“Is it worth my time to come up and look at the crime scene?”
“Feel free but what you’re gonna see is a parking lot that’s cleaner than it was before the shooting. Minute the tape was down, church ladies were scrubbing.”
“Maybe we’ll pass,” said Milo.
“That would be me,” said Sam Cifuentes. “We’ll talk if there’s something to talk about, right?”
“Right.”
Chapter 29
Even before Milo’s left hand hung up, his right was tapping his keyboard.
He logged onto NCIC, then L.A. and Ventura County’s criminal databases. Nothing on Richard Brett Barlett. The internet was similarly stingy but for the reports of the murder we’d already read.
He swiveled around. “Lives like a monk. How does a guy like that figure into Meagin’s world?”
I said, “Maybe a relative? A close one, seeing as he’s one of the few people she called.”
“Three years younger than her... guess he could be a kid brother but then why did she call him only once?”
I shrugged. “You could try seeing if Barlett was her maiden name.”
“You mean Jones wasn’t? I’m shocked.”
He searched for meagin barlett, found nothing, paired the surname with megan, meagan, meg. That produced several social media hits, none the woman we were interested in. Combining her name and its permutations with richard brett pulled up a lot of noise that took a while to plod through and ended up useless.
He said, “A church guy and a former call girl? Sounds like a bad movie.”
“Maybe Barlett wasn’t always a church guy.”
“What then?”
“He went monastic to atone for his past.”
“Not a criminal past.”
“Nothing illegal about gambling in Vegas,” I said. “What if he’d once been a card ace?”
“Poker shark morphs into church clerk?”
“It happens.”
“That also sounds like a movie, Alex. Guy living at the tables, that would be an addiction, right? The only reason I can see for a big lifestyle change would be going broke, not some moral brainstorm. And if that was the case, what are the odds — pardon the expression — of it lasting?”
I thought about that. “Okay, maybe he wasn’t a green-felt guy. Or he was and there’s a middle ground: He relapsed while working at the church and kept the fact secret. That could also explain living simply. The casinos got most of his money.”
“Filing papers for the diocese by day and playing at night. You know what that sounds like.”
“Potential for embezzlement.”
“Cifuentes said people respect the church, but who the hell knows. Okay, let’s go local, that’s where a backslider would start.”
He turned back to his keyboard. “Closest place to the church is... the Players Casino, Ventura... and here’s another, looks bigger, run by the Chumash in Santa Barbara.”
The next twenty minutes were spent asking for and finally connecting to managers at both casinos who could give him answers.
No record of Richard Brett Barlett receiving lines of credit or racking up debts at either gambling house. The same was true for expulsions, banishment, any sort of security issue.
Both Sonia Hidalgo at Players and Harvey Morega at the Santa Barbara casino pointed out that someone habituated to low-minimum slots could go unnoticed.
Milo said, “Silent majority.”
“You got that,” said Morega. “If they don’t cause problems. Or win big.”
“Not a lot of those.”
“That’s the point, Lieutenant. Quiet and steady is what keeps us humming.”
Next step: pulling up Richard Brett Barlett’s DMV data.
Five-ten, one forty-eight, brn, brn, clean record, corrective lenses required. Barlett’s face was pale, narrow, and hollow-cheeked topped by unruly wavy hair, horizontally banded by steel-rimmed eyeglasses and bottomed by a patchy dark beard.
I avoid reading too much into official photos but it was hard not to see these eyes as sad.
Milo said, “No resemblance to our gal that I can see. You?”
I shook my head.
He moved on to Barlett’s driving record. “Not even a speeding ticket. Let’s see what Meagin’s social circle has to say.”
This time, Dr. Lana Demarest was in her office and got on the line.
She said, “Richard who?”
“Barlett.” Milo spelled the name.
“No, sorry, doesn’t ring a bell. Who is he?”
“Someone Meagin called a couple of months ago.”
“Months? How many times?”
“Once, Doctor.”
“Oh,” said Demarest. “That doesn’t sound like much of a clue.”
Toni Bowman said, “I told you a week.”
“I’m calling about another matter, ma’am.”
“Now what?”
Milo explained.
She said, “I have absolutely no idea who this person is. And frankly, it sounds like you’re desperate.”
One last try: Rhonda “Rikki” Montel’s cellphone. Mumbling, “Like she’s gonna answer.”
She did, sounding cheerful but slurred. Steady bass beat in the background dusted with conversational hum.
“Who is this? Oh, you. You solved it?”
Milo explained.
She said, “Never heard of him. One time? Sounds like a pocket call.”
Click.
He sat back and laughed.
I said, “You didn’t tell them Barlett had been murdered.”
“Wouldn’ta changed anything, either they know him or they don’t.”
He stood, stretched, winced. “Go home, that’s what I’m doing.”
We left the station together, entered the staff lot and drifted apart as we headed to our cars.
I was ten yards away when he called out my name.
I pivoted, saw him standing by his back bumper, waving his phone, and jogged back.
“That was Cifuentes. He reached the orange grove manager and she said Barlett had a visitor a few weeks ago, three, four, probably but she’s not sure exactly when. She didn’t see the driver, just the car. Wanna guess?”
I said, “Black compact.”
“Parked in front of Barlett’s cabin. She has no idea if anything negative went on and Barlett wouldn’ta told her, they didn’t have that kind of relationship.”
“How long did the visit last?”
“No idea, she just saw the car and thought it was unusual because during the five years Barlett had been living there, she’d never known him to have a visitor. She also can’t say when it left because her exit from the grove takes her in the opposite direction.”
I said, “The bad guy visits Barlett but leaves him alive. Then he murders Meagin and Gio and comes back because Barlett could I.D. him.”
“That’s what I’m thinking. Some bastard with a grudge who also knew Barlett.”
I said, “Maybe it was Barlett who told him where to find Meagin.”
“Talk about snitches ending up in ditches,” he said. “I’m still going home but tomorrow the kids and I are gonna do a wider canvass of Gio’s and Meagin’s neighborhoods, see if anyone else saw the car, maybe some nervous security-conscious type noticed more details.”
“Fear, the great motivator.”
“Pays my salary.”
“Sometimes mine, as well.”
Chapter 30
I phoned Robin from the road, gave her my ETA, asked if I should pick up something for dinner.
She said, “Perfect timing, I defrosted steaks, you can get your grill on and make me that tequila Manhattan you came up with a few weeks ago. My contribution will be coleslaw, two gorgeous artichokes I scored this morning, braised carrots with that za’atar thing you like, and sautéed mushrooms.”