Stepping into Karen Weatherfeld’s waiting room, I added my coat next to hers on the rack and pushed the button to notify her of my arrival.
The inner door swung wide, and she beckoned me into a warm office with a neutral color scheme, a jute rug, bookcases. With the door shut, the throb of the gym subsided to a gentle pulse, reminiscent of a heartbeat.
Diplomas on the walclass="underline" BA in sociology from Arizona State University; master’s in social work from the University of California, Berkeley.
“Please,” she said, inviting me to the couch. Running horses patterned her navy blouse. She sat at the desk, opened a canvas lunch sack, began setting out neat little glass containers of vegetables and grains. “You don’t mind if I eat.”
“Of course not.”
“I did get your emails,” she said. She shook up a mason jar of dressing, tipped a thimble’s worth onto sliced cucumbers. “I couldn’t tell if they were legit.”
Credible excuse. I’d written to her from my personal account instead of from work; I’d referred to myself as a sheriff but had not identified the county. I couldn’t afford to have her calling my office to confirm.
I offered her my bona fides again.
“I believe you,” she said, stirring her salad. “Long way to come for a routine matter.”
“It’s a nice drive.”
She chuffed. “In this weather?”
I said, “I need to get a message to Julian Triplett.”
A hitch in her expression. She set down the fork and reached for her water bottle. “You realize, Deputy, that we can’t have this conversation. Any answer I give you constitutes an ethical violation.”
“I’m not asking you to reveal anything. I’m asking you to deliver a message.”
She shook her head.
“Is that a no?” I asked.
“It’s not a yes or a no. It’s not anything. I told you, there’s nothing I can say to you.”
“Are you aware that Walter Rennert passed away?”
She paled, and her mouth opened involuntarily.
“When?” she said.
“September.”
“How?”
“His heart,” I said.
She shut her eyes. “God.”
She sounded shell-shocked.
“I’m sorry to have to tell you,” I said.
She shook her head. “I’d rather know.”
“How often were you two in contact?” I asked.
“Once or twice a year.” Her eyes remained closed. “Usually it was over the phone.”
“When he came up here, you didn’t see him?”
She shook her head. “No, we... No.”
I said, “You knew Walter at Cal.”
“Yes.”
“Did you work together?”
She cleared her throat, came to attention. “We were friends.”
Lydia Delavigne’s words came into my mind.
Walter wasn’t perfect.
Do you expect me to believe that he didn’t take his fair share of comfort in the arms of others?
“I found the audiotapes you made for him,” I said. “The sessions you did with Julian. I listened to some of them. Not all. I stopped once I figured out who you were.”
Karen Weatherfeld said nothing. She appeared to have lost interest in her lunch.
“Walter calls you up,” I said. “He says, I have this kid, he’s in some trouble and I need to get him out of town. He asks you to keep an eye on him. How am I doing, so far?”
She stared at her lap.
“You must have been surprised when he showed up with Triplett. Unless you already knew about the relationship between the two of them.”
No answer.
“The tapes stop about six years ago. Have you kept up with Julian since?”
No answer.
“You’re juggling several competing priorities, I get that,” I said. “But let’s remember what the purpose of this arrangement was originally: to help Julian.”
She seized her fork and scooped quinoa into her mouth.
“I’m not here to create problems for him,” I said. “The opposite. I know he didn’t kill Donna Zhao. Tell him that, please.”
She chewed, chewed.
I said, “His sister Kara is concerned about him. So’s his mom. His pastor; Ellis Fletcher. People haven’t forgotten about him. They want to hear from him.”
I took out my card, scratched out the office number, wrote my cell on the back.
“I’m not in town long,” I said. “I have to go back tomorrow afternoon. I was hoping to speak to him before then.”
I pushed the card across the desk.
She didn’t touch it.
Reaching in my pocket again, I took out an amber pill bottle. Held it up.
“This is a thirty-day supply of Risperdal,” I said. “Julian came looking for it a couple months back. I don’t know how he’s fixed now. But at the time he was desperate enough to break into Walter’s house. He’s lucky he wasn’t arrested.”
I placed the bottle on the desk, atop my card.
“If nothing else, I want him to know that somebody believes him.” I stood up. “I believe him. Please tell him that.”
I headed south out of the parking lot, driving a hundred yards before making a U-turn and pulling over. I had an unobstructed view of anyone entering or exiting the parking lot. Which meant they would have the same view of me.
I reclined the seatback as far as I could without losing my sight line.
I listened to the radio.
I ate beef jerky and a gas station muffin.
Intermittent snow fell.
I guessed she’d stay through the end of the workday.
Close.
At four fifteen, the Jeep made a rolling stop at the lot entrance and headed north, away from me.
I started my car.
Chapter 40
The roads were icy, and practically every vehicle on them was an SUV, which added to the challenge of keeping an eyeball on the Jeep. At that hour the winter sun drooped on the horizon, the glare giving me a slight advantage when she got on the freeway heading east.
Moving within one car length, I opened the map on my phone, tracking our location, trying to get a sense of where she was headed.
Not home; I knew that much. I’d looked up her address, south of the lake.
Traffic had begun to congeal well before we reached the Nevada state line. I fiddled with the map, pressing my head up against the window to check on the Jeep. Its green paint job stood out at first, but the oncoming dusk reduced every not-white color to a generic muddy hue, pierced by hundreds of stuttering brake lights.
The land curved and swelled, loosely mimicking the river. Billboards began to poke their heads up, rodent-like. Tawdry, bright, and basic; promising jackpots of every kind. Cheap food. Cheap sex. Easy money. Salvation in the Lord’s embrace.
I crested the hill and the lights of Reno exploded into view.
The procession squeezed through the pass, groping toward the city. Two lanes became four. I struggled to keep sight of the Jeep, repeatedly losing it in a shifting maze of panel trucks. Gunning ahead, only to discover it behind me. It was rush hour. I was driving like an asshole.
My phone vibrated in the cup holder.
I muttered and reached down to silence it.
The caller ID read NATE SCHICKMAN.
I hit SPEAKER.
“Yo,” I said. “Can I call you back? I’m right in the middle of something.”