But he said, “Never.”
“You’re sure about that.”
“Completely. He was straight edge. It was really serious with him, because his mom used to be a meth head. He wouldn’t even touch cigarettes.”
“Tara told me he was on Adderall.”
“I mean. Who isn’t?”
“Did he ever take more than he was supposed to?”
“He didn’t take it at all.”
“He stopped his meds?”
“Yeah.”
“Is that when his behavior started to change?”
“No, he stopped a long time ago. I think before high school.”
“What did he do with the extras?”
Espinoza hesitated.
“No judgment,” I said. “But I’m wondering if that’s how he made cash.”
“Lots of people do it.”
“I know. That’s why I’m asking.”
“He’s not, like, Pablo Escobar.”
“Okay. Tell me about Nick’s relationships. Was he dating anyone?”
“He never really had a regular girlfriend. He would get obsessed with one person, then switch to someone else.”
“That was his pattern.”
“Yeah.” He paused. “You know what. There was this one girl he was into for a while. Naomi Cardenas. She goes to Santa Cruz.”
“To UC?”
“Yeah. Or, I mean, she got in. I don’t know if she’s still there.”
“Were she and Nick together?”
“No way,” he said. “That’s what I’m telling you: They weren’t even friends. I don’t think he said one word to her, all of high school. She was in a completely different universe. And I’m pretty sure she had a boyfriend, so it was never going to happen. Stupid, you know. Don’t tell Nick I said that.”
By week’s end, I’d left Regina Klein four voicemails and sent three emails.
I called Tara Moore. “Did you get a chance to speak to her yet?”
“I did it the day you were here, right after you left.”
“Can you remind her?”
“Yeah.”
“Thanks. Couple questions, while I have you. Did Nicholas ever mention someone named Naomi Cardenas?”
“No. Who’s that?”
“He went to high school with her. Had a crush on her at one time.”
“News to me. Does she know anything?”
“I’ll let you know once I’ve spoken to her. Now,” I said, “I have to ask you something tough, and I’m sorry. You told me Nicholas’s father was dead. I looked up Warren Pezanko. I’m not seeing a death record that fits. I am seeing someone by that name in the prison system.”
“You have no right,” she said. “No right.”
I kept silent.
“He’s trash,” she said. “Evil trash. I didn’t want Nicholas anywhere near him.”
“He’s housed at Pelican Bay.”
“I don’t give a shit where he is.”
“My point is that’s in Northern California. Up the highway. Is it possible Nicholas went to see him?”
“No. How would he? I told him his father’s dead. That’s all he ever heard from me.”
“Did he ask you about visiting the grave?”
“Why would he? Why are you getting into this?”
Not lying, quite, but covering up.
I said, “What if he wanted to see the grave, so he started calling cemeteries himself? They all tell him, no, sorry, nobody here by that name. Now he’s wondering, what’s going on here? He starts looking online.”
“He couldn’t, even he wanted to. I told him a different name.”
“What name?”
“Warren Smith.”
“Is it possible he found something with Warren’s real name on it? A birth certificate?”
“I didn’t put that piece of shit on the certificate. I said I didn’t know who the daddy was.”
“Maybe a letter, or a card, a picture?”
“I didn’t hold on to nothing from him.”
“All right.” I paused. “Is there anything else I should know? Now’s the time.”
“He’s a fucking garbage piece of shit,” she muttered.
I was starting to get the feeling she didn’t like him. “Okay. You’ll call Regina for me?”
A beat.
“Yeah.”
Naomi Cardenas was more representative of her generation than either Nicholas Moore or Shasta Swann, leaving her many social media accounts wide open for the world to see.
Her favorite tags were #womeninSTEM, #womenwhoSWIM, #brainsandbeauty, and #scienceissexy. She sliced through the pool, twirled on the beach, smirked in a lab coat with her swim goggles in one hand and safety goggles in the other. A thirty-second makeup tutorial promised to teach you how to achieve that soft, seamless look. The secret, I inferred, was to be Naomi Cardenas and be born with flawless skin.
If she was half as vivacious as she wanted people to think, it was hard to picture her going for Nick Moore.
My phone rang.
“Clay Edison.”
“I know who you are,” Regina Klein said. “You’re the motherfucker trying to steal my case.”
Chapter 25
Santa Cruz is a mellower version of Berkeley: surfers and locals, students and tourists, drifting in a tranquil stupor brought on by an overload of natural beauty.
The world might be ending, but not here.
How could it, with that view?
Regina Klein, licensed private investigator, smashed the myth.
“Adultery,” she said.
I’d asked about her caseload.
“Insurance fraud,” she said. “Bread-and-butter shit. People are the fuckin same everywhere.”
We sat outside a coffee roaster and vegan bakery on Beach Street. It was a bright, blustery day, the ocean bejeweled, palm trees doing a slow hula. Breezes carried the cloying scents of cotton candy and kettle corn, punctured by fetid spurts of sea lion. The table was cramped and my knees butted the post.
Not a problem for Regina at four foot eleven. Lemon-yellow Keds grazed the sidewalk; dyed-black bangs framed a doll-like face; oversized horn-rims further magnified her brown, owlish eyes. To judge from appearance alone, she’d be good at disarming people and getting them to lower their guard.
Assuming she could tone down the stridency a hair.
She wasn’t making any such effort with me.
That was her case. Her legwork. If Tara Moore could afford to hire a PI, why hadn’t she called Regina to finish what she’d started?
“What the actual fuck, man? Have you ever heard of professional fucking courtesy?”
I offered her a second oatmilk latte.
“Do I look like I need any more fucking caffeine? Get me a peach poppyseed scone.”
I bought one and brought it to her.
“One thing about these hipster scum,” she said, “they know how to make a pastry.”
She stuffed a chunk into her mouth. “So what’s your deal, Mr. Pro Bono? You’re a trust-fund baby? Why do you want my case?”
“It caught my eye.”
“Nice try, friendo. You don’t get to horn in on my shit and then act like a fuckin schoolgirl. Pay to play.”
I sketched the contours, leaving out Shasta’s name or anything material to Chris Villareal. When I mentioned the necklace, Klein waved dismissively toward the boardwalk.
“They sell those everywhere. Tourist crap.”
“Long way from Humboldt. How’d it get there?”
“Really, Poirot?” she said. “Okay. Here’s a few theories. It’s a different necklace. Or it’s the same, but your unnamed person of interest was a tourist here, bought tourist crap, and took it home. Or they bought it on the internet. Or Nick pawned it and your person bought it. Or he dropped it on the sidewalk and they found it. He met them and gave it to them and moved on. Now he’s in Outer Mongolia eating yak cheese. You want more? I can do this all day, as long as you’re buying.”