“Go on.”
“Walter called, once, to cancel our game. This was years ago. Very out of character for him; he was a fanatical player. I’m sure I canceled on him a dozen times or more, but he never did. He sounded pretty bothered, so I asked if everything was all right. He said no, his nephew was in trouble and he had to go out of town.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“He didn’t say. I said, ‘Anything I can do...’ He told me he had it under control. He canceled the next game, as well.”
“Out of town where?”
“I don’t know.”
“When was this?” Seeing Vannen hesitate, I said: “Around two thousand five?”
“Could be.”
“Dr. Vannen, are you aware of what happened in Walter Rennert’s life before you met him? How he lost his position?”
“Something about his research,” he said. “I make it my business not to make other people’s business my business. If a person comes to me first, all right. But I don’t like to pry. I wish I had more to tell you.”
I glanced at the trophies. “You must be one heck of a tennis player.”
He flexed his hands. “We all do what we can to stave off death.”
“I spoke to Rennert’s primary doctor,” I said. “He said he played like a maniac.”
“That’s one word for it.”
“What word would you use?”
A long silence.
“Punitive,” he said. “Like he wanted to punish himself.”
Chapter 28
In the days leading up to Thanksgiving, we got slammed at work. I spent the holiday on duty, hours taken up by a hit-and-run that left a sixteen-year-old dead and a fifteen-year-old who shouldn’t have been driving on a ventilator. We were short-staffed again, though it wasn’t Shupfer causing the crunch, it was Zaragoza. His wife had prevailed upon him to take time off. He was due — overdue — and nobody could stop him, though Vitti chewed him out about the timing.
The sergeant prowled around the squad room in a sour mood. His fantasy team sat in dead last, and his admiration for my coaching had curdled into disdain. He made sure to drop by my desk at least once every couple of hours to harass me, swipe my food, tell me to quit spending so much energy on football and get back to doing real work.
If he only knew.
Tatiana wasn’t returning my calls or texts. Nor had I heard back from Paul Sandek, Nate Schickman, or Nicholas Linstad’s ex-wife. I was starting to feel unloved.
I missed Tatiana. The challenge of her personality. The landscape of her body.
I could understand her reluctance to probe. In the aftermath of death, you flail around, hoarding mementos. You think you want that: Any scrap. But in truth we advance through grief via an act of willful ignorance.
Take your idea of the deceased. Frame and seal it.
New information requires you to update the image. It forces you to smash the glass and unfreeze time. It reminds you that, no matter how much you loved someone, there are things about him you will never know. That uncrossable space between two people, painful in life, widens unbearably.
I’d broken open a disturbing perspective on Tatiana’s father — yet continued to dismiss her beliefs about his manner of death.
For her, dredging up the past was a no-win.
But I’d begun. I’d put myself in debt. Not merely to Tatiana. To her father. To Nicholas Linstad. To Donna Zhao. And I knew, better than most, that the dead never forget. On quiet nights, nights of reckoning, they come to collect.
“Coroner’s Bureau, Deputy Edison.”
“Yeesss, hello, I need to speak to you, sir, because I have received some very disturbing information, and we need to have a conversation about this, like right away now.”
“Mr. Afton? Is that you?”
“Yes and I am sorry to tell you but this is not acceptable.”
“What isn’t?”
“I cannot accept this situation and I am very unhappy, very unhappy.”
“One second,” I said. “Can you hold on a second, please?”
“Well okay but we need to talk.”
“We will, I promise, I’m just — gimme a second.”
I hit MUTE, called up the file on Jose Manuel Provencio, skimmed through it. I unmuted the phone. “Mr. Afton.”
“Yes sir.”
“Okay, let’s talk about what’s bothering you.”
“Yes sir, I am bothered because I just went down to the place where they had him and I was informed that he’s not there because they already cremated him already.”
“You went to Cucinelli Brothers.”
“Yes sir, and I’ll tell you, I was very surprised because I thought you and me, we had an understanding.”
“Right, but we also agreed that if I hadn’t heard from you by a certain—”
“And so that, that is, what. He’s in a jar? I’m sorry, but that is unacceptable, I cannot accept that.”
“Hang on, please, Mr. Afton. Let’s review this together, okay?” I moved the phone to my other ear. “Last time you and I spoke, you were getting together funds to cover the cost of burial. You sounded like you were ready to move. I don’t know what happened in the interim, but I get a call from Mr. Cucinelli and he tells me you never followed up.”
“I was, I was doing that.”
“I attempted to reach you, more than once. I tried the number I had for you, I left messages. My hands are tied. I authorized them to proceed with a county indigent—”
“Excuse me, sir.”
“I’m sorry if you’re unhappy with that outcome, but—”
“Excuse me. Sir. Excuse me please.”
“Go ahead.”
He said, “I was in the process of assembling the funds.”
“Okay.”
“And I got, okay, delayed. Okay? So, but I was handling it.”
“I get that, but if you tell me it’s all set, and then it turns out there’s going to be a holdup, I need to know that. I’m working in the dark here.”
“I asked you to wait.”
“I did wait,” I said. “I waited six months. What happened?”
“I had a situation and I was unavailable,” he said.
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“Well, okay, listen, I was not in a position to do that.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “Hang on a second, please.”
I muted him again and clicked over to the main Sheriff’s Department server.
On October seventh — days after our last conversation, in which he assured me he was on top of things — Samuel Afton pleaded no contest to a charge of possession of a controlled substance and was booked into Santa Rita Jail to begin a forty-five-day sentence.
I came back on the line. “Hi, Mr. Afton. I completely understand why you’re upset. Unfortunately, this is what we’re looking at. I’m sorry, but I can’t undo it. We do have his remains, and I’m happy to arrange for you to—”
“What do I want that for?”
“Well,” I said, “this way you could bury them when the time is right for you.”
“Did I ask for your advice? I didn’t ask for it. No, you don’t say nothing.”
I did not reply.
“Hello?”
I shut my eyes. “I’m here.”
He paused. “You did the wrong thing.”
“Mr. Afton,” I said, but I was talking to a dead line.
I set the receiver down. Immediately it rang again.
I jabbed the speakerphone. “Coroner’s Bureau,” I barked.
“Eh. May I please speak to Clay Edison?”
It was Paul Sandek.
I picked up. “Hi. Sorry. I’m here.”
“Clay? You sounded like somebody else.”
“It’s been a long week.”
“Oh. Well, hopefully I can make it better for you.”