Джонатан Келлерман - Crime Scene

I removed the prints to the safety of the kitchen and filled a glass from the tap.

“I said I don’t want water.”

“You’ll feel better.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

I gave a noncommittal shrug.

“Don’t you fucking judge me,” she said.

“I’m not.”

“I am dealing with a lot of shit in my life,” she said.

“I know.”

I don’t judge people who get high. Nor do I want to have to reason with them.

I said, “Please give me the house key.”

She said, “I’m coming with you.”

On the ride over, she said, “Just so you know, I was fully intending to wake you up and fuck you.”

“Huh,” I said. “Rain check?”

She declined to respond.

We pulled up to the house.

“I feel like we were just here,” she said.

“We were.”

I let Tatiana go ahead of me on the stairs, so I could catch her if she fell. Her ass pumped furiously.

In the attic, we switched on lamps, climbed over junk to reach the rocker.

It had one broken spindle in back.

I hadn’t noticed before. It was at the extreme left end and it had been sanded flush with the top and bottom rails.

Tatiana gestured for the print of the rocker-in-progress. I handed it to her, watching her eyes flick back and forth, her lips purse and retract in concentration. I’d seen her like this before, on the morning we met.

She said, “I’m sure there are a billion others out there that look exactly like it.”

A concession, of sorts. She hadn’t said no.

“Humor me for a second,” I said. “Say it’s the same chair. How’d it get here?”

“The chair fairy brought it.”

“The man I spoke to said Triplett auctioned off some of his pieces for the school benefit. He wasn’t sure of this one. Maybe your dad reached out to them.”

“How would he know about it in the first place?”

“He got word Triplett was out of prison and decided to make amends.”

“Amends for what?” She shoved the print at me. “He did nothing wrong.”

“I’m not saying he did. But maybe he felt he did. Several people told me he was broken up. You yourself said he didn’t like to talk about it.”

“Yeah, cause it destroyed his life.”

“That’s my point. He needed to find a way to deal with it.”

“He did deal with it,” she said. “He bought a gun. You don’t do that if you’re feeling guilty, you do it if you’re scared.”

“I’m sure he was scared, at one point. But what if he got to know Triplett—”

“Whoa. Whoa. They’re not friends. ”

“Is that impossible?”

“Yes. It is.”

“Why?”

“Because it is. ”

“Your father was a psychologist,” I said. “Maybe he saw Triplett as a patient.”

“He didn’t have patients. He was a researcher.”

“That doesn’t mean he didn’t think clinically.”

“ Clinically? You’re a shrink, now? Well, sorry, you need to go to school for that. Who gives a shit? Chairs? I don’t understand what you’re doing. ”

“Keeping an open mind,” I said. “Like you asked me to.”

“You made it sound like there was nothing left to think about,” she said. “First you’re telling me he wasn’t pushed—”

“He wasn’t.”

“Then I don’t get what you’re trying to achieve. Okay. Fine. They knew each other. They played checkers. Why’s it matter ?”

“That doesn’t strike you as significant?”

“What strikes me as significant, Clay, is that a homicidal maniac broke into my father’s house and took a gun. I mean for God’s sake, yesterday you’re like, he’s on the loose and my life is in danger, now you’re putting him and my dad in a fucking buddy comedy—”

“I didn’t say any of that.”

She backed away from me. Held out her hands. “Stop. Please. Stop.”

Her eyes were wet.

I said, “I didn’t—”

“You implied it,” she said. “All right? Okay? Is that accurate enough, Mr. Officer? I thought you wanted to help me.”

“I’m trying to.”

“Then why are we wasting time with stupid shit? You should be looking for him. Whatever.” She pushed on her closed eyes with forefinger and thumb. “I can’t deal with this right now. My head is fucking splitting.”

She brushed past me and went downstairs.

As I reached the freeway on-ramp, she said, “Take me home, please.”

“To your place?”

She nodded.

“If that’s what you want,” I said.

“I do.”

We didn’t speak for the rest of the ride.

I pulled up outside her duplex. Tatiana unbuckled herself and opened the door, pausing to glance at me resentfully. “Are you coming or not?”

I felt briefly lost for words. “You want me to?”

“I said I want to go home,” she said. “I didn’t say I want to be by myself.”

I sighed and got out of the car.

It was my second consecutive late night, and the next day I woke up late. Like the last time I’d stayed over, Tatiana was nowhere to be seen. Somehow I didn’t think she’d be bringing breakfast.

Nevertheless, I decided to stick around a bit, in case she did return. I texted to let her know I was up, made myself a cup of tea, and sat on her living room futon. The banker’s boxes had been shoved up into one corner like refugees. I laid the ukulele in my lap, plucking at it as I charted the possibilities that had been brewing overnight.

Scenario one: the chairs were not the same.

End of story.

A no-frills explanation, and Tatiana’s obvious preference. For years she had conceived of Julian Triplett as a malicious force, nameless and faceless, responsible for everything that had gone wrong in her father’s life. Having to redraw the boundaries galled and disoriented her.

Scenario two: the chairs were the same, but Rennert had come into possession of it indirectly — buying it at the school auction, say.

His little secret. Write a check, take the thing home, lug it upstairs, give it a place of honor. An object, hard, undeniable, taking up space where he lived, giving him something tangible to focus on when he meditated on his sins.

No relationship between him and Triplett, other than the fantasies in Walter Rennert’s head.

End of story.

Scenario three: the connection between the two men was not slight, but personal and ongoing. I gravitated toward this explanation for the same reasons Tatiana hated it.

How else would Triplett know where Rennert lived?

How had Triplett, a man of limited intelligence and resources, gotten into the house?

Simple, once you assumed a direct link: he knew where the spare key was hidden.

Or — too terrifying for Tatiana to consider — he had a key of his own.

If Triplett and Rennert did have a relationship, what kind?

How far back did it go?

The ugliest question of them all: why did Triplett need a gun?

Why now?

Hearing voices again? Frantic to purge them, by any means necessary?

Another target in mind?

Maybe Rennert, once upon a time, had promised him something. Money. A token of reconciliation, offered rashly. Offered to put him in the will, even.

Triplett’s disappointment when his prize didn’t materialize.

Hatred toward the true heirs.

Tatiana’s face was plastered all over the house.

The gun drawer wasn’t the only part of the desk that had been messed with.

The liquor cabinet had been opened.

Abandoned bottles, racked tumblers.

But that wasn’t true a few months ago.

A few months ago, there’d also been pills. One of which was an antipsychotic. Prescribed by a urologist who got squirrelly when questioned.