by Owen Thomas
If Hollis’ morning was leisurely and relaxed, allowing for a full review of USA Today and a second cup of coffee, his quest to locate Captain Wycoff of the Phoenix Police Department was considerably less so. He spent an hour trying to find the police station. Road construction detours and bad directions kept him mostly lost and took him miles out of his way, requiring him to pull over several times so that he could study the overly general map that had come with his rental contract and reorient himself. When, finally, he pulled into the parking lot of the police station and went inside and asked to speak with Captain Wycoff, the officer at the front counter informed him that he had the wrong station. The North Robson station, he was told, was the place he needed to be. So he had to start all over again albeit with much better directions.
By the time he had found the correct police station, Captain Wycoff was unavailable and Hollis was forced to wait another hour, half of which was spent in a small waiting room reading an old People magazine. The other half was spent dozing in the car and listening to a discussion on public radio about a new book positing that the 43rd President of the United States was driven less by coherent policy objectives, or even fundamentalist Christian fervor, than a desire to thumb his nose at his own history and to prove that the 41st President of the United States had always been wrong to think him an incorrigible disappointment. Operation Iraqi Freedom, the author opined, was really intended to one-up the architects of Operation Desert Storm, and probably should have been called Operation Look Dad, No Hands.
It was not until just past three o’clock that Hollis was shaking the firm hand of Captain Alan Wycoff, a tall man with a block-shaped head, four out of five sides of which were covered with curly strawberry-blonde hair. The fifth side featured a broad triangular mustache and a sculpted chin. Captain Wycoff left the waiting area and headed off down the hall. Hollis followed.
“Your niece is in some trouble here, Mr. Johns,” said Wycoff, closing the door to the small conference room and taking a seat across the table. He wore a white dress shirt and a pale yellow tie with blue diamonds. He looked more lawyer than police.
“She’s not my niece.”
“No?”
Hollis shook his head. “She’s the daughter of a good friend of mine. Her father lives in Japan. I’m helping her look for schools.”
“Hmm.” Wycoff looked away, scratching his mustache. “In Ohio.”
“Yes. So what’s this about, exactly?”
“What has she told you?”
“Nothing. That she’s in jail. That I need to talk to you. That there’s been some sort of misunderstanding. That’s all.”
“She wouldn’t tell you why?”
“She said I needed to be here in person.”
“No, that’s not true. Frankly, I was waiting for a phone call.” Wycoff smiled a little and nodded and puffed through his nose. “But I get it. Yeah, she’s a smart one.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Someone I know made the mistake of… how should I say this… spending an evening with your niece.”
“She’s not my...”
“Friend, friend. Sorry.”
“Okay,” said Hollis carefully, trying not to betray the sudden convulsion of his heart muscle; trying not to show what could only be described as jealousy. A slideshow featuring beautiful Bethany being ravaged by a variety of faceless, well-built strangers played across the inside of his forehead. He wanted to know who the bastard was. Wanted to know everything about him. Wanted him dead. He forced himself not to swallow. “You mean, spend the evening with as is in...”
Wycoff had seen the reaction anyway. He blinked and smiled and his brain silently checked an item off a list.
“No. No, not quite,” he said. “Here’s the basic plot. Lynnette attended a reception up in the Paradise Valley area…”
“Wait,” Hollis stretched his hand across the table. “Your friend is a woman?”
“What? No. Lynnette, your niece. I mean friend.”
“Her name’s not Lynnette. It’s Bethany.”
“Bethany?”
“Yeah. Bethany Koan. Her real name is Suki Takada.”
“Suki…”
“Takada.”
“Takada.” Wycoff laughed. “Okay. If her real name is Suki Takada, then what the hell is Bethany Koan?”
“Koan is her mother’s name. Her mother is... well, was… American. She died in a boat fire. Beth’s father is Japanese.”
“Doesn’t look very Japanese to me.”
“No. But her mother was American.”
“Okay, but… Go ahead.”
“Suki is her Japanese name, but her mother, see, her mother and Bethany moved back to this country, to California, when she was very young. Her mother didn’t like the name Suki and called her Bethany. And that was the name that stuck.”
“Hmm.”
Wycoff slowly rolled up his left shirtsleeve and then started on the right.
“What.”
“Well, Bethany, or Suki, or whatever her name is, has a valid New York drivers license issued to a Lynnette Moss. Checks out, too. Yonkers address. No warrants. No arrests. We got a phone number, but no answer. She told us that she’s single, no kids, between jobs. Never finished high school. Mother died in a plane crash. Raised by her stepfather in Upstate New York. Told us that her step-father, Ben… Brent…”
Wycoff closed his eyes and squeezed his temples with a thumb and forefinger as if beset with a sudden migraine.
“Bret,” he said snapping his fingers. “Bret Moss. Played for the Syracuse Chiefs until alcohol got to him and then he sobered up and sold sports equipment. She said he died of cancer two years ago. She gave us his name and all of that checked out.”
Wycoff raised his eyebrows and opened his hands, waiting. Hollis felt his brain going soft.
“That’s…I don’t really know … about any of that.”
“She said that after her stepdad died, she tracked down her real father – that would be you – a bank executive in Ohio. Wife, Susan, deceased.”
“Me? No. No. Not me.’
“You sure?” Wycoff cocked an eyebrow.
“Of course I’m sure.”
“No offense. These things happen, you know.”
“Yes, well, I’m sure they do, but I’m not her father. And my wife, Susan, is very much alive. Are you… you’re…you’re pretty sure about all of this? You know, about Yonkers and everything?”
“I’m not sure of anything these days, Mr. Johns. Mostly what I have is a driver’s license and a thin paper trail. Maybe the ball player is her step-dad, maybe not. He’s not around to ask. I haven’t really killed myself trying to separate fact from fiction here.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m hoping it won’t be necessary.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Here’s as much as I know. This… person, this friend of yours – let’s call her Bethany – hooks up with my friend at a book-signing reception for this Mike O’Donnell character. You know him?”
“I know who he is. I’m not a big T.V. watcher. Beth’s mentioned him.”
“Well, Mr. O’Donnell and my friend…”
“Who is your friend, anyway?” The question was just a little too sharp.
Wycoff scratched his head, smiling politely.
“Does it matter?” He asked.
“I’m thinking it does. This is an unusual conversation.”
Wycoff nodded.
“He’s an interesting fellow. A real character. Early fifties. Built like a brick. Puts me to shame, boy.” Wycoff leaned back and patted his abs. “He and I are about the same age, but I can’t keep up. He races up Squaw Peak every year. Piestewa Peak, I guess I should say. Old habits. Anyway, interesting guy. Competitive. Intense. Originally from New Mexico. Made his fortune in Silicon Valley. Virus protection. Some such thing. That was a past life. He’s been out here maybe, oh, ten years, I guess.”
“Yeah, but who is he? I mean
, what’s his name?”
Wycoff sighed.
“I’m sure you’re curious, Mr. Johns, but I’d prefer not to get into names. You can find out from Lynnette... Bethany... whatever her name is, I’m sure she knows, but you don’t need to be hearing his name from me. I’m telling you too much as it is, but I guess I’m hoping that you’re going to help us out here. I’ll tell you everything else I know.”
“Okay. What’s he do?”
“Again, Mr. Johns… Look, okay, let’s just say he dabbles. He likes his politics and he’s pretty well connected. He has his pet causes all around the southwest. Immigration. Second Amendment stuff. Law enforcement. He kind of likes to be the moneyman behind the curtain. That’s all I can say. He’s a good guy. A respectable guy. A powerful guy. Okay? That’s all you get.”
“Okay.” Hollis shrugged.
“So just let me tell you what I know about what happened.”
“Sure.”
“It’s all off the record. And it’s just me talking, here. Not the department. Investigation is still open. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Okay. It so happens… let’s just call him Joe. It so happens that Joe is a personal friend of Mr. O’Donnell, who’s got a new book out. Who’s Lookin’ Out for Me? Or some such thing. Joe helped arrange the public book-signing event and then hosted a private reception at his home. Nice spread up there in Paradise Valley. Nice place.
“Bethany was in attendance at this reception. Joe says that prior to that night he hadn’t met the person you know as Bethany and that he knows as Carol Ann.”
“Carol Ann?”
“She told him her name was Carol Ann Levitt, from Kansas City.”
Hollis closed his eyes in a long, slow blink. “Okay.”
“According to Joe, she came in with O’Donnell’s group – although he doesn’t think that O’Donnell knew her either, at least not very well. Says she spent most of the evening hanging on O’Donnell’s every word. Telling him how smart he is, how good his book is, how he’s right on this issue or that issue. He said after a while it was clear she was getting on O’Donnell’s nerves so he introduced himself and struck up a conversation.”
“Okay.”
“Well, she says – Bethany, Carol Ann, whatever – she says that he took her off to an upstairs bedroom and started putting the moves on her.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. And pretty heavy too. She says she was able to push him off and go back down to the reception.”
“And what does he say?”
“Joe says that he showed her the bedroom like any other room and that she sat down on the bed and wouldn’t leave. He said he had to forcibly pull her off the bed and out of the room.”
“Who called the police?”
“There’s more.”
“Oh.”
“Joe says that when the party ended, everyone left and he locked up the house and went upstairs to bed, and there’s your friend, going through his wife’s jewelry.”
“She’s stealing jewelry?”
“That’s what he says. So Joe gets upset. He…”
“Where’s his wife?”
“Cancun. A cruise. She’s still gone.”
“Okay. Well that’s convenient for Joe, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, well, look, Mr. Johns…”
“Sorry. Sorry. Go ahead.”
“So Joe gets upset. He starts yelling and pushing her around, you know, getting a little physical, he admits that, but not punching her or anything, just, you know, grabbing her by the wrist and the shoulder and shaking her. He said it seemed to him like she was high on something. Flush in the face; kind of breathing fast; dilated pupils. So Joe grabbed the purse out of her hand, she had this little yellow, what do you call them, clutch purses. She started hitting him and clawing at him and so he pushed her down on the bed and opened the purse. And in the purse he finds a little baggie of cocaine, or what he assumes was cocaine, and three of his wife’s diamond rings.”
“That can’t be. No, that just doesn’t sound like anything… she wouldn’t do something like that. Any of it.”
“He says she grabbed the purse, coke still in it, and the rings, and bolted for the door. He trips her and she falls, smacking her head against the doorframe. We know that something like that happened because we found some blood on the doorframe and the carpet. Anyway, he says that when he bent down to help her up she kicked him in the forehead with the heel of her shoe, so then he’s down on his ass and bleeding and she’s up and running again.”
“Jesus.”
“So she makes it downstairs and he’s feeling woozy but he’s following her and both of them are screaming at each other and she makes it to the living room and empties her baggie – they’ve got this big saltwater fish tank – and she empties the coke right into the tank. By the time he gets to her, it’s done. It’s all floating there on top of the water and the fish are eating it like its food and she’s laughing. Now he’s screaming at her and he grabs her wrist and then she dumps the rings into the tank too. She’s laughing and he’s convinced she’s really tripping on something and he’s, you know, he’s enraged. So he starts to drag her back to a chair where he can force her to sit down. But then she grabs hold of the tank and she pulls the whole… damn … thing… over. Thirty gallons.”
“…”
“Yeah. And not just your basic rectangular tank. A designer tank. Little glass channels that connected to three smaller tanks that he had worked into this … kind of a glass shelving system. Imaging your basic large aquarium that grew, I mean actually grew, like a tree, like an aquarium tree, with glass branches and smaller tanks at different levels, spreading all through these shelves of colored glass.”
As he spoke, Wycoff, hands built a small version of the aquarium in midair.
“The whole thing is, well, was, set back into the wall with all of this artsy crap that his wife likes to collect. He says some of the fish were exotic. Joe goes on and on about his precious lionfish. It’s a big deal to him.”
“So all of that…”
“Gone. When the main tank went down, all the rest of it went. Like a wrecking ball hit the place. Dead fish, glass, gravel, thirty gallons of water. Everywhere.”
“So what did he do?”
“While Joe was trying to come to grips with all of that, you know, trying not to get poisoned by these spiky fish that are suddenly all over the carpet, your friend Carol Ann, Bethany, whatever, Suki, Lynnette, whatever, she made for the front door. Joe cuts her off, grabbing the neckline of her dress. Dress rips. She gets free and zips into a bathroom, locks the door. Cell phone is the only thing in the clutch that did not go swimming with the fishes. She calls the police.”
“She calls the police?”
“They both call the police.”
“They both do?”
“He’s on the landline in the hall and she’s on the cell in the bathroom.”
“And what does she say, exactly?”
“That a man is trying to assault her. See, her story is different. Entirely different. She says that Joe met her at the book signing and invited her to the reception, telling her that he was good friends with O’Donnell and that he could introduce them. She says he gave her a ride up to the house.”
“Him, not O’Donnell.”
“He says she came with O’Donnell; she says that Joe himself brought her up.”
“Okay.”
“Okay, so, at the reception, everything is going fine, she’s chatting up O’Donnell and having a good time until Joe interrupts and says he wants to take her on a tour.”
“And that was…”
“Right, that was the thing in the bedroom that I already told you about. She says she got out of that predicament and kind of assumed he had gotten the message that she was, you know, that she was not interested. She said that he acted pretty normal for the rest of the party and he even apologized and insisted that he give her a ride back to Scottsdale. Says she didn’t fe
el like she had much choice. Didn’t know anyone. Didn’t have cash for a cab. So she agreed. The reception…”
Wycoff stops and focuses his attention on a beeper he pulls out of his pocket. He shakes his head in a mild secretive annoyance, pushes a button and returns it.
“Sorry. So the reception breaks up late and everyone leaves. Except Lynette, who is waiting around for Joe to do whatever he needed to do to close up the house and give her a ride. She said twenty minutes passed and she had no idea where Joe was so eventually she went looking for him. She says she found him upstairs in the bedroom snorting cocaine.”
“His cocaine.”
“Yeah. Well, somebody’s cocaine. Not hers.”
“Okay.”
“She says that she was so surprised that she kind of froze. He told her to come over by the bed and she did. He wanted her to have some coke. She refused. He kept at it. She said she needed to leave. She said she would call a cab if he could loan her the money. He holds up a baggie of coke and she pushes his hand away. He pulls her down on the bed by the wrist and starts to, you know, grope and kiss and that sort of thing. She struggles to get up but can’t. So she tells him that if they were going to do anything at all, then she wanted some coke first. And that stops him. That gets his attention. They talk about how cocaine loosens her up. He kisses her and she kisses back and Joe relaxes a little. He gets off of her and hands her the baggie.”
“Bethany would never do drugs. I just don’t…”
“She says she didn’t. He got off of her and she ran. He dives for her and catches her ankle. She trips up, like I said before, and smacks her head on the doorframe. At least that part of their stories jibe. She kicks him in the head. That part too. So then she’s up and running again and by the time she makes it downstairs, Joe’s right on top of her and he’s screaming for his coke. He catches up to her at the fish tank, grabbing her by the hair. She dumps the coke in the tank.”
