The Forgotten (17 page)

“Yes, sir.”

“You wanna see Ernesto’s file, Loo?” Oliver asked. “You went to college. Maybe you’ll understand it.”

“No, I don’t want to see it. I don’t want to even know about it until the warrants come through.”

“While we’re on the subjects of theoretical incidents…” Marge cleared her throat. “Just suppose I found some things lying around on Baldwin’s desk, copied them down, and had a question about the shorthand Baldwin used by his patients’ names?”

Decker stared at her. “I don’t believe this.”

Oliver said, “Blame it on me. Show and tell, Margie.”

“I don’t want to see it,” Decker said.

“So don’t look,” Oliver retorted.

But Decker did look. Marge had brought out several copies of what looked to be a desk calendar. She felt guilty—but not that guilty. “At first, we were thinking that the shorthand could be describing his patients’ psychiatric conditions. But the abbreviations don’t seem to correspond to psychiatric ailments.”

“Like C for ‘crazy’ or N for ‘nutcase’—” Oliver said.

“How about N for ‘neurotic’?” Webster said. “Not the kids, the parents. Doesn’t anyone ever just work things out anymore?”

Decker bristled. “Maybe these kids have real problems, Tom.”

“Yeah, the problem is they’re spoiled rotten. Y’all wouldn’t find any of us desecrating a temple and getting away with a slap on the wrist.”

“In the end, Ernesto got more than a slap,” Decker said.

Webster paused. “Yeah, that’s too bad. I’m not saying he deserved to die or anything. And I’m not saying that kids don’t have troubles. I’m just wondering if some of the parents aren’t using the Baldwins as high-priced baby-sitters?”

“I’m sure there’s some of that,” Decker said. “But I’m also sure that most of the parents are very sincere in wanting the best for their kids.”

“Whether the kids want it or not,” Wanda said.

Oliver said, “Getting back to the shorthand, I was thinking that PS could stand for ‘psycho.’”

“Shrinks don’t use the term ‘psycho,’ Scott,” Marge answered. “You know, Maryam mentioned Dee Baldwin acting as kind of a guidance counselor…getting kids into the right colleges. I’m thinking that maybe the shorthand stands for names of colleges. Since S is the most frequent, and we’re talking about smart, rich kids, it could be Stanford.”

“What’s PS?” Oliver said. “Pseudo-Stanford. And notice I knew ‘pseudo’ started with a P.”

“Very good, Oliver,” Marge said.

“Maybe University of Pennsylvania,” Webster said. “That’s an Ivy. PS equals Pennsylvania.”

“What’s E then?” Wanda asked. “What’s M?”

“E could be Emory in Atlanta,” Webster said. “That’s also top-ranked. Maybe M is for U of Michigan in Ann Arbor. That’s considered a public Ivy.”

“How do you know that?” Oliver sneered.

“I got into Michigan.”

“Bully for you.”

“No need to get nasty.”

“If the abbreviations are top universities, where is the H for Harvard, or the P for Princeton, or the Y for Yale?” Decker asked. “And what is I? Or L? Or S2?”

“Stanford waiting list?”

“No, I don’t think so.” Decker rubbed his forehead. “Any other ideas?”

His question was met with silence broken by the ring of his telephone. The tension in Rina’s tone was audible. So was her voice. Everyone could hear it.

“The murders are all over the news,” she said. “Yonkie’s beside himself. In case you forgot, he knew Ernesto Golding—”

“Hold on, Rina.” Decker covered the receiver and looked at his staff. They were on their feet before he even spoke. “Give me five minutes.”

They all nodded and were out the door. Rina said, “Are you in the middle of a meeting?”

“I was.”

“About Ernesto Golding’s murder?”

“Yes.”

“Did Jacob tell you where he knew Ernesto from? He’s being vague with me.”

Decker didn’t answer right away.

Rina broke in. “You’ve got to tell me, Peter.”

“Rina, he spoke to me in confidence—”

“Peter,
I’m his mother
!” Rina shouted. “Oh, just forget it! I know anyway. From the drug parties, right?”

Decker was momentarily stunned. He couldn’t speak.

“I’m religious, Peter, but I’m not blind,” Rina stated. “More important, I have a nose. His clothes used to reek of pot. Combine that with his formerly poor grades, and the fact that he was a gross underachiever, it doesn’t take Sam Spade to figure it out.”

“So why didn’t you ever say anything about it to me?”

“Stop throwing the blame back in my corner—”

“This isn’t about blame, Rina; I’m just trying to understand you, for heaven’s sake!”

Silence over the phone. Then Rina said, “I didn’t want to upset you. You were nervous enough about Sammy being in Israel.”

Decker said, “Did you ever talk to Jacob about his drug…his former drug use?”

“It is former?”

“Best of my knowledge, it’s former.”

“No, I didn’t. Because frankly I didn’t know how to handle it without getting hysterical. And the last thing that Yonkie needed was an hysterical mother. I figured he just had to mature. That was probably pretty stupid of me, but sometimes, Peter, I just get tired of parenting.”

“I hear you loud and clear, darlin’.”

“I did talk to Shmueli about it. I knew if Jacob confided in
anyone, it would be his brother. He told me to let it ride, that Yonkie was feeling bad enough for the both of us.”

“So I’m not the only one who was keeping secrets.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Rina said. “We can talk about that later. Right now, Yonkie’s the issue here. Peter, he’s very scared.”

“About what?” Decker sat up. “Does he know something?”

“I don’t know.”

Decker’s duty was clear. “Is Jacob home now?”

“Yes. He was going to come with me to the airport to pick up Shmueli. But if you’re coming home, I’ll tell him to stay and wait for you.”

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

“Was he good friends with this Golding boy? He claims he wasn’t, but I think he might be lying to protect me.”

“I think he’s being honest. Yonkie had told me that he hadn’t seen the boy in months. It’s probably the murder itself. You know kids. They think they’re immortal. Then reality smacks them in the face…. Don’t worry.”

“Just when he was doing so well with the therapy and his grades. I don’t want him to start Johns Hopkins an emotional wreck!”

“It’s the start of the summer, Rina. He’ll be okay by the fall.”

“Except he’s taking his Calculus and Physics SAT II next week. I know he’s a good test taker but—”

Again, Decker sat up straight. “What did you say?”

“I don’t know,” Rina said. “What did I say?”

“You said that Yonkie is taking the SAT II in Calculus and Physics,” Decker answered.

“Right. He’s trying to exempt out of freshman Calc—”

“S2 is SAT II, S is SAT, PS is PSAT…” Decker replied. “Of course. That’s it. That’s what their specialty was…getting kids into top universities.”

“What’s it?”

“A code we were trying to crack. Now it’s obvious. None
of the others could know because none of them have college-bound teenagers. Scott’s sons didn’t go to college. Neither did Bontemps’s daughter. Webster has school-age kids, and Vega hasn’t reached that point yet. Only me. I’m a very dull boy sometimes.”

“What are you
talking
about?” Rina exclaimed.

“Rina, what’s a standardized test starting with M?”

“How would I know? I haven’t been in school in eighteen years. Are you coming home?”

“Yes. So you don’t know of any test that starts with M?”

“Oh, for goodness’ sakes, can you ever stop thinking about work?”

“I’m on my way home—”

“How about the test to get into medical school?” Rina threw out. “I think it’s the MedCat or the MCAT. Something like that.”

“You’re a genius.”

“Great!” Rina was irritated. “Will you come home to your son now?”

“Absolutely. I bet L is for the LSAT. Jesus,
I
took the LSAT.”

“Way back in the Stone Age.”

“Now you’re being nasty.”

“You deserve it.”

“How about E?”

“E?”

“Yes, E. What about E? What tests begin with the letter E? A test for economics or something?”

She thought a moment. “Are we dealing only with college tests?”

“I don’t know. What do you have in mind?”

“How about the ERBs? Hannah’s school gives them every year. Some schools give the Iowa instead—”

“So that’s the I,” Decker said. What was Baldwin doing? Helping kids prepare for their standardized tests? And what, if anything, did it have to do with Ernesto’s murder? His second phone line lit up. He asked Rina to hold a moment.

It was Martinez.

The news didn’t surprise him. But it did sadden him.

To his wife, he said, “I’m sorry, Rina. I’m not going to make it home. You may as well take Jacob with you.”

“That sounds bad.”

“They found Dee Baldwin’s body. An apparent suicide, but it could be homicide. I’ve got to go.”

“Oh, my goodness! I’m so sorry, Peter.”

“Tell Jacob not to worry. It’s under control.”

“Is it?”

“Not yet. But it will be.”

He spoke bravado. He spoke lies.

Over the hill,
it was fifteen degrees cooler, and being as the condo sat atop the sand, Decker felt a pleasant ocean breeze riffle through his suit jacket as soon as he got out of the car. He had squeezed the unmarked into the last spot on the gravel lot, which was already filled with two Mercedes, two Beemers, one Porsche, one Range Rover, one Ford Explorer, one Jeep, one Honda (Bert’s), three squad cars, and a half-dozen scantily dressed people—dazed and confused—milling in the open spaces. At five in the afternoon, daylight was still strong, but the sun had begun its westerly descent. Decker hadn’t taken more than a couple of steps before Martinez pulled him between the Beemer and the Explorer, a place for temporary privacy.

“I put in the call to the Malibu sheriff’s.”

Decker nodded. “It’s their jurisdiction, even if it is our case.”

“The guys they sent over seem nice, but not too familiar with the rigors of homicide investigation. They probably don’t get a lot of opportunity out here.”

“I don’t know, Bert. Murder of the rich and famous isn’t an alien concept. When did you call it in?”

“About an hour ago.”

Decker wagged his finger. “But you called me almost two hours ago.”

“Well, you know…” Martinez’s smile was sheepish. “I wanted to look around and make my own notes first.” He flipped the cover off his notepad. “First, a little background. I checked with the assessor’s office: no record of the Baldwins’ owning anything around here. So I started going from realtor to realtor, figuring like you said that they rented. I struck oil. The Baldwins seemed to be creatures of habit, renting the same beach condo every summer. Except that this summer they rented for the entire year.”

“They were remodeling their house in Beverly Hills. I suppose they needed somewhere to live.” Decker raised his eyebrows. “I’m surprised the rental agents were cooperative. Aren’t they supposed to be protective of their clients?”

“Not the ones I interviewed,” Martinez answered. “They love to name-drop. Besides, they had a personal interest in making things easy for me. It doesn’t look good to have bodies moldering in your rental units. From the initial glance, it points to suicide.”

“Because…”

“Single shot to the head. No defense marks—cuts or scratches on the arms or the palms of her hands. No ligature marks around her wrists. Superficially, nothing to indicate force or a struggle.”

“Any note?”

“I didn’t find anything. But if she did whack hubby and the kid, it’s easy to find a motive. Ernesto was bare-chested. She might have interrupted something.”

“It was a hot night,” Decker said.

“Now you’re making excuses.”

“You’re saying that she went up to the mountains at three in the morning…with guns and silencers…and happened to discover her husband and a young boy in a compromising position…and went crazy?” Decker frowned. “C’mon, Bert. That kind of damage done quickly and quietly points to a pro.”

“Then maybe Dee knew about the affair and hired out. Afterward, she felt extreme guilt and whacked herself.”

Decker wasn’t happy with that picture, either. “Webster questioned one of the kids…Riley Barns. He saw a couple of shadows lurking around the tent in the early hours.”

“That’s news to me.” Martinez shrugged. “Anyway, the rental agent’s name is Athena Eaton, and she informed me that this little ditty here—a two-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath number—rents for ten grand a month. The last time she saw Dee Baldwin was when Dee and Mervin signed the contract three weeks ago. A full year at ten grand a month, including a first, last, and a one-month cleaning deposit. That’s one hundred and twenty Gs out the window. Their practice must be cleaning up.”

“It was cleaning up,” Decker said.

“Speaking of cleaning up, the owner is going to need every bit of the damage deposit. The bedroom carpet is white.”

“Lots of splatter?”

“Enough that it can’t be cleaned. Dee’s lying in a good-size pond of blood. Single shot through the mouth with a .32.”

“Through the
mouth
,” Decker said. “You said ‘to the head.’”

Martinez reddened. “I meant it came out in the back of the head.”

“You examined the body?”

The blush deepened. “Sort of.”

“Gunpowder residue?”

“Appears that way.”

Decker smoothed his mustache and said nothing.

Martinez said, “We’ll know more after Shot Squad and Forensics examine the angles, and the position of the body after she fell…. Uh-oh. Heads up, Loo. The sheriff’s main man is on his way. We gotta look friendly.”

Martinez introduced Decker to a man around forty years in age, with a deep tan, a good suit, and blow-dried hair. His face held lines, some of them deeper than others, and he had cop’s eyes despite the trappings of being Mr. Beachcomber.

“Detective Don Baum.” He shook Decker’s hand. “I want
to thank Detective Martinez for calling in the local authorities right away. It shows cooperation, not to mention good manners. And that’s what we’re going to give you in return. Cooperation. It gets things done. And that’s what it’s all about—getting the job done.”

“You bet!” Decker answered. “Is the coroner here?”

“Yes, sir, Lieutenant. The coroner just came. Let’s have a look.”

They started walking toward the building—a series of white stucco townhouses covered with blue Spanish tiles.

Decker said, “Who found her?”

“I went in first,” Martinez said. “Unfortunately, Ms. Eaton—the real estate agent—followed me. From the look on her face, I think she sincerely wishes she hadn’t.”

“Where is she?” Decker asked.

“In one of the squad cars, catching her breath,” Baum said.

“The smell might have been the coup de grace,” Martinez said.

“Did she touch anything?” Decker asked.

Martinez had to think a moment. “Maybe the bed frame for support. Then I propped her up and escorted her out. I was gloved.”

“We’re dusting for prints,” Baum said. “It’s going to take some time.”

“What about the photographer?” Decker asked.

“She’s in the unit as we speak,” Baum said. “I’ll get you copies of everything. I’ve got six of my people canvassing the area for witnesses. I’ll forward you their reports.”

“Thank you,” Decker said. “And what about Dee Baldwin’s car?”

“It’s the Range Rover in the lot,” Baum said. “We’ll impound it and dust it for prints.”

A four-wheel drive
, Decker thought.
Maybe she did go up. Or someone went up using her car
. He said, “I’d like the tires gone over, see what Forensics can pull from the treads. Then, I’ll need an imprint. I want to find out if she was up at the camp recently.”

“Consider it done.”

And if she had been up, what would that prove? A fat zero, but that didn’t matter. Now was the time to gather information.
Behind them, a news van pulled into the parking complex, its tires bumping along the gravel road.

Decker said, “We’d better speed it up.”

Baum led them to the unit. “It’s this one.”

Planted against the front wall of the building was a compact flower garden abloom with showy multicolored impatiens and leafy, purple-flowered statice. A cop was stationed at the front door of the Baldwins’ unit, yellow crime scene tape stretched across the jambs. Baum peeled it back, and they walked into a petite entry hall with a powder room off to the left. Ten paces forward and two steps down put Decker into an open space: a living room/dining room combination, and a well-equipped kitchenette punched out of the side wall. The decor was mild and warm like sand, done up in ecru and white with slipcover muslin furniture resting upon soft, muted oatmeal carpeting. The coffee and end tables were free-form shapes of high-lacquered elm burl resting on stands of driftwood. The dining table was a slab of country oak. The walls were adorned with prints of terns, ducks, pelicans, game fish, blue whales, and dolphins. Large pieces of black coral as well as cowry and conch shells sat in bric-a-brac shelving units that sided a large fireplace. A wall of sliding glass doors led out to decks and provided an unobstructed full-range view of the Pacific—blue and infinite, a testament to the insignificance of man.

Another cop held guard at the foot of the stairway. He nodded to Baum as they ascended the steps.

The second story held two bedrooms, each with its own bath. The master bedroom had its own deck and its own cerulean view. The bed was a king and dressed with white lace pillows piled high over a white down-filled comforter. Very serene except for the black powder all over the walls and bed frame, not to mention the dead body smashed up against the wall. It spoiled the Zen effect.

Decker stared at the corpse. Dee was semi-upright, the angle of her limbs obscured by a flowing pink peignoir. She resembled strawberry sauce falling over a sea of vanilla ice cream. Her head was tilted to the left, blood dripping from her nose and mouth. Beside him, a gray-haired, four-foot-ten, seventy-pound grandma was snapping pictures.

Grandma aimed and fired, Dee sitting perfectly still for the camera. “A perfect waste of good lingerie.” She looked up and saw Decker’s stoic face. “Haven’t you ever heard of black humor?”

“How’d you get into this business?” Decker asked.

“I’m seventy-seven,” she replied. “How many bar mitzvah pictures can I take in a single lifetime?” She removed the lens from her Nikon. “I’m done here. That should give you a little more breathing room.”

“Thank you,” Decker said.

“You’re welcome,” Grandma answered. “I know I’m cute. You don’t have to hold back the smile, sir.”

Decker smiled. She was cute, but murder wasn’t. Dee’s death had been the cop’s road to the void—suicide through the mouth, severing the brain stem—an instantaneous death. Unusual for an amateur, who usually chose the temple, but maybe Dee had seen enough detective movies to go that route. What was unusual was
where
they found her—on the floor beside the bed instead of
on
the bed. True, she could have fallen off the bed to the floor, but the splatter marks didn’t bear that out.

The coroner was several feet from the body, holding up a vial of blood to the light. He was young and moved with a jerky rhythm. Vanilla skin was stretched over broad cheekbones. He had a wide smile and big teeth and a dab of the Occident, rounding his Asian eyes. He had broad shoulders and a lean frame. His name was Chuck Liu.

“A little neat to be suicide.” With gloved hands, Liu wrote something down on a label, stuck it on the tube of plasma, then bagged it in plastic. “But I heard it through the
grapevine that her husband was found in a compromising position with a teenager—a male teenager.”

Decker made a noncommittal gesture.

Liu said, “Was she the jealous type?”

“I don’t know anything about her except that she and her husband were in the same profession and worked out of the same office.”

“That’s always a recipe for disaster. What do you think?”

“I’ll reserve judgment until I know what’s going on. Should I ask for a time of death?”

“Eight to twelve hours. Rigor is moderate. The inferior portions of her thighs and calves are swollen and red—lividity combined with the upward percolation of the blood that she’s sitting in. That takes time.”

Decker nodded. Dee had died somewhere between five and nine in the morning. Certainly enough time for someone to come down from the mountain and take her out as well.

The coroner proceeded to bag Dee’s hands. “There’s gunpowder residue here.”

“She fired the gun,” Baum said.

“Not
the
gun,” Liu corrected. “
A
gun. If she had been deep asleep or drugged up, someone could have done it for her. Just popped it in her mouth and fired the trigger. We’ll know more once we’ve done the blood work-up.”

“Does it look like suicide to you?” Baum asked.

“Sure.”

“But it could be homicide,” Martinez said.

“Sure.”

Decker said, “Anything left of her mouth?”

“Some of the front portion of the maxilla is still intact.” Liu took out a dental mirror from his bag and slipped it between blue lips. A small beam of light that had been attached to the handle gave him some visibility inside the dark cavity. “Yeah, the incisors and canines are still there. It looks like the bullet caught the back edge of the bony palate, deflected upward and backward through the brain stem.”

“Any soft palate left?” Decker asked.

“Nothing.”

“Hard palate?” Decker asked.

“Yeah, a few tissue shreds behind the incisors…more, actually. It goes to the premolars. I can even see the start of her palatal torus, but everything’s pretty roasted back there.”

“Any cuts or lacerations on it?”

“Can’t tell.” Liu pulled the mirror out. “What are you thinking?”

“If she had been coerced, she might have struggled and the nose of the gun might have cut her palate and cheeks.”

“Her buccal mucosa is charred from the heat of the bullet.” He considered Decker’s thoughts. “I’ll look when I have her on the table and opened up.”

“Also, if you can say something about the amount of powder on her hands,” Decker said. “If someone did this to her—had his hand over Dee’s hand when the trigger was pulled—some of the powder must have wound up on the shooter’s hand as well.”

Liu said, “So maybe you should go out and look for someone with gunpowder residue.”

“So you’re saying it wasn’t suicide,” Baum said.

“I’m not saying anything,” Liu said. “I’m just saying if you have a suspect, test him for gunpowder residue.”

A great idea, except at the moment, there was no suspect. “Where’s the gun?”

“It’s been bagged,” Martinez said.

“The bullet?”

“Embedded into the wall,” Baum said. “Techs’ll get it.”

“I’m just about done, so you can get the meat wagon ready.” Liu looked at his bloodied gloves and shirt. “I’m not exactly dressed for prime time.” He snapped his gloves off and threw them in a “contaminated materials” bag. “I’d appreciate it if someone could distract the cameras so I can get out of here with minimum effort.”