The White Angel Murder

30

Stanton found he couldn’t sleep. He would toss to one side of the bed and then another and stare at the floor for what he thought were long periods of time. Then he would look at the clock and realize only a few minutes had passed. At two in the morning, he stopped trying and threw on shorts and sandals and walked down to the beach.

There was something more primal about the ocean at night. The water appeared like dark tar, devoid of any color and swallowing everything in its path except for the glowing light of the moon. Most predators in the sea hunted at night and there were no ships or wind-sails or yachts. But there were occasionally surfers. The crazier ones that had little outside of their time on the ocean.

Stanton remembered he had briefly been one of them as a youth. There was a shack on the beach about five miles from where he was sitting. The landlord was an old hippie who used to rent the space to surfers in exchange for free weed whenever he wanted. Sometimes there would be more than twenty people sleeping in a single room and only three or four blankets and cots between them. Many of the people were homeless, their only possessions their boards and a few trinkets they had gotten in their previous lives. When they had parents and schools and a plan laid out before them of where they were going.

Stanton fit in with them. None of them were looking for friendship or to get to know anyone around them. They knew each others’ names and that was enough. They would share a meal when they could score some money, but that was the extent of their bond. Eventually, no matter how long they’d been there, everyone would drop away one by one and be replaced by a new face.

Despite his parents’ pleas to come home, he stayed in that shack for over nine months after high school. He had met a girl there; pretty brunette with hazel eyes and a smile that made him think of the patients he saw when he visited his father’s hospital as a kid. It was empty and meaningless and full of genuine joy at nothing at all.

He had been working part time pumping gas and would surf every morning and night. He went to the shack after a night of surfing and the girl was gone. He asked around about her, but no one could give him a definitive answer. Everyone just assumed that she had found something better. He had cash in his wallet he’d hidden near the oven and she knew where it was. When he checked, all the money was still there.

It was warm tonight, almost hot. He lay back on the sand and stared at the moon and he thought about that girl. He wondered what it was she was doing now. If she ever thought about him or what their life might’ve been like if she would’ve stayed. If she thought about their clumsy attempts at lovemaking and it ever made her smile.

With her face and soft caresses swirling in his thoughts, he closed his eyes and drifted to sleep.

*****

The crash was what woke him. Wood splintered and a lock fell limp against concrete. It was in the distance but it was loud. It had broken the hold sleep had on him.

Stanton sat up, disoriented, and remembered he had fallen asleep on the beach. He stretched and checked the cell phone in his pocket. It was 9:14 in the morning. He turned to look where the sound had come from and saw three police cruisers and a SWAT van outside of his apartment complex.

He was about to head over there and find out what was going on when he noticed his balcony. An officer in full SWAT gear stepped onto it and signaled to a commander standing on the sidewalk below with a shake of his head. The commander ordered something into a small walkie-talkie attached to his collar and the SWAT team was pulled out and began taking off their helmets, standing around and talking and joking.

Stanton fell to his stomach against the sand and watched. He had an ingrain instinct that his father had placed in him to respect and trust authority and it seemed counter to that for him to hide. But his gut had a cold, dead-weight feeling and he knew he shouldn’t be found just yet. He stayed low and ran along the beach until he was out of sight of his apartment. He worked his way through a maze of dilapidated buildings and went across the parking lot of a burger joint and didn’t stop until he was near the grocery store almost five blocks away.

He dialed a number on his phone as he made his way into the store. The fluorescent lights made his head ache but there was hardly anyone there, a few cashiers standing by the automatic doors smoking.

“Hello?”

“Jessica, it’s Jon Stanton.”

“Jon! Where the hell are you?”

“I’m in town. I just saw the SWAT guys tear my place apart. What’s going on?”

“There’s a warrant out for you. I just got off the phone with George Young asking if I knew where you were.”

“Warrant for what?”

“For homicide. They’re saying you killed Francisco.”

Stanton was silent long enough that Jessica asked if he was still there.

“Yeah, I’m here. Do you know how to access the CCJS database?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you look up the probable cause statement for me?” There was a pause and Stanton said, “You don’t really think I did this, do you?”

“Of course not. But I could be an accessory after the fact.”

“No, that wouldn’t be the charge. It’d be assisting a fugitive from justice. But I understand. I should go.”

“No, wait, hold on a second … okay, I have it up.”

“Could you read it to me?”

“On or about May the second, at approximately 1300 hours, an officer from the San Diego Police Department observed the suspect, Jonathan Nephi Stanton, at the Boca Del Ray apartments on 4521 South Winchester Boulevard. The suspect entered the apartment of the victim, Francisco Hector Hernandez. The officer heard shots fired and called for backup. Upon entering the apartment, the officer observed the suspect escape through a sliding glass door located in the front room. The victim was found in the front room with several gunshots wounds to the head and torso. Medical arrived at approximately 13:20 hours and pronounced the victim deceased.”

“Who’s listed as the officer on the affidavit?”

“Detective George B. Young.”

“Okay.Okay, I need some time to think. Jessica, if I call you, are you going to help me?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, I’ll call you later today. I just need some time to process this.”

“You can’t do this alone. Meet me somewhere so we can talk.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know. Where do you think?”

“Barbeque Pit in La Jolla. You know it?”

“I’ll find it.”

“Let’s meet at lunch. It’ll be packed.”

“Okay, and Jon?”

“Yeah.”

“I … I don’t think you did this.”

“Thanks.”

Stanton hung up and walked down the aisles until he reached the deli. He bought a sandwich and a diet Coke and left the store, a security guard glancing him over before turning back to a magazine he was reading.