Eyes Wide Open

Chapter Eight





The next morning, I called the county coroner’s office and set up a meeting with Don Sherwood, the detective handling the case—the only person, Charlie and Gabby said, they could get any straight answers from.

He was the one who had knocked on their door two days earlier and asked if Evan was their son—he had ultimately been identified through fingerprints from his police record—and after asking them to sit, showed them the photos of Evan in the county morgue.

Sherwood said he’d be nearby in the early afternoon and we could meet at the station in Pismo Beach around one P.M. I told him we’d be there.

My next call was to the psych ward at the Central Coast Medical Center. I asked for Dr. Derosa.

The nurse who answered asked who I was, and I gave her my name and told her that I was a doctor from back in New York and Evan Erlich’s uncle. She kept me on hold awhile and finally she came back on saying how very sorry they all were, but that the doctor would be out all day on an outside consult and would have to get back to me.

I left my number and said that I’d be around only a few days. I figured I’d hear back in a couple of hours.

A few minutes before one, I went with Charlie and Gabby to the one-story police station on Grand Street and met Detective Sherwood in a small interrogation room there.

He seemed to be in his midfifties, ruddy complexioned, with a husky build and thick salt-and-pepper hair. He stood up when we came in, gave Charlie a shake with his thick, firm hands and Gabriella a warm hug. Charlie had said Sherwood had worked for the local PD and coroner’s office for more than twenty years.

“How’re you holding up?” he asked them, motioning to us to sit down at a table in the cordoned-off room.

“Not so good,” Gabriella said, shrugging sadly.

Sherwood nodded empathetically. “I understand.”

“This is my brother, Jay, from New York,” Charlie said. “He’s a doctor.”

The detective sized me up—my blazer; an open, striped dress shirt; jeans my wife had picked out for me—and showed a little surprise.

“Thanks for seeing us,” I said.

“No problem at all.” He nodded. “Very sorry for your loss.”

“My brother and sister-in-law have a few questions they’d like to ask,” I said. “Not only about Evan, about what happened . . . but also about his treatment at the hospital. How he could have been released after just a few days and put in a place where he was essentially allowed to roam free. I’m sure you understand how this isn’t sitting well with them.”

“I know you have some issues.” He looked at Charlie and Gabriella. “We’ve scheduled an autopsy and a toxicology lab later today. But I’m happy to fill you in on the details of what I know.”

“Thank you.” Gabriella nodded gratefully.

“Some time late Thursday afternoon,” the detective said, opening a file, “Evan apparently left the halfway house in Morro Bay saying he was going to take a walk.”

Charlie narrowed his eyes. “A walk? My son was medicated.”

“The woman who runs the facility suggested she took it as a positive sign. His first day there, he’d been pretty withdrawn.”

“They told me they were putting him in a restrictive facility,” Gabby said bitterly. “That woman killed my son.”

I squeezed my palm over her clenched fist to calm her. “What happened then?”

“Some time that afternoon it appears he wandered down to the rock in the bay and found a path up on the southwest face. He was probably up there a considerable time. Some time during the night, at maybe two or three A.M., it appears he fell from a large height onto the rocks below. We can approximate the time from the body’s temperature”—he turned to me—“as I’m sure you understand.”

I nodded. The lower the body temperature, the longer the body had been dead.

“He was discovered early the next morning by two clammers at seven A.M. The coroner’s finding is that your son was killed on impact. The wounds on the top and back of his skull are consistent with his belief that essentially Evan did a back dive from a height of around a hundred and fifty feet and hit here . . .”

Sherwood placed his palm on the back of his head.

“Oh, God!” Gabby’s hand shot to her mouth. She crossed herself.

Charlie just sat there numbly and shut his eyes.

“Are you okay hearing this?” Sherwood asked. “It’ll all be in the coroner’s findings when we’re done, which you can read at a later time.”

“No, we’re okay,” Charlie said. “Go on. You’re sure it was a suicide? He could have just fallen, couldn’t he?”

“I suppose there’s always the possibility, but there were no defensive wounds on his hands or arms that might’ve come from trying to brace an unexpected fall. The first part of him that contacted the ground was his head. He seemed to choose a location that had an unencumbered path to the rocks below. Not to mention what his motive would be in even being up there in the first place, at night. I’m sorry, but I’m not exactly sure what other ruling there would be.”

Charlie fidgeted in his chair. “Did anyone see him climbing?”

The detective shrugged. “Not to my knowledge.”

“The first time you saw us you said he was missing one of his sneakers?”

Sherwood nodded blankly. “That’s correct. Yes.”

“Did you ever find it?”

“No.” The detective looked at him quizzically. “Not yet.”

“So maybe he was just climbing,” Charlie said, pushing, “and just slipped. He always kept his laces undone. Maybe that’s what did it. Maybe he just lost his footing up there. That could be right, couldn’t it?” His question had an air of desperation.

“Look, we’re looking into everything,” the detective said, “but we have to make a determination and given when he left the recuperation facility and the time of death, taking into account his state of mind and how long he was up there . . . I know how painful this all is. I know how tough it was not to have been notified for so long and to have seen the story on the news. Just know, we’re doing everything we can.”

Gabriella started to weep. She took a tissue out of her purse. “I want to see my son.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible right now. They’re finishing up the autopsy and toxicology findings. Anyway, the trauma was quite severe. There’s going to have to be a bit of reconstructive work done . . . Maybe in a couple of days.”

Gabriella put her hands in front of her face.

“Look, I’m no psychiatrist,” I said, a hand on Gabby’s shoulder, “but one of the things my brother and sister-in-law are trying to deal with is why Evan would have even been released from the county hospital and transferred to that facility in the first place, given that only a couple of days before he tried to purchase a weapon and had been removed from his home in a pretty violent state, put on suicide watch, and heavily sedated with a mood-altering antipsychotic. I’d like to talk to the doctor in charge of his case. I don’t understand how they could make a determination to just dump him back on the street.”

“They didn’t dump him,” the detective said. “They put him in a state-approved halfway house. Maybe not the best suited, as it turned out . . . I know where you’re heading. But I’ve looked at the doctor’s reports. He was deemed to be stable and mentally capable upon his release. He told them that he no longer harbored any desire to terminate his own life. He was over twenty-one. They’re only permitted to hold him against his will for a matter of days.”

“This kid could have been a hazard to anyone,” I said, “if he followed through on that weapon, not just to himself. You’re saying all you have to do is claim that you’re no longer suicidal and they can put you back on the street?”

“Not can, Dr. Erlich. They have a legal obligation to do so. It’s the law. If they don’t feel like he’s an imminent threat. As I say, he’d stabilized. I didn’t want to say this myself, but apparently he’d informed them there he did not wish to return back home upon release. They process thirty or forty people a week through that ward. They found a bed for him at a smaller facility, where he’d receive proper attention . . .” He turned back to Charlie and Gabriella. “I promise you, everyone is extremely sorry about what happened.

“In the meantime,” he said, placing a folder on the table, “I do have some things for you . . .”

He took out a large manila envelope and pushed it across the table. “Your son had these in his possession at the time . . .”

Charlie and Gabby’s eyes stretched wide.

There was a large plastic bag inside. I saw a couple of dollar bills and some loose change. A metal-link key chain with a single key attached. A crumpled candy wrapper. And something else. . .

Gabby pulled it out.

It looked like one of those cheap plastic holograms that came from a Cracker Jack box. An eye—wide open if you looked at it straight on. Then it closed, in a kind of wink, when it was shifted the other way.

“Evan was always picking up stupid stuff off the street.” Charlie shook his head forlornly.

“He went around collecting recycling,” said Gabby, eyes glistening. “For the money. He would go through people’s things—their garbage. Bring things home. People’s shit. You wouldn’t believe what was important to my son . . .”

She picked up the bag and held it like a cashmere cloth against her cheek. “I can feel him, my Evan. I know he didn’t kill himself. He would never do that to me . . .”

“You have to look into that sneaker,” Charlie said, his eyes fixed on Sherwood, as if it was the missing piece of a puzzle. He jabbed his finger. “That could be the key.”

“I promise, I’ll do my best.” The detective nodded obligingly. He stood up and caught my eye. “Got a second?”

I stood up across from him. “Of course.”

He went around and opened the door and walked me outside to the hallway. “Your brother said you’re a doctor?”

“Vascular surgeon. At the Westchester Medical Center. In Valhalla.”

“Vascular . . .” He nodded thoughtfully. “You work on hearts?”

“Veins, predominantly. Endovascular repairs. I keep the works flowing. Guess you could call me more of a plumber than a mechanic.” I smiled.

Sherwood nodded. “I’m a liver recipient myself. Going on two years now. So far so good, I guess. I’m still here.”

“Good for you,” I said. Liver transplants resulted either from cirrhosis from booze or from hepatitis, the C kind, the killer, but something made me suspect the first.

“Now all I got is this TMJ.” He massaged his jaw. “Hurts like the devil whenever things get stirred up. In fact, I’m starting to feel it now . . . You say you’re from back in New York . . .”

“Westchester.” I nodded.

“I got a cousin back there. Nyack.”

“That’s across the river. In Rockland County.”

“Well, wherever it is”—the detective looked at me directly—“trust me, Dr. Erlich, it’s a whole different world out here . . . Look, I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings—I’ve been doing this a long time, and I know how hard it is to hear—but this kid plainly wanted out of the game. You know what I’m saying, don’t you? He’d made statements that he wanted to end his own life. He claimed to the doctors that the gun he was looking to purchase was intended expressly for him. I shouldn’t go into this yet, but your nephew’s toxicology report came back. He was clean. Nothing in him at the time of his death—nada. Not even Seroquel, doc. You catching what I mean . . . ?”

I caught exactly what that meant. Evan hadn’t been on his meds.

That explained how he had managed to climb all the way up there. How he still would have had the urge to follow through with it.

It pretty much explained everything.

“So how the hell did he manage to find his way all the way up there?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” He sighed. “But I do know how the death certificate is going to read. Death by suicide.” He reopened the door and looked at me before he headed back in. “What the hell else would the kid be doing up there in the first place?”