The Dark Room(63)

“A lot of money, is what you’re saying.”

“Piles of it,” Chun said. “And this wasn’t the house Pi Kappa Kappa used before it got kicked out of Cal. That one’s still there; I’ve seen it. It’s your typical frat house—a clapboard piece of shit, with fake Greek columns and weeds for a yard. The Grizzly Peak place was something they picked up after they went underground.”

Chun wadded up the waxed paper bag that had held her croissant and put it into her empty coffee cup.

“There were two other things,” she said. “A block from their apartment was a park, with a basketball court. Castelli played pickup games there. Herrington used to cut through the park on his way home from class.”

“Okay.”

“Most of the time, Castelli played without a shirt. Even when it was cold.”

“The tattoo,” Grassley said. “Herrington knew about it?”

Chun nodded.

“The first time he saw it, it was still fresh—raw and red. That was around spring break.”

“You’re talking 1985?” Cain asked. “Their freshman year?”

“March, freshman year.”

“What about the scars on his forearms? Did you ask about those?”

“That was the other thing,” Chun said. “Herrington said they weren’t there until the fall semester sophomore year. He saw them when they were moving back in, at the end of the summer. They hadn’t healed yet.”

Cain had been buzzing on the usual blend of exhaustion and caffeine. Now there was something else in the mix. It was the feeling he got when a piece of the path in front of him suddenly resolved itself and became clear. Castelli had the tattoo inked onto his shoulder blade in the spring of 1985. The girl had gone into Christopher Hanley’s casket on July 17, 1985. Sometime during the summer, Castelli had tried to open up his forearm with a razor blade.

“What’ve you got today?” Cain asked her.

“I take the stand at nine. I’m testifying in the Conroy trial.”

“That might go all day,” Cain said. “But if it doesn’t—if you get out early—you know what to do?”

“Go back to Berkeley, to the police department,” she said. “Copy the murder book from the Grizzly Peak fire.”

“And see if there’s a file on Pi Kappa Kappa. If the Berkeley PD didn’t keep one, university police might have. You could ask around, see if the deans know anything.” He turned to Grassley. “What about you?”

“I missed the fashion professor,” Grassley said. “Last night, she was gone by the time I showed. She’s got office hours this morning.”

“That’s at the building on New Montgomery?”

“Yeah.”

“Keep an eye out for Alexa Castelli. She lives across the street, and her mom’s staying in the Palace Hotel.”

“If I see them, then what?”

“Just keep an eye.”

“The dress, I figure it’s a dead end anyway.”

“But you never know,” Cain said. “And if you spot the daughter, stay out of sight. Don’t approach her, and whatever you do, don’t find yourself in a room alone with her.”

“That’s trouble I don’t need,” Grassley said.

“Tell me about it.”

Cain stood up and stretched his arms behind his back, joining his fingers together and working his shoulders against the stiffness. “Call me if you learn anything. That goes for both of you.”



He walked to his car and sat for a moment before hitting the ignition. From the parking space, he was looking head-on into the traffic coming up the Embarcadero. The bridge was above everything, gray steel hovering over the last of the city before reaching across the water. It was raining again, and most of the cars used their headlights. The drought was done, at least here. Now it rained all the time, while the central valley baked under clouds of dust. He thought sometimes that the city inhabited a different earth, that if the sky ever cleared enough to see the stars, they would be unrecognizable. Uncharted constellations, the long tails of nameless comets.

The city’s labs were backed up, and that was choking his investigation. He’d made arrangements to address that. Dr. Henry Newcomb had been the chief medical examiner until a few days after Christmas, when he’d been forced to resign. A case of his had turned out badly for the city, and at the end of it there’d been no one left but Henry to take the blame. He’d been at loose ends when Cain called—no job and no prospect of one, and happy to take anything. Cain hit the ignition and put the car into gear.



A black swan and a single cygnet were gliding near the edge of the lake facing the Palace of Fine Arts, but paddled to the deeper water near the middle when Cain shut his car door and went to get the Styrofoam cooler from his trunk. He stood on the sidewalk with the cooler under one arm, watching the swan and the rotunda’s reflection on the rain-dimpled water.

“Cain?”

He turned around. Dr. Newcomb was wearing khakis and an old Yale sweatshirt. He had a black umbrella tucked under one arm. Cain had never seen him in street clothes. Either he’d been dressed for an autopsy, or he’d been in a suit, testifying.

“Henry.”

He shifted the cooler to his other arm and shook Henry Newcomb’s hand. Then they headed out across the wet grass and stepped onto a footpath that wound around the lake.