“Didn’t you hear Mom? It’s the most popular type. Like it’s a contest. Growing up with someone like that, I can see needing to escape.”
“That kind of rivalry could also make Katrina vulnerable.”
“To what?”
“Bling. Mom marries rich but Katrina works a low-paying job. If she left the club woozy and feeling abandoned by her pals, two hundred grand worth of car rolling up would’ve seemed heaven-sent. Talk about something to one-up Mommy.”
“If she was picked up, I don’t see it happening at the Light My Fire. I was there last year, chasing a dead lead on a drug murder. The male clientele’s acrylic shirts, too much hair gel, and dance moves worse than mine. Someone drives up in Heubel’s Bentley, the bouncers and everyone else would’ve noticed, and by the time the guy hit the floor, fifty women woulda been all over him.”
He phoned the club, asked to speak to the manager, looked at his watch again, scowled. The line clicked in. A brief conversation followed.
“Guy laughed, said what do you think this is, the Playboy Mansion? He also said nothing unusual happened at the club that night, he already said so to the ‘nosy mother.’”
“If Katrina was upset about being ditched by her friends, she could’ve hit another club, tried to redeem the night. Or she drove home drunk, had some sort of mechanical problem. We just heard she’s impulsive. And she’d stopped making payments on the Mustang. Both of which raise the chance of poor maintenance. For all we know, she simply ran out of gas, got stranded somewhere.”
“Drunk girl, alone late at night, Mr. Moneybags cruises by and says hop in. Or she’s in Hawaii.”
“She guarded her privacy with her mother,” I said, “but her friend worried enough to call Mom.”
“Breaking down on the 405, even late, someone would’ve seen her.”
“With several drinks in her, she could’ve been intimidated by the freeway, chose an alternate route.”
“Or she got totally lost and headed south, Alex. Which could’ve put her in some seriously nasty territory.”
“Why not start with the simplest assumption? When I’m heading north and want to avoid the freeway, I take the Sepulveda Pass. Late at night, once you get north of Sunset, it’s a fast ride, pretty much empty. But that also means breaking down in an isolated area.”
Engine noise sounded from the mouth of the sub-lot. The same valet rolled up in a baby-blue Jaguar sedan, got out and stood by the driver’s door.
Milo walked over to him. “If you insist.”
The valet said, “Huh?”
“I’ll take it in trade if you throw in the extended warranty.”
The valet gaped. Milo got an inch from his face. “Where’s the Crown Vic, friend?”
“I got a call from a resident.”
Milo took out his cell phone. “Want me to call you, too? What’s your number, pal. And while you’re at it, show me some I.D. for an official police investigation.”
The valet didn’t answer.
Milo flashed his shield. “Get it now.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Lazarus are coming out in a-”
“I’ll help ’em. Go.”
The valet hazarded eye contact. Whatever he saw made him scurry off.
Milo eyed the Jaguar. “Budget wheels, pshaw. If Katrina did break down and got picked up, think Mr. Bentley Thief was stalking her?”
“Or cruising for a victim and she fit his appetite.”
“Sexual psychopath,” he said. “What’s the link with Ella Mancusi?”
I said, “Thrill of the hunt.”
“Guess so. Normally, I’d kiss Katrina off as not worth my time. But with two big black cars boosted and blood in the damn Bentley…” He shook his head. “Let’s try to find the Mustang.”
An elderly couple exited the condo, saw him standing next to the Jag. Stopped.
He grinned. “Evening, Mr. and Mrs. Lazarus.” Opening both doors with a flourish, he said, “Have a great time.”
The couple approached the car nervously. Got in, sped off.
Seconds later, the valet roared up in the unmarked and screeched to a stop. Milo took his hand, opened it, and slapped a five in his palm.
“Not necessary,” said the valet.
“Nor deserved. Have a nice life.”
We drove the Sepulveda Pass north all the way to the Valley’s southern border just shy of Ventura Boulevard, continued a few miles beyond. North of Wilshire was the low, flat stretch of veterans’ cemetery, then small businesses and apartments. After that, rolling hillside topped by lights. Traffic was thin. No sign of Katrina Shonsky’s car.
As we returned to the city, Milo said, “Oh, well. If I liked the simple life, I’d be a farmer.”
“There’s always south,” I said.
“A hundred and fifty miles’ worth to Mexico.”
I looked up at the foothills to the east. “Plenty of side streets to explore.”
“What a fun guy,” he growled, turning right and cruising several dark, winding roads.
An hour later: “I’ll have patrol follow up tomorrow, try to get hold of Katrina’s girlfriends. For all we know, they’ll tell us a whole different story. Like she’s with some bum Mommy wouldn’t approve of. And don’t bring up O-positive anymore. I’m not feeling popular.”
Light butterscotched the windows of Robin’s studio out back. I walked past the pond, stopped to check out the baby koi. The antique iron pagoda lights reached down to the floor, giving an easy view of the fish. Three, four inches long, now. Bobbing merrily in the current set off by the waterfall.
I’d first spotted them as larva-sized hatchlings. A dozen little scraps of fishy filament, swimming fearlessly among two-foot-long adults. Koi will eat their own eggs but once the young are born, they’ll never inflict harm. Unlike other fish, they don’t harass sick or dying cohorts. Maybe that’s why they can live over a century.
I continued to the studio, rapped the window. Robin looked up from her bench and smiled. Placed a white rectangle of Alpine spruce to her ear and tapped. Searching for the tones that told her the wood might be suitable as a soundboard. From the size of the plank, a mandolin board.
Her expression as she placed it to the side said no such luck. By the time I entered, she had another piece in hand. Blanche nestled in her lap, serene as ever.
Robin said, “Hi.” Blanche let out a wheezy bulldog welcome.
When Robin kissed me, Blanche turned her head sideways in that bulldog way and nuzzled my hand.
I said, “A blonde and a redhead.”
“Aren’t you the lucky one.”
I eyed the discarded spruce. “No music in there?”
“Even though he’d never know the difference.” She eyed a FedEx box in the corner. “Learn anything about that poor old woman?”
“The working assumption is the son had something to do with it but there’s nothing even close to proof.”
“A son doing that to his mother,” she said. “Beyond belief.”
She eyed the box in the corner again.
I said, “New tools?”
“Collection of DVDs. From Dot-com. Ten Audrey Hepburn movies and a note that said I remind him of her.”
Hepburn had been five seven and built like a human clothes hanger. Robin’s five three on a good day, curvy everywhere you look.
“You’re both gorgeous.”
She flexed her fingers, the way she does when she’s edgy.
“Has he ever been inappropriate?”
“Not really.”
“Not really?”
“When I met him at the luthiery show he was a little touchy, but nothing you could say was out of line.”
“Well, then,” I said. “Audrey Hepburn made some good flicks.”
“I’m overreacting, huh?”
“He could be working on a few fantasies. Happens all the time.”
“What do you mean?”
“Men are always looking at you. You’ve got the X factor – pheromones, whatever.”
“Oh, sure.”
“It’s true. You never notice because you’re not a flirt.”
“Because I’m a space cadet?”
“Sometimes that, too.”
“Alex,” she said, “I’ve never come close to dropping a hint that this was anything other than business.”