Woman with a Gun

by Phillip Margolin

  It didn’t take long to drive to the crime scene. A mile and a half after turning right on Ocean Avenue, a driveway appeared on the sea side of the road. Above him and in the near distance, Jack saw the flat roof of a house that stretched along the top of a cliff. The side facing away from the Pacific was painted a subdued gray that weathered well and blended into the colors of the surrounding dunes and sky.

  An officer posted at the entrance to the driveway recognized the DA and waved him in. Police vehicles were parked in a turnaround and Winston pulled in behind one of them. The Cahills’ front door was open and Booth could see police officers and forensic experts moving around inside.

  Jack followed the DA into a polished stone entry hall. On his left was an unobstructed view of the ocean through massive floor-to-ceiling windows. Jack leaned on a low wood banister for a moment and looked down into a spacious living room. A door in the living room opened onto a large deck outfitted with lounge chairs and glass tables shaded by wide umbrellas. Jack could see a hot tub off to one side.

  A slender African-American man dressed in a tan suit and open-necked blue shirt was talking to a state trooper near the top of the stairs that led down to the living room. His hair was salt-and-pepper. He turned when he heard the two men enter the house and lasered his sharp blue eyes at them. Then he smiled.

  “Archie,” Booth said.

  “You know Detective Denning?” Winston asked.

  “We worked a case in eastern Oregon right after I joined the Justice Department.”

  “Hey, Jack,” Denning said.

  “Are your forensic guys through with the den?” Winston asked. “I want Jack to see the scene.”

  “Come on back,” the detective said.

  Jack followed Winston and Denning down a hall decorated with oils and photographs of seascapes. They stopped in front of an open door.

  “The body was found in here,” Winston said, pointing into a large den.

  There were no windows in the room and it was illuminated by bright, recessed lighting. The odors left behind by violent death had dissipated to some extent but there were still enough left to wrinkle Jack’s nose.

  A huge television hung on one wall over a cabinet. The cabinet was open and Jack could see electronic equipment and stacks of DVDs. Trophies decorated the top of the cabinet. Some looked like golf trophies and others looked like they were for shooting. On another wall, pennants celebrating UCLA, the Los Angeles Lakers, and the Oakland Raiders were mixed with photos of Raymond Cahill standing with well-known sports and entertainment figures.

  Jack took in the decorations quickly because his eye was drawn to a chair that had tipped over in the center of the room. The body had been removed but the gore remained. There was dried blood on the floor behind the chair and something else that looked like brain. There was more blood spatter on either side of the chair and in front of it. Jack wasn’t surprised. Winston had said that the victim had been beaten.

  Denning saw where Jack was looking. “Mr. Cahill was tied to the chair. It must have gone over when he was shot in the head. The criminalists took the rope to the lab. The body is at the hospital where they do the autopsies out here.”

  “Do we know how the killer got in?” Jack asked.

  “No,” Winston said. “If he was waiting when the Cahills got back from the wedding he may have forced them to let him in. There’s the front door and a door that opens onto the deck. You can get to the deck from the beach. The door to the deck was open because that’s how the witness got into the house, and we’re pretty sure that’s how Megan Cahill left when she walked down to the beach. But we don’t know if it was open or locked when Megan left the house, only that she didn’t lock it when she walked down to the beach. None of the doors were forced.”

  “Okay. Is there anything else I need to see here?”

  “Definitely,” Winston said. He pointed to the left side of the cabinet that held the television. A section of the wall was in shadow. Jack squinted at the spot. Then he walked to it and discovered that what he had taken for a wall was actually the door to a vault. The door was barely open, but Jack could see that it was thick steel covered by wood that blended into the wood used for the rest of the room.

  “That’s where Cahill kept his collection,” Winston said.

  When Jack drew closer, he spotted a keypad on the wall next to the door to the vault. He pulled back the door and stepped into a large, temperature-controlled room. A gun collection hung on one wall. When Jack was a deputy district attorney, a disgruntled defendant had threatened him and he had been given a gun for protection, but he knew nothing about antique guns. He recognized a blunderbuss and another rifle that looked like something from the American Revolution. There was a derringer he had once seen in a TV show. But what drew his eye were several blank spaces.

  Winston saw where Jack was staring. “We’re pretty sure that the revolver Megan Cahill was holding is from the collection but we won’t know for sure until we talk to Frank Janowitz, the curator who looked after Mr. Cahill’s collection. He’s flying up from L.A. and should be here tomorrow.”

  There were several glass cases arranged in an orderly manner in the center of the vault. Some were intact and Jack saw coins in them. The glass in several had been smashed and shards littered the floor. Winston pointed to a small gold coin that was partially hidden behind the leg that supported one of the cases.

  “Some of these cases contained Cahill’s coin collection. The thief took some and left others, but we won’t know why until we get an expert opinion from Janowitz.”

  Winston pointed toward rows of wide metal drawers. Some were in the wall but others had been pulled out.

  “Cahill’s stamp collection,” he explained. “It’s been looted, too.”

  Jack looked around and asked a few questions, which Winston said he wouldn’t be able to answer until Janowitz assessed the damage.

  “None of the other rooms in the house appear to have been disturbed. We think the killer tortured Cahill to get the combination to the vault, then took what he wanted, killed Cahill, and left.”

  “So Megan Cahill might have been a victim, too?” Jack said.

  “Or an accomplice,” Denning said.

  Jack took a look around the rest of the house. When he was done he agreed that whatever had happened had been confined to the den. Jack followed Winston and Denning to the stairs that led down to the living room.

  “There are tracks leading up from the beach and into the house that were left by the witness and Mrs. Cahill when the witness brought Mrs. Cahill back to the house after she found her on the beach,” Winston said. “The witness said that the door to the deck was wide open.”

  Winston led Jack down the stairs to the living room and onto the deck. Denning followed them. The view was spectacular. Some waves rushed into shore while others crashed against the shining black hides of massive rock formations, sending spray flashing through the clear summer sky. And while the shore was wracked by turbulence, a little way out, the sea was flat blue calm. Jack decided that money might not buy happiness but there was a lot it could buy.

  “Show me where the witness found Mrs. Cahill,” Jack said. Winston led him down a set of weathered wooden steps to the beach and across the sand in the direction of the main part of town. They didn’t go far before the DA stopped to point out the spot. Jack walked to the water’s edge and stared. A seagull swooped down to the beach and two more glided on the updrafts, making lazy circles over the open water. The ebb and flow of the waves and the light sea breeze hypnotized him.

  With an effort, Jack turned his back on the Pacific and broke the spell. Above him loomed the beach house, all glass. In winter you could take in the storms through the picture windows. In the summer, you could sit on the wide decks and watch the sunsets.

  “Where’s the witness now?” he asked Winston.

  “She’s at the courthouse, giving a statement.”

  “Let’s go back so I can talk to her.”
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  CHAPTER THREE

  Archie Denning stayed at the house to supervise the investigation and Teddy Winston phoned ahead to make sure that the detective who was taking the witness’s statement kept her at the courthouse. When Jack and Winston arrived, the DA led Jack to an interrogation room in the rear of the police bureau. Winston opened the door and stood aside to let Jack enter. Jack took one step into the room and froze.

  “Jack Booth, this is Kathy Moran,” Winston said. “She found Megan Cahill on the beach behind the Cahills’ house.”

  Kathy and Jack stared at each other. Kathy recovered first.

  “It’s been a while, Jack.”

  Winston looked back and forth between the prosecutor and the witness.

  “You know each other?”

  “From Portland,” Jack answered. “Kathy practiced law there when I was with the Multnomah County DA.”

  “You’re a lawyer?” Winston asked. Kathy smiled.

  Jack turned to Winston. “Ted, would you mind not sitting in while I debrief Kathy?”

  Winston’s brow furrowed and it appeared for a moment that he might protest. Then he gave in.

  “Sure, Jack, if that works better for you.”

  “Thanks for being so understanding. I’ll give you a full report when we’re through, and I assume that Miss Moran won’t object to talking to you at a later date if you have something else you need to discuss.”

  “That would be fine,” Kathy said, and the DA left the room.

  Kathy was sitting in a straight-back chair on one side of a small table. A black windbreaker was draped over the back of the chair. She was wearing jeans and a green-blue cable-knit sweater. It was summer, but the coast was always several degrees cooler than the valley. And, Jack remembered, she had been walking the beach in the early-morning hours when the wind coming off the water would have chilled the air.

  “You look good,” Jack said, and he wasn’t lying. The last time Jack had seen Kathy, she had looked unnaturally thin and strung out. In the five intervening years, Kathy had gained back any weight she’d lost and she was sporting a healthy tan.

  “Thanks,” Kathy answered with a smile. “Six months in rehab and four and a half years in the ocean air work wonders. Why are you here, Jack?”

  “I’m with the District Attorney Assistance Program at the Department of Justice. The DA asked for help on the case.”

  “So Teddy Winston thinks Megan killed her husband?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Everyone in Palisades Heights knows everyone else. Teddy’s scared of his shadow. If Megan Cahill is charged she’ll be represented by some heavy hitters. Teddy doesn’t have the self-confidence to go up against that level of legal firepower.”

  “Winston told me you found Megan Cahill on the beach around two in the morning and called the police. Have you gotten any sleep?”

  Kathy shook her head.

  “You must be exhausted. Have you had anything to eat? Do you want a sandwich or coffee?”

  “Seeing Cahill’s body killed my appetite, but I could use some coffee.”

  Jack went to the door and asked the policeman outside for two cups.

  “I’ll try to make this quick so you can get out of here.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Why don’t you tell me why you were walking on the beach at two in the morning?”

  The door opened and a policeman entered with two cups of coffee. Kathy took one healthy sip, then another. Then she put the cup down and answered Jack’s question.

  “After I resigned from the bar I had to find a job. I’d represented Grady Cox in a divorce case in my first year in practice. After his divorce I did odds and ends for him: contracts, a real estate deal. Grady owns the Seafarer. It’s a bar on Ocean Avenue. I earned money in college bartending. Moving to a small town and away from temptation after I finished rehab sounded like a good idea. I called Grady and explained my situation. He gave me a job.

  “This morning, my shift ended at one thirty. It was a beautiful night, full moon, no clouds, lots of stars. A friend, Ellen Devereaux, has a gallery in Palisades Heights. She shows my photographs. We’d talked about a one-woman show. I wanted to feature beach scenes. I always have my camera with me and I decided to walk along the beach.”

  “Do you live near the Cahills?”

  “Lord, no.” Kathy laughed. “I couldn’t afford their garage. I have a bungalow I rent from Grady. It’s a few blocks from the Seafarer. But I wasn’t tired, and the night was so perfect. There was a full moon, and I thought I might get a few shots I could use for the show. The rock formations near the Cahills are spectacular.”

  “I’ve seen them. So you walked down the beach?”

  “And I’d taken a few shots when I saw Megan Cahill standing on the shoreline.”

  Kathy paused. She’d looked exhausted when Jack entered the interrogation room but her eyes suddenly regained the sparkle he’d noticed the first time they’d met and her features came alive.

  “That scene,” she said. Her voice filled with wonder. “It was something I would never have imagined seeing in my lifetime. This woman, bathed in moonlight, her tanned shoulders in sharp contrast to the pure white of her strapless wedding gown, barefoot, staring out to sea, the foam from the last, retreating wave inches in front of her. And that gun . . . It was so out of place. It was the gun that made the scene unique, bizarre. So I took the shot.”

  “Weren’t you worried that she would shoot you?”

  “Honestly, I didn’t think about that right then because everything was so surreal. I just took the shot. Then I draped the camera’s carrying strap over my shoulder so my hands would be free and I walked toward her.

  “I moved slowly, carefully, because I had no idea what state Megan was in or what she planned to do with that gun. You know, would she try to shoot me? Was she moments away from suicide?”

  “Had you met her before?”

  “No, but I’d met Raymond Cahill.”

  “Oh?”

  “Not socially. A reporter who was writing an article in the Palisades Heights Gazette about the Cahills’ wedding had seen some of my work at Ellen’s gallery. He came to the Seafarer and asked me if I wanted to photograph the house for the article.”

  Kathy shrugged. “I needed the money and I’d always wondered what the inside of the house looked like, so I said I’d do it. That’s when I met Raymond. But Megan wasn’t at the house then. Of course, I knew what she looked like. I’d seen her picture in the society section of the Gazette. And, of course, the gossip columns covered her divorce.”

  “Her divorce?”

  “She was married to Parnell Crouse. He played for the Oakland Raiders. The divorce was very messy. Raymond had an interest in the team. I think Megan and Raymond met at a team party.”

  Jack wasn’t interested in society gossip so he pressed on.

  “What happened when you got close to Mrs. Cahill?”

  “She turned. Her eyes were unfocused. She looked dazed, disoriented, and I could see blood in her hair. I asked if she was all right.”

  “Did she answer you?”

  “No, she just stared. That’s when I started thinking about the gun. It was dangling at her side, just hanging there. I wasn’t even sure Megan knew she was holding it and I didn’t know what would happen if she realized that she was in possession of a deadly weapon. So I approached cautiously, the way you would approach a wild animal. I held up my hands, palms toward her, to show that I meant her no harm. I asked again if she was okay but I didn’t get an answer, just a vacant stare.

  “A gust of wind reminded me that we were out in the open. My windbreaker offered some protection but Megan was wearing a strapless wedding gown. I knew she had to be cold and that I had to get her to a warm place. Then I was going to call for an ambulance and the police.

  “When I got close enough to take the gun, I reached out slowly and covered the hand that held the weapon. Megan stared down at the gun. She looked surpr
ised to see that she was holding it.

  “I said, ‘Let me take this so no one gets hurt.’ Megan didn’t resist. I took the gun. Then I wrapped my windbreaker around Megan’s shoulders, took her by the hand, and brought her across the sand to the wooden steps that led up from the beach.”

  “Did she resist when you led her back to the crime scene?”

  Kathy shook her head. “She was docile, unresisting like a sleepy child. So I kept talking to her as I led her up the steps; talking about the weather, how nice the house looked, anything to keep her calm, because I was certain that whatever had broken her was in the house. And I was right.”

  She shuddered. “When we got to the den . . . Cahill was sprawled on the floor. I could see the blood. His face . . . I pulled my eyes away pretty quickly but . . .”

  “That’s okay. You don’t have to describe the crime scene. I’ll see the photos. Did Mrs. Cahill say anything about the circumstances of her husband’s death?”

  “She didn’t utter a word about anything. When I saw the body, I pulled her away from the den and got her settled in the living room. Then I called the police.”

  “Did you see anyone at the crime scene?”

  Kathy shook her head. “I’m sorry but I can’t help you.”

  “Okay. I think that’s enough for now. Go home and try to get some rest. We’ll get in touch if we need anything else and you should call if you remember something that might help.”

  “Okay,” Kathy said. She stood up and started to put on her jacket. Then she paused.

  “Are you staying in town, Jack?”

  “Winston got me a room at the Surfside Motel.”

  “So you’ll be here for a few days?”

  “Yes.”