by Saul Black
“She asked if you and I were still together.”
“What did you say?”
“I told her we were.”
“Why engage with that? You know what she’s like.”
“Because you don’t gain anything by not engaging,” Valerie said. “Not engaging shows her you care. I’d rather not give her that.”
Nick opened his mouth to say, Well, just be careful—but thought better of it. Valerie, too, withdrew herself slightly.
“I’m wondering if she knew Elizabeth Lambert,” she said.
“You asked her, presumably?”
“Yeah. She said not. But obviously we can’t take anything at face value. He says the victims aren’t random.”
“People who pissed Katherine off?”
“It’s possible.”
“Not a bit obvious for him?”
“Maybe. But if he says they’re not random, it’s probably true.”
“Or it’s more smoke to eat up the hours.”
There’s something else I want to talk to you about.
“She looked surprisingly well,” Valerie said.
“She’s in solitary most of the time, right?”
“According to the warden. But the warden was half enamored.”
Nick shrugged. “Must be like having one bright kid in a class of dummies,” he said. “If she talks, it’s hard not to listen.”
“I thought Will was going to punch her at one point.”
Be careful I don’t creep in tonight, after you’ve turned your wife over.
“Why? What did she say?”
Now’s your chance. Get it over with.
But she didn’t. You don’t want to know the things you want to know.
Instead, she shrugged. “She’s always rubbed him the wrong way. Anyway, fuck it. Enough. This is delicious, by the way.”
Valerie was annoyed at herself. This isn’t that movie, either, she’d said. Wasn’t it? Wasn’t she, after minutes with Katherine, back in the Drift? When she was a kid in high school, her English teacher, Mrs. Hillyard, had given them a salutary little lesson in the power of language: Now do me a favor, she’d said. Think of anything you like except Napoleon’s white horse. Naturally Valerie along with every other kid in the class had immediately had an image of Napoleon sitting astride a white horse. Language exerts control, Mrs. Hillyard had said. Poets know how to get images under your skin. Sometimes they do it without you even realizing it. It’s one of the world’s last forms of magic. So for all of you who think literature is a waste of time, just remember that. Control what’s in a person’s head, you control the person. In its lowest form it’s advertising and propaganda. In its highest form it’s art. Every time you open your mouth or write something down you have the potential to change the way someone thinks, and if you can change the way they think, you can change the way they behave.
And here Valerie was, behaving.
“You working?” Nick said, when they’d cleared away the dinner things.
“I have to,” Valerie said. “Just a couple of hours.” She had interview reports with Elizabeth’s neighbors and family to go through. The postmark on the envelope had been identified and dated, too: Reno, mailed a week before Elizabeth’s murder. For all the good that did them. The package of “clue” documents had been mailed from San Jose. Short of knowing they’d been put in a regular U.S. mailbox, that was as far as the information had gotten them. They knew which sorting offices the material had reached, and indeed the number of mailboxes in the offices’ catchment area, but all that left them was looking at every box covered by street cameras. There were many. He could have had a third party make the drop, or made it himself, incognito. But most likely was that he chose a mailbox obscured from CCTV, if Katherine’s claims for his tech omniscience were to be believed. The Bureau was looking through the footage, but it was needle/haystack labor. So far, despite the press release, they’d had only three probable hoaxes (no DNA or print match), two in San Francisco, one in L.A., but the “warned” victims were still under police watch, were still being investigated, were still gobbling up department resources and time.
“Okay,” Nick said. “I’ve got some stuff to do as well. If I fall asleep, wake me up when you come to bed.”
“All right.”
“You always say all right, but you never do.”
“You always look too peaceful. My kindness gets the better of me.”
“Okay, but if I have a hard-on, wake me up.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“I mean if it’s kindness driving you.”
It took longer than two hours, and Nick was asleep by the time she turned in. No hard-on, but he stirred and half woke when she slid in next to him.
“Doesn’t seem like such a hot idea now, does it?” she said.
He put his arm around her and pulled her close. “Just give me five minutes,” he slurred. “Then brace yourself.” He kissed her neck and ran his hand down between her legs, cupped her there, snugly.
Within thirty seconds, he was deeply asleep again.
12
“Well, I think you’re crazy,” Valerie’s sister said to her the following day.
“It’s just work, Cass.”
“For Christ’s sake. Let Will talk to her.”
“She’s not going to say anything to Will.”
“Right,” Cassie said. “Because you and her have the special bond. Jesus.”
It was a little after noon, and they were at the Volunteer Bureau drop-in center in Union City where Cassie, who worked there gratis twice a week, was just wrapping up her shift. Valerie had been in the neighborhood on a lead that had turned out to be nothing: Tech’s trawl through Elizabeth’s e-mail had revealed that she’d met up with an old college friend, Simon Garner, two weeks before she’d been murdered. According to her sister Gillian, a guy she hadn’t seen in years. Valerie had questioned him, but even aside from him looking nothing like the Man in the Mask (he was five-seven, paunchy, and balding) he had a solid story and alibi. He’d run into Elizabeth more than a month ago at the Stonestown Galleria (where he’d been shopping with his wife of twenty years) and they’d swapped contact details. Two weeks later they’d met for coffee, caught up, and agreed to keep in touch. On the night of Elizabeth’s murder, he’d been home with his family having a dinner party with two other couples, all of whom verified. He taught math at Mission Hills Middle School, and, with the exception of the occasional after-school club, was always home with his family. His narrative did nothing more than confirm her instincts, which had known, within the first few moments of speaking with Simon Garner, that he wasn’t the man they were looking for.
Since she was driving right past the Volunteer Bureau, Valerie had stopped in to wish Cassie happy birthday, and to promise to do her best to get herself and Nick to the barbecue later that evening. The Bureau was half admin, half social club, a nonprofit coordination center that matched volunteers with organizations needing help; the “social club” was open to everyone from lonely retirees to adults with physical disabilities or nonviolent mental health troubles. Now that her kids were both in school, Cassie had gone back to ER nursing at St. Rose three days a week (the sisters shared a mutual I-don’t-know-how-the-fuck-you-do-it attitude toward each other’s profession) but still donated six hours a week serving coffees and lunches at the Bureau. See, you have this thing, Valerie had said to her, this kindness thing. You nabbed the whole genetic supply. There wasn’t any left by the time I was in the womb. It was selfish of you, when you think about it. To which Cassie had replied, Yeah, you don’t do anything for anyone except save their lives or catch their killers. You’ll probably go straight to hell.
“You’ve done your time with that witch,” Cassie said.
“Drop it,” Valerie said. “It’s not up for discussion.”
There were a dozen or so visitors in the café. Three severe-looking old ladies were playing cards at a small table by the window. A woman in a floral-prin
t housedress was at one of the two desktops, looking at wardrobes on the Home Depot Web site. An overweight guy with a shaved head and a lot of arm tattoos was sitting in a cracked vinyl armchair, having what looked like a furious whispered argument with an old blind guy seated in the wingback chair opposite him. The blind guy’s guide dog sat with his head in his owner’s lap and a look of given-up hope that the argument would ever be settled. Glenn Miller’s “Moonlight Serenade” was playing at a low volume.
“Don’t tell me what’s up for discussion,” Cassie said. She was two years older than Valerie, a slim, energetic woman with their mother’s high cheekbones and lively hazel eyes, who, kindness notwithstanding, was what their father had always called “a straight shooter.”
“Fine,” Valerie said. “It was up for discussion. We’ve had the discussion. She might be useful, so I’m using her. That’s all.”
“You’re a moron,” Cassie said. “And are you actually going to dry that cup or are you just going to stand there making love to it with your fingers?”
Valerie had absently picked up a towel for the dishes Cassie was washing, but she hadn’t made much of an impact.
“Gentlemen?” Cassie said, looking past her.
Valerie turned. The tattooed guy and the old blind man were standing a few feet away.
“Are we doing this now?” the blind guy said.
“For Christ’s sake,” the tattooed guy said. “I just told you.”
“Yeah, but have you got the—”
“Wait, will you? Jesus.”
“What’s wrong?” Cassie said.
“Could you turn the music down for a second?” the tattooed guy said.
“You don’t like it, Tommy?”
“You should have asked Bree,” the blind guy said.
“Will you just for the love of God let me handle this?” Tommy said.
“I like the music,” the blind guy said. “Mainly because it actually sounds like music. As opposed to the goddamned car-crash crap some people—”
“Shut up, will you? I’m dealing with it.”
“Tommy, John, easy, easy, calm down,” Cassie said. Valerie concealed her amusement. She remembered these two from her last visit. They irritated the hell out of each other, though they always sat together, as if the irritation were a secret delight. You’d think Tommy was the problem, Cassie had confided to her. I mean, he looks the part. But that buzzard loves nothing more than jerking his chain. It’s Tommy who gets John’s coffee and sandwiches and helps him to the bathroom.
“We like it fine,” Tommy said, taking a calming breath. “But could you just … just turn it down for a moment?”
Cassie shrugged, dried her hands, and turned down the volume.
“Okay, people,” Tommy said, raising his voice. “One, two—”
“You said I was going to count us in,” John said.
Tommy performed a sudden tension-relieving gesture by rolling his head on his neck. Another deep breath. “Fine,” he said. “Go ahead. Jesus Christ.”
John lifted his head and raised his voice. The guide dog looked up at him with forlorn loyalty. “One, two, three…”
Cassie’s fellow volunteer, Bree, came in from a side door, carrying a chocolate cake with a solitary candle, as the room’s group faltered their way into perhaps the least tuneful version of “Happy Birthday” Valerie had ever heard, and Cassie just stood there with her hands over her face.
The song ended with a round of applause as Bree set the cake down on the countertop and Cassie bent and blew out the candle.
“Did she blow it out?” John said.
“Don’t say ‘she,’” Tommy said. “‘She’ is right here in the room, for Christ’s sake.”
“Now, now, Tommy,” Bree cautioned.
“I did blow it out, John, yes,” Cassie said. “Thank you. You guys are totally evil. But I guess you all get a piece of this delicious-looking cake.”
Bree handed her a knife.
“You know I’m only thirty-eight, right?” Cassie said.
* * *
Back at the station, Will had two updates.
“First, the white powder,” he said. “It’s flour. As in baking. Plain as opposed to self-rising. I went over there this morning: there’s no plain or self-rising flour in Elizabeth’s kitchen cupboards. Could be she had some that was old and she was throwing it out, but trash collection there is Tuesday mornings, and there was nothing like that in the trash that’s still there now. If she threw it out before, it’s not likely traces of it would still be there a week later—or at any rate not the amount you found. Second, we have the footage from the coffee shop CCTV. The only stuff available, but it’s a block down from Elizabeth’s, and shows only the interior, so unless he dropped in for a caffeine hit before doing his thing we’re going to be sitting through hours of hipsters with laptops trying to look important and busy.”
“Great,” Valerie said. “I’ll toss you for it.”
“Screw that, it’s your turn,” Will said. “Plus, if I have to watch people who should be doing a real job instead of tweeting pictures of their fucking croissants and nail polish I’ll end up killing someone.”
“Nothing from McLuhan?”
“They’re doing a new streamline. They did it first time around, but they’re redoing it so it doesn’t feel like they’re all just walking around in their suits pointlessly. Guys who fit the profile: educated California with old-money backgrounds with some connection to the tech smarts our guy has. So far it’s the same list, but they’re chasing it anyway, cross-referencing with cosmetic surgery, if you can believe that.”
“And we still don’t know how he got in?”
“Nope. Maybe he was an artisan flour salesman with samples.”
“There probably is such a thing. It’s Noe Hill.”
“He either picked his way in or he knew her. Same story.”
“All right, fine, I’ll take the footage.”
“It’s on your desktop. I’m going to grab a sandwich. You want anything?”
“Vanilla latte,” she said. “Since I’m going to be watching people drinking the stuff.”
Valerie started on the coffee shop CCTV material. She’d gotten only five minutes in when she stopped it and smiled to herself. She hit REWIND, then PLAY again, and watched until Will got back with a meatball sub and her coffee.
“Look at this,” she said. “Anything useful?”
Will came around to her side of the desk and observed, over her shoulder. As he had predicted, people talking on their cell phones, working on laptops, wiping cappuccino foam from their top lips. Occasionally a passing vehicle made the light in the café dim and flare. One of the baristas, a young Latina, took a moment to retie her thick dark hair, checking her reflection in the mirror behind the counter.
“Nothing?” Valerie said.
“What?”
“Seriously?”
“What?”
“For a man who looks in the mirror as often as you do…”
“Oh,” Will said. “Ha-ha. Yeah. Fuck.”
The coffee shop’s mirror ran the length of the counter on the back wall of the café. The reflection, naturally, showed the front window, the outside tables beyond it—and a view of the opposite side of the street. The side on which Elizabeth Lambert’s building stood. The building itself wasn’t in view. It was too far up the block. But traffic, vehicular and pedestrian, was blurrily visible.
“Sherlock Hart,” Will said. “Congratulations. There’s sixteen hours of it. These guys are open seven till eleven.”
“That’s why we’re splitting it. I’ll go from here to five. You can start at five and go through till midnight.”
“That’s insane.”
“It’s the work.”
“You can’t see the license plates, Val.”
“For all we know he was on foot. And I’ll have a bit of that sandwich. It’s too big for you. You know you made a Freudian choice with that, right?”
�
��What?”
“Meatballs. You’re clearly still worried about your own.”
It was irritating to have to keep waiting for—or fast-forwarding to—the CCTV’s internal angle to switch back to the one showing the mirror’s street view, and additionally maddening that the view itself was repeatedly impeded by the scuttling baristas. Plus, even when the view was clear, there really wasn’t much to see. Traffic passed, but in profile. License plates weren’t discernible and the light bouncing off the windows obscured the drivers anyway. There was a long, dispiriting stretch when two hipsters stood chatting to an old Ginsberg type at one of the outside tables, effectively blocking the view of the opposite sidewalk. She’d frozen the frame every time a lone male pedestrian appeared, logging the time codes for each (there were five), but no amount of scrutiny had yielded a face even vaguely resembling Katherine’s guy. She would get the tech guys to do what they could with enhancement, but she wasn’t holding her breath. Her sense of futility grew rather than diminished—until, three hours in, she found something.
A guy in a baseball cap, pale-blue overalls, and a backpack walked into the frame. Valerie had just time to notice he was carrying some odd-looking contraption before the Latina barista got up on a footstool to reach down for a mug and blocked her view. By the time she’d stepped down again, the guy in the overalls had passed out of the shot.
Her instinct twitched.
She rewound, slow-motioned, froze the frame. The pixelation was lousy. All she could really see of his face were sunglasses and a mustache and beard. Longish dark hair protruding from under the cap. She maxed out on the zoom option. Utilities? Maintenance? For the life of her she couldn’t work out what he was carrying. It was a plastic gallon can filled with white liquid, with a hose attachment and a nozzle. Spray paint? But why the backpack?
Even this slight speculation was enough to flirt a little more blatantly with her instinct.
She ran the footage again. Barely two seconds. But enough to see that the liquid in the container didn’t move. So not liquid, obviously. Some sort of white powder.
Flour?
“Hey,” she said to Will. “Have a look.”