At First Sight

by Stephen J. Cannell

  “That’s wonderful,” I said, curbing my emotions as I handed it back.

  “This guy sells four tires to a Taurus driver in April,” Bob continued. “The thirteenth is the day after Chandler was hit. Takes about four hours to get to Newport News, so let’s say our killer does the hit-and-run here between eleven and eleven-thirty that night, drives up there, arrives around four in the morning, waits until eight when the guy opens up, and switches all his rubber. It fits the timetable. Why would this guy with the busted-up blue Taurus change four perfectly good tires? That’s my question.”

  “It’s a wonderful break, Bob,” I said. But inside, I was conflicted. This was going to lead where it would lead, but at the end of the day, it wouldn’t bring Chandler back. I still wanted the killer caught. I just didn’t want to lose myself in the process.

  “I’ll call you if I get anywhere with this guy Dale,” Bob said. “I’ve already got an artist with the Newport News PD on standby. Gonna try and get Dale to describe this guy in the Taurus so we can get a sketch. I’ll call if it jells.”

  I gave him a hug and held his hand. It felt thin.

  “You’re not eating. I want you to come in and let me make you a sandwich. You can’t drive all the way to Virginia with no food or sleep.”

  “I’m fine, Mrs. Ellis,” he said, smiling at me. Bright light danced for a moment in his soft gray eyes. “I’m gonna get this bird for ya, just like I promised.”

  I patted his hand and got out of the car.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow morning,” he said, then started the Crown Vic and pulled away. I watched him leave until his taillights disappeared in the dark mist.

  Despite Bob’s news, as I walked into the house the Mean Reds were buzzing over me, trying to find a way back in.

  I opened the refrigerator and pulled out an ice-cold bottled water, then went out to sit on the back porch. My legs were still quivering from the run. Rubbery, fan-sized leaves on the huge magnolia trees behind my house rattled loudly in a gusting breeze. It was a familiar sound and setting. I was desperately trying to pick a new path, but once I’d stopped running, the same tiresome questions caught up to me. How could I leave Charlotte? This was our house. How could there be life without Chandler? No matter how badly I wanted to move on, the emotions over my husband’s death were still raw, and they haunted me.

  Snap out of it, girl, I lectured myself. You gotta get on with this.

  But, as always, every time I stopped moving or sat and contemplated, I was trapped by memories of our past and the enormous realization of what I’d lost. Once that happened, I always started to sink.

  Self-pity … Longing … Despair.

  Then came the anger. Just like always.

  CHAPTER 24

  HOW LONG WOULD IT TAKE THE FUCKING COPS to show up? Chick wondered. He had been sitting in his living room waiting for over two anxiety-building hours, cursing LAPD incompetence.

  Then, at 10:15 P.M., finally a knock at the front door. He got up and walked past Melissa’s room, where she was still on her bed sawing lumber. She’d said she wanted to be awakened at nine, but he hadn’t done it because she was part of his timeline and alibi. He knew once she got up, she would fly out of the house without so much as a “See ya later.” He took two deep breaths before he opened the front door.

  Standing on the porch was one of the most implausibly handsome men Chick had ever seen. He was olive-skinned, dark-haired, with a sculpted jaw, complete with a cleft chin. He had seawater blue eyes and was dressed in a charcoalgray suit, cinnamon shirt, and maroon tie. He looked like he just stepped out of a fucking Calvin Klein ad. Chick hated him on sight.

  “Charles Best?” the man said solemnly.

  “I go by Chick and I don’t take meetings on my front porch. Call my office.” He’d planned that opening line, thinking it showed the right degree of indifference. The man on the porch ignored this and waved toward a car parked out by the curb. The passenger door opened and a second man, who’d been waiting inside the vehicle talking on a cell phone, got out and joined them. This one had narrow shoulders, dandruff, and male pattern baldness.

  “I’m Detective Sergeant Apollo Demetrius,” the handsome cop said, pulling out a badge and showing it to Chick. He motioned toward the second man. “This is my partner, Detective Charles Watts.”

  “Police?” Chick asked, trying to look and sound confused, like, “What on earth would the police want with us?”

  “May we come in please, sir?” Apollo Demetrius asked.

  Chick nodded and stood aside. The two policemen entered his antique and crystal plush-pile foyer and stood in the entry for a minute, looking at the expensive layout. Chick could almost read their thoughts: This guy has money. He’s got lawyers on speed dial so be careful.

  “What’s this all about?” Chick asked, arranging what he hoped was a look of mild consternation on his face.

  “Is your wife Evelyn Best?” Demetrius asked.

  “Yes, she is. Why? What’s wrong?” Chick had cautioned himself not to go for the Academy Award here and overact, but he needed to show some concern and perhaps just a dash of impending fear. It’s not every day two cops show up at your front door asking about your wife. He thought he’d hit just the right note—confused, startled, but not yet overly alarmed.

  “I’m afraid I have some bad news,” Demetrius continued. “You might want to sit down.” Chick waved this off, so Demetrius went on. “Your wife was killed in what appears to be a carjacking around six-fifteen this evening. She was shot in the head behind a hair salon in Van Nuys.” These words passed over the detective’s sensuous lips like velvet bricks. Brutal information delivered as smoothly as a pickup line in a singles bar.

  “She was … she was … what?” Chick looked at them, his mouth agape. He put his hands to his face, then dropped his head into them. How little is too little? How much is too much? Don’t overdo it… Don’t underdo it. It was a hard balance to strike. Since he felt absolutely nothing, it all had to be performance. Instead of concentrating on real feelings, he was focused on behavior, which he knew might cause him to come off as emotionless and mechanical.

  He moved away from the matinee-idol detective, trying to get some distance from the man’s probing stare. He knew he was being carefully evaluated by both cops, and it made him tense. His body language seemed stiff and jerky, even to him. Then he had a sudden wave of flop-sweat. Was he already fucking this up?

  “Are you okay? Can we get you anything? Some water?” Demetrius asked.

  Chick sort of shook his head, breathing through his mouth, trying to look like he was in some kind of emotional free fall.

  “Why would anybody … ? It can’t be … Are you sure it was her?”

  “Yes. Her stylist, Edward Paul, heard the shots, identified the body, and pinned the time of death for us. He saw your wife’s murderer driving off in her car, but didn’t get a good look at the shooter. The car was just turning the corner. She was already dead in the parking lot behind his salon when he found her.”

  A strange incongruous thought flickered. Mr. Eddy’s last name was Paul … He’d never known that. So why not Mr. Paul? That was what went through his head, but he sobbed and said, “Oh … oh … my God … Oh … no, not Evelyn …” Too much? Too little? He was flying blind. He was hyperaware of his every movement, like a bad actor in a high school play.

  “We have some questions,” Demetrius said. “I hope you won’t take this the wrong way, but we need to establish where everyone was. Could you tell us where you were about six o’clock?”

  “Right here. I was right here in the house.” Trying for shock and dismay. Maybe pulling it off, maybe bungling it badly.

  “Can anybody confirm that? Was anybody here with you?”

  “Uh … no … Well, my daughter was …” Chick paused. “I mean, she’s here.”

  “Can you get her, please?”

  So Chick got up, and with what he hoped was an anguished expression on his face, walked
down the hall to his daughter’s room. The plain-looking detective followed so he could monitor what was being said. Chick found Melissa sprawled on her bed, still zonked. That girl had honed the art of sleeping to a razor’s edge. She could sleep through a cat fight, or more to the point, through a crystal meth raid.

  “Melissa, wake up,” he said, shaking her by the shoulder.

  “Lemme alone,” she growled, and rolled over, facing the other way. “Can’t I get a moment’s peace in this fucking house?”

  Great, Chick thought, let’s show this eavesdropping detective what a tight, happy little family we are.

  “Your mother has been murdered,” he said bluntly, going for maximum effect, trying to shock her into some sort of grieving response. He saw her breathing stop, saw her back freeze, then after ten seconds or so, she rolled over and looked at him.

  “Huh?” Her eyes were slits of unpleasantness, her hair a two-day nest of bad grooming. Her face glittered with metal as she studied him with sleepy, suspicious eyes.

  “Somebody carjacked her at Salono Bello. Shot her dead … took the Mercedes. The police are here.” He said it softly, sounding sad while at the same time trying to get the gravity of the situation across to her.

  “No shit?” she said, struggling to sit up.

  No shit was hardly the appropriate response. “Oh, my God,” or “Oh no, not Mom, please.” But Melissa’s first words were “No shit?” She was hopeless. But at least she was sitting up now, looking at Chick. “How the fuck?” was her next stab at communication.

  “I just told you. She was carjacked. Shot.” He plowed on. “The cops want to talk to us. Get out of bed.”

  She scowled at him. “The police? I didn’t do anything.” Then she got up, put on her robe, and stood in the darkened bedroom. “Did they also shoot that shithead, Mickey D, I hope?”

  Chick didn’t answer, but thought, Good going, Meliss. Exactly what we needed.

  The plain-looking cop retreated from his listening post in the hall as Chick led his scowling child back into the living room and made the introductions. “This is Melissa … Detective Demetrius, and Detective … what was it again … ?”

  “Watts,” said the ordinary-looking cop.

  “I already told her what happened,” Chick said, then realized that this was all becoming very matter-of-fact, so he added, “My God … my God … I still can’t believe … ” just to let them know he was in major heartbreak here, in deep shock at hearing the horrible news.

  “We’re trying to establish where your father was at the time of the incident,” Demetrius said. “Can you attest to his whereabouts this evening, say, starting any time after 4 P.M.?”

  “How the fuck would I know?” Melissa said. She was scowling while looking at them, but Chick could read her like the morning paper. She was already trying to figure out what this murder would do to her life. Would it change anything? Would her credit card get frozen?

  “Your father said he was here,” Demetrius added. “Can you confirm that?”

  “I was asleep,” she scowled. “How the hell would I know?”

  It wasn’t going at all the way he’d planned. Chick thought her attitude was atrocious, and he could read shock at her behavior on both cops’ faces. But they had a job where they witnessed the worst of mankind, so they waited patiently without comment. Chick didn’t want to prod her, but Watts was writing everything down in a spiral crime book, and Chick desperately needed Melissa for his alibi, so he tried to jog her memory.

  “Wait a minute. Didn’t I come in earlier to wake you up for your date? What time was that? Do you remember?”

  “Huh?”

  At this rate, they wouldn’t even need a trial. They might as well just drag the electric chair over here and plug it in.

  Chick tried again. “Remember, I woke you up? I think it was about … ”

  “Let her tell it, please,” Demetrius interrupted.

  “Okay, yeah … I guess I remember.” Melissa was snapping out of it. A look of feral shrewdness came into her eyes. “Six o’clock or six-oh-five … something like that. He came in and woke me up for my date.”

  “You’re certain?” Demetrius asked, a little disappointment creeping into those two words.

  “I said it, didn’t I? You think I’d lie?”

  Shit, Chick thought.

  “I don’t know, Miss Best, I just met you. Your mother was murdered. You don’t seem very upset.”

  “I just woke up!”

  Chick thought it couldn’t possibly be going much worse, but that was Melissa. She hated both of them. Forgetting for the moment that he had pulled the trigger, Chick was irritated that Melissa wasn’t at all bothered that the woman who had given birth to her and raised her had just been brutally murdered. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Demetrius and Watts exchange a private look.

  “Look, give me a lie detector test if you don’t believe me,” she suddenly blurted. “The cops never believe anything I say, anyway. They always think I’m lying.”

  Of course they absolutely believed her confession about the crystal meth when she was lying, but that’s another story. The idea of a polygraph test was the last thing Chick wanted to introduce into this conversation. Next thing, the cops would want him to take one too. He was hoping they’d find the Mercedes, find the gun, get Delroy’s prints off both, and solve this thing quickly, put it behind him before anybody started asking for a polygraph.

  “A lie detector test might be a very good idea,” Demetrius said. “Would you also agree to take one, Chick?” Now using his first name like they already owned him. “Just to get this part of the investigation behind us?”

  “I guess,” Chick said, thinking he’d like to strangle his daughter. But killing both members of his immediate family on the same night was probably a bit much, even for him.

  Demetrius’s cell phone rang and he answered it.

  “Yeah. Yeah. Okay, good. Have them call a unit from Valley impound, but don’t hook it up. Notify CSI, and get a forensics team to the site. I’ll be there in twenty.” He hung up. “We just found your wife’s car,” he said, watching Chick closely. “It was ditched up in the mountains above Glendale.”

  “Is that good?” Chick asked, trying to sound like a confused citizen who had just lost his wife and didn’t know his ass from a pound of Philadelphia cream cheese. Too much? He didn’t know—couldn’t read anything in their blank expressions.

  “The car is the crime scene,” Demetrius finally said. “It could be very important. I’ll set it up for you both to take those polygraph tests. How’s tomorrow sound?”

  “Uh … well, Thursday would be better … ”

  “Why?” Demetrius asked, looking at him coldly.

  “I’m very upset right now, that’s why.”

  “We both want to catch this guy, don’t we, Chick?” Demetrius was smiling slightly, as if he’d just caught Chick in a criminal inconsistency. After a moment’s hesitation, Chick nodded.

  “Good. How ’bout we just set it up for the first available time tomorrow, then,” the handsome detective said. Watts closed his spiral pad and both of them stood. As they walked toward the door, Demetrius spun around unexpectedly and faced Chick. “Everything between you and your wife okay, Mr. Best? No fights? No problems?”

  “No. Everything was fine.”

  “Who’s this Mickey D person your daughter just mentioned?” Watts asked.

  “That’s Mickey DePolina. He’s a family friend. Our personal trainer.”

  “Nothing going on between your wife and her trainer?” Watts persisted.

  “Of course not. Evelyn and I were very much in love.”

  Behind him, Melissa groaned theatrically. Maybe he’d throw caution to the wind and just go for the double H with these two cops as eyewitnesses.

  “I’ve already asked for a technician to come out here and give you a GSR test,” Demetrius said. “He should be along any time.”

  “A what?” Chick was confused. />
  “It’s a Gunshot Residue Test. We use paraffin to check your hands for barium and antimony to establish if you’ve fired a gun recently. Don’t take it the wrong way. It’s standard procedure. We always start by eliminating family members first. We’ll hang around till he gets here.”

  “You gonna test me?” Melissa said, her eyebrow studs climbing her forehead like fishhooks in two furry caterpillars.

  Then Chick heard a car pull up out front.

  “That won’t be necessary,” Demetrius said coldly. “We’ll get back to you tomorrow.” When they opened the door, Chick saw a plain sedan parked at the curb. A lab tech got out and unloaded two boxes from his trunk.

  “We’re very sorry for your loss,” Demetrius said without much sorrow.

  “Thank you for your sympathy,” Chick said stiffly, and watched as they walked down the steps to their car, pausing to talk to the technician on the way. Chick turned and saw Melissa smiling at him.

  “Caught a real break with this carjack, didn’t ya?” his angry daughter said. “Looks like somebody went ahead and did it for you.”

  CHAPTER 25

  “PAIGE, I DESPERATELY NEED TO TALK TO YOU,” A man’s voice said, without an opening hello or even identifying himself.

  I was standing in my living room. “Who is this?” I asked, trying to pick the voice out of my memory bank of old friends.

  “It’s Chick,” he said, his voice so small, so sad, I could barely hear him.

  “Chick?” Why on earth would he be calling me at nine in the morning—six A.M. L.A. time?

  “You’re the only one I could think of to call,” he whispered. He seemed to be sobbing. Then he said, “Evelyn was murdered … carjacked. Friday night, somebody put a gun … they put a gun in her car window and then … and then they just shot her.” Another sob followed this horrible news.

  “Oh, my God, Chick … I’m so sorry.” My heart went out to him. I remembered the desolation of waking up the morning after Chandler died, knowing something was wrong. Then, as the memories returned, having to come to grips with his death all over again.