a stink on the term as years of anger spilled out of her. 'I was her bastard, her dirty little secret, and she couldn't wait to sweep me under the rug. She had me placed before my frickin' umbilical fell off practically. Well, now she doesn't need to pretend I don't exist. Or to refuse me any support because she's ashamed of me, like I'm some constant reminder of how she screwed up. Of course you didn't know. She didn't want anybody to know. How can you be the ball-busting queen of scandal when you've got a scandal of your own?'
The young woman wanted to cry, but instead she sat back in her chair, panting off her rant as if she had run a sprint. Or gotten startled awake again from the same nightmare.
'Holly, I know this is difficult, but I need to ask you some questions.' To Heat, Holly Flanders was still a murder suspect, but she proceeded with a quiet empathy. If Cassidy Towne was indeed her mother, Nikki had a personal feeling for Holly's position as the daughter of a murder victim. Assuming, of course, she hadn't killed her.
'Like I have a choice?'
'Your last name is Flanders, not Towne. Is that the name of your father?'
'It was the last name of one of my foster families. Flanders is an OK name. At least it's not Madoff. What would people think about me then?'
Detective Heat brought Holly back to her agenda. 'Do you know who your father is?' Holly just shook her head. Nikki continued. 'Did your mother?'
'She got laid a lot, I guess.' Holly gestured, acknowledging herself. 'Family trait, right? If she knew, she didn't ever say.'
'And you never had any inkling who?' Nikki was pressing the point because a paternity situation could point to a motive. Holly only shrugged, and the tell was a dodge.
Rook read it, too. 'You know, I didn't know who my father was, either.' Nikki reacted to this disclosure. Holly canted her head to him slightly, showing her first sign of interest. 'God's truth. And I know firsthand how you form your life around that missing space. It colors everything. And I can't imagine, Holly, that any normal person, especially one as ballsy as you, wouldn't have at least done some checking to see.'
Nikki felt the conversation enter a new phase. Holly Flanders spoke directly to Rook. 'I did some math,' she said. 'You know.'
'Counting backwards nine months?' he said with a small laugh.
'Exactly. And best I could figure, that was May of 1987. My m- She didn't have her own column yet, but she was down in Washington, DC, for the Ledger all that month digging up stuff on a politician who got busted for banging some ho' on a boat, not his wife.'
'Gary Hart,' said Rook.
'Whoever. Anyway, my best guess is, she got knocked up with me down there during that trip. And nine months later, ta-da!' She said it with an irony that was heartbreaking.
Heat wrote 'DC, May, 1987?' on her pad. 'Let's talk about now.' She set her pen down to rest against the spirals at the top of her page. 'How much contact did you have with your mother?'
'I told you, it was like I didn't exist.'
'But you tried.'
'Yeah, I tried. I tried since I was a kid. I tried when I dropped out of high school and got myself emancipated and realized I screwed up. Same thing. So, I was like, Fine. F-off and die.'
'Then why did you get back in touch with her now?' Holly said nothing. 'We have your threat letters on your computer. Why did you reach out again?'
Holly hesitated. Then said, 'I'm pregnant. And I need money. My letters came back, so I went to her. Know what she said?' Her lip quaked, but she held strong. 'She told me to get an abortion. Like she should have.'
'Is that when you bought the gun?' If Holly was playing for emotions, Nikki would call her with business. Let her know this wasn't a jury. Sympathy wouldn't beat facts.
'I wanted to kill her. I picked the lock to get into her apartment one night and went in there.'
'With the gun,' said the detective.
Holly nodded. 'She was asleep. I stood over her bed with the thing pointed right at her. I almost did it, too.' She shrugged it off. 'After that, I just left.' And then, for the first time, she smiled. 'Glad I waited.' As soon as the uniform led Holly off to Holding, Rook spun to Heat. 'I've got it.'
'You can't.'
'I do. I've got the solve.' He could barely contain himself. 'Or at least a theory.'
Heat gathered up her files and notes and left the room. Rook drafted off her all the way back to the bull pen. The faster she walked, the faster he talked. 'I saw that notation you made when Holly brought up the Gary Hart trip. You're with me, too, on this, am I right?'
'Don't ask me to co-sign on your half-baked, undercooked theories, Rook. I don't do theories, remember? I do evidence.'
'Ah, but what do theories lead to?'
'Trouble.' She made a fast turn into the bull pen. He followed.
'No,' he said. 'Theories are little seeds that sprout up into big trees that- Damn, some writer, I'm dead- ending on my own metaphor. But my point is, theories are how you get to evidence. They're Point A on the treasure map.'
'Hooray for theories,' she said in a flat tone and sat at her desk. He rolled a chair up and sat beside her.
'Follow along. Where was Cassidy Towne when she got pregnant?'
'We haven't established-'
He interrupted. 'Washington, DC. Doing what?'
'On assignment.'
'Covering a politician caught in a scandal. And who put us on the trail of Holly Flanders in the first place?' He smacked both hands on his thighs. 'A politician caught in a scandal. Our man is Chester Ludlow!'
'Rook, as adorable as I find that I-Solved-the-Riddle-of-the-Sphinx look on your face, I would hold on to that theory.'
He tapped a finger on her notebook. 'Then why did you make the note?'
'To check on it,' she said. 'If the father of Holly Flanders proves relevant, I want to be able to see who was in DC at that time, and who Cassidy Towne had relationships with.'
'I'll bet Chester Ludlow was there in DC. He wasn't in office, but a political dynasty like his, he might have been in a patronage job there.'
'He might have been, Rook, it's a big city. But even if he were Holly's father, what sense would it make for him to send us on her trail if it led back to him as a suspect?'
Rook paused. 'OK, fine. It was just a theory. Glad we could, you know…'
'Dismiss it?'
'One less to worry about,' he said.
'You're a big help, Rook. It hasn't been the same here without you.' Her phone rang. It was Detective Ochoa. 'What's up, Oach?'
'Raley and I are over at the brownstone next door to Cassidy Towne's, with the neighbor. Guy called the precinct to complain that her trash was in his private trash cans.' In the background, Nikki could hear the reedy voice of an elderly man speaking in a complaining tone.
'Is that the citizen I'm hearing?'
'Affirm. He's sharing the joy with my partner.'
'And how did he discover it was her trash?'
'He monitors,' said Ochoa.
'One of those?'
'One of those.' When Detective Ochoa finished his conversation with Heat, he joined Raley, who seized on his partner's return to break away from the old man. 'Excuse me, sir.'
'I'm not done,' the citizen said.
'Won't be a moment.' When he was out of earshot, he said to Ochoa, 'Man, you hear those wackos on talk radio and you wonder where they live. So which is it, are we hauling trash or waiting?'
'She wants us to hang until Forensics comes over. Mr. Galway probably contaminated the trash bags, but they'll get a set of his prints for elimination and do their thing. Doubtful, but they may find something on or around
