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The cause of death was a single knife thrust to the solar plexus; apparently Tito had dropped like a stone. “I did it,” Joelen had told the police, who must have arrived at the house after Arthur drove off with Deirdre.
At the hearing, the coroner made a big deal about the lack of defensive wounds. Why hadn’t he tried to protect himself? But that didn’t seem at all far-fetched to Deirdre. Tito Acevedo, who carried a roll of hundred-dollar bills and a silver monogrammed gun-shaped Zippo lighter in his trouser pocket, would never have seen it coming. He wouldn’t have been the slightest bit afraid when Joelen came at him, all of fifteen years old, a hundred pounds, dressed in that flowered cotton gra
“He ran into my knife,” Joelen told the coroner’s jury.
That ten-inch kitchen knife was scrutinized, as was the nightgown Joelen had been wearing. An expert who testified was skeptical. Why wasn’t there more blood? he wanted to know. From the wound Tito suffered, there should have been more.
But far more compelling than the presence or absence of blood evidence or defensive wounds was the dramatic testimony of Joelen’s tearful movie star mother. Bu
“Why did you stay with a man who beat you?” Sy had asked, just a trace of his Russian accent surfacing: bitt you.
“I was afraid,” Bu
Deirdre had heard Bu
It hadn’t taken the coroner’s jury long. After a few hours they ruled. Justifiable homicide. It wasn’t not guilty, but it wasn’t guilty, either. The verdict kept Joelen from being indicted for murder.
A real “David slays Goliath tale” was the verdict rendered by the TV newscaster Deirdre watched, lying on the living room sofa recovering from her first operation. She tried to call Joelen after the hearing but no one answered. She wrote to her but got no response. She begged her parents to drive her over there but they said there was no point to that. Bu
For months after, Bu
Deirdre was finally well enough to return to school near the end of the academic year. At least she walked back into class on crutches, not in a wheelchair. Even the high and mighty Maria
Chapter 6
In the late afternoon, the pool was still cordoned off. Officers were searching the bushes surrounding the yard. Again. They’d taken samples of pool water and collected Arthur’s discarded towel and clothing, the pool’s leaf skimmer, and the tumbler that had been on the patio table.
It seemed awfully thorough for an accident investigation, so Deirdre wasn’t surprised by the arrival of a man in a suit who climbed over the crime scene tape and talked with a few of the officers, including the one who’d questioned Deirdre and Henry. The newcomer crouched and looked under the tent that covered Arthur’s body. After a pair of attendants zipped Arthur into a dark blue L.A. County Coroner’s body bag, the man stood and approached the house.
He beckoned to Deirdre through the glass, and she slid the door open. “Miss Unger? I’m Detective Sergeant Robert Martinez.” He showed her his badge and gazed at her from under dark eyebrows. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
Henry came up behind her. “Detective?”
“Detective Sergeant Robert Martinez, sir.” The detective’s gaze shifted from Deirdre to Henry. His skin was dark, with the leathery texture of an aging surfer.
“Do they always send a detective out?” Henry said. “This was an accident.”
“Unaccompanied death. It’s not unusual. Mind if I come in the house? I have a few—”
“We’ll come out,” Henry said, nudging Deirdre out in front of him. He followed and slid the door firmly shut.
“Mr. Unger was a strong swimmer?” Martinez asked when they were settled at the table on the patio.
“He swam every day,” Henry said. “Like clockwork. Thirty laps.”
“He often swim late at night?”
“Sometimes.”
Martinez shot Deirdre a questioning look.
“Sometimes,” she said. “Henry would know better than me. I don’t live here.”
“When did you last see your father?”
“In person?” Deirdre tried to remember the last time she’d been there.
“You came up for his birthday, remember?” Henry said. “January.”
“Right,” Deirdre said. That had been months ago.
“And the last time you talked to him?” Detective Martinez asked.
“Last week. He asked me to come up and help him.”
“Help him what?”
“Get the house ready to go on the market.”
Martinez’s eyebrows rose a notch. Deirdre followed his gaze up to the sagging awning over the patio, across the paving stones with their cracked cement riven with weeds, and over to the peeling paint on the frame around the sliding doors. “Was anyone with you last night?” he asked her.
“No,” Deirdre said.
“Anyone see you leave your house this morning?”