Page 5 of 2 Sisters Murder Investigations

The detective agency office, in the part of Los Angeles known as Koreatown, was still in the process of being de-Earled. My father had stuffed every inch of the room with newspapers, weapons, racing-ticket stubs, crime scene photographs, packages of expired fortune cookies, and badly taxidermied animals. It had taken us three months to clear enough space for Baby and me to coexist here at all and another three for us to do it comfortably. What I hadn’t thrown in the dumpster behind the crab shack downstairs, I’d stacked in clear plastic tubs against one wall.

Today, there was paperwork to file, calls to make, and cases to assess, but I needed a mindless task. I’d caught maybe an hour or two of sleep at most after I’d returned L’Shondra to her tearful owners in Anaheim and collected our reward money. By the time I got back to Dad’s spectacular house in Manhattan Beach where Baby and I now lived (a place he’d almost certainly acquired through shady means that I wasn’t going to think about), the sun was nearly rising. I’d slipped Baby’s half — seven hundred and fifty dollars — under her bedroom door, wondering what I’d say if she threw open the door. But she didn’t, and there’d been not a peep from the angry teen this morning either.

Guilt and anger were warring in my brain. I decided to focus on our long to-do list instead of waiting around for Baby to wake up, so I’d driven over to the office early. An hour or so later, from atop the ladder, I’d seen the figure of a man hovering in front of the frosted glass of the agency door. I’d looked through the big bay windows behind my desk and spotted two LAPD squad cars in the parking lot.

Curious.

But when my visitor walked in and I saw who it was, the police presence made more sense.

The man came into the office clutching a cardboard box to his chest and glanced up at me in the same vulnerable, evasive way I’d seen him do on TV.

“Uh, hi,” he said.

“Uh, hi, yourself,” I said. I put my paintbrush down. “You’re Troy Hansen.”

“People keep saying that,” Troy said, looking everywhere but at me. “ ‘You’re Troy Hansen.’ Like I’m a famous actor.”

“Well, you’re famous for something.”

“Hmm,” he said, frowning.

I’d recognized Troy Hansen immediately. News channels had been running hourly updates on Troy — or, more specifically, on Troy’s missing wife, Daisy, who hadn’t been seen for almost a week.

Daisy was the type of missing person who usually captured the nation’s attention: White. Middle class. Blond. Tanned. Athletic. Perfect teeth. The internet was aflame with analyses of her husband’s awkward body language, the lack of warmth in his tone, the timeline of his movements on the night Daisy had disappeared.

Even though I’d actively tried to avoid the tawdry trial-by-media, I’d still managed to absorb most of the details of the case. I’d seen the same video of Troy — floppy-haired, pale, scratching the back of his neck while avoiding eye contact with a reporter on his porch — so many times, I was sure I would remember it in my nursing-home days. I knew that Troy had not reported that his wife was missing until almost two days after she’d disappeared. I knew there’d been evidence of a struggle in the family home. Broken glass had been found. Blood too. I knew that Daisy hadn’t used her phone, her social media accounts, or her credit cards since she’d disappeared.

“I’m looking for Earl Bird,” Troy told me, putting his box on one of the chairs in front of my desk. I got down from the ladder, and he handed me a small, faded business card. I recognized it from the thousands I had tossed out while cleaning the office.

“Aha.” I handed Troy back the card. “Look, I’m Rhonda Bird. Earl was my father. He passed away last year.”

“Oh. Damn. So are you closing this place down?”

“No, my sister and I run the business now. But we don’t go about things the same way Earl did. So if somebody gave you this card with a recommendation — ”

“No, no, it was pinned to a board over at central booking. They took me there for questioning. I, uh ... I liked the slogan: ‘No judgments.’ ”

“Right,” I said. “I suppose you’re getting a few early judgments on what happened to your wife.”

“You can say that again.”

Troy Hansen was in hot water that was steadily climbing to the boiling point. What had happened seemed obvious to me and the rest of the world: Troy and Daisy had had an argument, and Troy had killed her. I assumed that Daisy’s body would soon be found in some remote area, probably by someone walking his dog. It was an old story and one I didn’t particularly want to watch again.

Troy’s appearance at my office was a twist in that tale. I didn’t know yet if it was a good twist or a bad twist. “So, what are you doing here, Troy?” I asked.

“I guess ... ” He shrugged. “I’m here for the same reason anybody comes to see a PI. I need help, and I can’t go to the police.”

“Well, I’m not gonna lie. I’m well aware that you’re involved in a major, major case,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “But I’ve got to say, if you really are innocent of ... whatever it is, you should be sticking close to the police. By hiring a PI, you’re only going to annoy the hell out of them. You should hire a lawyer instead.”

“I’m actually not here about Daisy,” Troy said.

For a moment, I was so stunned I couldn’t speak. What on earth would Troy Hansen be here about if not his missing wife?

“At least, I don’t think I am,” he continued. “I mean, it ... it can’t be hers.”

“What are you talking about?”

Troy lifted the cardboard box from the chair and put it on the desk, then gestured at it with a nervous swipe of his hand.

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