a townhome with other small homes around it. Richard Hoeflinger, twenty, lived there. He had been friends with Rugge since elementary. That day, it was a revolving door of Hoeflinger’s guests, smoking and drinking, coming and going from the residence. A whole new group of guys would add to those numbers.
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