“You already know, I’m sure. And what’s that got to do with anything?”
“You seem kind of old for her. For Tina.”
“She was an attractive woman and older than she looked or claimed to be. She told me she was thirty-nine when I met her that night.”
“But that’s the point, right? She was older than she looked. You, a guy in your fifties, moving in on a lady you thought was in her thirties. Kind of creepy, you ask me.”
I felt my face turning red with embarrassment and indignation.
“For the record, I didn’t ‘move in on’ her,” I said. “She picked up her Cosmo and came down the bar to me. That’s how it started.”
“Good for you,” Mattson said sarcastically. “Must’ve made your ego stand at attention. So let’s go back to Wednesday. Where were you coming from during those twenty minutes you said you were in the car driving home that night?”
“It was a work meeting,” I said.
“With people that we could talk to and verify if we need to?”
“If it comes to that. But you are—”
“Good. So tell us again about you and Tina.”
I could tell what he was doing. Jumping around with his questions, trying to keep me off balance. I covered cops for almost two decades for two different newspapers and the Velvet Coffin blog. I knew how it worked. Any slight discrepancy in retelling the story and they would have what they needed.
“No, I already told you everything. You want any more information from me, then you have to give information.”
The detectives were silent, apparently deciding whether to deal. I jumped in with the first question that came to mind.
“How did she die?” I asked.
“She had her neck snapped,” Mattson said.
“Atlanto-occipital dislocation,” Sakai said.
“What the hell does that mean?” I asked.
“Internal decapitation,” Mattson said. “Somebody did a one-eighty on her neck. It was a bad way to go.”
I felt a deep pressure begin to grow in my chest. I did not know Tina Portrero beyond the one evening I was with her, but I couldn’t get the image of her—refreshed by the photo shown by Sakai—being killed in such a horrible manner out of my mind.
“It’s like that movie The Exorcist,” Mattson said. “Remember that? With the possessed girl’s head twisting around.”
That didn’t help things.
“Where was this?” I asked, trying to move on from the images.
“Landlord found her in the shower,” Mattson continued. “Her body was covering the drain and it overflowed and he came to check it out. He found her, water still running. It was supposed to look like a slip-and-fall but we know better. You don’t slip in the shower and break your neck. Not like that.”
I nodded as though that was good information to know.
“Okay, look,” I said. “I didn’t have anything to do with this and can’t help you with your investigation. So if there are no other questions, I would like—”
“There are more questions, Jack,” Mattson said sternly. “We are only getting started with this investigation.”
“Then what? What else do you want to know from me?”
“You being a reporter and all, do you know what ‘digital stalking’ is?”
“You mean like social media and tracking people through that?”
“I’m asking questions. You’re supposed to answer them.”
“You have to be more specific, then.”
“Tina told a good friend of hers that she was being digitally stalked. When her friend asked what that meant, Tina said a guy she met in a bar knew things about her he should not have known. She said it was like he knew all about her before he even started talking to her.”
“I met her in a bar a year ago. This whole thing is—wait a minute. How did you even know to come here to talk to me?”
“She had your name. In her contacts. And she had your books on the night table.”
I couldn’t remember whether I had discussed my books with Tina the night I met her. But since we had ended up at my apartment, it was likely that I had.
“And on the basis of that, you come here like I’m a suspect?”
“Calm down, Jack. You know how we work. We are conducting a thorough investigation. So let’s go back to the stalking. For the record, was that you she was talking about with the stalking?”
“No, it wasn’t me.”
“Good to hear. Now, last question for now: Would you be willing to voluntarily give us a saliva sample for DNA analysis?”
The question startled me. I hesitated. I jumped to thinking about the law and my rights and totally skipped over the fact that I had committed no crime and therefore my DNA in any form from semen to skin residue could not be found at any crime scene from last Wednesday.
“Was she raped?” I asked. “Now you’re accusing me of rape too?”
“Take it easy, Jack,” Mattson said. “No sign of rape but let’s just say we got some DNA from the suspect.”
I realized that my DNA was my quickest way off their radar.
“Well, that wasn’t me, so when do you want to take my saliva?”
“How about right now?”
Mattson looked at his partner. Sakai reached inside his suit jacket and pulled out two six-inch test tubes with red rubber caps each containing a long-ended cotton swab. I realized then that most likely the sole purpose of their visit was to get my DNA. They had the killer’s DNA. They, too, knew that it would be the quickest way to determine whether I had any involvement in the murder.
That was fine with me. They were going to be disappointed by the results.
“Let’s do it,” I said.
“Good,” Mattson said. “And there is one other thing we could do that would help us with the investigation.”
I should have known. Open the door an inch and they push all the way through.
“What’s that?” I said impatiently.
“You mind taking your shirt off?” Mattson said. “So we can check your arms and body?”
“Why would—”
I stopped myself. I knew what he wanted. He wanted to see if I had scratch marks or other wounds from a fight. The DNA in evidence had probably come from Tina Portrero’s fingernails. She had put up a fight and taken a piece of her killer.
I started unbuttoning my shirt.
3
A s soon as the detectives left, I pulled my laptop out of my backpack went online and searched the name Christina Portrero. I got two hits, both on the Los Angeles Times site. The first was just a mention on the newspaper’s homicide blog, where every murder in the county was recorded. This report was early in the case and had few details other than the fact that Portrero was found dead in her apartment during a wellness check by the landlord after she did not show up for work and did not respond to calls or messaging through social media. The report said foul play was suspected but the cause of death had not yet been determined.
I was a religious reader of the blog and realized I had read the story and scanned through it without recognizing the name Christina Portrero as the Tina Portrero I had met one night the year before. I wondered what I would have done if I had recognized her as the woman I had met. Would I have called the police to mention my experience, my knowledge that on at least one occasion she had gone to a bar by herself and had picked me for a one-night stand?