Chapter 21 #3
“Ask me later,” he said. He grabbed the handrail and used it to haul himself to his feet.
Javi tilted his head back to look up at him. From the expression on his face, he’d not expected that, but somehow he wasn’t surprised either.
“I suppose that’s what I deserve,” he said and let Cloister yank him up off the step.
He brushed off the seat of his trousers and turned and looked at the Fowler family home.
“Maybe better than I deserve. I’m glad that I know I didn’t get Eric killed, even if the only reason I know is because some cop half-assed a wellness check so hard he didn’t clock that Fowler was decompensating, and the end result is Eric gets killed again. ”
Cloister looked at him.
“What?”
Javi winced and rubbed his hand over his face. “Now, Deputy Witte,” he said, “I know you’re a better man than me. That means you can’t kick me when I’m down.”
“Not that,” Cloister said. He could feel it itch at his brain like a word on the tip of his tongue. “What did you say about a wellness check?”
The tired self-loathing on Javi’s face faded as he ran what he’d just said back to himself. From his half-shrug, it didn’t itch at him the way it did Cloister, but…Cloister had started the case earlier.
“Fowler’s sister, Marion, had a feeling he wasn’t coping,” Javi said. “She’d asked for a wellness check, but whoever came in said Fowler was fine. It tracks. Apparently his delusions didn’t interfere with his daily life…until they did. Why?”
Cuyamaca Road.
Cloister tilted his head to the side as if that would dislodge the information he needed. The name had been familiar when he read it. He’d assumed he’d just been here before, but that wasn’t it.
Cuyamaca.
He could hear someone say it.
Bored, dismissive, irritated that someone had wasted their time for a wellness check on Cuyamaca Road.
No. It had been Cuyamaca Way. That’s what he’d said. Not Road.
“Fucking Gardner,” Cloister said out loud. “I thought he was crooked, or IA, but he’s just a moron. He went to the wrong address.”
Abrief call to the station had reinitiated the wellness check. It was a fig leaf, but it was one that would stand up in court.
Cloister had veered closer to the line than he was comfortable with more often than he was comfortable with in the last few days. Kincaid could sit and swivel, but Cloister knew his upbringing sometimes made bad choices seem justifiable.
Problem-solve first, blame it on being a Witte later. That could be the family motto.
The forced front door hung open on its hinges. It helped air out the smell of bleach that clung to the scrubbed, shabby walls and floorboards.
“Hiding something?” Cloister asked.
Bon sneezed and rubbed her nose on her leg.
“Maybe,” Javi said as he pushed open a door, checked the room, and then moved to the next. “Not necessarily. His sister said one of his episodes had already focused around people trying to contaminate his environment. If he was, would it work?”
Cloister paused on the bottom step of the stairs. He leaned on the banister and then straightened up as it creaked ominously.
“Short answer, no,” he said. “Long answer, it might slow her down. It depends on how long he’s been scrubbing and what he’s trying to hide.”
Javi swiveled on the ball of his foot and looked up at Cloister.
“Eric,” he said grimly.
That made sense. It wouldn’t have been hard for Fowler to have gotten Eric from the hoarder house back here. It was, like Lassiter had pointed out, within walking distance.
“That time frame?” Cloister said. “It wouldn’t make a difference to her. I’ve still got the article Lassiter gave us. If he was here, she’ll work it out.”
It didn’t take him long to lope back out to the street and grab the labeled baggie from the cooler in the back. As he headed back inside, an older woman, steel-gray hair scraped back under a bandana, leaned over the gate at the bottom of her garden.
“Whatever you think he did,” she said as she took a hit on her vape, “he did. It’s about time someone got him.”
Cloister caught a sigh behind his teeth as he paused on the sidewalk. The gossipy neighbor. She could be a gold mine, or she could be holding a grudge about her car getting egged thirty years ago. It was even odds.
“Have you seen your neighbor going in and out lately?” he asked. “Maybe with someone. Another man?” he asked.
“Brian?” the woman said, fragrant smoke leaking from between her lips as she snorted. “He doesn’t get visitors, not since his sister left. And good for her, too. Parents were expecting her to stay here with him forever. Might have been easier for me, but still, good for her.”
“Anything unusual recently?”
“He’s been following me around,” she said.
“That unusual enough? Everywhere I go, there he is. When I went to get gas, I saw him loitering in that eyesore truck of his. A couple of days later, I went to the Lot to get fertilizer, and there he was again, just driving by. It’s just like the first time he was sectioned. Is that where he is?”
Cloister just gave her a noncommittal smile and headed back inside.