Blindman’s Bluff

Decker marked the rooms on the map. Then he wrote each name on the top of a piece of paper in his notebook. There were a slew of players. He might as well start the scorecard.

CURLED UP IN a chair, Ana Mendez had just about disappeared. She seemed to be in her late thirties and was diminutive in size—under five feet—with almond skin stretched over a broad forehead and pronounced cheekbones. Her mouth was wide, her eyes round and dark. Her hair had been clipped into a pageboy, giving her face the appearance of someone staring out the window with two black drapes on the side and her short bangs being the valence curtain.

The maid had been sleeping, but woke up when Decker walked into the room. She rubbed her eyes, swollen from crying and squinting in the bright artificial light. He noticed that her white house-keeper’s uniform was smeared with brown stains and made a mental note to give the clothing to CSI.

Decker asked her to start from the beginning. This was her story.

Ana’s day off went from Monday evening to Tuesday evening. Usually she returned to the ranch earlier in the evening, but last night was a special function at her church, including a short midnight prayer service. She left afterward, around 12:30, and drove back to the ranch, arriving around an hour later. The mansion was entirely enclosed with heavy, wrought-iron fencing that had spikes on top, so most of the gates were unguarded. She had a card key for the gate closest to the kitchen. After she entered the premises, she drove to the service lot, parking her car behind the kitchen. She walked down a flight of steps to the service wing and used her bedroom key to get inside the building. When Decker asked about an alarm, she told him that the servants’ quarters was alarmed, but it wasn’t connected to the main house. The mansion had its own security system. This way, the help could go in and out without disturbing the Kaffeys’ safety system.

Her eyes swelled with tears when she described what she saw in the bedroom. She had turned on the light and there was blood everywhere—on the walls, on the carpet, on the two twin beds. But the worst part was Alicia: she was lying on her back and wasn’t moving. Her face had been shot off. It was horrible. Terrifying. She started screaming.

The next part of her story was mixed with giant sobs. She ran upstairs: the interior stairs that led to the mansion’s kitchen. Normally the kitchen door was locked at midnight to prevent anyone using the servants’ entrance from coming into the main house. But not tonight. Ana distinctly remembered flying into the kitchen and screaming for the missus.

But no one answered.

When Decker asked her about the mansion’s alarm going off when she went into the kitchen, Ana couldn’t remember. She had been hysterical, and she apologized for her hazy memory.

Decker thought she was doing pretty well.

She discovered the Kaffeys in the library—first the men, then the missus. No one was moving so she thought they were all dead, including Gil. She had watched enough television to know that she shouldn’t touch anything.

Still screaming, she ran outside. She was alone and the grounds were dark and spooky. She knew where Paco Albanez’s bungalow was because she was friendly with the groundskeeper. But to get to Paco’s bungalow, she had to walk by the pool, cross over the tennis courts, and go through the fruit orchards. Riley Karns lived closer to the main house. Even though she didn’t know him well, she woke him up. He told her to stay in his quarters while he looked around. Around fifteen minutes later, Riley came back with Paco Albanez and the three of them tried to figure out what to do. They knew they had to call the police and since Riley spoke English, he volunteered. He told Paco and her to wait in his bungalow while he made the calls. Then he left. He came back about thirty minutes later with two policemen. The officers brought the three of them into the house and separated them. The policeman said that people would be talking to her. First it was the lady policewoman. Now it was him.

The story was a straightforward narrative. She didn’t seem overly addled nor did her words seem rehearsed. When she was done, she looked up at Decker forlornly and asked when could she leave? When he told her she needed to stay for a little while longer, she burst into tears.

Decker patted her hand and left to interview Riley Karns.

The groomsman was a tiny man with a strong grip and an even stronger English accent. His elfin features were set into a weathered face and his complexion was wan from horror as well as lack of sleep.

He had worked with horses for years—as a jockey, as a trainer, and as an equestrian jumper or doing dressage in horse shows. His job not only included tending to the horses and dogs, but also teaching Gilliam Kaffey basic equestrian skills. He wore dark sweats that appeared to be smudged with stains. When Decker asked if had changed his clothing tonight, he answered no. Karns’s account dovetailed with Ana’s story. He filled in Ana’s missing minutes—the half hour or so that she was alone with Paco Albanez in Karns’s bungalow.

Karns admitted that his first call should have been 911, but he wasn’t thinking so clearly. Instead, he had rung up Neptune Brady—the Kaffeys’ chief of staff. Karns knew that Brady was up north in Oakland visiting his father but he called him anyway. When the two of them connected, Neptune told Karns to call 911 immediately, then to ring up Piet Kotsky and have him get over to the ranch to find out what the hell went wrong. Brady told him that he was going to try to charter a private jet to get the hell down to L.A. He’d call Kotsky once his travel plans were firmed up. Brady also told Karns that he’d notify the family.

Karns simply did as he was told. He called 911, then he called Piet Kotsky who said he’d leave right away, but it would take him three hours to get to the ranch. An ambulance arrived about five minutes later, then the police came. He took a couple of officers over to his bungalow where Ana and Paco were staying. The police took them inside and separated them.

Paco Albanez was in his fifties—a mocha-complexioned man with gold eyes, gray hair, and a white handlebar mustache. He was built low to the ground with a barrel chest and thick forearms. He, like Ana, had worked for the Kaffeys for about three years. He didn’t have much to add to the mix. Karns woke him up with a start, told him to get his clothes on, and that a terrible tragedy had happened to the family. He was half asleep, but as soon as he saw how upset Ana was, he woke up pretty quickly. He stayed with Ana until the police arrived. His recitation also seemed on the up-and-up.

Decker left the interviews with many unanswered questions. Among them:

1 Why was the door to the kitchen unlocked?

2 Did the killers come through the staff quarters, murder the sleeping maid, and access the house through the kitchen? If so, who let them in?

3 Did the alarm go off when Ana went into the kitchen? And if it didn’t, who turned it off?

4 Who possesses keys to the main house besides the family?

5 Who knows the alarm code besides the family?

6 Who was the first one to realize that Gil Kaffey wasn’t dead?

7 And, finally, why didn’t the murderers make sure that Kaffey was dead?

There were housekeepers, guardhouse guards, mansion guards, a groundskeeper, a groomer, Piet Kotsky, and Neptune Brady. And this was Guy Kaffey’s personal staff. Decker could only imagine how complicated it would get when he got into the business—a corporation that employed thousands. The manpower devoted to such a high-profile case would be staggering. In his mind, he saw a bursting case file filled with a forest’s worth of felled trees. In recent months, their substation had started using paper from recycled pulp.

Go green.

Better than red: the predominant color of the evening.

THREE (#ulink_9580111f-5590-5b93-9356-9ea3dee17a8b)

THE TWO VOICES were deep and demanding. From the back, Decker noticed the bald guy first, garbed in loose-fitting chinos and a bomber jacket. He was thick necked and broad shouldered and appeared to be packing around 250 pounds of pure muscle. His companion had a head of thick black hair and wore gray slacks and a blue blazer. He was taller and leaner but also powerfully built. If they were football players, one would have been a tackle, the other a quarterback.

From the snippets of conversation, they appeared to be irate at the police. First they had been stopped like common criminals at the off-ramp, grilled like they’d done something wrong. And now Marge was refusing to let them see the crime scene. Though his favorite sergeant didn’t require help, Decker went over to investigate.

Marge made quick introductions: Piet Kotsky and then Neptune Brady. Kotsky was flushed, with sweat dripping off a protruding forehead. His eyes were big and deep-set, and his skin was tightly drawn over prominent cheekbones. His complexion was jaundice in color—the hue of mummified skin.

Brady was younger, in his early to mid thirties. His lean face had spent a lot of hours in the tanning salon. He had pale blue eyes, thick lips, and tightly curled dark hair. His arms were folded across his chest, his hands big and adorned with several gold rings. His chin jutted forward when he spoke. “Are you in charge?” Without waiting for a response, he said, “What the fuck happened?”

Decker said, “We’re still gathering information—”

“Do you know it took me about twenty minutes just to convince the idiots at the off-ramp that I actually had a reason to be at the ranch! Don’t you guys communicate with one another?”

Decker took a step backward, giving them both some space. “What can I do for you, Mr. Brady?”

“For starters, how about some answers?”

“As soon as I have them, I’ll pass them along. I’d like to ask you some questions.” He turned to Marge. “Why don’t you take Mr. Kotsky to one of the studies and interview him there, Sergeant.”

“What is this?” Brady’s nostrils flared. “Divide and conquer?”

“We’re not the enemy, Mr. Brady. And I need information.” Decker checked off items on his fingers. “We need a list of everyone who works at the house either full- or part-time. How many people are in the house at night at any one time? Who was supposed to be working last night? Who lives on the properties? Who lives off the properties? How long has each employee been working for the Kaffeys? Who has access keys? Alarm codes? Who hires? Who fires? Mundane information like that.”

Brady shuffled his feet. “I can help you. First, I’d like to see what happened.”

Marge said, “Mr. Kotsky, why don’t you come with me and let Lieutenant Decker and Mr. Brady conduct their business.”

Kotsky looked at Brady, who nodded. “Okay. Go into the east study.”

Marge said, “Where’s that on the map?”

“Piet will show you.”

After they had gone, Brady said, “I need to see what happened.”

“No one sees the victims unless it’s been cleared by the coroner’s investigators. We’re in charge of the death scene, but they’re in charge of the bodies.”

“Bureaucracy!” Brady spat out. “No wonder the police don’t get anything done.”