Part 10 (1/2)

”I wish he could,” Mrs. Wheeler said, ”but Jimmy had a stroke three years ago. He hasn't spoken since. He used to communicate by writing, but he can't even do that anymore.” She stretched her fingers and fiddled with her wedding ring. ”Jimmy wasn't in the book. I remember. I went out and got it from the library as soon as it came out, and I read the whole thing cover to cover. I was scared out of my mind that he might be mentioned by name. I worried he couldn't handle it, after everything that had happened. I'm just wondering, hon, how did you know about him?”

”I talked to a detective who worked on the case,” I said. The truth was far too complicated.

She frowned. ”Then you must know what happened to Jimmy after.”

I shook my head.

”The police took him in for questioning. It was horrible. They showed up one night when we were getting the kids ready for bed and hauled him off like some kind of criminal. I stayed up all night, praying and crying. The kids were scared to death. When he came back the next morning, he looked awful. They hadn't let him sleep, hadn't given him anything to eat. They tried to make him confess. They just kept saying, 'You're the janitor. What's the janitor doing talking to a pretty young college student?'

”But he was just like that, you see. He talked to anybody who would listen. And I'll be the first to admit, he talked way too much. Once he had your ear, he wouldn't let go. Drove me crazy, but now that he can't talk, I miss it. Your sister was such a sweet girl, she always said h.e.l.lo to him in the hallway. He really liked her, but not in the way the police wanted to believe. We had two boys, and Jimmy had always wanted a girl. He told me once, before all this happened, that if we had a daughter, he wanted her to be like Lila. She was a good girl, he said, always acted modestly, never talked loud or tried to attract attention to herself.”

I sat quietly, listening. It was easy to believe that Lila would have been friendly with the janitor. She was most comfortable around people who didn't fit into her peer group, people who wouldn't demand more than a few minutes of her time, who wouldn't ask for her phone number or invite her to a movie.

”Did the police ever talk to him again?”

She shook her head. ”Oh, there was no need to. The reason they kept Jimmy so long that night was that he wouldn't give them an alibi. He kept refusing to tell them where he had been on the night she died. But after a while they started getting rough with him, saying real terrible things, and he realized they honestly believed he could have done it. That's when he told them about his second job-he worked at a steel mill in South City. We were having a real hard time back then, poor as church mice and a third baby on the way. He was working two full-time jobs to keep us afloat. But there was a strict policy at Stanford back then against moonlighting. That job was our bread and b.u.t.ter, and Jimmy couldn't afford to lose it. He knew if he told the cops about the steel mill, it would make it back to his boss at Stanford, and he'd get fired.”

”So what happened?”

”He finally gave in and told the police, and they went out and talked to his boss on the night job, and sure enough, he'd gone straight from one job to the next. He clocked out at Stanford at seven p.m., then clocked in at the steel mill in South City at eight-thirty and worked all night. After that they left him alone.”

She reached across the table and took my hand. ”I know why you're here, hon, and I don't blame you for trying to figure some things out. But I want you to know, it wasn't Jimmy. You believe me, don't you?”

I did.

”It tore him up what happened to her, and that they thought he could have done it,” she said. ”Things fell apart after that. Within weeks he lost his day job at Stanford, I miscarried, and we almost lost the house. It changed him. He'd been so strong before, so eager. He grew up real poor, got a late start in life, and he had this idea that if he just worked hard we'd be able to move up in the world.

”The crazy thing is, now this little place is worth a fortune, but we'll never sell. Jimmy hardly gets out of bed, he's got all sorts of problems with his lungs and everything else. He worked his whole life for something he'll never get to enjoy.”

There was a thumping noise from the front room. ”Oh, that's Jimmy,” Mrs. Wheeler said. ”Two thumps. That means he's thirsty.” She got up and poured water into a gla.s.s.

”Thank you so much,” I said, standing. I felt there was something else I had to say, even though I knew I was far too late. ”I'm sorry your family got caught up in all this.”

She smiled. ”Well, what can you do? You just try to get by as best you can. Fortunately Jimmy and I were always pretty much head over heels for each other, that helps.”

I followed her through the living room into the entryway. She pulled the curtain back, and there was James Wheeler, a skeleton of a man with a wild swirl of gray hair. The dog had climbed up onto the pillow beside his head. ”I'm here, hon,” Mrs. Wheeler said.

He looked up at me and for a moment, something flashed across his eyes. He raised an arm, as if to wave, but it dropped back to the sheet.

”I know,” Mrs. Wheeler said, holding the gla.s.s of water to his lips. ”She looks just like her sister, doesn't she?”

Twenty-three.

ON SAt.u.r.dAY, AS PROMISED, I MET THORPE at Opera Plaza. When I arrived he was still signing books, a line of customers stretching through the store. He looked up, saw me, and mouthed ”Ten minutes.”

A good-looking guy walked into the store, carrying an ugly baby in a Maclaren backpack. He wore an expensive leather jacket, brown Skechers, and rocker jeans cut so low and tight it was a wonder he could walk. The baby wore a pink hat that said Nader 2008.

The guy's s.h.a.ggy haircut and sideburns were too perfect to be real. He was of the cla.s.s of young, disaffected San Francisco hipsters who had long baffled me with their seemingly unlimited supply of free time and money, none of which they appeared to spend on food. He turned and gave me a lopsided grin. ”Who's the author?” he said.

”Andrew Thorpe.”

”Any good?”

”I haven't read the book.”

I excused myself and walked to the coffee shop attached to the store, where I bought a tin of chocolate-covered espres...o...b..ans. Back at the store, I popped one in my mouth and let the chocolate melt on my tongue. By the time Thorpe was finished, I'd had a dozen and was beginning to feel the buzz.

”Ready to walk?” he asked.

Half an hour later we were sitting at a little table at Mangosteen, crowded in on both sides by noisy lunchgoers. The place smelled of lemongra.s.s.

”I recommend number ten,” Thorpe said. ”Cubed steak with potatoes over rice, or number twenty-two, same thing but with noodles.”

I went with the noodles. The service was slow, but the food was good. Thorpe talked about a meeting he'd just had with his life coach before launching into a series of questions about my personal life. Without exactly knowing how it happened, I ended up telling him about Henry, our breakup in Guatemala three years before.

”Was he the one?” Thorpe asked.

I just shrugged, but he asked again. Reluctantly, I said, ”I thought he was, at the time.”

”Do you still think about him?”

”On occasion.” The truth was I'd been thinking about him a lot lately, but that was none of Thorpe's business.

”Then he wasn't the one,” Thorpe said. ”If he was, you'd think of him every morning when you wake up. You'd think of him when you go to bed at night, when you drop off your dry-cleaning, when you're sitting in a movie.”

”I saw James Wheeler.”

”You went through with it.” He sounded surprised.

”Why didn't you tell me he'd been cleared by his alibi?”

”Was he? I don't remember that. Like I said, he just wasn't that interesting.”

He swirled the last bite of steak around in the sauce and popped it in his mouth. The server came over with the check, and Thorpe handed her his credit card before I could protest. ”I'm stuffed,” he said, patting his stomach. ”What say we take a walk, work off the lunch?”

The sun was out, scorching the sidewalk, glinting off the parked cars that lined the street. I took off my sweater and twisted my hair up in a bun to get it off my neck. The Tenderloin smelled atrocious in the heat, like dog s.h.i.+t, petrol, and baked p.i.s.s. Guys urinating on the sidewalk were one of the commonest features of the neighborhood, second only to drug-addled prost.i.tutes working their trade at all hours. This was a part of the city I'd never learned to love.

We walked South on Larkin, block after block in silence.

By the time we got to Market, my shoes were beginning to pinch and I wondered where Thorpe was taking me. Every minute with him made me feel uneasy, but I was determined to ask him for more names.

”Do you like horse races?” Thorpe asked. ”I sometimes go to Bay Meadows. It's more fun than you think. I was planning to go next Sat.u.r.day. You should come.”

Fortunately, I didn't have to answer, because just then we were overtaken by a posse of a dozen men linked together by a complex matrix of chains, clad in leather vests, kilts, and combat boots.

”Oh, I forgot, it's the weekend of the Folsom Street Fair,” Thorpe said.