Chapter 1 - Lila #3
"For forty-five minutes! She even used different syrups—maple, blueberry, strawberry—because apparently Harold had very specific opinions about syrup-to-pancake ratios.
" Casey dissolves into giggles. "Dr. Martinez nearly had an aneurysm trying to process the scene.
There's pancake batter in places pancake batter should never be, and Mrs. Brennan kept apologizing for the mess while asking if we wanted to take some stacks home. "
The image is so absurd that I can't help the laugh that escapes. "Please tell me you have photos."
"Oh, we have photos. Beautiful, evidence-quality photographs of what is possibly the most politely disturbed crime scene in departmental history.
" Casey wipes her eyes, still chuckling.
"Mrs. Brennan even left us a note with Harold's 'secret recipe' because she thought we might want to 'honor his memory properly. '"
"Did anyone take her up on the offer?"
"Jenkins did. Took three stacks home and said they were the best pancakes he'd ever had." Casey's grin turns wicked. "Though he did mention they tasted a little like formaldehyde, which really killed the mood."
I shake my head, genuinely amused despite myself. "Poor woman. Grief makes people do strange things."
"That's just it, though—she wasn't really grieving.
At least, not in any way I recognized." Casey's expression grows thoughtful.
"She seemed more…relieved? Like Harold dying mid-pancake was somehow exactly what she expected from forty-three years of marriage.
She kept saying things like 'typical Harold' and 'he always did have to make everything complicated. '"
Something darker flickers in my chest at that observation.
The resigned acceptance of a woman who's spent decades managing someone else's obsessions, even in death.
There's something almost beautiful about Mrs. Brennan's response—the way she honored her husband's compulsions while simultaneously revealing their absurdity.
"Sounds like Harold was quite the character," I say carefully.
"According to the neighbors, he once spent six months reorganizing their entire house based on the Dewey Decimal System.
Books, kitchen supplies, clothing—everything had a numerical classification.
" Casey shakes her head in wonder. "Mrs. Brennan told us she's thinking about keeping the pancake tradition going.
Every Tuesday morning, seventeen pancakes, just like Harold would have wanted. "
"A shrine made of breakfast food."
"Exactly! Though honestly, after seeing how methodical her pancake construction was, I think she might have been enabling his compulsions for decades. The woman has pancake-making down to a science."
"Seventeen pancakes is oddly specific."
"Right? That's what I keep thinking about.
Not sixteen, not twenty. Seventeen. Like it meant something to him.
" Casey's expression grows contemplative.
"Dr. Martinez thinks I'm overthinking it, but there's something almost ritualistic about the whole thing.
The precision, the patterns, the way Mrs. Brennan just… continued the work."
There's something fascinating about people who create order through compulsion, who find meaning in repetition and control.
Harold Brennan's pancake obsession may seem absurd on the surface, but beneath it lies a deeper truth that speaks to the human need to impose structure on chaos.
Even if that structure only makes sense to the person creating it.
"Maybe the number mattered to him," I suggest. "Anniversary date, age when something significant happened, biblical reference. People rarely choose arbitrary numbers for their compulsions."
"See? This is why I call you. You get it." Casey grins at me through the screen. "Mrs. Brennan couldn't tell us why seventeen was important, but she said Harold was very specific about it. Had to be exactly seventeen, arranged in a specific pattern around the kitchen island."
"Did she seem bothered by his…intensity?"
Casey considers this, tilting her head. "Not bothered, exactly.
More like she'd made peace with it a long time ago.
She kept saying things like 'Harold was Harold' and 'forty-three years teaches you to pick your battles.
' I got the impression that pancake architecture was pretty low on her list of grievances. "
The casual acceptance of someone else's darkness, the way love can make the abnormal seem mundane…it's something I understand better than I should. That’s neither here nor there.
Mrs. Brennan spent four decades accommodating her husband’s compulsions, and now she's honoring them in death. There's something both touching and disturbing about that level of devotion to someone else's obsessions.
“You’re smarter than Martinez gives you credit for,” I sigh.
"Thanks. I needed to hear that." Casey's smile is grateful, genuine.
"God, I don't know what I'd do without our little chats.
You're like my personal sanity check. Speaking of which, did you hear about the Kowalski case from last month?
The one where the guy tried to fake his own death using a mannequin and theatrical blood? "
"Casey," I interrupt gently, though there's amusement in my voice. "You're going to get yourself fired for discussing active cases with civilians."
"Technically, you're not a civilian. You're a consulting expert with security clearance." Casey waves a hand dismissively. "Besides, these aren't active cases anymore. Harold's definitely dead, and Kowalski's definitely an idiot who's now definitely in jail for insurance fraud."
The casual way Casey discusses death and crime always fascinates me.
She’s developed the dark humor that comes with constant exposure to humanity's strangest moments—the ability to find absurdity in tragedy and comedy in the macabre.
It's a necessary defense mechanism, but it also reveals something about her character. She’s drawn to the bizarre, excited by the unusual, thrilled by puzzles that don't fit normal patterns.
"Anyway," Casey continues, straightening up and attempting to look professional again, "I should probably get back to work. Dr. Martinez wants me to finish processing the Henderson robbery evidence before I leave tonight, and I still have about three hours of fingerprint analysis ahead of me."
"Don't work too late," I say, though part of me appreciates Casey's dedication to her work. Thorough people notice details others miss, remember specifics that might seem unimportant at the time.
"Ha! Tell that to my student loans. Overtime pays for my fancy ramen addiction." Casey grins. "Oh! Before I forget: Are we still on for dinner Thursday? That new Thai place on Fifth Street finally opened, and I've been dying to try their pad see ew."
"Thursday works." I find myself genuinely looking forward to it. Casey's enthusiasm for life's absurdities is oddly refreshing, a reminder that not all darkness has to be threatening.
"Perfect! Okay, I really do need to get back to this fingerprint analysis before Dr. Martinez comes looking for me. But seriously, thanks for listening to my pancake crime scene rambling. You're the only person I know who doesn't think I'm completely weird for finding this stuff fascinating."
The irony makes me smile. "We all have our interests, Casey."
"True! Okay, talk soon. And hey—if you ever want to hear about Mrs. Brennan's pancake recipe, I kept a copy. For purely academic purposes, of course."
Casey's face disappears from my screen, leaving me alone with my reflection in the black glass.
The parking garage feels different now—not charged with dangerous possibility, but lighter somehow.
Casey's ridiculous story about Harold and his pancake obsession has reminded me that human behavior doesn't always have sinister undertones.
Sometimes people are just wonderfully, harmlessly strange.
I slide the phone back into my purse and unlock my car, settling into the driver's seat with a lingering smile. Harold Brennan and his seventeen pancakes, Mrs. Brennan continuing his breakfast rituals as a form of memorial—it's absurd and touching and perfectly human all at once.
But as I start the engine and pull out of the parking space, I find myself thinking about the precision Casey described.
The specific number, the geometric syrup patterns, the forty-three years of accommodation that preceded Harold's final pancake performance.
There's something almost beautiful about that level of devotion to someone else's compulsions, even when they make no logical sense.
Some people express love through grand gestures. Others do it by learning the exact specifications of seventeen pancakes arranged just so around a kitchen island.
I drive toward the exit, discomfitingly warmed by Casey's story and companionship.
***
I'm halfway home when I change my mind.
The decision hits without warning, a sudden shift in the evening's trajectory that has me taking the next exit instead of continuing toward my empty apartment. I pull into the parking lot of a hotel I've never stayed at, cutting the engine in a space far from the entrance lights.
The silence settles around me like a familiar embrace.
Through the windshield, I can see the warm glow of the hotel bar's windows, the suggestion of movement and conversation and the kind of temporary connections that require no explanations.
It's been months since I've allowed myself this particular indulgence.
Tonight feels different. Tonight, I want to be touched by someone who doesn't know my name.
I flip down the visor mirror and study my reflection in the harsh overhead light. The professional version of myself stares back—muted lipstick, hair perfectly styled, every detail calculated for courtroom credibility. Respectable. Controlled. Boring.
Safe.
I reach into my purse and withdraw a different lipstick, something darker, richer.
Rouge Noir, the color of wine stains and whispered secrets.
As I apply it with careful precision, I feel the familiar transformation beginning.
Not a different person, exactly, but a different facet of the same complicated whole.
My blazer comes off next, folded carefully and placed in the passenger seat.
Underneath, the silk blouse clings in all the right places, the neckline just suggestive enough to be interesting without being obvious.
I unpin my hair, letting it fall to tickle at my clavicle, and run my fingers through it until it looks artfully disheveled rather than boardroom perfect.
The woman in the mirror is still me, but she's someone who might laugh too loudly at a stranger's joke, who might lean in close enough to let her breath ghost across his ear, who might disappear into a hotel room without leaving her real name behind.
I've always been good at reading people, at understanding what they want before they know it themselves.
In bars like this one, men want to feel clever and dangerous and chosen.
They want to believe they're seducing the mysterious woman at the end of the bar, never realizing she selected them the moment they walked through the door.
It's been too long since I've felt hands on my skin that weren't my own, too long since I've allowed myself the luxury of physical release without emotional complication. The kind of encounter where I can control every variable, where I can take exactly what I need and leave the rest behind.
Maybe I'll take someone home tonight, let him think he's conquered something wild and untamable.
Or maybe I'll fuck him in the shadowed corner of the bar's bathroom, quick and dirty and completely on my terms. The thought sends heat pooling low in my stomach, a reminder that beneath all my professional composure, I'm still a creature of appetite and desire.
I flip the visor back up and grab my purse, leaving the professional blazer behind like a discarded skin. Tonight, Dr. Lila North stays in the car. Maybe I’ll be someone else entirely—someone who doesn't think quite so much, who acts on instinct and hunger and the simple human need to feel alive.
It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve reinvented myself.