CHAPTER 18
Richmond District, San Francisco
Saturday morning
“It’s the duplex on the right,” Delion said, pointing, and pulled his Crown Vic into the only free spot on Clinton Street, a good half block away. “We’re only a few blocks from the Golden Gate. If you guys like, I’ll drive you through the park when we’re done here. We can commune with the buffalo.”
Delion had called ahead, and so he wasn’t surprised when the door was opened immediately by a slight man with a receding hairline, stooped shoulders, and bright red sneakers on his feet.
“Mr. Carpenter? Roy Carpenter?”
The man nodded. “Inspector Delion?”
After introductions, Mr. Carpenter showed them into a long, narrow living room, the front window looking out over the cars on the other side of the street. Toys were scattered everywhere on small, colorful rugs. Lucy felt a lick of sadness. She hadn’t known he had a child.
Mr. Carpenter said, “Forgive the mess. My sister and my nephew Kyle are living with me at the moment. She, ah, left her abusive husband last week, finally. She’s staying with me until—well, I don’t know how long. Please sit down. Coffee?”
Since the three of them were floating in Starbucks coffee, they turned it down. When they were all seated side by side on a nubby gold sofa, Mr. Carpenter said, “You’re here about Arnette.” He tried to keep his voice flat, devoid of hope, to prevent disappointment, Coop knew. It was hard, so very hard, since he knew, all of them knew, that even after three-plus years, a victim’s family still held out hope that the missing loved one would once again, somehow, walk through the door and explain it all.
Delion pulled a small recorder from his jacket pocket. “Do you mind if we record this?”
“No, not at all.”
“We believe we know what happened to your wife, Mr. Carpenter.”
He jerked forward on his chair, and the naked hope in his voice was enough to break your heart. “You’ve found her? You know who took Arnette, what they did to her? Is she alive?”
“Mr. Carpenter, I’m sorry, sir, but we believe your wife was murdered. We also believe the person who killed her was named Kirsten Bolger. Do you know anyone by that name?”
Mr. Carpenter looked blank but only for a moment. Then he looked shell-shocked. “Kirsten Bolger? You think she murdered my wife? But why?”
Here was the link. Delion said, “We hope you’ll be able to tell us that, Mr. Carpenter.”
“But I didn’t even meet Kirsten Bolger until maybe six months after Arnette went missing. She called me, said she modeled with my wife and did I want to get together to talk about her? I was wallowing in grief and questions, and so I said yes. I remember it clearly, because I wanted to hear someone talk about Arnette like she was somehow here, alive.
“I met her at McDuff’s—that’s a bar down in the financial district on Sansome Street. You really believe Kirsten Bolger murdered my wife?”
“Yes, sir.”
“But that makes no sense, Inspector Delion. Why would you believe that?”
“We’ll get to that in a moment, sir.” Delion sat forward on the sofa. “I know it’s been a long time, Mr. Carpenter, but do you remember any of your conversation with Kirsten Bolger?”
They heard a toddler scream out, “Mama, Cool Whip!”
“Oh, that’s Kyle. He likes Cool Whip on his Cheerios. He’s got a good set of lungs on him. Missy said she’d keep him out of our hair.” He cleared his throat. “I remember Kirsten was glowing in her praise of Arnette. She never said she had a problem with her or anything bad, just told me how wonderful Arnette was.”
Lucy said, “Can you describe Kirsten Bolger?”
“I remember she was something to behold. She was wearing black, nothing but black, all the way down to a small black pearl in her nose. She had really long straight black hair, parted in the middle, like Cher when she was young, and she looked like a model, so thin you knew she had to be starving, bony arms sticking out of a sleeveless black T-shirt. Arnette was never that thin, thank heaven; she always said she couldn’t live without her peanut butter.” His voice caught, and he looked down at his red sneakers. After a moment, he cleared his throat, met Delion’s eyes.
“Kirsten’s face, it was fascinating, not beautiful, all angles and hollows, and very white, unnaturally white, I remember thinking, but still fascinating, and I thought the camera had to love her.
“I guess what I remember most is right before she left the bar, she said something like boy, was she ever hot, and I’ll tell you, I blinked at that until she pulled off the black hair—a wig—and there was her own hair, blond fuzz, maybe two inches long, all over her head. I nearly fell off my chair, I was so surprised. And then I remember thinking that she shouldn’t be a blonde, her eyes were too dark, her eyebrows, too. I wondered if she’d dyed all that blond frizz. But why?”
Delion said, “You said she was glowing in her praise of your wife. Do you remember exactly what she said?”
“She said Arnette was beautiful and kind and everyone had loved her, that when she disappeared no one could understand it. If you’ve read the interviews, you know this is what nearly everyone else said.” Mr. Carpenter looked away from them for a moment, seemingly at a stuffed brown bear on the floor by a chair. He was struggling with himself, Lucy saw it plainly, but why? “Tell us, Mr. Carpenter, tell us what you’re remembering. It’s important. What did Kirsten say that upset you?”
He looked like he was struggling not to cry. He drew a breath, and his words spilled out in a rush. “She said she was really sorry Arnette had left me, since I seemed like such a nice man. I tell you, I didn’t know what to say. I stared at her. And I asked her why she believed Arnette had left me, since everyone was thinking it was a case of kidnapping. She leaned toward me, picked up one of my hands, and held it a moment between her own two dead-white hands. She said Arnette told her all about it, how she was sorry, but I just wasn’t quite enough.” He swallowed. “That’s what she said—I just wasn’t quite enough. When I asked her if she knew the man’s name, she said all she’d heard Arnette say was the name Teddy.”
Delion said, “No last name?”
“No, only Teddy. I called the police, told them about this, but nothing happened.”
Delion said, “There was nothing about this in your wife’s file, Mr. Carpenter. Did you also give the officer you spoke to Kirsten’s name so there could be a follow-up with her?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Do you remember the officer’s name?”
“No, sorry, I don’t. I do remember he had to put me on hold a minute because there was a lot going on, a big drug bust, and I guess that meant lots of confusion. I could hear shouting and cursing in the background.”
Both Coop and Lucy knew exactly what Delion was thinking: I’m going to find and kill the idiot who took this call. Just a brief note or a couple of words to the lead—Inspector Driscol, now retired—and they might have caught Kirsten Bolger before she killed more women.
Lucy said, “So, basically, she invited you for a drink to tell you Arnette had left you for another man, this Teddy?”
“Yeah, now that I think back on it, all the rest of it was window dressing; telling me about the other man, that was the bottom line.”
“Did you believe her?”
“I believed her for maybe two seconds. I knew my wife, knew her as well as I knew myself. We’d been married for three years, not all that long, but we’d known each other since we were sixteen. I would have known if she’d met someone else. She would have told me. Whatever was in her head was out of her mouth in the next second.