Джонатан Келлерман: Crime Scene

“It doesn’t get boring,” she said, “dealing with people like me all day?”

“No.”

“You sound very convincing.”

“It’s the truth,” I said. “When I talk to someone who’s grieving, they don’t care how many other people I’ve talked to, that day or any other day. They shouldn’t have to. For them, it’s the first time. They deserve the same attention and respect as everyone else.”

Tatiana rolled the empty water glass back and forth between her palms, like she was forming a clay snake. She said, “I know you don’t believe me about my dad.”

I started to object and she cut me off: “It’s fine. I wouldn’t believe me, either. But if what you just told me is true, look through my eyes for a minute.”

I wondered if everything to that point — asking me in, every word, every coy shape — was a run-up to this moment, when she could lobby me. But that threw far too much responsibility on her. She’d never asked me to come by to begin with. That was my idea.

I said, “Do you feel that people aren’t listening to you?”

“I feel that the cops don’t want to get into it, because that forces them to consider they might’ve screwed up.”

“Screwed up how?”

“When Nicholas died,” she said. “They ignored that, also, and now they have to justify their decision. But I remember how upset my dad was.”

“I can imagine,” I said.

She frowned. “I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not.”

“I’m not. It must have been terrifying for him.”

She allowed a nod.

“It must have affected you, too,” I said. “Not just that. All of it.”

“My parents did their best to shield me from what was going on. I was genuinely shocked when they told me they were getting divorced. I mean, I wasn’t blind. They’d been unhappy for years. And neither of them were experts at staying married. But for some reason I assumed they’d keep toughing it out. For me. ” She scoffed at her own naïveté.

I asked how many times they had each been married before.

“Dad, just the once. Her? Boy. She’s what you’d call a runner. He was number five.”

“Well,” I said, “it’s not the smallest number I’ve ever heard.”

“But not the biggest, either,” she said hopefully.

“I had a guy once who was married nine times. Twice to the same woman.”

“People are insane,” she said. “She told me once that I was her Hail Mary. As in, her last chance to have a kid? Obviously she couldn’t get pregnant while she was dancing. It’s a refrain of hers. ‘I’ve seen it happen to too many girls, your body is never the same again...’ What’s that mean, you ‘had a guy.’ ”

I hesitated. “In the course of my duties.”

“Oh,” she said. “Right. I should’ve realized.”

“All my stories end the same way.”

“I’m almost afraid to ask what he died of.”

“Motorcycle accident.”

“I thought maybe his last wife killed him.” Her collar had begun to sag. She plucked at it, then reached behind to regather stray hairs at the base of her neck, shirt tautening over her breasts. It was warm in the kitchen. She didn’t have air-conditioning. Few East Bay homes do. You don’t need it till you need it. Diamonds glistened in the cup of her throat.

I said, “You mentioned the other day that you left Berkeley for a period.”

“I moved to New York.”

“To dance?”

She nodded. “I came back three years ago.”

“For your father.”

That I had discerned this appeared first to disarm her, then to please her.

“He never asked me to,” she said. “He tried to convince me not to, in fact. Somebody had to take care of him, though.”

“I’m sure he appreciated it.”

“Whether he did or he didn’t, he needed it, and nobody else was stepping up. Not working was terrible for him. It’s not like he couldn’t have hung out a shingle or whatever. Independent research. He told me he’d lost his professional credibility. I was like, ‘You are completely missing the point.’ I wanted him to keep busy.”

“Besides tennis,” I said.

“Besides tennis. That’s all he did. That and wander around the house.”

Idly she tapped the rim of the water glass. “I don’t expect to snap my fingers and voilà. But it’s frustrating to have the cops refuse to even ask questions. I mean, what harm is there? Other than for some guy’s ego.”

“You want my honest opinion?”

“I do,” she said.

“A lot of harm, potentially. I’ve seen people sacrifice their entire lives to questions.”

She said nothing.

“I’m not saying you’re wrong to ask.”

“But get it together and” — twirling air — “move on.”

I said, “I can’t pretend to know what’s right for you.”

She bit her lip. “All I’m asking is for you to please keep an open mind.”

A lying doctor; the echo of a fall; a murderer walking the streets.

It only felt like half a lie for me to say, “I will.”

She put the water glass in the sink and crouched to open the cabinet beneath. She pulled out a ceramic ashtray and a cigar box, both of which she set on the counter. Inside the box was a Baggie of marijuana, a packet of papers, and several pre-rolled joints.

She lit one off the range burner, took a deep drag.

Offered it to me still smoldering.

I said, “No, thanks.”

A cloud rolled in her open mouth, licking at her tongue before she banished it in a long white wire. “I have a medical card.”

“I didn’t ask,” I said.

“I get migraines.”

I gave her a little salute. “Have a good night, Ms. Rennert-Delavigne.”

She returned the gesture.

I spend my days off engaged in single-guy activities. It can be a challenge, because I work weekends. But this is the land of the irregular and irregularly employed; build a billion-dollar company in your underwear and you win. Weekday diversions abound, and I can usually find something to do. Browse the farmers’ market outside Children’s Hospital and flirt with the mushroom girl. Drag a buddy to Lincoln Square Park to play pickup, or Mosswood, if I’m feeling solid and don’t mind waiting for a game.

My one semi-regular obligation comes whenever Zaragoza’s wife takes pity on me and invites me for dinner.

Things get dire enough, there’s always Tinder.

That week, I stayed inside with my laptop and read.

Newspaper accounts of Walter Rennert’s downfall were sketchy. The events in question had taken place pre-internet-boom, and archives of the locals, including The Oakland Tribune and The Daily Cal, only covered the early 2000s and on. The San Francisco Chronicle archive went back further, but evidently they had deemed the story East Bay News, unworthy of too much attention.

I did manage to learn the date of the original murder — Halloween night, 1993 — as well as the victim’s name and age.

Donna Zhao, twenty-three years old, a Berkeley undergrad, had been found stabbed to death in her apartment, half a mile south of campus.

Tatiana had gotten the year wrong but not by much. She’d been a child; her knowledge of the case had been acquired after the fact.

One thing she’d gotten right: the offender’s name was never released. Like many juvenile hearings, his was closed to the public, and I found no information about its disposition. The bulk of the coverage focused not on the murder but on the resulting civil suit, brought by Donna Zhao’s parents, charging negligence on the part of the University of California, the Board of Regents, the Berkeley Department of Psychology, and Dr. Walter Rennert.