Andrew Gross - Eyes Wide Open

“Or maybe Mule Creek in Ione,” Sherwood said. That’s where two of Houvnanian’s other followers were presently incarcerated. “You don’t have to even say it out loud. Just give me a look and I’ll know.”

Hutchins put on wire-rim reading glasses and scanned down the sheet. He flipped the page-twice-his expression registering nothing. Finally he looked back up. Not even a twitch. A blank stare. “Anything else?”

“Maybe something from Susan Pollack herself?” Sherwood said. “It would have been in the past couple of months. She was released in May.”

Hutchins edged into a dubious smile. “You know how many rules I’m breaking here?” He glanced back down at the sheets. Turned a page. When he finally looked up, his expression hadn’t shifted.

Strike two.

“What about a phone call?” Sherwood said. “You keep records of those as well…”

Hutchins suddenly grew testy. “This isn’t a customer service operation, Don. You can’t just dial up an inmate here. There has to be prior approval and documentation.” He tossed the master sheets on his desk. “I’m sorry…”

Sherwood looked at me, emitting a sigh. Deflated.

I looked at the warden. “Do you mind if I have a try?”

A thought had hit me; I recalled something Susan Pollack had mentioned while we were speaking to her. It was a long shot, but once we stepped back on that copter, I knew any chance of implicating Houvnanian was pretty much dead.

He frowned at me, his patience clearly thinning. I wasn’t even a law enforcement officer, just someone who had lost a family member.

But maybe he saw the desperation on my face, that this was our last resort, because he picked up the sheets again. “ What? ”

I asked, “Is there anything in the file from someone named Maggie?”

That was the name Susan Pollack was known by on the Riorden Ranch. Maggie Mae.

“Maggie. ” The warden sighed, clearing his throat, his expression slightly irritated.

“Yes. Or maybe even just the initial ‘M.’ ” I nodded.

Sherwood smiled at me.

“M…? ” Hutchins repeated. He reclined back in his chair. He took the sheets in his lap and reluctantly scanned. He turned the first page- nothing. He pursed his lips. I was already prepared for the disappointment. He flipped the second.

That’s when I saw the warden’s expression change.

At first it just seemed to bore in, intensifying through the sheet like a laser. Then he looked back up at me, as if startled. His jaw parted a bit, but there was only the slightest nod, and the word that accompanied it was like the true sound of vindication for me.

“Mags.”

“T hat’s how it was done,” I said to Sherwood in the copter. “That letter was a message. About Zorn. Evan. How they got back at people. It was how she let him know it was all going to begin.”

On the surface, the letter Hutchins had found seemed to be perfectly benign. “These kooks are always trying to contact him,” he explained. As a celebrity killer, Houvnanian always attracted his share of loonies and admirers. On his view of life. On how he had been misjudged. Or on music.

Hutchins wouldn’t let us as much as touch the letter. Or even take a copy. That would require a judge’s decree. But he laid it on the table for us to have a look.

It was written in a straightforward block print on lined notebook paper:

“I watched you on TV,” it began, possibly referring to a Dateline interview a year ago. “I know you like Guns n’ Roses. Axl Rose was a kind of apostle for me too. I know the song you mentioned-‘Estranged.’ There’s a line from that song that I sing to myself when I think I’m going out of my head: I knew the storm was getting closer…

“The storm is here! ” the letter finished. “ It never has to die! ”

“The storm has never died,” it ended.

It was signed, “Yours always, Mags. ”

The postmark on the envelope was from Richmond, California, just across the bay from San Francisco. Only an hour and a half from Jenner.

I was sure “Mags” was Susan Pollack.

“ ‘The storm is here. It never has to die.’ Don’t you see, Sherwood? Zorn. Greenway. He’s using his people to get back at the people who brought him down.”

“And Evan?” Sherwood asked, buckling himself in.

“Evan is somehow directed at my brother.” I didn’t have the answer yet, but there was no more hiding it. “Maybe there were fingerprints on it. Maybe we can match the handwriting. We prove that letter was from Susan Pollack…”

“We prove the letter was from Susan and what?” The detective looked at me skeptically. “It’s just song lyrics. There’s nothing there. Besides, there’s not a judge in the country who would grant us a court order based on that note or what we have.

“Not to mention you’re forgetting one thing…” He kicked his briefcase under the seat. “If Greenway and Cooley were murdered, it all happened when Susan Pollack was behind bars. That surely wasn’t her.”

He was right there. I flashed to the person who had called me in the motel room. The voice was male.

“So what’s the next step?” I pushed him. The propellers started to whir. In a second we’d be heading back to Pismo. “Just let it go? The guy is orchestrating murder, Sherwood. He’s in jail, in chains, and he’s got the upper hand. You know as well as I do what’s going on here.”

“I can’t play this out forever, doc. I tried… The next step .” He sighed as the copter started to rise. “Other than getting the truth out of your brother…” He turned his head toward the window. “I don’t know.”

S usan Pollack kneeled in the coop, in her floppy hat and overalls, spreading grain into her feed bin.

“Come here, my pets… My little ones.”

They were like family to her. Her only family now. Her one attachment of love. Except you, Bo. She smiled at her collie, snoozing on the porch.

“Yes, my darlings, over here…” They knew the nurturing rise in her tone. “It’s feeding time for you, it’s time…”

One by one, the chickens started to come over.

Tomorrow she would show him. That she had been loyal and true.

True to him.

All these years.

You never let me come along, did you? She smiled, conjuring up his delicate, chiseled face. Because you knew, didn’t you, that one day you would need me, my love. You told me, one day I would have to make sacrifices.

To earn your love completely.

And when the time came, I would.

That was why.

You said I had to be ready.

The excited birds made their way into the pen. She threw a line of seed in front of Desdemona, her favorite, with her smooth white breast and feathers. The proudest and the most vain.

The bird followed her, flapping her wings and pecking at the grain.

“You are my favorite,” Susan said softly, putting the feed bag down.

She grabbed the blade.

Nothing can truly be bad if it’s done from love, isn’t that right, Russell?

She picked the bird up and ran the knife slowly across its neck, muffling the bird’s startled squawk, blood running down its soft white feathers and through her hands.

Just as she wished she could have done all those years back then.

When you left me behind.

You said I had to sacrifice. To be ready.

For you to need me.

And I am ready.

She threw the dead bird down and looked at the others.

I will show you now.

I stopped off at Charlie’s on my way back to the motel.

Gabby opened the door. They had just finished up dinner, and she was in the midst of doing the dishes.