Angeles Crest

by P. J. Zander

  “Ms. Ojibway, I’m Detective Howard Zeno. I apologize for having to ask you here and do appreciate your coming.” He turned toward Banyan. “Sir?”

  Raylene answered the question. “This is Rusty—Frederic Banyan, my close friend and the one who helped me raise my daughter.”

  Her words were unexpected as this was the first time he’d heard her say them to someone else. In fact, he’d never really thought of himself as raising Jo. It all came real easy with her. It just felt natural. Of course, he knew he hadn’t been around as much as he should have been if he were really like a father to her. Ray was giving him the benefit of the doubt.

  Zeno nodded at Banyan and preceded them through the open door. From the bedroom came a voice. “Lieutenant, as neat and organized as this girl seems to be, I’m thinking the belt to her bathrobe was used in the attack. There’s no sign of it here. Think I’ll bag the robe.”

  Shuffling out of the room was a short man at least a few years older than Zeno. His light gray suit hung over his heavy-set body like jowls on a bloodhound. One thought immediately came to Banyan—Columbo. Though here, the one-size-larger ploy to appear thinner wasn’t working. Or, maybe disheveled was his look. He acted surprised and embarrassed when he saw the two of them. “Oh, excuse me, ma’am. I didn’t know you were here.”

  Raylene saw that he was holding Jo’s powder-blue fleece robe, the one she’d given to her two Christmases ago. Her hand went up to her mouth and Banyan heard a quick intake of breath. He put his arm around her shoulder while throwing a discontented look Columbo’s way.

  Zeno scowled at his subordinate. “Ms. Ojibway, this is Detective Sergeant Frank Marchessa, the primary investigator on your daughter’s disappearance.”

  She cleared her throat. “Hello.” Only then did she take her eyes off the robe.

  “The reason I asked you to come was to find out if anything you see here strikes you, anything that might give us a lead as to what might have happened to your daughter.”

  Banyan saw the lieutenant glance over at the other detective and caught the subtlety of what he’d just said. He was familiar with cop thinking. Marchessa’s train had left the station. He was already going with an assault and probable kidnapping, while his boss was still on the platform, leaving it open.

  The lieutenant led them through the open living room-kitchen into Jo’s bedroom from which Sergeant Marchessa had just appeared. The door to the other bedroom had been ajar and Banyan had seen a broken window, glass on the floor. This was his first time in the house. He’d meant to visit her but never got around to it. Thinking about it right then, he couldn’t fathom why he hadn’t.

  There had been one fierce struggle. The mattress was almost kitty-corner to the box springs. One pillow and a blanket were on the floor. Pieces of the broken bedside table lamp and clock were strewn about.

  “Keys were over there under the chair,” Marchessa pointed out. “Shoulder bag here in front of the closet. Both sent to the lab. No sign of her wallet, cell phone or laptop.” He gestured at Spandex exercise gear in a rumbled pile and a tank top still in place with one strap over a hanger. “She’d probably set these out for some training in the morning, based on her friend’s statement, the girl who called it in.” Banyan had noticed a pair of rollerblades, ski poles and folded socks undisturbed in the front room when they’d entered the house.

  He knew how strong Jo was. At five-eleven and over one hundred sixty pounds of trained, fit athlete, she had explosive power and would have fought with every ounce of strength. From what he saw, however, she’d had no warning which would have severely limited her ability to counter the attack. But there was something else, something he couldn’t put his finger on.

  He watched Ray take it all in. She didn’t look stunned so much as deeply saddened. He never would experience the depth of hurt that she felt, but imagining Jo’s struggle in this room was harrowing.

  “This must be difficult for you, Ms. Ojibway, but I thought if you came here you might notice something, any detail that would give you a sense of what happened. I know the deputies might have gone over this with you yesterday, but did your daughter show any signs of being threatened by anybody? Did she break up with a boyfriend recently? Or were you aware of a situation she was in that would cause her to be concerned or afraid? Maybe even enough to want to hide?”

  He was tiptoeing up to the line but not quite crossing over, Banyan figured. He caught Marchessa looking the lieutenant in the eye then back down at the floor, shaking his head.

  “I don’t understand what you mean.” Ray cast a penetrating stare at Zeno. “Somebody’s taken Jolene from this house. Why, I don’t know. There’s nothing here that tells me otherwise.”

  Banyan turned to him. “I wonder if you and Detective Marchessa could go outside for a while, leave us alone to look the house over. It might be easier for us to focus.”

  Zeno met Banyan’s eyes and said nothing, then glanced at the detective and tipped his head toward the front door.

  While Raylene stayed in the great room, looking through Jo’s books and other items on the shelves, Banyan went into the second bedroom. Several pairs of skis and poles leaned against the wall outside a closet. Trophies and plaques too numerous to count crowded two closet shelves, and assorted ski attire hung above three pairs of ski boots. To the left was an ironing board with neatly folded clothes stacked on top. He found a few shards of glass near the legs of the ironing board which was less than ten feet from the shattered window on the opposite wall. Most of the glass covered a four-to-five foot radius on the floor below the window.

  Wearing his reading magnifiers, he squatted and inspected the floor, moving slowly in a modified duck walk toward the door, then across the hall to Jo’s bedroom. He straightened and returned to the other bedroom, again looking closely at the floor and the broken window.

  Back in the large room, Banyan noticed Ray was deep in thought thumbing through a small book. He scanned the kitchen, then the rest of the room. Last, he went over to the gear by the front door. A well-worn TEAM USA ball cap sat atop the socks and rollerblades. Jo had worn it proudly for years after she, just like her mother in 1980, had earned a spot on the USA Development Team based on her World Junior Ski Championship performances when she was fifteen. Without thinking, he picked it up and rubbed his fingers over the faded material, briefly embracing the tactile comfort of Jolene’s prized possession. When he leaned forward to return the cap to its perch, he noticed a cloth tucked inside. Unfolding it, Banyan recognized the bandana he had seen Jo wear one time.

  That August day he had been in Wrightwood to help pack before she left for the rental house. He could picture her loading the 4-Runner, strong and tan in an orange tank top, knee-length khaki shorts and flip flops. She had tied the black bandana around her head like a sweatband with a symbol centered on her forehead. Looking at it in his hand, he had no idea what, if anything, the red circle meant. About two-inches in diameter, it had a silver shape at three equidistant points along the circumference, each one passing through the center. The shape roughly resembled a stylized slingshot. On impulse, Banyan stuck the bandana in his pocket.

  The momentary lift from the thought of Jolene two months earlier quickly fell away, replaced by an oppressive darkness that clouded his mind and bore down on his shoulders. Less than thirty-six hours ago, she was okay, in this house. Now, she’s God knows where. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply for several seconds before regaining clarity and easing the weight. Raylene hadn’t seen him falter. She had just put the book back on the shelf.

  “I don’t know, Ray. I don’t think there’s any point in going into her bedroom again,” Banyan said, walking over to her and putting his arm around her shoulders. He saw no reason to drag her through that a second time. He didn’t need to see it again, either. More than likely, the sheriffs had concentrated their investigation in the bedroom and could provide a detailed interpretation of what they thought happened. He hoped Ray was up to it. “How ‘bo
ut I get them back in and see what they can tell us?”

  She nodded, hugging him.

  #

  “Lieutenant Zeno, if you don’t mind, I think Raylene and I would like to hear what conclusions Detective Marchessa has developed after looking at the evidence.” When Banyan had opened the door to call them in, he’d found Zeno by the sheriff’s cruiser looking at his cell phone and Marchessa across the street smoking a cigarette.

  A red blotchiness began creeping up Zeno’s neck to his face and his eyes narrowed. “Mr. Banyan, I’m running this—”

  “That’s okay, sir, I’d be glad to share my hunches.” Columbo had some cojones and was long enough in the tooth not to give a damn. “The vic—uh, Jolene Ojibway, was awakened out of her sleep probably by more than one dirtbag because the struggle was confined to the bed. No sign of jimmying the front door deadbolt and we can assume Ms. Ojibway had locked it. First impression is entry was through the second bedroom window which is broken. Possibly one came in, then opened the front door for the other one or however many. She fought but was overcome by the numbers. Cords from the lamp knocked over on the floor and the one standing in the corner, and the bathrobe belt were used to restrain, or to . . . subdue her.”

  His pause and considered word subdue made Banyan’s pulse quicken. With his arm around Ray, he could feel her shoulders rise and fall sharply. This cop was all business and not a practitioner of the kid-glove approach.

  “The cords were attached to the bed corners where they tied her ankles. Belt is gone. She was made to sit on the bed against the pillows. The one missing pillow case could have been used to cover her head. There was a little blood here on the floor, and some signs of blood up toward the head of the bed. My guess, her hands were restrained behind her while she was leaning back against those pillows, causing some wrist abrasions. No sign of assault after the initial attack. In other words, they kept her in here for a while—a guess, not too long—before taking her from the house. Hard to say when this occurred, but based on neighbors—some of them rise pretty early—maybe between eleven p.m. and five a.m. Lady across the street got up briefly a little after three and noticed the outside lights weren’t on. According to her, the victim always had them on all night, and they were on when the lady went to bed. Left through the front door, leaving the deadbolt unlocked as discovered by her friend who made the call yesterday a.m. Blood is in the lab for analysis, along with a few hair samples.”

  Picture’s worth a thousand words, and here we got both, Banyan thought. The picture gave him pause. It was horrifying. This was Jolene the detective was talking about. From out of nowhere came a sense of dread that sucked the life out of him. It hit him worse than the darkness just a few minutes earlier. He had to sit down. Ray must have sensed the change for she tugged on his arm and said, “Let’s go over here.”

  They sat on the sofa, the two detectives standing opposite them. Not once during his explanation had Marchessa glance at his superior. When the sergeant stopped talking, neither looked at the other but the tension between them was palpable, and the lack of dialogue didn’t help. Columbo had upstaged the lieutenant and most assuredly would suffer the consequences. Banyan had a feeling that the sergeant couldn’t care less, and he wasn’t finished.

  “One key piece of evidence that leads me to figuring she was surprised in her sleep is the .22 magnum automatic in the table by the bed. It was still in the drawer, full magazine, one chambered. Ms. Ojibway, I’m assuming your daughter is trained in shooting it?” Getting a nod he continued. “If she was aware intruders were in the house before they entered her room, more than likely she would have had the weapon ready and fired at the first one through the doorway.”

  That’s it, he thought. That’s what’s been bothering me—the gun. She didn’t use it because she wasn’t aware. But something still wasn’t making sense. . . . The glass . . .

  His sudden concentration on this detail momentarily cleared his head, but he was unable to shake the exhaustion and incapacity. It had never happened quite like that. He’d shut down a couple times, once about three years before, and the big one when he’d returned from Vietnam and just lapsed into a fog, surfing under the influence. For the better part of ten years, he’d treaded water, occasionally slipping below the surface, until a chance meeting with a teenage girl on the beach.

  Decades later, had it been the shock of the details about Jolene? Twenty minutes ago he’d been primed to find Jo, track down the thugs and mete out his brand of justice. The next thing he knew, his tank had hit empty, and he hadn’t even started. The way he felt, there was no chance he’d take up the hunt any time soon. The fog was closing in. The funk was reaching into his gut, pulling him down.

  “Again, thank you for coming, Ms. Ojibway. We just had to make sure there wasn’t something we missed you could help us with.” Lieutenant Zeno’s voice was noticeably strained, far different from his calm manner when he’d met them at the door an hour earlier. “We’ll do all we can to find your daughter.”

  Moments later Banyan and Raylene were seated in his truck.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Oh, yeah,” he lied. “Just a little shaken by the scene, I guess.” He was pushing back against the blackness pressing in, but he knew. Depression was going to hit him good. Would it be days or weeks, or months? He only hoped he could remain intact long enough to get Ray home and fake the strength she needed of him for a few days before crashing and burning back in Laguna.

  As he started to drive, he felt as if he was looking through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars. Jesus. What was that troubling thing about the gun? The glass, too, remember the broken glass. . . .Gotta park it . . . and find it when I climb out.

  FOUR

  A paper management genius Captain Ernesto Quintana was not. Give him a good secretary who could actually find what he needed in the file cabinets, and he was happy as a pig in mud. To be sure, the electronic central filing system had put a dent in his bad habits by reducing the amount of paper stacked on every level surface in his office. But the improvement was of little consolation as he still faced numerous piles of folders on his desk. As soon as one case got solved, one or two new ones would replace it, and of course, there were those that got carried over from week to week, year to year—the unsolved mysteries. The homicide business was booming as always, and he was the beneficiary.

  Thirty-four years a cop and right then he guessed the aforementioned filing system would have a greater effect on police work than any dent he’d made in crime. He absent-mindedly rubbed the faded scar in the thick flesh between his thumb and forefinger on the back of his right hand while reviewing the weekly stats for his bureau’s units. New Los Angeles County murder cases were coming in at a steady rate of five per week. These were good numbers. In a bad year, it could be four times that many. Throw in the missing persons and the cases that hadn’t been closed and you had enough work to keep more investigators busy than the Sheriff’s Homicide Bureau had available.

  “Captain?” The knock on the open door came at the same time as the voice. “Got a moment?”

  “Yeah, come on in, Vic.”

  Lieutenant Victor Yanchunas stepped into the office and dropped his long, thin frame into the cushioned chair opposite his boss’s desk. “Would one little bit of good news put a smile back on that handsome mug of yours?”

  “No, but give it your best shot.”

  “You know that robbery turned murder over in Lomita last month? Kid on a bicycle gets jumped by two assholes who beat him unconscious. Kid goes into coma, dies a week later?”

  “Now that really doesn’t make me smile. Whaddya got?”

  “Well, someone reading our Crime Stoppers bulletin on the web happens to have been across Pacific Coast Highway taking photos of her new car parked along the street a little before the crime. She goes back and looks at her shots and there in the background of one are two young black males kind of hanging out in the Burger Man parking lot. Looking lik
e they’re up to no good, maybe waiting for an opportunity. They meet the rough descriptions from witnesses near the scene.” The New Cases Unit leader paused.

  “And?” Quintana looked at the younger man, eyebrows raised. “Is that it?”

  “Turns out the two suspects are looking toward the camera. After pulling the digital pic up on her computer, she enhances the faces and sends them to us in email. We match them with mug shots of two lowlifes.”

  “Okay, I’m not giddy, but a warm feeling of contentment is beginning to soothe my aching feet. What action you got going?”

  “I got the information over to Detective Kettler at Lomita Station. They have recent LNAs for each suspect and investigators are on the way there. This thing could be wrapped up soon.” Yanchunas slouched back into the chair with an emphatic nod and a so-what-do-you-think-about-that expression.

  “The warmth has worked its way up to my sore ass, which as you know in this outfit marks the pinnacle of success.” The captain paused, anticipating the feigned disappointment showing on the lieutenant’s face. “And I have to tell you, Vic, this falls into the range of good news. Thanks for bringing it in.” Then he did offer a closed-lip smile. “Let me know if those last known addresses hit the jackpot.”

  “But of course, boss.” As the grinning Yanchunas got up and left, Quintana recalled the crime scene photos of a twelve-year-old boy, only child of a single mother, almost unrecognizable after being beaten to a pulp along PCH for his bike and his backpack.

  There must have been hundreds of cases like this which he’d investigated over the years, or to which he had been the first responder back in his early days with the Pasadena Police Department. Brutal, senseless acts, humans doling out hurt, pain and death to other humans. For his sanity alone, he’d had to train himself mentally to export the files of names, places and carnage from his head into the actual case files. It worked, kind of. Trouble was, he had excellent recall and could access those files quickly, and unfortunately, without really wanting to.