Prologue: November 13th, 1987 (18:30)
Camino Cielo runs along the
spine of the Santa Ynez mountains that serve as a picturesque back drop for the
jewels of light beginning to sparkle from Goleta to Santa Barbara below.
Nocturnal critters come alive in that hour before dusk slips into its black
sheath of night. The evening’s clicking and buzzing of insects was interrupted
by the rattling, angry popping and buzzing, approach of dirt bikes a couple of
hairpins from the Painted Cave junction on Camino Cielo. Two riders came
upon the taxicab waiting with its headlights illuminating an old pine that
stood tall over the turn-out near the junction. The cab’s motor was running and
the passenger’s side rear-door was open. Behind the wheel, the driver wasn’t
waiting for a fare. He wasn’t waiting for anything at all.
The first kid to the car
shouted while still on his bike, “Hey, look… he’s sleeping. You think he’ll
wake-up if we…” The other dirt-biker rode up between his pal and the cab and
dismounted. He spotted a wad of cash bulging out of the driver’s shirt pocket,
and said “He’s not sleeping, Jason.” Then he opened the driver’s door, reached
over the steering column, shut off the ignition and, out of view from the
other, lifted the wad of cash from the driver’s pocket and tucked it inside his
own jacket.
“Ted, shouldn’t we call
911? I mean, don’t wanna disturb the crime scene.”
###
(05:00) The hour was magic
for Detective Sean Ryan between the dark of night and before the
first light from his apartment on Foothill Road. The coffee machine, set for
five AM, began its morning drip, pop, fizzle grumble. He’d been at the scene
past midnight the night before. These calls rarely happen at one’s convenience
but this one wasn’t his call. It was on the County’s dime. Still dark outside,
he made the single bed. He’d always dressed his cot first; even when he had a
Mama San, or Senora, to take care of his billet in Gitmo, the Philippines,
Korea, Vietnam, or wherever the US Navy had sent him. His desk was the only
piece of furniture besides a dresser other than the bed. In the kitchenette, he
poured a mug of coffee; black, and filled to the brim then took the mug to his
desk next to a four-by eight-foot wide window. From the second-floor studio
apartment facing Southwest, dawn’s light greeted his view and painted the
landscape to the sea beyond the campus of UCSB.
The spartan studio
apartment wasn’t dreary to him. When the divorce papers were signed, he’d
reflected philosophically, “We hardly knew each other outside of rhumba beat of
the bed and dance floor.” He no longer needed the house. After all, there were
no kids. His passion was in his work and his only other vice had been Cuban
cigars. He was a white Irish boy from Boston on his first adventure in the Navy
at pre-Castro Gitmo and had fallen in love with the way Imelda’s Rhumba had
seduced him back to his Gaelic roots out of the WASP pretenses of an adopted
New England shell. It hurt him worse than the divorce when the cardiologist
insisted he quit smoking cigars and he was far away from the sultry cabanas of
Havana for his addiction to dark, mysterious women. He sipped enough of the
black brew from the mug to make room for a dash of Kalua and raised his cup to
the picture of the woman of his long ago and far away dreams, on his desk, “To
you, Imelda.”
Ryan, opened a folder that
contained several polaroids he’d snapped the night before and played back the
interview of Ted and Jason on a micro-cassette. The photos were of a taxi cab
and close-ups of the driver, head slumped over the wheel. The driver was
Douglas Perry… his most reliable Confidential Informant and the only reason he
had for nosing in on the County Sheriffs’ jurisdiction. He pinned the pictures
to the corkboard above the desk. There were others too. The untrained eye might
think some were accidents… camera went off… shots of the ground. But closer
scrutiny showed they were of foot impressions dirt bike and car-tire tracks in
the gravel.
The tinny voices of Ted and
Jason from the recorder told identical stories of riding up on dirt bikes when
they found the cab parked in a turnout on Camino Cielo. When stories match like
that is indicates they rehearsed it to cover up something. Neither said
anything about the wad of cash in the driver’s pocket and no money was found
anywhere else on the body or in the cab. Ryan suspected it could have been a
robbery or a scene created to look like one. Moreover, the boys probably took
whatever cash they found. Other than tampering with evidence he knew they weren’t
guilty of robbing Perry. Nothing about it looked like suicide. It was a short
drive up San Marcos Pass to Camino Cielo from his place after he finished his
second cup of half Kalua and half coffee… about ten minutes. The body was still
pliable before midnight, by the time Ryan had seen it taken away in the meat
wagon. He’d been around corpses long enough to know it takes two or three
hours, or longer on a cold night, for rigor mortis to set in.
###
He ripped the dry-cleaners’
wrapper off one of four dark blue sports jackets, chose from a selection of
identical light blue shirts, and a clip-on striped, grey, blue and white tie.
He pulled up his chino slacks over stout, muscled, legs that spoke of years of
roadwork training for the ring. He had been the light-heavy-weight Armed
Services champion three years in a row his first tour of duty. He stretched his
belt to the last notch over a paunch from lack of exercise. His exercise was
restricted to light cardio workouts on the treadmill… doctor’s orders to go
light. He drove back up to the crime scene at sunrise in his blue 1970 Chevy
Caprice. Turning right off San Marcos, a squad car passed him going the other
way off Camino Cielo. Two City Police cars were parked behind a flatbed tow
truck so he parked on the other side of the road. The driver at the winch was
loading the taxi while the rookie, Officer Jack Rogers, clipboard in hand,
acted the supervisor of the whole operation while three other uniforms stood
back and watched.
“This is the County’s case.
Who ordered it towed?” Ryan barked.
“Take it easy, Ryan. What’s
the big deal? It’s been here where you left it last night.”
Ryan’s eyes scoured the
dirt within the yellow crime scene tape. A set of tire tracks were
scuffed up in the dirt in front of the cab and two different shoe sizes were in
the gravel next to where the rear door had been. He had snaps of the tire
tracks but hadn’t noticed footprints the night before or he would have snapped
some pics. Frustrated he asked, “What’s the use of this tape if you’re letting
a herd of buffalo traipse through it?”
“Come on Ryan you know it
was self-inflicted.”
“No prints anywhere on the
car?”
“Clean.”
Ryan nodded towards the
tire tracks, “County homicide’s been here? I don’t suppose plaster casts were
taken of these before you stepped all over them?”
“Yep to one and Nope to
two.” Rogers made no attempt to cover his annoyance at being questioned by this
old fart.
Ryan drew out a tape
measure next to the foot prints and snapped a few more shots from the cheap,
One-Step-600 Polaroid, he carried with him to every crime scene. He could see
that there was little use in hanging around much longer. The new Coroner’s
Office had moved down the hill next to the County Sheriff less than a mile from
his place. He needed to run things by someone whose judgment could be trusted.
“Let’s see what the coroner has by now. Ride with me Rogers, you might learn a
thing or two.”
Almost at the junction of
San Marcos Road, they had to pull over to the side to let three County Sheriff
cars, lit up, lights flashing, speed towards the scene. Rogers said, “Right-on.
We’re off the case.”
###
Forensic Pathologist,
Doctor Kate Williams, was about sixty and had always looked that age as far
back as Ryan knew her. She didn’t look any older, nor any younger, as the years
passed.
They stood next to the
cadaver while she pointed out the wound in the back of his head, “You’re early
Ryan. I haven’t cut him open yet. No exit wound. Probably a hollow point .22
caliber. When I crack open this coconut, I’ll find it likely took out three
quarters of his brain. It’s not speculation, I’m thinking this one’s a
homicide.”
Ryan scratched his chin,
“No evidence of a struggle at the scene. No cash on the driver… could have been
a faked robbery or the kids dirt-grabbed it.”
“What, I think maybe the kids
robbed him,” Rogers butted-in as though he was trying to impress someone.
Ryan was annoyed at the
interruption but continued, “We have the weapon… a twenty-two-caliber revolver.
Wiped clean… nine-round cylinder. … short casings…one emptied. Sent to ballistics.
When you find the slug in there you’ll find it matches the empty in the
cylinder. Preferred caliber of a hit.”
“I would say so if I were
to say so,” she quipped. As always, she came to few conclusions until all the
evidence was considered.
Ryan and Dr. Williams were
quiet. Ryan said under breath, “There were two of them, a man and a woman, in
the back seat.”
“Why do you say that?”
Rogers asked.
“Two sets of shoes in the
gravel, if you bothered to look.”
Out of the blue, Rogers
said, “His friend, Kraszhinski was thrown in jail last night. We could’ve talk
to him there but that gook whore of yours bailed him out.”
Ryan thought Rogers was a
punk and let the racist insult slide but the kid’s point was plausible. Ryan
had been around long enough to recognize a bum steer. He played along anyway,
“You got something there, Rogers?”
“Maybe Kraszhinski’s her
pimp and Perry owed… Sides, I read about that Ed Kemper dude. He made friends
with a Santa Cruz cop while he dined on co-eds.”
“… quite a stretch there,
sleuth.” Williams interrupted. “You can dream but I don’t deal in speculation.”
Ryan had seen enough, “Come
with me, Rogers, let’s see if Perry’s boss can shine any light on this.”
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