by Andrew Gross
He rolled his eyes at me. “You’re watching too many detective shows, doc. You’re starting to make me wonder about you.”
“So then tell me,” I asked, meeting his stare, “why are we driving all this way up to see Susan Pollack?”
He shot me a look, then shifted his gaze back to the road and drove on for a while in silence.
The traffic was light that time of the morning, so the miles flew by as we sped up the coast. We passed through the wine country around Paso Robles, where I knew a lot of great zinfandels came from. The fog lifted and it became bright and sunny. I dozed, looking at the rolling vineyard-covered hills.
When I woke, an hour and a half in, I tried to change the subject to something personal. “Was that your wife and daughter I saw in your office?”
He looked back with a question in his gaze.
“The pictures,” I said, “on your credenza.”
He merely nodded at first, not offering a whole lot more. Then, after about a minute, he added: “Dorrie died a little over a year ago. Pancreatic cancer. Two months. Went like that! My daughter lives up in Washington State. She’s married to an air force flight instructor up there.”
“There’s just her?”
He nodded. Then after another pause he said, “We had a son, Kyle, who died when he was nine. Boating accident.”
“I’m sorry,” I told him.
“Years ago.” He shrugged, sloughing it off. “He’d be thirty now.”
“I meant about your wife too.”
My thoughts went to what he’d said about his liver. He’d received a transfer. He’d been handed a brand-new lease on life. But I wondered, for what?
“We had all these plans,” Sherwood suddenly volunteered, his eyes ahead, “for when I retired. We were gonna spend six months and go camping down in South America. Patagonia. Bottom of the world. Supposed to be incredible down there. Some of the best fly-fishing going. Ever been there?”
“No,” I said, “I haven’t.” Kathy and I had always talked about going to Machu Picchu. For her next significant birthday.
“Then I got sick…” His voice trailed off.
“Your liver?”
He eyed me, probably figuring I knew precisely what eroded a liver. And what were the signs of possible rejection, after some years.
He said, “I used to hit the bottle a bit. After Kyle died. Probably cost me a rank or two in my career. The damage was pretty far along. I was lucky to find a match. Some pastor keeled over in the middle of his sermon. Edward J. Knightly. My lucky day!”
“Funny how it works,” I said.
“Yeah, funny… Soon as I got back from the hospital, Dorrie starts to feel discomfort in her side. Can’t keep her food down. Always tired. Lotta good the damn thing’s done me.” He changed lanes. “Sort of a waste, if you ask me. What do you think?”
“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “Ask me again when I get on that plane.”
Sherwood glanced at me, and for the first time, I think I actually saw him smile.
I asked, “Are you taking your immunosuppressants?” I had noticed some bruising on his arms. And his eyes were a trace yellow, icteric. Signs that things might not be going along as well as they could.
“Of course I’m taking them,” he replied, turning back to the road at my question.
In Gilroy, garlic capital of the world, we stopped to use the john and fill up the car. I grabbed an In-N-Out burger. It was only another hour or so to San Jose and the Bay Area. Another hour into San Francisco and then across the Bay Bridge into Marin.
“So do we have a plan?” I asked as we got back on the road.
“A plan? ” He looked at me with a furrowed brow.
“For how we’re going to handle Susan Pollack? What we’re going to say?”
He changed lanes and flicked the AC higher. “Yeah, I have a plan.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
In Marin, we reconnected back with 101 and took it to Santa Rosa. There we turned east, on 116, through the Russian River Valley and its rows of pinot noir, heading toward the coast.
Eventually we hit the ocean again and turned north on Route 1, hugging the coastline, for another eighteen miles. The scenery grew spectacular. Winding corkscrew turns dug into the edges of steep hills, and there were intermittent turnouts that overlooked the blue sea. I was unprepared for just how impressive it was. For a while, I even forgot just why we were there.
Finally a road sign announced, JENNER. 3 MILES.
An uneasiness began to build in me. I was a doctor, not a policeman. I was used to stressful situations, but I’d never done anything like this. I realized I was only a few minutes away from meeting someone who might have had a hand in my nephew’s death.
The little fishing town of Jenner was nestled in a crook along the coast. It seemed about as remote and isolated as anything could be in California. Offshore, two spectacular rock formations rose out of the ocean mist.
Sherwood’s directions prompted us to turn off the main highway in town, onto a road called Pine Canyon Drive, and we took it east, climbing above the coast into the surrounding mountains. Here, the landscape became steep and forested, hills thick with tall sequoias and evergreens. The homes became trailerlike and run-down. Weather-beaten mailboxes marked dirt roads, more than actual dwellings.
A few hundred feet up, we came across a sign marking Lost Hill Road, basically a dirt road with a fallow vineyard on one side, pretty much in the middle of nowhere.
The signpost read 452.
Sherwood glanced at me and made the turn, his Gran Torino bouncing over the rutted terrain. About five hundred yards in, we came upon a red single-story farmhouse. There was a barn, separated from the main dwelling. A clothesline with some laundry draped across it. A collie came off the porch, barking.
We were there.
I took a deep breath, fought back some nerves. The place looked run-down and ramshackle and we were totally isolated.
Sherwood stopped the car. He turned to me. “The plan, doc, is you wait here until I nod that it’s okay.” He opened the glove compartment and took out a holstered gun. “And I do the talking, all right? We clear?”
I wasn’t about to argue. “Clear.”
As he strapped the holster around his chest he asked, “Did you happen to bring your cell?”
“I have it.” I nodded, reaching into my pants pocket, and pulled it out.
“Doubt it even works up here, but…” He opened the door, leaving the car keys in the ignition. “You hear the sound of something you don’t like-say, like gunfire-be my guest and get the fuck out. Then you can tell ’em.”
“Tell ’em what?” I asked, not sure I understood.
He stepped out of the car and winked. “That thing about the eyes… You can tell ’em you were right.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
The collie wagged its tail and went up to Sherwood. He gave the dog a friendly pat and followed it up to the house.
Sherwood looked back at me once, then knocked on the white frame door. “Susan Pollack?”
No one answered.
I noticed the rear of a car parked in the barnlike garage, the fresh wash draped on the clothesline. Not to mention the dog.
He knocked again, harder this time. “Anyone here…?” I saw his hand go near his holster. “Ms. Pollack? I’m Detective Sherwood. From the San Luis Obispo police.”
I felt a premonition that the next sound I was going to hear was that of a shotgun blast and Sherwood would be blown backward off the porch.
My heart kicked up a beat.
He was getting ready to knock a third time when someone came around from the side.
It was a woman. In a straw sun hat. Wearing coveralls and heavy gardening gloves. She had short dark hair; pinched, mouselike features; and a definite resemblance to the woman I’d seen in the newspaper photo. She stared at Sherwood with a hesitant reserve. “Can I help you?”
“I’m sorry to bother you,” the detective sai
d. He introduced himself again and held out his badge. “I’m with the coroner’s office in San Luis Obispo. We drove all the way up here… We’d just like a moment of your time.”
“A moment of my time about what ?” she asked, squinting.
“Related to an incident that took place down there. A suicide. We just have a few questions we’d like to ask you, if you can give us the time.”
“Ask me ?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Sherwood nodded good-naturedly.
“Am I required?” She looked past him, and her gaze fell on me in the car.
“No,” Sherwood answered, “you’re not required at all. But it’s been a long drive, and it would save us coming all the way back here with something more official…”
Susan Pollack didn’t seem particularly nervous or relaxed. What she seemed was guarded, like someone who didn’t like strangers invading her world. Especially the police.
Finally she shrugged and wiped her arm across her brow. “San Luis Obispo’s a long way. All right, well, you might as well come on in then. I was just in the chicken coop. They’re pretty much my only friends these days. Them and Bo. Not much fun if you don’t like to get your hands dirty. What did you say your name was… Sherwood?”
Sherwood nodded.
She stepped up on the porch. “And you might as well tell your friend, or whoever he is in the car, to come on in too.”
Sherwood waved toward me, and I got out. I nodded hello and followed them in.
“This is Jay Erlich,” Sherwood said.
“You a detective too?” Susan Pollack asked. She had sort of a narrow, birdlike face and barely looked at me.
“No. He’s a doctor. A big-time surgeon, I hear. From New York.”
“I’m from New York,” Susan Pollack said. She wiped her hands. “I went to the Brayley School in the city and had a year at Swarthmore College.” She looked at me. “You haven’t driven up all this way to tell me that I’m sick or something, have you, Dr. Erlich?”
“No. I haven’t,” I said, but didn’t smile.
“Dr. Erlich’s nephew was killed last week in Morro Bay,” Sherwood explained. “He took a fall off the famous rock there in the bay. You ever been to Morro Bay, Ms. Pollack?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I haven’t. There’s lots of places I haven’t been to. You’ve found me here, so you obviously know who I am. I guess you could say I’ve had my travel privileges curtailed the past couple of years.”
She led us into the foyer. Sherwood asked, “Do you mind if we sit down?”
“Be my guest.” She motioned us to a wooden kitchen table. The kitchen had a pleasant, well-taken-care-of feel about it. A rack with lots of copper pots suspended from it hung over a wooden island. An old hand-painted olive basket hanging on the wall. She took off her hat, revealing her short-cropped hair. I tried to determine if this was the face I had seen staring at me that night from the car, but I couldn’t.
She nodded, and Sherwood and I pulled out chairs.
“I had a little money put aside from a trust my father had set up.” She shrugged. “When I got out, I didn’t really have anywhere to go. I couldn’t face going back home. And as you might imagine”-she smiled briefly-“privacy was a selling point of the place. I’d offer you some coffee, but this isn’t taking on the feel of a social visit, is it? Maybe you should just get right down to why you’re here.”
Sherwood nodded. “I asked Dr. Erlich to come along because, as I said, his nephew, Evan, was killed last week, and we’re looking into his death. At first blush it was ruled a suicide. I ruled it a suicide. The kid was in a troubled state mentally and had recently been remanded to Central Coast Medical Center, the psych ward there. A couple of days before his death, the hospital released him to a halfway facility in Morro Bay. A day later he took a walk from the house, and the next morning he was found at the bottom of the rock.”
“Sounds like a poor decision,” Susan Pollack said. “His or the hospital’s.” She turned to me. “How old was your nephew, Dr. Erlich?”
“Twenty-one.”
“Twenty-one…” She inhaled deeply and rubbed her hand across her brow. “And you say he was troubled?”
I nodded. “Bipolar.”
She nodded, almost sympathetically. “I know something about being twenty-one and troubled. I suppose we both had to pay for it, in our own ways. I’m sorry for your loss.”
I studied her reactions-a tick in her jaw, averting her eyes-trying to measure her sincerity. “Thanks.”
“Nonetheless…” She turned back to Sherwood. “I’d still like to know just what this has to do with me.”
“You say you’ve never been to Morro Bay?” he asked again.
“No, I haven’t. I haven’t left here very much at all since my release. And you still haven’t answered my question.”
“A number of curious matters have come up,” Sherwood started in, “that might in some way connect Dr. Erlich’s nephew’s death to a period of your own life, Ms. Pollack. Your own past.”
She smiled, more of a soft twinkling in her eyes, as if to say, I’m not surprised . She took out a cigarette, lit it, and tossed the match in a coffee mug on the table. “Let me hear them, please.”
“Do you know the name Walter Zorn?” Sherwood asked.
She answered almost reflexively: “No.” Then, blinking, her eyes lighting up with recognition, she nodded. “ Yes… yes, I do.”
“He was a detective who was part of the police team back in Santa Barbara that handled the Houvnanian investigation,” Sherwood reminded her. “You should know the name.”
“I haven’t heard it in years. I was young and stoned mostly, and in a completely different world back then. And to my recollection, he didn’t handle any of my depositions. But I do recall the name.”
“You’ve not heard from him since?”
She shook her head. “Not in thirty-five years.”
“Or seen him?”
“Like I said, I’ve been a bit preoccupied, detective.” She flicked an ash in the coffee mug. “How is Detective Zorn?”
“Well, actually, he’s dead,” Sherwood told her.
“Hmmm .” She grunted with a slight smile. “Definitely seems to be in the water lately.”
“He was murdered. Three days ago. In his home. In Santa Maria. Thirty miles south of Morro Bay.” Sherwood stared at her. “Any chance that you’ve been there ?”
Susan Pollack met his stare and took a long drag on her cigarette. Her amiable expression shifted. “I’m not sure I like where this is going, Detective Sherwood. But I’m still interested in finding out what any of this has to do with me.”
“Zorn handled the Houvnanian murders. A week or two ago, before he was killed, he was observed in conversation with Dr. Erlich’s nephew, Evan. It seems the boy’s father, Dr. Erlich’s brother, had a connection to Houvnanian himself back then.”
“Now this is getting interesting. What kind of connection?”
“Apparently he resided on the Riorden Ranch for a time. I don’t suppose you might’ve overlapped or even remember him. Charlie Erlich…”
Susan’s Pollack’s birdlike eyes narrowed, like she was focusing back in time. “I may. Or may not, as you say. People were always moving in and out of the ranch. We may not have even been there at the same time. Anyway, we all went by different names back then. Mine was Maggie. Maggie Mae. For Magdalena, actually, not for the song.
“Anyway”-she looked back at me-“your brother’s son is dead, and he had some kind of random connection to this detective, Zorn. Now he’s dead…” She turned to Sherwood, the lightbulb going off. “And I’ve been recently released. I think I get it now.”
Sherwood nodded. “We’re trying to find out if Detective Zorn’s connection to Evan was, indeed, as random as you say.”
She rubbed a finger along the side of her face, knocked the ash off her cigarette. She came back with the faintest smile. “Just so you know, detective, I haven’t had any direct co
mmunication with Russell Houvnanian in more than thirty years. I’ve taken responsibility for what I’ve done. What I helped to do. I’ve expressed remorse. I’ve paid my debt. I was a deluded twenty-year-old who was in love. I didn’t kill anybody, Detective Sherwood. I didn’t get in that van.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, ma’am-”
“I’m fifty-seven now,” Susan Pollack said, cutting him off. “I’ve forfeited most of my life. I’d like to find some way I can make up for the pain I’ve caused. Counseling, animal rescue, I don’t know what form. The last thing I have on my mind is the ‘old days,’ detective. I think you can understand that. That’s the best answer I can give.”
She turned to me. “I’m sorry about your nephew, doctor. I’m sorry if it’s opened a bunch of wounds and old things that were better off kept closed. But I haven’t been to Morro Bay. Or Santa Maria. Or seen Detective Zorn. Or knew of your nephew. Now, I know you’ve had a long drive up here. Is that all?”
Sherwood looked at me with an air of disappointment. As if he was saying, Sorry, her cooperation is 100 percent voluntary at this point. He seemed ready to get up. “We won’t trouble you any longer…”
I fixed on her. “Both Evan and this detective Zorn had something strange on them at the times of their deaths. The image of an eye. An open eye, staring. Does that mean anything to you?”
Susan Pollack shrugged. I noticed the slightest tremor in her jaw. “No. Should it?”
Sherwood looked at me, eyes burning, but I continued on. “Do you mind if I read you something, Ms. Pollack?” I knew we were about to walk out the door with nothing and that would be the end of it. We had no proof, nothing to pin her to any of the scenes, no evidence to compel her to cooperate, and nothing on Houvnanian, who was in jail.
All we had were these unrelated pieces of the jigsaw I was trying to fit together. I needed to know for sure.
“Russell Houvnanian made a statement at the time of his sentencing. It was about him possibly coming back one day. To take revenge. Do you have any idea what this means?”
I pulled out the paper from my jacket and tried to judge her reactions as I read. “ ‘On that day of judgment, or even the hour, no one will know… Not even the sleeping child will know. Only the father. It’s like a man who goes away for a long time…’ ” I glanced up, watching her watching me, the slightest veiled smile in her eyes. “ ‘No one knows when the master will choose to come back, or in what manner… Watch,’ ” I read, “ ‘lest he come back suddenly and find you sleeping. Watch…’ ”
