Asha's obituary, from the Santa Cruz Sentinel

Asha Veil memorial on Saturday

There will be another memorial service for Asha Veil this Saturday, September 29th, from 3-5 p.m. at the Santa Cruz Mission Memorial Chapel, 1927 Ocean Street. Thanks to
the Sentinel for announcing this event, which is open to the public. I regretfully can't attend, because my troupe is performing out-of-town and I will have to be on the road at that time. My sincere condolences go out to the family yet again.

limbo

When a murder happens in one's community, it doesn't stay far from people's minds, especially since no one has been arrested for this crime yet. Some folks say it is just starting to hit them, what really happened to Asha, and if the killer is still at large, lurking around someplace. There is a suspect in jail who worked with Asha, but he is being charged with a separate (horrific) crime. There has been no reportage in our local paper, The Santa Cruz Sentinel, for several days now on Asha Veil's murder. This is a time of limbo; I've heard of no information leaked out to anyone from those working directly on the crime, and I am glad for their ability and willingness to keep any evidence they've found in this case airtight. Still, the absence of news in the media right now leaves room for rumors to wildly proliferate.

I had my hair done yesterday; the shop is located in the same area where Asha worked.
It's often the site of the best news in town, and lively, fun gossip, but this time, it was a source of rumors and fearful speculation. One woman said that there was a murder at UCSC (in reality, it was a young woman who had tragically taken an accidental fall from a 60-foot-high pedestrian bridge). My hairdresser told me that Asha often parked her car in front of the salon, and that's how she knew who she was, though she had never spoken at length to her. I kvetched about the horrible lighting in town, and my hairdresser said that the streetlights go on and off at random, sometimes leaving folks in total darkness as they walk along. She also said there was a rumor someone had gone missing from Coffee Nine just up the block (I've heard nothing whatsoever to substantiate this), and people have been speculating that the FBI are swarming over Ben Lomond. And who knows where the truth resides right now?

Truman Capote came across unbelievably sad and ironic rumors and theories when he was researching the Clutter murder for In Cold Blood: before Smith and Hickock were caught, someone called a local detective and said he just knew Herb Clutter had blown his whole family up with a bomb. It's human nature to speculate, and sometimes those speculations get pretty bizarre in situations like this.

When I left my appointment, I had an urge to go up the road where Asha was found, all the way up past the houses to the place where the earth groaned and slid over twenty years ago, wrecking everything in its path, a monument to destruction and human frailty. I asked myself what in the world I thought I might find, and thought better of it, aware of the possibility of danger to myself, and knowing that I probably would do nothing more than freak myself out. Still, I thought that desolate area might have an answer for me somehow--but for now, it is the time for secrets to stay hidden.

**AN AMENDMENT** I'm cranky today because some wild cat--probably a male bobcat--was advertising its presence quite loudly last night, all night; it felt like the darn thing was right under my window. So, if you work for the Sentinel, do forgive my rant, which has some cause in the fact that I live in the Wild Kingdom, sans Marlon Perkins.

I just want to know why Asha Veil's murder case has now disappeared from the Sentinel's reporting. This is the major paper for Santa Cruz County and no one has mentioned a word about whether the investigation is continuing; there have been no further interviews with community residents; I heard not one word about her deeply moving memorial service, in which a whole cross-section of this community turned out.

A photograph of this would, in my opinion, have been an important piece of news coverage in the Sentinel. The folks in the San Lorenzo Valley aren't a bunch of hillbillies who hide in their cabins when the revenuers come to town--this, by and large, is a caring community, and so many folks are frightened and angry right now, with a million unanswered questions. Perhaps the family didn't want the media at her memorial service, which is completely understandable. Also, I know there's probably not a lot for the Sentinel to report, but still......

candles at sundown for Asha Veil

A few weeks ago, I was shopping in the Ben Lomond Super, thinking about getting supplies for winter. This area is prone to power outages all winter long, and I like to have a lot of candles for the inevitable hours without light at night. I have two cut-glass kerosene lamps, a small glass oil lamp, numerous tin lanterns, and a few container candles. I passed by the small "hardware" section in the market, which is suprisingly well-stocked with power outage necessities, including very nice tall candles in glass containers. I noticed that there was one pink container candle, a very nice shade of watermelon-pink, and I decided to buy it. The checkout clerk took a moment to roll it up in a separate paper bag to protect it, and I walked out into the warm day--just an ordinary day.

But my checkout clerk that day, the one who carefully made sure my candle didn't get broken, was Asha Veil, and I had no idea then that I would be holding that very candle a few weeks later at her memorial service.

There was a community memorial service at the Ben Lomond Park for Asha this evening at seven o'clock. I'm usually afraid to be around the park at dusk or later, but this was a wonderful gathering, a candlelight memorial to a person I now wish I had gotten to know a bit better. She touched so many lives with a good heart, and there was a big turnout of folks, including many firefighters, who wept openly. I was deeply moved by the sight of so much light in the gathering darkness, under the parasol branches of an old, twisted maple, its foliage still untouched by autumn. It was a gathering of an entire spectrum of a community: moms, dads, young people, street people, senior citizens, people from most walks of life. I thought of my beloved friend Harvey Birenbaum's life, how I felt he had died too young as well--but Harvey was 69 years old, with a respected academic career, and even got to enjoy a bit of retirement. He wrote books, got to have a family, saw his children grow up. Asha's life was brutally cut short, a sapling pulled by the roots. What her life and the life of her child would be are only questions now. Her future and that of her child have been robbed forever. Her family and loved ones' futures with her have been usurped as well.

I left after the gathering was over, while people were beginning to sing "Amazing Grace." All I could wonder, as I walked in the dark, past buildings I've known all the decades I have lived in the Valley, is why someone would do this, and who did it. I don't have a single profound thought tonight, just this question, like the call of an owl into the night. The sheer hatred, the contempt and insanity of killing a pregnant woman and just dumping her by the side of a road--it is beyond comprehension.

For now, there was a moment of solemn love and brief light; perhaps later, there will be more answers, and hopefully justice.

a rose for Asha

This picture is courtesy of the Valley Press (click it if you want to see a larger photo); it shows the memorial to Asha and her daughter. I finally went into the market today; the very last time I was there, Asha was my checkout clerk. One of my rosebushes--an unnamed pink rose I got from a sale table years ago at Orchard Supply--is still putting out beautiful blooms; it's the first rose to bloom in spring and the last one to go dormant. I cut one for Asha's memorial site and went out to Ben Lomond. The air has been so incredibly dry; my skin feels crackly and the quality of afternoon light today was pure, ripe gold, one of those days where autumn really begins to let itself be known. The memorial to Asha has, among other things, mourning candles, many, many bunches of flowers (some already wilted due to the heat of the last few days), Polish flags, stuffed toys, and tall container candles, similar to veladoras, except the only real veladora there was one of Frida Kahlo. Strangely, Asha’s photograph was not there today. Kids--I guessed fifth-graders--were milling about the memorial, looking at the flowers and candles, wondering if the killer would come visit it and would be caught that way. I walked into the store after putting my rose among the other flowers and felt a wall of grief surround me. I could barely stay there and decided to forget the cup of "Foglifter" coffee I thought I might buy. Nobody was at the coffee cart anyway. I decided to just leave, though I heard some interesting, somber conversations among the store employees. I had a college friend, Anne Swanke, who was killed in 1985 by a serial killer, so the grief of these days has been bringing up that old sorrow again. The only remotely meaningful thing that came out of Anne's death for me was that her murderer was apprehended and removed from society, so he could never kill again. Her dad was one of my philosophy professors and her sister was an acquaintance of mine; Anne and I sang in the alto section of the university choir. Though much time has passed, I still feel angry and sad that Anne was taken from a life that was rightfully hers--and just because some maniac found an opportune moment to do so. So I wonder what meaning will come out of this situation, where a young woman was just going about the daily business of her life and suddenly was erased from existence. There is a statement in the recovery movement which says, "More will be revealed," and of course this will. For now, Frida keeps watch over the flowers which lie open to the sun at Asha's workplace memorial, over the cards and notes scribbled with messages like threads that bind lives to this unbelievable sorrow, and another day draws silently and sadly to a close.

more on the Joanna "Asha" Veil case

One of Joanna Veil's coworkers was arrested the other day. He is being held in County Jail with bail set at a million dollars. He is suspected in a sexual assault case, with great bodily injury and death threats against the woman (not Joanna Veil--so far, this is unrelated to her murder). I won't post his name here, though it is elsewhere on the Internet in relation to this case and the locals know who it is.

There are times when the shadow draws so close to one's life--my younger daughter, who is nineteen, told her that this man was creepy and often pestered her when he saw her at the Ben Lomond Super--he offered more than once to give her rides to various places around the San Lorenzo Valley, which she refused. I am so glad she didn't go with him. Sooo glad and so grateful to the angels and ancestral spirits who guard my four kids.

I am thinking that whoever murdered Asha (which was her nickname and the name on her checker tag) had to have been a local. Despite the San Lorenzo Valley being a remote place, the area where her body was found is basically a place you have to know about.
Love Creek goes 'way up and is not inhabited near the end, but you wouldn't know this just trucking up the road, as there are houses for quite some time. At the very end of the road is a landslide and a memorial to two kids who died in the January 1982 landslide. The plaque implores people not to dump their garbage in the area. Asha's body was found near the end of this road. The end of Love Creek Road has always felt like such a wildly desolate, sorrowful place to me, and now it will be even more so.

Santa Cruz has always felt relatively safe to me, but I haven't been venturing out too much after dark these days, not until they make an arrest in this case. Rumors continue to fly like bats up a dark chimney; who knows what is true or not? And I remain deeply sad and filled with sorrow for Asha's family, for her coworkers, for the unspeakable tragedy of life just snuffed out--for what possible reason?

Joanna Veil murder (potentially upsetting post and link)

I apologize in advance to sensitive readers who may be upset by crime stories--if you are, please do not read further.

A grocery checker named Joanna Veil left her job at a local store, the Ben Lomond Market, on Saturday, September 9th, and was found murdered on Thursday, September 14th. Her car was found about a quarter-mile from the market, and her body was discovered at the end of Love Creek Road, which is a mostly "walkable," mostly paved road with a large, rugged area at the very end, the scene of a huge landslide in the 1980s. She was six and a half months pregnant. I remember her, because I go to that market very frequently; it's a fifteen minute drive from my house. The very last time I went there, she was my checker (I remember her from her accent and the fact that she was visibly pregnant).

There are no suspects so far in this killing. I feel so terrible for her family, her friends. Apparently she got off work on Saturday at seven-thirty, according to some news articles (thanks to the folks on the alt.truecrime group for pointing this out), though I have heard from locals that she was actually working later than that. If she was working after sundown, then I think it is important to note that Ben Lomond has the worst lighting in places--the part around the market is fairly well-lit, but if you walk just a bit down the block, it gets increasingly darker, and is pitch-black by the Ben Lomond park, where all kinds of creepy people lurk at night. I never go down by the park at night, just to the market. It is baffling that someone could just vanish like this--nobody seems to have seen a thing. Love Creek Road is not densely populated at the top, where she was found, but there are homes all around that area on the way to the end of the road.

Lately the murders in Santa Cruz seem to be gang or drug related, or idiots who think it's cool to beat up homeless people; there has been one domestic violence-related death. This is terrifying and sinister to me in a different category of terrifying and sinister things--I keep wondering, how did this happen? It was not a killing to take the baby from her mother's womb, something I feared from the get-go. Did her car break down? It was found just a short distance from her home, though. She was still wearing her apron from the Ben Lomond Market when they found her body--she didn't even have time to take it off after her workday was over. The police have released little to no information about the crime, except for basic information. I wonder if she consistently worked the late shift on Saturday and the person who did it was familiar with that. I can't begin to imagine the unspeakable fear she must have experienced.

I feel very sad and scared by this; I caution my two teens emphatically not to go running around the Valley at night anyway, but now even more so. All sorts of rumors have been flying like sparks, but mostly people are afraid, and the early-autumn darkness is not friendly when it descends.

bobcats, cougars, autumn

There is a female bobcat in my neighborhood (apparently the females keep to a certain area, and the males come to them at the appropriate time). I've spotted her once in my very backyard, hanging around the woodpile, her pelt a gorgeous gold-rust, her motions just like a housecat. Tonight her weird cackle-yowl echoes off the walls of the little canyon carved by the creek, hour after hour; it's the night for bobcats and coyotes, who wail like grieving women as the belly of the moon grows full. Deer stand in my yard and watch me water plants, unafraid; quail skitter like fat gray question marks across my road, and a cougar has been spotted in the woods just a short walk from my house. I hear wild turkeys call in the woods, fall asleep and dream they've transformed into Native American men, crouched low to the ground, covered with brilliant feather-capes. The animals know that the sickle of the year grows sharp; my garden will die out, the agave--now covered with golden flowers and equally golden bees--will wither to a memory. I am not ready, wear summer clothes and flip-flops till my toes freeze. The deer move like slender thieves in the night garden.

Thinking of this, somehow I remember the night I saw a cougar on Highway Nine. I was still driving my former car, an old, beat-up van, during the drought many years ago. My children were small, tired--I don't remember why we were driving late that hot night, all the windows rolled down. Dust filled the air, and we seemed to be the only ones traveling that road. Suddenly, something crept out of the abolute darkness of the woods--I thought at first it was a big dog, but the tail was long, catlike, the creature like nothing I've ever seen before, pure muscle, with a buff pelt and a square head, the tail moving, twitching. I stopped--this thing owned the road and wasn't about to be hurried, something long and furry clamped in its jaws, a rabbit, I thought. I told the children to roll their windows up and prayed my van's battery wouldn't go dead, as it sometimes did. The creature turned its head towards us, orange fangs shut tight on its prey, its lantern eyes alight, and then it slipped over the road and into the woods. I described this later to a ranger who said it was most likely a mountain lion--something I thought I would never encounter and have never seen again, though I am grateful for the once-in-a-lifetime glimpse, a visitation from an angel of wildness.

a night in the city

Mr. Strega and I found ourselves in San Francisco last night (not exactly by accident, but as a result of dropping Prada off for the start of a new semester). The stores we wanted to visit--ArtFibers yarn and Brooks Brothers--were closed and so we decided to traipse through the city for whatever adventures we could find. It was a proper San Francisco night, to be sure, with fog blowing over the tops of the skyscrapers and scads of people roaming the sidewalks. We walked from Union Square to North Beach, and made reservations at The Stinking Rose, which I've never visited (it being a tiny bit of a tourist attraction).

We decided to

deer deer

I think I ought to write a country-western song that starts with "someone left the gate a-hangin' open, and the deer got in." It would be sung in a very sad twang, with lots of slide guitar in the background, 'cause that is what happened last night. I had a tomato plant full of ripening Early Girls, one perfect Angel Face rose about to bloom, and lots of buds on my Gertrude Jekyll...but not anymore. I do feel grateful that this stealth-munching by the deer was minor, not the biggest problem to have on earth, and it could have been much worse...I've woken to a fully skeletonized garden in years past. Life in the woods creates strange and simple acts of gratitude.