Evidence (18 page)

Milo
tried to be gentle but there’s no easy way and she wept for a
long time. He stretched to turn the volume down on the
conference setting, but it was already on low.

She
said, “Oh, God, Desi. I don’t understand. Was it a mugging? Some random thing?”

Tensing
up, I was sure, on “random.”

Milo
heard it, too; his eyebrows climbed. “We’re still trying to sort things out,
Ms. Flatt, so anything you can tell us would be helpful.”

“You’re
in L.A. What could
I
tell you?”

“Did
your brother have any enemies, ma’am?”

“Of
course not.”

Ratcheting
up her pitch on “not.”

“Ms.
Flatt, your brother didn’t die alone. A woman was with him and we still haven’t
identified her. If we knew who she was, it would speed up the investigation. I
know this is a tough time for you, but if I could scan her photo and e-mail it
to you, that would help.”

“Of
course, do it,” said Ricki Flatt. “I’m sitting here and not moving. Not even to
unpack.”

Ten
minutes later: “Oh my God, that’s Doreen!”

“Doreen
who?”

“What
was her last name… Doreen… Fredd. Two
d
’s, I think. Though how I
remember that I couldn’t tell you. She and Desi knew each other back in high
school. When we lived in Seattle, that’s where Desi and I grew up. Her nose is
different—smaller—but it’s definitely her.”

“Anything
romantic between them?”

“They
were more like friends, but I really can’t say. I’m three years older than
Desi, didn’t get into his personal business.”

“Doreen
Fredd.” Milo entered the name into the databases. “What else can you tell me
about her, Ms. Flatt?”

“She
and Desi used to go hiking together. They all did—a group of kids, they liked
the outdoors. One time, I was already in college, visiting home for midsemester
break, Desi and his hiking group came in and Doreen had poison ivy, or some bad
rash. Our dad tended to
her, he was firefighter with
paramedic training—but you don’t care about that. You’re saying Desi was dating
her in L.A.?”

“There
appears to be a romantic connection.”

“Doreen,”
she said. “And she’s also… my God.”

“Anything
else you want to tell us, Ms. Flatt?”

“Not
really.” Tight voice, for the third time.

“Nothing
at all, ma’am?”

Silence.

“Ms.
Flatt?”

“What
happened to Desi, was it in any way political?”

Milo
sat up. “Political, how?”

“Forget
that, I’m not making sense. Do you need me to identify the body, Lieutenant?”

“No,
ma’am, we know it’s your brother and verification can be made using photos, but
I would like to talk to you some more—”

“I’ll
come out,” she said. “To handle … arrangements. I’ve done it before. My
parents. I never thought I’d be doing it for my baby
brother
—how did you
connect Desi to me?”

“Phone
messages, ma’am.”

“Oh.
That must’ve been the times Desi called to talk to Sam—my daughter. If I can
catch a flight, I’ll leave tonight, Lieutenant … I’ll have to make sure Scott’s
okay with that … oh God, I’m going to have to explain to Sam. This is unreal.”

“Ms.
Flatt, could you please clarify that remark about it being political?”

Silence.

“Ma’am?”

“Let’s
talk in person, Lieutenant. I’ve got so many things to do.”

NCIC
had nothing to say about Doreen Fredd. Neither did DMV, Social Security, any
other port in cyberspace.

“Still
a phantom.” Milo logged off. “And Sister Ricki gets all squirrelly about
‘something political.’ This is starting to smell real bad, Alex.”

Turning to his phone, he punched numbers so hard the
apparatus jumped. “Hal, this is Milo. For the
third
time. Is it my
breath or are you on some sort of overpriced taxpayer junket and can’t be
bothered to help the locals? I’ve got a name for my Jane Doe, no thanks to you.
Doreen
Fredd
.” Spelling it with exquisite, enraged enunciation. “And
guess what, Hal, even with that, she’s a ghost, not even an SSN. So now I’m
thinking your not calling back isn’t negligence, it’s proactive deception.
Which is bullshit, Hal. You owe me big-time on that Aeromexico thing and I need
you to come through. All in the name of God, Country, and my ready access to
the chief, Hal. Who will
not
be happy to learn that no good deed has,
yet again, gone unpunished.”

Slam.
He slumped. “Ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille.”

I
said, “Ready access to the chief?”

“The
federal government understands entitlement. Ends justifies the means. Political
… the obvious link is Teddy but what the hell would a newly graduated architect
have to do with Sranil?”

“Maybe
he had a previous life.”

“As
what, a super-spy?”

“As
something political,” I said. “Or maybe, given his libido, he’d partied with
Teddy’s alleged victim, whom he met through Doreen. The two of them cooked up
the blackmail scheme, leaned too hard and paid for it.”

“Pretty
damn stupid to think they could go up against someone that powerful.”

“How
much of your job revolves around smart people, Big Guy? And Backer being involved
could explain how Brig—Doreen ended up at Masterson. Teddy’s name doesn’t
appear on any of the Borodi paperwork, but that design journal listed the
firm’s involvement in a ‘pied-à-terre’ for a foreign owner. Backer was an
architect, that’s his type of reading material.”

“He
does background, Doreen worms her way in to get the details. The two of them
somehow send a message to Tariq or the sultan, one of them makes a call and a
local pro is hired.”

“Or
even someone flown in for the job.”

“Morons,” he said. “Thinking they could play in that
league. Then they have the nerve to go up there again for fun under the stars.
Fouling the rich bastard’s nest in the process. Freud’s probably got a name for
that, huh?”

“Der
payback.”

Tight
lips parted slightly, emitting something close to a smile. He pressed
psychic
delete
and turned grim again. “Desi and Doreen, hugging a tree.
P-L-O-T-T-I-N-G.”

At
six twenty, just as we were leaving for dinner, John Nguyen dropped in.

The
deputy D.A. was dressed for court in a navy pinstripe, white shirt, blue tie,
American flag lapel pin. Four evidence boxes were stacked on a wheeled luggage
rack. Nguyen’s posture was as straight as ever, but his eyes drooped.

“John,
what’s up?”

Nguyen
unclasped the top case, pulled out a sheaf of printouts, and dropped it on
Milo’s desk. “Mr. and Mrs. Holman’s financials. You owe me.”

Milo
scanned the face page. “How’d you pull it off?”

“Been
doing a robbery-gangbang trial for three days running, brand-new judge,
absurdly biased toward our side so I figured she might go for your spurious
logic.”

Licking
a finger, Nguyen slashed air vertically. “Score one, J. N. I got one of my
eager new interns to push everything through with the banks. Which, I’d like to
point out, is normally your responsibility,
not mine,
not to mention significantly below my pay grade. But you put in the time on the
marsh murder trial, so consider it an advance Christmas gift.”

Milo
flipped pages. “Your stocking stuffer’s on the way, John … don’t see anything
interesting.”

“That’s
’cause there isn’t any,” said Nguyen. “He’s a retired professor, she’s an
unfamous architect, their income, expenditures, retirement fund, et cetera, are
all commensurate with a cautious, mature lifestyle. Meaning they can probably
keep their house and continue to have health insurance if they don’t get
really
sick or go out to eat too often.”

“This
is definitely all of it, John?”

“What,
some secret bank account for paying hit men? They budget tighter than my
ex-wife’s—never mind.” Nguyen moved toward the door. “I can lead a judge to
warrant, dude, but I can’t stop the stink.”

We
walked a couple of blocks to Café Moghul, the Indian place that serves as
Milo’s supplementary office. He tips huge, is dramatically omnivorous, and the
owners are convinced his grumpy-mastiff demeanor wards off danger. The
bespectacled woman who works the front always beams when he lumbers through the
door, begins piling on the food before his chair warms.

Tonight
was lamb, beef, turkey, lobster, three kinds of naan, a garden plot of
vegetables.

He
bore down, as if tackling a massive culinary puzzle.

I
said, “Hail to the sultan of West L.A.”

He
wiped sauce from his face. “Keep your geography straight,
Rajah
. For one
brief Cinderella moment.”

“Then
the pumpkin appears?”

“Then
it’s back to Untouchable.”

Midway
through his fourth bowl of sweet
kir
rice pudding, Sean Binchy strode
in, bright-eyed and cheerful as ever.

“Give me some good news, kid, then you can eat.”

“No,
thanks, Loot, Becky’s cooking tonight and that’s always a treat. More like good
news and bad news. I got lots of names of construction workers but no Montes or
anything close.”

“What’s
the good news?”

“I’m
going to analyze it super-carefully.”

Uttered
with absolute sincerity.

“That’s
great, Sean.”

Binchy
said, “Anything with an
M
for starts, and if that doesn’t produce, I’ll
just check every single name for felony records. Like you always say, tortoise
beats hare.”

He
left.

Milo
said, “Tortoise sometimes gets squashed in the middle of the highway by an
eighteen-wheeler, but sure, keep the faith, kid.”

He
phoned me at eight the following morning. “Sister Ricki’s due in my office in
an hour.”

“I’ll
be there.”

“Thought
you might also want to know that Doreen Fredd is, indeed, a real person. I
searched genealogy sites last night, found a distant cousin living in Nebraska,
e-mailed the photo. Family hasn’t seen Doreen for years but verified that she
got sent to Seattle when she was a teenager. Naughty girl, ended up in a group
home.”

“Why
Seattle?”

“The
family originally hailed from Tacoma, where Doreen’s daddy worked at a gas
station and mommy clerked at a food store. Nice people, according to the
cousin, but major alkies, no ‘parental supervision.’ Doreen started running
away at an early age. Finally, the court declared her incorrigible. The home
worked out for a while, but Doreen split from there, too. She stepped off the
map, no one’s heard from her in all this time, she was an only child and both
parents are dead.”

“Is
the group home still in business?”

“It
is but there’s been half a dozen changes of ownership, no staff
remains from when Doreen was there, all the old records
have been destroyed. Her hooking up with Des Backer makes sense, though: I
back-traced his parents’ residence. South Seattle, only a few blocks from the
home. Cute girl, cute guy, chemistry, kaboom.”

“Chemistry
reignited years later,” I said. “The wrong kind of explosion.”

I
showed up for the meet with Ricki Flatt on time, found her talking to Milo.

Des
Backer’s sister was faded by grief and fatigue. Long curly hair was tied back
carelessly. She wore a baggy gray sweater unsuitable for the weather, mommy
jeans, white tennis shoes. A huge canvas purse the color of smog lowered her
right shoulder. An overnight bag of matching hue sat on the floor.

Milo
lifted the suitcase and escorted her to the same room we’d used to powwow with
Moe Reed. He offered her coffee, something to eat.

She
touched her belly. “I couldn’t hold anything down. Please tell me what happened
to my brother.”

“Mr.
Backer and Doreen Fredd were found murdered in an unfinished house in a
neighborhood called Holmby Hills. Ever hear of it?”

“I
haven’t.”

“Your
brother never mentioned Holmby Hills?”

“Never.
Where is it?”

“It’s
an extremely high-end area, just west of Beverly Hills. There’s an indication
your brother and Ms. Fredd had been to that location before.”

“An
unfinished house?”

“A
construction project.”

“Something
Desi was working on?”

Instead
of answering, Milo said, “So your brother and Ms. Fredd hung out in high school?”

Nod.
“And during the plane ride, I remembered something else. One time, when she was
at our house, my dad made a comment to
Mom about her
being troubled, it was good she was aiming for wholesome activities. You didn’t
say if the project was one of Desi’s.”