In vain, her hands fly to her breasts and crotch trying to cover herself, even though we see each other naked all the time. I go back to our room and get into bed, my sleep-clouded mind not comprehending what I have just seen.
I awoke with a jolt as if a thousand volts had passed through my body. My heart rammed against the inside of my chest. I gasped for breath as I rushed to the bathroom and dry heaved into the toilet.
Greg Gervais was right—I had repressed it. Dad had molested Beth, possibly raped her when she was sixteen. Damn him for being a pervert, and damn him for lying to me, and to the police. Beth had to hang her head in shame when it should have been him. What a travesty of justice. Beth and I could have stayed friends. Perhaps if we had, she wouldn't be dead. Damn him to hell.
Afterward, I sat on the cold bathroom floor, my mind numbed by the recollection. I tried to rationalize why the memory had stayed hidden in my mind for so long and wondered whether there might be other memories still repressed. I didn't remember Dad ever touching me, but then I had no recollection until now of what he'd done to Beth.
Did Mom know what he was up to?
Was that the real reason she left him?
Should I ask her about it the next time she was lucid?
With no answers, I dragged myself to my feet, knowing what I had to do. At the bottom of my closet was a metal hamper, used by Dad when he was in the military. I think he'd fashioned the wooden lid himself. Later, in civilian life, he'd used it to store his personal stuff, right up to the time he died. In truth, I'd never taken a proper inventory of the contents. I slid it from the closet and upended it onto the carpet. Out fell the junk my Dad spent a lifetime collecting. Watches, binoculars, a couple of novels, books of matches, a program from my school event – a mountain of bric-a-brac.
Several large rolled-up photographs landed beside it on the carpet. Dad had been an amateur photographer with his own darkroom. After Greg's warning, I unfurled them tentatively, unsure of what I'd find. At the sight of two seascapes and a landscape, worthy of framing and hanging, I breathed a sigh of relief.
Then, I noticed a pull ribbon in the bottom. I tilted the hamper for a closer look.
A false bottom. I lifted it up, and a couple of dozen snap-sized photographs spilled onto the floor.
Photographs of Beth in her mid-teens, naked, posing.
After the first few, I couldn't look at any more. It wasn't just the sleazy nudity. Her eyes were those of a frightened, cornered animal; a girl forced into something she didn't want to do; nevertheless, trying to please my father. Seeing her like that was horrible—worse than seeing her mutilated body outside Brockway Apartments. I haven't cried in a long while, but I fell on the bed and sobbed loudly until I fell asleep from exhaustion.
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, before heading out to work, I burnt all of Dad's photographs in the sink and flushed the black remains down the garbage disposer. I tossed the hamper with the rest of its contents into the trash and made a vow to put the mental movie of my Dad and his sickening behavior in a box. Close the lid, just like Doctor Kate told me.
She would be proud of me. To ruminate on his behavior for any length of time would be corrosive.
At any rate, that was the plan.
My call to The Holiday Inn was a bust. Beth's half-brother Greg Gervais had checked out right after meeting me. I hoped he'd be at Beth's funeral, so I could give him a sincere apology.
All this time, I had been so utterly wrong about Beth.
I owed her an apology too, but that boat sailed last Monday.
If only I had returned her calls.
CHAPTER 39
LIEUTENANT TOWNSEND POUNCED on me the moment I entered the squad room:
"Whoever killed the two women will have previous form for a sex crime—attempted rape, sex with a minor, exposing themselves to girls. You should be checking the sex offender list. Time to step up your game, Riley, or I'll find someone who can do a better job."
He breezed out of the door without waiting for a reply. Before I could point out how different the murders were from the anger and drink fueled sex attacks we often dealt with. Had he stayed for my reply, the neckless wonder would doubtless have sent me on a wild goose chase, so it was just as well.
No one else was in the squad room, which suited me fine. I felt sleep-deprived after the events of the previous night. It was a struggle to keep a lid on the mental box holding my Dad's despicable acts.
I flashed back to him, yelling at Beth and me because he couldn't find anywhere to park the car, then taking us for ice cream to make up for it; the odd looks and winks between him and Beth I'd thought nothing of at the time. I hated him.
Instead of coming clean, he allowed an innocent teenage girl to suffer humiliation and rejection, her life possibly ruined, to hide what he'd done to her. I wished he was still alive so I could throw his miserable ass in jail. Not a healthy sentiment, I know, but on the plus side, it distracted me from thinking about Jake.
I needed to find why Jack Bennett's death was ruled a suicide. I typed his name into the police database on my computer. From the long list of documents which appeared, I selected the final police report on his death.
Did Matt hack this document from our server and give it to Kayla Ellis?
The case was assigned to Townsend, but why was a lieutenant investigating, when it looked like Bennett killed himself? It must have seemed a strong possibility for Townsend to pull suicide out of his ass.
I skimmed through the photographs. A general view of the crime scene showed the pistol on the left side of Bennett's body, and arguably too far away from the victim to have been dropped by him. The gun was missing in the closer-in photos of him slumped forward in his desk chair—a finding unusual enough to raise questions of what happened.
In the write-up, Townsend stated the position of the weapon in terms of its distance from the walls instead of relative to the deceased. Without access to the room, it was meaningless. I wondered if he had deliberately written it this way to cover up the true nature of the scene. The report went on to say the pistol had bounced or rolled to where investigators discovered it. I ejected the round from the chamber of my Sig Sauer and tried dropping it in many different ways, but never did it bounce more than an inch or two.
Next, I read a summary of Angie Bennett's statement stating that her husband had been depressed in the days before his death. Not trusting Townsend's interpretation of what Angie had said, I searched for the full text of her statement, but it wasn't there, although it was listed in the index.
A photo showing a clip of ammunition was included with pictures of items removed from the scene, but there was no photo of the pistol which killed Bennett. Was Townsend just sloppy or did he have a darker motive? Three rounds were recovered—from the door, the desk, and the floor. Due to impact damage, the techs could only say it was possible they had been fired recently by the weapon found on the floor.
Jack Bennett's own revolver was still in his desk drawer. The report gave no explanation of where the pistol which killed him came from.
I clicked through the pictures of other items in Bennett's office. The photographer must have been paid by the shot, as there were pictures of staplers and documents from Bennett's desk including a draft agreement between Bennett, Sands and The State of California, to build the new DMV center. Bennett and Sands were about to sign a high dollar construction deal, making suicide seem even less likely.
The next document sent a chill through me.
It was the exact same list of names Beth had in her gym locker. Was she investigating Bennett's death? I hit the print button and heard the LaserJet whir in the distance. Moments later, the report vanished from my monitor. A small dialog box in the center of my screen told me the report was offline, and to try again later. I logged back into the database and found I could pull up any report excepting anything related to Bennett's death.
Who could have done that? Townsend? Who else?
Detective Prent
iss came into the squad room and set a cardboard tray of fast food on his desk. I waved him over and said, "you need to see this. Bring your lunch."
"No breakfast today, eh, Riley? What a surprise." He set the fries on my desk so we could share.
"Most days, two cups of coffee are all I need in the morning."
When I told him about the vanishing police reports, he responded, "Have you seen the server? It must be fifteen years old. It's always crashing and losing files."
Rather than press the point, I said, "We found this sheet in Beth's gym locker. Does it mean anything to you?" I placed a plastic evidence bag with the list of names inside next to the fries.
"Not at first sight. Oh wait, there's an Asha Willis on it. That's the name of Ananda's daughter. She had leukemia."
"Is the date next to her name significant?"
"It could well be when she died. Ananda told me it was three years ago."
"Have some more fries, Einstein. Now look at these pictures and tell me what you see." I fanned out the three photographs from Beth's journal, in front of him.
"That's her." He tapped the picture of a smiling girl aged about six, dressed in a T-shirt and jeans. "That's Asha Willis. Ananda has pictures of her everywhere."
"Here's what's odd. When Jack Bennett died, he had the exact same list in his possession. The crime scene tech cataloged it." I placed the copy of Bennett's list next to Beth's.
"It is curious," Prentiss admitted, "But I wouldn't attach too much significance to it. What connection could there be between the death of a developer nearly a year ago, and the deaths of a reporter and her girlfriend recently? Perhaps the picture was misfiled.
"And the death of a young girl three years ago. I don't know, but there is one, and I will find it. Do you think Ananda is home? I'd like to get her reaction to the names and the photos."
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, we were crossing from the parking lot to a side entrance of the Brockway Apartments. I thought how grand the building must have looked when it was first built, with its light gray stucco and white trim, it's faux gables and brick facing on the first floor. I guessed a combination of substandard building materials, shoddy workmanship, and neglect were responsible for it looking run down so quickly.
We climbed the stairs to the second floor, and Scott pounded on Ananda's door. After a beat, I heard bolts sliding, and she appeared wearing a blue bathrobe. She squinted at us through half-closed eyes, looking like she had just awoken.
"What do you want, Scott? I was sleeping. You know they've got me working a night shift at the hospital tonight."
"It's difficult to keep track of your shifts." Prentiss was unrepentant.
"Our apologies. We had some questions for you, but we can come back another time," I offered.
"I'm awake now. You'd better come in." Ananda held the door open.
I asked her to sit next to me on the futon and expressed regret for the need to talk about her daughter.
"It's okay. I love talking about her. What do you want to know?"
"Is this her?" I showed Ananda the photograph Prentiss had picked."
"Yes, I gave that picture to Beth. Where did you find it?"
"It was in her things at the gym. Why did you give it to her?"
"She was doing an article on parents who have lost children to cancer and other illnesses."
"Does this date mean anything to you?" I showed her a copy of the list of names.
"It's the day my little girl passed." Ananda caught her breath and pointed to her daughter's name on the sheet.
"Did you give Beth the date?"
"No, she already had the list when we spoke."
"Tell me if you recognize any other names."
"Yes, three maybe four of them. They are the names of other children who died. I know their parents from the support group." I wrote a check-mark next to the ones she indicated.
"Could the dates be when they died?"
"I couldn't say for sure, but it's possible."
"Have you heard of Jack Bennett? He was a local developer."
"I think it was in the paper a few months ago that he shot himself. What's this about?"
"He had a similar sheet with your daughter's name on it."
"Whoa, that's creepy."
"You can't think of any reason why he'd have information about your daughter? You never met him that you know of?"
"No. Was this Bennett guy some kind of pervert?"
"It's unlikely that was the reason he had her name. Was Beth on her way to see you on the day she was murdered?"
"She didn't say she was coming."
"Who was your daughter's doctor?" I wondered if the list was about malpractice.
"Dr. Walker at the hospital pediatric department. He's wonderful." Ananda's face lit up.
"Did he say there was anything unusual about your daughter's illness?"
"He just said it progressed more quickly than he'd ever seen before."
We thanked Ananda and apologized again for disturbing her sleep. On the way back to the car, I said to Prentiss, "You were quiet in there."
"You found the evidence, and it looked like you had thought of all the questions. She was pissed at me for waking her."
"There's more to this list than names for Beth to contact about a human-interest story."
"There you go again." He drew out the words.
"Think about it. Beth was using a list from a guy who's been dead for ten months. Do you really still think the article was going to be about grieving parents?"
"So, what was the story about?" Prentiss asked coolly.
"I don't know yet, but I'm going to discover what the names meant to Bennett."
"He's been dead for ten months, so good luck with that."
"We need to talk to Walker again. Beth's article could have been about medical malpractice. If that's the case, I should be looking for a link between Bennett and Walker."
"I don't have time to get involved. I need to press on with the investigation into Matt Baker's kidnapping."
"Townsend says someone is leaking inside information to Kayla Ellis. Have you told Ananda anything about the case I'm working on?"
Prentiss's eyes flashed with anger. "What kind of question is that? What do you take me for?" His tone walked the line between resentment and disbelief.
"I'll take that as a no," I said and left it there.
We rode back to the station in silence.
I HAD TURNED ASHLEY'S EMAILS over to Detective's Assistant Jackie Orvar to sort through after emphasizing the need to keep them under wraps. Now she was back at my desk holding a sheaf of printouts. She said:
"Most aren't relevant to the case. Online purchases and the like. The daily emails she traded with Beth are the most revealing. The closest she gets to telling us what they were up to is when she says she'll interview one of the families on the way home. The emails mentioning that are all in the last three to four weeks. The emails in the same timeframe, talk about Beth's stress level and getting away somewhere when this is over. But there's no indication what 'this' is."
"That's all?" I'd hoped for something more conclusive.
Jackie smiled. "Not by a long way. Ashley took out a restraining order against Patrick Whitehead. There's a whole series of emails from about eight months ago. In them, she and Beth discuss what she should do about him."
"It's almost a week since the murders, and we're only now discovering that one of the murdered women had a restraining order against a guy?" I couldn't keep the annoyance out of my tone.
"Judge Francis, who was hearing the case, granted a request from Whitehead to seal the ruling. He claimed his job at the hospital would be adversely affected if news of the case got out. One of the clerks to the court agreed to speak to me, because the case may have a bearing on our murder inquiry. We need to be careful not to get her into trouble."
"May have a bearing," I repeated, a bit too sarcastically. "Did the clerk say what he was doing?"
"She only ga
ve me the basics. The emails talk about an assault. We don't know if it was rape, attempted rape, or if Whitehead groped her. Ashley talked to an attorney who advised her the assault would be a case of she said, he said. It was easier for her to get the restraining order, as it's a civil action and she had evidence of him stalking her on tape."
"Does she mention Whitehead's name in the emails?"
"Yes and no. Ashley calls her assailant prickhead." Jackie snickered.
"If it turns out Whitehead is connected to her death, and we base our case on the emails, our friends from City Hall will be fired. Alternatively, if we say we discovered Whitehead's stalking from the court clerk, she would most likely lose her job. Let me think if there's another pretext to apply to the court to unseal the restraining order. But either way, we need to have a conversation with Whitehead."
CHAPTER 40
THE FIRST SHOT SHOWERED ME with glass. A jagged hole appeared in my windshield where moments earlier my head had been. I had reached over to double-check the message on my cell phone. If I hadn't, the slug would undoubtedly have taken my head off.
Thirty minutes earlier, a text had vibrated the phone in my pocket. The message came from Prentiss saying he'd discovered Matt Baker's computers at Lightning Self-Storage, and there were things I needed to see. When I phoned him to verify the location, the call went to voicemail. It was unusual to see a text from him. Although he had an aircraft carrier size smartphone, he always claimed his chubby fingers made it difficult to type on the tiny keyboard.
My 4Runner sped onward at thirty miles an hour. Only the two-inch bullet hole afforded any visibility through the crazed windshield. It hit me that my partner probably hadn't sent the text. I wasn't completely sure, because I didn't entirely trust Prentiss or anyone else. But the technology was readily available to spoof a cell phone. To send bogus text messages, which didn't come from the apparent sender. I was sure Beth's killers used a similar method to lure her to the apartments. The message would have appeared to come from Ananda and likely said something about needing to see her urgently.
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