“I won’t butt in again, I promise. To tell you the truth, Tandy gives me the willies. There’s something off about her. Between her parents’ divorce and the babies she lost, I think it affected her brain. She kept talking about how bad she was and how good she is now that she works out. I think it’s the only thing that keeps her sane. She said it brought meaning back into her life, gave her control over her eating and over all the bad thoughts.”

“Bad thoughts?” Marge repeated.

“Her words verbatim.” Cindy stopped talking for a moment. “You know, as strange as this may be, I can kind of understand the way she feels just from today. In some perverse way, challenging your body like that really makes you feel superhuman. Right now, I’m sore as hell, but while I was doing it, Tandy and Eric rooting me on, I felt really special. Like I was Amazon Woman. It does give you a sense of control, although it’s all illusion.”

Cindy smiled sadly.

“Then again, I suppose we all have our little illusions to help us get through life. Can I go now?”

Marge patted the teenager’s back. “You can go now.”

29

By the time Decker finished lunch, Rina was happily cuddling Hannah. Her spirits were high, and together they had decided to cut short the baby nurse’s stay, agreeing that Nora should work over the weekend and help get the kids off to school the following Monday. By then, Rina insisted she’d be able to handle Hannah but would allow her mother to drop by daily to make sure she wasn’t overworked. Curtailing Nora’s stay made Rina much more willing to rest now—while she still had a chance.

It was half past the noon hour when Decker called the station house. Mike Hollander brought him up-to-date. Sondra Roberts owned a Visa and a MasterCard, her latest debits including a twenty-five-dollar accessory purchase at a discount dress store and ten bucks’ worth of gasoline at a station in North Hollywood. The gas was bought at 2:52 P.M. yesterday. Her last gas purchase before that one was a week ago—again a ten-dollar charge at a place in Tujunga.

“Ten bucks’ worth of gas is enough to douse a car,” Decker said to Hollander.

“I guess. I’m just thinking if she was smart enough to torch a car, she probably paid cash for the gas—wouldn’t leave a paper trail.”

“True, but call around anyway. See if anyone remembers filling her tank. According to Marge, Tandy’s a stunning-looking girl.” Decker gave Mike a description. “Talk to the young guys. See if you can’t jog someone’s memory.”

“I’ll give it a whirl. You know, Rabbi, it could be she siphoned off gas from her own car’s tank, and that’s why she had to have a refill yesterday.”