“Sweet guy,” said Milo.

“Real peach,” said Ramos, cracking his knuckles. “She phoned me from Isla Vista, wanted me to have her name changed legally. I told her I couldn’t do it because she was a minor and she hung up on me.”

I said, “ ‘Ramos’ is listed on state documents.”

Ramos laughed. “The state doesn’t know its ass from a crater on the moon. There’s little about the system that doesn’t need changing.”

Milo said, “That why you’re in law school?”

Ramos stared at him myopically. “That’s a joke, right?”

Milo smiled.

“Sure, I’m breaking my butt for a lifetime of mindless bureaucracy and shitty pay,” said Ramos. He laughed “When I get out I’m going corporate.”

We talked to him for another quarter hour. I ended up doing most of the talking because the topic had slid into my bailiwick.

Wilfreda Lee Monahan/Ramos had exhibited severe learning disabilities and a history of disruptive behavior as long as her brother could remember. George Ramos’s father had died when he was five and a few years later his mother married a former marine who thought raising kids was a variant of boot camp.

For Lee, adolescence had meant promiscuity, drugs, and mood swings so severe I was willing to bet they resulted from more than substance abuse. By fourteen, she’d made two suicide attempts- overdose cries for help. Cursory attempts at counseling followed, along with a flood of recrimination at home. When her father found her having sex with a boy in her bedroom, he kicked her out.

George Ramos wasn’t aware of any notable problems during her six months under the Daneys’ care, but he admitted, with downcast eyes, that he had never visited her.

Lee Ramos had left foster care a month before turning sixteen. On her birthday, at midnight, she’d stayed home while her roommates went out to party. Shortly after, she cut her wrists with a rusty box cutter, lay down on a ratty mattress, and quietly bled to death.

CHAPTER 32

Talking about his sister had left George Ramos pale and worn.

Milo apologized for intruding. Ramos said, “You’re just doing your job,” and stared at the grass.

I said, “Did you have any contact with the Daneys?”

“I called them once after Lee died. Don’t ask me why. Maybe I thought they’d care.”

“They didn’t?”

“I spoke to the wife- Charity, Chastity, something like that- ”

“Cherish.”

“That’s it,” he said. “She broke down, sobbed, got damn near hysterical. Maybe I’m cynical but I thought it was a little over the top.”

“Putting on an act?” said Milo.

“They only had Lee for a few months and obviously they didn’t do a very good job.”

“You tell her that?”

“No,” said Ramos. “I didn’t- wasn’t in a mood to talk.”

“Cherish do anything to make you think she was faking her grief?”

“No, but who knows?” said Ramos. “Who knows about anything?”

“Ever speak with her husband?”

“Nope, just her.” Ramos stood and snatched up his books and his laptop.

I said, “Did Lee ever hint around about getting pregnant?”

Ramos’s long face turned sad. “Don’t you guys get it? We didn’t talk.”

He let the books dangle, clutched his laptop to his chest, and bird-walked away. Other law students continued to stream out, some chatting in tight little groups, a few preoccupied loners forging their own trails.

Milo got up and stretched. “I just creaked.”

“Didn’t hear a thing.”

“So the Daneys take on too many wards but don’t supervise. Fits with moral laxity.”

“It does.”

“Ready to go?”

I stayed on the bench.

“Alex?”

“What if?” I said.

He sat back down.

A group of students passed us. When they were gone, he said, “What evil thoughts have seized that brain of yours?”

“George Ramos assumes Lee got pregnant on the street. It could’ve happened in-house. Literally.”

“Daney?”

“He was the only male in the house. Which, come to think of it, is a haremlike situation. All those teenage girls from troubled backgrounds. Maybe there’s a reason the Daneys ask for female wards.”

“Oh, man.”

“We know Daney’s a fraud and an adulterer, and we’ve just raised suspicions about his involvement in murder. Impregnating a minor under his care doesn’t seem out of character. He’d have been sure to terminate the pregnancy, which fits with Lee Ramos’s abortion. It could also explain her suicide. We’re talking about an extremely troubled girl whose relationship with her father was hostile. She’d be looking for a compassionate substitute. The state found her one but if he betrayed her, then had her sweep away the evidence, that would’ve been traumatic.”

“Surrogate incest.”

“Precisely the kind of violation that could have led to serious depression.”

“Slashing her arms on her birthday,” he said. “If it was suicide.”

“You’re thinking it wasn’t?”

“I’m letting my imagination run free.”

He phoned the Santa Barbara coroner, spoke to the forensic pathologist who’d conducted Lee Ramos’s autopsy, did a lot of listening, hung up shaking his head.

“Doesn’t seem to be any doubt about suicide. She locked herself in the room from the inside, put on music, the only window was painted shut. No sign of struggle, no defense wounds, just deep longitudinal gashes on her arms- serious intent. Beforehand, she polished off a pint of Southern Comfort and swallowed a bottle of Valium. If the razor hadn’t done it, the dope would’ve. The kids she lived with said she’d been really down for the last few weeks. They’d tried to get her to go party with them- it was for her birthday. Lee begged off at the last moment, said she was feeling sick.”

My eyes got tight. A girl I’d never met. “Birthday suicide,” I said. “Unable to face another year.”

Milo put his weight on the back of the bench, showed me the back of his head, folded his arms across his chest. A breeze ruffled the trees behind us. The grass responded a few seconds later.

“She always had some cash, so the roomies suspected she’d been turning tricks. Sixteen years old. It doesn’t get that way overnight, does it?”

Before I could answer, he shot to his feet, marched away slapping his notepad against his thigh. Nothing avian about his walk.

Bear on the prowl. Definitely a bear.

I followed, not sure what I was.

We returned to the car and cruised along the campus’s eastern periphery.

I said, “Daney works the system. I wonder if he’d dip into his own pocket for an abortion.”

Milo slowed. “Bastard knocks up a ward and bills the state? He’s been getting away with everything else, sure, why not?”

“It’s one thing,” I said, “that we could elevate from theory to fact.”

Olivia said, “Officially, the files are confidential, so I’m not sure you could use it in court.”

“Let’s see if there’s anything to use,” I said.

“Your call, darling. It could take some time.”

“You’re always worth waiting for.”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “My girlish allure.”

My cell squawked as we drove up the Glen, a mile before my house. “Some time” had been five minutes.

“Nothing under ‘Ramos,’ ” Olivia said, “but the termination of Wilfreda Lee Monahan’s pregnancy was indeed billed to the taxpayers. The provider’s in North Hollywood. The Women’s Wellness Place.”