Notorious

by Allison Brennan

  Chapter Six

  Max was by nature an early riser, but when deep in a case she also developed insomnia. There were other triggers—unresolved questions and family being two of the biggest. She had both. So when her mind woke up at 4:00 A.M. after less than five hours of sleep—unable to go to bed earlier because of her confrontation with Andy—she knew sleep time was over. A five-mile run on the treadmill in the hotel’s gym, followed by a hot shower and personal pampering, went a long way in hiding her tired eyes.

  “You’re not old,” she said to her reflection. But several late nights in a row definitely made her feel much older than her thirty-one years.

  Max believed that if she was to be taken seriously as a crime reporter, she needed to present herself as a professional. She’d learned while a college senior investigating Karen’s disappearance in Miami that if she looked like a punk college kid, she’d be treated as such—and not given any information. But if she dressed like a Revere—essentially, someone of means who looked and acted important—she would be taken seriously. When she launched her monthly cable crime show nearly two years ago, she took more care in her appearance. Part of it was vanity, but mostly it was her image and how her appearance helped her gather information. She could change her look in a moment if she needed to dress down or blend in.

  Max left her hotel early in order to meet the Hoffmans, who were staying in a hotel fifteen minutes up the freeway. She normally didn’t have a problem changing gears while working on simultaneous investigations. In a perfect world, she preferred to focus on one case at a time, but Max was often researching one case while interviewing for another while proofreading an article or preparing her opening remarks for a broadcast related to a completely different crime.

  This morning, though, she couldn’t get William’s parking ticket out of her head. She wanted him to explain why he was at Lindy’s house; if it wasn’t him, then who borrowed his car and why hadn’t William told the police? She debated how to discuss the ticket with her cousin. There was no question that she would.

  And then there was Andy’s visit to the hotel bar. The visit that had kept her up half the night in knots, even after taking a hot bath and drinking a third glass of wine. He was clearly angry—and Max wasn’t positive it was solely directed at her, even though she was certain she was part of his frustration. It was his questions and deflection that had her concerned.

  She pushed her suspicions aside; she walked into the hotel’s restaurant and asked for coffee, then glanced through her notes and put her head firmly into the Jason Hoffman murder investigation. She’d promised to listen to the Hoffmans and they deserved her undivided attention.

  The research she’d gathered yesterday was limited. An online search of newspaper archives identified Detective Nick Santini out of Menlo Park as the lead investigator. That was at least more than she’d gotten from Corbett. She decided to postpone calling him until after she met with the grandparents. She needed more information about Jason Hoffman’s murder so she could ask Santini the important questions. One thing she’d learned early on was that cops would give you the basics anytime you asked, then dismiss the more probing questions. If you already had the basics covered, they were more willing to answer the tough questions. Research was key.

  She’d also dug into Santini’s past when she couldn’t sleep the night before and learned that he’d been in Menlo Park for only two years, coming north after a decade with the Los Angeles Police Department, the last three years there as detective. Prior to his twelve years as a cop, he’d spent six years in the Marines, right out of high school. All that information was posted on a public relations site in L.A.; she could find little on him here in Menlo Park. But that didn’t surprise Max. Most people in law enforcement guarded their private lives. Max wished she could do the same, but her career required her to open up more than she was comfortable with.

  The only information she had on Jason Hoffman’s murder was what was in the newspapers immediately after his death and his obituary. The news never said what had been stolen at the Evergreen construction site, if anything, just that Jason Hoffman had been shot in an “apparent” robbery. There had been no follow-up articles, no public police interviews, and no editorials on the investigation.

  Max switched gears and looked at the family. His sister, Jessica Hoffman, was three years older than Jason, a graduate of UCLA who’d returned home and worked in local government for the Board of Supervisors. It was unclear what she did, but she worked in the government center. Depending on who she knew and what she did, Jessica could be a help or a hindrance in getting information about Evergreen or working with the police.

  Her fiancé was a corporate attorney for a dot-com company in Santa Clara—not good. Attorneys as a rule didn’t like anyone talking to reporters or cops, even if they didn’t practice criminal law. Max would have to work around him if at all possible.

  By all appearances, the Hoffmans were an average middle-class family in the San Francisco Bay Area—meaning, if they lived most anyplace else outside of here or New York City, they would be wealthy. But here they were typical of their friends and neighbors. The parents had two kids, raised them in a small house in San Carlos that had more than quadrupled in value since they purchased it twenty years ago, and didn’t appear to live above their means. Jason’s father, Michael, was an accountant for a major San Francisco firm, but not a partner. The mother, Sara, owned the construction company with her brother and managed the books. They were in their early fifties, they had a small mortgage on their home, and didn’t appear to have extensive debt.

  Typical, normal, common.

  Jason’s murder could have been a robbery, but what had thieves been after at a construction site that had no equipment yet? She supposed she couldn’t be certain of that—she’d need to talk to Detective Santini or Evergreen. Or it wouldn’t be a stretch to think that the thieves had been after something at the school, and Jason’s presence surprised them.

  His family deserved to know what happened, and the killer deserved to be in prison. Just like whoever killed Lindy should be in prison.

  She shifted in her seat as the waitress refilled her coffee. She wasn’t here to investigate Lindy’s murder, but the more she kept telling herself that the more she realized she couldn’t get Lindy and Kevin out of her head. Kevin’s messages, aimed at her, were both troublesome and thought-provoking. Memories, the good and bad, crept in. It didn’t help that everyone thought that’s what she was doing in town. Maybe she should just do it. Shake things up because it was expected of her.

  Max thought of their first real fight, when she and Lindy were in seventh grade, when they still considered each other best friends and Max spent as much time at Lindy’s house as her own. It was the kind of fight that could have destroyed their friendship. It hadn’t, but it had changed it.

  * * *

  Like she did nearly every day after school, Max rode her bike over to Lindy’s house. She bypassed the grand main house and made her way straight to the tree house.

  Tree house was a misnomer—the stately, three-story clubhouse had been built around two old trees. Lindy’s father originally had it built for her older brother, Jerry, but Lindy had taken it over when she was eight, marking her territory by painting the inside pink.

  The pink had long ago been replaced by a pale green that her mother said spurred creativity. But the house was all Lindy’s. It’s where they talked, where they played, where they shared. And today, Max had something big to share with Lindy:

  She’d gotten a birthday card from her mother.

  It was three weeks late and short, but it was from her, signed with her flowery “Mommy” even though Max had stopped calling Martha Revere “Mommy” when she was six.

  “Happy birthday, Maxie! Happy big thirteen. I hope you have a wonderful year. I’d hoped to visit, but something came up and I couldn’t get away. I love you! Mommy.”

  She said the same thing every year, and every year Max had a
flash of hope—hope that her mother meant it, that she’d truly meant to visit, but knowing in her heart since that Thanksgiving she’d left Max with her grandparents, the month before Max turned ten, that she’d never see her mother again.

  Lindy wasn’t in the clubhouse, but the door was never locked and Max walked in. She collapsed on the overstuffed couch and reached into a popcorn bowl with day-old popcorn. That’s when she saw Lindy’s diary.

  It was out in the open, right there on the table. Lindy was possessive of her diary. She’d let Max read things in it, because they were best friends, but she didn’t let her read everything.

  The hardest thing Max had ever done was not pick up that diary. She desperately wanted to, but Lindy trusted her, and trust was important. She stared at it, and Lindy walked in.

  Lindy had always been one of the most beautiful girls on campus. They were in seventh grade, but Lindy had never gone through the awkward, gangly stage. She grew from cute, blond, Kewpie doll, when Max had met her in the middle of fourth grade, into young teenage beauty queen. Max had a growth spurt over the summer and went from average to five foot ten practically overnight. She was suddenly the tallest girl in junior high, all arms and legs and no breasts.

  “Did you read that?” Lindy snapped and grabbed the diary.

  “No.”

  She glared at her.

  “I’m not lying,” Max said. “I wanted to, I was sort of willing a breeze to come in and turn the pages.”

  Lindy laughed. “Okay, I believe you.” She opened the diary to the middle, flipped through, and handed Max the book. “Read Monday.”

  Max did. Her eyes widened. Ms. Blair was cutting herself? The PE teacher? Why? “You have to tell Mr. Horn.”

  Lindy grabbed the book. “No way, then Mr. Horn and everyone else will know that I was kissing Andy in the locker room.”

  “You can say you were just getting something you left. Or—”

  But Lindy cut her off. “You think this is the only secret I have on the teachers at school? Really? I know everything about everyone in this town—and if I don’t know it, I will.”

  “She needs help.”

  Lindy wasn’t even listening to her. “I know that Mr. Horn’s secretary gives him a blow job under his desk, and the janitor, Miles, he jerks off after watching our swim meets.”

  “That’s disgusting.”

  “People are gross. Take Kimberly. I know she’s cheating on my father. I’m going to prove it.”

  Lindy and her mother were constantly at odds. She called her Kimberly to get under her skin.

  “You’re spying on all these people?”

  “Hardly. I’m just more observant than most people.” Lindy stared at her. “So are you. You’re the one who told me Miles was a creep.”

  “I didn’t know why.”

  “Now you do. Be glad you’re not on the swim team.”

  “Still, you have to do something about Ms. Blair. I really like her, and she needs help.” Max had read a book about cutting. She couldn’t imagine anyone hurting themselves, but she knew it was something serious.

  “No.”

  “How can you be so cold?”

  “How can you be such a bleeding heart? I’m sorry I showed you anything. My diary’s off-limits to you.”

  Max walked out and didn’t speak to Lindy for two weeks. Instead, she followed Ms. Blair, trying to catch her cutting herself, because then she could go to Mr. Horn and say what she saw, and not bring Lindy into it.

  But she never saw anything. And a month later, Ms. Blair took a leave of absence. Lindy—of course Lindy would know—said she checked herself into rehab. In addition to cutting, she was a drug addict, and she’d nearly OD’d. Lindy had heard that from a school board member who was having dinner at her house with her parents.

  True to her word, Lindy never let Max look at her diary again. They managed to rebuild their friendship, but conversation about the diary—and Lindy’s secrets—were off-limits. But two years later, in the middle of their freshman year, the book would come back to bite Lindy in the ass.

  * * *

  The waitress refilled her coffee cup a third time, startling Max from her memories. Max thanked her then looked back at her notes, needing to get her head out of the past. She noticed she’d scraped the polish off her thumbnail again. Why did she even bother with manicures when she always trashed her nails?

  Penny and Henry Hoffman walked into the hotel’s dining hall and seemed relieved and nervous that Max was already there. They smiled and sat across from her. Penny said, “I was afraid you’d changed your mind.”

  Max got right to the point. “I did a little research last night, but have a few questions for you, if you don’t mind.”

  “Please, anything we can do to help.”

  “Did Jason’s parents, or anyone else, hire a private investigator to look into the homicide?”

  They glanced at each other and shook their heads. “I don’t think so,” Henry said. “Mike would have told me.”

  Possibly, though it depended how close the family was, and whether Jason’s parents wanted to spare the older couple.

  “Did the police say anything to you or to Jason’s parents about the investigation? If they had a suspect or if there were similar crimes?”

  “Maybe you should talk to Mike and Sara,” Penny said, her hands clasped on the table in front of her. “They really haven’t told us much of anything, though we’ve asked,” she added quickly.

  Max feared she’d let her affection for the couple yesterday and her frustration with her assistant cloud her judgment. She should have known better than to be brought into an investigation by grandparents. They usually meant well, but didn’t have much information or access to those who did.

  “In your original letter, do you remember why you thought Jason’s death was something I’d be able to investigate?” Max phrased the question carefully. “Other than the fact that he was murdered at my old high school.” She didn’t want the Hoffmans to think that she wasn’t going to pursue this, but if she had to start from ground zero, she wouldn’t have the time, at least not for the next few months. She had several commitments, not the least of which was covering the Bachman trial back in New York City.

  Penny brightened and said, “Oh, yes. I have a copy of the original e-mail I sent right here.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a slightly crumpled paper.

  Max took the paper from Penny and unfolded it. The header showed that it had been sent two months ago to Max’s “hot line” e-mail reserved for information about cold cases or upcoming trials, on February twenty-sixth, three months after Jason’s murder, and two weeks after Ginger had been hired.

  The opening didn’t give Max any information she didn’t already know, mostly background on Jason and the information that had been revealed in the press. But the second to last paragraph gave Max that sizzling twitch again, that there was something here she could work with.

  I’m sure you get many letters like ours, asking for your help to solve a case the police feel is hopeless. I hope that the fact that Jason was killed at Atherton Prep will be enough to interest you into investigating this case. Even just a word from you on your show would give us hope—maybe someone will come forward with information if they see it on the national news.

  I wasn’t going to write to you except for something my granddaughter said when she and her fiancé came to visit us. The police came to their house and questioned them about Sara, my daughter-in-law. Jessica said the questions were typical, and when I expressed concern Jessica changed the subject. She told Henry later that she hadn’t wanted to upset me, that she thought the questions coming so long after Jason’s murder was stranger than the questions themselves. And nothing came of it, so the police were probably trying to close off lines of inquiry or resolve something. We were heartened that the police were working again, except we still don’t have any news about what really happened to Jason. When we talked to our son, Mike, he said the pol
ice had no new leads and he feared they were going to stop looking into Jason’s death.

  I just want to know why my grandson died.

  Max asked the couple, “When was Jessica interviewed?”

  Penny shook her head, but Henry answered. “A month before her visit. That’s why Jess thought the questions were strange, because they hadn’t heard anything from the police in two months, then the detective came to talk to her about her mother.”

  “Did Jason have any problems with his mother or uncle?”

  “No. Sara is a wonderful mother. And Brian, we’ve adopted him like he was our own son. He’s a little gruff and rough around the edges, but he treated Jason like he was his own son. Brian never married.”

  “Was the construction company having any financial problems?”

  “Construction is such a tough business right now, but they were scraping by. The contract with Atherton Prep to build the sports facility came at the right time. They already have offers for work when they’re done.”

  That was the way it often was—land one choice job, the rest of the jobs came easier. And being affiliated with ACP where there were alumni who had money, Evergreen was probably set for life.

  Max needed to run a background on Sara, her brother Brian, and Evergreen Construction. There could be secrets, and construction was one of those businesses that could draw in shady investors. She’d like to talk to Jessica first, but the girl was getting married next week. Except, if she waited Jessica would be gone on her honeymoon and Max couldn’t stay more than a few days. She’d have to think that through before she made her next move.

  She really wanted to know what spurred the police to interview Jessica again two months after Jason’s murder. Something must have come up. DNA? Contrary to popular television, DNA testing often took months, particularly if there was no viable suspect. Most other lab results would take a few hours to possibly weeks, depending on the agency and the backlog. Or, it could be a standard follow-up on a case before being put in the inactive file—running through potential witnesses and statements and wrapping things up before the detective felt comfortable putting the case aside.