Chapter 8
Humans were never meant to accomplish meaningful work on just four hours of sleep. McCall washes two aspirin down with coffee, her third cup so far, and takes a bite of a donut, also her third. She had been exhausted when she finally made her way home last night, or rather this morning, but a shower was most definitely required before she could slide into her gloriously comfortable sheets.
Their current case, the homicide staged to look like a suicide, is a twenty-seven year old woman named Michelle Clark. The background information on Michelle and her ex-husband Ronald that McCall had requested reads like a classic case of domestic violence — numerous police visits to their home while they were married, trips to the emergency room and eventually a restraining order. Ronald also has a few assault arrests on his record. Coupled with the custody battle over their young son six months ago, there is reasonable support to consider Ronald a suspect.
"Got an update for me?" Charlie asks as he approaches McCall's desk.
"Hey, Captain," McCall says as she organizes her notes. "It is really looking like the vic's ex-husband is our man. I'm heading out in a few minutes to go have a talk with him."
"You're not going without backup, are you?" It is hard to miss the worry in his voice.
"Well…my backup is a little under the weather today. I'm just going to question him. I'll be careful."
"I'll go with you."
"Captain—"
"I'm going with you," Charlie says with authority. He leans forward, closing the distance between with them, and lowers his voice. "Listen, I, uh, talked to Hunter this morning. He didn't sound too good."
"No, he didn't sound good when I spoke to him either. He had a rough a night."
Charlie lets out a sigh and looks down at the floor, his face strained from worry. "Whatever I can do to help, whatever you two need, just let me know. We'll all do what we can around here. We're a family."
"Thank you, Captain," McCall replies. "Ready to pay Mr. Clark a visit?"
XXXXX
Ronald Clark lives in a hi-rise condominium building — not an expensive address, but it probably makes a nice bachelor pad. McCall and Charlie get off the elevator on the seventh floor and find their way to Ronald's door.
"Not a bad place to land after losing half your net worth and paying out child support," McCall says under her breath.
"From the report, I had the impression that there is not a lot of money between the Clarks," Charlie responds, looking around the neat hallway with freshly painted light gray walls.
McCall stops at the fourth door on the left, presumably Ronald's, and looks at Charlie. "There isn't," she says as she knocks on the door.
Ronald Clark looks like a grieving husband when he opens the door — unshaven, bloodshot eyes, wrinkled clothes, the smell of alcohol on his breath.
"Mr. Clark, Captain Devane and I are investigating your ex-wife's death. Can we come inside and ask you a few questions?" McCall asks their one and only suspect.
"I don't understand. I thought she killed herself. They, they told me, that, that she committed suicide?" Ronald stammers with his forehead wrinkled in confusion.
"Michelle did not take her own life. That is why we would like to talk to you. May we come in?"
Ronald looks back, into his apartment, visibly concerned about the prospect. After a moment he nods and opens the door wide to allow them to enter. The moment McCall takes a step into the small entry she understands the man's reservations. Clothes are scattered across the floor and the white leather sofa in the living room, and the coffee table is littered with fast food bags and takeout containers. The air is thick and stale, and stinks of a concoction of soy sauce, grease and whiskey.
"Where's my son? I want to know what's happening with my son."
"I'm sorry, we don't know anything about that, but I'm sure he's being cared for." McCall speaks calmly, trying to reassure him.
"Nobody will tell me anything! I just want to know who has him!"
"When we leave here I will make some calls, Mr. Clark," Charlie says. "Now, can we talk about your ex-wife?"
"Why would someone want to hurt Michelle?" Ronald asks, scratching the side of his head, leaving his oily black hair sticking out in disarray.
"We thought maybe you could answer that. You and Michelle divorced in January. It wasn't amicable, was it?" McCall asks, being a little more daring with Charlie there than she would have been alone.
"You think I could have killed Michelle?!"
"I am just asking about your divorce," McCall replies with a calm, even voice.
"I would never hurt her! I loved her!"
"Well, now see, Ronald, we find that hard to believe. LAPD responded to four domestic dispute calls to your home while you and Michelle were married," Charlie retorted.
"That was years ago. I've changed. I worked hard, and I, and I changed. I loved her."
"And then Michelle filed for a restraining order and a divorce."
"That had nothing to do with…with…all that. After Adam was born…things…just got hard," Ronald sighs and shifts his weight back and forth, uncomfortable with the conversation. "Adam was an awful baby. He cried all the time. Um, what is that? When they cry all the time?"
"Colic?" McCall offers.
"Yeah, that's it, colic. And he spit up all the time. We could only feed him a little bit, but then he needed to be fed all the time. He just cried, and cried, and cried, and when he finally fell asleep we had to wake him up to feed him. I couldn't take it. And it was just all the damn time, you know? So I would just leave. I couldn't take it. I had quit drinking and everything, you know? I was doing really good, but then Adam made me lose my temper. I had to leave so that I wouldn't hurt him. And then she got mad at me for it!"
"Is that why Michelle sued for full custody?" McCall asks, attempting a sympathetic tone.
"She said she was scared I would hurt Adam! She used all that stuff from our past making me look like a monster!"
"It must be pretty hard, not getting to see your son, not getting to see him grow up."
"Yeah. But I didn't kill her!"
"Ronald, where were you Tuesday night?" Charlie asks.
"I was here, at home, watching TV."
McCall looks Ronald over, trying to decide if she has more questions for him. "Thank you for your time, Ronald. We will be in touch."
She and Charlie turn to let themselves out when she notices a framed photo of Ronald with a woman who is not Michelle. He has his arm around the woman's shoulders and she is kissing him on the cheek. McCall turns back toward Ronald and points at the picture. "Nice picture. Your sister?"
"That's my girlfriend."
"Girlfriend?" Charlie nearly spits out the word.
"Yeah, Kristin. This is her place. She let me move in when Michelle kicked me out. I'm still paying my idiot lawyer from the divorce. You know I have to pay child support, too? They won't let me see him, but I goddamn have to pay for him."
"Where is Kristin now?" McCall asks.
"She's at the bar — the Regal Beagle on Venice Beach. She and her brother own the place."
Charlie and McCall exchange looks before continuing their way out the door. Once they are down the hallway and out of earshot McCall says, "Piece of work, huh?"
Charlie lets out a deep breath, his face still red.
"But I don't think he did it."
"No?"
McCall shakes her head. "He's too selfish, too impulsive, to have planned out a murder and a cover-up."
"I think he's guilty as hell. Concentrate on him — don't waste too much time spinning your wheels looking for another suspect."
"Yes, sir," McCall says, but they both know she has others plans. They walk quietly through the parking garage; McCall's mind is busy trying to figure out her next step before Charlie asks. She reaches for the door handle of her car, but stops and looks over at Charlie. "Want to take a drive out to Venice Beach?"
Charlie looks back at her, then checks his watch, then puts both hands on top of the passenger side of the car. He's looking at her, clearly warring with himself inside his head. Finally he answers, "Let's go get ourselves a drink at the Regal Beagle."
XXXXX
The Regal Beagle turns out to be a run-down, hole-in-the-wall surfer bar situated about a half a block from the beach. McCall and Charlie walk in, looking around their surroundings. The place is hazy with the mid-day sun shining through the windows and illuminating the smoke and dust hanging in the air. Brightly colored surfboards hang from the ceiling and the smell of fried fish wafts from the kitchen. McCall slowly makes her way toward a man behind the bar stocking beer in the coolers.
"Excuse me, I'm looking for Kristen," McCall calls out to the man.
"And you are…?" he asks as he turns around to face McCall, a gold hoop punctuating the arch of his eyebrow.
McCall pulls out her badge and holds it up. "Me."
He takes off running, bottles of beer crashing into each other as he drops them into the cooler. McCall and Charlie chase after him, through the kitchen and out a back door. The alley behind the bar is narrow and crowded with dumpsters and parked cars. Charlie notices movement in the distance and takes off running toward it. McCall, just behind him, catches up just in time to see Charlie snag the man as he's trying to jump a chain-link fence. He throws him to the ground and roughly cuffs the man's hands behind his back as he fights him.
"Get off me, man!" he screams, spitting and squirming. "What you want from me?! What you want?!"
"Shut up!" Charlie screams in reply. His face as red as a firetruck and his chest heaving, he leans over with his hands on his knees trying to catch his breath.
"Well done, Captain," McCall says with surprise on her face.
"Read…him…his…rights," Charlie says between gulps of air.
McCall reads the man the Miranda warning, and then radios for a black and white to take him to the station. While Charlie waits with their runner, McCall finally finds Kristen in the bar. Besides being rough around the edges and showing off a little too much cleavage, Kristen is polite and cooperative and clearly concerned about her brother's arrest. She is no help in verifying Ronald's alibi for the night of the murder, but she insists that Ronald could not have killed his ex-wife.
In interrogation they discover that the man they arrested is Eddie Musgrave, confirming that he is Kristen's brother, but nothing else. He refuses to answer questions, including providing an alibi.
XXXXX
It's Friday evening and Hunter has barely left his bed since McCall left his home in the wee hours yesterday morning. He hasn't felt sick, per se, but his bed was warm and his body was weak and sleep felt oh so good. He's just thinking about food, and that he probably needs some, when he hears knocking on front door door. Go away he wants to scream, but he pulls the comforter over his head instead and hopes whoever it is does so without being told.
"Hello? Rick? You there?" It's her. Why did I give her a key again?
"Yeah," he tries to yell in response, but the word barely comes out as a whisper. Hunter clears his throat and tries again. "Yeah, McCall. I'll be right down."
He raises himself to a seated position on the edge of the bed, testing his head, before standing all the way up. His head aches, and his legs are weak, but otherwise he's feeling okay. When his stomach starts moaning with hunger, he's almost thankful McCall is here. He finds a pair of jeans and a clean t-shirt from his closet and heads downstairs, holding the handrail tight as his head sways from the low blood sugar.
"Funny, I don't remember inviting you over," He calls as he reaches the bottom of the stairs.
"Yesterday you said you wanted to be left alone. So I did. But today…your phone was off the hook…and when your sister called me…well, now, really you should be thanking me, you know. I saved you from the whole Hunter clan showing up here." She peers around the corner and looks him over. "Besides, I have a sneaky suspicion you haven't eaten anything."
"Why couldn't I have had a brother? And a male partner?"
"Now, now, a male partner wouldn't have brought you homemade chicken noodle soup. Pretty good homemade chicken noodle soup, I might add. And he wouldn't have cleaned up the vomit at the foot of the stairs just now, either." Hunter cringes, having forgotten about what happened when he didn't make it to the bathroom soon enough right after McCall left the other night.
"You didn't have to—"
"Go sit, I'll bring the soup to you," McCall says tenderly and heads toward the kitchen where she had left the provisions on the counter. Hunter follows her into the kitchen instead of following her orders.
"It actually feels good to be upright," he says when she looks back at him questioningly.
She busies herself with putting away some groceries she had picked up for him — crackers, cereal, fruit, a few frozen dinners. She knows he hates them, but he needs a few meals that are quick when he isn't feeling up to cooking.
Hunter sits at the dining table, rubbing his face with his hands. "How's our non-suicide suicide case going?"
"Frustrating. The ex-husband is the obvious suspect, and he has a lousy alibi, but we have absolutely no evidence," she says as she brings two bowls of soup to the table and sits down. "I'm not convinced he did it, though. He has a girlfriend. Her brother rabbited when we showed up to question her. Charlie chased after him and brought him down."
"Charlie? Good for him!"
"No, not good for him! I thought he was going to have a heart attack on me!" McCall laughs. "I nearly had to give him mouth-to-mouth!"
"Now, I would have been truly sad to miss that."
"Anyway, the brother has some small-time felonies on his record, but no warrants, no reason to run. So that's an interesting wrinkle. I tell you, I'm ready for you to come back and take a look. Maybe you can see something I'm missing."
Hunter shakes his head in agreement.
"You said your chemo treatments are every other Wednesday. For how long?" she asks.
"Ten treatments."
"That's…uh…five months. Going into March."
"Yeah."
"We could talk to the captain about changing our shift, you know. Working the weekend and having off Thursdays and Fridays, or something." Hunter shakes his head no. "Just a thought, you know."
"You don't want to be working weekends while planning a wedding."
McCall shrugs. "Might make it easier, being available during the week."
"Mitch would really hate me then."
"It would only be for five months, right? Mitch would get over it." Looking down into her soup, she continues quietly, "If I have a choice between working weekends and working without you, I chose weekends."
Hunter shifts in his chair, uncomfortable with her truthfulness. He clears his throat. "It's worth considering, I guess." After a few seconds of uncomfortable silence, he changes the subject. "How is the wedding planning going? Got the dress and the flowers all picked out?"
"Uh, no. Let's see…well…I bought some magazines last week. I think I've thumbed through one of them?"
"That well, huh?"
"Yeah," McCall chuckles, "that well."
"You should elope. That's what I'd do."
"Just get it over and done with, huh?" McCall asks, raising an eyebrow.
"Men don't care about the pomp and circumstance, I mean, that's all for the women. We just want to get married and move on to the honeymoon," Hunter says, giving McCall a conspiratorial grin.
"That is the way you would think about it," she giggles.
"I'm not alone, McCall, I guarantee you Mitch thinks the same way."
"I think you're wrong, Hunter."
"I'm not."
XXXXX
McCall wasn't sure what she would find when she checked in on Hunter this evening, so she had not made any other plans for the night. But now, she is yearning to see Mitch. Finding out that Hunter's chemo is going to continue for five months had been a shock. She had assumed it would resemble her Dad's first round of treatment, which had been just a few weeks.
Mitch is surprised to see McCall when he opens the door. "Well, hello beautiful," he says with a smile and holds the door open for her. "Didn't expect to see you tonight."
"I left Hunter's earlier than expected, and I just couldn't bear the thought of going home alone," she purrs, and stretches up to kiss him.
Mitch's house is a small 1940s bungalow with floor-to-ceiling bookcases covering almost every wall. McCall finds his home quaint and cozy, once you get past the claustrophobia and the musty antique smell of old books. She realizes that she hasn't even begun to think about how they are going to combine households.
"Lucky me," Mitch says as he follows her into the living room. He watches her as she sits at the end the sofa, her back against the arm of it and her feet curled underneath her. He joins her, his elbow resting on the back as he situates himself to face her. "How's he doing?"
"Hmm, okay I guess. He was in good spirits." She searches his face for a while, sitting completely still and quiet. "Do want to elope?"
"Elope?" Mitch is clearly surprised by the thought.
"Yeah. We could go to Mexico next month, Cancun maybe, or maybe drive to Ensenada. Baja is pretty — it could be romantic to go away, just the two of us."
"That…that sounds great, but where is this coming from? I thought you wanted the church wedding with all the hoopla."
"Maybe it's not necessary, in the grand scheme of things. The important part is being married, right?"
"I would love to elope, but our mothers would kill us and you would regret it. You want to tell me what's going on here?"
"I'm nervous that I can't get a wedding planned by March," McCall confesses and bites her lower lip. "Rick's chemo is going—"
"Oh, of course. It's Rick! It's always about Rick!" Mitch retorts.
"What the hell does that mean?"
"This wedding is about us, right? You and me? So tell me exactly how Rick factors into this."
"I'm trying! Look, if this week is any indication of how things are going to go the next five months, then I am going to be so tied up with work there is no way I will be able to focus on planning a wedding."
"So why can't you get another partner?"
"Another partner? Are you serious?"
"Why do you have to do two jobs because he can't do his?"
"Because that's how this works!" McCall exclaims.
"It doesn't have to!" Mitch exclaims back, jumping up from the sofa and walking across the room.
"If eloping is out of the question, can we at least postpone it a couple months?"
"Sure, yeah, whatever," he says with his back still to her.
"Look, Mitch, I'm trying to work this out. I'm trying to work this out with you," she says with a weary voice, her fingers massaging her temples. "How about July?"
"July," he says, continuing to face the bookcase on the other side of the small living room. Turning around to face her finally, he adds, "yeah, July sounds good."
"Good," McCall smiles and reaches her hand out for him, "July will be perfect."
...to be continued...