The Pain Scale by Tyler Dilts Read Free Book Online Page B

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Arrested Development
. So aside from the questionable politics, she had good taste.
    I clicked on her Friends list. She had 172 of them. Aside from several family members whose names had come up so far in the investigation, only Catherine Catanio’s name rang any bells. Wemight need to dig deeper into the list at a later point, but for now, we could leave it.
    There were more than two hundred photos and two dozen videos. I didn’t look at all of them, but from my cursory examination, it appeared that they were more or less the same files as those stored on her computer and phone. Again, something we might need to investigate in more detail later.
    I spent a few more minutes examining Sara’s Wall. Fortunately, she wasn’t a prolific poster, and her status updates tended toward the straightforward:
Sara Gardener-Benton is hoping her sweeties get well soon. Sara Gardener-Benton is wishing she picked up the Costco lasagna instead of making it from scratch.
Going back a few days, I found one gem: Black Swan
Best Actress? WTF?
    I kept poking around for a while, but without going deep and doing a comparison with the other case materials—a task that would take a very long time to complete—I wasn’t going to find out much more about Sara.
    Logging off, I thought about Jen. It was ten minutes after eight. I wondered if she’d think that I’d worked too late.

    I picked up a six-pack of Sam Adams at Ralphs, parked my car at home, and walked six blocks to Harlan Gibbs’s house. He was an LA County deputy sheriff who’d retired after thirty-five years on the job. We’d met the previous year during the case on which I’d nearly lost my hand. He’d lived across the street from the victim, a high-school English teacher with whom he’d formed a fatherly bond. Her loss was a hard one for him to bear, and I’d taken to visiting him every week or two for lunch or an evening drink.
    I rounded the corner and saw him sitting on his front porch, the fringe of thin white hair around his bald head backlit by the bare hundred-watt bulb next to the door. He raised a hand in greeting as I crossed the lawn.
    “Harlan,” I said, “good to see you.”
    “Saw you on the news today.”
    “Yeah?” I sat down in the empty white plastic chair next to him.
    “Yeah. You did a real nice job of standing there behind all the important people.” He didn’t smile, but there was a hint of playfulness in the gravel of his voice.
    “Least I’m on the job. Could just be spending all my time sitting on the porch and spying on the neighbors.”
    “You just go ahead and make fun. We haven’t had a crime on this street since...” His voice trailed off, and I knew we were both thinking about Elizabeth Anne Williams.
    We gave her a moment of silence.
    “Who’s renting the place now?”
    “Nice young couple. Just had a baby. They won’t be there long, though. They’ll need another bedroom.” The guesthouse Beth had lived in had only one.
    “I ran into her sister a few weeks ago.”
    “The lesbian?”
    “Yeah. She’s doing well. Their mother moved out here. Got a little house up by City College. They’re picking up the pieces.”
    We were quiet a while. Harlan opened two beers and passed one of the bottles to me. I wondered what he was thinking. Was he picking up the pieces? How much time did he spend sitting on the porch and staring at her house? But who was I to be critical? How many sleepless nights had I spent thinking about Beth? And I hadn’t even known her. Not while she was alive.
    “I wasn’t going to say anything,” he said, looking off into the distance. I tried to follow his gaze, but I was unable to tell where it fell, if anywhere at all. He didn’t finish the thought, and I didn’t push him to.
    So we sat. I didn’t check my watch, but it seemed like a long time.
    Finally, he spoke. “Went to the doctor last week.”
    Uh-oh.
    “Been having stomach problems.”
    “You mentioned that the last time I was