The Woman Who Stopped Traffic (18 page)

Stevens was returning, 20 yards away. She read on:

‘An overall picture
is
emerging, looking something like this: The killer knew Malovich’s commuting pattern. Finding the right occasion, late Monday night, the killer tracked Malovich home, overpowering him some place around that water culvert out back of the Silicon Bean, where the terrain is extra dark at night and the ground recedes from view –’

Stevens at 10 yards.

‘Killer manages to incapacitate Malovich with the Professional stun gun then asphyxiatse him. Killer rolls Malovich’s body through the eucalyptus bushes where he (she? – Malovich just 125 lbs) waits to ensure the coast is clear, taking the opportunity to fish out his keys from his pocket. Over the low wall they go, into the rear lot of Garden Court, then to Malovich’s end-of-block apartment ten yards away, and finally the mock hanging…’

An image came to her of Malovich suspended in that small, fetid place: his burst eyes bulging, his once sallow skin now waxen...

The door blew open. The file was already back on the detective’s side of the table, right way round. Pulver picked it up and thrust it into the chest of Stevens behind, causing him to spill the water.

They sat down. Pulver put his phone back in his breast pocket and Stevens handed Natalie what remained of her water.

The two men took a moment, getting settled.

“See, this is the slight problem we got, Miss Chevalier.” Pulver leaned in a little: “That in the space of a single day, you show up at the scenes of
two
sets of homicides.”

His eyes locked onto hers like lasers.

It made no sense! “But
who
– the other one?” she stammered.

Pulver waited a beat.

Then he told her, and it floored her like a prize fighter’s one-two: Jon Vogel
dead
!

The suspicion that she was connected with both killings:
multiple
!

Suddenly it felt like the floor was opening, swallowing her. She felt her eyes widen: “Vogel –
How –
?” she gasped.

“We’re still verifying that,” Pulver said, in a warmer tone of voice all of sudden, apparently accepting her version of events, finally. “The report we received earlier today, even I’m having difficulty accepting.

“And believe me, I thought I’d seen it all.”

CHAPTER 21

Natalie was nearing Monterey when she thought to call Ben. Her mind was going in six directions at once.

She’d managed to get through to Vogel’s neighbor by phone, and while Star hadn’t exactly invited her round for dinner, she hadn’t totally discouraged her either. It was the closest she’d get to the circumstances of Vogel’s death.

Ben picked up on the second ring. “Holy Cow,” was all he managed, for a good few seconds. Eventually he came to. “Fuck. Jon Vogel is dead! And with utterly bizarre timing.”

“How so?”

“Schweitz and Carmichael have brought the IPO forward to Monday morning. An investor committed to take half the issue. They think the company is hot enough to get the rest away fast, so they want to go now. The final registration statement was filed at lunchtime and announced after the market closed.”

“Which investor?” Natalie asked.

“Some sovereign wealth fund based out of the Middle East.”

“You don’t sound convinced,” she said.

“Doesn’t matter what I think. Never mind: how did Jon die?”

“Don’t know. I’m on my way down to see Star, the neighbor in the beach cottage, to try to learn more.”

“Damn, this is starting to wig me out.”

“How d’you mean?”

“I don’t know. I could leave the city right now and join you?”

“No, it’s OK. I’m almost there. But I did have a question for you. You remember last time we drove down together, we were talking about Malovich’s stock options? You were explaining how his options cancel and everyone else’s stake rises accordingly.”

“Sure.”

“Well how does it work with Vogel’s forty percent?”

“Oh, I see where you’re going. No, Vogel bought that stock outright. It’s his, free and clear.”

“Huh.” It didn’t seem to fit any pattern.

“
– or
was
his,” Ben said. “Ownership now being governed by his will, I guess.”

“OK,” Natalie said. “I’d better drive. I’ll let you know what I turn up.”

“Please do. And call me anyway, to let me know you got back safe.”

Outside Vogel’s entranceway was a Monterey County Sheriff’s cruiser with its distinctive badge: a bear lumbering across a gold star. There were three other cars, two unmarked, all with police lights on. The flashing lights occasionally synchronized but more often flickered wildly at one another. People were leaving the property – earthy folk wearing loincloths and other strange attire, several carrying muddy sleeping bags over their shoulders. Evidently the self-sufficiency camp had been disbanded.

Natalie put the Taurus back into Drive and proceeded on down Pine Glade Way. She didn’t know the direct route to Star’s place, but guessed there was an access road further along. Sure enough, a prayer flag marked out a track leading off the main road.

The track wound its way down through thick woodland, the sturdy Taurus thudding and rattling away. As with Vogel’s driveway, the woodland began to open out, this time into silvery trunks with high branches. It was like driving through a giant pincushion.  Between the spindly trees, she could see the water of the westward cove flash golden-white in the low sun. She tried to phone Star to check she was on the right track, but her phone had moved out of range. Then she saw a horsebox, and the beach cottage itself.

Star was ashen-faced as she opened the back door. Natalie gave her a hug and the older woman’s bony frame sank into hers.

They went in and sat at a wooden table near the fire. Star was in the middle of supper: thin, sweetcorn soup and day-old walnut bread. She offered Natalie some and Natalie gratefully accepted, realizing that she hadn’t eaten all day.

For a while, the two women sat in a stable sort of silence, just the clink of spoon on bowl, the fizzing and popping of the fire and cries of faraway gulls. Finally Star spoke:

“You know we were there, at Altamont – that December of sixty-nine. They say it marked the end of the sixties, an’ I guess they were right. We were up front, next to the stage. I remember thinking how strange it was, with the stage being only three feet high an’ all. But the vibe was so different. It was so sudden. Something in the air just
shifted
. We were gonna leave, during Airplane’s set, but Jon wanted so bad to see the Stones. That was Jon: he always wanted to be
right
there, in the moment.

“We saw everything, with our own eyes: that guy Hunter wave the gun at Jagger, the flash of metal as the Hells Angel security crew piled in – Sweet Jesus, did the curtain come down that night. Like hope was gone, before it ever had chance to take hold. And now it really is gone – forever.”

She was rocking back and forward on her hands.

“Star, what happened today, to Jon?”

She rocked more determinedly. “The lions,” she said.

The lions
? Natalie somehow knew what was coming.

“Someone let ‘em out. Pulled the fence down. Hadn’t been fed in four days.
Someone
told them not to feed the lions.”

“Someone told who, Star?  Was there an outside company involved, or something?  Did someone give instructions to a pet services company – that the animals were not to be fed? Is that what happened?”

“They left meat, in the top of the tree, above Jon’s office.”

Natalie recalled the foreign smell in Vogel’s tree house.

“The lions tried to get it, but found him and Mysty first,” and she crumpled forward, face in hands. Natalie put a hand on the woman’s knobbly upper-back. Star looked up, direct into Natalie’s eyes: “They were torn apart!” and she gave a guttural wail; “torn to pieces! It took three state troopers with rifles to put those lions down up the canyon!”

The sense of unreality returned, stronger then ever. “Were others killed, wounded?”

Star’s head lowered into her hands. It seemed to shake ‘no’.

“I tried to sleep this afternoon,” she gasped, and Natalie noted the prescription meds at the other end of the table. Most were familiar from her mother’s medicine cabinet: strong stuff. She mustered her clearest voice: “Star, there’s something I need to ask you. I realize this is a terrible time, but
–”

Star continued with her bent-head rocking.

“– what happens to Jon’s estate now? Do you know who inherits?”

“The Protectorate.”

She recalled from her last visit how Star was a trustee of this thing.

Star: “It all goes to the Protectorate of the Eternal Now. To hold together what’s left,” and a hand waved around them. 

Yes, Vogel and Star had been lovers, Natalie was now sure. Although, logically that was merely an inference – of him appointing her trustee. Perhaps he’d simply trusted her? But something didn’t compute. What? She decided to come at it from another angle:

“There were no next-of-kin?”

The older woman kept up her rocking, increasingly pronounced.

Directly: “Did Jon have any children, Star?”

“Oh God,” she wailed; “I swore my secrecy to him! At the Biker’s Tavern, up the highway! On New Years Day of, what, shit – nineteen seventy something, I don’t remember!
I can’t say
!”

“It’s OK. There, it’s OK. And you’re sure you’re not an inheritor, Star?”

The elder lady looked at her sharply: “
I’ll show you the will
! You can see for yourself! It all goes to the Protectorate, to hold together what’s left!

“That’s OK, I don’t need see the will,” said Natalie, coaxing her back down. But if Star had the will, then that likely made her an executor of the estate – as well as a trustee of the inheriting organization.

Reflexively, she looked back up at the bookshelves, for the photo she’d noticed when first here, of a young Vogel, with a younger child –

It had been removed.

CHAPTER 22

She thought to call Nguyen on her way back, but decided against. Instead, she called Ben, letting him know the fate of 40% of the company that was going public on Monday morning. Back at the Keaton, Rosanna, the desk manager, approached her:

“Miss Chevalier, I just wanted to impress upon you how seriously we take the security of our guests here, especially our female guests. I asked the security team to edit together the CCTV footage of your arrival last night, and of Max assisting you up to your room. The camera in the corridor outside is time stamped and shows Max leaving you at your door –”

“Really, there’s no need.”

“This is the Keaton. And I understand how upsetting memory loss can be,” Rosanna said sweetly. “My mom has early Alzheimer’s.”

Refusing to accept any further protests, Rosanna gave Natalie the disk.

And the disk gave Natalie an idea. She arranged to meet Detective Pulver early the next day. She felt a rush of euphoria as she drove up to the front of the Silicon Bean café: her memory
had
been accurate. She parked and walked round to the rear – there was another.

Pulver was waiting in his cruiser. She had on tan-leather sandals, beaten-up True Religion jeans and a lilac polo top. Her hair was in a loose ponytail and she wore tinted sunglasses. For his part, Pulver looked like he’d stepped out of a 1950s Sears Roebuck catalogue. He chewed his gum, taking it all in.

“Smile,” she said. “Look: you’re on camera.”

His eyes flicked up to the eaves of the building. The camera was tiny. But it was there.

They found Josie, the owner. She was a big girl, all in black with lots of rings – including two for her nose. Down one shoulder ran a tattoo of a tarot card called the Hangman: bad boyfriend break-up perhaps, but an eerie coincidence nonetheless.

Pulver started to reprimand her for not mentioning the CCTV cameras during their interview two days prior. Josie explained that her building insurer had required them to bring her deductible down: she hadn’t revisited the system once since installation. Pulver was mostly angry at himself, Natalie knew.

“Could we take a peek?” she said.

“Sure,” Josie said, and led them into a small office-cum-stock-room filled with towers of paper cups and sacks of lids. “I guess this is it,” she said, more as a question than a statement.

It was a VICON VDR-204 digital video recording machine: standard, closed-circuit surveillance kit. Input for four cameras, set to record at five frames-per-second. On that setting, the 300-gig hard drive would go for months before needing to be backed up. The machine was operated by simple front panel controls. You could search by time, date or alarm – the alarm being redundant in this case. Natalie also liked the ‘JOG/Shuttle’ dial that afforded quick and responsive playback and frame-by-frame viewing.
Pulver would no doubt have preferred the whole shebang to be bagged, logged and turned over to the forensics. But against that, Natalie knew, he had to weigh investigative velocity.

The machine had apparently come with a flat screen monitor, which Natalie now unpacked and switched on.

“What’s the time range we’re looking at?” she asked.

“Monday 11pm to midnight – give or take three hours.”

“8pm to 3am,” she said. “That’s a lot of frames.”

It soon became apparent that the scene shot from the back of the Bean was one of almost total darkness. Just a dim pool of phosphorescence at the bottom of the screen, from what may have been a down light above the rear exit: whatever it was, the camera was angled to look over it, out into an undisturbed grade of black.

“Josie, could you leave us be for a moment?” Pulver said.

“Sure. I should open up. D’you guys want coffee?” 

Both hesitated. “No thanks,” they said together, Natalie smiling thankfully.

Pulver waited for the door to close. “There was a stun gun. It emits a light arc.”

“I
see
,” and Natalie sped up the shuttle.

The time field whirred through the minutes and seconds, the image unchanging: nine o’clock, ten o’clock – “There!” Pulver said.

Natalie shuttled back: 22:10, 22:09, 22:08, manipulating the sensitive control just so. Sure enough, there was a splash of white at 22:08:32.

The image was vexingly low resolution. That was the trade off for such small cameras – and of course the settings, allowing so many months’ of recording time.

“Can we intensify it or something?”

“I can zoom in…” 

Between the white arc and the surrounding darkness, one or two elements became distinguishable. It was like a flattened sand tray that had been nudged
just
so, the grains minutely reorganized. Now discernible were branches, maybe – or stems? – of the bushes behind. There were also two vertical forms, more solid, in the middle.

“That’s him,” Pulver said, his plump fingernail hovering over a pattern of pixels, right above the white splash. 

“Where? Move your finger –”

Natalie could just make out a triangle of black dots, each one barely more than a pixel’s-breadth. She zoomed in as far as she could. Sure enough, the dots appeared to be the underside of a nose and two eye sockets – like a skull, up-lit by the white light.

“That’s the killer’s face,” Pulver said. “Can I get a print?”

Natalie hooked up a printer sitting at a nearby desk. The printer whirred. Pulver snapped out the image and scrutinized it in the light of a high window.

Meanwhile, Natalie played back the sequence leading up to the light arc, slowly, at three frames per second. It was like watching a very early, silent movie.

“What’re you looking for?” he said.

“Here,” and she pointed to the bottom right of the screen.

“I don’t see anything.”

“A small wand of light moving. See?”

He wasn’t sure.

She said: “Let’s go check something out.”

He followed her through the coffee shop, out back. To the right was a pile of broken down boxes depressed in the center. Surrounding it on the ground were cigarette butts.

“Would you mind standing beside the building over there, where Yuri would’ve walked by?”

Pulver did so. She sat down, recreating the view of the smoking witness.

“Where would you say that up-lit face was?” she said.

“Right about where that snapped-off branch is,” and he pointed to a bush in the middle of the eucalyptus row. “Or a yard in front, I guess.” From their respective positions it formed the apex of an isosceles triangle.

“I reckon that’s fifteen yards away from each of us,” she said.

“Give or take,” he agreed.

“So the person sat here couldn’t help notice the people go past, and what happened.”

“A material wit. No question about it.”

“Thing is, I’m sat here smoking.” She turned towards him. “Surely the killer would’ve noticed me?”

“That depends,” Pulver said, “on how experienced, calm and collected the killer was. It was dark. This was a pursuit. Adrenaline does strange things to a person’s senses. And there are few higher doses than when you’re taking another man’s life.
Playing God.
He might have gotten tunnel vision.”

Could he really not have seen the smoking witness? It was possible. “Not a professional killer then.” She didn’t want to let on that she’d seen the 51s.

“Judging by this and other aspects of the case, he or she most assuredly was not.”

Pulver looked back and up. Natalie tried to guess what the detective was thinking. The camera was discreet, beneath the eaves, but still visible. If the killer had cased the route at night, it would have been hard to spot, but it
did
seem unlikely that this was the work of a professional killer – unless it was an incredibly rushed job.

“And the killer was known to Malovich?” she asked.

Pulver didn’t reply. But he didn’t deny it.

They kept looking at the triangulation of the path by which Malovich and the killer had entered the camera’s view, the arc of the stun gun and the fleetingly lit skull – then the location of the mystery witness, known only by his cigarette wand. The sky was sultry, slightly overcast. With her sunglasses on, it made it easier to imagine the scene at night.

“Of course!” she snapped her fingers, as she was apt to do on such occasions. “Let’s go look at the VDR again.”

Camera 3, covering the inside seating area, showed a Hispanic-looking man walking out through the fire escape at 22:06:47, and re-entering with faster motion at 22:08:30 – two seconds before Malovich was stunned. It looked like he had something to hide too.

“Josie, could you come in here for a moment!” Pulver hollered.

“Shoot, that’s Sal!” she said, staring at the frozen figure. She shook her head.

“Who’s Sal?”

“Sal Polanco. Used to work here. Took off Wednesday, the day after someone – I’m guessing him! – cleared out the cash till.” She looked closer: “What’s he doing? Casing the place out?”

“Salvatore – Polanco.” Pulver wrote it in his notebook. “OK: address?”

“Like I said, he took off. I called his place Wednesday morning when he didn’t show up for the early shift, and his housemate said he’d left.”

“Did you report the cash theft to the police?”

“No, for a coupla reasons.”

“Which were?”

“The float was a few hundred bucks, well below my insurance deductible.”

“And the second?”

“His housemate said that he’d left for Mexico.”