Authors: Lisa Lutz
“Will do,” Len replied.
The room hadn’t been aired in weeks. It had a musty mothball smell. To call it impersonal would be generous. It was like a guest room at a lazy man’s B and B. A bed, bureau, desk, and lamp pretty much covered the furnishings. There was artwork on the wall—a dreadful amateurish landscape
3
—and the only item of accessory was a day calendar on the desk. I decided to dust the bureau first and found four clear prints right away. I quickly prepped the prints and stuck them in my purse. I looked both ways before I exited Mason’s room, locking the door behind me.
I made my way downstairs and covertly slipped Len the key. Mr. Winslow was still in the midst of a mind-blowing tour of his own mansion. Len walked me to the door.
“How are things at home?” I asked.
“Nothing to worry about, Isabel. I promise you.”
“You’re taking to this a little too well,” I said with concern.
“An actor needs to act,” Len replied.
And that got me thinking.
A
few days later, Maggie phoned me again and said that she had a doctor’s appointment the following afternoon and would prefer not to leave Rae alone in her office. Something about some embarrassing calls to the district attorney—I didn’t get all the details. Anyway, I picked Rae up from school. She did her best to hide the cyclist from me, but I still caught them pretending to be strangers.
I took her to my apartment to help me sort through the fingerprint collection I got from Mason’s bedroom.
When we were young—meaning children—and first absorbing the nuts and bolts of the business, even garbology had its moments of delight, but fingerprint collecting had a playground aura of fun around it. In truth, the fingerprint stuff doesn’t come up often (that’s police work) and when it does, we don’t mind so much, even though it’s a painstaking process. Rae hadn’t worked with the printing kit for years, so I let her prep the prints from Mason’s room and then had her cross-check them against all the known prints in the house.
Rae got to work but eventually broke the silence. For once, she had something to talk about besides Schmidt.
“The other day I was looking for candy in Maggie’s desk and I found these pills.”
“What kind of pills?”
“I didn’t recognize them by name, but when I later looked them up, they were antianxiety meds. And according to the Internet, she’s on a very high dosage.”
“She doesn’t seem anxious,” I said.
“Well, she wouldn’t if she were drugged up all the time.”
“Huh,” I said, thinking.
“What should I do?”
“You shouldn’t be going through her desk,” I said.
“But what should I do about her anxiety?” Rae asked.
“You should try not to stress her out.”
“How?”
“When she asks you to do something, do it.”
“Do you think I’m the cause of her stress?”
“I’m sure you’re a top contributor.”
Rae seemed to mull that idea over for a very brief moment, but then she shook her head. “Nah, that’s not it,” she said, and went back to work.
“These don’t match any of the others,” Rae said after careful scrutiny of our fingerprint samples.
“Finally,” I replied, gathering the prints and putting them away safely in an envelope.
Rae then tried to bring up Schmidt again. That’s when I told her our work was done. Coincidentally, it was.
As I was driving Rae home, I tried to start a conversation about Rae’s new boyfriend and get a few more details on Logan, but Rae and I had decidedly conflicting agendas.
“Were you and Logan ever going out, or were you just blackmailing him?” I asked.
“There are other men and women wrongly incarcerated besides Schmidt.”
“It seems like an extreme measure to take just to avoid riding the bus,” I said.
“Maggie has many files in her office. You should look at them when you have the chance. It’s a better use of your time than obsessing over a has-been like Harkey.”
“What happened to you on the bus?” I asked.
“There are people on death row right now who are innocent.”
“Who’s the new guy with the bicycle?”
“Forget it,” Rae finally said. “There’s no way to convince you.”
I pulled up in front of the Spellman house. Rae hopped out of the car, as did I.
“I don’t require an escort,” Rae said.
“The world doesn’t revolve around you and Schmidt. I need to talk to Dad.”
“Whatever,” Rae replied.
I followed her inside the house. Rae raced upstairs to her bedroom, as teenagers do. I roamed the residence looking for Dad. In the process, I noticed that the doorknob to the hall closet was missing.
I found my dad parked in front of the television, belly-laughing at some inane program in which a family enters the witness protection program, only to be forced to work at a Frosty Freeze. They can’t handle their new lives and so they return to their criminal pasts, using their Frosty Freeze shifts as an alibi, while their handlers try to cover it up, since the family hasn’t yet testified against the crime family from whom they are hiding. It’s a comedy, I think. Or at least Dad thinks it’s a comedy.
I sat down next to him, waited for the commercial break, and asked for the favor I’d come for.
Only cops and FBI agents and official law-enforcement personnel have access to fingerprint databases. My dad no longer has direct access to this information, but he has a guy on the force who does.
I put the envelope with the prints on the coffee table.
“Dad, will you ask Gary to run these prints for me?”
My father glanced at the envelope and then back at the television, even though only commercials were running.
“I’ve called in a few too many favors this month. Can you find someone else?”
“Who?”
“Ask your mom. She has her own contact on the force.”
“Where is she?”
“In the kitchen.”
“Did you know the doorknob on the hall closet is missing?”
Dad paused, sighed, and then said, “Yeah. It fell off.”
I went into the kitchen. My mother was in the midst of replacing a handle on the silverware drawer. Unfortunately, it didn’t match the other handles in the rest of the kitchen and I could see her scowling over this fact.
“What happened to the other handle?”
“It broke.”
“How?”
“I don’t know, Isabel.”
“This one doesn’t match the others.”
“Yes. I am aware of that,” Mom snapped. “Is there something I can help you with?”
“I need some fingerprints run for the Winslow case. Dad doesn’t want to use his source. I was wondering if I could use yours.”
“I always ask Henry,” Mom said.
“Could you ask him for me?” I said, placing the envelope on the kitchen table.
“Ask him yourself,” she replied in that tone that means the conversation is over.
So I drove to Henry’s place.
“Isabel, what a pleasant surprise,” he said pleasantly.
“I was in the neighborhood,” I replied.
“I doubt it,” he said.
“I need a favor.”
“That’s what I figured.”
I handed Henry the set of prints. “Will you run these for me?”
“Have a seat. Can I get you something to drink?”
Apparently friends don’t just demand police work and run. They sit and chat and maybe drink or eat things together. At least that’s Henry’s agenda. So I played along in order to push my “favor” agenda. This is simply how the world works. I think. I’m just saying that, actually. To be perfectly honest, I don’t know how the world works. Sometimes it seems like it’s not working at all.
Henry asked me what I was drinking. I said, “Not tea.” He served me a beer and put out a bowl of spelt
1
pretzels. He asked me what was new; I said not much. He inquired into the Harkey matter and I said it was a dead end. He apologized for the insurance information. I told him not to worry about it. It was the only angle available to me. Henry asked me how Connor was doing. I said fine. He asked me whether our relationship was getting serious. I asked him to define “serious.” He described serious as “moving forward.” I asked Henry where forward might take someone. Henry said that forward usually leads to moving in, engagement, and maybe marriage. I told him that while Connor kept his own apartment, he had practically moved in. I see, Henry said. Then I explained that if Connor didn’t practically live with me, we’d never see each other, what with our opposite hours and such. Henry said, “I see,” again. Then he asked if Connor and I ever spoke of marriage. We didn’t, but I didn’t mention that. What I did mention was that way back my mom had had me sign a legal document promising that I wouldn’t marry Connor. I asked Henry whether he thought that document was legally binding and Henry said that he thought it was unlikely.
“Do you want to marry him?” Henry asked.
At this point my beer was finished. I asked for another one instead of answering the question.
The truth: No, I didn’t. In fact, I was sure of that one thing. And yet I couldn’t tell you why. In case you’re wondering: Yes, I’ve discussed this in therapy, so I don’t see any point in going on about it here. As for Henry, the question quickly slipped away when I made it slip away by changing the subject. I casually brought up the far more compelling mystery of the missing fixtures in the Spellman home.
“Isn’t that strange?” I asked.
“I guess so,” Henry replied. “But it is an old house. Things are bound to break.”
For another forty-five minutes, Henry inquired into an assortment of details about my life. Nothing too intrusive, but he got updates on Morty, Mom and Dad’s Lost Wednesdays, and even Bernie’s impending visit.
“Do you think I should change the locks?” I asked.
Henry said no. Turns out, Henry had never been so wrong.
I
was supposed to be sitting on a park bench in the middle of the night, waiting for my date. This didn’t seem like a wise location for a rendezvous, which I guess was the point.
A man approached. He made no introduction. He then pointed something at me, which I guessed was a gun.
“If you do everything I tell you, no one will get hurt,” he said. Then he stared at me with cool confidence.
“Uh, okay,” I replied.
“Give me all your money,” the man said.
His dress wasn’t robber-appropriate, so I had some trouble taking him seriously. But I regrouped and realized that I shouldn’t stereotype. Robbers come with a variety of different fashion senses, and he’d probably come straight from work or something.
“I don’t have my money with me,” I replied.
“Where is it?”
“In my purse.”
“Where’s your purse?”
“In my car.”
“Where’s your car?”
“In the parking lot.”
“Give me your car keys.”
“Uh, okay,” I said, and handed him my keys.
He took them.
“A thank-you would be nice,” I said.
He rolled his eyes.
“Empty your pockets,” he said.
“I’d rather not,” I said.
“I’m not afraid to use this thing,” the man with no name said, sounding plausibly threatening.
I had on a jacket and jeans, so there were a number of pockets.
“You probably don’t want
everything
in my pockets,” I replied.
He held out his other hand. “Everything,” he repeated.
“Okay.”
My jacket pocket held a used tissue, a paper clip, a lost Lifesaver, a parking stub, and a tampon. I tossed the items into his hands. The man with the gun tossed them on the ground.
“If you didn’t want them, why did you ask?”
He stared at me and at the bits and pieces on the ground for a while. It looked like he was thinking, but since I didn’t know the man, I couldn’t tell you for sure what he looked like when he was thinking.
“I can’t do this,” he suddenly said, dropping his arms to his sides.
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because you’re not taking this seriously.”
“I am.”
“You’re not scared.”
“I would be if you were scary.”
“Oh, so it’s
my
fault.”
“Nobody’s to blame here,” I generously suggested.
Finally the teacher, Mrs. Louise Granger, called, “Cut,” and our mediocre improvisation came to a halt. Unlike the previous three-minute performances, ours didn’t receive even token applause. Not one single clap to break the awkward silence. Perhaps it was my fault. And perhaps, as the teacher suggested later that night, acting classes were not for me. I was fine with all that. I just wanted to play the odds and find a room full of people who might work for free.
When the evening came to a close and I had seen the wide variety of actors available to me, I approached my favorite (or at the very least the most gullible looking): Chelsea Jacobs, twenty-three, blond, skinny, fake tan, your usual actress in the last two years before regular Botox injections begin. Still, she wasn’t bad. In her improv, she played a woman trying to return a sweater to the wrong store. I liked her determination and she had some nice comic timing.
Len was right. An actor has got to act. It took me about ten minutes to convince Chelsea that I was legit and not your average San Francisco lunatic.
1
But by the end of the night, she had my card and promised to call. She even had some friends whom she thought might be up for the challenge.
After improv class, I pulled Shana Breslin’s recycling, dropped it by Pratt’s house, waited fifteen minutes, and watched him stick the same bags back in his own recycling receptacle. I pulled the bags and stuck them in my trunk. That kid was up to something, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what.
I
arrived at the offices in the afternoon. My parents were hunched over their desks, drinking coffee, yawning, and struggling to stay awake.
“Too much salsa dancing?” I asked.
They looked at each other, as far I could tell, to get their stories straight. My mom did the talking.
“We went for a hike in Muir Woods. Maybe we overdid it.”
“If you’re running around on outdoor adventures, then why do we need to leave the premises?”