Authors: Lisa Lutz
PART-I
T
hat evening, before I found a bed to stay in for the night, I went to the Philosopher’s Club to contemplate my options. I caught Milo chuckling to himself about some Olympics-related joke he was perfecting in his mind. I shot him a glance so loaded with hostility that he decided against sharing his witty creation.
“Can I sleep in your office tonight?”
“No.”
“Please.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I run a bar, not a motel.”
“You’ve been cranky lately,” I said.
“I’ve got things on my mind, beyond not making the Olympic team.”
“Would you get off that?”
“For future reference, Isabel: Don’t talk to a bartender about how you never lived up to your potential. Okay?”
“Sorry, but to correct you, my problem is that maybe I
have
lived up to my potential.”
Milo served me a Guinness and then poured himself a shot of whiskey and sat down on a stool behind the bar.
“So, how are you doing?” I asked, making small talk.
“I could be better,” Milo said.
I didn’t ask him to elaborate since I assumed “better” meant he could have a better job, more hair, and fewer bills to pay. Milo’s comment was the sort of thing anyone could say. I didn’t read it beyond the flat surface; I simply echoed its sentiment.
“Me too,” I replied.
I finished my beer and left. I sat in my car for five minutes calculating my options: go back to Bernie’s; drive across the bridge and stay with Len and Christopher; motel; sleep in my car; go to David’s place. The final option seemed the wisest and I made the ten-minute drive.
I had not yet plotted the precise elements that caused my brother’s recent decline. I assumed it involved infidelity followed by profound regret. Knowing that David was still at his yoga retreat and Petra was still AWOL, I didn’t see any harm in breaking into their home and sleeping there. No one in my family hides keys. If you lock yourself out, you call someone who has the key or you break in. You don’t leave a key sitting around for someone who doesn’t have B&E skills to use.
I circled David’s house looking for an open window. Everything was secure, as I predicted. I pulled a flashlight from my car and grabbed my picking tools from the glove compartment. David’s front and back door have two deadbolts each. However, there’s a basement entrance with only a single lock, which is out of the view of most of the neighbors. Five minutes later, I was inside David’s house.
I poured myself two fingers of his fancy bourbon and sat down in front of his fifty-six-inch flat-screen TV on his ten-thousand-dollar suede couch. David’s excess always offended me, but there was an unmistakable thrill I got from using his space without his knowledge. I suspect David got his own thrill from his later knowledge that my entrance into his home set off a silent alarm. Fifteen minutes after I sat down on his offensively expensive couch, there was a knock at the door.
I answered the door, drink in hand. When the uniformed officer told me to keep my hands up, I spilled some of the bourbon down my arm.
The second officer (at this point I can’t even bother with names, descriptions, or ranks) took the glass out of my hand, spun the hand around my back, and cuffed me in one slick move.
“There’s been a mistake. I’m Isabel Spellman. David’s sister.”
“Ma’am, a neighbor observed you picking a lock in the back of the house and you set off a silent alarm.”
“I’m allowed to pick David’s lock. Call him and ask him.”
“Ma’am, we have to take you in.”
“Please stop calling me ‘ma’am.’”
M
y long-winded explanation of my friendly B&E took nine hours to verify. I waited until two hours in, hoping that David would return the call to the police department before I did any name-dropping. But the prospect of another twelve hours in lockup was more painful than the prospect of facing my father. At 2
A.M
. the captain on duty phoned my dad, who didn’t arrive at the station until five hours later. I attempted sleep on a soiled cot in a fully-lit holding cell. When Dad finally collected me, I couldn’t contain my hostility.
“What took you so long?”
“I went back to sleep,” Dad replied.
“Nice. You can forget about a Father’s Day gift this year.”
“So I’ll have to buy my own bottle of Old Spice now?”
“How could you leave me in there?”
“I thought that maybe a night in jail would remind you that breaking and entering is a crime.”
“All I did was break into David’s place. He wasn’t even there.”
“If you don’t have a key and an alarm code to a home, you shouldn’t be entering it uninvited. This is basic human behavior, which I should not have to explain to you at this point in your life.”
Dad parked his car in David’s driveway, right behind my Buick.
“I know your little secret,” I said.
“What?” Dad replied.
“I found the pills in the glove compartment. I asked a doctor and he said—”
Dad grabbed the collar of my jacket and gave me a threatening stare.
“Not another word,” he said in a slow, throaty whisper.
“I know,” I whispered back to him. I have no idea whether it was my actual plan to blackmail Dad with his own health condition, but my tough-guy delivery certainly implied that.
Dad leaned in and whispered in my ear. “Don’t you dare say anything to your mother.”
“Or what?” I replied, feeling the hostility burning in my cheeks.
“You don’t want to fuck with me, Isabel. Remember, I know where you live.”
“Really?” I replied. “Could you tell me?”
I got out of the car and didn’t look back. The collection of loose facts knocking about my brain took on an unrestrained volume. I had other things on my agenda at the moment: 1) Take a shower. 2) Find a place to sleep.
I drove to Bernie’s for the shower. He was out cold in the bedroom. Based on the sheer volume of beer bottles and cigar butts around, I knew he would remain unconscious for a few more hours. I showered and changed in peace and hid his beer in the closet (my sad attempt at playing
Gaslight
) and departed, leaving only the scent of some fruity shampoo behind me. Bernie would wake thinking he spent the night with a woman, but wouldn’t recall her name or what she looked like.
It was ten
A.M
. by the time I left Bernie’s place. Since my only job was the Chandler vandalism case and Easter wasn’t for another few weeks, I had time to kill. I drove to the library and spent the day with other homeless people. I found a nice spot in the medieval history section and took a nap. A few hours later, I called Morty and asked him if he wanted to meet for lunch.
I arrived at our usual deli shortly after one
P.M
.
“Any chance I can stay with you and Ethel for a few days?” I asked, conjuring my best urchin stare.
“The grandkids are coming tonight,” Morty replied, spooning ice into his coffee. “If you can handle the noise, you’re welcome.”
“No. That’s fine,” I replied. “I’ll find someplace else.”
“You sure?” Morty said, taking a sip of his coffee.
“I’m sure,” I said.
Two minutes later, Morty summoned the waitress to heat up his decaf again. Four hours later, I was on the Bay Bridge, on my way to visit Len and Christopher.
When I arrived, they were rearranging their couches and chairs in a semicircle facing an empty space. Christopher served me tea and said, “To what do we owe the pleasure of this visit? Is there a gang member you would like me to impersonate? Blood or Crip? I need to know to choose the proper wardrobe.”
“I was wondering if I could stay with you guys for a few days. My apartment needs to be fumigated.”
1
“Of course,” Len replied pleasantly. And then he explained the furniture arrangement. “And you get to see our at-home production of
Waiting for Godot.
We’ll be performing it all week long.”
Two hours later, I was sitting in the Philosopher’s Club, asking Milo yet again for a place to sleep, albeit this time it was a different place.
“Any chance I can stay at your apartment? I’ll sleep on the couch and make myself scarce in the morning.”
“Sorry, kid. Out of the question. There, uh—I got some construction going on in my apartment. I’m staying at a motel.”
“What kind of construction?”
“Painting. Just go home, Izzy. Say you’re sorry and behave yourself. What are they gonna do?”
I contemplated my options for the next three hours at the Philosopher’s Club. At eleven
P.M
. I drove back to 1799 Clay Street and noticed that the lights were out. I parked three blocks away and walked back to the house. I circled around back and climbed up the fire escape into my old attic apartment. I was so exhausted after my prior night in jail that I just slipped off my sneakers, got under the covers, and fell fast asleep.
Sunday, March 26
0315 hrs
I woke to the sound of things opening and closing: car doors, trunks, front doors, screen doors, etc. There was an attempt at quieting the sounds, but car doors won’t latch without an accompanying slam. (I have often wondered why automobile manufacturers have never tried to correct this obvious glitch.) Keeping the attic apartment dim, I pulled up the blinds just a bit to peek outside. Subject’s residence was partially lit. Subject was awake. As he moved through his flat, he appeared like an element in a flip book being shuffled.
The view, obscured by the limits of the window, revealed Subject moving from office to foyer a couple of times and then from foyer to car, parked in the driveway of his residence. I moved out of the attic and tiptoed down the stairs, trying to catch a view of Subject as he exited his apartment. The Spellman office door was locked, so I moved into the living room and watched Subject from an awkward angle out of the bay window. Subject was packing his car full of boxes. I watched for the next ten or fifteen minutes, trying to decide what I would do if he moved. My car was parked three blocks away. It would not be possible to reach my car and return undetected while laying in wait for Subject to move.
My mother keeps an extra set of her car keys on a hook by the refrigerator. I took the key, returned to my bunker behind the couch, and watched Subject as he brought two more loads of file boxes down to his car. My father descended the stairs just as Subject entered his vehicle.
“Izzy, what are you doing here?” Dad said. I was too preoccupied with Subject’s movements to notice the overly hostile tone in my father’s voice.
“I gotta go,” I said, still watching Subject through the window. “I’m taking Mom’s car. Shouldn’t be long.”
“Isabel, don’t!”
“Relax. I’ll be right back.”
Dad shouted after me, but I couldn’t make out the words. I jumped into Mom’s Honda and sped after Subject’s dented Volkswagen.
I tailed the VW up California Street, over two hills, and into the Avenues. At four
A.M
., I stayed one car back and hoped that my mother’s nondescript Honda Accord had never registered on his radar.
Note to the reader regarding the events that happened next: When one is performing surveillance, one’s attention is virtually 90 percent on the subject, and the other 10 percent is on abiding basic traffic laws. Noticing if someone is following you while you are following someone else is almost impossible. That’s how I missed Dad’s car tailing me in the distance and that is how Dad, driving in his car, had time to call the police and give them my precise coordinates.
I heard the siren first, and then the blinding flash of the lights glared at me through my rearview mirror. The officers pulled up alongside my (okay, not my) vehicle and motioned for me to pull over. I pulled over. One officer got out of his vehicle while the other hung back and spoke to my father. The first officer approached the car I was driving as I rolled down the window. He asked for my license and registration. I didn’t even have shoes on, so the license part was out of the question. I pulled the registration from the glove compartment and explained that I was in a rush and forgot my license, but the man driving behind me could verify that I was the daughter of Olivia Spellman, owner of the vehicle I was driving.
My officer returned to his vehicle and had a very brief chat with his partner and my father. He then returned to me and asked me to get out of the car. I obliged.
My bare feet chilled against the rough asphalt.
“Turn around and face the vehicle,” the officer said.
“Huh?” was my reply. But the officer spun me around before I could register what was happening.
He snapped the cuffs on me and repeated words that were beginning to become all too familiar.
“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney…”