Джонатан Келлерман - Crime Scene

Her laughter disintegrated, and her posture caved, leaving her gazing at the fire in wonderment. “Looking back, I can hardly believe my self. I mean, it seems so obvious now. He wasn’t especially sneaky. But I loved him. I really did. I was hypnotized.”

I couldn’t envision her successfully pushing a man Linstad’s size down a flight of stairs. Then again, if you rewound ten years — pumped them full of Cabernet — charged her up with righteous indignation—

“It’s not your fault,” Stanwick said.

She yawed. “It is and it isn’t. I was young and vain. I thought I was immune. He’d never risk losing me. But now I think that was at the heart of it. No danger, no pleasure.”

“He was a fool,” Stanwick said. “A woman like her? What kind of idiot goes and screws that up?”

“Thank you, Bob.”

“It’s true,” he said.

“Of course, Nicholas denied everything when I confronted him. He said it wasn’t him, my friend must’ve confused him with someone else. I wanted to believe him. Then I started to wonder about the late nights.”

“We hired a private detective,” Stanwick said.

“He was taking his mistress to the duplex,” I said.

“Among other places,” Olivia said.

“At the risk of offending you,” I said, “can you tell me her name?”

“I never wanted to know. I saw the pictures and that was enough.”

She paused, chewing at her bottom lip. “Nicholas... He had such funny taste, you know? You imagine — if you ever do think about your husband cheating on you, and I suppose most women do, whether they admit it or not. But. You imagine it’s going to be with somebody prettier, or — I don’t know. At least then there would be a... not a reason, but at least it would make sense, on some level. And — I don’t mean to sound small about it. But she was... I’m not sure how best to put it.”

“Dumpy,” Stanwick said.

“Yes,” she said. She tossed back the rest of her wine, scrunched her face, reached for the bell. “A dumpy little girl.”

The maid appeared. “Another, Mrs.?”

“Yes, please, thank you, Sandra.”

I said, “Do you think I could talk to the PI?”

“I can’t see why that’s necessary,” Stanwick said.

“I’m looking for anyone who knew Nicholas,” I said. “Anyone who might’ve had a reason to harm him.”

Olivia said, “Bob will give you the phone number.”

“I’ll need your written permission.”

She looked at Stanwick. He said, “Fine. Are we done here?”

“Almost,” I said. “Ms. Harcourt, could you please tell me about Nicholas’s relationship with Walter Rennert.”

“What about it?” Olivia said.

“Were they close?”

“Walter was very fond of him.”

“It wasn’t mutual?”

“I always got the impression he considered Nicholas sort of a surrogate son. Nicholas told me Walter didn’t always get along with his own kids. As if he was explaining his own feelings.”

There you go: new data.

I said, “There was a university committee that looked into the circumstances surrounding the murder. Maybe you’ve seen their report.”

Stanwick stiffened.

“I have,” she said. “After the divorce—”

“Totally on the up and up,” the lawyer said. Meaning: skids had been greased. “If there’s nothing more—”

I said, “It seemed to throw a lot of the blame on your ex-husband’s shoulders. I’m wondering if Walter tried to intervene on his behalf.”

Stanwick clapped his hands. “That’s it. We’re finished.”

I sat there.

“You’ve had your time, Deputy.” He meant it, now. “Move along.”

I stood up as the maid reentered with a refill containing the second half of the bottle. Olivia Harcourt had changed her mind: she shook her head and waved the glass away. She stared at the floor.

“If you do speak to the girl,” she said, “tell her I said hello.”

The PI Bob Stanwick had hired was named Faith Raine. She worked out of a room above a ramen shop in downtown Oakland, spitting distance from the county courthouse. Thick tendrils of steam laced with MSG wafted up through the floor vents.

Olivia Harcourt had given me the impression that her ex-husband had screwed up but the once. Either she was still in denial or she was downplaying her humiliation. Or else Stanwick had hidden the truth from her. Nicholas Linstad was a repeat offender. In five months of surveillance, Raine had photographed him meeting with four different women.

As she laid out the evidence — names and addresses, grainy zoom-lens snaps — I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

I asked Raine if she knew about any affairs prior to 1997.

She shook her head. “I’d assume there were plenty, though. Guys like him, it’s an instinct. They’re collectors.”

He had such funny taste.

I don’t mean to sound small about it.

A dumpy little girl.

Olivia couldn’t say what she meant out loud, of course. That would be racist.

Put a pint of rosé in her, though — she couldn’t stop herself from saying something.

All the women Nicholas Linstad had collected were in their early twenties, with straight black hair and a medium build. They all stood in the neighborhood of five foot three.

All four were Asian or Asian American.

A perfect description of Donna Zhao.

Li Hsieh, Donna’s former roommate, worked as a supply chain manager for a supermarket conglomerate headquartered in Hong Kong. I pulled her email address from the UC Berkeley alumni database. In the murder file, Ken Bascombe had noted that she spoke minimal English, so I kept my questions to her simple and direct.

As it turned out, her English was just fine — vastly improved since her days at Cal, a point she herself made in her initial reply.

I didn’t speak with the police, I was embarrassed they wouldn’t understand me she wrote. Wendy was American, I thought it would be better for her to talk to them.

Unsatisfied by her own excuse, she went on to offer another.

Donna’s family was very traditional. Every night her mother called to make sure she was at home studying. They got angry when she switched her major from business to psychology. They wanted to bring her back to Beijing but she convinced them to let her stay. They didn’t know she had a boyfriend, they would not approve, it’s a big distraction. I don’t think she discussed it with Wendy either, they were not close. She spoke to me a few times. She was unhappy because he did not respect her. I told her it’s better to find a man who shows you respect, but she said she loved him. I never met him. She would not tell me his name, she was afraid her parents would find out.

There was another, more powerful reason for Li Hsieh not to raise the subject of Donna Zhao’s boyfriend, with the police or anyone else: he was a married man.

This is a very shameful thing. I did not want to cause any more pain to Donna’s family. If they found out they would be very embarrassed and angry, it would be to them like she died another time. The police caught the person who was responsible, I decided to forget about it.

Ken Bascombe had retired to Crockett, a waterfront enclave north of Richmond. For not much money, you could get a neat little condo with bay views — not San Francisco Bay, granted, and you had to overlook the refinery. But to a lot of ex-cops, some water is better than no water. I know guys who have dumped their life savings into a boat or a beach cottage, when really what they need is ten years of therapy.

Still, as far as coping mechanisms go, almost anything beats liquor.