A Twisted Path

by Steve Winshel

“I love Carl.” No past tense, yet. She knew that wasn’t an alibi, but she wanted Furyk to know. “I had been asleep, with…with a little help. From the pills, the ones Carl thought I should take. You know, to…to help me stay calm.”

  So she was a medicated Brentwood mom. Furyk figured most of the medicine cabinets on this street had a few prescription bottles with pills to help the neighbors deal with the complexities of their lives and the burden of success. Merrill looked clear-eyed now, probably not having visited the bathroom pharmacy since her forced detox in jail.

  “I remember waking up in the middle of the night. I do that sometimes to, you know, go to the…bathroom.” Merrill’s face reddened slightly as though the peripheral reference to bodily functions was deeply inappropriate. “The anti-depressants make me do that.” She seemed less hesitant to reveal her prescription drug habits than the fact that she had to pee sometimes. “Then I couldn’t get back to sleep right away so I turned on the television. Carl wasn’t in bed yet, but I knew he was home because the alarm was off. I could see the green light on the panel in the bedroom, so he must have gotten back from his dinner meeting with Perry and not turned it back on yet. I watched Home Shopping Channel for a while.” Furyk listened, but mostly watched her. Merrill’s eyes fluttered between her drink, her hands, and Furyk’s face, never staying on any one of them for more than a few seconds. Still calm, but not focused.

  “Then I heard some noise and thought Cheyenne was coming home. She’d been out to a movie with some friends.” A pause, and then, “at least, that’s what she told me.” Her voice trailed off. She took a sip of her drink. “I came downstairs and saw the light in the kitchen. Then I…” The calm was instantly gone and Merrill’s voice choked. Furyk didn’t need to hear the rest. He wasn’t a crime scene investigator, wanting to know every detail of what she saw and did. He just needed to know she didn’t do it.

  “You’ve told me enough. I believe you, Mrs. Wick. You didn’t kill your husband.”

  Merrill looked up from her tea and held his eyes for longer than she had since he’d arrived. She was grateful, but Furyk wasn’t sure he could offer much more.

  “Have you told your lawyer?” It should have been an easy question but Furyk wasn’t surprised by her audible hesitation.

  “He, well, Perry said I shouldn’t worry about it. I’m not sure what that means. I mean, I told him I remembered, but he mostly asked me about the pills Carl had given me.”

  Furyk didn’t let her see how much that answer bothered him. Margolin was full of shit and he was playing with Merrill’s life. Furyk just didn’t know why. But he was going to find out. No reason to keep that from Merrill. “Mrs. Wick, I think maybe you could use a little help. If you don’t mind, I’m going to try to do that.”

  “Oh, I’m sure Perry will work it all out. He was Carl’s dearest friend, and he’ll do whatever it takes. I’m sure.” She didn’t sound so sure, but Furyk could hear her convincing herself. He just smiled.

  “I’ll just poke around a little, just to help out.” It should have been odd that Merrill didn’t ask him why he wanted to help, or how he could do anything since all he did was run a sandwich shop. But Furyk could see that she often left questions unasked. That had probably been the mark of her marriage to Carl Wick, and had been in the air that night years earlier when Furyk had last been to the house, carrying a badge and a gun.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Perry Margolin’s cell phone chirped while Brant was still harboring murderous thoughts centered on the attorney. Glad for the break in tension, Margolin fished the phone out of his pocket. He didn’t recognize the number but took it anyway. Brant eyed him with disdain.

  Margolin greeted the caller like a high-priced lawyer, then his tone changed. Lower and less appeasing. Brant paid attention as Margolin listened for a few seconds.

  “I’m paying you to keep people out. Why’d you let him in?” Margolin wasn’t pleased by the answer. “What’s his name? Why is he there?” Brant watched Margolin’s face as the answer came over the line. It was anger. “Tell him to get the hell out. I don’t care if you have to pick him up and drag him out. You hear me?” Margolin was going to hang up but the caller wasn’t done.

  Margolin’s face turned red and his voice went up an octave. “Then you and that stupid kid at the door do it together. If you can’t handle one goddamned guy then I hired the wrong company!” Now, he slammed the little phone shut, though the tiny clam-shaped gadget barely made a snapping noise.

  Brant stood with one hand on his holster, glaring at Margolin. Waiting.

  Margolin rubbed a hand over his face and put the phone back into his pocket. He didn’t want to have to explain that someone was in the house talking to Merrill right now, and the dumbshit security guards he’d hired were about to throw him out. Brant wouldn’t like that.

  “Just some guy, says he’s a friend of Merrill’s.” Brant knew it wasn’t that simple and took a step toward Margolin. Still waiting.

  “Some goddamned guy, I don’t know who he is yet, why he’s around. I’m going to find out this afternoon. Merrill will tell me. I never heard her mention him before.” Margolin knew he should stop, but had to share his concerns with Brant now or there would be hell to pay if it came out later. “I think he might be a private detective.”

  The Sheriff’s face tightened. He knew it would be a huge problem if one of the men who had an interest in Wick’s death had hired someone to look into it. That had to stop. But Margolin wasn’t done.

  “Furyk, something Furyk. I’m going to check into him this afternoon.”

  Brant took a sharp breath and it made him cough and sputter on the saliva he’d inhaled. He covered the few feet between himself and the lawyer, looming like a locomotive bearing down on a deer standing in the tracks. “Furyk? Fucking Bill goddamned Furyk is talking to her right now?”

  Margolin took a step back and was up against the tree. The fear for his physical safety was matched by the sick feeling in his stomach. If Brant knew Furyk, it could only be bad.

  The Sheriff caught his breath and leaned into Margolin, who thought Brant was a heartbeat away from pulling out his gun. “Furyk was a goddamned cop. He’s a pathetic, righteous, dumb shit, but goddamnit if he’s sticking his nose in this then you are screwed. Margolin. Godammnit, you stupid sonofabitch.”

  Margolin didn’t know how to answer. He just knew if he lived to get out of Griffith Park he had to figure out what the hell was going on with Merrill.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Furyk left Merrill Wick’s house shortly after the two security guards had come bursting through the kitchen door with intent looks on their faces. He’d heard part of the conversation the older one had with whoever was on the other end of the line and decided there was no need to stick around. Merrill was stumbling over her words as she tried to thank him while wrestling with the fact that knowing she didn’t kill Carl didn’t mean she could prove it.

  Heading out the front door, Furyk had to do a little dance with the DHL delivery woman who was dropping off a couple of packages. The older security guard had slammed the door shut behind Furyk and the young woman gave a quick knock and then headed back to her truck. The distinctive symbol of the Home Shopping Network ran across the two toaster-sized boxes sitting on the welcome mat. Furyk stopped midway down the path to the driveway and turned around as the delivery woman passed on her way out and gave him a quick smile. She was in her truck and gone before Furyk reached the front door again, which did not open. He flipped the top box over and pulled at the plastic sleeve that held a packing slip. The plastic tore and he pulled out the folded paper. Smoothing it out, he saw that Merrill had purchased several pairs of earrings and a matching necklace. Cubic zirconium, and not very fancy – the total was under three hundred dollars. He scanned the top of the manifest and saw a credit card had been used. The date was September 9th. The order was taken by phone at 2:17 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time.

  Furyk refolded the packing slip
and shoved it back into the torn plastic pocket. Carl Wick had been killed on September 9th.

  Chapter Fifty

  When a psychiatrist or psychologist is murdered, an investigator’s thoughts immediately turn to their patients. Courts allow the District Attorney’s office to review the records, which must remain under seal to the public but are open to prosecutors and police. As part of the discovery process, any relevant information must be shared with the defense counsel. Sunny Prole figured Mrs. Wick had done the puncturing of her husband, but was too thorough to ignore the patient files. She’d had them subpoenaed and the three legal-sized boxes of yellow pads separated into folders with patient names written across the tabs sat in an open interview room near her desk at the station. It wasn’t much paper for a practice that was almost two decades old. That was explained by the four shiny silver discs sitting on her desk. Most of Wick’s patient files had been scanned and put onto CDs. In the last couple years, according to the secretary who’d stopped crying long enough to blubber some information at Prole, Wick had taken to jotting down notes during sessions or recording them, then transcribing his notes directly onto the computer. He did it all himself.

  The CDs were just copies made from the laptop found in Wick’s office – which now sat next to the CDs on Prole’s desk. The computer doofus at the department had said the files were arranged in a database, making them easy to search. He could look up by name, age, gender, even diagnosis. There were also a lot of images, which he hadn’t looked at but were also searchable. The CDs were just a back-up. By themselves, each contained a section of the database of patient files and would be hard to search unless reconstructed into the full database. Prole’s eyes had glazed over as he eagerly explained it to her. All she wanted to know was how to look at the stuff on the laptop. He stepped her through it and then she dismissed him with a grunt.

  Now she was hunched over the laptop, trying to figure out how to run what the geek had said were “queries.” She typed a few strokes and suddenly the screen filled with words and automatically began scrolling, line after line.

  “Shit!’ Before she could hammer a few more keys to make it stop, a hand came around her shoulder and touched the Escape key. The computer guy had hung back, waiting to see if she needed some help. Hoping she’d need some help.

  Without turning: “All right, c’mon. I want to see some stuff. Here.” She hooked her foot around the leg of a chair next to her desk and pulled it over. If the guy had scrambled onto the seat any faster he’d have missed and ended up sprawled on her desk.

  He tilted the laptop toward himself a little, but so that Prole could still see the screen. “What do you want to see?”

  Prole ran a fingernail across her teeth. “Show me a list of names.” The guy began to type. “No, wait a minute, don’t. You say you can make this thing dance. Set it up so I can run through the pictures. I want to see what he’s got in here.”

  A few keystrokes and Prole saw a string of tiny images going down the page. It looked like it would be as long as the list of names, which it was – Wick took a picture of each of his patients. They were small and the person’s name was next to the picture, which appeared to be of them standing in Wick’s office. “Is that all the pictures?”

  “No, just the ones that are matched to the name directly, like a headshot an actor attaches to a resume.” He was thrilled to be able to tell her something.

  That’s not what she was interested in. It was a little weird to have a picture, but maybe it helped Wick remember each patient. But if there were other pictures, that might be interesting. She started to tell the guy to go in and find other pictures, but then stopped.

  “Can you make them bigger?” A couple more keystrokes and the image of a middle-aged white man named Aaronson filled the screen. “Okay, I want to be able to run through a bunch. Show me.”

  He showed her how to click on the arrow at the bottom right of the screen and once she had it, she waved him off. But he only slid his chair back to give her some room, knowing – hoping – she’d have some more interesting task for him.

  Prole clicked through a few more. Abelson, Anders, Arkman. Lots of middle-aged white men. No surprise. The next one was a dowdy woman in her fifties. Prole didn’t recognize any of them. Half a dozen more pictures and she was getting bored. Then a young woman’s picture came on the screen. The girl was about sixteen, pretty, but looking lost. The daughter of Abelson or Anders or some other screwed up parent whose kid needed straightening out, probably. Except that the names were unique. Prole flipped through a few more shots, then a few more. Something caught her attention. Ten more, then ten more again. She was still only in the Ds. Lots of patients. But she noticed something. There was the occasional older woman or young boy. But most of Wick’s patients were middle-aged men. And a lot of others were like the vacant-looking teen girl she’d seen. She went through another twenty and the pattern held. Prole thought most patients of psychologists were unhappy housewives, but Wick’s practice seemed to focus on a different demographic. Maybe it was the Brentwood clientele. But it bothered her. Maybe Wick had a thing for young girls and liked to spend time with them under professional conditions – or other circumstances. He wouldn’t be the first mental health professional to bang his patients. Still, maybe he’d pissed one of them off. Or, more likely, nailed one whose daddy didn’t like paying for his daughter to get diddled by the doctor.

  Prole turned to the geek. “Make a list of all the girls under the age of 20 and print it out for me. Can you do that?” She didn’t wait for an answer and got up to head to the bathroom so she could think about whether to go outside and smoke a cigarette.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Margolin made it back to his car in one piece, Brant having decided he wouldn’t be doing himself any good to take his fury out on the lawyer. The Sheriff had spat out a story about Furyk and how he’d left the force, a story that made Furyk look like a troublemaker. Margolin saw beneath the venom and understood that Furyk had caused problems of some kind for Brant. He also recognized that this wasn’t someone they wanted paying attention to them and to Merrill. Margolin and Wick had worked hard to build a stable, safe business, but like any other venture that relied on human nature to keep it private yet thriving, all it took was someone pulling at one loose thread to unravel everything. Merrill was the thread.

  Driving back to his office, shaken but resolved to get things under control, Margolin ignored his vibrating phone. He needed to get to Merrill, to make sure she was taking her pills. And to get her away from Furyk. She had been clearheaded the last few days and he needed her pliable and nervous. Merrill claimed she distinctly remembered the evening of Carl’s death. Margolin knew she was on the verge of telling him she hadn’t killed Carl. Margolin needed to shake that confidence. It was going to be up to Brant to find out who had really committed the murder. It would be unbelievable luck if some intruder had just happened to pick that night to stop by the Wick house and conveniently kill Carl, just a few days before the plan to frame Merrill came to fruition. Margolin didn’t believe in that kind of luck. Carl had put everything in jeopardy in recent months, starting to show signs of weakness, concern about his legacy, though he never expressed regret. Brant had pushed for this solution and Margolin resisted as long as he could. But business was business and disgrace and jail weren’t on his long-term life plan. The phone vibrated again and Margolin pulled it out of his jacket pocket to stop the incessant buzzing. Before hitting the Off switch, he saw the number – the Councilman wanted to talk to him.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Brant ran up on the back of a brand new BMW 750i doing 80 in the fast lane and flashed his lights. The asshole on the phone probably had a heart attack, thinking he was going to get a ticket and be late for his fancy development deal meeting or mid-afternoon hooker rendezvous. He cut across two lanes of traffic, almost causing an accident getting to the off-ramp, not noticing the Sheriff’s cruiser stayed in the far left lane and accelerate
d to over 90 mph as it sped down the 101 freeway toward downtown.

  Fuming at Margolin’s stupidity and unwilling to accept any more mistakes, Brant squealed his tires taking the off-ramp near the jail at eighty and ignoring the line of cars at the light. He slowed down enough to avoid getting too much attention as he began to navigate the downtown streets and wind his way over to East L.A. The traffic didn’t thin but the number of trees did. It always felt hotter here, regardless of what the thermometer said. The houses on the residential streets were crammed up against one another and the yards were mostly brown and fenced, except for one out of ten that looked like it would fit into the nicer neighborhoods a few miles to the west. Even shit neighborhoods like this had people who tried to be flowers growing in the cracks of the broken sidewalk of their lives. Brant knew it was a waste of time and they were all just going to die poor, black or brown, and sad. And it didn’t matter to him any more than the splatter of bugs on his windshield.

  The irony of LA is that despite its sprawl, it is like the cramped, overpopulated streets of New York in one way: there are sections where houses sit next to bodegas that are abutted by poverty-ridden hotels housing transients and families who can’t afford even the minimum-wage rents of the dilapidated apartments their other immigrant brethren occupied. Brant pulled the cruiser in front of one of those hotels that looked more like a pre-war apartment building, except for the broken neon sign running down three floors of one side. A 30ish woman clutched the hand of a child, no older than 9 but with the same features and hard look of her escort who could have just as easily been the girl’s grandmother as her mother in this neighborhood. They passed two teens sitting on the steps of the hotel who were taking long pulls from open bottles of 40 oz. beer and catcalling a Latina girl across the street who pretended not to hear them over the occasional passing car as she tried to stay ahead of the weeds in the small plot of ground in front of her house. The two teens didn’t slow their chatter as Brant pulled up, just lounging and enjoying their day. The Sheriff knew it meant there weren’t any drug deals happening on the street right now or in the lobby of the building, or the long-legged kids on the steps would have sent a signal. Brant ignored them as he left the car along the faded red paint on the curb and ambled toward the hotel door. One of the teens tipped his Lakers cap and Brant ignored him other than to rub the handle of his gun.