Page 56 of Code of Courage

CHAPTER23

Gabe did stop for lunch after his visit with Hill. He picked a local restaurant where he knew he could spread out the case file and not be disturbed. He ordered a club sandwich with fries and a sparkling water and sorted through the paperwork to decide where to start. D.K. had everything—copies of the original police report, his own investigation, and photos of the scene. He studied the photos of both vehicles and of the scene once the vehicles were removed.

The crash had happened on a clear summer night. According to the initial narrative, written by the responding officers to the scene, the vehicle Curtis was in crossed the centerline and hit the Popes’ head-on. Both vehicles went off the shoulder, but the Pope vehicle rolled several times before landing on its roof.

Having grown up in LaRosa, Gabe was familiar with the area where the crash occurred. It bore no resemblance to the scene at the time of the accident. Wickham Road had been graded and developed into an off-ramp when the freeway was extended past LaRosa. Twenty-seven years ago, the freeway had not come as far, and Wickham had been a winding road, traversing a rise and then curving down toward the beach. To roll off the shoulder back then meant quite a drop.

When officers arrived, Curtis was out of the car sitting on the ground, legs straight in front of him, back against the driver’s door, passed out. The responding officers did something cops were told not to do: they assumed he was the driver and went from there. Monday-morning quarterbacking said the driver was possibly still in the area somewhere, but no one looked for him.

Gabe had expected a straightforward read, but it wasn’t long before he had to stop and go back to the pictures. The officers’ narrative named Curtis driverA and Pope driverB. Under primary collision factor was the sentence, “The vehicle operated by driverA crossed the centerline.” But the pictures didn’t reflect Curtis crossing the line; Pope crossed the line.

Hill’s investigation also contradicted the initial narrative. His diagrams recorded measurements and skid marks confirming Pope crossed the line. Curtis braked and swerved to avoid the collision, but it just wasn’t enough. There were no skid marks associated with Pope’s vehicle.

Gabe sat back frowning and rubbed his chin. Was this what Hill meant when he kept repeating “the car”? Even if the person driving Curtis’s car was a drunk driver, he didn’t cause the crash. Pope did. By all indications, Curtis’s vehicle was traveling at the speed limit in the correct lane when, for an unknown reason, Pope crossed the line and made no attempt to stop before the collision. A felony drunk driving conviction required proof that the drunk driver committed an offense causing the crash resulting in injuries or death. Whoever was driving Curtis’s vehicle would not have been charged with the deaths of the Pope family.

Gabe had to stop and think about this. Three people were dead, and it was possible it was the new father’s fault. Painful to conclude, but why ignore it if it was the truth?

Curtis’s injury from the seat belt eventually cleared him of being the driver. Hill’s investigation seemed to further clear whoever was driverA from culpability. Ira HoffmanSr., the father of IraJr. and Elise White, was running the Tribune then and wrote several editorials excoriating the police for not finding the “real killer.” He even spearheaded the effort to get the last bar Curtis was seen drinking in, the Annex, closed down.

In the file there were interviews Hill did at the Annex. Several people saw Curtis with a regular patron everyone knew as the Sandman, a nickname he earned because whenever he told stories, he put people to sleep. There was a composite sketch of the guy and eventually they were able to put a name to the face. Anson Aker was never interviewed; Hill’s notes indicated they were unable to negotiate a sit-down. Aker would only talk through his lawyer and denied being the driver the night of the accident. Hill didn’t believe him but couldn’t prove it and had no evidence to push it. For a time, HoffmanSr. hounded Aker in print. Only the threat of a lawsuit forced him to stop. The articles about the crash stopped, though Gabe had to wonder if Hill simply stopped saving them or they stopped being written.

Then he saw a note in red: Aker was a country club member and a friend of Chief Greeley.

Gabe sat back and finished his water. He thought maybe something in the file would clarify the issue for Natasha, explain why the report had been mostly deleted, but he’d come up zeros.

Across the room from him a child squealed and caught his attention.

“Don’t tease your baby brother,” a harried-looking mother admonished a girl of about six. The girl’s annoyed expression caused Gabe to smile. Then he got an idea.

Maybe the surviving daughter tried to erase the record for some reason. She wasn’t referred to in any of the police reports, which made sense since she hadn’t been in the car. In all the news stories, she was referred to only as “minor child.” She’d be grown by now, around thirty-nine years old. There should be a record of her somewhere.

Gabe gathered all the paperwork together and paid the tab, energized. That had to be it. Now all he had to do was find her and talk to her about the accident face-to-face.

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