by Jance, J. A.
In the waiting room, Sergeant Lawson sat at her desk behind a glass partition. Two people rose from chairs as Gil walked into the room. Gil recognized the older man as Will Connor, the foreman at the local Discount Tire franchise. Beside him, looking miserable, stood a young man Gil also recognized. John Connor, Will’s son, had been a tight end on the Grass Valley High football team and was currently a point guard on the varsity basketball team.
Will Connor stepped over to Gil and greeted him with a firm handshake. “Sorry to drag you out of bed like this,” he said, “but I didn’t think it should wait until morning. This is my son, John.”
John stepped forward too. He held out his hand, but he averted his eyes. On the floor next to the boy’s feet sat a purse, a big yellow leather purse. On the chair beside him was a paper bag.
“Do you want to come on back?” Gil asked, thinking he’d talk to them in one of the interview rooms and gesturing toward the security door that opened into the rest of the department.
“I think we’d better off doing this outside,” Will Connor said.
“Why?” Gil asked. “What’s going on?”
“My son found this purse earlier tonight up near the Scotts Flat Reservoir,” Will said. “The purse and the shoes. I haven’t looked inside the purse, but he tells me there’s a finger inside there—a bloody finger. It’s pretty rank.”
“Crap,” Gil said, reaching for his latex gloves. “Let’s go outside and take a look.”
Once outside, Gil offered Will and John Connor some Vicks VaporRub to put under their noses and gave himself a dose of it as well. Then he opened the purse and spilled the stinking contents into a Bankers Box he had brought outside for the purpose. He used a hemostat to gather up the bloodied finger and dropped it into an evidence bag, which he quickly closed, but isolating the finger did little to diminish the odor. It had bonded onto the leather itself, leaving the gagging stench to cloud the air. Gil zipped the purse closed. That helped some too.
At that point, John reached into his pocket and extracted a cell phone. “This was in the purse,” he said. “I heard it ringing. When I tried to answer it, I found . . . that . . .” He nodded in the direction of the evidence bag.
“I called the number later on my own phone and talked to an old woman named Camilla Gastellum who lives in Sacramento. She said the purse probably belonged to her daughter and that I should bring it here and talk to you. She said her daughter’s name was Brenda. Brenda Riley.”
When it comes to solving homicides, Gil told himself, I’m three for three.
He put the lid on the Bankers Box. He would inventory all this later and then he would send it to the crime lab.
“There’s a pair of shoes too,” John said quickly, handing over a paper grocery bag. “Tennis shoes. I found them at the same time. They were with the purse.”
“Where did you find all this treasure?” Gil asked.
Will Connor answered before his son had a chance to reply. “John and some friends were up by Scotts Flat Reservoir earlier tonight. That’s where they found them. He and his buddies were just hanging out . . .”
Will was talking quickly, trying to gloss over the where, when, and why. And Gil got it. He understood. He recognized John Connor because he had seen his photo before in the sports section of the Daily Dispatch. The kid had a great record, and a whole lot of his future would be riding on what happened tonight.
Gil remembered how, as a kid, he had walked on the wild side—gone to wild keggers and hung out with the wrong crowd. For a while during his senior year, it looked like he wasn’t going to graduate with his class, but he managed to pull his GPA out of the fire at the last minute. Gil knew that no one would have been more surprised than his high school principal, Mr. Dortman, to learn that Gilbert Morris had grown up to be not only a cop but a well-respected homicide detective.
So Gil didn’t need to ask what John Connor and his pals had been doing on a Sunday afternoon and evening at the Scotts Flat Reservoir in the middle of the winter. He already knew. They had definitely been up to no good, probably with booze or girls or both.
“Who else was there?” Gil asked.
John sighed. “Me and Tony Alvarez, Pete Bishop, and Jack Whitney.”
Gil recognized those names as well. All four of the kids were starters on the Grass Valley varsity basketball team. If they got booted off the team, it was the end of what was starting to look like a championship season. Even so—even with all that at risk—John Connor had nonetheless done the right thing. He had picked up the purse and the shoes and had brought them to Gil.
“Tell me about the shoes,” Gil said. He held them up to the outside light. They were Keds, white Keds. Considering what had gone on at Richard Lowensdale’s house, they should have been speckled with blood. They weren’t, and they weren’t especially dirty either.
That struck Gil as odd. If someone had been out tramping around in the woods in them, they should have been a lot dirtier.
“They were right there on the edge of the lake,” John Connor was saying. “Like somebody walked up to the water, kicked off their shoes, and went for a swim. I looked around. It’s real sandy there. There could have been footprints coming and going, but I couldn’t see them in the dark.”
“Any sign of a struggle?”
John shook his head. “It was like she just took off her shoes and walked into the water on her own.”
Gil nodded. “We’ll need to check that out.”
There was a problem with that. The Scotts Flat Reservoir was out in the country. That made for a whole other set of complications.
“Let’s get your statement first,” Gil said. “Then we’ll need you to go back up to the lake so you can show us where all this went down.”
Gil picked up the box and the bag. “I’ll take these inside so we can maintain the chain of evidence,” he said. “Then we need to go to an interview room so I can ask you some questions.”
John nodded.
“I’ll be recording the interview,” he said. “It’s important that you tell the truth. You know it’s against the law to lie to a police officer.”
John looked briefly at his father for guidance and then nodded again. The hopeless slump of his shoulders told Gil that the kid knew he was screwed, that he understood his hope of going to West Point was all over.
“All right,” he said, sounding resigned. “Let’s get this done and over with.”
“Just to be clear,” Gil added, “I have no particular interest in knowing what you and your friends were doing up at the reservoir tonight. You weren’t drinking, were you?”
John Connor’s eyes shot up and met Gil’s questioning gaze. His shoulders straightened. “No, sir,” he said. “I was not.”
It was clearly an honest answer. John Connor had not been drinking, but that didn’t mean the others hadn’t been.
“Who else saw the shoes and the purse at the lake?” Gil asked.
“No one else. I was the only one.”
“All right, then,” Gil said, leading the way back inside. “We’ll do the interview first. That shouldn’t take long, and then we’ll go back out to the lake so you can show me what you found where. Then we’ll get you home to bed. Wouldn’t want you to miss school tomorrow.”
“No school tomorrow, sir,” John Connor said. “Martin Luther King’s birthday.”
John didn’t mean anything by that remark. It was informational only. Still it hit Gil like a blow to the gut. If his own kids were still here, he would have known that tomorrow was a school holiday.
“Come on,” he said gruffly. “Let’s get going.”
During the interview, Gil asked only a few cursory questions about what John and his friends had been doing at the reservoir in the middle of the night. He let the answer “Hanging out” pass without demanding any more details. Gil focused instead on what had happened after John and his unnamed friends came back to town. How John had gone off on his own to open the purse, what he had found there
, and his phone call to Camilla Gastellum.
When the interview was over, Gil picked up his phone and called one of the county detectives, Frank Escobar. He and Frank had worked together before on occasion, but they also went back a long way—back to some of those same wild high school keg parties. Gil wouldn’t have to explain the situation with John Connor and his friends to Frank in any great detail.
“I’ve got a problem,” Gil said, once Frank came on the phone. “A kid from Grass Valley was out at the Scotts Flat Reservoir tonight, hanging with a couple of his buddies. They found an abandoned purse and a pair of women’s tennis shoes beside the lake. I’m thinking this could be a suicide, but according to the kid there’s no sign of a body.”
“Wait a minute,” Frank said. “If I’ve got a possible suicide out in the country, what does it have to do with you?”
“It has to do with a homicide I’m working here in Grass Valley,” Gil said. “The perp whacked off a few of the victim’s fingers. Guess what the kid found inside the purse?”
“A finger?”
“Yes, and puked his guts out too.”
“Okay,” Frank said. “So my possible suicide turns out to be your possible prime suspect.”
“That’s it in a nutshell,” Gil agreed. “So if you don’t mind, once I inventory all this stuff, I’ll turn it over to the crime lab for analysis. Later on, if your potential suicide turns into an actual suicide, we’ll trade evidence as needed.”
“Can you tell me where on the Scotts Flat Reservoir?” Frank asked.
“Somewhere close to the dam,” Gil said. “I’m sure the kid can show us, but we’re going to need to give him some cover on this.”
“What kind of cover?”
“You tell me,” Gil said. “Middle of winter, middle of the night, middle of basketball season.”
“Gotcha,” Frank Escobar said. “How about if you bring your confidential informant and I bring my crime scene tech and we all have a middle of the night powwow at the Scotts Flat Reservoir?”
“Sounds good to me,” Gil said. “See you there.”
Not wanting to have someone locked in the back seat of his unmarked vehicle, Gil let John Connor ride out to the lake in the front seat of Gil’s Crown Vic with his father caravanning behind. On the way Gil couldn’t help thinking both those guys were incredibly lucky: John had a great father and Will had a great son. For a change, this was a father and son duo who actually seemed to deserve one another.
At the lake, things were exactly the way John had described them. There was no sign of a struggle—and no sign of a body either. If Brenda Riley had walked into the lake and drowned herself, as cold as the water was this time of year, it could be weeks or even months before she floated back to the surface.
In the meantime, though, Gilbert Morris was hot on the trail of clearing his third case in three days. In the annals of homicide investigations, that had to be some kind of record.
37
Laguna Beach, California
While the three dogs—two big and one tiny—gamboled on the beach and darted in and out of the water, Ali walked beside Maddy Watkins.
“They make quite a pack, don’t they?” Maddy observed. “I’ve never cared much for little dogs, but I promised Velma that I’ll take Candy back to Washington with me when the time comes, which will probably be sooner than later.”
“Her color’s bad,” Ali said.
“Yes,” Maddy said. “I know.”
As they walked, it had occurred to Ali that she had an odd collection of friends. Sister Anselm, Velma, and Maddy were all decades older than she was, yet she felt at ease with them in a way she couldn’t understand. She remembered Aunt Evie telling her once that she, Ali, was “an old soul.” Maybe being widowed in her early twenties had propelled her into a version of adulthood that usually came to people much later in life.
“Losing a friend is always hard,” Ali said.
Maddy stopped walking abruptly and looked up at her.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Not having a friend is what’s hard. When Velma and I hooked up by accident on that round-the-world-cruise, it was a stroke of good fortune for both of us. We were by far the oldest people on the trip. There were some things we physically couldn’t do, but we didn’t do those things together. These past few years our friendship has been a huge blessing. I’ll miss her terribly when she’s gone, but I wouldn’t have missed out on knowing her for the world.”
Candy was the first to give up playing. She was small enough that she had to take three steps to each of the big dogs’ one. She came back to Maddy and asked to be picked up and dried off. Ali did that while Maddy spent the next fifteen minutes expertly hurling a Frisbee for Aggie and Daphne to chase and fetch.
When the dogs finally tired of the game, the group walked sedately back to the condo building. Near the outdoor pool was a shower with a hose attachment. Maddy used that to remove lingering sand from the dogs’ paws, then they made their way into the building through the basement garage.
By the time they got back to the apartment, the night nurse had helped move Velma from the chair to the hospital bed, but she was awake again. Maddy toweled off Candy’s wet fur once more, then deposited the dog on Velma’s bed.
“You keep her while I get the dog food dished up,” Maddy said. “Once the dogs are fed, I’ll see about rustling up some food for the humans.”
Supper—a collection of cheeses, crackers, fresh grapes, and tangerines—was accompanied by glasses of chardonnay and eaten on trays in the living room. Velma barely touched her food or her wine, but at least it was offered. It was there if she wanted it. That was what Maddy offered her—the dignity of making her own choices.
They were still sitting over glasses of wine when there was a knock on the door and the dogs went into full-throated barking. Maddy gave Ali a wink.
“That will be Mr. Killjoy come to call. He doesn’t like the dogs, and the feeling is entirely mutual. They don’t like him either.”
“Just a minute,” she called. Maddy swiftly gathered glasses and trays and carried them into the kitchen. Then, before opening the door, she silenced the dogs and ordered them onto their rugs.
Ten minutes with Carson Trimble was enough to make Ali incredibly grateful for her son, Chris. Carson was arrogant and opinionated. To her misfortune, his hireling nurse had been outside smoking a cigarette when her boss arrived. He spoke mainly to her, asking the nurse pointed questions about Velma’s condition rather than addressing his queries to the patient herself. He made it plain that he regarded both Maddy and Ali as unwelcome guests who should have had brains enough to go away and let his mother die in peace.
When Maddy announced that she was going to go clean up the kitchen, Ali followed.
“What a jerk!” Ali muttered.
Maddy smiled. “I told you so. He has a whole set of rules about how he expects his mother’s death to play out, and it annoys him that she’s doing things her way instead of his. As I said, you ever met my son, you’d think he and Carson Trimble were twins.”
The mention of twins, real or not, reminded Ali that she needed to go down to her room and make some phone calls. By the time she returned to the guest suite, it was well after dark. Considering the time difference and her mother’s early bedtime, she decided not to call her parents. Instead she called Chris and Athena.
“How are things?” Ali asked her son.
“Athena is already in bed but probably not asleep,” he said. “We went to Grandma and Grandpa’s for dinner. That way I didn’t make a mess in the kitchen. The laundry is done to the best of my ability. Athena’s hospital suitcase is packed and waiting in the entryway closet.”
Ali could have asked if “the best of my ability” meant that the colored clothing was improperly sorted, but she didn’t. Chris had kept his color blindness a secret from her for a long time, and she decided to let that bit of family fiction go unchallenged.
“In other words, she’s still a l
ittle grumpy.”
“Do you think?”
“She’s pregnant,” Ali counseled. “If you were growing twins in your body, you’d probably be grumpy too.”
“We see Dr. Dixon again on Wednesday,” Chris said. “I’m hoping she’ll say it’s time to induce labor.”
Ali heard the unreasonable assumption in what Chris said. He was hoping that once the babies were born, he’d be getting his wife back. Ali understood the reality of that particular pipe dream. Chris and Athena wouldn’t be getting their previous lives back for the next eighteen or so years if ever.
“Get some sleep then,” she told her son. “You’re going to need it.”
She spent half an hour IMing back and forth to B. He had moved from his conference hotel to a different one in downtown D.C. She brought him up to date on the day’s happenings and about what she had learned from James Laughlin about Ermina Cunningham Blaylock.
She was in bed and sleeping soundly when her cell phone rang at one o’clock in the morning. Ali had left the cell plugged in and charging on the bathroom counter, so it took a few moments for her to stagger through the unfamiliar apartment to find it. She recognized the number. The call had originated at Camilla Gastellum’s house, but it wasn’t Camilla on the phone.
“Ali Reynolds?” the caller asked.
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry to call in the middle of the night like this, but my mother insisted. I’m Valerie Sandoz, Brenda Riley’s sister.”
The estranged sister, Ali thought in relief. Camilla must have called her after all.
“Richard Lowensdale is dead,” Valerie announced without further preamble.
“He’s dead?” Ali asked. “When?”
“As far as I can tell, the detective didn’t say when exactly. It must have happened sometime over the weekend.”
“How did he die?” Ali asked.
“Somebody, Brenda most likely, put a plastic bag over his head. He suffocated.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. Ali heard Camilla’s forceful objection to that conclusion rumble through the phone, but Ali was busy trying to sort out what she had just been told.