by Larry Darter
“I have more to tell you, Detective,” Hurst said. “I’m only trying to give you an idea of how violent William can be. He’s a heartless sadist who once trapped me in a revolving-doorway of a Midtown high-rise. William shoved the door and trapped me inside, going around and around until I became dizzy. When he stopped, I fell out onto the sidewalk. William stood there guffawing—like it was the funniest thing he’d seen in his life. An elderly man was also caught in the door. William yelled at him, ‘Idiot! Idiot!’ while laughing all the while.”
“So, what you’re saying is it wouldn’t surprise you if we established your brother killed Fiona Silverman in cold blood?” Drew said.
“Not in the least,” Hurst said. “I know Fiona was William’s erstwhile friend, but I also believe she helped him cover up whatever he did to Valerie. She knew all about it. I have no doubt.”
“You think he might have killed her so she wouldn’t reveal what she knew to the New York prosecutors?” Drew said.
“No, that’s not what I think,” Hurst said. “Fiona Silverman was a mobster’s daughter who famously prioritized loyalty and secrecy… omertà. I don’t believe she would have ever cooperated with the authorities. But, I’m certain you must be aware William periodically sent cash infusions to Silverman, who was financially strapped.”
“Yes, your brother told me himself he had sent her a lot of money,” Drew said. “He said he had been happy to help her because they were such close friends.”
“That’s hogwash,” Hurst said. “William, our family for that matter, is obscenely rich. That said, William is by far the cheapest bastard I have ever known. I don’t care how close he and Fiona were supposed to have been. William didn’t loan and sure didn’t gift that kind of money to anyone.”
“You believe your brother was buying her silence?” Drew said.
“In a manner of speaking,” Hurst said. “But, look, Detective. Whatever Fiona knew, she had kept it to herself for nearly twenty years. I don’t believe William ever worried she might betray him, that she might tell the authorities what she knew. I believe that Fiona, desperate for money, had started to use her knowledge about what happened to Valerie as leverage to get money out of William. Maybe extortion is too strong a word for it. But I think she might have suggested it as a reason William should send her money.”
“And he decided it was time to put an end to the blackmail,” Drew said.
“Precisely. Such an arrangement would have infuriated William. He has never been one to allow someone to take advantage of him. In fact, that is something I feel resulted in Valerie’s demise.”
“How so?”
“A few weeks before she disappeared, Valerie asked me for a loan. She had already announced her intention to divorce William. He had cut her off financially. Upon learning I’d loaned her some money, William confronted me.” Roger’s whisper-soft voice took on a keening shriek. “I KNOW SHE ASKED YOU FOR MONEY!” Hurst’s voice returned to normal. “William then proceeded to tell me that Valerie was a gold digger. He said she had only married him to have him pay her way through medical school.” Roger mimicked his brother again, screeching, “SHE TOOK ADVANTAGE OF ME!”
“That’s right, William’s wife was in medical school,” Drew said as much to himself as to Hurst.
“Yes, when Valeria disappeared, she was only months away from graduating and becoming a physician,” Roger said.
Drew had always thought it odd. The word “cadaver” had been used in the anonymous note sent to the Beverly Hills police. Now he thought he might know why the writer had used the term. William Hurst’s wife had been in medical school and likely had often used the term when speaking to him. Hurst would have known the term well.
“Anything else you can tell me, Mr. Hurst?” Drew said.
“No, I think I’ve covered everything I intended to say,” Hurst said. “I wish I could tell you my brother had admitted to me he killed the woman there, but he hasn’t. As I said, my family and I live in fear of him. We do our best to avoid him. We don’t often speak.”
“Thanks for the call, Mr. Hurst,” Drew said. “I appreciate the information.”
After they hung up, Drew thought about how strange the case was. They had accumulated a lot of information, just not the kind that was very useful. Roger Hurst had supplied a possible motive for why his brother might have killed Silverman. But it had been more speculation on his part than fact. It was also mildly useful to learn about William Hurst’s temper and past violent episodes. But again, that wasn’t evidence he had killed Silverman.
Roger Hurst had been the second person to suggest Silverman might have signed her death warrant by extorting money from William Hurst. Drew searched through the pile of correspondence on his desk for a letter he had seen before. It was a letter Silverman had written to Hurst effusively thanking him for the twenty-five thousand dollars he had sent to her just weeks for her death. He found the letter and read again the passage that had come to mind.
“I don’t want my last request to be the last time we communicate—our friendship means so much to me, Bill. I hope you forgive me for not keeping pace with your more successful life.”
That passage also seemed to hint at the possibility Silverman had been gently squeezing Hurst for money. Why else would she have feared her friendship with Hurst might end? While the motive theory might be believable by a jury, he and Ortega would have to produce evidence that proved opportunity and means to go with the supposed motive. They would need facts to show William Hurst had been in Los Angeles at the time of the murder and that he had owned or had access to a nine-millimeter semi-automatic handgun at the time.
Ortega walked back into the squad room a few minutes past noon. He and Drew started out of the bureau to get lunch. As they passed by Lieutenant Walsh’s office, she looked up at them and waved them in, hanging up the phone. Ortega and Drew went in and sat on the chairs in front of the homicide commander’s desk.
“If you two are headed to lunch, I’m sorry about this,” Walsh said. “But you’re up, and we have one on the floor in an apartment in Los Feliz.”
“What’s the story?” Ortega said.
“Definitely a homicide, possibly a rape-murder,” Walsh said.
“But RHD Special Assault Section takes all sexually related homicides city-wide,” Ortega said.
“Those that meet their specific criteria, yes they do,” Walsh said. “But for now, they have a manpower issue. They are swamped with cases and have no one to send. That was the deputy chief on the phone. He just got off the phone with the RHD commander. The chief agreed we’d take it. At least until RHD has someone available.”
“Great,” Ortega said. “We’ll do all the grunt work. Then when we’re ready to clear the case, RHD will step in. They’ll bigfoot the case and take the arrest.”
Walsh raised both hands with palms up in a “what do you expect me to about it” gesture. “It is what it is, Rudy,” she said. “Just go do your job.”
Ortega stood up. Drew followed his lead. “I will, boss,” Ortega said. “But that doesn’t mean I have to like it. Come on, Youngblood.”
* * *
The two detectives left the bureau in Ortega’s unmarked car for an address on Los Feliz Boulevard.
On the drive, Drew filled Ortega in on his unexpected conversation with Roger Hurst.
“That William Hurst must be a stand-up guy if his own brother is trying to finger him,” Ortega said. “It’s an interesting theory, but it’s like I’ve said. If Hurst is our guy, there is still a lot of work to do on the Silverman case.”
“And for now, it looks like that case is on hold,” Drew said.
“Yes, we will have to focus on this one for now,” Ortega said. “We will have to move fast on it if we expect RHD to keep their sticky hands off the case after we’ve done most of the work. Now that I’ve thought about it, I’m okay with us catching this one. It should be a good learning experience for you.”
“Because of the sexual
assault element?” Drew said.
“Yeah, this one will be very different from the Silverman murder. Sometimes the sexual assault part makes a case like this easy to solve. Other times it can be a real whodunit. It all depends on the suspect, whether it was a stranger or someone the victim knew.”
“I hope it turns out to be the simple kind,” Drew said. “I’d like to get back to the Silverman case. After the unexpected call from Roger Hurst today, I just have a feeling something is going to turn up, and we’ll solve it.”
“Listen, Youngblood,” Ortega said. “I touched on this at the Silverman scene, but now we need to talk about it more. At a murder scene, the body can dominate the scene if you let it. You can get tunnel vision and see nothing but the body. So when we get there, I need you to try to avoid that. Try to see the big picture. Otherwise, you’ll end up missing stuff, stuff that could turn out important.”
“Okay, got it,” Drew said.
“The thing with homicides is you often only get one chance to get it right,” Ortega said. “When you don’t get it right the first time, it usually turns into an unsolved.”
* * *
Just past Hillhurst Avenue, Ortega pulled to the curb in front of what they would learn was a twenty-eight unit apartment building on Los Feliz Boulevard. The detective parked his city ride behind a Hollywood Division black and white Ford SUV. The gray stucco structure was the typical boxy 1960s-era apartment building. The owners had lushly landscaped it with thick stands of banana plants in front, framed by pink geraniums, red and white impatiens, and yellow rose bushes. Emblazoned in large black block letters on the apartment building’s front was the name—CRESTWOOD APARTMENTS.
When they entered the complex, the detectives found that the units faced an interior courtyard with a green lawn bordered by palm and ficus. There was a small ornamental koi pond in the center, and flaming red bougainvillea spilled over railings. Despite the age of the apartment building, the owners kept it well-maintained. Drew thought it was a step up from Fiona Silverman’s humble abode.
Ortega spotted uniformed officers on the second-floor walkway in a back corner, standing outside an open apartment door. The detectives climbed the exterior stairs and moved toward them. At the door, they met Sergeant Mia Tucker of Hollywood Division, the on-scene supervisor. Ortega was as acquainted with her as he was with most of the supervisors at the community police stations that were part of West Bureau.
“What’ve we got, Mia?” Ortega said.
“Twenty-five-year-old, white female,” Tucker said, looking at her notebook. “Bailey Henry. A friend and co-worker came to check on her when she didn’t show up for her shift at work last night or for an audition they were both scheduled for this morning. The friend hadn’t been able to reach her by phone. When she arrived at around 11:15 A.M., she found the front door closed but unlocked. She let herself in and called out to the victim but got no response. About a minute later, she found the body in the bedroom.”
“She still here?” Ortega said.
“Nope, she had freaked out by the time my guys got here,” Tucker said. “She had a panic attack. They called an RA, and they transported her.” Tucker tore a sheet out of her notebook and handed it to Ortega. Here’s the contact info.”
Ortega looked at the paper for a moment. “Yeah, okay, we can talk to her later after we finish here,” he said. “They take her to Kaiser?”
“Yep, don’t know if they will admit her,” Tucker said. “The RA had already transported when I arrived.”
“SID and the ME?” Ortega said.
“Yep, both already on scene.”
“Outstanding work, Sergeant Tucker,” Ortega grinned.
“Coming from you, Rudy, that means so fucking much,” Tucker snickered.
Ortega chuckled. “You look at the body?” he said.
“Just from the doorway of the bedroom,” Tucker said. “I know how cranky you get when you think patrol has fucked up your scene.”
“If we only had a thousand more like you, Mia,” Ortega smirked.
“Anyway, blunt force trauma to the back of the head maybe,” Tucker said. “But there are stab wounds. There isn’t a lot of blood, so maybe the stabbing was after the fact. Like after her heart had already stopped pumping.”
“Postmortem mutilation?” Ortega said.
“Maybe. But don’t take my word for it. I’m not a doctor, and I don’t play one on fucking TV.”
Ortega laughed again. “Meet my new partner, Mia,” Ortega said. “Detective Howard Drew.”
Tucker shook hands with Drew. “Nice to meet you, Drew,” Tucker said. “You have my sympathies.”
Ortega laughed again. “See you around, Mia,” he said. “Come on, Youngblood.”
The detectives went inside. The apartment looked more like a motel room. The gray carpet was threadbare, and the furniture was cheap and generic. There were no pictures on the walls or any framed photos. There was a jumble of mail on the dining table.
Several SID technicians moved quickly and efficiently around the apartment, taking digital photographs, dusting for prints, and vacuuming the carpet for fibers. When the detectives filed into the bedroom, a technician was dabbing the bed surfaces with tape for hair and fibers, while another scanned the bedroom with ultraviolet light for semen traces.
“Check the entire apartment,” Ortega said to the criminalist with the ultraviolet light. “He could have masturbated in another room.”
After the technician nodded, Ortega turned to Drew. “Some of these offenders can’t get it up until after they have killed their victims. Then they masturbate afterward to get their release.”
A coroner’s investigator was bent over the bed examining the body. The room was warm and stuffy. Beams of afternoon sunlight seeped in through the slats of the closed mini-blinds. Dust motes flickered in the light.
Henry was her back in the center of the bed. She was naked, her legs spread, and her arms splayed out to the sides. Blotches of blood streaked the inside of her thighs. There were bruises on her neck and dried blood dappled both ears. There were four large stab wounds to her chest and abdomen. Her eyes were open, and her face frozen in an expression of surprise and terror. Her mouth was open in the rictus of silent screams.
A pair of light green panties, a pair of black shorts, and a torn yellow tee-shirt were on the floor beside the bed. Drew walked over to a dresser. There was an open jewelry box that contained mostly costume jewelry. There was no way to tell if anything was missing from the box.
The coroner’s investigator studied the bruising along Henry’s inner thighs and shins and an abrasion above her right breast. Dried blood had matted the hair at the back of her head, and the top sheet was stained with brownish-red blotches next to the head.
“She’s been dead for a while judging from the lividity,” the coroner’s investigator said. He then cut a small incision just above the victim’s waist and plunged a probe attached to a thermometer up into the liver. That would enable him to estimate the time of death because a body generally cools by about one-and-one-half degrees per hour until it reaches ambient temperature.
After checking the thermometer, the investigator said, “Looks like this gal has been dead thirty to thirty-six hours.”
Ortega said, “That means someone probably killed her sometime during late evening two days ago. We should be able to narrow it down once we talk to the friend who discovered the body. Since they work together, she should know when the victim last worked before missing her shift yesterday.”
A coroner’s criminalist clipped the victim’s fingernails, combed the victim’s pubic hair, and swabbed her vagina and anus for semen. Afterward, she swabbed the victim’s breasts and neck for semen and saliva.”
“I was watching CSI Miami the other night and laughed my head off,” the investigator said. “They had a body and didn’t bother looking for trace evidence. There was no coroner at the crime scene. They took no photos, no nothing. Then they pushed the detectives as
ide and started interviewing the witnesses. Finally, they remembered the trace evidence and started picking up hair with a pair of tweezers. In real life, we use tape or gloves for that to avoid damaging the hair.”
The investigator was still giving his critical review of the television show when Ortega and Drew walked back to the living room. They passed a single flip-flop sandal in the short hallway. As they entered the living room, Ortega stopped. He lowered himself into a squatting position like a catcher behind home plate.
“Squat, Youngblood,” Ortega said.
Puzzled by Ortega’s behavior, Drew squatted beside him.
“Inexperienced detectives always look at a crime scene at eye level,” Ortega said. “They hardly ever notice the floor unless there is a body or a pool of blood that catches their attention. Down low is where the evidence is. It’s a function of gravity. Stuff falls off people and ends up on the floor. It’s also just good practice to study a scene from more than one perspective.”
Both detectives studied the room for several minutes. Ortega seemed lost in thought. Finally he spoke. “Tell me what you see, Youngblood,” he said.
“The other flip-flop sandal is on the floor between the door and the coffee table. The coffee table isn’t lined up straight, and from the indentions in the carpet from the legs, it isn’t in the usual place.”
“Good, what else?” Ortega said.
“There is a key ring on the floor near the door. There is a fan on a stand next to the door that looks like someone knocked it over. And, there is a tipped over plastic laundry basket on its side in front of the couch with folded clothes spilled out.”
“Good eye, Youngblood,” Ortega said approvingly. “So, give me a theory on what happened here.”
Drew said nothing for a minute while he tried to visualize the violent scenario that might have occurred.
“Okay, the victim was returning to her apartment after doing laundry,” Drew said. “The suspect followed her or picked her up somewhere along the way. At any rate, he followed her to the door. She had her hands full with the laundry basket but used her key to unlock the door. She started inside. He blitzed her, maybe from behind. Punched her or hit her with something on the back of the head. She dropped the basket and keys. Then he dragged her inside. She bumped into the coffee table, which caused bruises on her shins. She lost one sandal in the living room and the other as he dragged her down the hallway to the bedroom. He threw her on the bed, pulled her clothes off, probably choked her given the bruising on her neck, and raped her.”
