Джонатан Келлерман - Crime Scene

“Not sorry you did it, though.”

She sat down at the kitchen table, waited for me to join her.

I continued to stand.

“If it’s any consolation,” she said, “he kicked me out.”

“He” being Portland Guy. I pictured a stringy neck-bearded dude sporting a woolen beanie and toting an artisanal ax on his shoulder.

“I’m not interested,” I said. “And no, it’s no consolation.”

“He said he couldn’t let me stay because I’m not making good decisions at the moment and he didn’t feel right taking advantage of me.”

“Did you hear me?” I updated Mr. Sensitive’s image: subtract ax, add sweater vest and corncob pipe. His analysis, though — that I couldn’t argue with. She wasn’t making good decisions. “I don’t care.”

She looked stung. I hadn’t meant I didn’t care about her, just that I had no intention of validating her odyssey of self-discovery. Even so, I felt bad for her, almost against my will. Having to defend her behavior to Amy had shifted me into a sympathetic frame of mind.

I said, “Look, it happened. Okay? No hard feelings.”

“But time to move on,” she said, and she twirled a finger in the air, just as she had on a warmer night some months ago.

“Yes,” I said.

Silence.

She said, “Do you know why I went up to Tahoe?”

“To sell the house.”

“I could have done that from here,” she said. “I went to grieve,” she said. “I couldn’t while I was here. I tried. I couldn’t do it.”

“There isn’t a wrong way—”

She held up a hand. “Please? This is hard for me.”

My knee had begun to ache. Cursing myself, I pulled out a chair and sat opposite her.

She gave me a sad, grateful smile. “The estate, my mom, my brothers — it was just too much. I went thinking I’m going to get there, all of that is going to fall away, I’ll be able to focus and look reality in the face.” A bewildered laugh. “It worked. For about an hour, until I realized that the reality I’m facing is, actually, fucking horrendous. It’s my father. And he’s dead.”

She’d begun tugging at a piece of dry skin on her lip. She caught herself doing it and shoved her hands under her thighs. “Then I get back, and you’re telling me all these crazy things about him... I wasn’t ready.”

She looked at me. “I’m ready, now.”

“Are we talking about your father, or are we talking about us?”

“Either. Both.”

I rubbed my knee. “What did your mother tell you?”

“That you went to see her and asked about me.”

“I went to talk to her about your father and Julian Triplett,” I said. “That was the subject of conversation. The only subject of conversation.”

She looked down at her lap.

I said, “Still want to help?”

After a beat, she nodded.

“Fine,” I said. “I ask, you answer. That’s the deal.”

Silence.

“All right,” she said.

She sounded so meek that I started feeling bad for her all over again.

I squelched it.

“The locker where you put your father’s documents,” I said. “Where is it?”

“Eastshore Highway. The big place. I don’t remember the name.”

“Text me the address,” I said. “Meet me there tomorrow morning. Nine a.m.”

She nodded again. Then she said, “We could go together.”

She raised her face to me.

“Tomorrow,” she said. “We could go over there together.”

She meant: I could stay the night .

Lizard brain perked up.

I said, “I’ll meet you there at nine a.m.”

For a moment I thought she’d rescind the offer. But she conceded with a half smile.

“Nine a.m.,” she said.

I ordered her a car. She started to argue, but this time I wasn’t having it: I threatened to arrest her if she attempted to drive away. We sat in the kitchen, waiting in silence. Every second offered another tough choice for lizard brain. She was willing and present and no less attractive than she had been a month ago. Finally my phone chimed, saving me from myself.

At the door, she said, “I’m sorry I ruined your evening.”

“I’ll figure it out.”

“I can call her and explain.”

“I’m going to veto that.”

“For the record, Amy really does seem nice.”

“She is. Although I’m not sure how you could tell. You met her for ten seconds.”

Tatiana said, “I’m a good judge of character.”

Like mother, like daughter.

I bid her good night and went to restore the tumbler to its place.

En route to East Bay Premium Storage the next morning, I left Amy a voicemail, fumbling through an apology that ended with me saying, “Look, do-over? Please? Just, call me. Okay. Thanks. Bye. Call me.”

Smooth.

I arrived a few minutes early, waited in the parking lot till ten after.

I texted Tatiana.

I’m here where are you

Still no sign of her by nine twenty. I was on the verge of leaving when she replied.

Locker 216

Combo 4-54-17

Good luck

My first impulse was to get annoyed. But what was the point? I had what I needed.

Thanks I wrote.

I headed over to the front office to sign in.

The “Premium” part of “Premium Storage” was a free cup of lukewarm coffee. I stepped from the freight elevator into a concrete corridor lined with rolling steel doors, numbers stenciled on the wall in red paint.

The unit Tatiana had rented measured ten by fifteen — enough to house the contents of a one-room apartment, and far more space than she needed. Running my flashlight over the piles, I counted about forty boxes. Stacked up, unlabeled, in no particular order, they gave off that diluted campfire odor characteristic of old paper.

I moved quickly through the first few stacks. Utility bills and auto insurance policies. What I wanted were credit card statements, bank statements, copies of canceled checks, correspondence — anything that might prove Rennert had been sending Triplett money or that divulged Triplett’s whereabouts.

The likelihood of finding a clear trail was low. Easier for Rennert to fork over a packet of cash. Even so, I might be able to detect a pattern of withdrawals, find an ATM, narrow it down to a neighborhood.

I was fishing. It was going to take time.

Working cross-legged on the unswept concrete, I fell into a sort of trance state. Distant sounds reverberated: humming elevator, dollies clattering. The financial paper I came across revealed nothing about Julian Triplett but drove home how rich Rennert had been. All those commas and zeros gave me a new understanding of how drastically Tatiana’s life had changed in recent months.

Even with a three-way split she’d never have to work again. A blessing, I guess, but maybe a source of shame?

I stopped myself. No need to sink back into caring for her.

I stood up, knee cracking, and went downstairs for a second free cup of coffee.

Checked my phone. No reply from Amy.

I started composing a text to her.

Thought better of it and deleted.

Ninety minutes in, I came across a box slightly larger than the others, UC library system bar-code stickers on the body, lid taped shut.

Pulse racing, I slit the tape, beheld the remains of Nicholas Linstad’s experiment.

I found the Meeks score sheets, anonymized. I found the master document that decoded participant numbers into names and noted other demographic data.

Nowhere did Julian Triplett’s name appear.

A whole mess of waivers, dual signatures, participant and parent/guardian.

No Julian Triplett. No Edwina.

Linstad, avoiding putting Triplett’s name on record?

I held up a red three-and-a-half-inch floppy disk labeled BB.