I said, offhandedly, “What I really need is a metal detector.”
“What a coincidence,” Ming said. “I got one in my butthole.”
I stared up at the canopy. “How’d you know when it was time for you to get out?”
Ming shrugged. “When you start spending days off climbing trees.”
I laughed.
“You ready to give up,” he said, “I have a job for you at the bakery. Sweeping.”
I drained the water. “Not yet.” Stepped on the bottom rung. “Spot me.”
I’d been at it for fifteen minutes when, behind me, a woman’s voice rang out.
“What do you think you’re doing.”
I risked a glance over my shoulder. She was back: the crotchety neighbor I’d spoken to on my previous visit. She was standing on the landing — her landing — wearing a sleeveless floral dress, a floppy straw hat, and a necklace made of knuckles of pink stone. She had her hands on her hips and was gawking at me in furious disbelief.
I blinked at her across thirty feet of open air. We were almost exactly eye level. I doubt she recognized me. Months had elapsed since our last encounter, and I was in street clothes, my face speckled with dirt and redwood bark.
I tried to smile. “Hi there.”
“What do you think you’re doing?” she shouted. “Get down from there.”
“I’ll just be a sec,” I said.
I turned my back on her, climbed another rung, began a new sweep.
“You can’t do that.”
I called down to Ming. “Little help, please?”
“You’re hurting it.”
To my dismay, Ming released his grip on the ladder and trotted over to the fence separating the two properties, standing on a rock to address her.
“Hey lady,” he said. “Chill out.”
Somebody give this man the Nobel Peace Prize.
“Do you see what he’s doing? Are you witnessing this?”
“Yeah, I see.”
“He is raping the tree.”
“Hey, lady, please. You giving me a headache.”
“Silence is a form of consent. I do not consent.”
The super poked his head out, saw what was happening, sighed volubly.
Meanwhile Ming had fetched the bakery bag and thrust an arm over the fence, waving the pastries at her. “Have a croissant.”
The super said, “Ms. Parker, these men come from the police.”
An ominous lull.
“Rape.” Her voice had risen steeply in pitch and volume. “State, sponsored, rape.”
“Lady,” Ming said, “you need a dictionary.”
The next short while felt like an eternity, as I continued to search the bark and she continued to torch me as a prime example of the worst of white male privilege. Curtains began shifting in neighboring windows, sleepy faces peering out, concerned and confused. In retrospect I’m amazed we didn’t attract more attention. Although I’m not sure what anyone could’ve done, other than call the cops (ha!) or kick the ladder out from under me.
At one point a young man with a backpack wandered up the duplex driveway. He looked at the shrieking lady, at me, at her, adjusted his glasses, and departed.
At last she spun on her heel and stormed inside her apartment. A moment of silence.
Ming said, “Oh come on, lady.”
“It is ten fifty-eight in the morning on the twentieth of March...”
She was recording me with her phone.
“When I arrived on the scene,” she said, “the assault was already in progress.”
I resumed my search.
Impressively, she never stopped talking, though she soon ran out of ways to describe my crimes and shifted to invoking theories of power and control, darting back inside her house to retrieve a copy of a Judith Butler reader.
Nearing the top of the search area, I slid the screwdriver between two ridges of bark and watched the shank sink several inches deep, the blade landing on a bumpy patch. By then I’d gotten accustomed to a certain texture, a responsiveness in the surface of the wood.
This was different.
I began prying at the bark with my fingers, stripping away chunks and tossing them aside. I’ll admit it did feel a tad invasive.
Having tunneled down to bare wood, I beheld a partially healed fissure, at its center a sunken gray smudge. I worked the tip of the screwdriver into the crack.
“The male tool becomes an inflictor of forcible penetration,” the woman said.
I tried unsuccessfully to pry the object loose. The trouble was the length of my limbs: I had crappy leverage. I was swaying all over the place, my palms slick, my shoes failing to keep their grip.
Ming called, “Fool, come down.”
I did. “Definitely something,” I said, stepping off the ladder. “I can’t get it out.”
He took the screwdriver from me, clamped it between his teeth, and scampered up, heedless of the wobbling.
“And so violation multiplies,” the woman said, “rape becoming gang rape.”
It took Ming all of ninety seconds to extract the object. He came down and lovingly displayed it in the palm of his hand.
He said, “Check out this little motherfucker.”
“This little motherfucker” was the mutilated remnant of a bullet.
Caliber indeterminate. Full metal jacket.
I faced the duplex landing. The woman was still there, still ranting, though I’d begun to mentally edit her out.
I said, “Rennert’s disturbed by what he’s learned from Julian Triplett over the years. He pieces together what really happened — maybe not with a hundred percent conviction, but enough to wonder. He feels betrayed. Linstad was like a son to him. He decides to confront him about it. He’s concerned for his own safety, so he takes the gun along. Or maybe he meant to scare him. Rennert was prone to grandiose gestures, we’ve seen evidence of that. They get drunk, words are exchanged—”
“Bang bang,” Ming said.
“They’re fighting,” I said. “It goes off by accident.”
“Don’t be stupid, stupid,” Ming said.
I looked at him.
“No sign of struggle,” he said. “No holes in the walls. No holes in the windows.”
“So?”
“So,” he said, “how’s he hit the tree?”
I traced the imaginary path of the bullet. “Through the open doorway.”
“Who opened it.”
I let the scene play in my mind.
A big body, crashing onto the landing.
Slamming into the banister, jarring it loose.
Slipping on the wet wood. Tumbling down the stairs.
“Linstad,” I said. “He was trying to get away.”
I looked at Ming. “Rennert shot at him as he ran.”
Ming smiled dreamily. “In the back, I think.”
Midnight; rain; blood everywhere. I could understand why Rennert mistakenly thought his shot had been fatal.
“Never forget,” the woman yelled.
“You gonna tell his daughter?” Ming asked.
Let me know what you find.
I shook my head.
Ming cackled. He dropped the bullet fragment in his breast pocket. “For a stupid guy, you pretty smart.”
Chapter 44
In July, our team threw a party to celebrate Moffett’s promotion to sergeant. Sully baked a carrot cake. Carmen Woolsey brought five-layer Mexican dip. Even Shupfer got into the act, slopping down a Costco bag of caramel corn.
A strong showing, considering that, until quite recently, none of us — not me, not Zaragoza, not even Dani Botero — had any idea Moffett had taken the exam, let alone passed. Let alone gotten the highest score in four years.