“You know, I recognized you.”
I said nothing.
“At the house? I thought — when you introduced yourself, I mean, you’re like” — she waggled her hand above her head, meaning tall. “I wasn’t sure until you gave me your card.”
“You went to Cal,” I said.
“Oh-seven.”
“I was oh-six.”
“I know,” she said. “I looked you up, just to make sure I wasn’t imagining things. It was reassuring, in a way. Oh my God, I know him. Even though I don’t, really. That’s strange, right, for me to think that?”
I shrugged. “Not that strange. It happens. People feel a connection.”
“You’re used to being recognized.”
“We’re not talking about I’m famous.”
“Kind of, you were.”
I brought my thumb and forefinger close together. “That much.”
Narrowed them further, so they were almost touching. “For that long.”
“I never went to any games,” she said. “Is that terrible?”
“It is,” I said. “I’ll still help you, though.”
She laughed. “Cause that’s the kind of guy you are.”
I smiled, shrugged again.
“It was a thing that year,” she said, “the basketball team.”
It was. I was.
“I’m sure that’s why I didn’t go,” she said. “On principle. I was artsy. I’m sorry.”
I waved her apology away.
“Do you miss it?” she asked.
“Not really.”
“Not even a little?”
“I don’t mean that it was easy to stop,” I said. “It’s not like I had a choice.”
“And now?” she said. “Why this?”
“My job, you mean.”
She nodded.
“Why do you do what you do?” I asked.
“Because my mother put me in ballet slippers before I could walk.”
So far she hadn’t given any indication she could smell me, either the decomp or the Febreze. But I realized with a start that I could smell her. Scent has a role in my work; it’s another tool in the kit, and my nose has grown both highly attuned and not easily bothered. Every body, living or dead, has its own unique perfume. Tatiana’s was dark and rich and alive as she leaned toward me.
“It doesn’t get boring,” she said, “dealing with people like me all day?”
“No.”
“You sound very convincing.”
“It’s the truth,” I said. “When I talk to someone who’s grieving, they don’t care how many other people I’ve talked to, that day or any other day. They shouldn’t have to. For them, it’s the first time. They deserve the same attention and respect as everyone else.”
Tatiana rolled the empty water glass back and forth between her palms, like she was forming a clay snake. She said, “I know you don’t believe me about my dad.”
I started to object and she cut me off: “It’s fine. I wouldn’t believe me, either. But if what you just told me is true, look through my eyes for a minute.”
I wondered if everything to that point — asking me in, every word, every coy shape — was a run-up to this moment, when she could lobby me. But that threw far too much responsibility on her. She’d never asked me to come by to begin with. That was my idea.
I said, “Do you feel that people aren’t listening to you?”
“I feel that the cops don’t want to get into it, because that forces them to consider they might’ve screwed up.”
“Screwed up how?”
“When Nicholas died,” she said. “They ignored that, also, and now they have to justify their decision. But I remember how upset my dad was.”
“I can imagine,” I said.
She frowned. “I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not.”
“I’m not. It must have been terrifying for him.”
She allowed a nod.
“It must have affected you, too,” I said. “Not just that. All of it.”
“My parents did their best to shield me from what was going on. I was genuinely shocked when they told me they were getting divorced. I mean, I wasn’t blind. They’d been unhappy for years. And neither of them were experts at staying married. But for some reason I assumed they’d keep toughing it out. For me.” She scoffed at her own naïveté.
I asked how many times they had each been married before.
“Dad, just the once. Her? Boy. She’s what you’d call a runner. He was number five.”
“Well,” I said, “it’s not the smallest number I’ve ever heard.”
“But not the biggest, either,” she said hopefully.
“I had a guy once who was married nine times. Twice to the same woman.”
“People are insane,” she said. “She told me once that I was her Hail Mary. As in, her last chance to have a kid? Obviously she couldn’t get pregnant while she was dancing. It’s a refrain of hers. ‘I’ve seen it happen to too many girls, your body is never the same again...’ What’s that mean, you ‘had a guy.’ ”
I hesitated. “In the course of my duties.”
“Oh,” she said. “Right. I should’ve realized.”
“All my stories end the same way.”
“I’m almost afraid to ask what he died of.”
“Motorcycle accident.”
“I thought maybe his last wife killed him.” Her collar had begun to sag. She plucked at it, then reached behind to regather stray hairs at the base of her neck, shirt tautening over her breasts. It was warm in the kitchen. She didn’t have air-conditioning. Few East Bay homes do. You don’t need it till you need it. Diamonds glistened in the cup of her throat.
I said, “You mentioned the other day that you left Berkeley for a period.”
“I moved to New York.”
“To dance?”
She nodded. “I came back three years ago.”
“For your father.”
That I had discerned this appeared first to disarm her, then to please her.
“He never asked me to,” she said. “He tried to convince me not to, in fact. Somebody had to take care of him, though.”
“I’m sure he appreciated it.”
“Whether he did or he didn’t, he needed it, and nobody else was stepping up. Not working was terrible for him. It’s not like he couldn’t have hung out a shingle or whatever. Independent research. He told me he’d lost his professional credibility. I was like, ‘You are completely missing the point.’ I wanted him to keep busy.”
“Besides tennis,” I said.
“Besides tennis. That’s all he did. That and wander around the house.”
Idly she tapped the rim of the water glass. “I don’t expect to snap my fingers and voilà. But it’s frustrating to have the cops refuse to even ask questions. I mean, what harm is there? Other than for some guy’s ego.”
“You want my honest opinion?”
“I do,” she said.
“A lot of harm, potentially. I’ve seen people sacrifice their entire lives to questions.”
She said nothing.
“I’m not saying you’re wrong to ask.”
“But get it together and” — twirling air — “move on.”
I said, “I can’t pretend to know what’s right for you.”
She bit her lip. “All I’m asking is for you to please keep an open mind.”
A lying doctor; the echo of a fall; a murderer walking the streets.
It only felt like half a lie for me to say, “I will.”
She put the water glass in the sink and crouched to open the cabinet beneath. She pulled out a ceramic ashtray and a cigar box, both of which she set on the counter. Inside the box was a Baggie of marijuana, a packet of papers, and several pre-rolled joints.
She lit one off the range burner, took a deep drag.
Offered it to me still smoldering.