Sherwood looked at me, eyes burning, but I continued on. “Do you mind if I read you something, Ms. Pollack?” I knew we were about to walk out the door with nothing and that would be the end of it. We had no proof, nothing to pin her to any of the scenes, no evidence to compel her to cooperate, and nothing on Houvnanian, who was in jail.
All we had were these unrelated pieces of the jigsaw I was trying to fit together. I needed to know for sure.
“Russell Houvnanian made a statement at the time of his sentencing. It was about him possibly coming back one day. To take revenge. Do you have any idea what this means?”
I pulled out the paper from my jacket and tried to judge her reactions as I read. “ ‘On that day of judgment, or even the hour, no one will know… Not even the sleeping child will know. Only the father. It’s like a man who goes away for a long time…’ ” I glanced up, watching her watching me, the slightest veiled smile in her eyes. “ ‘No one knows when the master will choose to come back, or in what manner… Watch,’ ” I read, “ ‘lest he come back suddenly and find you sleeping. Watch…’ ”
“I think it’s time for you both to go now.” Susan Pollack rubbed out her cigarette and stood up. “I’m sorry you had to come up all the way here.”
Sherwood stood up with her. “We appreciate your time…”
“Did you know my brother?” I asked, my blood heating.
She didn’t answer. She just motioned us to the door. “I’m sorry for your loss, Dr. Erlich. For your brother’s loss.”
“Did you know him? His name was Charlie, Ms. Pollack. He had a beard and long black hair.”
She waited for us to step off the porch. I followed Sherwood down, sure I had struck a nerve, but one I’d never be able to follow up on.
Then she called back-not so much in answer to my question, but with what seemed a kind of taunt. “He was a musician, wasn’t he?”
Blood rocketed in my veins.
Then she smiled, putting back on her work gloves. “I hope you have a good trip back.”
O utside, we headed back to the car. I exchanged only the slightest glance with Sherwood. I was frustrated. I knew we had come away with nothing. Nothing to follow up on. Nothing to tie her to Evan’s death in any way.
He went to the driver’s side and eyed me, silently telling me to get in.
“Wait one second,” I said, suddenly remembering something.
I went over to the garage, Susan Pollack watching me. It was more like a dilapidated barn with a rolling wooden door on tracks. The door was open. I swung it to the side just a little and peered in.
I thought back to the night outside Charlie’s apartment. I brought to mind the person in the car. Flicking her cigarette. Staring at me.
A Kia wagon. Navy.
A car just like this.
I headed back over to Sherwood and got back in the car. I looked up at the house and saw Susan Pollack in the doorway, smiling at me, petting her dog.
Chapter Thirty-Six
“I know it was her.” I turned to Sherwood as soon as we got back on the main road.
He put on the brakes, veins popping on his neck. “What do you think you were doing in there?”
I knew I had crossed the line. “We had this one chance,” I said. “I was only trying to figure out what she knew.”
“Yeah, well, you leaked a confidential piece of evidence in the homicide investigation of an ex-police officer. The knife marks. Maybe in the ER, doc, you call the shots. But here you’re no more than a guy who’s come in off the street with no insurance. That wasn’t something she needed to know.”
“All right, I’m sorry,” I said, taking a breath. “But she’s part of it, Sherwood.”
“Yeah? What did she say that made up your mind?”
I told him about the car I’d seen three nights ago outside my brother’s apartment. The person in the cap watching me.
The same car I was sure I just saw in Susan Pollack’s garage.
“Someone staring at you? ” he said, his nostrils flaring. “Sort of like I am now.”
“I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. I don’t know how to describe it, but I know they were watching me. Or Charlie. As they drove away the window went down, and they flicked out a cigarette butt my way. It was like a warning, Sherwood. It gave me a chill.”
“Well, maybe you should have listened to it, doc…” Sherwood stared at me. “ What kind of car was it?”
“A compact. A Honda or a Kia or something. A wagon. Black or dark blue.”
“Black or dark blue? ” He rolled his eyes.
“It was night,” I said.
“I know. Exactly,” he replied unsympathetically. “You take note of the plates?”
“No. I didn’t get them. I was talking to my wife.”
“What about the car model? The year?”
“I don’t know!” I snapped back. “I’m a doctor. I don’t know fucking cars. I didn’t even suspect that anything was going on back then. It was just a sense.”
“And that’s what you want me to broaden an investigation on? Some car you can’t identify; a person you think you saw in the dark while you were on the phone. A sense! You think I can go to my boss with this and say, ‘Look, all this shit is going on, none of it adds up, but my guy’s got a medical degree, and he’s pretty sure someone was watching him. We think we found the car. It was in Susan Pollack’s garage. It was either a Honda or a Kia, either black or dark blue. It was nighttime… And oh, yeah, the thing that totally cinches it, Susan Pollack smokes…’ ”
“It was her!” I shouted. My gaze burned. “The eyes, the woman who was with Evan, the person in the car outside Charlie’s house. It all adds up. We just have to put it together, Sherwood. She knew my brother. You heard what she said. She was taunting me. She knows why Zorn had to find Evan…”
“I can’t keep this investigation open on taunts. I need something real! I’m a goddamn coroner’s detective, not homicide. You know the score here. I have maybe, what, a year before I’m pushed aside. Six months, if the county budget cuts come down. And then what? You know the long-term prospects for a transplant at my age. You can see the color in my eyes, same as me.”
I had noticed the yellowish hue. Along with the bruise marks on his arms. Transplants at his age were always dicey. If he wasn’t one of the lucky ones, two years, three years tops.
“I can’t afford to mortgage the rest of my career for you!”
He glared at me with his eyes burning, then sat back and put the car in gear. We drove back down the hill toward the coast.
For a while, neither of us said a word. I wanted to say I understood. I understood everything he was saying. I knew we didn’t have a single solid shred of evidence to build a case on. Other than these crazy puzzle pieces in my mind. Pieces Sherwood no longer seemed keen on putting together. We knew Zorn knew about Evan. We had the eyes on both bodies. There was a woman with Evan before he ended up dead.
We drove down to the coast and got back on the highway. The morning fog had lifted and it was now a bright and shining day.
Sherwood pulled to the side of the road. For a moment I thought he was going to tell me to get out and make my own way back to Pismo Beach.
Instead, he turned to me and shook his head. “I think you’re going at this the wrong way. There’s someone else you should be talking to,” he said. “Who knows a lot more than he’s letting on.”
I didn’t have to ask who he meant.
“You’re gonna lose me,” he said.
