Gone

15. 1 BOX “PLEASURE-RIB” LATEX CONDOMS.

16. 1 5-GAL. PLASTIC CONTAINER, FORMIC ACID PICKLING SOLUTION.

17. 5 SETS “SNUG-FIT” LATEX GLOVES.

18. 1 EPOXY “TAXI-FORM SCULPTING KIT.”

19. 1 QUART BOTTLE EATON SKIN DEGREASER AND PRESERVATIVE.

20. 1 5-LB. BAG “READI-TAN” DRY PRESERVATIVE.

21. 1 OAKES G- 235C “MINOR SURGICAL PROCEDURE” TABLE WITH HEADREST AND DETACHABLE DRAIN…

Milo returned to his office and took the murder book from me.

“I wasn’t finished.”

He dropped the file in a drawer. “Michaela’s Honda finally showed up. Parking garage of a BNB building in Sierra Madre, towed to the motor lab as we speak.”

“Congratulations. As I was saying- ”

“How’s my prose?”

“Eloquent,” I said. “Please don’t tell me you want to have lunch.”

“It’s way past lunchtime, have your people call my people and we’ll do di

He sank down hard enough to make the desk chair groan. “Enough with the glib macho posturing. I’m thrashed and not ashamed to admit it.”

“Get any sleep?”

“Around five hours,” he said. “Over five days.”

“Time for a break,” I said.

“It ain’t the workload that’s keeping me up, boy-o, it’s the reality. As long as you’ve perused, care to add any insights?”

“The PlayHouse was a talent pool in a much worse way than we imagined. For Nora, it served double duty. She got to feel omnipotent and she and Brad both enjoyed selecting victims.”

“Cold bitch,” he said. “Arrogant, too. That time we came to her house, she didn’t even pretend to care about Tori or Michaela.”

“I’m not sure she’s capable of pretending.”

“No acting chops? How’d she get so many people to believe in her?”

“By attracting a hungry crowd who thought they were getting a bargain. Emotionally needy people will swallow poisoned Kool-Aid.”

He sighed. “All those pretty folk auditioning, having no idea what the part really was.”

“Any luck identifying the other girls?”

“Not yet. No other male bodies show up yet, but I’m not counting on this being the end of it. There’s still a dozen BNB properties we haven’t looked at and the backhoes have only dug up a corner of the property. How do you see the hoax figuring in?”

“Theater of the cruel. Nora and Brad hatched it up for fun, convinced Dylan Meserve he was a coconspirator. But he was a human chess piece.”

“Think he knew what was in store for Michaela?”

“Have you found any indication that he was aware of the other victims?”

“Not so far,” he said. “But the way he had Michaela pretend to choke him, that coulda been foreshadowing her fate, right?”

“Or he had his own kinks,” I said. “We’ll probably never find out unless some kind of diary shows up. Or Brad or Nora start talking.”

“So far, they’re both dummying up,” he said. “I got Brad on suicide watch, like you suggested. Jail guard said Brad thought that was fu

“Maintaining the facade,” I said. “Once it crumbles, he’ll have nothing left.”

“You’re the shrink…back to the hoax. Nora wink-winks at Meserve, pretends to be outraged and kicks Michaela out of class. Why?”

“My bet’s still on setting Michaela up for Brad’s ‘rescue.’ She was broke, unemployed, hungry for attention, frustrated career-wise. If Brad just happened to drive by in one of his shiny cars and struck up a conversation, it could’ve seemed like providence. She already knew his face from the PlayHouse so there wouldn’t be any stranger anxiety. And Brad’s co

“Trying to get back in Nora’s good graces.”

“Or he might’ve told her he had his own co

“Seduction instead of abduction,” he said. “Nice di

“If he’d built up trust by wining and dining her, it could’ve kept her anxiety in check. Or he took her somewhere else first and restrained her.”

“If he’s got another chamber of horrors, it hasn’t turned up yet. One thing’s for sure: Nothing went on at his house or Nora’s. Not a speck of nasty at either.”

I said, “Why sully the home front when you’ve got a special place set aside for your hobbies. These people are all about splitting.”

“Speaking of hobbies, any theory about why Meserve and the Gaidelases were the only specimens they preserved?”

“The neck wound says they thought of preserving Michaela,” I said. “Went so far as to insert a ca

“There’s nothing in there about the past, Alex. Just more ugly. I’m stuck with this, but you’re not. Go home and forget about all of it.”

I said, “Any luck decoding the scrambled disk?”

He ran his tongue over cracked, dry lips, scratched his scalp, rubbed his face. He’d shaved carelessly and a patch of white fur ran along his jaw. His eyes were hooded and weary. “You’ve developed a hearing problem?”

I repeated the question.

“You never let go,” he said.

“That’s why you pay me the big bucks.”

“The disk is decoded and loaded in Room Four. I’ve been watching it for the last hour. Hence, my sage advice about going home.”

“No sense postponing the inevitable,” I said.

“What’s inevitable?”

“I was at the scene when you found the shelter. Someone’s going to subpoena me. Either the D.A. or Stavros Menas.”

“Both Dowds tried to hire Menas but Nora got him and she wasn’t feeling sisterly. Brad’s looking for new representation.”

“Money talks and she’s got the mike.”

“Minus the millions Brad skimmed,” he said. “Most of which seems to have gone into the car collection and a little island he bought off the coast of Belize two months ago. And one more luxury purchase, three weeks ago: jet card for a Gulfstream V, twenty-five hours. That’s three hundred fifty grand for a plane with international range. Wa

I said, “Pla

“Too clever,” he said. “Sitting in that Range Rover, using Billy’s land. Dutiful caretaker of his sibs, meanwhile he’s screwing them, literally and financially. Think he was pla

“Unless she knew about the island I’d say alone. Is anyone protecting Billy’s interests?”

“The court-appointed lawyers claim to be.”

“I finally got permission to see him yesterday, drove out to Riverside.”

“How’s the place they put him in?”

“Grim,” I said. “Assisted care facility, a hundred Alzheimer’s patients and Billy.”

“Learn anything?”

“He’s in shock and disoriented. I got about three minutes before the attorney-on-premises ended it.”

“Why?”

“Billy started crying.”

“Because of you?”

“That was learned counsel’s opinion,” I said. “Mine was that Billy has lots to cry about and not letting him express it will only make matters worse. I told learned counsel Billy needs a full-time therapist, I wasn’t volunteering for the job, only suggesting he find someone. He begged to differ. When I got back, I phoned the judge who wrote the placement order. Haven’t heard from her yet but I’m thinking of other judges who might be willing to help.”

“You see Billy as totally clean?” he said.

“Unless you find something more ominous at his duplex than Star Wars action figures and Disney videos.”