A waitress in a white uniform appeared. She and the other waitress looked exactly as their predecessors had years ago, except a few of them used to wear lace handkerchiefs folded into corsages pinned to their chests. Hines wondered when that custom had disappeared. When Stahl asked for a stack of pancakes and a pair of fried eggs, Hines ordered only the eggs and some coffee. The waitress walked off, and Hines said, “The pancakes were a good decision.”
Just as the food arrived, Hines’s cell phone buzzed. She pulled it out of her purse and said, “Mom? I’m sorry, but I’m in a restaurant. I can’t talk.” She listened. “You’re right, Mom.” She looked at Stahl across the booth. “It’s very fancy. Decadent. He treats me like a queen. I know it’s late there, so you can go to bed. I won’t be out of the restaurant for a while, but I’ll call you tomorrow.” She slid the phone back into her purse.
“You’re lying to make me look good to her?” Stahl asked.
“She thinks I need to be cared for and babied twenty-four hours a day. If she thinks you’re not doing it, she’ll be on the next plane from Miami.”
“She can come anytime, you know.”
“I know,” Hines said. “And I appreciate it. I just don’t want her to yet.”
“Why not?”
Hines cocked her head. “Things haven’t worked their way out to what they’re going to be yet. Too much is still in the air. Having her here would make it her business too, and she’s a person with opinions.”
“What hasn’t worked out?”
“Life hasn’t found its way to normal yet.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know if I’ve got a career or a disability payment. I’m trying to figure out if I can go back to the squad, or if the department will want me back at all. I haven’t been charged with violating Police Regulation 271, but they could do it. And you and I are still a work in progress.”
“We are?”
“I’m willing to take the career questions from her. Either way, she’ll be fine with it. She’s always hated it that I’m a cop. But I’m not ready to have the conversation about you yet.”
“Thinking of dumping me?”
“I think about the opposite,” she said. “It’s been about two months since I moved in with you. The ambience is not that different from being in one of those long-term care places. I spend a lot of time lately wondering when you’re going to rip my clothes off and carry me to bed again.”
“I didn’t know you were ready for that kind of thing. In working order and feeling frisky.”
“I’m maybe not feeling like a peak performance yet, but maybe you could just gently peel the clothes down or lift them up off me or whatever is called for. That can be pretty erotic too. Or just show some prurient interest. I think it might help morale around the condo quite a bit.”
“It’s already lifted mine in a matter of seconds.”
“I’ll bet,” she said. “It’ll be even better if I’m not wearing a police uniform to start. You know, I love my mother, but before we figure out what normal is going to be, maybe we shouldn’t invite her into the middle of it. You agree?”
“Completely,” he said.
She finished her last bit of egg and eyed his plate. “Are you ready to share your pancakes?”
“Yes.” He pushed his plate in front of her. “Have at it.”
“You’re not afraid I’ll get fat?”
“It’s not really my job,” he said. “I don’t want to be that guy. Besides, you work out like you were an NFL linebacker.”
She poured a bit of melted butter on the pancake, lifted her fork, dipped a morsel of pancake into the pool of maple syrup, and closed her eyes as she ate it. “I’ve missed these too.” She put the fork down. “Let’s go home.”
He picked up the check, slid out of the booth, and held out his hand. “Did you mean that about the clothes?”
“Take me home and find out.”
They drove home over Laurel Canyon. Just as they reached Mulholland Drive at the crest of the hill, the radio said, “We have a late-breaking report on the bomb crisis. Sources close to the mayor’s office have indicated that in the wake of the latest booby-trap attacks, the mayor will ask Richard Stahl, the bomb expert who was forced to resign two weeks ago, to return and take over the Bomb Squad, possibly as early as tomorrow.”
Stahl tapped the power button to turn it off.
“That’s quite a story,” Hines said. “I wonder where it came from.”
“Somebody probably saw me get into the mayor’s limo at the funeral and drew the wrong conclusion.”
When Stahl reached their street he kept going and circled the area looking for suspicious cars or trucks parked near enough to the condominium building to indicate it was under surveillance. Stahl checked nearby buildings to see if there was any sign of lenses or directional microphones in upper windows.
She knew immediately what he was looking for. “How long have you been doing this?” she said.
“Since I moved in. Since the bomber singled you out as the one he wanted to kill first, I realized what a good habit it is, so I do it more often.”
“I think he tried for me because I’m a woman.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I humiliated him when I blocked his rifle shots at Elliot and Crowell with the truck. The only other person he targeted personally was Gloria Hedlund, also a woman. With everybody else it was just a matter of who answered a particular emergency call, something he couldn’t predict.”
“He doesn’t seem to like women much.”
“No, he doesn’t,” Hines said.
“And I’ll bet women don’t think much of him, either,” said Stahl.
“No, but I’m probably not the most objective one to ask.”
Stahl said, “I think he’s living alone in someplace that’s remote enough to test explosives and initiators. That would keep his social calendar kind of empty. Besides, it would be really hard to explain to another person what he’s doing with all the chemicals. What you have to remember is that he’s doing it voluntarily.”
“True,” she said. She watched the upscale houses glide by, all of them under big old trees at the back of green, closely trimmed lawns. The houses all sat at the ends of long driveways and had big garages, so there were very few cars parked on the streets in this area. The only multifamily building was Stahl’s condominium, the sort of place that was half submerged in its lawn, and had a modern look that made it seem more like an art installation than a dwelling. The parking was underground and invisible. “Looks clear tonight.”
“Agreed,” Stahl said. “I hope I didn’t make you feel nervous.”
“I’m not,” she said. “This is just another reason to stick to you like a suntan. Whenever I’m with you I feel safe. Let’s enter the confines of your paranoid palace.”
They stopped at the gate and drove inside while it closed behind them. They waited while the barred entry to the garage lifted to admit them. Just as Stahl pulled into the space beside Hines’s, his phone rang.
“Stahl,” he said.
“Hi, Dick. This is Bart Almanzo. My guys just finished watching all the video of the funeral today. I’m afraid nobody spotted the suspect. There was no face that had turned up on an earlier video.”
“You used the same officers who watched all of the other videos?”
“Yes. Even though by now almost everyone in Homicide has seen all of it. We’ll be getting more tape from businesses along the way, but we blanketed the cemetery with cameras, so it’s unlikely we missed anybody.”
“Sorry to hear it,” Stahl said. “The breaks aren’t falling our way today.”
“Yeah, I heard about the meeting with the mayor. It was on the radio, backward.”
“How did you know it wasn’t true?”
“There’s a growing faction of people who are connoisseurs of the mayor’s stupid decisions. This one is already getting famous. I heard it from a gentleman who is high up in the union. Take care of yourself.”
“Just what I plan to do,” said Stahl. “See you.”
Stahl and Hines went inside through the kitchen entrance and Hines set her purse on the table in the living room. Stahl called over his shoulder: “Scotch?”
“And ice. I’ll be back in a minute.”
She went into the spare room and hung her dress uniform in the closet, then pulled a sweatshirt on over her head and put on shorts.