Final Analysis - Catherine Crier [27]
Also on the computer’s desktop was a document “My diary.” During her interview at headquarters, Susan had mentioned that she kept a diary, and suspecting this was it, investigators confiscated the laptop for further examination. Continuing their search of the office, police recovered a receipt from the Best Western Hotel in Bozeman, Montana, for the dates that Susan had given during her interview with Detective Costa, and a Blockbuster Video rental receipt dated October 12, 2002, at 2:34 PM. There was also a piece of paper listing the residence at 1530 Arch Street, Berkeley, the five-unit apartment complex jointly owned by Felix and Susan Polk. According to the paper, Felix occupied Unit 1532. Gabriel claimed that his father vacated the unit prior to his murder, and the apartment was currently empty.
Other paperwork showed that the couple had nearly $5 million in real estate assets, including the Miner Road home, the Arch Street apartment complex, and a third building with four units on Linda Avenue in nearby Piedmont. The papers indicated that their debts totaled just under $1 million, and it seemed there was substantial money at stake in the divorce proceedings.
Officers observed an unusual number of books throughout the house. On the mantel in the living room above the stone fireplace were collections of Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray. Biographies of Europe’s master painters sat on a coffee table near the room’s enormous flat-screen TV. The glossy red and white cover of The Joy of Cooking stood out among the myriad cookbooks stacked on a counter in the kitchen.
On the second level of the home was a small laundry room. Inside the washing machine, police found a wet area rug, and the dryer held several towels, but a check of all the items revealed no visible bloodstains. No blood was detected on any of the clothing in the hamper near the appliances.
The master bedroom suite was up one more flight of stairs. The expansive room was tastefully decorated in soft earth tones and bathed in natural light from oversized windows. A queen-size bed with a wood headboard jutted out from one wall. Soft carpeting, an ample master bath, and an enormous walk-in closet gave the space a luxurious feel. In the bathroom, police collected the three blue hand towels that Costa had seen the night before and then searched the walk-in closet for bloody shoes. None were found.
Across the hall from the master suite on the north side of the staircase, there was a second bedroom and bathroom used by Gabriel. Between the two bedrooms, there was a third door that led out to the covered carport where Gabriel had hidden the previous night while he called the police. That carport, used mostly by Susan, was reached from the higher of the two driveways and provided access to the uppermost living quarters. Susan’s silver Volvo station wagon was still there, along with two additional cars parked farther down the driveway—another Volvo and Eli’s Dodge Ram 1500 pick-up truck that Susan had driven to Montana. The guesthouse where police were collecting fingerprints was south of the main residence and west of the small structure that contained a bathroom and the family’s home gym.
At 5 PM on Tuesday, October 15, the coroner’s van made its way to the cottage to remove Felix’s dead body, clearing the way for additional examination of the immediate crime scene. The forensic team remained there for several more hours to gather fingerprints and collect other potential evidence.
It was after 9 PM when Detective Costa and the others wrapped up their work at the Polk house, now encircled in bright yellow police tape. They returned to the Main Detention Facility at 1000 Ward Street in Martinez, where Susan Polk had been transported during the early morning hours after her interrogation. After being processed at the jail, Susan had been booked for the murder of her husband,