Milo said, “How’d you both end up in Nevada?”
“Reyn ran away from home when he was fifteen- more like walked out and no one cared. I’m not sure what he did for ten years, I know he tried the marines, ended up in the brig, dishonorable discharge. I moved to Vegas because my dad died and my mom liked playing the slots. When you’re an only child, you feel responsible. My husband’s from a family of five kids, big old Mormon clan, totally different world.”
Milo nodded. “Ten years. Reyn showed up when he was twenty-five.”
“At my mother’s condo. Tattooed and drunk and he’d put on about sixty pounds. She wouldn’t let him in. He didn’t argue but he kept hanging around on her street. So Mom called Cop Daughter. When I saw him, I was shocked- believe it or not, he used to be a nice-looking guy. I gave him some cash, set him up at a motel, told him to sober up and move to another city. The last part he kept.”
“ Reno.”
“Next I heard from him was two years later, needing money for bail. I can’t tell you where he was in between.”
“Bad decisions,” I said.
“He’s never been violent,” said Marcia Peaty. “Just another one of those revolving-door dudes.”
Milo said, “His peeper bust could be thought of as scary.”
“Maybe I’m rationalizing but that seemed more like drunk and disorderly. He’d never done anything like that before, hasn’t since- right?”
“People say he stared a lot. Made ’em uncomfortable.”
“Yeah, he tends- tended to space out,” said Marcia Peaty. “Like I said, he was no Einstein, couldn’t add three-digit sums. I know it sounds like I’m giving a mope a free pass but he didn’t deserve to get shot by that banger. Can you fill me in on how it happened?”
Milo gave her the barest details of the murder, leaving out the whispering phone calls and Vasquez’s claim of harassment.
She said, “One of those stupid things,” and sipped a half inch of martini. “Banger going to pay?”
“He’ll get something.”
“Meaning?”
“Defense is gonna paint your cousin as a bully.”
“Reynold was a booze-soaked loser but he never bullied an ant.”
“He have any kind of love life?”
Marcia Peaty’s hazel eyes narrowed. Speed-trap gaze. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“D.A. wants a clear picture of what he was like. I can’t find evidence of any love life, just a collection of young girl videos.”
Marcia Peaty’s knuckles whitened around her glass. “How young?”
“Barely legal.”
“Why does any of that matter?”
“Reynold worked as a janitor at an acting school. A couple of female students were murdered.”
Marcia Peaty blanched. “Uh-uh. No way. I worked Vice long enough to know a sex criminal when I see one and Reynold wasn’t- and that ain’t family denial. Trust me on this, you’d best be looking elsewhere.”
“Speaking of family, let’s talk about your other cousins.”
“I mean it,” she said. “Reyn wasn’t wired that way.”
“The other cousins,” said Milo.
“Who?”
“The Dowds. You were at Nora Dowd’s house the other day, told a neighbor you were her cousin.”
Marcia Peaty slid her glass toward her left hand. Then back to her right. Lifting the pick skewering the onion, she twirled, put it back. “That wasn’t strictly true.”
“There’s lenient truth?” said Milo.
“She’s not my cousin. Brad is.”
“He’s her brother.”
Marcia Peaty sighed. “It’s complicated.”
“We’ve got time.”
CHAPTER 39
Like I said, I come from trailer trash,” said Marcia Peaty. “No shame in that, my father, Dr. James Peaty, pulled himself up, it’s even more to his credit.”
“Unlike his brother,” I said.
“Brothers plural,” she said. “And sister. Reyn’s dad, Roald, was the youngest, in and out of prison his whole life, later shot himself. Next up was Millard and between him and my dad was Bernadine. She died after being put away.”
“Put away for what?” said Milo.
“Alcohol-induced craziness. She was a good-looking woman but she used her looks in not the best way.” She pushed her plate away. “I know all this from my mother who hated Dad’s family, so she may have heaped it on a bit. But overall I think she was accurate because Dad never denied it. Mom used to hold up Bernadine as a negative example for me- don’t do what that ‘immoral wench’ did.”
“What’d Bernadine do?” said Milo.
“Left home at seventeen and went down to Oceanside with a friend, another wild girl named Amelia Stultz. The two of them worked the sailor trade and God knows what else. Bernadine got pregnant by some guy on shore leave who she never saw again. Had a baby boy.”
“Brad,” I said.
She nodded. “That’s how Brad came into this world. When Bernadine got put away he was three or four, got sent to California to live with Amelia Stultz, who’d done a whole lot better, married a navy captain with family money.”
Milo said, “Amelia was an immoral wench but she raised someone else’s kid?”
“The way my mother told it, my uncle Millard blackmailed her, said he’d tell her rich husband about her past if she didn’t ‘take the brat.’ ”
“Conniving fellow, your besotted uncle,” I said. “Did he ask anything for himself?”
“Maybe money changed hands, I don’t know.” Marcia Peaty frowned. “I’m aware that this lays responsibility on everyone but my father. I’ve wondered about that, could Dad have been that calculated.” A cheek muscle jumped. “Even if he’d wanted to help Brad, no way my mother would have agreed to take him in.”
“The rich captain was Bill Dowd Junior.”
“ Hancock Park,” she said. “On the surface, Brad lucked out. The problem was Amelia had no interest in raising her own kids, let alone one she’d been stuck with. She’d always fancied herself a dancer and an actress. A performer, Mom called it. Which meant stripping in some of those Tijuana clubs and maybe worse.”
“How’d Amelia snag Captain Dowd?”
“She was great-looking,” said Marcia Peaty. “Blond bombshell, when she was young. Maybe it was like that country song, guys going for women on the trashy side.”
Or family tradition. Albert Beamish had said Bill Dowd Junior married a “woman with no class” just like his mother.
Milo said, “Amelia took Brad in but didn’t care to raise him? We talking abuse or just neglect?”
“I never heard about abuse, more like she ignored him completely. But she did that with her own kids, too. Both of whom had problems. Have you met Nora and Billy Three?”
“Yup.”
“I haven’t seen them since we were kids. What’re they like?”
Milo ignored the question. “How’d you happen to see them as kids?”
“Dad must’ve felt guilty because he tried to make contact with Brad when I was around five. We drove into L.A. and visited. Amelia Dowd liked my dad and started inviting us to birthday parties. Mom griped about it but down deep she didn’t mind going to a fancy affair in a big house. She did warn me away from Bill Three. Said he was retarded, couldn’t be counted on to control himself.”
“He ever act scary?”
She shook her head. “He just seemed quiet and shy. Obviously he wasn’t normal but he never bothered me. Nora was a space cadet, walked around talking to herself. Mom said, ‘Look at Amelia, marrying rich, living the good life, but she ends up with defective kids.’ I don’t want to make it sound like Mom was a hateful person, she just had no use for Dad’s family and anyone associated with them. His whole life Uncle Millard did nothing but sponge off us, and Roald was no picnic either before he died. Also, when Mom talked like that it was always part of complimenting me. ‘Money’s nothing, honey. Your children are your legacy and that makes me a wealthy woman.’ ”