Chapter 20: Harmless - Lucidity

AFTER MADDEN WAS USHERED OUT OF MILEKI’S HOUSE HE WALKED UP the street, got in his car and drove down the hill past the house. About a hundred yards down the street he made a U-turn and parked again, leaving the engine running. From that vantage point he’d be able to see her pull out of the driveway and intercept her before she drove away. Ideally, however, he wanted to time his return so he caught her before she left.

He looked at his watch. He decided to give her ten minutes. Any longer and she might think it weird that it had taken him that long to remember he’d left his phone behind. Or maybe she wouldn’t. He didn’t know. But ten minutes sounded about right.

In the end he let the clock run a little longer—an extra minute—then drove back up to the house and parked in front. Soon he was going through the same routine with the barking dog and her eyeing him through the peephole.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to disturb you again. But I left my phone. It’s in the living room.”

She opened the door but not all the way. She told him to wait there, she’d get it. “I’m not closing the door on you, I just don’t want the dog to get out.”

In fact, she did close the door, then returned a few moments later to crack it open again and hand him his phone through the narrow gap. She didn’t seem to suspect anything. To her, the phone looked like it was off. The screen had gone to sleep but the app was still running.

Even if she’d turned the phone on the first thing she would have seen was the lock screen.

“Sorry,” he said. “Thanks. Have a good day.”

Back in his car he wasn’t quite sure where to go, but at a stop sign he pulled over and searched Google for “Petaluma breakfast spots” and picked one that looked good. He clicked on its address, which in turn launched the Apple Maps app.

It took him only five minutes to get to the restaurant, a quaint little place with a country kitchen feel called the Tea Room Cafe on Western Avenue. It served huevos rancheros, which was all he was looking for.

After he’d settled in at a table, he texted his wife and let her know he’d made it to Petaluma and was OK. Then he texted Dupuy. “Spoke to her for a little bit,” he tapped out. “Going to hang out in town until after rush hour. Call you in a few.”

Waiting for his food to arrive, he opened the voice-recording app on his phone and plugged his headphones in. The restaurant was a little noisy but it was still early, so it wasn’t packed, and his earbuds, a pair of Bose in-ear headphones his wife had given him as a birthday gift, sealed well and cut out a lot of ambient noise.

“OK,” he said to himself, “Let’s see if we’ve got anything here.”

He jumped ahead along the recording’s timeline until he got to the point right before Mileki asked him to leave. He let it run from there.

“Say goodbye to Detective Madden, Eli,” she said.

The iPhone had an excellent microphone and her voice sounded clear and fairly loud even though she wasn’t close to the phone. That was a good sign.

“Goodbye, Detective Madden,” he heard Eli say.

Next, the more muffled sound of the front door to the house opening, then closing. She then returned to the kitchen and told Eli she was going to be turning off the TV soon.

“Can you make it louder, Mommy?” he said.

Shit, Madden thought.

“OK, but just for a few minutes. Finish your milk. I’ve going to make a call and then we’re going to go.”

The volume on the TV went up. For about ten seconds that’s all Madden heard. Some silly PBS Kids show.

“Hey,” he heard her voice again. “So I had a visitor this morning. The detective. Madden.” A pause, then: “Yeah, at the house. He just left.”

He had trouble hearing what she said next. Maybe she was moving around or maybe the mic was picking up too much of the TV show, he couldn’t tell which it was, but her voice came and went. Oneway conversations already sounded fragmented. This one even more so. He paused the recording and took a pen and small notebook out of his coat pocket so he could jot down what he heard. When he was sure the pen worked, he hit the play button and began taking notes, writing one line for each fragment of the conversation.

… from Menlo Park. He was on his way to Calistoga.

He’s a little handicapped, you know. I felt bad. I had to …

No, the usual stuff.

… no, nothing. It’s always the same thing.

He went to see Uncle Robbie. He made a video to show me.

It reminded me of one of those hostage videos. Except instead of pleading for his life he was pleading to see me. It was sad. He looks old now. I started crying.

He wanted me to go see him.

No. He thinks he’s so desperate to have a relationship with me that he’ll tell me where mom’s buried. He offered to get him immunity.

Same story.

I know. For someone so decorated, he seems to be flailing. He said he was frustrated. But given his situation, it’s great what he’s accomplished. I told him that.

[A laugh]. I actually asked him whether he’d been in therapy. You should have seen his face.

It was strange to talk to someone that age who’d been sexually assaulted. I only know young people who’d been assaulted.

It was Pete’s case. It wasn’t ever his.

What I expected, I guess. Eli told him he was too old to be a police officer. I was kind of horrified when he said it but it was kind of funny.

No, no, it’s OK. You don’t have to. He’s harmless. I just wanted to let you know. I don’t think he’ll be coming back.

No, I don’t want you to say anything. I’ll talk to you later.

Eli’s good. You wanna say hello? Eli, say hello to papa.

Come on, Eli. Say hello. I’ll turn off the TV if you don’t.

The next thing Madden heard was a prolonged high-pitched scream. Apparently, Eli wasn’t good with threats. He went nuclear. And that was it. The phone call ended. And there wasn’t anything else after that. No other calls. Just the inane banter of a mother and her four year old. And then Madden showed up at the door and the phone was retrieved without comment.

“Sorry,” he heard himself say. “Thanks. Have a good day.”

He sounded pathetic, he thought. A lot of people had underestimated him over the years, but he found confidence in the knowledge that people underestimated him. This time was different, though. He’d allowed himself to be soft. He’d gone in feeling bad for her. That was a mistake. Christ, she thought he was harmless. What a goddamn insult! For a second he wanted to drive back up to the house and play the recording back for her.

Harmless, huh? Well, you got played. Played by a senile old detective.

The waitress brought him his coffee. She asked him something, but he didn’t hear her because he still had his earphones on. He pulled them out.

“Excuse me?”

“You want a newspaper, sir?” she asked.

“No thanks.”

After she left he put the headphones back on and called Dupuy.

“You get anything?” she asked.

“Yeah, a bruised ego.”

“What happened?”

“I pulled the old leave-the-cell-phone-behind-while-it’s-still recording trick. It worked a little better this time. She made some unflattering remarks to her husband about me.”

Last week in Laguna Beach he’d done the same thing with her uncle Robbie and his wife, Jillian. They’d met at a restaurant and he’d gotten up to go to the bathroom, leaving his phone at the table. They’d talked while he was gone, but about superficial matters like whether Madden looked like Kevin Spacey. And then they had a discussion about the actors who’d played Ross, Stacey, and Cathleen in the re-enactment scenes in the Dateline NBC segment about the case. Both Pastorini and Marcus appeared on the show, playing themselves.

“The husband was there when you spoke to her?” Dupuy asked.

“No, she called him afterwards to tell him what a putz I was.”

“Really, she called you a putz?”

“Not exactly. The funny thing is I went in feeling sorry for her and came out impressed by how together she was. Apparently, the reverse was true for her. She came in impressed with how together I was but came away feeling sorry for me.”

“Is that objective Hank talking or oversensitive Hank?”

“I don’t know. I’m tired. I actually want you to listen to the recording when I get back. It’s kind of fragmented. There’s a TV playing the background, so I couldn’t hear everything. She didn’t really say anything all that interesting but I thought her tone was slightly conspiratorial. I may be wrong, though. It’s hard to know what to think when you’re being insulted. She said I was harmless.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah, it hurts. How ’bout Bender? You said you had something for me. What is it?”

“Some dirt. Ted heard something. You gotta talk to him about it.”

“What kind of dirt?”

“Talk to Ted. He thinks Bender’s trading prescription drugs for access to executives at some of these companies.”

“Really?” That sounded juicy. He was suddenly in a better mood. “Who’s his source?”

“Talk to him. He’s still asleep. He’s off so he’s around. I’ll have him call you when he wakes up.”

“I’ll be back by around noon.”

“How’s Petaluma?”

“I like it. It seems unpretentious. Got a bit of a southwestern flair. Or maybe it’s just western. At least it’s got some old bits and pieces. Some history. You know, they filmed American Graffiti here. I think I’ll do the tour later. A couple of the locations still exist. I’ve gotta get a picture.”

“I didn’t realize you were such a fan.”

“That movie launched a lot of careers.”

“Speaking of pictures, you get one of her?”

Back to reality. “No,” he said.

“Did you ask or just forget?”

“So she thinks I’m harmless and now you think I’m senile?” Madden said, only half kidding. “I asked. She says she doesn’t do pictures. Doesn’t want them to end up in the paper or on social media. Something about not wanting people comparing her to her mother.”

“Does she look like her?”

“Yeah.”

“A lot?”

“There’s a definite resemblance. Similar eyes. Similar nose. She’s a good-looking woman.”

“Sounds like she turned out OK.”

“Better than OK. And she got there by looking forward, not back. Which is why we’re an intrusion.”

“Well, wait ’til the Bender story gets out there. She’s really not going to like you then. She’s going to think you put him up to that.”

Christ, she was right. All of a sudden he didn’t want to go back. He wanted to keep driving. Maybe he’d really head up to Calistoga and hole up somewhere for a few days. Just check out. He didn’t even have to drink, though that’s what one did in wine country, wasn’t it?

“Hank, you there?”

“Yeah, I’m here.”

“I said, ‘At least she won’t think you’re harmless.’”

“No, maybe not.”