“Counting backwards nine months?” he said with a small laugh.
“Exactly. And best I could figure, that was May of 1987. My m— She didn’t have her own column yet, but she was down in Washington, DC, for the Ledger all that month digging up stuff on a politician who got busted for banging some ho’ on a boat, not his wife.”
“Gary Hart,” said Rook.
“Whoever. Anyway, my best guess is, she got knocked up with me down there during that trip. And nine months later, ta-da!” She said it with an irony that was heartbreaking.
Heat wrote “DC, May, 1987?” on her pad. “Let’s talk about now.” She set her pen down to rest against the spirals at the top of her page. “How much contact did you have with your mother?”
“I told you, it was like I didn’t exist.”
“But you tried.”
“Yeah, I tried. I tried since I was a kid. I tried when I dropped out of high school and got myself emancipated and realized I screwed up. Same thing. So, I was like, Fine. F-off and die.”
“Then why did you get back in touch with her now?” Holly said nothing. “We have your threat letters on your computer. Why did you reach out again?”
Holly hesitated. Then said, “I’m pregnant. And I need money. My letters came back, so I went to her. Know what she said?” Her lip quaked, but she held strong. “She told me to get an abortion. Like she should have.”
“Is that when you bought the gun?” If Holly was playing for emotions, Nikki would call her with business. Let her know this wasn’t a jury. Sympathy wouldn’t beat facts.
“I wanted to kill her. I picked the lock to get into her apartment one night and went in there.”
“With the gun,” said the detective.
Holly nodded. “She was asleep. I stood over her bed with the thing pointed right at her. I almost did it, too.” She shrugged it off. “After that, I just left.” And then, for the first time, she smiled. “Glad I waited.”
As soon as the uniform led Holly off to Holding, Rook spun to Heat. “I’ve got it.”
“You can’t.”
“I do. I’ve got the solve.” He could barely contain himself. “Or at least a theory.”
Heat gathered up her files and notes and left the room. Rook drafted off her all the way back to the bull pen. The faster she walked, the faster he talked. “I saw that notation you made when Holly brought up the Gary Hart trip. You’re with me, too, on this, am I right?”
“Don’t ask me to co-sign on your half-baked, undercooked theories, Rook. I don’t do theories, remember? I do evidence.”
“Ah, but what do theories lead to?”
“Trouble.” She made a fast turn into the bull pen. He followed.
“No,” he said. “Theories are little seeds that sprout up into big trees that— Damn, some writer, I’m dead-ending on my own metaphor. But my point is, theories are how you get to evidence. They’re Point A on the treasure map.”
“Hooray for theories,” she said in a flat tone and sat at her desk. He rolled a chair up and sat beside her.
“Follow along. Where was Cassidy Towne when she got pregnant?”
“We haven’t established—”
He interrupted. “Washington, DC. Doing what?”
“On assignment.”
“Covering a politician caught in a scandal. And who put us on the trail of Holly Flanders in the first place?” He smacked both hands on his thighs. “A politician caught in a scandal. Our man is Chester Ludlow!”
“Rook, as adorable as I find that I-Solved-the-Riddle-of-the-Sphinx look on your face, I would hold on to that theory.”
He tapped a finger on her notebook. “Then why did you make the note?”
“To check on it,” she said. “If the father of Holly Flanders proves relevant, I want to be able to see who was in DC at that time, and who Cassidy Towne had relationships with.”