Patients with prefrontal injuries sometimes had temper-control problems. And they could grow impulsive and obsessive.

I printed a few articles, changed into shorts and a T-shirt and sneakers, and took a long, hard run, not wanting to think about the short sad life of Gavin Quick. I thought about it, anyway, and focused on appreciating my own life. After showering and getting back into street clothes, I tried Milo at the station. By the time I’d reached his car phone, I’d put the interview with Mary Lou Koppel in context.

She’d cooperated but really hadn’t told me much. Maybe she didn’t know much. Gavin had been in therapy for three months, and my guess was there’d been plenty of missed appointments. Combine that with his resistance and Koppel’s avoidance of his cognitive problems, and treatment didn’t amount to much.

Mary Lou Koppel’s approach boiled down to what’s known in the trade as “supportive therapy.” Not necessarily a bad thing; sometimes all a patient needs is a yeah-saying or a shoulder to cry on. But sometimes being “supportive” is an excuse for not doing more.

“You’re saying she was phoning it in?” said Milo.

“Maybe she did her best. She sat in that office with Gavin, I didn’t.”

“Chivalrous. But you still don’t like her.”

“I have nothing against her,” I said.

“I must’ve heard wrong. You get into why she stonewalled you the first time?”

“She brought it up right away. Said the patient hated and distrusted me and forbade her to tell me anything.”

“Taking a dig at you, pal?”

“The patient did file an ethical complaint against me.”

“Ouch,” he said.

“The charge was dismissed.”

“Course it was,” he said. “What, a disgruntled weirdo?”

“Something like that.”

“Assholes.”

Supportive therapy.

I said, “Anyway, that’s about it on Gavin’s emotional state.”

“Not as smart as he used to be and obsessive.”

“We knew that before.”

“It’s still interesting.”

I said, “Anything new on the girl’s ID?”

“Nope. Not much in terms of physical evidence, either. Gavin’s prints popped up on the steering wheel but nothing on any of the door handles, not his, not the girl’s. Someone did a careful wipedown. Meaning an organized mind, right? Which would fit with the stalker scenario. Plenty of tire tracks on the driveway. Unfortunately, a whole mesh of them, too much overlay, so the techies couldn’t pick out a good impression. With Realtors going in and out, it’s what you’d expect. None of the neighbors saw or heard anything, no reports of suspicious characters or unfamiliar cars. I’m having the Sex Crimes people look at their files, see if any scary Peeping Toms are newly out on parole.”

“Any more about the sequence of death?”

“The coroner agrees with your logic about Gavin getting shot first, but he can’t make a definitive statement, has no physical evidence to back it up. The blood spatter says both Gavin and the girl were sitting down when they got popped, and the blood all over the girl’s chest plus almost nothing around the head wound says she was alive when that iron stick got jammed through her. I drove around looking for construction sites, see if I could find any missing wrought iron, but nada. I’m getting the feel of a surprise blitz. That make sense?”

“It makes perfect sense,” I said. “The bad guy follows them, watches, probably parks out on Mulholland and continues onto the property on foot. He waits, sees some necking, gets aroused. If the condom was Gavin’s, he and the girl would’ve been about to consummate. At that point, the bad guy steps out of the dark and boom.”

“The element of surprise. There was no semen in or on her, even though she was topless, her leggings were still on, so that sounds right.”

“Anything else on the autopsy?”

“Her last meal was half a Big Mac, a few fries, and ketchup. The estimate is six hours before she died. Gavin’s stomach gave up pasta with basil and garlic bread. Mrs. Quick confirms that’s what she’d cooked for dinner. She and Gavin ate together five hours before the murder. Then he spent some time in his room, and she went to hers and watched TV.”

“No dinner date,” I said. “Gavin and the girl ate separately, then hooked up. What time did Gavin leave his house?”

“Sheila didn’t hear him leave- got defensive about that and went on about Gavin being an adult, she didn’t want to hover.”

“Given what he’d been through,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. “I showed Blondie’s picture to her again, ’cause she didn’t seemed as drugged. Same answer: total stranger.”

“Maybe it was a pickup,” I said.

“I thought about that and assigned a D-I to comb the clubs with both their pictures. The coroner prepared blood and tissue samples for DNA processing, but unless the girl’s physical data got coded in some official data bank, that’s likely to dead-end. So far, she doesn’t seem to be listed in any of our Missing Persons files. That could mean a runaway from another town, or the running away would’ve happened years ago. The coroner’s reluctant to estimate her age, but I had a close look at her and she seems slightly older than Gavin, maybe twenty-three to twenty-five. And she doesn’t look like a runaway. Her clothes were good, and she was put together nicely- makeup, earrings, nail polish. Not great teeth- she’s missing a few in the rear- but what shows is straight. Tint in the hair, but she’s a natural blonde. Coroner said he could smell perfume on her, thought it was Armani. I didn’t pick that up at the scene, and by the time I got to the morgue she was smelling of other things. But I’ll buy it, Dr. Quan has a good nose.”

“Too put-together for a prostitute?” I said.

“For a street girl, yes. Too conservatively dressed for your basic hooker. A higher-priced spread? Maybe. Why?”

“No dinner date,” I said. “Hooking up for one purpose.”

“You see a kid like Gavin knowing how to find himself a nice-looking pro like that? He was dressed like a student, it’s not like he put on a Zegna suit and trolled the B.H. hotels with a wad of cash.”

“But growing up in B.H. he might know about the hotels. With enough cash in his pocket, he’d be in a position to negotiate.”

“We found thirty bucks in his wallet.”

“What if he’d already paid the girl, and she had the money? Her purse is missing. If so, robbery would have been icing on the cake for the bad guy.”

“A call girl doing an outdoor trick with a brain-damaged kid,” he said.

“That’s the thing about some closed-head injuries. The problems can be subtle. Unless you knew what Gavin was like before, he wouldn’t have come across brain-damaged. Just a clean-cut kid driving a cute little red convertible. We know he could be impulsive and compulsive, and maybe that’s what led him to approach a pro. He’d have his needs- especially since the relationship with Kayla Bartell was over.”

“Koppel say why they broke up?”

“She assumed it was due to the accident. I don’t get the feeling she really knew much about Gavin.”

“A pro,” he said. “A young, horny guy, his girl breaks up with him, maybe his confidence slipped… could be.”

“Something else,” I said. “His talk about digging up dirt. What if he actually followed up on his tabloid dreams? What better place to nab a celebrity than an expensive hotel?”

“He starts out trawling for movie stars and picks up a pro?”

“Youthful impulsiveness heightened by brain damage.”

“Okay,” he said, “I’ll check out the concierges at all the Beverly Hoo-Has. Not that they’re going to admit letting pros through the door. I’ll also ask BHPD if they know her, as well as show her picture to our Vice guys. Meanwhile, she’s just a well-dressed blonde.”

“Anything traceable in her clothing?”

“The blouse was DKNY, Calvin Klein thong panties and pushup bra, no label in the leggings. Good shoes. Excellent shoes- Jimmy Choo. From what I hear, that’s a serious investment. There’s a Jimmy Choo store right in B.H, on Little Santa Monica, so I went over there. We’re talking five, six hundred bucks for a spike and a strap. No one recognized her as a customer, but when I described the shoe, the saleswoman knew it right away. Two seasons old, coulda been bought at discount at Neiman’s, Barneys, whatever.”