11th hour

Chapter 69

Conklin and I were in Interview 2, the smaller of Homicide’s two no-frills interrogation rooms, sitting across the table from Harry Chandler and his lawyer, Donna Hewett.

Hewett was a good general counsel, known for her work on estates and trusts, and was reportedly a pretty good tax attorney too. But Hewett was not a criminal defense lawyer and that told me that Chandler didn’t expect to get charged.

Was he bluffing?

Was Harry Chandler so bold or so crazy that he would kill while under the laser focus of national news coverage?

Or was Chandler’s conscience clean?

Donna Hewett patted her hair, put her briefcase on the floor, and asked, “Is my client under arrest?”

“Not at all,” Conklin said. “Our investigation is ongoing and as new information surfaces, we follow up. We just have a couple of questions, Mr. Chandler. Where were you yesterday?”

Chandler smiled.

He was wearing a blue cashmere sweater, sleeves pushed up. I saw no cuts or bruises on his hands.

He said, “I’ve started taking notes so I can have seamless alibis in case you two pop up without warning.”

He took his phone out of his pants pocket and tapped the face, then started listing where he’d been and at what times.

“Kaye and I left the Cecily at around eight yesterday morning, went to breakfast at the Just for You Cafe in Dogpatch. I had waffles. She had eggs Benedict. Our waitress was Shirley Gurley.”

Pause for a movie-star smile.

“What were her parents thinking? After that, Kaye and I went shopping at the farmers’ market and loaded up on produce because we were about to take a little cruise.”

“And where did you go?” Conklin asked.

I thought about the dead surfer, seventeen years old, lying in the medical examiner’s lab fifty miles up the coast, time of death still undetermined.

Hewett said, “What are you fishing for, Inspector?”

I took out the morgue shots of the unidentified teen on the autopsy table. I said, “This boy washed up in Big Sur very early this morning. He was linked to the bodies at the Ellsworth compound.”

Chandler lifted his eyes, met my gaze. “I don’t know this boy. I have never seen him before, alive or dead.”

Against his lawyer’s advice, Chandler gave us the names of shops he and Kaye had visited. He produced time-stamped digital photos of them together, and just for good measure, he said there was surveillance video at the yacht club showing that he’d taken the boat out at four in the morning and returned at nine at night.

I asked him when he’d last seen his son, Todd.

“Years and years ago,” Chandler said. “And no, I don’t think he killed anyone. But you should ask him yourself.”

I said, “We’ve obtained a search warrant for your boat.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“The Crime Scene Unit is there right now.”

“They’re inside my boat?”

I guess we finally pissed off Harry Chandler. He stood abruptly and said to his attorney, “I don’t have to answer any more questions, do I?” And he stormed out of the interrogation room.

Charlie Clapper called me at the end of the day, said he’d found no incriminating evidence on the Cecily; no blood, no trace, no bleach, no nothing.

I had just hung up the phone with Clapper when it rang again. Claire calling to say, “That surfer boy who washed up on Big Sur?”

“Yes?”

“The ME in Monterey County said cause of death was blunt-force trauma to the head. The wound matched to his surfboard that also washed up. Witnesses saw him going out into the surf on that board.”

“It was an accident.”

“Right, Lindsay. Accidental death.”

That card with the number 613 on it that some insane tipster said he’d found — it was pure fiction.