In Gilroy, garlic capital of the world, we stopped to use the john and fill up the car. I grabbed an In-N-Out burger. It was only another hour or so to San Jose and the Bay Area. Another hour into San Francisco and then across the Bay Bridge into Marin.
“So do we have a plan?” I asked as we got back on the road.
“For how we’re going to handle Susan Pollack? What we’re going to say?”
He changed lanes and flicked the AC higher. “Yeah, I have a plan.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
In Marin, we reconnected back with 101 and took it to Santa Rosa. There we turned east, on 116, through the Russian River Valley and its rows of pinot noir, heading toward the coast.
Eventually we hit the ocean again and turned north on Route 1, hugging the coastline, for another eighteen miles. The scenery grew spectacular. Winding corkscrew turns dug into the edges of steep hills, and there were intermittent turnouts that overlooked the blue sea. I was unprepared for just how impressive it was. For a while, I even forgot just why we were there.
Finally a road sign announced, JENNER. 3 MILES.
An uneasiness began to build in me. I was a doctor, not a policeman. I was used to stressful situations, but I’d never done anything like this. I realized I was only a few minutes away from meeting someone who might have had a hand in my nephew’s death.
The little fishing town of Jenner was nestled in a crook along the coast. It seemed about as remote and isolated as anything could be in California. Offshore, two spectacular rock formations rose out of the ocean mist.
Sherwood’s directions prompted us to turn off the main highway in town, onto a road called Pine Canyon Drive, and we took it east, climbing above the coast into the surrounding mountains. Here, the landscape became steep and forested, hills thick with tall sequoias and evergreens. The homes became trailerlike and run-down. Weather- beaten mailboxes marked dirt roads, more than actual dwellings.
A few hundred feet up, we came across a sign marking Lost Hill Road, basically a dirt road with a fallow vineyard on one side, pretty much in the middle of nowhere.
The signpost read 452.
Sherwood glanced at me and made the turn, his Gran Torino bouncing over the rutted terrain. About five hundred yards in, we came upon a red single-story farmhouse. There was a barn, separated from the main dwelling. A clothesline with some laundry draped across it. A collie came off the porch, barking.
We were there.
I took a deep breath, fought back some nerves. The place looked run-down and ramshackle and we were totally isolated.
Sherwood stopped the car. He turned to me. “The plan, doc, is you wait here until I nod that it’s okay.” He opened the glove compartment and took out a holstered gun. “And I do the talking, all right? We clear?”
I wasn’t about to argue. “Clear.”
As he strapped the holster around his chest he asked, “Did you happen to bring your cell?”
“I have it.” I nodded, reaching into my pants pocket, and pulled it out.
“Doubt it even works up here, but…” He opened the door, leaving the car keys in the ignition. “You hear the sound of something you don’t like-say, like gunfire-be my guest and get the fuck out. Then you can tell ’em.”
“Tell ’em what?” I asked, not sure I understood.
He stepped out of the car and winked. “That thing about the eyes… You can tell ’em you were right.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
The collie wagged its tail and went up to Sherwood. He gave the dog a friendly pat and followed it up to the house.
Sherwood looked back at me once, then knocked on the white frame door. “Susan Pollack?”
No one answered.
I noticed the rear of a car parked in the barnlike garage, the fresh wash draped on the clothesline. Not to mention the dog.
He knocked again, harder this time. “Anyone here…?” I saw his hand go near his holster. “Ms. Pollack? I’m Detective Sherwood. From the San Luis Obispo police.”
I felt a premonition that the next sound I was going to hear was that of a shotgun blast and Sherwood would be blown backward off the porch.
My heart kicked up a beat.
He was getting ready to knock a third time when someone came around from the side.
It was a woman. In a straw sun hat. Wearing coveralls and heavy gardening gloves. She had short dark hair; pinched, mouselike features; and a definite resemblance to the woman I’d seen in the newspaper photo. She stared at Sherwood with a hesitant reserve. “Can I help you?”
“I’m sorry to bother you,” the detective said. He introduced himself again and held out his badge. “I’m with the coroner’s office in San Luis Obispo. We drove all the way up here… We’d just like a moment of your time.”
“A moment of my time about
“Related to an incident that took place down there. A suicide. We just have a few questions we’d like to ask you, if you can give us the time.”
“Ask
“Yes, ma’am.” Sherwood nodded good-naturedly.
“Am I required?” She looked past him, and her gaze fell on me in the car.
“No,” Sherwood answered, “you’re not required at all. But it’s been a long drive, and it would save us coming all the way back here with something more official…”
Susan Pollack didn’t seem particularly nervous or relaxed. What she seemed was
Finally she shrugged and wiped her arm across her brow. “San Luis Obispo’s a long way. All right, well, you might as well come on in then. I was just in the chicken coop. They’re pretty much my only friends these days. Them and Bo. Not much fun if you don’t like to get your hands dirty. What did you say your name was… Sherwood?”
Sherwood nodded.
She stepped up on the porch. “And you might as well tell your friend, or whoever he is in the car, to come on in too.”
Sherwood waved toward me, and I got out. I nodded hello and followed them in.
“This is Jay Erlich,” Sherwood said.
“You a detective too?” Susan Pollack asked. She had sort of a narrow, birdlike face and barely looked at me.
“No. He’s a doctor. A big-time surgeon, I hear. From New York.”
“I’m from New York,” Susan Pollack said. She wiped her hands. “I went to the Brayley School in the city and had a year at Swarthmore College.” She looked at me. “You haven’t driven up all this way to tell me that I’m sick or something, have you, Dr. Erlich?”
“No. I haven’t,” I said, but didn’t smile.
