Crime Scene

Chapter 19

In the morning I woke alone, blinking up at the blushing ceiling of her bedroom. My clothes lay folded on the floor. A dent in the sheets beside me. I flopped over the edge of the bed, scrabbling for my phone, dragging it toward me by my fingernails. Ten after eight.

I called Tatiana’s name. No response.

Pulling on my pants, I went into the bathroom to wash my face.

I heard the front door open and came out to find her balancing a cardboard tray with coffee, a bulging waxed-paper bag in her other hand. A thoughtful gesture, but it sent a chill through me. The same items had been spilled across her father’s foyer.

“I had to guess if you take milk,” she said, handing me the tray.

“I do.”

“That’s what I thought,” she said. “He’s a big boy, he probably drank a lot of milk as a kid.” She smiled and rose up on her tiptoes to kiss me. “Good morning.”

“Morning. Thanks for this.”

“You’re welcome.”

We sat cross-legged on the carpet and ate, surrounded by the stacks of banker’s boxes.

“What are you going to do with all of it?” I asked.

“I rented a storage locker. I’m supposed to hang on to everything for a full year. There’s even more stuff waiting for me in Tahoe. Just thinking about it stresses me out.”

“Then we won’t think about it.”

“Too late.” She wiped her mouth. “Did you sleep okay?”

“Great. You?”

She shrugged. “You have long legs. Long, active legs.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s all right. I need to be up anyway.” She tore at a croissant. “Tell me the truth. You do that for all the girls?”

“What. The basketball thing?” I shook my head. “Just you.”

“Uh-huh. Does it work?”

“Like forty percent of the time.”

She smiled.

I liked that about her. Quick to smile but hard to make laugh. It kept you honest.

We finished our breakfast and I carried her bags down to her car. My knee felt shockingly healthy.

“I’ll call you when I’m back,” she said.

“Any sense of when that’ll be?”

“Two weeks,” she said. “Three.”

“Which one is it? Two or three?”

She kissed me, got into the Prius, and drove off toward the freeway.

It’s true: I did want to see her again. But that wasn’t my reason for asking.

However long she remained away — two weeks or three — that was how long I had to locate Julian Triplett.

It wasn’t yet nine a.m. The day was clear. I moved my car to avoid a ticket and set out on foot for Delaware Street.

West of San Pablo, the neighborhood took a turn. Not for the worse, exactly; more for the tired. Weeds marching forth in their ranks. Indoor furniture living outdoors. Some creative soul had erected a two-foot-high “fence” out of chicken wire, staked to tomato cages, everything held together with supermarket twist-ties. All manner of crap had been put on the sidewalk and left to the mercy of the elements: mattresses, crates of mushy paperbacks. Some folks had bothered to add a sign — FREE or PLEASE TAKE — as though words alone could transform junk into treasure.

Litterbug!

Julian Triplett’s mother, Edwina, still lived at the same address as a decade ago, in the rearmost unit of a small stucco complex called Manor Le Grande. The name was goofy enough as is, without the cartoon-bubble lettering bolted to the brick façade. Something about it momentarily sapped my zeal. Most people would be at work at quarter to ten on a Monday morning, and even if Edwina Triplett was home, I couldn’t make her talk to me. Nor could I see why she would do so willingly.

I had little to lose, though. Even if she refused to tell me where her son was, she might warn him that the cops had come around, and that might be enough to scare him off.

Concrete pavers led to a cracked trapezoidal courtyard. The curtains to #5 hung ajar.

I looked through the window. The living room beyond the glass was too sparse to qualify as messy; what I could see showed evidence of hard use. Tube TV squaring off with a soiled, defeated sofa. A tray on legs stood at the ready, but unhappily, like some dried-up butler. Dark puddles splotched the popcorn ceiling.

I rapped the screen door’s frame.

No answer.

I got out my card and wrote on the back: Please call when you have a chance. I started to stick it in the mail slot but paused, worried about needlessly frightening her.

A note from the Coroner’s Bureau, asking for a call, with no context?

Impetuously, I tacked on a smiley face.

Please call when you have a chance.:)

Well. That just looked ridiculous.

While I went through my wallet for a fresh card, the front door whined. An obese black woman of about fifty peered out through the screen. She wore a formidable floral-print housedress and leaned on a shiny purple cane.

I raised a hand. “Good morning, ma’am.”

“Good morning.”

I flashed my badge quickly, identifying myself as a deputy sheriff. “I’m looking for Julian Triplett.”

She listed a little to the right, examining me. “Is he in trouble?”

“No ma’am. I’m just trying to find him, and yours is the last address I have.”

“What you want him for?”

“Just checking in.”

She sniffed skeptically. “He ain’t around.” She reached for the door.

“It’s important that I find him.”

“I said he ain’t around.”

“When’s the last time you saw him? Ma’am.”

She shut the door.

I crossed out the smiley face and pushed the card through the mail slot. If that made her anxious, so be it. Maybe it’d motivate her to cooperate.

I started back toward the street, jumping as the screen door banged open behind me.

Edwina Triplett came humping out, her gait jerky and pained. She was sweating, clutching the card fiercely, bending it into a U.

“You got no right.” She spoke quietly, her features glittering with rage. “No right.”

“All I want is to ask him a couple of questions.”

She whooped laughter. “Coroner? You must think I’m some kind of stupid.” Squinting at the card: “Edison? That’s you?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“He’s dead?”

“No ma’am.”

“Then why you harassing me, Mr. Edison?”

“Ma’am—”

“What you think about this?” She tore the card in half, stacked the halves, tore them again. “Huh, Mr. Edison? Tell me what you think about that.”

She halved the card twice more. Getting through thirty-two layers proved a challenge — she strained with effort, the flesh of her arms and under her neck rippling like disturbed water — and she began shredding individual pieces, sprinkling them on the cement.

She said, panting, “What you think about that.”

I said, “I think I’ve upset you, and I apologize. For what it’s worth, I’m not concerned with whatever happened before. This is something happening now.”

“I guess you didn’t hear me the first five times,” she said. “He. Ain’t. Around.”

“I heard you.”

“Then why you still—” She broke off with a grunt, wincing and pressing a fist to her chest. The cane began to vibrate, her spine to bow.

I took a step forward.

“Don’t touch me,” she wheezed. She sank down, slumping against the doorframe, her mouth gaping, grabbing at the air.

I asked if she could breathe.

She didn’t reply. I took out my phone to call an ambulance.

“Nnn.” She tossed a hand over her shoulder. “Pills.”

“Where are they?”

“...bathroom.”

I stepped around her carefully.

The air inside the apartment felt close, tens of thousands of cigarettes soaked into the walls. I went straight back, encountering a mess of amber bottles on the bathroom counter. Among numerous diabetes scrips I found nitroglycerin tabs. I shook a couple out, filled a water glass, and hustled back outside.

She stuck a pill under her tongue, ignoring the water. Within a few minutes her breathing had begun to ease. She closed her eyes, massaging her chest.

“Another?” I asked.

She shook her head.

“Who should we call? You have a primary doctor?”

“You can go,” she said.

“I can’t until I know you’re okay.”

At length she tried to stand. She couldn’t manage it. I saw her grimace, weighing need against pride. She said, “Help me up.”

I set the glass on the pavement and crouched, sliding an arm around her. Her skin was moist and warm and yeasty. I said a prayer for my knee, took a deep breath, and said, “One two three hup.”

We rose together.

She directed me to the sofa, groaning as I got her settled, letting the cane fall to the carpet with a soft thud. I fetched the water glass. She gulped it down, droplets rolling over her jaw and down her throat, shading the lace at her neckline.

“More?”

“No.” Then: “Thank you.”

I took the glass to the kitchen and rinsed it out. There was no dish drainer, so I upended it on a grungy towel. From beneath the sink came a fetid whiff. Overflowing five-gallon can, no bag.

I carried it through the living room, doing my best not to spill. Edwina Triplett still had her eyes closed.

Outside I found a row of gray city bins. I emptied the can, washing it out several times from a hose bibb and shaking the excess onto spiky, sere bushes.

When I returned, her eyes were open. She regarded me suspiciously.

“You have trash bags hidden somewhere?” I asked.

She didn’t answer. I went into the kitchen and started opening drawers. The best I could come up with was a wrinkled paper sack from CVS.

I know how it reads: I was trying to worm into her good graces. No doubt that’s what she thought. But at that moment, I was thinking of all the homes I walk into on a weekly basis, except that in those instances I’m there to remove a body. Few people get a chance to stage-manage their own exit. They die before they’ve had a chance to take out the trash. They die before they’ve finished wiping themselves. The last impression we leave is almost always inadvertent.

Seeing Edwina, the raft of drugs she depended on, I had a rare opportunity. For once I was here before — not after. It felt worth five minutes of my time to chip away, however slightly, at future indignity.

Also, I hate a mess.

I lined the can with the CVS bag and put it beneath the sink.

“I meant what I said,” she called. “I don’t know where he’s at. That’s honest. Not like you.”

I rejoined her in the living room. “Even if you did know, I wouldn’t blame you for not wanting to tell me.”

“You just tryin to sugar me up.”

“I’m gonna suggest one last time that we call a doctor.”

“I don’t have a primary.”

“Someone else, then, to keep an eye on you,” I said. “A neighbor.”

That got a snort.

“What about your daughter?”

She started. I’d done my research.

Then, as if giving up, she pursed her lips and faced away.

“We could call her together,” I said. “Maybe she knows where Julian’s at.”

“Ask her yourself.” Her voice was a hard matte shell, hinting at the terrible loneliness inside. “I ain’t even tryin to know.”

“Believe it or not, I’d like to help your son.”

She smirked.

“You’ve heard that before,” I said.

“Oh yes I have.”

“From the police.”

“Police,” she said. “Lawyers. Social services. Everybody’s so helpful. The folks from the experiment, they wanted to help, too, and you see what that got him.”

“I understand.”

“Oh you do, do you?”

“Maybe I don’t,” I said. “Help me out, then. Tell me about him.”

She looked at me. “Tell you what?”

“About Julian.”

She fell silent for a moment. “I don’t know what you expect me to say.”

“You know him. I don’t.”

“Yeah, and?”

“And maybe you share with me a little about who he is, what he’s like, I can do what I can to keep him safe.”

“He’s in danger.”

“He’s out there,” I said.

“You think he did something.”

“I don’t know that. Don’t know him.”

“I don’t know him, either,” she said. “Not anymore. Maybe I never did.”

“Does he have friends? A girlfriend?”

“Girlfriend? Be real, now.” She shook her head. “You ask me as many times you want. The answer’s still the same: I don’t know where he’s at. I ain’t seen him in forever.”

“What’s forever?”

“Ten years,” she said. “More.”

I said, “Back when he was living with you.”

“He got out and had no place to go.”

“You took him in.”

She stared at me. “He’s still my child.”

“All I meant was, you did right by him.”

“You definitely sugaring.” But she didn’t seem to mind.

“How was it, having him home?” I asked.

She shrugged.

“Did he have a hard time adjusting to life on the outside?”

“Julian had a hard time adjusting to everything,” she said.

Her anger wilted as quickly as it had come; she unballed her fists and began fiddling with her cuticles. “I know God has His reasons, and He gives us each our gifts. And I know I ain’t the greatest mother in the world, but I tried, I was trying. You need to realize, I wasn’t like you see me now. I didn’t sit here like this, I could get around. I had him young. Two kids and two jobs. I was tired all the time. I don’t know what I did, to make him act like that.”

“You have a recent photo of him?”

She rolled her eyes. “No.”

“All right,” I said. “When he left, ten or so years ago, did something happen to make him take off? You two have a fight?”

“Wasn’t like that. When he first came out he wouldn’t do nothing. Just sat and watched TV. Reverend Willamette, bless him, he started coming round. He took Julian under his wing. He got him a job, helping part-time over at the church. You know — touch up the paint, whatever. He was doing all right. Then one day I wake up, and he’s gone.”

She bit off a hangnail. “I ain’t seen him since. And that’s the truth.”

She held the water glass out to me.

I took it to the kitchen, refilled it, calling, “The reverend’s a good man.”

“Yes he is.”

“Where’s he preach at?”

“Dwight Baptist.”

“That’s your church?” I said, coming back to the living room.

“I go when I can,” she said.

I handed her the glass. “Lemme ask you about something else: those people from the experiment.”

Her face pinched. “What about them.”

“You said they wanted to help.”

“That’s what they said. They came to the high school, passing out flyers. Julian was all excited, begging me, ‘Can I please, Mama.’ I said, ‘What these people going to do to you?’ I didn’t want them giving him electric shocks or nothing.”

“What did they do?”

“He told me he got to play video games,” she said. “He says he goes and does this experiment and also they gonna help him with his homework. You know, tutoring. He needed the help. The school already made him repeat the year. So, okay, I said.”

“He played video games, and they gave him help with school? Anything else?”

“That’s what they said they were gonna do. But I didn’t see none of that. Later I heard that the man, he said there was two groups, one got the tutoring and the other didn’t get nothing. I say that’s some bullshit.” She paused. “They fed him, though.”

“Fed him.”

“He said the man got him a burger. He liked that.”

Rennert passing out McDonald’s bags: life at Tolman Hall had improved since the days of free Oreos. “Nice of him.”

She stared at me incredulously. “You think a hamburger makes up for what they did?”

I was quick to agree that it did not.

“It was them made him crazy,” she said. “He was normal before that.”

She seemed to believe it, too. A game had driven her son to violence. Because that was easier than the alternative, that a terrible crime had spilled forth from some poisonous well within his being.

Either way, she wasn’t denying he’d done it.

I said, “After he got out, did he ever talk about the people from the study?”

“Like what?”

“Was he mad at them? Talk about wanting to get revenge?”

“Julian didn’t get mad,” she said. “He got scared.”

“Scared of what.”

“Himself,” she said. “People look, they see that big body of his and think the wrong things. I never seen a boy so scared his own shadow. I get scared, too, thinking about him out there, on his own. I just pray God keeps him safe. Nothing more I can do.”

“Is that where you think he is? On the street?”

She shook her head, dejectedly. “I don’t know.”

She yawned twice. “I’m tired, Mr. Edison. You made me tired.”

I stood. “I’m leaving you another card. Maybe you’ll like it better than the first.”

The barest smile. Another yawn.

“Ms. Triplett, if you remember anything, think of something else that might make it easier for me to find Julian and help him, please give me a call.”

“Coroner,” she said. “You sure he ain’t dead?”

“Definitely not,” I said. “We do other things, too.”

She said, “Hmm.” Reached for the remote control.