Eyes Wide Open (aka Killing Hour)

“Dr. Erlich’s nephew was killed last week in Morro Bay,” Sherwood explained. “He took a fall off the famous rock there in the bay. You ever been to Morro Bay, Ms. Pollack?”

“No.” She shook her head. “I haven’t. There’s lots of places I haven’t been to. You’ve found me here, so you obviously know who I am. I guess you could say I’ve had my travel privileges curtailed the past couple of years.”

She led us into the foyer. Sherwood asked, “Do you mind if we sit down?”

“Be my guest.” She motioned us to a wooden kitchen table. The kitchen had a pleasant, well-taken-care-of feel about it. A rack with lots of copper pots suspended from it hung over a wooden island. An old hand-painted olive basket hanging on the wall. She took off her hat, revealing her short-cropped hair. I tried to determine if this was the face I had seen staring at me that night from the car, but I couldn’t.

She nodded, and Sherwood and I pulled out chairs.

“I had a little money put aside from a trust my father had set up.” She shrugged. “When I got out, I didn’t really have anywhere to go. I couldn’t face going back home. And as you might imagine”-she smiled briefly-“privacy was a selling point of the place. I’d offer you some coffee, but this isn’t taking on the feel of a social visit, is it? Maybe you should just get right down to why you’re here.”

Sherwood nodded. “I asked Dr. Erlich to come along because, as I said, his nephew, Evan, was killed last week, and we’re looking into his death. At first blush it was ruled a suicide. I ruled it a suicide. The kid was in a troubled state mentally and had recently been remanded to Central Coast Medical Center, the psych ward there. A couple of days before his death, the hospital released him to a halfway facility in Morro Bay. A day later he took a walk from the house, and the next morning he was found at the bottom of the rock.”

“Sounds like a poor decision,” Susan Pollack said. “His or the hospital’s.” She turned to me. “How old was your nephew, Dr. Erlich?”

“Twenty-one.”

“Twenty-one…” She inhaled deeply and rubbed her hand across her brow. “And you say he was troubled?”

I nodded. “Bipolar.”

She nodded, almost sympathetically. “I know something about being twenty-one and troubled. I suppose we both had to pay for it, in our own ways. I’m sorry for your loss.”

I studied her reactions-a tick in her jaw, averting her eyes-trying to measure her sincerity. “Thanks.”

“Nonetheless…” She turned back to Sherwood. “I’d still like to know just what this has to do with me.”

“You say you’ve never been to Morro Bay?” he asked again.

“No, I haven’t. I haven’t left here very much at all since my release. And you still haven’t answered my question.”

“A number of curious matters have come up,” Sherwood started in, “that might in some way connect Dr. Erlich’s nephew’s death to a period of your own life, Ms. Pollack. Your own past.”

She smiled, more of a soft twinkling in her eyes, as if to say, I’m not surprised . She took out a cigarette, lit it, and tossed the match in a coffee mug on the table. “Let me hear them, please.”

“Do you know the name Walter Zorn?” Sherwood asked.

She answered almost reflexively: “No.” Then, blinking, her eyes lighting up with recognition, she nodded. “ Yes… yes, I do.”

“He was a detective who was part of the police team back in Santa Barbara that handled the Houvnanian investigation,” Sherwood reminded her. “You should know the name.”

“I haven’t heard it in years. I was young and stoned mostly, and in a completely different world back then. And to my recollection, he didn’t handle any of my depositions. But I do recall the name.”

“You’ve not heard from him since?”

She shook her head. “Not in thirty-five years.”

“Or seen him?”

“Like I said, I’ve been a bit preoccupied, detective.” She flicked an ash in the coffee mug. “How is Detective Zorn?”

“Well, actually, he’s dead,” Sherwood told her.

“Hmmm .” She grunted with a slight smile. “Definitely seems to be in the water lately.”

“He was murdered. Three days ago. In his home. In Santa Maria. Thirty miles south of Morro Bay.” Sherwood stared at her. “Any chance that you’ve been there ?”

Susan Pollack met his stare and took a long drag on her cigarette. Her amiable expression shifted. “I’m not sure I like where this is going, Detective Sherwood. But I’m still interested in finding out what any of this has to do with me.”

“Zorn handled the Houvnanian murders. A week or two ago, before he was killed, he was observed in conversation with Dr. Erlich’s nephew, Evan. It seems the boy’s father, Dr. Erlich’s brother, had a connection to Houvnanian himself back then.”

“Now this is getting interesting. What kind of connection?”

“Apparently he resided on the Riorden Ranch for a time. I don’t suppose you might’ve overlapped or even remember him. Charlie Erlich…”

Susan’s Pollack’s birdlike eyes narrowed, like she was focusing back in time. “I may. Or may not, as you say. People were always moving in and out of the ranch. We may not have even been there at the same time. Anyway, we all went by different names back then. Mine was Maggie. Maggie Mae. For Magdalena, actually, not for the song.

“Anyway”-she looked back at me-“your brother’s son is dead, and he had some kind of random connection to this detective, Zorn. Now he’s dead…” She turned to Sherwood, the lightbulb going off. “And I’ve been recently released. I think I get it now.”

Sherwood nodded. “We’re trying to find out if Detective Zorn’s connection to Evan was, indeed, as random as you say.”

She rubbed a finger along the side of her face, knocked the ash off her cigarette. She came back with the faintest smile. “Just so you know, detective, I haven’t had any direct communication with Russell Houvnanian in more than thirty years. I’ve taken responsibility for what I’ve done. What I helped to do. I’ve expressed remorse. I’ve paid my debt. I was a deluded twenty-year-old who was in love. I didn’t kill anybody, Detective Sherwood. I didn’t get in that van.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, ma’am-”

“I’m fifty-seven now,” Susan Pollack said, cutting him off. “I’ve forfeited most of my life. I’d like to find some way I can make up for the pain I’ve caused. Counseling, animal rescue, I don’t know what form. The last thing I have on my mind is the ‘old days,’ detective. I think you can understand that. That’s the best answer I can give.”

She turned to me. “I’m sorry about your nephew, doctor. I’m sorry if it’s opened a bunch of wounds and old things that were better off kept closed. But I haven’t been to Morro Bay. Or Santa Maria. Or seen Detective Zorn. Or knew of your nephew. Now, I know you’ve had a long drive up here. Is that all?”

Sherwood looked at me with an air of disappointment. As if he was saying, Sorry, her cooperation is 100 percent voluntary at this point. He seemed ready to get up. “We won’t trouble you any longer…”

I fixed on her. “Both Evan and this detective Zorn had something strange on them at the times of their deaths. The image of an eye. An open eye, staring. Does that mean anything to you?”

Susan Pollack shrugged. I noticed the slightest tremor in her jaw. “No. Should it?”

Sherwood looked at me, eyes burning, but I continued on. “Do you mind if I read you something, Ms. Pollack?” I