He said, “You seem pretty collected, I mean, walking in and finding the guy the way you did. Not many women would have handled the situation as well as you are.”
“I don’t feel collected.” Should I have dissolved into hysterics?
Thornbury’s partner, Fred Weber, came into the lounge and helped himself from the coffeepot on the counter.
“How’s it going in here?” Weber asked, looking past me at his colleague. He had rolled his shirtsleeves up to show his well-muscled forearms. From the bulk of him, I guessed he was a body builder.
“We’re doing okay,” Thornbury said. “What’s Opie up to?”
Weber shrugged. “Asking the techs a lot of questions. Probably the biggest case he’s ever been involved with.”
Opie? Did he mean Roger? I had to lower my face to hide my reaction. This pair had no clue who Roger was or what he had done before he showed up in Anacapa. My husband, who was a homicide detective for twenty years, thought that Roger Tejeda was one of the smartest detectives he had ever worked a case with. Though they worked for different police departments, they collaborated on several investigations and became good friends. Learning, early in our relationship, that both of us knew and valued Roger had been a happy discovery.
I looked from one detective to the other. They seemed to have forgotten I was there as they discussed what was happening in the lobby.
“May I leave?” I said. “It’s late. I’ve told you everything I know. Twice.”
Weber pulled out a chair next to Thornbury, turned it around and straddled it, leaning his big-gun arms across the chair back. The way he studied me, he reminded me of Sister Dolores of Eternal Sorrows, the counselor at my high school, preparing to launch into a pontification of information and correction.
Roger came into the room just then. He leaned against the service counter, arms folded over his baseball shirt, and listened as Weber went into his pitch.
“Ma’am, there are certain procedures and protocols that we in law enforcement follow that might seem puzzling or even intimidating to a civilian like you, but know that they are necessary. It’s natural for you to be a little scared of authority figures like policemen, but all we’re trying to do is find out what happened.”
“Thanks for telling me,” I said. Patronizing putz, I thought, but stayed quiet, didn’t tell him I had been through the drill before. Didn’t tell him that Holloway was not the first dead man I had seen. Didn’t give him anything he might spend half the night asking questions about, and that had nothing to do with the man in the lobby who was lying on the coroner’s gurney under a sheet.
“I hope you’ll be patient with us,” Weber said. “We may ask you the same questions six different ways until you begin to think we aren’t half as smart as we look-which I admit isn’t all that sharp-but this is the way things are done by the experts, so just hang in there with us.”
“Good to know,” I said. “But it’s been a long night, and I would like to go home.”
“All in good time.”
I dared to look over at Roger. He had a tooth-sucking grin on his face when I caught his eye. He lifted the corner of his cheek in a little wink, and I knew Weber was in trouble.
Weber said, “You probably told my partner already, but I’d like you to tell me something about your relationship with Peter Holloway.”
“Park,” Thornbury corrected. “Park Holloway.”
Weber nodded acknowledgement of the correction, but the name didn’t seem to ring any bells for him, yet.
“Hardly knew him,” I said.
“Help me understand why, after everyone else had already left campus, the two of you were alone in this building.”
I sighed, said, “The light was right at five o’clock.”
Eyes intent on my face, he said, “Miss MacGowen, this will go easier if you just answer the question.”
“I did.”
“So, Detective Weber,” Roger said, startling Weber by interrupting. “How long you been working Homicide?”
Weber hesitated before he decided to answer, seemed annoyed by the interruption.
“About two years now, sir.”
“You ever run into a detective named Flint? Mike Flint?”
I looked again at Roger and remembered Mike leaning against our kitchen counter, very much as Roger was at that moment, teasing. A powerful sadness washed over me, caught me unawares, but it had been a very long day-I had found a dead man, for God’s sake-and I wished Mike were there. I had to look away for a moment to let the mist clear from my eyes.
“Mike Flint?” Weber said. “Sure. Worked LAPD, Robbery-Homicide out of police HQ downtown. Everyone on the job has heard about Mike Flint.”
“What did you hear?”
“He was a legend,” Weber said. “Totally old school, you know, one of the last of the real cowboys, kicked butt and took names later. A D.A. told me once that when Flint filed a case, it was golden.”
Weber wasn’t finished: “And the women-God, if half the stories about him and women are true-”
“I don’t know about that,” Thornbury said. “But he was one hell of a detective.”
Weber looked over at Thornbury. “Flint died, what, about a year ago?”
“A year next month,” I said. “He was my husband.”
Talk about a conversation stopper.
Weber, whose face turned bright crimson from the top of the four-in-hand knot in his necktie to his close-cropped scalp, could not look at me. I’d heard the stories about Mike and the women who came and went before my time, old news. But I wasn’t going to say anything to make Weber feel more comfortable about his gaffe, the arrogant prick.
I have known many LA County Sheriff’s detectives-the Bulldogs of the Homicide Bureau-and found them all to be smart, and most of them to be genuinely concerned about the people they encounter. A nicer group of men and women would be hard to find. But these two, while maybe smart enough, lacked one very important quality: respect. I thought that I might call my friend Sgt. Rich Longshore, a senior member of the Homicide Bureau, and suggest that this pair needed a little etiquette counseling.
Thornbury took a deep breath before he gathered himself enough to look at me, but he seemed not to know what to say. It was Roger who rescued them.
“Coroner wants you to take a look at the ligature before he puts the victim in the bus.”
“Okay, thanks,” Thornbury said. He closed his notebook and rose from his seat.
“Thank you, Miss MacGowen,” he said. “We’ll be in touch if we have further questions.”
“No doubt,” I said, gathering my mug and rising.
Weber finally looked my way, started to say something, but I turned my back and walked over to the service counter to dump the coffee dregs out of my mug.
He got as far as, “Uh.”
Without turning around I said, “Good night, Detective.”
Chapter 8
I met Zev Prosky, Eunice Stillwell’s court-appointed attorney, at a Denny’s in Corona. The man looked like an antique, but the Bar Association listed him as only fifty-one; working in the Public Defender’s office grinds people down.
“So you’re Maggie MacGowen,” he said, sliding into the booth opposite me. He nodded at the waitress walking past with a coffeepot as he extended a hand to me. “You ever meet Eunice Stillwell?”
I shook my head. “When I wanted to find her, I could never locate a fixed address for her.”