The Fall

by John Lescroart

  She was made up like a cover girl. Her hair looked as though it had been professionally done. There was no backpack, no sign that she’d just come in from a day in high school. She wore tight designer jeans, a leather jacket, and fashionable low-heeled shoes. Two gold chains encircled her neck. An emerald on one of those chains matched her earrings and plunged into an impressive cleavage.

  She repeated her question. “What’s happening? What’s going on here?”

  As a chorus of sobs broke around the table, Nellie turned to face her. “It’s Anlya.”

  “What’s Anlya?” She waited impatiently, until all at once her eyes flashed and she slapped the wall next to the door with her palm, an enormous sound in the subdued space. Adding to that, her voice doubled in volume. “What the hell? What are you saying? Is she dead, is that it? Are you saying she’s dead?”

  Nellie nodded. “She’s dead, Honor.” Then “This here is the Homicide police.”

  Honor’s eyes raked the table, maybe hoping for a different, better answer. Not getting one, she went still again, then with a small pained cry, she turned and ran off down the hallway.

  •  •  •

  A HALF HOUR later, Nellie persuaded Honor to come down and talk to the two Homicide policemen. They were here to investigate what had happened to Anlya, and surely, if Honor had information that might shed any light, she would want to share it with them, wouldn’t she? They were here now. This would be the easiest, most convenient time to talk to them.

  At last she agreed to come down.

  For a little more privacy, Waverly and Yamashiro had moved to the room Nellie used as her office, not much more than a large closet behind the kitchen with one outside window, a wall half-full of cardboard packing boxes doubling as file cabinets, a bare lightbulb hanging from a wire in the ceiling, two wooden chairs on one side of a linoleum-topped kitchen table, and a saggy green love seat facing it on the other.

  Honor came in, said hello, and closed the door behind her. Yamashiro was on the love seat and Waverly sat behind the table. She pulled out the only seat left for her, sat, and started right in. “Anlya was my friend. I still can’t believe it. But I don’t know anything that could help you find out what happened to her.”

  “So you don’t know where she went last night?” Waverly asked.

  “No.”

  “One of the girls said that you two went out together.”

  “That’s not true. We left the house together. But then she went wherever she was going, and I went to meet some friends.”

  “She didn’t say what she was doing?”

  “No, but she’d gotten herself dolled up. I think she was going to meet a guy.”

  “Do you know who?” Yamashiro asked.

  “Not really, no.”

  As Yamashiro had expected, Honor was totally unwilling to drop a name to the police. Nevertheless, he kept asking. “She didn’t have a regular boyfriend?”

  “Not that I knew.”

  “How about guys in her past?”

  Honor’s head tracked from side to side. “Not really. I’m sorry.”

  “Hey,” Waverly said, “if you don’t know, you don’t know. Can you think of anything else you can tell us that might be helpful?”

  “About last night?”

  “About anything, really. If something had been bothering her. If her behavior had changed. Maybe something at school? Anything you can think of.”

  Honor shook her head. “She was just a normal girl. Somebody else here might know something, but it’s all . . .” She shrugged. “I just don’t know anything.”

  Waverly said, “But you were best friends. If you wouldn’t know about her, who would?”

  Honor just looked at him.

  Yamashiro spoke from the love seat. “You know, Honor,” he began in a conversational tone, “I’ve got a couple of daughters near your age at home. They’re as different from each other as you can imagine, but if there’s one true thing about both of them, it’s that they know what’s going on with the social lives of their friends. One of them or any of their friends has a boyfriend or gets a new one, it’s topic number one. Somebody’s having trouble at school, the word goes around. Somebody has a fight, or says something bitchy, or tells a secret they were supposed to keep, everybody knows before the sun goes down.

  “I don’t imagine things are so different here, which is why it doesn’t feel like you’re telling us what you know about Anlya. She must have had a life, and if you’re her best friend, we’ve got to believe that you know a little something about it, at least more than you’re telling us.

  “Somebody might have killed Anlya last night, Honor. I know that’s scary for all of you here. You might even think you have an idea who it could have been, but you’re afraid of what he might do to you if you talk to us. Okay, but I’m here to tell you that we can protect you. If you know something about Anlya that might have led to her death, anything at all, you won’t necessarily have to give a formal statement about it. Nobody needs to know that you’re involved. We’re just looking for a place to start on this investigation, and it seems you might know something more that you’re not telling us. Are you sure there isn’t something? Any little thing?”

  As he spoke, Honor’s expression hardened until at the end it had completely clamped down, lips tight, brow drawn. “I’m telling you the truth,” she said. “We used to be better friends, but we haven’t been that close for a year. I’m sorry she’s dead, but we haven’t really hung out in a while. I don’t know what she was doing last night, or last week, or anything. Really. And you can either believe that or don’t. Can I go now?”

  Waverly nodded. “Of course. But if you think of anything . . .”

  But she was already out of her chair, turning for the door. “Got it,” she said.

  •  •  •

  WHILE THE TWO inspectors were at Anlya’s home, and since she had her own room, as long as Nellie didn’t object, they decided to check it out.

  It was not large. The wall across from the door had the room’s only window, covered with white lace. Under that window squatted a three-drawer oak dresser with a runner of more white lace. On the lace, Anlya had framed pictures of a smiling young black man and a snapshot of a slightly older—mid-twenties?—white guy on a beach somewhere with the inscription, “All My Love, G.” Also on the runner were a collection of small colorful beach stones in a jade jar; three votive candles, never lit, on small red plates; and an empty teak box. In lieu of a closet, Anlya had a wardrobe with a mirrored front along the right-hand wall. Her backpack, stuffed with schoolbooks, class binders, tennis shoes, a couple of pairs of plain white underwear, and a light sweater, huddled in the corner.

  She had made her bed, pulling up a pale green comforter with the wrinkles patted out and squared off at the corners. The pillow was fluffed, perfectly centered on the bed, and covered with a lacy white case. Three books sat on a bedside table made out of cinder blocks and driftwood. A poster of Nelson Mandela hung on the wall over the bed’s pillow; on the remaining wall, she had two other posters, Beyoncé and Obama.

  Of the books on the bedside table, two were paperbacks—one of the Twilight books and Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings—and the other, at the bottom of the stack, was a leather-bound hardback. This turned out to be a diary and, from the looks of it, one that she’d written in nearly every day.

  May 6, 2014

  I decided that if I wanted him to really know me, and really love me for who I am, I had to tell G. all about what really happened with L., how far it went. G. needs to know that I’m damaged goods, not so that he can forgive me, since it really wasn’t my fault and there’s nothing to forgive, but just so he isn’t under any illusions, thinking I’m all young and don’t know what it’s really all about. I mean, the whole thing of having to be eighteen to be legal shouldn’t really apply to me since everything that could happen already has happened, and when I was fourteen and fifteen.

&n
bsp; I’m just still so surprised and happy that I have these feelings of wanting to get together with G., that I’m not just sickened and turned off forever by the idea of sex because of how it was when L. was hounding me. I feel like I’ve come out the other side of this nightmare, that some kind of real life is going to be possible, that some righteous man might find me attractive and worthwhile.

  I’m going to tell him tomorrow. How I really feel. Not have him need to guess about it anymore. We have a real date and we’ll be alone and I know it won’t scare him off. If he needs to wait until I’m eighteen, okay, we’ll wait, but at least he’ll know for sure where I stand and we can take things from there.

  Maybe we can even start living together when my time runs out here.

  Hopes and more hopes.

  •  •  •

  “I’LL TELL YOU what,” Waverly said as they got into their car after they’d finished their search, “I’d like to have a talk with this guy L., not to mention G.”

  8

  ABE GLITSKY WAS a lifelong policeman, and even in plainclothes, all six feet two inches of him looked it. He weighed two hundred and twenty pounds and came across as rock-solid, no-nonsense, more than a bit sardonic. He’d been everything from patrolman to Homicide lieutenant to deputy chief of inspectors, and for the past few months—after a squabble with Vi Lapeer, the chief of police, had led to his resignation—he’d been nominally under Wes Farrell’s command as an inspector with the DA’s Investigative Division. Abe’s father was Jewish, his mother had been African-American, and he split the difference about equally between them, with milk chocolate skin, kinky hair, blue eyes, and a prominent nose. Easily trumping all of his other distinguishing characteristics was the slash of white scar that ran top to bottom through his lips, which he let people believe was the result of a knife fight sometime in his misbegotten youth, although its true source had been a grade school playground accident on the climbing bars.

  Glitsky’s wife was Wes Farrell’s administrative assistant, Treya. At the close of business, Wes came out of his door to find Abe sitting on the edge of Treya’s desk.

  “You busy?” Wes asked.

  “Just putting some moves on this babe here.”

  Wes said to Treya, “If he’s harassing you, I can have him arrested.”

  “He hasn’t crossed the line yet. I’ll let you know.”

  “Can I borrow him for five?”

  “Ten if you want.”

  “Hey!” Glitsky said. “Do I get a vote here?”

  Farrell held open his office door. “I doubt it,” he said. “Inside. Please.”

  •  •  •

  IN THE INNER sanctum, the door closed behind them, Glitsky picked up a handy football and tossed it absently hand to hand. “What up?” he asked.

  Farrell got right to it. “You’ve heard about the young black woman who got killed last night at the Stockton tunnel?”

  “Sure. Thrown off, I understand.”

  “Right.” Wes ran down the details and concluded with a little riff on the quality of Juhle’s staff, particularly Waverly and Yamashiro, and his confidence in them. By the time he finished, Abe had stopped tossing the football and lowered himself onto the arm of one of the love seats. “It sounds to me as if they’ve got everything under control.”

  “I’m sure they do.”

  “Okay?”

  With an embarrassed smile, Farrell said, “I haven’t run this by Juhle yet, but if he’s good with the idea, what if I asked you to assist in this investigation?”

  Abe frowned. “You want to tell me why? I mean, it’s not like I don’t have my own cases. Besides, I used to be the boss of these guys, even Devin. It might be a little awkward. Why would they need a DA investigator? And why, specifically, me?”

  “I’ll bet you can guess.”

  “The obvious strikes me as pretty offensive.”

  “That’s a good call. But sometimes ugly has a place.”

  “And this is one of those times?”

  “As a way to deflate Liam Goodman and his ilk? Yes.”

  Glitsky made a face. “Really? And me because I’m half black?”

  “Not just that.”

  “No? What’s the other part, then?”

  “You’re a good cop. Everybody respects you.”

  “Nice try, Wes, but not true. Vi Lapeer, our very own chief of police, hates me and thinks I’m a menace.”

  “Okay. Not her. But everybody else. If you join the team, this office is actively aiding Juhle and the PD. So they won’t be able to pick us apart as two separate entities.”

  “Which we are.”

  “Yes, but evidently, we—and by ‘we,’ I mean all of law enforcement in the city—don’t care about justice for crimes perpetrated against black people. We don’t put enough priority on finding and convicting the people who committed them. Finding is the cops. Convicting is us. Not really related, except in the public consciousness somehow, and putting you on the team addresses that issue. In fact, takes the teeth right out of it. We’re all in it together, trying to get and convict the bad guys.”

  “The idea that we don’t care about crimes against black people? That’s nonsense.”

  “I know it is. But it doesn’t stop people from believing it.”

  “People believe in Santa Claus, too.”

  “True,” Wes said, “but not as many.”

  9

  MAX’S AUNTIE JUNEY was, in his opinion, the world’s best person. She was a couple of years older than her messed-up sister, Sharla—Max and Anlya’s mother. He’d been living with her in her tiny walk-up on Broderick ever since CPS had taken him and his sister from their mother and her boyfriend, who themselves had been embroiled in mind-altering substances and domestic violence as a way of life.

  Max had some vestigial good feelings for his mother, but no recollection at all of his birth father, Daniel, and no good memories of his common-law stepfather, Leon, who was psychologically unbalanced, a crackhead, an alcoholic bully, and not least by a long shot, a child molester who had several times forced himself sexually on Anlya, threatening to kill her if she told, right under Sharla’s nose.

  Just over three years ago, Leon and Sharla had broken up, and shortly after that Leon had been arrested for the murder of one of his homies in a bar fight; he had been found mentally incompetent to stand trial. Since then he’d been institutionalized in the state’s care at the Napa medical facility, where he would remain until he was found competent to face a trial, which Max thought unlikely because Leon was a complete whack job. Max believed that Leon being in custody made the world a better place. Leon had screwed up not only his and Anlya’s life but his mother’s as well, with drink and drugs. Sharla might never recover. At least Max had given up on believing she would.

  But now he was building a good life with Auntie Juney, and in spite of all the awful stuff he’d endured, he considered himself one of the truly blessed. The only thing he sometimes still felt bad about, even a little guilty, was Juney taking him in and not Anlya. He knew that at first, when CPS had come to Juney as next of kin and asked if she would please consider taking the children for a day or two until they could find a permanent placement, Juney hadn’t wanted to take either of them. He couldn’t really blame her. After all, a single childless high school dropout working the perfume counter at Sears didn’t exactly bring home huge money. Neither did taking on a foster child—$761 a month wasn’t close to what it cost to raise a teenager in San Francisco. Without some serious budgeting, lots of bulk foods, corner-cutting, and plain old doing without, it couldn’t be done.

  But Juney had taken them both in that first night. Anlya had been far more traumatized than Max. She’d curled in a blanket and cried quietly, silent and withdrawn. Max, wanting nothing more than to protect the twin sister he so loved—the closest person to him in the world—helped Juney prepare the mac and cheese and Oscar Mayer dogs for dinner, brewed tea for Anlya to sip, got her settled on the couch, and t
ook the floor for himself. Before going to sleep, he had sat up talking to Juney for hours, adult to adult—though he’d been only sixteen and she thirty-seven or so—about what they were all going to do, how they would survive.

  He hadn’t been kissing up to her, trying to get the one possible spot at Juney’s one-bedroom apartment—if there was one—for himself. It had never entered his mind that the system would separate twins.

  And then on day three, the social workers had located an open room at the McAllister Street home, an all-girls’ place not a half mile away. Anlya could move in there and be safe, surrounded by other girls and young women. Though it broke his heart while they were moving her, Max had been able to put a brave face on it, ignore his emotions, pretend that what was best for Anlya would be best for everyone, even if it meant the two of them splitting up.

  They’d find a place nearby for him soon. Anlya should go to the new home while it had a room for her.

  Back at Juney’s apartment, after Anlya was gone, his auntie had come up behind him as he, tough and silent, had stared out the window, arms crossed, at the street down below. She’d put her arms around him and rocked him and told him it was okay, and he’d stood there leaning back against her, already about her size, and let the tears silently roll down his cheeks.

  The next day, she called CPS and told them she’d keep him.

  Now, a year and a half later, Thursday afternoon, he sat on their front stoop, waiting for his ride downtown.

  He had beaten the odds already by getting this far. Who was to say his run of good luck might not continue? Especially now that he had a plan and a smart, dedicated friend to help him execute it. A bit of unbelievable, extraordinary luck.