Beginnings: A Kate Martinelli novella

by King, Laurie R.

It was not the same sign that used to make my stomach clench when I’d spot it through the Greyhound bus window. This one was new, wide, and looked as if it had cost the town a chunk of money. The well-maintained flower bed around its base showed patches of spring color.

  The Diamond Lake I knew was one of those farming communities left high and dry when the interstate was laid, inconvenient for travelers needing to fill their tanks and their stomachs. It would not have surprised me if you’d told me back then that, at the age of 52, I’d find nothing here but tumbleweeds and a sign obscured by rust and bullet holes.

  The next surprise was the dull, dingy high school I’d endured for four long years, now polished and planted, its street-front offices dwarfed by a huge new building rising behind. Nearing the school entrance road, I slowed to read the letters on the side, ten feet high and no doubt visible from every upper story in town.

  MARK FIELDS HALL

  The school and its giant hall on top of the cheerful sign at the town entrance all hit me at once, as if I’d been ambushed by a stranger in my living room. My pulse rose, my grip on the wheel went tight under the threat of adolescent tortures and non-belonging, the thoughts of a girl who would grow up lesbian but who at the time—

  Motion alarmingly close to the front of the car had my foot slamming onto the brake, and another dose of adrenaline flooded in.

  The kid had been about to step into the marked and lighted crosswalk. He glared at my fender, a bare six feet from his leg, then at me. I lifted my hands in apology. He shook his head in disgust before stepping down from the curb. “Sorry!” I called. I wasn’t surprised when his reply was a jab of the middle finger.

  I’d killed the engine. Taking a deep breath, I started it again, got the car into gear, and went on, paying attention to what was actually going on outside my windows.

  The high school was planted with trees and lawns so green they looked artificial, wrapped around parking lots filled with shiny cars. At the end of the school grounds, a series of eager franchises like Starbucks and McDonald’s made it clear that as soon as the noon bell rang, the area would be a sea of students with money.

  Half a mile of familiar logos finally gave way to the strip-mall businesses run by locals: manicure and hair salons, chiropractors and dentists. After those came the town itself, with shapes that I remembered—movie theater, public library, looming red brick Catholic church, and two blocks of stores linked by a Western-style covered sidewalk. Here, too, the colors seemed unnaturally bright, the Fifties outlines less old-fashioned and more deliberately retro.

  I saw several new buildings, and very few For Rent signs. The stores and restaurants looked mid-range rather than upscale, with only one obvious art gallery, but the street parking in front of them held nearly as many hybrid cars as pickup trucks. And when I noticed three men in dark suits walking into one of the new office buildings, they didn’t look like something the aliens had dropped off.

  Diamond Lake had gone prosperous.

  I was so distracted by the strange familiar town that the woman behind me—a BMW, no less—laid on her horn in annoyance. I pulled into a loading-only space, giving her an apologetic wave, and turned off the engine. Why the hell was I driving like a birdbrain?

  The answer was not hard to find. Because I hated this place. Because I had worked very hard to leave it behind, to forget everything it had tried to teach me. This “Friendly Community” had made a policy out of overlooking bruised faces and wounded spirits. This community had killed my sister. I might have volunteered to come here, but I was doing it for Nora, and had no intention of offering the place any forgiveness.

  I set the phone’s map function with the address for my potential witness, some ten miles further on, and got back on the road.

  The woman turned out to be as unexpected as the rest of Diamond Lake, a cheerful Somali web designer recently elected to the city council. Thirty years ago, she’d have collected gawkers every time she walked down Main Street.

  To my even greater pleasure, her statement did actually provide some solid information. In less than an hour, I was handing her my card, shaking her hand, and giving her the thanks of the SFPD.

  Marginally cheered by this justification of taxpayer money and departmental time, I re-set my phone for Pipeline Road.

  Going there now was pointless, I knew. Not only did I have no idea where Patty’s accident had taken place, but even if I did, there’d be no trace left. Still, I wanted at least to see it, and found it coming into the main road a couple miles south of town.

  Pipeline had obviously started as a dirt track between fields. At some point it had been paved, with drainage ditches between its asphalt surface and the adjoining fields—half-green winter hay on one side, walnut orchard on the other. Potholes had begun to take over, leaving portions of its two-lane width largely theoretical. The road went straight, with the occasional curve around a field or some feature too heavy for a plow to ignore. Much of it was bordered by huge eucalyptus trees, put in by some early settler to block the wind or suck up a swampy patch. Narrow gaps in their ranks had been used for access lanes to the orchard and the hay field, with rusty metal gates nearly overgrown by weeds and blackberry vines.

  I remembered those trees. Which meant I’d been along here, back in the Dark Ages.

  The road ended in a fence topped with rusty barbed wire and No Trespassing signs. Through the gate lay a sprawl of derelict, graffiti-stained industrial buildings, whose faded sign declared it Johnson’s Quarry. Its padlocked gates explained both the once-good road and the present lack of traffic: this wasn’t a short cut to anywhere.

  Driving back down Pipeline toward town, I eyed the huge old trees, but there was no way of knowing which of their scars and bashes had been a part of my sister’s death. If any.

  When I reached the town again, I nearly kept going, back to the freeway and home. Even when Diamond Lake had worn a familiar face, there was no welcome here. If I’d had a different mother? Maybe. All I knew was that I wanted to go home.

  And yet: Nora was going to have questions.

  When my foot decided at last to move to the brakes, I was already past the sign for the Diamond Lake Police Department. But there was parking along the street, so I pulled into a spot, pushed a few coins into the meter, and walked back.

  The DLPD was another new building, facing the town park—which had a working fountain, a luxury in drought country. The building was fronted with nothing-to-hide-here windows of bulletproof glass and flower-filled planters massive enough to repel a tank. Inside, there were paintings by a local artist instead of wanted posters, industrial carpet instead of worn lino, and bright cushioned seats in place of worn benches. One corner had a collection of kids’ toys, some of which were hardly broken.

  It came as something of a relief to find that all this welcoming outreach stopped with the man on the desk who, though young, was as stolid and unhelpful as any grizzled veteran of a thousand Saturday nights.

  I explained, in simple words, who I was and what I was hoping to find. He appeared to listen, but it was only an appearance.

  “There was a homicide on Pipeline Road?”

  “No, sorry. I’m with Homicide—SFPD. San Francisco. That’s what I do. This concerns an accident , thirty years ago, that I’d like some information on. A car crash.”

  “You’re investigating a car crash?”

  “No, it’s got nothing to do with an investigation, I’d just like—”

  Fortunately for both my blood pressure and his neck, we were interrupted by a voice from a propped-open fire door, probably left that way to provide backup when the desk guy incited some member of the public into assault.

  “Is there something I can do for—wait, did you say Martinelli? Casey Martinelli?”

  Big guy, early sixties, wearing wrinkle-proof chinos and an open-necked shirt rather than a uniform. His attitude made him, if not the police chief, then at least today’s ranking plainclothes officer. He clearly knew me. Or any
way, he had once.

  “I go by Kate now, but yes, that’s me.”

  He came forward hand out, face crinkled into a smile. “Dan Ruckart. We went to school together, back when dinosaurs walked the earth.”

  His grip was enthusiastic, and his face and name began to ring distant bells: older than me, but close enough to have overlapped in high school. He’d been a football player, popular but not a jerk with it. Though why a varsity football player would remember a girl on the softball team I couldn’t think. We sure hadn’t moved in the same circles.

  “Dan, yes. How are you? You’re looking great!”

  He laughed. “I’m looking like a linebacker gone to seed, but you don’t even have much gray in your hair.”

  “I think you need glasses, Dan.”

  “Come on in.”

  I followed him, doing the usual cop’s survey of his office on the way: family pictures on the desk, handshake pictures on the wall, some framed letters and awards. But in addition to the expected—formal portraits of President Obama and Governor Brown, a grinning mayor and some Lion’s Club fundraisers—one big framed photograph showed a Habitat for Humanity project with Dan Ruckart in a well-used tool belt, and another had large, white Dan Ruckart surrounded by a mostly brown kids’ soccer team, everyone wearing wide grins.

  I gestured at the soccer photo as I sat down. “Looks like you changed football for fútbol .”

  “Yeah, soccer’s a great game. Way more running up and down for the coach, which keeps my wife and doctor happy. So, what can the Diamond Lake Police Department do for the famous Inspector Kate Martinelli?”

  That explained it: he’d seen me on the news, some prominent case or other. At least there was no resentment in his voice, no patriarchal jolliness.

  “I’m not here with the Department, just a private citizen. I was hoping that Diamond Lake keeps old accident reports. Very old. Like, 1983.”

  “Nineteen eight—ah. This’ll be your sister?”

  I was surprised. “You knew Patty?”

  “Nah, she was a lot younger’n me, and I wasn’t even in Diamond Lake when she died. First college, then Germany with the Army,” he explained. “But, well, there’s only two famous people ever came from this town, and you’re one of them.”

  “Famous? So… people here all know about me?” That wasn’t creepy at all.

  “Oh not really, I didn’t mean that. It was just, a while back, after some interview with you on the tv, the guys were talking about how you grew up here, out where the mall is now, but that you didn’t have any reason to come back because your mother died, and before that your sister went in a car crash.”

  “Well, I’m glad I don’t have to worry about Diamond Lake stalkers. Anyway, I had to come through town for a witness statement, and Patty’s accident was something I’d always meant to look into.” As I said it, I heard how thin an excuse it was. A police chief might need more than a colleague’s mild curiosity to justify spending city money on a clerk digging through the records. “But, you know, a stupid accident—it never seemed like something that needed explaining. Then the other day my daughter did a Google search for her aunt, and came across an article that had a heavy hint Patty committed suicide.”

  “And you’re hoping that wasn’t so?”

  “I’m hoping I didn’t miss something.”

  I watched his face go from stern to thoughtful to soft, and it occurred to me that he might think my concern was not over Patty, but Nora. I opened my mouth to clarify, then decided that if he thought I wanted to reassure a similarly at-risk daughter, he might be more inclined to help. I changed what I was going to say. “Dan, I know what records offices look like, and if they’re anything like those of the SFPD, it would take a hunt. I’d be happy to go looking on my own, if that’s not a problem.”

  It was not a problem, although he didn’t turn me loose to ravage the shelves. Instead, he assigned me a clerk. “But only for an hour, I’m afraid. If the two of you can’t find it by then, you’ll just have to fill out a request and let us do it on our own time.”

  I thanked him warmly, wishing his soccer team all the best, and stood up. Then I paused. “Okay, Dan, I have to ask: who is Diamond Lake’s other ‘famous person’?”

  “Mark Fields, of course.”

  My reaction to the name confirmed that there was some complex bit of memory attached to that person, though the near-panic I had felt in front of the school was now a sort of general disgust. Like seeing the name of a town that is both familiar and troubling, which you later discover you know from headlines after a mass shooting.

  Not that a town would name a high school building after a criminal. It must be a coincidence, a local benefactor whose name happened to trigger a cop’s response. Had to feel sorry for the local guy.

  “Yes, I saw the name on the high school, but I couldn’t—”

  “The Mark Fields. ‘Tech Guy’? ‘More apps than Apple’? That Mark Fields.”

  “I’ve heard of Tech Guy, sure, but I guess I didn’t know who that was. He comes from Diamond Lake?”

  “Seems unlikely, doesn’t it? But then, he wasn’t actually born here, he came when he was little. But I’d have thought you two were in high school together. What year did you graduate?”

  “Eighty-one.”

  “So maybe he was a couple of years after you. And maybe you went to different elementaries and junior highs—he lived north of town. But you’d have met him, high school wasn’t that big—I’m a little surprised you didn’t recognize his name. He’s in the alumni news all the time.”

  I didn’t point out that not all graduates of Diamond Lake High were signed up for its newsletter.

  “Well, Dan, you know how that age is—if you’re in different groups, you might as well live on different worlds.” And I didn’t need to remember the Fields boy to know that he’d been one of the In Crowd: if the Fields family lived in what we called north-town, they had money.

  “Ain’t that the truth? Still, it would’ve been nice to know what he was going to do when he grew up, so we all could have invested in him and retired years ago.”

  I laughed politely along with the chief.

  “Anyway,” he said, “you want to look at our records. Let me tell them you’re coming.”

  He picked up the phone and explained to the person on the end who I was and what I needed, then stood up and shook my hand.

  “All set. Try not to keep her more than an hour or so.”

  “I’ll do my best. Thanks so much, Dan. I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

  “Good luck.”

  And off I went to do battle with the dusty files.

  V

  In the end, the Diamond Lake records offices were so bizarrely well organized, the clerk and I were in and out in fifty-three minutes—and that included a stop at the printer so I could take the file with me. There wasn’t even a disgusting amount of dust on the folders.

  Somewhat stunned, I pulled out my phone to check the time. Not even 3:30—oh crap, I thought: the parking meter .

  It showed expired, as it must have for at least twenty minutes. Fortunately, the department’s parking control officer was not as efficient as its records office, and there was no ticket under my wiper blades. I climbed into the car, tossing the folder on the passenger seat to check my cell for messages.

  When I had dealt with a couple of emails and had a text exchange with my partner about a case we were working, it was nearly 4:00. If I left now, I’d be back for the end of dinner, as I’d semi-promised. Or not, depending on whether the rush hour traffic was merely awful or truly horrendous. My thumb hovered over Lee’s name on the text bar, but I then closed it out and phoned her instead.

  “Hi sweetie,” she answered.

  “How’re things?”

  “Same old. Nora went over to Yaz’s so they could work on that history project, she may stay for dinner.”

  It was on the tip of my tongue to ask if she was sure Nora was with her frien
d and not sneaking off with The Boy, but I caught it back. Kate, don’t be That Mother.

  “Yeah, about dinner. Even if I leave now, I may be late.”

  “‘Even if?’ You have other things you want to do out there in the sticks?”

  “Well, for one thing I need to pee.”

  She laughed. “And while you’re in peeing you might as well talk to John Smith and Jane Doe, I know. Listen, sweetheart, take your time. Don’t leave till you’re satisfied. It’ll bug the hell out of you if you don’t.”

  “Man. You are so clever. You should’ve been a therapist or something.”

  “Or something. Honestly, Kate, I’m fine, there’s leftovers, and Yaz’s mom has to go out anyway so she’ll drop Nora off. If you wait a while, the drive will take half as long.”

  “Well, if you’re sure.”

  “How is it, being there?”

  “A weird mix of boringly familiar and completely unexpected.”

  “But not unpleasant?”

  “Not as bad as I thought it would be.”

  “Have you gone past your house?”

  “Where it was, you mean? No. I don’t think I will. But I did drive past the place Patty died.” She made a sound, of sympathetic pain. “And I managed to get a copy of the accident report.”

  “Have you read it?”

  “Not yet.”

  “You’re sure you want to?”

  “I think I need to.”

  “I understand. I’ll have my phone on me, in case you want to talk. And I’ll be up when you get in.”

  “Love you,” I told her.

  “Me too, you.”

  I slipped the phone into my pocket, and gazed across the sidewalk at one of the more familiar storefronts in the town. Its paint was new and the sign was a slightly retro version of the one it had worn thirty years ago, but the teasing odors were precisely the same.

  They also reminded me that I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. And the sign said it was open until five. I slipped a few more quarters into the parking meter and went through the door of the Village Bakery—where the old-fashioned bell that jangled a welcome instantly transported me into one of the few good corners of my childhood. The bakery and library had been my two places of comfort. I had spent countless afternoons here, bent over a library book, eking out my single cup of cocoa and a sweet of some kind.