Our workshop friends went back and forth between the dining-room deck and the baths. I sat in a painted Adirondack chair and waited for Kate. Periodically, I saw her walking around campus with Detective Laura Sanchez.
I was about to get a glass of wine when Gwyneth Jones approached me, wearing a low-cut, flower-strewn summer dress. She had dark circles under her eyes and furrows on her forehead. “Is Marshall Kate here?” Gwyneth asked.
“She’s out helping the Monterey Police. I’m waiting for her. If you want, you can wait with me.” She nodded. “I was about to get a glass of white wine. Would you like a glass?”
“That would be nice,” she said. “Thank you.”
Gwyneth sat down in my chair. I walked to the bar, bought two glasses of wine, walked back, pulled up another chair, and sat down next to Gwyneth.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Not really. I’m having problems with Jerry, and I witnessed something that I need to tell Marshal Kate about.” She sipped her wine and leaned closer. “I’m going to leave Jerry.” She sipped more. “I should have done this months ago. Now I realize that he’s a fake. And a flake.” For the first time she smiled. “I’ve been living with a flakey fake and wasting my life.” She gulped her wine.
I handed her my glass, which I hadn’t touched.
“Thanks.” She took a sip. “After we go back to LA, I’m going to pack my stuff and drive back to Winnetka. Then I’m going to reenroll at Northwestern and get my degree in interior design.” She sipped more wine, and her words began to slur. “I’m going to do what my mother keeps telling me to do: exercise common sense.”
“So, you are abandoning your plan to be an actress?”
Gwyneth laughed. “I was deluding myself. Jerry, and other Hollywood guys, aren’t interested in any of my talents beyond these.” She lifted up her breasts.
Kate walked up with Laura Sanchez. “What’s going on?” She asked, tilting her head to one side with a bemused expression.
“Gwyneth wants to talk to you. She’s leaving Jerry Kermit because he doesn’t appreciate her.”
Gwyneth nodded. “I need to tell you something important.’
“Why don’t I go back to the executive conference room?” Laura said. “When you guys finish talking to Gwyneth, come join me.” She walked off.
“Sit down in my chair, Kate,” I said. “I’ll get some more wine.”
I walked back to the bar and got three glasses of white wine. When I returned, I pulled up a redwood Adirondack and listened to the animated conversation. Gwyneth was telling Kate about Jerry’s inadequacies. Kate was nodding sympathetically. I handed out the wine.
“What did you want to tell me, Gwyneth?” Kate asked.
“First, I want to apologize. I should have come to you on Tuesday morning, but Jerry talked me out of it. He said, ‘we shouldn’t get involved.’”
“What happened?”
“It wasn’t until after I realized that I was in an abusive relationship that I saw that Jerry had asked me to do something illegal. I’m sorry.”
“Okay,” Kate said, “I get it. What happened?”
Gwyneth talked faster. “On Wednesday, when I met you at the Satori function, I could have taken you aside and talked to you. But you intimidated me.”
“I didn’t mean to be intimidating,” Kate said.
“I know.” Gwyneth laughed. “You just are.”
We all laughed.
“Then on Thursday, when you beat up that awful Ivan, I knew that I had to talk to you.” Gwyneth took a deep breath. “But they wouldn’t let us out of the old conference building. Until now. After I was interviewed.”
Kate patted her hand. “I’m glad you decided to talk to me. What happened?”
“I saw a murder,” Gwyneth said in a choked voice. “Or at least part of one.”
“Is it okay if I record this?” Kate asked. She put out her right hand and I handed her my iPhone. “Thanks.” She turned on record. “This is Kate Swift recording Gwyneth James. Gwyneth tell me what you saw.”
“I arrived on Monday afternoon. Jerry promised me that we would be taking a romantic vacation. He said that it would be an opportunity for us to ‘rekindle our relationship.’” Gwyneth’s eyes filled with tears. “But once we got here it was the same old story: Jerry trying to be a big man. There was an open bar and, as usual, he drank too much. When we got back to the room, he wanted sex, but he couldn’t get it up and he blamed me.” Tears rolled down her cheeks.
“What did you do?” Kate asked.
“At first, I tried to go to sleep, but Jerry was snoring. So, I got up, made myself some herbal tea and sat in our dark room. That’s when I decided to leave him. Once I made up my mind, I realized I couldn’t go back to sleep, so I changed into my workout outfit, put on a sweatshirt, left our room and the old conference building, and started walking north on the campus road.”
“What time was this?’
“It was almost 3AM, Tuesday morning. I remember looking at my watch and thinking, ‘It’s almost 5 o’clock in Winnetka. The milk trucks will start their rounds.’”
“You walked north on the Satori campus road?”
“I walked north and just after I passed the art studio, I saw a car coming. So, I left the road and hid behind some bushes.”
“And then what happened?”
“The car was a Mercedes. It pulled over by an open area and the driver turned off the engine. The driver got out and walked to the rear of the car and opened the trunk. They hesitated for a moment and then they walked south on the road to where there was a maintenance shed. They opened the door of the shed and then came back rolling a wheelbarrow.”
“During this period could you determine if the person you were watching was a man or a woman?”
“I couldn’t tell. They were wearing loose pants and an oversize hoodie sweatshirt.”
“What happened next?” Kate asked.
“The person in the sweatshirt pushed the wheelbarrow next to the rear of the Mercedes and then they pulled a body out of the trunk.”
“You’re sure you saw a body?”
“Positive. They pulled the legs out first and then the torso. When they pulled out the upper body, the head flopped in my direction, and I could tell it was a man.”
“Why could you tell that?”
“Because his hair was short, and his face was sharp and masculine.”
“Could it possibly have been a woman?”
“I don’t think so. The body was too heavily muscled.”
“Okay,” Kate said. “What happened next?”
“Once the person in the sweatshirt loaded the body into the wheelbarrow, they started pushing it across the open field.”
“What direction was this?”
“West, towards the ocean.”
“What happened next?”
“The person in the sweatshirt had a hard time pushing the wheelbarrow across the field. They had to stop several times; I guess because the body was heavy. Eventually they reached the edge of the bluff. The sweatshirt person tipped the wheelbarrow over and the body fell out and disappeared; I assume it rolled down the cliff into the water.” Gwyneth shivered. “It was terrifying.”
“Sounds like it. What happened next?”
“Sweatshirt person pushed the wheelbarrow back across the field to the shed. They returned the wheelbarrow to wherever it had been in the shed and closed the wooden door.”
“And then?”
“Then the person in the sweatshirt walked onto the campus road and headed south. And I followed them.”
“You followed them. Why?”
“I know in retrospect it seems crazy, but I wanted to see where they went. I thought if they went into the old conference center, I wasn’t going to go in. I was worried they might kill someone else, maybe me.”
“What happened?”
“They turned onto the little bridge that leads to the old conference center. And then they stopped.”
“Why did they stop?”
“They stopped in the middle of the bridge, threw back their hoodie, and lit a cigarette.”
“Amazing,” Kate said.
“When they got out their lighter, I could see who it was.”
“And.”
“It was the woman who helped found Satori. Cheryl Taylor.”
“Wow.” Kate paused and looked at me.
I raised my eyebrows and inhaled.
“You’re sure that it was Cheryl?” Kate asked.
“Certain. I’d met her that evening. She came over to the bar in the old conference center to say hello to everyone. Jerry introduced us.”
“Wow. This is important information, Gwyneth. One more thing: when Cheryl walked down the path, where did she go?”
“She went to a little cottage across the lawn from the old conference center. I watched her walk to her cottage, unlock the door, enter, and turn on the light.”
Kate turned to me. “I’m asking a question of Tom Scott who has witnessed this interview. Tom, what is the location of Cheryl Taylor’s residence on the Satori campus?’
“It’s across the lawn from the old conference center.”