Empty Places, page 6
Matt quickly scanned the autopsy results. "Pat, there isn't any mention of whether there were signs of intercourse."
"There weren't any signs, Matt," the coroner answered. "No signs of sex of any kind."
"No sex, no rape?"
"None, Matt. Why?"
"The S.O. is calling this a Goodbar killing," Matt explained. "Kind of strange for a Mr. Goodbar not to get something before he wasted her, isn't it? Maybe she gave him a blowjob?"
"Yeah, I heard they were calling it that, too," Norman said. From his tone it sounded as if the deputy coroner doubted that scenario. "But like I said, no indications of sex of any kind. Or any indication of the prelude to sex. With the exception of damage done to her clothing by the entry and exit wounds and being thrown around in the dirt from the impact, her clothing was all in proper place and order. No tears to indicate a struggle or rape, no clothing undone, and no scratches or marks."
"You don't think it was a Goodbar murder, do you, Pat?" I asked.
Norman shrugged and shook his head. "Pete, I'm not a detective, just a cadaver carver. But in my time, I've seen a lot of homicide victs and a lot of rape victs, and even a few serial killings. If I had a professional theory about how your wife died, it wouldn't be a Goodbar killing."
"What would your professional theory be, Pat?" Matt asked. "If you had one."
"Judging from the fact that the victim was apparently unmolested, there was nothing missing from her purse or her car, and the placement of the gunshot wounds and the type of large-caliber, high-power weapon used—" Norman paused for dramatic effect, "—I'd say it was a hit."
✽ ✽ ✽
Matt and I were leaving Norman's office when I stopped at the door and turned back to the deputy coroner.
"Pat, do you remember a Jane Doe I did a couple stories on a few years ago?" I asked. "A young overdose victim found at the bottom of the mountain near Highway 74?"
Norman probed his memory, then came up with the case. "Oh, yeah. The girl who was thrown off the mountain."
"Yeah, that's the one. You ever get an ID on her?"
The coroner frowned and shook his head. "You know, we never did," he said. "I do remember you did those stories. And we sent bulletins to every cop shop in the country." He shook his head again. "Nothing. We finally had to bury her in a pauper's grave."
"I was afraid you'd say that."
Norman shrugged. "What can I do, Pete? I've got an entire file cabinet filled with Jane and John Does, and I don't have that much freezer space."
✽ ✽ ✽
The tall detective, Shorty, was waiting for us outside the coroner's office. He was agitated, and obviously nervous about being seen talking to us again. His hands kept slipping in and out of his pockets, and his head turned at every footstep in the corridor. He looked more like a snitch than a police investigator.
"Someone told me they saw you coming in here," he said.
"What is it, Shorty?" Matt asked sharply.
Shorty stopped his nervous shuffling and looked at Matt like a scolded child. "Look, Matt, I'm sorry about that crap in there. I know you're upset."
"I'm upset because I thought I taught you to be a better cop than you are," Matt answered. The remark cut deeply into Shorty. His face looked as if he'd just been slapped. "Just what kind of damn investigation are you conducting into Robin's murder?"
"Look, Matt. I take orders just like you used to," Shorty said. "If Hampton tells me there's no sense in continuing an investigation, I don't ask him why. I just drop it. I don't have to like it, Matt, or agree with it. I just have to do it."
"Hampton told you to drop it?" Shorty nodded. "Guess I should have known. That ass. I'm sorry, Shorty."
The young detective shrugged his acceptance. "I just thought you guys might like to know that the victim's apartment wasn't the only break-in connected to this case." Shorty glanced nervously over his shoulders, making certain the hallway was empty. "Her TV station was broken into last night. I got a call about it from The Springs PD."
"What was taken?" Matt asked.
"That's the kick. Not a thing from what they can tell." Shorty shook his head. "Whoever it was just rifled the desks and the files. It looked more like he was looking for something, not stealing something. All that high-price TV equipment and all, and the only thing the perp seemed interested in were the files."
The door to the coroner's office opened abruptly, startling all three of us. One of the lab technicians stepped out, nodded to us, and walked down the hall. Shorty took several steps backward, his hands jammed down into his pockets. "Just thought you guys might want to know that," he said. Then he turned and hurried down the hall.
CHAPTER 8
WHAT WAS THAT STUFF about the Jane Doe?" Matt asked as we walked back to his car.
What it was about, I told him, was a young girl whose body was found at the bottom of Highway 74, the winding, bending ribbon of asphalt that cut through the Santa Rosa Mountains from Palm Desert to the farming community of Hemet. There was no identification on the girl's body, but it was obvious she was very young—no older than 20, and probably younger than that. She was a pretty girl, with blonde hair and, I was told, blue eyes. I never saw her blue eyes, of course. No one would ever see them again.
An autopsy showed she had suffered a drug overdose, and whoever she was with at the time stripped her of identification and threw her off the mountain. Her body sat unclaimed for weeks. I wrote a series of stories about her, hoping to find out who she was. We even ran an artist's sketch of the girl; in those days it was still bad taste to run photos of dead people in a family newspaper. The stories did no good, and to this day she lay in some grave with no headstone and no name, just a marker with a number.
"Sad story," Matt said in a voice that showed he was used to sad stories.
We climbed into the car, the trapped heat inside greeting us like a furnace blast. "Sadder still," I said. "The damn part is she was still alive when they threw her off the cliff."
"God, what a terrible way to die," I remember Robin telling me. "So lonely, so alone."
We were lying in bed, flushed and sweaty from making love. The words came out of the blue, incongruous with the act we had just completed.
"What's that?"
"That poor girl you're writing about," she answered. "The Jane Doe."
"It's a sad story," I agreed.
"It's more than that."
Robin rolled out of my arms onto her back and stared at the ceiling. Moonlight filtered through the windows, silhouetting her form in contrasts of black and gray as her chest heaved beneath the sheet.
"It's just so lonely, to die all alone like that. No one to help you or comfort you. No one even to bury you. No one should have to die so alone."
"People do, Robin,' I said. My hand slipped under the sheets and ran across her stomach. "That's just a sad fact of life."
"But it's such a frightening thought." She rolled over to face me in the dim light. "I mean, it could happen to anyone—me, you, anyone."
Her lips twitched. Moonlight glimmered in her moist eyes.
"Peter, I've always been so afraid of being alone and unwanted. I've thought of this a lot since my folks died and the court case and everything. I don't want to die without anyone around who cares—it's just so frightening."
I pulled her against me and held her tightly. She was shaking like a frightened child.
"You're not alone anymore, Robin." I kissed her lightly on the forehead. "We're both not alone anymore, and we never will be again."
"Promise me, Peter," she said, her face buried deep in the crook of my neck.
"I promise, Robin. You'll never be alone again. I'll always be there for you. I promise."
I kissed her cheek, and she turned her face up to meet my lips with hers. We kissed deeply, my hands roaming down her back, across the mounds of her buttocks and back up over the flat plain of her stomach to her breast. The passion returned in both of us, and we eagerly sought each other's relief. The love Robin made to me that night was hard and rough, and desperate.
I started recalling that night while looking at the crime scene photos of Robin's murder. Our love was still fresh at that point and whatever promises of forever I made Robin, I made thoroughly believing I could keep them. Time teaches you, however, that nothing is forever. Promises often go unkept. And I had a divorce decree that declared all bets were off, and all promises canceled.
I closed my eyes and I could see Robin lying twisted and shattered, the way the police photographer captured her on film. The picture blurred and merged with the image of the dead young campensina and her murdered baby. I had let that young mother down, and in the process let myself down. And, I realized, I had let Robin down, too.
✽ ✽ ✽
"What do you say we check out Robin's station?"
We were driving north on Highway 111, back toward Palm Desert and The Springs beyond. Matt's question stirred me from my thoughts and pulled me back to the present.
"You say something?" I asked.
"Hello. Earth to Peter," Matt said. "You still with us, boy?"
"Yeah, still here," I answered. "I was just thinking." I pushed the car lighter in, then pulled a cigarette out of my shirt pocket. "I was just thinking about Robin. About something she told me once. About something I told her."
Matt didn't say anything. He just stared out at the road, one hand on the wheel, the other arm perched on the car door, resting his chin. The only sound was the hum of the car motor and the whistle of the air conditioning. Matt's silence was an old police interrogation trick. It beckoned me to go on.
I told him what Robin had said that night between our love making, leaving out the physical details. I told him what I had promised. I didn't need to tell him how that promise went unmet.
Matt remained quiet. He drew away into some distant part of himself, leaving me alone in the car with only the sound of the air conditioner. I stubbed out my cigarette and lit another one. My mouth was dry and tasted like ashes. Matt let out a deep, sad sigh and finally spoke.
"I know how she felt," he said. "I've thought lot about it myself."
I used the same silence Matt used on me.
"After my last divorce I told myself I'd never get married again," Matt continued. "I told myself I didn't need anyone. And I don't. But you know, sometimes I think about it. Dying alone. It's a real empty feeling. An empty, scary feeling. I still don't think I could ever get married again, not now. But I think I know how Robin felt."
Matt was showing me a side of him I never saw before, a side I didn't think I wanted to see. It made me uncomfortable because he was echoing my own darkest thoughts.
I rolled down the window and took a deep breath of hot, wet air. "She was married at the time," I finally said. "She didn't need to be worried."
"Yep."
Matt's single word was a condemnation. I turned to him, but he said nothing more. He just stared out the windshield. This time the silence was meant to end the discussion.
"You think I caused the divorce," I said. "You always did, didn't you?"
"I'm no one to make to make judgments," Matt said. "I've got my own failures—you know that. But sometimes, Petey—sometimes, when you hold someone too close, too hard, you push them away. You try to hold them captive, they have to try to escape."
I blew a lungful of smoke out the window and watched it drift cloud-like toward the next car. "Next you'll be telling me love is like a butterfly," I said.
The traffic signal ahead turned red and Matt slowed to a stop. He shifted uneasily in the bench seat. I could tell his thoughts had shifted directions again.
"Maybe it doesn't really matter," he said absently. "I guess it doesn't really matter." After a pause, he spoke directly to me. "I'll tell you what I want, Pete. When I die, I want an Irish wake. A real Irish wake. Know what I mean?"
I nodded. "A lot of drinking, a lot music, a lot more drinking."
"You got it," Matt said. "Set me up on ice with a beer in my hand and have one hell of a blowout party. You'll see to that, won't you, lad?"
The signal turned green. The car eased forward, building speed with a muffled roar. The desert heat tumbled through the window, thick and suffocating, yet a chill ran through my spine.
"You remember that, lad, okay?" Matt said, his eyes carefully studying the traffic.
"Remember what?"
"The Irish wake," he said.
"Rest assured, Matt," I said. "I'll dance at your funeral."
"See that you do," Matt replied. "Now, how about checking out Robin's station?"
I took a last drag on my cigarette, holding the smoke in for a long time. Since receiving Matt's cable, I had felt I was being dragged down a path I didn't want to take. Now I felt myself relenting. Maybe it was the guilt I felt about Robin. Maybe it was the guilt I'd been carrying since I watched that young campensina and her baby butchered. Or maybe it was simply because I was starting to accept what I had long been trying to deny—that despite the divorce, I still loved Robin and always had.
I stamped out my cigarette in the ash tray and blew out the last lungful of tobacco smoke.
"Sure," I said. "Why the hell not? The S.O.'s hanging fire, so let's see what we can find out. Onward, Batman!"
CHAPTER 9
MOST TV STATIONS, PARTICULARLY those in small markets, lack the glamour the public usually associates with television. Broadcast offices, more often than not, are housed in nondescript single-story buildings wedged into back-street lots in areas zoned for light industrial use. The only characteristic that makes them stand out from the rows of auto-body shops and electronics manufacturers is an array of satellite antennae jutting from the roof. Robin's station was no different.
The same held true inside the station, and it was obvious the shabby economy had rubbed off on it. A small brightly colored lobby greeted visitors, but the offices beyond were a collection of small, windowless cubicles with white walls marked and scarred with years of daily abuse and illuminated by flat fluorescent lighting with a series of dead or dull tubes. The sole exception was the general manager's office, twice as large as the others and paneled with wood veneer. This office was clean and well kept, while the other offices were crammed with battered file cabinets and haphazard stacks of papers.
The smaller offices were inhabited by advertising representatives, accountants, and station management. A hallway ran half the length of the building, linking the offices and ending in two heavy doors. Photographs of the station's local on-air celebrities hung on the hallway walls, which also were painted the same dirty white. I recognized only three of the faces on the wall. Two were the well-coiffed young men I saw at the funeral and whom I correctly guessed were the station's anchors. The third was the minister who gave Robin's eulogy.
"I told you he was a TV preacher," Matt whispered as we passed the pictures.
Matt and I were led by the station manager down the hallway and through the double doors at its terminus. Another hallway intersected the first and ran the width of the building. Three doors marked the entries to the station's studios and single control room. A fourth door was simply marked: Newsroom.
The newsroom was a cramped box-like chamber crowded with white desks topped by computer terminals. At the far end of the room was the sound stage where the anchors sat to deliver the news. Mounted video cameras stood like sentries facing the stage, their controls unmanned, and their monitors dark.
The sound stage itself was small, no larger than a cheap motel room, though on air it would look much larger. Dark hard-wood desks replaced the white ones, but the stage was still nothing fancy. It was obvious news was not a big product for this station.
Charlie Davis, the station manager, was a short, fat man who, having doffed the dark mourning suit he wore at Robin's funeral, now showed a flair for bright polyester. Anywhere else in the world, his getup would be considered bad taste. But the standard uniform in Palm Springs was double-knit white slacks topped with a bright hued short-sleeve shirt. Contrasting belts and white loafers usually completed the uniform. No matter what they might say in Paris or London, in the desert the little fat station manager's attire was de rigueur.
The glare of Davis's clothing contrasted with the nervousness he displayed as soon as we told him who we were and why we were there to see him.
"Ah, Steve!" called the station manager. "Hey, Steve! Come here, would you?"
A thin-faced man looked up from his desk, reading glasses propped on the tip of his nose. His eyes narrowed and he looked visibly startled when he saw Matt and me standing next to his boss.
"Yeah, Charlie, sure," he said, dropping the glasses on his desk as he stood.
"Steve Casey, our news director," Davis said in introduction.
I didn't need an introduction to Steve Casey. I knew him well enough. From Casey's reaction, I felt assured he hadn't forgotten me either.
"Steve," Davis continued, "this is Peter Brandt, Robin's, ah, ex-husband, and his friend Matt . . . Banyon, isn't it?"
"That's right," Matt answered.
Casey offered his hand in greeting. "Casey and I have met before," I said.
"Right," Casey said. "I remember."
"Well, good. Good," the station manager said. "Pete and Matt are taking care of Robin's personal effects. They're—well, I guess they're also investigating her, ah—"
"Murder," I said, finishing his sentence.
