Other than the occasional crackle of the police radio, we rode in silence. The North Valley neighborhood we were traversing was not LA’s finest. As we turned east toward my neighborhood, I peered out at long strings of homeless encampments, dotted with colorful tents, and walled off by shopping carts. As I took in the filth and sadness of my neighbors, I asked myself again: What is a human life worth?
I pondered Fancy Suit Man’s offer. If I sold him the video and our silence along with it, that meant we could never sue him or the asswipe who sent him. When cases like ours go to trial, in order to decide the amount of an award, a jury has to determine the value of what was lost.
So once again I had to ask: What is a human life worth?
Or, more specifically, what was my dad’s life worth?
Dad never made a lot of money, but he took care of us in every way. He did everything dads do, from servicing the car and keeping the internet on, to cheering me on at my track meets and consoling me with milkshakes when the cheering didn’t work. He taught me how to surf, how to play “Jingle Bells” on the guitar, and how to light a campfire without any matches. He bought me dumb gifts like rainbow socks （each toe a different color） and a puzzle with my face on it. And, with the exception of the time he invited a puppy that wasn’t housetrained to stay at our apartment for three weeks, he made my mom really happy.
It was not just my dad’s life that was part of the calculation here. Fancy Suit Man was protecting someone. If the video was as incriminating as we both assumed, someone worth a whole lot more than my dad would likely be going to jail.
So what was that guy’s life worth?
This was becoming a very complicated equation.
Mom and I didn’t need much. But we definitely needed help. Because Mom couldn’t pay the bills from her hospital bed. And we’d need a lot more money than I could make working at the mall.
Of course we would get nothing if the police had already found the camera. Most likely they had—they were detectives, collecting evidence was kind of their job. But if they hadn’t, why couldn’t I take it? It was mine, after all, Dad bought it for me. You could say it was wrong, but you could also say I had every right.
There were a handful of cop cars and twice as many people standing guard at the crime scene when we pulled up. We parked across the street from my building, and suddenly I couldn’t move. I peered out at the street where my dad had taken his last breath. These buildings, trees, sky were the last things he ever saw. How could I ever come here without thinking, This is where my dad died, this is where my dad died, this is where my dad died, on endless repeat?
My vision blurred as panic attacked like a thousand knives stabbing me at once. I was about to shout, Forget it, I can’t do this, let’s just go! when I heard a man laugh. Who the fuck is laughing? I looked out the window to see two cops leaning against their cruiser, smiling and joking like this was some ordinary day. These guys didn’t care about my dad. His death was just business as usual for them. In that moment I knew, if I wanted any chance of getting what my dad’s life was worth—however much that was—I’d have to go and get it myself.
Kellogg opened the door for me. “You ready, kid?” I answered by sucking up my rage and getting out of the car. If there was evidence to be found, I wanted to find it. If there was a deal to be made, I wanted to be the one making it.
The hot midday sun blasted the asphalt under my feet as I walked toward the Cherokee. I saw dark polyester pit stains under Kellogg’s arms as he raised the yellow police tape so I could slip underneath. “It’s OK,” I heard him say to someone who wasn’t me, “she’s family.”
I shielded my eyes from what I knew lay just beyond the car—shattered glass, a crumpled door, little orange cones to mark the spots where bits of evidence might be—and kept my focus on the Cherokee. Just look at the car, Savannah, just look at the car.
The driver’s-side door had been removed, so I had a clear line of sight into the car. I glanced at the rearview mirror, where my dad had clipped the golf ball–size camera.
And saw that it was gone.
My heart sank. Mom and I were in the hands of the justice system now—a system that would screw us like it always screwed people like us. I didn’t know how many eyes were watching me, but I could feel a lot of them. It would look suspicious if, after making Kellogg drive me all the way across town, I didn’t take something.
I looked down at the floor mat. Mom’s key chain had fallen beside the brake pedal—a little troll with neon-green hair. It was a stupid thing to take, but I figured it could pass as something with sentimental value, a trinket to remember my dad by.