CHAPTER TWENTY

Haddie sat on the Fat Boy, twisting her hair into knots and releasing it while she stared down toward the entrance to the dead-end street. The stench of the Colmans’ burnt out home permeated the air. The house behind her had someone wailing country music, but muffled enough that she caught only the high notes.

Across the affluent neighborhood, manicured grass had started to turn tan, and a few of the maples had turned yellow. Each house seemed to pride itself in having a variety of large trees surrounding it, except for the expansive front lawns. Around the black walls of the Colmans’ house, one of the trees had lost its leaves, and another was beginning to turn yellow. Outer bushes, still green, or at least alive, hid much of the fire damage from her angle. The wind gusted, tossing leaves off trees. She parked where Mel had supposedly sat.

In the west, a line of dark clouds brewed. She’d have time to run home before any chance of rain; the RAV4 would be better to take to class.

Her phone vibrated and she held her breath as she picked it up.

Liz texted. “Coffee? Before your class?”

Haddie nodded to herself. She couldn’t exactly explain about Dad, but some company would be a good distraction. Besides, she wanted to know how this impossible radiation could be created. A fire as impossible as Dad. “Sounds good,” she texted.

“Common Grounds? I need chocolate.”

The university cafe offered baked goods, often brownies. Haddie might go for an Açaí bowl. “5:15?” she texted.

“I’ll be there.” Liz followed with another text, “Thanks for getting my car fixed. Works great.”

Biff’s friend, Benny, had Liz’s car ready that morning. Haddie doubted the car worked great, but at least it ran. “No problem.”

Haddie stared at the burnt wall rising over the green bushes. What did Biff know about Dad? He’d only been working there about six years. Phone in hand, she felt chilled. Wind rippled through the brush, swaying them. The scent of wet, burned wood had a deeper, primordial effect, like an ancestral warning. Her mind locked when she thought of her dad. Too much impossible to process.

She was there, working, to prove Mel innocent. Focus. The firm’s client sat in jail alone. From every indication, she had no real friends, just coworkers who she went out after work with on occasion. A sad life, truly. And, Mel had been dating a married man. Haddie tried not to judge that.

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What did Andrea plan next? Since the arraignment on Sarah Colman’s murder, she seemed okay with Haddie following the alternate perpetrator theories. Mark Colman’s finances just pointed to shadier business practices and had given her no concrete leads. Forty-eight hundred a month or two to a California winery wasn’t going to free Mel. Neither would a bad business address.

A stretch, but a lover for Sarah Colman was still an option, but how did you investigate that? Find her friends — interview where she frequented. Phone logs, emails. Perhaps Josh was scanning those, or that was what Grace fought the DA for. The DA had little information on Sarah’s life, because Detective Cooper hadn’t looked too deeply. He had, however, bothered to dig into Haddie’s life. Even if for nothing more than to warn her from digging too deep. Was he that insecure?

The Irish mob who had died in a similar fire could lead to a possible organized crime connection, especially with sketchy business dealings considered. It wasn’t anything they’d bring to court, but it could lead her to something else. Perhaps Andrea would spring for a deeper background check with the FBI or Interpol, if she hadn’t already.

She jerked up straight. Haddie almost missed the mail truck heading toward her. Sitting in the shade of canyon live oak, she had a good view up the street before it curved, and decorative vegetation hid the entrance. If Mel had been looking to intercept Sarah, it would be a good place to park. It also would have given Haddie a good chance of spotting the mail woman, if she hadn’t been preoccupied. She straddled the Fat Boy, one leg on the ground and her other on her peg so that her knee rested on the tank.

The truck must have just finished one stop. Each property took up long stretches of the road and left ample greenery around massive houses. It ambled toward the house where Haddie waited, a white-walled, modern, two-story with a large circular drive in the front with low, still-green plantings and one lone, yellowing maple at the street. Haddie tucked her phone in her pocket and waited. The mail truck suddenly turned into the circular drive instead of parking in the street. Stubby tires squealed as it spun around, heading to exit as quickly as it entered.

The driver, black-haired with a dark tan complexion, looked toward Haddie as she pulled back onto the street. Her face was unreadable in the distance, but there was no doubt she looked in Haddie’s direction. Catching traction on the asphalt, the mail truck turned the wrong direction and headed away, leaving its route incomplete.

Because of me?

Malorie Sanchez couldn’t know Haddie. They’d never met. Andrea hadn’t even deposed her yet — couldn’t, the testimony had just arrived in that afternoon.

Maybe Malorie Sanchez had been spooked by seeing someone on the type of street where people rarely parked, let alone sat and waited. It couldn’t have anything to do with Haddie directly. Still, it made little to no sense.

Haddie couldn’t even be sure if it was Malorie Sanchez, though the description had been of a Hispanic female. The hair and skin tone could match. Haddie had planned to take a quick photograph, to confirm later. Truth is, she hadn’t much of a plan at all, and now the witness had bailed — for no good reason. She’d acted spooked. Who was she afraid of? Me?

Raising her eyebrows, she sighed and pulled on her gloves. She wasn’t about to chase the mail driver; that hadn’t been any part of any plan. The weather had begun to look gloomy. Best to get home to change and switch to the RAV4. She strapped her helmet on and closed her jacket.

Haddie kicked the Fat Boy into life. In her jacket pocket, her phone vibrated. She sighed again, leaning back to pull it out. Andrea.