The Deepest Cut (37 page)

Axel Holcomb was asleep in the back room of the log cabin that housed the museum. He was awakened by noises. He got out of bed, looked out the window in his room, and saw a dim light coming through the openings between the slats of the old barn that was near the cabin. The big barn door was ajar. He put on his slippers and crept to the barn in the moonlight. He recognized Cookie’s personal car. It wasn’t the first time that he’d happened upon this situation. Cookie often arranged for trysts with her boyfriend during the middle of the night. Holcomb had often slipped out of bed and into the shadows of the barn to watch. He liked to watch.

The barn was lined with old corrals. The hull of a Model T Ford was just inside the barn door. Holcomb dashed the few feet from the door to the safety of the old car— his normal hiding place. He saw Cookie in the barn.

The middle of the tale is where the two versions diverge.

Both sides agreed upon the end. After Cookie was dead, a blood-splattered Holcomb ran from the barn, leaving bloody footprints, and returned to his bed. He pulled the covers over his head and huddled there, eventually falling asleep. At ten the next morning, the couple who runs the museum arrived to find the log cabin locked. The husband went into the barn where a spare key was hidden and came upon Cookie’s body, tied by her ankles, dangling from the rafters. The police arrived in minutes. They roused the still-sleeping Holcomb and took him in.

When Holcomb confessed a week after the murder, he said that he had come upon Cookie, who was in the barn alone. She had lit a Cole-man lantern that was usually kept there and was sitting on an old quilt spread out on the ground. She appeared to be waiting for someone. She saw Holcomb enter the barn and hide behind the Model T Cookie became outraged. She was known for her in-your-face personality and began yelling at Holcomb, taunting him, insulting him, accusing him of stalking her. Holcomb became enraged and ran from the shadows, wielding a knife he’d taken from the kitchenette in his room.

Holcomb slugged Cookie, knocking her out. He took off her clothes. He found a length of cord that was kept in the barn and tied her wrists. He then tied her ankles and hoisted her into the air. She had awakened by then and began screaming and yelling. He silenced her by putting duct tape from the cabin over her mouth. While she was hanging upside down, he slit her throat.

In closing statements, Holcomb’s defense presented a different chain of events.

Awakened by noises, Holcomb had slipped into the barn and hid behind the old car. A fully clothed man whom Holcomb had never seen before was leaning over Cookie, tying her wrists behind her back. She was limp on the ground, lying on a patchwork quilt. The Coleman lantern was lit. The man tied her ankles with a cord. His back was to the Model T and to Holcomb.

Cookie awakened then and began hurling insults, though not at Holcomb, at the man, calling him a freak and a psycho. He threw the cord over a rafter, hoisting Cookie up by her ankles. He cut a length of
duct tape from a roll and put it over her mouth. He then grabbed her from behind and slit her throat.

Holcomb screamed and jumped up from behind the Model T. The man turned and saw him. He ran, the knife in his hand. The knife was not found.

Holcomb rushed to Cookie, seeking to help her.

She was thrashing wildly. He couldn’t find anything to use to cut her down. Blood flew everywhere, including onto Holcomb. Soon, it was over and Cookie was still. Terrified, Holcomb ran back to his room.

The defense claimed that Betsy Gilroy and Colina Vista P.D. sergeant Ernie Bautista, who was also in the interview room, intimidated Holcomb into signing a confession that they wrote for him. An attorney was not present. Gilroy said that Holcomb didn’t request one.

The
Pasadena Star News
printed the composite sketch of the man Holcomb said he’d seen fleeing the barn. Holcomb described him as about six feet tall, medium build, twenty to twenty-five years old, with light brown hair. The composite sketch showed an apple-cheeked man with narrow eyes and a thin upper lip. It was a miserable piece of work, minimalist to the point of absurdity, yet Vining saw the essence of T B. Mann.

Was Caspers correct? Was she so obsessed with T B. Mann that she was seeing him everywhere?

She needed more information. She wanted the details that had never made it into the newspapers. She wanted to talk to Betsy Gilroy but not yet. Right now, she would search out Mike Iverson and Ernie Bautista, the Colina Vista P.D. sergeants involved in the case. She had many questions, but one in particular dogged her. Why did Holcomb confess?

THIRTY-EIGHT

C
OLINA VISTA P.D. SERGEANT MIKE IVERSON WASN’T HARD FOR
Vining to track down. The Pasadena P.D. had close ties to the Colina Vista P.D. Vining found a veteran PPD officer who told her that Iverson had retired and was living in Montrose, a small city near Pasadena. She didn’t have the same luck finding Sergeant Ernie Bautista. She’d had to call the CVPD for information about him. She learned he’d also retired but had moved to New Mexico. The staff assistant she spoke with wouldn’t reveal his phone number. Vining would track him down later.

Shortly, she was on the 210 freeway heading west, making the quick trip to Iverson’s house in Montrose. He was home and willing to see her now.

Montrose was another bedroom community of Los Angeles that was desperately trying to hang on to its small-town flavor, fighting off chain restaurants and big-box stores. Vining exited the 210 at Ocean View and headed south. She finally found Florencita Court. She spotted Iverson’s house by the pickup truck parked on the curb in front that had his business name painted on the door: Waterscapes. Custom ponds. Fountains. Water features. The PPD officer had told her that Iverson had started the Waterscapes business after retiring.

The Iversons lived in a well-maintained 1970s ranch-style house
on a spacious corner lot surrounded by a white picket fence. At one time, the large front yard had probably been a lush grass lawn. Today the grass was restricted to a small corner and the rest of the ground was planted with drought-resistant native plants in large amoeba-shaped beds. A natural-looking stream flowed beneath a willow tree, burbling around rocks and boulders before spilling into a pond. It was an excellent advertisement for Iverson’s water feature business.

Vining admired the rambling stream as she walked up the flagstone path to the front door. Upon a closer look, she saw that the rocks and boulders were cleverly constructed fakes.

She rang the doorbell and Mike Iverson answered, greeting her with a hearty handshake.

“Detective Vining. Nice to meet you. Come in.”

“Thanks for seeing me on such short notice.”

“Don’t mention it. Would you like a cup of coffee? I just made some.”

“I would, thank you.”

“Come inside.”

Iverson had lost most of his hair, making his face appear even rounder. His remaining hair was sprinkled with gray and cropped short. He had a broad, rectangular smile that seemed to take up the lower half of his face, and animated blue eyes, the bright whites exuding vigor. He was about five-eight and was trim in clean Dickies dungarees, blue-and-yellow windowpane-print Oxford cloth shirt, and heavy work boots. He radiated good humor.

To Vining, he seemed to be one of those people possessed of preternatural good spirits. She’d come across a few such souls in her life. She wondered how they did it. Everyone had their share of hard knocks in life— some more than others— but certain people seemed to take them in stride and to keep smiling. Vining didn’t consider herself a morose person, although she’d had her moments over the past two years. Still, she was a bit in awe of the happy people. What was their secret? Perhaps it was just a different form of neurosis.

She followed Iverson into the kitchen. The house was neat and well appointed, but neither fancy nor fussy.

He grinned as he poured coffee into mismatched mugs— one from
the New York New York hotel in Vegas and the other decorated with an infant’s photo and “I Love Grandpa.”

“How long have you been retired, Mike?”

“About seven years now.”

“Do you ever miss police work?”

“Sure, there are parts about it I miss. Cream or sugar?”

“Black.”

“Me, too. Well, you have a ways to go until you turn in your badge.”

Vining knew that one day she would retire and that also one day she might feel differently about this job she loved, but right now, she couldn’t imagine doing anything other than what she was doing— good crime fighting.

Grinning, he handed her the “I Love Grandpa” mug without thought. “Let’s go out back. I’ll show you my garden. Do you like peaches and plums? I’ll pick you some. My wife used to make jam, but ran out of time this year and the fruit’s falling on the ground.” He grabbed a paper grocery bag and led the way from the kitchen through the dining room and out sliding doors to the patio.

The large lot had an old-fashioned kidney-shaped swimming pool that had been updated with colorful tile and a dark gray lining. It was surrounded by a child-protective fence. There were fruit trees on one side of the long yard: peaches, apricots, plums, and lemons. Tomatoes, summer squash, chilies, cucumbers, and Japanese eggplant grew in raised beds. The rest of the yard was planted with California natives and a small patch of grass.

Vining sipped coffee and followed Iverson as he picked the last fruit of the season and talked about Axel Holcomb.

“I grew up in Colina Vista and knew Axel and his brother from when we were little kids. I was in the same class as his brother, who was on the high school football team with me. Axel was three years younger.” He handed her a ripe, black-skinned plum. “That’s a Santa Rosa. Delicious.”

Vining took the fruit and held it to her nose. “This smells like an actual, bona fide plum. Not like the ones you find in the supermarket.”

“Wait until you have one of these peaches.”

Vining handed the plum to Iverson and said, “Newspaper articles
around the time of Cookie’s murder had stories about Axel getting into trouble and the locals being afraid of him.”

Iverson laughed dismissively. “Axel was a child in a big man’s body. He used to get into trouble because he didn’t realize how strong he was. He thought he was one of the kids, but he was a grown man. He had a temper, but only when provoked. Some of the local jerks— teenagers, college kids— would bait him. Make fun of him. Play mean jokes. Over the years, I pulled Axel off some guy or another on numerous occasions.”

Vining had thought the newspaper stories had been hard on Axel. “There’s a story about Axel as a teenager having almost drowned a girl at a public pool.”

Iverson shook his head. “He didn’t almost drown her. Axel was horsing around with some girls at the pool and he held a girl’s head under water a little bit. Axel’s brother, who was working as a lifeguard, got him to let her go. Axel wasn’t trying to hurt her. He just didn’t know when to stop. The part that no one remembers is that after Axel realized what he’d done, he sobbed like a baby and couldn’t stop apologizing to the girl. She was fine. It was over in a minute.

“Because of things like that, he got an unfair reputation in town. He was a sweet guy at heart. Not a sicko. What was done to Cookie, that was a whole other kind of sick. Hanging her upside down, slitting her throat, and letting her bleed out— that’s evil.”

Vining observed, “It does take a certain kind of bad man to pull that off.”

“Axel wasn’t like that,” Iverson said. “The couple who run the Foothill Museum gave Axel that job as a favor to his family. It worked out great for a couple of years. Axel took care of the place. Opened and closed it. No problems until Cookie decided the barn was a good place to meet her boyfriend.”

Vining said, “When the murder was discovered, Axel was brought in for questioning. He was released for lack of evidence. A week later, Betsy Gilroy hauled him in again. That time, he confessed. What happened?”

Iverson twisted a plump peach so ripe it easily released its grip from the branch. He held the fruit in his palm and studied it, his mind
seeming to travel as he gently ran his thumb across the fuzzy skin. He let out a long sigh.

Vining realized that in spite of his cheerful demeanor, the ghosts still haunted. Every cop who’d been around the block a few times had them, the one or two cases that stood out from the thousands he or she’d been involved with, the ones that didn’t sit right and that never would. Justice had not been done. The bad guy had gotten away.

Iverson gently placed the peach inside the bag on top of the others. He looked at Vining. His eyes were still bright blue, but darkness had crept in behind them, a darkness that hadn’t dimmed the hue, but had dimmed his spirit.

“When we first interviewed Axel, the day we found the body, both Betsy and I believed Axel was telling the truth about having seen an unidentified man kill Cookie. Given the evidence, we could paint a picture of Axel having done it, but …” Iverson’s voice trailed off.

Vining said, “So Gilroy agreed that Axel didn’t have it in him to do something like that.”

“She told me so. Killing someone accidentally in a fight, maybe, but not that. Betsy and I agonized over it. Plus, Axel liked Cookie. Everyone liked Cookie. You wanted to wring her neck sometimes, but she was a very engaging, lovable girl.” He made a quick movement with his hand and modified his comment. “Woman.”

“Did anyone other than Axel know that Cookie met her boyfriend in that barn?”

“It came out later that one of the younger officers who used to go out drinking with Cookie knew. He got into trouble for not having said anything.”

“I’ve heard Cookie described as headstrong,” Vining said. “Gilroy mentored her to help straighten her out. She secretly met her boyfriend in that barn, but she must have done things that people knew about.”

Iverson smirked. “Yes, she did. Cookie was a lot of fun and generally was a good cop, but her mouth got her into trouble. She liked to pretend that she was a rebel. She had a couple of adverse comments in her files for conduct unbecoming. Once she was smart-mouthed with a man after she’d pulled him over for rolling through a stop sign and he got testy with her. Another time, she made a crack about another
officer in front of a citizen. I’d heard that she’d talked herself out of a DUI in Pasadena once.”