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  She hooked her thumbs into her belt loops, pressing her shoulders forward and deepening her cleavage as she sauntered toward Frank and Rose. Frank quivered. He could only imagine what she looked like from behind.

  Wrapping her arms around Frank and hanging from him like a scarf, she kissed him on the cheek and cooed, “Thanks mister. I didn’t think I’d ever get away from that asshole.”

  Frank pulled back, looking at her sideways.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  “This is Felicia,” Rose said, patting Frank like she was calming her barking dog. “She’s one of the girls at Eazy’s.”

  “More like that asshole’s punching bag for the last six months,” the bombshell wailed. “He’s been using me for everything since I moved here. I was going to be an actress, y’know.”

  Her eyes lit up with the word actress. In that sentence, her worry washed away and was replaced by the bubbly nature of a Neutrogena spokesmodel. Even her hair blew around a bit as she said it.

  “I’m Felicia Berry,” she said, introducing herself with a flip of the head.

  Frank was unimpressed.

  “Don’t the girls want to be called actors now?” he said. “Like flight attendants.”

  They were all actresses or actors or models or writers. These days everybody wanted to be somebody. It all amounted to the same thing—underworked, under-appreciated, underrated, underemployed. God, how he hated talking to actors. The city of the stars. Don’t people realize that there’s about twelve million folks in Los Angeles? A quarter-million of them call themselves actors. Let’s say there’s twenty thousand acting jobs a year. So there’s a ninety-percent unemployment rate. How many of those few acting opportunities are filled by the same faces, the stars, over and over? Do the math. Poor, fresh meat. At least she was nice to look at.

  She offered a firm handshake with one hand, while the other moved back to her belt loop and began tracing the line of her G-string.

  He took her hand in his, holding up Rose with his other and finding it difficult to take his attention off the swelling tide of the girl’s breasts as their hands shook up and down. The seductive tracing of her finger along her waistline was just as hard to ignore.

  He managed to break his stare and the handshake, asking, “This your car, then?” He pointed to the Honda.

  “Sure is, Shug” she said.

  “It’s evidence now. You can come with me if you’d like or you can wait for the cops. I don’t really care either way. They should be here any minute.”

  “Shouldn’t we wait?” Rose asked.

  Felicia flashed an I-do-as-I-damn-well-please smile and said, “Fuck cops. I’ll go with you.”

  Frank smiled at Felicia as he covered his eyes with his shades.

  Then, looking down on Rose, her eye already swelling, Frank said, “Only stay if there’s a body. He isn’t dying so I’m leaving. And you’re coming home with me. Far as I’m concerned, case closed.”

  Frank took out a smoke and lit it. “They can call me if they need me.”

  Chapter 10

  Turning off Tampa Boulevard and onto Harnett Avenue, Amy Van, followed by a single squad car, pulled up to the detached ranch-style home of Patrick Allen. Before opening her door, she straightened her hair in the mirror and gave herself a quick pep talk.

  “It’s just like all the other ones,” Amy said to her reflection. “They’ll hate you, but they don’t know you. They’ll curse you, but they don’t mean it.

  She narrowed her eyes and said, “But, it’s not for them.”

  With that, she composed herself with a deep breath and threw open her door. Firing her legs out, she slapped her flats against the pavement and raised herself in one fluid motion, standing strong with her clipboard tucked against her waist. Looking at Amy poised beside her blacked-out Crown Vic, you’d never know she had doubts about anything, least of all herself. The doors on either side of the squad car unfolded behind her and two patrol officers stepped out. Both of them looked like ex–pro wrestlers. Neither stood less than six foot three. It was a wonder how the two of them fit side by side in the squad car they emerged from. They always sent the biggest guys when Amy asked for backup, even if it was just for a visit to the victim’s family. Maybe the folks down at dispatch liked her. Maybe they were looking out for her. It didn’t really matter. Amy shot them her signature glare and motioned with her free hand, follow me.

  Wildflowers and daffodils were overrun by weeds along the entire perimeter of the Allens’ lawn. A single oak tree grew near the edge of the grass, holding a tire swing in its branches. Its roots had grown up out of the dirt, lifting the sidewalk just before their mailbox into a jagged hill of concrete. The grass itself looked unkempt and unkept. A mower hadn’t cut its blades in a long time. Across the street, landscapers blared their leaf-blowers, casting leaves from manicured yard to manicured yard. The afternoon sun blared down on a pile of mulch across the street, flooding the neighborhood with a soggy aftertaste of earth and dirt. The entire block bore a solemn stillness that emanated from the Allen home, but for the leaf-blowers. That was enough to give some movement to the otherwise lifeless house, stirring the rows of wind chimes hanging from the front awning.

  Sandwiched between the two giants on the wooden slats of Allen’s porch, Amy reached her hand to a line of dangling, iron birds and stilled the aluminum olive branches that swung between their talons. When the single layer of tinny timbre was gone from the symphony of slowly swinging chimes, she let go and stepped forward. With the two officers standing behind her, her body was engulfed by their shadows. She delivered three strong knocks and waited. Only a second passed before the shuffle of slippers on carpet sounded as someone came to the other side of the door. The curtain shifted in the nearby window and Amy could see the frizzy, black curls of an older woman as she peeked through the pane of glass.

  Amy waved her free and called through the window, shouting over the growl of the leaf-blowers in the background, “Mrs. Allen? My name is Amy Van—Dr. Amy Van.”

  “Yes. Yes, just a moment,” the woman responded through the door as the clanking chain slid to the side and the deadbolt clicked out of position.

  Opening the door a crack, enough to show her fuzzy, blue slippers, dingy white robe and disheveled hair, Mrs. Allen asked, “Is this about Pat? Have you found him?”

  Amy waited a moment for the blowers to stop, then answered, “Actually, Mrs. Allen, I’d like to ask a few questions about a former employee of his. A former nurse. May I come in?”

  The woman looked Amy up and down. Then she stood on her toes and peered over the top of Amy’s head at the towering officers filling her front porch. She delivered a cold glare to all three as she tightened the belt on her robe.

  “I suppose,” she said. “But I’ve already told you people everything I can. I don’t know what more I can tell you about Chad.”

  Amy nodded to Ms. Allen.

  “I’d like to ask just the same,” she said, forcing a smile. “If that’s okay.”

  Turning to the officers, Amy held up her hand and said, “Wait here.”

  The woman opened the door all the way, revealing the rather messy home inside. Old cardboard and stale potpourri spilled onto the porch, overpowering the wet leaves and dirt from across the way. Piles of bills sat unopened on the small table in the entryway. Unbuilt moving boxes laid in piles. The walls were sprinkled with stark white squares of different sizes, shadows of memories that were once displayed proudly in their frames. Mrs. Allen and her home were a perfect match for each other; it looked like no one was paying attention to either of them.

  “Are you moving?” Amy asked as she looked around, following Mrs. Allen through the hall.

  As they entered the small galley-style kitchen, bitter acidity overtook the stale potpourri and cardboard. The overpowering sting of cheap store-brand coffee was reminiscent of a trans-Atlantic flight, and the cramped quarters didn’t belie this fact. Encroaching on either side were empty glass
cupboards, their installed track lights still shining though there were no items to display. White tiled counters bulged from the walls, empty but for the coffee maker and a few other unremarkable wares. Mrs. Allen turned to face Amy, hovering beside the double sink that overflowed with plastic dinette plates.

  “We are. Ever since Pat went missing. I don’t know. All of the money’s gone. I can’t pay the mortgage. Just trying to stay afloat. Avoid foreclosure. I’m renting it to some friends until this all works out.”

  The words fell out of her mouth like water, sad, cold water. Amy shook her head in response.

  “That’s terrible, Mrs. Allen,” Amy said, knowing her words offered little. Then she added, “I know this is a difficult time, but I understand your family had a legal run-in with a Mr. Campbell.”

  Mrs. Allen nodded as she turned to the counter to pour herself a cup of coffee. Her hands shook. Offering the pot to Amy, she asked, “Would you like some?”

  Amy waved her hand.

  “No thank you, Mrs. Allen,” she said, then asked, “Did you know he was released on parole six months ago?”

  Placing the pot back on the warmer and cupping her mug in both hands, Mrs. Allen said into the steaming coffee, “I did not. You don’t think he has something to do with Pat going missing, do you?”

  “When was the last time you saw Mr. Campbell?” Amy asked.

  “Not since the trial.”

  “And when did your husband last see him?”

  “As far as I know, not since the trial,” Mrs. Allen answered, her voice shaky and flat. “After what he did to us, I never wanted to see him again.”

  Amy nodded.

  After a moment of contemplation, Amy looked down her clipboard and asked, “Can you tell me about your husband’s recent purchases of PETN?” She looked once more at her clipboard. “Pentaerythritol tetranitrate.”

  Mrs. Allen’s confusion was obvious and Amy elaborated, “Your husband’s credit card records indicate a series of large purchases of a medicine used for heart conditions.”

  “Pentaerythritol tetranitrate,” she annunciated clearly. “He purchased more than any one doctor could prescribe in a year. Can you tell me about that?”

  The woman shook her head.

  “I thought all our credit cards were in the red,” she said.

  Amy nodded. “Okay, Mrs. Allen.”

  Holding her clipboard firm in her hands, she asked, “How often does your husband go up to the Hollywood sign?”

  “Never?” Mrs. Allen answered it like a question.

  Amy pressed, “Not for a run? Maybe a morning hike?”

  “No,” the disheveled woman rebutted. “He goes to the gym for stuff like that.”

  “If he’d ever actually go,” she added into her cup.

  “What gym, Mrs. Allen?”

  She sipped her coffee, then replied very matter-of-factly, “24 Hour Fitness.”

  Amy wrote down the words while shaking her head. Then she paused, collecting her words, trying to find some way to make it sound better than it was. Realizing it was no use, she settled on the fewest words to make her point.

  “Mrs. Allen,” she finally said, “I’m sorry to tell you this, but we found your husband’s body this morning off of Mulholland Highway, near the Hollywood sign. He appeared to have been murdered. And, Mrs. Allen, we have a suspect.”

  Those last words took none of the force from the former. The color went from the woman’s face. Her fingers went limp and along with her heart, the mug fell, shattering against the floor. The white porcelain smashed to bits as Mrs. Allen struggled to stay on her feet. Following the crash of the mug, a loud, gasping sob came from the hall. Then, a young girl no more than twenty years old burst into the kitchen in baggy, gray sweat pants and a tight-fitting Tetris shirt. Her dark hair was pulled up in a messy bun and streaks of tears muddied up her makeup.

  “It couldn’t have been Chad!” the young girl exclaimed. “He’d never hurt anyone. You know it was all dad’s fault!”

  Mrs. Allen’s eyes widened. Her jaw loosened. Letting go of her bottom lip and leaving her mouth open wide, though not as wide as her eyes.

  She cried to her daughter, “Carrie, how could you say that? After what he did to you and your dad?”

  The girl wiped her tears from her face and crossed her arms in the doorway. Leaning against the jamb, she stared with unforgiving eyes at her mother and the strange woman with the clipboard.

  “Who the hell are you?” she chided Amy as she pretended to spit on the floor.

  Amy gripped the clipboard tight at her waist. The metal clasp dug into her hip. With a quick pivot of the foot, she turned to face the girl.

  “My name is Amy Van and I’m with the Los Angeles Coroner’s Office.” She tipped her glasses. “Who are you?”

  “Carrie,” she said with a grimace. “Carrie Allen.”

  Amy eased her grip on the clipboard and pushed her glasses back into place.

  “Have you seen Chad recently, miss Carrie Allen?” she asked.

  The girl’s attitude disappeared somewhere behind her growing eyes. As though she’d been caught in the act, she tucked her chin into her chest and clasped her hands tight in front of her. Swinging back and forth like a scolded child, she confessed, “Just once.”

  Her mother shot her a look so hard that if it were a fist, the poor girl would’ve been knocked to the floor.

  “Carrie!” her mother shouted. “After he...”

  She paused. It was like the words were stuck in her throat. She even reached her hand up and massaged her neck just a bit. Then, finally easing the syllables free, she cried, “After he raped you?”

  Mrs. Allen didn’t wait for her daughter’s response. Amy could sense the offense on the woman as she kneeled down and grabbed a small dust pan and broom from the cabinet below the sink. The tips of her robe dragged across the tile, sopping up most of the brown liquid pooled on the floor.

  As Mrs. Allen cleaned up the shards of ceramic, Carrie went on, “He never! I loved him. You and dad! You two said he raped me. I was old enough to make my own decisions. I was old enough for a lot of things, but I wasn’t old enough to love! When dad showed up that night, well, he got what he deserved. He should have never came at Chad like that.”

  Mrs. Allen sobbed into the dustpan as her daughter talked.

  “And then he just fired Chad like it was nothing. Fired him and sent him to prison for loving me and protecting himself. Bullshit,” Carrie spewed.

  From the floor, Mrs. Allen pleaded through tears with her daughter, “That man beat your father. He beat him ’til he couldn’t move then strangled him. Strangled him with a plastic bag. He tried to kill your father that night, Carrie! And now your father’s dead. How can you protect that monster? How could you?”

  “He’s not a monster!” Carrie exclaimed.

  The young girl started to calm. The fight had gone from her body and finally she professed, “At least, he wasn’t.”

  Amy’s ears perked up.

  “You said, he wasn’t a monster,” Amy pointed out. “Tell me about the last time you saw him.”

  “Really?” Mrs. Allen breathed. She tapped the dustpan into the trash, the ceramic crashing into the bin as she glared at Amy and scolded, “Haven’t you done enough damage for one day, Mrs. Van?”

  Amy turned her attention back to Mrs. Allen, her eyes narrowing behind her thin-framed glasses, and said, “The damage has been done, Mrs. Allen. I’m trying to rectify things. Please, allow me to do my job. I am utterly sorry for your loss. I only have a few questions for your daughter and then I’ll be on my way.”

  Amy saw the anger swelling behind Mrs. Allen’s eyes, and before the woman could say anything, Amy added, “Your daughter is of age. If you won’t let me speak with her I’ll have to ask you to wait with the officers outside. Do not for one minute think that because I have sympathy for you, I will allow you to stand in the way of the investigation, the law and justice. I plan to find the man responsible
for your husband’s death even if it makes you feel a little uncomfortable. There is no easy way to go about this, Mrs. Allen.”

  “Also,” she added as she turned to Carrie, giving only her back to Mrs. Allen. “I never married.”

  Either it scared her or calmed her, but either way, Mrs. Allen raised her hand in submission and nodded, allowing Amy to continue questioning her daughter.

  Amy put her arm over Carrie’s shoulder and guided her into the living room. The silhouettes of the two officers on the porch were prominent behind the thin, white curtains. Amy offered Carrie a seat as she herself sat upon the couch. Crossing her legs and pulling her skirt down to cover her thighs, Amy rested the clipboard in her lap and gripped a pen in her hand.

  She turned to Carrie and reiterated, “Now, tell me about the last time you saw Chad Campbell, Carrie.”

  If only Carrie was lying on the nearby loveseat, Amy would look just like a therapist taking notes on her patient’s various psychological issues. Instead, she was questioning a young girl about the last time she saw the man her parents deemed her rapist. The man that she was in love with. The man who assaulted her dad. The man that tore apart her family. The man who murdered her dad and left him in the Hollywood Hills to be found by any nobody who happened to pass him by.

  “It was just once. He was a lot bigger,” Carrie said. “I mean, since he went in. He was a lot bigger. It was just after he got released. I missed him so bad. I thought about him every day he was gone. I guess he had nothing to do but work out in there. Maybe that had something to do with it. He just wasn’t Chad anymore.”

  She bit her lip and closed her eyes for a second, then continued, “It wasn’t the same. He was different. Mean. Angry. Empty. Prison changed him. He acted like he didn’t even know me. Like he didn’t care. I didn’t know prison would do that to someone. You know? Make them forget?”