“Yes sir. He came knocking once. He said his cable wasn’t working right, wanted to know if he could borrow mine. I said, ‘You want to watch my TV?’ ‘No, no, a cable. Like a wire, for a camera.’ I told him, ‘You’re barking up the wrong tree.’ ”
“Thank you, ma’am. That’s really helpful.”
“You say so.”
“I’d love to speak with Jasmine, if possible.”
“Leave me your number, I’ll tell her you were here.”
“It’s not her I’m interested in, just Trevor. I give you my word.”
“Your word?” she said. “Friend, I don’t know you from a bowl of beans.”
“You want to keep Trevor away from her.”
She regarded me skeptically. “And you can do that?”
“I won’t know until I talk to him.”
The four-year-old poked her head out. “Nana Wee?”
“Go watch TV, honey.”
“I need help.”
“I’ll be there in a minute. Go on.”
The girl vanished.
Louisa said, “You got a card?”
I gave her one. She read it over and tucked it in her housecoat. Fixed her eyes on mine. “Promise me again.”
“I’m not interested in Jasmine. You have my word.”
“You sound righteous. But you better not make me regret it.”
“No, ma’am.”
She shifted her weight onto one hip. “She’s at the Home Depot in Emeryville.”
“Thanks very much. What time does she get off?”
“Ten-thirty. She takes the bus, so I don’t see her back till round midnight.”
“Long day.”
“She’s trying.”
“Nice of you to help.”
“Oh, I don’t mind. I didn’t get my own.” Louisa tickled London’s nose. “But I got you.”
The baby cooed and broke into a one-toothed smile.
At nine p.m. I kissed Amy good night and drove to the Emeryville Home Depot.
Forty minutes to closing time. Taco truck gone for the day, snack wrappers somersaulting across the blacktop, black sky airbrushed with the glowing, branded colors of neighboring big-box stores. Best Buy Blue, Target Red.
I headed inside and grabbed an orange shopping bucket.
Jasmine was taking inventory in the plumbing aisle. Immersed in her iPad, she paid me no mind; I was just another befuddled homeowner with a leaky sink.
“Excuse me,” I said.
Without looking up: “Can I help you.”
“Hope so.” I set down the bucket. “I’m looking for Trevor Vogel.”
Now she snapped to attention. Long face and medium-dark skin, cornrow ponytail, shiny bags beneath big, round eyes the same color as London’s. The child had studied me with curiosity. Mother was scanning for danger.
She hurried away.
“Jasmine.”
“Leave me alone.”
I followed her as she hooked down the next aisle. Light Fixtures. “Jasmine. Please.”
She fumbled the walkie-talkie from her waist, barked in store code: “Chemical spill on sixteen.”
“I just need to talk to him. It’s important.”
“Repeat: Chemical spill, sixteen.”
“Gimme two minutes, please.”
“Whatever he did ain’t got shit to do with me.”
“That’s why I want him, not you. Can you get him a message for me?”
“Are you stupid?” She spun, wielding the handset like a baton. “I said go away.”
The walkie-talkie blipped: Chemical spill en route.
“You don’t have to protect him,” I said.
“Protect him from what? You just want to talk, what do I got to protect him from?”
“It’s about Adam.”
Jasmine flinched.
“Did Adam buy from him?” I asked. “Did Trevor introduce him to people?”
We’re on fifteen the walkie-talkie chirped. Nobody’s here.
“Sixteen,” Jasmine yelled into the handset.
“What about the movie they were making?”
Two burly men in orange aprons came running down the aisle, inserting themselves between her and me. Football players gone to seed, one downright obese.
Jasmine said, “He’s harassing me.”
“Sir, we’re gonna have to ask you to leave the store.”
“Let’s please discuss this for a second,” I said.
“Sir. Calm down.”
“I’m calm. Can I give her a card, at least?”
I reached into my pocket, causing the men to yelp and wave their arms.
“Stop moving. Show us your hands. Hands. Now.”
I put them up, the card between my fingers. “Guys. Chill out.”
“Backup to fifteen,” one guy said into his walkie-talkie.
“Sixteen,” Jasmine corrected.
“Fuck, uh, sixteen.”
“Relax,” I said. I laid the card on the floor. “I’m going.”
If enduring public humiliation was an Olympic sport, all the gold medalists would be teachers. Flight attendants would take the silver, restaurant workers the bronze. But PIs would consistently make the quarterfinals.
The men escorted me to the exit.
“From now on I’m shopping at Lowe’s,” I said.
I sat in my car, letting the stress of the confrontation fade.
My phone chimed with a text. Lisa Shupfer. One word:
Kudelka
I smiled, wrote Can we talk?
I’m home tomorrow
Chapter 9
Mountain House, a planned community thirty-five miles inland, broke ground in 2001. By 2008 it was the most debt-ridden place in America, with 90 percent of mortgages underwater.
Lisa Shupfer and her husband, a Stockton patrol lieutenant, belonged to the 10 percent. For two decades, they’d hung on; decades of social upheaval, department rosters gutted, overtime tripling as cops fled the state for friendlier climes.
Prices had rebounded.
The day had come to get out.
She opened the door to me and turned inside without a word. As I was to Kat, Shupfer was to me — a mentor, a colleague, a friend. Even at our closest, when we were working together forty or fifty hours a week, we’d never been on hugging terms.
We headed toward the kitchen. The house was a mesa desert of cardboard boxes.
Pillows. Neb Supplies.
“Coffee machine’s packed,” she said. “I have those Peet’s cans.”
“I thought you weren’t leaving till January.”
“Ron went ahead so he and Connor can get settled before school starts. They’re driving.”
“How long is that?”
“Ten hours. They’ll break it up over a few days. There’s a direct from Oakland, but it’ll be more fun for Connor this way, and it’s a pain to fly with the equipment.”
Her teenage son had cystic fibrosis. Well managed, though a big chunk of her mental energy went to battling infections and making up for missed classes.
“Movers come next week,” she said.
“What are you going to do in the meantime?”
“Drink from Peet’s cans.”
“Where are you going to sleep?”
“Air mattress.”
“Shoops. For real?”
She dug her fingers into the plastic of an iced espresso twenty-four-pack. “You want or not?”
We took our cans out to the patio. The backyard was a tidy little gem. Honeybees and butterflies congregated in the wisteria. A wall fountain gurgled. The Shupfers had done the work themselves, incising flower beds, planting dwarf citrus, laying pathways, building a pergola. She didn’t seem the least bit sentimental about leaving it.
“Sticks and bricks,” she said.
I sipped lukewarm iced espresso and swiped through pictures of their new house, on three and a half acres, twenty minutes from downtown Boise. All their neighbors were expat Californians. Ron’s first task upon arrival was applying for Idaho plates.