I drove to Concord.
I’d copied down Ivan Arias’s address as well as addresses for the rest of Rosa’s family. Maxwell and Stephanie both lived near their father. The younger son, Christian, was a student at UC Santa Cruz. Janet and Craig Vernon had divorced. She, too, lived in Concord.
None of them owned a truck of any color or had a criminal record.
I had no legal right to know that.
I hadn’t been able to find a Craig Vernon in the vicinity, and there were too many men with that name to start chasing them all down.
I had to start somewhere, and Ivan felt like the best balance of risk versus reward.
Traffic through the Caldecott Tunnel was sparse. Over the 680 split, the message board declared:
HIGH WINDS—FIRE DANGER—AQI POOR—STAY INSIDE
I forked north. Big-box stores and housing developments bellied up to the roadside.
Roskelley Drive was a single block of ranch homes, a quarter of a mile from Pixieland amusement park. The sidewalk smoldered white hot. Elms and oaks and palms cast weak pools of shadow. Lawns were trimmed to brown stubble or had been replaced by concrete or gravel. Ivan Arias might not own watercraft, but several of his neighbors did. They owned RVs and minivans. They owned trucks.
None white. None with tonneau covers.
Ivan Arias’s ranch home was two cubes of peach stucco beneath an obtuse cap sheet roof. Silver Prius in the carport, curtains drawn against the heat. I stepped from the car into a parched stillness. No televisions or radios singing; no hair dryers or washing machines. A squirrel darted out along a power line and struck a pose as though electrocuted.
The man who came to the door was about five-eight, with wiry gray hair and a full gray beard, steel-rimmed aviator glasses resting on a broad nose. His T-shirt paunched softly. “Yes?”
“Ivan Arias?”
“Yes?”
I’d kept my uniform on. My surname was sewn onto the breast pocket. He didn’t react to it or to my ID. He read it and gave it back and stood there, expressionless. It had to feel to him like déjà vu—a visit from the coroner. And what I was about to do was cruel.
But Luke…
“My name is Clay Edison,” I said. “Luke Edison is my brother.”
A tremor ran through him. “Excuse me?”
“Is anyone else home, Mr. Arias?”
“Is…” He clocked my face, my gun. “No.”
“Can we talk?”
“What’s there to talk about.”
“Has my brother ever gotten in touch?”
“With me?”
“You, or any other members of your family.”
“Why would he do that?”
“He spoke about wanting to ask your forgiveness.”
Arias wound up to slam the door. Smiled, as if he’d thought of something absurd.
He said, “You’re a cop.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And he’s…who he is.”
“Yes, sir.”
“How come I don’t remember you?”
“I wasn’t at the trial,” I said.
“Never?”
“No, sir.”
“Why not?”
I said, “I don’t know.”
A few houses over, a leaf blower howled to life.
Ivan Arias stepped back. “Come in.”
The house had a typical midcentury layout, with kitchen, dining room, and living room forming an L around the carport. One dining chair was pulled out, manila folders stacked up on the table next to a laptop whose glow alone dented the gloom. I’d interrupted his work.
He pointed me to a sectional and went to a rear sliding glass door, tugging the chain to open the vertical blinds. The plastic slats swished and tapped as they parted, sallow light flashing on the carpet like a distress signal. In the backyard a flower bed enclosed by a brick border ran along one fence. There was a patio with a charcoal grill and a suite of sun-blasted outdoor furniture. It made for a forlorn tableau.
“I have water, orange juice, and Coke.”
“No, thanks.”
“Drink something,” he said, making it sound like a command.
“Water would be great, thank you.”
He put out coasters. “I have beer, too.”
A test? He’s an alkie like his brother? Drinks on the job?
“Water, please.”
He went to the kitchen sink, shutting the laptop as he passed.
While his back was turned I slid over to look at the photo on the end table. It showed the whole family, the three children still children. Rosa wore a slender ruffled dress, her black hair pinned up and two glossy spirals hanging free. She carried the baby on her hip. His chin glistened with drool. The older boy smiled through large gapped teeth. The boys sported matching party outfits. The daughter, Stephanie, clung stubbornly to her father’s leg, refusing to acknowledge the camera. Ivan’s beard was dark. His face was red and happy.
My stomach churned. I had no right to be here, no right to his memories.
There were more photos in the dining area, staggered on the shelves of a wall unit. Too far to make out details, but I could see several male faces, a few of which had beards.
The faucet ran. Outside, the leaf blower ground like an auger.
Could I risk a quick look?
Ivan Arias was slumped over the sink.
I started to put my weight down. My boots sank into the pile.
The faucet shut off.
Ivan raised his head.
I sat back.
He brought two glasses of water and set them on the coasters.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He eased into a corduroy recliner. “I can see it now. The similarity. He was a lot younger then. Now he must be, what. Forty?”
“Forty-one.”
“Why”—with a soft exhalation he bent for his glass—“why does he want forgiveness now?”
“I guess he’s had some time to think about what he did.”
“He’s had time. He had time in prison. What changed?”
“I’m not sure.”
“So he sent you here to…set it up.”
I skirted the lie. “For what it’s worth, in my opinion, he’s not the same person he was.”
“I really hope not.”
“I’m not defending him, Mr. Arias. No excuses.”
“You should defend him. That’s what family does.” He sipped, ran his lips over each other. “If he does call and ask me to forgive him, I’ll have nothing to say.”
I nodded.
He wagged a finger at me. “You think I can’t forgive him because what he did was unforgivable. That’s not it. To forgive you need to feel. I feel nothing toward him. To me, he’s not a person, he’s a thing that happened. Like the weather. You don’t forgive the weather.”
He took another sip and nestled his glass carefully in the carpet. “Who else does he want forgiveness from? My kids? Janet?”
“I don’t know.”
“Have you talked to them yet?”
“No, sir. I came to you first.”
“Good call.”
“Why’s that?”
“I loved my wife. I loved my niece. To lose them was more painful than I can describe. But the pain had a shape. It had borders. I could remember my wife and my niece. My children didn’t have that. They were too young. Christian, he used to wake up at night and scream. I’d have to hold him for hours till he calmed down. I knew what he wanted, he wanted his mother. But he couldn’t express that, and I couldn’t explain to him why it was me, not her. My oldest son was six. Stephanie was barely four. You don’t know your mother at that age. She’s not a person, she’s a presence. Like God. So yes, they understand something was taken from them. But they have nothing to grab onto. It’s an abstraction. I mourned for my Rosa. They’re mourning for themselves. That never goes away.”
I said, “I’m sorry.”
“Did he send you here to apologize?”
“No, sir. I’m on my own.”
“You didn’t come to the trial, though.”
“No, sir.”
He sat back, still wanting an explanation.
“I was angry at him,” I said.
“You were.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why?”
“He was an embarrassment.”
“To you.”
“To our family.” I’d never spoken these words. “I hated him.”
“Do you, still?”
“Not anymore.”
“You’ve forgiven him.”
“I don’t see that as up to me.”
“Well, if it’s not up to you, and it’s not up to me, then who’s it up to?”
“I don’t know, sir. Maybe he doesn’t get forgiveness.”
“Hard way to live.”
“Not compared with you.”
A cold smile. “It’s not a competition. Everyone suffers.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Your parents? How do they feel?”
“I think they were embarrassed, too.”
“You think? You never talked about it?”
“No, sir.”
“It must be strange for them,” Ivan Arias said. “Him. And a cop.”
The sound of the leaf blower died away.
“Your parents never said a single word to me,” he said. “Not before the trial, not during, not after. It’s okay. They were probably following their lawyer’s instructions.”
“What would you have liked to say to them?”
He thought a moment. “I would have told them about Rosa. Not to make them feel guilty. I gain nothing from that. But I do want the world to know what it lost. Afterward I had lawyers calling me left and right, wanting me to go after him in civil court. ‘No, thank you. I don’t need to watch the sequel.’ Besides, what could we have gotten from him?”
Luke: unemployed, uninsured, sleeping under the freeway.
“Not much,” I said.
“Correct. You start out fighting him but end up fighting yourself. Like my kids. Fighting who knows what. I’m pretty sure if he’d contacted them, they’d have told me. But let’s find out.”
He tapped a text, sent it off, and put the phone on the coffee table.
“I’m going to make a prediction,” he said. “Stephanie will write back first. A minute or two. Max’ll be five to ten. Christian,” he said, chuckling, “we might get an answer next week.”
I forced myself to smile. “Busy guy.”
“Oh yes, yes. He’s a double major, biology and physics.”
“Wow.”
“They’re all like that. Smart, ambitious.”
“What does your daughter do?”
“She’s in law school. She wants to be a prosecutor. Who knows? Maybe you’ll work with her one day. That would be ironic, don’t you think?”
“Yes, sir. And your other son?”
“Max works for my brother-in-law, Raul. He’s a contractor.”
Contractors drove trucks.
“You must be very proud of them,” I said.
“I am.” Ivan scratched his elbow. “Do you have children?”
“One. One on the way.”
“Does your brother?”
I shook my head.
“Is he married?”
“Yes, sir, he is.”
“Good for him.”
The phone chimed. He peered at it. “Stephanie says she’s never heard from him.”
He tapped a reply and put the phone in his lap. “What did I tell you? Right on time.”
“Yes, sir.”
“They don’t change from when they’re small. You’ll see that.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You said your brother’s a new person.”
“In certain respects.”
“Such as what.”
“He’s tried to stay out of trouble.”
“Does he succeed?”
“I think so.”
“And how is he?”
“Sir?”
“Is he well? Is he happy?”
“That’s hard for me to say.”
“What does he do to pay the bills?”
I hesitated. “He works at a cannabis company.”
Ivan tilted his head. “Really?”
“Yes, sir.”
“He’s allowed to do that?”
“Apparently.”
He burst into laughter. He took off his glasses and began cleaning them on the hem of his shirt. “Unbelievable…Is he allowed to drive?”
“Not for the first year. He can now.”
“He hasn’t killed anybody else, though.”
A bright-green Camaro.
A garage door, stuck partway open.
A man with three holes in his back.
I said, “No, sir.”
He replaced his glasses. “Well, that’s progress.”
“Yes, sir. May I ask about your sister?”
“I have five sisters.”
“Your sister Janet. How do you think she’d react if Luke called her?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think she’d sit there with him like I’m sitting with you.”
“I understand that she and her husband split up.”
“Their marriage was never that great to begin with. Lucy was what they had, and once they didn’t have her…” He fluttered his fingers like falling leaves.
“What about her husband?”
“He left town. I think he moved to Idaho.”
“You’re not in touch with him.”
“Craig? No.” Ivan Arias paused. “It made things tense between me and Janet, too. We don’t talk as much as we used to. So in a way I lost her, too. Have you ever lost someone you loved?”
“No, sir, I have not.” Unless.
“I don’t wish that for you.”
The phone chimed. He glanced at his lap. “Max hasn’t heard from him either.”
He tapped a reply. Seconds later the phone sounded again. They made several more exchanges before Ivan laid the phone facedown on the table. “I’m getting a Coke. Want one?”
“No, thank you.”
He started for the kitchen.
“One week till we hear from Christian,” he called. “Start the clock.”
I believed Ivan Arias was telling me the truth. He’d never seen my brother. As to his children’s denials, there were too many unknowns.
How honest they were with their father; how he’d phrased the question. I began preparing a polite goodbye. Eyeing the wall unit, the photos of bearded faces. Could I pass close enough on my way out to get a look?
Ivan brought his can of Coke, sat down, and began to talk.
He told me about the first time he met Rosa, the summer she turned seventeen, when she worked at the mall. He told me about his big unruly family. He described Rosa’s difficulty fitting in, Janet sticking up for her. He told me about Rosa teaching Lucy to sew and the quinceañera dress. He pointed to the photograph on the end table, taken at a wedding a month before Rosa’s death. She’d made the boys’ outfits. The last picture with the five of them together. He had others from that night, but—believe it or not—that was the best of the bunch. Without fail at least one child had their eyes shut, or was frowning or staring off into the distance.
“Law of nature,” he said.
He smiled, remembering the gagging face Rosa made when Lucy described the chartreuse leopard print dress. After Rosa got off the phone, she said to Ivan it sounded like something a hooker would wear. The word she used, he told me, laughing, was puta-licious.
At the funeral it occurred to him that he would never hear his wife speak again. Her book had closed. A few days later he drove to the fabric store and the restaurant and asked them what they remembered. He learned that Rosa’s last words on earth were when she checked to ensure that her children’s chicken and noodles weren’t spicy.
There had to be more words spoken, between her and Lucy in the car, prior to the crash. He would never know, though.
I sat in the prickly heat and listened, time slipping away, light ripening. Children ran by in the street, slap of sneakers and a basketball. How could they breathe in this air? Salt crusted my upper lip. I had stopped sweating. Ivan’s voice had dropped to a near whisper; he was inhabiting the past. The leaf blower resumed its lament and I could scarcely hear what he was saying. Still I sat and I listened. I owed him that much.
The phone chimed, cutting him off in midsentence.
“Faster than a week,” I said.
Ivan smiled faintly. He read the screen. His eyes narrowed. “It’s Max.”
“What did he say?”
“He’s here.”