It didn’t take long for him to find remnants of a petroleum-based gelatinous substance: rubbery remnants scraped from the drainpipe of the sink.
“Like someone washed their hands of the stuff,” opined a bomb-squad cop. “Like that gal in the play, Lady Macbeth.”
Milo said, “That assumes our gal feels guilty. More likely, she just wanted to be squeaky-clean after a hard day’s work.”
The bomb guy said, “You’re figuring this was her chem lab?”
“You’re not?”
“I’d expect more trace, no matter how well she scrubbed up.”
“The dogs like it here.”
“The dogs can sniff half an atom divided by a zillion. She tracks in a molecule, they’ll react. To me this feels more like the place she came home to after the chem lab. If I were you, I’d keep looking. Maybe tube your suspect on the six o’clock and see if anyone recognizes her.”
Milo phoned Public Affairs. A lieutenant there said, “This is something I’m going to have to check out with the bosses.”
“Why?”
“Foreigner? Big money? You really need to ask?”
Ambitious fingerprinting and DNA swabbing by the crime lab techies continued into the evening. Plenty of hits in all the expected places, at least six different print patterns but a predominance of two. If Dahlia and Helga Gemein were ever found, chemistry would confirm what was already known.
The VINs of the Boxster and the bike in the garage matched vehicles Dahlia Gemein had registered three years ago. The paper on both had lapsed. DMV had sent a couple of reminders before consigning the matter to the black hole of government records.
Nothing but oil stains in the otherwise spotless garage. The dogs walked through the space nonchalantly.
The bomb guy said, “She wanted to set up shop, this would be a perfect place. I’d definitely be looking elsewhere.”
Milo gave a courtesy call to Gayle Lindstrom, was pleased to get voice mail. He tried Reed. “Finished with Meneng?”
“Long finished and back at the station, Loo.”
“How’d lunch go?”
“I suggested a coffee shop, she pushed for the Pacific Dining Car on Sixth, ran up an eighty-dollar bill. Surf and turf, plus all the trimmings but no new info.”
“Big appetite for a small girl.”
“She doggie-bagged nearly all of it, talked the whole time about wanting to be an actress,” said Reed. “I think she gave it all up to you.”
Milo said, “The good news is one way or the other, you’ll get reimbursed for the grub. The bad news is ‘the other’ might mean Uncle Milo shelling out.”
“No way, Loo. It was my decision.”
“You bet way, Moses, Uncle Milo takes care of his troops. The other good news is I won’t snitch to Dr. Wilkinson about you chomping steak with a hottie.”
“I had soda water,” said Reed. “The eighty was all her. She’ll probably get a week of calories out of that doggie bag. So what do you want me to do next?”
“Start a real estate search for any properties owned by the sultan of Sranil, we already know Teddy has nothing obvious on file.”
“Local or national?”
“Start local, work your way out. I’m sure His Imperial Poobah is layered up thicker than a Sherpa in winter, but we need to try. Start with Masterson, tell the battleax who works the phones that someone’s on the rampage against their star client, but don’t say who. Also, have Sean do a few drive-bys on Borodi and the surrounding streets, just in case La Balda returns to the scene.”
“You figure she might’ve gotten a sexual thrill from the torch?”
“This was personal, Moses, there’s all kinds of thrills.”
He got out to check on the crime scene techs. An hour or so more. As he returned to the car, Officer Chris Kammen rang in.
No planes from Southern California had flown in last night to the general aviation section of the Port Angeles airport. Kammen had taken the extra step and checked with SeaTac: Not a single flight to L.A., Burbank, or Ontario departed late enough to accommodate the luggage thief’s near-midnight departure from the storage unit, let alone the drive to Seattle.
“So you’re definitely dealing with two separate suspects, Hood-boy could’ve blown into our town at any time. We’re no L.A. but we don’t have the available manpower to search every dark corner. Specially without what the city council calls a compelling reason.”
“Fair enough,” said Milo. “Once I get a suspect, we can cross-reference.”
“Hey,” said Kammen. “Optimism. I once read about that.”
Milo ’s second try at Public Affairs was met with a secretary’s curt “We’re working on your request.”
“Working, how?”
“You’ll be notified in due time, Lieutenant.”
Clicking off, he muttered, “Time to pole-vault over their little pea-heads,” and dialed Deputy Chief Weinberg to press for a news feed featuring Helga Gemein’s photo. Toning down the spiel he’d given Judge LaVigne, he made it through one sentence before Weinberg broke in.
“P.A. already called me. Don’t play games.”
“No one’s told me anything, sir.”
“Guess there’s nothing to tell,” said Weinberg.
“The answer’s no?”
“You can’t be serious, Sturgis.”
“Given what we found at the house, it seems the next logical step-”
“A foreign national? From a prominent family? You’re asking me to create an international terrorist scare on the basis of copper dust?”
“It’s more than a scare, sir. My suspect’s already killed three people.”
“I haven’t heard evidence linking her to any murders. Even on your arson, it’s all air. A woman jogging? Pardon me if I’m not awestruck. And even if she did do the torch, what does that come down to? Getting rid of an eyesore the neighbors are happy to see gone. Wire dust and something goopy in a pipe? For all we know, it’s rubber cement, she liked putting together model airplanes.”
“The dogs reacted, sir.”
“I love dogs,” said Weinberg. “But they’re not infallible. What if she spilled kerosene trying to clean off beach tar? Believe me, that would make them sit on their little canine rumps.”
“But in this case-”
“You can’t seriously expect me to have this woman’s face plastered all over the evening news based on what you’ve given me. You have nothing concrete against her and we are not talking suicide belts at Disneyland.”
“Okay, let’s forget the terrorism angle, even the murders, and just describe her as an arson suspect.”
“You don’t have enough, Sturgis. Besides, if the arson’s the big deal, I need to be talking to the arson squad.”
“I can have Captain Boxmeister make the-”
“If he asks the same question, I’ll give him the same answer. A few bubbles in a pipe and some wire shavings add up to crap. Bring me fingerprints, body fluids, something serious before I have embassies driving me nuts.”
“FBI and Homeland Security think she’s serious enough to look for.”
“They’re involved?”
“FBI came to me.”
“Just like that? All of a sudden those morons have ESP?”
“I called Homeland for info and they called the Feds-”
“And you didn’t think to let me know.”
“Sir, I wanted to wait until I had something substantive to tell you.”
“Then why the hell are we talking now?” “The sum total seems substantive to me,” said Milo. “Then you need to back away and get some perspective.” Clenching his jaws, Milo middle-fingered air. “Okay, sir, I’ll keep digging.”
“I know you’re going to be bad-mouthing me the minute this conversation terminates, brass is always the big bad enemy,” said Weinberg. “But try-I know it’s hard, but try anyway-to pull yourself away from the moment and see the bigger picture. By your own account, this woman comes from megabucks, is a respected professional, and has no criminal record. What you have on her is hearsay twice removed. On a good day.”