Andrew Gross - Eyes Wide Open

“This is for Evan, Charlie.” I squeezed his hand. “For him. What do these people want with you, Charlie? What did Walter Zorn know?”

“For Evan…? ” He turned to me. “Maybe Zorn was the devil, Jay. What do you think? That gimpy bastard, he surely walked like the devil. That’s what they say, you know, how you can tell it’s him-the limp.”

Gabby came over to me. “There’s nothing you can do when he gets like this.” She leaned over and draped her arm caringly around my brother’s neck. “He’s like his own son. You can talk to him all day-but he’s not here… He’s somewhere else.”

He took another sip of coffee and caught my eyes. “For Evan, Jay.”

I stood up and squeezed my brother softly on the shoulder as I went past him out to the narrow, fenced-in yard. I sank down in one of the cheap folding lawn chairs and looked up at the blue sky.

In my life, I’d never felt the fear of being in danger-or that I was putting others in danger. I knew the next time it might not be a warning. I thought about Evan, what he might have gotten involved in unwittingly, what might have happened up there, on the rock, and I knew I owed him something.

Two things drummed in my mind.

What if Jesus went to hell and said it ain’t so bad here and just stayed, my brother had said. What if heaven is hell?

I realized I’d read something like that before.

From Houvnanian’s ramblings. The other night, online. The End of Days.

But it was the second thing that really worried me. Not about Charlie but Zorn. The slight limp he carried.

Charlie had mentioned it. Miguel had mentioned it too.

What was worrying me was that in all the news reports and coverage, I was sure that had never come out before.

S herwood sat at his desk, cradling the phone. He looked at the number he had scribbled on his pad, conflicted. It was the number of an out-of-state detective someone in the sheriff’s department had known. He leaned back and looked at the mountain outside his window, hesitating before he dialed.

He glanced at the photograph of his wife on the credenza.

Dorrie, you’d probably say I was crazy for doing this, wouldn’t you?

No. Sherwood chuckled to himself. She would not.

What she would say was, God’s given you a second chance, Don, so why not use it, right?

He had this job courtesy of a friend in the sheriff’s department. Mostly in recognition of what he’d put in for the past twenty-five years. And he was good at it. Usually, no one was down his back. He didn’t have to solve murders anymore, just figure out if they warranted solving. And pass it along. He didn’t have to beat the leather all around town-chase suspects, appear in court, buck up against the state authorities. Or put himself at risk…

The press didn’t get on his back, making life miserable.

It was a nice, stress-free existence, a way to end his career. And he was lucky it came his way. After he’d gotten sick, the position had opened up. Perokis, his lieutenant, always gave him a lot of space. He’d earned a certain respect. He did his work; cases got disposed of; the files went down. And like clockwork, others always came.

Then this one. He didn’t have to get deeper involved.

It was just that this nagging voice had been needling him over the past week-telling him that maybe he hadn’t done all he could. Maybe there was something there, these threads of doubt knitting together. Now the voice had turned into a jabbing presence in his mind.

Dorrie’s voice.

And what had happened to the doctor last night only intensified the voices even more.

He stared at the mountain.

What if Erlich was right? What if Zorn’s murder was connected? What if he had known something he was trying to share? Warn them. What if the “eyes” did mean something? What if Susan Pollack was the woman the street vendor had seen?

He rubbed his jaw-the joint felt like someone was sticking a needle in it. It was telling him to back off. He had already turned this case over. Let the solved cases be.

No, he knew, it wasn’t saying that at all.

He glanced at Dorrie. God gave me a second chance, huh?

It was saying, Use it.

He chuckled, cradling the phone against his shoulder, and punched in the number. So how come it feels like my last?

After a few seconds, someone picked up on the other end.

“Meachem,” the voice said. “Las Vegas Homicide.”

“Detective Meachem, my name is Don Sherwood. I’m a detective with the coroner’s office of San Luis Obispo County. In California.”

“San Luis Obispo? I’ve got a sister up there. She works at the college. What can I do for you, detective?”

“I need a favor, if you can. You had a floater a while back. Name of Greenway, Thomas. He was found facedown in his pool. Ruled a suicide. It does go back a ways.”

“Greenway?” Meachem seemed to be writing down the name. “How long?”

“Eighty-eight,” Sherwood said.

“I didn’t say how old. I meant how long ago.”

“Nineteen eighty-eight,” Sherwood said again, awaiting the response.

“You must be kidding,” the Las Vegas detective said after a long pause.

“No, I’m not kidding,” Sherwood said, turning away from his wife’s gaze. “I know it’s been a while, but I need to take a look at that file.”

C harlie’s ranting earlier didn’t help me with anything. I still had to find out whatever I could about how he and Zorn once fit together. When I got back to the motel, the front desk said there was a package waiting for me.

It was Greenway’s book on Houvnanian. I had ordered it two nights ago online. It was fittingly titled End of Days.

I took it out back to the bench along the promenade. It was a clear, bright day; the surf was high. Waves crashed onto the rocks below. Pelicans danced out of the spray, searching the surf for a meal.

I opened the book. The first chapter began with a retelling of that horrible night, September 7, 1973. “ The first sign that absolute hell had arrived at Paul Riorden’s doorstep was the site of three rattily clad visitors at his door…”

I dove into the next few pages-Houvnanian and his cohorts barging in, taking out knives and guns, tying up the four people at the dinner party, along with a servant in the kitchen; the victims’ outrage and anger shifting to premonitions of doom and fear as, one by one, they watched, whimpering, begging, as their friends were barbarously murdered, fighting against their own impending end.

I got the chills.

I flipped to the index and, on a lark, searched for my brother’s name. It didn’t surprise me nothing was there. He hadn’t been there then. I flipped to Walter Zorn, and fittingly, his name appeared on several pages. One by one I turned back to them.

“Walter Zorn had been a decorated Santa Barbara patrolman who, at the age of thirty-one, earned his coveted detective’s shield. ” He started out in Robbery. Violent crime in tony Santa Barbara was rare, homicide rarer still. It mentioned how Zorn had been hit by a car while chasing after a burglary suspect as a young cop, sustaining a broken femur that never properly healed, causing him to walk with a slight limp for the rest of his life.

I wondered if Charlie had ever read this.

There were dozens of photos. Long-haired hippie types, in the dress of the times, taken on the ranch. Gardening, climbing rocks, playing music, together. Head shots of the nine victims. The grounds where the crimes were committed. Lots of photos of Houvnanian and all the perpetrators. The grisly crime scenes. I found one of Walter Zorn and Joe Cooley, his lieutenant, outside the Santa Barbara courthouse. A younger version of Zorn, his facial mark clearly visible.