Glen Park, in the flesh. It makes me smile. I wish my dad were here to see it.
When he gets about thirty yards up the hill, he does what appears to be a reluctant U-turn and slowly jogs back to me, his hands folded behind his head. He stops right in front of me at the end of my driveway, backlit by the sun. Up close, I’m surprised by how tall he is.
“Hello, Lina.” I’m surprised he knows my name. He flashes a quick, pained smile. “When did you figure it out? Was it that morning by the golf course?”
“No, it was later, over on Forestview. You were doing a four-minute mile.”
“No way,” he says. “I’m too old for that.”
“I know what I saw.”
“I get carried away.”
“You have no idea how sad my dad would be to miss this. He must have watched that old footage from Kezar a hundred times.”
He puts his hands on his hips, does a couple of side bends. “He didn’t miss it. Your dad was on to me years ago.”
“What? You’re kidding!”
“I ran this route by his house one too many times. Eventually, he invited me in, told me he had a VHS tape he wanted me to see. I hadn’t watched that race in years. We became friends. Used to sit out on the back porch drinking Macallan twelve year, talking about old races.”
I smile, thinking of my dad, holding on to this secret. “Glen fucking Park,” I say. “I can’t believe he never told me.”
“I made him promise.”
57
“But sometimes illumination comes to our rescue at the very moment when all seems lost; we have knocked at every door and they open on nothing until, at last, we stumble unconsciously against the only one through which we can enter the kingdom we have sought in vain a hundred years—and it opens.”
—Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time
Would the average American respond to this quote with optimism or regret? What “kingdom” have you personally sought and found?
I’m sitting in the car in Millbrae, on Kobayashi’s street. He’s not home, of course. On the penultimate day of the Wonder Test, there’s only one place he could be. I park across the street, halfway down the block, tucking the Jeep in behind a Porsche Cayenne. I’ve asked Kyle to keep an eye on my dad’s house, do drive-bys every few minutes until I return home.
An email comes in from Malia. For Red Vine, I got you $1k for a gift, $25k for the payment, and I earmarked whatever travel you need for Iceland out of the IYIY funds.
I can sense Malia’s excitement. This is the part of her job she loves. She’ll want to know what kind of gift I selected for Red Vine, my ops plan, briefing questions. She geeks out on the details.
On the way home, I stop at the library in Burlingame. There’s a public computer I like, basement level, tucked away in a corner behind the archived newspapers. I log on with a library card that was surprisingly easy to obtain in alias. I access the dedicated proton account and find that Red Vine has left two messages. I’m alarmed to discover the first one was sent twenty-three days ago: What you wanted I have found.
The second is from twelve days ago and is more insistent. For a source at this level, Red Vine is uncommonly relaxed, but even he gets a case of nerves when I don’t respond. Are we not meeting on the anniversary? I think you will be happy if we meet. We should meet.
What I know is this: I don’t want to go back to Iceland. I don’t want to think about my time there, the time I wasted, the time I should have been with Fred. I don’t want to think about the lost days, and I don’t want to leave Rory behind. And yet, I made a commitment. Until I fulfill my promise, the unfinished business will weigh on me. In my head, I run through Rory’s schedule. The next school break is in April. I haven’t left him alone since Fred died, and I certainly don’t want to leave him now.
I type a message back to Red Vine, suggesting a meeting, using our minus-nineteen code to disguise the date. I bury the schedule in a few long sentences about the weather in Moscow and the travails of a club hockey team. I hit Send. My Russian is awkward, but the important parts are clear.
At home, I call for Caroline as soon as I step in the front door. I don’t want her to hear someone walking around the house and freak out. She doesn’t respond. She isn’t in the kitchen, the library, the guest room, the movie room. I feel a surge of panic.
But then, through the breezeway windows, I see her out back, reading, headphones on, drinking a Fanta. I go outside to join her. “It’s such a beautiful day,” she exclaims. “Sunshine!”
She’s wearing a pair of Rory’s shorts and the Cracker shirt Fred bought him at a show in Hoboken years ago. I sit next to her on the grass. There are so many questions I want to ask, but I need to ease into it.
She squints into the sun. “I talked to my mom.”
“You did?” I say, surprised. “That’s great. What did she say when you told her what happened?”
“I didn’t.”
“Oh, sweetheart.”
“I wanted to, but I couldn’t. I didn’t want to say it over the phone. I just told her I’m in trouble, and I really need her to come home.”
“Good.”
“She said they’ll be home soon. What do I do until then?”
“Stay with us. You’re safe here.” It feels important to keep saying this.
“You know what really makes me mad? Even if she knew what happened, I’m not sure she would rush home. She would call the embassy and send someone to the house to keep an eye on me, but that would be it. Her motto is ‘Gardez-le dans la famille.’”
“Tough being a diplomat’s kid.”
“Diplomat, right.” She smirks. “It sucks when your parents think their mission is to save the country. What am I supposed to say to that? Come home, I need you, I’m more important than la République?”
My heart breaks for Caroline. And for Rory.
We sit in silence for a while, the sun on our faces. She picks up Martin in Space. I can tell from the hot chocolate stain on the cover that it’s Rory’s copy.
“Rory is a real disciple of that book,” I say, smiling. “What do you think it’s about?”
“It’s about the things you want, the things you need, and how hard it is to recognize the difference. Rory thinks it’s about something else, but that’s why it’s a good book.”
I notice her skin is turning pink. “You’re burning.” I go to the patio, grab a tube of sunscreen from the wicker basket, and bring it over to her. She carefully rubs it on her cheeks and forehead. I lean back on the grass and watch the sunlight through the top of the redwood tree. I shouldn’t be sitting here with Caroline; her mom and dad should. Of course, if I’m honest, I have more in common with Caroline’s parents than with any of the other parents in this town.
She rubs sunscreen across her pale white skull, where the hair is beginning to grow into a fine fuzz. Her hands move with an aggressive confidence, straight over the top, down her neck, around her small ears. It occurs to me that she is more than resilient. She’s a special girl, much tougher than she looks, the years of benign neglect rendering her confident and independent. If she weathers this, there are few obstacles she won’t be able to overcome.
If I had the opportunity to choose the kind of girl Rory would eventually spend his life with, it would be someone like Caroline. And yet, I want so badly to stop time and keep him with me. I want to make up for all those times I wasn’t home or the times I was home but not present, juggling five different cell phones, my mind somewhere else. The stakes always seemed so high. I always thought there was so much to lose. So much could go wrong if I missed a call, if I failed at a task. Fred and Rory were doing fine without me, I thought. I was almost the third wheel—not unloved, not unwanted, but rarely necessary to the functioning of the family machine.
It was my country that needed me most, or so I believed.
58
>
True or false: It’s safer to surf at or near high tide. Diagram.
“I want to make dinner,” Caroline announces Monday afternoon. “To celebrate my liberté.”
“Why don’t you order from Good Eggs?” I suggest, determined to keep her inside, safe behind closed doors until her parents return. I open the app on my phone and hand it to her. “Order whatever you need.”
An hour later, the delivery driver shows up with two boxes of groceries, and Rory asks Caroline what she’s making.
“None of your business. Secret family recipe. Go away. I’ll call you when it’s ready.”
In my dad’s study, I continue my research on Wallace Russell Anderson, a.k.a. Rusty. Although he isn’t difficult to find, there’s little information beyond what Malia already provided.
At ten past eight in the evening, Caroline calls us into the dining room. The lights are low, white candles flickering in a silver candelabra. The table is set with my dad’s china, the good silverware, and Waterford glasses. There’s a plate piled with crusty bread, three bowls of pale-green soup. A glass of water and a half portion of red wine are arranged at each place setting. Caroline has transformed—wearing a floral Laura Ashley dress with serious shoulder pads, no shoes.
“Where did you find that? I haven’t seen that dress in twenty years.”
“I hope you don’t mind. It was in the hall closet. It looked like it needed to be worn.”
“You look great,” Rory says. “But I’m so underdressed!”
She motions to our chairs and stands at the head of the table. “I begin with a toast,” she says, tilting her glass toward Rory and then toward me. “Merci beaucoup. Ni plus, ni moins.”
Rory and I are both waiting for more, but that’s it. Simple and to the point. After the soup, Rory declares the meal delicious and begins to clear the table, but Caroline stops him. “Sit down. That was only the beginning! This is a French meal. It’s going to take a while.”
Dinner lasts for three hours. Every time we finish a course, Caroline goes to the kitchen for another. In the end, she brings out a plate with three cheeses. “One cheese to represent each of us,” Caroline explains. “For you, Rory, a Camembert, not just any Camembert, but the king of all Camembert. Smart and smooth, like you. Then, for me, a goat cheese, bald, direct, an acquired taste. Finally, for your mother, a top-of-the-line comté, aged thirty-two months.”
“Aged?” I protest.
“When I feel overwhelmed,” Caroline explains, “I always return to the aged comté. A world with something like this cannot be all bad.” The tears in her eyes belie the lightness in her voice.
Afterward, Rory and Caroline go out to the back patio—ostensibly to look at the stars, but because of the lights from the airport, few stars are visible. I know they want to be alone. They sit side by side, hands linked between their chairs, their voices a low murmur.
Inside, I call George. He picks up on the first ring. “Where are you?”
“Reno,” he says. “Don’t ask.”
“Any chance you have some time tomorrow?”
“Sorry, I’m packing up tonight, taking the red-eye. I have a meeting with CD-4 tomorrow morning.”
“Can you get out of it?”
Long pause. “I shouldn’t.”
“It’s important.
“Okay, I’ll catch a plane to SFO instead.”
“Meet me at eight thirty a.m., same spot?”
“What’s in it for me?”
“I’ll buy you a burrito afterward. A San Mateo burrito. Not that Tex-Mex crap you get in New York.”
“Deal.”
59
Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare’s plays. Shakespeare did not write Shakespeare’s plays. Is the origin of a work of art relevant? Discuss modern literary criticism’s fascination with the myth of the creator.
On Tuesday morning, Rory goes to school for his final day of the Wonder Test and Caroline sleeps in. After asking Kyle to keep an eye on the house again today, I drive to the meeting spot. The air is cool and crisp, the bay path busy with joggers.
I’m early, but George is already sitting on the bench waiting for me. “I’m dying with anticipation. What’s the job today? I brought a change of clothes, in case this look isn’t right.” He stands and does a slow turn, modeling his outfit: jeans, Doc Martens, a plaid flannel shirt.
“Perfect. How long can I borrow you for?”
“I’m all yours until my six a.m. flight tomorrow.”
We walk toward the parking lot. “Mind taking a ride up to Sonoma County, pay a guy a visit?”
“Love to, on one condition. I drive.” George presses a button on his key. In the parking lot, lights flash on a black Alfa Stelvio SUV. “The rental guy set me up.”
“Four-wheel drive?”
“Yep.”
“You win.”
As we drive, I explain the situation. George listens, not speaking. It’s the sign of a good agent. Bad agents are always trying to stop you before you finish, certain that they’ve heard everything before. To good agents, every operation, every case, every source is different.
It takes me all the way to Sebastopol to get the whole story out. Only once does he interrupt: when I tell him the brutal conditions of Caroline’s confinement. “Sounds like he fits in the irredeemable category,” he says.
One year, George and I did seventeen arrests together. On surveillance one night, we classified all the subjects we’d brought in. As George would say, not all bad guys are criminals, not all criminals are bad guys, and not all criminals are irredeemable. Before Rusty, I had met only one other truly irredeemable person: Donald Fritz.
Fritz had attempted to assault a twenty-year-old woman seated next to him on an American East flight out of Phoenix. I happened to be at SFO for an unrelated issue when his plane landed. The call went to me. Before I could read the write-up, I was in an airport security interview room, one-on-one with Fritz. Lanky, blue-eyed, and clean-shaven, Fritz had no record and no red flags in his background. Yet before I had even opened my notebook, I knew he was a predator and a sociopath. Perhaps he hadn’t killed anyone yet, but I was certain he would. I talked to him for three hours while a young Homeland Security officer stood at the door, watching us silently. I was fascinated with Fritz. A little creeped out but mostly just fascinated. He was willing to talk about anything—women, animals, sex, his violent fantasies, his childhood years with a cruel father and a distant mother—so I kept prodding, asking questions that led to ever more disturbing answers.
After the interview, the marshals came and took Fritz to lockup. As the Homeland Security woman and I watched them walk away, Fritz looked over his shoulder and winked at me. Once Fritz turned the corner, I noticed that the Homeland Security woman’s face was pallid, a look of fear in her eyes.
“You okay?”
She didn’t respond. I pulled a chair over, and she sat down. Finally, she managed to say, “I didn’t even want to work today. I just wanted to ride my bike.”
I urged the AUSA to press as many charges as he could, to get Fritz off the street for as long as possible, have him committed. It’s the only time in my career I’ve ever yelled and sworn at a prosecutor. But, as the prosecutor said, it was a minor offense, limited evidence, no priors. When Fritz pled, the judge gave him a year and a day. Three years later, Fritz killed a woman and her seven-year-old daughter in their apartment on a reservation in Wyoming.
Donald Fritz was irredeemable. Judging from what I saw at the compound, I think Wallace “Rusty” Anderson may be irredeemable too.
I tell George my theory about the abductions, holes and all. “Am I wrong?”
He glances over at me. “The suburbs are a scary place. I’m glad I live in New York City, where crime is more predictable. What’s the goal today?”
“We need to find the link between Rusty and th
e Kenji Boys or whoever is above them.”
“A rich country boy and Asian OC? Odd. Does it matter how we get from point A to point B?”
“Not really. I saw some cameras around the perimeter, but they’re old, most likely a box rather than the cloud.”
“I need to know. Will today wind up in a 302?”
“It will not.”
“Eventually you’ll have to go one way or the other. Bring in an agent from San Francisco or make a crim referral to the locals.”
“I wanted to go the local route, but I can’t shake the sense that there’s something off about Greenfield PD. I have a hunch there’s a public corruption case there somewhere. Anyway, with what little I have now, wherever I send it, FBI-SF, GPD, or even the Sonoma County Sheriff, it’s so thin it would hit the zero file before I was even off the phone.”
“Agreed.”
“We get the information, we move on, we were never there. My hunch is we’re dealing with a sociopath. We’ve got a girl in a shed, her word, my word, Rory’s word, but our corroborating witnesses are a meth dealer and his accomplice. Caroline never saw Rusty’s face. Gray Stafford isn’t talking. The Lamey twins can’t. How do we prove in court that it was Rusty who put her in that shed? No way I’m putting Rory in a situation where he has to go on record against this guy. And I don’t want the locals pulling Rusty in too early. I do not want to Donald Fritz this thing.”
As we pass the old Guerneville Bridge, George turns to me and asks, “We need any supplies?”
“Like?”
“A shovel?”
It’s an old joke between us. Some cases need evidence, profilers, a room full of lawyers, and a long, drawn-out plea deal. Other cases need a shovel.
“A backhoe would be good.”
I direct George to the café on Armstrong Woods Road. When we park, I can hear the music from inside. Al Green, “You Ought to Be with Me.”
The Wonder Test Page 26
