Charlie and Gabriella had mentioned a local television station where they had first seen the story of the Morro Bay jumper, then a John Doe, two days before.
‘You’ve got to be careful, Jay,’ Charlie said, cautioning me. For twenty years they had lived under the radar, afraid that the state would cut them back. ‘You can’t just stir up trouble for us here. It’s not like with you. We live off the state. We can’t make waves.’
‘Sometimes you have to make waves!’ Gabby said. ‘This is about our son, Charlie. We need to do this.’
He sat back down.
I looked up the number for KSLN and asked for the news department. For the reporter who had handled the segment on the Morro Bay jumper. I gave my name, identifying myself as an uncle of the dead boy.
It took a couple of minutes, but finally a woman came back on. ‘This is Katie Kershaw. I’m an assistant producer in the newsroom.’
‘Katie, hi. My name is Jay Erlich. I’m a doctor from back in New York, and I’m the uncle of Evan Erlich. Your station did a story on him.’
‘Yes, of course. That was terrible.’ She knew who he was immediately. ‘We would have followed up, but it’s a policy here, for family reasons, we generally don’t report on suicides.’
‘I guess I can understand that,’ I said. ‘But listen, Ms Kershaw … I think your station is missing the real story behind what happened with Evan.’
Two hours later a reporter named Rosalyn Rodriguez and a colleague with a handheld camera knocked on Charlie and Gabby’s door.
Gabby seemed lifted. She had changed, washed her face, and applied a little makeup for the first time since I’d been there. Finally someone was going to take their side.
Charlie seemed a bit edgy. ‘Are you sure this is the right thing?’
‘You always want to do nothing,’ she said to him. ‘You’re always afraid the state will find us. They’ll discover your brother is helping us with the rent. Our disability will be cut. Yes, I want to do this. It’s for our son, Charlie!’
When the reporter arrived, we all sat in the small living room. Her questions closely followed the narrative I had given their producer on the phone.
How did you first find out what happened to your son? What do you feel about what happened? Do you think the doctors at the hospital bore any responsibility? Do you think your son belonged in a more restrictive facility?
‘That’s what they promised us.’ Gabby nodded. ‘Yes.’
Charlie just sat there, not saying much.
Gabby started with Evan being released from the county psychiatric ward after just three days. Three days after having attempted to acquire a gun. How they were being stonewalled from getting even the simplest answers to their queries. How the Harbor View facility didn’t even have a clue what kind of patient they were dealing with.
I jumped in and said, ‘The police … they just seem to have washed their hands of all this. They want to get rid of the case as quickly as they can. Maybe it’s because my brother and sister-in-law aren’t important here. They live on welfare. To be frank, they’re concerned that because they draw their income from the state, everyone’s just stonewalling them in the hope it will all just go away. They’re convinced they have no right to look into their son’s death.’
The reporter glanced at her cameraman, basically asking, You getting this?
‘Look, I’m a doctor for God’s sake,’ I said. ‘Wouldn’t you want to know how a twenty-one-year-old kid goes from twenty-four-hour suicide watch in a locked cell to an unprotected halfway facility in just a matter of days – and then ends up at the bottom of a six-hundred-foot cliff?’
At this point, I no longer cared whose feet I was stepping on.
‘All they’re getting from everyone is just, We’re so sorry. That’s tragic. Well, sorry simply isn’t enough. They want someone to take responsibility. They want some answers. You’d want that if it was your family, wouldn’t you, Ms Rodriguez?’
‘Yes, I would want that.’ The reporter nodded, the cameraman shifting to get her reaction. I could see it was affecting her too.
She asked us for names. And we gave them to her.
The doctor, Derosa, who was clearly ducking my calls. And Anna Aquino, who ran the care facility Evan had been dumped in.
And Detective Sherwood.
She promised she would contact the hospital and speak with officials there.
‘God bless you.’ Gabby wrapped her arms around her and thanked her. ‘For whatever you can do.’
‘I want them to know they can’t just shit on us,’ Gabby said after they left, coming up and giving me a grateful hug. ‘We may be poor, but our son deserves some answers too.’
Charlie sat there, distracted, unconvinced. He picked up his guitar and strummed a few chords. ‘You’re going to go home, Jay, but we’re still here. These people own us. Maybe we just should have let it lie.’