Okay, she told herself, it was just one of those nights.
But – the walls closing in, the droning television her only companion, she decided she’d go out for a walk, grab a cup of decaf at one of the places over on Clement, that’s what she’d do. By then her mom and dad might be home and she could talk to them for a few minutes and then turn in.
She considered calling her partner; but no, she saw enough of Lanier, and socially he was not her idea of company. Besides, they would wind up talking about the case.
It was eating her up.
She felt an unseen pair of hands pushing down on her, holding her in the chair. She was not going to turn out like Sal Russo, she told herself. So what if she lived alone in an apartment not too dissimilar from his? What did that mean? Half the city – hell, half the people her age in cities all over the world – lived like this. Or worse, sometimes much worse. It didn’t necessarily lead anywhere.
She wasn’t anything like Sal. She wasn’t going to wind up where he had. She was a success. By thirty-two she’d reached the peak of her profession.
The walls again. She hadn’t gotten around to hanging any art. With her work she hadn’t had time. And look, there were a couple of posters after all – the Monterey Aquarium, a saguaro cactus in a desert somewhere that reminded her of her parents – but they were both unframed, sagging from their tacks in the faded drywall.
She got up and took the five-step walk into the kitchen. It was neat enough, unlike Sal’s. (‘See?’ she said to herself.) There were no dirty dishes piled anywhere. But the linoleum was peeling up in the corners. The table and chairs were thrift store, secondhand. Nice enough, but after thirty more years, she wondered what they’d look like, what they’d feel like, at that time to someone who was her age now.
But that was silly. Of course she’d move up, into something better. Now she was young and unattached. She didn’t need any more. But Graham – damn him, coming back into her consciousness like this! – Graham’s place wasn’t at all like this, was it? It was elegant and fine. And he, too, was young and unattached.
In the door between kitchen and living room she surveyed her own place objectively, as if it were a crime scene, as if something had happened to her here, tonight, now.
The afghan had been tossed off, and lay half on the ancient wing chair, half on the woven throw rug. Everything in sight was well used: the homemade brick-and-board bookshelves with their dog-eared paperbacks and law-enforcement journals, the cassette player, the lion’s-claw coffee table, pocked with rings from hot, cold, wet glasses placed directly on the wood.
The couch was frayed and worn, its once-bright red, gold, and green brocade now lackluster, nearly sepia. The three-bulb standing lamp behind the sofa threw almost no light; two bulbs needed to be replaced.
She was going out. All right. This was just a mood. If she didn’t like her apartment, she’d change it soon. It had never bothered her before. She wasn’t stuck with it forever. She’d just turn off the television…
‘… Graham Russo, who was arrested, then released, last week for assisting at the suicide of his father…’
He was not home. The house was as dark as it had been the night before.
She’d parked at the bottom of the street, across from a streetlight under a canopy of trees. Now she stood leaning against the hood of her car, looking north, back toward her apartment, trying not to think.
Edgewood dropped off in a cliff. From where she stood, she could look down a hundred feet or so into the backyards and onto the roofs of the multi-story buildings below her, on Parnassus. In one of the upper windows – close enough to see clearly – two men were in a bed together, naked.
The chill had come up again, a brisk breeze out of the west, although with her fisherman’s sweater, she wasn’t cold. Still, she tightened her arms around herself. A stair street – Farnsworth – fell off steeply to her right. In the wake of the chik-chik-chik of an owl flying overhead, she heard footsteps coming up the steps.
She’d left her apartment hurriedly, unarmed. Now she backed into the shadow of the canopy as the steps came up to her, paced and rhythmic, jogging.
Suddenly certain, she stepped out into the light as Graham got to the top of the steps. Seeing her, breathing hard, he stopped. His shoulders dropped and he shook his head as if she’d finally beaten him. Gathering another breath, he spread his hands, palms out. ‘Am I under arrest?’
The thought was so far from her mind that she laughed out loud. ‘What are you doing?’
It took a minute for him to figure out what she meant. ‘Trying to stay in shape. Running off some of this’ – he gestured ambiguously, took in another lungful of air – ’all this madness.‘ He was still panting. ’Those are some serious stairs. More than a hundred, I’d bet, but who’s counting?‘ Then, focusing back on her, ’So if I’m not under arrest…?‘
She took a half step toward him. ‘I guess I’m finally off duty. I thought you might have some of that wine left.’
They walked uphill, in the middle of the street, in silence.
Inside, he turned on the indirect track lights and opened the curtains to the view. Downtown and the East Bay shimmered down below them. ‘I was going to take a shower,’ he said, indicating the tiny booth that was his bathroom. ‘There’s no room to change in there.’
She swiveled in the chair, grabbed one of the magazines. ‘I won’t look.’
When he got out of the shower, he opened a bottle of red and poured them both a glass. They moved to opposite ends of the low leather couch. Graham was back in his uniform – barefoot, baggy running shorts, a T-shirt. Sarah, tennis shoes and all, had her legs curled under her.
Though Barbara Brandt’s announcement that she’d counseled Graham in the minutes before he’d killed his father was the immediate catalyst that had gotten her out of her own apartment and up to here, Sarah felt no inclination to raise the subject. She’d told him she was off duty, and she was. Graham evidently hadn’t yet even heard about it; he’d been out jogging to the beach and back, over an hour. The phone, she noticed, was unplugged.
She had no idea where the words came from. ‘Your father painted,’ she began, out of the blue.
The comment seemed to require an adjustment to Graham’s mind-set. He shifted on the couch, averted his eyes. ‘He did a lot of things. Are you still off duty?’
She had to smile at that. ‘Yeah.’
‘You want to talk about my father?’
She nodded. ‘Looks like. I was at his place. It got a little bit inside me. So did he.’
Graham leaned down and put his wineglass on the floor, then stood again, crossing to the bookshelves. He turned. ‘You know, when I got the letter, I hadn’t talked to him in like fifteen years. He was at my high school graduation, just came up and said hello when my mom wasn’t around. Congratulations. I had no idea what to say back. I think I just looked at him. All I really remember is it made me feel sick.’
‘And that’s the last time you saw him? I mean, before the letter?’
Graham shook his head no. ‘That’s what’s funny. When I worked for Draper, I’d see him on Fridays all the time, out in his truck behind the courthouse. I’d stand at the window and watch him out in the alley. Everybody seemed to love him.’
‘But you didn’t go down?’
‘I thought I hated him.’ Still across the room from her, he pulled a kitchen chair over and straddled it. ‘Even after the letter…’ He stopped.
‘I thought the letter was when you connected.’
He considered that for a beat. ‘I saw him in Vero then, once. But it wasn’t very good. I was a jerk. I think it’s my truest talent, jerkhood.’
‘I think it’s jerkitude.’ Then, realizing how that could be interpreted, she added, ‘Not your truest talent. The word.’