by Lee Goldberg
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Paul’s was a lot like the coffee shops that used to be all over Los Angeles, like Ships, Bob’s Big Boy, and Sambo’s, but were fast becoming extinct. Eve loved them and this one was the real deal. The tabletops in each vinyl-upholstered booth were shellacked with business cards from local merchants, something she’d never seen before. The place was popular. There were at least two dozen customers at this early hour.
She ordered coffee from a young waitress who looked like a college student squeezing in a job before her day of classes. Cleve showed up a few minutes later and ordered a cup of coffee, too. He wore jeans and a UC Merced sweatshirt. GO BOBCATS! was written across the chest.
“Have you been to Merced before?” he asked.
“Not really. I took a prisoner to Atwater Penitentiary once and stopped at the In-N-Out off the freeway here on my way back to LA.”
“I was born and raised here. Half the population is Hispanic, another twelve percent is Asian, mostly Hmong refugees. We’ve got a twelve percent unemployment rate and twenty-eight percent of our adult population didn’t graduate high school. Home values have dropped sixty percent from ten years ago. Sixty percent. I keep asking myself why I stay.”
“There must be something that keeps you from moving.”
“Family, I suppose. My heart is here, well, half of it, anyway. The other half is in LA with my kids.” Cleve looked into his empty coffee cup. “The Merced cops came by the office yesterday. All they told me is that Tanya and the kids are gone and there might be ‘foul play’ involved. What does that even mean? I’ve been imagining the worst. I can’t help it. I need to know if my kids are okay. Are they okay?”
She didn’t want to tell him yet that they were dead and dismembered. She was spared giving him an immediate evasive answer by the waitress, who filled Cleve’s coffee cup and refilled Eve’s. Once the waitress was gone, Eve spoke in a low voice.
“A friend of Tanya’s reported her missing yesterday and your kids didn’t show up for school. We went to the house to investigate and discovered evidence of a struggle. Now we’re searching for Tanya and your kids. I’m hoping you can help us find them by answering a few questions.”
“You aren’t telling me everything.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Because you think I had something to do with whatever has happened to them.”
“I need to rule that out,” she said.
“What about Tanya’s boyfriend?”
“What about him?”
“He’s beating my kids and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s abusing her, too.” Cleve poured four sugars into the coffee and took a sip. It seemed to take some of the grogginess from his face. “I told her to get the hell out of there or I’d go to court for custody of the kids. She said I was overreacting to a little ‘parental discipline’ but he isn’t the Goddamn parent in that house—she is.”
Eve took out her pad and pen and began making notes. “What kind of discipline are we talking about?”
“Troy told me that Jared slapped him across the face for drinking out of a carton of milk. Knocked the carton right out of his hands and got milk all over him. Caty saw the whole thing. And gave him hell. She’s very protective of her brother. She treats him more like her child.”
Eve had felt the same way about her brother and sister when she was growing up. She still did.
“Where was Tanya?” Eve asked.
Cleve scowled. “She was off ‘acting’ somewhere when it happened. She thinks she’s a star. That’s why we split.”
She thought about Caitlin, caught between her mom and her dad and Jared, just trying to hold everything together, to create some kind of stability for herself and her brother separate from the shit happening around them. She knew exactly how Caitlin felt. In fact, just thinking about it brought back that same anxious pressure in her chest again, as if she were still trapped in that situation herself.
“Tell me more about why you broke up.” It probably wasn’t relevant but she wanted to keep him talking about the family dynamics and see if something useful to her came out.
“We’d been married about four years.” He took another sip of coffee, to fortify himself. “I was long-haul trucking because there was no work here. She was a housewife and doing plays at the community theater. The newspaper called her the ‘Meryl Streep of Merced.’ The talent pool isn’t very deep here. Before Tanya came along, a tree stump was the Meryl Streep of Merced. But it went to her head and she hated it here, not that I can blame her for that. So she took off for LA with the kids. I couldn’t fight her for custody back then. But I can now and I told her I would. That’s why she dumped Jared . . . which isn’t very Goddamn effective if you haven’t left his house, is it?”
Her question had paid off in interesting ways. His take on Tanya’s breakup contradicted Jared’s story. The truth was probably somewhere in between. It was too soon to tell if the difference was significant or not. She was more interested now in Cleve’s child custody battle with Tanya.
“What makes you think you can get custody of the kids now?”
“I’ve got a job that keeps me in town, I’m engaged, and Tanya’s an absentee parent with an abusive boyfriend who smacks my kids.”
“Did Tanya ever confirm any of the abuse?”
Cleve looked at Eve like she was a moron. “And give me ammo for the judge? Hell no. But the kids will. They hate Jared and love Emily.”
“Who is Emily?”
“My fiancée,” Cleve said. “We live together. She has two kids from a previous marriage. They are about the same age as Caty and Troy. We’ll be a real-life Brady Bunch.”
“Where were you the last two days?”
The Merced Police covered this but she wanted to hear it for herself.
“Here at work. I sell farming equipment. You can call the office.” He leaned forward on the table, narrowing the distance between the two of them, and looked her in the eye. “What you should be asking is where was Jared.”
She didn’t see the harm in answering that question. “He was on location shooting a Western in Lancaster.”
“He’s still responsible.” Cleve leaned back again. “Maybe she ran off with the kids so Jared couldn’t hurt them and I couldn’t get custody.”
“We’re exploring every possibility.”
“What are the others?” he asked.
Eve wasn’t ready to tell him any of that yet and there was still a lot she didn’t know. She glanced at her watch. It could take her longer to get home than it did to get up here. She’d be hitting the city in the middle of the four-hour-long morning “rush hour.”
“I need to get back to Los Angeles and the investigation.” Eve took out her card and slid it across the table to Cleve. “Here’s my contact information. You can call me anytime.”
He picked up her card but didn’t look at it. “You ask a lot of questions but you don’t answer many.”
She left a few dollars on the table, slid out of the booth, and stood up. “It’s an active investigation, Mr. Kenworth. I don’t want to say something now that ends up not being true.”
“That’s why you won’t say if my kids are okay,” he said, waiting for her to argue the point, but she didn’t. “I’ll be in LA by this afternoon. I’ll stay there until you find my kids.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“Yes, it is,” he said. “I’ll call you and let you know where I am when I get there.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Traffic was heavier on the way back but it didn’t make any difference. Drivers saw her flashing lights in the rearview mirror and gave her a wide berth, even in Valencia, where the freeway became a parking lot. The rush-hour drivers came to a dead stop to stare at the columns of smoke coming from a new brush fire in Stevenson Ranch, the flames raging across the parched hills, stoked by low humidity and strong, hot winds from the desert blowing toward the sea. The winds could potentially drive the flames to Malibu, twenty-eight m
iles away as the crow flies, if they weren’t snuffed in a hurry. It had happened before.
Despite the slowdown in Valencia, she managed to get back to the Lost Hills station shortly after 10:00 a.m. Duncan Pavone, Wally Biddle, and Stan Garvey were in the squad room when Eve arrived and were looking at her work on the dry-erase boards. She took a few granola bars from the box in the back and joined them at the boards, letting her eyes drift over the crime scene photos.
“Glad you could make it,” Duncan said to her, glancing at his watch. “But I can’t blame you for sleeping in. Getting the case up on the board like this must have been a lot of work last night and it’s a good thing you did it. Crockett and Tubbs have been assigned to your task force and this has helped me bring them up to speed.”
Eve tore open the wrapper on a granola bar and started eating. “When did we become a task force? And when did it become mine?”
“After Sheriff Lansing saw you on the news last night,” Duncan said.
“Translation,” Biddle said. “You get to run the task force because you’re young, you have nice tits, and were in a viral video that got great PR for the department in the middle of the county jail shitstorm.”
Garvey added, “As opposed to one of the detectives who’ve actually spent years grinding away and solving homicides and know what the fuck they’re doing.”
“Stop whining. This isn’t new,” she said, getting in his face. “That’s the way you’ve felt since I walked in the door three months ago.”
Garvey wasn’t intimidated. “What did you expect? A standing ovation from the guys who actually earned their promotions?”
“No, Tubbs, this is exactly what I expected.” Eve stepped away from him and shifted her gaze between the three men. “Because it’s the same sexist attitude that would have shut me out of Robbery-Homicide for another ten years . . . and that I still would have faced if I ever got in. So I used the leverage that video gave me to get myself here overnight. Did I leapfrog over people who’ve been struggling to get into Robbery-Homicide for years and haven’t made it? Yes, I did. Do I care? Nope. Do I deserve to be here? It doesn’t matter because here I am, boys. You don’t like it? Too bad. Suck it up or get out. I’m sure the sheriff will give me two other detectives to replace you. They might even stay.”
Biddle and Garvey glowered but didn’t move. The tension was so thick that it was as palpable as humidity. But it felt great to Eve to finally say what she’d been feeling. She wasn’t going to apologize for being ambitious or using the opportunities that came her way to get what she wanted.
She turned her attention back to the crime scene photos and took a bite of her granola bar. Fuck them. She had three murders to solve, four if she counted the dog . . . and she did.
Duncan cleared his throat. “Well, now that we’ve got the housekeeping preliminaries out of the way, let’s get to work. You two go talk to Tanya’s Pilates instructor and the other women in the class. They were probably the last ones to see her alive and might be able to point us to her Realtor.”
Biddle and Garvey headed for the door.
“Wait, before you go,” Eve said, her back to them, her eyes still on the board, “there’s more you need to know. Tanya’s ex-husband, Cleve Kenworth, claims that her boyfriend, Jared Rawlins, was beating the kids, maybe her, too. So we should probably talk to the teachers at the kids’ school, see if they saw any signs of abuse.”
Duncan looked at her. “When did you talk to Kenworth?”
“I went up to Merced.” Her gaze kept going back to one of the photos from the kitchen and she didn’t know why. She gave it a closer look. “That’s why I’m late. I just came back.”
“You mean, after you did all this,” Duncan waved his hand at the board, “you got in a car and drove to Merced.”
“I took a shower and changed my clothes first,” she said, but her attention was on the photo. It showed the blood spatter on the cupboards and the boxes of food on the counter.
“Did you sleep at all last night?”
“I got a little nap.” Eve took a bite of her granola bar, then regarded the empty caramel-colored wrapper in her hand. It was a Nature Valley Sweet & Salty Nut Granola Bar. Her gaze shifted across the squad room to the big box that the bar came from, then to the identical blood-spattered box in the photo of Tanya’s kitchen. Aha, that was it. They both ate the same granola bars. So what?
Biddle groaned but took his seat again. Garvey leaned against the wall and sighed. Duncan shook his head. Eve looked at the three men, and their judgmental expressions annoyed her.
“What?” Eve said. “I’ve got a job to do and I’m doing it.”
“It isn’t laziness or a lack of commitment if you eat, sleep, and occasionally take a crap while you’re working a case,” Duncan said. “In fact, I do my best thinking on the toilet.”
“Is that why you’re in there for hours?” Biddle said.
“I got one word for you,” Garvey said to Duncan. “Metamucil.”
“That’s like offering kryptonite to Superman,” Duncan said. “I’d never solve a case.”
The three men shared a laugh, bonding over her overzealousness, and she let it go because it seemed to dissipate the lingering tension from her speech.
“Cleve thinks Jared is our guy,” she said.
“So do I,” Duncan said.
“I don’t see it,” Eve said, her attention shifting back to the damn granola box. It wasn’t unusual that Tanya and the detectives bought the same box of granola bars. They were sold in bulk at Costco on an end-cap pallet. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people in the area had the same box in their pantry. So why was it bugging her?
“Here’s why I think it’s Jared,” Duncan said and tapped his finger on one of the crime scene photos of the bathroom. “When there’s no sign of a break-in, and there’s this kind of bloodshed, the killer is usually someone who had an intimate relationship with the victim and has a lot of rage.”
She studied the bathroom photo, paying particular attention to the gallon jugs of Clorox and Simple Green on the sink and the Lysol bottle on the floor.
“That’s certainly what we’ve got here,” Biddle said. “This guy is sleeping on the couch in his own fucking house. She might as well have cut off his balls and worn them as a broach. So yeah, Jared looks real good for this. We should be focusing our attention on breaking his way-too-good alibi.”
Eve studied the cleansers and realized what was bothering her. There was a string to follow here, but she wasn’t sure if it would lead anywhere. She needed to go back to the house to find out.
“Sure, we can do that,” Eve said. “Let’s get to work.”
She headed for the door.
“Where are you going?” Duncan called after her.
“The crime scene,” she said. “I want another look.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
On the road leading to the cul-de-sac, she passed a Topanga State Park trailhead—a dirt parking lot and a foot trail that led up into the hills. The sheriff’s department K-9 unit was using the lot as a staging area and a half dozen deputies and their dogs were preparing to begin their search for Tanya and her kids. No, Eve corrected herself, they were looking for their bodies.
There were three TV satellite trucks parked at the mouth of the cul-de-sac, the reporters for each station getting ready to broadcast live for the midmorning newscasts, using the crime scene as a backdrop. Eve hoped to blend into the background like an extra and leave before they went on the air.
The CSU van and two patrol cars were parked in front of the house, which was surrounded by crime scene tape and manned by a deputy with a clipboard. She parked in front of the house, put on her gloves and shoe covers, and approached the uniformed deputy who guarded the empty house. It was Clayton, instantly recognizable by his wraparound shades, which there was no reason to be wearing this early in the morning. He recognized her, too, made a note of her name on his clipboard, and then handed it to her for a signature.
/> Eve gestured to the news vans as she signed the paper that kept track of everybody who entered the house. “How long have they been here?”
“Since daybreak,” Clayton said. “For the morning shows. Otherwise it’s been quiet. Only ones in and out have been CSU.”
Eve lifted the crime scene tape and went into the kitchen. She peeked into the hallway and saw Noomis cutting a sample from the living room carpet and another tech scraping something off the wall in the hallway. They both nodded at her, acknowledging her presence.
She returned to the kitchen and opened the pantry. There was a 40-ounce jar of Kirkland cashews, a 78-ounce box of Kellogg’s Raisin Bran, a box of 3,000 square feet of Kirkland plastic wrap, a 45-pound bag of Kirkland dog food, a box of 48 assorted Nutri-Grain snack bars, and other bulk items, most of them from Kirkland, Costco’s own budget brand.
She opened the cupboard under the sink and saw a 135-ounce bottle of Kirkland dish soap, a box of 115 Kirkland Premium Dishwasher Pacs, an empty box of 50 Soft Scrub latex gloves, and a discarded wrapper for 21 Scotch-Brite scrub sponges.
Eve got up and went to the magnet-covered refrigerator, opened it, and looked inside. The items that caught her eye were the 30-ounce container of French’s mustard, the box of 25 Stonyfield YoKids Organic Yogurt Squeezers, the 64-ounce jar of Kirkland Signature Real Mayonnaise, the 48-ounce jar of Kirkland Organic Creamy Peanut Butter, and a 48-ounce jar of Smucker’s Strawberry Jelly.
She left the kitchen, went down the hall, and paused outside the bathroom door. In addition to the gallon bottles of Clorox and Simple Green on the sink, which were in Eve’s crime scene photos, she also saw smaller spray bottles of Clorox and Lysol on the floor. Eve took a picture of them with her phone, then went out to the garage.
Eve walked up to the Walmart bag beside the mop and bucket and crouched beside it to look inside. What was inside gave her a chill. The string had led somewhere.
Eve took several pictures of the Walmart bag and its contents and approached Noomis in the living room.
