Clay, you should be more mindful of...
As a therapist, I feel it’s unhealthy to...
But she added nothing.
I said, “I’m fine. Thanks for asking.”
“Have you talked to your parents yet?”
“I emailed my dad. I want to run the conversation through him.”
“Your mother called me.”
“Shit. When?”
“This morning.”
“What did you tell her?”
“I didn’t pick up.”
“Thank you. Just keep putting her off and I’ll get to them as soon as I can. Listen, I spoke to one of Luke’s colleagues.”
I recounted my conversation with James Okafor for her and got silence.
“You’ve never seen a truck like that,” I said.
“No.”
“Okay. And Luke didn’t—”
“No.”
“I’m sure he didn’t want to upset you.”
“You’re upsetting me.”
“We don’t know what it means. It could be nothing. I just want to keep you in the loop.”
A text appeared from Sergeant Clarkson.
Where r u
“I’m going to have to get off in a minute,” I said. “Keep trying your friends. Call the places he hangs out. The gym. Go to the motels, show them his picture. Can you handle calling the hospitals?”
Andrea began again to weep.
I said, “Don’t worry, I’ll do it.”
“No. No. I can do it.”
“Are you sure?”
“It should be me.” She blew her nose. “What are you going to do?”
“I have a few things on my list. The NA meeting is tonight, I was going to start there.”
“I’ll go.”
“You don’t have to.”
“It’s right in town. I’d rather be doing something than nothing.”
“Fine. Let me know. I tried the passwords you gave me. They don’t work.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, that’s everything I could think of. Isn’t there a way we can — get in? Can we contact Google and explain what’s going on?”
“They’re not going to listen to us.”
“They have to, you’re a cop.”
“It’s not that simple.”
R u here Sergeant Clarkson wrote.
“What about the families?” Andrea said. “The ones... you were going to check them out.”
“I will,” I said, typing Sorry on my way 5 min
“When?”
“Soon as I can.”
“You need to go now, Clay. They could be doing something to him right now.”
“Andrea. Listen—”
“No, you listen. You told me you were going to find him. I trusted you.”
“I am on it. I promise. I have to go so I can follow up on all this stuff. We’ll talk later. Okay?”
Silence.
“Yes,” she said. “Let’s talk later.”
She sounded stupefied, as if a tranquilizer had just hit her bloodstream.
The line went dead.
Before heading inside I made one final call to the office of Terrence J. Milford, warden of Pleasant Valley State Prison, ending up talking to an assistant warden named Keith Gluck who spoke in a low, bored nasal drone. I gave my name and badge number and told him I was interested in reviewing the file of a former inmate.
“Date of release?”
“Mid-twenty-eighteen.”
“That case,” Gluck said, “we’re not going to have it here. You can order it up from CDCR.”
In four to six weeks.
“Maybe someone’s around who remembers him,” I said.
“What did you say the name was?”
I hadn’t. “Luke Alan Edison.”
“What was this concerning?”
“It’s an ongoing investigation.”
“And remind me your name?”
“Clay Edison.”
Gluck said, “That’s a coincidence.”
“He’s my brother. Do you remember him?”
“I’m not sure what I want to tell you over the phone.”
“If I were to come down there, could we talk?”
“When did you want to come?”
“I could be there by eight.”
“Tonight?” He laughed. “How’s tomorrow at... two. That work for you?”
Another bottomless night of wondering. “Two it is.”
I swiped into the squad room. Sergeant Clarkson leaned out from her office.
“Hey there. Where’d you go?”
“Had to take a personal call.”
She nodded slowly. Prior to becoming a sheriff, Juanita Clarkson had served two tours in Iraq. Her reputation was tough, but fair. But tough. “Body in Fremont. You’re up. Lindsey’s prepping the van.” She looked me over. “Everything okay?”
My shirt was untucked, the buttons undone to mid-chest. “Yes, ma’am. It’s just... hot.”
“Mm,” she said. “Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate.”
Earlier in the day, Cindy Albright, thirty-seven years old, an employee of the utility company, had responded to a report of a downed power line near the campus of the California School for the Blind. As a rule, any such report called for a bucket truck and repair crew. Deluged with complaints since the start of the shutoff, dispatch had begun sending a customer support unit van to verify the situation and, if justified, secure the area till a full crew became available.
Seeing nothing amiss, Cindy Albright circled the block a few times and phoned her supervisor. He checked the incident log.
Overacker Avenue he read. South side of Walnut, by the train tracks.
She told him she was right there, looking up at the lines running pole-to-pole, one-two-three, plain as day. Probably the call was a prank. Or somebody mistook a garden hose for a hot wire.
He instructed her to get out and have a poke around on foot. Could’ve fallen behind a bush or a fence. He didn’t want to have to send her out twice.
Annoyed, Cindy Albright hopped down from the van and walked around to the sidewalk.
She stepped up onto the curb.
A bullet slammed into the side of the customer support unit van, puckering the ampersand in the utility company logo.
Cindy Albright jumped at the impact. She peered at the bullet hole. She had never been shot at and was slow to grasp how the hole had gotten there. Then a second bullet spliced the upright of the logo’s P and she dropped screaming to her hands and knees.
Three more bullets followed in a tight grouping. An eyewitness at the bus stop on Walnut would describe the sound of them hitting the metal siding by rapidly smacking his lips: mup-mup-mup.
A bullet shattered the customer support unit van’s passenger-side window.
Cindy Albright crawled to the driver’s-side door. Hyperventilating, shaking, she hoisted herself behind the wheel. Pebbles of glass studded the seat fabric; there was glass on the dash and in the cushion crevices and glass embedded in her palms.
She tried to start the engine.
She dropped her keys.
A bullet pierced the van’s right rear tire.
She retrieved the keys and started the engine and stamped the gas, and the van broke through the red light at Mission Boulevard, fishtailing northbound on the blown rear tire. Both lanes of traffic were dammed with cars going unacceptably, insanely slow. To get around them, Cindy Albright veered into the bike lane, running down twenty-five-year-old Fletcher Kohn.
Kohn’s girlfriend, Jenn Volpe, was riding lead. She heard the growl of the oncoming van and turned to see Kohn disappear beneath the front bumper. Reflexively she jerked the handlebars. Her front wheel caught the curb and she pitched headfirst onto the sidewalk.
She was in the ambulance, being screened for concussion, when Lindsey Bagoyo and I arrived. The customer support unit van sat at an angle, haloed by flares. Up the block Cindy Albright was giving a statement to a uniform. The bulk of the police response was concentrated on sweeping the campus and surrounding neighborhoods. A shooter on the loose took priority.