“He may have been having an affair.”
Daryl stopped nodding. “Nah. I mean, yeah, maybe he was. But what you know is there’s a photo, which someone messed with at least a little bit. You know that Sam’s friend thinks he was having an affair, and this woman—” he paused, giving me room to fill in her name.
“Brooklyn.”
“You know Brooklyn says she and Sam were hooking up. But the video’s the only undoctored, unbiased evidence you have, and it just proves they were tight. They could just as easily have been friends. Sam could’ve been helping this troubled girl—”
“Hannah. But she admitted she lied.”
He smiled at me, in that indulgent way he might if I were Audrey’s age. “Because liars wouldn’t trade more lies for cash.”
“True enough.”
“Anyway, maybe Sam was helping Hannah, he seems the kinda guy who would do that shit. So Brooklyn and Sam are friends who’re both concerned about this girl, and Brooklyn exaggerates the relationship. If Hannah’s lie was convincing enough to get Sam suspended, couldn’t Brooklyn be lying too? See . . . you don’t know. So focus on what you do.”
I thought of all the “facts” I’d taken for granted. Not just the affair. Sam’s blood on those plastic teeth. Sam’s jeans being used to set the fire at Zoe’s. Because of the texts and the surveillance equipment found in our home, I knew we were being watched, and whoever was watching could fake either of those details.
“Perla’s dead. I know that. Helen lied about living in that house. And I know that Carver Sweet killed at least one person, a girl named Natalie, and tried to kill Brooklyn.”
“We’ll see.” Daryl pulled his laptop toward him but hesitated before typing. He looked at me, his eyes alert despite the pale cranberry color. “By the way, that stuff on the trail—that’s some badass shit.”
“It was some stupid shit.”
“Badass,” he corrected. “But next time, you won’t catch him off guard. Going off without a way to protect yourself, now that would be some stupid shit.”
“I’m not carrying a gun I don’t know how to use.”
“I could teach you.”
I pictured the revolver that had earlier been planted on my passenger’s-side seat. “No gun.”
“Pepper spray then.”
“You have pepper spray?”
“Of course,” he said, as if possession of pepper spray should be a given. “Tasers, too, if that’s more your speed. More important, though, is information.” He tapped the keyboard to take the laptop out of sleep mode. “First, this skank, who you saved and who repaid you by sleeping with your husband—”
“Not quite the way it went down, and I don’t know that I’d characterize her as a skank.”
“Of course, you wouldn’t. Female empowerment and all that. But if you’ve screwed the husband of someone I care about, or lied about it, the best I’m gonna call you is a skank.”
Daryl typed Brooklyn Breneman’s name in the browser, but the results were unexceptional. Apparently, she belonged to a couple of professional organizations and had been quoted in a news story on rising water rates. There were a couple of photos, too, with Brooklyn in button-up blouses. No yoga pants this time.
Daryl faked a yawn. “Let’s move on to Perla.”
He didn’t need more information than her first name. Perla’s photo was prominently displayed on the newspaper’s website. One of those “happier times” photos the news organizations grab off social media. Perla and her Rottweiler, somehow making the same goofy face, above a headline: santa rosa woman shot to death. The three paragraphs that accompanied the picture didn’t expand much on the headline.
Blackness pricked at the edges of my vision, so I closed my eyes. “Sorry, Doc,” Daryl said.
I could hear his fingers tapping the keyboard. When I opened my eyes, Perla’s photo was gone. Just like Perla. I didn’t know which was stronger: the roiling in my stomach, or the urge to punch someone in the face.
“How about Helen?” Daryl said. “Do you know her last name?”
I admitted I didn’t, but I gave him the address where Helen had claimed to live. Thirty seconds later, the grin was back, and Daryl pointed at the screen. “See, Doc. Another thing you thought you knew but didn’t really. Like I was saying.”
He nudged the computer toward me, and I read the information three times before I could convince myself of its truth. The property records showed the owner’s name: Helen Staley.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “Helen didn’t lie about living there?”
“Seems you do understand.” The grin slipped from Daryl’s face. “In light of what happened to Perla, I worry about this mysterious Helen. Though I guess we still don’t know for sure if she lived there, only that she’s listed as the owner of record.”
“Which means the man who answered the door lied,” I said. “Even if he rented, or even if he bought the place from her, he would’ve recognized the name. So what was that man doing in Helen’s house?”
Daryl continued typing, more urgently now. “There’s no way to tell, at least not with the information we have.”
I took out my new phone, the one originally intended for Leo, to call Rico, to tell him about Helen, but then I realized he had access to the same information I did. Much more information than I did, in fact. He had likely already knocked on Helen’s door, though I doubted the man, whoever he was, had opened the door for Detective Rico.
When I returned my attention to the screen, Daryl was typing “Carver Sweet” into the search engine. The first couple of hits linked to the local newspaper again, but, thankfully, directly to stories about Carver. I didn’t again have to see that photo of Perla and her dog.
Daryl clicked the link for the most recent article, which I skimmed over his shoulder.
Anne Jackson, 52, was found dead in her Cloverdale home late Wednesday, the victim of an apparent poisoning. Her husband, Carver Sweet, 58, is being sought in connection with the killing.
Sweet also attacked a second woman later that night, police say. Sweet fled after a passerby called 911.
The victim, whose identity is being withheld, was released from the hospital Thursday morning.
Midway through reading, Daryl leaned back into the couch. “I kinda feel bad about calling her a skank.”
I reached across him and scrolled down the page. I continued scanning the details of Anne’s killing and Brooklyn’s assault and comments from Sweet’s neighbors. The attacks were “disturbing,” the Jackson-Sweet marriage either “troubled” or “loving,” depending on who was describing it.
Near the end of the article came mention of Carver’s previous conviction thirty-eight years earlier.
Sweet, 19 at the time, served 15 years at San Quentin State Prison for the 1980 murder of ex-girlfriend Natalie Robinson, 16. Robinson’s body was found buried less than a mile from her Napa home. The girl’s skull was fractured, and her ribs showed signs of earlier trauma, but the cause of death was listed as asphyxiation. Robinson was unconscious but alive at the time of her burial, according to police.