by Larry Darter
Drew opened a manila file folder with “Lease” hand-printed on the tab. There was a copy of a lease agreement and some canceled checks for past rent payments. Then he found something interesting, copies of several letters Silverman had written to her landlord. In one letter that seemed to be about an eviction dispute, Silverman wrote, “Please never threaten me again, saying if I didn’t pay the rent ‘something bad will happen to you and your dogs,’ or that you’ll come up here and ‘throw your ass into the bottom of the canyon.’ I take such threats seriously.” Because of the wording and the use of the quotation marks, it seemed to Drew that Silverman had been quoting threats made by her landlord word for word. In another letter, Silverman cited another threat from the landlord, “Something terrible will happen to you and your daughter and your dogs. I have a key.” Drew copied the landlord’s name, Joan Keller, and her address in his notebook.
When Ortega came into the room, Drew showed him the copies of Silverman’s letters and summarized what he had read.
“Sounds like we need to talk with the landlady,” Ortega said. “Seems there was some bad blood between her and the victim. We could construe those as credible threats.”
“Yes, she is definitely in the frame as a person of interest,” Drew agreed.
“Box that stuff up, and we’ll take it back to the bureau with us,” Ortega said. “The SID techs are about finished. We need to do a neighborhood canvas to see if anyone heard a gunshot or saw anything suspicious over the weekend.”
Once the SID technicians had left the house and were loading up their equipment, Ortega signed off on the crime scene. Drew and Tomlinson walked out to her black and white. Her partner Barnett was already behind the wheel, ready to go. Tomlinson took a blank shake card out of her uniform pocket. She wrote her name and a phone number on it and then handed it to Drew. “Just in case you need anything from me,” she said with another radiant smile. “You have a card?”
Drew nodded. He reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out one of his printed business cards, and handed it to Tomlinson.
“Hey partner, we have to roll on a double D,” Barnett said out the open car window. Double D was cop-speak for a domestic dispute.
Tomlinson rolled her eyes. “Call me anytime,” she said to Drew. Then the attractive female cop got in the passenger side of the squad car. She waved at Drew as Barnett drove away.
Drew had thought about asking her for her number, but he hadn’t since sexual harassment was a hot button issue at the LAPD. Tomlinson had solved the dilemma by offering it up. Maybe he would call her after the holidays.
Ortega and Drew started the house to house canvas, hoping to garner information that would help nail down the time the murder had happened. Two hours later, after talking to dozens of people in the neighborhood, they had found no one who had heard a gunshot or had offered any useful information. They had spoken with the neighbor who had called in the open door. He told them he had seen one of Silverman’s dogs outside wandering the street that morning. The neighbor said that was unusual. Silverman never allowed her dogs out of the house unless she was walking them. That’s what had prompted him first to call and then visit the residence when the call went unanswered. He had discovered the back door ajar and got no response when he had called out to Silverman. Worried, he had then called the police.
Another neighbor asked the detectives about Silverman’s dogs. She said she had seen animal control taking the dogs away and expressed her concern that they might destroy the dogs if no one came forward to adopt them. Ortega, a dog lover, promised the woman he would mention the dogs when they interviewed Silverman’s friends and relatives to see if someone might take the animals.
Ortega and Drew got back in their car after speaking with the last neighbor they thought had lived close enough to have possibly seen or heard something.
“Someone whacked her, left the back door open, and the dogs got out,” Drew said.
“So whoever let the dogs out is our shooter,” Ortega said. He muttered to himself, “Who let the dogs out?” He turned to Drew, punched him playfully on the shoulder, and parroted the old song titled “Doggie” performed by the Bahamian group Baha Men that had been popular in the late nineties. “Who let the dogs out? Woof, woof, woof, woof.” He sang again, “Who, who, who, let the dogs out? Woof, woof, woof.”
Drew had never heard the song, but he laughed with Ortega anyway since Ortega was such an awful singer. “We just have to answer your musical question, and we’ll solve the case,” he said.
Ortega nodded. “Well, first, we need to go back to the bureau and go through the paperwork you collected to find a next of kin,” he said.
“Got that covered,” Drew said. “I found a day planner on the kitchen counter on the way out. There was one of those pre-printed emergency notification pages in the front.” Drew took out his notebook. “The victim listed a cousin, Shirley Sutton, as her emergency contact.”
“Got an address?” Ortega said.
“Yes, it’s on Boughton Place in Studio City,” Drew said, pulling up the map application on his phone. He put the address into the app. “It’s south of Maxwelton Road, which runs off Laurel Canyon Boulevard.”
“Okay, then we’ll do the death knock first and get it out the way,” Ortega said. The detectives headed north for Studio City.
Chapter 3
On the drive to the cousin’s address, Ortega schooled his young partner on the investigation’s next steps. “I have a feeling this one is going to be more involved than the first case we worked together,” Ortega said. “This case will be an excellent learning experience for you. I’ll handle the evidence, the murder book, and the daily chrono. You’ll do the interviews.”
“Okay,” Drew said.
“Once we’ve made the notification, we’ll start focusing on the victim—her friends, what she did when she wasn’t working, enemies, all that stuff. Find out whether she had a love interest. Then we figure out who benefited from her death.”
It took them twenty-five minutes to get to Shirley Sutton’s house at the end of a cul-de-sac on Boughton Place. Studio City is a quaint neighborhood with tree-lined residential streets and trendy dining just over the hill from the Hollywood bustle. Lively Ventura Boulevard offers several classic sushi houses, plus small-plates spots and stylish gastropubs. The CBS Studio Center that dated back to the silent film era gave the neighborhood its name.
“Ever done one of these before?” Ortega said.
“A few times when I was in patrol,” Drew said, “with accident victims.”
Ortega nodded. “Not to belittle those experiences, this is a little different. You never know how people will react.”
“I know,” Drew said. “I remember the day the cops came to our house to notify my mother of my sister’s murder.”
He looked at Drew. “Your sister was a homicide victim?” he said. “Did they get the killer?”
“It was eighteen years ago,” Drew said. “He was a neighbor, a guy six years older than my sister. He was a stalker, a Fatal Attraction type thing.”
“What happened to him?” Ortega said.
“He got twenty years,” Drew said. “The prosecutor gave him a plea deal in return for a confession. He’s still inside, up at Pelican Bay. For a few more years, anyway.”
After getting to the door and pushing the doorbell, Ortega looked at Drew, sensing he was about to say something more when a woman opened the door.
“Ms. Sutton?” Drew said. “Shirley Sutton?”
“Yes?”
“Ms. Sutton, I’m Detective Howard Drew with the LAPD, and this is my partner Detective Rudy Ortega. I’m sorry to disturb you on Christmas Eve. We need to speak with you concerning your cousin, Fiona Silverman.”
Drew held out his badge wallet. Sutton looked at it apprehensively for a moment, seeming almost to recoil from it, as if she sensed the badge brought bad news with it.
“May we come in to talk to you, ma’am?” Ortega said.
&n
bsp; Sutton stepped back and opened the door wider. She looked to be in her late forties, with gray-streaked dark shoulder-length hair and a thin build. She wore a colorful Christmas sweater over black slacks.
Ortega closed the door after they entered, and the detectives followed Sutton into a spacious living room with a large Christmas tree in one corner with many gaily wrapped Christmas gifts beneath it. Sutton sat on a couch with a muted beige fabric covering. Ortega and Drew took nearby chairs of the same fabric.
“What about Fiona?” Sutton said. “Has there been an accident? Is she okay?”
No matter how many times he did this, Drew expected it would never be easy. He leaned forward a little in his chair. He worried about getting it right but decided on the direct approach.
“Ms. Sutton, I am very sorry to have to tell you this,” he said. “Your cousin, Fiona Silverman, is dead. She was the victim of a homicide.”
“Dear God,” Sutton gasped. She involuntarily covered her mouth with a hand, her face in a pained grimace. Drew watched her closely.
“When? How did it happen?”
“We found her in her home about one o’clock this afternoon,” Drew said. “She’d been shot.”
“This is a terrible shock,” Sutton said, wringing her hands.
“Are you here alone, Ms. Sutton?” Ortega said. “Is there someone we can call to be with you?”
Sutton shook her head. “My husband is out finishing his shopping,” Sutton said. “He always waits until the last minute. Our children are all grown. They won’t be here until tomorrow. But, no, I’m fine, Detective. My husband will be back soon. How did you know to contact me?”
“Ms. Silverman had a day planner at home,” Drew said. “She had listed you in the front of it as her emergency contact.”
“I see,” Sutton said. “Fiona was family, but we were never terribly close. She was orphaned at a young age. I know she valued her family, but she had only a few other distant relatives besides me. Fiona’s friends were her life. She was always closest to her friends.”
“Is there anyone else we should notify, Ms. Sutton?” Ortega said.
“No, I suppose I was her closest living relative,” Sutton said. “I’ll notify the rest of the family and her friends I’m acquainted with.”
“I know this is a difficult time,” Drew said. “But, do you feel up to answering a few questions, Ms. Sutton?”
“Yes, I’m fine, detective,” Sutton said. “Of course, I want to help you in any way I can.”
“When did you last see or speak to Ms. Silverman?” Drew said.
“The Thanksgiving holiday,” Sutton said. “She always spent Thanksgiving with friends, but she came by in the afternoon to see us. We had dessert and coffee.”
“We’re assuming she wasn’t married,” Drew said. “From what we saw at the house, it looked like she lived alone. Is that correct?”
“Yes, Fiona was divorced,” Sutton said. “She was married briefly fifteen or maybe sixteen years ago. When I say briefly, I mean only a matter of months before she and her husband divorced.”
“Does he still live in L.A.?” Drew said.
“Oh no,” Sutton said. “Tragically, Mark, Fiona’s ex-husband, died of a drug overdose about a year after they divorced. I don’t think they ever knew for sure whether it was accidental or suicide. Fiona had hoped for a reconciliation. She took Mark’s death very hard. She had a nervous breakdown.”
“Any relationships since the divorce, as far as you know?” Drew said.
“About three years after Mark died, she dated a man, a single father with two children,” Sutton said. “Eventually, the family moved in with her. But, the relationship failed.”
“What happened?” Drew said.
“She and her boyfriend attempted to produce a Broadway musical, using her money from a successful book deal. The project was a complete disaster. Fiona ended up broke and had to sell her house. I think Fiona blamed him for losing her money.”
“Do you recall his name?” Drew said.
“Yes, David Zuckerman,” Sutton said.
“Is he still around?” Drew said.
“I don’t know,” Sutton said. “But, I know his children still live here. Even though the relationship with David ended, Fiona remained close to the children. She had become a mother to them—a boy and a girl. I think she felt they were the children she always had desperately wanted. The girl even lived with Fiona for five years after she and David split up.”
“Do you know their names?”
“Sabrina and Rowan,” Sutton said. “I suppose they are both in their mid-twenties now. Rowan was like an adopted son to Fiona. The son she never had. They were very close.”
“No current romantic partners?” Drew said.
“No, not really. Despite her many friendships, I think Fiona was desperately lonely. I know she had something of a crush on her agent, Nelson Welch. She wanted an intimate relationship with him, but he didn’t reciprocate her feelings. He did a lot for her, however, besides only being her agent. They went to dinner and the movies. He took her to her doctor’s appointments. Things like that. But, it always only a platonic relationship, despite Fiona wanting it to be more.”
“So, she spent a lot of time with him?”
“Yes, probably more time than she spent with anyone else.”
“Any other friends you can give me the names of, people we might want to talk with?” Drew said.
“Fiona had so many friends,” Sutton said. “I only know of a handful of her closest friends.”
“Any names you could give us would be helpful,” Drew said. “Would you say her agent, Nelson Welch, was her closest friend?”
“Heavens, no,” Sutton said. “That would be William Hurst. Fiona considered Bill her soul mate, her best friend in the world since they met in college at USC back in the early nineties.”
“Did they have a romantic relationship?”
“No, never,” Sutton said. “Fiona loved Bill, but they were like siblings. It was always only a platonic friendship. Bill walked Fiona down the aisle and gave her away when she married Mark. He married someone else back in New York. Fiona was a bridesmaid at his wedding.”
Drew nodded. “Any other friends?”
Sutton named a half dozen of her cousin’s other friends she knew and Drew jotted the names down in his notebook.
“Do you know of any enemies she might have had?” Drew said. “Anyone she might have had problems with?”
“Fiona was often at odds with her landlord,” Sutton said. “She rented the cottage where she lived.”
“What was the problem there?”
“Fiona was always falling behind on the rent payments,” Sutton said. “She was a journalist, an author, and a screenwriter. She was brilliant and creative in so many ways. But, Fiona did not do well with managing money. She was always broke. The landlord wanted the rent paid on time and tried to evict Fiona several times when it wasn’t.”
“Was it bad enough you might think the landlord would have harmed her?”
“It’s hard to say. Fiona told me her landlord threatened her a few times. Once, she sent Fiona a note telling her she had a gun and threatened to shoot her dogs if Fiona didn’t move out. Another time she sent a note threatening to throw Fiona into the bottom of Benedict Canyon. But, everything with Fiona was high drama. You never knew how seriously to take her.”
“Of all those you’ve named, do you have a reason to suspect any of them might have wanted to harm your cousin?”
“I don’t think so, I mean other than the landlord, and even that I think is unlikely.”
“How about her ex-boyfriend, the agent, or William Hurst?”
Sutton shook her head. “Fiona saw the children regularly, but I’m sure she had had no contact with David since their relationship ended. I don’t know Nelson well, but he seems the milquetoast type. I can’t imagine he would hurt a fly.”
“And, William Hurst?”
“Bill, definitely n
ot. Whenever Fiona had money problems, it was Bill who always bailed her out. He’s very wealthy, the heir of a billionaire family real estate empire in New York City. I know Bill sent her ten thousand dollars once, and twenty-five thousand another time. He loved Fiona like a sister. He simply would have never harmed her.”
“We understand your cousin once wrote and published a memoir that was more or less a mafia exposé from her personal recollections,” Drew said. “You think there is any chance the mob might have wanted to exact revenge for the book?”
“Not a chance,” Sutton said. “The guys she wrote about were probably a hundred years old by then if they were even still alive. There was nothing in her book that would have upset anyone in the mob. If anything, they probably appreciated the publicity.”
Drew nodded. “Good enough, I think that’s all for now,” he said, “unless you have questions of us.”
“Do you know what happened?” Sutton said. “Was it a robbery?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out, Ms. Sutton,” Drew said. “We’re at the very beginning of the investigation. We’ve got more questions than answers at the moment.”
Sutton nodded. “I can’t imagine it could have been a robbery,” she said. “Fiona wasn’t a wealthy woman. I can’t visualize anything she owned that was valuable enough to justify murder.”
Drew thanked Sutton for her time. On the way out, he promised to update her when the detectives made progress with the case.
At the door, Sutton asked, “Do you think you will catch the person responsible, detectives?”
“We usually do,” Ortega said confidently.
Back in the car as he drove out of the neighborhood, Ortega said, “Good job on the interview, Youngblood. You missed nothing I would have asked.”
