A Measure of Darkness

by Jonathan Kellerman

  In the garden, an irregularly shaped bed enclosed by chicken wire, two teenage girls, one thin, one obese, leaned on their shovels. The tops of winter vegetables shot from the soil: neon streaks of chard, cabbages mustering like a line of tiny green tanks.

  Camille Buntley strode along, waving, bellowing encouragement, indifferent to whether we were keeping up. A small boy ran up to throw his arms around her knees. She tousled his hair, gently pried him loose, and sent him on his way with a pat on the bottom.

  At a building marked WOODSHOP she paused to catch her breath. We’d reached the outermost limit of the cleared area. The path had ended. Beyond it, forest gloom.

  Camille plunged across the tree line.

  I heaved after her, swinging my crutch like a scythe.

  Her pace never slackened as she pressed on, throwing her bandy legs over fallen logs, batting aside licorice ferns that spewed from cracks in swollen bedrock. Amid the somber palette, spectral flashes: bone-white trilliums, like shrouds hung out to dry; slimed fungus caps with their noxious green-gray taunt.

  Mud sucked at my feet. I was beginning to lag.

  Nwodo glanced back.

  I waved her on.

  Soon I’d lost sight of them both.

  My father teaches science and math, and when I was growing up he would periodically remember his own sons, raised in the suburbs, weaned on video games. With a guilty pang he’d shove us into the Subaru and drive us to some outlying regional park for a forced march in nature. I suppose I ought to be grateful. We hated it. We bitched and moaned while he quizzed us on the flowers and the birds.

  Crashing through a thicket of California buckthorn, I had an uncomfortable and familiar thought: left to my own devices, I’d die out here.

  I caught up to the two of them at the base of a towering redwood that forked as it rose, forming a massive, shaggy candelabra.

  To my eye, nothing about the spot merited a filthy, half-mile pilgrimage. Within a hundred yards stood three dozen equally impressive trees.

  Yet it was clear that in Camille’s mind, we’d arrived. The air around her had settled palpably. I could no longer hear the man-made tumult of the students. In its place was a cryptic murmur, hidden things feasting and growing, biding their time.

  I leaned on my crutch, the ground spongy beneath.

  Camille knelt, scooped up bark, sifted it through her fingers. “She was never really mine, of course. I know that.”

  A flat tune she was singing—all business.

  Nwodo looked to me. Was this normal?

  I shrugged. No such thing.

  “She told me she had to leave,” Camille said, “or else she’d end up like me. I don’t think she meant to be quite so harsh. Still. It hurt.”

  Nwodo said, “Like you how?”

  “Here.” Camille tilted her head back, raising palms to the canopy. “Stuck.”

  It occurred to me that she had chosen this spot precisely for its anonymity.

  “That’s how you see yourself,” I said.

  “Me? No. Never. I was happy to take over. I had years to get used to the idea. My father was sick for a long time, and senile toward the end. For all intents and purposes, I was running the place. It was only natural for Winnie to assume I expected the same from her.”

  “Did you?”

  Camille shook her head. “I would never. For one thing, she showed no interest in teaching. No aptitude for it, either. To steer her into a role against her will, one that’s contrary to her nature, contradicts everything we believe. I wouldn’t do it to any other child, and I wouldn’t do it to her. I tried to tell her that. What else could she have thought, though? She cast her first Town Hall vote at two. I kept telling her: You’re free. I said it because I believed it. I do believe it. She must’ve resented hearing it, over and over, when she’d never left what she perceived as my domain.”

  Nwodo said, “How old was she when she left?”

  “Fifteen. Almost sixteen.”

  “Where’d she go?”

  “I couldn’t keep track of her. She went where she pleased, and if I got an update, it was long after the fact. South America, I think. Japan. She wanted to see where her father was born. Niigata Prefecture. They farm beautiful fish, there. I got a postcard, once. Greetings from Niagara Falls. That was her, being funny. Otherwise I had to wait for her to decide to show up, which she did, every so often. She’d pop in unannounced, stay for a couple of weeks, then disappear.”

  “Did you help her out financially?”

  “My father left her a small inheritance, but for the most part she managed on her own. She hitchhiked. She’s quite resourceful.”

  Enough to steal credit cards.

  “When she visited, a year and a half ago,” I said. “Is it possible she took information from the files then?”

  Camille blinked. “I suppose she must have.”

  “What about her friends?” Nwodo said. “Who are they?”

  “I couldn’t begin to tell you.”

  “People from school she kept in touch with?”

  “She chucked everyone when she left. Besides, that’s not how it works around here. There isn’t the same social dynamic as in a conventional setting. So-called peer groups,” Camille said, waving an airy hand. “Cliques determined by age or gender or what have you. It’s fluid. Winnie was accustomed to new faces coming and going all the time. Ever since she was born that was her experience. I imagine it was easy for her to let them go.”

  Nwodo said, “Ms. Buntley, I have to ask if you know of anyone who might want to harm Winnie.”

  Camille toed the dirt restively. “You have a list of people she stole from. Why don’t you start with them?”

  “We’re looking into it,” Nwodo said. “If you can think of anything that might help us be more directed, though.”

  No response. Protecting herself, maybe. Blocking out guilt for not knowing her own daughter well enough to provide a lead.

  When it comes to grief, normal is a moving target.

  Wind thrashed the canopy, wringing out a false rain shower, frigid droplets pricking the back of my neck and lacing down my spine.

  Camille Buntley said, “Please tell me she didn’t suffer.”

  I said, “No.”

  A lie, or not, depending on how you wanted to hear it.

  No, she didn’t.

  No, I can’t tell you that.

  She smiled unevenly, wrapped her arms around her waist, parsing the spaces between the trees. Seeing something, someone, that we could not.

  A young girl with dirty feet, unruly and incorrigible, naked beneath her gown.

  CHAPTER 19

  On our way back from the woods Camille left us by the moldering tin-roof shed where the school stored its records. She told us she’d be in her office and walked away.

  As promised, the door was unlocked.

  A thousand or so manila folders filled three rust-eaten file cabinets. Nwodo and I squeezed in alongside stockpiles of nonperishables: canned tuna in shrink-wrapped stacks, cartons of UHT milk, dried kidney beans in sealed five-gallon buckets. In the event of a nuclear holocaust, the children of Watermark would inherit the earth.

  The files dated back to the fifties, obeying a very rough alphabetical order. Compared with a typical school record, the contents were thin. There were no report cards; no grades of any kind. No disciplinary histories. No letters of recommendation or citations for achievement. A standardized form, typewritten on onion paper, noted DOB, parents’ home address, Social Security number. A second form detailed medical history and allergies; for recent enrollees, this was more often than not accompanied by a doctor’s note exempting the bearer from vaccination. About three-quarters of the folders contained a photograph of the child stapled to the inside left corner. The rest did not.

  W
hatever the school’s strengths as a steward of the future, it did not appear overly concerned with preserving its past.

  It took us an hour to dig up info on the women whose identities Winnie Ozawa had stolen, a perfect sixteen for sixteen. She’d put some thought into choosing her marks. All were at present between forty-five and fifty-five—numerically, the largest slice of the general population, and among its most creditworthy. All had spent fewer than three years at Watermark, lowering the risk that they would still be in touch with one another.

  I laid out the pages atop the tuna cans and took pictures. It felt right to advise the women of the potential damage to their credit. When it came to their value as suspects, however, I felt less convinced. Neither Leah Horvuth nor Cathie Myers had any clue what was happening, and a stolen credit card seemed like insufficient motive for murder.

  Nwodo agreed. “I doubt she knew any of them personally.”

  Early fifties was Camille’s age.

  Winnie taking a shot at her mother, unconsciously?

  “Maybe,” Nwodo said. “What kind of parent stands by while their kid runs off at fifteen and does nothing?”

  “She didn’t say she did nothing.”

  “Didn’t say she did something, either. We’re talking about a minor flying to Japan. At minimum Camille’s getting her a passport. That’s some seriously enabling shit.”

  “Could be her father got it for her.”

  The photograph in Winnie’s file showed her circa thirteen, a scimitar of hair obscuring one eye, smirking like she had a juicy secret.

  “That bit about no peer groups?” Nwodo said. “What teenager doesn’t have a best friend?”

  I set the folder down. “She’s twenty-one at time of death. Say Camille’s right. Everyone plays with everyone, so plus or minus a few years. That’s your potential social circle. What we should be doing is going through the files and writing down the name of anyone under twenty-five.”

  Nwodo smiled. “I thought they were joking about you.”

  “Who was?”

  She just shook her head.

  “Hold up,” I said. “Who was joking.”

  “I read the article,” she said.

  By “the article” she meant a feature story in the East Bay Times, published last year, about an old murder I’d helped solve. The writer had repeatedly solicited me for comment, which I declined to provide: I was under orders not to talk to the press. Strictly speaking, the case wasn’t mine; it was considered closed before I forced it back open. That we’d helped exonerate an innocent man was irrelevant. To Sergeant Vitti, I’d disregarded regs and engaged in grandstanding.

  I said to Nwodo, “Totally different thing.”

  “All right.”

  “For real. It was a unique set of circumstances.”

  “What’s happening with the guy, anyway? Whatsit? Triple-something.”

  “Julian Triplett,” I said. “Application for pardon went in. His lawyers are hoping the governor will want it off his desk fast because of the media. You didn’t answer my question. Who was joking?”

  “I might’ve done some research on you.”

  “Did you now.”

  “Talked to a friend at Berkeley PD.”

  “Aha.”

  “It’s my case you’re on,” she said. “I have to know who I’m dealing with. All I’ve heard, you’re this guy who comes in and messes around with other people’s work.”

  Once she said that, a number of things clicked into place. She hadn’t recognized my name from my basketball days. She recognized it from the rumor mill. I understood her initial reluctance to collaborate, as well as the reversal: she wanted to keep me close, in case I decided to get creative.

  I started laughing.

  Nwodo broke into a wide grin. “You wanted honesty.”

  “I guess it didn’t help when I asked to tag along at the hospital,” I said.

  “That was a rude-ass move.”

  “I apologize. Who was it at Berkeley, though? It was Schickman, right?”

  “His partner. Guy I know who used to be at OPD.”

  “What’s his name? Do I know him?”

  “Billy Watts.”

  “I don’t even know this guy and he’s slandering me?”

  “Truth be told he got rather poetic on the subject. ‘What’s the deal with this guy? I need to watch out or what?’ Watts, he goes”—she squeezed her hands in death grips—“ ‘He’s like a giant fucking barnacle.’ ”

  “That is…Wow.”

  “I think he meant it as a compliment.”

  “Oh, absolutely,” I said.

  “Hey, I’m sitting here with you, am I not?”

  “What changed your mind?”

  She began collecting folders, butting them into line. “Who said I changed my mind?”

  * * *

  —

  CAMILLE’S OFFICE WAS deserted. Nwodo took out a card to write her a note.

  “Excuse me.”

  The young teacher with the rimless glasses hovered in the doorway.

  “We’re leaving,” I said. “We wanted to say goodbye to Ms. Buntley.”

  “She went into town,” the teacher said. “She needed to pick up a few things.”

  Nwodo said, “Any idea how long she’ll be?”

  He combed at his chin. The beard was a dense tobacco brown, rising to mid-cheek and stopping in a neat line. Upper cheeks smooth. Like someone had stuck a gag beard on a baby. “It’s thirty minutes, each way. Usually she’s quick, but.” He paused. “Is something going on? She looked upset.”

  “We can’t discuss that,” Nwodo said.

  “Sure. Of course. Didn’t mean to pry.”

  Nwodo placed the card in the center of the desk. “When you speak to her, please let her know we were here and that we left.”

  “I will.”

  “Thank you, Mister…”

  “Zach. Bierce.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Bierce.”

  I said, “Any relation to Ambrose?”

  He smiled. Heard that before and liked it. “Cousin.”

  “No kidding.”

  “Distant. Like, nine times removed.”

  “Do you teach him to your students?”

  He shrugged. “I teach what they want to learn.”

  “How’s that working out?” Nwodo asked.

  Bierce took her question in stride. “Ahh, it’s not so bad. They’re good kids. They mean well. If you can get them to sit still for fifteen minutes, that’s a win.”

  “Pretty different from other schools,” I said.

  “I don’t have a point of comparison,” he said. Another shrug. “It’s my first time teaching. I only started last year.”

  Nwodo said, “You’ll give Camille the message.”

  “You got it.”

  We exited. Bierce shut the office door behind.

  * * *

  —

  BEFORE GETTING INTO the BMW we scraped the mud from our shoes. Nwodo threw the car into reverse. With a glance at the backup camera, she made as if to gun it. Then, reconsidering, she twisted around, going at a snail’s pace, mindful of the presence of children at play.

  As we jounced along the muddy track, I stared into the trees, searching for the girl in the nightgown. I thought I caught a glimpse of her, a shimmering wisp of white, but I might have been mistaken.

  * * *

  —

  WE STOPPED AT a San Rafael diner for hamburgers and coffee. Our table afforded an expansive view of the harbor, bristling masts and moody waters like ruffled silk. Gulls, arrogant and rancorous, strutted along the pier, brawling over potato chip fragments before taking to the sky, specks shed by the sky itself.

  Nwodo said, “The thing with Jankowski.”

 
I looked at her.

  “You asked what changed my mind,” she said. “That’s what did it. You didn’t go banging on the table for credit.”

  “Too much paperwork.”

  She snorted benignly. “Whatever. It’s not like I got folks lining up to help me. I’ll take what I can get.”

  Understaffed, underfunded, underappreciated: the cop’s lament. Behind it, though, I sensed a deeper loneliness. I knew what it was like to live with victims—to have them take up residence in your head, nameless, insistent; to carry on a conversation no one else can hear. Not your spouse or your friends. Not your colleagues, who are themselves immersed in their own private conversations. I knew how much it meant to be able to off-load that weight, even a little.

  “My day off,” I said. “It’s either this or clean the bathroom.”

  She smiled. “I tracked them down, by the way. The film crew from the rally.”

  The young cameraman; the older director limping behind. I’d almost forgotten about them. “No way. And? What’s the deal?”

  “Three guesses.”

  “Do I stand a chance?”

  “None,” Nwodo said. “Okay. Night of the party, you remember there was a guy got shot in the leg?”

  “Schumacher.”

  Nwodo whistled. “Go for bonus points?”

  “…Oswald. That was him?”

  “Him and his cameraman,” she said. “He’s making a documentary.”

  “About…?” I stared. “Oh come on. Not about the shooting.”

  She fashioned air quotes. “ ‘It’s my story, too.’ ”

  “He got grazed. He wasn’t even in the hospital overnight.”

  “ ‘A story that needs to be told.’ ”

  “That is hella tacky.”

  “You don’t know the half,” she said. “He tried to get me to do a sit-down.”

  “On camera?”

  “I mean.” She laid a dainty hand on her chest. “It’s my story, too.”

  “A story that needs to be told.”

  “Not if I want to keep my job,” she said. A beat. “Maybe I should take him up.”

  The waiter came by to refill our coffees. I added milk, stirred. “Your pal, Watts. He transferred from Oakland to Berkeley?”