My best friend, a seasoned homicide detective, is a master of discontent.

Some say Milo Sturgis enjoys the cold comfort of a sour mood.

Grumbling, grimacing, and mumbled curses peak during the muddled middle of murder investigations, when promising leads break their promises. He always gets past it; his solve rate is near-perfect. Which is why his bosses tolerate the biliousness, messages ignored, memos tossed in the trash unread.

I’ve come to think of Milo as allergic to obedience, wonder if it’s rooted in his rookie days when gay cops didn’t “exist” in the department and he had to look over his shoulder and write his own rulebook.

But I could be wrong. Temperament’s a strong factor in determining personality so it could just be the way he is. I wonder what his baby pictures look like. Imagine him as one of those infants who look as though they’ve been weaned on sour pickles.

Like a lot of things, we don’t talk about it.

We took Milo’s latest unmarked, an Impala the color of brussels sprouts reeking of pine disinfectant and refried beans. He generally drives with a heavy foot. This time he was ballet-light and a stickler for amber lights. That and traffic clogs from Bel Air into Beverly Hills, the Strip, and Hollywood ate up fifty-five minutes. He savored the red light at Western and Sunset before turning left and climbing the loop that begins Los Feliz Boulevard.

Los Feliz is an interesting district. Unlike the high-end homogeneity of the Westside, it’s a kernel of affluence set between the urban grit and enthusiastic crime rate of East Hollywood to the south and the Eden that’s Griffith Park to the north. One section, Laughlin Park, is gated, filled with mammoth estates, and boasts a roster of film-biz residents dating back to Cecil B. DeMille, Charlie Chaplin, W. C. Fields, and Rudolph Valentino.

Ellie Barker’s address was on Curley Court, a street neither of us knew.

Milo said, “Probably Laughlin, I’ll have to get past some rent-a-guard.” But GPS proved him wrong and we reached our goal after making an untrammeled right and cruising through a roundabout followed by four brief, open streets.

The Curley Court street sign was nearly obscured by the shaggy branches of a monumental deodar cedar, one of a score that lined the block.

Like its neighbors, the house we were looking for was generous but no mansion: two-story cream-colored Spanish from the twenties with a flat lawn leading to a low-walled courtyard.

The grass had been tended but not coddled; dandelions sprouted like stubble on a carelessly shaved face. Hugging the wall, two forty-foot coconut palms shared space with a pair of equally towering Italian cypresses. Close to an unlocked iron-scroll gate, doddering birds-of-paradise coexisted with spatulate clumps of blue agapanthus.

Old-school landscaping. It would be easy to assume a resident with a traditionalist view, maybe one preoccupied with the past. But my training’s led me to run from easy answers. For all I knew, Ellie Barker rented the place.

The courtyard was gravel-floored and empty. The front door had a Gothic peak and was equipped with a rectangular peep-window and a tarnished brass loop for a knocker.

He stood back. “Go for it.”

“What do I say, psychologist on duty?”

“Hmph, no sense of adventure.” Stepping past me, he lifted the loop and let it fall hard.

From inside the house, a woman’s voice trilled, “One second!”

“Cheerful,” he said. “Why the hell not when the universe is your toy.”

Rapid footsteps followed by a flash of pale eyes in the window, then the door swung wide.

A smiling strawberry blonde held out a hand. “Lieutenant? I’m Ellie.”

Milo pretended to not see her fingers. Ellie Barker’s smile shrank to something tentative and anxious as she dropped her hand.

Pleasant-looking woman, medium height, medium build, the hair wavy, worn to her shoulders and parted in the middle. Her clothing revealed nothing about socioeconomic status: short-sleeved white jersey top, straight-leg blue jeans, white canvas slip-ons. No jewelry other than an Apple Watch around her left wrist.

Eyes, now doubtful, were gray-green, the skin surrounding them lightly tanned and sporadically freckled. Thirty-nine and showing the advent of laugh lines and forehead furrows.

She looked at me.

Milo said, “This is Dr. Delaware, our consulting psychologist.”

I shook her hand and her smile managed to stretch but lose wattage. “Someone thinks I need help? I do but I wasn’t thinking psychotherapy.”

“Dr. Delaware helps us with unusual cases.”

“I see,” she said without conviction. “Sorry, please come in.”

She led us through a domed Mexican-tiled entry hall and into a step-down living room with a high, wood-beam ceiling. Across the hall, a smaller dining room was brightened by lead-mullioned windows. Cutting through both spaces, a Mexican-tiled staircase climbed to the second floor.

The furniture in the living room was beige and brown and sparse. Bare white walls, unused fireplace lacking tools or a screen. The rental hypothesis gained traction.

“Please, guys.” Indicating a three-seat sofa facing a bare oak coffee table. “Can I get you something to drink — Coke, tea, water? I can make some coffee?”

“Water’s fine,” said Milo, sitting near the left arm of the sofa. I took the opposite end.

“Flat or fizzy?”

“Flat.”

Ellie Barker looked at him, hoping for thaw. He studied the ceiling.

She said, “Sure, water coming up,” and hurried off past the dining room into a kitchen doorway.

I said, “Looks like the butler’s on vacation.”

“So she’s doing the regular-gal thing for our benefit.”

Ellie Barker returned with two bottles of Dasani that she handed to us before settling in a facing love seat. “Thanks so much for doing this, guys. I hope it’s not a giant hassle.”

Milo checked himself midway through an eye roll.

Not soon enough. Ellie Barker flinched.

Thrown off for the second time, she coped the same way and turned to me. “A psychologist... part of me does think it’s crazy, trying to find out after all this time. I can’t exactly pump myself up with hope. But if I don’t ever try...” She looked at the floor.

I said, “Is this the first time you’ve tried?”

“No, it’s the third time but to my mind the first two don’t count.”

“Nothing came of them?”

“Less than nothing,” she said. “Private investigators. I think they were taking advantage of me.”

“Because...”

“It was too quick. Like going through the motions. They were corporate security types, maybe that was my mistake, I don’t know.” Daring a look at Milo.

He uncapped his water bottle, took a long swig. “Was one of them Sapient Investigations?”

Green-gray eyes widened. “They were the first. How did you — do they have a reputation for taking advantage?”

“They’re among the biggest and they concentrate on California. Mostly Northern California where you’re originally from. Their emphasis is on computer fraud, industrial espionage, tax cases.”

“You researched me.”

“Just the basics.”

“I see.” One slender freckled hand tugged at the fingers of the other. “I got the referral through my executive board — my former board, I had a company that I sold.” Small smile. “You probably know that, too.”

Milo said, “What was the second outfit?”

“Cortez and Talbott. They’re down here. Costa Mesa.”

“That’s Orange County,” said Milo.

“Does that make them a poor choice?” said Ellie Barker.

“Don’t know their work, ma’am, but generally it’s best to keep things local.”

“I guess I figured with the internet, geography wasn’t relevant.” Color spread around delicate ears. “A friend of mine — an engineer at Google — recommended them, I thought they’d be close enough.”

“Did either of them give you written reports?”

“They both gave me one-page letters basically informing me nothing could be done. Plus bills for way more hours than seemed reasonable. I paid them and gave up. Or thought I had. But it kept gnawing at me — wanting to know anything.”

She stared into her lap. “I read a story in college titled ‘Man Without a Country.’ I’m a woman without a past. I have no idea who my biological father is or where I was born. My first birth certificate was when my stepfather adopted me. My mother was already dead and he put down his own mother’s birthday as mine. I’ll be forty in a few months and I realized I’d probably lived the majority of my life. If that doesn’t sound coherent and rational, I can’t help it.”

She twisted her hair. “At this point, you’re probably thinking, Oh boy, a sad case, what a waste of my time.”

Gray eyes glistened with moisture. Ellie Barker wiped them hurriedly.

Milo said, “I’ll be frank, ma’am. You may be walking up a dead-end road, I don’t know enough to say. But if the doctor and I limited ourselves to what was obviously rational, we’d both be out of work.”

Ellie Barker’s smile was immediate, grateful, pathetic. Needy kid finally getting something from surrogate dad.

“Well,” she said, “I just hope you don’t think I’m some kind of flake. I majored in business, I like to think I’m practical. I thought I was doing pretty well suppressing the whole thing. Then something weird happened. I was at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco for a fundraiser and they sat me next to a woman and she was really friendly, asking me about myself, how I’d ended up with all the old-folk donors. I was feeling pretty low because I’d just gotten Cortez and Talbott’s report so I told her about looking for my mother. She seemed sympathetic, and then the woman on the other side of her must’ve overheard because she said she had police connections. So I switched seats and talked to her — Dr. Bauer — and she said she’d see what she could do and took my number. The next day she called and said she’d contacted my state assemblyperson, Darrel Hernandez. I didn’t even know his name, politics isn’t my thing. A few days later, one of Hernandez’s assistants phoned and said she’d called your mayor and then... do you know all this?”

Milo nodded. “The wheels of justice grinding at warp speed.”

Ellie Barker flinched. “You think it was tacky? Using an advantage someone else wouldn’t have? I considered that, Lieutenant. But it’s not like everyone loses their mom at three so I rationalized it as some sort of karmic leveling-out.”

“No need to justify, ma’am. I was just commenting on... an atypical situation.”

Ellie Barker leveled her gaze at him. “You’re telling me you were pressured. I guess I should’ve figured. Does that mean we’re just going through the motions?”

No anger, just the habitual resignation of an abandoned pup.

“Ms. Barker,” said Milo, “I never just go through the motions.” He’d sat up straight, put some steel in his voice.

“So you’ll try?” said Ellie Barker. “I’d be so grateful. Even if it goes nowhere.”

He pulled out his pad. “Tell me about your mother, ma’am. Start from the beginning and tell me everything you know.”

“Sure. I do want to say thanks so much — but could you do me one teensy favor, Lieutenant?”

“What’s that?”

“I’m not used to being called ma’am.”

Ellie Barker opened her mouth to speak, froze, and began fiddling with her fingers.

“Sorry, I’m trying to sort out my thoughts.” A tongue-tip raced between her lips. “I could use some water myself, just a second.”

She was gone longer than it took to fetch the Dasani dangling from her hand. After sitting, she set about working the cap. It resisted, plastic quivering. She put the bottle down, defeated by shaky fingers.

Her right hand rose to her throat.

Touching a necklace of dark-green speckled beads that she hadn’t been wearing when we entered. Fingering orbs like a rosary. Her eyes soared to the ceiling and stayed there.

Milo said, “Take your time.”

She shook her head. “Every time I go through this I’m confronted by how little I know. Not that the other guys really cared. They said anything relevant would be found on the internet, they had access to bases I didn’t. Is that true?”

“The internet’s a tool, no more, no less.”

“One of many in your toolbox, I hope.”

“We do the best we can, ma’a — Ms. Barker.”

“Ellie’s fine.”

He leaned forward. “Ellie, whatever you think you do or don’t know, we have to start somewhere.”

“Sure. Of course. Sorry.” Another lip-lick. Both hands squeezed the bottle. Bubbles floated and descended. “Okay, here goes. My mother’s maiden name was Dorothy Swoboda. When she was with my father — technically he was my stepfather but he’s the only dad I ever knew — I assumed she took his name. Barker. Stanley Barker. I found out later they’d never actually married. I don’t know who my biological father was because my stepdad had no idea and there’s no record of my birth.”

“Nowhere?”

“Not as Eleanor Swoboda, not as Eleanor Barker. That one thing Sapient and Cortez looked into and agreed upon. After my dad filed the certificate he got me a Social Security number and that’s the extent of it. I never knew about any of this. Why would a kid be concerned with paperwork? And I was happy with my birthday, he always got me a cake.”

I said, “When did he tell you he was your stepdad?”

“When I was a teenager.”

“How old?” said Milo.

“Fifteen. I wanted to know more about Mom. Up till then I’d never asked. Maybe I was in denial, but it had never been an issue, Dad and me was what I was used to. Then I started being a teenager — questioning everything — and demanded he tell me what he knew. He got a funny look on his face, like he’d been waiting for this moment but dreaded it.”

She gave the bottle another try. Frowned. I loosened the cap for her.

“Thank you, where was I... okay, I demanded. Dad left the room and returned a few moments later with a glass of whiskey in his hand. He said, ‘Sit down, Ellie,’ and then he told me there was going to be a lot to handle, was I sure. I said something like ‘Fuck, yeah.’ Charming, huh?”

Milo said, “Goes with the teen territory.”

“And not liking it went with the dad territory,” she said. “He was pretty cut-and-dried. When he met Mom she had me, he knew nothing beyond that. I didn’t push the bio-dad issue because he already looked pretty stricken and I didn’t want to hurt him. Besides, he was my real father, I had no interest in some guy who’d abandoned me.”

She took a long swallow of water. “The truth was I went from being obnoxious to feeling bad for him. He looked like he was going to cry. I felt like I was going to cry. Then he said, ‘Let’s go out for ice cream,’ so we went to Baskin-Robbins.”

Small smile. “I remember what I had. Jamoca Almond Fudge in a sugar cone. At first I could barely get it down, like there was a lump here.” Tapping a spot above the green necklace. “In retrospect, should I have pushed for more information? Maybe. But he was my dad. It just didn’t seem right.”

Milo took out his pad and pen. “His full name...”

“Stanley Richard Barker. Doctor Stanley R. Barker, he was an optometrist.”

“How old were you when he and your mom met?”

“Not sure. Dad said a baby.”

“And when she died?”

“Not even three, thirty-three months.”

“Is Dr. Barker still alive?”

“I wish, Lieutenant. He passed a while back.”

“How long ago?”

“When I was in college... nineteen years ago.”

“Where was college?”

“Stanford. I did my undergrad there and was planning to enroll in the MBA program. When Dad passed, I was in my sophomore year and spending the summer doing research for a professor. European economic history, bone-dry. After Dad passed, I dropped out and got myself what I thought would be a mindless job, working for a clothing manufacturer in Oakland. The funny thing is, it led to some interesting things.”

“You started your own company.”

She shrugged. “I was lucky.”

I said, “You had a good relationship with your dad and didn’t want to rock the boat. After he died you didn’t need to worry about that.”

Her head bobbed and she winced. As if I’d embedded a hook.

“He wasn’t a whoop-it-up dad,” she said, “but he was a great dad. Quiet, reserved, and incredibly smart. Earned a B.S. in physics from Cornell, came out to California to work for the government then went to optometry school at Berkeley. He was really into optics — not the political cliché, the real thing. He opened up an office in Danville, this upper-crusty place where we ended up living, then a second down in Oakland just so he could service poor people. He probably could’ve been Pearle Vision or LensCrafters but big business didn’t interest him, he just liked helping people see better and made a good living at it. The money he left me helped me bankroll Beterkraft.”

She finished her water. “When I was home, we’d play Scrabble or Trivial Pursuit, watch goofy old movies.”

Her mouth twitched. Holding something back.

I said, “When you were home from college?”

Another flash of color spread at the edges of her face, this one intense enough to turn her earlobes scarlet. “Before that. I went to boarding school when I was fifteen. Dad had a lot of patience but I turned incredibly difficult — no need to get into the details, let’s just say I was a pain and he tried his best and when he finally suggested I try living away, I said sure. Actually, I didn’t say it very politely. On one hand, I was thrilled to get away from rules. On the other...” Shrug. “But obviously none of that’s the issue.”

I said, “You asked about your mother when you came home from boarding school.”

She stared at me. “No getting around the emotional probing, huh? Yes. Exactly. Things changed when I was at Milbrook — Milbrook Preparatory Academy for Girls, it’s in Palo Alto, a feeder for Stanford. For all my behavioral issues, my grades had always been good. But now I was living with seventy other girls, and girls can get pushy and nosy. Everyone talking about their family, bragging, wanting to know about yours. I knew so little, obviously I didn’t want to talk about it. But a few of them pushed and pushed and then they started making fun of me — my parents were spies or criminals. Or worse, welfare cheats. I tried to ignore it but eventually it got to me and I struck out. Literally. I ended up smacking one particularly obnoxious little bitch in the nose and got into major trouble.”

She passed the empty bottle from hand to hand. “Two months in and poor Dad has to come and beg the dean to keep me. He convinced her but I saw how much it stressed him, so I promised to keep it together. But by then I’d been tagged as a weirdo loner and everyone avoided me. Which on one hand was good, the questions stopped. But then with the pressure off, I realized the questions were valid. Who was she and how had she died? Who was I? So on Christmas, the next time I was home, I brought it up. Dad told me she’d died, had been cremated, and he’d scattered the ashes in a park somewhere they used to go.”

The bottle wobbled and nearly fell out of her hands. She managed to hold on to it, placed it gingerly on the table. “I don’t want to tell you how to do your job but, again, is all this really necessary?”

Milo said, “The more we know, the better chance we have.”

“Sure but I don’t see why — all right, fine, you’re here to help me, I won’t be obstructive.”

“What happened next?”

“Nothing until Dad passed and I broke down, just went numb, the feeling of aloneness.”

Biting her lip, she looked away. When she spoke next, her voice was weak, tinged with the vibrato of suffering.

“Stanford assigned a nurse to look after me. They suggested I see a counselor but I blew that off. Eventually, I told myself life sucked, I just had to be strong, didn’t need a babysitter. I know I was privileged — no money worries because Dad’s executor was taking care of me on that level.”

“Who was that?”

“Dad’s lawyer, Lawrence Kagan. I’d known him as a customer — Larry with the Coke-bottle glasses. I knew Dad liked him but had no idea he trusted him that much.”

I said, “Was the trust justified?”

“Totally. Mr. K was honest and lovely to me.” She breathed in deeply. “It’s when he drove down to Palo Alto to read me the will that I saw the adoption form. Dad had decided to do it after Mom died because I was technically attached to no one. That kind of brought everything back — who was I, where had I come from. Larry had no idea — don’t bother contacting him, he’s also gone.”

She smiled. “That day in his office. He put on one of the Coke-bottles Dad had made for him and shuffled papers like someone out of Dickens. When he showed me the adoption form, it choked me up. That Dad had always cared. Then I noticed Mom’s name. Dorothy Swoboda, not Barker, and he explained about no marriage. Which seemed pretty daring for Dad, but maybe it was her idea? Meanwhile, Larry’s reading the will, I’m Dad’s sole heir and there’s a lot of money. It took a while to settle down emotionally. A year or so. That’s when I first began looking for information about her using her actual name. I had no idea where to start but figured California was logical. I learned that a lot of personal documents are county forms so I worked my way down from Contra Costa to Alameda, et cetera, et cetera. It was tedious but strangely exciting. Finally I found the coroner’s report from L.A. County and then an article in the L.A. Times. Confusing because the paper made it sound like a car accident but the report said homicide. That freaked me out. I put the whole thing aside for a long, long time.”

I said, “Your family was living in Danville but your mother died in L.A.”

“I thought it was weird. Dad certainly never mentioned it. Maybe she was down here on some sort of trip. Or visiting someone?” A beat. “Or they’d separated. I really have no idea. That’s part of what I’d like to know.”

“Did your dad give any indication of marital problems?”

“Never. But he wouldn’t have. He was private. He never talked about her, period.”

That sounded more hostile than private. I said nothing.

Milo said, “Did he leave you any photographs of her?”

She held up an index finger, stood and hurried up the stairs. Returned with a folio-sized brown leather album that she thrust at Milo.

Twenty or so oversized pages, each blank but for the first, where a trio of mementos was lodged under horizontal plastic strips.

At the top, a copy of the Times piece. Bottom of the page, two brief paragraphs.

Below that was a faded color snapshot with crenellated edges and lowermost, dead center, a negative photostat — white lettering on a black background — of a thirty-six-year-old L.A. County Coroner’s death certificate for Dorothy Swoboda, white female, twenties, precise age unknown.

Cause: bullet wound.

Manner: homicide.

Milo tapped the album. “Can I take this?”

Ellie Barker hesitated.

“If it’s a problem, you can make copies and send them to me.”

“No, it’s fine... but if you could return it when you’re through—”

“I’ll make copies and get it back to you.” He looked at the photo. “These are your parents?”

She nodded. “There’s a date stamp on the back. It was taken when I was two, I have no idea where.”

Milo and I studied the shot. Man and woman standing next to each other, a foot of space between them. The setting somewhere outdoors; diamonds of milk-colored sky speckling the gaps in a green-black curtain of trees. Stout trunks, the ground littered with needles.

Some sort of conifer forest. Maybe the place where Stanley Barker had scattered Dorothy’s ashes.

He stood on the right. Midforties, average height, pear-shaped, with sparse dark hair and an owlish face made more so by black-framed eyeglasses. Despite the outdoor setting, he wore a light-blue suit with broad lapels, a white shirt buttoned to the neck, and black, bubble-toed shoes.

Hands pressed to his sides, forcing a half smile. Not a natural poser.

The woman was young enough to be his daughter — early to midtwenties. Long-stemmed and taller than Barker courtesy white spike-heeled sandals and bright-red hair assembled in a sprayed, wavy updo that showed off a pale swan neck.

The face perched on the neck was lean, oval, symmetrical. The right structure for beauty but blocked from beauty by hard eyes and a brittle smile.

Still, a markedly attractive woman, wasp-waisted and full-busted, with curvy contours emphasized by a maroon dress cinched corset-tight by a broad silver belt.

This one liked to pose. She’d placed her hands on her hips, cocked her left haunch slightly higher, and positioned her feet at a forty-five-degree angle from each other.

No jewelry but for a green band worn low around her neck and resting in the hollow above her sternum.

Neither of them dressed for a forest. Neither of them happy.

I said, “Looks like the same necklace you’re wearing.”

Ellie Barker’s fingers climbed to the beads and rested atop them protectively.

“It’s the only thing I have of hers. Dad gave it to me after we got back.”

“Back from?”

“Ice cream. He’d had it in his pocket and when we were back home, he put it on me. He said everything else of hers had been clothing that he’d given to Goodwill. He said he’d bought the necklace for her at an art fair. She didn’t really like it but would wear it when he asked.”

“Malachite?”

“Serpentine. Nothing precious, just a rock with minerals — hydrogen magnesium iron phyllosilicate.” She smiled. “I memorized that.”

Milo took the album, closed it, placed it in his lap.

Ellie Barker said, “I tried to get the details from the coroner but they said something that far back they don’t keep full files, I was lucky they had that. I said I’d like to know who killed her and they said that’s a police matter. So I went back to the article and it said Mulholland Drive off Coldwater Canyon. I google-mapped and found out one side of Mulholland was Beverly Hills, the other the Hollywood Hills. I tried both police departments, did a lot of waiting while I was on hold. The people I finally spoke to said they’d get back to me but never did. So, again, I gave up. I tend to do that... then I went to that fundraiser.”

I said, “What was the cause?”

“Children,” said Ellie Barker. “Kids whose parents had died.”

Milo said, “Any questions before we get going?”

Ellie Barker continued to play with the green beads. “Do you think there’s a chance?”

“These old cases are tough unless biological evidence has been preserved. Even then, sometimes all we get is victim DNA. Or there’s offender DNA but it can’t be matched to any database. But let’s see.”

“What about familial DNA? All those public-access genealogy files you hear about? Like what they use now to catch killers.”

“If we have something to match, we’ll use every possible method,” said Milo.

“Thanks. I have to say this is the first time I feel I’m being taken seriously. You have my contacts — phone, email.”

“Got them from Deputy Chief Martz.”

“No idea who that is but thank him for me.”

“Her. Sure.”

“I’m down here for as long as you need me.”

“Where’s your home base?”

“I own a house in Napa that I’m renting out. I have a one-year lease on this place.”

I said, “Why Los Feliz? Any personal connection?”

“I wanted somewhere reasonably close to where... it happened. There were no vacancies up on Mulholland, and this place cropped up for a reasonable rent. I’m not even sure where exactly it happened. If you find out, could you tell me?”

Milo said, “Okay. I should tell you this is a safe neighborhood but a few blocks south it can get rough.”

“Oh. Thanks, I’ll bear that in mind.”

We stood. Ellie Barker pressed forward to shake Milo’s hand. Making sure she got hold of it.

“Whatever happens, Lieutenant, thank you so much. At least I’ll know I had a professional working for me — no, that came out wrong. You’re not my employee.”

Milo smiled.

“At least I hope you don’t feel that way,” she said. “I want you to do your job unobstructed by me or anyone else. You’ll be working to discover the truth and I’m sure that’s important to you, why else would you choose your career?”

A glance at me. “You, too, of course.”

Before we got to the door, a latch turned and it swung open. A man in blue shorts and a white sweat-soaked T-shirt surged in wiping his face with a purple cooling cloth. Fitness watch around his wrist, water bottle clipped to his waistband, earbuds running to a phone that sagged a pocket.

Breathing audibly. He saw us, stopped short, clamped his lips and flared his nostrils.

Out came the earbuds.

Ellie Barker said, “Hon, this is Lieutenant Sturgis and he brought a consulting psychologist. Guys, Brannon Twohy, my still-significant other.”

The man said, “Still?”

She pecked Twohy’s cheek. He bore it without response. She massaged his biceps. “I’m giving you props for endurance, hon. My doing the quest and all that.”

Twohy shrugged. “Is what it is.” He draped an arm over her shoulders but left his hand floating in the air, an odd detachment.

Ellie said, “Brannon’s been super-supportive but I’m sure he’s more realistic than me.”

Twohy didn’t argue.

He was younger than her, maybe thirty. Tan and rock-jawed with close-set dark eyes uncluttered by curiosity. Deep tan, black and wavy shoulder-length hair.

“I reek, gotta shower.”

Ellie said, “How’d it go?”

“Seven point eight miles, record speed.”

“Good for you.”

Twohy said, “Once I get to eight, I’ll be cool.”

He headed for the stairs, taking two at a time.

“Brannon gave up his job to come down here with me.”

I said, “What kind of work does he do?”

“Marketing. He was working for a consortium of organic vintners in St. Helena, is looking for something here.” She eyed the staircase. “I’d better get up there. He’ll need an Advil for his muscle aches and unless I suggest it, he won’t bother. Thanks, guys.”

We tucked into sand dabs, potatoes, and green beans, topped the meal with lemon meringue pie. It’s not my usual lunch and when we stood, I was fighting torpor.

Milo looked invigorated. He threw cash on the table and we left.

Twelve thirty. Enough time to get me home for my appointments. I said so.

He said, “Oh, that — yeah, sure.”

As we got in the car, he said, “Maybe this is irrelevant but Ellie also seems to have found herself an odd fit with Runner Boy.”

“She’s cheerful, he’s borderline grim?”

“That, too, but I was thinking socioeconomic status. All that money she’s got. I know, a male tycoon with a hard-body girlfriend, I might not notice. So yeah, I’m caught up in convention, but she is serious rich. I found a reference to the sale of her company in Forbes. Quote unquote, ‘less than three hundred million.’ And she’s apologizing about taking Mr. Fitbit away from his nine-to-five. What’s that mean? Low self-esteem?”

“No accounting for love.”

“Yeah, yeah, insufficient data. But the way she plays herself down — working hard not to come across mega-loaded. Couldn’t that mean she feels she doesn’t deserve her good fortune?”

I said, “Or she’s unpretentious.”

“Huh. Okay, I’m meandering into irrelevant stuff.” He started up the Impala and sped out of the lot.

“Something else about her bugs me,” he said.

“What?”

“I don’t hate her.”

By eight thirty p.m., I’d finished two court reports and begun charts on the two kids I’d seen in the afternoon. Robin was back in the studio checking out the mandolin’s progress, Blanche was snoring in her open-door crate. I returned to my computer.

Neither Ellie Barker nor Milo had found a thing on Dorothy Swoboda but I looked anyway. Google pulled up one woman by that name, dead since 1895, gravestone in Missouri.

I switched to a broad-based Nexis periodicals search, found only the Times squib. Switched the subject to Stanley Richard Barker and got three hits.

Two were puff pieces from the East Bay Times. Forty-two years ago, “Dr. Stan” had been lauded for donating eye exams and glasses to underprivileged schoolkids. Not in Danville, the paper was quick to point out. In “less affluent neighboring communities.”

One year later, Barker had attracted similar praise for opening up a second branch of his SEE-RITE optometric shop in Oakland.

The third reference was a nineteen-year-old obituary in The San Francisco Examiner: The body of a Danville man had been discovered by hikers in a gully below a trail in the Las Trampas Regional Wilderness. Stanley R. Barker, sixty-four, a Danville ophthalmologist (sic) had been reported missing a week before by an unnamed receptionist.

I looked up the locale, found descriptions on several travel sites specializing in outdoor recreation: five-thousand-plus acres of regional park consisting of two ridges sprawling across Contra Costa and Alameda counties, the nearest city, Danville. Sections had been left wild, others featured marked trails.

Beautiful place according to every source but, with drops approaching a thousand feet, best suited for “highly athletic, experienced hikers under favorable meteorological conditions.”

I rechecked the Examiner piece. July 15, so probably mild weather, unless Barker had gotten lost and ended up stranded in the dark.

In the photo I’d just seen, Barker was soft-looking. Wearing a suit outdoors. I supposed he could’ve embraced fitness at an advanced age, but his death-site seemed curious.

What I also found curious was that Ellie Barker hadn’t mentioned his unnatural death.

Maybe when balanced against her mother’s murder, a fatal accident seemed benign. Or there was just so much bad karma she could tolerate at one time.

Mom in a car, shot and burned and rolled over into a ravine.

Dad found, decaying, in a gully.

There was a certain confluence.

I looked up Wikipedia’s description of the park, stopped short at the end of the first paragraph.

Trampas was Spanish for “traps.”

I called Milo.

I heard from him at eleven thirty a.m. the following day.

“Petra got more info, the angel. I offered her a repast but she had a big breakfast, all she wants is ice cream. Hour and a half, McConnell’s on the boulevard, if you can make it.”

“It’ll be nice to see her,” I said.

“You bet, form and function. The PC squad comes knocking, I never said that.”

When Petra was gone, his smile faded. “Good intentions but I thought she’d have more. Guess I will have to trek to the archive and waste a bunch of time. Unless you have other ideas.”

I shook my head.

“Then mea culpa for bringing you out here. As compensation, let’s go downstairs and you buy an ice cream on me, unlimited toppings.”

“I’ll bring some home to Robin.”

“Get a quart — forget that, a gallon. Ten gallons, we’ll pretend we’re in Texas.”

“A pint’ll be fine.”

“Discretion,” he said, hitching his trousers. “One day I’ll understand the concept.”

The unfortunately named Outer House was a couple of miles from the station, on Montana west of Barrington. Inside was a counter staffed by a young woman with a retro blond bob and enough piercings to drive a magnet mad. Dining took place at two rough wooden cable spools turned on their side.

I found Milo glaring at a jam jar filled with liquid the color of a silty river.

“Apple juice,” he said, without looking up. “Unfiltered and augmented with ground-up stems and peel. Apparently that’s where the vitamins are.”

I said, “Fiber.”

“Something’s gotta give.”

Next to us, a white-garbed Sikh couple shared something massive that looked like a burrito. They smiled and I returned the gesture.

Milo said, “You order over there.”

“I’m fine.”

“What’s that, your restaurant mantra? Fine, this time I’m not gonna argue.” He tasted the juice. “What it lacks in taste it makes up in grit.” He looked at his watch. “Hope the Jag didn’t break down.”

Only two minutes past the appointed time but antsy. I sat as he checked his email, did a lot of grimly enthusiastic deleting, put the phone down, and pinged the juice jar. “Eight bucks. I’m billing the department.”

I said, “They’ll probably approve.”

“Of what?”

“Taking the healthy approach.”

He shuddered. Turned to the front door as it opened.

The man who walked in managed to be thickly built and trim. Six feet tall, a muscular two hundred, great posture, broad-shouldered, with oversized hands and baseball-catcher thighs that filled dark-blue stretch jeans.

He saw us, grinned, and gave a thumbs-up. “Milo? Du Galoway. Hey!”

Galoway’s stride was long and confident, his complexion ruddy and smooth for sixty-four. Bright-blue eyes nested in thatches of laugh lines. His hair was thick, coarse, colored an unlikely black. A white collarless peasant shirt billowed over the jeans. The big hands ended in glossy, manicured nails. Sandals revealed equally impressive toenails. He could easily pass for ten years younger. Walking ad for healthy living.

Milo introduced me.

Galoway said, “Psychologist? That’s a new one. My day all the psychologists did was try to drum out maladjusts.”

Handshakes all around. His palms were soft and dry, his grip cautious, suggesting awareness of latent power. A glance at Milo’s juice. “Looks yum. Apple?”

Milo repeated the details.

“That’s true, peel’s full of good stuff.” Galoway patted a flat abdomen. “Our phase of life you need to keep the shipping routes open, right?”

“For sure,” said Milo, not coming close to credibility. “You order there. On me, Du.”

Galoway strode to the counter, returned with a glass filled with chartreuse fluid.

“Did your apple, added broccoli plus cumin and cardamom and turmeric and just a hint of chili powder. Reasonable, only ten bucks.”

Milo fished out a bill.

Galoway sat down. “Not going to happen, pal. I know it’s going to come out of your pocket not the department’s.”

“Either way, I insist, Du.”

“Uh-uh, not necessary, you did me a favor.” Perfect, blinding white smile.

“What favor is that?”

“Getting me out of the house. I’m not going to lie, life is overall good. But sometimes the days kind of drag. Even after I take my walk and do my biking and three times a week the lifting, then the gardening and the cleanup. Even with twice-a-week yoga there’s still a whole bunch of time to fill. I tried taking piano lessons but that didn’t work, far from it.”

He flexed his fingers. “Tone-deaf and clumsy. Can’t draw a straight line so art’s out. I thought of bonsai — those little Japanese trees? There’s a class near where I live. But it didn’t grab me. I even thought of writing a novel but that would take actual talent, right?”

“Happy to fill your day, Du.”

Galoway drank and exhaled with pleasure. The ten remained on the table. “C’mon, really, friend.”

“I insist.”

“Okay, don’t want to insult you.” Tweezing the bill between thumb and forefinger, Galoway slid it into a jean pocket. “So you’re reopening Swoboda. Man, that’s a blast from the past, took a sec to figure out the name. What got that going, some cold-case campaign?”

“Swoboda’s daughter is mega-rich and she pulled strings.”

“The daughter,” said Galoway. “One of the things I did when I got the case was try to talk to her, she was some sort of student. But her father didn’t want to give me her number, said she had nothing to add. He wasn’t cooperative, period. So what, she remembers something after all these years? One of those recuperating memory deals?”

“She knows nothing,” said Milo. “That’s why she pulled strings.”

“Strings. Huh.” Galoway finished half his juice, produced another gust of air rife with pleasure. “Dee-li-cious. How’d she make her dough?”

“Gym ware.”

“Wow,” said Galoway. “Go know. So heavy-duty strings.”

Milo nodded. “Bridge cables. I was contacted by a deputy chief and ordered to prioritize.”

“Same old story, huh? Money talks, cow-slop walks. I had kind of the same feeling when they handed it to me.”

“What feeling is that?”

“Strings,” said Galloway. “Not that I ever found out for sure.”

I said, “Why’d you suspect outside influence?”

“Because it didn’t make sense, by then the case was — let me think — fourteen years cold. Don’t know how much you know about the particulars, Doc, but I was the third guy assigned to work it. They hand me this skimpy murder book and say go.”

“How skimpy?”

“Skimpiest I’ve ever seen.” Galoway measured a quarter of an inch between thumb and forefinger. “Basically just a general description — the one you just gave me, Milo. Plus some illegible notes and the coroner’s summary. There wasn’t even an address where it went down, just the approximate site. The first guy picked it up when it happened, forget his name. Worked it, got nothing, retired. I tried to call him, too. After that, it sat for like... three, four years? Who remembers? The second guy had it for a while. Him I spoke to. His name was Seeger. Not too swift. He still around?”

Milo shook his head. “So neither of them had accomplished much.”

“To be honest, neither did I. It was like trying to build a house without a foundation.” Galoway frowned. “It felt as I was being set up to fail. I was barely a D I, had something like four months investigating financial crimes under my belt, zero experience with homicide. One day my captain calls me in and tells me I’m transferred to Homicide. I never even applied.”

He pushed his glass to the side. “Milo, I’m sure you like what you do. And I’ve nothing but respect for what you do. But I never had any interest in bodies, my plan was to do financial for a few years, then go back to school for a CPA and get a fed job. Secret Service or the IRS. Or maybe go private and get into industrial security. Homicide? What’s that going to do for me? I tried to beg off, it was like talking to a brick. So I must’ve pissed someone off. Why else would they assign me to a loser?”

Milo said, “Any idea who?”

“No, that’s the thing. It was like that writer... the guy who turned into a bug?”

I said, “Kafka.”

“Exactly, Kafka. It was like him, stuff starts happening and you have no idea. The only thing I could think of was working white collar I got too close to some moneybags. But none of my cases fit the bill, I was strictly small-time.”

“Why bother reopening the case if the goal was to fail?”

“You tell me,” said Galoway. “Here’s the funny thing, rookie me might’ve actually solved it if I had some decent intel. You know what they say, it’s always in the file. I went over that sucker a hundred times, at first it was like reading Chinese.”

He jiggled an index finger. “Truth is, I’ve got a pretty good feeling for who did it. But good luck proving it.”

Milo’s bulk edged forward. “You developed a lead?”

“No, no, just what I said, a feeling, that’s all.”

“About what?”

“Well,” said Galoway, “I don’t want to make more of this than it is but something Seeger wrote down got me going. Though he didn’t realize it. His handwriting sucked, you could barely make it out, but once I did I got curious. I played with it for a while, went to my new captain and told him I was making progress. He gives me a look like I just pulled my dick out and wanted to rub it on his face. A few days later, I’m back on financial. After that, I had enough with the job. Department was incentivizing early retirement so I left with my pension and got my real estate license and worked for a brokerage. The plan was to make enough to go back to school but all of a sudden I’m making serious dough selling property so I decided to stick with that a bit longer. Then I get bigger listings and serious commissions. Then I start using my earnings to flip houses.”

He lifted his juice. “Here’s to good luck.”

Milo pulled out his pad. “What did Seeger write down?”

Galoway looked uneasy. “Like I said, it was based on a feeling, not evidence. Plus all these years later, it’s like I’m handing you a glass of spoiled milk.”

“I’ll take what I can get, Du.”

Galoway looked back at the counter. “Hold on, let me get myself one of those muffins.”

Fortified by two large bites of a fist-sized, rust-colored concoction laced with pumpkin seeds, Galoway wiped his lips and sat up straight, as if called upon to recite in class.

“You mind if I back up a bit? To make things clear for you.”

“Sure,” said Milo.

“How much do you know about her? Dorothy.”

“She was shot in the head in her car somewhere on the L.A. side of Mulholland, the car was pushed over the side then torched to look like an accident.”

Galoway stared at him. “That’s it?”

“We just started, Du.”

“Wow. Okay. First, I’m going to give you what I see as the psychology — her psychological state, you can appreciate that, Doctor.” He cleared his throat. “To me it was obvious she was unhappy with her marriage. She’d left him — what was his name... Seymour... Stanley. Right?”

“Stanley Barker.”

“An eye doctor. Right?”

“Right.”

Galoway grinned. “Nice to know the memory’s got some battery power left. Anyway, Stanley’s living up north but Dorothy dies down here. Obviously, that’s a red flag. I called him. He didn’t sound thrilled to hear from me, I’m thinking this is probably the guy. ’Cause that’s what they teach us, right? Start from the inside and work your way out. I figured he’d clam up but he answered my questions, just not with enthusiasm. He admitted they weren’t getting along, she’d left him six months before she was killed. No warning. He comes home, there’s a note on the bed and the kid’s at the next-door neighbor’s. Which tells you she had to be pretty miserable. I ask a few more questions — confirming the basics — and we finish. After that, Stanley’s not so great about getting back to me. So he stays on top of my list.”

I said, “Did you ever meet him face-to-face?”

“That would’ve required a plane ticket and a hotel, Doc. Milo, tell him the way it is when you’re soloing on a loser and ask for dough.”

“Got it,” I said.

“I’d have loved to sit down with the guy,” said Galoway. “You going to?”

Milo said, “He died nineteen years ago.”

“Oh. So like... two years after I talked to him. Who picked the case up after me?”

“No one.”

“All these years?” said Galoway. “Bummer. Anyway, no way was I going to dip into my own pocket. So I’m ready to fold my tents, figuring Stanley got away with it. Then something else Seeger wrote down — this smudged-pencil writing in the corner of a page, you could barely make it out — attracted my attention. The car wasn’t hers, it was registered to a company. Precision machining outfit, forget the name.”

He tapped his forehead, wrinkled it, tapped again. “Nope, gone, time for some new double A’s. Anyway, they made surgical knives, stuff like that. No indication Dorothy’s got those types of skills, I’m figuring if she had a job there, she was a secretary, something along those lines. But then I read the file for the zillionth time and the car she was in gets to me. Not a cheapo, we’re talking a one-year-old Cadillac Eldorado. Are you getting the same feeling I did, Milo?”

“Young woman, rich guy.”

“Bingo,” said Galoway, giving a thumbs-up. “Good-looking chick comes to town with no job experience, what’s she going to do? Use what God gave her.”

“Who owned the car?”

“Exactly, the obvious question. The first guy didn’t ask, or if he did, he didn’t record it. Same for Seeger. But I sniffed around. Unfortunately, the company wasn’t listed locally, so I backtracked with some business directories at the public library and then I went to the newspaper morgue. All of which takes time, by then there’s a little internet going on but the department’s not using computers except to teach clerks word processing. So we’re talking prying open Tut’s Tomb with my fingernails. Anyway the owner of the company is a guy named Deebarze. Spelled D-E-S separate word B-A-R-R-E-S, probably a French dude. Anton Des Barres. I check the backwards directory for an address and get nothing, makes sense, rich guys keep it private. So I go to the assessor and Des Barres had a house in L.A. but the last property tax payment was four years ago. I’m thinking shit, he split to France or wherever. But then I wonder if he’s dead so I check and sure enough, he kicked the bucket a year before that.”

I said, “Cause of death?”

He gave me a pitying smile. “Was he murdered, Doc? That would be juicy but nope, some disease, forget which. But here’s something that is juicy: The house was right on Mulholland, maybe two miles east of where they estimate Dorothy was found in that torched Caddy. I say estimate because if the site was recorded, it’s lost.”

Milo said, “Interesting.”

“I thought so,” said Galoway. “A picture’s forming, right? Good-looking chick leaves her old man, comes down here, gets with a rich older guy who gives her a Caddy to tool around in. Then things go bad. I mean they had to, right, for a car like that to get sacrificed? That tells me getting rid of her was a priority. Now I’m feeling some energy. I put it all together and tell my new captain and he gives me that dick-on-the-face look, says you have any actual evidence? I say not yet. A few days later, I’m re-transferred.”

“What was your captain’s name?”

“Alomar. Gregory Alomar, real bastard. Probably also dead, he smoked like a stack, ate crap, had a gut out to there. Even if he is alive, it’s not like he’s going to admit being in someone’s pocket. But sure, go for it, I’d be interested in what he has to say.”

Galoway finished the muffin. “Yum. I may get some takeout, bring it back home for my after-golf snack tomorrow. You play?”

Milo shook his head. “Not enough patience.”

“Exactly why you should try it, Milo. Good training for the soul. You, Doc?”

“Nope.”

“I thought docs spent their Wednesdays on the course.” To Milo. “So did I help?”

“Big-time,” said Milo.

“Really?” said Galoway. “That’s terrific. Maybe I could’ve been a homicide D.” He laughed. “God forbid.”

“Do you have time to show us the spot where she died, Du?”

“Now?”

“If possible.”

“Hmm. Sure why not, might as well spend some time in Los Angle-eeze. As Mayor Yorty used to say. Remember him? Sam the Man? My dad loved him — I grew up in Highland Park, this whole thing is bringing back La-La memories. I’ll go home to Ojai thanking my lucky stars.”

Sunset Boulevard was relatively fluid, so Milo took Laurel Canyon down to the Strip.

We cruised past dormant nightclubs, hair and nail salons, strip joints, skin palaces, sex shops, and cannabis cafés. Everything topped by gigantic recording- and movie-biz billboards. Some of the boards were electronic and kinetic. More movement up there than among loitering addicts, shuffling homeless, misdirected foreign tourists, and the occasional hooker hungry enough to venture out during daylight.

At San Vicente, Milo said, “On paper, Galoway sounded like the least likely source of info. Go know. What do you think of his conspiracy theory?”

“He was set up to fail? Maybe.”

“It happens. But then why open it up at all?”

I said, “We could be talking departmental politics. A token attempt to appease someone, nothing happens, the nets get hauled.”

“Who would the brass want to appease? Don’t see an optometrist from up north having much pull down here.”

“A guy like Des Barres might. So contrary to Galoway’s suspicions, he could be a would-be hero not a suspect. Dorothy was his love interest, he wanted to know what had happened to her and why.”

“Galoway got the case fourteen years after it happened, Alex. Long time to get all sentimental.”

I thought about that. “Des Barres died soon after Galoway took over, from some sort of disease. Terminal illness can change your perspective.”

“I guess. Either way, time to learn more about him. Another long-dead person.”

“Want me to call Maxine and see if he has an interesting past she knows about?”

Maxine Driver was a history prof at the U., the daughter of Korean immigrants who’d disappointed her parents by rejecting med school to become an expert on L.A. gangsters. In the past, she’d traded information for early access to closed-case files. Her work product: academic papers, book chapters, presentations at conferences.

Milo said, “Des Barres was a tycoon who hung with sketchy types?”

“A tycoon who shacked up with a much younger woman and gave her a Caddy.”

“Good point — sure, ask her. Meanwhile, I’ll buy a dust mask and see if I can find the book.”

“Galoway said it didn’t amount to much.”

“Anything’s better than nada.”

He shifted forward in the driver’s seat, jaw jutting, eyes narrow.

Work-mode.

Hooked.

Same trip as yesterday, different route.

Milo was racing the Impala’s engine as I came down the stairs. Before I had my seatbelt on, he hurtled down the old bridle path leading to my gate and gunned toward the Glen.

I said, “Galoway’s driving inspired you?”

He eased up on the gas, hooked a left. “So what approach do I take with Val?”

“Hard to say until we’ve met her.”

“I thought about calling her first but with zero info beyond her DMV data — forty-six, brown, blue, wears glasses — I couldn’t come up with anything. So no sense losing the surprise factor. And if she’s not in, maybe I can impress a servant to get past the gates and give the place a once-over.”

A mile later: “Ellie texted me as I drove over. Wishing me luck, happy face emojis for good measure. Think she’s really that nice?”

“Why wouldn’t she be?”

“ ’Cause I’m a cynical bastard. I didn’t get back to her. The way things are looking, no sense getting too cozy.”

Milo took out his pad. “We’d like to talk to your brothers. Could you give me their numbers?”

Val Des Barres said, “Sure,” and recited clearly. “Just spoke to Tony. His birthday. I sang him ‘Happy Birthday.’ Say hi to both of them.”

We got up. Before Milo took a step, she’d taken his hand in both of hers. “Good luck helping Ellie. She seemed so wounded.”

Dropping the hand, she headed for the stairs. As if beckoned, Sabino appeared. He opened the door, walked us out and to the Impala. The unmarked’s data screen seemed to fascinate him.

“Very nice computer.”

“Does the trick,” said Milo. “Been working here long?”

“Twenty-four years.”

“Nice place.”

Sabino’s hand rose to his heart and stayed there. “Lucky.”

Milo’s detective I.D. turbocharged a county records search, but it still took time. By the time the coffee I’d brewed was ready, he’d copied the info in his pad.

Helen Archer Des Barres had died fifty-one years ago at Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital. Age, forty-two. Epithelial carcinoma of the ovaries.

Arlette Melville Des Barres had died thirty-seven years ago in Angeles Crest National Forest.

Age, thirty-five.

Accident, unspecified.

I said, “Interesting.”

He said, “I call your interesting and raise.”

The drive to Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center is one I can pull off in my sleep. It’s a venerable institution planted at Vermont and Fountain. Around the corner from the Western Peds campus on Sunset, where, as a newly licensed psychologist, I’d spent long days on the cancer ward.

I drove to the parking valet where Milo police-tagged my dashboard and told the attendant, “Leave it here, worth your while.”

He badged us through the lobby and we headed for the ICU. The waiting room was full of miserable-looking people, as ICU waiting rooms always are. A nurse at the desk was prepared for Milo’s badge.

“Second room to your right.”

“How’s Mr. Twohy doing?”

“You’d have to ask the doctor that.”

We hovered around Petra’s phone.

Ellie Barker’s cyber-engagement was minimal. No photos, nothing about the search for her mother’s killer. Maybe leaving the world of e-trade made the computer a reminder of work that she wanted to escape. Or she just liked her privacy.

Brannon Twohy, on the other hand, had no concept of privacy.

Scores of photos of him. Scuba diving, skiing, paragliding, zip-lining, usually bare-chested.

His main thing, though, was trumpeting his running triumphs down to the second. Every race for the past two years memorialized, complete with dates, places, stats, and photographs.

The most recent data dump had been posted at six p.m. today, reporting on his nine-mile speed goal, which he intended to expand regularly as a pathway to making the top twenty in next year’s L.A. Marathon.

Included was a map of tonight’s run, complete with a red line tracing the route from the house he shared with Ellie to a destination 0.6 miles past Atwater Village.

“the magic 4.5 each way, let’s go for warpspeed!”

Milo said, “Jesus, he might as well have put a target on his back.”

I said, “He didn’t feel threatened. Tonight was a first attempt.”

Petra said, “Use a gun, all it takes is one. What a mess. So what, we’re back on Twohy being the target not as a surrogate for Ellie?”

Milo said, “Who the hell knows?”

She nodded. “I’m thrashed and I still need to revisit the scene. You sticking around?”

“Just to say goodbye.”

“To your client,” she said. “And my interested party.”

Raul stayed in the room and the three of us left and reconvened in another quiet spot near the elevators.

Milo said, “I just keep thinking about Twohy laying out his route. What a genius.”

Petra said, “I’ll see if he’s a genius with a past.”

“You’ve got the crime scene to deal with, I don’t mind.”

“Sure, thanks.”

He turned to me. “What do you think of Ellie and the whole guilt thing?”

“Does she know more than she’s letting on? I didn’t pick anything up. What does make me wonder is if Bauer hadn’t butted in, her contact with Val would have ended as a casual conversation.”

Petra said, “Val realizes Ellie could be talking about her dad? Feels like throwing up in her mouth but figures it’ll go nowhere. Then Bauer takes over and it gets bad.”

Milo said, “If so, she coulda been ready for us, what we saw was well rehearsed. Next step call one or both of her big brothers. Raking up the past could pose the same risk for them. Or she handles it herself.”

I said, “After you sent Dorothy’s photo to Bill, he could’ve said he had no idea. Instead he said he didn’t know her but he did recognize her as a harem member.”

“Strategy,” said Petra. “Guy’s a lawyer, used to scheming. We see that in suspects who are smart or think they are, right? Be semi-cooperative and you come across innocent. And sometimes it works. Besides, there’s no evidence. What would Dorothy’s presence in the house thirty-plus years ago prove? So it pays to play along, maybe learn details of the investigation.”

I said, “But then why shoot Twohy?”

Both of them frowned.

Milo said, “Maybe that wasn’t Bill’s decision.”

Petra said, “Kiddie-Book arranged a hit on her own?”

“Or she talked to Dr. Tony, her other brother, and he was more action-oriented. I’ve tried the guy three times and he still hasn’t called me back. It’s too late in Illinois but I’ll give it another go tomorrow.”

Petra said, “I’m going to synchronize with Raul then head over to the scene.”

“See you, kid.”

She yawned. “Wish I felt like a kid.”

I spent the next two days with children under stress. The custody cases weren’t the worst I’d seen but neither were they ideal. Nice, well-balanced kids; I’d work hard to keep it that way.

The eighteen-month-old trauma victim was a chubby, black-eyed girl named Amelia with a surprisingly quick smile. Good temperament; a plus. When her mother, a five-eight, hundred-pound graphic designer named Lara, warily introduced me as a doctor, she said, “Da-ka.”

The collision had sprained Lara’s shoulder and ankle. The latter was swaddled by an elastic bandage, and every step was clearly painful. As was the session we’d had last week when I’d taken a history.

This morning, she said, “She keeps waking up. This has been hell.”

I said, “Sorry for what you’ve been through.”

“Not sorrier than me.” She began playing with her phone, leaving Amelia to toddle around the office.

I keep toys to a minimum, using the few that play a role in therapy. For a child this age, the playhouse would do. I’d positioned it in the center of the floor, and it didn’t take long for Amelia to get to it.

Cheerful and relaxed as she sat down and began exploring. Good sign.

Then she spotted the miniature cars in the garage, shrank back and hugged herself. A run to her mother ended with a swing up to the maternal lap.

“See what I mean? She freaks out. Just getting here in the loaner was an ordeal.”

I picked up the cars. “It’s understandable.”

“You really think you can help her?”

“I do.”

“Hard to believe,” she said. “But my lawyer said try. He also said you’ll document everything for the case.”

Amelia looked at her.

I said, “Bad cars,” and tossed them onto the floor.

Amelia’s gaze switched back to me.

“Bad,” I said, louder. Extending a foot and kicking the vehicles.

“Bah,” she said. Looking to her mother for guidance.

Lara folded her arms across her chest. “What would you like her to do, now?”

I picked up the cars and tossed them again. Amelia scampered off the sofa and did the same.

Her mother said, “Really? Again?”

I said, “Bad bad cars. You can throw them again.”

I pantomimed a toss.

Another glance at her mother.

Lara rolled her eyes. “If he says so.”

Amelia turned to me, turned doubtful by her mother’s tone. I retrieved the toys and threw them nearly to the far wall. “Bad cars!”

Inhaling and squeezing her hands into tiny fists, Amelia ran over and aped my motions. Picked the cars up. “Bah bah bah.”

She began breathing hard.

“That’s okay? The way she’s panting.”

I nodded.

“If you say so.”

We watched as Amelia went through car-assault eight more times. I use hard-plastic miniatures able to take the abuse. Sometimes I spackle and repaint the wall.

By the time Amelia left the office, insistent upon walking unaided, one of the cars was clutched in her tiny hand.

Her mother said, “That’s the doctor’s.”

I said, “That’s okay, now it’s Amelia’s.”

Swinging the vehicle overhead, the child trotted away, laughing. Her mother muttered, “Go know.”

I walked them out of the house and down to a Mercedes of Beverly Hills loaner SUV.

Amelia’s mother opened a rear passenger door and said, “Okay.”

Amelia hesitated for a second, then climbed in and allowed herself to be buckled in. All the while passing the toy from hand to hand.

“Ooom, bah bah bah.”

I said, “Oom va-roooom.”

She tittered then broke into a giggle fit.

Lara smiled despite herself. Before she got behind the wheel, she faced me, biting her lip.

I said, “A question?”

“So that’s it?”

“No, we’ll need more sessions. In the meantime, don’t do anything different. But if she does want to get mad at the cars, don’t stop her.”

Amelia began humming.

“Okay... maybe this will actually be useful. I guess.”

Amelia said, “Vuhooom!”

Lara said, “Um, do you do eating disorders?”

At eight p.m., Milo called my private line and asked if I was still “healing miniature psyches.”

“Free now but tied up until noon tomorrow. Progress?”

“Nah, I’ve just got something I want you to hear.”

“I’m listening.”

“Hear as in verbal exchange, then we discuss. Not over the phone.”

I was tired, had planned to finish my paperwork then unwind with Chivas and my guitar gently weeping. But he sounded needy and Robin had returned to her shop and would be working late tweezing minuscule inlay onto the mandolin’s sound-hole rosette.

Her guess: back by nine. Eleven was more likely.

I said, “I’ll leave the door open.”

At two the following day, he picked me up in the Impala, newly redolent of refried beans and hot sauce, and drove to Los Feliz. A couple of blocks into the leafy enclave where Ellie Barker had chosen to rent, he pulled to the curb.

“Here’s the place.”

We got out and looked. A man had been shot here three days ago but you’d never know it.

Nice houses, well-tended lawns, not a speck of blood on the sidewalk. Time alone didn’t explain that. No rain had fallen, neither cops nor techs do cleanup. I’d been to scenes where body fluids had lingered for weeks.

Peering closely revealed some lightening of the concrete. Scour marks, a citizen effort.

Milo said, “Like it never happened.”

I said, “Pride of ownership.”

“Leads to janitorial inequality.” He examined a screen shot Petra had sent him and continued to a ten-foot mock orange fronting a neat white colonial. No obvious entry from the street, but parting the bush’s branches revealed a cave-like space.

We stepped in. Roundish, four feet square, only a foot higher so we both needed to hunch.

Natural hollow created by the mock orange seeking sunlight. Tough posture for the long run but someone able to sit or squat comfortably would’ve been fine. And once sequestered, a stalker would be safe from view and able to sight through the shrub’s lacy growth.

Perfect hunter’s blind.

The prey, easy; giving himself away with shuffling and hard breathing.

Milo and I inspected the cavity. Not a shred of evidence left behind. Someone taking the time to clean up faultlessly.

We returned to the car and drove on.

Nothing different at Ellie’s residence until Milo pushed the bell and the door opened on a black man the size of a defensive tackle wearing a blue blazer and gray slacks. Iconic Security embroidered in gold above the breast pocket. The jacket had been left open, advertising the chunky handle of a black plastic automatic in a black mesh shoulder holster.

The guard’s eyes scanned us rapidly. Inspection over, he smiled but didn’t move or speak.

Milo said, “Lieutenant Sturgis.”

“Expecting you, sir. You don’t mind showing some I.D.”

Statement of fact, not a request.

Out came the badge.

“Nice. I got to sergeant.” He turned to me. “You’re the doctor?”

“Alex Delaware.”

“Sorry for the inconvenience but you don’t mind showing some I.D.”

Quick read of my driver’s license. “Thanks again and excuse the formality but regs are regs.”

Milo said, “Understood. Glad you’re here, friend. Name?”

“Melvin Boudreaux.”

“Louisiana?”

“Born in Baton Rouge,” said Boudreaux, “but moved to SoCal as a kid, worked El Monte PD eleven years. C’mon in, there’s a pitcher of iced tea. Had some, it’s good.”

Boudreaux held the door as we entered the house and crossed to the living room. Before closing the door, he checked out the street, then stationed himself in the entry hall.

Ellie was seated in the same chair. The coffee table was set with a pitcher of amber liquid, plastic glasses, napkins, a paper plate of cookies.

Since I’d seen her in the hospital, she’d lost skin tone and color. Maybe some weight, as well, though a baggy dress clouded that assessment. The dress was dust-colored printed with pale-pink flowers. On her feet were brown rubber bath sandals. No sign of the serpentine necklace. No adornment at all, not even a watch.

We sat on the couch. Milo said, “How’s Brannon doing?”

“Better?” she said, turning it into a question. “So far no infection, which was the main danger. I’m hoping to get him home in a couple of days. He’s miserable about not running.”

“Tough when you’re active.”

Biting her lip, she glanced at Mel Boudreaux. “I’m okay, Mr. B. Have some lunch, there’s that pasta and pizza in the fridge.”

Boudreaux said, “Yes, ma’am,” and left for the kitchen.

Milo said, “Good step, hiring him.”

Ellie said, “I had to, the first day — alone here — was terrifying. I didn’t eat or sleep. So there was no choice. He seems very competent. Do you know the company? I guess I should’ve asked you before?”

“I don’t but that doesn’t mean anything. Private security isn’t part of my world.”

“Yes, I’d imagine,” she said. “The people you deal with weren’t careful. Not that there was any reason for Brannon to be careful. Who’d imagine?” She placed her hands in her lap. Sat there, like a kid waiting for a reprimand. When none came, she said, “Have you given more thought to whether it’s related to my mother?”

Milo shook his head. “Whatever the reason, protecting yourself is a good idea.”

“I got the referral from the firm we use at our factories — the firm I used to use when I ran the company. I took your advice and told them it needed to be local and they said Iconic’s got a branch office right here in Hollywood, they do a lot of entertainment security. I also checked out references. Real ones, not online blurbs that can be faked Then I made calls to some CEOs I know. They come highly recommended... I still can’t believe it happened. It feels weirder now than right after. Is that normal, Dr. Delaware?”

“Absolutely.”

“Good... not that it matters. I suppose. Being normal. You feel what you feel and have no control. Right now I’m feeling pretty powerless. So what kind of feedback do you have for me, Lieutenant — and yes, I remember you said it was limited.” An almost-smile stretched and made the grade. “Don’t worry, my expectations are realistic.”

Despite the claim, her shoulders bunched as she scooted forward.

Milo said, “Before we get into that, is there anything else you’ve remembered since we last spoke?”

“Like what?”

“Anything, Ellie. Even if you think it’s too trivial to mention — maybe a remark your dad made before he passed? About your mom, their relationship, why she left?”

She edged back. “No, he never said much of anything, just that she’d left us behind.”

That sounded like blame. I said, “Did he have any resentment about that?”

“None at all,” she said, too quickly. Then she colored. “Okay, I’m lying. But only partially. For the most part, he really wasn’t emotional about it. But there was one time — only one time, so I’m not sure how relevant it is.”

Her spine was pressing against the chair-back. Full retreat but nowhere else to go. She looked from side to side, then down at her lap. “It was my fault, I was badgering him.”

“About your mom?”

“No, about something stupid — who remembers? This was back when I was in my rebel-without-a-cause stage, determined to torment him every way I could think of.”

The corners of her eyes filled with moisture. She used a napkin to dry them. “I really put him through it.”

I said, “How old were you?”

“Fourteen, fifteen — even part of thirteen got messed up. I think of those years as the hurricane season, they must’ve been hellish for him.” Deep sigh. “I didn’t say anything about this when we first met because I didn’t want to make her sound bad. But...”

We waited. She poured tea. Didn’t drink it. Pincer-grasped a cookie between thumb and forefinger, examined it, rotated it, put it down. “Oh, what the hey, might as well give you all the gory details. Back then, I wasn’t just truant, I was a major pain-in-the-ass stoner, hanging with other stoners, basically toking up all day.” Looking to the side. “Sometimes using more than weed.”

Waiting for a reaction. We gave her none. She shook her head. “Also... I was having sex with boys. Bad boys. Stupid boys. Doing everything I could to mess up my life.”

I said, “But your grades stayed good.”

She’d told us that but the memory seemed to jar her. “How do you know that?”

“You said so.”

“I did? My brain must be rotting — well, that’s true, I did everything wrong but still got all A’s. I attribute it to school being mostly a waste of time. I could read fast, had a good attention span, and those days I had an excellent memory. And even when I was slutting it up, I kept college tucked in a corner of my brain. Like, one day this is going to end and I’ll make something of myself. Anyway, I was rarely in class but ended up scoring in the school’s top three achievement test scores. That really ticked off the administration.”

I said, “Confronting them with their essential uselessness.”

She burst into laughter. Looked at me in a new way. Maybe this guy isn’t out to drill my skull.

“Ha ha, probably. Meanwhile, Dad’s at his wit’s end, no matter how many times he tried to explain things rationally and patiently, I did what he didn’t want. One day, he just lost it and started screaming at me. I was wasting my life, being an idiot, behaving like a strumpet — he actually used that word, strumpet. I thought it was hilarious, like something out of Monty Python. I laughed in his face and that did it. He turned purple — I mean literally, not just flushed, purple. And all dark around the eyes. It was bizarre. Like seeing a new creature morph.”

She laughed again. Softly. Sadly. “Of course being grokked out of my head didn’t help my perception. There I was, barely able to maintain and he’s purple. He started coming at me, like this.” Shoving her face forward and balling her fists.

The memory leached color from an already pallid face. “I was terrified. He’d never hit me, not even close, but this was different, I’m thinking you’ve lit a match, stupid, now you’re going to get burned. I backed away but he kept coming and now his lips are shaking and his eyes are bulging and I’m freaking one hundred percent out but I can’t move any farther because I’m up against the kitchen wall. So I screamed. This insane, banshee shriek, I couldn’t believe it came out of me. And he stopped. As if he knew a bad thing was on the verge of happening — something that couldn’t be reversed.”

Twisting in her chair, she began to cry, used the napkin, crumpled it, hung her head. “He had this look on his face, like I was disgusting. I’d stopped screaming but inside I was still freaking out. Then this creepy grin crept onto his face. His teeth weren’t great, he grew up poor. I remember thinking how brown and crooked they looked at that moment. Feral, you know? Then, as if someone had twisted a dial, he shrugged and said, ‘Like mother, like daughter,’ turned his back on me, and left. The next day when I got home I found his bedroom door locked and a note on my bed saying he’d registered me at Milrock, I could either go or find somewhere else to live.”

“Tough love,” said Milo.

“I deserved it. Sorry for not telling you the first time.”

I said, “You didn’t want to cast a bad light on either of them.”

“Especially Dad. He was the only parent I ever knew, never pressured me or made demands until I acted like a complete moron. Which even at the time I knew I was doing, but I wouldn’t — couldn’t relent.” Head shake. “Disruption for its own sake.”

Milo said, “Like mother like daughter.”

“After calling me a strumpet. The implication was clear. And it makes sense. What kind of mother leaves her biological child with a man she wasn’t even married to? For all she knew he could’ve given me up and I’d end up in foster care. So maybe she was loose. And egocentric. And whatever else — maybe I shouldn’t waste your time and mine. But I feel driven to — it’s like a hole that needs to be filled. If I don’t try, I’ll never feel resolved.”

She breathed in and out, ran her fingers through her hair, rubbed her eyes. “So what did you want to tell me?”

“We’ve verified your mother coming down to L.A. and living with a wealthy man.”

“Who? Someone famous?”

“Just rich,” said Milo. “At this stage, it’s best not to get into details.”

“Oh, c’mon, Lieutenant. Why can’t I know? Did what I just tell you cast aspersions on my sanity?”

“Not at all.”

“Then what? Do you think I’ll misuse the information?”

“It may not be relevant information.”

“So?”

“If you really want a thorough investigation, we can’t afford any sort of snafu.”

“Meaning what?”

“You confront someone, they complain to the cops, I’m pulled off the case.”

Masterful improv.

Ellie Barker said, “So we’re talking someone with clout.”

Milo smiled.

“Fine, be enigmatic — I have to tell you, your reasoning is kind of paternalistic. Hysterical woman bound to confront.”

“Not at all, Ellie.”

“Then what?”

“A hole that needs to be filled can fuel all sorts of things.”

“I am not going to — fine, I’ll back off, you barely know me, why should you trust me? But you’ll see, I can be trusted. And at some point, when you do have good information, I deserve to be informed.”

“You will be,” said Milo. “Just bear with it.”

“Oh, Lord — I’ve lasted this long, suppose I can endure. Are we talking someone in the movie business? Not famous like an actor, maybe behind the scenes?”

“Why would you think that?”

“She came to Hollywood. And in that picture I gave you, she looks pretty theatrical, don’t you think? Standing in some forest and she’s dolled up like for a party?”

I said, “Neither of them look like outdoorsy types. Your dad’s wearing a suit.”

“You’re right about that. I don’t think he owned a pair of sneakers.”

I glanced at Milo.

All these years, we’re attuned to cuing and receiving.

He said, “That’s kind of interesting. We looked into his death and he—”

“Went hiking and fell off a cliff,” she said. “I also thought about telling you but couldn’t see that it mattered. But yes, it is weird.”

“That park,” he said. “Did you know him to frequent it?”

“Never. But by then I was out of the house, for all I knew he was trying to get in shape — late-in-life exercise or something. For all I know he was interested in a new woman and that’s why. Though I doubt that. Dad just wasn’t like that. Or so I’d like to think.”

I said, “Like what?”

“Superficial, out for appearances. Unlike her. Maybe.”

Flash of heat in the gray eyes. “She walks out on us and goes to live with a rich guy in Hollywood? It’s pathetic, no? A cliché.”

Her lips moved. A single muttered word. If I hadn’t just heard it recently, I might not have deciphered.

Strumpet.

As Ellie walked us to the door, Melvin Boudreaux appeared. Before Ellie got there he was in front of her, cracking the oak six inches and peering outside. Satisfied, he opened all the way and stationed himself in the center of the inner courtyard.

Ellie looked startled at being cut off.

Boudreaux said, “Part of the job, ma’am.”

“Ma’am, again. Do they teach you guys that in police school?”

Milo said, “We pride ourselves on being gentlemen.”

“Ah,” said Ellie Barker. “I suppose I could get used to it.”

San Marino Fish Market was a sparkling storefront on a busy intersection. The city’s genteel with an older demographic, and that shaped the driving. Steady but civilized traffic created a constant low thunder.

Plenty of free parking was available near the entrance. Milo slid in next to a chocolate-brown Mercedes 500 with a miniature horseshoe hanging from the rearview mirror. Chocolate-colored cowgirl hat on the backseat. He rubbed his face, like washing without water. Edginess kicked up several notches.

Inside the restaurant were four round tables covered in white butcher paper and backed by a small refrigerated case featuring treasures from the briny. On the wall was what you’d expect in an old-school seafood joint: coiled ropes and nets, wood-and-brass captain’s wheels, a deep-sea diver mask, an illustrated chart featuring sketches of finned and shelled creatures.

Three tables were occupied by groups of white-haired people. The one closest to the door was set with three chairs, one of them filled amply by a large, poodle-coiffed woman wearing a blue denim, pearl-snap western shirt. Diet Coke and a basket of sourdough in front of her. Jaws working on the bread.

Milo said, “Mrs. Gaines?”

She chewed some more then swallowed, all the while studying us. “Brilliant deduction, you must be a detective. Who’s this?”

“Alex Delaware.”

“My son’s named Alex. He’s an actuary. I ordered for myself, it’s probably too early for you.”

“We’re fine.” He began to sit down.

“Uh-uh, at the counter,” said Winifred Gaines, pointing. “You pick out your victim, they cook it and bring it to you.”

“The fish are live?”

“No, dead. Like your victims.”

We rolled up to my house eighty-eight tedious minutes later. Nearly an hour and a half of stop-and-go to cover twenty miles.

Milo turned off the car. “You mind making some coffee? I’m gonna be up for a while trying to figure things out.”

“No prob.”

We trudged up the stairs to the terrace and I unlocked the door.

Robin was in the living room reading Acoustic Guitar. She’d changed out of her work clothes into a black cowl-necked sweater, charcoal tights, and red flats. A collection of bangle bracelets decorated one wrist, the watch I’d given her last Christmas banded the other.

She sprang up and hugged me, gave Milo a cheek peck.

I said, “You look gorgeous. Where’re we going?”

Milo straightened from petting Blanche. “Have fun, kids.” He turned to leave.

Robin held him back by his arm. “You look worn out. You both do. I was thinking something simple, burgers, sushi, whatever. Join us, Big Guy.”

“You’re an angel but I’ve got something protruding here.” He reached around to the small of his back. “Oh, yeah, it’s a fifth wheel.”

“Poor baby. C’mon, let’s get nutrition.”

I said, “Heed her wise counsel.”

Robin said, “Exactly. He does and look how well he’s weathered the onslaught of time.”

Pooh-bah parking translated to Milo waiting by the gate to the staff lot and inserting his card as I drove up.

He bowed and scraped. “Second aisle, midway down. Sir. Better yet, I’ll accompany you, how’s that for service?”

He opened the passenger door and got in.

I said, “Babysitting for a few yards?”

“Got the photo in your briefcase? You can have cookies and milk.”

He took Franklin west to La Brea, continued on Hollywood Boulevard, passing the elegant, vintage apartment buildings and newer rectangles that made up the skimpy residential section of the boulevard.

A right onto Laurel rewarded us with congestion due to work crews that weren’t working, followed by a crawl up to Mulholland and a right turn that granted us isolation and clarity.

He sped to the spot Du Galoway had guesstimated, pulled to the left and parked, and we got out of the car.

Interesting sky, the western half a lucid blue so saturated with pigment it bordered on lurid, the eastern section a mirage-like mass of smoke-colored clouds. Probably ocean currents doing half the job. The separation was almost artificial.

Below all that, the Valley was a vast circuit board, brown and white and beige, with dots of coral red where tile roofs sprouted like spores.

Milo phoned Val Des Barres.

She said, “On my way.”

We watched her drive away at twenty miles per.

Milo wagged a finger. “Don’t say it.”

“What?”

“My newfound animal magnetism.”

I said, “If they only knew.”

“Hey, don’t dismiss it, either.” He clapped me on the back. “Maybe all the time I’ve been hanging with you, something’s rubbed off.”

We got back in the car. He backed onto Mulholland and headed west. “Letting the devil in. Think he was talking about himself or one of his femmes getting fatale with Arlette and Dorothy?”

I said, “Arlette’s death opened up a whole new world for Des Barres. He’d have no motive for thinning the harem but a jealous competitor would.”

“Coupla blondes take a ride in the Caddy, one comes back.”

“And even if Des Barres hadn’t played a role in Dorothy’s death, he might have figured it out. Or been told about it. Either way, it sat in his brain for decades. Then he got prostate cancer. If it impacted his sexual drive that might’ve seemed like rough justice. Soon after, his stomach went bad and he became terminally ill. On his deathbed, with the neurons scrambled, he blurted out a veiled confession.”

“Makes sense. Now try to prove it.”

As we reached Laurel Canyon, I said, “Someone like Femme, can’t see her just walking away empty-handed.”

“She blackmailed Des Barres?”

“Or just lifted trinkets from the mansion and split. It’s an enormous place, with an owner not paying attention, it might not have been that hard.”

“True,” he said. “When I was starting out I had a burglary case. Holmby Hills, housekeeper gradually stole designer gowns and furs. Took the victim fifteen months to discover it, and by that time the maid was gone.”

He phoned Petra, got voicemail, asked her to see if she could find any burglary complaints at the Des Barres residence between twenty-five and forty years ago. Clicking off, he sang the chorus from Tom Petty’s “The Waiting” in a rumbly basso. His voice isn’t bad when he pays attention.

I said, “Maybe there’s a shortcut. Give me Val’s number.”

Hesse stood in the doorway as we walked to the unmarked. Before we reached the car, he shouted, “I bought plenty of those as props. Afterward we gave ’em to the stuntmen, they liked to hot-rod ’em.”

We laughed. Hesse beamed.

Milo said, “Good deed for the day,” as we got in.

The lumps in his jaw had receded but his shoulders were bunched and his hands were restless. He sped south toward Sunset.

I said, “You know the Missing Persons D.”

Pulling over just short of the boulevard, he produced his phone, scrolled for a while, handed it over.

LAPD personnel headshot of a long-faced man with a gray, wicket-shaped mustache. The resemblance to Fred Gwynne more than passing.

Below the image: P. J. Seeger, Detective II.

I said, “Before Homicide, he worked Missing Persons.”

“I’ll take that bet. You thinking what I am?”

“Seeger worked the missing girl and connected her to Des Barres but couldn’t take it further. Years later, he’s in Homicide and gets handed Dorothy’s murder as a low-priority cold case. He began the same way Galoway did, with the Cadillac, and connected it to Des Barres. Now he’s wondering about multiple murders at the mansion but too much time has lapsed to make any progress.”

“Exactly. Dorothy was handed to him as really warm beer, same as with Galoway. In Galoway’s case because he was a rookie and his captain didn’t like him. In Seeger’s case maybe his rep as a drudge was the reason. Whatever the case, without results, the bosses wouldn’t have allowed him much time to poke around.”

I said, “What if both cases stuck with Seeger and after he retired, he began digging around on his own? Asked the wrong questions of the wrong people and ended up run off the road on his Harley. That could explain the time lag between working Dorothy and his death.”

He took his time considering that. “Lemme have the phone back.”

More scrolling, another preset, switch to speaker.

“Hi, Deirdre, it’s Milo Sturgis again.”

A woman said, “Oh, hi. What’s up?”

“I know you said Phil didn’t talk about his cases but did he ever happen to mention any missings from way back?”

“He had so many of those, Milo. Have you ever worked them?”

“Never.”

“Phil hated missings,” said Deirdre Seeger. “He said you put so much time into them and most of them resolve by themselves. He was happy to switch to Property Crimes and then when his application for Homicide finally got approved, he was jumping for joy.”

“So no discussions about specific cases.”

“No, Phil cherished our time together. Cherished me and kept me away from bad things. I mean, sometimes he’d say I’ve got a frustrating one, doll. But that’s about it. How long ago is ‘way back’?”

“Thirty-seven, — eight years, maybe forty. Give or take.”

“That’s right after he got out of uniform and started at Missings. All I know from that time was he kept long hours and came home tired. But my cooking revived him. My desserts, especially.”

“The missing in question is a young woman, Deirdre. Early twenties, hung out in Beverly Hills.”

“That doesn’t help,” she said. “And Beverly Hills? Way outside of Phil’s jurisdiction. What he would’ve called above my pay grade.”

“Okay, thanks, and sorry for bothering you.”

“Oh, it’s no bother, Milo. I’m not exactly on a tight schedule.”

The phone went back into his pocket.

I said, “Frustration can hang you up or push you forward.”

“Seeger somehow got a fire in his belly?”

“Free to do what he wanted, no pressure from above? Maybe bored with retirement?”

“Hmm... never experienced pressure myself but that’s because of my magnetism.”

“No doubt.”

As he reached for the shift lever, I said, “Maybe Galoway remembers something from Seeger’s notes.”

“Didn’t sound that way when we talked to him but can’t hurt to ask.”

Du Galoway’s hearty voice came on after two rings. “Milo. Hey, what’s up? Progress, I hope? You got me thinking about the case.”

“I wish, Du. I’m calling to ask you something.”

“Sure, shoot.”

“Was there any mention in Seeger’s notes about a missing at Des Barres’s place prior to Dorothy’s murder?”

“Des Barres,” said Galoway. “You’re looking into the bastard. Great.”

“Baby steps,” said Milo.

“But sorry, nothing like that. You’re thinking the bastard was a serial? Shit, wouldn’t that be something.”

“What caught my interest in the missing is Seeger worked it before he got to Homicide.”

“You’re kidding,” said Galoway. “It’s getting that smell, isn’t it? Too bad I never got time to work it properly.”

“Pressure from the boss.”

“Nuclear pressure. I’m a greenhorn, getting nowhere, the fat slob’s pissed in the first place that I applied to Homicide and got in — why’m I telling you this, you know what the job’s like. So who was the missing?”

“All I know so far is she hung with Des Barres.”

“At the house?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe,” said Galoway. “Sorry for poking, I used to hate when I was working a tough one and someone did that to me.”

“No prob, Du. If you remember anything about anything, let me know.”

Galoway sighed. “Wish I could say that was going to happen. It’s the failures that stick with us, right? Good luck.”

Milo hung up but kept the phone in his hand. “Any other suggestions?”

I said, “Don’t imagine Hollywood missings files were preserved better than homicides, but...”

“You’re right, less than unlikely.” But he phoned the archivist, got voicemail.

Just as he began to pull away from the curb, Petra called.

He explained about the burglary at Des Barres’s house and how the decision not to file a report had mooted the issue.

She said, “He loses a bunch of bling but lets it ride? That’s different. My experience is rich folks are the most aggressive when it comes to their stuff. You’re thinking there was another reason Des Barres didn’t want any poking around at the castle.”

“Buried bodies,” said Milo. “Literally or otherwise.”

“Any way to get in there and poke around?”

“Not yet but there’s a possible hook for the long run.” He filled her in about the missing woman and P. J. Seeger’s involvement.

She said, “Two women gone. I’m picturing an unofficial graveyard out back.”

“Could be, it’s a big place.”

“Yuck. When did this other girl go missing?”

“Before Dorothy’s death. Des Barres’s second wife died a year before, maybe they’re connected.”

He told her about the woman Winifred Gaines had seen following Arlette Des Barres into the forest, our theory about an aspiring Queen Bee.

She said, “Money’s always motive number one and there was plenty of it. A murder victim and a missing in the same photo. Sounds like joining the harem was a high-risk endeavor.”

“Val Des Barres has that same feeling.” He related our meeting.

She said, “Letting the devil in. Think she knows more than what she can admit right now?”

“Could be. She didn’t have to step forward in the first place, so there’d be no reason to be evasive.”

“Still, there could be something psychological — denial, whatever. Alex there?”

I said, “Here.”

“That make sense to you? Whatever she suspects of her dad, he’s still her dad, there’s just so much she can handle?”

“Could be.”

She laughed. “That’s all I’m going to get?”

Milo said, “He’s like that. But when he does consent to elaborate, it can get interesting.”

“Still waters running deep,” she said. “Yeah, I’ve seen him do that.”

I said, “Ahem.”

“C’mon, Alex, worship from afar is the best a consultant can hope for. Milo, what about the third girl in the photo? Could she be the bad girl?”

“Maybe, she’s got great cheekbones,” said Milo.

Winking at me. The same was true of Petra and she’d heard about it plenty.

She laughed. “Excellent structure is not a personality flaw.”

“So you claim. Listen, kid, don’t want to keep bugging you but Seeger was at your shop. Any chance there are prehistoric missing files lying around?”

“I doubt it. Since the remodel, anything that shows up is random. But I’ll check.”

“Appreciate it. Want me to email the photo?”

“Can’t hurt. Unless those cheekbones are too impressive.”

“I wouldn’t worry.”

“Aw, gee,” she said. “All this workplace support.”

The war room was an interview space on the second floor, down the hall from Milo’s office. He’d set up two rolling whiteboards and a long folding table with five plug-in landlines. Four chairs along the length, one at the head. A smaller round table in the corner held a coffee urn, cups, and pink boxes from a bakery he passes driving from his house in West Hollywood to the station.

No crumbs. Everyone in work mode, reading and writing, the phones unused.

My friend’s relative independence from departmental routine comes with hitches. One of them is that unlike other lieutenants, he has no one under his direct command and when the need for support comes up he’s forced to petition his captain. What he calls “the bended knee routine.”

Coming from a semi-freelance not on the department’s books, any request on Swoboda would be deemed iffy. But helped along by Ellie’s call, he’d done okay, scoring a team of three. Two faces I knew well, one I’d never seen before.

At the left end of the long table, Detective Moses Reed, muscle-bound, crew-cut, ruddy, and baby-faced, sifted through paper and made notes. He looked up for a sec and finger-waved. So did Detective I Alicia Bogomil, ponytailed, raptor-eyed, and clean-featured, positioned next to him.

To Alicia’s right a uniformed officer kept squinting in concentration.

No sign of D II Sean Binchy, the usual third leg of the investigatory tripod.

Milo was on his feet, near one of the boards. He said, “Hey,” and that drew the uniform away from her pen and pencil.

Young — early twenties — with big, black, startled eyes and French-braided hair the same color. J. Arredondo.

Milo settled next to her, which stretched her eyes wider. He indicated the chair at the head. “Doctor.”

I said, “Position of honor?”

“Who better? Officer, this is Dr. Delaware, the psychologist I told you about.”

Whatever he’d told J. Arredondo made her gnaw her lower lip and look at me with uncertainty.

I smiled and held out my hand. “Alex.”

Her palm was moist. “Jen.”

Milo said, “Sean’s on vacation so patrol gave us this fine officer for a few days.”

Arredondo’s soft, rosy mouth allowed itself a tremulous smile.

I sat and read the boards. Both were filled with columns of hash marks labeled P, N, F, and V? Entire sections were slashed with diagonal lines.

I said, “Tips?”

Milo nodded and picked up a sheet. “Here’s where we are, so far. The department missing site pulled up sixteen. A couple looked promising but didn’t pan out.”

Jen Arredondo’s frown said she’d been assigned to that sift.

“The websites,” he went on, “were the usual mixed blessing. From five of them, we got two hundred ninety responses. Those we divided into prankster, nutcase, flaky psychic, and potentially valid. Finished that tally yesterday and got it down to... a hundred and two possibles. Those people we’ve begun emailing, asking for phone numbers and recording each contact for follow-up. Responses are trickling in so we’re repeating, sometimes three, four times. Of the people we actually spoke to, very little has turned out promising. Wrong time period, wrong age, physical stats not even close. Despite the dates I listed, some people were decades off.”

I said, “Desperation distracts.”

“Yeah, there’s a whole lot of wishful thinking out there.”

He put the paper down. “I pulled a few possibles for my own review. There are plenty of initials to go, and new tips may come in over time. If Officer Arredondo is still with us, she’ll be handling them.”

Arredondo said, “Yes, sir.”

Alicia said, “Wishful thinking and sad endings, Doc. With death records so accessible, whoever runs the sites could’ve pared down.”

Moe said, “The volume the sites deal with, they probably don’t deal with that.”

“Well, they should,” she said. “Searching for the truth and going public means responsibility.”

Milo said, “We must be talking about a different internet.”

Moe smiled. Alicia shrugged and returned to work.

Arredondo had followed the interchange with fascination.

Milo said, “The deaths do create an issue. We have no obligation to inform family members but morally I think we need to. But my feeling is don’t take the time now, wait and see what the final pile looks like.”

I said, “Make sense.”

He smiled at Arredondo: “I turn to him for occasional validation.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Whenever we do notify, Officer, you won’t have to be part of it.”

“I don’t mind, sir.”

“Appreciate the can-do attitude but it’s the part of the job we hate and you don’t need to put yourself through it.”

“Okay, sir.”

He turned to me. “Let’s take a walk.”

Type A parents don’t mind weekend appointments and neither do I. So I worked on custody cases from eight to noon, celebrated a quiet house with coffee, then returned to my office to get organized. Thirty-five emails, mostly junk. One from Milo, at eleven fourteen.

I called his cell. He said, “Just about to give up on you and leave for a noon meeting with Owen. She sounds encouragingly not-crazy. You wanna meet me there?”

“Sure.”

“Brentwood. She’s working today, so close to her job, Hava-Java, San Vicente near Bundy.”

“See you there.”

“You already caffeinated? I am.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“So we’ll go decaf.”

Milo said, “Oh, do we get surprised. Let’s walk a bit.”

We strode the strip-mall walkway, passing all kinds of opportunities to ingest calories and a gym where you could burn them off. Spandex and unspoken intensity abounded. People trying so hard to defy the passage of time.

He said, “Well, that was a game changer.” Out came the Azalea Club photo from his case. “Three blondes, probably all murdered, and the Sultan dies in his bed confessing. You ever actually see that in psychopaths? Sudden burst of guilt?”

“So far not the ones who premeditate murder. But like I said, terminal illness can mess with the nervous system.”

“Biology, not morality?”

“I wouldn’t count on morality.”

“Hunh. Sometimes I think you’re more cynical than I am. Anyway, the creepiness level has just ratcheted higher and who knows where it’ll end. Maybe I will ask Val for permission to bring in the radar.”

“Think she’d agree?”

“She came to us about the confession.”

“True but she’s ambivalent, and too much disruption could tip her over. Also, the house isn’t only hers, her brothers are co-owners. If she felt the need to call them, it could go bad pretty fast.”

“What, then?”

“When’s your appointment with Nancy Strattine?”

“Hour and a half, Oxnard.”

“I’d wait to hear what she has to say. Meanwhile we can try to learn about the photo studio and Vicki Barlow. Sterling Lawrence and others like him could be where Des Barres sourced his women.”

“Fine art covering for pimping.”

“Lawrence could’ve had a steady supply, Des Barres and men like him provided the demand.”

“What’s that called, symbiosis?”

“If you’re being charitable.”

“If not?”

“Flesh peddling.”

“Okay, let’s get back to my wheels and see if ol’ Sterling has a past.”

We left the winery and headed east toward the Del Norte on-ramp to the 101. Milo maintained an easy seventy-eight mph all the way to Thousand Oaks, where his phone rang with a text.

He handed it to me. “See if it’s anything.”

“Detective Sherry Mulhern, Valley Division. Call when you have a chance, no reason given.”

He said, “Keeping it brief, sounds like something active. Do me a favor and speaker it, then hold it close enough for me to talk.”

I put the phone on my left leg, maxed the volume, called the number.

A tobacco voice said, “Mulhern.”

“Sturgis.”

“Thanks for getting back so quick. I’m Valley Burglary, caught one in Granada Hills. Complainant is extremely freaked out, which is understandable. What’s different is she claims it could be related to some sort of contact with you but she won’t say what. Older woman, she seems okay mentally, but I’m no doctor. Deirdre Seeger, did you have dealings with her?”

“Couple of phone conversations,” said Milo. “Are you at the scene now?”

“For a while, the techies are doing their thing,” said Sherry Mulhern. “So she’s mentally stable?”

“Far as I know.”

“It’s probably shock, then. Can’t blame her, every room was basically trashed, going to take time to get prints and whatever else.”

“What’s the address?”

“You’re coming over?”

“Might as well, I’m in Thousand Oaks, can make it in twenty-five.”

“Okay,” said Mulhern, sounding amused. She read off an address on Southland Street. “That level of speed, watch out for the Chippies, they don’t give us any breaks.”

Thirty-one miles to the base of the Santa Susana Mountains, two more miles to reach the crime scene. One CHP car spotted, already ticketing a trucker.

Twenty-seven minutes.

The house was a low-slung, white midcentury with a sea-green door on a street lined with mature trees. One of the holdouts; most of neighbors had McMansionized. A venerable lemon tree spread across the left side of a fading lawn, evoking Granada Hills’s orchard origins. Same for the navel orange on the right. Other than the trees, just grass split by a cement walkway. Entry blocked by yellow tape.

Milo pulled behind a navy-blue Crown Victoria sedan with a sagging rear end and cop plates. Ford had stopped making the big sedans in 2011 but they endured as the go-to unmarked for situations where you didn’t need to be unmarked.

Behind the Crown Vic was a white Scientific Division van. The scenes I’m called to feature at least two vans. One for the technicians, one for the crypt drivers. Plus the compacts the coroner’s investigators take when they’re dispatched to go through dead people’s pockets.

The absence of all that did nothing to mollify the woman on the sidewalk weeping into a handkerchief. Small, thin, bespectacled, mid- to late seventies. She wore a stiff, dark-brown bouffant, a blue sweatshirt with the U.’s insignia, white sweatpants, white flats.

At her side was a gray-haired woman in her midforties no taller but thirty pounds heavier. Cropped, frizzy, utilitarian hair topped sharp eyes, a nub nose, and an assertive chin. Detective badge clipped to the breast pocket of her black blazer. The blazer hung open, revealing a holstered semi-auto.

Stocky woman but not fat; broad and solid, the kind of body designed for long-term plodding not showy sprints.

She nodded at us, looked over at the crying woman, flashed a goes with the territory frown, and shifted a couple of feet away.

Milo recited his name and mine. Sherry Mulhern did the same. No time for handshakes. The older woman had let out a sheep-like mewl and Mulhern rushed back to her.

“So sorry for your losses, Mrs. Seeger.”

“Sorry for being a crybaby,” said Deirdre Seeger. “I know it’s just things, not a person. But they’re my things and I could’ve been here except for the grace of God.”

Mulhern said, “Chances are if you were here, ma’am, they wouldn’t have dared.”

Deirdre Seeger looked up at Milo for confirmation.

He said, “Detective Mulhern’s right. Most burglars are cowards who avoid confrontation.”

Mulhern smiled, grateful for the support. “Anyway, I brought the lieutenant to you like you requested.”

Deirdre Seeger said, “What about those home invaders? They just break in, don’t care if you’re home.”

Mulhern said, “I won’t tell you it doesn’t happen. But not here, this is a really safe neighborhood.”

As if realizing how lame that sounded, she exhaled and turned to the side.

Milo said, “What was taken, Deirdre?”

“My jewelry, my cash — I don’t leave a lot around, maybe a hundred dollars for odds and ends. Then” — she began ticking her fingers — “there’s my flat screen. I just got it for myself last Christmas. Then there’s my iPad — it’s been broken for a while so tough luck for them. Then there’s my wine, four bottles, it’s good wine, I got it on sale at Trader Joe’s.”

Mulhern turned to us. “The typical stuff.”

Deirdre Seeger huffed. “It doesn’t feel typical to me, Detective. It feels like a violation.”

“Of course, ma’am. It’s a terrible violation. As I told you, we’re searching aggressively for fingerprints and any other physical evidence.”

“What about other burglaries around here?” said Seeger. “Wouldn’t that give you a lead?”

“It would, ma’am, but there haven’t been any.”

Seeger’s eyes bulged. “See! I was singled out! It’s me they wanted to violate!”

“Why would that be, ma’am?”

Seeger shook her head. Gave Milo a quick peek. Grim, conspiratorial. She folded her arms across her chest.

Sherry Mulhern’s mouth got tight. “Mrs. Seeger, if you’d rather talk to them alone, that’s fine. I’ve got a few things to do inside investigating your burglary.”

“Go,” said Deirdre Seeger. As if realizing how harsh that sounded, she followed up with, “Thank you, Miss Mulhern. Appreciate your service. Like I told you, I know about detection.”

“It appears that you do, ma’am.” Mulhern traded cards with Milo and ducked under the tape.

Deirdre Seeger said, “No sense involving her, I didn’t want to get in the way of your investigation. Police work is specialized, Phil taught me that.”

“You think this could be related to our conversations about Phil’s last case?”

“You just heard what she said. This is a safe neighborhood, I was targeted. I mean, how long ago were we talking — few days and then this happens.”

A tech exited the house with a hard-shell equipment case. “Stomping all over my home.” More tears. “Sorry, I’m such a baby.”

“Seems like a reasonable reaction to me, Deirdre.”

“Phil and I bought it for thirty-one thousand dollars. They say it’s worth seven hundred thousand but I don’t care. Where am I going to go, to some rest home where they don’t pay attention and you die in a corner?”

Biting her lip. “I loved my home. Want to love it again but... like I told her, it’s only for the grace of God that I wasn’t here and who knows what would’ve happened to me.”

“Where were you?”

“Newhall, I’ve got a friend there, we play canasta twice a week, have a group, we rotate. The game was Friday night, Ada served snacks and prosecco, really delicious, I overindulged and knew enough not to drive. I was going to try one of those Ubers. Never did it before but what the hey, there’s a first time for everything. Ada said she wouldn’t hear of it, the spare bedroom was already made up, she keeps it that way for when her kids come home and they rarely do now, they all moved out of state, the taxes. So I slept over and then I got the call. From Mulhern.”

“Any idea when the break-in occurred?”

“She thinks at night because no neighbors she talked to saw or heard anything. She said it was a real burglary not a staging because in staging the drawers are pulled out but not everything’s removed and at least some valuables are left behind. But what do you think?”

“That sounds logical, Deirdre.”

“Well, maybe. But the main thing is where am I going to stay? Even if they cleaned up, which they’re not going to do, I’m not staying here by myself. Not until my mind settles and who knows how long that’ll take? If Phil and I had children it would be a different story but God didn’t shine that light on us.” Brief glance at the sidewalk. “I have nowhere to go!”

Milo said, “I’ll make a call, Deirdre.”

“To who?”

“Someone who might be able to put you up temporarily.”

“I can’t afford to pay one of those Air-Bee-Bees.”

“I know that. Gimme a sec to take a look inside and then I’ll see what I can arrange.”

He loped to the house, emerged a few minutes later, during which Deirdre Seeger clenched and unclenched her hands and fought back tears.

“He seems like a good man. I’ve got a nose for that. Phil was a good man. He always tried his best.”

I said, “Last time you spoke to Lieutenant Sturgis, you mentioned Phil’s books and magazines. Were any of those taken?”

“That junk, why would they be? Besides, they’re out in the garage, which I keep bolted.” Her lips trembled. “I keep the house locked, too, but they just ripped the rear door off its hinges. Phil put a good bolt on the garage because he kept his bikes there plus parts. People tell me it’s worth a lot, one day I’ll sell them but not now, that’s for sure. I can’t have bikers or who-knows-who coming by. Sir, I don’t know if I’ll ever feel safe again!”

“You will.”

“How do you know?”

“Experience.”

“Have you ever felt alone and scared?”

It’s called being the child of a raging alcoholic.

I said, “I have.”

“Really?”

I touched her arm. “Absolutely.”

“Well... maybe.”

When she’d remained silent for a while, I said, “Would it be possible for me to get into the garage?”

“You might be interested in the parts?”

“I’d like to take a look around.”

“Is this something that could help catch the bad guys?”

“It could be, Mrs. Seeger. Every little bit helps.”

“Hmm. Okay, you also seem like a nice guy. Nice goes with nice, Phil and I were like that. Everyone said it. He’s nice, she’s nice, adds up to a nice couple.” Sniff. “We were happy together.”

Milo joined us. “All arranged if you’re agreeable, Deirdre.”

“What is?”

“A comfortable bedroom in a nice big house in Los Feliz, totally free.”

“Big empty house? Uh-uh, no way, too spooky.”

“No, there’s a woman living there and she’s got a full-time guard looking after the premises.”

“Why? Why does she need a full-time guard?”

He explained.

Deirdre Seeger said, “Oh... so her mother’s the one Phil tried so hard to figure out? I don’t know... oh, shoot, why not? If Phil cared, that means she was worth caring about and like I just told this other detective, nice goes with nice so the daughter’s probably also a good person.” A beat. “Is she?”

“Lovely person,” said Milo. “She didn’t hesitate to say yes.”

“Los Feliz. I don’t even know how to get there.”

“You have GPS?”

“Hate computers.”

“How about this, then: I’ll drive you and have an officer bring your car.”

“Hmm. Okay, it’s a deal.” As if doing Milo a favor. “Now go talk to Miss Mulhern so she’ll let pack some of my stuff, it’s already a mess on the floor, I’ll just toss it into a suitcase. And I’ll also get the key to the garage for your nice partner.”

Milo looked at me.

I said, “Thought I’d check out Phil’s books and such.”

That answered nothing but he said, “Ah,” and walked Deirdre into the house.

Deirdre Seeger was slumped in the backseat of the Impala, head down, mouth open, snoring.

People under stress do that, the body trying to recoup energy. Victims and suspects. Experienced detectives know that the guiltier the suspect, the easier the slumber.

Milo retrieved his attaché case from the front passenger seat. Moving the shotgun gingerly, even though the safety was on. Good habits pay off.

Popping the case, he took the magazine from me and laid it atop the blue file folder, shut the case, and placed it horizontally on the front seat. Leaving the door open, he motioned me away from the car, strode to the taped walkway, and crooked a thumb at the house.

“Looks like a bona fide burglary but maybe not if they were looking for Seeger’s source material.”

“That would be my bet.”

“Who would know I talked to Deirdre about Seeger? No one I can think of. Or am I missing something? I could understand if I’d said something to Val Des Barres. She phones her brothers, they dispatch someone. Or she handles it herself via Sabino, guy’s got a record, busting a door and rooting around wouldn’t be a leap.”

I said, “Actually, you did talk to one person about Seeger and a missing woman from the mansion. Someone with police experience who’d know to make a break-in look real.”

“Who—” He went pale. “Galoway? That was... four, five days ago.”

“Four.”

“Plenty of time to plan. Shit.”

He stomped away, paced, returned, mopping his face repeatedly. “Bad-guy detective? That’s a nightmare scenario... goddammit. Anyone else I blabbed to and forgot about?”

“Nope.”

“Galoway,” he said. “Mr. Helpful.”

I said, “Pseudo-helpful. He’s the one who directed us to Des Barres, which could’ve been a distraction from focusing on Dorothy Martha Maude, whoever.”

“He knows her?”

“Be worth finding out. The timing works. Galoway caught the case shortly after Seeger retired, and we know they talked. He made sure to let us know Seeger was incompetent and had learned nothing. Another misdirection. Now we know Seeger had stayed curious and found the article. That was you, what would your next step be?”

“Call the new guy... the Harley... Jesus. So Dorothy’s alive and well and evil?”

“Keep turning the prism,” I said, “and there’s no real evidence she died. Burnt-up body, no DNA back then, quick cremation. If so, who got immolated in the Cadillac? Likely another woman who lived at the mansion. We know of two others who went missing, but there could be more. And one more thing: Martha Maude grew up in a rural area, being comfortable on a horse doesn’t seem a giant step.”

“Mommy’s a psychopath.” His big chest heaved and swelled. “Just what Ellie needs to boost her mental health.”

He walked away, paced past two houses and returned. “I need time to clear my head and make sense out of this, Alex. Meanwhile, let’s get Deidre out of here and in a safe place.”

He turned grim. “You think her being with Ellie is safe?”

I said, “What’s the alternative? A random motel? Boudreaux seems to know what he’s doing.”

“Yeah, he’s solid, I’ll tell him what he needs to know.” Wolfish, tooth-baring smile. “Guess the only alternative would be my place. Or yours, but who knows if she likes dogs?”

When I got home, Milo was already there, parked in front. No surprise, the way he’d been driving.

As we climbed the stairs to the entry terrace, he said, “Found out a few more things about ol’ Du, and yeah, he’s been creative. He doesn’t live in Ojai, never did from what I can tell, has a place in Tarzana mostly owned by the bank. If he’s married or living with someone, they’re not on the papers. The Jag’s leased, from the amount still owed to the bank probably one of those minimal-down-payment deals.”

“Possible money problems.”

“At the very least, he’s not as well heeled as he wanted us to think. The vehicle he does own outright is a ten-year-old Isuzu Trooper. Again, no one else on the papers, so if Dorothy-Martha is still kicking around, she’s got her own wheels. I told Boudreaux to be ready for anything.”

I said, “Think he’s really vegan or into meat?”

He laughed. “I’m not even getting near that.”

Back at the house, he collected the papers from the kitchen table and we beelined to my office.

I said, “Alomar hit on what we’ve figured: Galoway took the case to kill it and get rid of any records. Just as he’s about to leave the department, he gets a call from Seeger. Who’s been snooping around old magazines and just learned about Martha Maude and tells him. Fatal error.”

“Poor guy,” he said. “Probably thought he’d get props for being a miracle man.”

“Or he just wanted to solve the case.”

“Hmm... yeah, that happens, too. Thirsty, gonna get some water.”

I figured he wouldn’t stop at tasteless, transparent fluid, picked up the pulp and began reading.

Mike Leigh had met Martha Maude Hopple when she rode her bike past a property he was clearing as a day laborer. He already had a long sheet, was less than a month out of prison for a theft charge. Five months later, the two of them were traveling together, hitchhiking and stealing cars and burglarizing houses in the Little Egypt section of Illinois, then Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas. One break-in involved the unexpected appearance of the homeowners, an elderly couple, the wife wheelchair-bound. Two corpses. Eighteen bucks taken.

According to the article’s feverish prose, the double murder led to Leigh and his “Jailbait Juliet acquiring a taste for blood.” By the time the duo was arrested for a reign of terror that included carjacking, armed robbery, kidnapping, assault, and murder, four more people had died.

Mike Leigh was executed in the electric chair ten months after his conviction.

Martha Hopple was been sentenced to a girl’s reformatory in Jarvis, Texas. I did a map search. Fifty miles from Tyler.

Milo returned with cranberry juice and a half-eaten apple. I was at my keyboard running a search using Martha Hopple’s name.

Nothing.

I told him about the reform school.

He said, “Longest she could be in there was till twenty-one, maybe even less. She gets out, finds a gig at a grower, meets Benni Cairn. So maybe Benni’s the woman in the car.”

“It fits,” I said. “Martha — probably Dorothy by then, given the Lolita thing it would make sense for her to change her identity — is a few years older than Benni but a whole lot more experienced. And dominant. She tells Benni stories about Hollywood, Benni has nothing going for her in Tyler, the two of them cut town.”

“Why would Dorothy want Benni along?”

“Someone to use.”

“For what?”

“Gullible younger woman?” I said.

“She pimped her out?”

“Could be that or other scams. Maybe Dorothy gave her a makeover and she looked like she did in the photo. The two of them knock around for a while, make their way to L.A., end up at Des Barres’s mansion. Benni’s more attractive than she used to be but no smarter. Easy enough for Dorothy to get her in the Caddy. Let’s go have some fun — oh, pull over for a second, I need my cigarettes.”

“Then bang,” he said. “Cold. What’s the motive for killing her?”

“Dorothy wanted to disappear. Probably with a whole lot of Des Barres’s bling.”

“She was the aspiring Queen Bee.”

“Or she just got bored with being a member of the pack and decided to bankroll another adventure. We’re talking multiple murder by fifteen. Heavy-duty thrill factor. And think of those photos: She’s not whooping it up. We know from the serpentine necklace that she was going back between L.A. and Stan Barker. Getting Barker to babysit and playing him. He wasn’t as rich as Des Barres but he was comfortable enough and well heeled and had paternal instincts. An easy mark whom she eventually dropped.”

“She’d just leave her baby?”

“A baby,” I said. “What if it wasn’t hers?”

“Benni’s? She’d give it up.”

“Young single mother, impressionable, overwhelmed. Dorothy convinces her it’s in the child’s best interest? It’s just a theory at this point but Martha did have experience kidnapping.”

“Oh, man... so why would she wait that long to ditch the kid?”

“Good prop,” I said. “Coming across as a struggling mom for when she met Barker. It didn’t take her long to walk out on both of them so we’re not talking massive maternal instincts.”

“Oh, God, poor Ellie... if we’re talking that level of psychopath and Dorothy had been aiming for Queen, she could’ve also done Arlette.”

I said, “Texas, horses? Nothing in her past says she’d give it a moment’s hesitation.”

He got up, retrieved the arrest photo from the pulp, and plopped down again. I settled next to him and we both studied the shot.

Fifteen-year-old girl in the grips of two fedora-wearing detectives. Uncowed — not even close. Defiant.

He sighed and put the magazine down. “How does Mr. Happy Vegan figure in?”

“Slick, shallow, lies when he breathes?”

“Psychopathy loves company.”

“Good basis for a long-term relationship.”

He frowned. “Find that councilperson?”

Red everywhere on Waze, as if the city were bleeding. Time to settle back for the ride and pretend it was leisurely by choice.

Milo said, “Nasty woman, rides horses, maybe poisons a dog just for the fun of it. Add whoever was in the Caddy, the bodies she piled up with Leigh, and possibly Seeger, and she’s a one-woman crime wave.”

He shook his head. “Despite what we said about psychopaths, people like that aren’t good at relationships, right? How’d she and Galoway manage to stick together all these years?”

I said, “Two hammers looking for nails.”

Sunday. Same war room, same whiteboards, same coffee and tea and pastries in pink boxes augmented by a heap of plastic-wrapped, handmade deli sandwiches financed by Milo’s cash.

No writing on the boards; instead, Dudley Galoway’s enlarged DMV photo, enlargements of a modest-looking single-story Spanish house taken from Zillow plus several aerial shots of the property. No vehicles in any of the images.

Milo explained the situation.

Moe Reed and Alicia Bogomil listened impassively. Jen Arredondo’s eyes widened with each fact. She wore loose hair, a red tee, black jeggings, red Vans, looked like a high school senior.

When Milo finished, Alicia said, “This woman — if she is alive — is something else.”

Milo walked to the board and pointed to one of the aerials. A wide view that covered two blocks. “Everyone’s got a double-width driveway and a garage, not much parking on the street. So we can’t just sit there, anything unusual’s going to be spotted, especially by an ex-D like Galoway. But even by an unsuspecting neighbor. We can’t afford to have Valley patrol show itself.”

Moe Reed said, “Not safe informing them?”

“Don’t know if Galoway still has police contacts, so no. The best alternative I can come up with is pulling off a little theater. Meaning you guys play roles. I’d be part of the repertory but Galoway knows me.”

Using Meg Meecham’s word. Arredondo looked baffled and Milo noticed.

“There’ll be some acting,” he told her.

Alicia said, “All right, ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille.”

Moe and Arredondo squinted at her.

“It’s a movie, guys. Sunset Boulevard?”

No response.

Alicia said, “Before my time, too, but my mom watches it all the time.” Small smile. “On her VCR.”

Milo said, “No close-ups. Let me emphasize, we’re not trying to get cozy with the suspects, need to assume Galoway’s gonna be more vigilant than a civilian and the same goes for Dorothy or whatever she’s calling herself.”

Reed said, “What is the goal?”

“I’d be happy with finding out who lives there. It may turn out to be simple. We know both of Galoway’s vehicles but have no idea what she’s driving. We spot a third vehicle and trace the tag to a female, big step. We don’t, I’d settle for some inkling of her presence or absence.”

Alicia said, “When’s garbage day? We can go back at night, empty the cans, see if there’s female stuff in there or who mail is addressed to.”

“Too risky, kid.”

She shrugged.

Milo turned to Reed. “For you, I’m figuring a delivery guy. There are three vans in the impound lot scheduled for the auction next month. No logo or signage on any of them, we’ll get stick-on vinyls that fit with whatever you’re delivering. Any preferences?”

Alicia patted Reed’s colossal biceps. “How about iron anvils?”

Reed smiled. “Whatever you choose, L.T. So I’m just driving by, not making a delivery.”

“Correct,” said Milo.

“Then I can alternate — plumbing, then electrical, whatever.”

“That’s fine if you can disguise yourself sufficiently so Galoway doesn’t see the same face in different sets of wheels.”

Jen Arredondo made a soft, mouse-like noise.

Milo looked at her.

She said, “I do makeup. Did. In high school, for drama.”

“Excellent, what can you do with Detective Reed?”

Arredondo blushed. “Um, there’s beards, mustaches. Wigs. If you want to go to the next level, there’s putty you can add to the nose or the chin. We did that on Les Miz.”

Alicia grinned. “You can turn him into Quasimodo?”

“There was no one like that...”

Milo said, “Hunchback of Notre Dame.”

Alicia said, “Oops.”

Arredondo said, “I mean I’m not like a professional but I could change him.”

Milo said, “Give me a list of what you need.”

“Is it okay if I contact my drama teacher? He knows where to get everything.”

“Long as he’s not a felon with a big mouth.”

“I don’t think so...”

“Tell him you’re working on the department Christmas show.”

“You have one of those?” said Arredondo.

Milo smiled. “This works out, we just might. Okay, kids, let’s plan on starting tomorrow. I’ll set up the vehicles, tell you where to pick them up.”

Arredondo said, “Um, sir? What will I be delivering?”

“Not sure, yet. Let’s see what Detectives Reed and Bogomil come up with first.”

“I could do one of those magazine subscription deals? Ring the bell, someone answers I give a speech about bargains?”

“Too close for comfort, Officer.”

“I’ll be fine, sir,” said Arredondo, not sounding convinced.

“Did you act in the school play or just do makeup?”

“Makeup, sir. But I did magazine subscriptions for real. Two summers, between my junior and senior years. I sold quite a few.”

“Hmm, let me think about it. One more thing: If at any point Galoway shows himself and anyone can follow safely, do it. Any questions? Okay, then—”

“Actually, sir,” said Arredondo, fidgeting.

All eyes on her.

“Yes, Officer.”

“It’s not a question, sir, it’s something that maybe is relevant?”

Out of her pocket came a folded sheet of paper. “I’ve been looking at the sites with all the missings on them whenever I have a chance and a couple of hours ago something came up. While I was eating breakfast.”

Alicia said, “Working meal? Dedicated.”

More blush. “I had nothing else to do.”

“That’s good, Jen. Really.”

Arredondo shrugged.

Milo took the paper and read. “Great work, Officer. Unbelievably great work.”

For the first time since I’d met her, Jen Arredondo smiled.

Below the photo of Benicia Cairn was a new string of comments.

That sparked six responses, one of which said a response wasn’t necessary “if you really have nothing new,” and five that offered counsel similar to that of Bonnie from Tulsa:

Milo looked at me.

I said, “V.”

Jen Arredondo said, “It could be something?”

“We know of another woman who associated with Benni Cairns and Dorothy named Victoria Barlow. You all know how we feel about coincidences. So let me try to sort this out. We’ll still keep tomorrow in mind but there might be a delay.”

Alicia leaned over and slapped Arredondo’s back lightly. “Let’s hear it for breakfast.”

Milo pointed to the sandwiches. “Next we’ll hear it for lunch. Officer Arredondo, you pick first.”

Back in his office, he looked at the Azalea photo. “V. Gotta be.”

I said, “One less corpse, it would be nice.”

“Any reason I shouldn’t try to contact her?”

“Not that I can see.”

“How hard do I beg?”

I said, “Time to dig out the magnetism.”

He re-read and sent. Sat back and pulled out a panatela and passed it between his hands. “Now I wait. You know what’s gonna happen.”

I said, “A bit of slag then hopefully gold.”

“A bit? I should be so lucky.”

We shifted to a dim spot under the branches of the largest sycamore.

Milo said, “All Des Barres wanted was a little company. You believe her?”

“You think she was sanitizing her own role.”

“Exactly, a nun, not a houri.”

I said, “Bikini nun.”

He laughed.

I said, “I do believe her. Why would she come forward in the first place? Only reason I can see is a moral compass. Benni’s disappearance has been on her mind for thirty-six years. Enough for her to periodically check out the missing persons sites. Your post solidified her suspicions and activated her. And everything she told us — Sterling Lawrence, The Azalea, her own background — matches what we already know.”

“Suspicions,” he said.

“Same as ours. Dorothy shot Benni and passed herself off as the victim. Now the motive’s solidified: just what we thought, wanting to make her escape.”

“The aspiring Queen Bee looks for a new hive.”

“Maybe because killing Arlette didn’t have the desired results. Des Barres adored Arlette and unfortunately for Dorothy, he was also a passive alcoholic unwilling to take it to the next level. So she made her plan and lifted some goodies from his safe. Vicki just told us she’d been angry at Benni for a couple of weeks and Benni never fought back. She was used to being Dorothy’s doormat since the two of them left Texas. Dorothy told her they were off on another adventure with an upgrade — the Caddy. A mile down Mulholland, middle of the night, Dorothy pulls over, shoots Benni without warning, and stages a fake accident. Clean break from Des Barres and Barker.”

He said, “And Ellie. Can’t wait to tell her about her heritage... it does firm up the picture. Unfortunately, it’s not evidence.”

“I’ve been thinking,” I said.

“That can be scary or encouraging.”

“Your plan to have the troops simulate tradespeople makes sense. But you could also try to talk to actual tradespeople: meter reader, postal carrier, maybe FedEx, UPS, any delivery service that comes by regularly. If Dorothy’s living there, someone might’ve seen her, maybe knows what name she’s using. The question is, could they be trusted to keep their mouths shut.”

“My dominant personality wouldn’t be enough to ensure that, huh?”

“Person-to-person, sure. Toss in the lure of the internet?” I shrugged.

He said, “Let me think about it,” and drove away.

A block later: “Annoying.”

“What is?”

“Why the hell didn’t I think of it myself?”

I’d booked one of the new custody evaluations from nine a.m. to two p.m. on Monday, the second from three thirty to six thirty. In-person sessions with children and parents, phone contact with attorneys, schoolteachers, and, in one case, an ex-nanny. With appointments running flush, no time to check messages. I switched my phone off and stashed it in a desk drawer.

The upside of custody work is the chance to blunt the effects of divorce on kids. The downside is anyone who’s not a kid is assumed to be lying. But the morning went well: children who’d entered the arena well adjusted, parents sincere about keeping that going. Not hard to see the connection. Most important, the lawyers each side had hired were retrievers not attack dogs.

Feeling energized, I broke for coffee and a sandwich at two fifteen, retrieved an earful of messages from my service, none from Milo. The last was a thinly veiled threat from a pit-bull lawyer representing the husband in the afternoon case. “Hope you’re careful in your wording, Doctor. We examine everything with a fine-tooth comb.”

Callbacks to the few people who merited a response and a chat with the judge in the afternoon case stretched the time to two forty-five.

Blanche woke from her nap, waddled in, and looked up at me with soft, beseeching eyes. I took her for an exploration out front, where a pine forest shades the property. Apart from the rare skittish raccoon or possum, a nice place for her to browse and snuffle and do her business. Back inside, I filled her water bowl, had just added some shredded mozzarella to her food when my cell chirped.

My designation Big Guy on the screen above Milo’s private number.

“What’s up?”

“Any new thoughts?”

“Sorry, no.”

“Shame,” he said. “It’s been the typical yawn fest, surveillance-wise. What we’ve learned so far is Galoway’s a homebody. One sighting: Moe spotted him at eleven while doing a pass in a phony plumber truck. Asshole opened the door in his bathrobe, yawned, looked out, stretched, closed it. The only ride in his driveway is the Isuzu. Unless the Jag’s in the shop, it’s probably in his garage. Which is a double, so maybe her vehicle’s also there. If she’s got one. If she lives there. If she’s real. I’m starting to think we’re dealing with a phantom.”

I said, “Galoway took the time and effort to misdirect us. That says there’s someone worth protecting.”

“There you go, restoring reality. Alicia’s coming on in an hour, fixed her up with a van, cleaning service stick-on and dark windows. In the end, I decided not to take Arredondo up on her magazine ploy. Turns out she’s three months out of the academy and her dad’s a Rampart Division lieutenant. Instead, I’ve got her riding with Alicia. No postal carrier has showed up, yet, the plan is to chat if it can be done out of eyeshot of the house and the vibe feels right. I called FedEx and UPS and there’s no regular driver who services the block. I asked about the delivery history and got the runaround — client privacy, get a subpoena. Which is pretty lame considering they leave packages out in the open.”

“How’re Ellie and Deirdre doing?”

“The odd couple? I just called Boudreaux and he’s out with them at the zoo.”

“That’s some image,” I said.

“Ain’t it, though. How’s your day going?”

“Great.”

“Really? That happens?”

Milo’s voice was tight. “Just about to give up on you. Something happened. No time to get into details, if you want to see it, come over.”

“Where?”

“Hollywood. Not far from Ellie’s.”

“She okay?”

“Yeah—” Voices in the background. A siren. “Here’s the address, gotta go.”

Milo had expected a warrant by noon Tuesday but the day passed without my hearing from him. Probably tied up with the shooting board.

When radio silence stretched to Wednesday, I began to wonder if complications had set in. Bureaucracy’s like untreated cancer: Once it takes hold, it ravages.

I searched for media coverage of Du Galoway’s shooting, was surprised to find nothing but a page-32 squib in the Times about “the death of a gun-wielding felony suspect.”

The department pulling up the drawbridge. That said nothing about how it would treat Jen Arredondo, Alicia, and Milo.

Wednesday at nine forty p.m., he finally called.

“I was starting to wonder.”

“Yeah, it’s been interesting. As in a pain. Fortunately, once we got through the bullshit, the people assigned to evaluate turned out to be sane and the kid’s connections didn’t hurt.”

“Dad’s well thought of.”

“Big-time. Top of that, Mom’s a dispatcher at Hollenbeck, there’s a brother in Burbank PD, and an uncle is a robbery D in Saugus.”

I said, “Police aristocracy.”

He said, “Nothing like blue blood when you need a transfusion. What also helped was I told them about Galoway’s lies, what he was suspected of. Nothing pisses off good cops more than bad cops. So no doubt about the kid being ruled justified. I managed to put in for the phone subpoena, no guarantee when the data dump will come in. In terms of the warrant for the house, you know how it is: time-limited so I waited until today to apply, just got it. Moe’s been checking out Galoway’s street, no movement, I’m starting to think she’s somewhere else. The goal is to enter the house Friday morning, planning session’s tomorrow. Nine work for you?”

“Tied up until ten, I can be there by twenty after.”

“Then that’s when we’ll start.”

Friday, four forty-five a.m. Inky morning, the chill blunted by the electrochemical heat of hearts racing in anticipation.

A black tactical van blocked the street, its arrival a near-silent coast. Moments later Bain and his crew had been egested, all six officers vanishing into the darkness.

Milo, Reed, Binchy, and I waited five houses south. Reed had brought Milo in his work-ride, a gray Dodge Charger; Binchy showed up seconds later in his, a maroon Chevy Caprice.

My orders were per usual: Don’t get in the way. The Seville was parked well behind the police wheels.

Dark windows checkered Galoway’s place and every other house on the block. If any of the neighbors had noticed the van, they weren’t complaining.

Another ten minutes of nothing to make sure. Just as Bain was about to go in, headlights flashed a block north and swelled as they neared.

Bain and two of his officers ran toward the intrusion waving small-beam flashlights. The car stopped. Bain jogged to the driver’s window and said something. The headlights died. Another officer got in the van and angled it so the car could pass.

Black Audi sedan, frightened-looking woman at the wheel. She drove for a block before switching her lights on.

Bain came over. “Poor thing, heading to LAX for a flight to Denver to see her daughter. Okay, no sense waiting for another disruption, we’re a go.”

Basia Lopatinski worked heroically but it still took three weeks.

“And that,” she informed us, “is a record.”

During that time, Milo had paid a visit to Ellie and informed her that the case was going well but he had nothing definitive to report. Yet.

She didn’t object but she did call him two days later wondering if anything had changed, and four days after that. He’d managed to put her off with ambiguous optimism and a request to be patient. She hung up sounding irritated. If she’d chosen at that point to complain to Martz or Andy Bauer or one of the political contacts, it could’ve gotten complicated.

She didn’t.

No threats to Deirdre Seeger remained so she could’ve moved back to her house. But kept ignorant by Milo, she remained in Ellie Barker’s rented house and the two of them, accompanied by an equally uninformed Mel Boudreaux, filled their days with outings.

Huntington Gardens, the Arboretum, Descanso Gardens, a three-day excursion to San Diego where they took in the wild animal park and SeaWorld. Then a detour on the trip back for a night at the Disneyland Hotel and an all-day pass at the park.

VIP pass, Ellie’s money allowing them to jump lines. Deirdre revealed a lust for the Matterhorn and rode it three times.

Boudreaux: “Man, I felt like puking just watching her.”

On the twenty-first day, at eleven a.m., everything was in place and Milo phoned Ellie.

Sounding subdued, she said, “We’re at the art museum.” She lowered her voice: “Special exhibit on contemporary German paintings. Deirdre says it’s kindergarten garbage.”

He laughed. “Everyone’s a critic. When can we meet?”

“Meet as in...”

“Solving your case.”

“Oh... can Deirdre be included?”

“Not a good idea.”

“I’m kind of used to her and she’s got nowhere to go.”

“We could talk at the station,” said Milo. “Whatever suits you.”

“This really is it, Lieutenant?”

“It is.”

“Am I going to be happy?”

“You’ll know the facts.”

“That sounds ominous.”

“I wouldn’t call it that.”

“What would you call it?”

“Ellie, it’s best we sit down and talk.”

“Is it?” A beat. “Fine, let’s do it at the house. I’ll tell Mel to take Deirdre to lunch and I’ll Uber back. If that’s safe.”

“It is.”

“So this really is it.”

We hadn’t told her about the box.

Finding it hadn’t resulted from ace detective work during the search of the house Du Galoway and Martha Dee Ensler had shared for twelve years. It filled the middle drawer of the nightstand where her medications sat.

Fifteen inches long, a foot wide, hardwood covered in genuine crocodile hide dyed green. A bilious shade slightly lighter than the bedcovers and the serpentine necklace.

Milo said, “Reptiles. No comment, too easy.”

The interior of the box was lined in amber velvet. On the inside lid was the incised gold stamp of a luxury goods store in Brentwood, long defunct.

The contents, like the house, neat and organized.

Chronological order.

At the bottom was the Lolita article from Dark Detective protected by a plastic bag. On top of that, two similarly shielded articles from The Jefferson Parish Times in Metairie, Louisiana, and the Houston Chronicle, both brief accounts of homicides stingy on details.

Sharing space in that bag were a set of silver and turquoise cuff links and a half-used matchbook from The C’mon Inn, Bissonnet Street, Houston.

The victims were middle-aged men, a salesman and an accountant, found shot to death in their cars on the outskirts of town. The first crime had occurred when Martha Ensler was nineteen, the second two years later, making her release from the girl’s reformatory at eighteen likely.

“Getting right back in practice,” said Milo.

The next trophy was the Pasadena Star-News article on Arlette Des Barres’s fatal horse tumble. Here, someone had annotated in the margin. A single word in red ink, the kind of ragged cursive that results from inadequate schooling.

After that: the L.A. Times account of a dead woman burned in a car on Mulholland Drive.

Nothing for five years and three months, when the San Francisco Chronicle reported the shooting deaths of a well-to-do couple, both physicians, in the book-lined den of their Orinda, California, house. A trove of jewelry and art, taken along with cash and bearer bonds from a safe.

The victims had been last seen having cocktails in the company of another “well-dressed, middle-aged” couple, as yet unidentified.

Milo did follow up on that one. Still open.

Four years and eleven months after that was a clipping on a strikingly similar couple-slaughter in Portland, Oregon. This time the victims were two male antiques dealers who’d been together for twenty-eight years.

Unsolved.

Another stretch of quiet, then a plastic bag containing a key, later identified as operating Phil Seeger’s motorcycle. No one at the scene of Seeger’s “accident” had wondered about the lack of such.

A year after that: a hefty gold chain in a smaller bag. Engraved on the underside of the clasp: Tony.

Repeat burglary of Anton Des Barres’s jewelry. Maybe an anniversary gift to herself, or she’d somehow learned he was terminally ill and vulnerable. She’d somehow gained entry to the mansion — my guess was an old key she’d taken during the first heist — and made a smooth exit.

Let the devil in...

Unlike the others, she’d left Des Barres alive. Maybe because he was ill and in pain and she enjoyed the notion of him suffering.

I wondered if she’d stood in the doorway to his bedroom and, despite that, considered it.

The final souvenir was the coverage of Dr. Stanley Barker’s fatal tumble. Written in the margin: Miser. Said no. Paid the ultimate price.

Milo said, “Nothing about a poisoned dog.”

I said, “A throwaway not worth commemorating.”

“What a pair. I’ll call Orinda and Portland, after all this time they probably won’t be able to do anything about it but what the hell. The rest, no need to get into it. Right?”

I said, “Agreed but there are a few other calls that need to be made.”

“To who?”

I told him.

He said, “You mind doing it? I gotta deal with Jen Arredondo. Got a call last night from her dad. He’s concerned because she says she’s fine, refused the department shrink, and he thinks better to pay up now and avoid PTSD. If we can convince her, can you hook her up with someone? Even you if you feel like it.”

“I’m too involved, we’ll go the referral route.”

“Fair enough. So you’ll do the other calls?”

“No prob.”

“What a pal — scratch that, no wiseassery, you were the main deal on this one. I mean it. And don’t say aw shucks.”

I said, “Buy me lunch.”

“Like I wouldn’t if you didn’t ask.”