11th hour

Chapter 67

Conklin and I followed Todd Waterson across his gleaming wooden floors under an airy cathedral ceiling. The walls were at hard angles, cut by beams and banks of floor-to-ceiling windows. Large photos of Waterson interviewing celebrities hung on the milk-white walls.

Waterson indicated where we should sit, and as we did, he said, “Just to cut to the chase, I haven’t seen or spoken with my father in five years.”

“Where were you last weekend?” I asked him.

“That’s what you want to know?” Waterson asked. “What am I — some kind of suspect? That’s really funny.”

“I thought you wanted to cut to the chase,” I said, not laughing.

“I was out and about. I spent all my nights here.”

“Can anyone vouch for your whereabouts?”

“Wait a minute. Before I give you names and numbers, what are you getting at and what does it have to do with me?”

“Seven heads were disinterred from your father’s back garden.”

“So I’ve heard. I haven’t set foot in that place in five years. Not since I had my final fight with my father.”

“You mind if I ask about that fight?”

“I sure do.”

Conklin took the baton. Conklin wasn’t pregnant. He hadn’t just told his spouse to vacate the premises. He wasn’t even mad.

I sat back and let him drive the interview.

“We’re checking out your father,” Conklin said.

“Okay.”

“What’s he like?”

“He’s narcissistic. He’s a womanizer. He can be cruel.”

“You say he’s a womanizer. All the heads in the garden belonged to females.”

“Is that right? So you’re asking could my father, the man I just described as cruel, be responsible for those heads?”

“That’s right,” Conklin said.

Rich had on his good-natured good-cop smile. You had to love Conklin, and in a way, I did. He said to Waterson, “Do you think your father is capable of murder? He’s been accused of it before.”

“Honestly? I don’t know. He’s capable of a cutting put-down. He’d like to fuck every woman in the world to death, but that’s all I know. I stay away from him. But now I’m repeating myself.”

“Okay,” Conklin said. “And where were you last weekend?”

Todd Waterson started to laugh.

“Let me get my book.”

Waterson got out of the chair and went to his desk. I stared out the window at Mount Sutro Open Space Reserve, a swath of green that cut through the city. I was thinking about Joe. Thinking about what he had done. How would I ever forgive him, and if I couldn’t, how could I raise our child alone?

How sad for our baby.

Todd Waterson returned to his seat, opened his iPad, tapped it, said to Conklin, “What’s your e-mail address?”

Conklin gave it to him.

Waterson tapped his iPad a few more times, then shut it down. “That’s a list of where I was and who I was with. Anything else?”

Conklin said, “And why don’t you have any contact with your father?”

“He’s a homophobe,” said Waterson. “He disapproves of my lifestyle. That’s where the cruelty comes in. Are we done?”

We thanked the guy for his cooperation and left his house.

“Okay,” said Conklin. “So, theorizing here, Todd Waterson is what? A gay guy who hates his father, so he decides to kill women. He becomes a serial killer and corpse mutilator who sneaks into his father’s backyard and buries the heads of his victims with some of their doodads. Later, he digs them up and decorates them with numbers and fluffy flowers.”

It was my turn to look at him as if he had a fish on his head.

He said, “Makes no sense to me either.”

I gave him the car keys and we drove back to the Hall in silence.