“I found a guy on Facebook,” Aloa said. “He wrote some threatening comments.”
“There you go,” Hamlin said triumphantly.
“Unfortunately, he doesn’t fit the description of the man seen at the house right before Corrine Davenport died.”
The police report said the neighbor had described the late-night caller as white. Jeremy Green was African American. Aloa had debated texting Quinn that fact after she’d read the police report, but figured he would find out soon enough.
Hamlin stood. “So you lied about there being someone else so you could get into my house?”
“Your dad asked me to see what I could find out. He’s worried about you.”
“Oh really?” Hamlin strode toward the front windows. “That selfish bastard suddenly cares about me?” His hands fisted, and he turned back toward Aloa. “When he professed his so-called concern, did he happen to mention how he walked out when I was five? Did he mention how Mom worked two jobs to keep a roof over our heads while he went off to fight the government and the banks and god knows who else? Did he mention he never wrote or called and missed every single one of my birthdays?”
Hamlin stabbed a finger toward the window as if Tick had suddenly materialized on the street below. “You tell that bastard to shove his sudden devotion up his wrinkly old ass.”
“Listen, I don’t know about what happened in your family,” Aloa said, “and I’m not going to patronize you by saying I understand how you feel, but I can tell you this: Tick, your dad, thinks you’re innocent.”
Hamlin stared at her. “And how would he know that?”
“He said you were a good kid.”
“Give me a break,” Hamlin said, although Aloa thought she saw the faintest glimmer of pleasure in his eyes. “My father doesn’t know a thing about me. He probably wants something. Money or absolution or maybe he wants to stick it to the man again by proving how the justice system sucks. You don’t know him.”
“I know he asked me to look into things.”
Hamlin snorted. “And you’re supposed to save me?”
“I’m going to see what I can find out.”
“You know what I told you is off the record, right?”
“Sorry, but off-the-record isn’t retroactive.”
“You can’t write about anything I said. I’ll lose my job.”
“Trust me. Unemployment is a whole lot better than prison.”
“See, I knew it. You’re here to do a hatchet job on me.”
“All I want is the truth.”
“All right then: Do you believe I’m innocent?” he demanded.
“I don’t know yet.”
He stomped away from the window and stood so he towered over her. “You’re just like him: You come in here pretending to care but you don’t. It doesn’t matter who you hurt.” He pointed toward the stairway. “You need to get out before I throw you out. And if you write anything about what I said, I’ll sue you.”
Aloa stood so she was toe to toe with him.
“Let me tell you two things, Professor Hamlin: If you’re innocent, the best thing you can do for yourself is talk to someone like me. But if you’re guilty, well then, I’d keep my mouth shut and call a lawyer.”
“Go,” Hamlin ordered.
Aloa picked up her daypack and stuffed the Moleskine inside. “And while you’re at it, you also might want to think about rewriting that poem of yours.”
Aloa wedged herself into a spot at the counter, the báhn mì—a toasted baguette filled with roast chicken, cucumber, pickled carrot, onion, radish, cilantro, and jalapeno pepper—warm in her hand.
She’d arrived at her favorite Tenderloin sandwich shop, hungry and pissed off at Tick’s son, to find a long line of people trailing out the front door. But she knew the women behind the counter were efficient and even if they weren’t, $4.25 for a sandwich that tasted of distant cultures was worth the wait. Ten minutes later she was shoulder to shoulder with a construction worker in a yellow safety vest and a hipster in a flannel shirt and taking her first bite of the sandwich. She nearly moaned with pleasure.
She was halfway through the meal, trying hard not to automatically calculate how many calories she was consuming, when her cell phone rang.
“Michael Collins” read the caller ID.
“Shit,” she muttered.
Michael Collins was a software developer, tech genius, and the founder of Novo. He was also her first love and the man from whom the rest of her life had spooled out. She inhaled a breath and answered the call.
“Where are you?” came Michael’s voice.
Around her were shouted orders, the hiss of grills, and the angry honk of horns from the street outside.
“In the Tenderloin, eating a sandwich and watching a guy in saggy pants piss on the back of a FedEx truck.”
“You ever consider hanging out in a nicer neighborhood?”
“My people, Michael.”
“I know. I know.” She could hear the sigh in his voice.
Besides having no contact for years, what lay between them was the loss of Aloa’s father, a high school biology teacher who’d brought home the teenaged Michael after the boy’s father had shot his wife and youngest child, then turned the gun on himself. Michael had lived with them for three years, stealing his way into the hearts of both Aloa and her father. Then, on a warm spring night when he was eighteen and she was seventeen, he and Aloa had made love for the first—and last—time. He’d disappeared a few days later and, three months after that, her worried father had died of a heart attack, leaving Aloa with both a grief-filled heart and a secret she still carried.
“Is there something you need, Michael?” she asked. Keep it short. Keep the past in its place.
“Tick called.”
“About his son?”
“Do you think it’s a story?”
Aloa set down her sandwich. “I think it’s too early to tell, but there may be something there.”
“Enough to talk to Dean about?”
Dean Potter was the editor of Novo and the one who’d stood firmly by Aloa as her series about the runner unfolded.
“Maybe,” Aloa said.
An aggrieved shout came from the FedEx driver who’d come out to discover the last dribbles of the liquid assault on his truck.
“Is that a ‘yes’ maybe or a ‘leave me alone’ maybe?” Michael asked.
She knew she was being too hard on him.
“I guess it’s a ‘yes’ maybe.”
“I’ll tell you what. I’ll give Dean a call and tell him you may have something and to send you a contract.”
“Standard rate?” She would not let him pad the payment as he had tried to do the last time.
“Standard rate. I promise.”
“I’ll have to check with Tick first.”
“Of course.”
Both fell silent.
“Say, I’m in town,” Michael said finally. “Maybe we could have dinner. I haven’t seen you since the story.”
An image of him standing barefoot in jeans in his beautiful house in the Marina rose unbidden in her mind.
“Another time,” she said.
“Sure. OK.” Disappointment and confusion tinged his words.
“I’ve got to go,” she said. “I’ll call Dean if I find something.”
She clicked off the phone and took another bite of sandwich while, outside the window, a mother who couldn’t have been more than seventeen walked by, kissing the forehead of a chubby toddler in her arms.
Aloa got up and threw the remains of her sandwich in the trash.
DAY 3
Aloa stared out the bay window of her house, a coffee mug cradled in her hands. The fog had refused to leave, painting the city a thick, pearlescent gray. Sounds were muffled, visibility reduced, and the cold kept people inside. It was as if the entire population had decided to retreat back to bed and pull the covers over itself.
The National Weather Service called it a rare tule f
og, which could show up in the Central Valley of California in the winter but seldom extended to San Francisco. Plenty of poets and writers had celebrated the beauty of San Francisco’s ethereal summer fog, but this wasn’t soft or romantic. This was cold and thick with a feel of malevolence to it. Aloa’s weather app predicted at least two more days of heavy fog and warned motorists to drive carefully.
Aloa drained her cup, wrapped her wool sweater more tightly over her chest, and went off to fry herself a couple of eggs. She ate them standing over the stove. No use wasting warmth in a house that leaked heat like a colander.
Quinn called as she stowed her breakfast dishes, asking if she’d known that the Facebook guy couldn’t have been the late-night caller at the Davenports’ house.
She told him she hadn’t known until she’d read the report and he suggested she learn about this wonderful new thing called texting.
“I’ll get right on it,” she said.
She changed into jeans and a pullover sweater, topped it off with her leather jacket, then walked down the hill to Justus and piloted her motorcycle into the murk.
The house where Corrine Davenport met her death sat on a steep, wide street in the Potrero Hill neighborhood. The house was rectangular, two-storied, and looked as if it had been remodeled sometime in the early 2000s. The exterior was planked redwood with two giant picture windows on the second floor and a double ribbon of high windows on the first floor that let in light but allowed no view. The front door was painted blue with a short ramp up to the front porch for wheelchair access. On one side of the house were two residences that looked like they’d been built soon after the 1906 earthquake that had destroyed San Francisco, first with shaking, then with fire. In one of history’s twists of fate, the city’s fire chief was among the quake’s first victims, killed when a brick chimney collapsed on him.
Hundreds of the displaced had fled toward the Potrero Hill neighborhood, which, thanks to a thick vein of serpentinite had survived the devastation. The refugees were working-class immigrants; they settled into a sprawling tent city, then gradually moved up the slope, rebuilding their houses and their lives.
If only these houses could talk, Aloa thought as she angled the motorbike into an open spot across the street.
My job would be a lot easier, she finished and smiled at her own small joke.
She knocked down the kickstand, tugged off her helmet, and looked up to see an old woman scowling out the window from the house behind her.
Aloa turned toward the Davenports’ home. If it weren’t for the fog, the woman—most likely the neighbor in the report—would have a good view of the murder house. She reminded herself to check the weather on the night Corrine Davenport was killed and hung her helmet over the bike’s handlebars.
She crossed the street and gave two polite raps on the Davenports’ front door. An old reporter at the Oregonian, where she’d worked in the early days, called these unannounced forays “knock and talks,” which Aloa liked for the way it spoke of the working-class roots of her profession.
The door swung open a minute later to reveal a slender man in his late twenties with a tousle of dark blond hair and a slight overbite. His eyes were gray and hooded.
“Yes?”
Aloa smiled. “Hi. My name is Aloa Snow and I’m a reporter with Novo. I was wondering if I might speak with Mr. Davenport.”
The man’s gaze touched her face and slid away to a spot over her shoulder. “I don’t think he wants to talk to reporters.”
One of Aloa’s earliest lessons as a reporter was to never piss off the gatekeeper. She smiled and held out a hand. “You must be Kyle, Mr. Davenport’s assistant,” she said.
The man gave an almost imperceptible nod but kept his hands by his sides.
“Well,” Aloa said, dropping her arm, “I’d appreciate any help you could give me, Kyle.” Another smile. “Maybe Mr. Davenport has changed his mind. Maybe he’s a fan of Novo. You never know.”
The gray-eyed man sighed. “Wait here,” he said and closed the door.
Behind her came a low sound like a quick clatter of castanets, and Aloa turned. Sure enough, a crow was perched on a nearby fence. A crow’s rattle, her father always said, was the bird’s way of saying, “I’m curious about you but you make me a little nervous.”
“Everything’s fine. Nothing’s going on,” she said quietly to the bird. His answer was to flap away. “Suit yourself,” she said as the door reopened.
“Follow me,” Kyle said.
Aloa gave herself a mental high five and trailed the assistant into a high-ceilinged living room that looked like an ad from a decorating magazine. A low white couch was flanked by a pair of sculptural chairs in front of which sat a glass coffee table and a vase holding a single dark branch. A wide marble fireplace graced one wall while the other supported a free-floating staircase. Stairs Christian Davenport could no longer use, Aloa thought. She wondered if it bothered him to look at them every day.
Beyond the living room was a dining area and a modern-looking kitchen with warm gray cabinets and a backsplash of Mediterranean-blue tile. She calculated where Corrine’s body had been found. There seemed to be no sign of what had happened.
She followed the assistant through a wide doorway, down a short hall, and turned right into what appeared to be an office-study.
“Wait here,” Kyle said and disappeared through another door farther down the hallway, closing it behind him.
Aloa heard a murmur of voices and began a quick examination of the room. A pair of sliding glass doors on the back wall opened onto a verdant tropical garden surrounding a blue lap pool. In one corner, a single rough column of gray granite rose out of the green in a way that suggested the hard reality that sometimes lurked underneath beauty. A small wooden deck next to the pool provided a spot to sit and meditate.
Stunning, Aloa thought.
The room itself was equally well thought out. The walls were paneled in exotic wood with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves covering one wall. Recessed lights shined warmly from the planked ceiling and an abstract painting in rich colors hung over a sleek desk with two Shaker-style chairs on either side of it.
Aloa moved to the bookcase. The Davenports’ collection was admirable. She saw a few first editions and examined the curios displayed amid the books. She was pushing in a volume that protruded an inch from the otherwise perfect lineup of books when she heard a male voice.
“Thank god,” said the voice. “That was bugging the hell out of me.”
Aloa turned to see a man in his forties with a face that resembled a peregrine falcon, or maybe a red-tailed hawk. His eyes were dark brown and intense, his cheekbones high, his hair chestnut and almost shoulder-length. Broad shoulders spoke of an innate athleticism. A red scar on his throat told of a ventilator that he’d once needed in order to breathe.
“I couldn’t help myself,” Aloa said and stepped away from the bookcase.
His lips curved into a smile she couldn’t quite read.
The man was dressed in loose black pants and a dark T-shirt, and was strapped into a motorized wheelchair so it made him look half man, half machine. One hand was covered in a black glove laced with metal and wires. He moved an index finger and the chair rolled to a spot next to the desk. A lift upward and the chair stopped. Kyle came into the room and stood near the door.
“I’m guessing you’re here because you want to do a story about my wife’s murder,” Davenport said.
“I do,” she answered.
He studied her in a way that made his resemblance to a falcon even stronger. “I don’t really trust the media, you know. They want to believe they’re objective, but most of them only see what they want to see.”
“Then why’d you let me in?” Aloa asked.
He cocked his head slightly. “Maybe to take my mind off life.”
“Or maybe you have something to say,” Aloa said, not flinching from his gaze. “Maybe you want to put a little pressure on the investigation. Get thi
ngs moving faster?”
She waited.
“Kyle, bring us some tea, would you?” said Davenport. “Let’s try the Bancha Shizuoka.”
The assistant shot a look at a spot somewhere near Aloa’s feet and left.
“Bancha Shizuoka. It means ‘third harvest,’” said Davenport. “It’s grown in the Shizuoka Prefecture in Japan. Notes of the ocean and herbs. Beautiful terroir.” He glanced out the window. “Perfect for a day like this.”
From her years in journalism, Aloa had learned to never turn down an offer of food or drink from a source. It was a subconscious offer of trust on their part and a way of showing acceptance on hers. She’d drunk stale coffee, warm soda, and swallowed cake so sweet it made her teeth hurt as a way to open up the people she’d interviewed.
“It sounds wonderful,” she said.
“Have a seat,” Davenport said. “I hate talking to people’s belt buckles.”
“Sure,” Aloa said and lowered herself into one of the Shaker chairs.
“So why is Novo interested in my wife’s murder?”
“The editor said that when a hero’s wife dies, it’s news. We all want to believe that if we do good, we’ll be rewarded.”
Davenport seemed to weigh her answer.
“I get it. The broken champion and all that,” he said. “Fair enough.”
His eyes caught and held hers for a moment. Then: “So how about we get your first questions out of the way? ‘What the hell happened to that poor guy and how can he live like that?’”
“That’s not what—” Aloa began, but Davenport continued.
“Come on, everybody wants to know but they’re too afraid to ask,” he said. “So here’s the tragic story.” Another smile. “I’ve been like this for four years. Since December 18, about five o’clock in the morning. I was coming back from an assignment in South Korea. A long week, a bad flight, and I was wiped out. I got picked up and fell asleep in the car. The next thing I knew I was waking up in the ICU and wondering what the hell happened. The docs wouldn’t say, but a nurse took pity and told me a garbage truck had come through an intersection not far from here and slammed into the passenger side of the car I was riding in. The car flipped and skidded into a light pole. The first hit broke my pelvis. The second damaged my spinal cord. C4. I spent a year in rehab and all I got for it was a thumb, a forefinger, and a bit of a shoulder shrug.”
The Thin Edge Page 3
