The Scapegoat, page 1
THE SCAPEGOAT
David Stanley
Paper Street Publishing
Paper Street Publishing
Copyright © 2023 David Stanley
The moral right of the author has been asserted
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the publishers
ISBN (ebook) 9781916176386
ISBN (paperback) 9781916176393
www.davidjstanley.com
www.paperstreetpublishing.net
This book is for
Lindsey and Connor,
all the backup I’ll ever need
Contents
1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 3
4. Chapter 4
5. Chapter 5
6. Chapter 6
7. Chapter 7
8. Chapter 8
9. Chapter 9
10. Chapter 10
11. Chapter 11
12. Chapter 12
13. Chapter 13
14. Chapter 14
15. Chapter 15
16. Chapter 16
17. Chapter 17
18. Chapter 18
19. Chapter 19
20. Chapter 20
21. Chapter 21
22. Chapter 22
23. Chapter 23
24. Chapter 24
25. Chapter 25
26. Chapter 26
27. Chapter 27
28. Chapter 28
29. Chapter 29
30. Chapter 30
31. Chapter 31
32. Chapter 32
33. Chapter 33
34. Chapter 34
35. Chapter 35
36. Chapter 36
37. Chapter 37
38. Chapter 38
39. Chapter 39
40. Chapter 40
41. Chapter 41
42. Chapter 42
43. Chapter 43
44. Chapter 44
45. Chapter 45
46. Chapter 46
About the Author
1
The house was hidden from the road by a high wall and thick stands of trees on both sides of a curving driveway. As he swept around the last bend the building seemed to appear, huge and threatening, like a horror movie castle. A line of cars and SUVs were already parked out front and he added his personal vehicle to the end. He glanced up as he stepped out his car. A single light burned in one of the windows and Coombes knew it would be in the room where the body lay.
His partner, Grace Sato, was talking to his lieutenant, who appeared to be on the point of leaving. He’d skipped breakfast and coffee; he’d shaved in his car as he drove, but still he was the last to arrive. At least he was wearing his best suit.
“Glad I caught you, John. I wanted to impress upon you the need for sensitivity in this case. The guy might seem like old news, but he’s connected everywhere. If you stand on his toes, I doubt I can save you.”
“Got it.”
Coombes gave his name and badge number to a uniform with a clipboard, then stooped down to pull on a pair of Tyvek shoe covers. When he straightened back up, he saw Gantz still standing there. He pulled on nitrile gloves, his eyes fixed on her face.
“Promise me,” she said.
“You know me, Ellen. I’ll treat him with the respect he deserves.”
“That’s what I’m worried about.”
He wondered why he was there at all since he wasn’t even on rotation, but not for long. Becker was officially on call, but he was about to retire and had one foot out the door.
“Do we know how the killer got in? I assume there’s an alarm.”
“Alarm, security cameras, private security patrols, the whole bit. Looks like the killer bypassed the alarm then wiped any footage recorded by cameras once he was inside. SID are going to see what they can recover, but don’t hold your breath.”
It was unusual for his lieutenant to visit a crime scene and he figured she wasn’t just here to ask him to play nice. There was certain to be a political element to the case and a good result would help to shore up her position downtown.
“I never do, L-T.”
Coombes turned and walked inside the building.
He saw a lot of expensive properties in Homicide Special, but this was the first one he’d seen where pictures hanging on the walls were all of its owner. It looked like he’d had oil paintings produced from photographs of himself. They were in the style of old masters and were loaded into appropriately vintage gold wooden frames.
“Wow, check out the selfies,” Sato said.
He nodded morosely as they started up the stairs. The portraits continued next to them at shoulder-height in a diagonal line. They were beyond ridiculous, yet strangely not that much of a surprise based on what he thought he knew about the subject of the paintings.
As he came to the top of the stairs he was looking straight into a room.
Elizabeth Walton lay face-up on the pale oak floorboards with the top of her head toward him and her feet facing the window. She was wearing a thin nightdress, a gold watch with a small face, and some kind of necklace.
Coombes squatted down next to the body.
Dark purple marks wrapped around either side of Walton’s neck, and across the front where the killer’s thumbs had pressed down. Her face was unnaturally pale, almost blue, and her eyes were open and glassy. Near the hairline on her left temple, was another bruise where a fist had struck her.
The way he liked to think of things, this wasn’t Elizabeth Walton. Her body was just that, a body. The spirit, the soul, whatever you wanted to call it, was gone. That was the part that was Elizabeth. Whatever was left, was just evidence of a crime, of a life cut short.
Walton’s hair was fanned out behind her head, wild and tangled. Coombes put a gloved hand down on the floor and leaned down to look at where her head was resting on the bare wood. There was blood there, like thick molasses.
Coombes straightened up, anger flaring in his chest.
He hadn’t known Elizabeth Walton, but it changed nothing. He wanted to find the man that did this and extract some form of revenge. And it was a man, there was no doubt about that. Almost all the cases he worked the perpetrator was a man. It was barely worth the effort to pretend otherwise.
“What are you thinking, Johnny?”
He let out a slow breath and spoke in a neutral tone.
“Our guy hit her, here, knocking her to the floor. He crouched over her and began to strangle her. Pinning her to the floor and preventing her from calling out. Judging by her injuries, her assailant was probably twice her size. There’s an impact injury at the back of her head, but it doesn’t look like it’s from being knocked to the floor. I think he lifted her by the neck then slammed her down, hitting her head repeatedly off the floor until she passed out. Then he finished it, crushing her windpipe with a downward pressure from both thumbs.”
“It seems excessive, doesn’t it?”
He glanced up at Sato. “Go on.”
“Well, like he could have killed her quicker but was drawing it out.”
“Like he was enjoying it.”
“That it was personal,“ she said.
He nodded. When you got right down to it, strangulation was the most personal way to kill someone. Looking into their eyes and choking them to death with your bare hands. No gun, no knife. It didn’t get more intimate or brutal than that.
Two crime scene techs appeared behind Grace in the doorway wearing coveralls and carrying aluminum cases. He recognized one from a previous crime scene. Carrie Dupont.
“Detective Coombes. Are you messing up my crime scene?”
“Not my style, Carrie.”
“Hmm,“ she said, unconvinced.
He looked back down at Walton before leaving.
Even after what had happened to her, he could tell that she’d been a beautiful woman. Her skin was smooth and flawless, her bone structure perfect. She’d taken care of herself, and had enjoyed a good life right up to the point it had been taken from her.
“Okay,” he said to Sato, “let’s speak to him.”
2
Harlan Tremaine stood on an oak deck overlooking the covered swimming pool that sat to the side of his Brentwood property. He was wearing a bespoke gray suit, dirty white sports socks and no shoes. A comet-trail of dried blood ran down the side of his right hand.
Tremaine half-turned and looked back at Coombes.
“What did you say, Detective?”
“I said, what time did you find the body?”
The former Governor of California appeared to zone out for a moment before coming back.
“About half six. I was about to go for my morning run and found the window at the back door broken. Glass was spread across the floor. There was dirt on the marble heading toward the stairs. They were boot prints; I could see the tread pattern. I got a bad feeling. They were headed up toward Lizzie’s apartment.”
“Then what happened?”
“I got the Benelli from the safe and went upstairs. I found Lizzie on the floor of her office like a slaughtered animal. I searched everywhere looking for that bastard, praying I’d find him so I could send him s
It was no surprise to him that Tremaine owned a shotgun, his position on guns was a matter of public record. Coombes wrote he was gone in his notebook, then flipped back to the previous page where he’d written brief details from the initial police report.
“You say you found her around six thirty?”
“Yes.”
“We don’t have you reporting her death until seven twenty-six.” Coombes looked up from his page, watching the other man closely. “You couldn’t have spent all that time searching your property. What were you doing during those fifty-six minutes?”
“I don’t know. It was like I disappeared.”
Coombes hadn’t voted for Tremaine but he hadn’t voted against him either so he supposed he needed to take more responsibility. He wondered what a former governor needed with an attractive full-time member of staff that lived in his home.
An idea came quickly to mind.
“What was it that Elizabeth Walton did here?”
“Lizzie helped run my charitable foundation.”
“Anything else?”
If he took his meaning, Tremaine didn’t show it.
“The truth is, she was the foundation. I was just a figurehead.”
The time lag in reporting the death bothered Coombes, as did the fact that he’d answered the door to first responders wearing the suit he wore now, not the running gear he’d been wearing when he found the body. Changing clothes was in the same ballpark as hiding evidence. He made a note to get hold of his original clothing for testing.
“Do you know anyone who’d want to hurt Miss Walton?”
Tremaine shook his head.
“What about you? Do you have enemies?”
“About five million people. Do I think one of them broke in here and killed Lizzie to hurt me? No, and screw you for saying it.”
Anger made the other man’s eyes bright and focused. For the first time in the interview, it felt like Harlan Tremaine had actually seen him. He remembered the warning Gantz had given him when he arrived and decided for once not to lean into the anger.
“My condolences on the loss of your friend, Mr. Tremaine. I speak plainly, without malice. A trait I believe we may have in common. My only aim here is to put the person that did this in a box or in the ground. Are we good?”
“Put this guy in the ground, Detective, and I’ll buy you a new car.”
Coombes pretended not to hear this. Attempting to bribe a police officer was a felony but so was threatening one and if he arrested everyone that did that then prisons would be full inside a month. To be a cop, you had to first be a realist.
Besides, it wasn’t like he didn’t need a new car.
“I notice your hand has blood on it. Is it hers?”
Tremaine looked at his hand, surprised.
“I don’t know.”
“We’ll need to photograph it and take a sample. Don’t wash it.”
Tremaine said nothing. He looked like he’d shut down, that he was broken inside. It felt like there was something else going on, something big and he was holding it back.
The only thing he could think to explain it, was that Tremaine and Walton had been in a relationship. Perhaps she’d wanted to end it and, in a rage, he’d killed her. It explained the blood on his hand, the change of clothes, and the delay in calling the police.
In any case, Coombes didn’t like it when people close to a victim were covered in blood they couldn’t explain. Perhaps there was a more innocent explanation.
“Did you touch anything at the scene before you called it in?”
“Her nightdress. The hem was gathered at her waist and she was exposed. I pulled it down so that she was covered. I knew she’d be photographed by your people. She didn’t deserve to be immortalized like that, like she was some kind of stripper or porn star.”
Coombes understood, but tampering with evidence was a no-no.
“You say she was exposed, should I assume she’s not wearing underwear?”
“Correct.”
“Was the hem up by her abdomen, or lower?”
Tremaine’s face screwed up in disgust.
“You think she was…assaulted as well?”
“It’s something we have to consider, unfortunately.”
“Far as I recall, it was across the top of her legs. Higher at the sides than the middle.”
Coombes pictured the scene. A man had pinned Walton to the floor, his hands around her throat. Her legs would’ve been pumping, trying to escape, trying to get him off her. The light material of her nightdress would slide down her thighs and gather at her waist.
“Probably nothing,” he said. “Let’s get your hand processed.”
Tremaine looked across at Sato with disdain.
“Do you not get to speak, Detective?”
“It’s my job to witness everything you say to my partner. If you make a move to threaten him while he’s holding his notebook, it’s also my job to shoot you in the face.”
“I guess you voted for the other guy, huh?”
“If I could’ve voted twice, I would have.”
They returned to the room where Elizabeth Walton had been murdered. The forensic technicians were gone and they once more had the room to themselves, supposing you didn’t include Walton who still lay on the floor. Plastic bags were now attached to both of her hands to protect any evidence that might be under her fingernails.
When you were close enough to strangle someone, their hands were close to you.
He took in the room properly for the first time.
It was a home office with a desk and a computer. The walls were oak paneled up to a dado rail, with deep blue and black flocked wallpaper above. A wingback leather chair sat next to the door facing the desk. The leather was held in place by a line of black metal studs. It was a masculine piece of furniture and for this reason, Coombes could only imagine the former governor sitting on it while Walton worked.
Watching, puffing a big cigar.
Tremaine was strong and muscular beneath his suit. His bicep was big enough to cause his sleeve to become tight when he lifted his arm. Then there was the bruise on Walton’s face; it was on the left, making her assailant right-handed. Like Tremaine.
Coombes put the idea aside for now.
A laptop computer lay open on Walton’s desk next to a lamp with a horizontal green shade. He saw the back of a picture frame and when he moved around the desk, saw that it was a picture of Elizabeth Walton standing next to a goofy teenage girl.
A daughter perhaps.
He pressed the space bar on the laptop and the screen lit up, prompting him for a password. Coombes didn’t bother guessing. A spiral-bound notepad sat next to the laptop filled with names, telephone numbers, and dollar amounts. Around them were curly doodles and little faces. Some of them happy, some of them sad.
Coombes imagined Walton on the phone, her pen always moving. He flipped back through the pages and they were almost all the same. Names, numbers, dollar amounts. It had to be related to her charity work for Tremaine. The dollar amounts were substantial, the lowest figure he saw was for $15,000, which had a very sad face drawn next to it.
She hadn’t been balancing her checkbook, that was for sure.
He took a photograph of the ten most recent pages using his cell phone, then of the other items on the desk, finishing with a closely-cropped picture of the photo frame. Walton looked younger in the picture, maybe by as much as a decade. The teen would be in her mid-twenties by now. Heartbreak was in store for her, and he might be the one to deliver the news.
Coombes opened each of the three drawers to the right side of her desk. Inside were the usual office stationery, a pair of reading glasses, boxes of hard candy, and some out-of-date nicotine gum that looked long forgotten.
No Post-It Note with the laptop password conveniently scrawled on it.
Coombes didn’t think it mattered. Assuming Tremaine wasn’t the killer, the man who was hadn’t done it for anything on the laptop or he would have taken it with him. He had broken into the former governor’s mansion, either to commit a burglary, or with the intention of harming Tremaine. It appeared that the killer had entered the wrong side of the building and Walton had caught him before he could leave.
Her bedroom was right through the wall.
