by Andrew Gross
I was sure he knew who I was.
I could feel it, the sweat beading up on my back from his mesmerizing stare. I could see he was enjoying my discomfort.
I stared at him, my blood starting to simmer inside. “I think the eyes refer to what you told the judge at your sentencing. How it was like the owner of the home who is called away. How no one will know when it’s time for him to come back. Or in what manner. How only the father knows, right, Mr. Houvnanian? You. How you told them all to watch. The people who had done you harm.” I kept my eyes drilling into him. “That’s what Evan’s death was about, wasn’t it? A way for you to say, watch!”
“I said a lot of crazy things back then . . .” Houvnanian stretched his face into a smile. He raised his manacled hands. “Yet here I remain.”
“Yes, here you remain,” Sherwood said. “But not Susan Pollack. You remember her, don’t you, Russ? She was one of three followers who served a thirty-five-year sentence for aiding you in the murders of Paul and Cici Riorden, their friends, and George and Sally Forniciari, right?”
“I never admitted to any murders, detective.” The orange-clad convict shrugged with a coy smile. “Only opening the gates for judgment against those who didn’t see as clearly.”
“You’re aware that Ms. Pollack was released from prison recently? This past May.”
“I don’t pay much attention to your system of time, detective. Doesn’t much matter in here.” He shrugged. “Anyway, she renounced me. I’m sure you know that. Like I was some blotch of ink she could just wash off. She did what she had to do.”
“You mind telling us the last time the two of you were in touch?”
“Well”—Houvnanian scratched his head pensively—“that all depends on what you might mean by being ‘in touch,’ detective. I can see her any time I want. You know only my body is in prison. The rest . . .” His eyes grew dazzling. “I can walk among your streets at my will. I can take your young any time I want . . .” Finally he winked, backing down. “I guess it’s been a while.”
“And how long is a while,” Sherwood asked, “if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Years. Who even remembers? I can’t even remember the last time I saw the sun, detective, never mind heard from that bitch. She wrote me a few years back. She told me she had moved away from what she had done. They stuffed her full of Xanax and mood stabilizers and they took the life right out of her. She did what she had to do. In my world here, the sun is the moon and the moon the sun. Everything meets, just not necessarily in the way you think.
“So what are you saying?” Houvnanian lit up, bright-eyed. “Ol’ Russ’s time has come again. Watch! I’ve barely stepped outside in the past thirty-seven years. Would probably blind me if I did. And you’re saying, what? I’m plotting my revenge? It’s end of days time all over again! Look, my hair’s all gone. See any horns coming through? So here’s a news flash, gentlemen. Nothing’s changed. The devil, he’s never left. It’s still the same ol’ world I used to be in. So if God wants to accuse me, or any of us, for what we did back then—bring it on! Or if he wants to forgive us—that’s fine with me too, gentlemen.”
I leaned forward, unable to control myself any longer. “You knew my brother.”
He didn’t flinch. He just looked at me, a sparkle in his dark eyes.
I said, “He sang and played the guitar. You once tried to raise money for a record he was trying to make. Do you remember him, Mr. Houvnanian? His name was Charlie Erlich.”
“Charlie, Charlie, Charlie . . . ,” the killer replied, singsong. “Sorry, all the Charlies seem to merge into one . . . I’m sorry, doc. I really am.”
“He lived on the ranch with you. Maybe not when everything was happening. But I know you know him. You want to know why I’m here, Mr. Houvnanian? I’m here because I know that what happened to my nephew was aimed directly at my brother. His son was a troubled, innocent kid who never really did much wrong in life, except, maybe, being his father’s son. I know he went up to the spot where he jumped with someone else—a woman, whom I’m pretty sure was Susan Pollack. Why? What did my brother do to you?”
“The wind and the rain, the wind and the rain . . . ,” Houvnanian started repeating again.
My chest tightened.
“I keep telling you, the wind split the rock, but you’ve still not answered my question, doc. If God wasn’t in the wind, then where was he? Do you think”—his eyes bore into me—“maybe here?”
I threw the photos aside and hurled myself across the table, his mocking smirk digging into me like a jagged knife. The guards went to restrain me. Sherwood latched on to my arm. He pulled me back in the chair. I put up my palms, as if to say, Okay, I know, I know . . . My pulse raced like an engine revved above the red zone.
I said, “I know it’s you!” my gaze direct and accusing. “I know you killed Evan.”
My heart rate accelerated again. I felt angry and out of control. And useless. He wasn’t giving us anything. He was enjoying it.
I sat back down.
Houvnanian’s surprised expression inched into a wiry grin, clearly having a ball. He winked, as if to say, Gotcha! then turned and nodded back to one of the guards, putting up his wrists, indicating that we were done now.
“I wish I could help you, doctor, I really do. But it’s been mighty fine visiting with you and hearing about old times.”
One of the guards stepped over and helped Houvnanian out of the chair. Sherwood and I stood. My heart was still racing and my blood was still hot. I knew when I walked out of this room I would still have nothing. It would be over. The bastard was simply toying with us, still pulling all the strings. I balled my fists and looked at Sherwood, who looked back at me, almost apologetically, sweeping up the photos into the file.
“So how’d that music career go anyway?” Houvnanian asked suddenly when he got to the door.
His gaze was trained directly at me, his eyes wolflike now, shiny like black lacquer. Now they had that same dark glow of malice I had seen in the photos a hundred times.
“Your brother?” He winked. “He ever hit the charts?”
He knew.
I knew he knew.
He gave me a last look and a final, mocking smile. Then the guards removed him through another door, his chains jangling like scornful laughter, following me out.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Warden Hutchins walked us back to his office.
I was so wired and frustrated at having to listen to that lunatic’s ramblings it was almost ripping me apart. I was certain he knew who Charlie was. And even more certain he was connected to Evan’s death.
I also knew I might’ve lost my final chance to prove it.
“I’m sorry that you had to come all the way up here,” the warden said. “I’ll notify the copter you’re ready to leave. Like I said, the man’s not a complete package anymore.”
“Bob, you said before you monitor his outside contacts?” Sherwood asked.
Hutchins nodded. “Part of life in the SHUs . . . All calls in and out must be cleared and everyone’s mail is sorted through and documented as to content and source.”
“Going back how far?”
“How far do you need? Houvnanian still gets his share of activity. There’s a million wackos, racists, and copycat killers out there who still regard him as some kind of god. That’s why we keep a close eye on him.”
I suddenly saw where Sherwood was heading. Maybe sort of a last-ditch fling, on fourth and a hundred. But we were in Hail Mary time now. He pulled up a seat across from Hutchins’s desk. “Could you tell me if he’s received any mail from the California Institution for Women in Frontera?”
Hutchins squinted.
Frontera was where Susan Pollack had been for the past thirty-five years.
“Guess I could.” The warden shrugged. “But I would also need a court order to share it with you. We keep it for security reasons only. The information is strictly confidential.”
“Bob, p
lease, we’re talking about the possibility of multiple homicides here. Homicides potentially masterminded from your own prison.”
“Look, I can pretty well assure you nothing suspicious has taken place,” the warden said, leaning back, “or we would have picked it up. We’ve got gang leaders and organized crime bosses who try to continue to run their operations while in here . . .”
“Bob,” Sherwood pleaded, “do this one favor for me. Just take a look. You don’t have to share what’s in it—or even reply. Just let me know if there’s been any correspondence from there. Even just a nod. I’ll take it from there.”
At first the warden looked back at Sherwood with disapproval; he was clearly a person who played things by the book. Then he gradually seemed to soften to an idea he really didn’t like. He sat for a moment, rubbing his finger against his cheek. I was sure he was just looking for some way to frame his refusal.
Sherwood pressed. “Just a look, Bob, please . . .”
Finally Hutchins blew out a blast of air, then picked up the intercom and waited until his secretary came on. He glanced down at a piece of paper. “Nancy, can you bring me Inmate B-30967’s Outside Communication file?”
My heart rose.
It took a minute or two for his secretary to bring it in. It was a thick accordion-style folder bound by a string. Houvnanian’s name and inmate number were plainly written on it in marker. Hutchins dropped the bulky folder on his desk. “I told you, it’s substantial . . . And this is only the past year.” He started to look through the photocopies of letters and monitoring forms, starting with the most recent. There appeared to be a master sheet of some kind. “What did you say, the women’s facility at Frontera . . . ?”
“Or maybe Mule Creek in Ione,” Sherwood said. That’s where two of Houvnanian’s other followers were presently incarcerated. “You don’t have to even say it out loud. Just give me a look and I’ll know.”
Hutchins put on wire-rim reading glasses and scanned down the sheet. He flipped the page—twice—his expression registering nothing. Finally he looked back up. Not even a twitch. A blank stare. “Anything else?”
“Maybe something from Susan Pollack herself?” Sherwood said. “It would have been in the past couple of months. She was released in May.”
Hutchins edged into a dubious smile. “You know how many rules I’m breaking here?” He glanced back down at the sheets. Turned a page. When he finally looked up, his expression hadn’t shifted.
Strike two.
“What about a phone call?” Sherwood said. “You keep records of those as well . . .”
Hutchins suddenly grew testy. “This isn’t a customer service operation, Don. You can’t just dial up an inmate here. There has to be prior approval and documentation.” He tossed the master sheets on his desk. “I’m sorry . . .”
Sherwood looked at me, emitting a sigh. Deflated.
I looked at the warden. “Do you mind if I have a try?”
A thought had hit me; I recalled something Susan Pollack had mentioned while we were speaking to her. It was a long shot, but once we stepped back on that copter, I knew any chance of implicating Houvnanian was pretty much dead.
He frowned at me, his patience clearly thinning. I wasn’t even a law enforcement officer, just someone who had lost a family member.
But maybe he saw the desperation on my face, that this was our last resort, because he picked up the sheets again. “What?”
I asked, “Is there anything in the file from someone named Maggie?”
That was the name Susan Pollack was known by on the Riorden Ranch. Maggie Mae.
“Maggie.” The warden sighed, clearing his throat, his expression slightly irritated.
“Yes. Or maybe even just the initial ‘M.’ ” I nodded.
Sherwood smiled at me.
“M . . . ?” Hutchins repeated. He reclined back in his chair. He took the sheets in his lap and reluctantly scanned. He turned the first page—nothing. He pursed his lips. I was already prepared for the disappointment. He flipped the second.
That’s when I saw the warden’s expression change.
At first it just seemed to bore in, intensifying through the sheet like a laser. Then he looked back up at me, as if startled. His jaw parted a bit, but there was only the slightest nod, and the word that accompanied it was like the true sound of vindication for me.
“Mags.”
Chapter Forty-Eight
“That’s how it was done,” I said to Sherwood in the copter. “That letter was a message. About Zorn. Evan. How they got back at people. It was how she let him know it was all going to begin.”
On the surface, the letter Hutchins had found seemed to be perfectly benign. “These kooks are always trying to contact him,” he explained. As a celebrity killer, Houvnanian always attracted his share of loonies and admirers. On his view of life. On how he had been misjudged. Or on music.
Hutchins wouldn’t let us as much as touch the letter. Or even take a copy. That would require a judge’s decree. But he laid it on the table for us to have a look.
It was written in a straightforward block print on lined notebook paper:
“I watched you on TV,” it began, possibly referring to a Dateline interview a year ago. “I know you like Guns n’ Roses. Axl Rose was a kind of apostle for me too. I know the song you mentioned—‘Estranged.’ There’s a line from that song that I sing to myself when I think I’m going out of my head: I knew the storm was getting closer . . .
“The storm is here!” the letter finished. “It never has to die!”
“The storm has never died,” it ended.
It was signed, “Yours always, Mags.”
The postmark on the envelope was from Richmond, California, just across the bay from San Francisco. Only an hour and a half from Jenner.
I was sure “Mags” was Susan Pollack.
“ ‘The storm is here. It never has to die.’ Don’t you see, Sherwood? Zorn. Greenway. He’s using his people to get back at the people who brought him down.”
“And Evan?” Sherwood asked, buckling himself in.
“Evan is somehow directed at my brother.” I didn’t have the answer yet, but there was no more hiding it. “Maybe there were fingerprints on it. Maybe we can match the handwriting. We prove that letter was from Susan Pollack . . .”
“We prove the letter was from Susan and what?” The detective looked at me skeptically. “It’s just song lyrics. There’s nothing there. Besides, there’s not a judge in the country who would grant us a court order based on that note or what we have.
“Not to mention you’re forgetting one thing . . .” He kicked his briefcase under the seat. “If Greenway and Cooley were murdered, it all happened when Susan Pollack was behind bars. That surely wasn’t her.”
He was right there. I flashed to the person who had called me in the motel room. The voice was male.
“So what’s the next step?” I pushed him. The propellers started to whir. In a second we’d be heading back to Pismo. “Just let it go? The guy is orchestrating murder, Sherwood. He’s in jail, in chains, and he’s got the upper hand. You know as well as I do what’s going on here.”
“I can’t play this out forever, doc. I tried . . . The next step.” He sighed as the copter started to rise. “Other than getting the truth out of your brother . . .” He turned his head toward the window. “I don’t know.”
Chapter Forty-Nine
Susan Pollack kneeled in the coop, in her floppy hat and overalls, spreading grain into her feed bin.
“Come here, my pets . . . My little ones.”
They were like family to her. Her only family now. Her one attachment of love. Except you, Bo. She smiled at her collie, snoozing on the porch.
“Yes, my darlings, over here . . .” They knew the nurturing rise in her tone. “It’s feeding time for you, it’s time . . .”
One by one, the chickens started to come over.
Tomorrow she would show him. That she had been loyal
and true.
True to him.
All these years.
You never let me come along, did you? She smiled, conjuring up his delicate, chiseled face. Because you knew, didn’t you, that one day you would need me, my love. You told me, one day I would have to make sacrifices.
To earn your love completely.
And when the time came, I would.
That was why.
You said I had to be ready.
The excited birds made their way into the pen. She threw a line of seed in front of Desdemona, her favorite, with her smooth white breast and feathers. The proudest and the most vain.
The bird followed her, flapping her wings and pecking at the grain.
“You are my favorite,” Susan said softly, putting the feed bag down.
She grabbed the blade.
Nothing can truly be bad if it’s done from love, isn’t that right, Russell?
She picked the bird up and ran the knife slowly across its neck, muffling the bird’s startled squawk, blood running down its soft white feathers and through her hands.
Just as she wished she could have done all those years back then.
When you left me behind.
You said I had to sacrifice. To be ready.
For you to need me.
And I am ready.
She threw the dead bird down and looked at the others.
I will show you now.
Chapter Fifty
I stopped off at Charlie’s on my way back to the motel.
Gabby opened the door. They had just finished up dinner, and she was in the midst of doing the dishes.
My brother was at the kitchen table, picking on his guitar. He barely looked up, neither surprised nor particularly happy to see me. His graying beard and ground-down, toothless smile seemed beaten down.
“Hey, Jay . . .” He picked at a tune. “What’s up with you, little brother?”
