6. Found in the Whitening Suite
Found in the Whitening Suite
Iheard the sirens before I knew anything, the way the whole block did, and I stood in my own courtyard arch at ten past eight with a cortado going cold in my hand and watched three patrol cars and an ambulance stack up in front of the old bank building across State Street.
Nate wasn't there that morning. That's worth noting, because it was the first eight-forty in some weeks that he'd missed, and he'd texted at six — early meeting, LA on the phone, I'll call — and I'd thought nothing of it at all.
Tess came and stood next to me. Marisol came out and stood on my other side.
The three of us watched the glass front of Luminous with the DJ's platform still in it and the tile wall glowing white behind the reflections, and after about twenty minutes the ambulance left slowly, without its lights on, which is the thing that tells you.
"Oh," said Tess.
The news went around town at the speed it goes here.
By nine-fifteen we knew it was a man. By nine-forty we knew it was Hale.
By ten, Marisol had it from her cousin's wife who does the cleaning contract for three buildings on that block: found in the back, in the whitening suite, on the floor, by the girl with the headset, who had opened at seven-fifty because she always opens.
"They think it was the night before," Marisol said. "Sunday night. There was a car in the lot all night and nobody thought anything of it because he lives — lived — at the beach and walked sometimes."
I did not go over there. I want that noted too, because in the version of me that exists in this town's imagination, I went over there.
I stood in my arch and I cancelled nothing and I saw patients all day with my hands not entirely steady, and at four o'clock Anh Trinh asked me if I wanted her to take my last two and I said no.
Here's what was in my head all day, running under the fillings and the small talk, on a loop:
Don't bring anything into my building. Don't send anything to my building. Make a copy and put it somewhere that isn't your office.
And: eleven mouths on a Saturday, and two of them with work that wasn't there.
And, worst, in Adele Whitcombe's voice: I know what a man looks like when the money isn't his.
Ray Dominguez came at six, after I'd locked up, and knocked on the courtyard glass with one knuckle. He had another detective with him, a younger man named Serrano whom I didn't know, and Ray's face was the face of a man doing a thing he'd hoped not to do before dinner.
"Doc." He took the hat off. "You got a few minutes?"
"Ray, is it—"
"Preston Hale, yeah. Sometime Sunday night. That's all I'm going to say about it because I'm not here to tell you things." He said it gently and it landed like a shelf falling. "I'm here because I've got to talk to a lot of people this week and I'd rather you heard my voice first. Can we sit down?"
We sat down. In my own waiting room, under the sea otter, with Detective Serrano taking notes and Floss standing up from under the desk and coming to lean on Ray Dominguez's leg, and Ray absently putting his hand on her head because he's known her since she was a puppy in this room.
"Tell me about the Chamber thing," said Ray.