Logging off, I tried Basia Lopatinski’s number at the crypt and lucked out.
She said, “Alex. Something new?”
“We got an I.D. on the wedding victim.”
“Good! Who is she?”
I gave her the basics.
“Studio City,” she said. “I will put this in the file. Thanks for letting me know.”
“Anything on Michael Lotz’s tox screen and autopsy?”
“The bloods aren’t back, yet, but he shows all the external signs of an opioid O.D. His body’s a pincushion and he’s got all sorts of Nazi-type tattoos. No decision on an autopsy, they’re having a scheduling meeting tomorrow. I’m hoping they’ll take my recommendation to cut him open. Why didn’t Milo call himself?”
“He’s swamped so I volunteered.”
“Nice of you,” she said. “It’s an interesting thing the two of you have. I’ve heard some other detectives are jealous.”
“And others have nothing good to say about it.”
She laughed. “So you know. Okay, check back with me by the end of tomorrow on the autopsy. Maybe the tox will also be back.”
“One more thing. I was wondering if you could look up an old case. Suicide a couple of years ago in Westwood. A student at the U. named Cassandra Booker.”
A pen scratched. “What would you like to know about her?”
“Cause of death.”
“This has something to do with Ms. DaCosta?”
“Same address as the building where Lotz worked.”
“Hold on.” A series of keyboard clicks. “Heroin and fentanyl, but a lot more fentanyl than DaCosta. Without an immediate shpritz of naloxone, this would’ve been rapidly fatal. It’s listed as undetermined not suicide. We do that for the family’s sake when an accidental O.D. is a reasonable possibility.”
Maxine Driver had heard differently. School gossip?
I said, “Any psychiatric data in the file?”
“Let me see... no, sorry.”
“Any way to ask the pathologist?”
“That was Doctor... Fawzi. He’s not with us anymore, somewhere in the Mideast, no idea where, and there’s no guarantee he’d remember.”
“Where did she die?”
“Says... in her room on her bed,” said Lopatinski. “Not the bathroom like DaCosta if that’s what you’re getting at. That, the dosage, no garrote, I have to say I’m seeing more discrepancies than similarities, Alex. To either Ms. DaCosta or Mr. Lotz — no needle marks on Ms. Booker, new or old.”
“She snorted.”
“A lot of kids do it that way. They don’t like pain but aren’t afraid of long-term consequences. That’s the definition of youth, right, Alex?”
I returned to the Peter Kramer search, using Los Angeles as a limiter. Still well over a hundred possibilities. Of those, only a handful of commercial sites included phone numbers, a good portion of which were inoperative or linked to clickbait or other nonsense. That’s the internet: an ocean of quantity, droplets of quality.
The Kramers I was able to reach were baffled by my questions; a few grew irritated.
What could Bob Pena’s assistant tell me, anyway? The facts of Cassy Booker’s death were sad but nonprobative. The poor kid had died alone on a bed in a private dorm, the victim of the same cocktail that had created a national scourge.
Fentanyl, cheap, fast acting, turbocharged, and snortable, was the current rock star of brain poisons, and people of Cassy Booker’s age were a prime audience. Combine that with the discrepancies Basia Lopatinski had noted and there wasn’t much to work with.
Except.
Suzanne had been murdered at the wedding of Amanda Burdette’s brother and Cassy had lived in the same complex as Amanda and been part of the same academic program as Amanda. The girls were close in age, physically similar.
The few leads we had pointed to Suzanne’s murder as a contract killing at the hands of Michael Lotz. But when it came to his own violent appetites, did Michael Lotz go for a whole other type of victim?
Had Amanda been pegged as a victim, only to be saved by Lotz’s inadvertent overdose? Turning it another way, had Suzanne been slaughtered because of a relationship with Amanda?
The Brain.
A mean-spirited, antisocial young woman colluding with the addict in the basement to get rid of an inconvenience?
I tossed that around for a while, decided I had nothing to offer Milo that couldn’t wait until morning.
But he couldn’t.
Chapter 28
At nine thirty p.m., I’d just picked up my old Martin and was settling down to play. Robin was showering. While shopping for groceries, she’d gotten an away-from-the-office reply from Sharon Isbin at Juilliard.
Blanche sat at my feet, waiting for her favorite fingerpick, “Windy and Warm.” When I placed the guitar back in its case and reached for the phone, she let out a deep sigh.
I consoled her with a neck rub and clicked on. “Working late?”
Milo said, “Time is an abstract concept.” Lightness in his voice. “The bad news is I can’t find any info on Suzanne DaCosta and her license is only half a year old, so I’m thinking it might be an alias. To balance that out, two big good things: First, I spotted Lotz in one of the wedding photos, I’ll show you when we get together. Second, just heard from Homeland. Garrett B. hadn’t been to Europe. Until today. Not Poland, Italy. He and La Bambina took an Alitalia flight that landed in Rome this morning. Sleepy tried getting their whereabouts from Italian immigration, don’t ask. I’m having Moe, Sean, and Alicia call every goddamn hotel in the city.”
I said, “Accelerated schedule on the honeymoon.”
“Right after we talk to him about Poland. Funny thing ’bout that, huh? And during that period Lotz dies. You talk to Basia, yet?”
“She’ll know more about the autopsy after a meeting tomorrow. Lotz’s bloods aren’t back but the signs of an O.D. are obvious, including lots of track marks. He’s also got what sound like prison tattoos. My big thing is Cassy Booker died of a heroin-fentanyl overdose. Not suicide, undetermined. Basia says without a no-alternative suicide, they do that for the family.”
“I know,” he said. “Either way, Alex, it’s not murder, just a college kid O.D.’ing on the poison du jour.”
I said, “True, but Amanda and Cassie being enrolled in the same program and living in the same complex bugs me.”
“Garrett and little sis are both involved in very bad stuff? Sure, why not? Get me word from Maxine that the girls actually hung out, Amanda goes on the radar. Meanwhile, it’s her suddenly rabbiting brother who interests me.”
“Anything come up on him?”
A beat. “I was afraid you’d ask that. If you must know, he appears annoyingly spotless. Eagle Scout, high school salutatorian, graduated with honors from UC Irvine, got hired by the numbers-crunchers he still works for. I’m gonna drop in at his folks’ place tomorrow, see if we can pry something out of them. Maybe also get a look at Pa Walton’s barn where the animal dope is stored.”
“Calabasas,” I said. “Back to the Valley.”
“That appears to be my current karma. I’m figuring let the traffic fade, we leave around nine. This time I’ll drive.”
We. Assuming I’d never turn down the opportunity.
Ace detective.
Chapter 29
In L.A., twenty miles from city center can take you to a world apart.
Calabasas, spilling into the Santa Monica Mountains on the western edge of the San Fernando Valley, used to be a low-key pocket of rustic, horsey serenity. That’s been altered by an influx of retired athletes and celebrities who’ve achieved fame for merely existing, along with the metastatic palaces they erect and businesses that cater to self-love and shallow notoriety.