I hesitated.
“Hey,” Schickman said. “All that owing deserves no bullshit.”
“I might’ve implied that he arrested the wrong guy.”
He laughed for a good long time. “No shit. Really?”
“Really.”
“Balls,” he said.
“Thanks.”
“I pulled down the Donna Zhao file again,” he said. “After you left? I took another peek at it. It seemed solid to me.”
“First glance, it does.”
“What does second glance do?”
I said, “You really want to hear this?”
“I asked, didn’t I?”
Get it out of your system.
Whatever you need to do.
Ask me, that sounded like permission.
An order, even.
Vitti hadn’t meant it that way.
Next time, Sarge, choose your words more carefully.
“Tell you what,” I said to Schickman. “Let me buy you a drink. You be the judge.”
We met at a bar of his choosing, on San Pablo near the Albany-Berkeley line. The place had a Day of the Dead theme, the menu boasting a hundred thirty-one different tequilas and mezcals. Schickman asked for a Dos Equis. I asked for water. The waitress smiled in desperation and beat a retreat.
I laid out the case for him, just as I had for Bascombe.
“I started off thinking Linstad roped Triplett into doing his dirty work,” I said. “More I go over it, more I feel like that’s wrong. Linstad isn’t going to rely on a kid who he knows is not all there. And Triplett’s sister gives him a solid alibi.”
“Seven years old,” said Schickman.
“She’s a smart adult, seems totally together,” I said. “Which, given her upbringing, is impressive.”
“You think Linstad framed him.”
“If you’re going to pick someone to frame, Triplett’s pretty much your ideal candidate. Young, black, physically imposing. Borderline intelligence, a loose sense of reality.”
Schickman shifted around in his chair.
“I mean, it’s very interesting,” he said.
I laughed. “Please,” I said. “Don’t hold back.”
He sipped beer, tapped the table, collected his thoughts.
“Start off by saying what I like,” he said. “The affairs, the roommate’s statement — that’s useful information. I’m the lead, I’m starting from scratch, all that shit is hugely significant to the fact pattern.”
“I know,” I said. “Circumstantial.”
He nodded. “Which isn’t the end of the world. Lots of guys in San Quentin got there on circumstantial evidence. You’re not starting from scratch, though. There’s a confession. Maybe not perfect, but not a whole lot worse than most. It’s on paper now, part of the record. You have Triplett’s fingerprint on the murder weapon.”
“Linstad could’ve gotten him to handle it,” I said. “I showed you the report. They were hanging out together, outside the lab.”
“Allegedly.”
“Nobody ran DNA,” I said. “Not on the knife, on the sweatshirt, on the blood at the scene, anything. It was nineteen ninety-three.”
“You’re lucky enough to get viable material, you still need a known sample for comparison.”
“I have a name and address for Linstad’s father in Sweden.”
Schickman smiled. “I’m trying to imagine how that phone call goes.”
“Yeah, no shit.”
“A fine morning to you, sir. Your son, who’s dead, we’d like to destroy his memory by pinning him for a vicious murder. You mind please spitting into this tube for me? We’ll cover postage.”
“It’s all in the delivery,” I said.
“Look at it from my perspective. I bring this to my boss, what’s he gonna say?”
“You need more.”
“To start resurrecting old shit, spend time and money? Lot more.”
“Gimme the evidence box,” I said. “I’ll take it to the lab myself. They’re one floor up from me. Nobody has to know.”
Schickman laughed. “Aaaand he’s gone rogue.”
He raised his empty to the waitress. “I’m not saying I won’t help you out, if I can.”
In essence, he was answering me just as Bascombe had, and Shupfer had, and Vitti had — only a little more nicely, and he’d left the door open a crack.
“One thing that does get to me,” he said, “is both Rennert and Linstad, going down the stairs. But you say Rennert was natural.”
“Doesn’t exclude Linstad being a homicide. The night he died, he was drinking with someone. Ming said they leaned on him to close it as accidental. He suggested I look at Linstad’s ex, all that family money. But I met her and I don’t see it. Too risky. She’d hire somebody.”
“From what you’ve told me about Linstad,” he said, “any number of women would’ve done it for free.”
The waitress brought Schickman a fresh beer. He drank, using his lower lip to pull foam from the upper. “Find Triplett. Without him, none of this matters.”
I nodded, debating whether to voice my thoughts. We seemed to get along, Schickman and I, but I didn’t know him well enough to be sure he wouldn’t regard me as naïve or overzealous.
I said, “He didn’t do it. Triplett.”
Schickman watched me closely.
“I’m not asking you or anyone else to accept that on faith,” I said. “I’m just stating what I know to be true. What’s left for me now is to prove it.”
His slow nod could have been wariness or agreement.
“Do us both a favor,” he said. “Don’t step on any more toes.”
He tipped his beer to me.
Vitti’s order made me think about Christmas.
The sergeant was right: I’d worked every one since joining the Sheriff’s. It never felt like much of a sacrifice. When I was growing up, our family didn’t do religion, and the secularized version of the holiday we’d once celebrated had fallen by the wayside, along with every other ritual that called for full participation.
Gathering as three underlined the missing fourth.
This year, I didn’t have any excuse.
Saturday morning, I caught a matinee of the latest installment of Fast and Furious, calling my mother as I left the theater to give her twenty-four hours’ notice that I was free for Christmas Eve dinner.
“We don’t have anything planned,” she said, managing to sound both apologetic and accusing.
“If it’s too much trouble—”
“No no,” she said. “I don’t want you to be disappointed, is all.”
These conversations always went the same way: I reached out, stirred by duty and guilt and love. As soon as she answered, I started mapping my escape route.
I forced myself to stay on the line, knowing I’d only feel worse if I hung up. “I can pick up food.”
“Would you? Thanks. I’m sorry, I’m just so tired.”
“No problem.”
“I was down to see Luke last week,” she said. “It takes a lot out of me.”
I said, “Chinese okay?”
Dragon Deluxe Palace was packed, whizzing trays and parties of eight, a comforting din. We weren’t the only family too jaded or lazy to put a turkey in the oven.
Waiting at the hostess stand, hunched in the rippling light of a murky fish tank, I scrolled through my inbox, deleting spam, pausing as I came to one headed IN TOWN.
The sender was Amy Sandek.
I opened it.
...as promised.
Love,
I composed my reply, hitting SEND as the hostess gave me a warm plastic bag and wishes for a merry Christmas.
Sliding down East 14th through patchy traffic, I saw crowds in the windows of the pho counters and the curry houses. Back in the sixties and seventies, San Leandro was the whitest city in the Bay Area. That began to change as the courts struck down neighborhood covenants. By the time I was born, the process had been well under way for years, and my own group of friends resembled a mini — United Nations, a broad coalition formed on the basketball courts, united by our love of the game and our disregard for posted playing hours.