Murder Alfresco #3 (5 page)

It was more than an hour before a uniformed cop waved her in and showed her to Steve Harvey’s office. Steve was making some notes at a gray metal desk. Sunny took a seat on the folding chair in front of him and waited, feeling like a job applicant at an interview.

“Sonya,” he said after several minutes. “Thanks for coming down.”

Sunny noted the formality. She couldn’t remember the last time Steve called her by her real name. “No problem.”

There was a knock at the door and Officer Jute, the one who’d driven her home from Vedana, came in. Steve introduced him, saying he was helping out with the case.

“We met this morning.”

“I didn’t realize you’re the one who owns Wildside,” said Jute. “I ate there about a year ago. Nice place.”

Sunny thanked him and waited. The room was very quiet. She could hear kids playing in the distance.

“You want something to drink?” said Steve, ticking his finger against the can of Diet Coke on his desk. “Soda, coffee, water?”

Sunny declined.

“We’ll get started then.” He punched a button on the tape recorder on his desk and cleared his throat. “Second interview with Sonya McCoskey regarding Vedana Vineyards homicide.” He recited the basics of the case, staring through the office window at the hallway as he did so.

Sunny studied his profile. He had grown a scrappy blond mustache that wrapped around the corners of his mouth Village People-style, something which had escaped her notice last night. As always, his short hair was combed vertically and frozen in place with hair gel. With his rigid posture and muscular physique, he might have looked intimidating, if it weren’t for the baby face complete with bewildered brown eyes that no amount of official police business seemed to harden. He finished his summary of the facts and turned to Sunny.

“Let’s take it from the top. Tell us everything you can remember about last night, starting with when you left the Dusty Vine
with Andre Morales. Walk us through it like we’re hearing it for the first time.”

Sunny went over everything that had happened. Steve and the other officer listened, nodding occasionally. When she got to the part where she heard the truck by Vedana Vineyards, Steve held up his hand.

“Hold right there. Go back a little,” he said. “How long had you been walking by then?”

“It’s hard to say exactly. Twenty minutes, maybe more?”

“And you left the party at what time?”

“Around two-twenty. I looked at the clock.”

“So it’s around two-forty, maybe two-forty-five at this point.”

“That’s probably about right.”

“Had you seen or heard any other cars since you left the party?”

“Nothing.”

She went on. They listened for a moment, then stopped her again with questions, going over every angle of the truck she’d seen. Could she tell what make it was? Was it new or old? Was there a tool box, rack, or anything else in the back? Did it have a company logo? All she could be sure of was that it was white, didn’t have a shell, and had some kind of logo on the door.

“That’s all I took in,” said Sunny. “I couldn’t say for sure what make or year it was. It wasn’t a Toyota, I know that. It had an American body. You know, boxier and wider looking.”

“What about the logo?” said Officer Jute. “You didn’t mention that before.”

“I remembered because I was wondering what gave me the impression it was a work truck. I think it was something circular, and printed in a dark color. I just caught an impression as it went by.”

“You say you nearly waved the truck down,” said Steve. “Why?”

“For a second, I thought I would try to let them know their lights weren’t on. You know, like when you flash your lights at somebody. Then I changed my mind.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t want them to see me. I was out there in the middle of the night with no one around. It didn’t seem safe. I didn’t want to invite the interaction. Also, I think I decided that maybe their lights were off on purpose. I’ve done that before on a country road. Turned off the lights and driven in the dark for a little while, just for fun.”

Steve and Jute exchanged a look, whether disapproving or conspiratorial, Sunny couldn’t say which.

“You didn’t want the driver to see you,” said Steve, “but they did see you, correct?”

“I’m not sure,” said Sunny, rubbing the knot on her head from when she had passed out that morning. “It seems likely. The driver turned his lights on right as he passed me. That’s why I didn’t get much more than an impression of the truck. I was blinded for a second.”

“And then?”

“It accelerated away down Madrona, headed east toward twenty-nine. I watched the taillights for a while. That’s when I noticed they were mismatched. One was darker red than the other.”

“Which one?” asked Steve.

Sunny thought for a moment. “The way I remember it, the one on the left was cherry red, the one on the right a more orangey-red.”

“What about a license plate?”

“I didn’t notice it. All I noticed was the taillights.”

Steve gestured for her to go on.

“I started wondering what they were doing out there at that time of night,” said Sunny, “and I looked back toward the winery. That’s when I saw the girl.”

“You could see her from the main road?” asked Jute.

“I could see that there was something pale hanging from the tree. Technically, I couldn’t see that it was a person, but the silhouette was instantly recognizable. I knew right away that’s what it had to be. I was hoping I was wrong, of course. I thought maybe it could be a swing or a piñata or a punching bag. Anything.”

It was after six when Steve finally turned the tape recorder off, satisfied, for the moment, with the information they’d gathered.

“Sun, I may want to get you back in here and go over this stuff again once we’ve had a chance to do a little more research,” he said. “I also think it might be a good idea to go out there together, maybe retrace your steps. I’ll give you a jingle about that later if we decide it’s necessary.” Steve looked at the other officer. “Anything else?”

“Just one more.” Jute turned to Sunny. “I’m having trouble understanding why you walked home in the middle of the night from the party. Did you have a fight with your boyfriend?”

“No.”

“But he wouldn’t drive you home.”

“I didn’t ask him to.”

“Why not?”

“He was enjoying himself with his friends, and he was the host. I didn’t want to bother him.”

“And why didn’t you ask one of the other people at the party? It’s a short drive. It wouldn’t have been much of an inconvenience.”

“I can’t explain. I just wanted to be away. It was nice to be outside, where it was quiet. I didn’t plan to walk home. It was an impulse when my phone was dead and I couldn’t call a cab.”

“Wasn’t it cold outside?”

“It was cold enough to need a jacket.”

“But you didn’t have a jacket.”

“No.”

He wrote something on his notepad and looked at Steve. “That’s it for me.”

Steve looked at his watch. “I’m meeting with a couple of reporters right after this, so you’ll be at liberty to discuss the case with whoever you want starting tomorrow. However,” he paused to exaggerate his eye contact with Sunny, “you will continue to have much more information about this crime than the general public. I would prefer that you keep it that way. We don’t want to start up the rumor mill on this one.”

“I understand,” said Sunny. “Have you found out anything about who she was?”

“We’re starting to piece things together. There’s nothing definite yet. Once we have a positive ID and the family has been notified, we’ll release what information we have to the media at that time.”

They’ve ID’d her already, thought Sunny, he just doesn’t want to say so. “What about leads? Anything?”

“We’re still gathering evidence.” Steve stood up. “Trust me, we’re going to do everything in our power to find those responsible.”

Officer Jute excused himself, shaking hands with Sunny and raising his chin to Steve on his way out. “I’ll check in later,” he said at the door.

“Thanks,” said Steve.

Sunny sat back down, hoping Steve would do the same. “Do you know yet how she died?”

Steve stayed standing. “Probably strangled, though there was evidence of some head trauma as well. The coroner is working on it now. We’ll know a lot more once the report comes back.”

“And what about the people who own the winery?”

“What about them?”

“Did they have any idea why the girl might have been left there? Did they know her?”

“I’ve spoken with them, and I’ll be speaking with them again, I’m sure. Once again, I will point out that, as a material witness, you possess far more information about this crime than those who were not at the scene, including the winery owners. I urge you not to share that information with anyone, just as I will not be sharing information unnecessarily with you, the owners of the winery, or anyone else. We’re playing poker, McCoskey, and the stakes are high. Somebody out there knows everything about this crime, but they’re holding their cards close. If we go around showing everything we have, it makes it that much harder to bluff.”

“So, for example, you won’t tell the owners of the winery—”

“Anything more than is absolutely necessary. Exactly.”

“And you won’t tell anyone I found the body.”

“I see no advantage to advertising your involvement. However, with the perpetrator at large, there is certainly a potential disadvantage to doing so.”

“You mean he could see me as a threat.”

“You would only pose a threat if you had proprietary information, such as the ability to identify a suspect. In your case, you may have seen the perpetrator’s vehicle, but that information has already been passed on. Harming you at this point would serve no purpose.”

“But if that was the killer leaving Vedana, and if he did see me when he clicked on his lights, he might wonder if I saw him.”

“It’s possible, but that’s a lot of ifs.” Steve rapped his knuckles on the edge of the desk decisively. “I think our guy has more to worry about than a witness whose testimony would be of extremely negligible value. A good defense lawyer could discredit that kind of ID—a glimpse of a speeding car at night with headlights blinding you—in about ten seconds. No, if I were him, I’d be either watching or running. Let’s just try to keep a low profile and not invite problems.”

“Right.” Sunny imagined the murderer somewhere, remembering her face in a flash of headlights. He wouldn’t know who she was, or where to find her. The link between them was safely severed. “Who are these Vedanas anyway?” she asked. “Why don’t they have a gate on their driveway or any security? I smashed the front window of their winery without so much as a dog barking.”

“Vedana isn’t their name, it’s a Pali term meaning sensation.”

“I thought it was Spanish for window.”

“That’s
ventana,”
said Steve. “As I understand it,
vedana
is related to the Buddhist concept of
samsara.
Sensation is one of the things that makes us want to be alive, thus triggering desire and attachment, which keeps the wheel of consequence and suffering turning. That’s
samsara.
Speaking of windows, the owners were nice about the window you broke, by the way. Their insurance is covering it.”

“That’s big of them, since I had to sit with the dead body and wait for the police, not them. Since when are you an expert in Pali terminology, by the way?”

Steve looked away, trying to hide a smile. He coughed. “I’m not, but Sarah Winfield is.”

“Pretzel-girl Sarah? I thought I saw you hanging around the yoga studio more than usual.”

“Just pursuing my practice,” said Steve. “

“I’ll bet.”

Steve grinned for a second before he caught himself and assumed a more serious expression. He looked at his watch. “I need to wrap this up. I’ve got reporters waiting.”

“Okay, but just tell me what the next step is.”

He made a matter-of-fact face. “Well, the next step is I do my job and hopefully find the perpetrator or perpetrators. You go home, get some rest, and try to forget any of this happened.”

“Unless I remember something important.”

“Bingo.”

Coming home never felt so good
. Long shadows darkened the street when she hoisted her bike out of the back of the truck and walked it down the overgrown path to the front door. She locked it up next to the ginkgo tree by the fence and went inside, shedding clothes on the way to the shower. Passing the phone, she stopped to turn off the ringer.

The alarm went off at five the next morning, waking her from a dream that was quickly becoming a nightmare. She was having dinner at a restaurant with white tablecloths. For her main dish, the waiter brought a whole, grilled fish. Fork and knife raised, she was just about to cut into it, when the fish looked up at her with one searching, terrified eye.

She lumbered out of bed, thoroughly possessed by the shock of the dream. In the bathroom, she stood under a hot shower, washing away the weight of the heavy sleep. She ran through the dream again and again, as if the impact of the experience was not enough and her mind needed to reinforce it by repetition, or perhaps the opposite, that the impact was too much and could only be worn away by familiarity, facing it again and again until she could get used to that eye upon her and the knife in her hand.