“Hello, yourself. What are you doing? Spying? Torching for Madeleine?”

I remembered our conversation on the Spragues, “Enjoying the crisp night air. How’s that sound?”

“Like a lie. Want to enjoy a crisp drink at my place?”

I looked over at the Tudor fortress; Jane said, “Boy, have you got a bee in your bonnet with that family.”

I laughed—and felt little aches in my bite wounds. “Boy, have you got my number. Let’s go get that drink.”

We walked around the corner to June Street. Jane unhooked the dog’s leash; he trotted ahead of us, down the sidewalk and up the steps to the front door of the Chambers’ colonial. We caught up with him a moment later; Jane opened the door. And there was my nightmare buddy—the scar mouth clown.

I shuddered. “That goddamn thing.”

Jane smiled. “Shall I wrap it up for you?”

“Please don’t.”

“You know, after that first time we talked about it, I looked into its history. I’ve been getting rid of a lot of Eldridge’s things, and I was thinking about giving it to charity. It’s too valuable to give away, though. It’s a Frederick Yannantuono original, and it’s inspired by an old classic novel The Man Who Laughs by Victor Hugo. The book is about—”

There was a copy of The Man Who Laughs in the shack where Betty Short was killed. I was buzzing so hard I could hardly hear what Jane was saying.

“—a group of Spaniards back in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. They were called the Comprachicos, and they kidnapped and tortured children, then mutilated them and sold them to the aristocracy so that they could be used as court jesters. Isn’t that hideous? The clown in the painting is the book’s main character, Gwynplain. When he was a child he had his mouth slashed ear to ear. Bucky, are you all right?”

I shuddered, then forced a smile. “I’m fine. The book just reminded me of something. Old stuff, just a coincidence.”

Jane scrutinized me. “You don’t look fine, and you want to hear another coincidence? I thought Eldridge wasn’t on speaking terms with any of the family, but I found the receipt. It was Ramona Sprague who sold him the painting.”

For a split second I thought Gwynplain was spitting blood at me. Jane grabbed my arms. “Bucky, what is it?”

I found my voice. “You told me your husband bought that picture for your birthday two years ago. Right?”

“Yes. What—”

“In ‘47?”

“Yes. Buck—”

“What is your birthday?”

“January fifteenth.”

“Let me see the receipt.”

Jane, spooky eyed, fumbled at some papers on the end table across the hall. I stared at Gwynplain, transposing9th and Norton glossies against his face. Then: “Here. Now will you tell me what’s going on?”

I took the piece of paper. It was purple stationery, covered with incongruously masculine block printing: “Received from Eldridge Chambers, $3500.00 for the sale of the Frederick Yannantuono painting ‘The Man Who Laughs.’ This receipt constitutes Mr. Chambers’ proof of ownership. Ramona Cathcart Sprague, January 15, 1947.”

The printing was identical to the script in the torture diary I read just before I killed Georgie Tilden.

Ramona Sprague murdered Elizabeth Short.

I grabbed Jane in a hard bear hug, then took off while she stood there looking stunned. I went back to the car, decided it was a single-o play, watched lights go on and off in the big house and sweated through a long night of reconstructions: Ramona and Georgie torturing together, separately, bisecting, divvying up the spare parts, running a two-car caravan to Leimert Park. I played every kind of variation imaginable; I ran riffs on how the thing ignited. I thought of everything but what I was going to do when I got Ramona Sprague alone.

At 8:19 Martha walked out the front door carrying an art portfolio, and drove east in her Chrysler.

At 10:37, Madeleine, valise in hand, got into her Packard and headed north on Muirfield. Emmett waved from the doorway; I decided to give him an hour or so to leave—or take him down along with his wife. Shortly after noon, he played into my hand—tooling off, his car radio humming light opera.

My month of playing house with Madeleine had taught me the servants’ routine: today, Thursday, the housekeeper and gardener were off; the cook showed up at 4:30 to prepare dinner. Madeleine’s valise implied some time away; Martha wouldn’t return from work until 6:00. Emmett was the only wild card.

I walked across the street and reconnoitered. The front door was locked, the side windows were bolted. It was either ring the bell or B&E.

Then I heard tapping on the other side of the glass and saw a blurry white shape moving back into the living room. A few seconds later the sound of the front door opening echoed down the driveway. I walked around to meet the woman head on.

Ramona was standing in the doorway, spectral in a shapeless silk dressing gown. Her hair was a frizzy mess, her face was blotchy red and puffed up—probably from tears and sleep. Her dark brown eyes—identical in color to mine—were scary alert. She pulled a ladylike automatic from the folds of her gown and pointed it at me. She said, “You told Martha to leave me.”

I slapped the gun out of her hand; it hit a straw welcome mat emblazoned with THE SPRAGUE FAMILY. Ramona gnawed at her lips; her eyes lost their focus. I said, “Martha deserves better than a murderer.”

Ramona smoothed her gown and patted at her hair. I pegged the reaction as the class of a well-bred hophead. Her voice was pure cold Sprague: “You didn’t tell, did you?”

I picked up the gun and put it in my pocket, then looked at the woman. She had to be jacked on a twenty-year residue of drugstore hop, but her eyes were so dark that I couldn’t tell if they were pinned or not. “Are you telling me Martha doesn’t know what you did?”

Ramona stood aside and bid me to enter. She said, “Emmett told me it was safe now. He said that you’d taken care of Georgie and you had too much to lose by coming back. Martha told Emmett you wouldn’t hurt us, and he said you wouldn’t. I believed him. He was always so accurate about business matters.”

I walked inside. Except for the packing crates on the floor, the living room looked like business as usual. “Emmett sent me after Georgie, and Martha doesn’t know you killed Betty Short?”

Ramona shut the door. “Yes. Emmett counted on you to take care of Georgie. He was confident that he wouldn’t implicate me—the man was quite insane. Emmett is a physical coward, you see. He didn’t have the courage to do it, so he sent an underling. And my God, do you honestly think I’d let Martha know what I’m capable of?”

The torture murderess was genuinely aghast that I’d impugned her as a mother. “She’ll find out sooner or later. And I know she was here that night. She saw Georgie and Betty leave together.”

“Martha left to visit a chum in Palm Springs an hour or so later. She was gone for the next week. Emmett and Maddy know. Martha doesn’t. And my dear God, she mustn’t.”

“Mrs. Sprague, do you know what you’ve—”

“I’m not Mrs. Sprague, I’m Ramona Upshaw Cathcart! You can’t tell Martha what I did or she’ll leave me! She said she wants to get her own apartment, and I haven’t that much more time left!”

I turned my back on the spectacle and walked around the living room, wondering what to do. I looked at the pictures on the walls: generations of kilt-clad Spragues, Cathcarts cutting the ribbons in front of orange groves and vacant lots ripe for development. There was a fat little girl Ramona wearing a corset that must have strictured her bloody. Emmett holding a dark-haired child, beaming. Glassy-eyed Ramona poising Martha’s brush hand over a toy easel. Mack Sennett and Emmett giving each other the cuckold’s horns. At the back of an Edendale group shot I thought I could see a young Georgie Tilden—handsome, no scars on his face.