Pacific Beat

Chapter 8

At six the next morning, Jim let himself and Interim Chief Dennison in the back door of Poon’s Locker. Virginia had closed the place for a few days. The blinds were drawn against a sunrise throttled in fog. He looked out across the bay, but he couldn’t see the other side. The mast of a big yacht found a hole in the gloom, through which it passed like a disembodied remnant from another age. Jim poured water into the coffeemaker.

“You were faster than I thought you’d be,” said Dennison. His eyebrows raised with curiosity, but the rest of his face braced for something he clearly didn’t want to hear. He had the look of a tax sneak about to open a letter from the IRS.

“I’m motivated. I saw Ray last night. He’s going to be okay — out today, hopefully.”

“How is your mother taking it?”

“She’s crushed, Brian. Have a seat.”

Dennison took a blue plastic chair off a table and sat. The coffee machine hissed and gurgled. Jim looked out to the sidewalk and thought about how many times as a teenager he had stood right here, brewing up coffee for the breakfast crowd, bursting with eagerness to get out of the café and aboard one of Poon’s charter boats heading out to sea. Ann always had table work: refilling salt and pepper, setting out the creamers and napkin dispensers. Jake, the firstborn, helped Poon with the boats. Virginia presided over the kitchen and walk-in, heated up the grill, brought out the eggs and bread, separated the bacon slabs ahead of time, because when the rush came nobody had a minute to waste. Poon would traipse through the café three or four times each morning, going between the coffeepot and the boats, hurling orders, bemoaning the weather no matter how good it was, cursing the landlubbers from whom he made his living. He and Virginia would scream at each other like old Italians. Jim remembered looking through these windows at Jake aboard one of the charter craft, naked to the waist, his body browned by sun, devotedly checking oil level or battery charge or lining up the game-fish rods in the racks behind the cabins. Jake was four years older. Jake could do everything. He was the best there was.

“I used to come down here and charter out your dad’s boats,” said Brian.

“Mom sold them off a while back, except for Sweetheart Deal.”

“Yeah, well I’ve certainly noticed that one.”

The fact of the matter, thought Weir, was that Annie had bawled relentlessly when Virginia got ready to auction off Sweetheart Deal,the last of the charter fleet. The little thirty-footer was always Ann’s favorite, moored just fifty feet offshore of the big house, kept neat as a museum piece by Poon. In the ten years since his death, the boat had been taken out only once that Jim knew of, by Ann. It had peeled, slouched, been nested in by birds, and was now moored outside Poon’s Locker, testimony to his absence. Every year, the city sent a Notice of Dereliction to Virginia, and every year Ann would do some cosmetic cleanup on Sweetheart Deal, then let her sit unattended and unused for another season.

Jim set down coffee for Dennison and himself, then pulled a chair from the table and sat. If Brian wants Sweetheart Deal out of Newport Harbor, he thought, he’ll have to talk to Virginia himself.

Dennison lifted his cup and peered over the lip at Weir, eyebrows on full alert. “What do you have?”

“Kearns and Blodgett. The physicals match up pretty well, and both of them took some time off between midnight and coming back in.”

“How much time?”

“Kearns, twenty minutes — a coffee break, he says. Blodgett, almost the whole hour. Fifty minutes, no contact.”

“Fifty fucking minutes? Which beats?”

“Kearns had the peninsula, where Ann was working. Blodgett was on north end.”

Dennison leaned back and crossed his arms. His pale gray eyes had gone hard and his eyebrows had cut the comedy routine. There was in Brian Dennison, as in most of those in law enforcement, a mandatory capacity to perform violence. He looked at this moment more like a tough cop than a mayor.

Dennison’s head jerked when the back door slammed open behind them. Virginia marched in, wrapped in her yellow windbreaker against the morning cool. She glanced at Dennison, then at Jim, then stared at Brian in unmasked disbelief.

“Good morning, Mrs. Weir,” he said quietly.

“What exactly is good about it?”

“That’s just an expression. I’m awfully sorry about Ann.”

“Well, yes... so am I, Brian. It’s been very hard.”

When Virginia turned her pale blue sun-worn eyes on Jim, they said, What the hell are you doing with this fascist mayoral candidate in my café? That established, Virginia announced that Jim had an urgent call.

“Who is it?”

“I don’t think that should be public knowledge.”

Brian shrugged and started to stand, but Jim held his mother’s arm and took her back toward the walk-in. Out of earshot, Jim raised a finger to Virginia and shook his head. He explained that Chief Dennison was there to talk about Ann, to find her killer. Politics, mayoral races, and neighborhood rivalries would have to be set aside. She met his look head-on, her “you’re talking to a rock” expression. Jim knew that in some ways, he truly was. The way around Virginia was submission: If she thought you deserved help, she was usually willing to give it. As would anyone who had spent a lifetime with the vagaries of someone like Poon, she enjoyed feeling kind when she was sure it wouldn’t cost her much.

“Gold,” she said. “Dr. Robert Gold. Said it’s important. He’s holding for you.”

“I’ll call him back.”

“I remember that name.”

“One of my teachers at State, Mom.”

“Maybe he knows something.”

“Tell him I’ll call back in a few minutes. Take a number. Can do?”

Virginia’s hard stare broke down and she looked at the floor. “What I can’t do is make any progress with the flowers. The Sunday... before Ann... was Mother’s Day — busiest day of the year. I finally got through the Newport Beach listings. Nobody sold Annie any roses, or delivered any to her.”

“Keep on it. What are those test tubes doing in Ann’s refrigerator? They’ve got your writing on them.”

She crossed her arms, shot a look toward the dining room, and lowered her voice. “We’ll have time for that, later. Get back to your friend now.”

“Believe it or not, he’d like to help.”

Virginia regrouped her forces. “I do not want that man in my café. He’s a stooge for C. David Cantrell of PacifiCo, and he stands for everything I oppose. He won’t even debate Becky in public. From now on, you meet him somewhere else.”

“He wants answers as much as we do.”

“Don’t you believe it. Call Gold. He says it’s important. When you’re done with that self-serving oaf in there, I can tell you about the tubes.”

Virginia cast a contemptuous look toward the dining room, then headed out the service door. The back of her yellow jacket had a jumping marlin on it, with the words NEWPORT BEACH LADY ANGLERS below in red embroidery. Virginia was president, ten years running.

Back in the dining room, Dennison had both hands around his coffee cup, and a worried look on his face. His urge to violence must have crawled back down its hole. “You didn’t tell her what—”

“Of course I didn’t. Don’t worry, Brian.”

“That woman scares the hell out of me.”

“She has that effect on people.”

Dennison chuckled, himself again, eyebrows raised in hyperbolic doubt. “What scares me most is that she thinks she’s the only one with the interests of this city at heart. She thinks that people like Dave Cantrell and I are trying to change it, but believe me, the real threat comes from somewhere else.”

Jim waited for the revelation.

But Dennison must have thought better of it. He settled back into his chair with a sigh that said, If these people could only share my burdens.

Jim waited again, wondering whether silence would bring the interim chief to his point. What Dennison said next surprised him.

“I hope Virginia knows she can come to me anytime. I know she thinks my Toxic Waste unit is a joke.”

“She’s never said that to me,” said Jim. What Virginia had said was that Dennison cared more about getting a new chopper into the city sky than he did about keeping the harbor clean. He had seen correspondence from the EPA on Virginia’s desk. Was she making an end run?

“The last thing we need is the feds running all over this town, Jim. I hope Virginia is smart enough to see the danger in that. We need to be taking care of Newport Beach ourselves. We... the people who live here.”

So there it is, thought Weir: another reason why Dennison hired me for this. I can talk to Virginia on his behalf because I am her son. That, while I dissuade Becky from learning that the cops are looking at the cops, because I am her friend, ex-companion, ex-lover. Dennison looked less antic to him now, wholly disingenuous. The idea crossed Jim’s mind that he himself had inherited his mother’s thirst for conspiracy.

“I’m sure she’d agree.”

“She won’t sit still long enough to listen.”

Weir understood the corollary: Bring Virginia to the bargaining table.

Dennison studied him for a moment, apparently convinced that he had been effective. “Okay, Blodgett and Kearns on patrol, time not accounted for with Dispatch. What else?”

“Blodgett and Ray had some run-ins. The race stuff.”

“That was two years ago.”

“It’s something to consider.”

Dennison nodded silently, staring out the window. Weir followed his line of vision to the bay, where the morning light had risen an octave against the fog. The look on Dennison’s face told Weir that the chief already regretted letting his files go. “Kearns and Blodgett,” he said quietly. “What else do you need from me?”

“Whatever you’ve got.”

“I’ve got nothing you don’t know, and you still have an open line to Robbins. Use it.”

“I’d consider a polygraph if I were you. Do both shifts, every man on patrol. Have the operator angle the questions toward something else — drugs or sexual favors — anything. Ask your men to take it, but don’t insist. What we need is an explanation of what Kearns and Blodgett were doing. If they talk, fine. If not, we’ll have to wonder why.”

“No. The union would have my ass. That’s exactly the kind of thing I don’t want to do. That’s exactly why I brought you on.”

Dennison leveled his pale eyes on Jim, then jumped again as Virginia barged in from the back door. “He called again,” she said. “Says it’s important.”

“I’ll call him back in five minutes.”

“He’s waiting for you.”

“I’ll call him, Mom.”

The door slammed shut.

“I want you to talk to Kearns and Blodgett. If their answers don’t add up, I’ll refer the whole thing to Internal Affairs. I’d rather not do that, but I will. Don’t mention the Dispatch tape, or I’m dead in the water.”

Weir thought. “Can you get me into the station locker room when no one else is there?”

Dennison’s eyes came to life, a glimmer of curiosity. “The hair on Ann’s blouse?”

Jim nodded.

Dennison pondered for a moment, shaking his head. “Too risky. Try talking to them first. Check their alibis for the downtime. We’ll get hair samples if our options come down to that.”

Jim thought it through. What he needed was more leverage. “Kearns and Blodgett don’t know what Mackie saw, do they?”

“Not exactly. That report is for me and Paris and a couple of captains. And you.”

“I might embellish. Keep the interview under wraps if you can.”

“I am. If the stories around the station get a little wilder, I’ll know where they came from.” Dennison handed him an envelope. “Here’s for yesterday, today, and three more. After that, we’ll talk. Four grand, Jim. Silence. Don’t hang me out to dry on this.”

Jim pocketed the money. A hundred an hour, he thought, to find who killed Ann. He felt dirty.

“We got Ann’s car. Officers spotted it about two hours ago. Innelman worked the area, and we took it to impound.”

Jim’s heart sped up for a moment, then settled. “Where was it?”

“A mile from here, down by the Wedge.”

“And?”

“Window was pried open, so we figure he might have been waiting inside when she left work. It was just parked on a side street like a thousand others. Innelman said it was crawling with prints — hopefully not all hers. I happen to think she had somewhere to go that night — otherwise, she’d have walked to work, right? So, where?”

“Neither of us would be sitting here if I knew the answer to that. What about that piece of jewelry that Deak found — prints, make, anything?”

“A couple of jewelers told Innelman it’s probably the back of a tie tack. A custom piece — irregular and expensive. Twenty-four-carat stuff.”

They stood and shook hands. “The world’s a funny place, Jim. You’re investigating my own goddamned police force and I’m making a speech at noon to the Kiwanis, about what a good mayor I’d make.”

“I’m sure you would.”

“I’d expect your vote to go to Becky.”

“We go back a ways.”

“She’s a good lawyer,” said Dennison. He turned to leave, then hesitated, looking toward the back door. “You know, Jim, you could do me a favor. It’s obvious your mother doesn’t like me and she’s doing what she can for Becky in this campaign. That’s okay; that’s what makes this country great. But tell her something for me. Tell her if she’s got worries about the water in our bay, she can come to me. There’s no reason to run to the EPA or the state. If she’s onto something, I’d like to know about it. I care about this city, too, in spite of what she says.”

“What is it you think she’s found?”

Dennison shrugged. “She sure as hell won’t tell me. Maybe you can find out.”

Jim got Dr. Robert Gold’s number and took it upstairs to his old room. Gold was a soft-spoken man who even fifteen years ago when Jim took his classes in criminal psychology seemed aged and eroded by his study of violent crime. He was a statistician at heart, a collector of data, a theorist who based his ideas on a combination of immutable facts and unpredictable behavior. Jim did a rough calculation: Gold must be pushing eighty years old now.

Mrs. Gold said her husband would be right with Jim, but Weir waited at least two minutes.

“Many years, Jim,” he said in greeting. His voice was overloud, that of a man who no longer hears well.

“Too many, Doctor.”

“Can you speak up? I’m sorry you had to wait. I’m stuck in a wheelchair now and it can take incredible amounts of time to roll across a room. That’s because my right arm doesn’t work anymore and neither does my right leg. So the effect, of course, is pretty slow going. Stroke, summer of ‘eighty-nine.”

“I’m sorry, Doctor.”

“What?”

“I said I’m sorry, Doctor.”

“Well, thank you, but eighty-four years old is eighty-four years old. At least the right side of my brain still works.”

“Have you retired?”

“Oh, yes, ten years back. Now I spend my time with the aviary, and reading the journals. It’s too hard to write anymore, so I read for... well, pleasure wouldn’t quite be the right word, would it?”

Gold’s booming laugh came over the line. Weir thought he detected something desperate in it. The idea crossed his mind that Dr. Gold was easing around the last great bend. At least he’s doing it with a sense of humor, thought Weir. There seemed to be too much sadness in the world.

“What do you have for me, Doctor?”

Gold cleared his throat. “Jim, I have to say first of all how sorry I am about your sister. I feel badly for you, and for Raymond, too.”

“We’re going to be okay, Doctor.”

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t quite make out—”

“We’ll be okay.”

The line was suddenly quiet. Jim could hear Gold’s breathing. Ten seconds went by.

“I’m back,” said Gold, very quietly now. “I’m sorry. Every now and then a tiny seizure, a little focal seizure, but I can’t clear my head for a moment. Give me just another few seconds... is it Jim?”

“Yes, Doctor, it’s Jim Weir.”

“Oh my, this is... just hold on now. Wait.”

A minute later, Gold spoke again. The strength had returned to his voice, but Jim now understood how much energy the doctor used in just talking.

“Now, Jim. The reason I called is because I was going through the Sex Offender Registration files for the last three months. I review them quarterly, just to glean the numbers for my recidivism model. Does the name Horton Goins mean anything to you?”

“No.”

“Well, he raped and stabbed a young woman in Ohio nine years ago. She didn’t die, but she’s been in and out of hospitals ever since, terribly disturbed. Schizophrenic. There’s no way you would know of him. It didn’t make the papers out here. But he was interesting to me for many reasons. He was only fifteen years old. He was raised in foster homes. He had a a troubled boyhood, and an oddly variable IQ. He also had a perfectly readable schizophrenic metabolism.”

“Readable?”

“Positron emission tomography — the so-called PET scan. Dr. Field at UC Irvine was kind enough to let me work over his shoulder a bit on Mr. Goins. We flew him in from Dayton, very hush-hush, state police and Mr. Goins’s keeper from the hospital in tow. You can imagine the strings we had to pull. But what a subject! We could see the hyper-stimulated thalamic stem — bright yellow and red, and the corresponding frontal activity that is usually suppressed in normal people. Goins’s PET scan was a virtual road map of schizophrenia — tracked chemically. National Geographic included a picture of his brain in its January ’eighty-seven issue on imaging technology. At any rate, I used Goins as a case study for class, and his... proclivities stuck in my mind. Jim, can you share with me the blood type on the suspect?”

“Type B positive.”

“Interesting. Goins is, also. The particulars of his episode are very similar to what I understand about Ann. He took his victim to a swampy area not far from town. It was late at night. He’d been watching her for a matter of weeks, it was discovered in the competency hearings. She was a waitress. Goins was committed to state hospital as a mentally disordered juvenile sex offender. They kept him almost nine years, performing the standard drug and psychotherapies, apparently to great effect. The PET that Dr. Fields did helped them prescribe even more helpfully — it’s not like they use these people as guinea pigs, then dump them.”

“No.” Jim could hear Gold catching his breath.

“This January, they remanded Horton to his parents — legal guardians, that is. It was the same old story. The state couldn’t keep him, his doctor approved a release, and the DA’s hands were tied because Horton had been in for custody of one kind or another for almost nine years. In late January, Horton Goins and his foster parents moved to Costa Mesa. That’s what — two miles from where Ann was found?”

Jim felt his throat thicken, a coolness spread into his feet. “Do you have an address?”

“Emmett and Edith Goins, courtesy of Pacific Bell.” He gave Jim the street address and phone number.

“According to your models, Dr. Gold, would Goins be likely to repeat?”

“Oh my, please wait...”

The line went quiet again. Jim could hear the doctor’s steady breathing. Gold’s seizure lasted half a minute.

“Hello?” His voice was very faint now.

“Hello, Doctor... it’s Jim Weir.”

“It’s so hard... so hard to come out from behind this cloud. And the seizure medications they give me — Dilantin, Tegretol, then more stuff to keep the others from eating away my stomach. It’s like... watching myself in a dream. Where were we?”

“I’d asked you if Horton Goins was likely to repeat.”

“It would be irresponsible to answer that question directly. So many factors, so many unknowns. But, well Jim, I did call you, didn’t I?”

“Thank you, Doctor. Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Well...” Gold’s voice was reedy and thin now, as if the breath upon the cords was not enough to play them. “You know, Jim... just a few months ago I would have asked that if you apprehend Goins, you would put in a good word for me. Arrange an interview. But now... but now... I think I just want to rest. I have my birds.”

“God bless you, Dr. Gold.”