2 Sisters Detective Agency(37)

“Okay.” I shrugged. “So what’s that got to do with me?”

“Are you tied up with a cartel, Miss Bird?”

“No comment.” I smiled.

Summerly backed up. He took off his hat again and fanned his face.

“Look, Miss Bird, it has been a long, hot shift,” he said. “My last stop was a dog stuck in a crawl space under an industrial oven in a bakery. I’m dirty, sweaty, hot, and tired. I just want to go home.”

“So go home,” I said. “There’s no crime here. Your presence is no longer required.”

Summerly gave up. He took a card from the back of the notebook and slapped it into my palm. DAVID SUMMERLY.

“When you’re ready to talk, call that number.”

Baby appeared beside me as Summerly departed. She caught me checking out the officer’s ass as he walked away.





Chapter 45



“You were into that guy,” Baby said as our Uber turned off onto the Pacific Coast Highway toward Manhattan Beach.

“Oh, please.” I snorted. “I’m a lawyer. Any mystique or allure men in uniform might’ve had for me wore off many years ago.”

“Not that guy in uniform,” she said.

“Don’t be such a smart-ass.”

“What? He was into you too, I think,” she said. “I feel like I know him from somewhere, but I don’t know where. Anyway, he seemed nice. And he’s a good size for you. You’d need a big guy. He was built like a tank. I clock you two.”

“I’m going to ignore your incredibly rude comments about his physical size in comparison to mine, as though that means anything at all about our romantic compatibility,” I said, “and instead ask what you mean by ‘I clock you two’?”

“Like, I think it’s a good idea, you two being together,” she mused. “Clocking something means you like it. I don’t know where it comes from. Maybe it’s like ‘It’s time for that to happen.’ You could say ‘I clock this handbag’ and mean ‘It’s time for me to own this handbag, bitch!’”

“‘I clock this,’” I said. “I like it. I’m going to start using it.”

“Don’t.”

“Why not?”

“You’re too old,” she said. “And by the time you say it to anyone, it’ll be over. People won’t be saying it anymore, and you’ll be even more lame.”

I massaged my brow, trying to recover from being called fat, old, and lame within a single minute.

“Oh, my God.” Baby sat bolt upright in her seat as we turned onto the street where my father’s house sat in the row of luxury homes before the water. “There are people in the house. There are people in the house!”





Chapter 46



There were indeed people in the house. Inside and outside. In the upper window I could see a woman in a green uniform vacuuming. Three men were hauling trash toward the curb, where a neat row of twelve other garbage bags stood by the road.

“Oh, my God.” Baby leaped from the car before it had even stopped rolling. “Who are they? What’s happening?”

I got out of the car and chased her down. I put a hand on Baby’s shoulder. “Relax. I hired a crew to come in and clean the house. The place was a bomb site.”

Baby whirled around and looked at me, her eyes filled with horror. Then she took off into the house through the open door as though the place was on fire and she had to save a family of orphans inside. While I paid the cleaners and sent them on their way, she remained upstairs somewhere. I surveyed their work on the living room. My father’s house had been rid of the stench of cigar smoke, stale whiskey, and rotting food that had infested it when I first entered, now smelling of floral cleaning products. There were no nameless sleepy teens in sight. The enormous kitchen benches were bare and gleaming, where clutters of pots, pans, plates, and bottles had once sprawled over them. I heard Baby come down the stairs and emerged to find her standing trembling on the spotless rug in the middle of the foyer.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“They went into my room,” she said shakily. Her eyes were huge, brimming with rageful tears. Her teeth were locked. “They cleaned my room. How. Could. You. Do. This?”

“How could I…” I laughed, confused by her reaction. “Baby, the house was filthy. It was like something out of Hoarders. There was a pancake stuck to the wall of Dad’s shower. A pancake. When we were here earlier, I saw something scamper out the window. A possum or a raccoon or…I don’t know. Normal people can’t live like this.”

“They touched my stuff,” Baby said. “All my stuff. All my clothes are—”

“Yeah, I saw your clothes,” I said. “I glanced into your room while the door was cracked open. There was three feet of clothes on the floor in there. Another month and you’d have to get around the room with a snorkel and flippers.”

“You fucking bitch!” Baby barked.

“Whoa!”

“You don’t touch my stuff,” Baby screamed. Her voice was raw and wild. “You—or your cleaners or anyone associated with you—you don’t ever, ever, ever touch my stuff!”