Джонатан Келлерман - Crime Scene

I nodded.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe I’m letting myself off the hook too easy.”

“Julian and Wayne seem to get along.”

She smiled faintly. “Yes. And thanks for changing the subject.”

She checked the time on her phone. “Should we get going?”

In daylight, the neighborhood looked less menacing — worn out but bright. Crahan sat on his porch steps, smoking, while a pair of dogs chased each other in circles. One brindle, one white with half a black head. Compact tubs of gristle and teeth, well short of purebred, they ceased their game to watch Weatherfeld and me. We waited at the gate for Crahan to stub out his cigarette and amble over.

A third dog, crazily pied, older and larger, trotted out from behind the Camaro and joined the other two.

Mom and puppies.

“Safe,” Crahan announced in a loud voice.

He lifted the squeaky latch.

I tensed.

The dogs stood locked in place, vigilant, calm, nothing like the hellhounds that had produced last night’s earsplitting racket.

Crahan held the gate for us. “He’s up,” he said. “I heard him moving around.”

We walked toward the back of the property. The roofline I’d discerned in the dark belonged to a trailer that had seen better days. Exterior paint crackled, and the whole structure listed toward the ass-end. Orange extension cords originating in the main house snaked through open windows, where gingham curtains hung slack in the frozen, windless morning. The dimensions looked utterly inadequate for a man of Triplett’s size. I pictured him wedged in there like a fetus.

Crahan thumped the door gently. “Yo JT. Company.”

A wooden croak.

The trailer tilted forward.

No matter how often you tell yourself not to make assumptions, you can’t help it. I believed — knew — that Julian Triplett was innocent. Yet as the door opened and his torso filled up the frame, the reality of him startled me nonetheless.

I felt a click in my throat. I’d taken a step back, reflexively.

He was bending over to peer out, clad in a 5XL blue T-shirt and camo mesh basketball shorts. Barefoot, or so I thought initially. Then I saw flip-flops, black plastic straps stretched to their limit and cutting into his insteps, foam soles squashed flat, toes the size of plum tomatoes overhanging in front.

My work has taught me to know at a glance what lies beneath a person’s clothes. Calves say a lot. They describe the burdens a body imposes on itself. Julian Triplett’s were hewn cliffs of muscle, suggesting that the load above was balanced despite its outrageous proportions.

He appeared to have just woken up. His skin bore an oily sheen. Cloudy eyes went from Crahan to Karen Weatherfeld. To me.

His face pinched, as though he was bracing for a punch.

“Good morning, Julian,” Weatherfeld said. “Feeling any better today?”

A cautious nod.

“I’m glad to hear it. Did you sleep okay?”

Triplett kept looking at me.

He recognized me. I could tell. I worried he might run.

“Julian,” Weatherfeld said. “I want to introduce you to someone. This is—”

Crahan strode over and slapped me on the back, interrupting her: “You gonna let us inside or what? I’m freezing my nuts off out here.”

After a moment, Triplett withdrew.

The trailer tilted backward again.

“Come on,” Crahan said, waving us along.

Stepping inside solved at least one mystery: while the sink and cabinetry were intact, the far end of the trailer, where you’d expect to find a dining table and banquette, had been gutted. A pair of mattresses crammed in on the floor formed an oversized sleeping area. I saw a stack of four pillows, crushed into V’s by the nightly weight of Triplett’s head. The sheets were old, but they were clean enough, and there was a distinct lack of smell, much less than I’d expect from so much human in so cramped a space. The open windows helped.

The floor felt gritty underfoot, and the air tasted of sawdust. A fine layer of it covered the surfaces; swirling paisley clouds diffused the sunlight that insisted through cracks in the curtains. Again, if not for the open windows, it would have been intolerable. As it was, the atmosphere was hazy and unreal.

On the counter, a tabletop lathe. Beside it, a cardboard box, labeled REAL CALIFORNIA AVOCADOS and piled halfway up with scraps of wood.

Crahan’s line about wanting to get out of the cold was just that, a line. The temperature inside the trailer was the same as out. I suppose Triplett’s bulk provided him enough insulation to walk around in T-shirt and shorts.

He plopped down on the mattresses, scooted back against the wall, and hugged his knees to his chest.

Crahan crawled over to join him. They sat side by side, shoulders touching.

“Julian,” Karen Weatherfeld said, kneeling, “this is Deputy Edison.”

“Hi,” I said. I got down and pulled myself cross-legged. It was awkward but I didn’t want to loom. “You can call me Clay.”

Triplett had hooded eyes, dark nearly to the edges, narrow-set and too small for his face. The effects of years on antipsychotics showed in his wrists, which flexed and extended; in fingers that snatched at the air. A pink nub of tongue skated over his lips periodically.

For all that, he exuded an otherworldly silence, a monumental Buddha, hardly breathing. He kept staring at me, finally saying, “I seen him.”

Weatherfeld gave me an uncertain look.

“At Dr. Rennert’s house,” I said.

Triplett nodded.

“I’m sorry I scared you,” I said. “I didn’t realize it was you.”

He clenched his hands to stop their fidgeting.

“It’s cool, JT,” Crahan said. “We’re all good here.”

He looked at me. “Right?”

“Absolutely,” I said.

Karen Weatherfeld said, “Julian, Clay has some questions for you. You don’t have to answer them if you don’t want. I’ll stay here with you the whole time.”

“Me too,” Crahan said. “Okay?”

Triplett said, “Yeah, okay.”

“Thank you, Julian,” I said. “First off, I want to tell you that you’re not in any trouble. I came here because I think people blamed you for things you didn’t do.”

Silence.

I said, “I know you went through a lot. I can’t change what’s already happened. But I am sorry that it happened, and I want to try to prove that you didn’t deserve it.”

“Lookie there,” Crahan said. “The man’s apologizing.”

Triplett shrugged.

“Is it all right if I ask you about Dr. Rennert?” I said.

Triplett nodded.

“You know he passed away?”

“Yes sir.”

“How’d you find out?”

“I can tell you that,” Crahan said. “We didn’t get meds like usual. I tried calling but it said the phone was off. So I put his name in the computer and we saw the notice.”

“It must be hard for you,” I said to Triplett. “You two were close.”

Triplett nodded. “Yes sir. He’s a nice man.”

“Is that why you went down to Berkeley?” I said. “To look for your meds?”

Crahan said, “He didn’t say nothing to me, he just took off.”

“How’d you get down there?” I asked.

“Bus,” Triplett said.

Crahan nudged him with his elbow. “I was mad.”

Triplett shrugged, a small smile playing at his mouth before vanishing. It occurred to me that the relationship between him and Wayne might go beyond friendship.

“You have a key to Dr. Rennert’s house?” I asked Triplett.

“No sir. He keeps it in the shed.”

“The potting shed.”

“Yes sir. In the jar.”

“How come you didn’t shut the alarm off?”

Triplett shrugged. “I didn’t know it.”

“The alarm code.”