CHAPTER 6

Milo drove a block from Fidella's house, parked, and called in a search for current wants and warrants. Clean, but Fidella had paid a fine for a first-offense DUI eighteen months ago. "Time to verify his whereabouts, I'll drop you off first."

"You see him as a serious suspect?"

"I see him as someone whose whereabouts need to be verified."

"Planning on taking Van Nuys to the Glen?"

"Yup."

"You'll pass that bar on the way."

Arnie Joseph's Good Times Inn sat north of Riverside, your basic dim, tobacco-bitter, serious-drinker establishment. The octogenarian behind the bar verified Sal Fidella's account. So did bowls of dried shrimp that looked like fish food, hickory almonds, wasabi peas. Mention of Fidella's name elicited smirks from the other customers. A woman nursing a beer said, "Sal Fidella, the luckiest fella."

"Lucky, how?" said Milo.

"He won a jackpot in Reno. Didn't he tell you? He tells everyone."

"Claim to fame," said a man.

The woman put her beer down. Fifty, stout, gray-haired, wearing a pink waitress uniform created by the same sadist who designs bridesmaid's dresses. "So what's he a witness to?"

"A crime."

"Not some get-rich-quick thing?"

"Sal's into that?"

"Sal talks a lot."

"About what?"

"Coulda been, shoulda been. What's he a witness to?"

"A crime."

She shrugged, turned away.

Milo walked up to her. "Anything else I should know?"

"Not from me." She buried her face in her mug.

Another man said, "Hey, if Sal had enough money he could finance an infomercial, sell a million of something. You ask him what something is, he says it don't matter."

"That's 'cause money ain't the issue, smarts is," said a guy nursing a tall glass of something amber.

Milo said, "Sal's not smart?"

"Wins a ten-grand jackpot and blows it in a day? You tell me."

The guy next to him said, "Straight down the toilet, oughta work for the government."

Laughter slithered up and down the bar.

Milo distributed business cards like a Vegas dealer. A few people actually read them. "Anything else anyone wants to tell me about Sal?"

A man laughed. "We love Sal. Sometimes he even offers to pick up a tab."

Back in the car, Milo said, "Tells us five, tells them ten, even a bunch of alkies know he's a loser. Elise was an educated woman, smart enough to teach at Prep and tutor SATs. Why would she hang with someone like that?"

"Love," I said. "The ultimate mystery."

"Seriously, Alex. I'm trying to know my victim."

"People tend to select mates they think they deserve."

"Elise didn't like herself, so she aimed low?"

"I'm not saying she thought it through, but low self-esteem generally shoves you downhill. It's also a factor in depression-cause as well as effect. Fidella claims Elise withdrew only when she drank but who knows? On the DVD, her words weren't slurred, on the contrary, she seemed focused. So either she'd built up enough tolerance over time to maintain, or alcohol wasn't the only thing that laid her low."

"Sexual harassment could do that," he said.

"Any other situation, you'd already be talking to those teachers."

He frowned and drove south to Ventura Boulevard, headed west and connected to Beverly Glen. "People get what they think they deserve, huh? What's that say about Rick and me?"

"Rick's smart, affluent, handsome. Strip away all that morose Irish cop stuff and I'll bet you feel pretty nifty about yourself."

"Only on alternate Wednesdays," he said. "We won't get into Rick's psyche."

Robin's pickup was parked in front of the house. I found her in her studio at the back carving the top of a mandolin. Spruce shavings created a soft, creamy carpet at her feet. Blanche had found herself a warm spot and burrowed.

Cozy as Elise Freeman in her bed of frozen carbon dioxide.

The studio smelled like a conifer forest after a drizzle. That brought back autumns in Missouri.

Walking through the parkland behind the little sad house I grew up in. A kid with a head full of fear and confusion sneaking out when Mom escaped to her locked room and Dad raged at high-burn.

Hoping I'd get lost.

I smiled and kissed Robin. She put down her chisel, flexed her fingers. "Perfect timing, I'm ready to quit."

The mandolin top was smooth, curvy, with a subtly arched belly. Unmistakably female. "Nice."

Robin tapped the spruce. A musical tone rang out. "The music's already in the wood, my job is to not screw it up."

"Any serious job is like that."

We headed for the house, pausing by the fishpond to feed the koi. Blanche stuck by us, smiling in that strange but endearingly humanoid way.

Over coffee, I told Robin about the woman on ice.

She said, "Someone bragging I'm a stone-cold killer?"

"Interesting slant."

"Long days carving, I get symbolic."

I filled her in on the chief.

She said, "Politicians are a low life-form."

"The chief's appointed."

"His commodity's power, Alex. That puts him two notches below slime mold."

"My girlfriend the anarchist."

"If only," she said.

"If only you were an anarchist?"

"If only reality made anarchy a reasonable approach."

That evening, I was at my computer, keywording windsor prep and learning nothing beyond official P.R.

I switched to victimology. Eleven-year-old Elise Freeman from Great Neck, New York, had an artful MySpace page that showcased her pastel drawings and successful orthodonture. Ninety-six-year-old Elise Freeman had just celebrated her birthday in Pepper Pike, Ohio, and received a card from the Cleveland Cavaliers. No hits on Elise Freeman, deceased tutor.

When Milo rang in at nine forty, I said, "She's cyber-invisible, Fidella was right about her liking her privacy."

"Everything else Fidella told us is checking out, including his calls to Elise four hours before she died. The phone subpoena only covered one week of his account, I'm preparing another one for Elise's, we'll see how far back they'll let me go. For the time being, Sal's out of the spotlight."

"Had a beer and watched TV at home isn't much of an alibi."

"That's what His Augustness said. I asked him for alternative suspects and he responded with less-than-pristine language. Ten minutes later, his secretary calls back: We've got face time with Windsor Prep's president, guy named Edgar Helfgott."

"Saw his name on the website," I said. "A parent?"

"No, at Prep that's a paid job. Helfgott used to be the headmaster before they created the position for him and moved him into the Oval Office. His assistant is now the headmaster, a Dr. Rollins. Under her is an assistant headmaster and it keeps going, the place is structured like a Fortune 500 corporation. Anyway, Helfgott will grant us an audience tomorrow at eleven, you'll never guess where."

"Some manse the school lets him use as an official residence?"

"Even better."