Evidence (25 page)

“Not
on my watch.”

Milo
lapsed into that same morose silence. Back at his office, he flung his jacket
atop a file cabinet and began the search for mansion arsons throughout the
state. Any eco torch-jobs.

Long
list. “Quite a few big houses went up during that time frame—here’s an entire
luxury housing project in Colorado … animal research lab—that one was high
school kids who got stopped early.” Wheeling away from the screen. “It’s all
over the country, Alex, but if there’s a pattern, I’m not seeing it. And if
Backer was a pro, you’d think something remotely incendiary would show up in
his apartment. But the bomb dogs found zilch. Meaning (a) Backer was an
architect, nothing more; (b) He did like playing with fire but put
off buying his equipment until shortly before the gig; or
(c) He kept a storage locker full of combustible goodies. And please don’t
remind me about none of the above.”

Sean
Binchy rang in from Lancaster. “Hey, Loot, those two thieving brothers are
alibied clean for Borodi. Though, if you ask me, they’re still up to no good,
there was a truck without tags in their driveway, they definitely didn’t want
me looking at it closely. What next?”

“Go
home.”

“Just
forget about the truck?”

“Notify
the locals and call it a day. Regards to your wife.”

“Absolutely,”
said Binchy. “I’m sure she sends them back.”

Milo
said, “Can’t you just see me explaining this to the brass: revenge by
sutma
interruptus. Assuming there ever was a murdered Swedish girl. Assuming someone
cared enough about her to burn down the house. Assuming Backer and Fredd were
involved and dallied around before trying to blow the place up and got offed
before they could follow through.”

I
said, “If there was a Swedish girl and someone cared enough to avenge her, they
might’ve also contacted the Swedish consulate about her being missing.”

He
looked up the local number, had a civilized chat with a man named Lars
Gustafson, who had no personal knowledge of any Swedish citizen in jeopardy two
to three years ago but promised to check.

Milo
phoned Moe Reed. “Find that Indonesian girl?”

“Just
about to call you, Loo. I was there when they closed up but she wasn’t at work
today. Hope talking to me didn’t spook her because I didn’t get a name or an
address. Stupid, huh? I was trying to keep her mellow.”

“Judgment
call, Moe, don’t get an ulcer.”

“I’ll
be there tomorrow before they open up. Need anything else?”

“Go home.”

“Sure,
there’s nothing I can do?”

“Get
some sleep in case there is, Moses.”

He
hung up, sighing.

I
said, “What a good dad.”

Grumbling,
he logged onto an online yellow pages, searched for storage facilities in L.A.
County. A minority refused to divulge client information but most were
surprisingly cooperative.

Call
after call his torso sagged with each negative. The sum total: no units
registered to Desmond Backer. Milo’s eyes closed. His breathing slowed, grew
shallow, his big head flopped back in the chair, and his arms dangled.

When
the snoring reached nuclear-blast level, I saw myself out.

Robin
was working her laptop on the living room couch. Blanche napped on an ottoman,
her little barrel chest heaving. Not up at Milo’s level, but moving some audio
needles with her snuffles and snorts.

Opening
one eye, she smiled, dove back into some wonderful canine dream.

The
screen was full of Google hits.
Mansion arson
the keywords. I sat down. Robin
kissed me, continued scrolling. “Playing Nancy Drew. Couldn’t think what to
cook. Leftovers or out?”

“Out
sounds good.”

“My
soul mate. Nothing turns up in San Luis, but plenty of fireworks in other
cities. Someone builds a dream, someone else can’t wait to take it down. How
ugly.”

Years
ago, a psychopath burned our first house to the ground. We rebuilt, agreed the
net result was an improvement, neither of us talks about it anymore. But a fire
station is perched at Mulholland, a short drive to the north, and another sits
to the south, near Beverly Glen and Sunset, meaning a fair bit of nights are
broken by sirens.

Generally,
the banshee howls are short-lived, we touch feet in mutual reassurance, go back
to sleep.

Sometimes, Robin sits up, shivering, and I wrap my
arms around her and before long, morning’s arrived, sour and disorienting.

She
closed the laptop, stood, stroked Blanche. “Okay, I’ll get dressed.”

“Chinese,
Italian, Thai, Indian?”

“How
about Croatian?”

“What’s
Croatian cuisine?”

“Let’s
fly to Zagreb and find out,” she said. “Italian’s fine, hon. Anything’s fine,
long as I get out of here. Let me freshen up.”

We
ended up eating fish-and-chips at a stand on PCH in Malibu, watched the sky
waver between coral and lilac, soaking in the final morph into indigo as the
sun went off-shift.

When
we returned home, I ran a bath. The tub’s not meant for two but if someone’s
careful not to bump their head on the faucet, it works out. That kind of
togetherness sometimes leads to more. Tonight it didn’t and we read and watched
TV and went to bed just before midnight.

When
I woke to reverb shrieks, I thought I was dreaming, woke expecting the din to
fade.

Full
consciousness amplified the noise. Robin said, “That’s the fifth one. They’re
heading south.”

Three
seventeen a.m
.

Siren
number six wailed. Dopplered.

“Someone’s
life’s going to change, Alex.”

We
slid under the covers, touched feet, gave it our best shot.

Moments
later, I turned the TV on and we trolled for news through a swamp of
infomercials and reruns of crap that shouldn’t have aired in the first place.
If something newsworthy was occurring on the Westside, none of the networks or
the cable news outlets had picked it up.

The
Internet had. L.A. current events blog operating in real time. Some insomniac
plugged into the emergency bands.

Holmby
Hills conflagration. Unfinished construction project
.

Borodi Lane
.

Robin’s
breath caught. I held her tighter, reached for the phone, punched Milo’s cell
number. He said, “I’m on my way there, call you when I need you.”

When,
not if. I got dressed, made coffee, told Robin she should try to get some
sleep.

“Oh,
sure,” she said, hanging on to my arm.

Mugs
in both our hands, we plodded through the house, stepped out onto the front
terrace. Frosty, dark morning. Warmish for the hour, but we shivered. Above the
tree line, the southern sky was dusted with gray. The sirens had waned to
distant mouse-squeaks. The air smelled scorched.

Robin
said, “Bad news travels fast.”

Borodi
Lane was blocked by cruisers and a huffing hook-and-ladder. A uniform scowled
as I rolled to the curb, barely edging past Sunset.

A
skeptical call to Milo produced a reluctant nod. “But you need to keep your car
there, sir, and walk.”

I
continued toward the scene, breathing heat, firewood, flame-suppressing
chemicals, a hydrocarbon stench evoking the world’s biggest filling station.
The asphalt was slick with wash-off. Static and buzz kept up a magpie routine,
red engines and hard-hatted firefighters were everywhere. Several more
explanations before I was allowed to reach the property.

What
was left of Prince Teddy’s dream was black and stunted. Where the ground wasn’t
ash, it was soup. A white coroner’s van was pulled up to the open gate. The
chain Milo had supplied was on the ground, marked by a plastic evidence cone,
and sliced through cleanly into two pieces.

As
firefighters streamed in and out, a pair of morgue attendants hauled out a
gurney bearing something small and lumpy and wrapped
in
plastic. I looked for Milo, spotted him near an LAFD ambulance, wearing a limp
black raincoat, jeans, and muddy sneakers, staring at the ruins. To his right,
on the ground, several objects sat on a black tarp, too dim to make out.

As I
stepped next to him, he fished out a Maglite, aimed downward.

Partially
melted glass bottle. From the shape and scorched wire around the neck, probably
champagne. A single intact wine goblet. A butter knife with a handle melted to
blob. A metal tin with an ornate label.

I
bent to read.
Foie Gras. Imported from France
. Milo’s beam shifted to a
long-barreled revolver, clearly antique, wooden grip scorched through, engraved
metal blackened.

Next
to the gun sat a pair of bolt cutters, seared to well done. I said, “Someone
was having a party.”

“Probably
Mr. Charles
Ellston
Rutger,” he said. “Probably?”

“Body’s
unrecognizable but Rutger’s Lincoln is parked around the corner and there was a
solid gold calling card in the ash, with his name engraved on it. Plus, some
dental bridges came out half baked, same for a gold collar pin and initialed
platinum cuff links.” He cursed. “Dressing for success. Idiot cut the chain,
climbed up to the turret with his Dom Whatever, goddamn goose liver, and no
doubt some other comestibles that got vaporized.”

I
said, “Picnic under the stars.”

He
kicked a clump of mud off a sneaker tip. “Cretin probably convinced himself he
owned the place again. Who knows how many other times he went up there, when
there was no chain. I warned him but of course he can’t listen ’cause I’m a
dumb public servant and he’s a goddamn aristokook. Talk about bad timing,
Charlie Three-Name.”

“Story
of his life,” I said. “Wouldn’t be surprised if the arsonist saw the broken
chain, took advantage. How’d the fire start?”

“What
the arson guy’s telling me so far is someone wadded charges of something highly
combustible, probably petroleum-based,
in at least
eight spots distributed methodically throughout the ground floor. ‘Very well
thought out’ was his description.”

“Petroleum-based
as in vegan Jell-O?”

“Flavor
of the month. The neighbors heard only one explosion, whole place went up like
kindling, so it looks like a single timer. Coulda been a disaster if the winds
were strong and the flames jumped to neighboring foliage. The fact that the lot
had been stripped down to bare dirt actually helped.”

“Ground
floor ignites, flames shoot up through all that open space, oxygen feeds it.
Meanwhile Rutger’s stuck on top with the stairs burned out.”

“Wouldn’ta
made a difference, Alex. This was sudden, intense immolation, no chance for
escape. Rutger’s drinking champagne, stuffing his face, no one’s the boss over
him
.
So now, he’s toast. Scratch that. Crumbs.”

A
stocky gray-haired man wearing a yellow helmet, a blue LAPD windbreaker, and
jeans approached us wiping a sooty, sweaty face.

“We’re
going to be here for a while, Milo. You can go unless you want to stick
around.”

“Better
you than me,” said Milo. “This is Dr. Delaware, our psych consultant. Doctor,
Captain Boxmeister from the arson squad.”

“Don,”
said Boxmeister. “I’d shake your hand but mine’s filthy. This was some
conflagration, reminds me of you-know-which jungle, Milo, huh? Vegan Jell-O,
haven’t heard that in a while, yeah it sure works like napalm. You mind
continuing with the murder part of it so we can concentrate on the arson? Which
isn’t to say we won’t be collaborating.”

Milo
said, “Sounds good, Don. That Fed I mentioned said Jell-O’s an eco-terrorist
fave-rave.”

“Used
to be, Milo, but we don’t see that kind of big-scale looniness on the Westside,
except for occasional threats to animal researchers. All we had last year was a
wimpy amateur fire set in one of the U’s med labs and we caught the fool.
Worked there, sweeping floors, no affiliation with any group—one of those guys
you’d know
about, Doc. Shit-for-brains thought he’d
liberated all the little Mickeys but what he ended up with was rodent flambé
and third-degrees on both arms. I think it stays quiet here because no one
expects houses in Holmby or B.H. or Bel Air to be anything
but
gross.
You start eliminating ostentatiousness on the Gold Coast, you get the Gobi
Desert.”

“Bite
your tongue, Don.”

Boxmeister
grinned, pulled out a notepad and pen. “Tell me again which oil type owned this
barbecue.”

“Prince
Tariq of Sranil. Not the Mideast, Asia, it’s near Indonesia—”

“I’ll
look it up,” said Boxmeister. “So you’re thinking your original vics also
planned to torch the place but got interrupted by someone, they had an
accomplice who finished the job and roasted whatshisname Rutger in the
process.”

“That’s
a good summary, Don.”