A cobbled parking circle, a gushing fountain. The lady of the manor stood in the shade of a marble pergola. In her late forties, she was attractive in a print ad sort of way, blond-haired and blade-faced, wearing a sleeveless blouse that showed off taut, tan arms. Her face had been reengineered and chemically relaxed, but subtly, and to good effect. Wide-cut slacks gave her a sunken appearance from behind, calling to mind an old remark of Moffett’s. Legs for days but ass for the next five minutes.
She met me with a winning smile. She was prepared. It had taken me weeks to get past her snotty assistant.
“Thanks for agreeing to see me,” I said.
She said, “How could I say no?” As if consent had been immediate. “It’s not every day I get a call from the police.”
Walking beneath the raised portcullis, we entered a stone corridor adorned with period weaponry. Broadswords, a lance, a crossbow, a pair of battle-axes, and a bunch more I couldn’t name. Tied to each was a gigantic Christmas candy cane. Grievous bodily harm, followed by tetanus, and tooth decay.
Olivia Harcourt saw me ogling. A well-worn smile. She was used to explaining.
“The structure is based on a thirteenth-century monastery in Toulouse. My parents summered there one year and liked it so much they decided to copy it.”
The S on the gates: Sowards.
“It’s not a hundred percent accurate,” she said.
“No monks.”
“Indoor plumbing.”
The hall opened into a cloister lined with gothic arches. I saw tinsel. Birds flitted across the gleaming, hazy courtyard.
I said, “Is that a well?”
She crooked a finger and we detoured. I peered down at cloudy water, specks of vegetal matter floating on the surface. Dragonflies mated in midair.
“It’s drinkable,” she said. “We’ve had it tested. But I wouldn’t recommend it.”
Inside the great room, we sat in high-backed chairs. A unicorn tapestry topped the fireplace; there was a fire going. Too close to a fifteen-foot fir awaiting ornaments. A uniformed maid emerged from behind a suit of armor to serve tea on a silver tray.
From the photos scattered about, I deduced that Olivia Harcourt had had her fill of lanky Scandinavians: her current husband was squat and swarthy and thick-necked, traits he’d passed to their children, son and daughter alike.
Aside from the maid, who vanished as silently as she had appeared, joining us was a silver-haired man dressed in a fitted blue suit, white shirt, and gray tie one shade lighter than the castle’s stone.
He introduced himself as Robert Dutton Stanwick, Mrs. Harcourt’s attorney.
“Of Stanwick and Green, LLC,” I said.
He puffed up a bit. “That’s right.”
“I hope you don’t mind,” Olivia Harcourt said.
I smiled. “Don’t imagine there’s a choice.”
“None at all,” the lawyer said.
Olivia crossed her legs, a maneuver that took a long time and ought to have involved the FAA.
“Before we begin,” Stanwick said, “I’d like to clarify the purpose of this meeting.”
“Information gathering,” I said.
“To what end?”
Expecting I’d be called upon to explain myself, I’d assembled a curated version of the facts.
“You think some person or persons unknown may have been responsible for Mrs. Harcourt’s ex-husband’s death,” Stanwick said.
“I’m exploring alternative explanations for his death.”
I watched Olivia for a reaction: nothing.
Stanwick said, “What’s it got to do with my client?”
“You knew him,” I said to Olivia.
“Once upon a time,” she said.
“Was there anyone you can think of who might have wanted to harm him?”
“Besides me, you mean.”
Stanwick said, “Nothing my client says should be construed as an admission of any kind.”
“Relax, please, Bob, I’m joking…I honestly wouldn’t know, Officer. Nicholas and I didn’t have much contact after the divorce.”
“Did it end on bad terms?” I asked.
“It was a divorce,” Stanwick said. “It’s on bad terms by definition.”
“Not true,” Olivia said. “I have a girlfriend who engineered a very meaningful uncoupling. It actually brought them closer together than they’d ever been. Isn’t that remarkable?”
“Is that what occurred between you and Nicholas?”
“No comment,” Stanwick said.
“I can answer for myself, thank you,” Olivia said. “We tried our hardest to be graceful, but it wasn’t perfect. There were tears.”
“What was your reaction when you heard that he’d died?”
“Don’t answer that,” Stanwick said.
She recrossed her legs. “You’ll have to excuse him, Officer. Bob’s always been a strong advocate for my interests.”
Warm smile at the lawyer, who grunted bashfully.
“Well, let’s see,” Olivia Harcourt said. “I have to put myself back in that frame of mind. It feels like another life…My reaction? I suppose I thought: Too bad for him.”
“You weren’t still angry at him.”
“Don’t answer that.”
“No, I wasn’t angry,” she said. “Not anymore. I’d moved on. I found love again. I had my children. My life was—is—very full. I was barely twenty when I married Nicholas. Swept up. We all do things we regret when we’re young.”
The lawyer ground a fist in a palm.
“If it wasn’t an accident,” Olivia said, “what do you think happened?”
“I’m exploring several possibilities.”
“A little unfair of you, don’t you think? Come in and ask me questions and yet you won’t answer mine.”
“My assumption is that if someone did harm him, they had a reason to do so.”
“I’m going to insist we put an end to this,” Stanwick said. “You’re just trying to scare her, and I won’t accept that.”
“I’m not, sir,” I said. “As I said, I’m interested in Mrs. Harcourt’s perspective, and I appreciate her letting me into her home.”
“Then start showing some respect,” Stanwick said.
“More tea?” Olivia said.
“Yes, please,” I said.
She plucked a golden bell from the end table and jangled it. The maid reappeared.
“Officer…” She looked to me.
“Edison,” I said. “Deputy, actually.”
“Sandra, Deputy Edison would like more tea.”
“Yes, Mrs.”
“And you know what, I’ll have a glass of rosé. From the bottle in the fridge. Thank you, Sandra.”
I heard Ming’s voice: Two wineglasses.
“Unless you’d like some, too,” Olivia said to me.
“Good with tea, thanks.”
“Bob?” Olivia said.
The lawyer shook his head and fooled with his tie. The maid went off.
I said, “Am I correct that you were paying alimony to your ex-husband?”
“Well, he wasn’t in a position to pay me,” Olivia said.
Stanwick unsnapped his briefcase and produced a binder-clipped document. “We were more than generous with him,” he said, handing it to me.
It was the Linstads’ mediated marriage settlement, dated January 4, 1997.
He’d come prepared, too.
“Let me save you some time,” Stanwick said. “Mrs. Harcourt and Mr. Linstad agree to the dissolution of their marriage according to the following terms as established by their prenuptial agreement”—out came another document, dated July 17, 1992. “One, in the event that the marriage is terminated within thirty-six months of its taking effect, Mr. Linstad waives any claim to spousal support. Should the marriage be terminated subsequent to that point, Mr. Linstad is granted spousal support of seventy-five hundred dollars a month for a term of twenty-four months, which term may not be extended, and after
which he waives any further claim to spousal support.”
So Ming had it wrong. Or Linstad’s father had gotten it wrong and misinformed Ming. The millstone around Olivia Harcourt’s neck was far smaller than they’d believed, had long dropped off by the time Linstad died.
More to the point, seeing her in her natural habitat, I realized that the millstone was no millstone. She probably spent that much every month on scented candles.
“Two,” Stanwick said, “and bear in mind that this was not part of the prenuptial, but an adjunct thereto, offered voluntarily by Mrs. Harcourt as a gesture of good faith—Mr. Linstad is granted full title to the property located at twenty-three thirty-six Le Conte Avenue.”
“The duplex,” I said.
“Mm,” Olivia said.
“You paid for it originally.”
“I paid for everything,” she said.
“And then you gave it to him?”
She shrugged. “For all practical purposes, he was already living there.”
“While you were separated.”
“Well before that,” she said. “We purchased it in—I don’t know. Bob?”
Stanwick said, “September ninety-two.”
“Thank you, Bob.” To me: “The idea was that Nicholas would have someplace close by campus to sleep when he worked late. Little did I know.”
“He was using it for other activities,” I said.
She beamed. “Bravo, Deputy Edison.”
The maid brought the tea and a generous balloon glass of wine and retreated.
“I’m sorry to be dense,” I said, “but why give him the property, at that point? It’s not like he deserved it.”
“I wanted him to have a permanent reminder,” Olivia said.
“Of his cheating.”
She sipped, dabbed at her mouth with a linen napkin. “More that he’d never earned anything on his own.”
“Like he gave a shit one way or the other,” Stanwick said. “Free real estate.”
“I know,” Olivia said. “You were right.” To me: “Bob didn’t want me to do it.”
“I told you at the time it was a waste.”
“C’est la vie,” she said, raising her glass. “I gave Nicholas a gift in order to punish him. Never in a million years did I imagine it would actually work.”
A gleeful note had appeared in her voice.
Money didn’t have to be the motive.
There was always spite.
She took a deep gulp of wine.
I asked how she’d found out about Linstad’s affair.
“A friend of mine spotted them at a bar in San Francisco, groping each other in a booth. She didn’t tell me for months. She didn’t want to upset me. But she got drunk at a party and let it slip. She felt awful, apologizing right and left. ‘I don’t judge, I don’t know what kind of arrangement you two have.’ Believe that? ‘Arrangement.’ ”
Her laughter disintegrated, and her posture caved, leaving her gazing at the fire in wonderment. “Looking back, I can hardly believe myself. I mean, it seems so obvious now. He wasn’t especially sneaky. But I loved him. I really did. I was hypnotized.”
I couldn’t envision her successfully pushing a man Linstad’s size down a flight of stairs. Then again, if you rewound ten years—pumped them full of Cabernet—charged her up with righteous indignation—
“It’s not your fault,” Stanwick said.
She yawed. “It is and it isn’t. I was young and vain. I thought I was immune. He’d never risk losing me. But now I think that was at the heart of it. No danger, no pleasure.”
“He was a fool,” Stanwick said. “A woman like her? What kind of idiot goes and screws that up?”
“Thank you, Bob.”
“It’s true,” he said.
“Of course, Nicholas denied everything when I confronted him. He said it wasn’t him, my friend must’ve confused him with someone else. I wanted to believe him. Then I started to wonder about the late nights.”
“We hired a private detective,” Stanwick said.
“He was taking his mistress to the duplex,” I said.
“Among other places,” Olivia said.
“At the risk of offending you,” I said, “can you tell me her name?”
“I never wanted to know. I saw the pictures and that was enough.”
She paused, chewing at her bottom lip. “Nicholas…He had such funny taste, you know? You imagine—if you ever do think about your husband cheating on you, and I suppose most women do, whether they admit it or not. But. You imagine it’s going to be with somebody prettier, or—I don’t know. At least then there would be a…not a reason, but at least it would make sense, on some level. And—I don’t mean to sound small about it. But she was…I’m not sure how best to put it.”
“Dumpy,” Stanwick said.
“Yes,” she said. She tossed back the rest of her wine, scrunched her face, reached for the bell. “A dumpy little girl.”
The maid appeared. “Another, Mrs.?”
“Yes, please, thank you, Sandra.”
I said, “Do you think I could talk to the PI?”
“I can’t see why that’s necessary,” Stanwick said.
“I’m looking for anyone who knew Nicholas,” I said. “Anyone who might’ve had a reason to harm him.”
Olivia said, “Bob will give you the phone number.”
“I’ll need your written permission.”
She looked at Stanwick. He said, “Fine. Are we done here?”
“Almost,” I said. “Ms. Harcourt, could you please tell me about Nicholas’s relationship with Walter Rennert.”
“What about it?” Olivia said.
“Were they close?”
“Walter was very fond of him.”
“It wasn’t mutual?”
“I always got the impression he considered Nicholas sort of a surrogate son. Nicholas told me Walter didn’t always get along with his own kids. As if he was explaining his own feelings.”
There you go: new data.
I said, “There was a university committee that looked into the circumstances surrounding the murder. Maybe you’ve seen their report.”
Stanwick stiffened.
“I have,” she said. “After the divorce—”
“Totally on the up and up,” the lawyer said. Meaning: skids had been greased. “If there’s nothing more—”
I said, “It seemed to throw a lot of the blame on your ex-husband’s shoulders. I’m wondering if Walter tried to intervene on his behalf.”
Stanwick clapped his hands. “That’s it. We’re finished.”
I sat there.
“You’ve had your time, Deputy.” He meant it, now. “Move along.”
I stood up as the maid reentered with a refill containing the second half of the bottle. Olivia Harcourt had changed her mind: she shook her head and waved the glass away. She stared at the floor.
“If you do speak to the girl,” she said, “tell her I said hello.”
CHAPTER 31
The PI Bob Stanwick had hired was named Faith Raine. She worked out of a room above a ramen shop in downtown Oakland, spitting distance from the county courthouse. Thick tendrils of steam laced with MSG wafted up through the floor vents.
Olivia Harcourt had given me the impression that her ex-husband had screwed up but the once. Either she was still in denial or she was downplaying her humiliation. Or else Stanwick had hidden the truth from her. Nicholas Linstad was a repeat offender. In five months of surveillance, Raine had photographed him meeting with four different women.
As she laid out the evidence—names and addresses, grainy zoom-lens snaps—I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
I asked Raine if she knew about any affairs prior to 1997.
She shook her head. “I’d assume there were plenty, though. Guys like him, it’s an instinct. They’re collectors.”
He had such funny taste.
I don’t mean to sound small about it.
A dumpy little girl.
Olivia couldn’t say what she meant out loud, of course. That would be racist.
Put a pint of rosé in her, though—she couldn’t stop herself from saying something.
All the women Nicholas Linstad had collected were in their early twenties, with straight black hair and a medium build. They all stood in the neighborhood of five foot three.
All four were Asian or Asian American.
A perfect description of Donna Zhao.
—
LI HSIEH, DONNA’S former roommate, worked as a supply chain manager for a supermarket conglomerate headquartered in Hong Kong. I pulled her email address from the UC Berkeley alumni database. In the murder file, Ken Bascombe had noted that she spoke minimal English, so I kept my questions to her simple and direct.
As it turned out, her English was just fine—vastly improved since her days at Cal, a point she herself made in her initial reply.
I didn’t speak with the police, I was embarrassed they wouldn’t understand me she wrote. Wendy was American, I thought it would be better for her to talk to them.
Unsatisfied by her own excuse, she went on to offer another.
Donna’s family was very traditional. Every night her mother called to make sure she was at home studying. They got angry when she switched her major from business to psychology. They wanted to bring her back to Beijing but she convinced them to let her stay. They didn’t know she had a boyfriend, they would not approve, it’s a big distraction. I don’t think she discussed it with Wendy either, they were not close. She spoke to me a few times. She was unhappy because he did not respect her. I told her it’s better to find a man who shows you respect, but she said she loved him. I never met him. She would not tell me his name, she was afraid her parents would find out.
There was another, more powerful reason for Li Hsieh not to raise the subject of Donna Zhao’s boyfriend, with the police or anyone else: he was a married man.
This is a very shameful thing. I did not want to cause any more pain to Donna’s family. If they found out they would be very embarrassed and angry, it would be to them like she died another time. The police caught the person who was responsible, I decided to forget about it.
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