by Robert Roper
“I know this is hard for you. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“She was your cousin. Maybe your sister, even. Something.”
“No, closer than that. Closer even than sisters.”
“I understand. Was he from Comitán, this man?”
“I don’t know. He was Mexican, from somewhere in the south. She said that he was worried all the time about the Immigration.”
chapter 14
In the fullness of time Landau heard from son Jad. They talked about the lunch date they had missed because of the murder of Dolores Huerta—so what about this Tuesday, would that be okay? Meet at Kaiser again, in the windowless doctors’ lounge, with the pastel furniture? The walls painted sherbet orange? On second thought, Landau preferred being somewhere else—how about that new tapas emporium, the one that was always bursting with revelers, on Piedmont?
“I hate that place,” Jad said, “it’s too hip for me. Too noisy, too.”
“Okay. That whole neighborhood’s full of restaurants, there has to be someplace.”
They met at a Chinese restaurant, dependably obscure. Jad brought his own food, in any case: he was training for a marathon, feeding himself according to a strict regime.
“That looks like about five hundred calories, Jad. That’s not enough to sustain a five-year-old. You should be eating like a bloody horse.”
“It’s over twelve hundred calories—leave me alone, please.”
His son’s lack of interest in his situation was curious, Landau thought. Maybe he had faith in Landau’s innocence, plus faith in his lawyers; maybe he felt that there was nothing he could do, and things were sure to work out. Maybe it all seemed frivolous and empty, considering the suffering of Third World children.
“Things are okay with me,” Landau volunteered, since he hadn’t been asked. “The lawyers are handling things, and they’ve warned me to back off. In six weeks it’ll all be over.”
Jad blinked. Oh, that again. That sordid business.
“Sorry I missed the arraignment,” he said. “Karin said it all worked out, anyway.”
“Yes, it all worked out. It wasn’t an arraignment, actually—it was a bail hearing.”
Maybe it distressed him that his father was being tried for sex crimes. That could get to you, if you were a sensitive sort. Maybe he cared too much, too deeply—but no, just look at him, it wasn’t the face of someone who was caring too much.
“Tell me about Samantha, Jad. I still don’t understand what you were up to.”
“What’s to tell? We were friends, that’s all. We stayed in touch.”
“Did you ever have sex with that woman, Son?”
Silence. Sneering silence.
“Okay, don’t tell me then. That’s your business.”
“I don’t pry into your affairs. I leave you alone, don’t I?”
My God—then he did. He actually did it, thought Landau.
“When did this begin, Jad?”
“When you brought her home.”
“When I brought her home? You were fourteen. Thirteen, maybe.”
“Yes, thirteen.”
More silence. Jad ate carefully out of his lunchbox, his small backpacker’s lunchbox.
“Jad, please tell me about it. I need to know.”
“Look, she was fond of me, okay? She went out of her way for me. That’s all. We became friends, despite different ages and everything. That’s all that we were—close friends.”
Flipping desperately through the memory file, Landau tried to recall the reality now lost to the years. All right, some unusual gifts, they were significant: the legendary drum set, for instance. But that was about it. He could picture nothing else. His explosive, more-than-a-handful girlfriend had often been tender toward his troubled son—it was a side of her that he’d liked a lot. Famous for rough stuff, for grudges and revenges, she had been sweetly indulgent around toddlers, shy schoolgirls, surly boy skateboarders. Had there been a sexual side to that? Unthinkable. Inconceivable.
“How did she come to it, Jad? How did it all start?”
“How did what start? It wasn’t sex, not in the ordinary sense, if that’s what you’re worrying about. If that makes you feel better.”
“Yes, it does make me feel better, as a matter of fact.”
“Why would you even care, though? You were never all-in with her. She was no more important to you than A or B or C, or X or Y or Z, for that matter. She was someone who I grew attached to, in an intimate sort of way.”
Oh, this was too much. “No, I loved her, Jad. I loved her very much.”
“You didn’t. I don’t accept that.”
What? What did you just say to me, you impertinent pup?
“I loved her, Jad. I loved her. And she knew it. But that didn’t mean a lot to her in the end. Still, she knew it.”
“Consider what you did to her professionally, Dad. The cruelty of that. That was a deep blow. Ten years later, though, she’s at your house, waiting for you in bed. Despite all that. All that had happened.”
“She wasn’t waiting for me, I don’t know what she was doing. And she died, Jad. That’s all that happened—she died.”
“You have to explain why she was at your house. She came to see you that afternoon. She didn’t come to my house.”
Well, here’s a simple explanation. She came to see me expecting me to welcome her back. In her demented belief in her own wonderfulness, she assumed that all would be forgiven; that I would welcome her with open arms. I’d seen her do that with others, larkily look them up after a savage break. She found the maid at home, came inside to wait. Then saw or heard something that disturbed her—maybe Elfridia’s gentleman-caller surprised her. She gasped, put a hand to her chest.
“She was waiting for you. I don’t think there’s any mistaking what she had in mind,” said Jad. “She often said she missed talking to you, fooling around with you. You used to make her good things to eat, eggs Benedict and things.”
“Oh, eggs Benedict. I made eggs for her maybe twice. Extra butter and—here’s the trick—Béarnaise sauce. Not Hollandaise.”
“Maybe that’s what killed her, the sauce Béarnaise.”
Somehow, the frost was starting to melt. He seemed ready to smile, Jad—ready to share an understanding.
“It’s flattering what you say, Jad. That she still carried a torch for me. It’s just that it’s completely wrong. She never carried torches—she marched on boldly, always, toward Armageddon.”
“She spoke well of you, always. Kept up with me half because she got to talk about you, I think. I liked you two together very much. Those were the years when I actually thought my dad was a pretty happy guy.”
Landau paused. Odd to be hearing about this now.
“I was the one she accused of sexual harassment, Jad. The one whose career she dropped a bomb on.”
“I know, but she hoped you took that with a grain of salt. She didn’t wreck your career, anyway—you know who wrecked it. Who gave up on it, grew tired of it. But that’s another story.”
The next day, Landau heard from his friend Detective Johnson, who wrote in reply to a recent email:
“I readily accept you into the club of hardworking criminal investigators, Professor. Congratulations on excellent work. Unfortunately, the people aren’t on Craigslist anymore as of this morning. Are you sure they’re the Mexicans we’re after? We will be as sensitive as we can and nobody is getting into any visa trouble, but we need to talk to them ourselves, us police do. Please send me their address. Would be nice to see you again—maybe another walk?”
Landau was excited, very excited, because Melody was coming to see him that night. By midafternoon he was jumpy, feeling a quiet pulse down his arms, somatic proof of deep excitement. Oh, I’m on the sex-wavelength again, he thought joyfully,
how wonderful. I feel so lucky.
Before she arrived, however, Byrum Johnson arrived with a grim face on, in a convoy of police cruisers, including a medical van and one Oakland patrol car. They said nothing and took Landau into custody. Thirty minutes later he was in a padded cell in the detention wing of the Berkeley Hall of Justice—regular cells were available, but they put him in a padded one just to be safe, in case he felt like banging his head against the wall.
He began to yell from inside, “Have I been arrested? If so, I would like to call my lawyer. There’s something called the Bill of Rights in this country I’ve been told, please tell me if it’s not in force anymore.”
Another murder, another savage girl-murder. That was his guess. He began to talk more loudly and even to scream a bit—the idea came to him suddenly that one’s ironic impersonation of full-blown insanity was tantamount to the real thing, and for a few moments he felt true panic, finding himself locked away in a padded box at the mercy of others, undependable others.
Then they were walking him down a cold linoleum hall, three Berkeley police officers, Officer Hashimoto among them. Carl Glebefelder was with them, too, and after some lawyer-speak Carl was walking him out onto the rainy sidewalk, no backward glances, no good-byes.
“What the hell was that about?”
“I don’t know. The less said, the better. I think we’re intended to feel the immensity of their wrath.”
“Has someone been killed, Carl?”
“Yes. In the Oakland hills. Body found just this morning.”
“Oh, Christ.”
“You didn’t have a raincoat?”
“No, they took me as I was.”
Someone had called the law offices, eventually—some cooler head. Carl just wanted to take him home now, would that be okay?
“Fine, but can we go to the supermarket first? I have to get some milk.”
“Okay. Whole Foods your sort of place, Professor?”
“Sometimes. But Andronico’s would be better—it’s closer.”
Landau bought toilet paper and cat food, too. The attorney bought two six-packs of hearty winter ale plus a takeout clamshell pack of something Italian-looking.
“What is that, Carl, lasagna?”
“No, eggplant parmigiana. They make it pretty good here.”
Unidentified Hispanic female. Found in Sibley Volcanic Park. One of the reports Carl had read said that the body had been buried under a log. Another said that it had been left on the leaves in a grove of trees—no burial attempt at all. Had Landau been to Sibley Park in the last couple of weeks?
“No, Carl. I haven’t. That’s not a place I go to. It’s off my circuit.”
“It’s down Grizzly Peak Boulevard, isn’t it, which runs pretty close to your house?”
“Yes. Look, I’ve been a good boy, Carl. I haven’t slaughtered anybody, I swear.”
“Okay.”
“I can tell you where I’ve been every minute of every day, if I have to.”
“Lots of cutting. The head was fully severed, they say.”
“Oh, God. I don’t want to hear about it.”
“I’m sure there’ll be photos online.”
Carl was still studying his responses, Landau felt. Weighing what he said, his tone.
“You can tell Cleveland that I looked disgusted, Carl. That I almost threw up in your car.”
“You just said you liked my lasagna.”
“I didn’t say that, exactly. I was just wondering what it was.”
The whole mad circus again, all of it. Certain words and images are broadcast into the ether, and in response, 150 agitated people appeared on his lawn, surging, milling, threatening. Cars were parked up and down his woodsy block again. Landau recognized Katherine of KRON’s pastel Prius, although you couldn’t be sure it was hers—Berkeley was bursting with new Priuses these days. Press vans parked helter-skelter. Talk of a severed head awakens unusual interest, and wasn’t that the title of an Iris Murdoch novel, one of her best? Does anyone read Iris anymore, the wittiest British novelist of the last half century? Overstuffed plots, professors and other over-educated types doing stupid, absurd things—what great material.
“What should I do now, do you just want to get out and go in, Professor?”
“Not really. But this is my house, Carl. The only one I own. I don’t want to be scared away from it.”
“I could take you to your son’s place. And you have some friends around here, don’t you?”
“Yes, I have any number of places to go. I’m just feeling sorry for myself.”
What he was thinking was that Melody would soon be arriving. Maybe she was already walking up, having parked down below again. She would hear the commotion in the trees, see beams of LED light slanting through—was somebody throwing a street party, was that what it was? Oh, how nice.
“Okay, Carl, here I go. Wish me luck.”
“Okay. Call us if you need us. There’s an emergency option on the phone tree.”
Once inside his house—not even spat upon, just spoken to impolitely—he phoned Melody to tell her not to come. But she wasn’t picking up now. He hurried to his computer. There for his viewing was his current reality in a lurid feed, and he suspected that if he had switched the machine on a little faster, he would have seen himself actually coming in the door, phoning her, turning on the desktop. Wait, they were replaying his ascent of his front steps from just a minute and a half ago, the surging mob visible behind him. Head bent, shoulders rounded—his version of the Mexican crouch. Here was a closer view of his face, and he was smirking again, as if at some private joke. It was the expression his face took on when it knew not what else to do. If that isn’t the expression of a serial killer, well, I don’t know what is. Put that monster behind bars, please. City of Berkeley, can’t you police your own streets? Protect your own women?
Deena called him at eight thirty. “Come over here, it’s better,” she said. “I’ll come pick you up.”
“Oh, Deena. No, it’s gone too far for that. I don’t know if I could get out of the house again, to be honest.”
“I know, I can see on the TV.”
Landau switched on his own TV. There he was—there his house was.
“There’s only so much hyperreality I can take, Deena. Then my mind goes all wooshy.”
“Have you eaten anything tonight?”
“No, but someone is coming over later. I bought a nice piece of halibut yesterday.”
“She won’t be coming with this happening.”
“No, probably not. I hope not.”
Deena said that they knew the victim—it was one of Georges’ ex-girlfriends.
“Oh, no. Which one?”
“They showed her photo just a minute ago. Keep looking. You’ll see it.”
Landau watched the TV. Fearing what would be coming up on it.
“I’m going to call Georges. He must be going crazy with this. He must be out of his mind.”
“Okay,” she said, “call me back.”
He did call Georges. Georges said, “No, she’s fine, Heather’s fine, she’s sitting right beside me on the couch right now.”
“Oh, thank God for that.”
“Anthony—it was Angela. Angela Lindon. You remember Angela.”
“Angela?”
“Yes, the musician. The one from the flower stand.”
Landau thought, and soon he remembered. One of Georges’ youngest, most appealing discoveries. A small-boned young Asian woman who played electric bass in a band. He’d accompanied Georges to hear her at a student bar on San Pablo one night. They’d stood in a crowd of sweaty young people, deafened by squawking anthemic rock for an hour and a half. Angela was of Filipino-Irish descent, worked at a flower stand during the day, the one on Shattuck close to Vine. Wrote all the band’s terrible s
ongs.
“Good God, Georges. I thought they didn’t release the names of victims for twenty-four hours.”
“They don’t, but sometimes they do. They just get out.”
“What must her family be going through, the poor, poor people.”
Beautiful young woman, Angela. That was Landau’s governing memory of her, not how talented or untalented she was, how she played the bass, but how extraordinarily beautiful she was. Georges had courted her with all his old lothario tricks, and they had kept company for a while. The affair had eventually collapsed amidst warm laughter on both sides.
“How sad, Georges, how truly sad. I don’t know what to say. It’s insane, it’s horrible, I’m sick to death, sick.”
“Why would anyone want to hurt Angela Lindon? That’s like committing a crime against the world spirit. Against goodness and beauty and youth.”
“Is there a world spirit, Georges?”
“Yes, there is, except when people murder it.”
At nine thirty Melody called him. She was just then walking up toward his house.
“Melody, please don’t come. My house is under siege. You don’t need to get caught up in this.”
“You’re up there by yourself?”
“Yes, I am.”
“All right.”
Twenty minutes later, he heard her at the laundry room door, which he had agreed to unlock.
“How did you get over the fence?”
“I didn’t have to climb the fence. I waited till nobody was looking, then I noticed that the latch was broken. I just walked through.”
Now that she was here, what was he supposed to do with her? Should he kiss her? Press himself upon her? It seemed wrong under the circumstances.
“Can I get you a glass of wine, Melody? Maybe a whisky?”
“A whisky, I think, but later.”
He was afraid someone would see her through a window. He lowered all the blinds. Pulled the drapes even in the hall, and dropped the shades in the kitchen.
“We should go upstairs, I think. They won’t be able to see us as easily up there.”
“Not unless they’re in the trees,” said Melody, seeming rather amused by it.