“Such as it is.”

I drove home listening to Tom Curlie. Mary Lou Koppel never showed up, and Curlie didn’t mention her again. He alternated between commercials and call-ins from sad, angry listeners, then brought on his next guest- a personal injury lawyer who specialized in suing fast-food chains for racial discrimination and brewing their coffee too hot.

Curlie said, “I don’t know about all that, Bill, but as far as I’m concerned, you can jail ’em for just plain lousy food.”

Instead of heading home, I continued on to Beverly Hills and drove past the Quick house. The same white minivan occupied the driveway, but the baby Benz was gone. The drapes were closed, and the day’s mail had collected on the front step. A gardener pruned a hedge. An anorexic woman walked by with a black Chow on leash. The dog looked drugged. A block and a half up, traffic zipped by on Wilshire. A family had been torn apart, but the world kept spinning.

I turned the Seville around, aimed it north through the business district, entered the Flats, cruised by the Bartell mansion. In daylight, the house was even more outsized, square and white as a fresh bar of soap. The fencing looked like a prison barrier. The four-car garage doors were closed but a red Jeep Grand Cherokee idled just inside the electric gates.

I parked and watched from across the street as the gates opened and Kayla Bartell sped through. She was on her cell phone and turned right without checking for cross traffic and sped toward Santa Monica Boulevard. She talked nonstop, animatedly, on a cell phone, with no idea I was following as she rolled through the stop sign at Elevado and ran the one at Carmelita. Without signaling, she hung a risky left turn on Santa Monica and continued east, one hand still grasping the phone. The other steered, and sometimes she removed it to gesticulate and swerved into other lanes. For the most part, motorists kept their distance from her, until another young woman in a Porsche Boxster honked and flipped her off.

Kayla ignored her, kept gabbing, weaved her way to Canon Drive, drove south, and parked in the service alley behind the Umberto hair salon. A valet held open the driver’s door, and Kayla sprang out wearing a lacy black midriff top, black leather pants, and high-heeled boots. On her head was a silver lamé baseball cap. Her blond ponytail protruded through the adjusting band.

No tip for the valet, just a smile. Someone had told her that was enough.

She entered the salon with a bounce in her step.

“Two-hundred-dollar haircut,” said Milo. “Ah, youth.”

We were in the Seville, and I was driving east on Olympic, toward Mary Lou Koppel’s office.

I said, “You reach the boys who were in the accident?”

“Both of them, and they back up what the Quicks told us. Gavin was in the back, sandwiched between them. When the car hit the mountain, they were belted and got jostled from side to side. But the impact squeezed Gavin forward, and he hit his head on the driver’s seat. He shot out like a banana out of a peel, one described it. Both said Gavin was a good guy but that he’d changed big-time. Stopped being social, withdrew from them. I asked if he’d slowed down mentally, and they hesitated. Not wanting to put him down. When I persisted they admitted he’d dulled. Just wasn’t the same guy.”

“Anything about obsessive behavior?”

“No, but they hadn’t seen him for a while. They were pretty shook-up about his being murdered. Neither had any clue who’d want to hurt him, and they didn’t know about any blonde he’d dated other than Kayla. Who one of them called ‘a spoiled little witch.’ ”

“The anonymous blonde,” I said.

“I called the TV stations,” he said, “asked if they’d run the death shot. They said no, too scary, but if I got an artist’s rendition that toned it down, they might. If airtime permitted. I sent a copy of the photo to one of our sketchers, we’ll see. Maybe the papers would run the actual photo. Grant the poor kid her fifteen seconds of fame.”

“Too scary,” I said. “Are they watching the same tube I am?”

He laughed. “The media talk about public service, but they’re out to sell commercial time. Alex, it was like pitching a story to some showbiz asshole. What’s in it for memememe- okay, here we are, why don’t you circle around to the back, see if Mary Lou’s Mercedes is there?”

It wasn’t, but we parked anyway and went into the building.

The door to the Pacifica-West Psychological Services suite was unlocked. This time, the waiting room wasn’t empty. A tall woman in her forties paced and wrung her hands. She wore a gray leotard set, white athletic socks, pink Nikes, had long legs, a tiny upper body, short, black, feathered hair combed forward. Her eyes were blue and sunken and pouched and too bright, her face was glossy and raw, the color of canned salmon. Skin flaked around her hairline and ears; recent skin-peel. Her expression said she was used to being mistreated but was learning to resent it. She ignored us and continued pacing.

All three call buttons were red.

Drs. Gull, Koppel, and Larsen healing souls.

Milo said, “I wonder when her session ends.”

The black-haired woman kept walking, and said, “If you’re talking about Dr. K, take a number. My appointment was supposed to start twenty minutes ago.” She crossed the office twice, picked at her scalp, stopped to investigate the magazines on a table. Selecting Modern Health, she leafed through the issue, kept it folded at her side as she paced some more. “Twenty-three minutes. She’d better have an emergency.”

Milo said, “She’s usually pretty punctual.”

The woman stopped and turned. Her face was stretched tight yet drawn. Fear scalded her eyes, as if she’d stared at an eclipse. “You’re not patients.”

“We’re not?” said Milo, keeping his voice light.

“No, no, no, no. You look like- why are you here?”

He shrugged, unbuttoned his jacket. “We’re just waiting to talk to Dr. Koppel, ma’a-”

“Well, you can’t!” the woman shouted. “I’m next! I need to see her!”

Milo glanced at me. Begging for help.

“Absolutely,” I said. “It’s your time. We’ll leave, come back later.”

“No!” she said. “I mean… you don’t have to, I don’t own this place, I’m not entitled to assert myself at that level.” She blinked back tears. “I just want to have my time. My own time, that’s not overly narcissistic, is it?”

“Not at all.”

“My ex-husband claims I’m an incurable narcissist.”

“Exes,” I said.

She stared at me, probing for sincerity. I must have passed because she smiled. Said, “It’s okay for you to sit down.”

We did.

The waiting room remained silent for another fifteen minutes. For the first five, the woman read her magazine. Then she introduced herself as Bridget. Returned her eyes to the pages, but her heart wasn’t in it. A pulse throbbed in her temple, conspicuous enough for me to see from across the room. Racing. Her hands clasped and unclasped, and her head bobbed from the magazine to the red buttons. Finally, she said, “I don’t understand!”

I said, “Let’s call her. Her service will pick up, and maybe they can tell us if she’s got an emergency.”

“Yes,” said Bridget. “Yes, that’s a good plan.”

Milo whipped out his phone, Bridget rattled off the number, and he punched it. What a team.

He said, “Dr. Koppel, please… Mr. Sturgis, she knows me… what’s that? You’re sure? ’Cause I’m right here in her waiting room, and her session light’s on…”