"What was his demeanor?"
"He sounded pretty upset over the phone, but what the hell does that mean? Said he doubted there was anything he could add but he'd talk to me. I set up an appointment for tomorrow morning at ten."
"San Diego?"
"No, he's driving up."
"Very cooperative fellow."
"He has business here anyway. Some commercial property closings-he's a real estate lawyer."
"So he comes up to L.A. regularly."
"Yeah, I made note of that. Let's see what he's like face-to-face. We're meeting at Claire's house. Which she owns. It was his bachelor place, but after the divorce he signed it over to her and agreed to pay the mortgage and taxes in lieu of alimony and her dipping into his stocks and bonds."
"Who inherits the property now?"
"Good question. Stargill wasn't aware of any will, and he claims neither of them took out insurance on the other. I never came across any policies; Claire was thirty-nine, probably wasn't figuring on dying. I suppose a lawyer would know how to play the probate process-he might make a case for mortgage payment constituting partial ownership. But my guess her parents would come first. What do you think a place like that is worth?"
"Three hundred or so. How much is equity?"
"We'll find that out tomorrow if Mr. Cooperative stays cooperative… Maybe he got tired of paying her bills, huh?"
"It could chafe, especially now that he's remarried. Especially if he's got money problems. Be good to know what his finances are like."
"If you want to meet him, be there at ten. I left a message with Heidi Ott's machine, no callback yet. And the lab sent another report on the prints: definitely only Claire's. Looks like she really did go it alone."
The next morning I called Dr. Myron Theobold at County Hospital, left a voicemail message, and drove to Cape Horn Drive, arriving at 9:45. Milo's unmarked was already there, parked at the curb. A deep-gray late-model BMW sedan sat in front of the garage, ski clamps on the roof.
The house's front door was unlocked, and I entered. Milo had reassumed his position at the center of the empty living room. Near the kitchen counter stood a man in his forties wearing a blue suit, white shirt, yellow pin-dot tie. He was just shy of six feet, trim, with short, curly red hair and a matching beard streaked with gray. Skinny gold watch on his left wrist, wedding band studded with small diamonds, shiny oxblood wingtips.
Milo said, "This is Dr. Delaware, our psychological consultant. Doctor, Mr. Stargill."
"Joe Stargill." A hand extended. Dry palms but unsteady hazel eyes. His voice was slightly hoarse. He looked past me, into the empty room, and shook his head.
"Mr. Stargill was just saying the house looks pretty different."
Stargill said, "This wasn't the way we lived. We had wall-to-wall carpeting, furniture. Over there was a big leather sofa; that wall held a chrome cabinet-an etagere, I think it was called. Claire taught me that. I'd bought a few things when I was single but Claire filled it in. Pottery, figurines, macrame, all that good stuff." He shook his head again. "She must have gone through some major changes."
"When's the last time you spoke to her, sir?" said Milo.
"When I U-Hauled my things away. Maybe a half-year before the final decree."
"So you were separated before the divorce."
Stargill nodded, touched the tip of his beard.
Milo said, "So your last contact would be around two and a half years ago."
"That's right."
"You never talked about the divorce?"
"Well, sure. A phone call here and there to wrap up details. I thought you meant a real conversation."
"Ah," said Milo. "And after the divorce you never came back to visit?"
"No reason to," said Stargill. "Claire and I were over- we'd been over long before we made it official. Never really started, actually."
"The marriage went bad quickly."
Stargill sighed and buttoned his jacket. His hands were broad, ruddy, coated with beer-colored hair. "It wasn't a matter of going bad. The whole thing was essentially a mistake. Here, I brought this. Found it this morning."
He fished out a crocodile wallet and removed a small photo, which Milo examined, then handed to me.
Color snapshot of Claire and Stargill arm in arm, "Just Married" banner in the background. He wore a tan suit and brown turtleneck shirt, no beard, eyeglasses. His nude face was bony, his smile tentative.
Claire had on a long, pale blue sleeveless dress printed with lavender pansies, and she carried a bouquet of white roses. Her hair was long, straight, parted in the middle, her face leaner than in the headshot I'd seen, the cheekbones more pronounced.
Full smile.
"Don't really know why I brought it," said Stargill. "Didn't know I even had it."
"Where'd you find it?" said Milo.
"In my office. I went in early this morning before driving up here, started going through all the paperwork Claire and I had in common: divorce documents, transfer of ownership for the house. It's all out in the car-take whatever you want. The picture popped out from between some pages."
Stargill turned to me. "Guess a psychologist could interpret that-still having it. Maybe it does mean something on a subconscious level, but I sure don't remember holding on to it intentionally. Seeing it again was bizarre. We look pretty happy, don't we?"
I studied the photo some more. A flimsy-looking altar flecked with glitter was visible between the newlyweds. Glittering red hearts on the walls, a pink Cupid figurine with Dizzy Gillespie cheeks.
"Vegas?" I said.
"Reno," said Stargill. "Tackiest wedding chapel you ever saw. The guy who officiated was an old geezer, half blind, probably drunk. We got into town well after midnight. The geezer was closing up and I slipped him a twenty to do a quickie ceremony. His wife had already gone home, so some janitor-another old guy-served as witness. Afterward Claire and I joked that they were both senile-it probably wasn't legal."
He placed his hands on the counter, stared blankly into the kitchen. "When I lived here, we had appliances all over the place-juicer, blender, coffee maker, you name it. Claire wanted every gizmo invented… Wonder what she did with the stuff-looks like she was stripping everything away."
"Any idea why she'd do that?" I said.
"No," he said. "Like I said, we weren't in touch. Truth is, even when we were together I couldn't have told you what made her tick. All she ever really liked was going to the movies-she could see a flick a night. Sometimes it didn't seem to matter what was on the screen, she just liked being in the theater. Beyond that, I never knew her at all."
"Where'd the two of you meet?"
"Another major romantic story: hotel cocktail lounge. Marriott at the airport, to be specific. I was there to meet a client from the Far East who never showed up, and Claire was attending a psychology convention. I'm sitting at the bar, irritated because this guy does this to me all the time, and now I've wasted half a day. Claire glides in looking great, sits a few stools down."
He pointed at the picture. "As you can see, she was an eyeful back then. Different from my usual type, but maybe that's what did it."
"Different, how?" I said.
"I'd been dating legal secretaries, paralegals, a few models, wannabe actresses-we're talking girls who were into fashion, makeup, the whole body-beautiful thing. Claire looked like exactly what she was: a scholar. Great structure, but she didn't mess with herself. That afternoon she was wearing granny glasses and one of those long print dresses. Her whole wardrobe was those dresses and some jeans and T-shirts. No makeup. No high heels-open sandals, I remember looking down at her feet. She had really pretty feet, adorable white toes. She saw me staring and laughed-this low chuckle that struck me as being really sexy, and then I started to look past the glasses and I realized she was great-looking. She ordered a ginger ale, I was well into the Bloody Marys. I made some crack about her being a wild party girl. She laughed again and I moved closer and the rest is history. We got married two months later. At the beginning, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven."