I didn’t say much as Herc and I drove to the Taylor House, my part in Ryder’s project now on hold.
“How angry are you?” he finally asked.
“I’m not angry at you specifically, Herc. I’m upset with the situation. I don’t like to be caught between you and my daughter and Ryder. And I’m embarrassed for Val discovering that Jim Watkins wasn’t supporting her.”
“In my defense, this wasn’t my idea this time.”
“Al had to be in a lot of discomfort to suggest I replace him.”
“We’d barely been there five minutes before he started hacking away. At first he thought he was coming down with a cold, but when the coughing wouldn’t stop, he had to admit it was the environment.”
“How far did you get with your initial review?” No point covering ground they’d already gone over.
“The victim was still there when we arrived. The medical examiner and the forensic staff were doing their thing taking photos and completing the initial check of the body.”
I tried to picture the scene in my mind. “At that point it was still deemed an accident, right?”
“Yeah. Why do you ask?”
“Just checking your instincts. They’re usually on high alert around dead bodies. But apparently nothing about the scene you first encountered suggested foul play.”
He drove a bit before responding. “Guess you could say that. Her injuries just appeared to be head trauma from falling backward. At the time, our main concerns were why she was there and how did she get in.”
“So we begin with those two questions?” I asked, trying to figure out how to get started.
“Don’t forget the question of whose DNA was under her fingernails and how and why it got there.”
“Most likely, the killer is wearing scratches somewhere on their face or neck,” I said. “A visible clue, if we can find the right person.”
“Before the wound heals.”
“Or they resort to concealer or wearing neck scarves, depending on the location of the abrasion,” I said.
The place was boarded up. Police tape was draped around the entire yard. “Ryder wasn’t too happy about our cordoning off the place,” Herc said as we approached the back door, “but it’s procedure and necessary for security purposes.”
“And to protect the police from liability,” I added.
“That, too.”
“I’m so sorry this had to happen on one of his projects.”
Herc cocked his head. “You don’t think he had any connection to her murder?”
“Surely you don’t think he’s a suspect?” I asked quickly. “This is Ryder we’re talking about.”
“You know as well as I no one can be dismissed in a murder investigation until they’ve been cleared.”
I couldn’t help but frown. “What an odd time for you to stick with procedure. You’re usually so willing to look the other way when it comes to the rules.”
“Can’t afford to this time. Ryder is a friend. Have to treat this case with special care.”
“That’s so … professional of you.”
“What’s wrong with that?” He actually sounded offended.
“Nothing,” I replied. I meant it. Had I hit a nerve?
“It’s that course I took when I needed to get my career back on track. The instructor spent a lot of time discussing ‘professionalism.’ I’d never thought that much about it before. My focus has always been on catching the bad guy. I didn’t pay much attention to how I got it done. You know, ‘the end justifies the means’ kinda thing. But this guy told us how we caught the bad guys mattered just as much as the fact that we did.”
I understood what he was saying, but I failed to see how the emphasis on professionalism related to the fact that Herc lost his gun to the murderer in two of his most recent cases. How could I ask him to spell it out for me so I didn’t step on his toes? “Sounds like the course was helpful.”
“You could say that. I had my doubts going in, but the captain had heard this guy speak at some convention or something. When I returned from my fishing trip and asked for help preventing killers from getting the draw on me again, he recommended this course.”
Time would tell, but if Herc felt more confident in his reflexes and response instincts thanks to this course, it would’ve been worth it.
Herc had a key that Ryder had provided to the police and used it to gain entry to the house. Ryder’s people had left behind enough lighting for us to see the entire room where the murder happened once Herc switched it on.
We appeared to be in what would eventually become an open-concept kitchen, dining and family area. A quick survey of the space showed that all the mechanicals were now in place, soon to be covered over with the drywall that was stacked against one wall. Two pairs of drywall stilts rested against one wall. One sawhorse was strategically placed so a sheet of drywall could be set on top of it and another sawhorse and cut down to fit the area needing coverage. There should’ve been two sawhorses. I guessed the second had been removed by the forensics team and taken away for further study.
“I’ll pull up the case file on my computer so you can see photos of the body as it was found,” Herc told me. “Coulda done it sooner, but I thought you’d be able to picture it in your mind in better perspective here.”
“Okay, thanks.” After that, he pulled up the file and then had me stand in the best position to review the photos and the actual location at the same time.
There was a lot of blood, mainly on the floor. Most of it seemed to have come from her head as it hit the corner of the sawhorse. I could only assume that scenario since the sawhorse was missing. She still wore the stilts she must’ve borrowed. Her body was prone, her arms extended as if to catch the fall. The fingers of both hands resembled claws, like they had fought for balance or a purchase on something as she toppled. The medical examiner’s report was still forthcoming, but I was sure there must’ve been several broken bones and contusions.
She might have gained unlawful entry, but I still felt sorry for the poor woman.
“In case you haven’t guessed, the sawhorse where her head presumably hit first and the stilts she was wearing were taken back to the lab for further examination,” Herc said.
“I surmised as much. With the exception of that drying pool of blood on the floor, it all looks pristine, like no way a death occurred here recently.”
“That’s why I wanted you to see the photos right away,” Herc said as I glanced at his device.
“What was the estimated time of death?”
“Sometime between seven and nine last night. She was found around nine thirty.”
“Have you interviewed the woman who found her?” I asked.
“We tried. She was still in shock at the time. We’ll need to talk to her again. I’m not sure how soon she’ll be able to speak credibly.”
“Why was she here at that hour?”
“Something about making up work that needed to be completed before the next day, but then she started to fall apart, so we told her we’d talk to her tomorrow. Al and I already talked to the crew who were on site yesterday. Each of them swore the place was locked up when they left for the day at five. So we can skip them, unless you have more questions.”
“You said she had an older brother but she wasn’t married,” I said, remembering my earlier questions about her personal situation.
“Right. We only know that because she had her car keys on her. We found the car a block away and tracked her down through the registration. There was no one else living at the address given, but we found a birthday card that read, ‘Love ya, Sis, Kyle and Vicki,’ that she’d received in the mail a few days prior. The address was local, so we’ve informed the brother. He was in no shape to question at length once he learned the details of her death.”
“Interesting.” I considered the ramifications.
“Yeah, interesting because she died within a day or two of the date of her birth,” Herc replied.
“That, right. But even though her brother, or maybe his wife, remembered her birthday, they sent the card rather than delivered it in person. That may or may not be important, but it’s a fact to file away. How soon can we talk to him?”
“Now. He’s had enough time to get over the initial shock and make arrangements.”
Kyle Halpern and his wife, Vicki, lived in a second-floor condo in the newer part of town. The wife, visibly pregnant, answered the door. Herc introduced us, and she showed us into the living room. “Kyle is taking his sister’s death hard. She was his only sibling, and their parents both are dead. I hope you’ll take that into account as you speak with him.”
“We’ll keep that in mind,” Herc answered, promising nothing.
“Before we talk with your husband, we have a few questions for you, Mrs. Halpern,” I said.
“Me?” She seemed surprised but not resistant. “Of course. It’s easier for me to talk about her right now than Kyle. Ask away.”
“How well did you know your sister-in-law?” I asked, following up on my earlier comment to Herc about the mailed birthday card.
Herc and I both settled on a couch while she lighted in a nearby club chair. “Kyle and Lila have always been close. He’s a couple years older and took his role as older brother seriously. When their father went to prison—I assume you already know about that chapter in their lives—they became even tighter. The legal bills nearly broke them. They were both underage at the time, so their mother bore the brunt of keeping them on their feet. She had to sell their home and relocate them to a small apartment in a less prosperous part of town. The house was the one where Lila was killed.”
That was news. At least to me. Did Herc already know?
“Why would she return there?” I asked. “It’s been years since it passed out of your family.”
Vicki bit a lip and glanced over her shoulder in the direction of an interior room. Where her husband had retreated? “You’ll have to ask Kyle that question once he’s come to grips with her death. All I know is that something about the house had come between them recently. I only know that much because I overheard their argument. Kyle wouldn’t tell me more when I asked him later. He said the less I knew, the safer the baby and I would be.”
Given the fact that his sister had now been killed in that house, his worries about his family were spot-on.
“When did all this happen?” Herc asked.
She closed her eyes briefly. “I can’t give you a specific date. Sometime in the last year, after their father died. His sentence was up this year, but he got sick and passed while still in prison. His death profoundly affected both of them, angering Lila and sending my husband into fits of depression.”
“What about their mother? How did her husband’s death affect her?” I asked.
“She was killed years ago when Lila and Kyle were in their early twenties. A grisly car accident.”
“So it was just the two of them for the last several years,” Herc said, stating the obvious. Part of his interview technique: clarify as you go, even if it isn’t necessary.
She nodded. “That’s why this rift or whatever it was between them has been so difficult for both. Now …” Her voice trailed off, ending with a tiny gasp. She pursed her lips, then swiped away a stray tear. “His only family now is me and …” She placed both hands on her stomach.
“Are you okay?” I asked her. “Do you need a glass of water?”
“Thank you. No, I’m fine. The baby’s fine. I’m still getting used to the idea of Lila being gone. She was such a force.”
Herc screwed up his eyes. “How do you mean?”
“Lila and Kyle were like yin and yang. Opposites. Where he is careful, analytic and retiring, she was impulsive, intuitive and gregarious. When she got an idea, she ran with it, which is why I think she went to the old house. Why else would she have gone there on her own, after it was locked up?”
“But you don’t know what that idea was?” Herc asked.
“No, other than I think whatever it was, it’s what had come between her and my husband.”
We’d definitely need to talk further with Kyle Halpern about that “idea.”
Vicki Halpern was turning out to be a better source of information about the victim than I’d anticipated. We needed to milk it as much as we could. “Tell us a little more about your sister-in-law.”
She repositioned herself in the chair, the baby most likely making itself known again. “She was a marketing analyst with Trapper Marketing for the last several years until she left suddenly three years ago after a disagreement with the owner, her boss, Cole Trapper. She opened her own agency, which only recently began to grow, which isn’t easy in a small town like Shasta where one marketing agency will suffice. She brought her assistant, Brenda Nardo, with her. I don’t know what she’ll do now that Lila is gone.”
“Do you know what the disagreement was that your sister-in-law had with Trapper?”
“Not more than the occasional comment Lila would make about her former boss. It sounded like they’d disagreed on their latest campaign. But I don’t know the specifics. Lila’s personality wasn’t suited to taking orders. She preferred to give them. That apparently didn’t go over well with Trapper.”
I made note of the names Cole Trapper and Brenda Nardo. Both could fill in some needed details about Lila’s life, although Vicki Halpern was doing a pretty good job of that at the moment. When she seemed to run out of information about her sister-in-law, it was time to tackle the brother, whether he was ready or not.
“Thanks for giving me a little more time to get my head around my sister’s death,” Kyle Halpern said to Herc and me after he joined us. He pulled a straight chair from the kitchen table up to where his wife sat and took her hand. “Thanks, babe, for talking to these folks first.” Back to us. “It’s not that I don’t want to help with your investigation. I want whoever did this to my sister caught as soon as possible and put away forever.”
“Our condolences, Mr. Halpern,” I said after introducing myself. “We know it can’t be easy to talk about your sister right now, but it’s critical we learn as much as possible about what was going on in her life of late so we can understand why she went to that house. Let’s start with that question. Why did she go there?”
He stared off into space for several beats. Herc and I waited. Finally, he shrugged. “I have no idea, why now, why last night. Lila just got these things in her head and acted on them before anyone knew what she was doing.”
Bereaved though he might be, I wasn’t letting him speak in such generic terms. “What kinds of ‘things’ are you referring to?”
“She’d heard the place had been sold. Again. To a flipper. She hated the idea of the original bones of the house getting rearranged, even though Vick and I tried to convince her whatever the flipper did could only be an improvement.”
“She went to see for herself?” Herc asked.
“Must have. That’s all I can figure.”
“At night? When the place was locked down for the day?” I asked.
He shrugged again. “What can I say other than what I already have? Once she got a burr under her saddle, she didn’t let go until she worked it out for herself.”
“Tell us about the house. Have you ever gone back there yourself?”
“Me? No. No reason. Not that it wasn’t difficult to leave in the first place. I was just out of high school and still living at home. Moving to that tiny apartment seemed like a real punishment on top of losing our dad to prison, plus the humiliation of his admitted crime. Really threw me. My dad had always been an upstanding guy. The thought of him being a criminal and sentenced to prison was hard to swallow.”
Herc narrowed his eyes on that comment but didn’t pursue it. “Do you think your sister went to the house to rekindle some old memory?”
Halpern started to reply, then closed his mouth. “Like I said already, I have no idea why she went there.”
“I’m sure the superintendent would’ve been happy to show her around if she’d come to him during the day,” I said.
“Yeah, well, that was my sister.”
My question stuck with me. Any reasonable person would’ve done as I suggested, gone to the superintendent to ask for admission. But for some reason, Lila Halpern felt it necessary to sneak in. That was most likely the key to why she was killed. All we had to do was uncover her reason for being there when she was.
The brother wasn’t ready to give us more than his flimsy explanation why she had gone to the house. Time to move on to other topics. We’d have to circle back to this sometime. “We’ve been to her condo. We found a birthday card you and your wife sent her recently. That’s how we got your name and address,” I said. “Seems kind of strange to send a card when you live in the same town. Didn’t you get together for birthdays?”
“Not lately.”
“Why was that?”
“Timing, I guess.”
“You were too busy with your work?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
He wasn’t about to tell us why they’d become estranged without our asking direct questions. “Seems sad. The two of you being the only remaining family you each had. What came between you?”
“Like you said, our jobs.”
“Have you seen your sister at all recently?” I asked.
He scratched his head. “Not that I recall.”
Herc had had enough of this evasion. “Look, man, we get it that your head’s pretty screwed up right now, the shock of your sister’s death and all, but sooner or later you gotta talk to us. Give us something to go on, because right now all we know is who she was, where she worked and who she was related to, but that’s not gonna solve this case for us.”
Halpern returned the most pathetic expression I’d seen in a long time. “Sorry, man. That’s all I can tell you for now.”