The day her adopted son was accused of murder was no different.
I looked back down at my plate.
Ms. Neace had loaded me up with bacon, eggs, and a grapefruit sprinkled with sugar. I managed to take a few bites, but mostly I just shuffled the food around with my fork. “Not hungry, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“Sorry, Dr. Rose. I’m not particularly hungry this good morning, kind madam.”
Her gray eyes narrowed and she gave me that look, the one that made her hawklike nose appear a little longer. The look that dramatically positioned shadows from the room around her solemn face just so. “Perhaps it’s time we put an end to the late-night phone calls,” she said. “Such distractions lead to lack of rest, and lack of rest will rob one of one’s appetite.”
Dr. Rose had insisted Ms. Neace set a place for Dr. Bart—plate, utensils, glassware—as if he were going to join us. I might still be an undergrad, but even I understand this is unhealthy, creepy behavior. Dr. Bart was in a drawer somewhere, a cold metal drawer, probably with a hole in his head and his brain in a bin, removed to get a better look at the aneurysm that had killed him without warning. In a few days, he would be buried, gone forever, yet Dr. Rose persisted in these games. Last night, I saw her carry two glasses of water up to their bedroom.
I plucked the grapefruit from my plate and set it on Dr. Bart’s. He always did love his grapefruit.
Dr. Rose watched me quietly.
My cell phone vibrated on the chair beside me. Cell phones were not permitted at the dining table. I glanced down at the display—I didn’t recognize the number.
“Is that your brother?”
“Telemarketer, I guess.” I expected her to scold me, but she didn’t.
“But that was your brother last night?”
It was my turn to fall silent.
When Michael dropped out of school and ran off (had it been six years already?), he didn’t tell our parents where he was going—didn’t so much as leave a note. He had this nasty fight with Dr. Bart, and the following morning he was gone. Nearly a month passed before he even contacted me—from Wyoming that time, the first of many places. Over the years, I’d boxed up some of the stuff he’d left and mailed it to him whenever he did anything even mildly permanent, like paying two months of rent in advance. First just clothing, then more obscure items; I was hoping they might remind him of home, maybe guilt him into some kind of return. I sent track trophies, drawings we did as kids, old Halloween costumes, whatever I could find. Whatever I could ship. No way he’d talk to Dr. Rose. He certainly wasn’t going to talk to Dr. Bart. But he talked to me.
Dr. Rose said, “Will your brother be attending Dr. Bart’s funeral?”
Ms. Neace came in to refill our coffee mugs, eyed the grapefruit on Dr. Bart’s plate as she circled the table, then returned to the kitchen.
“He knows the funeral is Tuesday,” I told her. “I asked him to come.”
“He should be there,” she said. “It would be wrong for him not to attend. Dr. Bart raised him. Put a roof over his head. Offered him an education, even if he didn’t take it.”
My phone buzzed again. Same number.
“If that’s him, you should answer it.”
“It’s not him,” I told her.
Dr. Rose dabbed at the corner of her mouth with a cloth napkin. “Tell him to put his differences with Dr. Bart aside long enough to attend. That would be the proper thing to do. If not for me, he should do it for you.”
The only reason Dr. Rose had her girdle in a twist was appearances. Oh, the gossip if Michael didn’t attend! What would her university colleagues say behind her back? A boy raised by two of the most prominent doctors in the country who would not speak to his mother or attend the funeral of his father?
Did you know he ran off six years ago?
He dropped out of school? I thought he’d just transferred!
I heard he’s a truck driver, of all things! Can you imagine?
On and on.
If word got out about Michael, his actions would clearly be seen as a failure on the part of Dr. Rose and Dr. Bart, and neither of them failed—not in anything. Not ever. Dr. Bart in particular had never hesitated to point that out.
“You need to tell him how disappointed you will be if he doesn’t attend,” Dr. Rose insisted.
“Are you seeing patients today?”
She smiled that Cheshire cat grin of hers. “Trying to get rid of me?”
I nodded. “I need to break into Dr. Bart’s office, and I’d prefer it if you weren’t here to stop me.”
“You think you’re funny. I see. As if this were a time for jokes.”
“I’m sorry, Dr. Rose.”
Dr. Rose added creamer to her coffee, stirred, and took a delicate sip. “I prefer not to work on Sundays, but yes, I have two appointments today at my university office, at twelve and one. Later this afternoon, I’m meeting Gracie downtown. You’re welcome to join us if you’d like.”
Tea time and girl talk with one of Dr. Rose’s friends—I’d rather go to the gyno. “Can you drop me at the university library? I really need to study. I have an exam tomorrow in Professor Spradley’s class.”
“Dr. Spradley can be tough.”
My phone rang again. I pressed Decline.
“Are you sure that’s not your brother?”
“Positive.”
But I was beginning to think it might be.
Chapter Sixteen
Michael
The Stow ’n’ Go warehouse complex off Alameda reminded me of a prison repurposed as a place to store the crap people never use. Signs advertised 120,000 square feet of secure storage at rates as low as $19.99 a month. The top floor of the three-story outer building was painted bright blue; the lower half was a creamy beige. Within the center courtyard stood three rows of smaller buildings. Each of the first-floor units boasted large garage doors painted the same blue as the topmost brick that opened onto strips of blacktop just wide enough for loading and unloading.
A key card was required to enter the building whether you were in a vehicle or on foot. My key card was in my wallet, which was back at my apartment or in an evidence bag with the LAPD.
From one of the four Dumpsters on the west side of the building, I fished out a flattened cardboard box that had once held a wine refrigerator. I found three smaller boxes, put them on top of each other, then picked up the whole pile. When a woman followed by a little boy of around eight years old approached the glass double doors toting a box of her own, I fell in step behind them. The woman held her key card awkwardly between two fingers. She said something to the boy, who snatched the card, ran to the reader, unlocked the door, and tugged it open.
I closed the distance, bending my knees slightly as if struggling under the weight of the boxes. “Can you hold that for me?”
I wedged my shoulder against the door, shouted a thanks, and made my way down the hallway on the right to one of the doors leading to the outer courtyard. Cameras were mounted everywhere.
In the courtyard, I left the largest box just outside the door and quickly carried the three others to the third row, the second-to-last storage unit on the left, thankful I’d decided on a combination lock when I’d rented the space a little over two years ago.