"Ask for Captain John Roberts," I said.
I smiled at her and watched her dial. She wasn't calling any number associated with the LAPD that I was familiar with. I waited patiently. She looked at me long and hard while she had the phone to her ear. I smiled at her some more. Finally she put the phone down.
"You better not be lying to me," she said, as stern as a convent nun. I crossed my heart.
"Why would I lie about a homicide," I said.
She shrugged.
"Show me the picture of him."
I pulled out my phone.
"This was taken just this morning. Just so you know, he's dead, and a bit bloated from being in the ocean overnight."
She looked at me with her brown eyes, sweet as melted chocolate. She nodded again.
"I don't know if I'm going to be able to help you anyway," she said. "We get almost a hundred thousand applicants and we accept over fifteen thousand. I only know those personally who I've actually dealt with."
"I understand," I said. "I know this is a long shot, but it's better than nothing."
I pulled up the picture and turned my phone to her. She studied it for a moment, frowned and then brought her hand to her mouth. I smiled inside. I had beaten the Vegas odds on this one.
"Do you know him?"
She started to shake her head but stopped.
"It can't be," she said, "but it looks like Gregg Gelvan. Though I can't be sure."
She turned to her computer and typed on her keyboard for some time. Then she looked from her computer screen to my phone and back again.
"I think it is him," she said to me at last.
"Can I have a look?"
She pivoted the screen to me and I was staring at a smiling face. It was the deceased on my phone, only he had more color and he was smiling. I nodded solemnly.
"Yeah, looks like him," I said to her. "What's his name again.?"
She was staring at the picture on my phone. Mesmerized. I took it away and put it in my pocket.
"Sorry," she said. "I can't believe it."
"I asked for his name."
"Gregg Gelvan," she said without looking back at her screen. "What happened to him?"
I felt like I should offer up a morsel. She had done the same for me.
"It appears he was stabbed and most likely dumped in the ocean."
"I can't believe it, that's awful," she said.
"Well, I guess we're lucky that I happened upon you instead of someone else."
She nodded.
"I suppose so, but I just can't believe he's dead."
"So he was an honors student and came from a good family?"
I was being sincere. One murder in a hundred that might be the case, and this might be my hundredth case. Linda shook her head.
"No, quite the contrary but he was so easy going," she said to me.
"What do you mean quite the contrary?"
"He was an underdog, one of those kids you just can't help but root for. He came from Green Meadows, raised by a single mother but has no siblings."
"His father's out of the picture?"
"Yes, you know how it is."
I nodded.
"We've started an outreach program in South Los Angeles generally, in order to help more of those kids get into college and out of gangs. It's a partnership program with the city and the LAPD. We start at the junior high level and try and follow through to graduation. Gregg Gelvan was one of the pilot students we started with when we started the program at Locke High School."
I nodded at her. I hated these kinds of stories. Kid from the wrong side of the tracks does good, and then gets murdered.
"We offered a select group of these students a full ride at UCLA if they got a B average in Grade 12 and managed SAT scores of 550 or better in all three subjects. We were worried about Gregg because throughout high school he showed no inclination or determination to try and get a scholarship. Then in Grade 12 he really started pulling up his socks and just managed a B- overall. His SATs came in strong."
Linda pivoted the screen back to her and looked at it for a moment.
"He got over 600 in all three SAT subjects. He was really quite the turnaround story."
"600s on his SATs, that must put him fairly high up," I said.
Linda nodded.
"I'd have to look closer, but he'd probably be in the top 25 percent with those results."
That was quite the turnaround story.
"Anything specifically that prompted him to pull up his socks that you can think of?"
“His mother was diagnosed with quite aggressive breast cancer in the final months of Gregg's Grade 11. I think it affected him deeply. He wanted to study medicine."
I nodded. This was becoming a sadder story than I had imagined.
"Can you think of any arguments or disagreements with any other students that might have led to his murder?"
Linda shook her head.
"I'm afraid I can't help you there. Your best bet is to speak with one of our counselors. I believe that Vanessa Caraballo was in charge of his case from the very beginning. She'll likely have that sort of information."
"When can I see her?" I asked.
"Probably not without Captain Roberts. Our counselors take their client's confidentiality very seriously."
I nodded again, and started to feel like a bobblehead.
"Can you give me his address?"
"I will, but you'll have to be with a real cop," she said.
A "real" cop. I liked that. I had been a real cop and that's why I wasn't one anymore. Not to say they're all idiots, but the bureaucracy can sure blindfold you and tie you up tighter than a bondage mistress.
"Does he live on campus or is he commuting from Green Meadows?"
"His mother's cancer has become terminal in the last few months so she's in a hospice."
"Which one?"
"The Sisters of Mercy hospice in Green Meadows."
Linda looked at me.
"She was so proud of her son when they found out he'd won a scholarship to UCLA. I don't see how any good can come of telling her that her son has been murdered."
"No good can come of it at all. But the truth comes out whether we want it to or not."
"But she doesn't have much time left. I imagine it's only months."
"We'll be sensitive," I said, trying to reassure her. "So you're saying that Gregg lived on campus then?"
Linda nodded.
"Yes, we gave him campus shared housing considering his circumstances," she said. "It was the least he could do. So sad all of this. He was showing such promise."
I stood up and put my hand out for Linda to take. She stood up and shook it.
"I'll walk you out," she said.
"I'll be back with a real police officer," I said, putting a sarcastic tone on the "real". She smiled at that.
As I was leaving through the swinging door of the desk I had recently entered she asked me to get justice for Gregg. I told her I would. My mouth is a loose cannon like that.
I walked out to my car watching the vast number of young, bright-eyed faces coming and going to their classes with backpacks on their backs. The potential of the human race to improve itself. Or mow itself down prematurely. These scales of life and death were balanced precariously on the loose fulcrum of human foibles. I fished out my phone and called Roberts. He of all men might be happy to hear what I had found out.
Washed Up: Chapter Three
Roberts picked me up by the pier at a little before five in the afternoon. I had headed back down there and had a late lunch at a nearby restaurant. Crime Scenes had finished up with the scene as I wandered down there after lunch to think and look. I didn't find anything. The LAPD's Scientific Investigation Division, or SID as they're officially called, is thorough.
I figured the deeper I dug the more that would come to the surface. You had to be slow and persistent like a gold panner. There were always gold nuggets waiting to be discovered for the patient man.
I
sat in Robert's police cruiser as he drove us back to UCLA to see Vanessa Caraballo. She was the counselor to Gregg, and probably other angsty teenagers.
"We got a hit on Gregg's prints," said Roberts, looking ahead as we drove through slow moving traffic.
"So he's known to you," I said.
"Yeah. Not the worst juvenile to come out of Green Meadows. He was picked up for shoplifting, and joyriding. No violent offenses, and no time served."
"Practically a choir boy then for that side of town."
Roberts nodded.
"Linda the registrar I spoke to earlier found his death quite upsetting. Said he was a real turnaround case, and he'd done well in his final year. UCLA has this pilot program where they reach out to the disenfranchised. Gelvan was one of the first in the program at Locke High School. Didn't do anything for grade ten and eleven, but squeaked out a B average for grade twelve. Managed better on his SATs getting 600s in all three subjects."
"So you're saying that overnight he goes from joyriding, and failing classes to turning his whole life around?" asked Roberts not looking at me.
"Yeah, that's what I'm saying. These things happen. You're sounding as cynical as I usually am."
"Well I'm just saying, it seems pretty weird he suddenly decides he wants a better life."
"But I haven't told you the best part," I said. "He has a reason."
"Yeah, what's that?"
"His mother was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer sometime when he was finishing up grade twelve. Apparently something like that can motivate you."
Roberts nodded his head back and forth weighing the idea.
"Yeah, I suppose I can see that," he said.
We finally got past the San Diego Freeway and headed north on Westwood Boulevard. On Westwood the traffic was easy going, most of it was coming south as professors and students were leaving for the day. We parked in the parking lot close to Murphy Hall and managed to find our way to the counselors’ offices after asking a fresh-faced blonde woman who talked like the rest of the bimbos from the valley.
The main window looked like it was closed but a woman in one of the back offices noticed us and came out to greet us. She was Vanessa Caraballo and she looked like a student. She had curly black hair that fell to her shoulders and a smile that you could tan under. She was average looking with unblemished brown skin wearing faded blue jeans and a UCLA t-shirt. The girl's version of what Gelvan had on him when he was a beached whale.
We followed her back to her office which was small but private. She closed the door behind us and sat down in an armchair in front of her desk. We took the soft couch that was in front of her. Her room had several plush toys placed about it and on her bookshelf were books on psychology and philosophy as well as board games.
"Thank you for seeing us," said Roberts.
"It's my pleasure,” she said, sitting with her one leg crossed over her other and her hands clasped in her lap. She was slim and charming, giving off a nonjudgmental air. I could tell she was good at her job. She had introduced herself as Vanessa Caraballo and I was wondering if she was a doctor of psychology, so I asked.
"No," she said. "I just finished my masters in counseling two years ago and decided I'd get some work experience while I pursued my doctorate."
I nodded at her. She appeared to be an open book, but I doubted that was the case. What she did share, she shared freely.
"I heard that Gregg was stabbed multiple times," she said. "That's just awful."
"That's why we're here," said Roberts. "We need your help in trying to understand how and why this might have happened to him."
"Of course," she said. "Anything I can do."
"We understand that you were Gregg's counselor."
"That's right."
"Had you noticed any difference in his behavior lately? Anything that might have given you pause?"
Caraballo thought for a moment. She looked off to the ceiling and then shook her head.
"Nothing really. Though he did have quite a lot to deal with. He was generally a very easy going low key guy."
"What were some of the things he was dealing with?"
"As you've probably heard, his mother is dying from terminal breast cancer. The last I heard, that was weighing on him quite a bit. He told me that his mother most likely wouldn't see Christmas."
"When was the last time you saw him?"
"Last Friday, the twentieth I think it was."
"Can you tell us what you spoke about?"
"The usual things, though he seemed quite upset about not having found a job yet which I found unusual."
"Why was that?"
"Well, Gregg has a full ride here at UCLA. We encourage them to find work over the summer months but it's certainly not encouraged or necessary during the semester. Our scholarship students aren't required to work or contribute financially to their studies. So when Gregg seemed quite upset about not finding work I asked him why. He said he could really use the money. When I asked him what for he told me so he could just enjoy his free time a bit more. But I had the impression that he was lying."
"How so?"
"I can't put my finger on it, but when you've been counseling for a while you learn to trust your instincts and you learn to read people. Especially those you get to know. And I could just tell he wasn't being as forthcoming with me as he usually is. But I didn't push. I knew he'd come around when he was ready."
"He never gave you any reason to believe he was in trouble?" I asked.
Caraballo looked at me and smiled, slowly shaking her head.
"Listen, you have to understand. Kids from that neck of the woods are carrying around a lot of weight and baggage. Understandably so, they're often poor and come from a single parent household. Gregg was no different, but he had an easygoing manner. He was quite well adjusted all things considering."
"And how long had you know him?" asked Roberts.
"I got his case just after I finished up my masters. That's one of the reasons I chose to defer my doctorate. I thought this was a great program and I wanted to a be a part of it."
"So you've seen him through grade eleven all the way to acceptance here?" I asked.
She nodded.
"Yes."
"And you've seen no problems or behavioral issues since that time?"
"Well, not exactly. These aren't your kids from Bel Air and Beverly Hills. They have their problems."
I nodded quickly. I was getting the impression that I was getting the run around.
"I understand that Vanessa," I said. "I'm asking specifically about Gregg. We're trying to solve his murder and we need your help. We want to understand his quick turnaround from no chance of getting into UCLA in grade eleven to his B- in grade twelve and his great results on his SATs."
"You're right, Anthony. In grade eleven I thought we might lose him. He wasn't paying any attention at school, but he wasn't really getting into a lot of trouble either. He just didn't seem motivated. But then his mother got cancer as I said before, and everything changed for him. He wanted to study medicine so he could help his mother. That's what he said to me. Sometimes these kids just need a little bit of motivation, and I think his mother's cancer was that motivation."
"How well did you know him?" I asked.
"Well enough. Each of us has ten kids to help through this pilot project on top of being available to the regular student body at large."
"Did he visit you here or did you go out and see him when he was in high school?"
"We're always available to them, but generally we have to keep in contact. I visit each of my pilot students on a monthly basis and I touch base with them by phone on a weekly basis."
"And what about the peer group," said Roberts. "Do you have a chance to get to know these kids' friends and extended families and such?"
"Not as much as we'd like, at least not with their peer group. These kids are trying to cut the cord of poverty that often runs deep. There is genuine pressure from their peers that
they don't get left behind, so most of these kids compartmentalize the side of them that is trying to get into college from their social circle. It's terribly hard for them. So to answer your question, no, we don't get a chance to interact with their friends to any great extent. We usually have a better rapport with the families and the extended families. In Gregg's case this was his mother. She was terribly proud when he got accepted. Most of her family she ceased contact with when she got out here. They're from the Midwest, and I'm sure there's a story there but I don't know what it is. Gregg's father has never been in his life either."
"Did he ever mention a girlfriend?" asked Roberts.
"Yes, that was an ongoing conversation with us. He had broken up with his girlfriend a few months ago and she hadn't taken it well. She's from Green Meadows too."
"What's her name?"
"Zaira Estrada," she said. "Her brothers are involved with the gang Trece Noches."
"How do you know that?"
"Gregg told me."
I looked at Roberts and he looked at me back.
"That's not a good sign, is it?" she asked.
"Not particularly," I said. "Was he worried about any retaliation?"
"That's hard to say. He had told me that her brothers had told him that if he ever hurt her they'd kill him, but he said that's how they talk in his neighborhood. I had the sense that he was mostly conflicted about how he felt. He was seeing someone else on campus. Her name is Stephanie Eastman."
"Where's she from?"
"Not sure, I'd have to check, but definitely not from his neighborhood."
"You said he was conflicted. Did he tell you any more about that?" asked Roberts.
"Yes. He was torn about how he felt. He told me he still loved Zaira. They had been dating since grade ten. He told me he was thinking about getting back together with her."
"Was that because he felt threatened or because he wanted to?" I asked.
"I believe it was what he wanted."
"Can you think of a reason for a person who might have wanted Gregg dead?" I asked.
Vanessa looked at me and nodded.
"I could think of several reasons, but none of them seem to be a valid reason to kill anyone."
"Try some on me," I said.
"Maybe he was murdered by one of his old friends who became disgruntled because Gregg's life is improving while theirs stays trapped. Perhaps Zaira's brothers killed him because he hurt her when he broke up with her. Maybe Stephanie found out he was thinking of getting back with his ex and she killed him. Or, maybe he was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. All of these by the way are just suppositions. I have no evidence for any of them."
Four Ways To Midnight (An Anthony Carrick Short Story Collection Book 1) Page 14