“Beg pardon?”
“You were in there for like half an hour.”
It had actually been an hour-plus. More than enough time to spend at a scene whose signs point toward a natural death. A smaller house? A guy who kept his medicine in the medicine cabinet? I really would’ve been done in thirty minutes.
I’ve learned to think before I speak, and that’s what I did, looking at the lovely, angry face in front of me.
I said, “What we do here is just a first step. In your father’s case, an autopsy will give us much more specific information. The police have to wait for us to finish before they go inside and start their work. We want to expedite that.”
She exhaled, a little sheepishly. “All right. Thank you.”
“Of course,” I said. “Have you had a chance to call someone?”
“My mom. I don’t know when she’ll get here. She’s coming from the city.”
“Right.” I turned to Hocking. “I think they could use a hand with the canvass.”
Hocking gave a tight, grateful nod and left us.
Tatiana watched her go. “She doesn’t believe me.”
She tilted her head at me. “You don’t either, do you.”
“I’m not sure what you mean,” I said.
“That he was pushed.”
I took out my notebook. “Let’s talk about that.”
—
IT WAS THEIR ritual, brunch, every Saturday for the last couple of years. She couldn’t remember how it had gotten started. Go to the French bakery on Domingo, get herself a cup of coffee, pastries for them to share. Did I know the bakery? They made the most authentic croissants; they’d won multiple East Bay best-of awards. She thought they imported their butter. She only went there once a week, otherwise she’d gain fifty pounds.
Normally, she stayed with her father for two to three hours, leaving in the early afternoon. She taught the one thirty p.m. class at a yoga studio on Shattuck. Sometimes she returned later in the day, bringing dinner for him, depending.
She didn’t say what that depended on. As she continued to talk, I filled in reasons.
He drank too much. He didn’t feed himself.
He was lonely.
They both were.
She loved him.
I asked when she had last seen her father alive.
“In person, not since Tuesday. Yesterday I called to ask if he wanted me to pick up anything in particular for today.”
“What time was that?”
“Ten, ten thirty a.m.”
“How did he sound?”
“Fine,” she said. “Normal.”
“Did he complain of any pain or discomfort, anything like that?”
A burr of suspicion appeared in her voice: “No.”
“I have to ask,” I said. “It’s important to be able to rule things out. How long has he taken medication for hypertension?”
“I don’t know. Fifteen years? But I told the police, it wasn’t a serious problem. He had it under control.”
“Aside from that, how was his health?”
“He’s seventy-five,” she said. “Normal things. Backaches. I mean, he was fine. Better than that. He played tennis several times a week.”
“Any other medications or conditions that you’re aware of?”
“No.”
“For his mood, or anything like that?”
“No.”
“Any mental health issues?”
Her face tightened. “Like what.”
“Depression, or—”
“If you’re asking me, did he hurt himself, that’s ridiculous.”
“I don’t mean to suggest that,” I said. “It’s just a routine—”
“I know. Okay. No, no issues. And no, he didn’t take anything else.”
I believed that she believed it.
I could have challenged her; shown her the bottle of Risperdal; asked her about Louis Vannen. But to what end? I play two roles, and I’m constantly balancing my need for information against my duty to console.
I said, “Officer Schickman told me you tried to do CPR.”
“I started to.” A beat. “Then I saw his face, and…”
She fell silent.
“It’s important for me to know how much he was moved,” I said.
She nodded listlessly. “Not much. I…” Her lips began to tremble and she flattened them against her teeth. “He’s heavy. For me.”
She was reliving it: wrestling with her father’s body, the sheer physical frustration, a horrifying and unasked-for intimacy.
I said, “Let’s talk about what you said, about him being pushed. What makes you think that?”
“Because it’s happened before,” she said.
I looked up from writing. “What has.”
“This.”
“Okay,” I said.
“See? You don’t believe me.”
“Can we back up, please? Something happened to your father—”
“Not him,” she said. “His student.”
“Student…?”
“Grad student. Here. At Cal.”
“Name?” I asked.
“Nicholas Linstad. He and my dad ran a study together. One of their subjects ended up going out and murdering a girl. At the trial my father testified against him. They both did.”
“When was this?”
“Early nineties. I was six, I think. Ninety-one or ninety-two.”
“All right. Your father and his student testify against an individual. What’s his name?”
“They never released it. He was a minor. Disturbed. The whole thing was awful.”
“I’m sure.”
“You don’t understand,” she said. “My father—it ruined him. Then they go and let this homicidal maniac out of prison. He’s walking the streets, my father helped convict him. You’d think somebody would warn us. It’s completely irresponsible. A month later, Nicholas falls down a flight of stairs and dies.”
“He fell?”
“He was pushed,” she said.
“Was anyone charged?” I asked.
“They said it was an accident. But I mean, come on. It’s not, like, a puzzle.”
I nodded. “What about Mr. Linstad’s death, when did that occur?”
“About ten, twelve years ago. I don’t remember the exact date. I wasn’t living in Berkeley then. I do know that my father was completely freaked out.”
I thought about the gun in Rennert’s desk. “You shared this with the police.”
“What do you think? Apparently it’s all a big coincidence.”
“Did they say that?”
“They didn’t need to,” she said. “I could tell from the way they were looking at me.” Her bag buzzed. “The same way you are now.”
She bent, snatched up the phone, swore quietly.
“There’s traffic on the bridge,” she said, texting. “She’s stuck.”
What did I believe, at that point? What did I assume?
It wasn’t the first time I’d been asked by a relative to accept the most sinister interpretation of a scene. Grief makes conspiracy theorists of us all. But in my experience, when death haunts a family, there’s usually a banal explanation.
Bad genetics. Bad environment. Alcohol. Drugs.
I once met a woman who’d lost three sons, each of them shot. It fell to me to notify her that her fourth son had been stabbed and had died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. In her face I saw sorrow. Weariness. Resignation. No real surprise, though.
A clatter: Zaragoza at the back of the van, readying the gurney.
Tatiana finished her text and dropped the phone in her bag.
I said, “I understand your frustration. Right now the goal is to gather as much information as possible. That includes everything you’re telling me.”
“Fine,” she said. “So what next?”
“The autopsy’s the first priority. It’ll give us a clearer picture of what happened.”
“
How long does that take?”
“Middle of next week at the outside. Once that’s done, we can issue a death certificate and release your father’s body. If you tell the funeral home he’s with us, they’ll take care of the rest.” I paused. “Did you have a specific funeral home in mind?”
It was this question, the bleak practicality it demanded, that overwhelmed her at last. She pressed at her temples, shut her eyes against tears.
She said, “I don’t even know where to look.”
“Of course,” I said. “It’s not something people think about.”
I gave her a moment to just be.
She wiped her face on her sleeves. “Who do I call?”
“I’m not allowed to make recommendations,” I said. “But in my experience most of the ones around here are very good.”
“What about the bad ones?” A short laugh. “Can you tell me those?”
I smiled. “Unfortunately not.”
“Whatever. I’ll figure it out.” She wiped her face again, regarded me soberly. “I’m sorry if I lost my temper.”
“Not at all.”
“He’s dead, and I feel like nobody’s…No excuses. I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for.”
She gazed up at the house. “It’s so fucked up. I don’t know if he has a will. I can’t reach my brothers. Nobody’s picking up at the studio, they’re expecting me in twenty minutes.” She breathed out sharply. “It’s a mess, is what it is.”
“Did your father have an attorney?”
“My mom might know. If she ever gets here.”
“We can notify your brothers, if it’d help.”
“No, thanks, I’ll do it.”
“Before I forget,” I said. “I have some of your father’s possessions, his wallet and his phone. They might yield additional information, so we’re going to take them with us. Do you happen to know the passcode for the phone?”
She looked lost.
“Don’t worry if not,” I said. “Usually it’s a birthday, or—”
“You can’t just, like, crack it?”
“Knowing the code would be a lot faster.”
“God. Okay, try these.”
I scribbled as she rattled off numbers.
“If none of those work, let me know,” she said.
“Will do. Thanks. Anything else you want to tell me? Other questions?”
“I’m sure I’ll think of something.”
I gave her my card. “That’s my direct line. Think of me as a resource. Here if you need me, not if you don’t. This can be a confusing process, and one of our goals is to make it easier for you.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“Of course.” My turn to look at the house. “Some people find it tough when we bring the body out. You might want to hang out elsewhere temporarily.”
She didn’t reply. She was studying my card.
I said, “Even if you just want to go down to the street for fifteen or twenty minutes. Or you could drive over to your work.”
She put the card in her pocket. “I’ll stay.”
CHAPTER 5
Zaragoza had left the gurney collapsed by the front door, laying out sheets in the foyer next to the body. He glanced up, spiking an eyebrow as I entered carrying brown paper bags and zip-ties.
We bag hands for trace evidence but only in suspicious cases.
I said, “Can’t hurt.”
He shrugged agreeably and we moved the body to the center of the sheets, knotting handles in the fabric. We’ll use whatever happens to be in the van, but at that particular moment I felt grateful that it was sheets and not a body bag; sheets move more naturally and are less likely to wrench you in the wrong direction. Ever since the second flight of stairs I’d had a low-level hum in my knee—what I call leg nausea.
Whoever said there’s no point worrying about what you can’t control clearly had a poor memory, a poor imagination, or both. I take precautions. I ice. I stretch. I get to the gym whenever possible. Still, I worry. I have a decent imagination and an excellent memory.
As I squatted down, braced, put my weight on my heels, I wondered, as I always do: is today the day my own body fails me?
“One,” Zaragoza said, “two, three, up.”
He rose.
I rose.
The body rose.
No disaster today.
We crossed the foyer, moving slowly to minimize the swinging. As we stepped outside and eased the body down onto the gurney, wrapped it in blankets, and buckled it in, I was aware of Tatiana watching us from a distance, those sharp green eyes.
I went over to Schickman and told him we were releasing the scene to him.
“We’ll let you know what canvass turns up,” he said.
“Just to put it on your radar, the daughter said her father had a colleague who died under similar circumstances.”
Schickman nodded. “She told me, too. I tried to ask her about it but she got kind of pissed off. Told me I wasn’t listening. Why. You think it means anything?”
I make judgments based on observable facts. Only rarely does a person’s history play a role in deciding the manner of death, the main exception being suicide.
Walter Rennert’s positioning, clutched chest, facial expression, skin tone, and medical history told the likely story. I thought about my decision to bag the hands—bothered, now, that I’d let her persuade me to second-guess myself.
“Let’s wait for autopsy,” I said. “I’m off Monday, Tuesday, back Wednesday.”
“Sounds good.” Schickman glanced over my shoulder. “Is she okay there by herself?”
“Mom’s en route,” I said. “Let me check her ETA.”
Tatiana informed me her mother had cleared the snarl and was a few minutes out.
I said, “I’ll hang out until she arrives.”
“You don’t have to do that,” she said.
“It’s not a problem.”
She stared at the police officers going in and out of the house. She said, “What are your other goals?”
“Pardon?”
“You said making things go easier for me is one of your goals.”
She faced me. “What are the others?”
“Taking custody of your father’s body. Although that’s a duty rather than a goal.”
“What else?”
“Securing property, when there’s no next of kin present.”
“Do you keep a list of these on a poster in your office?”
I smiled. “Right above the coffee station.”
The sound of a car turned us both around. A black Mercedes sedan reached the top of the driveway and jerked to a stop, unable to proceed any farther.
Honk honk honk honk honk.
“That would be my mother,” Tatiana said.
I told her we’d be in touch.
—
BY THE TIME we arrived back at the morgue, got Rennert weighed and intaked and handed off to a tech, it was three thirty, the end of shift visible on the horizon. The mood in the office managed to be both subdued and hyper: what you get from long hours in a close, low-lit gray space, everyone steadily sucking down carbohydrates. I stripped off my vest, flexed my knee, settled in front of my computer to begin the paperwork.
Sergeant Vitti shambled over, waggling his phone. “What’s up, boys? How was Berkeley? You finish your rosters yet?”
Without taking my eyes off the screen, I gave him a thumbs-up.
Vitti opened up the app he used to manage our office fantasy football league. His lips moved as he appraised my starters, running a hand back and forth over his shaven scalp. “Some questionable choices here, Deputy Edison. Kirk Cousins over Cam?”
“It’s his year.”
“It’s your funeral. Zaragoza?”
“I respectfully decline to participate.”
“Come on. Again with this?”
“Sir, may I point out that last year’s winner—”
“Jolly Jesus Christ, Z
aragoza.”
“—did not receive the agreed-upon monetary prize. Therefore I decline to participate. Fool me once, sir.”
Vitti appealed to the room. “Somebody please resolve this for us. Sully.”
One of the techs arched away from her screen. “What’s that.”
“Tell Zaragoza there was no prize for winning the league.”
“It was twenty dollars a person,” Zaragoza said.
Sully rubbed her nose and resumed typing. “It was a gentleman’s agreement.”
“There you go,” Vitti said, retreating toward his office. “Thank you.”
“Are you kidding me,” Zaragoza said. “You’re kidding me. It is impossible to have a gentleman’s agreement with y’all, cause y’all aren’t gentlemen—”
“Oof. Burn”—this from a tech named Daniella Botero.
“—which y’all are proving right now with this bullshit,” Zaragoza said. “Moffett. Back me up, bro.”
From behind a cubicle wall came a lazy baritone. “It cost a hundred dollars.”
“Don’t. Do not. Don’t.”
“It cost five hundred dollars,” Moffett said. He stood up. He was tall like Vitti and fleshy like Vitti and had an identically shaved head, down to the V crease where his hairline used to be. Peel ten years off the sergeant and get Deputy Coroner Moffett; likewise, fast-forward Moffett and behold our unit’s next leader. He was grinning, chewing on a bear claw big as an actual bear’s claw, icing flecking his shirt, quivering at the corners of his mouth.
“It cost ten thousand dollars,” he said.
Behind me, the technicians were laughing.
“It cost ah crap,” Moffett said. Zaragoza had grabbed his pastry and body-slammed it into the trash. “The heck, dude.”
“You don’t need it,” Zaragoza said.
“You can’t decide that for me. That’s like communism.”
“Have some fruit. Seriously, screw all y’all.”
The subject of the conversation turned to Moffett’s weight. My phone rang.
“Coroner’s Bureau,” I said. “Deputy Edison.”
“Aaaahhh, yes sir, okay, so this is Samuel Afton again.”
Samuel Afton had two noteworthy traits. The first was a drawn-out way of speaking that stretched every statement into a question and every question into an existential mystery. Even mildly novel information caused him to drawl “Oh my goooodness.”
Crime Scene Page 3
