2 Sisters Detective Agency(13)

“I’m a youth public defender back in Colorado.”

“Oh, great. You’re the law? That’s just great.”

I got the impression that Baby’s reaction would have been the same even if I’d told her I was chief selfie appreciator at Instagram headquarters. She had recovered quickly from the horror of our meeting in Abelman’s office and was now settling comfortably into angry denial, huffing and sighing, shaking her head disgustedly at the situation. We stopped at a set of traffic lights beside a huge homeless encampment. Tarps had been strung between haphazard structures made from wood and rusted metal. Panhandlers flooded the cars around us. I waved off an old man wearing a huge pink sun hat. Above us, a billboard towered: Jennifer Lopez looking strangely miffed about her diamond bracelet.

“Help me out here,” I said. “Where did my—our—father die?”

“In his office,” Baby said. “He was probably taking a phone call. He was always screaming down the phone.”

“Who informed you of his death?”

“Ira.”

“And who’s been staying with you for the past three days?”

“Some kids from the beach.”

“Which kids?”

“Oh, my God. It’s started already. Who were you with? Which kids? Give me their names! Where were you?” Baby rummaged in her purse for her Juul. “Listen, lady, all this interrogation stuff is not gonna fly with me.”

“Interrogation!” I laughed. “Baby, if I was interrogating you, you’d know it, because you’d be sweating like an orchid in a greenhouse. Are you telling me that after you were informed of your father’s death you were allowed to go home alone to hang out with a bunch of other fifteen-year-olds? That can’t be right. Who’s been taking care of you? Who’s had custody of you until now?”

“No one.”

“This is insane! You’re a minor! Why didn’t Abelman take charge of you himself?”

“Ira knows not to mess with me.” She gave a mean smile as she put the vape pen to her lips.

I reached over and flicked it out of her mouth. It sailed out the window into the wind. I had been flicking cigarettes, joints, and vapes out of kids’ mouths for years and was right on target.

“Goddamnit!” she screeched.

“No vaping in the car,” I said. “No vaping ever, in fact. You’re fifteen. By the time you’re twenty-five you’ll sound like Marlon Brando.”

“Who?”

“Oh, God,” I said.

“Look.” She turned toward me. “Dad brought a hundred girlfriends around, and all of them tried to take a swing at being my new mommy. So I’m gonna tell you what I always told them.”

“Okay,” I said.

“I haven’t had a mother since I was two, because that’s the last time I needed one. I don’t need anyone to care for me. I take care of myself. I’m fully autominous.”

“Autonomous?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Baby, you’re a child. You’re grieving.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. I’m not a child. I have a job. I travel. My dad always gave me the credit card when I was going away or when he traveled and I stayed at the house by myself. We had a system, and it worked,” she said. “If you’ve got, like, maternal instincts or whatever-whatever, you can take them elsewhere.” She flicked her hand at me again, like she was dismissing an incompetent servant.

“Man.” I shook my head. “When they were handing out sass in heaven, you loaded up a truck.”

“Damn right.” She extracted another vape pen from her purse.

“So what happened to your mom?” I asked. “Did she leave him?”

“They were never together. Their thing was a one-night stand.”

“What? Are you kidding?”

“I’m dead serious. He couldn’t even remember who she was at first. He was hanging out with a lot of lady folk at the time if you catch my drift.”

I sighed.

“She dumped me on his doorstep with a letter and a picture of the two of us.”

Baby pulled out her phone and tapped to a grainy photo of a tall, attractive Black woman with curly dark hair and brown eyes, holding a baby.

“How old were you?” I gaped.

“Two.” She exhaled a cloud of smoke. “I’m definitely Dad’s, though. He got a DNA test.”

“Oh, I bet it’s the first thing he did,” I said. “I bet he grabbed your little hand and the car keys and went and got it immediately.”

“I don’t remember.” She rolled her eyes. “You got water in your ears? I told you. I was two.”

“So what happened to your mom exactly?”

“She washed up on a beach in Papanoa, like, three weeks later.” The girl shrugged. “Somebody tied her to a cinder block.”

“Oh, Baby. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t care.” Baby snorted in the feigned nonchalant way I’d seen a thousand teenagers do before her. “I didn’t know her.”

“But—”

“He tried to find out who killed her, but he couldn’t.” Baby exhaled more smoke at the dashboard. “He found out everything about her, found some family and all, but he couldn’t solve the crime. He had fun trying, though. It was like a mystery, I guess. He liked mysteries. It’s why he started doing this job.”