Final Vows

by Karen Kingsbury

  Chuck suggested that Gene come to work with him, doing private investigations and adding a little money to his retirement pension. Just before Christmas 1989 Gene made up his mind and accepted Chuck’s offer. The two men made an exceptional team, Gene drawing on his instincts to come up with leads; Chuck carefully fitting them into a variety of possibilities. Calm and analytical, Chuck believed in keeping an open mind. The way he saw it, every murder investigation had at least six possible solutions, and he never narrowed his search to anything less. A pleasant-looking man, he had a thinning head of dark blond hair, warm sky-blue eyes, and a kind smile. He was a neat dresser and had the gentle demeanor of a small-town traffic officer. Born and raised in Southern California, Chuck had wanted to work in law enforcement for as long as he could remember.

  Gene was nothing like Chuck. His wife often said that Gene looked like the quintessential tough cop. Dark hair, dark neatly trimmed mustache, and dark eyes full of suspicion. Whereas Chuck analyzed every angle of a case before making a conclusion, Gene solved dozens of cases by instinct.

  Gene had grown up in Graham, Texas, a town of three thousand people where acting on one’s instincts was the proper thing to do. When he moved to Los Angeles County and began working for the sheriff s department it took him two years before those instincts clicked into action. By then Gene had fallen in love with detective work. After twenty years of investigations, there was still no place Gene would rather be than roaming the streets of Los Angeles looking for clues to solve a murder.

  “If I ain’t a son of a gun,” Gene would remark to his coworkers, his Texas accent thick and slow. “There’s more killin’ in these parts than in all of Texas combined.”

  In 1987 Gene began having heart rhythm problems and his superiors insisted he take a desk job at the station. He then began looking into early retirement. At forty-six, he worked his last day as a sheriff’s detective. Within two years, his heart trouble eased and he felt well enough to continue investigating murders. His stir-crazy days of retirement ended the moment he agreed to be Chuck’s partner.

  When Lorn Aiken showed the investigators the volumes of circumstantial evidence against Dan, Gene and Chuck had to refrain from laughing out loud. The man was obviously guilty. Chuck and Gene were, after all, cops at heart. Their job had always been to catch the criminal. But these days they were often paid by the defense to crack cases. This was not an easy transition, especially for Gene. They took the case on June 9, 1990, and from the beginning, Gene was convinced Dan was guilty.

  “The guy’s a scumbag, I don’t care what you say about him,” Gene would say in his slow monotone.

  “We’re not being paid to determine whether he’s a scumbag or not,” Chuck would remind him.

  “I know, I know.”

  No matter how hard he tried, Gene could not bring himself to believe Dan was innocent. Still, he went through the motions; looking for leads, talking to neighbors, and trying to find evidence that would prove Dan innocent.

  Gene and Chuck agreed there was something odd about Carol’s last words, “What are you doing here?” Of course, it was possible Dan had made up the words. But they seemed an unlikely piece to the story. If Dan was innocent and his story true, Carol must have known her killer. In that case the killer might have known that Dan and Carol were leaving for Hawaii and mistakenly thought they were already gone. That would explain why the burglary had taken place with two cars in the driveway.

  Also, if the burglars were familiar with the Montecalvo home, that explained why they would have gone straight to the cash box instead of rummaging through the house. Chuck and Gene began interviewing everyone in Carol’s neighborhood.

  Early in their investigation Gene and Chuck heard one neighbor’s name mentioned time and again—Suzan Brown. Neighbors said she had moved away days after Carol’s murder. They said she was a drug addict with severe mental problems. One neighbor said she thought Suzan might have sold Avon to Carol.

  “Big deal,” Gene said flatly. “So they used to have a crazy Avon lady in the neighborhood.”

  Chuck shrugged. “It might be nice to find her.”

  “And it might not make a difference. Dan’s in prison because some honest detective broke his back finding evidence against him. He belongs in prison. Why are we even wasting our time on this?”

  “Okay,” Chuck said, turning to face his partner. “But let’s say Dan’s innocent—even though it isn’t likely. Then this might be the hottest investigation of our lives.”

  This time it was Gene who shrugged. “You’re the boss. Let’s find her.”

  So while Dan remained in county jail awaiting trial, Chuck and Gene started by talking to people who knew Suzan Brown. They obtained a list of her previous addresses and began interviewing her former roommates. In August they spoke with a shabbily dressed woman who said that she and Suzan had once been lovers.

  “I can tell you this much,” the woman said. “Everyone in that house was doing drugs big time. When they was low on cash, they broke into houses. Happened all the time.” She lowered her voice and leaned close enough that Chuck and Gene were suddenly assaulted by her putrid breath. “I think any one of those people living with Suzan coulda killed her. Hell, Suzan coulda killed her.”

  Outside the woman’s apartment Chuck and Gene went over their notes in the front seat of Chuck’s car.

  “I’m not convinced,” Gene said. “We have no reason whatsoever to believe Suzan’s anything but a lunatic.”

  “I feel the same way,” Chuck said. “But we can’t rule her out. Let’s find her.”

  It took the investigators several months of checking government records before they located Suzan Brown at the Jerry L. Pettis Memorial Veterans Administration Medical Center in Loma Linda, a few miles from San Bernardino. Her doctors still felt she was suicidal and they had kept her an inpatient since her last suicide attempt. By then Chuck and Gene knew Suzan had talked with police about footprints she’d found in her backyard after Carol’s murder. So they asked Suzan’s doctor if she would be suitable to testify as a witness.

  “I can’t guarantee she’ll tell the truth,” he said. “The only reason she’s here is because she’s still a threat to herself. She’s also somewhat paranoid. But I would give her permission to testify.”

  They passed the information on to Lorn and he arranged for her to be served a subpoena to act as a defense witness.

  “See,” Gene said after they’d talked with her doctor. “She’s nothing more than a neighborhood nut who heard strange noises when Carol was killed. So what?”

  “Maybe so, maybe not,” Chuck said calmly. “I want to see her in person.”

  “You call the shots,” Gene said. “Long as we’re getting paid.”

  “Set it up, will you?” Chuck said, mulling over the clues that could come from meeting the woman.

  Gene nodded, picking up the phone in Chuck’s office. He spoke to the hospital director and five minutes later had arranged a meeting with Suzan Brown for September 1. By then she would have already received the subpoena.

  “All set,” Gene said as he hung up the phone. “I can hardly wait.”

  “Listen, the day we stop checking every lead is the day we stop being investigators. Who knows, maybe we’ll walk in and she’ll confess on the spot.”

  Gene laughed. “Don’t get your hopes up.”

  Chapter 36

  One of Suzan Brown’s favorite times of day came when the mail arrived. This was odd because she rarely received any mail. But every day she would walk to the main desk at the Veterans Administration hospital and check, just to be sure.

  “Any mail today, Ed?” she would ask the orderly who worked behind the desk.

  “No, ’fraid not,” he would reply.

  The question was the same each day and sometimes the orderlies would hand her a coupon book or other junk mail. Suzan would scrutinize the label on the item and smile.

  “Resident,” she w
ould say approvingly. “That’s me. Definitely a resident, wouldn’t you say, Ed?”

  “Definitely a resident, Suzan.”

  Suzan’s doctors knew that her parents had not made contact with her for nearly twenty years. Nevertheless Suzan liked to talk about how they lived in Florida and how her dad was a doctor, or sometimes a lawyer—depending on different versions of the story. In any event Suzan no longer had any family ties, and her transient friends either didn’t know or didn’t care that she was being treated for paranoia and suicidal tendencies in the psychiatric unit of the Veterans Administration hospital in Loma Linda. Once in a while the government would write her requesting her signature to verify she was indeed receiving government-sponsored mental health treatment. But otherwise, there was nothing.

  One morning in August Ed Casaba, the orderly who most often worked the day shift, was surprised when an official-looking envelope came addressed to Suzan Brown. He looked at the return address. Pasadena Superior Court. Why would the court want anything to do with a woman like Suzan Brown? Ed shrugged and looked up just as Suzan turned the corner heading toward the front desk—this time via wheelchair. Ed noticed that she was wearing her straight brown hair cropped even shorter to her head these days. She was stocky in addition to being obese, dressed in long, baggy shorts and a tank top that clearly exposed the tattoos covering her fleshy arms. More than once it had occurred to Ed that with a little hard work and iron, Suzan would make a fine offensive tackle. She wheeled herself over to the desk.

  “Any mail today, Ed?” she asked, standing up and leaning her heavy body across the counter.

  Ed smiled. “Why, yes, Suzan. The mailman left this.” He had seen the displays of excitement Suzan sometimes put on when she received a piece of junk mail—hooting and shouting as if she had just won a million-dollar lottery. She was the kind of patient who offered comic relief in an often dreary job. He handed her the envelope. He could hardly wait to see her reaction.

  She looked puzzled as she studied the return address. Suddenly, the orderly saw her eyes fill with recognition, and then terror.

  “What are you looking at?” she blurted angrily, staring at Ed and stuffing the letter into her pocket.

  Ed was not sure how to respond. He had seen Suzan do some very strange things, all in keeping with her paranoid condition. But he had no idea what had brought on this surliness. “I thought you liked getting mail,” he said.

  Suzan stared at him as if he—and not she—belonged in a psychiatric ward. “What mail?”

  Here we go, Ed thought. “The letter from the court,” he offered. “You know, your mail.”

  “What mail? I got no mail.” Suzan began raising her voice. “You understand what I’m saying, Ed? I don’t got no mail. Understand?”

  It was a no-win situation. He shrugged. “Okay, Suzan. Sorry ’bout that. No mail today. Maybe tomorrow, huh?”

  Suzan stared at him for several seconds. “Yeah,” she grunted, satisfied with his response. “Maybe.”

  With that, she plopped down into her wheelchair and rolled down the hallway humming some unfamiliar tune.

  Back in her room Suzan broke into a cold sweat. Her heart began beating in strange, erratic patterns and she felt as if someone were trying to strangle her. She wheeled herself to her bedroom window and took a deep breath. Everything was going to be okay. There had been no mail. Ed had told her so himself. Then Suzan stood up. Her hands brushed by her shorts and she felt the envelope.

  The letter was real and it was trying to kill her. Suzan reached into her pocket, grabbed the envelope, and quickly tossed it onto the floor as if it were scalding hot. She sank into her chair, turning her back to the envelope.

  No one must know, she thought. Her eyes began darting about while she made absolutely certain she was alone. Suzan closed her eyes and shuddered. The court knew what had happened to Carol and now they were going to make her tell the truth. But what was the truth? Hadn’t she heard people running through her yard the night Carol was killed? No, wait. She hadn’t been at home—she’d been at the Montecalvo house, kneeling beside the cash box when Carol walked in and said, “What are you doing here?” Or had she only read that in the newspaper?

  Suzan wheeled her chair 180 degrees so that she was facing the envelope on the floor. “Is that you, Carol?”

  Suzan stood up and took two shaky steps toward the paper. With one final deep breath, she bent over and picked it up. “Is that you?” she asked again.

  The room seemed to grow quieter, silence filling it like a poisonous gas. Suzan waited but when there was no answer, she carefully tore open the envelope. The word “Subpoena” appeared in large letters across the top of the page. Quickly, Suzan shut her eyes, willing the word to disappear. She opened one eye. “Subpoena.” It was still there. Her eyes moved quickly down the page.

  “You are ordered to appear at Pasadena Superior Court as a defense witness in the case of People v. Dan Montecalvo. . . .”

  Suzan’s eyes grew wide and she let the letter fall back to the floor. They didn’t want her, they wanted Dan. It occurred to Suzan, even in her unstable psychological condition, that Dan’s defense attorney must want her to talk about the sounds she’d heard in her backyard.

  “That’s not fair,” Suzan heard someone say. She looked around but the sound seemed to have come from her own mouth. Suzan clenched her fists. It wasn’t fair for them to accuse Dan of something he hadn’t done.

  “Never happen.” There it was again; the strange voice. “They can’t find the gun.” The voice was making sense of the situation. Of course. No jury would convict Dan of something she knew he didn’t do. Not without a gun.

  Suzan smiled, her body relaxing. How many patients at the hospital were asked to testify in a murder trial? Suddenly the idea sounded exciting. She wheeled herself back into the hallway. As she went by the front desk she smiled pleasantly at Ed Casaba, the orderly.

  “Thanks again for the mail, Ed.”

  Chapter 37

  Chuck Lefler and Gene Brisco arrived at the Veterans Administration hospital on September 1 at 10 A.M. Gene was not looking forward to the interview. He still believed Suzan was nothing more than a crazy Avon lady.

  They were ushered down a narrow hallway toward the psychiatric unit visitor room where Suzan was waiting for them. She was slouched slightly forward in her chair, her hair combed straight back with what appeared to be a greasy gel. She wore a short-sleeved men’s shirt, the tails of which covered her thick waist. There were tattoos on her bulky arms and she wore a man’s watch.

  “Here she is,” the orderly said. “Suzan, I’d like you to meet detectives Gene Brisco and Chuck Lefler.”

  Suzan sized them up. “Well, come on in. Let’s talk.”

  Gene’s first thought was that Suzan could not possibly have been successful in her Avon career.

  She is singularly the most unattractive woman I have ever seen, Chuck thought.

  Aloud he said, “Fine, let’s talk.” He turned to the orderly. “We won’t be needing you anymore, thank you.”

  The detectives worked best with Chuck asking questions and Gene taking notes, developing hunches.

  “Hello, Suzan, I’m Chuck,” he said amiably. “This won’t take much of your time. Just a few questions.”

  Suzan wondered if she looked as scared as she felt: first the subpoena and now this interview. She had agreed to meet with the private detectives because they were working for the defense. They would ask her questions about the sounds she’d heard in her backyard. Not about her recurring belief that she had been in the Montecalvo home when Carol was killed. Suzan tried to look disinterested.

  “Fine,” she barked. “I don’t need to stand or nothing, do I? Lost feeling in my legs in Vietnam. Can’t stand or walk or nothing.” She belched loudly, unaware that on this morning she was not sitting in her wheelchair.

  Chuck caught Gene’s look of surprise and knew his partner was trying not to laugh
. “You’re fine right where you are, Ms. Brown. Okay, how long did you know the Montecalvos?”

  Suzan swallowed hard and coughed several times. This is all Carol’s fault, she was thinking, walking in on us like that. Out loud she said nothing, but began humming.

  Gene raised an eyebrow in Chuck’s direction. Chuck gave him an imperceptible nod and cleared his throat loudly. “Excuse me, Ms. Brown. We need your complete cooperation here. Now, how long did you know the Montecalvos?”

  Suddenly Suzan snapped to attention and turned to face Chuck. “What are you trying to say?” she asked angrily.

  Chuck drew in a deep breath. “Okay, let’s start from the beginning. Dan Montecalvo is in jail facing murder charges in the death of his wife, Carol. Did you know that?”

  “No.” Suzan snapped the answer. Dan wasn’t in jail. She had convinced herself that he had been released long ago. Suddenly she forgot everything she had planned to say about the sounds in her backyard. “Why is Dan in jail?”

  “He’s being charged with murder,” Chuck answered patiently.

  Suzan stared straight into his light blue eyes and began to speak very deliberately. “Mister, I ain’t letting Dan go to prison for something he didn’t do. Dan didn’t do it.”

  Chuck nodded matter-of-factly. “I see. Who did do it, Ms. Brown?” Chuck was fishing. “Can you tell us that?”

  “I don’t know,” she shouted. “Why you askin’ me?”

  Chuck decided to play it safe. “We’ve read police reports that say you had a woodpile fall down the night of Carol’s murder,” Chuck said, taking papers from a folder. “Oh, and something about seeing footprints?”

  Suzan felt her body relax into the chair.

  For the next ten minutes she told the detectives an elaborate story about hearing gunfire, then the sound of someone running in her backyard a few minutes later. She told them about the fallen woodpile and the shoe print.

  “I told the officers they oughta take pictures or something of that there print.” Suzan shook her head regretfully. “But they never came back.”