“That briefcase thingie of yours,” said Sterling. “Haven’t seen one of those since I was in junior high. You’re old-school, huh?”
“Whatever works, sir.”
“Sir. That’s old-school. I called my friends’ dads ‘sir.’ My kids’ friends call me Jay.”
I said, “Who do you think might’ve murdered Whitney?”
Sterling’s head drew back. “Back to business? Good idea, I’m running my mouth. No idea. Not a clue.”
“Was there a love interest before you? Someone who could’ve been jealous?”
“Same answer,” said Sterling.
“No knowledge at all.”
“None. Like I said, Whitney never talked about her past. About herself, period. Maybe I’m not getting it across: She was different. Okay, weird. Gorgeous and hot but icy when she wasn’t having sex. Most girls after they do it, they want some affection, right? Whitney? She’d go pee and not want to talk. When I was mad at her I’d think, ‘You are strangely wired, girl.’ But I never said it.” He sighed. “Now I’m glad I didn’t.”
I said, “You can’t think of anyone who might’ve resented her.”
“Not saying there wasn’t anyone,” said Jay Sterling. “Just that I don’t know about them. That’s your job. Finding out. Hope you do. Want to one day be able to tell my little man Jarr-o a story with some kind of ending.”
Chapter 24
We walked away from Sterling’s house with Milo shaking his head and studying the sidewalk.
I said, “Not what we expected.”
“He’s either a total psychopath daring me to investigate him or a sincere loudmouth. I’ll get on those accounts but you know what it’s gonna accomplish.”
“Nothing to hide, nothing to learn.”
In the unmarked, he said, “What’s your take on him?”
“My guess would be sincere.”
He started up the engine, looked back, pulled onto San Vicente, and U-turned around the median after a woman walking two Frenchies had passed.
“Not as cute as Blanche. Not even close.”
“When I see her, I’ll pass that along.”
A couple of miles later, he said: “Yeah, I’d also guess Sterling was being righteous. Open-book kinda guy, loves to hear himself talk. Guess that wouldn’t go over well with Whitney.”
“Despite that,” I said, “she had a child with him.”
“And according to Sterling, she planned it. What, she saw him as good breeding stock?”
“Maybe she’d observed him with his other kids and thought he was good dad material in the short run.”
“Not a candidate for romance, just good sperm? If so, she was pretty calculating. Interesting woman, our Whitney. In any event, if Sterling’s clean, who the hell killed her? Or paid to have it done?”
I said, “She embraced secrecy. That could’ve simply been her temperament. But she might have closed up because something in her past was too dark to share. Abuse, a stalker.”
“Problem is how do I find out? Most cases I hear plenty from friends and family but Donna Batchelor’s all the family Whitney had and we saw how little she knows. And what she told us syncs with what Sterling and Whitney’s boss said: no pals.”
I said, “You could try looking into conflict at any previous jobs. A relationship that went bad. Call her boss and find out where she came to them from. Also, the one personal thing Whitney did divulge to Sterling was that she hated her mother. That could’ve been because Donna was hard to get along with. But Donna was married twice so Whitney’s resentment could’ve been due to some issue with her stepfather.”
“Mr. Batchelor,” he said. “The old blended-family thing. Donna’s not gonna admit any problems and he’s dead.”
“There could be stepsibs. Another potential powder keg.”
“True,” he said. “Why the hell didn’t I think of that? You don’t mind if I use your computer.”
Not a question, a statement. I chose to take it as a compliment.
I sat on my battered leather couch while he hunched at my desk and typed hard enough to make the keyboard rattle.
Step one was learning the full name of Donna Batchelor’s second husband. Easily accessed by scanning marriage records.
Donna Killeen had been wed fourteen years ago to Rolf Edward Batchelor Jr. Civil ceremony in the chambers of a Superior Court justice named Leon McCarry.
Milo said, “I knew McCarry. All business, not the type to get celebratory. Someone had an in.”
He ran a search on Batchelor. Thirty-five years older than his bride; well into old age but still working. Attorney and certified public accountant, office address on Wilshire and Rimpau in Hancock Park. Home address not far from there, on Las Palmas Avenue.
He said, “I had McCarry sign a warrant at home once. He lived the next block over, on June. There’s the in.”
Step two was a dive into county property tax rolls. The newlyweds had lived at the groom’s place for eight years, after which Donna Batchelor was assessed at the West Hills address.
Milo said, “Downsizing.”
The chronology narrowed the time frame for step three, and within seconds, he’d pulled up a coroner’s summary listing the manner of Rolf Edward Batchelor Jr.’s death as natural causes (adenocarcinoma of the prostate).
Time for the inevitable shift to the public arena. Keywording rolf edward batchelor obituary yielded a tribute published by Legacy.com, a subsidiary of Forest Lawn Memorial Park.
First came the deceased’s educational achievements. Cum laude graduation from UC Berkeley, law degree from UC Hastings, MBA from USC business school, CPA certification a year later. Next came a brief list of Rolf Batchelor Jr.’s predictably respectable civic activities.
At the bottom: the crux.
Predeceased by loving wife Helen, survived by loving wife, Donna, and son Rolf III.
“Not an everyday moniker,” said Milo, assaulting the keys. “Okay, here we go, Portland, Oregon... oral surgeon... here’s his picture.”
The faculty headshot of Rolf Batchelor, D.D.S., M.D., supplied by Oregon Health and Science University, featured a full-faced, ruddy, apple-cheeked man in his forties with a bushy rust-and-silver beard and sparse gray hair drawn back into a ponytail that dangled over his shoulder. Black T-shirt under a white coat. Broad smile.
Associate professor, specialty: maxillofacial reconstruction with a focus on accident and burn victims. Multiple side trips to Colombia where he’d worked on the shattered visages of cartel victims.
Milo called the listed number. A receptionist said, “I think he’s in, one moment, please.”
Twenty seconds later a soft, slightly nasal voice said, “This is Rolf Batchelor. Police? Something came up with my sister?”
Milo introduced himself and gave a capsule explanation.
Batchelor said, “Wow, after all this time. I kept waiting for someone to call me and when they didn’t, figured it wasn’t going to happen. I thought of contacting the police but didn’t have anything to offer. The whole thing was so incredibly shocking. Not only poor Whitney but Jarrod floating around in a boat.”
“How’d you learn about it?”
“From Donna. Whitney’s mom. She was so agitated I could barely make out what she was saying. When I finally understood, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. It took me a long time to wrap my head around it.”
“You knew Jarrod.”
“No, never met him, but any child going through something like that? Horrible. So why are you calling now, Lieutenant — was it Stargill?”
“Sturgis.”
“Like the biker thing. I went once. So what’s come up with regard to my sister?”