Eyes Wide Open

Chapter Twenty





The county coroner’s office was located twenty minutes away near the sheriff’s department in San Luis Obispo. It was on a remote road a few minutes out of town, tucked dramatically at the base of one of those high, protruding mesas, not exactly your standard police setting.

A sign on the outside walkway read DETECTIVES UNIT.

It was strange, but I felt there was only one person I could trust.

I went up to the front desk. A pleasant-looking woman seated behind a computer asked if she could help me. I said, “Detective Sherwood, please.”

He was out of the office. The woman glanced at the clock on the wall and said it might be a couple of hours. There was a bench in the room outside. I told her I’d wait.

It took close to two and a half hours, and maybe a dozen calls from me, for the detective to finally return.

“Hey, Carol,” he said, waving to the woman I had spoken to, coming in through a rear entrance off the parking lot. “Calls for me?”

The secretary pointed to me and he saw me stand, his demeanor shifting. He glanced at his watch, as if he was late for something, then stepped up to me, clearly the last person he was looking to see. “Thought you were on your way home, doc. What brings you all the way out here?”

“I’m not sure Evan killed himself,” I said.

The detective blinked, as if he’d taken one to the face, and released a long, philosophical sigh. “Killed himself. Fell off a ledge while climbing—like I said, what does it really matter, Dr. Erlich? I have a death certificate to make out and it has to say something. You come up with any better ideas about what he might have been doing up there?”

I looked at him. “What if someone else was responsible for his death?”

“You mean as in maybe the medical staff at County. Or even the police?” His gaze didn’t have anything friendly in it. “How did you phrase it . . . That we were ‘washing our hands of it?’ ”

I remembered the news report on Evan and how that must have sounded. “No, not the medical staff at all. Someone else. Just hear me out.”

“Someone else now . . . ?” Sherwood nodded patronizingly. He glanced at his watch again, then forced a barely accommodating smile. “Well, you might as well come on back. You’ve driven all the way out here. Carol, hold any calls for a couple of minutes.”

I grabbed my blazer. “Thanks.”

He led me down a long hallway to his office, a small cubicle workstation separated by gray fabric dividers from the workstations of three other detectives, with a view of the rolling hills.

“Hey, Joe.” He nodded to one as he stepped in. He took off his sport coat and draped it over a divider. “Don’t get comfortable.” His desktop was cluttered and piled with bulging files. There was a credenza behind his chair, more files stacked on it.

Along with a couple of photos. An attractive, middle-aged woman, who I assumed had to be his wife. And a younger woman, in her twenties maybe. A daughter.

He sank into the chair and nodded for me to take a seat.

“You don’t mess around, doc, do you? A couple of days back, you’re stirring things up about how your nephew had been criminally neglected and that the county was responsible for his death. Then you rouse up the local press that there’s some kind of big conspiracy going on here. How we’re not doing our jobs. You go out to that halfway house in Morro Bay and suggest maybe you’ll bring a lawyer in. And now you’re saying what?” He ran his thick hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. “That the kid’s death may not have been suicide at all? Or even an accident? That leaves us exactly where, doc? Foul play?”

My heart was pumping. “This retired detective who was killed last night in Santa Maria . . . I think his name was Zorn. You happen to see it on the news?”

“I saw it.” He snorted derisively. “You know, homicides are kind of a hobby with me, doc.” He leaned back, propping his foot up on an open desk drawer. “The floor’s all yours . . .”

“This detective, Zorn, apparently he was in touch with Evan. Twice in the past few weeks.” I told him how one of Evan’s friends had seen him asking around for Evan at the playgrounds. The last time less than two weeks before he had died. How Zorn had had some reason to contact him and had shown an interest in Evan.

“You’re suggesting what now . . .” Sherwood smiled, a bit deferentially. “That these cases are somehow related?”

“Two people end up dead, who just days before are seen talking. One of them clearly was murdered. The other, Evan, at the very least, there are some open questions . . .”

“The kid jumped off a cliff, doc! Who are you now, the Amazing Kreskin?” He put his palm on the top of the tall stack of files. “See these? I’ve got four gang killings, a hit-and-run, and two likely drug ODs to process.” He pulled out a red one from on top. “See this one? The son of a prominent builder in town. Tight end on the high school football team. OxyContin OD. Everyone’s all over me . . . And these . . .” He wheeled around to the other stack of files sitting on the credenza. “These are all disposed of, awaiting my final sign-off. If I can get to them.” He picked one from near the top. “Your nephew.”

“I know there’s some kind of connection between the two cases.”

“I’m sorry, doc, but I don’t work for you.”

It was clear that the comments on the news had cost me what little equity I had with him. It was also clear the hospital wasn’t exactly going to be an ally now, not that they ever were.

“Look,” I said, “I’m sorry about that interview. We were all a little frustrated the other day. My nephew died. No one was returning our calls. I was leaving town. I was just trying to do whatever I could to get them some attention.”

“Attention? What the hell have I been devoting to it, doc—spare time?” He drilled a look of displeasure at me. Finally he let out a breath. “Gimme a name.”

“A name?”

“The name of your nephew’s friend,” he answered impatiently. “The one who conveniently spotted the two of them together.”

“Miguel,” I said. “Miguel Estrada. Apparently, he and Evan were basketball buddies. According to him, Zorn was asking around for Evan at the courts.”

“Asking around . . .” He twisted in his chair and punched Miguel’s name into his computer. He waited a few seconds, putting on thick black reading glasses, then sort of smiled cynically as he shifted the screen around to me. “You talking this Miguel Estrada?”

There was a photo of Miguel, shaved head, tattoos and all. A mug shot. Along with a police record that stretched down the entire page. I’ve had some setbacks . . .

My heart sank.

Sherwood ticked them off: “Sale of banned substances, sale of prescription drugs, failure to show up for court hearings. Falsifying doctor’s prescriptions. Shall I go on? We’re not kids here, doc. Before we jump to any conclusions, you think perhaps we ought to consider the source?”

“He told me this early last night,” I said. “Before the Zorn story even broke.”

“He gave you Zorn’s name?” The detective’s eyes widened and I saw where he was heading. An ex-cop was dead. Maybe this Estrada kid was involved.

“He didn’t know the guy’s name,” I said, defending him. “He just described him to me. Fifty or sixty. White hair. From Santa Barbara. Slight limp. Birthmark on his cheek. This morning, as I was about to leave, I saw the news.”

“Well, you should’ve just kept on going!” The detective glared at me. “Look”—he pulled the monitor back around, shrugging—“even if this kid is somehow on the level and they did talk, so what? Why are you so sure there’s a connection?”

“Because two people who had contact with each other just a few days ago are dead. And one of them was clearly murdered; the other . . .” I didn’t say that maybe Evan’s death wasn’t quite as clear as everyone thought. “If this wasn’t about some welfare kid who was half off his rocker, you would look further—”

“Half?” The detective held back a smile, a tiny crease of his lips. “No one’s even agreeing that they were in contact, doc.”

“Look, I’m sorry I made things difficult for you. Please, I’m just asking you to take a look. I know you’ll find something.”

He took off his reading glasses and folded them on his desk. Then he blew out a long breath, friendlier now. “Look, why not go back home, doc? You’re wasting your time trying to rake things up here. You’re a sensible guy . . . You deal in facts, right? And I know you can see how your nephew may have done your brother and his wife kind of a cockeyed favor. We both know—next month, next year—the next time he went unhinged, we’d be cleaning up a whole different level of mess here. You understanding what I’m saying, doc?”

“There are other police, you know. Homicide. Someone would be interested in this.”

“Oh, yeah.” Sherwood’s grin radiated with amusement. “And after yesterday, they’re all just dying to team up with you, doc. You be sure and give ’em my best.”

“I’m not leaving,” I said. I got up. “Not now. Not until I find out what Zorn may have wanted with Evan.”

Sherwood sighed. He picked up his phone, the friendliness melting into resignation. I watched him punch in a number, and I was about to say something I’d regret when he suddenly raised his eyes back up to me, as if to say, You’re still here?

“Did your brother know this detective? This guy who was killed?”

“He said no. He’d never heard of him before.”

The person Sherwood was calling came on the line, but he placed his hand over the mouthpiece, only the tiniest softening of his gaze, his irritation morphing into something that, if you knew him better, might have almost looked like a smile.

“Don’t wait by the phone.”