Flipping Out (17 page)

'A
rat with a high def TV, hundreds of video games, and a brand new sound system
that she got for her birthday,' Terry said.

'It
doesn't matter. I was still trapped with the cops guarding my life like I was
the king's daughter or something.'

'I
got the picture. Princess Emily locked in the palace tower. Get to the part
about the gunshots.'

Emily
tossed her hair back and threw Terry a grown- ups-just-don't-understand-anything
look. 'So we're bored to death, and Heather said, "What can those cops do
to protect you anyhow? They're parked in front, and your room is in the back.
The killer could climb that tree out there, bust your window, smoke you, then
split before the cops even know what's happening.'"

Terry
looked at Heather. 'You said that?'

Heather
shrugged, it's true. You ever watch
24
with Kiefer Sutherland? He could
sneak past fifty cops.'

'True,'
Terry said. 'But usually it's to save the planet from imminent danger, not to
smoke sixteen-year-old girls.' He turned to Emily. 'So you thought you'd test
Heather's theory.'

'Why
should I live in a bubble if some guy with a gun can sneak past the cops and
kill me anyway?' she said. 'I might as well go to the mall. I'd have a better
chance of escaping if I was at the Galleria.'

'Absolutely,'
Terry said. 'They should post signs. When you're life is in danger, head for
the nearest shoe department.'

Sarah
laughed, and Emily threw her sister the finger. 'Dad, you're making it sound
like I'm an idiot.'

'Sorry,'
Terry said. 'Let's get to the genius part where you downloaded a scream and
three gunshots and blasted it to see if the cops would actually be able to save
you.'

'We
only downloaded the gunshots,' Emily said. 'Heather did the actual scream.'

'We
wanted it to sound authentic,' Heather said.

'Had
I but known,' Terry said, 'I would have left you girls an actual gun.'

'Those
shots sounded real enough, sir,' Kaczmarek said.

'And
how fast were these officers up here?' Terry said to Emily.

'Very
fast,' Emily said. 'If it was real I would have been dead, but they'd have
caught the guy who did it.'

'Thank
you, Officers,' Terry said. 'You're everything a cop dad could hope for.'

Kaczmarek
looked a little pained. 'I'm afraid we did some damage to your back door,' he
said. 'The frame is all splintered, and it's gonna need some new hinges. I'm
really sorry about that.'

'Don't
apologise,' Terry said. 'You did what you had to do. I can only imagine what
kind of damage that size- thirteen boot did to it.'

'Actually,
Detective, it was my size six,' the female cop said.

Kaczmarek
grinned. 'Officer Lester is a lot tougher than she looks. But I'm a pretty good
carpenter. I can come over tomorrow and fix it.'

'No
need,' Terry said. 'The Biggs family has inconvenienced LAPD enough, and we
apologise, don't we Emily?'

'Sorry,'
Emily mumbled.

'No
problem,' Kaczmarek said.

'Got
room for one more cop in here?'

We
turned to the front door. It was Kilcullen.

'I
heard the 246,' he said. 'Shooting at the Biggs house on Alana Drive. I came
running.'

'Thanks
for coming,' Terry said. 'False alarm.'

'But
you're happy with the department's response,' Kilcullen said.

'More
than happy, sir.'

'Good,
because after our little talk this afternoon, I upgraded your level of
protection.'

'Thank
you. The officers on duty did the department proud, Lieutenant. They were right
to call out the cavalry.'

'God
only knows what it cost the taxpayers,' Kilcullen said. 'But we do what we have
to do to take care of our own.'

Terry
just stood there and let Kilcullen have his fun.

'I'll
be going now,' Kilcullen said. 'Glad your family is safe.'

He
left. Kaczmarek and Lester said goodbye and followed him out the door.

The
rest of us stood there in silence. Finally Terry looked at Emily. 'How do you
feel about all this?' he said.

'Terrible.
Especially about the way your boss just treated you. Like it was your fault.
I'm sorry, Dad. How do you feel?'

'Me?'
Terry said. 'I feel like Ben Stiller.'

Saturday
morning. Serenity had returned to the Biggs household. Sort of.

Marilyn
insisted that we have a big family breakfast, which didn't sit well with her
two teenage daughters, who rebelled against the very thought of 'getting up
before noon to eat food that's only going to make us fat, Mom.'

Marilyn's
response was plain and simple. 'This is not a democracy. And, even if it were,
after what Emily pulled last night, she doesn't get a vote for at least a
year.'

Sarah
came back at her with, 'What did I do to get punished?'

'First
of all, breakfast with your family is not punishment,' Marilyn informed her.
'And second, you ratted out your sister. Next time don't point the guilty
finger at her and proclaim your own innocence. It's not cool. It's certainly
not sisterly.'

'Does
that mean you expect me to lie for her?'

'No,
I expect Emily to tell the truth. It's not your responsibility to drop a dime
on her if she doesn't.'

And
so, we all sat down for a big breakfast of Marilyn's four-cheese omelette,
raspberry-lemon French toast, fresh fruit, and figgy scones.

'What
do I look like?' Sarah asked. 'A lumberjack?'

'Stop
moaning and eat,' Marilyn said, 'because this is the most exciting thing you're
going to do all day.'

'Am
I grounded too?' Sarah said.

'No.
You're just quarantined till Mike and your father catch this crazy person.'

'That
cop from last night,' Sarah said. 'Tim. Will he be back tonight?'

'Why?'

'No
reason.'

'He's
thirty years old if he's a day,' Marilyn said. 'You're eighteen.'

'I'm
not marrying him,' Sarah said. 'I'm stuck in the house. He's cute. Maybe I just
want to hang with him while he's on duty.'

'Cops
aren't allowed to hang with the people they're protecting,' Terry said.
'Besides, he's got a girlfriend.'

'You
don't even know him. How do you know he has a girlfriend?'

'All
good-looking cops have girlfriends. It's part of LA police procedure. Look at
Mike. He's a cop. He's good- looking. And guess, what?' he said, pointing at
Diana. 'Girlfriend.'

'And
not only is she a girlfriend,' Diana said, 'but last night she was promoted to
carpenter's helper. While the four of you were sorting out family matters, Mike
and I found some plywood in the garage and nailed it over the back door.'

'How
are we supposed to get in and out?' Emily said. 'Are you and Mike gonna put in
a doggie door?'

'Don't
be fresh, young lady,' Marilyn said. 'You're on thin ice as it is.'

'It's
OK,' I said. 'This is what happens to the youth of America when you let them
hang around with Terry Biggs. Actually, my good buddy, Kemp Loekle, who is a
world- class carpenter but a lousy gold prospector, is driving down from Oregon
as we speak, and he'll be glad to build you a new doorjamb. But first, he has
to renovate our house, so we can move out of your way as soon as possible.'

Emily
stared at me. 'Who said you're in our way?'

'Duh,'
Sarah said. 'We're in
their
way. He's just too polite to say
it.'

'If
Mom and Dad would let us out of jail, we wouldn't be in anybody's way,' Emily
said.

'Don't
hold your breath,' Marilyn said. 'You're under this roof for the weekend. When
it's time to go to school, Big Jim will drive you.'

'I
have a better solution,' Emily said.

'I
can't wait to hear it,' Terry said.

'OK,
listen to this. Rebecca is free to come and go as she pleases, right?'

'That's
because Rebecca is in St Louis,' Terry said.

'The
killer has a pattern, and we don't expect him to fly halfway across the country
for his next victim.'

'So
how about if I stay with Rebecca in St Louis?'

'That's
a fair question,' Terry said. 'But no.'

'Why
not?'

'This
is difficult,' Terry said. 'But the truth is, we think the killer is actually
focused on getting you, so if you fly to St Louis, you'll be putting Rebecca in
jeopardy.'

'Ha,
ha, ha,' Emily said. 'You just better catch him fast. I'm wasting away the best
years of my life.' She turned toward her mother. 'Why did you make this fancy
breakfast anyway? Two more of your friends got shot. It feels like we're
celebrating.'

I've
never had kids, but even if I had years of practice, I wouldn't have been able
to handle a crack like that as well as Marilyn did.

'We
are
celebrating,' she said, her voice calm and even, although I could see that her
breathing was much more pronounced. 'We're celebrating life.'

Emily
came right back at her. 'Whose?'

'Mine.
A few days ago there were five women in my little partnership. This morning
only two of them woke up alive. I'm thrilled to be one of them, so I decided to
mark the occasion by making breakfast for some of the people I thought would be
just as thrilled. I was working under the assumption that you were one of them.
But even if you're not, suck it up, and eat your figgy scone.'

Breakfast
went very well after that, and for the next twenty minutes we were one big
happy family.

Our
plan was to drive back to Martin Sorensen's apartment after breakfast and ask
him about those criminology courses he had taken. We were getting ready to
leave when my cell phone rang.

'Wendy
Burns,' I said, looking at the caller ID and flipping open the phone. 'This is
Lomax. What's up?'

Wendy
wasn't supposed to be working the weekend, so I knew that whatever was up
wasn't going to be good.

'Tony
Dominguez was shot,' she said.

I
repeated it for Terry, and Marilyn let out a loud gasp.

'I
don't have any other details,' Wendy said. 'Meet me at the scene.'

'We're
on our way,' I said heading toward the door. 'Where are we going?'

The
answer stopped me cold in my tracks. '611 South Cherokee.'

'Holy
shit,' I said. 'That's the flip house.'

A
new team of cops was parked outside Terry's house. He ran over, and within
seconds their doors swung open, and they headed for the house.

'I
told them to get their asses inside and watch the girls from in there,' he said
as he peeled out of the driveway. 'Give your father a call. Until we know
what's going on, I want some backup.'

We
flew along the 101, and I called Big Jim. It was one of those rare times when
he followed orders without asking questions.

We
were on Cahuenga just a few minutes from the scene, when Wendy called back.

'We've
got two dead,' she said. 'Tony took a bullet, but the paramedics say they've
seen worse.'

'Can
you ID the two victims?'

'Yeah.
Bad news. One is Tony's wife, Marisol. The other is Martin Sorensen.'

'Are
you sure?'

It
was a dumb question, but the information was so impossible to digest that dumb
was the best I could do.

'Mike,
I knew them both,' Wendy said. 'I'm sure.'

As
soon as we rounded the corner onto Cherokee I thought about the last time Terry
and I were at the flip house. One lone cop car, the house cordoned off with
tape - all for the theatrics built around Nora's book. But it was nothing
compared to the real thing. Uniformed officers were rolling out an even wider
yellow perimeter. The street was a logjam of cruisers, EMS units, and a growing
convoy of media trucks. We were bombarded with lights, cameras, radio chatter,
and the organised chaos of TV reporters yelling unanswered questions into
microphones. I'm sure Marisol would have revelled in the drama.

'Murder
at 611 South Cherokee,' I said.

'It's
got bestseller written all over it,' Terry said.

'Lomax.
Biggs.' It was Wendy Burns. She was standing by as the paramedics lifted a cart
into the back of an EMS bus.

'He's
in a lot of pain,' she said, 'but they say he'll make it.'

The
paramedic was about to shut the doors. 'Give me ten seconds,' I said, and
without waiting for an answer, I climbed in.