However long she remained away — two weeks or three — that was how long I had to locate Julian Triplett.
It wasn’t yet nine a.m. The day was clear. I moved my car to avoid a ticket and set out on foot for Delaware Street.
West of San Pablo, the neighborhood took a turn. Not for the worse, exactly; more for the tired. Weeds marching forth in their ranks. Indoor furniture living outdoors. Some creative soul had erected a two-foot-high “fence” out of chicken wire, staked to tomato cages, everything held together with supermarket twist-ties. All manner of crap had been put on the sidewalk and left to the mercy of the elements: mattresses, crates of mushy paperbacks. Some folks had bothered to add a sign — FREE or PLEASE TAKE — as though words alone could transform junk into treasure.
Litterbug!
Julian Triplett’s mother, Edwina, still lived at the same address as a decade ago, in the rearmost unit of a small stucco complex called Manor Le Grande. The name was goofy enough as is, without the cartoon-bubble lettering bolted to the brick façade. Something about it momentarily sapped my zeal. Most people would be at work at quarter to ten on a Monday morning, and even if Edwina Triplett was home, I couldn’t make her talk to me. Nor could I see why she would do so willingly.
I had little to lose, though. Even if she refused to tell me where her son was, she might warn him that the cops had come around, and that might be enough to scare him off.
Concrete pavers led to a cracked trapezoidal courtyard. The curtains to #5 hung ajar.
I looked through the window. The living room beyond the glass was too sparse to qualify as messy; what I could see showed evidence of hard use. Tube TV squaring off with a soiled, defeated sofa. A tray on legs stood at the ready, but unhappily, like some dried-up butler. Dark puddles splotched the popcorn ceiling.
I rapped the screen door’s frame.
No answer.
I got out my card and wrote on the back: Please call when you have a chance. I started to stick it in the mail slot but paused, worried about needlessly frightening her.
A note from the Coroner’s Bureau, asking for a call, with no context?
Impetuously, I tacked on a smiley face.
Please call when you have a chance.:)
Well. That just looked ridiculous.
While I went through my wallet for a fresh card, the front door whined. An obese black woman of about fifty peered out through the screen. She wore a formidable floral-print housedress and leaned on a shiny purple cane.
I raised a hand. “Good morning, ma’am.”
“Good morning.”
I flashed my badge quickly, identifying myself as a deputy sheriff. “I’m looking for Julian Triplett.”
She listed a little to the right, examining me. “Is he in trouble?”
“No ma’am. I’m just trying to find him, and yours is the last address I have.”
“What you want him for?”
“Just checking in.”
She sniffed skeptically. “He ain’t around.” She reached for the door.
“It’s important that I find him.”
“I said he ain’t around.”
“When’s the last time you saw him? Ma’am.”
She shut the door.
I crossed out the smiley face and pushed the card through the mail slot. If that made her anxious, so be it. Maybe it’d motivate her to cooperate.
I started back toward the street, jumping as the screen door banged open behind me.
Edwina Triplett came humping out, her gait jerky and pained. She was sweating, clutching the card fiercely, bending it into a U.
“You got no right.” She spoke quietly, her features glittering with rage. “No right.”
“All I want is to ask him a couple of questions.”
She whooped laughter. “Coroner? You must think I’m some kind of stupid.” Squinting at the card: “Edison? That’s you?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“He’s dead?”
“No ma’am.”
“Then why you harassing me, Mr. Edison?”
“Ma’am—”
“What you think about this?” She tore the card in half, stacked the halves, tore them again. “Huh, Mr. Edison? Tell me what you think about that.”
She halved the card twice more. Getting through thirty-two layers proved a challenge — she strained with effort, the flesh of her arms and under her neck rippling like disturbed water — and she began shredding individual pieces, sprinkling them on the cement.
She said, panting, “What you think about that.”
I said, “I think I’ve upset you, and I apologize. For what it’s worth, I’m not concerned with whatever happened before. This is something happening now.”
“I guess you didn’t hear me the first five times,” she said. “He. Ain’t. Around.”
“I heard you.”
“Then why you still—” She broke off with a grunt, wincing and pressing a fist to her chest. The cane began to vibrate, her spine to bow.
I took a step forward.
“Don’t touch me,” she wheezed. She sank down, slumping against the doorframe, her mouth gaping, grabbing at the air.
I asked if she could breathe.
She didn’t reply. I took out my phone to call an ambulance.
“Nnn.” She tossed a hand over her shoulder. “Pills.”
“Where are they?”
“...bathroom.”
I stepped around her carefully.
The air inside the apartment felt close, tens of thousands of cigarettes soaked into the walls. I went straight back, encountering a mess of amber bottles on the bathroom counter. Among numerous diabetes scrips I found nitroglycerin tabs. I shook a couple out, filled a water glass, and hustled back outside.
She stuck a pill under her tongue, ignoring the water. Within a few minutes her breathing had begun to ease. She closed her eyes, massaging her chest.
“Another?” I asked.
She shook her head.
“Who should we call? You have a primary doctor?”
“You can go,” she said.
“I can’t until I know you’re okay.”
At length she tried to stand. She couldn’t manage it. I saw her grimace, weighing need against pride. She said, “Help me up.”
I set the glass on the pavement and crouched, sliding an arm around her. Her skin was moist and warm and yeasty. I said a prayer for my knee, took a deep breath, and said, “One two three hup.”
We rose together.
She directed me to the sofa, groaning as I got her settled, letting the cane fall to the carpet with a soft thud. I fetched the water glass. She gulped it down, droplets rolling over her jaw and down her throat, shading the lace at her neckline.
“More?”
“No.” Then: “Thank you.”
I took the glass to the kitchen and rinsed it out. There was no dish drainer, so I upended it on a grungy towel. From beneath the sink came a fetid whiff. Overflowing five-gallon can, no bag.
I carried it through the living room, doing my best not to spill. Edwina Triplett still had her eyes closed.
Outside I found a row of gray city bins. I emptied the can, washing it out several times from a hose bibb and shaking the excess onto spiky, sere bushes.
When I returned, her eyes were open. She regarded me suspiciously.
“You have trash bags hidden somewhere?” I asked.
She didn’t answer. I went into the kitchen and started opening drawers. The best I could come up with was a wrinkled paper sack from CVS.
I know how it reads: I was trying to worm into her good graces. No doubt that’s what she thought. But at that moment, I was thinking of all the homes I walk into on a weekly basis, except that in those instances I’m there to remove a body. Few people get a chance to stage-manage their own exit. They die before they’ve had a chance to take out the trash. They die before they’ve finished wiping themselves. The last impression we leave is almost always inadvertent.