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As if a switch were flipped, confusion fell over his face like a curtain. “What, uh...? I think there was. But the car, there was something about the car...” He glanced toward Lettie. “A girl, right, Ava? A little girl?”
Gabe looked to Lettie, who hiked a shoulder. “I remember a little of this. I was twelve or thirteen when it happened,” she said. “I think I read in the file there was another child, a twelve-year-old daughter. She was with friends the night of the accident.”
“Yes! The lone survivor.” Hill clapped his hands together. “Her parents had been at the hospital. Mom had just delivered a new baby.” The deep frown reappeared. “Something about the car...”
He stopped.
Lettie stepped in. “What about the car, Dad?”
He shook his head, face now folded in confusion. “Wrong, just wrong.” He looked away. His feet shuffled back and forth in what Gabe thought was agitation.
Lettie turned to Gabe and pointed at the file. “I don’t know what he means about the car. There’s a story in the file about how Mrs. Pope didn’t think she could get pregnant again after her first daughter. The file is thick because my dad collected all the related newspaper articles. I didn’t read them all. Maybe there’s something in there to explain about the car.”
Gabe nodded as his eye fell on one headline sticking out of the file. “Excitement of New Addition Turns to Tears.”
“Were there leads on who the driver was?” Gabe directed the question to D.K.
The old man tapped his head with a forefinger once more. “Don’t think so. Lots of outrage that no one was punished for the accident. There was a boycott of the last bar Curtis drank in. It eventually shut down. Colossal mess. Greeley was chief then.”
“Oh.” Gabe knew now why this case was a mess. Dace Greeley was the most corrupt police chief in the history of the PD. His tenure had been rife with scandal, complete with rumors like if you paid the chief enough money, he’d make your arrest disappear. Though it was thought there were a lot of people who got off this way, only one case was actually proven. Greeley was eventually fired after he intervened in the drunk driving arrest of a friend. The friend was looking at prison time for multiple DUIs. Greeley was caught red-handed falsifying records.
The department was in complete disarray after Greeley’s departure. His actions eroded public trust in the PD, and public trust was crucial for the police to do their jobs. Once lost, public trust could never be completely restored. The department was almost disbanded, with the city council wanting to hire the LA County Sheriff’s Department for police services like Lakewood, Carson, and many other agencies had. Things turned around with the hiring of a chief from within the ranks, J.J. Arthur. He righted the boat, so to speak. If there was something wrong in this case because of Greeley, Gabe needed to fix it. He believed LRPD was now one of the best medium-size departments in the state.
“Did Greeley have something to do with this case?” he asked Hill.
The shade fell across his eyes and sadly, Gabe didn’t think he’d get any more information from the man. He sat down in his chair and looked off across the room, away from Gabe.
Lettie put a hand on her dad’s shoulder and answered. “In his notes, he thought so. There’s a name in there of a subject he wanted to question. He belonged to the country club with Greeley. From what I saw, he never actually talked with the guy.”
Hill began muttering, “The car, the car...”
Lettie gave a sad smile.
Gabe figured he’d better leave. “Thanks, Lettie.”
“Certainly. The whole thing is tragic. If you can find out anything after all this time, my hat’s off to you.”
Gabe thanked D.K., who gave him no further acknowledgment, and left with the file. Gabe walked back to his car and pondered what to tell Natasha. The phrase “everything happens for a reason” popped into his head. He’d heard Frank Grace utter those words often enough. Funny, he thought, if I hadn’t been reassigned, I’d never be able to take a second look at this cold case. He paused at his car. Maybe there was something here, something more than he saw on the surface. Glancing back at the Hill house, he thought about what Hill had shown him and what Natasha had found. Someone had tried to erase this case from public record for some reason, and because of that, Gabe knew he could not let it go.
