The Night Bird (Frost Easton #1)(11)

“No. Nothing at all.”

“Her roommate, Lucy Hagen, said that she and Brynn went to a party in Alameda last night. Do you know anything about that?”

“Yes, I was supposed to be there, too. I had a client emergency. The host was a law-school classmate of mine who’s an in-house counsel at Oracle.” Tejada noticed Frost’s smile and added, “A lawyer’s party isn’t as stuffy as it sounds, Inspector, when you have that kind of money. I think he flew in Iggy Azalea to perform. This was all young, pretty people. Like Brynn.”

Frost didn’t want to admit that he had no idea who Iggy Azalea was.

As young as he was, Frost took pride in being unhip. He knew the wild side of San Francisco, but rarely joined the crowd. He was single and had made his peace with staying that way. His brother, Duane, periodically tried to fix him up, and Frost got a lot of offers because he gave off a Justin Timberlake vibe that women found attractive. More often than not, he said no. When he went on dates, they typically didn’t lead to relationships. It wasn’t that he was uninterested. He simply enjoyed his solitude. If he had a free evening, he usually spent it reading history books in a hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurant two blocks down from the Russian Hill house where he lived. The owner let him bring Shack in a carrier.

“Was Brynn uncomfortable going to the party without you?” Frost asked.

“Brynn was never uncomfortable. She fit in everywhere. The one who was probably uncomfortable at the party was Lucy. She’s sort of a fragile flower. If there was anyone who would go nuts and have some kind of breakdown, I would have put money on her, not Brynn.”

“Your lawyer friend, does he throw parties where drugs are available?”

Tejada shrugged. “Pot? Maybe. Anything harder? Doubtful. And Brynn had no time for drugs of any kind. It wasn’t her scene.”

“That’s what Lucy said, too. And Brynn’s parents.”

“Well, they’re right,” Tejada told him. “I can’t explain what happened to her, but you can rule out drugs.”

Frost wasn’t so sure. People were good at keeping secrets from those close to them, whether it was about affairs, alcohol, or addictions.

“There was a similar incident a couple months ago,” Frost told Tejada. “A woman had a psychotic episode at a wedding reception. She shot herself. Like Brynn, the behavior seemed to come out of nowhere. I’ve been trying to find some overlap in their lives, to see if they had a connection that might explain what happened to both of them. So far, I’ve come up empty.”

Tejada nodded. “I remember that incident from the news. Brynn and I talked about it.”

“What did she say?”

“Just that it was scary and bizarre. We both assumed what you did, that it must be drugs.”

“And did she mention anything that might suggest a connection between the two of them?”

“I’m sorry. No.”

“The thing is, Mr. Tejada, this behavior usually has an explanation, but friends and family often miss the clues. Then they look back and remember little things that seem important in the wake of what happened. Was there anything like that with Brynn?”

Tejada was silent for a long time. He crossed his arms and stared at his shoes. Lawyers didn’t give flip answers. Frost knew that because he had a law degree himself. He’d also worked with a lot of lawyers in his years with the police, and if there was one thing he liked about them (among the many things he didn’t), it was that they never answered a question without thinking about it.

Finally, Tejada said one word, but it was something that Frost didn’t expect.

“Cats,” he said.

Frost cocked his head. “What?”

“Do you like cats, Inspector?”

“I do, in fact,” Frost replied.

“So do I. I have four cats.”

“Okay,” Frost said, not understanding.

“Brynn was scared to death of cats,” Tejada went on. “When I first met her, she couldn’t spend five minutes in my condo. She hated cats, couldn’t stand being around them. People who don’t grow up around cats often don’t understand them, but this was a deeper phobia with Brynn. When I asked her about it, she told me that she’d had a bad experience with a feral cat as a teenager. She was bitten multiple times. She had to undergo a painful round of rabies shots.”

“I don’t understand the connection,” Frost said.

“You wanted clues, Inspector. You wanted something unusual. This is the only unusual thing I can think of.”

“That Brynn was scared of cats?”

Tejada shook his head. “No, here’s the strange thing. The two of us typically met at restaurants, not at my place, because of my cats. If we wanted to be together overnight, I’d get us a hotel room. And then, last month, she showed up at my place on a Saturday afternoon. I went to open some wine for us, and when I came back, I found her sprawled on the living room floor, playing with my cats and letting them walk all over her. Since that time, she hasn’t had any issues with my cats at all.”

“Did you ask her about it?”

“Of course. She said she didn’t want my cats to be a problem between us, so she’d been seeing a psychiatrist to help with her fears.”

“Apparently, it worked,” Frost said.