Chapter 19
THE HOUSE WAS dark when I got home. Maggie had taken to staying at the office late to help keep her mind off her losses.
I texted to see if she wanted me to DoorDash anything for dinner or maybe go over to Pace in the canyon for Italian.
I preferred the latter but wasn’t sure what kind of mood she would be in or if she’d even be interested in eating.
She was well into the five stages of grief.
Lately she seemed balanced on the line between depression and acceptance.
She would fixate on things she had lost: her high-school yearbooks, a tile mosaic we bought in Rome because it depicted a girl eating ice cream who looked remarkably like our daughter.
I woke up in the middle of the night sometimes to find her looking at photos on her phone, some her own, taken at the house in Altadena, some from news feeds showing shots from the days of the fire.
Other days she talked about the opportunity to build a home to her specifications, even though we both knew that it would be years before she would be able to walk through a new front door.
I never stopped reminding her that she had a home right here with me, but this didn’t seem to lift the cloud, and that left me unsure of our future together.
It was too fragile a thing to openly discuss.
I went to the back room of the house, where I had a desk. Cassie Snow and her case kept invading my thoughts, threatening my focus on the case at hand. I opened my laptop, went online, and plugged ASMR into the search engine.
It opened a whole new world to me. ASMR—autonomous sensory meridian response—was the descriptor of a physiological sensation triggered by audio, visual, or touch stimuli.
It was described as a tingling sense of euphoria that runs along the scalp and down the neck and spine to the limbs.
Certain voices could trigger it. Certain sounds, like the popping of static in a blanket and the strokes of a paintbrush on canvas.
One article I read attributed the popularity of YouTube videos of the long-dead artist Bob Ross to the ASMR values of his voice and the sound of his brushstrokes.
Not everyone experienced ASMR, but many who did sought it out like a drug.
It was said by some to be therapeutic and a cure for insomnia and panic.
There were over ten million videos available online from ASMRtists like Cassandra Snow, videos of people whispering into microphones, tapping on hollow objects, tearing and creasing paper.
Apparently there was an ASMR fix for just about any need.
But according to the medical sites I checked, there had not been any large-scale clinical studies demonstrating ASMR’s effect on brain activity and mental health.
The bottom line was that those who responded to it craved it.
Those who didn’t tended to be suspicious of it.
I thought about Cassie’s voice pattern and her long and pointed fingernails.
I remembered that she said she had her own channel.
I jumped over to YouTube and searched for her by name but nothing came up under Cassie or Cassandra Snow.
I guessed that she probably had a professional name that safeguarded her privacy.
I assumed that ASMRtists might draw stalkers who wanted more than a video feed.
My research into this world I had known nothing about gave me an idea. I thought about the addictive quality of ASMR and called McEvoy. It sounded like he was in a bar. I heard multiple conversations in the background and glassware clinking.
“Where are you?”
“My local. Mistral in Sherman Oaks.”
“Alone?”
“At the moment. What’s up?”
“Remember, we’re not in the cage. In the material you’ve been looking through, have you seen anything about the voice?”
“The voice? What do you mean?”
“Clair’s voice. Wren’s voice. Where did it come from?”
“Um, I saw some reports. They tested various voices, yeah.”
“You know what ASMR is?”
“Uh, not sure.”
“It’s a positive physiological response to stimuli, including voices.”
“I don’t remember reading about anything like that in the reports. But I wasn’t looking for it specifically. There’s so much to get through. I also got sidetracked a bit with the material we got from Challenger. Is it important?”
“Maybe not. But do a deeper dive on it when you can. Let me know if anything comes up.”
“ASMR—will do.”
“Have a good night.”
I disconnected. Just the short conversation reminded me of my barstool days. I didn’t miss them.
I heard the distinctive rumble of a Harley from out on the street. When the engine cut off after a double rev, I knew that Cisco had come to visit. I walked back through the house and opened the front door before he got to it.
“I thought you were going to stop revving the engine before cutting it off,” I said. “My neighbors are going to give me holy hell for that.”
“Sorry,” Cisco said. “Force of habit. I forgot.”
“Yeah, tell it to Hank, the old guy who lives next door. You want a beer? I only have alcohol-free Guinness.”
“I think I’ll pass. I won’t be staying long anyway.”
“Okay, so what’s up?”
“Is Maggie here?”
“No, she’s still at work.”
“Good. I wanted to talk alone.”
I could tell there was something tweaked about him. Cisco was a stoic man, but that meant he let stuff build up inside until he had no choice but to let it out. I sensed this was one of those times. I closed the front door but we remained standing in the entranceway.
“What’s going on, big man?” I said.
“Look, Mick, we go back a long time,” Cisco started. “I mean, you stood as best man at my wedding to your ex. We’ve been through it. So I just want to say, if you want me to quit, just say the word and we’ll shake hands and go our separate ways.”
“What are you talking about? I don’t want you to quit. We have a major trial coming up and another case lined up after that. Why would I want you to quit?”
“Because maybe you don’t need me. This whole move to civil means I’m doing less and less PI stuff for you. You now got McEvoy running lead on the discovery stuff. Lorna tells me you’re calling Bamba Bishop. I mean, I don’t know what that’s about, but I’m beginning to wonder where I stand.”
In that moment I knew I had messed up with him. This was Employee Relations 101 and I had blown it.
“Tell you what, let’s have that beer,” I said.
I led him to the kitchen, where I took two tall cans of Guinness Zero out of the fridge and two tulip pint glasses out of the freezer. Before I said a word, I took the time to slowly pour the first glass, carefully building the head, then handed it to him.
After the second pour we clinked glasses and drank. There was no place to sit in the kitchen. I leaned back against the counter while Cisco stood in the middle of the room.
“Holy shit,” Cisco said, foam in his mustache.
“Like the real thing, huh?” I said.
“Fucking A. How do they do it?”
He held up the can and looked at it as if the answer might be written on it.
“I don’t know,” I said. “But they know what they’re doing.
Just like you, Cisco. I don’t want you to quit.
Are you nuts? I need you, man. The workload may be lighter these days but it will pick up once we win this.
McEvoy is here for the one case and I’m tapping his expertise.
But it doesn’t take away from your value.
And Bamba was nothing. I just wanted to see how he was doing.
I apologize if I made you feel like you’re second string. You’re not—far from it.”
Cisco nodded. I think he’d heard what he needed to hear. There was a small hint of a smile on his face.
“Okay, Mick,” he said. “I appreciate it.”
He drank down half his glass in one long gulp, then set the glass down on the counter.
“Okay, I’m gonna go, then,” he said. “Thanks for the beer.”
I liked how he didn’t linger. He’d gotten the answer he was looking for and now he was moving on.
“Anytime,” I said.
I walked him out to the front deck, carrying my beer. He started down the steps to the street. I saw his Harley parked down there.
“Hey, Cisco, do me a favor,” I called after him. “Coast down the hill before you start that machine up.”
He waved a hand over his head, which I took as a signal that he had heard me and would do as requested.
I moved to the corner of the deck and leaned my elbows on the railing.
I sipped my beer and looked out at the city lights.
The Sunset Strip glowed like a dream. There was still a slight scent of smoke in the air from the Runyon Canyon fire, but I wondered if I was just imagining that.
I looked down and watched Cisco glide silently down Fareholm on his old panhead.
I could make out the orange flames painted on the gas tank and wondered if that was still a good look, considering recent history.
He took the curve to the right and disappeared.
That was when I heard the V-twin rumble to life.
I smiled and was happy we’d had the conversation we’d just had.
I stayed out there in the chill evening air until Maggie came home.
She had apparently changed at the office from her work clothes, and was wearing blue jeans, Doc Marten boots, and the sweatshirt I had gotten at one of the World Series games in October.
It reminded me of what the city had been through in just a few months, from the high of a World Series championship to being laid low by the fires of January.
“Hey,” she said when she got to the top of the stairs.
Her boots and pants were dusted with ash and I knew where she had been.
“You went up there in the dark?” I said. “You should’ve called me. I’d have gone with you. Not sure that’s safe at night.”
“It was okay,” she said. “No one was there.”
She had returned several times to what was left of her neighborhood.
Every home had been reduced to scorched brick, twisted metal, and ash.
A forest of chimneys left standing. Going back was part of her mourning process.
It reminded me of open-casket funerals. Some people had to see the body to accept the person was gone.
Maggie had to go back again and again to accept what she had lost.
“Are you hungry?” I asked. “I sent a text.”
“Sure,” she said. “I could eat something. I missed the text, sorry.”
“It’s okay. In or out?”
“Uh, you know what, let’s go out. I just need to change real quick.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“Someplace with good red wine.”
“Okay, you change. I’ll get a reservation.”
Before she went in, she came to me at the corner of the deck, put her arms around me, and pulled me into a hug. Over my shoulder she looked out at her city.
“The lights are pretty,” she said. “It’s like nothing could ever go wrong in this place.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I was thinking the same thing.”