Abandoned: A Thriller Read online

  “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 then, and I remember it struck me.”

  Unusually thoughtful for any teenager, I think.

  “She finished the hot dog before she even got around to what she wanted to ask me. ‘I need you to be honest with me about something, Mr. Burns,’ she said. I agreed I would be. ‘Do you think you’ll ever get the man who killed my father?’” He’s watching his coffee, an expression of dissatisfaction on his face. “I considered lying to her. But I decided against it. She deserved better. ‘It’s always possible that something will happen, one day,’ I told her. ‘People get older and start talking because they think they’ve gotten away with it. Someone hears what they say and repeats it to a cop later. It’s happened. But if you’re asking, do I think that I’m personally going to catch him by doing what I do and being a good detective? In that case, I’d have to say no, I don’t.’”

  “How’d she react to that?” I ask.

  “Better than I would have.” I can hear the admiration in his voice. “She said she understood, and then she thanked me for being honest with her. Made me glad I had decided not to lie, because I got the idea she already knew what the truth was. She didn’t talk for a while, then she asked for another hot dog. I could tell there was something else on her mind and that I needed to let her say what it was in her own time.” He smiles. “She enjoyed the second hot dog more honestly than the first. There was no talking, but neither of us was uncomfortable. That silence is where we became friends.”

  He shoots us a speculative eye. “Some might think it was suspicious, a male cop getting friendly with a fourteen-year-old girl.”

  “The thought had occurred to me,” Alan says.

  I look at my friend in surprise, because it hadn’t occurred to me. The truth of the relationship between Burns and Heather is written all over the old cop’s face, in the frustration that’s evident when he talks about not being able to solve her dad’s murder. It’s evident in his voice; when he talked about her thoughtfulness, I’d heard more than admiration. I’d heard the pride of a father or a doting older brother.

  Alan is usually much better at reading people than I am. Why’d his mind go there first?

  Burns seems to take it in stride. “Yeah, well. We all have our problems. I’ll be honest about the ones I have so you can be clear on the ones I don’t. I can relate to Heather because I had a sister who died of leukemia when she was twelve. I was nine.” His lips compress in sorrow at the memory, even after so many years.

  “Second thing,” he continues. “I had a gambling problem for a bit. I never lost the kids’ college fund or anything like that. It was the opposite, actually. I was a poker player and I was really good. It started to take over my life. Playing forty-eight hours straight on my time off and then heading into work wired and with no sleep.” He smiles, as though this isn’t an entirely bad memory. “Might have been fine if I was making a living doing it, but I wasn’t. I was wrecking my life at home and cutting into the job.” He shrugs. “So I got a handle on it and that’s it. Nothing off about my relationship with Heather Hollister. Not once, ever. We clear?” He looks at Alan, not me, as he asks this.

  “We’re clear,” Alan says.

  “You said she had something else to say?” I ask, trying to put this train back on the tracks.

  “Yeah.” The smile that replaces the mild defiance in his face tells me this is a better memory than the others. “‘I want to become a policewoman,’ she told me. ‘Will you help?’ Just like that. She was looking me right in the eyes as she did, determined, ready for a tough negotiation.” He finishes his coffee and pushes it aside. “Heather was always strong, like I told you.”

  “What’d you tell her?” Alan asks.

  “I told her the first thing she needed to do was graduate high school with good grades. Then I told her she should go to college, get a degree in criminology. My master plan, you see, was to steer her in the direction of doing something that would pay better and be safer. I figured eight more years of school, life, maybe boys, whatever, and some of that fire would cool. She was fourteen. I couldn’t imagine her on the streets in a blue uniform, and I didn’t want to.” He shakes his head, still surprised by the past. “I misjudged her, like so many. She did exactly what I told her. Showed up when she was twenty-two and told me she needed help enrolling in the police academy.”

  “What about this thing with her stepfather?” Alan asks.

  I watch Burns closely. His face doesn’t shut down. It goes mild, the barest hint of a smile tipping the edges of his lips. Like most cops, he’s an accomplished liar. If he still had coffee in his cup he’d be using it as a prop, taking a careful sip to show that he’s not troubled in the slightest by Alan’s question. “Pete? What about him?”

  I touch Alan’s leg under the table, and he lets me take over. “Burns. Our only interest in anything is Heather. We can guess what happened to the stepfather, and we couldn’t care less. But did you ever consider the possibility that he might have had a hand in what happened to her? Ultimately, she’s the one responsible for him going to court and having to move on.”

  “Yeah, I considered it.”

  “So? Tell us about him.”

  Burns grabs his water glass in a familiar, proprietary way that makes me think he wishes he was sitting at a bar counter. His expression is contemptuous. “Pete was every stereotype you could imagine. Small, weasely guy who got off on beating women because he was too cowardly to beat on anyone his own size. Blew into town a few years earlier and worked odd jobs. Margaret met him—I don’t remember how. He sized her up the way guys like that do. He could smell it.” He takes a drink from the water again, making me think of whiskey. “Thank God, Heather wasn’t weak. Or that he wasn’t one of the big ones.”

  I know what he’s saying. The adage all bullies are cowards is wishful thinking. Some of them are brutes, huge men who are anything but cowardly and just enjoy using size to enforce their will.

  “How old was Heather when Margaret married him?” I ask.

  “Fourteen going on fifteen. I didn’t know anything about him or what he was doing, until Heather came to me. I was, let’s say, pretty angry. I’d taken a personal interest in this family. They’d been through enough, and here comes this piece of shit, like a vulture smelling an easy meal.”

  “She had a tape?” I ask.

  He nods. Another admiring smile wipes away the contempt and anger. “Smart girl. She brought it to me, and I did the right thing and got him arrested. A good lawyer got the tape excluded.” Burns turns the words good lawyer into bitter cuts of sarcasm. “What did you do?” I prod.

  He sighs. For all his anger, this memory tires him. He’s not ashamed of it, but he’s exhausted by the world that made it necessary. “I grabbed a sorta friend of mine, a retiree who shall remain unnamed but who, let’s say, had always been flexible in his methods of interrogation on the job, and we paid ol’ Pete a visit. Margaret was out at the movies with Heather.” He glances away, and I see the first, smallest hint of shame there.

  “Heather knew?” I say. “She knew what was going to happen?”

  “As I said. She was a smart girl.” Another whiskey sip of ice water. “We didn’t knock. We waited ten minutes after we saw Margaret drive off with Heather, and we walked right in. Heather had left the door unlocked for us. Pete was sitting in his armchair, wearing a wife-beater and nursing a beer.” He shakes his head. “The guy was such a cartoon. Maybe he saw domestic abusers on TV shows or in the movies and patterned himself after them. I don’t know. An
yway, my friend-who-shall-remain-nameless walked over, grabbed Pete by the hair on his head, and yanked back. The armchair toppled over backward, and we went to work.” He flexes a hand unconsciously. Sense memory.

  “We didn’t talk for ten minutes. He must have recognized me, but I imagine that only made him more afraid. We worked him pretty good. Not good enough that he wouldn’t be able to walk out on his own, but we hurt him.

  “Once the ten minutes were up, and he was curled into the fetal position and had pissed himself and was crying like a baby, I had the talk. I told him he was going to get out of town, right now, tonight. I told him if he ever touched Margaret again, I’d kill him. I told him if he ever touched Heather, I’d kill him slow. I told him if he ever showed his face around here again, I’d kill him. I told him if he filed a complaint against me, no one would believe him, and I’d kill him.” He gives a little shrug. “Basically I told him I’d kill him.”

  “Did he go?” I ask.

  “Oh yeah. He couldn’t leave fast enough. I even brought him some money to stake him. Two thousand dollars of poker winnings. I’d do searches for him on occasion. Nothing ever turned up.” He looks at me. His eyes are back to being troubled. “So? You think he could have had something to do with Heather going missing? I looked, but I never found a connection. Never found Pete, as a matter of fact. No records of him coming back into town at that time or later, no one saw him at any of his old haunts, nothing.”

  I consider it. The whole story is fascinating, both terrible and cathartic. Heather’s complicity is disturbing, of course. I have only a sketch of “Pete,” delivered by a man who hated his guts. But even so …

  “I doubt it,” I say. “I can’t rule him out one hundred percent, but he doesn’t sound like an intelligent planner. This is too advanced for him.”

  Burns stares down at his illusory whiskey water. “That’s a relief.”

  “I understand why you focused on the husband and Pete,” I say, moving things back to the investigation. “But were there any other suspects?”

  “There was one.” He sounds reluctant. “Heather’s boyfriend.”

  “She was having an affair?” I ask.

  He sighs. “Yeah. Nice guy by the name of Jeremy Abbott. He worked in real estate, divorced, around the same age as Heather. They’d been seeing each other for about six months.”

  “Was this before or after she suspected her husband was cheating on her?”

  “Don’t know. I found out about Abbott through her email.”

  “Why was he ruled out as a suspect?”

  Burns looks confused. “You didn’t read it? In the file?”

  “We’re still getting caught up,” I say.

  “Then get ready for a shocker. Jeremy Abbott went missing the same night as Heather. His car was found in his driveway, still running. Driver-side door was open and one of his shoes had come off.”

  “That’s why you never considered it random,” Alan says.

  Burns nods.

  “Douglas Hollister is looking better and better,” I mutter.

  “He never turned up?” Alan asks.

  “Jeremy?” Burns shakes his head. “Not a sign. Just like Heather. Disappeared from the face of the earth.”

  I glance at Alan. He nods back at me.

  “What?” Burns asks.

  “We’re wondering if Jeremy might show up soon too.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The day is California-perfect. The sky is blue from horizon to horizon, and the sun shines down with a gentle warmth. It’s a day for T-shirts and blue jeans, sunglasses optional. Parents and surfers alike will be looking at this day and thinking about the weekend, hoping that this honey keeps on falling from the sky.

  We’re on the way to see Douglas Hollister, and I’m excited about it. Not the excited of a kid going to the comic book store, but the excited of a meat-eater getting ready for a live meal.

  I have developed a picture of Heather Hollister. Like me, she lost a parent early in her life. Like me, she was called to this job. To being a cop. Our reasons were different; she wanted justice for the world in exchange for the lack of justice for her father, whereas I was lured by an inner siren song.

  By all accounts she was very good at her job. She hadn’t let her obsession destroy her. She found time to marry, to have children, and to care for the victims she ran across as a detective.

  Now she’s lost her husband and her children. The life she knew is gone. Our stories couldn’t be more different and yet the same.

  I feel a kinship for her that’s put an ache inside me, a longing that I recognize. It comes when empathy with a victim crystallizes to a painful, sharp-edged clarity. I care about every corpse that becomes my responsibility. Each was a life, replete with hopes, dreams, boredom, laughter, tears, day to day. I know this about them all, but with some, I can see it like I can see the hills next to the highway through the window as Alan drives.

  Paul Rhodes is a writer I like a lot. He can be a little uneven at times, but there was a passage he wrote in one of his books that summed up this idea for me, this encapsulation of the uniqueness that each of us exists as, even though the stories of our lives are the same stories that have rolled on forever:

  Every man thinks his dream deserves worship. It came from him, him, there is no other him; thus, it must be unique.

  God says (in a booming, wrathful, surround sound voice, fit to shake the rafters of the world): FOLLY!

  And man trembles.

  God hunkers down in his white robes and puts an arm around man’s shoulders. It’s an ineffable embrace, of course; mother’s milk, father’s thunder, joy to build the world.

  God says (not unkindly), Now that I’ve got your attention, listen up:

  Every dream has been dreamt before, a thousand by ten thousand times. Those desires you deem unique have been attached to a million dreamers before you. They woke each day to wage the wage-war, to fight for survival for themselves and those they loved; to don a good suit, to drink a rich wine, to find themselves sweating that evening in the clutches of someone beautiful. The dream is never new, my son. Only the dreamer.

  God smiles the sunrise.

  Oh man, sweet child, how I love your folly.

  They say any idiot can have a child, and that’s true. The biology is the same. The outline of the story is the same. But the real truth is, none of them is the same. People make every story different. Only the world-weary really believe otherwise.

  Tommy and Bonnie will never be Matt and Alexa. That’s okay. They are themselves. They are the same idea when viewed from a distance, but listen closer and you hear it: Both songs are sung in a different tone, both are rich and beautiful, both are extraordinarily themselves.

  I see Heather this way now. I perceive her not as a female victim with some similarities to myself but as a unique individual who added more to this world than she took away. I believe that her husband, Douglas Hollister, murdered not her body but her life.

  We’re on our way to see this man, and I’m hoping that our visit brings him sorrow.

  “You think Burns will keep his cool?” Alan asks.

  I turn my gaze from the passing hillside and my thoughts of Douglas Hollister’s doom.

  “What’s that?”

  “Burns. He seems a little amped up. I’m worried.”

  It was true. Burns was practically licking his chops, just thinking about biting a nice big juicy metaphorical chunk out of Douglas Hollister.

  “I think he’ll be okay. He’s been a cop for too long. It’s not like he’s going to kill Hollister right in front of us.”

  Alan slides a look at me, then back to the road. “You hope,” he says.

  Or maybe I don’t, I think but do not share with him.

  Douglas Hollister lives in Woodland Hills, in a nice, newer two-story. The exterior is an off-white faux-adobe, with light wood accents at the windows. The front yard has a single adolescent tree. The rest is green grass, cut short. Attractiv
e, cute even, but unimaginative. It has the look of any of a thousand homes that were thrown up during the housing boom. Hollister’s been here with his new wife, Dana, for only three years, so I’d guess they bought at the height of the market.

  “What do you think about Dana Hollister?” I’d asked Burns.

  “I think she’s clueless and that she loves the guy,” he replied, echoing our thoughts when we’d first viewed the black-and-white photograph of them coming out of the hotel room. “She cheated with him, so I hold that against her, but she always struck me as not being the sharpest knife in the drawer. Dumb more than malicious.”

  He filled us in on the other facts. Dana Hollister had worked in real estate for a few years, a career she started not long after she and Douglas met. She’d done okay but had quit a year ago, after the housing bubble burst. Now she was trying to start up her own business.

  “Keepsake store or something like that,” Burns said. He checked his watch. “She should be there now. She’s open every day, as a matter of fact. Hardworking, I’ll give her that.”

  “You still keep pretty close tabs on them, then?” Alan asked.

  “’Til he’s suffering in prison,” Burns had replied, his voice as flat as a machine.

  Alan parks next to the curb in front of the house, pulling up so that Burns can ease in behind us. I notice a white Honda Accord in the driveway. We climb out and I wince at the sudden cold turn the air has taken during the short drive. February in Southern California remains capricious, as always.

  “How do you want to work this?” Burns asks, coming up to us.

  “He’s already going to be on his guard when he sees you,” I say to him. “That’s good. I’ll introduce us, and Alan and I will show him our FBI credentials. That should make him even more nervous. After that we’ll let Alan run things.”