Crime Scene
Page 26
“It didn’t occur to you that I might be worried about you?”
“I—no,” she said, blinking. “It didn’t.”
I threw up my hands.
“Thank you,” she said. “That means a lot.”
“Whatever,” I said. “We didn’t set any rules. You’re entitled to do what you want.”
“I’m sorry you had to find out the way you did.”
“Not sorry you did it, though.”
She sat down at the kitchen table, waited for me to join her.
I continued to stand.
“If it’s any consolation,” she said, “he kicked me out.”
“He” being Portland Guy. I pictured a stringy neck-bearded dude sporting a woolen beanie and toting an artisanal ax on his shoulder.
“I’m not interested,” I said. “And no, it’s no consolation.”
“He said he couldn’t let me stay because I’m not making good decisions at the moment and he didn’t feel right taking advantage of me.”
“Did you hear me?” I updated Mr. Sensitive’s image: subtract ax, add sweater vest and corncob pipe. His analysis, though—that I couldn’t argue with. She wasn’t making good decisions. “I don’t care.”
She looked stung. I hadn’t meant I didn’t care about her, just that I had no intention of validating her odyssey of self-discovery. Even so, I felt bad for her, almost against my will. Having to defend her behavior to Amy had shifted me into a sympathetic frame of mind.
I said, “Look, it happened. Okay? No hard feelings.”
“But time to move on,” she said, and she twirled a finger in the air, just as she had on a warmer night some months ago.
“Yes,” I said.
Silence.
She said, “Do you know why I went up to Tahoe?”
“To sell the house.”
“I could have done that from here,” she said. “I went to grieve,” she said. “I couldn’t while I was here. I tried. I couldn’t do it.”
“There isn’t a wrong way—”
She held up a hand. “Please? This is hard for me.”
My knee had begun to ache. Cursing myself, I pulled out a chair and sat opposite her.
She gave me a sad, grateful smile. “The estate, my mom, my brothers—it was just too much. I went thinking I’m going to get there, all of that is going to fall away, I’ll be able to focus and look reality in the face.” A bewildered laugh. “It worked. For about an hour, until I realized that the reality I’m facing is, actually, fucking horrendous. It’s my father. And he’s dead.”
She’d begun tugging at a piece of dry skin on her lip. She caught herself doing it and shoved her hands under her thighs. “Then I get back, and you’re telling me all these crazy things about him…I wasn’t ready.”
She looked at me. “I’m ready, now.”
“Are we talking about your father, or are we talking about us?”
“Either. Both.”
I rubbed my knee. “What did your mother tell you?”
“That you went to see her and asked about me.”
“I went to talk to her about your father and Julian Triplett,” I said. “That was the subject of conversation. The only subject of conversation.”
She looked down at her lap.
I said, “Still want to help?”
After a beat, she nodded.
“Fine,” I said. “I ask, you answer. That’s the deal.”
Silence.
“All right,” she said.
She sounded so meek that I started feeling bad for her all over again.
I squelched it.
“The locker where you put your father’s documents,” I said. “Where is it?”
“Eastshore Highway. The big place. I don’t remember the name.”
“Text me the address,” I said. “Meet me there tomorrow morning. Nine a.m.”
She nodded again. Then she said, “We could go together.”
She raised her face to me.
“Tomorrow,” she said. “We could go over there together.”
She meant: I could stay the night.
Lizard brain perked up.
I said, “I’ll meet you there at nine a.m.”
For a moment I thought she’d rescind the offer. But she conceded with a half smile.
“Nine a.m.,” she said.
—
I ORDERED HER a car. She started to argue, but this time I wasn’t having it: I threatened to arrest her if she attempted to drive away. We sat in the kitchen, waiting in silence. Every second offered another tough choice for lizard brain. She was willing and present and no less attractive than she had been a month ago. Finally my phone chimed, saving me from myself.
At the door, she said, “I’m sorry I ruined your evening.”
“I’ll figure it out.”
“I can call her and explain.”
“I’m going to veto that.”
“For the record, Amy really does seem nice.”
“She is. Although I’m not sure how you could tell. You met her for ten seconds.”
Tatiana said, “I’m a good judge of character.”
Like mother, like daughter.
I bid her good night and went to restore the tumbler to its place.
CHAPTER 36
En route to East Bay Premium Storage the next morning, I left Amy a voicemail, fumbling through an apology that ended with me saying, “Look, do-over? Please? Just, call me. Okay. Thanks. Bye. Call me.”
Smooth.
I arrived a few minutes early, waited in the parking lot till ten after.
I texted Tatiana. I’m here where are you
Still no sign of her by nine twenty. I was on the verge of leaving when she replied.
Locker 216
Combo 4-54-17
Good luck
My first impulse was to get annoyed. But what was the point? I had what I needed.
Thanks I wrote.
I headed over to the front office to sign in.
—
THE “PREMIUM” PART of “Premium Storage” was a free cup of lukewarm coffee. I stepped from the freight elevator into a concrete corridor lined with rolling steel doors, numbers stenciled on the wall in red paint.
The unit Tatiana had rented measured ten by fifteen—enough to house the contents of a one-room apartment, and far more space than she needed. Running my flashlight over the piles, I counted about forty boxes. Stacked up, unlabeled, in no particular order, they gave off that diluted campfire odor characteristic of old paper.
I moved quickly through the first few stacks. Utility bills and auto insurance policies. What I wanted were credit card statements, bank statements, copies of canceled checks, correspondence—anything that might prove Rennert had been sending Triplett money or that divulged Triplett’s whereabouts.
The likelihood of finding a clear trail was low. Easier for Rennert to fork over a packet of cash. Even so, I might be able to detect a pattern of withdrawals, find an ATM, narrow it down to a neighborhood.
I was fishing. It was going to take time.
Working cross-legged on the unswept concrete, I fell into a sort of trance state. Distant sounds reverberated: humming elevator, dollies clattering. The financial paper I came across revealed nothing about Julian Triplett but drove home how rich Rennert had been. All those commas and zeros gave me a new understanding of how drastically Tatiana’s life had changed in recent months.
Even with a three-way split she’d never have to work again. A blessing, I guess, but maybe a source of shame?
I stopped myself. No need to sink back into caring for her.
I stood up, knee cracking, and went downstairs for a second free cup of coffee.
Checked my phone. No reply from Amy.
I started composing a text to her.
Thought better of it and deleted.
—
NINETY MINUTES IN, I came across a box slightly larger than the others, UC library system bar-code stickers on the body, lid tape
d shut.
Pulse racing, I slit the tape, beheld the remains of Nicholas Linstad’s experiment.
I found the Meeks score sheets, anonymized. I found the master document that decoded participant numbers into names and noted other demographic data.
Nowhere did Julian Triplett’s name appear.
A whole mess of waivers, dual signatures, participant and parent/guardian.
No Julian Triplett. No Edwina.
Linstad, avoiding putting Triplett’s name on record?
I held up a red three-and-a-half-inch floppy disk labeled BB.
Bloodbrick: 3D. The game that had started it all.
Or hadn’t, depending on who you asked.
A blue floppy disk, labeled T. Linstad had used Tetris as a control.
Next: a thin, wrinkled manila envelope containing reimbursement forms—three of them, filled out in the same, slashing hand and signed N. Linstad. The first form was for five hundred dollars, the licensing fee for using the Meeks.
The second was for several hundred dollars’ worth of cash incentives, doled out to subjects as an inducement to show up, week after week.
The third reimbursement form asked for twenty dollars for “miscellaneous expenses.” Like the other two forms, it bore Linstad’s signature. An attached receipt gave the breakdown.
SAMMIE’S STEAK SAMMICH
“home of the original”
1898 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley 94709
Ticket #10012116 User: Max Z.
10/31/93 01:39:28 PM PST
ITEM
QTY
PRICE
TOTAL
Double Steak Sam Plate
1
9.95
9.95
Curly Fries
Honey Slaw
Lg Fountain Beverage
1
2.95
2.95
Whoopie Pie
2
2.50
5.00
Subtotal
17.90
Tax
1.35
Total
19.25
Visa XXXXXXXXXXXX8549 19.25
Auth: 015672
Tip
0.75
Total
20.00
Thank You For Your Business Please Come Again
I knew Sammie’s—a greasy spoon off the northwest corner of campus, known for its cheap, gargantuan portions and don’t-give-a-fuck-bout-chu waitstaff; a lowbrow bastion in a culinary landscape that got increasingly precious with every passing year. My teammates liked to go there after practice. They’d egg one another on, see who could eat the most without throwing up. Athletes will turn anything into a competition. I’d go along, not for the food, but for the sake of team unity.
Neither the reimbursement form nor the receipt indicated who the meal was for.
But I had a theory.
He said the man got him a burger.
Steak sandwich. Burger.
A reasonable enough mistake.
I slid the form into the envelope, put the envelope in the box, took the whole thing with me down to my car.
—
SAMMIE’S STEAK SAMMICH had not changed in ten years, twenty years—the entirety of its sixty-seven-year existence, to judge from the black-and-white photos on the wall.
The décor consisted of rickety wooden tables and chairs, upholstered in torn yellow vinyl; a chipped Formica counter with torn blue stools; UFO-shaped ceiling pendants. The fare consisted of overlarge cuts of chewy, oily meat—pounded into submission, fried gray, and set adrift on a kaiser roll, only to be drowned in barbecue sauce.
A bell jangled as I entered, prompting the line cooks to shout, “Yo, siddown.”
At quarter to eleven in the morning, I was the sole customer. I slid onto a stool and scanned the menu board above the kitchen window, plastic letters pressed into grimy felt. Prices had risen since ninety-three. The Double Steak Sandwich Plate now ran you $11.95. At the bottom of the dessert list, below soft serve and the ubiquitous whoopie pie, block capitals declared WE CHEAT DODGERS FANS!
“Yo,” the counterman said.
“Yo,” I said. “Whoopie pie, please.”
He raised a glass cake dome. Each cookie was half a foot across. He took one off the top of the pile with his bare hand and put it on a plate. “Yo, here you go.”
“Can I get a knife, please?” I asked.
“What for.”
“This thing is huge.”
He frowned, craned to address the kitchen. “Yo,” he yelled.
“Yo,” the line cooks yelled.
“Yo, sir here wants to eat his whoopie pie with a knife.”
The line cooks booed.
The counterman turned to me. “You don’t eat no whoopie pie with no knife.”
“All right, give me an original.”
“Fries or onion rings for a dollar extra.”
“Neither.”
“Fries or rings.”
“Rings.”
“Beans or slaw.”
“Slaw,” I said. “And a knife, please.”
He scowled and put the order in. Within seconds I heard the sizzle of meat hitting the flattop. Within minutes I had before me a glorious plate of slop. The counterman set out a squeeze bottle, colored an unappetizing brown—more barbecue sauce.
“In case I get thirsty,” I said.
His face was stone.
I looked at him expectantly. He grunted and reached down and brought out a knife from behind the counter, slapping it down in front of me.
It was a big honking thing, heavy-duty black plastic handle and a thick-spined, serrated blade about four inches long. The teeth were worn down with use but the tip still looked menacingly sharp. You needed such a weapon to vanquish a Sammie’s Steak Sandwich. They put up a fight.
I said to the counterman, “You always use these same knives?”
“What?”
“The knives. Are they the same brand you were using, say, twenty years ago?”
“Yo, I look like I worked here twenty years?”
“Ask them,” I said, pointing to the cooks in the kitchen.
“Man, they don’t know.”
“Is there a manager around?”
“Me.”
I’d recheck the murder file, but to my eye the knife was an exact match for the one recovered from a garbage can on the corner of Dwight and Telegraph, wrapped in a bloody gray sweatshirt and stuffed in a plastic bag.
I raised my phone to take a picture of it.
“Yo,” the counterman said. “No pictures.”
He pointed to a sign on the wall that read NO PICTURES.
I asked for a to-go box.
“Yo, you didn’t eat nothing.”
“I need to go.”
“Then why didn’t you say to go.”
I’d had enough of this. I put my badge on the counter. “Yo. Box, please.”
He fetched it quick, transferred the food from my plate.
I held up my unused knife. “And I need to borrow this for a little.”
“Yo,” he said, breaking off uncertainly.
When in doubt, be tall. I stood up, spread my hands on the Formica, loomed. “Yes?”
“Yeah, boss,” he said, “no problem at all.”
The Berkeley PD station was six blocks away. On the walk over I bit into my sandwich. It tasted like buffalo hide. I got through a quarter of it before dumping it in the trash.
CHAPTER 37
I didn’t go in the building. I didn’t know what the situation was with Schickman—how much static I’d caused him, how lightly he had to tread. From half a block away, on Allston, I texted him. Fifteen minutes later he jogged up.
“Need to be quick,” he said. “What’s going on?”
I showed him the reimbursement form, the receipt, the knife.
“We were wondering how Linstad got Triplett’s fingerprint on the murder weapon,” I said. “That’s how.”
“Coul
d mean the opposite: Triplett took the knife on his own.”
“You don’t think it’s interesting?”
He grinned. “Like I said. Interesting.”
“Check out the date on the receipt,” I said.
He stared. “October thirty-first.”
I nodded. “Day of the murder. Less than twelve hours prior. Wrap the handle in something,” I said, “keep the print nice and fresh. For all we know, the knife you have in evidence isn’t the real murder weapon. If Linstad was smart, he ditched it someplace far away and planted the one with the print.”
Schickman continued to study the receipt. “Why would he put in for reimbursement?”
“Because he’s a cheap bastard who couldn’t help himself,” I said. “He wanted his twenty bucks back.”
“He tipped seventy-five cents on a nineteen-dollar bill.”
“Add it to a growing list of character flaws,” I said.
Schickman laughed.
“So?” I said. “This change your mind any?”
“You are one persistent son of a bitch,” he said.
He took the knife from me. “Let me compare it with the one in evidence.”
“That’s all I ask,” I said.
“Whatever I decide to do—and I’m not deciding anything yet—we need to keep it on the DL, all right? Least till we have more.”
“Understood. I’m back at the Coroner’s starting tomorrow.”
He held the knife up. “I need to return this when I’m done?”
I shrugged. “If the spirit moves you.”
—
MY CO-WORKERS GREETED me normally, asking how I’d spent my vacation days. I responded in kind, although in truth I felt on edge, my forehead a marquee, my secrets blaring brightly for all to read. Did they know why I’d taken time off in the first place?
I took my seat across from Shupfer, working diligently, aloof as always.
She said, “Welcome home, princess.”
Las Vegas PD had responded to my request for information regarding Freeway John Doe. They might know my guy. It sounded promising.
The next order of business was to review my queue, updating cases to reflect the autopsies that had been completed in my absence.