Edge of the Knife

by A. D. Miller

  Chapter 5

  The lobby of the Founders’ Club was hung with black-and-white photos of former Pacifica students. The oldest showed an inaugural class of a dozen young men standing beside a clapboard building on an otherwise empty campus. They wore heavy tweed suits and celluloid collars; in the distance stood rows of orange trees that would soon give way to parking lots and classroom buildings.

  “Sorry about that,” the hostess said, hanging up her phone and turning to him. “How can I help you?”

  He told her his name and occupation. “One of your members is supposed to be meeting her husband here for lunch. Sarah Freed. I’d like to talk to her.”

  The hostess’ smile hardened. “I’m afraid it’s against our policy to allow non-members into the dining room.”

  “One of her husband’s students,” Nyman said, “was just murdered.”

  The hardened smile dissolved. Telling Nyman to stay where he was, the hostess left her stand and went into the dining room. Half a minute later she was back in the lobby and beckoning to him.

  The dining room was mostly empty. A woman in expensive workout clothes sat alone at a table in the corner, reading something on her phone. She was in her early or middle forties but gave the impression, at first glance, of being twenty years younger. Dark hair was gathered into a knot at the top of her head, accentuating a long neck and broad, well-defined shoulders.

  Accepting a menu from the hostess, Nyman sat down across from Sarah Freed and thanked her for meeting with him.

  Her gaze was nervous and probing. “Michael said you might want to see me, but I didn’t think it would be this soon.”

  “You already talked to him?”

  “He called a few minutes ago. When I was leaving the gym.”

  “Did he tell you why I went to see him?”

  She nodded. “I was sorry to hear it.”

  A waiter came to the table to give her a glass of sparkling water and a bowl of greens covered with salmon. She ignored the food and said to Nyman:

  “But I don’t see why you’re calling it a murder. The newspaper says it was an accident.”

  “What newspaper?”

  She held up her phone; on the screen was a brief story from the Conejo Valley Sun. It said that an unidentified woman had been killed in a traffic accident near the intersection of Lindero and Marine. The police would release further details as they became available.

  “That looks like a placeholder,” Nyman said. “The story will change as the day goes on.”

  “Maybe. But isn’t it a little reckless to accuse someone of murder when the police are calling it an accident?”

  “I didn’t accuse your husband of murder, Mrs. Freed.”

  “You insinuated it,” she said in a rising voice. “And you think he did it. Don’t you?”

  “I don’t think anything.”

  “Yes you do.”

  “A good investigator,” Nyman said, “tries not to speculate until he has enough evidence to speculate with. I don’t have enough evidence.”

  “Don’t patronize me. I know how you people work.”

  Saying nothing, Nyman picked up the menu and began leafing through the pages.

  Across the table, Sarah sat up straighter in her chair and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just upsetting, having Michael dragged into something like this.”

  Nyman put down the menu. “I can see how it would be.”

  “You don’t really believe he could do something like that, do you?”

  “That’s why I’m here, talking to you. So you can help me know what to believe.”

  The waiter reappeared, this time to take Nyman’s order. He asked for a cup of coffee on a separate check. “I won’t be taking up much of Mrs. Freed’s time.”

  The waiter nodded and strolled away. Sarah, meanwhile, had leaned back in her chair and was studying Nyman more closely, her gaze moving from the fingers of his left hand to the tie that hung from his narrow neck.

  “It must be an unpleasant job,” she said. “Prying into the lives of people you don’t know.”

  “Most jobs are unpleasant. Your husband’s, for instance. He seems to be under a lot of strain.”

  “Michael?” She gave the first hint of a smile. “I don’t think anyone loves their work as much as Michael does. He could be making twice as much in the private sector, but he’d never consider it.”

  “You wish he would, though?”

  “Make a decent living? Of course I do. Anybody would.”

  “I would’ve thought you could make a decent living on a professor’s salary.”

  Her smile widened. “You obviously don’t have children. Tuition at a good school in this town is obscene.”

  “Your husband must think the financial sacrifice is worth it.”

  “Oh, more than worth it. You wouldn’t believe it, just talking to him, but he’s a brilliant teacher. His students adore him.”

  “According to some people, Alana Bell adored him for more than just his teaching.”

  First surprise, then something like fear showed in her pale green eyes. Glancing sharply at the other tables, she leaned forward and told Nyman to lower his voice.

  “Does that mean the rumors are true?”

  “That means I don’t want to talk about it. Not here, of all places.”

  “Your husband told me the relationship was purely platonic.”

  “You asked him outright?”

  “Yes. He said she was his student and nothing more.”

  Flushing, Sarah said: “Then he lied to you. All right? Now can we stop talking about it?”

  “How long had the affair been going on?”

  “Christ.” She put her hands to her temples and shut her eyes. “I have no idea. I never asked him.”

  “But you found out?”

  “Are all these questions really necessary? Or are you just trying to humiliate me?”

  “If I wanted to humiliate you, Mrs. Freed, I’d find an easier way. All I’m asking is how you learned about the affair.”

  Glancing again at the other tables, she said: “I don’t remember how I learned about it. It’s a feeling more than anything else. After a while you start to recognize the signs.”

  “Then he’s done this before?”

  “Yes.”

  “How many times?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “Why did he lie to me?”

  “Because he panicked, obviously. You have to put yourself in his shoes. An investigator showing up out of the blue, saying that Alana was dead. It’s no surprise he lied to you.”

  “It would’ve been easier if he’d told the truth.”

  “Of course it would’ve. But everybody panics when they’re caught off guard. You caught Michael off guard, and I’m trying to correct the mistake.”

  Taking the wallet from his pocket, Nyman counted out money for the coffee and laid it on the table.

  “If you don’t mind my saying so, it seems strange that you’d try to protect a man who’s been unfaithful to you.”

  “He also happens to be my husband.”

  “I could see why you might stay for the sake of your children,” Nyman said, “but it must be hard. It must make you angry.”

  “Yes—very angry. That’s why I always run the women down with my car. Preferably in the middle of the night, in some suburb I’ve never been to.”

  “A lot of people wouldn’t blame you if you did.”

  “I’m not interested in what other people think. We all have choices to make, and I’ve made mine. Michael’s my husband and it’s up to me to deal with him.”

  “Would you say he’s a difficult man to deal with?”

  “No more than the rest of you.”

  “Suppose Alana Bell told him she didn’t want to see him anymore. Isn’t it possible he might’ve been upset enough to kill her?”

  Sarah seemed to find the scenario amusing. “Michael can’t stomach the thought of v
iolence, much less the act. He was in tears when he called me just now.”

  “He cared about her, then?”

  “Very much.”

  “What was your opinion of her?”

  “I tried to think about her as little as possible. You won’t understand this, Mr. Nyman, but denial can be a healthy thing in certain situations. Ignoring parts of your life can be very therapeutic.”

  “It sounds like a harsh kind of therapy.”

  “That’s because it is,” Sarah said. “Now is this conversation over or not?”

  Finishing the last of his coffee, Nyman apologized for interrupting her lunch and said that he had one more question. “Your husband told me he flew back from Boston last night. Do you remember what time he got home?”

  She frowned. “It must’ve been sometime after two, I guess. Two-fifteen, maybe. I think I looked at the clock when he came into the bedroom.”

  “And what about yourself? Where were you?”

  “While Alana was being killed, you mean? I was at home, asleep. As were our boys, in case you’d like to check their alibis too.”

  “Was anyone else in the house who can confirm that?”

  She looked at him with an incredulous smile. “Yes, actually. Marcella, our nanny. She was spending the night in the bedroom down the hall. Would you like her phone number?”

  “Please,” Nyman said, taking the notebook from his pocket. “If it’s not too much trouble.”

  “No trouble at all, Tom.”

  Chapter 6

  Heat haze rippled above Figueroa Street as Nyman drove back downtown. He worked his way east into the Merchant District, then parked in a metered spot and used his phone to find the website of Tremont College.

  A woman in the Department of Planning and Public Policy told him that Michael Freed had arrived on Tuesday evening to present a paper at a conference the following day. Freed had been on campus till late Wednesday evening, when he’d left to catch his flight at Logan International.

  “Do you know what time the flight took off?”

  “Well, it couldn’t have been much before ten o’clock,” the woman said. “He came to the dinner on campus, and that didn’t get over till eight.”

  Nyman thanked her and got out of the car.

  He was standing on a street of cinderblock warehouses. The handful of cars and vans parked on the street looked as if they hadn’t moved for weeks; they were packed with clothes and food and the belongings of their owners. From the tracks to the east came the rumble of freight trains.

  He walked a block and a half to a narrow ribbon of grass enclosed by temporary fencing. A city sign said that Zamora Park was closed for repurposing and that trespassers would be prosecuted.

  He peered through the chain-link. The trees and shrubs had already been torn out, leaving only a weed-littered fountain and a few park benches. Mounted to the tops of the benches were metal bars that divided the sitting area into three small sections, making sleeping on them impossible. People had evidently slept on the ground instead; there were human-size patches of dirt where the grass had been rubbed away.

  Halfway down the block, men in orange vests were using jackhammers to break up the asphalt of an empty parking lot. A canvas banner had been hung over the lot’s entrance, showing an artist’s sketch of the sleek white condo tower that would eventually rise in its place.

  Nyman made his way down the block. By the time he reached the lot the workmen had gathered under the shade of a canopy for a water break.

  “Looks like you’re just getting started,” he said as he approached, nodding to the small section of ground that had been broken.

  An older man, short and thickly built, with a shaved scalp a few shades paler than his face and neck, acknowledged Nyman with a grunt.

  “I’m trying to find a guy who was living in the park across the street,” Nyman said. “Kid named Eric Trujillo.”

  The bald man raised a bottle of water to his lips and said in a bored voice: “Yeah?”

  “You guys around when the police cleared everybody out?”

  “Some of us, yeah.”

  “Did it cause a lot of trouble?”

  The man took a drink. “You with the paper or something?”

  “Just looking for my friend.”

  The bald man shrugged. “Didn’t cause a lot of trouble, no. Cops came in with a bunch of social workers. Told the people they had to leave and where to go to get a bed.”

  “Did they recommend one place in particular?”

  At some unspoken signal, the workmen had begun drifting away from the canopy and back to their equipment. The bald man finished his water and turned to follow.

  “They got shelters down here for everything,” he said over his shoulder, picking up a hardhat. “If you’re looking for a kid, you should check the ones that take kids.”

  He put the hat over his pale scalp and strolled out into the sunshine.

  * * *

  Three miles away, Nyman found a Depression-era hotel painted with vivid yellow bees and orange butterflies. A sign above the door said that the purpose of the Hive was to enrich the lives of homeless youth.

  Through an intercom in the vestibule he said that he was researching the closing of Zamora Park and had found the Hive on a list of shelters. After a moment, the intercom buzzed and the interior door clicked open.

  The intake counselor who met him on the other side was taller and younger than Nyman and elaborately tattooed, with geometric patterns rising up from her wrists to cover her arms and chest and neck. Her long thick hair had been dyed a metallic shade of red.

  Looking at him skeptically, she said: “Most people haven’t even heard about the park getting closed.”

  Nyman said that he’d heard about it from a professor at Pacifica. “Michael Freed. One of his students has been working with the people there.”

  “And you’re doing some kind of story about it?”

  “At the moment,” Nyman said, “I’m just trying to get more information. I thought this might be a good place to start.”

  “Well, we always did a lot of outreach at Zamora,” the counselor said, turning away from the doors and leading him inside. “There were dozens of kids passing through there every day. Now the challenge is finding places for them.”

  Together they entered a large, cement-floored space filled with second-hand tables and threadbare couches. The hotel’s original features had been removed or repurposed; behind the zinc-topped bar stood a line of ping-pong and pool tables. Teenagers were scattered around the room, watching television and eating microwave dinners. The air smelled of food and old furniture and adolescent bodies.

  “Reminds me of college,” Nyman said.

  The counselor smiled. “This is our quietest time—right before school gets out. We’re really more of a drop-in center than a traditional shelter.”

  “And you keep a list of the kids who drop in?”

  “For our own files, yeah. But we never share it with anyone.”

  “Not even to help an investigation?”

  Hard white creases appeared around her eyes and mouth. “You said you were doing research for a story.”

  “I said I was doing research. I didn’t say it was for a story.”

  “So you’re a cop, in other words.”

  Nyman told her what he was. “If you can put me in touch with the boy I’m looking for, you might help me find a murderer.”

  “I might help you put him in jail, you mean. That’s not something I’m going to do.”

  “His name’s Eric Trujillo. He was living in the park until the police shut it down.”

  One of the kids on the couches—a small, round-bodied girl watching something on her phone—looked up sharply at the mention of Trujillo.

  “Look,” the counselor said, “we’ve worked very hard to make this a place where people feel safe. If I start ratting them out, they’ll stop coming. And if they stop coming, they’ll stop getting the services they need.”
<
br />   “I’m not trying to ruin his life,” Nyman said. “I’m asking for information.”

  “I don’t have any to give you.”

  “Even though an innocent person is dead?”

  Rather than answering, the counselor beckoned to a man across the room and asked him to escort Nyman out of the building.

  Nyman told him not to bother. Walking back outside to his car, he put the keys in the ignition, lowered the windows, lit a cigarette, and settled back in his seat to wait.

  Forty-five minutes passed. People came and went from the coffeehouse and apartment building down the block, but the door of the Hive stayed closed.

  Sweat soaked through Nyman’s shirt and into the upholstery of the seat. Taking the notebook from his pocket, he found the number of the Freeds’ nanny, Marcella. She answered on the third or fourth ring and said in a shy voice that Mrs. Freed had gone to bed last night around ten o’clock and hadn’t left the house until late the next morning. Marcella’s bedroom was next to the garage, and she would’ve been woken by the sound of a car engine starting. She’d heard nothing.

  Nyman thanked her and hung up. He smoked another cigarette, then called the Vista Hills Police Department to ask if the driver of the hit-and-run had been identified. A man with a courteous voice asked him for his name and put him on hold.

  He was still on hold when the door of the Hive opened and the round-bodied girl came out.

  Chapter 7

  In full daylight she looked older than she had indoors: a woman in her late teens or early twenties, with a heavy layer of makeup and black hair cut just below the ears. She turned away from the Hive and set off down the sidewalk with a backpack hanging from her shoulders.

  Nyman got out and followed on foot. She picked her way through the crowd in front of the coffeehouse, then crossed the street and turned east. When she stopped at a bus shelter on 6th Street Nyman was ten feet behind her and slowing to a stroll.

  “Eric Trujillo,” he said as he drew even. “Any idea where I can find him?”

  She turned sharply, the backpack swinging on her shoulders. The surprise of seeing Nyman made her mouth come open; the silver wires of a retainer caught the sunshine.