Absolute Truth

by Bill Larkin

  “This afternoon. That’s a Newport Beach PD investigation.” He gave me a questioning look.

  “Van Ness is the I/O, right? I’m on my way to see him and I was next door, so thought I would see what you have so far.”

  He made a noise somewhere between a grunt and a tisk tisk. “I liked working with you, Schmitty. You’re a smart kid. Van Ness I’ve dealt with about a half dozen times. What an asshole. You met him?”

  “No.”

  “You’ll see. What do you want to know?”

  “Just wanted to see what you had on Tremayne, but if you haven’t done the cut yet, I guess you don’t have much.”

  He gave a slight shrug. “Third and fourth degree burns. He might have died of smoke inhalation, or maybe even a heart attack. By the way, his name wasn’t Tremayne.”

  “What?”

  “One Miles Dennison. His prints were good enough to match in AFIS”

  “Print me copy of the match.”

  I considered the new information, then asked, “When are you talking to Van Ness?”

  “Whenever he calls.”

  “I’m going to see him. I’ll tell him to call you. If I remember.”

  Patel chucked and nodded.

  Chapter 5

  On the way back to Harbor Island, I detoured to Costa Mesa and ate a pot roast sandwich from a Vietnamese place on Bristol. Fifteen minutes later, I ducked under the yellow tape and approached a young detective by the mansion’s front door. I was still wearing civilian clothes, so I badged him.

  “Are you Van Ness?”

  “Inside.” The detective pointed in the general direction.

  As I walked through the house, I could see through the windows to the dock area.

  Van Ness was with the arson investigator, going over notes while they stood on the dock. Everything was the same as the night before, except that the coroner had obviously removed the corpse. The arson investigator climbed on the boat.

  As I walked into the sunlight, Van Ness scowled me. “Who are you and what are you doing at my crime scene?”

  “Van Ness?” I asked.

  “Yeah, and you didn’t answer my question.”

  Van Ness had wavy hair that was graying; he was fair skinned, with red cheeks. He looked at me through pale blue eyes that were mean. His voice was arrogant and contentious. I pictured him as a mean drunk. Patel was right about him being a first class prick.

  “I’m Schmidt. My W/C said you needed some help.” I was implying that help was needed.

  “I don’t need your help; I need a statement to detail what you did last night.”

  “We put out the fire. You know, spraying water on flames. I can write that down for you if you want.” My expression was neutral.

  “No shit.” His face flushed a bit in anger.

  “So what else can I help you with, Detective?”

  He stared off into the distance for a moment, then walked over to a patio table and sat down. He gestured with his hand for me to sit, so I took a seat across from him.

  “This is now a homicide investigation, so you’d better stop fucking around. Everything we do here—you, me and everybody on scene—will end up in court. It’ll be second-guessed by attorneys, family members, and a judge.”

  “How did this become a 187?”

  He didn’t answer right away, so I continued, “I’m sure you will make an arrest, Van Ness. But this looked like a gas tank explosion. Fumes leak inside engine compartments, spread into bulkheads and lower cabins. Boat operators forget to use engine blowers before starting an engine. It happens.”

  He shook his head. “Not this time. Preliminarily, we found a fuel line leak and an open access panel. Then we found that the engine blower wasn’t working. But the light fixture in the engine compartment may have been tampered with, and when Tremayne tried to switch on the light, it sparked and went boom.”

  “You looking at the wife and other relatives?”

  “Everybody.”

  “Who is the arson investigator?”

  “Two of them. One from Newport Beach Fire who’s on the Arson Task Force, and one from the OC Fire Authority.”

  Using two arson investigators would help ensure competency in the forensic investigation into the cause. However, I had my doubts about the competency of Detective Van Ness. Were Miles Dennison and Barry Tremayne the same person somehow? Another identity? Van Ness was still presuming it was Tremayne’s body, until he talked to Patel.

  I got a blank stare from him, and then he said, “For starters, what time did you arrive? I gotta set the timeline and know what you saw.”

  “We were here within three minutes or so. Check with dispatch on the 10-97. All I saw was black smoke in the air and flames coming from the cabin. There were no other boats, dinghies, kayaks, or anything.”

  “Write it all up. Everything you saw—like smoke, flames, where it was burning. You and your partner, McCarty. Don’t miss anything, don’t forget to spell check, and I want to see the draft before you have it signed off.”

  I had only some familiarity with homicide investigation, but I had actually taken a class in it at Long Beach. I remembered the 10 Commandments of Homicide, such as whenever a suspect is immediately identified, the victim lives. When no suspect is identified, the victim will always die. In any case, where there is no apparent suspect, the crime lab will produce no valuable evidence. In those cases where a suspect has already confessed and been identified by at least two eyewitnesses, the lab will give you print hits, fiber evidence, blood, DNA, and ballistic matches.

  But all kidding aside, what I really felt was that Van Ness was a technician who was following procedures and trying to document things for the DA and court. A numbers guy, who was distanced from the intricacies of the crime. The problem was that he might be losing valuable time that could be spent finding the person with motive and opportunity. He was processing data and writing it up. A nuance, but maybe an important one. Especially since the victim’s name was not the boat owner or house owner.

  I was going to tell him to call the coroner’s investigator on the ID of the body, but something held me back. This guy was already a step or two behind and I didn’t like him.

  “That it?” I asked.

  “Don’t fuck this up for me.”

  For him? How about for the victim and his family? Van Ness’ comment only cemented my decision to not to trust him.

  As I walked away from him, I thought about the previous night. The victim appeared to have been walking up the stairs to leave the boat cabin when it blew. Had a fire already started and he was trying to escape?

  I walked into the house to shortcut to my car. April Tremayne, formerly Gonzalez, sat in the parlor with another lady. April looked understandably unkempt, but still shockingly beautiful. It warmed my blood just to see her, but I ignored the feeling.

  There was obviously a soulful, grief-stricken conversation going on. She didn’t even glance at me, and I kept walking. Something made my feet stop and turn around. Both of them gave me a second look, and after a moment, April’s eyes widened as if trying to see the faint light of the past.

  I hadn’t expected her to be at the house. And it immediately weighed heavy on me that I had a semi-distant history with this girl. Now she was grieving a loss, but didn’t know that it wasn’t her husband that had burned up. Our eyes locked for a moment.

  “Hi April.” I didn’t know what else to say.

  “Oh my God. Schmitty,” she said, with bewilderment. “Where did you come from?”

  I forgot that I was not wearing my uniform. “I’m on the Harbor Patrol. I was here last night. Put out the fire.”

  “Oh.”

  Nobody spoke for an awkward five seconds that felt like five minutes.

  “April, I had no idea you lived here until last night.” I gave her a small consoling smile. “You have my sympathies.”

  I headed for the door.

  She stood up and said, “Schmitty, we should talk sometime, ok?�
��

  I stopped and turned to her. “Sure.”

  I fished out a business card and handed it to her. Just then, I realized Van Ness had entered the house and heard the last part of the conversation. I was immediately angry at myself for dropping my guard.

  He strolled over. “You two know each other?”

  I waved off Van Ness. “A long time ago.”

  “And you kept that from me?”

  “I just saw her. Just now.”

  “Really? I’m going to talk to your Sergeant.”

  “Van Ness, when I knew her, the name wasn’t Tremayne and she sure as shit didn’t live here.” I shook him off as he started to grab my arm. “Relax, Van Ness.” I continued toward the front door.

  “This will be a big problem for us.” Van Ness yelled after me.

  I stopped and turned. “Van Ness, did you sneak into the gene pool when the lifeguard wasn’t looking?”

  Before I shut the front door, I could see his face flush again. And April’s face registered grief and confusion.

  Chapter 6

  I was driving to the Harbor Patrol office on Bayside Drive in Newport Beach when my cell phone buzzed.

  “Schmitty, how do you like Harbor?” asked Lt. Rudy, who was in charge of Harbor Patrol, technically called Marine Operations Bureau. He was friends with my dad, who was now an LAPD Captain. They had gone to an FBI leadership program together.

  “Lieutenant, every day is like a day in paradise.”

  “Want to stay there?”

  “As opposed to working the jail? Sure.”

  “As opposed to being fired. Your polygraph was a mixed bag, with some inconclusive answers.”

  “Figures.”

  “Why do you say that?” he asked.

  “Those IA guys were dicking me around. You know why.”

  “It’s only a tool, Schmitty. The rest is a process.”

  “What does it mean for me, LT?”

  “It means that PSD will want you to take another poly. But I think I can handle this administratively.”

  “There’s a ‘but’ coming, isn’t there?”

  “But, if I reach out to somebody at professional standards and convince her that the investigation be not sustained, it has to be signed off by the Sheriff. It would be much easier if you had passed the poly with flying colors.”

  “And if you do that and use a favor or connection, you’ll be pissing off Commander Motkin. Don’t do that, LT”

  “The investigator, Selman, wrote that you are a wiseass and have a disparaging attitude towards him and the polygraph examiner.”

  “Sounds like he’s overly sensitive.”

  “He’s one of Motkin’s puppets. And Motkin is an asshole. If you hadn’t arrested his kid and the Register or the Times got a hold of the story, it would be front page cronyism, and you might have been fired. You did the right thing. So did the sergeant and the watch commander. Motkin knows it. He can push back, but the Sheriff will have his ass if he crosses a line.”

  It was nice to have somebody higher level onside with me. But if I ever came under one of Motkin’s commands, he would make my life difficult. More like impossible.

  I asked, “What now?”

  “Wait to hear from me or Selman again, but I think you’ll be in the clear.”

  “Alright. Hey, LT, on the boat explosion, there’s a Newport Beach PD detective that is a real asshole.”

  I told him about Van Ness, and about April.

  “You’re saying you dated her in college and haven’t seen her in about five years?”

  “Yep.”

  “Then screw Newport. Shit, maybe you can take a poly for them too.” He laughed.

  “Sure, LT. Thanks.”

  “Later.”

  Chapter 7

  With Professor Barry Tremayne still alive and location unknown, I submitted a request for a cell phone trace. My excuse was that if he was on a boat or anywhere in Newport Harbor, the Harbor Patrol would work with Newport Beach PD on finding him. Sergeant Fergus approved it, not really caring about pissing off NBPD.

  It was my day off and the request would take a while to process through the cell phone company, so I drove over to UC Irvine.

  The University of California, Irvine is sprawled out between the city of Irvine and the city of Newport Beach. Back in 1960, The Irvine Company sold the University of California 1,000 acres for a dollar. Their mascot is an Anteater. Whose idea was that? It was the 1960s, so I guess that explains a lot.

  I walked along the wide circular walkway at the center of the campus. Droves of students with backpacks slipped past each other, circulating between classes. Some alone and self-immersed in thought. Others in twos or small groups that were chatting lightly. A high percentage was Asian.

  1970s architecture characterized some of the campus buildings, which had small windows and austere appearances, similar to buildings at Cal State Long Beach and UCSB. Contrasting those were several modern buildings, made of light rust-colored concrete, stainless steel accents, and a more welcoming design.

  One of those was Biological Sciences III, where I found the Neurology Department chair’s office on the third floor. I badged the receptionist and asked who was in charge of the department.

  Professor Marian Yu came to the receptionist desk and greeted me with a worried look. She was slight and in her 50s. Her pale skin was unblemished. An ID badge was draped around her neck and the lanyard repeated the letters “UCI.”

  I explained that there had been a boat explosion at the Tremayne house, and a dead body. She put a hand to her mouth.

  “Is it Barry?”

  “We don’t think so. Has he been here?”

  “I don’t know. We can go to his lab, if you’d like?”

  “Let’s do that.”

  We rode the elevator back down and exited the building. As we walked, Professor Yu continued. “He is part-time faculty here, and has several research projects underway, but he isn’t here every day,” she explained.

  “What does he do here, Professor Yu?”

  “Are you sure it wasn’t him?”

  “Fairly sure, but we’re worried about where is, which is why I’d like to understand his work here.”

  She nodded, still shaken a bit. “We do many things here in the field of neuroscience. I explain it like this. Up until the 1980s, scientists and medical students dissected dead persons’ brains to try to understand them. It was like taking apart an instrument to try to understand music. But we now have equipment that does things scientists only dreamed of ten years ago.”

  “What machines?”

  “PET scans, magnetic resonance imaging, EEG, near-infrared spectroscopy.”

  None of those meant anything to me. “What does Professor Tremayne do?”

  “He is a neurobiologist, most recently studying Hyperthymesia to try to improve human memory.”

  We entered an unassuming one story building; the sign said Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, and another sign read Bonny Research Laboratory. Inside, we walked along a tile corridor with florescent light fixtures overhead. I noticed several bulletin boards displaying posters that highlighted academic studies and research. Names like prefrontal cortex neurons headlined a few of the posters. I also noticed some announcements asking for research subjects for a variety of studies.

  We came to a door that bore a placard reading TD Research Lab. It was locked, but Professor Yu had a key and opened the door. “Definitely not here,” she said.

  I walked around the space, “You were saying Hyperthymesia?”

  She smiled. “I would have been surprised if you knew that. Hyperthymesia is short for something called hyperthymestic syndrome. It is a condition where people have almost full autobiographical memory.”

  “You mean they remember every day of their lives in perfect detail?”

  “Just about, yes. We pioneered its identification here at UCI. There are fewer than 50 people that we have confirmed to have it. Do you know
Marilu Henner, the actress from the show Taxi?”

  “I think so.”

  “She has it. These people’s memories are remarkable. Give any of them a date, picked at random from years ago, and within seconds they will tell you what day of the week it was, and not only what they did that day, but other key events in the news. Some call it a gift, and some call it curse. But Professor Tremayne has been studying it to see if there are ways to improve normal memory.”

  “Has he found a way?”

  “No, nothing useful yet. But while working on that, he did discover a new way to determine if somebody is telling the truth. Isn’t that interesting?”

  Very. “A lie detector?”

  “Well, yes. I haven’t seen the details or reviewed his work, since it’s not within the scope of his funded research, but he has tested it.”

  “Does it work better than a regular polygraph machine?”

  “I don’t know. His research partner, Miles Dennison, is the one who really discovered it. They teach here and also have a small biotech research company in Irvine.”

  Miles Dennison, the deceased from Barry Tremayne’s yacht. I wondered if Detective Van Ness was going to burst in at any moment.

  “Do you have the phone number there?” I asked.

  “Yes, but it is just a small lab they share. Other than the occasional grad student or intern, they don’t have any employees.”

  “I’m afraid I have some bad news for you.”

  “What?” Her eyes registered alarm.

  “Miles Dennison was the victim on the boat. I’m sorry.”

  “Oh no.”

  As the shock settled a bit, I continued to check out the lab. It was really just two rooms, then two private offices. In total, not very big. Each room could probably hold no more than a dozen people. There were chairs, but no lab instruments like beakers or microscopes. Books, papers on a front table, and not much else. Some large color images of brains hung on the wall of one room. Some type of scan.

  Dennison’s office was perfectly in order, with almost nothing on his desk. I opened a few drawers, but wasn’t going to search his files. Barry Tremayne’s office appeared more lived in. Files, papers, and junk spread about. No computer either. There was no way to tell if he had been in the office recently.