Page 58 of 2 Sisters Murder Investigations

Not long after, I knocked on the door of a little log house on Camber Road. I could smell coffee and woodsmoke coming from inside, so I assumed the Hansens were awake. The door was opened by a man who was Troy’s spitting image: dark-haired, stooped, and with hard gray eyes. He surveyed me, unsmiling. Behind him, a small woman with stringy blond hair peered out from the shadows.

“Barney and Reina Hansen?” I asked.

“You people aren’t supposed to be here until this evening.” He looked at my Chevy parked in the driveway. “We’re in the middle of breakfast.”

Struck dumb by the greeting, I glanced at Mrs. Hansen, whose large, exhausted eyes and upturned nose gave her the appearance of a worried church mouse from a children’s book. She offered me a smile that was there and gone in a flash, little more than a facial tic that I sensed she got away with only when her husband’s back was turned.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “ ‘You people’?”

“RealFeal Productions.” Barney grimaced at my Van Halen T-shirt — or my breasts, I wasn’t sure which. “That’s you, ain’t it?”

“N-no,” I stammered. “Uh, no. That’s not me. I’m Rhonda Bird. I’m a private investigator your son hired, and I was hoping to speak to you about him.”

“Well, you should have called ahead.” Barney smirked. “Don’t tell me you drove all the way from LA thinkin’ you’d just march in here and we’d sit you down and give you coffee and tell you everything we know.”

I felt my eyes widen. That was exactly what I’d thought. “Maybe that was ... arrogant. But I just assumed you’d want to help your son with the ... themurder chargeshe’s facing,” I said. “I should have called ahead. Yes. And I’m sorry I’ve interrupted your breakfast. But, Mr. Hansen, I’m trying to help Troy. I’m trying to find out what the hell happened to your daughter-in-law.”

Reina looked like she wanted to speak. Barney didn’t let her.

“I’ll talk to you.” He shrugged. “Sure. And I got plenty to say too.”

“Good.”

“I know exactly who killed my daughter-in-law.”

A bolt of exhilaration whumped into my stomach. Barney Hansen stepped back. I moved to step forward, but he held out a hand to stop me from entering.

“The RealFeal people are paying us fifty-five thousand dollars for an interview,” he said. “You top that, and you can have all the time with us that you want.”

I felt my mouth fall open.

“Come back when you have the contract all written up,” he said.

He slammed the door in my face.

CHAPTER65

I STOOD ON THEporch and laughed. Because there’s a point you reach when you’re so tired, and so hopeless, and so far from home that your misery dries up completely and you’re left with a weird, unstable kind of hilarity.

I felt like I was on a boat and Troy Hansen was in the ocean drowning and he’d called out for help, and since then I’d been throwing everything I had off the deck, trying to save the guy — life preservers, buckets, ropes, oars. Troy missed it all and was thrashing and twisting in the waves, sinking, staying under for longer and longer, growing weaker and weaker. There was nothing else left to do — I had to jump in.

I took a step back, raised my boot, and kicked in the Hansens’ front door.

CHAPTER66

THEY’D GONE BACK TOtheir breakfast. It was the cozy image of them sitting there at the little table with boiled eggs and buttered toast and a coffeepot between them that gave me the last bit of fuel I needed to really explode. Their only son was languishing in a prison cell, injured and terrified, and Barney Hansen had a forkful of eggs in front of his mouth and was about to take a bite.

I crossed the room in five fast steps and smacked the fork out of his hand.

“Jesus!” He tried to get up. I shoved him down.

“There wasso muchyou could have done,” I said, trying not to scream. My voice trembled. I had to clear my throat, it was so tight with anger. “So much.”

“What are you talking about?” Barney snapped.

“You could have driven down to LA,” I said, trying to keep it together. “You could have helped search for Daisy. You could have stood by your son while he was interviewed by the press. You could have waited for him after he was interrogated.”

The Hansens stared at me.

---