“If he’d built up trust by wining and dining her, it could’ve kept her anxiety in check. Or he took her somewhere else first and restrained her.”
“If he’s got another chamber of horrors, it hasn’t turned up yet. One thing’s for sure: Nothing went on at his house or Nora’s. Not a speck of nasty at either.”
I said, “Why sully the home front when you’ve got a special place set aside for your hobbies. These people are all about splitting.”
“Speaking of hobbies, any theory about why Meserve and the Gaidelases were the only specimens they preserved?”
“The neck wound says they thought of preserving Michaela,” I said. “Went so far as to insert a cannula in her neck then changed their minds. No way to get inside their heads, but the Gaidelases and Meserve fit some kind of fantasy. If I could finish the file- ”
“There’s nothing in there about the past, Alex. Just more ugly. I’m stuck with this, but you’re not. Go home and forget about all of it.”
I said, “Any luck decoding the scrambled disk?”
He ran his tongue over cracked, dry lips, scratched his scalp, rubbed his face. He’d shaved carelessly and a patch of white fur ran along his jaw. His eyes were hooded and weary. “You’ve developed a hearing problem?”
I repeated the question.
“You never let go,” he said.
“That’s why you pay me the big bucks.”
“The disk is decoded and loaded in Room Four. I’ve been watching it for the last hour. Hence, my sage advice about going home.”
“No sense postponing the inevitable,” I said.
“What’s inevitable?”
“I was at the scene when you found the shelter. Someone’s going to subpoena me. Either the D.A. or Stavros Menas.”
“Both Dowds tried to hire Menas but Nora got him and she wasn’t feeling sisterly. Brad’s looking for new representation.”
“Money talks and she’s got the mike.”
“Minus the millions Brad skimmed,” he said. “Most of which seems to have gone into the car collection and a little island he bought off the coast of Belize two months ago. And one more luxury purchase, three weeks ago: jet card for a Gulfstream V, twenty-five hours. That’s three hundred fifty grand for a plane with international range. Wanna take bets on there being an offshore bank account somewhere south of the equator? The estate lawyers who appointed him trustee are gobbling Prilosec and the new court-appointed lawyers are licking their chops. We’re talking years of litigation, there goes the rest of the estate.”
I said, “Planning his escape, those brochures were for real. Then he got clever and planted them in Nora’s nightstand.”
“Too clever,” he said. “Sitting in that Range Rover, using Billy’s land. Dutiful caretaker of his sibs, meanwhile he’s screwing them, literally and financially. Think he was planning to take Nora with him or go it alone?”
“Unless she knew about the island I’d say alone. Is anyone protecting Billy’s interests?”
“The court-appointed lawyers claim to be.”
“I finally got permission to see him yesterday, drove out to Riverside.”
“How’s the place they put him in?”
“Grim,” I said. “Assisted care facility, a hundred Alzheimer’s patients and Billy.”
“Learn anything?”
“He’s in shock and disoriented. I got about three minutes before the attorney-on-premises ended it.”
“Why?”
“Billy started crying.”
“Because of you?”
“That was learned counsel’s opinion,” I said. “Mine was that Billy has lots to cry about and not letting him express it will only make matters worse. I told learned counsel Billy needs a full-time therapist, I wasn’t volunteering for the job, only suggesting he find someone. He begged to differ. When I got back, I phoned the judge who wrote the placement order. Haven’t heard from her yet but I’m thinking of other judges who might be willing to help.”
“You see Billy as totally clean?” he said.
“Unless you find something more ominous at his duplex than Star Wars action figures and Disney videos.”
He shook his head. “Like a kid’s place. Boxes of sugar cereal, bottles of chocolate milk.”
I said. “Being a kid’s hard enough. Being neither boy nor man is something else. Any sign of Billy’s allowance money?”
“Nope, just coins in a piggy bank. Some of the pennies date back to the sixties.”
“Fifteen hundred a month and all he spent on was pizza and Thai food and rental movies. It explains Reynold Peaty’s drop-ins. He pretended to be Billy’s friend, had his way with the cash.”
“Makes sense,” he said. “Except no money showed up in Peaty’s dive.”
“A guy like Peaty would have ways to spend it,” I said. “Or, if his relationship with Brad went beyond janitor and boss, maybe the money found its way back to Cuz. Then Cuz set him up to die.”
He frowned. A muscle just below his left eye jumped.
I said, “What?”
“What a family.” He found a stale cigar in a drawer, rolled it, and bit off the end. Spat it into his wastebasket.
“Two points.” I stood and walked to the door. “Time to view the disk.”
He stayed put. “It’s really a bad idea, Alex.”
“I want to get it over with.”
“Even if someone does subpoena you, it could be months away,” he said.
“No sense harboring fantasies all that time.”
“Trust me, your fantasies can’t be worse than reality.”
“Trust me,” I said. “They can.”
CHAPTER 45
Cold, yellow room.
The interview table had been pushed to one side. Metal table, same battleship gray as the bomb shelter.
The things you notice.
Two chairs faced a thirty-inch plasma TV on a wheeled table. A DVD player sat on the bottom shelf. Lots of snarled cables. A sticker affixed to the bottom of the monitor warned against anyone outside the D.A.’s office touching the equipment.
I said, “Suddenly the prosecutors turn generous?”
“They’ve sniffed the air,” said Milo. “Smelled Court TV, screenplays, book deals. The warning from on-high is no O.J. on this one.” He drew a remote control module from his jacket pocket and flicked on the monitor.
Sat down next to me, slumped and closed his eyes and stayed that way.
Blue screen, video menu printout. Time, date, D.A’s evidence code.
I took the remote from Milo ’s hands. His eyes remained shut but his breathing quickened.
I flicked.
A face filled the screen.
Big blue eyes, tan skin, symmetrical features, shaggy blond hair.
Jane Doe Number One.
Milo had asked if I wanted to start out of sequence with Michaela. I’d considered that, said let’s do it in order.
Hoping lack of personal contact would help.
It didn’t.
The camera stayed close.
An off-screen voice, male, smooth, amiable, said, “Okay, audition time. Digging it so far?”
Zoom shot of the girl’s smile. Moist, white teeth, perfectly aligned. “Sure am.”
“Sure am, Brad. When you’re presenting yourself to a casting agent or anyone else, it’s important to be direct and specific and personal.”
The girl’s smile altered course, became an ambiguous crescent. “Um, okay.” The camera moved back. Nervous blue eyes. Giggle.
“Take two,” said Brad Dowd.
“Huh?”
“Sure am…”
“Sure, Brad.”
“Sure. Am. Brad.”
The girl’s eyes shifted to the left. “Sure. Am. Brad.”
“Perfect. Okay, go on.”
“With what?”
“Say something.”
“Like what?”
“Improvise.”
“Umm…” Lip-lick. A glance back at battleship-gray walls. “It’s kind of different. Down here.”
“Dig it?”
“Umm…I guess.”
“I. Guess…”
“I guess, Brad.”
“It is different,” said Brad Dowd. “Hermetic. Know what that means?”