I was parked legally. Nothing he could do.
But of course there was.
Twenty minutes later, a Los Gatos police cruiser rolled up beside me.
I put down my window and smiled at the officer. “Evening.”
“Evening,” she said. “Everything okay here?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m a private investigator. Would it be all right if I showed you my identification?”
“Do it slow.”
I gave her my license. She looked at it, looked at me, gave it back.
“Have a good night,” she said.
Once she was gone the security guard reemerged with the binoculars.
I waved. He retreated to his booth.
At sevenish the green BMW turned out of the driveway. Fuller had lingered long enough for a quick nine holes. Or, as his driving implied, three too many scotches.
That night, the family ate in the kitchen. Fuller walked the dog. He watched TV with his wife. By eleven thirty the house was dark.
I settled in, opening my laptop and plugging in the purple thumb drive to review Fuller’s work on the Valois case.
You couldn’t accuse him of laziness: He’d sent several hundred emails, made almost as many phone calls, met dozens of times with law enforcement and media.
Eighty hours, at fourteen hundred per, billed in the first month alone.
A cynic might read that effort as exploitative. It was a boatload of money. And involving himself in the investigation was a good way to hide in plain sight. Psychopaths are notorious for following their own cases: a way to relive the thrill, to feel omnipotent and untouchable.
But that was Regina talking, urging me to see the worst in people.
More telling were the forty-odd hours Fuller had worked pro bono. Every single interaction with Rick and Liz, whether in-person or remote, was marked no charge.
To me it read like love.
Wednesday evening, Regina called to report that Fuller had worked late and left the office on foot. I stayed on the phone with her as she followed him up Market Street.
“Shit,” she said. “He’s going toward Adam’s condo.”
She hurried to catch up.
“Shit,” she said again. “He’s not stopping.”
Fuller crossed San Carlos and proceeded north past Cesar Chavez Plaza.
I swiped on my map. “There’s a bunch of nightlife around San Pedro Square.”
But he wasn’t going clubbing, either. He cut through St. James Park and crossed 4th Street to meet his wife and six-year-old son outside the San Jose School of Ballet. The marquee announced the annual summer recital for under-ten girls.
Nina greeted him with a peck and they filed inside with the other proud parents.
“Dammit,” Regina said. She was breathing audibly. “Why the fuck did he walk?”
“Getting in his steps,” I said.
The performance let out at seven, and the family went around the corner to an Italian restaurant. Regina texted that the daughter was eating spaghetti with her tutu on. I could almost hear Nina Fuller sigh from thirty-five miles away.
Honey. Please. You’re gonna get it dirty. Use a napkin.
Afterward the four of them piled into Nina’s Volvo SUV.
Regina sprinted to her car, darting through intersections, cussing at drivers who cussed at her. As she arrived at Fuller’s office, the Volvo pulled up and let him out to retrieve the BMW.
She called me, wheezing, from the freeway to report they were en route to Almaden.
“Someone needs to get in her steps,” I said.
“Eat a dick.”
At eight thirty, Nina Fuller took a turn walking the dog.
No TV. In her notes Regina speculated that the couple had finished their show but hadn’t decided on the next one.
Or they’re necking she added.
On Thursday morning I swung by Highland Terrace. Driving through the neighborhood, I noticed tape fluttering, scraps of paper: Every single flyer I’d put up was torn down.
Damian Roby’s sister, Zahara, was sitting on the front steps of their mother’s house, armed with a rolling pin. She leapt to her feet, yelling at me to leave or else.
“I just want to talk to Dame,” I said.
“You got five seconds.”
“I want to get his side of the story.”
“Four.”
“I’m not police.”
“Three.”
If she was even half as fast as her brother, I needed that much of a head start. I took it.
That night I watched Shelby Fuller IV hug his kids and nuzzle his dog, watched grill-smoke drift over the roofline. I was in a lousy mood. I wanted to hug my kids. To stand on my deck, in my backyard — a fraction the size of his, but mine — and flip burgers and make summer count.
I wanted to watch TV with my wife, both of us checking our phones, so that every ten minutes Amy had to ask me to summarize what had taken place onscreen, and I could feign irritation, and she could feign sheepishness, and we could laugh and kiss and resume checking our phones.
Instead I was folded behind the steering wheel, legs tingling, back cramped, eating protein bars and peeing into a Gatorade bottle.
The glamour of investigation.
By midnight Fuller’s house was dark. I checked my messages. Amy had sent a video of Charlotte reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar to Myles. I watched it four times. Trevor Vogel hadn’t answered any of my six texts. I sent a seventh. Lowering the window for fresh air, I reclined the seat. Not enough to fall asleep. Just to relieve the tension.
I jolted awake, damp with sweat, fumbling for my camera.
The house was dark.
The BMW was in the driveway, right where Fuller had left it.
My phone was vibrating in the cupholder.
Jake Brenner.
Before I could say hi, he said, “It’s done.”
Chapter 27
“It’s five a.m.,” I said.
“You said to call as soon as it’s done,” he said. “It’s done.”
“Send it to me?”
“I did.”
I opened my inbox.
Here is the information you requested. The calculation took one hundred eighty-one hours and four minutes. These results are more precise than those of prior attempts. However this does not necessarily indicate accuracy. With parameters this broad any result must be regarded with caution. The full image is too large to send as an attachment so I am attaching a JPEG.
I said, “Holy shit.”
“Yes,” Brenner said. “Holy shit.”
The new map was stunningly unlike its predecessors. Dark blues outlined the entire interior coast. With two exceptions.
Bair Island, to the west.
Emeryville, to the east.
Both red.
Zooming in caused the image to pixilate.
Brenner was talking about the map’s limitations — wind speed, stochastic drift.
“Jake,” I interrupted, “can you send me the uncompressed version?”
“The full TIFF is six hundred twelve megabytes. That exceeds the attachment threshold.”
“Do you have Dropbox?”
“No.”
“What if I buy you a subscription?”
“I can’t do that,” he said. “The United States Department of Defense discourages and in specific instances prohibits the use of third-party cloud storage systems due to infiltration risk. Dropbox is uncertified by the Federal Risk and Authorization Management System.”
“Google Drive?”
“No. We have our own cloud service,” he said. “MilDrive.”
“Great, let’s use that.”
“Are you a member of the armed forces?”
“No.”
“Then we can’t. If you bring a flash drive I can transfer the file.”
“When should I come?”