“You need to tell me, Bri. For your sake.”
“Okay… so here’s what I’m gonna say: They’re like we put Ox in the Grey Goose bottle, she got totally blasted, fell asleep, then they’re like we put a towel over her nose and her mouth and she stopped breathing, she didn’t even move, it was like going to sleep. Then they put ice in the bathtub, put her in it.”
“So the ice was kind of a joke,” said Milo. “For laughs.”
“They’re always laughing. Q called it a science project, said when he was little they did tricks in school with dry ice.”
“Where were you and Selma when they were inside the house?”
“In Selma’s car,” she said. “We never went in, just like Selma told you.”
“What were you doing in Selma’s car?”
“Waiting. Getting bored. Okay, we smoked up a little. We were bored.”
“Did it bother you?”
“What?”
“What Tris and Q were doing inside the house?”
“They told us later.”
“You knew they were gonna kill her, Bri.”
“Maybe they were kidding.”
Milo smiled.
“Like I said, sir, I didn’t know her.”
Selma Arredondo sat with her arms folded across her flat chest. Exceptionally pretty girl even in station light, but hard-eyed and tight-mouthed and hostile. The sinew and bone and sharp angles of a carnivore that needs to consume its weight daily.
She said, “I’m not saying anything.”
“Suit yourself, Selma.” He headed for the door. “By the way, I’ve got a message from Bri: ‘Homegirl, you’re on your own.’”
Stab of fear. She covered with a smirk. “That’s not Bri.”
“How’s this for a reality check, Selma: Tris and Q took you and Bri to Fashion Square before they killed Elise, bought you dresses, shoes, and jewelry. Then you got pizza at Pizza Hut, then you looked for a Mexican to buy ice. You knew what the ice was for and while it was happening, you and Bri smoke up in your—”
“Wait!” Black eyes flashed. “What do you want me to say?”
“The truth.”
“Like what part of it?”
“All of it.”
She stared. Smiled girlishly and tossed her hair. “Sure, why not?”
Milo said, “Let’s talk about hats.”
“Don’t wear ’em.”
“A baseball hat, Selma.”
“Oh, that,” she said. “That was Bri’s idea. She said if it got left in the car, they could blame everything on the annoying kid.”
“Because he was annoying.”
“Yeah.”
“You and Bri never met him.”
“Nope.”
“What did Tris and Q find so annoying about him?”
“Better than them at baseball.”
“Both of them.”
“Yup. It pissed them off.”
“So why not frame him for a couple of murders.”
“It sounded,” she said, “like a real good idea.”
CHAPTER
35
Deputy D.A. John Nguyen left the observation room smiling. “Why can’t you do this all the time?”
“Do what?”
“Make my life easy. Okay, Xerox the murder book for me and I’ll have phone subpoenas on everyone activated within two hours, same for broad-based warrants for both families’ houses in Bel Air as well the little monsters’ desks and lockers at Prep. I’ll also suggest to the Feds that Wydette Senior’s plane was used to transport dope across state borders to Arizona, they can smooth it with the Aspen police for search of the mountain home. Anything else on your wish list?”
“Sounds good, John.” Milo phoned Moe Reed and told him to copy the file.
Nguyen said, “You should be able to execute those warrants by tomorrow a.m.”
“There may be a time lag between authorization and execution.”
“What? This from Mr. I-Want-It-Yesterday.”
“It’s complicated, John.”
“Seemed to me those bimbos just made it simple.”
“On the contrary, John.”
Milo carried the taped confessions back to his office. Moe Reed was just leaving with the murder book. His free hand waved a message slip.
“I was just going to look for you, Loo. This came in while I was copying.”
Milo scanned the note. “You took this personally?”
“Came in on your cell, Loo. I copied pretty much verbatim.”
Reed’s meticulous cursive read: I gave you SAT dates why didn’t you do anything? Go after Tristram Wydette and Quinn Glover, everyone already knows.
Reed said, “Young male. I tried to keep him on the line but he cut the connection.”
“‘Everyone already knows.’”
“I took that to mean at the school, Loo. It’s like those school shootings, right, Doc? Kids brag.”
I nodded.
Milo said, “Nothing like being outside the goddamn loop. Okay, get the copy to John, you might still be able to catch him in the lot. Then stay on call.”
Reed rotated his neck. “It’s happening.”
“Something is, Moses.”
CHAPTER
36
The chief listened.
Milo finished.
The chief said nothing.
“Sir?”
“Do you feel physically confident, Sturgis? You’re not exactly a gym rat.”
“Confident of—”
“Your ability to kick two young bucks’ asses if necessary?”
“Depends on—”
“What I’m getting at, Sturgis, is do you feel secure enough to go in there without a fucking army? I’d like to avoid some three-penny SWAT opera.”
“If the school cooperates and doesn’t alert them I think I can handle that.”
“The school won’t alert anyone because the school won’t know.”
“You want me to go in cold.”
“Interesting choice of words.”
“Yes, sir, it is.”
“This has been a tough one, Sturgis. Lingered in all our minds.”
“It has, sir.”
“Fuck it,” said the chief. “Just do what you need to do, but if there’s a way to minimize disruption, that would be preferable.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Just get it over with.”
We sped past the allée of Chinese elms. Herb Walkowicz was out of his booth before we rolled to a stop.
He tipped his hat. “Now what, guys?”
Milo showed him the warrants.
“Whoa, and here I was gonna give you the song and dance about calling Rollins before I can unlock the gates.”
Laughing, he fetched his key from the booth.
The first of Windsor Prep’s sixteen acres was an immaculate concrete-and-brick lot stack-parked with gleaming vehicles. Milo and I searched for Tristram Wydette’s Jaguar and Quinn Glover’s Hummer, found neither.
“Means nothing,” he said. “Kids like that can have access to all kinds of wheels.” But he called Reed and Binchy, anyway, to make sure they stayed close to the Wydette estate on Bellagio Drive and the even larger Glover spread, a few blocks away on Nimes Road.
Reed said, “There’s a guardhouse in front. First I thought it was a dummy inside, guy was so still. Then he moved his head. Once in ninety minutes. Talk about a fascinating job.”
“I don’t like surveillance, either, Moses.”
“Pardon—no, I don’t mind it.”
“Then keep enjoying.”
Beyond the parking area, a cluster of dun-colored, red-roofed Monterey Colonial buildings stood like chess pieces on a board of precision-mowed bluegrass. Monumental, perfectly positioned pines, floss trees, liquidambars, and redwoods were sculpted to symmetry. An adult female passed from one building to another. Then a male teacher in a tweed coat and khakis. A scatter of students studied on the lawn. No sound beyond breeze kissing leaves.