Sullivan's Justice (30 page)

“Nope,” she said, a flicker of sadness in her eyes. “The only relative I had outside of my uncle was my father. My father was in prison. At that age, I didn’t know anything about money or attorneys. Anyway, I was afraid they’d send me to another foster home. Everywhere I went, men tried to have sex with me. Maybe it was something I said or did. The bastards always told me it was my fault. Most of the time I believed them.”

Carolyn’s cell phone rang and she excused herself, stepping into the hallway to talk privately. “Where’s your brother?” Hank asked. “I need to talk to him. You’ve had adequate time to hire an attorney.”

“Not really, Hank,” she told him. “Finding someone to represent him over the holidays isn’t easy. A lot of attorneys are out of town. We had an appointment with Vincent Bernini today, but he got tied up and couldn’t see us.”

“Humph,” the detective said. “Where’s Neil staying?”

Carolyn felt like she had a wad of cotton in her throat. She ran her hands through her hair, then blurted out, “With my mother.”

“That’s not true, Carolyn. I called your house and talked to Rebecca. She said she hasn’t seen Neil since Christmas Eve. She gave me your mother’s phone number and your mom told me the same thing. You’re covering for him, aren’t you?”

“I can’t talk right now,” she said, hitting the off button.

When she returned to the living room, she confronted Melody. “Was my brother with you the night of the murder?”

“I saw him for a few hours,” she said. “From what the papers say, the two women were killed earlier in the day. Besides, my testimony won’t be that valuable. We were lovers. Lovers lie to protect each other.” She paused and chuckled. “As you’ve discovered, I’m pretty good at embellishing the truth. I’m not sure you want me standing up for your brother in a courtroom.”

“I need to get going,” Carolyn said, her concern for her brother intensifying. “If Neil contacts you, tell him I need to speak to him immediately.”

“Oh,” Melody said. “I thought we’d catch a bite to eat together. There’s this great Chinese restaurant—”

“Another time,” Carolyn answered, turning to leave.

“I apologize for sending you the video,” Melody told her. “I just wanted you to know the type of man you were sleeping with. I fell for Paul pretty hard. He’s smooth, you know. He tells you what you want to hear; then when he gets bored with you, he discards you as if you were garbage. He refused to take my calls. He wouldn’t even talk to me in the classroom. Did he tell you he was going to buy you an engagement ring?”

Carolyn’s hand flew to her chest. “Yes,” she said, her eyes zeroing in on Melody’s wrist. She was wearing a Cartier watch that looked almost identical to the one Paul had given her for Christmas, the same night he’d proposed to her. The only difference was the color of the band. Hers had been brown and Melody’s was black. “Where did you get that watch, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Melody held her arm up so Carolyn could get a better look. “Paul, of course. Did he give you the same watch? I told you. It’s not all that expensive. I just wear it when I work out at the gym. It’s Cartier’s sport line. They call it a Tank.”

“I can’t believe it,” Carolyn said, placing her hand on top of her head. “I feel like a complete fool. What did he do, buy them by the dozens?”

“Don’t feel bad,” Melody reassured her, touching her arm. “I was a far bigger fool than you, Carolyn. Paul’s from Pasadena. That’s a big-money town. I had him checked out. His parents left him a sizable estate. He lives fairly simply, but he’s pretty well-heeled for a college professor. He can either seduce a woman or buy her. If you want to know the truth, I don’t think it matters to him. You live next door, right?”

Carolyn knew what she was going to say. “I was convenient.”

“Sounds that way,” she said. “Anyway, now that everything’s out in the open, I lied when I said I didn’t care about Neil. It hurt me when I learned about Laurel, but when he’s ready, I’d like to try to work things out between us.” She reached over and stroked a silky strand of Carolyn’s dark hair. “What they say must not be the truth.”

“A lot of things aren’t true,” she answered, stepping back. “What exactly are you referring to?”

“That men prefer blondes.”

Carolyn turned to leave, then remembered something. She wasn’t about to be had. Even if Paul was the bastard Melody had depicted, she had learned from him: never accept anything without definitive proof. And not just a stack of official-looking papers. With the kind of equipment available today, people could print themselves a new life. “The police are going to want copies of those documents. They’ll want to verify them.”

“Not a problem,” Melody said, leaning in the doorway until Carolyn got in her car and sped off.

Whoever Melody was, Carolyn thought as she navigated the 405 Freeway north toward Ventura, she didn’t seem menacing anymore. She was just a hardened woman who’d had to struggle through life on her own. Some people would foolishly claim they would give up their family for the right amount of money. She doubted if the woman who had taken the name Melody Asher would make such a statement.

 

 

 

 

 

M
ichael Graham’s plane was scheduled to arrive at LAX at seven-fifteen that evening. Hank assigned a patrol unit to pick Graham up and stick him in a motel for the night. Since Carolyn had already cleared up the identity problem, he had no reason to see Dr. Graham outside of curiosity. The man was a convicted murderer. Hank couldn’t give him his daughter’s address without her permission. If they were on good terms, Dr. Graham would already have it.

Thinking Melody had murdered the two women was a stretch, but she did have the money to hire someone. The killer had to be a male. The lingerie was a giveaway. Suzanne Porter hadn’t been wearing a plain white bra and cotton panties like Laurel Goodwin, one of the few discrepancies between the two cases. What she’d had on was what they called a Wonderbra, the kind they sold in stores like Victoria’s Secret. Her panties were lacy T-backs. Their killer got turned on by killing women. Not just any women. Young, sexy women with pretty faces and good bodies. Women who lived in Ocean View Estates.

Did the killer live in the area? Or was Ocean View Estates merely his farm, the place where he harvested his victims?

Dropping down at his desk, Hank loosened his tie. Most of the other detectives had either gone home or were still in the field. He called narcotics and spoke with Sergeant Manny Gonzales.

“None of our snitches know of a dealer who rides around on a Yamaha injecting his customers in the privacy of their homes,” Manny told him. “The majority of our dealers work out of Oxnard. I’m telling you, the kind of mixture your man put together definitely doesn’t sound like a local.”

“Dig around with some of the dealers. Offer them a get-out-of-jail pass if they give us some names.”

“You’re softening in your old age,” Manny said. “Whenever I worked with you, everything had to be by the book.”

“I’m not softening,” Hank said gruffly. “I’m trying to catch what may turn out to be a serial killer.”

“It’s true, then?” Manny said. “I thought all that ‘serial killer’ stuff was put out there by the media. I’ll get right on it. If you come up with more information, let me know right away. My best sources can only be tapped once.”

Something had been bothering Hank since the night of the murder. His old brain wasn’t functioning like it did when he was younger. The funny thing about aging was it hit you all at once. You got up one morning and found a crease on your face, thinking it would go away by the time you ate your breakfast. When it was still there a week later, you knew it was going to be there forever. Same thing with the memory. He’d been doing fine until the Moreno homicide. Of course nine murders in less than two months would drive anyone crazy.

Glancing down at his notes, he realized what had been nagging him and rushed over to the wall, where a map of the city was mounted. Neil Sullivan lived at 1003 Sea View Terrace. Hank reached up and stuck a green thumbtack in the map. Suzanne Porter’s address was 1003 Seaport Drive, three blocks away. After marking it with a blue thumbtack, he returned to his computer and reviewed the particulars on the Hartfield murders. The residence was closer to the beach, but the address was 1003 Seaport Avenue. Returning to the map, he pushed in a red thumbtack. The area formed a triangle. Was it only a coincidence? Raphael Moreno was already in custody when the recent homicides occurred. In addition, the manner of death didn’t match. Moreno had shot all five members of the Hartfield family, lining up their bodies military-style in the living room. None of the victims had been killed by lethal injection. There was no swimming pool, and Mrs. Hartfield had been fully clothed. In a town near the beach, however, every other street had the word “sea” in it.

Mary Stevens appeared in his cubicle, pulling up a chair and kicking her shoes off. “Ready for a bombshell?” she asked. “Suzanne Porter knew Neil Sullivan. Before he became famous, he taught oil painting at Ventura College and she was one of his students. I guess her husband didn’t know about him or forgot. One of her girlfriends, Brooke Lamphear, claims Suzanne and Neil were friends. She used to stop by his house and have coffee now and then.”

“Were they having an affair?”

“Her friend doesn’t think so,” Mary continued. “Story is the same we’ve heard from everyone else we’ve interviewed.” She stopped and glanced down at her notes. “Great couple, loved each other to pieces, blah-blah-blah. Almost sounds too good to believe. A former bond trader turned suburban housewife might not have found life exciting enough for her. But, hey, don’t forget all that sexy underwear. Looks like Sullivan’s back in the hot seat.”

“Did you get in touch with anyone at the school Goodwin taught at?”

“Finally,” she said, stretching. “Everyone’s gone for vacation, you know, but I managed to track down the principal, Lawrence Hughes. He said there were rumors that Goodwin had been fooling around with a former student named Ashton Sabatino. Since they couldn’t substantiate anything and the boy was over eighteen, they didn’t take action against her. Sabatino was a piss-poor student, it seems, but the girls were all crazy about him. You know the type—movie star looks and the brains of a rock.” She cleared her throat, then continued, “I spun by his last-known address, an apartment on the west side. The landlord said he moved out nine months ago. No forwarding address. I’m going to check with the parents next. I’ll let you know what I find out.”

Once Mary walked out of the room, Hank called district attorney Kevin Thomas at home and went over the new information. Thomas didn’t put much stock in the address similarities or the lead on Laurel’s teenage lover, yet his boss, Sean Exley, had demanded that they take some type of action. Because the press was classifying the two murders as the work of a possible serial killer, the pressure in the DA’s office was escalating. The fact that Neil Sullivan hadn’t appeared for questioning gave them a valid reason to suspect that he might be the killer. Thomas said if Hank wanted to write a request for an arrest warrant charging Neil Sullivan with two counts of first-degree murder, he’d get Judge O’Brien to sign it. “If the case doesn’t come together, we can always cut him loose. Guy’s still on the street, and if another homicide goes down, we’ll all get fired.”

“I’ll think about it,” Hank said, slowly placing the phone back in the cradle. He was on his way to an AA meeting. Today was the four-year anniversary of his younger brother’s death.

 

 

The meeting was held at the Christ the King Presbyterian Church. Hank sat in a circle with fifteen other people from all walks of life—carpenters, doctors, firemen, housewives. Alcoholism didn’t discriminate. That a room filled with strangers could meet and spill out some of the darkest moments of their lives was one of the elements that made the program so successful. That and the Serenity Prayer, which Hank said every time temptation reared its ugly head. He didn’t know about God, though. He wanted to believe, but it was hard. Once you’d picked up the pieces of a butchered child from a garbage dump, you had to ask yourself if anyone was listening.

Having a sponsor to call on whenever you needed help was another element. Hank’s sponsor was a fifty-year-old advertising director. He wasn’t there tonight. He must be out of town.

The topic for this particular meeting was how family members played a part in the alcoholic’s behavior. Many times Hank didn’t share. By merely listening, he allowed newer attendees or those in crisis time to interact with the group. This evening, he was the person in crisis. As soon as the holiday season began, he was flooded with painful memories. Keeping his feelings inside was similar to carrying a concrete ball inside his stomach. “I became an alcoholic after my brother was killed in a traffic accident,” Hank said, his eyes roaming around the room. “He was killed this day, four years ago. After a night of partying, Andy drove his Corvette into the ocean on the outskirts of Ventura. The search was called off the next day. My brother was assumed dead. Once I recovered from the shock, I drove to the beach area near the sewage treatment plant in Oxnard, where a number of surfers and boaters had washed up on the shore. This was where the currents generally carried them, depending on where they went into the water. I knew this the night Andy died, but I failed to tell the search and rescue team. I guess my mind shut down. Maybe because the people who had been found near the treatment plant were all dead, it was just too painful to think about.” He leaned forward over his knees, emotion welling up inside him. Here a man could cry. He couldn’t allow himself to break down, though, even today. He had to catch a killer.

“When I got to Andy, he was dead,” Hank continued. “The autopsy reports indicated he was alive when he washed up on the shore the night before. He was a strong swimmer. Even though the undercurrents had swept him two and a half miles down the coast, his death wasn’t caused by drowning. He died from the injuries he received when the Corvette slammed into the water. If I had checked the area near the treatment plant sooner, my brother would still be alive.”