Cover Your Assets

by Patricia Smiley

  “I know who killed Evan Brice,” I blurted out.

  He hesitated. “Yeah? Who?”

  “A kid named Gilbert Ruiz.”

  I waited for him to say, “Wow! No kidding? Good work.” But instead, all I heard was silence. Undeterred, I told him what I’d learned about Brenda, Monique, and Evan’s turquoise wedding ring. That got his attention. Before we hung up, he promised to bring Ruiz in for questioning.

  I drove back to Rose’s, listening to a CD of Chinese tea ballads that belonged to Pookie, and feeling relieved that the search for Evan’s killer was finally over. When I turned onto Seagate Pathway, I spotted a parking space smack-dab in front of Evan’s building. Finally, my luck was changing. As I got out of the car, I saw Brenda Boyd standing out on her lanai, holding a highball glass and a cigarette. She must have needed a pick-me-up after our little talk on the beach. She held up her drink in a salute. I waved back.

  A moment later, I glanced down the street and saw Gilbert Ruiz’s black Honda Civic cruising toward me, stopping inches away from where I stood. My heart pounded as the passenger-side window slowly descended.

  Gilbert was wearing that white silk shirt again, the one with the flames. My gaze swept from his hands on the wheel to the car’s interior, half expecting to see telltale traces of blood under his fingernails, on the leather seats, or on the hard plastic molding of the dashboard. On the surface, the car looked clean, but I suspected that a crime scene investigator would find telltale traces of Evan’s blood.

  Ruiz leaned over. “You leaving?”

  I shook my head. “Just got here. By the way, if you came to see your sister, I don’t think she’s home.” Apparently he didn’t notice how tense I was, because he flashed a smile that was free of malice.

  “I know,” he said. “I just called her cell. She told me she’d be here in a few minutes.”

  It was amazing to realize that at the other end of his violent mood swings was that beatific smile. A hundred thoughts flashed through my head. Among them: How had this kid’s life gone so wrong? What had Evan done to incite his wrath? And how fast could I get to my cell phone and call the police?

  My reverie was broken by the sound of Brenda Boyd, yelling from her balcony. She had apparently stopped inhaling gin long enough to see and recognize Ruiz’s car. At first I couldn’t make out what she was saying, because her words were slurred. Then her shouting grew louder. That’s when the real nightmare began.

  “There he is, Tucker. That’s him. The one you said killed your friend. You’re going to burn for what you did, you prick.”

  Ruiz slowly turned his head toward the balcony where Brenda was standing. He stared at her for a moment while processing her words. Then he turned back toward me. Wraparound sunglasses masked his eyes but not his smile, which slowly curled into a grotesque parody of itself. It sent a chill down my spine. Moments later, he pressed down on the Honda’s accelerator, made a U-turn, and sped away.

  Gilbert Ruiz was on the run. In a couple of hours he could be out of town and possibly out of the country. I had to warn Moses Green. Brenda was still ranting as I pulled my cell phone from my purse and once again punched in his number. This time nobody answered. I pictured the telephone ringing in that empty trailer while Evan’s killer drove off into the sunset. Frustrated, I tried to call the station’s front desk. The line was busy. I considered calling 911, but Detective Green hadn’t had time to tell anybody about the new evidence I’d uncovered. Ruiz would be in Guatemala by the time I explained the situation to the 911 operator and convinced her that I wasn’t a total banana fish.

  I was angry at Brenda for her gin-addled, paranoid mind and at the City of Los Angeles for its inability to provide the police with adequate telephone service. Mostly I was incensed that those two things combined might allow Gilbert Ruiz to escape justice. I couldn’t let that happen. I slid into my car.

  All I planned to do was find out which direction he’d taken, while I continued trying to reach Moses Green. I assumed that Ruiz would head for the freeway, so I drove to Venice Boulevard, where I knew there was an on-ramp. By the time I got there, the Honda was nowhere in sight.

  I pulled over to the side of the street to take stock of my options. There weren’t many. The area was a warren of small surface streets. Ruiz could be on any of them. Again I tried the telephone number I had for Detective Green. Again nobody answered. I was at the verge of giving up on the idea that Ruiz would ever be caught, when I saw his Honda pull onto Venice Boulevard from a side street about a block ahead of me.

  I followed, positioning myself so there were enough cars between us to serve as a buffer. The freeway was just ahead, so I was surprised when Ruiz turned left on Centinela, in the direction of West L.A.

  By the time we approached the intersection of Centinela and Palms Boulevard, the veil of cars had dwindled to one—a Lexus sedan. Unfortunately, the Lexus turned off into the corner gas station, which left me directly behind the Honda at a red light.

  I saw Gilbert Ruiz’s sunglasses tilt up as he stared into his rearview mirror. They remained fixed there for a beat too long. That’s when I knew I’d been made. He stepped on the accelerator and darted through the red light onto Palms, nearly sideswiping an oncoming SUV.

  The light turned green. I turned the corner, too, and started up the hill after him. Moments later, he gunned his car over the crest of the steep hill ahead.

  I dreaded what might be waiting for me on the other side of that rise. I felt as if I were on a roller coaster car as it crept up that first big summit: that torturously slow click, click, clicking sound when you know that at any moment you’re in for a big fall. I groped for my cell phone but gave up. I needed both hands to drive.

  When I reached the crest, a series of images flashed at warp speed before me: hazy blue sky . . . jagged Century City skyline . . . distant San Gabriel Mountains . . . eclectic, orderly houses . . . neatly landscaped yards. There was nothing at all about the stunning view or the quiet Mar Vista neighborhood that could have prepared me for what came next.

  Just ahead, the Honda barreled down the hill, swerving as it picked up speed. Halfway down, a man was using a garden hose to herd a large pile of leaves from his yard into the street. A moment later, Gilbert’s wheels hit that patch of wet leaves.

  For the next few seconds, I felt as if I were caught up in a slow, frame-by-frame horror film. Gilbert’s car fishtailed to the left across the centerline. He turned left to correct the skid. Overcorrected. Then countercorrected to the right and spun completely around toward the left side of the street again. His vehicle jumped the curb. It slammed hard into a wooden utility pole. It rebounded and came to rest a few feet away. On impact, the pole cracked. It teetered. It listed at a thirty-degree angle.

  Moments later I saw an explosive flash of light. I heard what sounded like sticks of TNT detonating inside a trash can as the power lines snapped some distance from the pole. After flailing in midair like a wrangler’s whip, the lines dropped to the ground except for one, which came to rest atop the hood of Gilbert Ruiz’s black Honda Civic.

  I screeched to a stop. I cut the engine and swung open the car door. For a long, eerie moment there were no other sounds except for the lyrical Chinese tea music drifting from my car’s stereo. It melded erhu, pipa, guzheng, and di. I also heard the fuzzing sound of thousands of volts of electricity from the severed utility lines.

  The man with the hose stood like a statue in his yard, wide-eyed with shock. He was completely unaware that the menacing flow of water continued to gush out into the street and down the hill, closer and closer to Ruiz’s car.

  When the Honda’s door slowly opened, I bolted out of my front seat. I wasn’t an expert on electricity, but I knew you shouldn’t use your hair dryer in the bathtub if you wanted to live another day.

  “Stay in the car!” I shouted.

  Gilbert turned his gaze toward me and frowned as if he was confused by my strident tone. Then recognition flickered in his eyes. I jogged
down the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street from where his car had settled on the pavement. I stayed far away from the power lines and the moisture but close enough for the hose man to hear me shouting to him.

  “Turn off that water. Go call nine-one-one!”

  He blankly nodded. He dropped the hose and ran toward his house. I inched closer to Gilbert until I was directly across the street from him. He appeared dazed. The air bag had deployed, and he was covered with a ghostly gray powder.

  “Gilbert, listen to me. Don’t get out of your car, or you’re going to die. The utility lines are down. There’s water everywhere. We’re calling somebody to cut off the power and get you out of there.”

  He shook his head a couple of times as if to clear away some mental fog. Then he pushed the air bag away. He twisted around in his seat, first to the left and then to the right. He carefully scrutinized the teetering utility pole and the downed power line resting on his car.

  The man with the hose had apparently shut off the water but too late to prevent it from creeping, seeping, and saturating the pavement around and beneath Gilbert Ruiz’s Honda.

  Finally, Gilbert shifted his focus toward me. “I’m not crazy. I see the lines. I’m not going to touch them.”

  “You don’t have to touch them directly to be electrocuted. If they’re energized, anything—wood, water, even your body—can complete the circuit. If you step out of that car, you’ll end up fried.” I had no idea if what I was telling him was the truth. I just hoped it sounded convincing.

  He seemed unsure of himself, weighing my dire admonitions against his instinct to run. “That line on my hood . . . If it was dangerous, I’d be dead already.”

  “Maybe, or maybe the car or the rubber tires are protecting you. Who knows? I think you’re safe as long as you stay put. Why take a chance until we know for sure?”

  For a moment he looked confused. “Did you tell that guy to call the cops just now?”

  “No. He’s calling nine-one-one. They’ll send the power company and maybe the fire department.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You’re lying.”

  “Fine. Don’t believe me. But before you do anything, think of Monique. How will she feel if something happens to you? It’s bad enough that her lover is dead.”

  “He was nothing.”

  “If he was nothing, why did you kill him?”

  “I didn’t kill anybody.”

  “No? Brenda Boyd saw you leave his apartment building that night. She saw you go down to the beach, where I assume you washed off Evan Brice’s blood. She found the ring, Gilbert.”

  “She’s crazy. Nobody will listen to her.”

  “Maybe not, but they’ll listen to me, and here’s what I’ll tell them. Your sister met Evan when she moved into her apartment. She had a crush on him right away, or maybe he pursued her. Either way, I’m guessing one night he invited her over. They hit it off. Maybe they had drinks, did drugs, but for sure they had sex, because she got pregnant. Am I right so far?”

  “My sister never did drugs.” Even from my vantage point I could see the spit flying as he shouted. “Monique is smart. She was going to be a lawyer or a teacher. He ruined her life and dishonored my family.”

  “Monique thought Thomas Chatterton would be happy about the baby. But he wasn’t. In fact, he wasn’t even Thomas Chatterton. He was Evan Brice, and he was already married. I’m guessing he broke up with Monique Sunday night. She was upset and needed to talk to somebody who’d be sympathetic to her situation. So she asked you to take her to Oxnard to stay with your aunt Estela.”

  “That’s right. My aunt will tell you I was there.”

  “Sure you were—for a while. But you came back. Somebody saw your car in the neighborhood a few hours later. Evan was dumping your sister. You couldn’t let him get away with that, so you killed him. You also stole his wedding ring, but when you got outside you had second thoughts and threw it in the trash can. What you didn’t know was that Brenda Boyd was standing on her lanai, watching you do it.”

  The cords in Gilbert’s neck were taut with fury. “I didn’t steal it. I didn’t take anything from him. I went there to make him marry my sister.”

  “But he didn’t want to, did he?”

  “He said he already had a wife. He stuck that ring in my face to show me. He deserved what he got.”

  Sirens could now be faintly heard in the distance.

  Gilbert’s face registered fear. Then calm. His head collapsed against the headrest of his seat. “You called the cops.” It was an accusation.

  “No. I told you, the man with the hose called nine-one-one. It’s probably the fire department.”

  “No. That’s a cop siren.”

  “Look, what does it matter? Help is on the way. They need sirens to get here faster.”

  “You told me the power company was coming. You lied to me about those lines being dangerous so you could keep me here until the cops came.”

  Just then I heard a cracking and splintering of wood. My gaze shot up to the utility pole, which had begun to groan and list closer toward the ground. The pavement beneath the Honda was glistening with moisture. I thought of Evan Brice and Frank Jerrard. I felt tortured by guilt, knowing that I hadn’t been able to see death looming ahead for either of them, not as I saw it now, threatening Gilbert Ruiz. Even with this newfound insight, I was still powerless to change anything.

  “Look, Gilbert, this is no time to play chicken. Stay where you are until help gets here.”

  He paused, twisting his body right and left once again, checking out the utility pole and the power line lying flaccid on the Honda’s hood. He cocked his head, listening to the sirens, louder now, closer. An instant later I watched wide-eyed with horror as he grabbed the top of the door and bolted from the car.

  -32-

  neither CPR nor ER had been enough to save Gilbert Ruiz. As soon as he stepped out of his Honda, he’d slumped to the ground. By the time the power company had arrived and de-energized the lines, and the fire department paramedics had transported him to the nearest trauma center, Gilbert Ruiz was DOA.

  I finally reached Moses Green, who’d arrived within minutes of my call, or so it seemed. After that, I hadn’t felt like doing much of anything, especially answering questions. I’d delivered Rose’s heart pills, picked up Muldoon, and headed for home.

  A few days later, I dropped off the keys to Evan’s apartment at the management company’s office in Century City. On my way home, I stopped by Claire Jerrard’s house. As usual, she greeted me warmly and said how grateful she was to me for helping Cissy. After that, I welcomed any small talk that might postpone my having to tell her the real purpose of my visit. When I could no longer delay the inevitable, I pulled out the piece of yellow lined tablet paper from my pocket.

  “Claire, there’s something I should have told you a long time ago.” I took a deep breath and let it out. “Frank called me the day he died.”

  She looked puzzled. “Really? I guess I’d forgotten that.”

  “No, you didn’t forget. I never told you. He asked me to write down some of your favorite recipes. I should have given them to you back then. I’m sorry. Anyway, I wanted you to know he was thinking of you till the end.”

  I handed her the piece of paper, on which I’d scrawled the recipes her husband had dictated so many years before. As she read, I watched her eyes become glossy with moisture. A moment later, she dabbed at her nose with a tissue and smiled.

  “I forgot about that Salisbury steak. It was awful, wasn’t it? Frank could never say no to a saltshaker.”

  I wasn’t going to let her defuse the situation this time. “Claire, don’t you understand? I may have been the last person he spoke with. If I’d been thinking clearly, I could have talked him out of it. I could have saved him. I failed. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

  She looked at me for a long time without responding. “I’m not sure what you think you could have done, Tucker, but you couldn’t have t
alked him out of it. No one could have done that. The truth is, Frank called a lot of people that day, including me. None of us had a clue what he was about to do. It made me really angry with him for a lot of years, but I finally realized that those calls were just his way of saying good-bye. Not a good way, but his way. I’m at peace with it now. I regret he didn’t just take you aside and give you some pearl of wisdom that transformed your life forever, but he didn’t. I think it’s time for all of us to stop wishing things had turned out differently.”

  -33-

  on a balmy evening in late April, about five weeks after Evan’s death, I answered a knock at my door. Joe Deegan stood under the porch light, looking unusually handsome in a tux and one of those shirts with a butterfly collar—the perfect outfit for Eric’s wedding.

  I’d had second thoughts about the orange Caltrans dress. I’d taken it back to the Santa Monica mall and exchanged it for a sleek, black sheath that by some miracle of design made me look curvy instead of straight.

  Deegan studied me for a moment and whistled softly. “You look beautiful.”

  Cissy had said those words, too, at her house, the first time I saw her after Evan was murdered. Somehow it felt more satisfying hearing it from him.

  Deegan waited for me outside on the deck while I closed up the house. I didn’t have to worry about leaving Muldoon alone, because he wasn’t there. He was staying with Pookie and Bruce for the weekend. The moneymen controlling Bruce’s trust had finally approved the purchase of an older two-story building in Santa Monica. The newlyweds were currently using the top floor as an apartment, while the ground floor was being remodeled to accommodate Bruce’s yoga studio. The issue over custody of Muldoon hadn’t been settled yet, but for now, sharing felt okay.

  A few days after Gilbert Ruiz’s death, I’d run into Deegan at the Pacific station while filing yet another police report. He’d been pretty decent about my ordeal. In fact, he hadn’t lectured me once. I decided to give him a second chance. Vice versa, I guess.