Waking Hours by Lis Wiehl Page B

garage fire out on West Ridge Road. I didn’t go. They think it was a nine-year-old kid who was trying to help his mom clean up after his birthday party, and he accidentally threw away one of those birthday candles that keeps relighting itself after you blow it out.”
    “I hate those things. But I’m pyrophobic. I lit my bangs on fire when I was six, blowing out the candles on my cake. And those were just the regular kind.”
    “So how was your day?” she said.
    “Unproductive. I asked some of the high school jocks who work out at the gym if they knew anything. They’re pretty freaked out. Talking about what they’d do to the killer if they got their hands on him. Just macho bluster. You see anything here of interest?”
    “If I have, I won’t know until later,” she said. “We have people taking pictures. Discreetly.”
    “I was thinking somebody should do that,” Tommy said. “By the way, the mother’s name is Connie Leonard. The father is unaccounted for and skipped out on his child support payments ten years ago. Kara and the mom live on Lake Kendell.”
    “And you know all this how?” Dani asked.
    “Gerald Whitney told me,” Tommy said. “The funeral director. I called him. He was my scoutmaster. What have you got going on tomorrow?”
    “I’m impressed. Casey is questioning the other kids at the party,” Dani said. “He wants me there.”
    “What time?”
    Dani took a moment to choose her words. “Tommy,” she said, “you’re not allowed. Even as my paid assistant.”
    “I prefer the term flunky .”
    “I’m sorry,” she said.
    “I can get you coffee,” he offered.
    “If I need something, I’ll text you,” Dani said. “You’re more than a flunky, Tommy. I’m glad you’re part of the team.”
    “How about Executive Director of Investigative Services?”
    “Don’t push it,” she said, smiling. She checked her BlackBerry to make sure she hadn’t accidentally deleted his contact information.
    “I hope your phone number is unlisted,” he said.
    “I unlisted my phone numbers and deleted my address from as many databases as I could two years ago,” Dani said. “When your job involves meeting face-to-face with insane psychopaths, you want to keep a low profile.”
    “Tell me about it,” he said. “I used to date cheerleaders.”
    Tommy realized that the crowd had begun to sing, led by the school glee club, as beautiful a rendition of “Amazing Grace” as any he’d ever heard. As he and Dani listened, Julie Leonard’s mother walked past them, supported by her daughter Kara, who hugged her as they walked.
    “If the killer is here,” Tommy asked Dani, “what do you think he’d feel if he saw what we just saw? If he knew how much pain he’s caused Julie’s family?”
    “He wouldn’t feel anything,” Dani said. “That’s the difference. So be glad you feel something.”
    “I know what you mean,” he said. “But I can’t say I’m glad.”
    When Dani said she’d check in with him tomorrow, he offered to walk her to her car, but she declined. He watched her go and then, as the glee club began an a cappella version of the Beatles’ “In My Life,” he backed away from the crowd and walked to a large oak tree beyond the end zone at the end of the field opposite the scoreboard. He took a seat on a bench beneath the tree. The leaves above him were brown but had yet to fall—oak leaves were always the last to drop, he recalled. He sat in the darkness as the waning moon struggled to emerge from behind the clouds.
    It had been his habit to sit on the bench, alone, before every game, his “moment of solitude” according to the caption beneath the photograph of him in the high school yearbook. He’d never told anybody why he needed such a moment before every game. Some speculated that it was where he performed some secret ritual to psych himself up, but in fact it was simply where he prayed. He took issue with coaches of any team sports who believed God favored