The Detective & the Chinese High-Fin

by Michael Craven

I looked out the big glass wall again and nodded.

  Out on the balcony he took a couch, I took a chair. There was a nice breeze, soft sunset light, some faint sounds of traffic. Yeah, it was nice.

  “So what’s the latest?” he asked.

  “What you said on the phone. Keaton Fuller’s family has hired me to look back into the case. That’s really it. That’s the latest. I’m talking to everyone the cops talked to, and some new people too.”

  He nodded.

  I said, “So, how did you know Keaton?”

  “Family friend. My mom remarried when I was thirteen. Married a guy in Hancock Park, up in L.A. So we moved there and I became their neighbor.”

  “You moved from where?”

  “Here. Well, San Diego.”

  “And your dad?”

  “San Diego. Never left. He remarried too, by the way, but stayed put. If you were wondering about my dad’s love life after he and my mom divorced.”

  He chuckled. I did too.

  “Okay. So you moved to Hancock Park.”

  “Yeah. Became neighbors with the Fullers. Better friends with Greer, he’s my age. But I knew Keaton pretty well too. Really well, I’d say. Spent a lot of time with both those guys over the years. Always at the same neighborhood parties. Always at each other’s houses. Same middle school as Greer. We all drifted apart a little as Keaton went off to college, Greer and I went to different high schools and colleges . . . But I still know the family, even now. And my mom and her husband are still their neighbors.”

  “I know you told the cops this already, but, if you don’t mind going over it again . . . what are your thoughts about Keaton Fuller?”

  Dave Treadway looked down at his feet, then he looked at me with his blue eyes and his slight underbite.

  He said, with some sensitivity, “Keaton Fuller was a guy with some problems.” And then, “He wasn’t a great guy.”

  Treadway appeared to be a person who knew how to say things in a way that wouldn’t come across as overly crass or offensive or disrespectful to the dead. That said, he had just come right out, in his own way, with a negative assessment.

  And why wouldn’t he? Ultimately, here was another guy with nothing to hide. Another rock-solid alibi. The building’s cameras had Dave getting off the elevator with his wife and child and going into their apartment the night before the murder. At 6:30 on the morning of the shooting, Dave had talked to the doorman from inside the apartment, using the apartment’s intercom system, to tell him about a couch delivery happening that day, which was also confirmed by the furniture company. At 7:45 a.m., the building’s cameras had Dave leaving his apartment for work, same time as he left every day. The garage cameras had both his cars sitting in the garage all night. Not to mention the fact that the Treadways live in a different city. You’re talking about 125 miles of traffic-laden highway between Dave’s place and Keaton’s place. And, for good measure, on the morning of the murder there were two accidents on the freeways: one on the 5 South, the other on the 405 South, putting the travel time from Los Angeles to La Jolla at roughly three hours no matter which way you went. Of course, like the others, he could have hired someone, could have been involved in some other way, but right now it looked like he didn’t have to watch what he said.

  I thought Treadway was about to say something else, maybe something a little harsher than “he wasn’t a great guy,” when the sliding glass door to the balcony opened. A tan, tall, athletic woman with sandy blond hair and very friendly eyes stood there. A blond little boy with wet, just-combed hair stood next to her, holding her hand. Apparently Dave’s wife had been in one of the back rooms giving their son a bath.

  “Hiiiiii,” she said, drawing out the word in a singsongy, charming way.

  I instinctively stood up. And then a feeling came over me that was foreign, unsettling. I was intensely dizzy. I felt, for an extreme few seconds, that I was going to throw up or fall down or both. I got a strange, sickening taste in my throat, like that taste you get when you put your tongue up to a battery. I looked around for the arm of the chair or the railing of the balcony, something to hold on to, when the feeling suddenly surged in intensity. I was definitely going to vomit. Right now. And then, and then, it disappeared. Vanished. Instantly. Went away as fast, faster, than it had appeared. I took a breath, thinking, Holy shit, what was that? The height? Being pretty far up in the sky? Realizing, I guess subconsciously, that if I stumbled and the railing gave way I could die? Maybe. But I don’t know. I had never been afraid of heights, and I’ve been on lots of fucking balconies. Was it something about this woman? Did I know her somehow? Had I seen her before? No, I didn’t. And I hadn’t. I definitely had not.

  Dave said, “John, this is my wife, Jill. Jill, this is John Darvelle, the detective.”

  “Hello,” she said, an amiable smile spreading across her face as she extended her hand and we shook. “And this is young David. We call him Davey.”

  I looked at the child. “Hi, Davey!” I said and smiled, doing my best to talk to a very young kid even though I really didn’t know how to. Davey smiled and then his face went blank for a second, that blank faraway look children can get, and then he looked up at his mom and smiled again.

  Jill said to Dave, “I’m going to put Davey down and make dinner.”

  Then she and Treadway shared a brief, very brief, silent communication through their eyes, and then she said to me, “Would you like to stay for dinner? I’m just making some pasta and a salad. Just something simple.”

  I thought about it. I was hungry. It was a long drive back to my place . . .

  “That sounds nice. Yes. Sure.”

  “Great,” she said, like she meant it. And she and Davey slipped back inside and out of view.

  I looked back at Dave Treadway. “So, Keaton Fuller wasn’t a good guy?”

  Something about his wife inviting me for dinner had loosened him up a bit with regard to this subject. Because he said, this time without much sensitivity, “He was, like, the worst guy ever.”

  And we both laughed. Like he had cut the tension of the moment by just saying what he knew I already knew.

  Treadway began to talk, telling me much of the same stuff that everyone else had. That Keaton was a prick, that he let people down, that he could be charming, that he could be the life of the party, but that he fundamentally, at his core, just wasn’t a good guy. “Like he just had a chip missing or something. That part of you that tells you not to, you know, be really uncool to a girl. Or break a promise you made to someone in a business deal.”

  “Craig Helton,” I said.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Not the smartest thing in the world to go into business without a contract, and a lot of people wanted to tell Craig how stupid he had been. But a deal is still a deal. I manage people’s money for a living. I study companies all the time. And there are lots of companies out there, huge companies, that started the same way, with a handshake, a verbal agreement. Nike, for example. And I don’t think anyone is telling Phil Knight how stupid he is.”

  Treadway took a contemplative pause, like he was unsure about releasing the next bit of information, then said, “You know, Greer told me that Keaton punched their mom one time.”

  I said, “Man. This guy. Wow. Really?”

  Treadway said, “Yeah. I don’t know if he, like, fully beat her up, but yeah, he punched her in the face. When he was a teenager. And Jackie had to make up some story about why the whole side of her face was black-and-blue. Greer told me that, you know, many years later, after too many cocktails.”

  “Jesus. I’m starting to wish I was the one who killed this guy.”

  Treadway laughed. “Totally.”

  We continued talking, Dave now saying that it’s almost strange to know someone like that or, more specifically, be a sort-of friend, through family and the neighborhood you live in, of someone who’s just kind of despicable.

  Eventually I said, pursuing a path of, you know, beating the bushes, “Did you
ever know anything about Keaton getting into the tropical fish business?”

  Treadway said, “No. That’s . . . weird. And kind of cool. What’s that about?”

  “I don’t know. I’m looking into it. I think it was one of the things Keaton got involved with, and then, although I haven’t confirmed this . . . it didn’t work out. Which reminds me, what’s the story with the USC guys who Keaton pissed off? The ones trying to make the movie? Craig Helton mentioned that story to me.”

  “Right,” Treadway said. “You know, that wasn’t some major falling-out. That wasn’t on the same level as what happened with Keaton and Craig. Some film students were trying to make a short film. Keaton promised them some money, and then when it came time to, you know, actually give them the money he bailed. I really just told Craig that story to help him understand that what happened with their business . . . well, that Keaton was just like that. That he would break a promise, that he would fuck over anyone. Some privileged USC guys, or a guy like Craig trying to make it.”

  I said, “So what do you think happened, Dave? Why do you think Keaton was killed? You knew the guy from when you were thirteen. What’s your theory?”

  He nodded and said, breaking now a bit from what everyone else had said, “You know, Keaton knew all kinds of people that the rest of us didn’t know. He was always finding new groups of people to hang out with, or who would fall in love with him for a while. You know people like that? You just suddenly hear that they are in this new group, kind of out of nowhere? The USC film guys were like that—”

  “Or the guys from the band, the Test? The way Craig Helton met Keaton.”

  “Right, exactly. And I’m not saying the people in that band had anything to do with Keaton getting killed. In fact, I think those guys are all really good guys, and some of them are still friends with Craig. And, shockingly, I don’t think they ever fell out with Keaton. The USC guys too . . . They didn’t murder Keaton over that film. I mean, I really don’t think that happened. But those are both examples of how Keaton just got involved with all sorts of random people. Like, the tropical fish thing you just mentioned. It’s like, what? Who? Tropical fish business? Really? But on the other hand, it makes total sense. It’s totally Keaton. So I think that somewhere along the line he got in with somebody, or one of those groups of people, and he pissed off the wrong person. You know? I mean, he had a pattern of pissing people off. But it’s one thing to let your brother down, or, like, a really sweet guy like Craig Helton, or some rich-kid USC students, but, you know, not everyone is like those people. You piss off the wrong person, just one person, and you never know. There’s some crazy people out there.”

  I thought for a moment about Lee Graves. The way he’d looked at me when I started flaking out at Prestige Fish. His skeleton face had shown some deflation, but there was anger there too. I’d pissed him off by wasting his time.

  And then Treadway took a turn I didn’t see coming. He said, “You know, I always felt, of all the people Keaton hurt, that Greer somehow took it the hardest. Again, I’m not saying he had anything to do with the murder, like, no way. It’s just that thinking about Keaton makes me remember things. And Greer was my friend, is my friend, so maybe I paid a little more attention to him or something. But I don’t think that’s why I feel this way. I really do think Greer was the most disappointed, let down, hurt, something. More than Craig, more than his ex-girlfriend who he cheated on, like, a thousand times. Sydney Frost. Sydney Scott now. Did you talk to her?”

  I nodded.

  Treadway continued, “There were times growing up when Greer just kind of seemed lost. In a daze. Emotionally scarred or something. And I remember thinking at the time that it was probably Keaton’s fault. And now, with more of an adult perspective, I still think that. Some fucked-up thing Keaton had done. Or a bunch of things. Making fun of him, picking on him, not sticking up for him, I don’t know. Ultimately, that’s why I didn’t like Keat. I knew about the whole laundry list of shit he had done to all sorts of people, but that stuff didn’t really hit me as much as when I saw in my friend, right up close, the effect of his behavior.”

  I didn’t respond. I just sat there for a second, looking out toward the ocean. Getting dark now. The water taking on a deep blue, almost black color. Lights popping on in the buildings all over La Jolla, and in the lamps lining the boardwalk and the cove. Right then Jill poked her head out, this time sans Davey, and said, “Ready?”

  Mid-dinner. The Treadways were quite pleasant to be around, and the food was good too. Simple and good, spaghetti with marinara and a fresh salad with crisp romaine, artichokes, garbanzo beans, yellow peppers, and oil and vinegar. Dave stuck with beer during dinner, which I appreciated. So did I. Jill had red wine. Nancy would have appreciated that. I was enjoying myself.

  At one point Dave said, “You know, a private detective is one of those jobs where you could live a whole lifetime and never meet anyone who’s actually a private detective. And yet it’s a job that every guy is interested in. Every guy would like to meet a PI. I even think every guy wants to be a PI, at least a little bit.”

  I laughed.

  Jill said to Dave, “You want to be a private detective now?”

  “A little bit, yeah. Every guy does!”

  I laughed again.

  And then Jill said to me, “Do you think that’s true? Every guy wants to be a PI?”

  “I don’t know. But let me tell you this. It’s not always interesting. It can be really boring. Not all the time. But it can be. I’m not sure every guy wants to sit outside someone’s house in a midlevel American car for, you know, five hours, waiting for something to happen.”

  Dave said, “That doesn’t sound so bad. It really doesn’t.”

  Again, I laughed. And then I added, truthfully, but also for fun, “It can also be dangerous. Really dangerous.”

  I looked at both of them, this attractive couple looking back at me and wondering now, basically, if I’d ever killed anyone. That was my guess, at least.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m not about to pull out my gun.”

  They gave this nervous laugh.

  I added, “I don’t think.”

  We continued chatting. Dave talked a little more about his money-managing life. Turns out he had made it on his own. Cat had done well for himself. Jill talked a bit about her former career as an advertising executive that she might or might not go back to, probably will one day, needs the mental stimulation . . .

  When we were finishing eating, just at that moment when it felt like we were all about to stand up and start clearing the table, Jill said, “So, you have a girlfriend?”

  “See?” Dave said to her. “You think it’s cool to be a PI too.” He continued, teasing her, “Do you want me to go into the kitchen or something so you can flirt with our guest in private?”

  “What?” she said. “He’s cute. I was thinking about setting him up!”

  Dave looked at me. “Girls always want to set you up with their friends, and then the friends are never hot enough. It’s just that simple.”

  I laughed. I was genuinely surprised that he said it. He was right, of course.

  He continued, “You show up, and you think: Why would someone think this is the woman for me? And you also think: Why did the girl who set me up, set me up with someone clearly less attractive than she is? What does that say about her opinion of me?”

  I laughed. Right again.

  Jill said, “We just want the best for our friends. So we set them up sometimes knowing it might not be the right match, but hoping there will be some kind of spark anyway. That’s why that happens.” She took a long pause as another thought seemed to occur to her. “Well, we don’t always want the best for our friends. We sometimes do.”

  We all laughed at that. These two were telling it like it is.

  I answered Jill’s initial question. “I have a girlfriend. Her name’s Nancy. She’s a nurse.”

  Jill, ribbing me a bit, said, “S
o she can take care of you after those dangerous situations.”

  Everyone laughed. No one harder than I.

  I said, “That’s how we met. Seriously. I got hurt on the job and had to go to the emergency room. She took care of me.”

  I looked at these two. And I had a thought. A thought I hadn’t had in a while: I could be friends with them. You don’t have that thought that often when you’re in your mid-, okay, late thirties. That you could end up genuine friends with a person, or a couple. I liked them, liked their energy, enjoyed being around them. Don’t worry, that didn’t mean Dave Treadway was off my list of possible suspects. Nobody was off that list. Not yet. But I liked them.

  We got up, cleared the table. I said thank you to Jill for making dinner and thank you to Dave for talking to me. Then I left, got in the Focus, and headed back to Los Angeles in reasonably light, but not too light, never too light, nighttime traffic.

  19

  Next morning, back at my desk, MacBook Pro open, big slider open, big cup of coffee in my hand. I was revising my case notes, adding what I now knew in crisp, simple bullets. But also looking back over the whole narrative. I looked at the line that first mentioned Prestige Fish.

  •Craig Helton tells me Keaton Fuller worked in the tropical fish business, company name: Prestige Fish.

  I imagined for a brief second all the players in my story as tropical fish swimming around in an enormous tank. I saw their faces on the various species. There was Jackie Fuller swimming about. There was Dave Treadway gliding around. There was Lee Graves sliding by.

  I think I took too many mushrooms in college.

  I was imagining this, eyes no longer on my case notes but instead out the slider, when my phone started once again shaking frenetically, spazzing out, snapping me out of my reverie. Marlon the Marlin.

  “Marlon.”

  “Johnny boy, I had a thought.”

  As you may have noticed, sometimes Marlon calls me “Johnny boy.” I’m not sure I like it, and I’ve thought about it quite a bit. But I let it go, because it’s Marlon the Marlin. Not because I think he’s going to shoot me if I tell him to stop, although I guess it’s possible. No, I let it slide because it’s Marlon the Marlin, that’s how he talks, that’s who he is.