She walked him to the back of the house, into an oversized kitchen that was cavernous. He could see a pool in the backyard, which didn’t surprise him. It was a lap pool, and its warm surface was throwing off steam, the steam mixing with the fog.
“Can I offer you a cup of coffee, Detective?” The kitchen was all white with black marble countertops. Mrs. Gilbert went to a sleek coffee maker and popped in a cartridge. “It’s so — God, I can’t even find the words to describe it. What happened to Rishi and Bharti. Surreal,” Mrs. Gilbert said.
“Yes,” he said automatically. He was looking around. He couldn’t see the street from back here, and the hallway leading to the kitchen was forty feet long, at least.
She turned and faced him. “Now, Detective, how can I help you? Ask me anything.”
“Do you know the Chaundhrys well?”
“No, not well. They’ve only been in the house a few months, since the holidays. But we had them over for dinner, after they moved in. We wanted to introduce ourselves. And our daughter, Clair, and their twins hit it off right away. They go to the same school.”
“Did they seem to get along, the parents?”
The coffee machine signaled the coffee was done with a beep. Mrs. Gilbert looked at him. She turned and poured his coffee and put the cup down on the marble counter near him.
“Cream and sugar, Detective?”
“No, thank you. Black is fine.”
“Yes. Asha is so sweet. You can’t imagine. She’s darling. She and I hit it off. We take a yoga class together in the Marina.”
“Have you lived here long?” O’Higgins asked.
“Three years, next month.”
“What does your husband do?” O’Higgins asked.
“He was a banker. JP Morgan in New York, for years. He’s a property developer now. We came out west after he left the bank. It’s been a dream of ours to live in San Francisco.”
“I see. Have you seen anyone in the neighborhood you’d consider strange, or anyone acting strangely in the last few days?”
“No, not really. They had a lot of people coming and going across the street. Contractors. Rishi worked a lot from home, Asha said. They seemed to have a lot of visitors. Indian people, mostly,” she said. “People with funny head gear, that kind of thing.”
“What time did the girls come over yesterday?”
“About three, I think. Bharti brought them. I can’t — she was a lovely girl. She didn’t speak much English. But I liked her. I saw her a lot.”
“Did you speak to Ms. Kumar — Bharti? Did she ever confide in you about the family?”
“As I said, she didn’t speak much English. Or not very well. I’d said hello. Lots of hand signs. She dropped the girls off and left. So, no, we didn’t develop that kind of relationship.”
“The Chaundhrys’ girls arrived at what time?” he asked.
“Three. The play date was for three to five. Asha texted and said she would send Bharti to pick the girls up. She had to run to the store or something.”
“You told one of the patrol officers last night that the girls’ grandfather came to get them at 5:45.”
“Did I?” Mrs. Gilbert said. “No, I think I said 5:15.”
He looked down at his notebook. “Yes. You told the patrol officer 5:45.”
“No. I don’t think so. It was earlier than that. It was around 5:15,” she said.
He decided to let it go. “Did he seem upset? Mr. Chaundhry. When he was here.”
“I didn’t really see him. My husband had just come home from work and got the girls down for him. They were upstairs in the playroom. I was in here, cooking dinner.”
“But you’re sure of the time. 5:15?” He gave her one more chance to change her story.
“Yes. I heard the front bell ring while I was in the kitchen. I expected the girls to be gone by five or so. We had to leave the house for a meeting at my daughter’s school.”
“You heard the doorbell, in here?”
“Yes. I may have poked my head out into the hallway,” she said. She moved back to the coffee machine, took out the cartridge she’d used to make his coffee and threw it into the garbage under the sink. The kitchen was immaculate and seemed hardly used.
A short Latin woman walked into the kitchen. She was carrying a white plastic laundry basket loaded with dirty clothes. The Latina, dressed in an old-school maid’s uniform, glanced at him quickly and disappeared into a room at the back of the kitchen.
“I noticed you have a front-door knocker, too. Did you hear that? Or did Chaundhry use the bell?”
“I — I don’t remember, Detective. Is that important?”
“The nanny, did she seem — did she seem upset when she dropped the girls off?”
Mrs. Gilbert leaned on the counter a few feet from him. The woman looked very thin. He could see the blue of veins in her exposed shoulders. Her stomach was ironing-board flat. She was in good shape and looked the epitome of what she was, an exceedingly privileged woman with a sense of entitlement. Very different from the poor people of the Mission or Hunter’s Point, who were afraid of the police and never made eye contact if they could avoid it.
She looked at him for a moment. “No. Bharti seemed fine.”
He watched her lips. A lie printed across her face. Her micro expression made it clear: her lips pursed subtly but classically, betraying her lie.
“Would you mind if I checked the doorbell,” he said, “rang it?”
“I don’t understand, Detective,” she said. “You’re confusing me. Are we — suspects? Do you think we had something to do with this awful —?”
A second micro expression moved quickly across her face: regret. It was the same expression he’d had in the class he’d taken at Mills College, as part of the continuing education SFPD required of all its detectives. Many of the professor’s examples of micro expressions were of Amanda Knox or Bill Clinton speaking in public, especially when the subject of his professor’s slides had to do with lies and their facial “tells.”
The one for regret had been subtle and hard for him to learn. He’d had to work on recognizing it, with repeated views of the slide over and over, mixing the regret “tell” in with countless neutral expressions from countless faces of various ethnicities. But he’d finally learned it. The cover of the eyes always turned down.
They looked at each other. Mrs. Gilbert’s pretty face showed that she was annoyed, and tired of being questioned. Her expression turned from affable to steely.
He looked around for a clock in the kitchen and didn’t see one. As in most households, old-school clocks had disappeared along with landlines. Rich or poor, most people relied on their cell phones to tell them the time. He glanced at the fancy six-burner, restaurant-style stove but didn’t see a clock there either. So she would have had to stop what she was doing and look at her phone when the doorbell rang? Why would she, if she was cooking and was expecting the girls to be picked up?
“Did I help?” Mrs. Gilbert asked.
“Yes, thank you. One more thing: did you hear the doorbell in here? When Mr. Chaundhry came to the door?”
“No, I don’t think so. It’s hard to hear from back here, usually. My husband answered the door. I don’t think I heard it ring.”
“But you’re sure it was 5:15 when he came to pick up the girls?”
“Yes. I’m sure. I was on my phone and had to end the call because my husband wanted me to come meet Mr. Chaundhry. I noticed the time then — we’d heard so much about him when my husband was still at the bank. It’s not every day you meet a billionaire, is it, Detective? My husband said he’s probably going to be president, or whatever it is they have there.”
“I see.”
He thanked her for the coffee. She smiled stiffly and walked him to the door. It was a forced smile, the woman’s eye muscles not involved
in the least—the ultimate tell of a phony smile. He asked if he could have her husband’s cell number in case he had any more questions, and she gave it to him. He put her husband’s number into his cell phone as he crossed the foggy street.
CHAPTER 11
One week before the murders
“You should sit with us,” the well-dressed Indian said.
They had been together at the head of the line, so naturally found themselves going up the ferry’s steep steps, leading up from its interior below-deck space, where the gang of young lesbians were parking their bikes, and where some of the older people, less adventurous retired types, were heading. Above deck was where the younger people rode, not put off by the cold March air.
The Indian family headed immediately to the top deck and he’d followed as if he were a member, their American cousin. He had no explanation for it, but he wanted to follow them. He felt that somehow they would help him manage the crossing. They all settled on the long metal bench just under the pilot house, facing away from the water.
Thank God, O’Higgins thought.
They made room for him, the father on the edge of his seat. The Indian man’s attractive wife smiled at him, welcoming him and seeming to be genuinely pleased that he’d followed them. They had had an instant rapport.
“What’s your name?” the father asked, after they’d sat down.
The question surprised him. “Michael,” he said.
The father nodded as if it was the first time he’d heard the name. “Michael. Excellent. I’m Rishi, this is my wife, Asha. Pleased to meet you,” the man said.
“Nice to meet you,” Michael said. He turned and looked at the wife. She was even younger than he’d first thought. She might have only been 25, if that. She had the big Indian eyes he remembered seeing at the murals at Angkor Wat, on a trip he and his wife had taken before they were married. They had been surprisingly erotic murals. The man’s young wife had the same captivating eyes.
“Are you a tourist, too, Michael?” the wife asked. It was the first time he’d heard her speak English.
“No. No. I was bo— born here.”
He’d caught a glimpse of the open water behind the husband’s shoulder. The ferry had pulled away from the dock, turning slowly, and was heading into the bay. His view was changing, the water coming up as they pulled away from the dock. He’d was careful to keep his eyes pegged to the deck, or on the railing, or on the husband’s face. The sight of the open water when he’d lifted his head to answer the woman hit him all at once. What had he done? Foolishly come top deck when he shouldn’t have.
His doctor had told him to go slow. Was the ride out onto San Francisco Bay slow?
“Just sit by the water, Michael,” Dr. Schneider had said. “Try that.”
He’d decided to take the ferry to Angel Island early that morning while staring at the ceiling in his bedroom. Normally he would have taken another Valium, rolled over and slept on until 2:00 p.m., and then taken a second Valium and woken before dinner. He’d been doing that for months. But this morning, for whatever reason, he was tired of it. He’d stared at the vial, reached for it. He wanted to dream — didn’t he?
Instead he’d thrown the vial of Valium across the dark bedroom, made tomb-dark by the hotel-style blackout curtains he’d had installed. He heard the vial of pills roll across the hardwood floor.
He’d woken up angry. It was something that had started after the accident. He would sit bolt upright, ready to attack, punch someone — seething. Angry at what the world had served up to him and his daughter.
The anger was getting worse. Even the Valium no longer stifled it. It was a horrible anger that ran through him like fire. It hurt, physically. When it came on him, it was overwhelming. Debilitating.
He’d bought a new pistol. The new pistol, kept fully loaded, was on the kitchen table, buried under stacks of unopened mail, newspapers, delinquent bill notices of all kinds, their threats meaningless. Twice his power had been cut off. He’d had to go down to PG&E’s local offices and pay off the due-months in person, all his finances a shambles.
One afternoon he’d gotten up out of bed and decided to drive. He’d kept driving all day toward Arizona without questioning it. He’d stopped and bought the new pistol as soon as he crossed the border into Arizona, near Yuma. He had every intention of getting back on the freeway, finding a rest stop and just doing it. Ending it, finally. The way it should have ended the day of the accident.
His life hung in the balance for hours and could have been over countless times, at any moment, but he’d driven toward the setting sun unable to pull over and do it. Why? He had good reasons not to. His daughter needed him after all. And there were prevarications: the sight of a jalopy with happy Mexican kids in the back seat, the sight of a young woman driving alone that looked a little like his wife. An empty random building on the edge of the desert had given him an excuse to wonder why it had been built, and by whom.
And it was the desert sunset’s fault, too. It had been a particularly violent and beautiful one you get sometimes in August in Arizona, during the monsoon season. He’d driven back toward it, its mash-up colors: red with glass-green streaks across the sky, unusual and captivating. What produced the green color? It reminded him of a vintage car color from his parents’ day, emerald green. He’d always liked that color. Was it a message? Why was he looking for messages this late in what should have been his last day? He drove through a quick downpour, indifferent to the rain pounding the oil-stained freeway. He tried to convince himself his daughter would be better off without him but it wasn’t working. It was a lie and he knew it.
And so he’d driven on, grabbed by ideas keeping him alive: his father, a well-known San Francisco attorney, had an office painted green. He’d had a pencil box in fourth grade that was green. It had two dials that, when synchronized, gave the capitals of all the states; it had once been his prized possession. He realized what a good child he’d been, studious and quiet, eager to learn about the world. He’d overheard his parents talking about his being overly sensitive. His mother had been shocked when he joined the Marine Corps.
His eldest sister wore greenish toe-shoes when she went off to dance class. Bits of dried blood, where she’d worked her toes raw, had left rose-red stains. She had become a ballerina and had moved to New York City to dance in the New York City’s ballet company’s corps de ballet. It was she who had gotten his daughter interested in dance. His sister had come to visit him after the accident, but it had been useless. She’d said “I’m sorry,” and he’d gotten upset with her. He’d sent her away, and afterwards felt guilty for acting out, but he’d hated those words. It had been irrational, but platitudes sent him into fury.
His grandmother, who lived on Capp Street had green Depression-era glass plates she brought out for Thanksgiving dinners. She’d left them to his wife when she died. He didn’t know where they were now. Somewhere.
Twice he’d pulled over and stared at the short-barreled .38 revolver he’d bought in Yuma. They were common as dirt and cheap compared to the fancy automatics so in vogue now. He’d picked the weapon for its short, mouth-friendly barrel. He’d thought it would be easily inserted. With the right “cop-killer” ammo, the smaller weapon would do the job just fine. It would take off the back of his head, passing by the amygdala to the posterior of the brain, the oldest part of the brain stem. His brother had explained it once while they’d been fishing. It would look like the strange trailer he’d seen for “Sons of Anarchy” TV show—a bullet shown busting out the back of a skull. And then it would finally be done—show over.
He’d bought the weapon from a Korean in one of the biggest gun stores he’d ever been in. The short, all-about-the-money salesman would have sold Charlie Manson a handgun and a map to the stars’ homes. The Korean wore a sidearm. Who needs to wear a sidearm in a gun shop, O’Higgins wondered. Robbery was unlikely.
He’d heard the definitive click of the locks. Next, the idea of infinity and the look of his wife as the wave hit the boat, washing her violently into the water.
He pulled the barrel out of his mouth, thinking it was wrong to scare people. He knew, too, his wife wouldn’t approve at all. She was a Catholic. She’d believed in all that nonsense. Did he believe? No. What if some kid found him? He locked the doors. Heard the pop of the locks locking electrically. It was a relief. It was the wrong place.
He decided to pull over as soon as night fell and do it in the desert, on some isolated dark dirt road where no one would see or find him for days. He was going to go out looking up at the stars. That would be right, he thought. If you concentrated on the Milky Way, the way he had as a child when he’d gotten a telescope for his thirteenth birthday, it would be a good way to go. Say hello to infinity. Say hello to the galaxy. Say hello to oblivion. Bang! Game over. New player. Your score is 37 years.
“Is it pretty, the island?” Asha said, smiling at him.
The wife had a sweet-sounding voice. Her skin was brown, light-chocolate brown. He looked into her eyes. He couldn’t help himself. It was like listening to some kind of wild, satisfying, music. He couldn’t stop listening/looking at her. Like her husband’s, her eyes were kind. He was attracted to her. He had not thought of any women—at all, or in any way—since the accident, certainly not sexually. It was the first time since the accident that he’d had that kind of thought. It shocked him. Repulsed him.
Last Ferry Home Page 10