The Fallen

‘Fifty bucks he shot himself,’ said McKenzie.

Odd words for her to use, because the lavender ovals that spilled out of her mouth and hovered in the air between us meant she was feeling genuine sympathy for Garrett Asplundh. I nodded as the ovals bobbed like corks on a slow river, then dissolved. McKenzie likes to talk tougher than she feels. After three years I don’t pay a whole lot of attention to the colors and shapes of other people’s feelings, unless they don’t match up with their words.

‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘He used to be Professional Standards. One of the real straight arrows.’

‘Straight arrows can’t bend,’ said McKenzie.

We walked around to the other side of the vehicle. I pulled on some gloves, then swung open the right rear door. In spite of the cool early hour, the flies had already found the blood. I squared the aluminum case on the seat in front of me, pushed the thumb buttons, and watched the latches jump. One yellow legal pad with neat handwriting on the top page. Two pens, two pencils, and a tiny calculator. An address book. A datebook. A small tape recorder, a digital camera, and a .45 automatic Colt pistol in a heavily oiled leather holster. With a pencil I poked and pried around the items, looking for something hidden or loose or out of place. But all of it was splendidly organized into cutouts in the foam that lined both the bottom and the lid.

Cops and their guns, I thought. Pretty much inseparable, right up to the end.

‘Look how organized he was,’ said McKenzie. ‘Must have cut the foam himself to get it all neat like that.’

I put the automatic garage door opener in the briefcase, closed it up, and locked it in the trunk of my car.

A tall, slender man in a long black coat came skidding down the hillside, well away from the crime-scene tape, feet turned sideways and leaning back for balance. It took me a second to recognize him. It was Ethics Authority director Erik Kaven, a man feared in the same way that his investigator Garrett Asplundh had been feared.

‘He got the news pretty fast,’ said McKenzie.

Kaven sized up the scene and came toward us. His handshake was strong.

‘Garrett?’ he asked.

I nodded.

‘Robbery?’

‘Suicide looks more like it,’ said McKenzie.

‘It wasn’t suicide,’ said Kaven. He looked at McKenzie, then me. Kaven was tall and big-jawed, and his face was deeply lined. His gray-brown hair was thick, straight, and undisciplined. He wore a gunslinger’s mustache that somehow looked right on him. I guessed him at fifty. He’d been a district federal judge here in San Diego before signing on to lead the new Ethics Authority two years ago. Kaven had made big news when he shot two bank robbers out in El Cajon one Friday afternoon. Two shots, two dead men. He carried a gun on the bench, and he’d just gotten off work. He’d been depositing his paycheck when the robbers’ guns came out. His eyes were deep-set and pointedly suspicious.

‘It wasn’t suicide,’ he said again. ‘I’ll guarantee it.’

2

Garrett Asplundh’s apartment was up in the North Park part of San Diego. Nice area, decent neighborhoods, and not far from the ocean. From the upstairs deck of Garrett’s place I could see Balboa Park. The late-morning breeze was cool and sharp.

It was a two-bedroom place. Small kitchen with a view of the neighborhood and the power lines. Not much in the fridge but plenty of scotch in the liquor cabinet. The living room had a hardwood floor, a gas-burning fireplace, a black futon sofa with a chrome gooseneck reading lamp, and bookshelves covering three walls. I stood there with my hands in my pockets, like a museum visitor. I like quiet when I’m trying to get the sound of a victim’s life. There was a lot to hear about Garrett Asplundh. He had been executed, for one thing. Either by himself or someone else.

The books ranged widely, from The World Atlas of Nations to Trout from Small Streams by Dave Hughes, and they were arranged in no order I could see. Lots of photography collections. Lots of true crime. No paperbacks. No novels. An entire shelf of books on aquatic insects. Another shelf just for meteorology. Another for Abraham Lincoln.

There was a small collection of CDs and DVDs, some commercially manufactured and some homemade. One of the DVDs was entitled ‘The Life and Death of Samantha Asplundh.’ It wasn’t in a plastic box, but rather a leather sheath with the title tooled onto the front. Some good work had gone into creating that container. I wondered if Samantha was the daughter who died.

The first bedroom had a computer workstation set up at a window. There was a padded workout bench, weights in a rack, and a stationary cycle. Facing another window was a small desk for tying flies. The walls were covered with black-and-white photographs of a woman and a little girl. I mean completely covered, every inch, the edges of the pictures – mostly eight-and-a-half-by-elevens – perfectly, spacelessly aligned. The pictures seemed artful to me, but I know nothing about art. The woman had lightness and depth and beauty. The girl was innocent and joyful. I could sense the emotion of the photographer. If he had been able to talk honestly to me about those two subjects, I’d have seen yellow rhomboids pouring out of him, because yellow rhomboids are the color and shape of love.

‘Must be the ex and kid,’ said McKenzie.

The other bedroom was similarly sparse. Just a tightly made full-size bed, a lamp to read by, a chest of drawers, and more black-and-white photographs of the woman and the girl. A few of them had Garrett Asplundh in them. He looked drowsy and dangerous. He was a lean but muscled man, and I remembered that he was reputed to be a superb boxer and martial artist.

‘He was obsessed with his wife,’ said McKenzie.

‘I don’t remember her name.’

‘Stella. The girl drowned in the pool while the mom was supposed to be watching. Or maybe Garrett was, I don’t remember. But Mom couldn’t handle it and left him. That’s what I heard.’

‘Yeah. That’s about what I heard, too.’

‘I wonder why all black-and-white. No color.’

‘Maybe it’s the way he saw things,’ I guessed.

‘Colorblind?’

‘No. All one way or the other.’

‘You mean no gray,’ said McKenzie.

‘None.’

She shrugged. ‘Chick had a pretty face.’

I wondered why there were no cameras here. No tripods, lights, lenses, cases, battery packs, motor drives, canisters of film. No evidence – except for the digital camera in his aluminum case – that Garrett Asplundh had taken a single picture since his daughter died.

I sat at the desk in front of the window and pulled out one of the leftside drawers. It was full of hanging files, all red, each labeled with vinyl tab and handwritten label. I flipped through the ‘Medical’ but didn’t find anything of interest. I checked the ‘Phone’ file because I always do. Nothing unusual. In ‘Utils’ I noted the gas and electric, as well as monthly checks made out to Kohler Property Managers for rent on the North Park apartment. Oddly, there were monthly checks made out to another management company – Uptown Property Management – for eight hundred dollars. Nothing written on the memo lines to indicate what the payment was for. Eight hundred dollars is a lot of money, month in and out. I’d seen Uptown Property Management signs around, mostly down in Barrio Logan and Shelltown and National City. Not really your uptown properties at all. I made a note to call them.

The ‘Sam’ file contained only two documents – birth and death certificates. She had died of drowning at the age of three years and two months. Her official history was a folder with two pieces of paper in it. I wondered at the tremendous loss of this little girl if you projected in all the years she had to live and everything she might have become.

Next I got out the ‘Explorer’ file and compared the Explorer’s plate numbers with the ones I’d written down. The same. The SUV had been purchased new from a local Ford dealer. Three years of financing provided by Ford Credit. I wondered how much money Garrett Asplundh was making as an investigator for the city Ethics Authority.

The drawer above had my answer: stubs from City of San Diego payroll checks issued weekly for $1,750 – give or take a few dollars and cents. That was before deductions for income tax, Social Security, and a Keogh account. Ninety-one grand a year wasn’t making Asplundh rich. I was making eighty-one, counting overtime, as a firs-year dead dick.

Behind the pay-stub folder were two folders marked ‘Entertain 1’ and ‘Entertain 2.’ I opened ‘Entertain 1’ and scanned through the receipts – high-line restaurants, the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, exotic car rentals. Lots of nights out. Some of it was charged to a credit card in Asplundh’s name. Some of it was paid in cash.

A right-side drawer was full of light blue hanging files, all related to fly-fishing: ‘Dream Trips.’ ‘Casting.’ ‘Strategy.’ ‘Misc.’ I fanned through the ‘Misc’ file and saw clips from some of the same goofily intense magazines I read. Technical stuff – graphite modulus and flex ranges. Esoteric stuff – ‘Delicate Presentations’ and ‘Mono Versus Fluoro.’ Favorite articles – ‘Harrop’s Top Baetis Patterns’ and ‘Nymphs for Pickerel.’

‘Look,’ said McKenzie. ‘Garrett liked to dress.’

She stood in the doorway with hangers in each hand. ‘Dude was wearing Armani and Hugo Boss. Dude’s got shoes in the closet that cost three hundred a pair. He had a suit on last night, when he got it.’

‘Investigating ethics,’ I said.

‘Yeah, you gotta look sharp to know right from wrong. Black from white. No grays. I wonder how much they were paying him?’

‘About what we pay a lieutenant.’

‘Must have had a kick-ass expense account.’ McKenzie eyed the suits, then whirled back into the short hallway.

The closets in the weight room/office contained golf clubs, fly-fishing gear, and more file cabinets.

Back in the kitchen we listened to the messages on the answering machine.

Someone named Josh Mead had called about Garrett’s rounding out a foursome at Pala Mesa in Fallbrook on Saturday, left his number.

A recorded voice tried to sell him lower-cost medical insurance.

A woman who identified herself as Stella said she had waited until eleven. She said she hoped he was okay, would try him later. Her voice sounded disappointed and worried.

‘Not very friendly, is she?’ asked McKenzie.

‘She sounds anxious.’

The secretary for John Van Flyke of the Ethics Authority called with some expense-account questions about last week’s pay period. Van Flyke was Garrett’s direct boss, the supervisor of the Ethics Authority Enforcement Unit. We cops thought Van Flyke was quirky and overly serious. When he was hired, the Union-Tribune had showered him with praise because he could help Erik Kaven get tough on San Diego corruption. Van Flyke had not allowed himself or any employee of the Enforcement Unit to be photographed for the articles. He reported directly to Kaven and was allowed to recruit his own staff. I had no idea where the Ethics Authority Enforcement Unit offices even were.

‘I was introduced to Van Flyke once,’ said McKenzie. ‘He stared at me like he was guessing my weight. Drummed his fingers on the table like he couldn’t wait for me to leave. So I left.’

‘Where?’

‘Chive Restaurant down in the Gaslamp. Another macho fed, just like Kaven.’

Stella called again, said she could meet him at ten o’clock tonight in the bar at Delicias in Rancho Santa Fe.

Garrett, said Stella, if you’ve been drinking, don’t even bother. I thought we might really have something to celebrate last night. I’d appreciate a call if you can’t make it this time. I’m trusting you’re okay.

‘She doesn’t seem real concerned about him,’ said McKenzie.

‘I think she sounds worried.’

While McKenzie played the messages again I found Stella’s phone number and address in Garrett’s book. She lived downtown. Legally, Stella wasn’t next of kin, but she was the one we needed to talk to. Death notifications are my least favorite part of Homicide detail but I couldn’t ask McKenzie to do it alone because of her bluntness.

Asplundh’s garage was like the apartment – neat and clean. It was big enough for one vehicle, two tall shelves of boxes, and a small workbench. Two pairs of eight-foot fluorescent bulbs cast a stiff light on everything. I sat on the metal stool at the workbench. It felt like a place where a guy would spend some time. On the bench was a shiny abalone shell with a pack of smokes in it, and a book of matches on top of that. In the cabinet over the bench were stacks of fishing magazines, boxes of flies and reels and tackle, a mostly full bottle of Johnnie Walker Black. In the drawers were the usual hand tools you’d expect to find and a five-shot .38 revolver, loaded and good to go.

I had the thought that if Garrett Asplundh were going to kill himself he’d have done it right here. But my opinion was that Garrett hadn’t done himself in. He must have parked down there near the bridge because he was meeting someone. Someone he knew. Someone he trusted. That someone had killed him. And if someone else had driven him away, that meant at least two people were involved. Which could mean conspiracy, premeditation, and a possible death penalty.

Ballsy guys, I thought.

Head-shoot a city investigator in his own car. Leave him in a public place and don’t bother to make it look like anything but murder.

Don’t bother to take the wallet, briefcase, or car.

Didn’t bother – I was willing to bet – putting the gun into Garrett’s trembling hand and firing it into the night so we’d find GSR and work the case as a suicide.

No, none of that. They were too confident for that. Too matter-of-fact. Too cool. They had put a cap in Garrett, then cleaned up and had a cocktail at Rainwater’s or the Waterfront.

I wondered when was the last time that Garrett Asplundh had sat where I was sitting. I looked across the workbench to the wall to see exactly what Garrett saw when he sat here – late at night, I guessed – as sleep escaped him and the endless loop of memories played through his mind over and over and over again.

I couldn’t tell you what Garrett had seen. Maybe it was a picture. Possibly a photograph. Maybe one that he had taken. Maybe a postcard. Or a poem or prayer or a joke. Or something cut from a magazine.

All that was left were four white thumbtacks, four by six inches apart.

‘No matter how long you stare, it’s still four thumbtacks,’ said McKenzie.

‘Makes me wonder what was there,’ I said. ‘A lot about Garrett makes me wonder. There isn’t enough.’

‘Enough what?’

‘Enough anything. There’s not enough of him.’

McKenzie gave me a puzzled look. Not the first time.

‘What I wonder is why a cop would want to work for the Ethics Authority in the first place,’ she said. ‘Why spy on the city you work for? Why sneak around? What, to feel important?’

‘It goes back to watching the watchdogs.’

‘Sooner or later you have to trust somebody,’ said McKenzie. ‘Otherwise there’s no end to all the layers of bullshit.’

‘Well said.’

I stood for a moment in the garage, facing the street. The March afternoon was rushing by and it was going to be a killer sunset. From a beach it would look like a can of orange paint poured onto a blue mirror. I thought of Gina and how much she wanted a place on the sand, and of the savings account I’d opened for that purpose. We were up to almost twenty thousand dollars in five years. Multiply by ten and we’d almost have enough for a down payment. At the current rate, I’d still be less than eighty years old. My Grandpa Rich is eighty-five and still going strong.

I turned and looked up at the neatly stacked boxes on the shelves. Everything Asplundh did was neat. I pulled down one box and set it on the workbench. It was surprisingly light. McKenzie cut the shipping tape with my penknife. Inside, individually wrapped in tissue paper, like gifts, were small blouses, shorts, dresses, coats, sweaters. A pair of tennis shoes with cartoon characters on them. A pair of shiny black dress shoes. Barrettes and combs for hair. Even a doll, a pudgy baby doll with a faded blue dress. None of it was new.

It all looked like it was made for a three-year-old, which was the age of Garrett’s daughter when she drowned. There was a black felt cowgirl hat stuffed with tissue to keep it shaped. Stitched into the crown in bright colors were buckin’ broncos and ponies and a saguaro cactus and a campfire. Samantha was embroidered across the front in pink.

‘Memorial in a box,’ said McKenzie.

‘When my Aunt Melissa died, Uncle Jerry couldn’t figure out what to keep and let go,’ I said. ‘He kept most of her stuff.’

‘Little doll,’ said McKenzie. ‘Man, tough call. You don’t want to see it every day, but you can’t just toss it out like it doesn’t matter. You can’t look at it, but you can’t let it go.’

3

Stella Asplundh slid open two dead bolts and one chain, cracked the door, looked from McKenzie to me, and said, ‘He’s dead.’

Four black triangles tumbled into the space between us. Black triangles are dread.

‘Yes, ma’am. Last night.’

‘Was he murdered?’

‘We don’t know yet,’ I said. ‘It’s likely.’

The black triangles derealized and vanished.

She was wearing a loose black sweater, jeans, and dark socks. She was a beautiful woman although she looked disheveled and unhealthy. The elevator clanked down behind us.

‘Come in.’

Her apartment was a Queen Anne Victorian down in the Gaslamp Quarter, once a red-light district and now a place for restaurants and clubs. She was on the fourth floor, above an art gallery and two other flats.

We sat in the unlit living room on a big purple couch with gold piping. The walls were paneled in black walnut and the windows faced north and west. I could see the darkening sky and the rooftop of another building across the street, which reminded me of falling from the sixth floor of the Las Palmas. The room smelled faintly of cinnamon and a woman’s perfume.

I explained to Stella Asplundh what we had found.

She watched me without moving. She said nothing. Her hair fell loosely around her face and her eyes were black and shiny.

‘So much,’ she said quietly.

‘So much what?’ asked McKenzie. She had gotten out her notebook and was already writing.

Stella looked down, brushed something off her knee. ‘He went through so much.

‘We have…we had an unusual relationship. It would be very difficult to explain. We were going to meet last night in Rancho Santa Fe – neutral ground. He didn’t show. That’s never happened before. In the twelve years I’ve known Garrett, he never stood me up. That’s why, when I answered the door just now…’

‘You knew something had happened,’ said McKenzie, head bowed to her notepad.

‘Yes, exactly. Excuse me for just a moment, please.’

She rose in the twilight and walked past me. A light went on in a hallway. I heard a door shut and water running. A toilet flushed. After a minute McKenzie set down her notebook and pen and went into the hallway. I heard the knock.

‘Ms. Asplundh? You okay?’

Stella answered, though I couldn’t hear what she said.

I stood and went to a small alcove hung with photographs and mementos. Mostly there were pictures of Stella, Garrett, and a cute little girl. A police commendation hung beside a day-care diploma for Samantha Asplundh. A master’s degree in psychology for Stella Asplundh hung next to a photograph of ten college-age women in bathing suits standing in front of a swimming pool. The engraved plate said SAN FRANCISCO MERAQUAS, PAN AMERICAN GAMES SYNCHRONIZED SWIMMING CHAMPIONS 1983.

The toilet flushed again, and the door opened. They were talking quietly. Then they came back to the half-lit room, McKenzie with a hand on Stella Asplundh’s arm.

Stella sat again and stared out the window. The streetlamps went on down on Island and a car horn honked and honked again. A pigeon flashed by.

‘We can come back,’ I said.

‘If we have to,’ said McKenzie.

‘No,’ said Stella Asplundh. ‘Ask your questions.’

‘It’s brave and good of you,’ I said.

Stella nodded but looked at neither of us.

‘Was he worried?’ I asked.

‘Always.’

‘Enemies?’

‘Hundreds. When he was a cop he policed other cops. For the Ethics Authority he policed the city government and the politicians and the businesspeople they have dealings with.’

‘A long list.’

‘Everybody, really.’

‘But who in particular?’

She looked at me, then back to the window. ‘He never really told me details.’

‘Some of the circumstances suggest suicide,’ said McKenzie. ‘Do you think he would have killed himself?’

‘No. He was more full of hope the last time I saw him than at any time since Samantha drowned. He came close to killing himself last July when it happened. But no. Not now.’

‘Why not?’ I asked.

Stella Asplundh’s eyes shone in the dark. I knew they were trained on me. ‘We were trying to reconcile. We had both been through so much. We fell apart. But we’d begun to come back together. I really can’t explain it, other than we once loved each other very much and we were trying to love each other again.’

‘What was the purpose of the neutral ground?’ I asked. ‘The Rancho Santa Fe date?’

‘Garrett could become emotional. If he was drinking it was worse, and he was often drinking.’

I said nothing and neither did McKenzie. Nothing like silence to draw out the words.

Stella looked down at the couch. Her hair fell forward. ‘We were separated. I moved out of our house four months ago, November of last year. Garrett got his own place, too, because we’d sold the house where it happened. You can’t live where there are memories like that. But I still would see Garrett, because I thought it was best for him. Unless we saw each other every week, or two weeks at the most, he’d become anxious and extremely irrational. We would sit in a restaurant or a coffee shop. Maybe just walk. He just needed…the company.’

‘Your company,’ said McKenzie. ‘Did you ever go to his apartment?’

‘No. Never.’

‘Did he come here?’

‘He never came inside. He would…I saw him down on the street several times. Looking up.’

‘He stalked you,’ said McKenzie.

‘That’s the wrong word,’ said Stella.

‘What’s the right word?’ asked McKenzie.

Stella Asplundh sat still in the dark room.

‘Were you afraid of him?’ asked McKenzie.

‘A little. And afraid for him, too.’

‘When was the divorce final?’ asked McKenzie.

‘It wasn’t. I had the papers drawn up but never had the…courage to serve them.’

After all that, I thought, she couldn’t quite let go of him. And he obviously couldn’t let go of her. As if I’d needed more evidence than his shrine of photographs.

‘What time were you supposed to meet in Rancho Santa Fe last night?’ asked McKenzie.

‘Nine.’

‘At Delicias restaurant?’

Stella nodded and took a deep breath. She radiated an intense aloneness.

‘When was the last time you saw Garrett?’ I asked.

‘Last Thursday evening. We met down at the coffee shop and talked for almost two hours. He was very hopeful. He said he had stopped drinking. He said he was still in love with me and ready to move on with our lives.’

Darkness had finally fallen. March afternoons race by, but the evenings seem to last for hours.

‘Do you know what Garrett would have said about his own murder?’ asked Stella Asplundh. ‘He would have said it wasn’t a murder, it was a piece of work.’

I agreed but said nothing.

‘Let’s not jump to conclusions, Ms. Asplundh,’ said McKenzie.

‘You don’t understand very much, do you?’ Stella asked gently. She bit her thumb and looked away. Tears poured down her face but she didn’t make a sound. I’d never seen anyone cry like that.