One Through the Heart Read online

  Hugh sounded as if he’d just been laughing at something as he picked up the phone and asked Raveneau, ‘Where the hell have you been? I thought I’d be back at Homicide trying to figure out what happened to you. I’ve left you two messages in the last two weeks. Don’t I rate at all anymore?’

  ‘I’ve been swamped. We cleared another old one with a DNA match and I was in New Mexico finding our guy when you left the first message.’

  ‘What about the second?’

  ‘I’m calling you right now. I’m out at Albert Lash’s house. I just met your nephew. His crew demolished a garden shed yesterday morning and found an old bomb shelter with skulls and two partial skeletons in it. Stop me if you already know this. Did your nephew tell you this last night? He didn’t call us until this morning.’

  ‘No, he didn’t tell me, but we’ve been arguing. Is her skull in there?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. There are fourteen skulls.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s the count, and we’ve got everybody on their way here. The hatch cover was under a lattice of deck boards inside the garden shed.’

  ‘And we missed that when we searched Lash’s place?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I can’t believe that. I’m driving out there right now. I need to see this.’

  ‘Don’t come out yet. It’s going to be a zoo here the rest of today and into tonight. I just want to know if your nephew told anybody yesterday what he found. The demo crew here, these four young Hispanic guys, claim he didn’t say anything to them.’

  ‘Those guys are all scared of police. They’re all going to say they don’t know anything.’

  ‘We separated them. We talked to them. La Rosa is very fluent and she doesn’t think he said a word to them. I’m not reading anything into it, but it’s odd. Why don’t you ask him about it?’

  ‘You know I will. I’ll let you know.’

  Raveneau was willing to leave it at that. He knew plenty about Hugh’s saga with his nephew. He knew Hugh would question him hard.

  ‘I’ve got to come out there, Ben. I can’t take this. I was in that garden shed when we searched his place. Well, you know that, you were there, but I was in that garden shed. I stood on those boards. I remember that, and I was there last Saturday. It’s not on the plans. The architect missed it. That garden shed was full of old pesticide bottles. The contractor got a hazardous waste company out there to clean it out.’

  Raveneau wasn’t close enough to Hugh anymore or, more to the point, Hugh wasn’t close enough to the homicide office anymore for Raveneau to say much more, yet Hugh was one of the two original homicide inspectors, so he would be briefed. He was going to be in on the investigation and Raveneau decided to tell him about the cellphone.

  ‘We’ve found an iPhone with the skulls that wasn’t even manufactured until after Lash was in a wheelchair. Someone else has been in there. The phone number is an active account.’

  ‘I’ll see you there. I’m coming out now.’

  ‘No, you’re not.’

  Raveneau listened to Hugh a little longer then broke off the call. He spent the next two hours with the coroner, the Chief Medical Examiner, and a forensic anthropologist. The ME, Hayes, decided to tag the skulls with numbers and then bring them out individually in body bags after the CSI crew finished. The fire station over on Grove Street brought in more lights for the CSI pair. The iPhone, the glass face of which Raveneau’s flashlight beam had caught, went into a clear plastic bag and then into Raveneau’s trunk. The phone was going with him.

  A sheet was slid under each partial skeleton to lift them away from the floor. The rotted blankets, the clothing, shoes, all the personal effects came out, then the cot and mattress. The leaking batteries were left and the swollen cans of food, as well as the rest of the furniture and kitchen utensils and supplies. The candles were bagged individually with the hope there might be touch DNA.

  The iPhone was on a trajectory of its own now. It got checked first for trace DNA and turned out to be wiped clean. Raveneau plugged it in and charged it and la Rosa started chasing down the Verizon account. It was registered to a corporation with a Belmont apartment building address though the phone had a New York prefix. A single phone number was in Contacts and before calling it they talked it through.

  ‘Someone knew the construction was coming,’ Raveneau said, ‘and the phone is there for us. Let’s call it. It’s what we’re expected to do.’

  They moved into an interview room and put the iPhone on speakerphone so they could tape the conversation. La Rosa went quickly through it once more. No apps, photos, email accounts, nothing but a single name under Contacts. The name input was Call Me.

  ‘Ready?’ she asked and without waiting tapped the phone number. The phone rang four times, followed by a click followed by a humming, and they heard static and a recording started to play.

  ‘Old school,’ la Rosa whispered, meaning the outdated answering machine, and Raveneau nodded. The voice was male, disguised but not muffled, the tone matter of fact.

  ‘Money borrowed is repaid with money. Lives taken must be repaid with lives. America owes for the genocide of the western expansion. A first payment will be made very soon in San Francisco.’

  It ended there, clicked off, and the connection broke. They listened to it twice more and then la Rosa looked up with puzzlement, asking, ‘Why do we get all the freaks? Why don’t they stay on the east coast or Texas or wherever they’re from? The genocide of the western expansion, I have no clue what that means. Did he mean the Western Addition? Is this a racial deal?’

  ‘I get it.’

  ‘You know what he’s talking about?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s how we dealt with the Native American tribes. It’s about the Indian Wars. Ann Coryell, the woman who lived in Lash’s guest house, wrote about unreconciled genocide and what it does to our collective psyche.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘She wrote about what genocide does to a society.’

  La Rosa sat on that for a little bit then asked, ‘We’re supposed to pay now for something that happened in the nineteenth century?’

  ‘That’s what he’s saying, that’s what I hear. Ann Coryell’s thesis was that if genocide isn’t acknowledged and answered it never goes away. A society carries it and its culture is stunted.’

  ‘What are we getting into here?’

  ‘Right now we need to get a search warrant to get into an apartment in Belmont.’

  Four

  The apartment building was soot-colored and four stories. The property manager, Lisa Berge of Berge Properties, was parked out front along the curb in a shiny black Lexus, and after a polite exchange of cards Raveneau handed her the search warrant. She read it with a look of disdain but didn’t comment until they were upstairs and she was unlocking the door of 4F.

  ‘I resent the search warrant but I’m not surprised and I called our lawyer yesterday after I got off the phone with you. Police are very heavy-handed nowadays. My grandfather started this business and we’ve survived three generations by keeping our word and protecting our reputation.’

  ‘We don’t want to hurt your reputation,’ la Rosa said. ‘We’re responding to a phone threat.’

  Raveneau didn’t hear what came after that. On a counter in the kitchen was a cordless phone cradled in a vintage black plastic answering machine. He pulled on latex gloves and used a pencil eraser to push the button to replay the recording. Nothing played. He rewound. He pressed play again then checked the connections. The answering machine was simple and familiar. He used to have one just like it and didn’t miss it at all. He turned to Lisa Berge.

  ‘What happened to the tape? Has the renter been here?’

  ‘No, and we cancelled his lease. He won’t be back.’

  Raveneau checked the machine again before disconnecting it. He paused as he realized the tape was missing. Then he slid it into an evidence bag and searched the rest of the apartment as la Rosa talked with Be
rge in the corridor. The apartment was a one-bedroom and nearly empty. A flat screen TV faced a couch and coffee table. It could have been a hotel room, except for one thing. On a nightstand was a black plastic iPhone case. Like a scavenger hunt he thought, geo-caching. They were being led along, and he stared at it knowing that he was going to slip it carefully into a bag and they would take it with them and there wasn’t going to be any DNA or prints. It would be as clean as the iPhone.

  None of this fit with the investigation he imagined. He shouldn’t have imagined anything but so many times over the decade since Coryell disappeared he had turned different ideas in his head.

  On the drive here la Rosa asked, ‘Why did you give Ann Coryell your cell number if the officers were already there and writing a report?’

  ‘Because I knew she wasn’t going to call nine one one again. It was her third call in a week and the responding officers were pretty close to believing Lash. They were on his porch when I got there. I could hear him. Lash was selling that she was brilliant but fragile, and he invited all three officers to come over for a drink when they were off duty. He wanted their stories. He told them about the book he was writing. Coryell was scared but determined, and I don’t think she knew what to do next.’

  ‘And you slept through her call?’

  ‘I don’t really know what happened. I was tired. It was late. I ate a little and drank a couple of glasses of wine before I went to bed. The phone was on the nightstand next to the bed, but I may have accidentally turned off the ringer. I’ve thought about it over and over, and I still think about it.’

  ‘Why didn’t you work the case after her remains were found?’

  ‘They were found on Mount Tamalpais thirteen months later in November 2003 and it was a Marin County case until fingerprints and clothing suggested it was her and DNA testing was done. Those results didn’t come back until April the following year. I went to the lieutenant and tried to get the case assigned to me, but he knew about the phone call I missed and was worried a defense attorney could make something of that later. That might have been true then though not now.’

  He glanced over at her and said, ‘Hugh Neilley and Ray Alcott caught the case. Did you ever know Ray Alcott?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Hugh and Ray Alcott worked it for six or seven months but it got stranded when Hugh left his homicide desk and transferred to the Southern Precinct. Hugh was going through a divorce and drinking hard and I don’t know how much work he put into it. He wouldn’t talk to me about it. Neither would Alcott after Hugh told him not to. Alcott got a new partner and the Coryell investigation went into the Cold Case closet.’

  ‘When did you first hear about followers of Coryell, this cult thing?’

  ‘I’m not sure it’s a cult. It’s definitely a following and it was academic at first and over the years I think it has grown into something else. But I wouldn’t really know any more, though now that we’re working this you should read her. It’s all still online. She had a blog and published a few papers. A small press put out a book with her writings and for awhile I think her disappearance made her more mysterious. Do you remember the media storm when Lash became a person of interest?’

  ‘Sure, but I’ve never read anything she wrote.’

  ‘She was against violence but wrote about a spiritual cleansing and acknowledging what we did to the Indian tribes as something we had to do. Her take was we were always going to defeat the tribes. Our force and numbers were far superior. We reneged on treaties and she believed there was genocide, though it wasn’t called that then. The word genocide didn’t come along until the twentieth century. Plenty of people in the nineteenth century knew that the reservation system was soul-destroying and amoral. She didn’t believe the truth was in America’s history books.’

  ‘I’m getting that. So where do we go with this now?’

  ‘We go back to the beginning of the case. We start with Hugh Neilley and Alcott. I’m going to call Hugh now.’

  When Hugh answered, Raveneau said, ‘Ray Alcott says he doesn’t remember anything and you never forget anything, so it starts with you. We need at least a couple of hours to go through everything. We’d like to do that this afternoon. Are you good with coming upstairs?’

  ‘How long have we known each other? Almost thirty years, right? Does that mean anything to you?’

  ‘Sure, but this is the place to go through the files.’

  ‘I don’t ever want to set foot in the homicide office ever again. I’d rather sit down with you somewhere. Bring the files and you can brief your partner later.’

  ‘It needs to be here. Call me back with a time that works for you.’

  Hugh hung up and Raveneau laid his phone down.

  ‘Did you just try to make him angry?’ la Rosa asked.

  ‘Yeah, I did. I know him. We need to get him talking. I think he knows things that aren’t in the files. He and Alcott didn’t do her justice and he knows I feel that way. It’s going to get ugly.’

  ‘Great.’

  FIVE

  Hugh Neilley was at his desk in the Southern Precinct on the first floor of the Hall of Justice and very aware of the time. His heart raced and he was dizzy with a tinny ringing in his ears. He tried the deep slow breathing that was supposed to lower his blood pressure. He didn’t expect this from Raveneau. Neither did he want to sit and dredge through the Coryell files. He delayed another fifteen minutes before crossing to the elevators and riding up.

  Raveneau and la Rosa were waiting for him in their little Cold Case Unit office. Ben suggested they use the kitchen with its long table as a place to talk and Neilley shook his head. He started to point a finger and fought the impulse. He rested a hand on Raveneau’s desk.

  ‘No, if we’re going to do this, let’s do it right. Let’s talk in an interview room with the tape running and I want a copy of the tape afterwards. I want your word on that and I don’t want to get broadsided with questions about a case that’s eight or nine years old. Ben, I know what it was to you, but for me it was just another murder investigation. I don’t remember all the details of every case I worked and I don’t have anything on this one that’s not already in the files.’

  ‘No problem, Hugh, we’ll videotape you. We’ll do it in an interview room.’

  Neilley glared at him but thought, just calm down. You’re making too much of this. He followed them to the interview box and Raveneau made a show of turning on the tape before they went in.

  ‘Coffee, Hugh?’

  ‘Nothing for me but let me ask you a question before we get started.’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Is it right for you to be on this investigation, Ben? You talked for years about how you let her down by missing that phone call. You were very affected and I can say that as your friend. I think you still are. If you ask me, you’re too close to the case. Why don’t you give it to somebody else? You’ve got a couple of other inspectors on your Cold Case Unit, right? What do you think about that?’

  ‘Time has gone by, Hugh.’

  ‘Not for you.’

  But he was never going to rattle Raveneau, though Raveneau wouldn’t like that comment sitting there right at the start of the videotape, and Neilley stayed with it until Raveneau cut him off.

  ‘How did you get the demolition work at Lash’s house?’

  ‘Are you kidding, we’re going to talk about my side business?’

  ‘We’re not here for that but I’m curious.’

  Neilley took a deep breath. ‘I bid for the work, Ben. That’s how it works out in the big world. You’re not that far away from retirement and you’re going to need something yourself because it’s guaranteed they’ll cut our pensions. Otherwise you’ll end up working part time as a bank security guard or worse. Do you want to greet people when they come in to make their deposits and chase away assholes parking in the bank lot while they do their other shopping?’

  ‘I want to know if you had any reservations about taking the job.�
��

  ‘None.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘Don’t get sanctimonious with me. I got a call from the contractor. We’ve done other work for him and I wasn’t going to turn him down. If I do that, someone else gets the job. I recognized the address – of course I recognized the address – but it’s just a house now. I met him on-site and we walked the project on a Saturday when I wasn’t at Southern. I looked in the guest cottage and there was nothing in it but an old bed and some furniture. It’s just another remodeling project. There was nothing to say she ever lived there and obviously I didn’t know about the bomb shelter.’

  ‘Did you talk with your nephew?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About why he waited to report what he found in the bomb shelter.’

  ‘I talked to him and I’m going to talk to him more about it. He made a bad decision and I apologize for it. We’re behind on the job and the contractor is pressuring us. He’s threatening to backcharge us because his contract with the client has got a tight time frame. Matt didn’t want the guys getting distracted by a police investigation. He wanted to get done in that area and then call the police. That’s what he did. He finished with the garden shed and cottage and moved the crew back up to the house.’

  ‘He told me he didn’t touch anything when he was inside the bomb shelter.’

  ‘He’s got his issues but he doesn’t lie.’

  ‘He lied to me.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘I saw his tracks. One of your crew was spraying water to keep down the dust and he tracked some mud.’

  ‘But he didn’t try to hide his tracks, did he? So he knew you’d see where he walked. I think he was curious and he walked around and when you questioned him he exaggerated a little. He wanted to please you and he was trying to tell you he didn’t take anything or touch any evidence. He knows better. But what did you expect him to do when he got down there and saw what was there? Anyone would have taken a closer look. I would have.’ Hugh sighed. ‘He’s not as bad as I make him out to be sometimes. You’ve heard me talk about the problems with trying to get him straightened out, and that’s probably colored your thinking. But what’s the big deal here? Do you think Matt took something?’