by Sean Platt
“Here ya’ go, gentleman.” The waitress stepped awkwardly into their exchange, smiling as she set the bottle on the table, then slipped off toward the back of the bar.
Jon’s head started to swim. He burst into laughter at the matching set of blurry Housers, both trying to make him feel bad. “I think these onion rings are the only things I’ve eaten all day,” he said, a half-second after his sudden realization.
Houser was right, and the logical side of Jon knew it. But most of him was drunk and getting drunker.
Jon had grown reasonably skilled at staying on the shallow side of the drunk pool, and while he wasn’t quite trashed yet, he’d already decided to dive, and was now just seconds from hitting the water. He tried to remember the last time he’d been so drunk, then couldn’t help but feel a soured smile spreading his face at the memory — a seemingly endless night of bacchanal at the infamous Chateau Marmont.
The Chateau rose above the Sunset Strip like a leviathan of gothic glamour, and was one of the more famous places in the world where writers, actors, musicians, and the affluent elite had been known to squirrel away in its paparazzi-free palatial environment.
Harry Cohn, founder of Columbia Pictures, said, “If you’re gonna get in trouble, do it at Chateau Marmont.” And Harry was right. Generations thought so. James Dean had jumped through a window, Led Zeppelin rode their hogs into the lobby, and Jon had beat a few demons into the dirt himself. But getting into trouble at the Chateau was reasonably safe. Unlike Hamilton Island, where Jon was terrified of what he might say, or even do.
He was glad Houser was there. Jon felt safe beside him, knowing Houser wouldn’t let things get too far out of hand, no matter what sorta shit fell from his mouth. Houser usually had the words, even when he said nothing.
Two shots of Jack later, and the first tear fell from Jon’s eye. Jon didn’t bother to wipe. “I’m such a fucking asshole,” he said.
“I’ve known an Army base worth of assholes, Hollywood. And you wouldn’t have even cleared boot camp. A rich prick, sure, but only on accident. And yeah, you’re a little bitch about your weight,” Houser smiled. “But you’re not an asshole.”
Jon choked through his laughter, then said, “No, man. I am.” He sipped his Jack, the first time he hadn’t gulped, then added, “I think I knew Emma was my daughter, deep down. Just didn’t want to admit it.”
“Bullshit. You’re just feeling guilty because that’s what you do.”
“No,” Jon shook his head. “I had a hard time believing Sarah was with another guy so quick. I was her first, after all.” His voice cracked. “And she was mine. But believing she had moved on, made it easier for me to move on, too. Even if part of me wondered. I’m an asshole for letting it go. If I hadn’t, everything would be different. Sarah never would’ve been on the island, and she never would’ve been in the classroom when that bullet tore through the wall.”
“Okay, you’re done,” Houser said, scooping Jon’s glass to the other side of the table. “You can’t rewrite history. And who’s to say Sarah wouldn’t have been hit by a bus walking the Strip?”
Jon rubbed his temples. “Losing Sarah the first time was what made me want to step into the middle of the street without looking both ways, come home to my empty apartment and watch shit TV, and coat the acid and ache in the pit of my stomach with whatever I could pour from a bottle. Even after I moved on, a part of me always believed our story wasn’t over. But now it is, and I can’t live with it.”
Jon started to quietly sob. Houser looked around the bar, then scooted his chair closer to Jon, softly patting the back of his shoulder.
“Sarah’s different, there’s no one like her,” Jon kept shaking his head like it had a fresh set of batteries. “She loved me before I was on the cover of Entertainment Weekly. Before I was damaged. Back when I was still innocent, and before I’d ever been a punch line. I’ll never be able to trust another woman the way I trusted her, because I’ll never know another woman before the fame.”
“You always had the money, Jon.”
“Yeah,” he said, “but I knew Sarah before she knew what it was, or at least why it mattered.”
Houser’s phone started buzzing on his belt. Jon barked out a laugh and pointed at Houser’s waist. “You should keep that in a fanny pack,” he laughed through his tears. “And you call me a bitch.”
Houser looked at the screen. “It’s local,” he turned to Jon, then tapped the green button on his black phone and said, “Houser.”
His eyes narrowed, then after a few seconds of silence, Houser said. “Yes, ma’am.” Another few seconds later, he added, “How can I help you?”
Houser listened for around 30 seconds, then turned the phone from his ear, palmed the speaker, and whispered to Jon. “It’s Heller’s wife.”
The wife of the man who murdered Sarah — and Jon’s dreams.
* * * *
CHAPTER 9 — Brock Houser
8:28 p.m.
“Is this the same Brock Houser who found the missing girl today?”
“Yes, ma’am” he said. “How can I help you?”
“I hope so,” she sounded less sad than upset. “I don’t know who else I can turn to. My son is missing. And I’m afraid something bad has happened to him. Is there any chance I could hire you to find him? I don’t have much money, and I’m not even sure what you guys charge, but I need help.”
“Did you contact the police?” Houser asked.
“Yes, but I’m not sure how much help they can be. Last week, his father, Roger Heller, shot six people at the school. And I’m afraid that someone might have hurt him.”
“Why do you think that?” he asked, as Jon leaned close, listening to the conversation.
Liz told him about the shooting, then about how one of the victim’s parents came to the house and assaulted her son. She also told Houser about the “Murderer” spray painted in blood red across her windshield. After Alex got in a fight with two kids at school — a fight which left one of the kids in a coma — he and his girlfriend, Katie, ran into the woods. She hadn’t seen them since.
Houser asked if it was possible that he and his girlfriend ran away together, as young lovers sometimes do.
“He wouldn’t do that to us,” Liz said. “He wouldn’t leave me and his little sister behind. I know this is gonna sound ridiculous, but I know something has happened. I can feel it.”
Houser looked at Jon, who shrugged on his way to another sip of whiskey.
“Hold on a second,” Houser said and muted the phone.
“What do you think? It’s probably nothing, but I could probably swing by and give her some peace of mind.”
“You’re gonna help the wife of the man who murdered Sarah?” Jon asked.
“She didn’t murder Sarah. She’s just as much a victim in this as the people her husband shot,” Houser said, afraid Jon was too drunk to see things clearly.
“And if he is missing?” Jon said. “You wanna sink into the quicksand of another search?”
Houser sighed. “Worst comes to worst, if he really is missing, I can call one of my detectives in to help out, so I’ll still be free to look into your shit.”
Jon slurred, “Hey, don’t worry about me. I’m not in a rush. Do what you gotta do, man.”
“You sure?”
“Hell, I don’t even know what I wanna do yet.”
Houser un-muted the phone and said, “Mrs. Heller? Yes, give me your address and I’ll be right over.”
Houser thanked Jon and then asked, “You wanna go with me?”
“No, thanks,” Jon said. “I’m thinking Pigtails is waiting for you to leave.”
Houser looked over to see the waitress smiling at them.
“OK, just promise me you’ll call a cab or a driver from your brother’s house, eh?”
“Sure thing,” Jon said looking past Houser and flirting with the waitress.
“Call me if you need anything. Otherwise, I’ll call you when I’m done meeti
ng Mrs. Heller.”
**
Houser arrived at Mrs. Heller’s house, immediately spotting the black SUV parked in front — a Paladin security truck keeping guard, just like Mrs. Heller said there would be.
Houser drove past the SUV, then pulled into the driveway. The moment Houser killed the engine and was out his vehicle, the security guard was approaching him. Houser already had his ID in hand and held it up for the guard.
“I’m a P.I., Mrs. Heller is expecting me.”
The guard stood there, hand on his gun, and flashlight swatting a beam on Houser’s face, then his ID. Mrs. Heller called from the porch, “It’s okay. I called him here.”
“Okay, ma’am,” the guard said, then clicked off his light and nodded to Houser before returning to his SUV.
Houser went to the porch and shook Mrs. Heller’s hand. Her eyes and nose were red, and she looked exhausted.
“Thank you for coming,” she said.
Houser said, “Thank you for calling,” even though he wasn’t actively seeking clients.
Mrs. Heller welcomed him into her home and he took a seat in the living room. She asked if he wanted a drink. He wasn’t thirsty, but said a glass of water would be great. He wanted a minute to look around her living room without her eyes on top of him.
As she got the water, he absorbed the vibe beating between the walls of the house. Typical upper middle class home; slightly posh, but comfortable furniture, children’s toys in plastic toy box next to a playpen, and a 64” LiquidTV set into the wall. Family photos from when Liz’s son was younger, and separate studio shots of her young daughter decorated the walls. No time for family photos these days, Houser figured. The living room was warm, nothing like the vibe he expected to feel from the house of a man who snapped.
Mrs. Heller handed him a purple plastic tumbler with ice water. He took a sip, then started to gulp, surprising himself at his genuine thirst.
Mrs. Heller sat down and went over some of the same things she’d said on the phone, adding a few more details when Houser asked. She was afraid for her son, that someone had hurt him for what his father had done. Houser asked if they had any enemies on the island before all this began.
“Nobody. Everybody loved Roger. Though he’d never admit it, he was a pushover when it came to his students, and I can’t think of anytime he’d ever had any problems.”
“Was your husband, or had he ever, had an affair?”
“What? Why would you ask that?”
“It’s a routine question in cases like this. I need to know everyone who might have motive to hurt Alex.”
“No. He barely had time for me, let alone another woman.”
Houser scribbled notes in his spiral as he asked a few more general questions, and purposely took a bit of time after Mrs. Heller stopped speaking to give her a minute to stew in her silence. Finally, he came out with the question she probably least wanted to answer.
“Why did your husband shoot six people?”
Mrs. Heller seemed surprised by the question, or perhaps the point at the end of it. She stammered for an answer.
“I d...don't know. How on Earth could I know something like that?”
Houser saw something squirreling inside her eyes. She was holding back. Sure, there was guilt, likely mixed with shame, and a fat handful of other ugly emotions. But she was also hiding something else. Something she’d been keeping to herself. Houser could feel it like it was standing in the middle of the room, an invisible guest waiting to be spoken to life.
“If you want me to find your son, I need to know everything, Mrs. Heller. Even things you might not think I need to know. Perhaps there’s something you didn’t tell the police.”
There. That was it.
Houser saw the shift of her eyes, the momentary hitch in her breath. The way her hands started to fidget. She wanted to tell him, but was afraid. Afraid of what, though? Houser considered saying something, but instead, let silence massage her.
“He had a list,” she said, then closed her eyes and swallowed as if she’d just confessed to the crime herself.
“A list?” Houser said.
“After Roger died, I found a list he’d hidden. He’d written the names of the students he shot. As if he’d planned to shoot them specifically.”
Interesting.
“Was Mrs. Hughes on the list?”
“No. Just the students. And there was something else I found.”
“What else did you find, Mrs. Heller?”
The front door swung open.
Mrs. Heller leapt to her feet, bursting into tears, and crying, “Alex!”
She ran to her son and hugged him, squeezing him as he dropped the backpack he’d been holding.
Alex shivered into his mother’s hug. His black hoodie and jeans were filthy, his hair a mess, and his skin clammy. His eyes were exhausted, but also terrified, as if something had happened to him, or he’d seen something that spooked him. As their eyes met, Alex wasn’t wearing the look of someone wondering who the big black guy standing in his living room was. Empty eyes didn’t wonder.
Just like Emma’s had been when he found her.
The This Shit Ain’t Right part of Houser’s brain started to tingle
“Are you okay?” his mother asked, pulling away and looking her son up and down. “What happened?”
“I got in a fight,” his voice sounded off, filled with a gravel of fright or fear or something Houser couldn't place. “Then Katie and I were coming home through the woods and it started to rain, so we hid in a cave.”
The way Alex looked down when he said they’d hid in a cave made Houser wonder what else they’d done in the cave.
Alex went on, “We were waiting for the rain to die down, and we fell asleep waiting.”
“Fell asleep?” Mrs. Heller asked, confounded. Apparently she hadn’t made the same connection Houser had.
“And then I woke up, and . . . Katie was gone.”
“Gone?”
“Yeah. I don’t know where she went. I tried calling her. I tried calling you, but my phone’s battery is dead. I have to call her house.”
The life had returned to Alex’s eyes, though he’d still not yet asked who the hell the black guy in their living room was. Maybe Houser had that look of cop or something. Alex went to the phone and was about to call Katie when the phone rang. He picked it up.
“Katie!” Alex said, excited, life returning to his eyes. “Where are you? . . . What? What do you mean I was gone. No, I woke up and you were gone! . . . I . . . I dunno. It doesn’t matter. Are you okay?”
Houser watched Mrs. Heller watch her son, tears of happiness streaming down her face. The desperation and mourning on her face just moments ago had been replaced by a mother’s joy and relief. She turned and smiled at Houser, wiping the tears from her face.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Easiest job I ever did,” Houser grinned.
“How much do I owe you?” she asked as she looked around the living room for something, probably her purse.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m just glad your son is back.”
Alex looked at his mom and held up a finger, “I’ll be right back, okay?” then he disappeared up the stairs, continuing the conversation with his girlfriend.
“Nice to see you, too,” Mrs. Heller said, laughing to hide the hurt that Alex was more concerned with how his girlfriend was than his mother who had been worried sick.
She began to lead Houser toward the door, “Well, I don’t wanna keep you.”
He wasn’t sure if he should ask, but couldn’t ignore the itch in the back of his brain. “Mrs. Heller? You were saying something about a list and something?”
She shook her head, “Can we forget I mentioned that? I really don’t want to drag my husband’s name through the mud any more than it has been already.”
“I understand, Mrs. Heller, and I don’t want to, either. But I can’t help but feel there’s something else you want to tell me.�
�
She looked away for a second. Exactly long enough to confirm his suspicion.
He was going to let the silence do the heavy lifting again, but decided to talk, instead. “Mrs. Heller, I can tell something has you scared. Something more than worrying about someone seeking vengeance on your family. I do more than just find missing kids, you know. I also help people.”
She looked back at the stairs where her son might come down any second, or in 20 minutes.
“I dunno,” she said, turning back to Houser and rubbing her hands nervously together.
“Mrs. Heller, let me help you. I promise, whatever you tell me is confidential. I don’t want to make the hard time your family is going through even harder.”
She met Houser’s eyes, like she was analyzing for trust.
“I found something else besides the list — a flash drive my husband had hidden. I brought it to the library because the police, Paladin, and the feds took all our computers. All the files on the flash drive were locked, except one.”
Houser could see the fear surfacing in Mrs. Heller’s eyes, and hear it in her voice.
“Roger said in the video that he had proof of something. But I didn’t see what it was before I had to turn off the computer and leave the library.”
“Proof?”
Alex began to descend the stairs, saying goodbye to his girlfriend.
“Can you open the files if I give the flash drive to you?”
“Yes,” Houser said, though he couldn’t truly be certain until he saw the security used with the flash drive.
Mrs. Heller reached into her pocket and pulled the flash drive from inside, then slipped it into his hand and whispered, “Don’t show anybody.”
She then thanked him out loud, “Thank you again, Mr. Houser. I appreciate your help.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” Houser said, handing her his card and whispering, “call me.”
“You take care,” he said to Alex, still saying goodbye. “Thank you,” Alex said, waving, though he probably had no clue what he was thanking Houser for.