Franck's smile said we couldn't hope to understand.
Milo said, "Smart but not super-smart?"
"At a place like Prep, boosting a 740 SAT to 780 is profound."
"How much do smart kids pay for something like that, Trey?"
"Their parents pay a hundred an hour with a one-thousand-dollar retainer up front. My cut was fifty percent."
"How many clients a week did Elise send you?"
"At the peak I was putting in fifteen hours a week. I still can't believe she's gone." Franck's eyes drifted to the ceiling. Gray stains marred the plaster, as if a greasy-haired giant had butted his head.
"Seven fifty a week," said Milo.
"Well earned, Lieutenant."
"You don't have time for it anymore."
"I need to concentrate on my research," said Franck, slapping hair from his brow.
"What are you researching?"
"Catalysis and response engineering."
"Oh, yeah," said Milo. "Saw a TV Guide special on that."
Franck didn't react.
Milo edged an inch closer. "You're into color, huh?"
"Pardon?"
"Your hair, you dye it."
Franck licked his lips. "You take your fun where you find it."
"What's the next step, a catalysis tattoo?"
Reluctant smile. "I don't think so, Lieutenant."
"Were you Elise's only employee?"
"I was."
"When you went off to Harvard, she didn't hire anyone else?"
"No. When I was back for summers, I resumed. It beat flipping burgers."
"Guy with your talents," said Milo, "I don't see you in fast food."
"Guess what, Lieutenant, that's exactly what I did for two high school summers. McDonald's, Burger King. Then I promoted myself to busboy at Shecky's Deli. You want corned beef sliced thin, I'm your man."
"No summer fellowships available for smart kids?"
"There's no shortage of unpaid internships," said Franck. "And the best summer programs, like Oxbridge, you pay for. My father teaches math and my mother's a nurse. Ergo a funny hat and playing solo deep-fryer."
"So it was a match made in heaven," said Milo. "You and Elise."
"It worked out for both of us."
"How come you're wearing a Yale T-shirt?"
Franck blinked. "Why wouldn't I?"
"Why advertise the opposition?"
The young man's smile was wide and toothy. "It's an Ivy thing. Flaunting your own school is pretentious."
"So when some jerk cuts me off in traffic and he's got a YooHoo University decal on the rear window of his Mercedes he probably didn't go to YooHoo?"
"If he's a jerk, he probably did," said Franck. "Can I assume you have no idea who killed Elise?"
"I never said she was killed, Trey."
"You're homicide detectives."
"Sometimes we investigate suicides."
"You think that's what it was?"
"You see that as possible, Trey?"
"What do you mean?"
"Any signs of depression on Elise's part?"
"No."
"Just like that," said Milo, snapping his fingers. "No hemming and hawing."
"I never saw any depression. Not in the clinical sense."
"Meaning?"
"She had her moods," said Franck. "Like anyone. Mostly when I saw her, she was in fine spirits." He picked at a cuticle. "I probably shouldn't get into this, but I feel duty-bound. Not that I think it's necessarily relevant. But…"
Pick pick.
"There's a kid named Martin Mendoza. He's a senior at Prep and Elise tutored him. But he didn't come to her in the usual way, Prep assigned him to Elise."
"And?"
"And there were problems."
"What kinds of problems?"
"Anger management," said Franck. "He didn't want to be there-at Prep, or working with Elise-and he let her know. He came in as a junior, recruited to pitch for the baseball team, he'd been a star in public school. Early in the season, he got injured, couldn't play anymore, but Prep had already contracted with him for the full two years."
"Contracted?" said Milo. "Sounds like the major leagues."
"In a sense it is, Lieutenant. When a prize athlete from the inner city fits a niche at Prep, Prep draws up a written agreement. If it works out, everyone gets their money's worth. If it doesn't and the student has significant academic issues to begin with-which is fairly typical-the problem generally fixes itself. In a Darwinian sense."
"The student drops out because he can't handle the workload."
"It's a high-pressure environment to begin with," said Franck. "Unless you're academically oriented, you're likely to be miserable."
"Blow your knee, back to Urban Sprawl High."
"Well put, Lieutenant."
"Martin Mendoza didn't oblige?"
"From what Elise told me, transferring to Prep wasn't his choice, it was his parents'. His father works as a waiter at a country club, that's where he met an alum who hooked him up. But overcoming historical deficits is tough."
"What's a historical deficit, Trey?"
"Public school," said Franck. "Martin had some monumental catching up, Prep hired Elise to help him."
"Nice of them, even though he wasn't pitching anymore."
"Guess so."
"You don't think it was altruism."
"I think by seventeen a kid should have some control over his life and when you neglect that, you're playing with fire. Martin got pretty aggressive with Elise. It upset her."
"Physically aggressive?"
"Verbally, but it bothered her enough to tell me about it."
"Did she ask you to protect her from Mendoza?"
"Nothing like that, she just wanted to talk about it. Normally, I wouldn't be thinking about it. But now that she's… I have to tell you, I'm not comfortable talking out of school."
"So to speak," said Milo.
Silence.
"So Elise was scared of Mendoza."
"More like… I guess she was, Lieutenant. She tried to do her job but he kept missing appointments and messing up her schedule, never followed through on homework assignments, went out of his way to be uncooperative. Elise finally told him he was wasting her time and Prep's money and not doing himself a favor. He got in her face, started screaming. Elise said she backed away, was ready to call 911. But he just cursed and ran out and she never saw him again."
"When did this happen?"
"A month or so ago. When's the funeral?"
"At this point, that's unclear." Milo produced his pad, flipped it open, scanned. "Arnie Joseph's."
"Pardon?"
"It's a bar on Van Nuys Boulevard. Elise used to drink there occasionally but you know that."
"I don't drink." Franck's finger worked a cuticle. A seam of blood appeared and he stanched it with a thumb.
Another look at the greasy ceiling.
"You're saying you've never been to Arnie Joseph's."
Franck licked his lips. "I haven't."
"But you have been near Arnie Joseph's, that's how we found you, Trey. You walked Elise over there, then the two of you shared a bye-bye kiss. Hot and heavy was the way it was described to us."
Trey Franck blurted, "Oh, God." Plopping back on his bed, he lay on his back, closed his eyes, breathed fast.
"Anything else you want to tell us, Trey?"
Franck mumbled something.
"I didn't catch that, Trey."
"We did it."
"Did what?"
Franck propped up on his elbows, stared past us. "We made love. Not regularly, once in a while. Nothing emotional, for fun."
"Fun," said Milo.
"Stress relief." Franck swiveled and met our eyes. Held the gaze defiantly. "Dealing with idiots, hour after interminable hour. It helped us forget."
CHAPTER 19