The Fourth Motive

by Sean Lynch

  Ray would never forget the next time he saw the tan uniforms of the Alameda police. It was after supper, only a couple of days after the first policeman came to their house to ask about Sissy. His dad was in the garage, drinking alone instead of with his co-workers. Ray was on the porch with Skipper.

  A big black and white police car skidded to a halt in front of their house. As Skipper began to bark, two cops piled out with their revolvers drawn. Another police car pulled up abruptly behind the first and two more Alameda cops got out, also with their guns in hand.

  To his amazement, one of the cops ran right past him to his front door. Two others ran to the rear of the house, and the fourth to the garage.

  “Police,” the cop shouted, pounding on his parents’ front door. “Open up! We have a warrant!”

  Ray couldn’t believe what he was witnessing. It was just like on Dragnet.

  Just as his mother opened the door, a loud voice called out from the garage.

  “He’s in here! I got him!” The other cops raced to the garage.

  When the policemen came out, Ray couldn’t believe his eyes. His father was in handcuffs and being roughly dragged to one of the police cars. His head was down.

  Ray’s hysterical mom ran to the cops, declaring her outrage and demanding to know why her husband was being abused in such a fashion.

  Ray would never forget what the policeman told his mother that fateful evening. He told her that Ray’s father was being arrested for the murder of Cecelia Levine.

  Ray’s world would never be the same.

  Over the next few days, cops and reporters came and went. People would come to stare at them, many not from the neighborhood. Soon, his mother started going to meet with men at the courthouse on Central Avenue. She took Ray with her, dressed in his Sunday best, but left him outside in the hallway when she went in to talk. Sometimes, she came out crying.

  At school, Ray was bullied and beaten. Gradually, he learned things. Some things he overheard, other things he learned from the court documents and newspaper clippings his mother left on the kitchen table. But the final, awful truth would only be revealed weeks later when Ray went to the courthouse each day for the trial.

  Ray told his mom he didn’t like to go to the courthouse because he didn’t like to see his father handcuffed. But his mother insisted on taking him, telling him it was very important. The lawyers told her it was good for the jury to see Ray and his mother so they knew he was a family man; it might bring sympathy. Sympathy might mean mercy.

  It was in that awful courthouse that eight year-old Raymond Pascoe learned the truth about his father and came of age. It was just before Christmas, 1964.

  Ray learned the strangled body of Cecelia Levine had been discovered two days after her disappearance by a sanitation worker at the Alameda dump, or Mount Trashmore, as it was nicknamed by the locals.

  During the homicide investigation, Alameda police detectives discovered that Cecelia Levine, like countless teenaged girls, kept a diary. In that journal, along with accounts of her first kiss and her rendezvous with her boyfriend while babysitting at the Pascoe household, was a heartrending account of her rape at the hands of Ray’s father, Arnold Pascoe. Also of her discovery six weeks later that she was pregnant.

  The prosecuting attorney read the journal to the jury, page by tragic page. Desperate to keep the news from her parents, and with nowhere else to turn, Cecelia had approached her rapist for the necessary funds to finance an abortion. Cecelia’s diary entries chronicled her despair and, in one particularly tortured entry, her contemplation of suicide. The journal’s final entry, dated the day of her disappearance, contained a jubilant announcement that her assailant was not only going to pay for the abortion but drive her to a clinic in Oakland to undergo the procedure.

  Ray watched a parade of witnesses corroborate Cecelia’s journal. He even heard Teddy, the boy who visited Sissy in the garage, testify to the truth of her journal entries.

  Ray learned things. He learned that Cecelia was in fact going to have a baby at the time of her death, and the blood type of the unborn fetus, whatever that was, matched his father. He learned tire tracks at the landfill matched the family car. He learned that fibers from Cecelia’s sweater were found in the garage.

  But the most damning evidence came from the accused himself. In a drunken stupor on the night of his arrest, Ray’s father made incriminating statements that mortified the jury and sealed his fate.

  “Fucking whore,” he called Sissy. “Slut.” Those were his father’s words, repeated for the jury by the cops who’d heard his father utter them the night of his arrest.

  Ray told no one of what he’d witnessed between his father and Sissy. He kept what he knew locked inside him. He felt sorry for Sissy because she was dead. But he felt sorry for his father, too, and couldn’t understand why everyone seemed to hate him.

  Of course his father had to punish Sissy. Didn’t they understand? She was a whore and a slut; that’s what his father had said. But in the end, it didn’t matter. Ray’s idyllic life was over.

  Ray could no longer play outside. His mother kept him indoors to prevent him from hearing what people yelled as they drove by. But Ray heard anyway.

  The only good thing Ray remembered from those terrible days at the courthouse was the pretty blonde girl. She was about kindergarten age, and each day at lunchtime, while the courtroom was empty, the little girl would come with her mother. The massive bailiff would lift her up to the huge desk where the judge sat.

  Ray and his mother always remained inside the courtroom, while everyone else, even his father’s lawyers, went out to dine during the noontime break. He would watch as the girl handed the judge, a tall man with blond hair who walked with a limp, a brown paper bag containing deviled eggs or sandwiches or fruit. It reminded him of the times when he and his dad were building airplane models in the basement, and his mother would bring them down sandwiches and cookies. The little girl had freckles. She was very pretty.

  She was obviously the judge’s daughter, and the way he doted on her made Ray think of the times his father threw the baseball with him and rubbed his head, or wrestled with him in the backyard.

  Ray learned the little blonde girl’s name. He heard her father say it almost every day of the trial during lunchtime.

  Her name was Paige.

  Soon, the trial was over. On the last day, Ray’s mother dressed him extra carefully and told him that today, of all days, it was important he look his best. As Ray stood in his now-familiar spot in the courtroom, his mother squeezed his hand so tightly it hurt.

  The judge told his father to stand up. When he did, the judge spoke. Ray would never forget the words he said.

  “Arnold Roy Pascoe, you have been fairly tried and duly convicted by a jury of your peers for the crime of rape and two counts of murder in the first degree. Do you have anything to say before I pass sentence?”

  Ray would see his father’s defeated expression in his nightmares for years to come.

  “I got nothing to say.”

  “Very well. You are hereby sentenced to the maximum penalty the law allows me to levy for the heinous crimes you have committed. You will be remanded forthwith to the correctional facility at San Quentin, and at a time yet to be determined, you will be put to death. I will not ask God to have mercy on your soul, praying instead He direct that sentiment to the family of the child, and unborn child, you mercilessly destroyed.” The sound of the gavel echoed like a gunshot.

  The last image Ray Pascoe saw of his dad was when the bailiff led him away in chains. His father wouldn’t look him in the eye.

  As the crowd bleated and flashbulbs popped, Ray must have fainted. The next thing he remembered was being in his mother’s arms outside the courthouse as she pushed her way through the throngs to the car.

  After that, Ray’s life became a waking nightmare. Without the financial resources to move away, his mother changed their names back to her maiden name, Cowell. It was the
end of Ray’s childhood.

  Arnold Pascoe sent almost daily letters to his family from his new home on San Quentin’s infamous death row, but Ray’s mother never opened them. She tore them up and threw them away. In time, the letters stopped coming.

  But death by lethal inhalation was not to be for Arnold Roy Pascoe. Fortunately for him, the last person to die in the gas chamber in the State of California, Aaron Mitchell, was put to death in April of 1967. San Quentin’s “Green Room” went vacant as the Supreme Court examined the constitutionality of the death sentence. Arnold Pascoe and one hundred and ninety-two other death row inmates were subsequently integrated into the general prison population in 1972.

  Ray, by then in his teens, worked long hours delivering newspapers, repairing electronics, and enduring the daily hell that had become his existence. Within a few years, the beatings and taunting stopped, replaced by sidelong glances and hushed whispers.

  In June of 1973, just before Ray’s seventeenth birthday, word came to the Cowells that Arnold R. Pascoe had become a statistic. He had become one of the more than two dozen inmates murdered behind the walls of San Quentin that year. The Department of Corrections official who showed up at the house to notify Ray’s mother was met with drunken laughter. The official turned over Arnold Pascoe’s few personal effects to Ray; his mother was too intoxicated to sign for them. Only one of his father’s meager prison possessions he kept.

  A faded black-and-white photograph of a small, smiling boy and his father.

  CHAPTER 47

  Kearns spent the hour after he hung up from Farrell hiking in the hills with sheriff’s personnel. He led them to the observation post overlooking the property and to the gear the suspect had left there. The evidence technician photographed everything in place, and then he and the deputy carefully began examining the items with latex-gloved hands. Kearns said nothing when the deputy held up the sleeping bag and duffel and perused the cut-out patches of cloth where the names had been.

  “This guy didn’t take chances,” the deputy remarked, poking a finger through the hole in the duffel bag where Kearns removed the name tag. “We’ll probably find some of his hair inside the bag, but without a body to match it up to, we’re out of luck.”

  Next, Kearns led them along the route he pursued the suspect and to the place where the suspect stashed his car. They recovered the burlap vehicle camouflage. They also found Kearns’ ejected shotgun shells, as well as a lot of expended .30 carbine casings from the suspect’s weapon.

  “Looks like it went down just like you said,” the deputy observed, standing up.

  “I wasn’t lying,” Kearns said.

  “Didn’t say you was. You know how it is; we gotta verify your story.”

  “I know.”

  Thankfully, they were spared the long hike back. The deputy called someone on his handheld transceiver and within a few minutes, a sheriff’s patrol car came cruising up the fire road. Kearns and the deputy rode back; the evidence technician remained to make a plaster casting of the tire tracks left by the suspect’s vehicle.

  When they returned to Elsa’s house, the crime scene technicians were done inside her kitchen and were outside packing up their gear. Paige was inside cleaning up. At Kearns’ request, the deputy had his dispatcher phone the Napa office of the car rental agency he’d rented the Jeep from to report the damage to the tires. The deputy also had his dispatcher phone a tire outlet in Napa to come and replace the tires on Elsa’s Volvo. The sheriff’s department wanted to keep the tires from Elsa’s car as well as from the Jeep for evidence. It was by then early afternoon.

  Kearns excused himself and entered the kitchen. He began picking up debris and glass alongside Paige.

  “Are you OK?”

  She nodded, looking around at the carnage. “This is all my fault.”

  “You can’t blame yourself,” he said.

  “Can’t I? If I hadn’t come here, none of this would have happened. Aunt Elsa took me in and almost got killed for her hospitality.”

  “What about this psycho who’s after you? You don’t think he had something to do with it?”

  Paige turned to face him. “Of course he did. But it was Dad, and Sergeant Wendt, and you and your partner who convinced me to come. I was stupid enough to do it, and I dragged the killer along with me. But Aunt Elsa was the one who paid for it.” She turned away.

  “It’s not your fault,” he said to her back. “It isn’t.”

  She said nothing in reply. It took a moment for Kearns to realize she wasn’t speaking because she was silently crying. Her shoulders slumped and tears rolled down her cheeks. He was reminded of what Elsa had told him about how the ranch melted away Paige’s armor to reveal the innocence of the girl inside.

  He stepped closer and put his hands on her shoulders. Her crying became more pronounced. He turned Paige around and pulled her into his chest. Instead of resisting, which he half expected, she melted into him and buried her face in his neck. Minutes passed.

  A deputy poked his head in the rear door, started to say something, but backed out when he saw Kearns’ expression. Within a few minutes, Paige had composed herself and stepped back from Kearns. As she did, she looked into his eyes.

  “Go upstairs and take a hot bath,” Kearns told her. “Get yourself cleaned up and changed. I’ll see the deputies off. Then I’ll finish cleaning up the kitchen. Pretty soon, the car will be fixed and we can go get Elsa and Cody.”

  “OK,” she said. She started to walk away. Paige suddenly turned, leaned forward, and kissed Kearns tenderly on the lips. “Thank you,” she said. She went upstairs. He took a deep breath and watched her go.

  Once the sheriff’s deputies had left, Kearns finished cleaning up the kitchen. He made sure to wipe all the blood from the cabinets and walls, and mopped the floor with ammonia.

  As he was finishing, two vehicles drove up. One was a truck from a tire store, and the other was a large tow truck. The two occupants of the tow truck busied themselves with changing the tires to Elsa’s Volvo, using the winch to lift first one end of the station wagon and then the other. He paid the tow truck crew out of the money he’d gotten from Farrell. When that was done, they repeated the procedure with the rented Jeep. Kearns signed some papers and within an hour, they were done and gone.

  He next went into the guest cottage and emerged a half hour later, shaved and showered. Kearns was wearing jeans, boots, and a T-shirt; a jacket was slung over his shoulder. It would be twenty degrees colder in the Bay Area than in Napa Valley. His .45 was tucked in his waistband under the shirt. He packed his remaining things in the Jeep. By the time he took out the garbage and ensured the cottage, Elsa’s Volvo, and the house were locked up, Paige was coming downstairs with her hair in a ponytail and dressed for travel.

  “Let’s go,” he greeted her, extending his hand.

  “OK,” she said, taking it.

  Thirty minutes later, they met Elsa in the emergency room of the Kaiser Hospital in Napa. She was still wearing her bloody bathrobe but looked remarkably healthy given what she’d been through. Her head was bandaged and she had a slight limp, but she seemed her usual vibrant self. A sheriff’s deputy was wrapping up her statement.

  “Elsa,” Paige ran to her. They embraced. “I’m so sorry.”

  “What do you have to be sorry for, girl?”

  “This is all my fault. If I hadn’t–”

  “I don’t want to hear that kind of talk,” Elsa cut her off. “Not a word. This wasn’t anybody’s fault except that lunatic who’s after you.” Paige nodded and they embraced again. For a moment, both looked like they were going to cry. Kearns stared at his shoes.

  “Where’s Cody?” Elsa asked the deputy.

  “Dog’s at the Napa Valley Veterinary Hospital,” he said. He provided directions.

  Elsa signed herself out of the hospital and twenty minutes later, they had Cody in the back seat of the Jeep and were on the way back to her house. The veterinarian who treated Cody told them t
he dog received over forty stitches and had a bullet pass through and through his flank but would make a full recovery. Kearns paid the vet, using most of the remaining cash he’d been given by Farrell, leaving him with less than a hundred dollars. Once in the Jeep, a groggy Cody nuzzled against Elsa and fell asleep. An IV bag hung from the coat hook, its translucent tube ending under a piece of tape on one of the Lab’s forelegs.

  “So, what’s the plan now?” Elsa asked when they were in the car.

  “I’ve got to get back,” Kearns said. “My partner and I have work to do.”

  “To catch this madman?”

  “Something like that.”

  “What about you, Paige?”

  “I’m going with him.”

  “Wouldn’t it be safer for you to stay out here at the ranch with me and Cody? Surely you don’t think after what happened today, the stalker will be coming back to Napa anytime soon?”

  “Your aunt’s got a point,” Kearns said. “You’d probably be safer here than in Alameda.”

  “Maybe,” Paige said. “But I’ve got to go back. I can’t run from this; I see that now. And I can’t expose anyone else to it by being around me. Look what happened to Dad, Mrs Reyes, my co-worker, and now Aunt Elsa? All because they were connected to me.” She placed a hand on Kearns’ arm. “This is mine; I’ve got to see this through to the end.” She looked directly at Kearns. “Like you and Vernon Slocum.”

  Kearns nodded his assent.

  When they arrived back at Elsa’s house, Kearns carried Cody inside and put him into his doggie bed. He removed the empty IV fluid bag as he was instructed by the veterinarian and left the dog’s antibiotics on the kitchen table. Paige helped Elsa inside.

  “You two get going,” Elsa insisted. “I’ll be all right. But I expect a phone call from you every day.”

  “Of course,” Paige said, her eyes watering again. “I love you, Aunt Elsa.”

  “You know I love you, too,” she answered, taking her niece’s face in both hands. “Why don’t you come and live here permanently? At least take a few months off and rest. You know money isn’t an issue with either Gene or I. Come stay here with me.”