The fans were loud enough to be heard from the parking lot. The police presence didn’t seem to affect the enthusiasm. As usual, Jamie parked on the far side of the lot as another round of cheers erupted from the stadium.
City Academy didn’t have a football team. If they had, Z would certainly have been recruited for the team. Jamie had read enough about the long-term effects of concussions in football players to know it was not a sport she wanted her son playing. Without a football team, baseball took center stage at City Academy; the games usually brought a large crowd. Tonight’s game was against Marin Prep, City Academy’s main sports rival, so the turnout would be even bigger. She’d have been happy to have some quiet time at home, especially as she had to get up at 7:00 to take Tony to the airport.
But she’d missed two games already. Despite everything else, she wanted Z to know she supported him. For her, supporting him meant all of the millions of things she did to protect him, to fight for him. Again, she thought about the mitt. The risks she’d taken on to protect him. What would she do if he was guilty? How could she possibly protect him then?
Unable to shake off the worry that had settled deep into her chest, Jamie entered the bleachers to see Z warming up in front of the dugout. Bottom of the inning. Zero-zero on the scoreboard so she hadn’t missed much. Z swung the bat in a gentle rhythm. He seemed calm.
“Jamie!”
Tony waved from halfway up the bleachers. He always found a way to sit in the center. She had to crawl across all sorts of people to get to him. She shuffled awkwardly down the aisle to sit next to him. But Tony took her arm and gently pulled her past him. “Sit over here,” Tony directed, patting the bench on the far side of him.
“What difference—”
Tony glanced at the woman seated beside him.
Jamie closed her mouth and moved past, settling onto the cold bench as Z walked toward the plate.
“Jamie, this is Brenda Newcomb. Brenda, this is Jamie.”
Jamie shook Brenda’s hand, returning the dead fish handshake with one equally limp.
“Now, how long have you two known each other?” Brenda asked Tony.
Jamie leaned forward, settling her elbows on her knees and resting her chin in her palms.
“Uh, since we were two or three,” Tony said when Jamie didn’t answer. They all went quiet as the first pitch was thrown.
Z didn’t swing. Ball.
“Wow. That long. That was back in New York?”
Tony nodded.
Jamie risked looking rude and slid her fingers over her ears. Didn’t Brenda New—whatever her name was—see that they were trying to watch their son?
Second pitch. Z hesitated then swung. Strike. Jamie held back the groan.
“So, your families were friends?” Brenda asked.
“Hang on a sec. This is Z at bat,” Tony said.
“Oh, I’m so sorry.”
Duh.
Brenda made like she was zippering her mouth closed.
Third pitch. Ball.
Fourth pitch. Z swung. The lovely crack of the ball and bat connecting. Line drive between second baseman and short. The ball was fielded by the center fielder, and Z rounded first with a single. Jamie sat up again.
“Sorry,” Tony told his female friend. “Our fathers were best friends. They worked at the same fire station together for twenty-seven—”
“Twenty-nine,” Jamie corrected.
“Right, twenty-nine years. Jamie’s mom died when we were two. Mine when we were seven. After that, it was the three of us—Jamie, me, and my brother, Mick.”
“Wow.”
Tony smiled.
Jamie considered puking. But then she caught herself. What was wrong with Tony flirting? It wasn’t like she wanted to be with him, and if Tony met someone, maybe he’d stay in the Bay Area. He could move out, and they could be like fifty percent of parents and simply split custody. Jamie gave Brenda what she hoped was an encouraging look, then turned back to see Z ease off first base to steal.
Brenda let out a little tittering laugh. “Talk about marrying your childhood sweetheart.”
“No.” The word was on the tip of her tongue, but Tony got it out first.
“No,” she echoed.
“We’re not married,” he said.
“Or a couple,” Jamie added. “Just friends.” She gave Tony a friendly pat. “Family, really.”
“Right.”
“And you guys are raising Z together?” she said. “That has to be so hard.”
“It’s not the most traditional family,” Jamie admitted.
“Z kind of came into our lives when I was staying with Jamie,” Tony said.
Jamie watched as Brenda settled in a little closer. The attention was good for Tony. She didn’t want to be with Tony. Not like that. Yet she felt oddly possessive. It was so awkward to watch. “I’ll be back,” she said.
Brenda gave a little wave. “Sure,” Tony said.
Jamie started to climb the bleachers when a hand grabbed hers. She yanked it back. “What—”
Travis Steckler glanced up at her. “You’re leaving while Z’s on first?”
“No. I was just—”
“Sit here.” He slid over. Jamie looked around.
“I—” There was no reason not to sit. Steckler had chosen a less crowded spot and maybe she wouldn’t have to listen to Tony flirt.
“I couldn’t help but overhear.”
Jamie frowned.
“About you and Tony.” He leaned in. “Brenda Newcomb has been asking questions about him for months.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“There’s quite a rumor mill among the divorced parents. New meat is always big news.”
“Tony’s new meat, huh?”
“Oh, you both are.”
“Did you just call me meat?” she asked.
Steckler shook his head. “Not me. The rumor mill.”
“And you’re not part of the divorced parent rumor mill?”
Steckler’s smile faltered. “Nope. Widows and widowers aren’t invited. Too sad.”
Jamie cringed. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s been almost ten years.”
“Still hard.”
“Yes,” Steckler agreed. “Like losing your mom, right? And that was probably before you could remember.”
“It was.”
He motioned to Tony. “You two had an interesting youth. Tony made you guys sound like boxcar children.”
“Boxcar children?”
“You don’t remember those books? The kids who lived in the boxcar? It was great. Only you and Tony and—his brother was it?”
She nodded.
“You guys had a firehouse instead of…”
“A boxcar,” Jamie said.
“Right…”
The crowd around them cheered, and Jamie turned to the game as Z slid into home. Oh, God. She’d been flirting and she’d missed her son’s run.
“He’s playing great. You missed the top of the inning. He made a great play at second.”
“Second?” Z normally played left field.
“Yeah. Paul Shay lost his mitt, so the coach benched him for misplacing it. Put Z in at second.”
Something hot rolled up her spine and settled at the base of her neck. “Paul lost his mitt?”
“He pitched a fit about it, too. Directed most of his fire at Z, in fact. Was really out of line.”
Two words echoed above all the rest.
Paul’s mitt.
Chapter 28
He stared down at the ground. A rectangular shape, piled high with rich, dark soil, surrounded by grass. It looked more like an expensive garden plot than someone’s death. His permanent resting place—no, final. Final resting place. Resting. Like he was taking a short nap. The bullshit they tried to sell. Dead. He was dead. Autopsy said he was drugged, then shot.
Shot at least made sense. They knew all about getting shot. That happened in the neighborhood. Probably most days, but d
rugged? He didn’t buy that Michael was doing drugs. He wasn’t into that. He knew who was using. Could see it in their eyes. There had been plenty of heroin around. People he knew had died from heroin. Even that was changing. Kids these days were starting with meth.
A twelve-year-old girl—Jamal and Shawna’s girl—had died using meth. Some nasty stuff, meth, but it was a known entity where he came from. Known entities—even the ones that killed you—were safe. They were familiar. Known entities were the things that happened in his shitty neighborhood.
But Michael was drugged by some fancy drug with a long name. He made them spell it out for him so he could Google it. Some sort of tranquilizer. Didn’t they know that they could have given him a few beers and he’d have tranquilized his own self?
Michael was drugged with something that came from Charlotte’s world, not his. Her people had killed him. Or at least, they had drugged him. He’d been the one to convince Michael to help him get her to the hospital. He told Michael he’d owe him one, pick up the next six-pack or run some errand. A six-pack of Old Milwaukee or PBR was what Michael’s life had been worth in the end.
Michael’s death meant they were after him, too. Had to be. And what about her? Would they come after her? If she lived—God, he hoped she lived—what would they do to her? Or was she safe because of who she was? Were any of them safe?
You were a product of your environment, but they weren’t that different, Charlotte’s people and his. They were playing gangs up there, same as down here. The rule was still an eye for an eye.
What would she think of that?
She pretended to have disdain for people like her, but when push came to shove, didn’t they all protect their own kind?
How soon till they came after him?
Chapter 29
Schwartzman uncorked a bottle of her father’s Evan Williams bourbon. At the time of his death, eleven bottles remained. Schwartzman was drinking the second to last bottle. For more than four years after leaving South Carolina, Schwartzman didn’t drink at all. She had never been a heavy drinker, but some nights the bourbon went down a little too easily.
One bottle remained after this one. One last bottle of a lifetime of them. This had been her father’s celebration drink. The familiar label was present in her memories of holiday parties, birthdays, her father’s work functions, celebrations of cases won, and the toasts her parents made to one another at anniversaries. Her father often raised his crystal lowball, the ice ringing against the glass, to her for report cards and merit scholarships, whatever milestones parents celebrated.
There was always a bottle in his den and, more than once, her father had said Evan Williams was practically part of the family. As a child, she’d taken that literally. Once, she’d asked her mother how they were related to Evan Williams. To which her mother had responded, “By now, clear through your father’s liver.” Her mother could be witty.
Schwartzman herself took her first sip of Evan Williams after her acceptance to Duke Medical School. It wasn’t what most young people tried their first taste of alcohol, and she hadn’t loved it at first.
She’d sipped it politely, while her father read her like a book. “You’ll grow into it,” he said. “Then, you won’t want anything else.”
Unlike most college kids, Schwartzman had consumed little alcohol in her undergraduate years at University of North Carolina. She graduated high school at seventeen and college at twenty. By twenty-three, she was through three years of med school at Duke.
By the time she drank alcohol again, her father had died. She had left Spencer. She might not have thought about Evan Williams again were it not for her mother. When Schwartzman had packed up her Jeep to move out to Washington, her mother loaded the case of bourbon into the back of her car. She hadn’t touched it since his death. “The sight of the label is devastating. I couldn’t possibly bear the taste,” her mother had told her.
In those first months in Seattle, back in medical school, a bottle of the bourbon sat perched on Schwartzman’s dresser as a beacon of her father. Pushing her to make it through another day, to stay awake, to study, to not fail. It was only after her first finals that she cracked the bottle and then only for the smell.
It was sometime during her internship that she actually poured it. The occasion had seemed special at the time, although she’d forgotten what it was. These days, she sipped it rather freely. Not every night, but perhaps a third of them, creeping toward half recently. Never more than two fingers, always with three ice cubes, never more than two in a night.
The supply would soon be gone.
She had kept the first empty bottle. It remained on her dresser and, when she bent over and uncorked it, she smelled her father inside. His smell was a mix of the bourbon and his cologne, his soap, and the smells of ink and paper. Those other scents had fallen away until her memory of his smell was no longer distinguished in her mind from the smell of the bourbon.
She dreaded the day the bourbon ran out. It wasn’t a matter of the bourbon itself. The distillery was in business. She could source the bottles locally if she chose. It was silly, but the case he had bought held more than the bourbon he had loved. Those bottles held some essence of him. A living piece. Once they were gone, he would be gone, too. He resided in other places, but for her, the bourbon had been the only thing of her father that she’d taken from her mother’s home.
While her mother was living, the other items Schwartzman would one day keep to remind herself of her father remained in her mother’s house.
The dearest one to her was his 1928 first edition Napoleon Hill law book, signed by Hill, which lived in a glass case in her father’s den.
For as long as Schwartzman could remember, her father was rereading Hill’s The Law of Success. Her father would turn a page of the book where it would remain open, in its locked, glass case, for several days or a week. Long enough to give him—and also her, or the staff, or her mother, or whoever else was interested—a chance to read the page. Then, he would don a pair of white cotton gloves, open the case, and turn the page, closing it up again for another five days or a week. Schwartzman rarely saw him perform the changing of the page, but when she had, it was like watching a ceremony.
Schwartzman had read the last page dozens of times.
She never had the heart to turn it.
She had come upon a Napoleon Hill quote when she first arrived in Seattle. His name was only familiar to her because of the book in her father’s study, so she’d been surprised to read the inspirational words. At the same time, the message seemed to have been sent directly from her father, delivered to her that day in the shape of a poster on the wall of a bookstore. It read, “Opportunity often comes disguised in the form of misfortune, or temporary defeat.”
Now, Schwartzman set the glass down and pulled herself from her reverie. The thoughts felt foolish floating in her head. She was a medical examiner. Dead men did not send messages via other dead men through posters in bookstores. The borders of life and death were well known to her. Yet, she always found herself imbuing the Evan Williams bourbon with something of her father that her rational mind knew couldn’t possibly exist.
Enough for tonight, she told herself, pulling David McCullough’s Truman into her lap and settling back into the settee. Tomorrow, she would cross the Golden Gate to hike the Dipsea Trail that ran from Mill Valley to Stinson Beach. In her months in San Francisco, the Dipsea had become a sanctuary, though she didn’t get there as often as she would have liked.
The trail was almost ten miles. It might take her three hours, or she could spend seven. She had been known to stop among the redwoods or under the arching laurel with a book, and she often spent several hours on the beach when she arrived.
Even in the rain, or when the fog was so dense it was difficult to see beyond her own feet, the trail brought immense relief, something that she struggled to find in her regular life. She was due. She would have liked to go today, but between finishing Delman’s autops
y and arranging for a new phone, the time had gotten away from her.
The front bell rang in the entryway. She saw the clock on the far wall, 8:00 p.m. She couldn’t imagine who would have been calling up, but perhaps it was a package. Normally, the doorman called her phone. She sat up, remembering. Her phone number had changed. Another person she needed to update.
She retrieved the front desk number from her old phone and dialed down.
“Nob Hill Manor,” the evening clerk answered.
“Martin, it’s Dr. Schwartzman.”
“Good evening, Dr. Schwartzman. How can I help you?”
Schwartzman settled back onto the settee. “I forgot to let you know that I have a new phone number. I got it today.”
“Oh, certainly, Dr. Schwartzman. Go ahead and give it to me. I’ll update your record right away.”
Schwartzman recited the new number, already memorized.
“Is there anything else?”
“I heard my front bell ring. Were you trying to reach me?”
“Your front bell?”
Schwartzman sat upright. “Yes. It rang in my unit.”
“Recently?” Martin asked.
“Just before I called you.”
“I’ve been at the desk the whole time. You haven’t had any visitors.”
“You’re certain?” she asked.
“Absolutely.”
“Can you hang on the phone a moment, Martin?”
“Of course, ma’am.”
Schwartzman carried the phone to the front door. It trembled in her hand. Her legs were shaky from the rush of adrenaline. Her heart sprinted in her chest.
“Dr. Schwartzman, would you like me to send someone up? I believe Caleb is still here. Or Francis, if you prefer.”
“No, Martin. If you don’t mind holding on, I want to check outside the door.”
“Of course.”
Schwartzman rose on her tiptoes to look out the peephole, which had been installed for someone at least six feet tall. The hallway was empty. She had heard the bell, she was certain. There was one bell outside the apartment door, but she’d never had anyone use it. Normally, the bell rang from downstairs. Anyone coming into the building would have had to pass Martin to get access to the intercom keypad.
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