“Daddy’s lazy this morning,” she said.
“Late’s not the same as lazy, honey. And don’t talk with your mouth full.”
A mischievous look passed over her face, and she suddenly grinned, so that streams of milk and bits of cornflakes ran from the corners of her mouth. “Garrrr!” she cried.
“Gross!” I said, laughing in spite of myself.
She got the giggles, resulting in milk coming out of her nose, resulting in howls of laughter. We were still snorting by the time Matt got downstairs.
“What’s going on?” he asked, bemused.
“Nothing,” I said. “We were just talking about how lazy you are.”
“Laaaaaaaaaazy Daddy,” Alexa said, giggling some more.
Pragmatism had taken over not long after that. Matt and I needed to get to work; Alexa needed to get to school. A day like any other. But I like to think I would have remembered that morning, whether it was the last one we all shared or not. It was a good memory, whatever the context of time.
Alan puts down the phone. “He’s going to meet us at the IHOP in Hollywood in an hour. Best waffles so far, there.”
I follow him out, glancing one final time at the whiteboard.
Yes, I think, happy to find certainty in my answer. I’d take eight years of isolation if it meant Alexa was still alive. I really would.
I can only hope that Heather Hollister will find a similar comfort.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“She’s really alive?”
Daryl Burns is sixty years old and looks every minute of it. He’s got short, thinning white hair and a jowly, hound-dog face, which is pockmarked with acne scars. Nature dealt him a sloppy look; he’s countered by being a neat, impeccable dresser. The suit is off-the-rack quality—no surprise on a detective’s salary—but he’s obviously had it tailored. His shirt is pressed and his shoes are shined. He’s about five-nine and has kept himself in shape. I look for a wedding ring. The finger is bare.
“We ran her fingerprints, Detective,” I reassure him. “It’s her.”
He leans back against the booth seat and runs a hand through his hair. “Jesus,” he says. He takes a sip from his coffee. We’d both declined the waffles, but Alan got a stack of four and is downing them while he watches Burns.
“I have to warn you. She’s not in good shape. It’s one of the things we could use your help with.”
“What do you mean?”
“Her experience has left her in a psychotic episode. She’s awake, but she’s uncommunicative and we’re not really sure if she’s aware of her environment. Agent Washington and I tried to talk to her but got nowhere. You have a personal connection.”
His eyes sharpen. “Why me? Why not the ex-husband?”
“Like you, we think the husband was involved. The fact that she’s appeared just two months after he collected on her life insurance can’t be a coincidence.”
“It’s not. He did it or he had it done. That’s one thing I’ve been certain of from day one.” It’s said in a flat tone, a statement of fact.
“We’re going to go scare the shit out of him shortly,” Alan says after swallowing a mouthful of syrup-soaked waffles.
Burns’s grin is unpleasant. “I’d love to see that.”
“Come along, then,” I say. “But I’d like to keep things quiet for now.”
“I can agree with that. Heather doesn’t need any cameras in her face.”
Alan pushes away his now-empty plate somewhat wistfully. “I worked in LAPD,” he says to Burns. “Ten years.” Burns nods. “I heard of you. Good things.”
“I’d like to take the lead on questioning Douglas Hollister, if that’s okay with you.”
We don’t really have to include the LAPD at this point. AD Jones had agreed with my original assessment— Heather was basically an unsolved kidnapping, and the fact that she’d been brought to Callie’s wedding was an arguable threat to FBI personnel—but from the beginning, my team has always taken a cooperative stance with local law enforcement.
“Appreciate you asking. As long as I get to watch him sweat, I’m happy.”
This dance aside, Alan dabs his lips with a napkin, crushes it into a ball, and tosses it onto his empty plate. “What can you tell us about everything?”
Burns laughs. “Everything?”
“You’ve known her and her family since she was twelve,” I say. “You were the lead in the investigation when she was abducted at the age of thirty-six. You probably have the longest continual relationship with her of anyone besides her mother.”
“Including her mother, actually. She died three years ago.”
One more thing she’s lost forever.
“Point is,” Alan continues for me, “we don’t know what’s going to end up being important. We take everything we can get and sort out the good from the bad.”
“I understand.” Burns takes a sip from his coffee. His gaze is fixed on something from the past. “I met Heather when she was twelve. I was twenty-eight at the time. I’d been in homicide for two years, on the force for eight.”
“Quick rise,” Alan observes.
“I had a hook,” Burns agrees. “My father was a cop. His ex-partner headed up robbery-homicide.” Another sip of coffee. “The thing I remember is how different she was from her mother. I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but the mom was always weak. It was just one of those things you could tell, you know?”
“Yeah.”
“Not Heather, though. She was strong. She was grieving, but she was also angry. Got in my face from the get-go. Didn’t want to know
“What did you tell her when she called?” Alan asked.
He sighs. “A whole lotta nothing. We didn’t have anything to go on. Her dad owned the store and was working alone. No witnesses. It was a robbery gone wrong, probably by a jumpy amateur, so I was hopeful. Someone comes in to steal a few bucks and ends up committing murder, they’re going to feel guilty. But nothing ever came of it. None of the local skells or my usual informants knew anything. Not word one.”
“Unusual,” Alan says.
“Yeah. Made me think maybe it was someone from out of town, passing through. Regardless, I never gave up, but I never got anywhere either. One day, about two years later, Heather calls me. She asks if we can meet. I say sure. I have her come to the station and then I take her for a Pink’s hot dog. She’d never been there. I thought if I wasn’t going to give her good news, I could at least give her a legendary hot dog at a famous location.”
Pink’s is an LA institution. It’s a slice of history. Paul Pink set up a hot-dog stand—a large-wheel pushcart—in 1939, at the corner of La Brea and Melrose. Back then, that location was considered to be “in the country.” In 1946 he constructed a small building on the same spot where the hot-dog stand had stood, and it’s still there today. The walls inside are covered with photos of all the movie stars and other famous people who’ve come there over the years.
“Heather has always been what some people call ‘focused.’ I think she was that way before her dad’s murder. A lot of people like that become antisocial, misanthropic, no time for the small stuff, you know?”
“We know,” I say, thinking of James.
“Not Heather. I knew she had something on her mind and that she wasn’t really all that interested in Pink’s, but she took the time to look at all the photos and to ask me about the history of the place. She was fourteen by
