“Heard where?”
“Around,” said Reed. “That’s all she’d say.”
“And she doesn’t like Sranil.”
“So she could be badmouthing them, sure. I couldn’t find anything on the Web about any murder.”
“Foreign girl as in non-Asian?” said Milo.
“As in European, she thought Swedish, but couldn’t pinpoint. Think it means anything, Loo?”
Milo filled him in on my research.
“Interesting,” said Reed. “But I’m not seeing any obvious link to the Borodi murders.”
“Me neither, Moses, but the fact that our female vic was snooping in Masterson’s files and Masterson’s in cahoots with the Sranilese government is a start. Let’s try to find out if the rumor about Prince Tariq has any substance. Look at unsolveds during the period he lived in L.A. Spread a wide net but focus on foreign female vics.”
I said, “Our female victim was a good-looking woman. She could’ve been a party girl, too.”
“Friend of the victim,” said Reed. “Maybe she’s foreign, herself, and that’s why she faked her identity-some sort of immigration issue.”
Milo said, “Cheap clothes says maybe the party was over, maybe she was aiming for a big score. The Borodi site definitely interested her. In addition to going there with Backer, she was spotted hanging around by herself.”
“What if the site was a previous crime scene, Loo? Tariq brought a girl up there and something went wrong-could’ve even been an accident, she falls down the stairs, or out of a window hole. Or he really is a scumbag. Either way, he’s gone but Brigid knows what happened, decides to profit.”
“If she knew where it happened, why bother to snoop in the files?”
“Okay, maybe she knew about the place in general, but needed details,” said Reed. “Or she was searching for other real estate Tariq owned, thinking he might be back and she could get to him.”
I said, “Blackmail could be involved but there could also be a personal component. Avenging a friend. That would explain her bringing Backer up there to have sex.”
Milo said, “Screw you, Tariq. So to speak. But they got spotted. Twelve bil would make it easy to hire a high-grade hit man. Sultan’s already rescued Baby Bro from one murder, what’s a couple more ten thousand miles away?”
Reed said, “Plus, he’s a dictator, used to having his way.”
I said, “A dictator who opens his palace to the peasants because he knows he’s on shaky sand. A fuss about Teddy murdering a girl and getting away with it could shift the sands uncomfortably.”
Milo got up, paced. “It’s a great story and I hope to hell it’s wrong because how could we ever get to someone like that? There’s also the same big question: If Borodi was a crime scene, why hasn’t the sultan unloaded it? And why have a lame, unarmed wimp guard it part-time?”
Reed said, “What if the body’s buried there?”
“All the more so, Moses. Dig it up, dump it, move on. Why hold on to the place?”
Reed had no answer for that and neither did I.
I pulled out my cell phone. Seconds later, I was hanging up from a frosty chat with Elena Kotsos. “She’s certain Brigid wasn’t European. ‘Pure American.’ Which she clearly considers an insult.”
Milo sat back down. “Moses, stretch that net to the entire state. And thanks for coming up with this. You done good.”
“It’s my job, Loo.”
“Hey, kid, remember what I always tell you.”
“Take all of the credit, none of the blame.”
“Better than Prozac, lad. Now be off.”
CHAPTER 17
Milo ran image searches for the sultan and Prince Tariq. Two smallish men who resembled each other, with boyish faces, cleft chins, thin, precise mustaches. Full regalia, both of them smiling. Determination in the sultan’s eyes. Despite the show of perfect white teeth, discomfort in his brother’s.
Milo printed, kept surfing. female Scandinavian murder victim u.s.
A young woman from Goteborg missing three years seemed promising. Inge Samuelsson had worked as a bar hostess in various European and Asian cities, tried Las Vegas, vanished. But the final citation was happy news: She’d shown up in New Zealand, living on a commune, tending sheep.
“Lucky her,” said Milo. “South Pacific, plus all that lanolin.”
The phone rang. Sean Binchy said, “Hey, Loot, finally got employment records out of Beaudry. They really stonewalled until I threatened to go to the press, call them Constructiongate.”
“Creative, Sean.”
“I was actually joking, but they bit. A couple of suits went into an office and they must’ve called a lawyer because they came out announcing the gag agreement didn’t apply to subcontractors, they’d give me names when they found them but it would take a while, there was no central list. I said you guys do government projects, I’ve got friends at INS, they’re pretty interested in illegals working construction. And they went back to check again and said, ‘Guess what, we do have a list.’ Problem is, they keep all their old records in Costa Mesa. I’m heading there right now, but with traffic, it’s going to be a while.”
“Time for some ska punk, Sean.”
“Pardon?”
“Play a CD, go back to your roots. It’ll lighten the journey.”
“I’ve got a bunch of downloads. Third Day, MercyMe, Switch-foot. That’s all faith-based, Loot.”
“I could use some faith right now, Sean.”
Milo returned to the screen, broadened his search to female victims throughout Europe, had plodded through a nonproductive list when Delano Hardy stuck his head in and handed him a message slip. “Showed up in my box.”
“Thanks, Del.”
“Why I get your stuff is beyond me, we’re nowhere near each other alphabetically.”
“It’s happened before?”
“Last week,” said Hardy. “Bunch of solicitations for those fictitious charities pretend to be raising money for cops and firemen. Those, I tossed.”
“Thanks again, Del.”
“Hey, you’d do the same for me.”