Losing Leah Holloway (A Claire Fletcher and Detective Parks Mystery Book 2)

by Lisa Regan

  Leah stuffed that image back into her mind’s Shitty Childhood compartment. She didn’t need to think about those things anymore. But her mind had been a frazzled mess lately.

  Tyler’s hearty wail lifted her out of the quagmire of her thoughts. She squatted, pushing the car seat canopy back, and unbuckled him. She scooped him up, bouncing him in her arms until he quieted and rested his head on her shoulder.

  She looked back at Hunter, who stared at her. “You don’t need to worry about Stranglers, honey. Let Mommy worry about that. You watch your sister and cheer as loud as you can if she makes a goal, okay?”

  Hunter nodded, slumping into his chair and pushing buttons on his nabi again. Leah waited a beat and then made her way over to Alan Wheeler.

  She stood directly in front of him for several seconds, but he neither spoke nor moved. She leaned forward, holding Tyler close, and sniffed. The man smelled like a candy cane—an alcohol-soaked candy cane. The soft cooler beside him was unzipped. She shifted Tyler to her right hip and leaned down, flipping the lid open to examine the contents. Two waters crammed between two blue ice packs, a few Capri Suns, a Coke, and a tall, clear bottle of something. Leah lifted it from the cooler and turned it in her hand so she could read the label. Peppermint vodka.

  “Son of a bitch,” she murmured.

  “Hey!” Alan Wheeler’s breath was like a thick wave of hot air emerging from an oven, the smell of alcohol making Leah’s eyes burn. He gripped her wrist and she quickly pulled it away, maintaining her grip on the bottle. She stood up and tucked the bottle between Tyler and her chest. His chubby little hands wrapped around the neck of it.

  Wheeler took off his sunglasses and looked up at her with bloodshot eyes. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “You are drunk at your six-year-old’s soccer game, Alan. What the hell are you doing? I hope you’re not getting into the car with her after this game.”

  “Fuck you,” he said. He leaned forward and reached for her, but she stepped back again, out of his reach.

  “Watch your language,” Leah said. “There are children here. If you don’t pull it together, I’m going to call 911. Do you really need that kind of attention while you’re going through a divorce? An ugly custody battle? Get your shit together, Alan.”

  “You meddling bitch,” Wheeler spit.

  Leah raised a brow. She would probably call 911 anyway before the end of the game. She couldn’t let this man drive children around. She pointed down the field toward the concession stand. “They always sell coffee. You should go get some.”

  Her phone rang, vibrating against her hip. She pulled it out of her pocket and stared at the screen. At first, the number didn’t register with her. It was an 855 area code. She didn’t get many of those. She was on every “do not call” list there was, and she had no bill collectors chasing after her. But then she remembered that she had been waiting for this call. Dreading it, but waiting for it. Without conscious thought, she pressed “Answer.”

  “Mrs. Holloway?” an impossibly perky female voice greeted her.

  Leah said, “Yes,” but the word barely came out. Alan Wheeler was mumbling something at her, reaching for her again. She kicked his hand away with her leg and walked off, away from him, away from the parents crowding the edge of the field. She licked her lips, swallowed, and tried again. “Yes?” she said.

  “I’m calling regarding the samples you sent in. I’m calling from—”

  Leah cut her off. “I know where you’re calling from.” She squeezed Tyler tighter to her. He tried to put his little mouth around the cap of the bottle. She pulled it away. “Go on,” she told the woman.

  “I was just calling to let you know that both of the samples you sent in are a positive match.”

  Leah pulled the phone away from her ear and stared at it. She knew she should say something. Thank you. Okay. Goodbye. Except that she couldn’t breathe. She turned back toward Hunter. She ran toward him as if he were the oxygen she so desperately needed. Tyler was crying again. She dropped the peppermint vodka into her purse together with her phone and put Tyler back into his car seat. Then she realized she had at least ten minutes until the end of the game. She couldn’t rush the kids off the field. That would arouse too much suspicion. Not that she knew what the hell she was going to do now.

  She paced the field, fighting tears, and willing the game to end. “Oh my God,” she muttered under her breath. “Dear God.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “Am I under arrest or what?” Connor lurched back from Alan Wheeler’s breath, which was so laced with alcohol that Connor was getting a contact high. The man sat draped over a table in one of the OOI’s interview rooms, which is where they’d dragged him after his six-year-old daughter answered his apartment door and led them to where he was passed out on the living room floor. They had pulled a still of his face from the soccer field footage. A brief text exchange between Jade and Rachel Irving had provided his identity and address.

  The man’s bloodshot eyes swiveled from Connor to Jade and back. He disregarded Jade and spoke to Connor. “Do I need a lawyer or what?”

  “What you need is some mouthwash,” Jade told him.

  He ignored her. Connor said, “You’re not under arrest. We need to ask you some questions about Leah Holloway.”

  “That bitch,” Wheeler muttered. He peeled his upper body off the table and looked around the room, as if seeing it for the first time. “Where’s my daughter?”

  “Nice of you to remember you have a kid,” Jade remarked.

  “Jade,” Connor cautioned.

  She pushed herself off the wall she’d been leaning against and walked over to the table. She folded her arms and looked down at Wheeler. Standing there, she dwarfed him. “She’s with her mother.”

  Wheeler sneered and pointed a finger at Jade. “All of you women are the same—meddling bitches.”

  Jade snorted. “Oh, really?”

  “Fucking right,” Wheeler said, erupting into a coughing fit. A mist of what smelled like bourbon sprayed across the table.

  “What were you drinking this morning?” Connor asked the man.

  “Coffee.”

  Jade perched on the edge of the table and leaned toward Wheeler. “What type of drinks did you bring in your cooler to your daughter’s soccer game?”

  He ignored her again and addressed Connor. “Thought you said this was about Leah Holloway.”

  Connor nodded. “You spoke with her this morning at your daughter’s soccer game. She took a bottle from your cooler. What was in the bottle?”

  “Water,” Wheeler answered quickly.

  Connor caught Jade’s eye as she turned away from Wheeler. “You watch the news today, Mr. Wheeler?”

  Wheeler looked confused. “What the hell for?”

  Connor leaned forward, catching the man’s gaze. “Leah Holloway drove an SUV filled with kids into the American River today. Killed herself.”

  Wheeler stared at Connor expectantly, as if waiting for a punch line. When Connor didn’t say anything more, Wheeler said, “’Scuse me?”

  Connor repeated himself, more slowly. Then he asked, “So what were you drinking that you gave to Leah Holloway this morning at your daughter’s soccer match?”

  The man’s eyes were frozen wide in shock. He licked his lips. “Those kids, in her car. Did they—were they—”

  “They all survived,” Jade put in. Connor felt her eyes on him as she added, “They were rescued by a bystander. Minor injuries. Mr. Wheeler, Holloway killed four people in a vehicle traveling southbound on the freeway before she went into the river.”

  For the first time, Wheeler acknowledged Jade, shooting her a fleeting glance before turning his gaze to his sun-spotted hands, which he placed on the table. “Jesus,” he said. He looked up at Connor, worry tightening the lines at the corners of his bloodshot eyes. “I didn’t give it to her,” he said. “She took it. I was minding my own business. She walked over to me. I don’t eve
n know how she knew.”

  “Knew what?” Connor asked.

  Wheeler’s head went back and forth like a metronome, his eyes glassy.

  “Mr. Wheeler,” Jade said.

  No response.

  Connor pushed back in his chair, eliciting a squeal as the legs scraped over the tile. Wheeler startled, his eyes searching the room until they landed on Connor again. Connor said, “Mr. Wheeler, you’re not in any trouble. We’re just trying to piece together Leah Holloway’s morning. We’re trying to figure out why a mother of three with a perfectly normal life would drive a car full of kids into a river. She took something from you. It’s important for us to know what it was and whether or not your confrontation had anything to do with what she did.”

  “I barely knew her. I mean, I always saw her around. She was a real pain in the ass. The bottle she took—my wife said Leah had a thing about drinking. It was this whole thing between her and the other mothers. Leah could be—well, she could be a real bitch. She was like the police. Always worried about what everyone else was doing.”

  “Like today?” Jade asked. “Did she approach you because you were drinking?”

  He hung his head. “I don’t know how she knew. Nobody else even noticed. I was—I was—I fell asleep there on the field. I was in my chair. I woke up and she was digging in my goddamn cooler. She found my peppermint vodka and took it. She said she was going to call 911 if I didn’t sober up.”

  Connor and Jade exchanged a look. They’d seen the tape, watched Leah take out her phone, speak on it briefly, and walk briskly away from Wheeler. But no police came. Wheeler never even got out of his chair. Not until the match was over and his daughter ran up to the chair and shook him awake. By that time, they were able to see Leah herding her children, and the Irvings’, out of the frame, presumably toward her vehicle.

  They could check the 911 logs, but Connor already knew Leah hadn’t called the police. “Why didn’t she?” he asked Wheeler.

  The man shrugged. “No idea. She got a call. She walked away. That was it.”

  “Did you hear any of her conversation?” Jade asked.

  “Nah. I just know she left me alone after that.”

  “But she kept your bottle of peppermint vodka,” Connor pointed out.

  Wheeler shrugged. “Well, yeah, but I am telling you, there’s no way in hell she drank it. She was a fucking puritan about that shit.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Connor and Jade grabbed a late lunch at a fast-food place and then headed over to the soccer field in North Natomas, trying to retrace Leah Holloway’s ill-fated ride home. The lab was still working on the GPS system from Holloway’s vehicle, and they didn’t have time to wait for results. There were three gas stations between the field and the overpass where Holloway had taken so many lives. The surveillance videos from the inside of each one revealed nothing. No sign of Holloway at all, but the third gas station’s restrooms were outside, located on the side of the building, well out of the sight of the clerk. Connor asked the guy to pull up the exterior surveillance, and they hit pay dirt.

  Connor and Jade crowded together in the minimart’s tiny storage room, which doubled as an office, and watched the black-and-white footage on a small television. The disinterested clerk left them alone after queuing up the footage from the time period they’d requested.

  “Okay,” Connor said, looking at the time stamp on the video as Leah Holloway’s SUV pulled up outside the gas station’s restrooms. “We know she left the soccer game around ten fifteen.”

  “She pulls up here at ten twenty-seven, so we know she came right from the game,” Jade said. She pulled out her notebook and pen and made a notation.

  The camera was affixed to the side of the building, up high near the roof, taking in the doors to both restrooms as well as the four parking spaces in front of them. “Here we go,” Connor said as Holloway got out of the vehicle. She slipped the straps of her large purse over her right shoulder, made her way around to the passenger’s side, and opened the back door. It was impossible to see inside the vehicle, but of course, they already knew who was inside. Holloway stuck her head into the SUV. Moments passed. Connor imagined she was arguing with her son about McDonald’s or perhaps telling the other kids to wait. Finally, she emerged with young Peyton.

  Hand in hand, they approached the restroom door. As Leah’s hand reached for the door handle, she froze. Peyton turned her face up toward her mother, the look of total trust making Connor’s stomach turn. Leah rifled in her purse until she came up with her phone. Pressing it to her ear, she opened the restroom door and shooed Peyton into the bathroom.

  Jade paused the video just before they disappeared inside. “There,” she said, pointing to Leah’s purse. “That’s Alan Wheeler’s peppermint vodka.”

  The bottle’s neck and cap protruded just enough to be visible from the top of her purse.

  “Well,” Connor said. “We know what she did with the bottle.”

  “Why doesn’t she throw it away? She doesn’t drink. Won’t even associate with people who do.”

  Connor shrugged. “Maybe she forgot it was in there. She seemed pretty frazzled and preoccupied after she got that phone call at the field. Now here’s another call.”

  “You think it’s the same person?”

  “No idea, but look, we watched the soccer match footage. Almost the entire game she was cheering on her daughter. Then while she’s talking to Wheeler she gets a call. After that she was pacing and barely paying attention to the game. Next thing we know she’s driving a bunch of kids into a river.”

  “We need those phone records.”

  Connor nodded his agreement. “I already put in a request with her phone company. I’ll check with them when we get back.”

  Jade frowned and clicked “Play.” Leah disappeared into the restroom. They waited one minute, then two.

  “Fast forward,” Connor said.

  Jade moved the video ahead until the door opened and Leah poked her head out, the phone still pressed to her ear. She stared at the vehicle for a few seconds before returning to the bathroom again.

  “Eleven minutes and twenty-seven seconds,” Jade noted. They waited another minute. Then the door opened once more. Leah and Peyton exited. This time, Leah was not on her phone.

  “Her purse,” Connor said. “She left it in the bathroom.”

  Leah strapped Peyton into the vehicle and went back into the bathroom. This time she was in there for fourteen minutes, fifty-four seconds before there was any sign of her. Finally, the door opened, but all Connor could see inside was blackness, though he assumed it was Leah checking on the kids before closing the door again. Jade fast-forwarded. Twelve minutes, forty-one seconds passed. The door opened again and Leah emerged. No phone, no purse. She went to the SUV, cupped her hands, and peered into the back-seat window like she was a stranger. Turning away, she leaned her back against the vehicle.

  “What is she doing?” Jade muttered.

  Leah swiped at her cheeks with the heels of her hands. “Crying,” Connor answered. “She’s crying.”

  She went back into the bathroom. They waited a minute. When she didn’t emerge, Jade fast-forwarded again. “Jesus,” she said after over fourteen minutes had elapsed.

  “Stop there,” Connor said. “Stop, stop. Look.”

  He pointed to the vehicle door. It pushed open a few inches, closed, pushed open again, and finally opened all the way. Peyton climbed out, pushing the door closed behind her. She went to the door of the restroom, her entire body practically hanging from the knob before it turned. She pushed and pushed until, finally, the door opened a sliver. She slipped a sneakered foot between the door and its frame, then struggled the rest of the way in.

  “Smart girl,” Jade murmured.

  Connor sighed and pushed a hand through his hair. “Yeah, she is. We really need to talk to her.”

  “We’ll do that next.”

  Jade fast-forwarded again. Eight minutes, thirteen second
s elapsed. Finally, Peyton emerged once more, followed by Leah.

  “Jesus,” Connor said. “They’ve been parked there for an hour. How do you get a bunch of young kids to stay calm in a parked car for an hour?”

  Jade shrugged. “Don’t know. I’m guessing they fell asleep. Or maybe they didn’t. Maybe they sat in there and screamed their heads off for an hour. Obviously, this woman was past caring.”

  “Rewind that,” Connor said. “She’s stumbling.”

  Jade rewound the video. They watched Leah follow Peyton out to the vehicle once more. It hadn’t been Connor’s imagination. As she ushered Peyton back into the car, she fell against the half-open door. She steadied herself, then strapped in her daughter. She held on to the vehicle as she picked her way back to the driver’s side. Her purse dangled from her forearm, only one strap over her arm.

  “The bottle is gone,” Jade pointed out.

  “Yeah,” Connor said.

  Leah fell to the asphalt, her wobbly legs giving out beneath her. Her fingers scrabbled over the surface of the car door, finding the handle. She used it to pull herself up but it opened abruptly, throwing her backward. She landed on her ass, her purse a few feet away, its contents partially spilled onto the asphalt. Connor didn’t see a bottle of vodka or a cell phone. Swaying on her knees, Leah crawled and gathered her belongings. She stood on shaking legs and got back into the SUV.

  They watched as her SUV pulled out of the frame. Icy fingers scurried down Connor’s spine.

  Jade said, “Let’s check the bathroom.”

  Alan Wheeler’s vodka bottle was in the garbage can, about an inch of liquid left in the bottom of it. Its cap peeked out from a small pile of crumpled paper towels. Jade pulled on a pair of latex gloves while Connor snapped some photos of how they’d found it.

  “It’s almost empty,” Jade noted as she held it up, swishing the liquid around.

  “So she drank it,” Connor said.

  “Or poured it out.”

  Connor shook his head. “No. She drank it. If she was in here pouring it out, she would have emptied the entire thing. You saw her, she was stumbling when she left this bathroom.”