“So one of the things I noticed was that your wife was dressed up on the night she died. Why was that?” Aloa asked.
“Fair question, but I’ve got one more thing to ask. A little test I’d like you to take.”
“I stopped taking tests in college.”
“Can you humor me?”
Aloa looked out the window. Fog pressed against the glass. “All right.”
“Name ten things you saw in my office.”
“Really?”
“Please.”
“Why?”
“Let’s just say I don’t want to waste my time if you’re not as good as I think you are.”
Clever, Aloa thought. “OK. I’ll give it a shot.”
Aloa closed her eyes. It was her naturalist father, not journalism, who had taught her to notice details, inconsistencies.
“First, a book. ‘Aoi No You’ or something like that.”
“The book you pushed in. Aoi No Ue. It’s a Muromachi-period Japanese Noh play. Good.”
“A full set of Hemingway in chronological order. A bird’s nest. Hummingbird, I think.” She moved her mind’s eye along the bookshelves. “A baseball signed by Tim Lincecum. A gold medal from the FBI.”
“They give that to all the quadriplegics.”
“A photo of you with an older couple who I think may be your parents. There was a slight resemblance.”
“Yes.”
“Some kind of long pipe. Treasure Island, first edition, I think.”
“Correct.”
“Also, there were no rugs on the floor and your left shoe was untied.”
“OK.”
“And on your desk there was a small statue. Clay. A woman with a necklace, wearing what looked like a graduation cap,” she finished.
“A haniwa,” Davenport said.
“I don’t know what that is.”
“In the old days in Japan, when an important man or woman died, their servants would be buried up to their waists around their master’s tomb. They’d be left there without food or water, moaning and crying until they died of thirst or exposure. Or the wild dogs ate them.”
A shiver ran down Aloa’s spine.
“According to the stories, the practice was finally stopped by Emperor Suinin after his brother died and he saw the horrible suffering of his servants. When one of his wives, Empress Hibasu, died, Suinin hired one hundred potters to make clay figures and bury them instead. The figures were called haniwa.”
He paused. “It’s also the answer to your question.”
Aloa sat up a little straighter. “I don’t understand.”
She heard the music go down and the sound of another voice in the background.
“All right, Kyle,” Davenport said. Then to her: “I’m sorry, but Kyle’s here with my pills and he won’t go away until I take them. I’ll explain more tomorrow. Why don’t you stop by?”
“What time is best?”
“Around eleven? After my therapist comes and we pretend I didn’t wish I was dead too.”
DAY 4
Aloa, bundled in sweatpants and her wool sweater, took a long pull of coffee and looked out her front window into the gloom. The fog dripped water from the eaves and shrouded the neighborhood so the apartment building across the street was only a dark outline in the gray. It was cold and miserable and she closed her eyes for a moment, feeling the grit underneath her lids.
She hadn’t slept well last night.
Images of humans planted in the ground like flowers had haunted her dreams and she’d awakened at 7:00 a.m. feeling unsettled.
She scrambled some eggs, cleaned up the kitchen, made her bed, and straightened the towels in the bathroom. She liked putting things in their places. It was partly why she became a journalist. To make order out of chaos. To make the puzzle pieces fit. It was also the seed of her eating disorder. Control suited her.
Now she sat at her computer, skimming the day’s news. A robber had been shot dead by a ten-year-old in Arkansas; a movie star had behaved badly at a fancy restaurant in LA; and, in her own city, weather watchers were labeling the stubborn marine layer “Fogpocalypse.”
According to the story on her screen, three people had died in a thirty-car pileup on the 101 when visibility had suddenly dropped to less than twenty feet. Then, a tourist had stepped into the path of a Mercedes sedan, neither seeing the other until it was too late, and an old woman with asthma had died trying to take a bus to the hospital for treatment.
Aloa debated getting up and putting on gloves against the chill in her house, but instead she clicked through her newsfeed and stopped at one of her favorite columnists, who recalled another time when the city’s fog had spawned disaster.
According to the writer, it was 1950 when a pea-souper like this one had descended just beyond the Golden Gate Bridge, causing the WWII cargo ship the SS Mary Luckenbach to collide with the Benevolence, a US Navy hospital ship, and tear a big hole in the Benevolence’s side. The Benevolence sank to the bottom in twenty-five minutes, forcing most of its 509 passengers—nurses, corpsmen, shipyard workers—to jump into the frigid ocean, where they floated and clung to debris until rescuers arrived. Twenty-three died.
The fog could be beautiful, the columnist wrote. It rolled over the headlands and slipped through the cables of the Golden Gate Bridge like it sought to fill the blank spaces in the city’s heart. But it also could be deadly, a killer with lethal gray tentacles, and that was its form now.
“Perhaps the lesson is that the beauty that brought us all here can turn on us if we aren’t careful,” the columnist concluded.
Aloa thought of the overpriced houses next door and had to agree.
A separate article quoted meteorologists saying the winds they’d expected to disperse the fog hadn’t materialized and that the deadly murk might get worse. Officials urged people to take mass transit to work, noting an inversion layer also was trapping pollution and causing a decline in air quality.
At 10:30 a.m., Aloa stood and stretched, and went to change her clothes and put on some mascara. By 10:45 a.m., she was at Justus firing up the motorbike, which coughed and sputtered in protest. She heard a shout and looked up to see Erik leaning out the window of the second-floor apartment he shared with Gully.
“A little less choke, and a whisper of throttle, honey,” he called.
Aloa was one of the few who knew Erik had been a certified mechanic before he’d turned to costume design, and so she did what he suggested.
“Thanks,” she called as the motorcycle rumbled to life.
“And not to be too picky, hon,” Erik said, “but unless you’re training to be a ninja, that outfit is a death wish just waiting to come true.”
Aloa looked down at her black leather jacket and boots, the dark jeans, the chrome-and-black motorcycle that would disappear like a ghost in the gray that had swallowed the city.
“I don’t really have anything else,” she said.
“Just a sec, sweetie,” Erik said, returning to drop a knot of bright-yellow scarf into Aloa’s hands. The fabric was studded with scores of tiny round mirrors.
“I got this from a handsome young boy in India. Put it around your neck,” Erik said. “It’s better than nothing.”
Aloa untied the bundle and wrapped the long, gaudy covering around her throat. “I look like a mutant wasp.”
“A living and breathing mutant wasp,” Erik corrected. “Now buzz off, little bee. And stop by tonight. Gully just left for the docks. A load of fresh crab came in.”
Aloa gave him a thumbs-up.
Aloa was careful as she steered the motorcycle through the city to Christian Davenport’s house. Pedestrians seemed to come out of nowhere. Familiar places suddenly appeared foreign. She parked the bike in the same spot as before and couldn’t help the quick exhale of relief that came from having arrived in one piece. She walked across the street, knocked on Davenport’s door, and waited for it to open.
“Oh, it’s you,” Kyle said and pursed h
is lips as if he’d bitten into something rotten.
“It sure is,” she said and smiled.
If passive aggressive was what he wanted, that’s what he would get.
“Mr. Davenport asked me to stop by,” she said. “I’m sure he told you.” Another smile.
“Of course he did.” Kyle sniffed in a way that made Aloa pretty certain Davenport hadn’t.
He opened the door and Aloa trailed him into the study, where she found Davenport dressed again in loose dark pants and a black T-shirt. This time, however, his brown hair was pulled into a topknot.
Davenport looked up. “Ah, the intrepid reporter has returned.”
He turned to his assistant. “Make that two cups of matcha instead of one, Kyle.” Then to Aloa: “Matcha is a kind of powdered green tea. The veins of the leaves are removed and what’s left is ground between millstones until it’s superfine, then it’s beaten into a foam. I think you’ll like it.” He inclined his head toward one of the chairs. “Have a seat.”
Kyle returned a minute later with a tray containing two cups with strainers and a pale-blue teapot.
Aloa watched as Kyle poured hot water over the tea, removed the strainers, then began whisking the liquid into a bright-green froth. He worked with deliberateness, as if he’d spent time practicing the steps.
“You know a lot about tea,” Aloa said to Davenport as Kyle handed her a cup. As before, he set Davenport’s cup on the tray and inserted a bamboo straw.
“I lived in Japan for six months,” Davenport said. “Take a sip. Tell me what you think.”
Aloa did what he asked. The tea gave off scents of berries and dark chocolate. Its taste was rich. “This is good,” she said.
“I’m glad you like it.” Then: “You can leave us alone, Kyle. I’ll be fine.”
“I don’t mind,” Kyle began.
“Take a break, Kyle,” Davenport said a little more forcefully.
Aloa watched the assistant leave.
“Poor guy,” Davenport said. “He gets like this every time the therapist comes. She tells me how other quads are living these wonderful lives and Kyle then thinks it’s his duty to help me have whatever amazing life those other crips are having. The last time she was here, he tried to get me to go tandem skydiving. I’d tell the counselor and her happy quadriplegics to go to hell, except I need her in order to keep my health benefits.”
Aloa let her gaze travel to the haniwa. Now that she knew what it was, the little statue seemed slightly ominous.
“Don’t worry, we’ll get to your question,” Davenport said.
He didn’t miss a thing.
“But before we do,” he continued, “I’d like us to agree on a few rules. No recording of our conversation, no photos, and if I want something off the record, I want you to put down your pen so I know you understand.”
“Fine,” she said.
He was a control freak. Just like her.
“The only reason I’m talking to you is because I want this case to stay on the front burner. If the police know Novo’s interested, if they know someone’s watching, they can’t slack off. I want that bastard behind bars. I want him to suffer.”
“You know it’s not my job to convict someone,” Aloa said.
“You’re right, but it is your job to be a watchdog.”
Aloa had to agree.
“Now, for your question about why Corrine was dressed the way she was.” Davenport took a sip of tea from the bamboo straw. “My accident basically turned my wife into what the haniwa represents: a servant buried around this tomb of a body I’ve got. She gave up everything for me. Her job, her friends. She fed me, gave me baths, and listened to me rage.”
“What about Kyle?”
“He came later. Those first few years, Corrine wouldn’t let anybody help her. She came from a family that prided itself on sacrifice, on loyalty, and on a virtue the Japanese call gaman. It means endurance or patience, but if you take that a step further, it means you’re supposed to suffer quietly through trouble, not fight it.”
“Tell me about her.”
“Well.” Davenport looked out the window to the garden where Kyle, now bundled in a down jacket, was standing with his hands stuffed in the pockets of his jeans.
“She was smart. Number ten in her law class. She was on the swim team in college. She majored in economics, even though she would have preferred to study creative writing. Her parents put her up to that. They were immigrants, descended from an old daimyo family in Japan. ‘Daimyo’ is what they called feudal lords back in the day. Her parents’ lives were all about achievement and honor. Corrine had a lot of that drilled into her. It was one of the things that attracted me: that integrity and depth and loyalty. You don’t see that much these days. But she was also beautiful and kind. There’s a photo of her on the second shelf over there.”
Aloa stood and carried her teacup over to the picture. It showed a woman with chin-length black hair and a slender body standing in front of the Eiffel Tower. She wore ballet flats and a summer dress that reminded Aloa of Audrey Hepburn. She couldn’t help but remember the way Corrine Davenport had looked in her death photo.
Aloa turned. “If loyalty and honor were drilled into her, why would she have an affair?”
“That’s an excellent question,” Davenport said, “and the honest answer is that I drove her to it.”
Aloa frowned.
“This might be when you want to take notes.”
Aloa came back to her chair, set down her cup, and pulled out her notebook.
According to Davenport, it had taken him more than two years to convince his wife to hire Kyle, then another four or five months to get her to leave the house for something besides grocery shopping and pharmacy runs. One evening, he’d urged her to go to a poetry event at Books Inc., where one of her favorite poets was reading. It turned out Burns Hamlin also was on the program. When she came back, she described the reading to Davenport and the look on her face—one of excitement and passion—made him press her to do more than simply go to readings. She signed up for Burns Hamlin’s class and was soon spending her free time either writing or going to gatherings with other students. One day, Davenport saw her leave for class in beautiful slacks and high-heeled boots, trailing the scent of her favorite perfume, Chanel N°5. He told himself it was good to see her taking care of herself again. Soon, she was spending more time away from home, asking Kyle to work extra hours and, sometimes, when Davenport asked her about the class, she’d touch a finger to her lips as she described the afternoon’s lecture.
“I knew they were sleeping together even before the day she came home from class and I smelled sex on her,” Davenport said. “It broke my heart, but I didn’t say anything. She deserved what I couldn’t give her: the chance to feel like a woman again, to be touched.” He looked into the distance, then back at Aloa. “That’s the trouble with being a collector. We can read people’s weaknesses. We can see their guilt whether we want to or not. It’s like a bad movie you can’t turn off.”
“So she didn’t fall in love with Hamlin?” Aloa asked.
Davenport shook his head. “I’m pretty sure the affair was just physical for her. I couldn’t have handled it if it was more.” He paused. “But I think Hamlin had fallen in love with her. When she came and confessed the affair, she said she’d broken it off with Hamlin and that he’d gotten angry. He’d frightened her, she said. Once, she’d come home to find him parked across the street from our house. She said he wouldn’t leave her alone and when she threatened to report him to the college administrators, he said he’d tell me about the affair.”
A much different story than the one Burns Hamlin had told.
“That’s why she confessed. He had her against a wall.”
“So on the night she died . . .”
“I think she was going to tell the professor that I knew about the affair and to leave us alone or we’d file a formal complaint with the college. She didn’t talk about the meeting specifical
ly, but I could tell something was up that night. That’s why she wore the dress. She called it her suit of armor, her closing-argument dress. My guess is she wanted to confront Hamlin at our house to make the point I knew about the affair and he didn’t have any leverage to get her to come back.”
“She was an assistant district attorney, right?” Aloa asked.
“Yes. For nine years.”
“Was it possible somebody she prosecuted came back to kill her?”
“I doubt it. Corrine was incredibly smart, but she didn’t have the teeth for big cases. Mostly she prosecuted drunk drivers and low-level drug dealers. A few months in county jail isn’t exactly a motive for murder.”
“Could you identify the voice you heard on the night Corrine died?”
“I’m sure it was him. Corrine closed the bedroom door when she left so I couldn’t hear what they were saying. But it had to be him. He was jealous and he killed her.”
“How do you know he was jealous?” Aloa began but he was already turning the chair.
“Come on, I’ll show you.”
She followed him into the white room with the wide hospital bed and the complicated lift. Underneath the scent of disinfectant were the odors of illness and bodily functions: sweat, digestion, elimination. Eau de hospital.
Aloa remembered her own mother, once so put-together, lying diapered in a hospital bed, wailing for more pain medication. She shook the memory away.
Davenport stopped in front of the TV screen. “I found this. After she died,” he said. He moved his gloved finger. Suddenly, Garth Brooks poured from hidden speakers.
“Dammit,” he muttered and shut down the music, only to have the curtains over the sliding glass doors begin to close.
“Sorry,” he said, “I’m still getting used to this remote-control glove. Kyle rigged it up for me.”
Finally, the TV sprang to life with a video featuring Burns Hamlin onstage at a poetry conference. He was dressed in black and wore the same Burberry scarf she’d seen him wearing two days before.
The Thin Edge Page 5
