Final Analysis - Catherine Crier [63]
While the essential facts had been reported, the case was far from solved. Slowly, contradictory stories where hitting the airways as the Polk sons staked out opposing positions on their family history and their mother’s culpability. Friends began to describe the chaotic household in the press, but despite the reputation that the family was quickly earning, there was still one key player who had to be interviewed: Susan’s mother, Helen.
Chapter Fourteen
HISTORY REPEATS
Helen Bolling was at home in San Diego when her son, David, telephoned on Wednesday, October 16, with the stunning news that Felix was dead and Susan was in jail, suspected of his murder. Though Susan had been incarcerated late Monday evening, no one had contacted remaining family members to alert them to the arrest. Even after police came knocking on David’s door on Tuesday afternoon, he waited to inform his mother of Susan’s arrest. During the phone call, David told Helen that he attended a press conference at police headquarters in Orinda where detectives shared limited details of Susan’s detention. News outlets were reporting that the autopsy revealed a very violent death.
Felix had been stabbed twenty-seven times, the headlines screamed.
Helen could barely comprehend what her son was telling her. “It’s just not possible,” she told him. Susan was a petite woman, she thought. How could her daughter overpower someone of Felix’s size? Besides, if Susan wanted to murder him, would she have planned such a violent and risky encounter? She would never have undertaken such an assault on her own, Helen thought.
Reeling from the news, Helen dialed the Contra Costa Sheriff ’s headquarters. She wanted to speak with someone in charge. Detective Mike Costa took her call.
He told Helen that her daughter was refusing to speak with authorities.
“Well, it’s no wonder,” Helen replied. “To experience that kind of event, sometimes you almost can’t talk.”
The detective was silent.
Helen next inquired about the family car. David told her that transit officers had found Felix’s black Saab in the parking lot of the Orinda BART station.
“She just drove it there,” Costa replied flatly.
To Costa’s dismay, transit officers who interviewed taxi and bus drivers servicing the Orinda station failed to discern any evidence or witnesses tying Susan to the Saab. A search of the vehicle showed no signs of forced entry, and investigators had been unable to locate the car keys.
“That doesn’t sound reasonable. How did she get back?” Helen asked the detective. “You can’t walk back. Those roads are too dark and narrow.” The Polk’s home was quite a ways from both the train station and the downtown area. It would have taken at least three hours for Susan to walk from the BART station to her home, Helen told the detective. That just didn’t make sense, she said.
Costa was aware of the distance. His officers had mapped the roughly three-mile route from the Polk house to the station using both city streets and cross-country shortcuts. They determined the time needed to travel that distance on foot to be well under three hours. While he had no evidence to back up his assertion, Costa maintained that Susan had driven the Saab to the BART station immediately after dropping Gabriel at school that Monday morning, and then walked home to retrieve her Volvo wagon for the 12:30 PM pickup at Del Oro High.
Helen found Costa’s theory preposterous. She believed that if Susan had left Felix’s car at the BART station, she had to have had an accomplice—maybe Gabriel—to drive her home. Gabe had been home at the time and recently he had been extremely angry with his father. The teen was so angry that he had taken a sledgehammer to Felix’s Saab that past June, damaging the sporty sedan. Gabe later explained that his mother