Джонатан Келлерман - Crime Scene

“Getting there.”

He came and stood by the table, regarding the file with a bemused expression. Aside from the main binder, it contained a host of stuff I hadn’t touched. An entire second binder of crime scene photos. Other agency reports. A box of mini-cassettes; those would be interesting to hear. Seeing Linstad’s words transcribed to paper made it hard to know if his waffling was the result of nerves, guilt, or genuine uncertainty as to what he’d witnessed.

Schickman said, “When I got it for you I took a peek. Crazy shit. I was kind of surprised I’d never heard about it.”

“Before your time.”

“Yeah, but. This place has a long memory.”

“The primary, Ken Bascombe. Is he still around?”

Schickman shook his head. “Don’t know him.”

“Can you think of someone who might be able to reach him?”

Schickman looked at me. “Be straight. What’s the deal here? Either you closed your case, or you didn’t.”

“It’s done,” I said. “I’ll send you the death certificate if you want.”

“Then what’s up?”

I said, “Rennert’s daughter is convinced it’s murder because of this other case. My reaction was the same as yours: How come I never heard of it? So I wanted a look, that’s all.”

He smiled, too polite to call bullshit on me. “Curiosity knows no bounds, huh?”

“It’s my day off to spend.”

He squinted at the open binder. “Who’s the primary, again?”

“Bascombe.”

“I’ll see what I can dig up,” he said.

I returned to the file.

By the time the cops got around to interviewing Walter Rennert, they’d managed to unearth Julian Triplett’s name. It wasn’t difficult: they crossed the street to Berkeley High and asked around. In a freshman class of eight hundred, there was a single boy who matched the physical description provided by Nicholas Linstad, in all its freakish proportions.

For his part, Rennert began by denying that he was aware of any contact between Triplett and Donna Zhao. Eventually, though, he allowed that he wasn’t around the psych building every minute of every day, overseeing every aspect of his lab.

He refused to describe the nature of the study Triplett had been enrolled in, blustering about academic freedom. Bascombe switched tacks, attempting to coax Rennert into talking about Triplett’s personality. Again, Rennert refused. When the detective pressed harder, Rennert asked for a lawyer.

That was the extent of it. Perhaps he could already sense the coming shitstorm.

Ultimately, as the evidence piled up, whatever Linstad or Rennert or anyone else thought about Julian Triplett’s capacity for violence ceased to matter.

Triplett’s first interview with police took place in late January 1994. In the transcript, he came across as detached, often giving bizarre answers. He became fixated on the tape recorder, asking Bascombe who was listening to them and at one point attempting to shut it off. Unable to account for his whereabouts and actions on the night of the murder, he kept contradicting himself.

He was home.

No, he was walking home.

No, he was playing video games.

Six more interviews would follow, and Bascombe would note that Julian Triplett wore the same outfit to each: navy-blue or black mesh basketball shorts and a gray hoodie.

Bascombe asked Triplett for permission to take his fingerprints.

Triplett consented.

The crime lab matched a partial on the knife handle to Julian Triplett’s right thumb.

Confronted with this, Triplett imploded. He confessed to killing Donna Zhao.

BASCOMBE: Where’d you stab her?

TRIPLETT: Here.

BASCOMBE: He’s pointing to his chest. Where else?

TRIPLETT: Here.

BASCOMBE: In the abdomen. After you stabbed her. What happened then, Julian?

TRIPLETT: She like disappeared.

BASCOMBE: She disappeared.

TRIPLETT: Okay.

BASCOMBE: It’s a question. I’m asking you.

TRIPLETT: Okay.

BASCOMBE: Julian. Julian. Come on, now. Tell me the truth. What are you talking about, she disappeared. Where’d she go?

TRIPLETT: Like in the air.

BASCOMBE: In the air.

TRIPLETT: Can I have a Coke?

BASCOMBE: You can when you stop playing with me. I’m gonna ask you again. What happened after you stabbed her? What’d you do with the knife? You throw it away?

TRIPLETT: Yeah.

BASCOMBE: Where.

TRIPLETT: I want to go home.

As before, lacking voice cues, I couldn’t tell what was going on in Triplett’s head from reading the transcript. Denial, fear, remorse, confusion? His youth complicated matters.

With the day winding down, I gave up on reading for content and began to flip pages quickly, using my phone to photograph them for later review.

I phone-shot the crime scene photos. Street; building exterior; stairs; front door. Familiar angles, but fewer than you’d find in one of my case files. This was the period before digital cameras, when every frame cost money.

Front hallway.

Living room, in chaos.

Kitchen.

A human being, torn apart.

At five fifty-six, I packed up the file and took it back to Schickman’s office. Two other cops sat working their computers.

“Cool,” Schickman said. “You can just leave it here.”

I set the box down on his desk. “Thanks a lot.”

“Yeah, no worries,” he said.

I asked if he’d had a chance to look up Bascombe.

“Shit, no. I’m getting crushed here. Tomorrow, scout’s honor.”

One of the other detectives called, “What kinda fuckin scout are you?”

I said, “Tomorrow’s great, thanks.”

We shook hands and I left.

Dusk had flooded the square, skateboarders and students cleared out, leaving men in rags, in sleeping bags, belly-up on benches. They stumbled in and out of streetlight, kicked bottles, sermonized, confronted invisible enemies. They, too, were invisible, pressed down to ground level, stepped over.

Across the purpled lawns, lights burned inside the high school. Extracurricular activities. Math or debate or jazz or fencing.

Julian Triplett had never made it to the end of sophomore year.

Less than half a mile away, due east, lay the Cal campus, steeped in history and flush with resources, a haven for young minds full of hope and folly. They came from around the world to drink at the fountain.

Donna Zhao hadn’t graduated, either.

I thought of the two of them colliding like streaking comets. Meeting in a savage heat that left no trace.

Julian Triplett wasn’t in the system.

I found a last known address for him — his mother’s house, on Delaware Street — but it was a decade old, and nobody picked up when I called. Other than a younger sister named Kara Drummond, who lived in Richmond, he had no other kin or associates. He had no adult criminal record. No credit history, no Facebook page, no Twitter, no Instagram, no gallery of faces on Google Images.

The lack of an internet presence is unusual but not unheard of. The denizens of People’s Park tend not to be plugged into the social network. Maybe Triplett was living on the street. Or he’d served his sentence and decided to get far away, start over. Part of my job is finding people, some of whom prefer not to be found.

The phone interrupted me.

“Yes, hi, this is Michael Cucinelli from Cucinelli Brothers Mortuary in Fremont.”

“Hi, Mr. Cucinelli. What can I do for you?”

“Yeah, so I’m following up with you directly, cause we have the body of a Mr. Jose Provencio here, and I gotta be honest with you, this is getting to be a bit much.”

“Wait a sec,” I said.

“Well, yeah, but no, cause I’ve been waiting five months, so I’m not really inclined to do a heck of a lot more waiting.”