Room for Doubt

by Nancy Cole Silverman

  Trouble was I had one big nagging doubt that wouldn’t go away. I wasn’t convinced Bernard “Bruno” Sims had committed suicide either. It didn’t make sense. Particularly if Bruno had been the same man I’d seen in the grocery store just days before trying to pick up Running-girl. Judging from her overly enthusiastic reaction, Bruno had a lot to look forward to, and suicide wasn’t one of them. So when Private Investigator Gerhardt Chasen told me he had evidence—real hard evidence—that would prove Bruno hadn’t killed himself, and that the police were covering something up, I agreed to meet with him, begrudgingly.

  “Bring along a good pair of hiking shoes,” he said. “We’re going to take a walk.”

  We decided to meet at noon in the grassy field, the same spot where I had filed my report two days earlier. He said I’d recognize him. He’d be the dude in the cargo shorts, nursin’ a sucker.

  “A sucker?” I asked.

  “Yeah. New Year’s resolutions stuff. You know how it goes. Trying to kick some bad habits.”

  Gerhardt Chasen wasn’t kidding about the shorts or the sucker, for that matter. As I parked my Jeep, I spotted him staring directly up at the Hollywood Sign. He was wearing a pair of khaki-colored cargo shorts, a camouflage vest, work boots, and a cowboy hat. It wasn’t until he turned and looked at me that I noticed it. A bulbous object on the side of his bearded cheek with a thin white stick protruding from his mouth. A lollipop. He rolled it around like chewing tobacco, and as I approached, he smiled, taking the candy from his mouth.

  Aside from the sucker, Gerhardt Chasen looked like a modern day Indiana Jones, about six-two, athletic, and on the youngish side. I pegged him to be in his mid-thirties.

  “Gerhardt?” I asked.

  “You don’t look much like a radio reporter.” He stuck his hand out expecting I’d shake it. “Bet you get that all the time. Friends call me Chase. Don’t much care for Gerhardt, and Mr. Chasen is too formal.”

  I shook his hand, large and rough in my own. Then without waiting for a further introduction, he turned around, told me to follow him, and headed up a narrow footpath into the park.

  After several minutes, I hollered after him. “Excuse me. I take it we’re hiking up to the sign? Don’t you think we should talk first?”

  He stopped momentarily, his eyes on the forty-five-foot-tall letters that loomed over us like monolithic giants. “Not unless you’re some Barbie doll who can’t walk and talk at the same time.” Then turning back to me, he added, “What’s the matter, Blondie, can’t keep up?”

  He had to be joking? But if he wanted to test my mettle, I was more than capable. I hated being shown up.

  I quickened my pace and passed him on the trail. “Not only can this Barbie doll walk and talk, she can even chew gum at the same time. Can you?” I was competitive by nature, and whoever this PI was, I wasn’t about to lose this endurance race to the sign. “And my name’s not Blondie or Barbie,” I snapped. “It’s Carol Childs.”

  I could hear him close behind me, his breathing heavy. The grade was getting steep, and the dry incline was slippery with small rocks, making it difficult to navigate. Several times, despite my surefootedness, I nearly stumbled but didn’t.

  Finally, after twenty rigorous minutes on the mountain, and with my heart beating like a threshing machine, I stopped. No need in one of us having a heart attack. I steadied myself on the loose rock and turned around.

  “You need a break?” I hollered.

  Ten feet behind me, Chase stood, nearly doubled over, with his hat in hand and one foot mounted on a rock. He was panting. Then catching his breath, he wiped his brow and squinted at me. “So, Ms. Childs, you notice anything unusual when you were here Friday morning?”

  “You mean other than a nude body hanging on the sign?”

  He laughed, then reached for a water bottle attached to his belt and took a long swig.

  “You want a drink?”

  “No.” My heart was pounding, and I was sweating, but I’d be damned if I’d share a water bottle. “Thank you. I won’t be needing your water. But as long as we’re taking this little breather, why don’t you tell me what it is you want to show me before you have a heart attack and I have to call the EMTs to come rescue you.”

  “What, you’re not up to performing a little CPR?”

  I smiled disingenuously. “Sorry, I have to draw the line at scruffy beards, they’re not my thing.”

  Chase sat down on the rock, exhaled deeply, and took another long swig from his bottle.

  I retreated down the hill and stood several feet in front of him.

  He offered me the bottle again. “You sure? Don’t wanna get dehydrated.”

  I was thirsty, and if he was willing to stop long enough to explain his mission, I was willing to risk a few germs. I grabbed the bottle, wiped it clean with the tail of my shirt then poured the water into my mouth. My lips never touching the mouth piece.

  “I assume your boss, that skinny kid who calls himself a news director, filled you in on the other two deaths I’m investigating?”

  “That’s why I’m here. That and you insisted we meet in person. So here I am.” I sat down on a rock a few feet away.

  “Well don’t go getting all big-headed about it. You’re not the only reporter in town I’ve talked to. I finished up with everyone else yesterday. But you’re the last. Tyler said you had some party to go to and couldn’t be disturbed.”

  I wasn’t about to dignify his dig into my personal life with a response. My balancing act between the kids, my private affairs, and work was none of his business.

  “Just what is it you need to know?”

  “Like I said, I’m asking what people saw when they were here.”

  I explained what he already knew, that the press had been kept at a distance from the actual crime scene, and that I had spoken to the detective in charge who had ruled Bruno’s death a suicide.

  “Detective Riley, right?”

  He half-laughed as he said the name then chugged at the water bottle, nearly emptying it.

  “You know him?”

  “We’ve crossed paths before.” Chase stood up, wiped his hands on his shorts, then clapped his palms clean. The gesture a clear indication that whatever had happened between the two hadn’t been good. “What I don’t know is what else you might have seen. Something the police may not have included in their report?”

  I glanced back down at the grassy area where I had stood with the group of early morning hikers staring up at the sign.

  “I was one of the first to arrive. A couple of hikers in the park and the cops. Nobody else, at least that I saw.” I explained how the police had just begun to cordon off the area and pointed to a dusty knoll beneath the sign, leading into the park where I had been standing. “I thought I saw something on the man’s face.”

  “What?” Chase’s eyes narrowed like he knew there was something more the police hadn’t included in their report.

  “This is going to sound crazy. The police said it was nothing, but I can’t stop thinking about it. There was a red clown nose on the guy’s face. I asked Riley about it, but he dismissed it. Said it wasn’t his job to determine why the vic did what he did, only that he did it. “

  “A clown nose, huh? You’re sure?”

  “Yeah. And I’m not the only one who saw it. A couple of the hikers I was standing with saw it too.”

  “Really?” Chase took another sucker from his pocket, put it in his mouth, and stared back down at the spot where I’d been standing with the women. “And Riley never went up the hill? To check things out himself?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “Far as I could tell, he’d already sent a team up to investigate. He and a couple of other detectives stayed back in the field, checking out what I assumed was the vic’s car.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Not that I
remember. Next thing I saw was a fire truck and a black coroner’s van. They pulled up on the utility road behind the Hollywood Sign. Then some medic types, or rescue workers, climbed down from the road and took the body. I didn’t see much else, and I wasn’t about to climb up for a closer look. Particularly with it being a suicide. At that point, it just wasn’t a story we’d cover.”

  “Follow me.” Chase took the sucker from his mouth and pointed it at the sign. “I need to show you something.”

  I looked up at the top of the hill. It was still a good climb, most of it straight up, and despite the cooler January temperatures, it was getting warm. Before we went any further, I wanted more information. “You sure you can’t just tell me?”

  “Trust me. You’ll see when we get there.”

  Chase started up the hill ahead of me. I followed, the both of us panting. Neither of us in much of a mood to talk as we pushed toward the top. It wasn’t until we finally got to a chain-link security fence surrounding the sign that we stopped and I caught my breath.

  “Just what is it you wanted me to see?” I asked.

  “You’re standing right next to it. You notice anything?”

  “You mean the fence?”

  “Yeah. After that artist prankster defaced the sign couple weeks back, changing it to read Hollyweed, the city put up a brand new security fence. You see where it’s been patched?” Chase pointed to a section of the fence that had been rewired. “The police are saying Bruno cut through the fence from this side. They put a temporary patch on it. Thing is, I don’t think that’s what happened.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because the fencing’s been pulled forward, towards us, not like someone trying to get in might do. Check out the bend in the wire and the scraping on the rocks beneath it. They’re scratched. And you can’t get to the sign easily from this side. The only way to get beyond this barrier is from the utility road above us, where you said you saw the fire truck and the coroner’s van.”

  “Hard to imagine the cops didn’t notice that.”

  “Riley sent rookies up this hill to do a job he was too lazy to do himself. He might as well have sent boy scouts. They weren’t about to question him. But I’ll tell you this, Bruno didn’t park his car down there in that grassy field and hike up here and hang himself on the sign. Not like Riley wanted you to think.” Chase nodded to a bolted gate behind the sign. “My opinion, someone drove up to the sign from the back, cut through the lock on that gate over there with bolt cutters, then replaced the lock. You see that trail closest to the gate behind the sign?”

  I could barely make out a trail. The area surrounding the sign all looked the same. Dry biscuit-colored hills with low scrub brush and cactus. Ideal for coyotes and rattlesnakes.

  “Notice the branches of that scrub oak over there.” Chase leaned down and broke off a twig from a decaying sagebrush, using it as a pointer to direct my attention to a tree just beyond a gated entrance to the sign. “They’ve been cut. The centers of the bark are still fresh, not dried and cracked like they would be if they’d been here for a spell. I think someone, or maybe a group of someones—a gang, drug cartel maybe—brought Bruno up the back way, murdered him, and then tried to hide their tracks in the dirt using the branches to sweep away any prints.”

  “What are you? Tonto?” I stared at the downed branches. A few broken tree limbs didn’t necessarily mean anything. Much less a police conspiracy to cover up some gangland-style killing. “They might have just as easily been cut when the rescue workers took the body.”

  Chase threw the twig on the ground. “I’ve had training in this type of thing. And I can tell you, this was shoddy police work. You talked to Riley. The man barely got out of his car before he had the body cut down and declared it a suicide.”

  Chase was right about one thing, I wasn’t comfortable with Bruno’s death being a suicide. But my instincts as a reporter demanded I play devil’s advocate.

  “Okay, suppose you’re right. What about security cameras or guards? Aren’t they around twenty-four seven in the park? Didn’t they back up what Riley reported?”

  “You see that?” Chase nodded to a camera mounted on the top of one of the chain link fence posts. It looked like it had been used for target practice. The camera hung limply from its mounting. “The police are saying Bruno shot them out. They found a shotgun along with a bolt cutter with his things when they retrieved the body.”

  “And the guard? Where was security during all this?”

  “The park has a rent-a-cop up here every couple hours. It’s his job to make rounds. He claims he fell asleep. Says he’s been pulling extra shifts and got tired. The police think Bruno waited until the guard made his last inspection, then shot out the cameras and used a pair of bolt cutters to cut through the lock on the gate.”

  I glanced up at the sign. I could still see Bruno’s body hanging from the W.

  “And then what? He stripped down, climbed up on the sign, and hung himself?”

  “Forensics confirmed Bruno’s prints on the shotgun and the bolt cutters. Reports came back faster than a game of blackjack. But hey, the police are claiming what Bruno did wouldn’t have been hard. There’s workman’s scaffolding behind the letters. Easy enough, even you could climb up. A big guy like Bruno wouldn’t have needed any help. All he had to do was attach ropes from his wrist to the outside of the W, put a rope around his neck and climb over.”

  “Only you don’t think so.”

  “And neither does his family. They hired me right away to do the investigation. Didn’t believe the police from the get-go. Said their son wasn’t suicidal. And the more I dig into it, the more it feels like a cover-up. All the way down to the park’s security guard-for-hire falling asleep. Little too convenient if you ask me.”

  Now would have been a good time to tell Chase how I had my own doubts about the investigation. How I felt certain I’d seen Bruno in the grocery store just days before with Running-girl, and that I didn’t think he looked particularly depressed or about to commit suicide. But I wasn’t convinced Chase’s suspicions were any more valid than my own. Instead, I said, “And you’re convinced Bruno’s death is somehow related to those news stories you shared with Tyler? That they might all be connected?”

  “I know a cover-up when I see it. And I suspect, with what you told me about Riley not getting his ass up the hill to check this scene out for himself, there’s a reason nobody’s talking. It’s why I wanted to meet with you today. You were there.” Chase put his fingers through the fence and fixed his eyes on mine. “You know how this investigation went down, and I think you can help.”

  “How?”

  “There’s something I’d like you to do for me. A favor.”

  CHAPTER 6

  What Chase wanted was to use my new Sunday night show as a forum to discuss his theory concerning Bruno’s death, and the two other men whose deaths he was also investigating. He was convinced that under the cloak of late-night radio, in the pitch of darkness when the airwaves were full of what he believed to be conspiracy theories and talk of supernatural occurrences, that somebody—out in radioland—knew something, and might be listening.

  “Think about it, Carol. All you’ve got to do is talk about the case. About how quickly the cops ruled Bruno’s death a suicide. Suggest that maybe it’s a cover-up, and that, as a reporter, you’re having trouble accepting it.”

  “Oh, no.” I put my hands up and shook my head. “You’re not serious. I’m not comfortable making accusations about what the cops did or didn’t do. Not without more of an investigation. Absolutely not.”

  “Trust me. If there’s one thing I know, it’s that somebody out there knows somebody who saw something. All you have to do is open the phone lines and let the calls come in. It’s a gold mine. It’d be perfect.”

  “No,” I said adamantly. “Not tonight. Besides the topic is already set. Tyl
er chose it himself.”

  I couldn’t believe Chase had the audacity to ask. I explained to him this was not only my show, but my very first show. And, while I had to admit his theory concerning Bruno’s murder was plausible, going on air and accusing the police of a cover-up wasn’t how I wanted to kick things off. Plus, the articles Tyler had shared with me involving the other two cases Chase was investigating didn’t seem believable, much less related to that of Bruno’s murder. I wasn’t convinced there was a connection at all. The news stories bordered on the bizarre. Cheap sensational reads like one might find inside some Hollywood rag while waiting in the checkout line at the grocery store.

  One man’s death was blamed on his abduction by aliens. His body believed to have been tossed from their space ship and later found beside an oil rig in an area of the city known for its forest of oil derricks. The other story was even creepier. The victim was believed to have been eaten by wild wolves or some mythical blood-sucking creature called a Chupacabra. His body was found half-buried in Griffith Park about six months ago. I remembered the story. The police, however, hadn’t issued any such bizarre findings of wolves or blood-sucking creatures. More than likely, the victim had met with the park’s sole mountain lion, P-22, tagged and tracked regularly by park rangers. But to date, the case was one of many LAPD was still investigating. With a city the size of LA, that wasn’t unusual, and I wasn’t about to turn a show Tyler had given me on a provisionary basis into a circus of conspiracy theories.