“Maybe someone in the Vander household knows we were sniffing around the manse and wants to make sure we look in a certain direction.”

“Huck comes across odd, so he’d be a natural. On the other hand he really could be your guy. The first thing Cora Brown asked was whether poor little Eddie had become a criminal. Because of what he went through.”

Shoving black hair off his brow, he read the articles. “Railroaded and vindicated, but he got stuck in the same place as serious delinquents and had his brains scrambled.”

“Toss in maternal deprivation and drifting around the foster system and all kinds of things can happen.”

“He stays under the radar until three years ago… yeah, that adds up to what you guys call high risk for deviant behavior.”

“What do you call it?”

“A lead.”

CHAPTER 12

The press conference aired on the eleven o’clock news.

Milo stood by woodenly as D.C. Weinberg made love to the cameras during a steely-eyed request for public participation.

The public facts were thin: Selena Bass and three unidentified bodies in the Bird Marsh, no mention of amputated hands. All four network affiliates topped off fifteen seconds of public-interest sop with rehashed coverage of the progressive billionaires’ attempt to buy the land followed by stock footage of egrets, herons, and ducks.

Milo knew what was going to happen, and he pulled Moe Reed back from the trip to San Diego. The two of them split the phone chores. By one a.m. sixty-three tips had come in. The next half hour earned five more. By three a.m., every call but one naming Sheralyn Dawkins’s “main man” had been classified as worthless.

Reed’s request for surveillance on Travis Huck had been sent to Pacific Patrol. No answer, so far. He said, “Guess we should start with this guy, Duchesne.”

“Pimp in the morning,” said Milo. “Something to wake up for.”

Joe Otto Duchesne rejected the job description.

“Think of me as a human resources manager.”

Duchesne’s stats put him at forty-three as of March. Emaciated, gray-skinned, white-haired, and gap-toothed, he looked old enough to be his own father. Vice said he worked four or five women along the LAX stroll, had high turnover.

Duchesne sat comfortably in the interview chair. Surprisingly articulate. Surprisingly shabby clothes. His record was a mundane twenty-year paean to heroin addiction, though he claimed “seven months of utter sobriety.” Despite a hot morning, his shirt cuffs were buttoned at the wrist.

He’d come in voluntarily and Milo gave him plenty of space, pushing the table into a corner, keeping the whole thing low-key. Moe Reed and I watched on closed circuit from an adjoining room. The young detective followed every word, like a paid attendee at a get-rich seminar.

It was Reed who’d found Duchesne after six hours of grunt work: questioning local patrol, hookers working the periphery of the airport, other low-grade pimps loitering near hourly rate motels.

It was one of the women who remembered Sheralyn Dawkins and confirmed that the missing woman had worked for “that skinny white boy, Joe Otto, you gonna find him on Centinela.”

Reed showed her a San Diego mug shot.

“Yeah, Sheri, the limp,” she said. “Good for business.”

“The limp?”

“There’s guys be liking it,” said the hooker. “Maybe I should get myself a dee-fect.”

Duchesne was open about his “new business plan.”

“Lately I’ve been using Craigslist to set up appointments.”

Milo said, “Being business-like I’m sure you keep all the e-mails and phone numbers?”

Duchesne flashed ragged canines and black gaps. “Like I said, lately, just a few weeks.”

“How do you fill vacant slots?”

Hesitation. “I supplement the old-fashioned way.”

Milo said, “Sidewalk displays.”

Duchesne fingered an empty tooth socket. “I like to think of it as real-time marketing.” On top of his drug arrests, he’d been busted five times for procuring, considered jail time and fines “corporate overhead.”

Milo said, “Joys of the business world.”

“Got a degree in business administration, Lieutenant. University of Utah, graduated twenty-one years ago and worked for IBM, and that’s the truth. Call them to verify.”

“I believe you, Joe Otto. Tell me about Sheralyn.”

“You really think it’s her?”

“Can’t be sure, but she fits the body we found.”

Duchesne nodded. “The leg. I met her last winter-February, I think. Maybe January-no, February. She just got into town, was hanging around, cold, lonely. I took her in ’cause no one else did.”

“Why not?”

“The leg situation. Poor thing had trouble being on her feet for stretches of time, cut down on her productivity. I got her all kinds of different shoes. Insoles, inserts, gel pads, you name it. Nothing really helped, but she wouldn’t give up. Hard worker, nice girl.”

“You liked her.”

“Nice girl,” Duchesne repeated. “Not the sharpest scimitar in the scabbard, but she had… personal warmth. I took her in to be kind, but the leg ended up working out okay.”

“How so?”

“A certain consumer segment was attracted to it.”

“Guys who like limps,” said Milo.

“Guys who like vulnerability.”

“Anyone ever take advantage of her vulnerability, Joe Otto?”

“No, sir,” said Duchesne. “That’s what I’m here for.” Puffing a sunken chest and curling a scrawny fist, the embodiment of pretentiousness.

Watching the screen, Moe Reed shook his head.

Milo said, “No one ever got rough with her, Joe Otto?”

“Never.”

“You’re sure of that.”

“Lieutenant, she only worked for me a month and it was a smooth month.”

“What did she tell you about herself?”

“Just up from Oceanside. Military maneuvers, heh heh. Military police decided to crack down on fun, made her situation tense. Doesn’t seem fair, right? We send those young boys over to fight for our liberties and they can’t even enjoy a few moments of shore leave?”

“So she came up to L.A. ”

“Greener pastures,” said Duchesne.

“She talk much about her life in Oceanside?”

“She said she had a kid and her mother was taking care of it.”

“In Oceanside?”

“She didn’t specify. Didn’t say if it was a boy or a girl and I didn’t pry.” Duchesne’s runny eyes tightened. “Keeping it business-like, you know?”

Milo nodded. “Give me something to work with, Joe Otto.”

“That’s it-oh, yeah, she said she’d been married to a navy man but he abandoned her early on. Can’t tell you if any of it’s true, but I don’t see the point of lying about details like that.” Duchesne wiggled a loose canine. “Lieutenant, if it’s her you found, I’m feeling wistful. Here I was thinking she abandoned me. I should’ve known she wouldn’t.”

“She just up and left?”

“Here one day, gone the next,” said Duchesne. “Last time I saw her, she was happy. I come back and she’s gone, her stuff’s gone, no note, no forwarding.” Frown. “Truth be told, I was baffled.”

“Why wouldn’t she abandon you?”

“Because I treated her better than anyone she’d ever known. Still…”

“What?” said Milo.

“With girls, you can never tell. Could I trouble you for a Coke?”

“Sure.”

Moe Reed got up. Moments later, he was back in the side room and Duchesne was guzzling from a twelve-ounce can.

“Joe Otto, what do you think drew Sheralyn away from you?”

“That’s what I kept asking, Lieutenant. Maybe something to do with her kid, her mother. But I didn’t have any numbers to follow up on.”

“Could be a better gig came along.”

Duchesne’s mouth shut tight.

“That possible, Joe Otto?”

“Better like what?”