“What’d he do?” said Milo.
“Nothing,” she said. “But he was accused. By a woman.” She rolled up a filthy diaper, wiped her hands. “Bad things. Even then there were bad things.”
Milo left his card at the other apartments. When we got to the ground floor the mail carrier was distributing envelopes.
“Afternoon,” said Milo.
The postman was a gray-haired Filipino, short and slight. His U.S. Postal Service van was parked at the curb. His right hand grasped one of several keys on a chain attached to his belt as the left pressed bound stacks of mail against his torso.
“H’lo,” he said.
Milo identified himself. “What’s the situation in Box Three?”
“What do you mean?”
“When’s the last time she emptied it?”
The carrier opened Michaela’s compartment. “Looks like not for a while.” He let the keychain drop and used both hands to separate the stacks. “Two for her today. It’s not my regular route…lucky this is all she got, not much room left.”
Milo pointed to the two envelopes. “Can I take a look at those?”
The mailman said, “You know I cannot do that.”
“I don’t wanna open them,” said Milo. “She got murdered last night. I just wanna see who’s writing to her.”
“Murdered?”
“That’s right.”
“It’s not my regular route.”
“You already said that.”
The carrier hesitated, handed over the envelopes.
Bulk solicitation to apply for a low-interest home loan and a “Last Chance!” pitch to resubscribe to InStyle magazine.
Milo handed them back.
“How about the stuff inside?”
“That’s private property,” said the mailman.
“What happens when you come back in a few days and there’s no more room?”
“We leave a notice.”
“Where does the mail go?”
“Stays in the station.”
“I can get a warrant and come by and open it all up.”
“If you say.”
“I say I just wanna look at the envelopes that are in there. Seeing as the box is already open.”
“Privacy- ”
“When she got killed she lost her privacy.”
The carrier made a show of ignoring us as he went about delivering mail to the other tenants. Milo reached into Box Three, removed a thick stack wedged so tightly he had to ease it out, and thumbed through.
“Mostly junk…a few bills…urgent one from the gas company meaning she was overdue…same deal with the phone company.”
He inspected the postmarks. “Ten days’ worth. Looks like she was gone well before she died.”
“A vacation’s not likely,” I said. “She was broke.”
He looked at me. Both of us thinking the same thing.
Maybe someone had kept her for a while.
CHAPTER 11
We sat in the car, in front of Michaela’s building.
I said, “Dylan Meserve cleared out of his place weeks ago. The neighbor heard him and Michaela arguing and Michaela told me she hated him.”
“Maybe he came and got her,” said Milo.
“Took her on another adventure.”
“What about Mr. Sex Criminal Peaty? Maybe he snatched both of them.”
“If Peaty did abduct anyone, he didn’t take them to his place,” I said. “No way to keep that from Mrs. Stadlbraun and the other tenants.”
“Too small to entertain.”
“Still, he’s the one with the record.”
“And he’s weird. So now I’ve got two high-priority bins.”
As we drove away, he said, “Coffee would prop my eyelids.”
I stopped at a place on Santa Monica near Bundy. Scrawled the possibilities as I saw them on a napkin and slid it across the table as Milo returned from making some calls.
1. Dylan Meserve abducts and murders Michaela, then flees.
2. Reynold Peaty abducts and murders Michaela and Dylan.
3. Reynold Peaty abducts and murders Michaela and Dylan’s disappearance is a coincidence.
4. None of the above.
“It’s that last one I love.” Milo waved for the waitress, ordered pecan pie à la mode. Finishing most of the wedge in three gulps, he nibbled the rest with excruciating care, as if that proved self-restraint.
“I called Michaela’s mother again, it was all about her, big time woe-is-me. Too sick to come out to claim the body. The way she was gasping I figure it’s probably true.”
I summarized Michaela’s account of her childhood.
“Ugly duckling?” he said. “Every gorgeous girl says that…what that Jewish lady said, the lifestyle issue, maybe she had a point.”
“Michaela got caught up in the Hollywood thing.”
“You know what that does to the ninety-nine-point-nine percent who fall on their asses. The question is, did it snag her or was it just one of those bad-luck deals.”
“Like running into Peaty.”
He ate the last bit of pie, wiped his mouth, put way too much money on the table, and extricated himself from the booth. “Back to the salt mine. Lots of boring stuff to do.”
Boring was his code word for I need to be alone. I drove him to the station and went home.
That evening Michaela’s murder was the lead story on every local broadcast, blow-dried news readers half smiling as they intoned about the “shocking crime” and exhumed mock-solemn memories of Michaela and Dylan’s “publicity stunt.”
Dylan was cited as “a person of interest, not a suspect.” The implication was clear, as it always is when the police phrase it that way. I knew Milo hadn’t given them the quote. Probably some public relations officer, issuing yet another boilerplate release.
Next morning’s paper ran a page-three story with five times the ink space the hoax had merited, graced by two pictures of Michaela: a sultry, airbrushed head-shot taken by a photographer who churned them out for Hollywood hopefuls, and her LAPD booking photo. I wondered if either or both would resurface in the tabloids or on the Internet.
One way to get famous is to die the wrong way.
I didn’t hear from Milo that day, figured the tips would be pouring in and he’d either learn a lot or nothing. I filled my time polishing up reports, thought about getting a dog, took a new referral from an attorney named Erica Weiss.
Weiss had filed suit against a Santa Monica psychologist named Patrick Hauser for molesting three female patients who’d attended his encounter groups. Chances were it would settle and there’d be no court appearance. I negotiated a high hourly fee and felt pretty good about the deal.
I looked up Hauser’s office address. Santa Monica and Seventh. Allison also practiced in Santa Monica, a few miles away on Montana. I wondered if she knew Hauser, thought about calling her. Figured she might see it as an excuse to get in touch and decided against it.
At a quarter to six, when she was likely to be between patients, I changed my mind. Her private line was still on speed dial.
“Hi, it’s me.”
“Hi,” she said. “How’ve you been?”
“Fine. You?”
“Fine…I was about to say, ‘How’ve you been, handsome.’ Got to watch those little slips.”
“All compliments will be received with gratitude, oh Gorgeous One.”
“Listen to this smarmy mutual admiration society.”
“If I’m lyin’, I’m flyin’.”
Silence.
I said, “I’m actually calling on a professional matter, Ali. Do you know an esteemed colleague named Patrick Hauser?”
“I’ve seen him at a few meetings. Why?”
I told her.
She said, “I guess I’m not surprised. Rumor has it he drinks. An encounter group, huh? That does surprise me.”