TWENTY-ONE
Thierry tried to stop me from leaving the house, but I wouldn’t take no for an answer. Since my car was still parked near Windhall, I finally managed to convince Thierry to drive me and Petra toward Beverly Hills.
There’s an odd quality about fire, that you can sense it several miles away. The air above Beverly Hills was white and ashy, and tendrils of smoke reached up toward the heavens. There was a sweet smell in the air, and as I passed Sunset, I could see a dark plume of smoke above the hills. The road was blocked at the bottom of Benedict Canyon Road, three streets below Theo’s house.
“Residents only past this point,” one of the officers told me.
“You don’t understand, I need to see Windhall. I know Theo personally.”
“You hear what I said? Move along.”
A collection of rubberneckers and photographers had gathered at the bottom of the blockade, and a few news crews were filming the occasion. Two helicopters circled overhead. I felt tension in my chest, and Petra put a hand on my shoulder.
“What do you want to do?” she asked.
“There’s another way,” I said. “Come on. We need to get closer.”
Ignoring Thierry’s protests, I got back in my car and reversed, then headed back toward Sunset. The fire trail where the dead art student’s body had been discovered was far enough away that I doubted they had blocked it off, and we would be able to see Windhall from above. We had to move quickly, though, or they might realize the vantage point had been missed.
“You know that you can’t get anywhere near Windhall, don’t you?” Thierry was saying. “You just got arrested for breaking in. You want to get yourself arrested again, fine, but this time there won’t be anyone to bail you out.”
I parked on an offshoot of San Ysidro Drive.
“Look, you don’t have to come with me,” I said. “But I’m going to get closer.”
I made my way down the path toward the outlook. I could feel Petra and Thierry behind me, but nobody spoke as we moved through the overgrown path toward the peak with the view of Windhall.
The branches above us cleared, and I made my way onto the rocky outlook. Several hundred feet down the embankment stood Windhall, engulfed in flames. A veil of smoke hung over everything in Theo’s yard, and the house stood in ruins. Even at that distance, I could feel the heat, and it felt like a caress. I could make out the frames of the windows and saw that the skeleton of the house had been exposed. It was beyond saving.
“Shit,” I whispered.
The upper turret had caved into itself, a collapsed skull. The smoke was so thick that it hung in tatters around the sooted windows, the broken glass, and the ragged woodwork. I could see firemen forming a brigade from the street, unwinding hoses to combat the flames, but I knew that it was futile.
Petra and Thierry stood on either side of me, and for once, they were completely silent.
“What do you think happened?” Thierry said.
“I’m guessing it was Heather,” I said, after a moment. “She said that Theo was going to pay for what he did. I didn’t know that she was going to burn his house down. Unless, of course, it was Caleb Walsh. He was determined to tear Windhall down.”
The sun dazzled above the eastern ridges, and the house stood defiant against the hills. The suggestions of what the house had once looked like were still there, but it only existed in pieces: the tallest tower was still there, only it had been carved out by flame, and the glass in the windows had shattered. The lower domes and cupolas had collapsed into themselves, and daylight shone through in places where there had once been roof and shingles.
“I did this,” I said. “I started digging, and this is what happened.”
“You can’t blame yourself,” Petra said. “Besides, if it was Caleb, then this had nothing to do with you.”
“Blame himself? He’s trying to take credit,” Thierry retorted. “Hailey, you’re not that influential.”
I felt hollow. “You don’t think Theo was inside, do you?”
“You were there last night,” Thierry said. “Did you see him? Hear him?”
“No, but I wasn’t there for very long.” I pinched my eyes shut. “Let’s see if we can find out what happened. Maybe the firefighters will talk to us.”
We picked our way down the fire trail. The crowd on Benedict Canyon had grown, and I could see an ambulance through the fray.
“Why is there an ambulance?” I turned to Thierry.
He didn’t respond. The crowd was surging forward around us, and I could hear snatches of conversation.
“Can’t believe he was still alive,” a woman behind me muttered. “I grew up here, there were always stories about him. I always thought my mom was lying.”
“Yeah, well, he’s not alive anymore,” a man replied. “They’re saying he was inside.”
I edged closer so I could listen in on their conversation.
“Creepy place,” the woman said. “Whoever set that fire did a favor to the whole neighborhood.”
“A dried-up corpse,” the man said. “He probably went up like a stack of matches.”
The ambulance siren started up, and the crowds parted slightly to make room for it. Firefighters came through the crowds, pushing people aside until there was enough room for the ambulance to reach the street, then take off down Benedict Canyon toward the hospital.
Once it was gone, the crowds began to disperse, and I pushed my way closer to the house. A pair of firefighters were talking next to the gate.
“Is it true?” I asked.
They turned to look at me.
“Was he inside?”
“You can’t be here,” one of them said. “We need you to stand back in case the fire spreads.”
“Was Theo inside?” I repeated. “I need to know if Theo was inside.”
“We retrieved a body,” one of the firemen finally replied. “Someone was inside when it happened.”
“It was a man,” the other said. “We’re not at liberty to say more than that. Really, you need to leave.”
Thierry dropped me off at my house. Before I got out, he put a hand on my shoulder. “You can drop this,” he said. “You can leave this story behind. It’s done, Hailey.”
I went into the kitchen and poured myself a shot of Heather’s whiskey, then sat down. I was shaking so hard that I could barely lift the shot to my lips, and when I swallowed the amber liquid, I didn’t really feel any better.
I called Leland’s phone, but he didn’t answer. Another thought occurred to me, then, and I ran over to my computer. I hadn’t used Theo’s email address since I’d contacted him, trying to get an interview. Now, I found the address among my notes and penned a quick email to Theo:
I know you don’t want to talk to me, but please give me some sign that you’re okay. I saw the fire.
After pressing “send,” I poured myself another shot of whiskey and tried to calm myself down.
With all the insanity of the day, I had almost forgotten about the blood sample that I had collected from Windhall. It was difficult to believe that twenty-four hours before, I was planning how to break into Theo’s house. Now, I had been arrested and seen Windhall burning down.
After a few more shots, I booted up my computer and checked various news sites, then watched as Windhall collapsed in on itself, taking all the years of layered history along with it. At one point, some photographers managed to sneak past all the fire barricades and climb the walls of Windhall. Their photographs turned up on the Huffington Post a few hours later.
The fire was the only thing on the news that evening. I couldn’t turn on my computer without seeing images of Windhall, a burned hull devoid of beauty. The hedges surrounding the yard were also badly damaged, and the whole property was exposed, once and for all. It was as though the fire had peeled away the protective sealant that had managed to keep out trespassers and curious bystanders for years.
I had drifted off to sleep when I heard a soft tapping on my door. The sound intersected with my dreams, at first, and then I gradually woke up and realized that someone was outside. I rose to my feet and padded across the room to open the door.
It was Madeleine.
“Hey,” she said softly. “Are you okay?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
“Did you find what you were looking for?”
It only took a few minutes for me to catch her up on everything from the last twenty-four hours, from the stolen piece of wall to the fire, to Theo’s body.
“I still have the sample,” I said. “I was going to have it tested against Eleanor’s DNA, but now I don’t know if I can.”
“How would you get Eleanor’s DNA?”
“I have some of her hair,” I said. “It’s part of some stuff I got from this crazy collector. I’m sure they’d have a record of it somewhere, since all of the original tests were done on Eleanor at Cedars-Sinai.”
She leaned against the doorframe. “You need to take it in,” she said. “It’s the only way you’ll ever get peace from this.”
“I know.”
“Let’s go,” she said. “I’ll drive.”
Petra answered right away when I called, and Madeleine swung past her apartment to pick her up.
“Where are we going?” Petra asked when she climbed into the car.
“You said you wanted to be part of the story,” I replied.
It was approaching six o’clock, and traffic was heavy. I knew from experience that Claudia spent most of her time at the lab, though, since she was a workaholic. If she wasn’t at work, there was a chance that she was at her home in Studio City. I’d been there a few times, and I knew that she wouldn’t be upset if I showed up at her house with an emergency request.
When we got to the hospital, one of the night-shift nurses told me that Claudia was on break.
“She’s probably in the courtyard,” she told me. “Go out there and see, if you like.”
Sure enough, we found Claudia leaning against the wall of the courtyard, eating her sandwich. I had always liked Claudia—back when I was in the hospital, she had had green streaks in her hair, but now it was cut short and shaved on the sides. She was a curvy black woman who wore horn-rimmed glasses, and it was widely acknowledged that she was the best blood technician at Cedars-Sinai. Even though we didn’t see each other too often, we made a point of getting in touch at least once a year. The last time we’d seen each other, we’d both gotten shit-faced at a bar in downtown Los Angeles.
“Hailey,” she said, nodding a greeting. “What do you need?”
“Can’t this be a friendly visit?”
She rolled her eyes. “You have a carefully curated network of friends all over Los Angeles. Out with it, Hail. What do you need?”
“I need a blood test.”
“You been promiscuous lately? Worried you might have picked something up?”
“It’s not my blood.”
Claudia nodded at Petra and Madeleine. “Are you going to introduce me to your friends?”
“Petra, Madeleine; this is Claudia.”
“Pleasure’s all mine.” Claudia bowed her head. “Let me finish this sandwich and then we can go inside. Jesus, Hailey, you’re seriously starting to owe me.”
When she finished her break, we followed her into her office, which was crammed with blood slides and test tubes. Claudia heaved a breath and sat down, then adjusted her glasses and folded her arms across her chest.
“Tell me what’s going on.”
“I just need a match.”
“Okay,” she said. “Are you breaking any laws? Am I going to get in trouble for this?”
“I’m not breaking laws,” I said. “This is an ancient case that the Los Angeles murder squad failed to solve.”
“Is this about Eleanor Hayes?”
“Maybe.”
She beckoned. “Maybe. Like you ever talk about anything else. Let’s see your sample.”
I took out the plastic bag and handed it to her. “It’s a piece of wood.”
“I see that,” she said, peering at the piece of wood.
I handed her the locket. “I don’t know if this helps,” I said, “but this is a locket of Eleanor’s hair.”
“It’s not going to happen right away,” she said. “Probably at least a week.”
I ran a hand through my hair. “Any chance you could do it faster than that?’
“What’s in it for me?”
“Dinner at the Magic Castle?”
“I’m not twelve, Hailey.”
“Who doesn’t like magic?”
“I’ll let you sit on it and get back to me.” She tilted the piece of wood under the lights. “I like Brazilian food and Korean spas, by the way.”
“See you, Claud.”
It was almost eight by the time we left the hospital.
“Home?” Madeleine said, turning to me. “Or do you need to drown your sorrows at some shitty bar?”
“I was hoping you could take Petra home,” I said. “I’m going to the airport.”
Madeleine gave me a long look. “You’re not kidding.”
“Afraid not. I need to go to Vermont.”
“Probably wise.”
“I thought you might try to talk me out of it,” I said. “You’re really supporting this?”
“Hailey,” Petra said slowly. “They’re going to come looking for you.”
“Who?”
“The fire,” she said, giving me a look I couldn’t decipher. “They’re going to think it was you. And if Thierry’s right, that the only reason they’re not pressing charges is so they can come after you personally…”
“I couldn’t have set the fire,” I argued. “I was in jail last night.”
“But the fire started today,” she said. “They’re going to think it was you. You have a record.”
“Jesus, I wish people would stop reminding me,” I said. “I didn’t set Windhall on fire.”
“We know that, but who else does?”
“I’m not going to jail until I finish this story. Otherwise I risked it all for nothing.”