The Pain Scale (6 page)

First the chief and then Captain Hemmings from Media Relations made vague and general statements about the crime; then they took questions from the press, which they answered with more vague and general statements. It all amounted to them saying we don’t really know anything and maybe we’ll tell you something when we do. Maybe.

Ruiz thought it best to give as much of the appearance of preferential treatment to the senior Mr. Benton as possible, so he arranged for the interview to be held in the administrative conference room on the sixth floor. That’s the one in which the chief
and his deputies gather to hatch their plans for world domination. There’s a lot of teak.

Jen and I were already seated at the large table when Ruiz and DC Baxter escorted Congressman and Mrs. Benton and Julian Campos into the room, followed by a bald man with a shiny head and a much younger woman who seemed to be burdened more by the proceedings than anyone else in the entourage. The lieutenant led the congressman to the seat at the head of the table, and the politician sat there without an apparent thought about it. The deputy chief made the introductions. The two we hadn’t seen before were Roger Kroll and Molly Fields, the congressman’s chief of staff and his assistant.

Jen began. “We can’t begin to express how sorry we are for your loss.”

The congressman said, “Thank you.”

It was a foregone conclusion that Jen would take the lead in the interview. She has a way of conveying empathy that I am never able to manage. And we’d been ordered by Baxter to use the utmost sensitivity with the Bentons. He’d sighed with relief when Ruiz had told him who’d be asking most of the questions.

“We know this is very difficult,” Jen said. “Can either of you think of anyone who might have wanted to harm Sara or the children?”

The congressman said, “I thought this was a home-invasion robbery. That it was random. Are you saying it’s something else?”

“No, sir,” Jen said. “We just need to consider everything at this point. There is some evidence to suggest robbery as the motive, but it’s not conclusive. So we need to look at every possibility.”

“Why would anyone want to hurt Sara or the children?” Mrs. Benton asked.

“No one would,” her husband said. “At least no one I can imagine.”

Jen went on. “I know your son is an attorney. What type of law does he practice?”

“He used to do contracts. Now he’s consulting with a lobbying firm in Washington. That’s why he was away when it happened.”

“How much time was he spending away from home?”

“One or two weeks a month. He still has an office here in Long Beach that he works out of the rest of the time.”

“Do you think it’s possible that someone might have wanted to hurt him through his wife and children?”

“Well,” the congressman said, shaking his head, “politics can be pretty vicious, but I can’t imagine anything like this.” He seemed to get lost in his own thoughts for a moment. “No,” he said finally, “not like this.”

Jen shifted her body slightly to be more inclusive of the congressman’s wife. “Do either of you know Catherine Catanio?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Benton said. “She was Sara’s maid of honor. They’ve been friends since college. Why?”

Just to feel useful, I answered her question. “They were going to have lunch yesterday.” For some reason, that statement triggered her tears, and she tugged a tissue from the box on the table in front of her.

Jen let her have a few seconds to compose herself, then asked, “How were Brad and Sara doing?”

“What do you mean?” Mrs. Benton asked.

“Well,” Jen said, “he’d been away a lot.” She offered a slight smile and made sure there was nothing harsh or accusatory in her tone. “Was that, or anything else, causing any strain or stress in their relationship?”

“Neither one of them was too happy about him being out of town so much,” Mrs. Benton said, “but neither of them thought it was a long-term situation. And I can’t think of anything else. Sara seemed so happy the last time I talked to her. She was excited about being back in school, and the kids were doing so well.” Her voice trailed off as she reached for another tissue.

Congressman Benton continued for her. “Brad told me—in confidence, of course—that they were even thinking about another baby.” He rubbed at his eyes and cleared his throat. “Excuse me,” he said.

“You said Sara was back in school?” I asked. “Yes,” Mrs. Benton said. “She’s working on a master’s degree in art history. It’s something she’s been wanting to do for quite a while. She just started in the fall.”

Jen asked a few more questions, but we both knew we’d gotten all we would from them for a while. We thanked them for their time and once again offered our condolences. The deputy chief escorted them out of the room.

“Any insights?” Ruiz asked.

I shook my head and looked out the window. The sky was the crisp and clear Southern California blue we usually only see the day after a winter storm. But it hadn’t rained in weeks.

“G
OT SOMETHING FOR
you,” Marty said as we came back into the squad.

“Something good?” I asked.

“Nothing earth-shattering, but it might be useful.” He flipped open his notebook and went on. “On the canvass, we came up with two people who spotted a white van in the neighborhood. This morning, we got a confirmation from Criminalistics. There was some dirty water in the gutter outside the Bentons’ driveway. Left a tread pattern when they drove through it. Matches the OEM tires on a GMC commercial van from ’02 through ’05. No plates or anything else, but it’s something.”

Jen asked, “They get enough of a print to match the tire?”

“Maybe,” Marty said.

“Got to be stolen or rented,” I said.

“Dave’s downstairs now checking with Auto Theft.”

“Good,” Jen said. “Maybe we’ll catch a break.”

We parked an unmarked department cruiser in the beach lot on the peninsula across from Naples Island and ate chicken tacos from Cocoreno’s. The February crowd was sparse, and the day was beautiful. For a moment, I thought of how nice it would be to take the afternoon off and just watch the sunlight play on the
waves. Then I felt a twinge of pain in my forearm and got back to business.

I couldn’t be sure, but I thought Jen noticed me noticing my pain. Her expression changed, and I thought I saw a flicker of concern in her eyes. There must have been something I wasn’t aware of in my voice or body language that she was picking up on.

“Find out anything about Catherine Catanio?” I asked.

“Teaches art history at Cal State. According to the university website, she’s published a bunch of stuff about Picasso. She’s up on her cubism.”

“That’s pointy people with two eyes on one side of their head, right?”

“Could be. There weren’t any pictures.”

“Just so you know, I was going to make a crack about her being abstract, but it was too lame, even for me.”

“There are cracks that are too lame for you?”

I let her have the point. I didn’t have a comeback.

With more than thirty-five thousand students, California State University, Long Beach, is one of the largest institutions of higher learning in the state. It’s also my alma mater. I graduated with a double major in criminal justice and English. My father was an LA deputy sheriff who died in the line of duty when I was still young enough to believe in giant-killers. From the time I was six years old, I knew that I would be a cop when I grew up. My mother hated the idea. She told me my father’s only wish for his sons was that they never went into law enforcement. So when it came time to decide about college, I picked one subject for myself and one for her. She’s still hoping I’ll someday wind up teaching poetry to teenagers.

Aside from the ginormous blue pyramid visible from the 405 freeway a mile to the north that housed most of the school’s
athletic events, and the two new science buildings perched on the hillside of the upper campus, things looked pretty much the same as they had when I graduated way back in the last millennium.

The students, at least, had fewer mullets.

As a courtesy, we checked in with the university police. They gave us a parking pass and a token that would let us through the security gate into one of the staff lots. There weren’t any open spots in the lot they’d told us to park in, so we did laps up and down the lanes waiting for someone to leave. It took about twenty minutes for a tweedy-looking fellow to back his Prius out of a nice shady spot under a eucalyptus tree.

The faculty offices for the art department were in a row of aged twostory metal-and-stucco rectangles tucked along the east edge of the campus behind the larger buildings that housed the classrooms, studios, galleries, and workshops. We climbed an exterior staircase with a wobbly railing and found FO4 203. The door was open. We’d called ahead.

“Professor Catanio?” I asked.

“You must be Detective Beckett,” she said.

I told her who I was and introduced Jen. The office was small and filled with furniture even older than what we had downtown. The carpeting was rust colored and worn smooth in spots by years of use. The paint was fresh, though, and the art on the walls livened up the atmosphere. I assumed it was good, but there weren’t any starry nights or water lilies or little angsty guys with their hands on their ears, so I wasn’t able to tell for sure.

She gestured to two steel-and-vinyl chairs across from her desk. “Please,” she said. Either force of habit or simple politeness compelled her to say, “It’s nice to meet you.” Of course it wasn’t. It’s a very rare thing when it’s actually a nice thing to meet two homicide detectives. At least she’d heard about the deaths from the Benton family, so we were spared the difficulty of the notification.

I said it for both of us. “We’re very sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you.” She didn’t look like an art professor. At least not what I’d expected an art professor to look like—no nose ring, or black turtleneck, or indoor sunglasses. Maybe art history was different. She was wearing khaki pants and a pale-yellow sweater, and she had her brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. I made her for midthirties, but sadness and the circles under her eyes might have been adding some years. Sara Benton had been thirty-three.

“Professor Catanio,” Jen began, “you knew Sara well?”

“Please, call me Catherine,” she said, as if she found the formality embarrassing.

“Catherine,” I said, softening my voice. “You and Sara were very close?”

She nodded. “Since college. We both majored in art history at UCI. Took a year off after graduation and went to Europe to see the great art. We couldn’t believe we were both accepted into the graduate program at Irvine.” It was clear she was relishing the memories, but her voice dropped as she continued. “But she met Brad and quit school. I went straight through the PhD, and here we are.” She tried a smile, but it didn’t quite take.

“She was coming back to school, though,” I said.

“Yes.” Catherine paused a moment. “She thought I got her into the grad program here. I’m not even on the committee.” She shook her head. “She never really believed in herself like she should have. There was never a doubt she’d get in here. I encouraged her to go to UCI or UCLA and go for her doctorate. She insisted on starting smaller.”

Jen said, “Why did she decide to go back now?”

“A few reasons, I think. The kids were getting older. Jacob started preschool. Mostly, though, I think she really needed something that was just hers.”

“How do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, you know how Brad is.”

Neither Jen nor I really did know how Brad was, but we let her go on.

“Everything in their lives has been about him for so long I think she felt like she was getting lost. I don’t know how she managed as long as she did. He was the star, the congressman’s son, the up-and-comer. She needed something that wasn’t part of the Bradley Benton the Third show.”

I said, “You don’t sound like you’re a fan.”

She looked from me to Jen and back to me again, and for the first time since we’d sat down, I saw the teacher in her. In three seconds, she evaluated us and made a decision that transformed her expression. The pain and sadness that had seemed permanently imprinted there vanished and were replaced with something new and raw. Anger.