Crime Scene

by Jonathan Kellerman

  “Ones and twos,” I said.

  “I don’t know what that means,” she said.

  “Normal shots are worth one. A three-pointer is worth two.”

  “That makes zero sense.”

  I ran toward her, stopped short, pulled up, and let fly. Snap.

  “Two,” I said. I reached down and plucked a ball from the floor. “Loser’s out.”

  “Oh fuck you ‘loser.’ ”

  We played with no regard for boundaries, running and heaving and traveling when convenient. When I blocked her path, she simply turned and sprinted downcourt toward the other basket; when I poked the ball from her hands, she snatched the nearest one off the floor. If I got within arm’s reach of her she started hacking at me mercilessly, her shrieks caroming from the walls and the stands, lighting up the hush. Nobody came to see what the racket was all about or to tell us to keep it down. We were living in a one-room universe.

  Flushed, her hair sticking to her forehead, her shirt glued to her ribs, she put up a particularly heinous airball from the free-throw line.

  I backpedaled, leapt, snatched it from midair, rolled it in.

  “We’ll call that one for you,” I said.

  “What’s the score? I’ve lost count.”

  “Me too.”

  “I am so completely terrible at this.”

  I took a ball and stood behind her, leaning down to wrap my arms around her, positioning her hands. “The right provides the power. The left acts as a guide. Think of it as a one-handed push.”

  I stepped back.

  She bricked it, short.

  “Closer,” I said, grabbing another ball. “Put some height on it. The more you exaggerate the arc, the bigger your target gets.”

  She dribbled once, twice. Shot.

  Got the bounce.

  I applauded. She turned and curtsied. Held out her hands.

  “Come here right now,” she said. “Please.”

  We sank down together, tugging and prying at each other, fingers catching on fasteners and fabric, rolling around half naked on the hardwood. It seemed like a fun idea but she soon said, “Know what, this is really uncomfortable,” and we both started laughing.

  I said, “We’re not kids anymore,” and she said, “Thank God for that.”

  I got up and helped her up and then, before I could dwell on the risks to my knee, I swept my arms around her back and behind her legs and carried her to a stack of gym mats shoved into the corner. They smelled plasticky and sharp. Bodies had fought here.

  I spread out my coat and she uncoiled, a creature released from captivity, running to trap and devour the first living thing it saw, which was me. She caged me with her arms, her fingers taloned my neck, light drilled down on us in high contrast, her perfect contours raised up above the surface of the world.

  “Someone might come in,” she said.

  “Does that bother you?”

  She smiled. “I like it.”

  I should have figured: she was a performer.

  CHAPTER 19

  In the morning I woke alone, blinking up at the blushing ceiling of her bedroom. My clothes lay folded on the floor. A dent in the sheets beside me. I flopped over the edge of the bed, scrabbling for my phone, dragging it toward me by my fingernails. Ten after eight.

  I called Tatiana’s name. No response.

  Pulling on my pants, I went into the bathroom to wash my face.

  I heard the front door open and came out to find her balancing a cardboard tray with coffee, a bulging waxed-paper bag in her other hand. A thoughtful gesture, but it sent a chill through me. The same items had been spilled across her father’s foyer.

  “I had to guess if you take milk,” she said, handing me the tray.

  “I do.”

  “That’s what I thought,” she said. “He’s a big boy, he probably drank a lot of milk as a kid.” She smiled and rose up on her tiptoes to kiss me. “Good morning.”

  “Morning. Thanks for this.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  We sat cross-legged on the carpet and ate, surrounded by the stacks of banker’s boxes.

  “What are you going to do with all of it?” I asked.

  “I rented a storage locker. I’m supposed to hang on to everything for a full year. There’s even more stuff waiting for me in Tahoe. Just thinking about it stresses me out.”

  “Then we won’t think about it.”

  “Too late.” She wiped her mouth. “Did you sleep okay?”

  “Great. You?”

  She shrugged. “You have long legs. Long, active legs.”

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s all right. I need to be up anyway.” She tore at a croissant. “Tell me the truth. You do that for all the girls?”

  “What. The basketball thing?” I shook my head. “Just you.”

  “Uh-huh. Does it work?”

  “Like forty percent of the time.”

  She smiled.

  I liked that about her. Quick to smile but hard to make laugh. It kept you honest.

  We finished our breakfast and I carried her bags down to her car. My knee felt shockingly healthy.

  “I’ll call you when I’m back,” she said.

  “Any sense of when that’ll be?”

  “Two weeks,” she said. “Three.”

  “Which one is it? Two or three?”

  She kissed me, got into the Prius, and drove off toward the freeway.

  It’s true: I did want to see her again. But that wasn’t my reason for asking.

  However long she remained away—two weeks or three—that was how long I had to locate Julian Triplett.

  It wasn’t yet nine a.m. The day was clear. I moved my car to avoid a ticket and set out on foot for Delaware Street.

  —

  WEST OF SAN PABLO, the neighborhood took a turn. Not for the worse, exactly; more for the tired. Weeds marching forth in their ranks. Indoor furniture living outdoors. Some creative soul had erected a two-foot-high “fence” out of chicken wire, staked to tomato cages, everything held together with supermarket twist-ties. All manner of crap had been put on the sidewalk and left to the mercy of the elements: mattresses, crates of mushy paperbacks. Some folks had bothered to add a sign—FREE or PLEASE TAKE—as though words alone could transform junk into treasure.

  Litterbug!

  Julian Triplett’s mother, Edwina, still lived at the same address as a decade ago, in the rearmost unit of a small stucco complex called Manor Le Grande. The name was goofy enough as is, without the cartoon-bubble lettering bolted to the brick façade. Something about it momentarily sapped my zeal. Most people would be at work at quarter to ten on a Monday morning, and even if Edwina Triplett was home, I couldn’t make her talk to me. Nor could I see why she would do so willingly.

  I had little to lose, though. Even if she refused to tell me where her son was, she might warn him that the cops had come around, and that might be enough to scare him off.

  Concrete pavers led to a cracked trapezoidal courtyard. The curtains to #5 hung ajar.

  I looked through the window. The living room beyond the glass was too sparse to qualify as messy; what I could see showed evidence of hard use. Tube TV squaring off with a soiled, defeated sofa. A tray on legs stood at the ready, but unhappily, like some dried-up butler. Dark puddles splotched the popcorn ceiling.

  I rapped the screen door’s frame.

  No answer.

  I got out my card and wrote on the back: Please call when you have a chance. I started to stick it in the mail slot but paused, worried about needlessly frightening her.

  A note from the Coroner’s Bureau, asking for a call, with no context?

  Impetuously, I tacked on a smiley face.

  Please call when you have a chance. : )

  Well. That just looked ridiculous.

  While I went through my wallet for a fresh card, the front door whined. An obese black woman of about fifty peered out through the screen. She wore a formidable floral-print housedr
ess and leaned on a shiny purple cane.

  I raised a hand. “Good morning, ma’am.”

  “Good morning.”

  I flashed my badge quickly, identifying myself as a deputy sheriff. “I’m looking for Julian Triplett.”

  She listed a little to the right, examining me. “Is he in trouble?”

  “No ma’am. I’m just trying to find him, and yours is the last address I have.”

  “What you want him for?”

  “Just checking in.”

  She sniffed skeptically. “He ain’t around.” She reached for the door.

  “It’s important that I find him.”

  “I said he ain’t around.”

  “When’s the last time you saw him? Ma’am.”

  She shut the door.

  I crossed out the smiley face and pushed the card through the mail slot. If that made her anxious, so be it. Maybe it’d motivate her to cooperate.

  I started back toward the street, jumping as the screen door banged open behind me.

  Edwina Triplett came humping out, her gait jerky and pained. She was sweating, clutching the card fiercely, bending it into a U.

  “You got no right.” She spoke quietly, her features glittering with rage. “No right.”

  “All I want is to ask him a couple of questions.”

  She whooped laughter. “Coroner? You must think I’m some kind of stupid.” Squinting at the card: “Edison? That’s you?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “He’s dead?”

  “No ma’am.”

  “Then why you harassing me, Mr. Edison?”

  “Ma’am—”

  “What you think about this?” She tore the card in half, stacked the halves, tore them again. “Huh, Mr. Edison? Tell me what you think about that.”

  She halved the card twice more. Getting through thirty-two layers proved a challenge—she strained with effort, the flesh of her arms and under her neck rippling like disturbed water—and she began shredding individual pieces, sprinkling them on the cement.

  She said, panting, “What you think about that.”

  I said, “I think I’ve upset you, and I apologize. For what it’s worth, I’m not concerned with whatever happened before. This is something happening now.”

  “I guess you didn’t hear me the first five times,” she said. “He. Ain’t. Around.”

  “I heard you.”

  “Then why you still—” She broke off with a grunt, wincing and pressing a fist to her chest. The cane began to vibrate, her spine to bow.

  I took a step forward.

  “Don’t touch me,” she wheezed. She sank down, slumping against the doorframe, her mouth gaping, grabbing at the air.

  I asked if she could breathe.

  She didn’t reply. I took out my phone to call an ambulance.

  “Nnn.” She tossed a hand over her shoulder. “Pills.”

  “Where are they?”

  “…bathroom.”

  I stepped around her carefully.

  The air inside the apartment felt close, tens of thousands of cigarettes soaked into the walls. I went straight back, encountering a mess of amber bottles on the bathroom counter. Among numerous diabetes scrips I found nitroglycerin tabs. I shook a couple out, filled a water glass, and hustled back outside.

  She stuck a pill under her tongue, ignoring the water. Within a few minutes her breathing had begun to ease. She closed her eyes, massaging her chest.

  “Another?” I asked.

  She shook her head.

  “Who should we call? You have a primary doctor?”

  “You can go,” she said.

  “I can’t until I know you’re okay.”

  At length she tried to stand. She couldn’t manage it. I saw her grimace, weighing need against pride. She said, “Help me up.”

  I set the glass on the pavement and crouched, sliding an arm around her. Her skin was moist and warm and yeasty. I said a prayer for my knee, took a deep breath, and said, “One two three hup.”

  We rose together.

  She directed me to the sofa, groaning as I got her settled, letting the cane fall to the carpet with a soft thud. I fetched the water glass. She gulped it down, droplets rolling over her jaw and down her throat, shading the lace at her neckline.

  “More?”

  “No.” Then: “Thank you.”

  I took the glass to the kitchen and rinsed it out. There was no dish drainer, so I upended it on a grungy towel. From beneath the sink came a fetid whiff. Overflowing five-gallon can, no bag.

  I carried it through the living room, doing my best not to spill. Edwina Triplett still had her eyes closed.

  Outside I found a row of gray city bins. I emptied the can, washing it out several times from a hose bibb and shaking the excess onto spiky, sere bushes.

  When I returned, her eyes were open. She regarded me suspiciously.

  “You have trash bags hidden somewhere?” I asked.

  She didn’t answer. I went into the kitchen and started opening drawers. The best I could come up with was a wrinkled paper sack from CVS.

  I know how it reads: I was trying to worm into her good graces. No doubt that’s what she thought. But at that moment, I was thinking of all the homes I walk into on a weekly basis, except that in those instances I’m there to remove a body. Few people get a chance to stage-manage their own exit. They die before they’ve had a chance to take out the trash. They die before they’ve finished wiping themselves. The last impression we leave is almost always inadvertent.

  Seeing Edwina, the raft of drugs she depended on, I had a rare opportunity. For once I was here before—not after. It felt worth five minutes of my time to chip away, however slightly, at future indignity.

  Also, I hate a mess.

  I lined the can with the CVS bag and put it beneath the sink.

  “I meant what I said,” she called. “I don’t know where he’s at. That’s honest. Not like you.”

  I rejoined her in the living room. “Even if you did know, I wouldn’t blame you for not wanting to tell me.”

  “You just tryin to sugar me up.”

  “I’m gonna suggest one last time that we call a doctor.”

  “I don’t have a primary.”

  “Someone else, then, to keep an eye on you,” I said. “A neighbor.”

  That got a snort.

  “What about your daughter?”

  She started. I’d done my research.

  Then, as if giving up, she pursed her lips and faced away.

  “We could call her together,” I said. “Maybe she knows where Julian’s at.”

  “Ask her yourself.” Her voice was a hard matte shell, hinting at the terrible loneliness inside. “I ain’t even tryin to know.”

  “Believe it or not, I’d like to help your son.”

  She smirked.

  “You’ve heard that before,” I said.

  “Oh yes I have.”

  “From the police.”

  “Police,” she said. “Lawyers. Social services. Everybody’s so helpful. The folks from the experiment, they wanted to help, too, and you see what that got him.”

  “I understand.”

  “Oh you do, do you?”

  “Maybe I don’t,” I said. “Help me out, then. Tell me about him.”

  She looked at me. “Tell you what?”

  “About Julian.”

  She fell silent for a moment. “I don’t know what you expect me to say.”

  “You know him. I don’t.”

  “Yeah, and?”

  “And maybe you share with me a little about who he is, what he’s like, I can do what I can to keep him safe.”

  “He’s in danger.”

  “He’s out there,” I said.

  “You think he did something.”

  “I don’t know that. Don’t know him.”

  “I don’t know him, either,” she said. “Not anymore. Maybe I never did.”

  “Does he have friends? A girlfriend?”
<
br />   “Girlfriend? Be real, now.” She shook her head. “You ask me as many times you want. The answer’s still the same: I don’t know where he’s at. I ain’t seen him in forever.”

  “What’s forever?”

  “Ten years,” she said. “More.”

  I said, “Back when he was living with you.”

  “He got out and had no place to go.”

  “You took him in.”

  She stared at me. “He’s still my child.”

  “All I meant was, you did right by him.”

  “You definitely sugaring.” But she didn’t seem to mind.

  “How was it, having him home?” I asked.

  She shrugged.

  “Did he have a hard time adjusting to life on the outside?”

  “Julian had a hard time adjusting to everything,” she said.

  Her anger wilted as quickly as it had come; she unballed her fists and began fiddling with her cuticles. “I know God has His reasons, and He gives us each our gifts. And I know I ain’t the greatest mother in the world, but I tried, I was trying. You need to realize, I wasn’t like you see me now. I didn’t sit here like this, I could get around. I had him young. Two kids and two jobs. I was tired all the time. I don’t know what I did, to make him act like that.”

  “You have a recent photo of him?”

  She rolled her eyes. “No.”

  “All right,” I said. “When he left, ten or so years ago, did something happen to make him take off? You two have a fight?”

  “Wasn’t like that. When he first came out he wouldn’t do nothing. Just sat and watched TV. Reverend Willamette, bless him, he started coming round. He took Julian under his wing. He got him a job, helping part-time over at the church. You know—touch up the paint, whatever. He was doing all right. Then one day I wake up, and he’s gone.”

  She bit off a hangnail. “I ain’t seen him since. And that’s the truth.”

  She held the water glass out to me.

  I took it to the kitchen, refilled it, calling, “The reverend’s a good man.”

  “Yes he is.”

  “Where’s he preach at?”

  “Dwight Baptist.”