That sounded like a riff on chess.
I said, “A castle filled with relics of strangers’ lives. What’s the first thing people of means do when they get a new house? Personalize it. Meagin and Doug moved in and made no changes at all. No mystery why Doug would be okay with that, he told us. It’s not a home, it’s a stopover. To him, real estate is currency. Want to take odds he’ll be selling the place soon and trading up with some sort of tax-free exchange? But to Meagin it might’ve driven home how unstable her situation was. How little power she had in the relationship. So she explored.”
“Not Ms. Domestic,” he said. “Let’s try to find out who she was.”
Chapter 12
“Hi, this is Lana...”
“Hi, this is Toni...”
Milo left identical messages, identifying himself as an LAPD detective but not specifying the nature of his call. Hanging up, he tapped his foot and drummed his desk. “Typical. Everyone too busy for the constabulary.”
The helpful element in both women’s voicemaiclass="underline" surnames included.
Lana Demarest, Antoinette Bowman. That led to a fruitful DMV search.
Lana Elaine Demarest, thirty-nine, lived on the 500 block of Crescent Drive in Beverly Hills. Antoinette Marie Bowman, forty-five, on La Mesa Drive in Santa Monica.
The internet revealed Demarest to be a pediatric dentist practicing on Twenty-Sixth Street, near the Brentwood Country Mart. Smiling headshot, vividly colored website replete with cartoon animals.
Bowman, located on a business-link site, self-described as an entrepreneur. Milo looked up business licenses and found ownership of seven gas stations in Hollywood and Mid-Wilshire, and a tow yard in Silverlake.
Logging onto the county assessor pulled up no other real estate for Dr. Demarest but multiple holdings for Ms. Bowman. Eight multi-unit apartment buildings and three strip malls, all east of La Brea.
He said, “Property tycoon. Wonder if she met Meagin through Doug.”
I said, “Could be, but there are no kids involved so it’s unlikely Dr. Demarest did. Neither of them sound like people with a lot of spare time. Is there a pattern for when they talked to Meagin?”
He checked. “Good guess, always evenings.”
“Two friends in a big city,” I said. “Neither of whom she could hang with extensively. But maybe they were there the night she met Doug.”
“Be nice,” he said. “Not that it would get me closer to who killed her.”
He looked at his watch. “Nearing six, maybe getting cold-called by the cops will get them curious — or worried enough to get back to me.”
By the time I left his office at six fifteen, that hadn’t happened.
Tuesday morning at ten, he phoned and said, “They both just got back to me. Like it was coordinated. Demarest cried, Bowman cursed. When I asked to meet, Demarest said she’d have to check her schedule and Bowman said she’d let me know and hung up. I figured they were both putting me off but minutes later Bowman phoned and said they could both be available at twelve thirty in Demarest’s office, which is closed between noon and two. Maybe we can score some free floss. Can you make it?”
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
Dr. Lana Demarest practiced “gentle pedodontics” out of a brick-and-gray-aluminum two-story building just north and across the street from the Country Mart. Ample parking in a rear open lot. An elevator covering three floors responded to Milo’s button-push with a labored, belch-like noise. We took the stairs to Demarest’s office on the second story.
Offices on the left side of a narrow hallway, windows on the right. Three other D.D.S.’s and a dental lab. Everyone out to lunch. Demarest’s door was closed but unlocked.
A Technicolor waiting room was redolent of mint. Kids’ magazines were stacked on brightly colored tables. Sesame Street murals on the walls.
One woman sat in a peacock-blue vinyl chair. One stood by her side.
The sitter got up. “Lieutenant? Lana.” Brief handshakes. Soft skin.
Dr. Lana Demarest had left her pink nylon tunic on over gray slacks and sneakers. Barely over five feet tall, she was round-faced, freckled, and pretty under a luxuriant pile of wavy amber hair. Her voice was soft, melodic, nonthreatening. Ideal for someone probing the teeth and gums of children.
Deep-blue eyes were red-rimmed. She tried to smile past obvious grief.
Milo said, “Thanks for meeting with us, Doctor. This is Alex Delaware.”
The woman near the chair hadn’t been addressed but she was the one to respond.
“Of course we’d want to help.”
She came toward us, stopped just short of collision. Beige cashmere top, indigo stovepipe jeans, chocolate boots with two-inch heels that elevated her to five-ten.
Toni Bowman was built like a fashion model, causing the top to drape perfectly. A long bronzed face under cropped, black hair was aged hard. Once-supple wood petrified by time.
Another pair of blue eyes, lighter than Demarest’s, verging on colorless. Searching eyes, unmarked by any obvious sign of lamentation.
Toni Bowman looked angry.
I thought: That could be useful.
Chapter 13
The four of us convened in Demarest’s corn-yellow consulting room. Larger than Milo’s office but not by much. Demarest sat behind a small desk, the rest of us faced her. On the wall behind the desk were diplomas and certificates and a collection of color shots of her with a bald, bespectacled man and three blond, round-faced children.
Toni Bowman moved her chair as far as possible from us and angled it. Wanting a good view of the intruders.
Milo said, “Again, so sorry to have to give you such terrible news.”
“It was a shock,” said Lana Demarest. “It still is. Unbelievable.”
Toni Bowman nodded but the movement seemed to lack conviction. As if unsurprised. She said, “Do you have any idea who did it?”
“Not yet, we’re at the early stages.”
“Not yet? You’re optimistic.”
Milo smiled.
Bowman said, “Hope you’re right. We’re assuming you found us on Meg’s phone.”
“We did.”
Lana Demarest said, “Can you tell us what happened?”
“Meagin was shot to death in the backyard of a man named Giovanni Aggiunta. He was also killed.”
“Oh my God.” Demarest looked at Bowman.
Bowman said, “Did it have to do with Meagin or with him?”
Milo said, “You knew him.”
“We knew of him — correction, we had seen him. Once and only to say hello.”
“You saw him with Meagin?”
“At the spa. We went into the sauna, Meg was there with him and he left. But you could tell there was something going on between them.”
“How?”
Toni Bowman smiled. “The look that passed between them.”
Milo took out his pad. “Which spa, please?”
“Agua Fria Day Spa on Montana. That’s where we met Meagin. In the sauna. She loved the sauna.”
“How long ago?”
“A while back.” Bowman looked at Demarest. Uncertainty had softened her face.
Demarest said, “Well, we only started going there around a year ago, right?”
Bowman said, “That’s true. So it couldn’t have been much longer than that.”
“Maybe seven months,” said Demarest. “Can’t quantify beyond that, sorry.”
Milo said, “And you saw Gio Aggiunta when?”
“Hmm,” said Bowman. “That was maybe... three months ago?”